Letter to Ranger Richard Belesky regarding signs at Seal Beach / Children's pool

Mr. Belesky:

Thank you for your help.

Briefly, to respond to your statements about bias. As a representative of a larger organization, the "you" I used in my letter represents the actions of the larger organization, not your personal views. Of course, I know you are just trying to do your job the way you see it, and you've been very helpful to me and I have no complaints about that, and I'm sure you are absolutely honest and of high integrity. I'm not talking about you personally, nor am I trying to implicate anyone else in some sort of a conspiracy. Admittedly, I should have done a better job of phrasing that section to eliminate that potential misconception.

With that said, it is true that these laws have been strictly and rigorously enforced in some situations, while not enforced at all in others, depending on the will of the larger organization. I would guess that in this case, it is just a matter of not being aware that these tools are available to you. It is unfortunately the case that the anti-seal activists have taken advantage of every opportunity to maintain a very large footprint in the area, with the huge OPEN sign and many sidewalk signs established to present what looks like the one and only official position, and at least in my view, violating the encroachment and sign codes of the city many times over.

I am not in favor of a ridiculous and extreme interpretation of those laws, and have fought against them. Yet, the City of San Diego has been adamant about enforcing these laws to a extreme level in many situations. If carried out in the beach parks at the same level, it would mean that a person could not leave even a beach towel and flip flops on the beach while going swimming. And it would not result in a friendly reminder. The person would be arrested and thrown in jail on the spot. In fact, that is an example we used to point out how ridiculous the implementation of the encroachment law, in particular, has been. Yet, if they are enforcing them in some situation and not in others, then that is not fair, and is the bias I was pointing out in my letter.

The strange thing is that there is a specific exemption on private property for "peaceful political purposes, lawful picketing" etc. but no such explicit exemption exists on public property. Which winds up leaving us in a very ridiculous situation, where it is lawful to engage in peaceful political activities on someone's private property (that is accessible to the public) but not on public property, that is also accessible to the public. A bit backwards, if you ask me.

Hopefully, my letter of complaint will allow you to use these tools in an impartial way, at least within the scope of your jurisdiction.

THANK YOU AGAIN!

--Ray Lutz