S.L. attorney ends free-speech study

The Salt Lake City attorney has finished a four-month examination of the city's free-speech ordinances.

The review brought few proposed changes. City Attorney Ed Rutan recommends alterations to a few lines of the city's existing ordinances governing free speech.

That modification falls short of what the LDS Church wanted.

Church leaders suggested in December more ordinance changes, including "buffer" zones between street preachers and conference attendees.

Rutan urges the City Council to alter one ordinance to outlaw "acts, gestures and displays" that incite violence or "are inherently likely to cause a violent reaction" or "create a clear and present danger of a breach of the peace or imminent threat of violence."

The city's current disturbing-the-peace ordinance only bans "words" that were actually "intended to cause acts of violence."

Rutan also examined city ordinances governing stalking, causing a riot, disrupting a meeting, public nuisance, obstructing the sidewalk, loitering and standing, lying or sitting on streets and highways. Rutan recommended no changes to those other seven ordinances.