Newspaper Rack Breaks Into News as Moorpark Editor Fights City Hall

A single newspaper rack outside Moorpark’s City Hall is not only selling newspapers, but also making news.

The rack, the focus of a long-running quarrel between the publisher of a local newspaper and the Moorpark City Council, has inspired memos, debates and some angry words in the community west of the San Fernando Valley.

The issue is whether to allow newspaper racks outside City Hall.

On one side of the issue is Daniel J. Schmidt, owner, publisher, editor and principal reporter of the Moorpark Mirror, a tabloid known for its barbed writing style.

On the other side are several members of the City Council and city Parks and Recreation Commission, who acknowledge they don’t like the Mirror’s reporting but say that feeling has nothing to do with their desire to remove the paper’s rack, the only one on the patio.

Both camps agree that too much staff time and money has been spent researching and writing memorandums on the issue, but it appears even more memos will be coming. Monday night, the council asked the city attorney to report back in two weeks on First Amendment and other issues relating to the newspaper racks.

6-Month Trial Period OKd

The question of whether to allow newspaper racks outside City Hall was discussed before the council and Parks and Recreation Commission several times last year. The issue was laid to rest for a while when a six-month trial period was approved.

The latest flare-up, according to Schmidt, began in early June, with his publication of a critical story on a dinner, sponsored by a bonding firm, that several city staffers and four of the five council members attended with developers and bankers.

Schmidt, in a story and editorial--the latter titled ‘The Last Supper’--accused the council members in attendance of violating the Brown Act, a state statute requiring that the public’s business be conducted openly and that attempts to limit secrecy in government.

“Nowadays, the City Council meets in secret with bankers and developers at an expensive gourmet restaurant,” he wrote.

A few days later, the Parks and Recreation Commission unanimously voted to recommend that no newspaper racks be allowed on the patio. That was a reversal from a February vote, which recommended that the racks stay.

Schmidt said the reversal was because of pressure from a council member who disliked the story on the dinner. But he said he was not sure which council member had applied the pressure.

Commission member Margaret Sabine and Councilman James Weak said there was no such prodding. Their opposition to the racks is based on aesthetics and whether the city could be held liable if someone tripped over the stand, they said.

Accused of Baiting Council

Weak charged that Schmidt had deliberately missed the deadline to apply to have the newspaper rack remain in order to “bait” the council into taking action against him.

Schmidt essentially agreed that was his motive.

“I thought that was rather childish,” Weak said.

Nevertheless, Schmidt said, the newspaper rack issue has constitutional aspects. “Placement for sale and distribution are essential aspects of a free press,” he said.

The opinions expressed by the Mirror are not well-received by some city officials. “Some people on the council and the commission don’t like the way Dan Schmidt has handled the publicity of the city,” Sabine said. “I think news should be objective. There’s very little news in the Mirror.”