CHALK AT CENTER OF SUIT IN DEFIANCE

Legal mat­ters dom­i­nated the Defi­ance City Coun­cil meet­ing Tues­day night, includ­ing an Amer­i­can Civil Lib­er­ties Union (ACLU) law­suit filed against the city Tues­day in fed­eral court in Toledo.

Coun­cil learned that City Hall will be reim­bursed for funds spent defend­ing two health­care law­suits and dis­cussed a deci­sion made last week to take leg­isla­tive action aimed at a busi­ness report­edly sell­ing syn­thetic drugs.

Law direc­tor David Williams requested an exec­u­tive ses­sion on the ACLU law­suit, which claims that city leg­is­la­tion pro­hibit­ing the use of chalk on side­walks vio­lates the First Amend­ment and is uncon­sti­tu­tional.

The issue dates back to Defiance’s 2012 Hal­loween parade when mem­bers of the Occupy Defi­ance group were told by city police to refrain from writ­ing mes­sages on city sidewalks.