You say cerveza, I say beer

Raymond Herrera and Robin Hvidston, two regulars who often discuss issues of day laborers at City Council meetings, told the council earlier this week about a Foothill Boulevard billboard with a Spanish language message. The two are offended by the Spanish beer ad across from Sycamore Inn and want the City Council to do something about it.

Herrera, who speaks but does not read Spanish, said a Spanish language sign is worse than graffiti.

"I don't want to learn Japanese. I don't want to learn Portuguese," Herrera said. "I don't want to learn it. I don't want to see it. It's divisive."

Hvidston said she started a campaign to demand Crown Imports, the company responsible for the Victoria Beer billboard, to change the ad to English.

"It doesn't send the correct message to this city," Hvidston said concerning the billboard. "Why not an American beer company, and in English?

At the end of the meeting, long after the duo left, City Attorney Jim Markman reminded the council that it has no authority to tell a commercial sign company what language it can use.

"The constitution precludes government from telling people what content of their commercial sign needs to be," Markman said. "It's a matter of freedom of speech. From a legal constitutional point of view, no city council has the right to control the content of commercial speech so as to dictate which language it needs to be in."

Mayor Dennis Michael concluded, "We really do welcome the diversity in our community, whether it's by ethnicity or whether it's by religion. I believe in my heart of hearts we have a wonderful, vibrant community because of that. And each and every one of us supports the way the community has developed and the people living in our city.

"Aside from other people's opinions ... we had the public comment period, that's what the law calls for, is people can come up and say whatever they want to say within reasons."

Hvidston and Herrera have visited other city councils before to discuss this issue. Did you catch David Allen's column about it? In a letter to the editor, Hvidston slammed our columnist and called for his resignation. That in turn got Allen's supporters to write back.