Mayor Ted Wheeler's outrageous proposal to endow himself with the authority to regulate assembly and speech was rightfully defeated ("Portland City Council rejects Mayor Ted Wheeler's protest restrictions plan," Nov. 14). There is an option that poses no trampling of individual rights and has survived multiple constitutional challenges in multiple venues: an anti-mask law. Much of the violence being used as a justification for Wheeler's proposed abomination of an ordinance is conducted by a masked mob. They wear masks because they know they are violating existing laws, seeking to intimidate with the threat of unaccountable mob violence and confounding the enforcement of existing laws against violent intimidation. Instead of making certain speech and assemblies subject to the whim of a local politician, let's remove the criminal paraphernalia that allows those mobs to inflict violence without consequence for all the same reasons anti-mask laws were enacted -- to bring down prior violent and hate-based mobs like the Ku Klux Klan. We could look to New York State and New York City, Washington, D.C., Alabama, Mississippi or any number of other locales for laws standing the test of time. We can carefully balance the rights to free speech and assembly while acknowledging the state's need to prevent unaccountable violence.

"It can’t be the case that just because [the city] doesn’t like criticism, we get shut out of these conversations."

Actually, Matt, it can be. If all you're doing is criticizing without offering alternative solutions, you're bringing less than nothing to the table, and why should we listen to you?

And an anti-mask law would be a good thing, generally. If your "cause" is important enough to you that you feel the need to break laws, you should be willing to stand behind that. Civil disobedience has a long and successful history as a mode of protest in this country, but it's a very different thing than the violent temper tantrums the Proud Boys and Antifa continue to throw to the detriment of the general public.

“On the whole, this was a tremendously positive and historic outcome,” said Singh. “We had a city council meeting that wasn’t about whether the alt-right and Patriot Prayer are problematic, but whether the city’s using the right tactics to counter them. I think that’s a win."

Why subject yourselves to probable random violence from known Troublemakers with poor track records? When groups have an established pattern of provoking/inciting violence, let them Free Speech elsewhere. I hear Mexico's real Nice.

Just kidding -- but why not take a cue from disgraced gee dubya / CHENEY administration and allow the Mad Boys ALL the Free Speech they'll ever need -- in highly-portable, razorwire-topped Free Speech Zone™ enclosures (pretty sure Home Depot carries them), and locate them WAY outta town?

[Cheney swore up and down they were Legal (suck on it, Libs!),
gee dubya believed him, but I don't know if I do].

From a 'not secure' site:

"Bush Rule #2 - Make Sure That All Protestors Are Kept Out Of Earshot And Off-Camera

The next step of the right-wing Bush Administration is to make sure that the American Public does not see that there are Americans just like them that are in the streets protesting and challenging Bush's backward policies every time he visits a city or town to attend a republican fundraiser at the taxpayers' expense.

Bush has sucessfully kept the images and voices of Americans out of the papers and off the television by herding people trying to exercise their rights to assemble and speak into 'Free-Speech Zones.' This tactic ensures that anyone speaking out against Bush is rounded-up into a pen often miles or blocks away from his public appearance.

Americans who resist the herding techniques are arrested and prosecuted. The Bush Administration has used this tactic so often that it is the topic of a class action law suit."

Perhaps there may be a better way.

From: bringiton22205.tripod.com
I think.

What we resist persists. I mean sure, you're angry, you want change, you take a stand. Did anything change? Can anything change? Yup. People are not as fixed as you might think - broken, sure, but fixed? You'd be surprised.
What causes the issues? Social scientists have left a trail of golden nuggets pointing the way. Take Lewin, he was around when another wave of anger and sense of betrayal resulted in good people hiding out and Nazi's taking over. He came up with an algorithm. B=f(P,E). Fast forward to the imaging Uri Hassan is taking of peoples brain activity at Princeton, showing how priming can make or break rapport when meeting another through conversation.
Dweck details the fixed mindset that is pervasive in our culture, Sasse details how you think 'them' are the problem. Wheatley identifies fractal patterns exploring the physics of leadership and Kahneman won a Nobel prize and ignited behavioral economics exploring casual versus deliberate thinking.
Here's what it says. Ignite a peer based, volunteer driven, prosocial, macrolevel, community resiliency building movement thru coffee shops.