Report on efforts to obtain a permit to use streets
Event
Legal Significance
3/15/26 Attempted to use online request form for street use permit; form not operational
Inoperability of form raises Due Process/5A & 14A concerns as wells 1A concerns.
3/16/26 Emailed City Special Event Coordinator and City Manager to find out how to submit form; Coordinator called later that day and supplied link to webpage with operable form
Need to email and receive call to get operable link raises Due Process and 1A concerns
3/16/26 Series of communications with Coordinator who first suggested a meeting with the Santa Fe City Police Department would be required before 1A Santa Fe would be told the City’s requirements for requested permit. 1A Santa Fe emailed Coordinator all information necessary to understand route and referred Coordinator to form submission. 1A Santa Fe also requested from the Coordinator “a firm and specific list of the city’s - and the police department’s - fees and conditions for a permit to use the streets to process from the Roundhouse, along Old Santa Fe Trail to the corner of E. San Francisco.”
None of this back and forth is part of a constitutionally defensible process for obtaining a street use permit for political assembly and political expression. Due Process requires the City to have clear, publicly available procedures that are applied non-arbitrarily and non-capriciously. 1A law requires that process not be unduly burdensome.
1A Santa Fe’s request for clear statement of City requirements demonstrates good faith effort to comply with constitutionally valid City permit procedure.
3/16/26 The Coordinator informed 1A Santa Fe the following and indicated that she would be back in touch with a finalized set of requirements.
If you are requesting street closures, please note the following requirements:
The City charges $50 per street closure.
Event security will be required.
A liability insurance certificate in the amount of $1,000,000 is required.
The City of Santa Fe must be listed as the Additional Insured and Certificate Holder for the date of the event. Please include the name “All City of SF Parks”, the event location, and the date of the event in the Description of Operations section of the certificate.
In addition to the ACORD certificate, the City also requires the endorsement page showing the Additional Insured designation.
With the possible exception of the $50 per street closure requirement, none of the requirements listed are permissible under First Amendment protections for public assembly for political speech.
3/17/2026, 12:32 PM 1A Santa Fe emailed the Coordinator and City Manager the following.
Please note that [we] believe imposing anything other than an affordable administrative fee for a street permit for political assembly and political expression violates the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. Note too that the vagaries of the permitting process and lack of set, publicly available fees also raise due process and equal protection concerns under the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments of the U.S. Constitution.
…
So far today, [we] have not heard back from [Coordinator] or anybody else in City government. Since [we] believe the only legitimate cost for the permit requested would be a reasonable administrative fee, that should be fairly easy to supply. In any event, it would seem important to have the City's requirements as soon as possible so that 1A Santa Fe is not deprived of a meaningful opportunity to fulfill them. Please advise soonest.
1A Santa Fe continuing to make good faith efforts to pursue a permit for public assembly for political speech using city streets on No Kings 3, March 28, 2026.
Further information
You can help 1A Santa Fe keep a good faith count of expected participants in a No Kings street march with a permit from the City by either by subscribing to this site or sending us a note saying “I’m up for a street march with a permit” at [email protected]. If 1 A Santa Fe cannot obtain a constitutionally valid permit from the City, it will promote the route below as a sidewalk march. The permit we are seeking is for use of the streets along the route.
People who march on the sidewalks and in the city streets do so at their own risk. This means that all marchers are individually responsible for assessing the circumstances, including the condition of the sidewalks and streets, and proceeding with reasonable care for their own safety. The City of Santa Fe always has non-delegable duties to keep the sidewalks and streets in good order and to provide for traffic control when people use them. Marchers are not legally responsible for providing traffic control - in fact, private parties cannot lawfully assign that task to themselves - nor for providing any other public safety services. In fact, the only way planners or participants in a march in New Mexico can be held liable for inadequate traffic control or public safety services is if they voluntarily undertake to perform these and fail to do so with reasonable, prudent, and attentive care.
1A Santa Fe is an initiative to promote the exercise and protection of First Amendment rights in Santa Fe, New Mexico. In a time of rising authoritarianism in the United States, people must be free to peaceably assemble in public and express their political views. These civil rights are protected by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.