January 5, 2009
The Chairman and Board of Supervisors
Riverside County Board of Supervisors
County Administrative Center
4080 Lemon Street-Fifth Floor
Riverside, CA 92501
By E-mail:
Supervisor Roy Wilson, Chairman district4@rcbos.org
Supervisor Bob Buster district1@rcbos.org
Supervisor Marion Ashley district5@rcbos.org
Supervisor John Tavaglione district2@rcbos.org
Supervisor Jeff Stone district3@rcbos.org
Re: Proposed Ordinances 884 and 888: Targeted Residential Picketing Board meeting January 6, 2009, Agenda Items 3.28 and 3.29 (Supervisor Stone)
Honorable Chairman and Supervisors:
I live in British Columbia. I once lived at Scientology’s Gilman Hot Springs headquarters. I actually helped set up the Gilman base in the 1970’s while in the organization’s forced labor camp, the Rehabilitation Project Force, or RPF. I was inside Scientology and close to founder L. Ron Hubbard, and I have been one of the organization’s key enemy targets for 27 years.
I write to tell you that not only I but thousands, and even millions, of people around the world are watching what you do in this matter. Your county has acquired a bad reputation for its Scientology-instigated injustice procedures.
It is clear that these proposed ordinances are intended to specifically benefit the Scientology organization headquartered in your county at Gilman Hot Springs. I realize that the ordinances are worded to appear to benefit all county residents, but that is clearly to cover the fact that the ordinances have been concocted for Scientology to be applied to prevent, or stupidly restrict, protests or picketing at the Scientology base.
It would therefore be irresponsible of the Board of Supervisors to not determine and announce or publish exactly how those ordinances would apply at and to the organization and property for the benefit which they are being proposed.
Before these proposed ordinances are passed, you owe it to your citizens to go to the Gilman Hot Springs property and, with the participation of the Scientology organization and its protestors, establish exactly what will be the real effect on the protestors’ rights and abilities to protest.
Scientology is a religion because the US Federal Government says that any organization can determine to be a religion and it’s a religion. In fact, your Government says that only an organization itself can determine if it’s religious or not. It can be a commercial scam, a criminal conspiracy, or an antisocial cult, and it is a perfectly fine religion according to your national government. All of such enterprises or organizations, of course, are eminently picketable. The US’s laws that protect and encourage picketing, of course, were enacted to give the victims of such organizations, and other citizens offended by such organizations’ victimizing, a right and way to confront the victimizers. Virtually all of the fraud, extortion, human rights abuses and other antisocial and criminal victimizing behavior in Scientology “churches” and affiliated entities around the world is ordered and controlled from the organization’s Gilman Hot Springs headquarters. You should expect picketers at Gilman from around the world until Scientology stops victimizing people and makes reparations to all the people it has victimized.
These proposed ordinances benefit the victimizers, and there is no need for these ordinances except to benefit the victimizers. Why any Riverside County official would want to benefit the Scientology victimizers to the clear detriment of Scientology’s victims and their supporters can only be answered with deception or corruption.
Please, before you vote on these proposed ordinances, at a minimum establish for all your citizens’ benefit exactly what will be the effect at all points where the Scientology property at its Gilman Hot Springs headquarters adjoins public property where picketing must and will occur.
I pray that all of you will search for wisdom in this matter.
Respectfully,
Gerry Armstrong
#2-46298 Yale Road
Chilliwack, B.C. V2P 2P6
Canada
604-703-1373
gerry@gerryarmstrong.org
http://www.gerryarmstrong.org/
Gerry Armstrong
Cc: various media