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This summer, in the race to succeed former State Senator Guy Velella in The Bronx; or in the jockeying for position among those who would seek the mayor's office next year, it seems there is no better way to cast doubt on your opponent than by using the R Word: Republican.
Of course, State Senator Guy Velella is a Republican who was forced to resign in disgrace and is currently serving time in Rikers Island prison for accepting bribes. So maybe it's not too surprising that his credibility, and that of his party, might not be at its peak right at the moment.
When it comes to the mayor's race, it is always a little strange to see a Republican mayor in New York City, where Democrats have a five-to-one registration advantage over Republicans. This is the third Republican mayoral administration in a row (since Giuliani was elected twice), which is a first in New York City politics.
Then, summer in New York this year meant all those parties -- no, not political parties, actual parties: book parties for Bill Clinton, premiere parties for Michael Moore, a huge, glamorous, star-studded blowout fundraiser at Radio City for the newly conceived Kerry-Edwards ticket. Whatever else may be true, the Democrats sure are having a lot of fun here this summer.
From a public relations standpoint, all of this is unfortunate timing, considering that thousands of red, white, and blue-clad, elephant wearing, George W. Bush loving, dyed in the wool, partisan, loyalist Republicans are going to descend into the city of New York just next month.
But then again, New York has always been home to a vast array of diverse populations, and if they could learn to live in peace, there may yet be hope for the Ds and Rs.
The R Word
The particular ways in which the Republican label has been used as an epithet in recent weeks were highlighted at a press conference early this month.
Standing on the steps of City Hall, two former rivals for the Democratic mayoral nomination, Mark Green and Fernando Ferrer, were seen doing what they have rarely been known to do: agreeing. They held a press conference to announce their joint endorsement for Assemblyman Jeffrey Klein, one of the Democratic candidates running in the open State Senate seat in The Bronx, which had formerly been held by Guy Velella.
Not only did both Green and Ferrer indicate their support for Klein, they both expressed their disregard for Klein's opponent, Democratic Assemblyman Stephen B. Kaufman. Because Kaufman has received public support from Republican elected officials, and financial support from Republican donors, he is apparently no longer considered a bona fide Democrat.
Talking about Jeffrey Klein, Mark Green said, "He's a real Democrat. It's important that real Democrats come out and endorse real Democrats."
Which left little room for doubt that there were no fake Democrats on the steps of City Hall that day.
The Three Ds
But it's not just the state senate contest in which the Republican shadow looms large. The race for the mayor's office, set to be decided in November 2005, will begin almost as soon as the results of this year's election are counted.
Michael Bloomberg, the Republican first-term mayor, has had to do his own share of defining, distancing, and defending.
Defining, because quite often, Michael Bloomberg will seek out particular policy positions or advocate for particular issues that are in direct contrast to the national Republican agenda.
Distancing, because Bloomberg finds himself drawing closer and closer to a re-election campaign while the city draws farther and farther from the party whose banner he is forced to carry.
Defending, because for all his reticence, Bloomberg does support some of his fellow Republicans both financially and politically. And his rivals haven't failed to notice.
One man who would like to replace Bloomberg, Council Speaker Gifford Miller, took Bloomberg to task earlier this month. He called on the mayor to lobby his fellow Republicans in Congress for increased federal aid. Other Democrats with their sights set on Gracie Mansion have made similar statements, designed to remind voters that the mayor is in the same political party as George W. Bush.
Of course, in politics, things can change. It's possible that by next year, Republican will no longer be the R word it has become this summer.
Susan Reefer is a Republican pollster and media strategist. She is based in New York City.Â
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Also: • Noise In Community Gazettes
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Mayor Michael Bloomberg has proposed sweeping changes to the city's noise code, cracking down on everything from fireworks to ice cream trucks to nightclubs. However, as a constituent recently told me, not all of these city-wide efforts will have a local impact.
"Noise from fireworks really isn't a problem on my block," the person said. "The kind of noise problems my neighbors and I have are more localized and often get ignored."
While I applaud Mayor Bloomberg's resourcefulness in setting up the city's 311 help line and analyzing the data to conclude that noise is New Yorkers' top quality-of-life complaint, the information from 311 is not being used as well as it could be to solve the problems plaguing New Yorkers.
The city's 311 system provides only city or borough-wide data, which hides evidence of where local noise problems originate. For example, the mayor can tell us that noise complaints in Manhattan have increased from 5,000 to 5,050 in one month, but he can't tell us if 50 of those calls are coming from the same raucous bar or even a specific block.
311 data is also not shared with local officials like City Council members, community boards, or the public. 311 rarely, if ever, refers calls to the community board - despite their roles as local ombudsmen and their established relationships with local police, agency heads and businesses - their members and staff may not learn about many of the problems in their communities.
That is why I have drafted a piece of legislation (Introduction 174) that would require the Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications to provide local information about 311 calls - including the locations, types, and numbers of complaints - to local officials. With my bill, council members, community boards and the public (through www.nyc.gov) would receive monthly reports on 311 complaints broken down into data that they could actually use.
As citizens use the 311 service to seek relief from problems, they are not turning to their local community boards as frequently, and thus the city is not benefiting from the expertise that boards provide in problem solving. A 311 call may lead to dispatching a police officer to fine a noisy local nightclub, only solving the problem for one evening.
Involving the community boards and council members who grant permits and oversee zoning, however, is the most effective way to address consistent problem-areas. It is the difference between treating a symptom and curing a disease.
Sharing 311 data with local officials can also solve other quality-of-life problems, and can be cost effective. Last week, I had 30 constituents who live on a quiet block call my office about a rat infestation. If we had the local 311 data sooner, we might have caught the infestation before it became rampant.
However, at a recent City Council hearing on the bill, the officials from the Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications said they were unwilling to support the bill, citing the difficulty in sorting the enormous centralized databank of complaint information and integrating data from older computer systems into local reports.
It certainly will cost something to create a larger database, but the ultimate savings in money and efficiency will be worth it.
Community boards were created in order to combat this kind of monolithic, centralized approach to government, which often leaves local concerns unidentified and neglected. We've seen a revolution in using local data to combat other citywide problems, such as in the New York Police Department's use of CompStat.
Noise control - along with many other issues - merits the same approach.
Mayor Bloomberg needs to use 311 to empower local officials to fulfill their charter-mandated jobs of planning for the future, or his next big noise complaint might be the combined cries of city residents whose quality of life is suffering from poorly identified local problems.
New York City Council Gale Brewer represents the Upper West Side and chairs the City Council committee on technology.
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New York City Council Stated Meeting Report
Every two weeks the New York City Council meets for its Stated Meeting to introduce and pass legislation. As a regular feature, Searchlight covers these meetings and posts a summary of the bills passed.
STATED MEETING - June 28, 2004
Quote of the Day:
"Mayor Bloomberg is clearly not committed to the rights and needs of domestic partners and the gay, lesbian, and transgender community. He feels comfortable with a hypocritical veto... but the council will protect those rights and make sure that the laws of the city treat all people, all families, and all workers the same." - Councilmember Christine Quinn on the mayor's veto of the Equal Benefits Bill.
Meeting Summary:
In an effort to pass as much legislation as possible before their summer break, the New York City Council considered a dozen measures on June 28th, including overriding a veto by Mayor Michael Bloomberg, passing a series of new laws, and approving a zoning plan that will transform downtown Brooklyn.
"We accomplished more today than the State Legislature did all year," quipped Councilmember Lew Fidler.
The major item of the day was an override the mayor's veto of the Equal Benefits Bill (Intro 137-B), legislation that requires companies that contract with New York City to provide benefits to the domestic partners of their employees.
Municipal employees were given domestic partner benefits beginning in 1998, but currently companies or organizations that have contracts to provide services for New York are not required to abide by the same rules.
The legislation applies to religious organizations and institutions, some of which oppose gay and lesbian relationships. Groups like the Salvation Army and the New York Archdiocese opposed the bill and said they may stop providing benefits to employees altogether or stop providing services.
Mayor Bloomberg vetoed the bill because he said that the city should not use the contracting process to promote social policies, and a handful of City Council members agreed.
"It is ironic that some people who usually fight to keep God out of government, today have no problem using government to regulate God," said Peter Vallone, Jr. who voted with the mayor.
But supporters argued that the legislation provides an exception for religious groups that allows them to give benefits - not by virtue of domestic partnership - but because family members live in the same household.
The council needed "yes" votes from two-thirds of the 51 members to override the mayor's veto; 41 members voted for the bill, 4 voted against it, and 3 abstained. (Simcha Felder, Dennis Gallagher, James Oddo, and Peter Vallone, Jr. cast "No" votes. Michael Nelson, Allan Jennings and Joseph Addabbo Jr. abstained.)
The council also passed a bill (Intro 142) making it illegal for police officers to use racial or ethnic profiling to fight crime. This is already a standard part of police department procedures, but the measure makes it an official city law. Both the mayor and Police Commissioner Ray Kelly support the legislation.
"This helps us to work together to fight crime, not our citizens," said Councilmember Phil Reed.
Another bill, the Dignity for All Schools Act (Intro 188-A), will require the Department of Education establish clear guidelines that prohibit harassment and bullying in schools. While council members acknowledged that they cannot legislate student behavior, they insist that school officials can do more to prevent and report harassment.
"For too many going to school means going through a gauntlet of taunting and teasing, pushing and pulling," said Councilmember Alan Gerson. "The greatest shame in all of this is the complicity of government and bureaucratic officials who accept it as part of growing up."
The City Council also approved a rezoning of downtown Brooklyn that will transform the area into a new corporate, retail, and residential district. The council said the action would eventually build 4.5 million square feet of office space and 1,000 new apartments. The project is expected to create 18,500 new office jobs and 8,000 construction jobs.
The rezoning only applies to MetroTech, not the planned Brooklyn Nets basketball stadium, but some area residents still oppose the plan.
One point of contention relates to properties on Duffield Street, where some of the buildings may have been used in the underground railroad, the network of people who helped black slaves escape from the South. The council agreed to hold hearings on the historic significance of the area in July or August and will make recommendations to the city's landmark committee for preserving the area if needed.
The Brooklyn rezoning passed by a vote for 47 to 0, with one abstention from Brooklyn Councilmember Charles Barron, who said that he could not support the measure until the issue of the historic significance of the area was resolved.
The council also passed a bill (Intro 223-A) that would help crack down on people who pose as immigration lawyers and prey on undocumented residents and a measure (Intro 261-A) giving New York City students voter registration cards when they graduate. Other legislation extended a moratorium on fines for store awnings (Intro 272-A), established new regulations for sidewalk news stands (Intro 363-A), and updated fire codes (Intro 248).
Finally, the City Council passed a series of resolutions - that do not carry any legal action - but represent the official view of the legislative body.
Resolution 71-A calls on the state to legalize the use of marijuana for medical purposes.
Resolution 152-A rejects Mayor Bloomberg's education policy of holding back third graders who do not pass a standardized test.
Resolution 203-A opposes the federal government's plan to cut Section 8 vouchers for low income New Yorkers.
Resolution 324 supports home health aides who are seeking a raise.
And Resolution 389-A calls upon the mayor and other city officials to protect First Amendment rights of protestors at the Republican National Convention in August.
The next Stated Meeting is scheduled for July 21, 2004.
For an archive of past meetings and council votes, visit Gotham Gazette's Searchlight.
Related Articles: Louie Jones: Why Poor People Will Take to the Streets Suneel(a) Mubayi: Going Beyond Mass Protest Protesters Have A Right To Use The Park The Rally Threatens The Beautifully Restored Lawn
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In 15 years of protesting, Mary Finelli had never been arrested until she visited New York, and took part in an animal rights protest scheduled to coincide with the meeting of the World Economic Forum.
"It was quite an organized march," she recalled. "Everyone was walking single file. It was very well-behaved."
Police were out in full force, Finelli said, and demanded the protesters disperse, but then blocked them from leaving. "The next thing we knew, everybody was being arrested," said Finelli, who spent two days in a cockroach-ridden cell with dirty mats to sleep on and no privacy, even in the bathroom.
Civil liberties advocates complained of such treatment two years ago, and they fear that it will be repeated this summer, when many thousands of people plan to gather in New York to protest the Republican convention from August 30 to September 2. Last week, the City Council held hearings on the issue of how the city has, and should, handle protests.
Police concede they are wary.
"The threat of terrorism is just about paramount in all of our thinking for all of these events," Chief of Department Joseph Esposito told reporters recently. "We'd have to be out of our minds not to have that as the paramount concern."
Dan Perez, an attorney who has filed suit on behalf of Finelli and others arrested during the World Economic Forum protests, counters that even when fears of terrorism run high, the First Amendment still stands. "Unless we want to live in an outright police state, we have to put up with protest and demonstrations."
Meanwhile, more than a dozen groups have requested permits to march or rally during the convention and not received them so far. So far, only the labor group, the AFL-CIO, seems close to winning approval for its plans to protest Bush administration policies while the Republicans are in town.
City officials say again and again that they will protect the right to protest. "The bottom line is if you want to express yourself in this city you are free to do so," Mayor Michael Bloomberg said last week. But the questions some ask are - how far, and how fair?
Protesters have long encountered official resistance in New York as elsewhere in the country. At the turn of the 20th century, New York police met picketing workers with nightsticks and arrest. During World War I, police arrested some 2,000 New Yorkers for opposing U.S. involvement in that conflict.
Following what many considered police excesses during the1960s and '70s, the city adopted a more tolerant attitude toward political activism. In 1985, for example, the police agreed to limit their surveillance of lawful political activity, such as protests and meeting.
But the official tolerance of protest faded during the Giuliani administration. Mayor Rudolph Giuliani limited access to City Hall plaza for press conferences and protests. At the 1998 "Million Youth March" in Harlem, police restricted the movements of marchers by confining them in pens, then stormed the stage to end the rally and buzzed the crowd with helicopters.
"People who hold views unpopular with Mayor Giuliani and his administration routinely have to go to court to win the right to hold marches in New York City," the New York Times said in a 1998 editorial.
Norman Siegel, a lawyer who used to head the New York Civil Liberties Union, said he brought about some 27 challenges against the Giuliani administration on First Amendment issues and won virtually all of them. The former mayor, Siegel says, was "the quintessential authoritarian."
But the rocky relationship between the city and protesters has continued into the Bloomberg administration, exacerbated by security concerns after the terror attacks of September 11, 2001. "The Bloomberg administration is less forgiving of dissent than the Giuliani administration, and I never thought I'd say that," said Perez.
Days after Bloomberg took office, the police department went to court, asking that it be allowed to increase its surveillance of political activity, even when no law was being broken. The department said the rules adopted some 18 years earlier were "not workable in the context of terrorism." The court largely agreed.
Soon after, the World Economic Forum, which usually meets in Davos, Switzerland, came to New York City to show solidarity with the city following September 11. The New York Times hailed the police handling of protests at the event. But Perez has filed suit on behalf of about 35 people arrested during the conference. One key issue is that people arrested for protesting were detained for 40 hours, more than twice as long as the average person arrested during the conference for other offenses. "It seems punitive. It seems retaliatory," Perez said.
The war in Iraq further increased tensions, culminating in the February 15, 2003, protests against the U.S. action. While cities around the world allowed protests against the impending war, New York City police cited security concerns and refused to grant a permit for a march past the United Nations. Police directed demonstrators to block-long pens created with barricades. More than 250 people were arrested, many for trying to get to the rally. Others tried to leave but were prevented from doing so.
"It was not their finest moment," said Siegel.
In a suit filed over the city's handling of the protests, the New York Civil Liberties Union seeks to stop the police from such tactics as putting up barricades and using horses to control crowds, as well as searching demonstrators and detaining people in vans for long periods of time without food, water, or access to bathrooms.
"The NYPD crackdown on peaceful protest that happened at the anti-war protests [in 2003] cannot be repeated at the convention," the union's associate legal director, Christopher Dunn, said when the case was filed last year.
City officials have blamed the demonstrators themselves for many of the problems. Mayor Michael Bloomberg faulted United for Peace and Justice, which sponsored the demonstration, for refusing to discuss possible alternate march routes.
And police department officials testified that they would not rule out some of the tactics they have used in the past. Esposito, for example, said the department might use pens again.
By early June, some 15 different groups had requested police permits for 20 to 25 events immediately before and during the Republican convention, according to Paul Brown, deputy commissioner for public information. The department had asked that anyone needing a sound permit or a march permit for the convention period submit their request by June 15, but has now extended the deadline to late July.
The police have not disclosed the criteria they will use in deciding whether to grant or deny the permits. "Applications will be reviewed taking into consideration the needs of the community businesspeople, the commuters and needs of security," an unidentified Police Department official recently told Newsday.
So far, no permit has received final approval. According to a police spokesperson, the department has offered the AFL-CIO 8th Avenue and 30th Street for a rally on September 1, but the labor federation has not officially accepted and received the permit. Clearly, though the AFL expects the demonstration to go ahead. In a written announcment, it announced the Labor Day rally -- five days before the actual holiday -- to "protest the Bush administration's policies."
And a group called One People's Project reportedly received a permit for a concert in Tompkins Square Park only to have it revoked by the parks borough commissioner for Manhattan.
The other organizations are still waiting. Activists hoping to hold protests say the delay in granting permits complicates planning and creates confusion. "Permits delayed are permits denied," Councilmember Bill Perkins said during the hearings on the protest issue last week.
The lack of permits galls many protesters who see the city making huge efforts -- ad campaigns, special events, reduced rates, closed streets -- to welcome the Republicans. "Mayor Bloomberg has indicated numerous times he's rolling out the red carpet for the Republicans National Convention," says Bill Dobbs of United for Peace and Justice. "Well he's slamming the door on people who hold opposing views."
So far, the most attention has focused on the request by United for Peace and Justice, an anti-war coalition, to hold a rally on the Great Lawn in Central Park the day before the convention. The Parks Department denied the request, saying it would damage the grass, which it restored in 1996, (See related stories for and against the permit.) While the area once held huge crowds for special events, the department says the lawn can no longer accommodate more than 80,000 people. The protest organizers anticipate 250,000.
The city has offered an alternative site in Flushing Meadows Park or on West Street. Neither is acceptable, says Dobbs. The Queens site is too far away and West Street is far from mass transit and completely unsheltered, which could present health risks to demonstrators on a hot summer afternoon.
In its fight for the permit, the group attracted an odd array of allies including the pro-war New York Post which reminded the city, " 'Keep Off The Grass' appears nowhere in the First Amendment."
But Park Commissioner Adrian Benepe has said the issue is not one of quashing protest but protecting a cherished part of New York. "Central Park is a respite from the city, a place for people to lay out and picnic," Benepe told the Washington Post. "They have a right to protest, but they don't have a right to destroy the Great Lawn."
Negotiation continues between groups planning demonstrations and the city, with each side accusing the other of delay tactics.
And activists are pursuing other avenues as well. Last week a City Council committee approved a resolution calling on the city to "protect and uphold First Amendment rights. And U.S. Representative Major Owens of Brooklyn and other members of the New York congressional delegation have sent the mayor what they term a "Memorandum of Understanding" that they would like him to sign. It asks that that city allow demonstrations near Madison Square Garden, refrain from investigating protesters participating in legal demonstration and train police on First Amendment issues.
The memo has been sent to the city law department for review.
The possibility of court challenges looms if the city denies permits. In fact, one protester already has plans to go to court. Patrick Mahoney, of the Christian Defense Coalition, said he will seek a restraining order against New York for "crushing the First Amendment." He claimed the city has not told him when or how he can demonstrate -- or acted on his request to have some 1,500 people pray outside Madison Square Garden on August 28. "I think the city of New York wants a sanitized event," he told reporters. "If they had their way, they would put a fence around Manhattan and just let the delegates in."
While they probably agree with him on little else, many of the other demonstrators share Mahoney's belief that the city is making a concerted effort to stifle dissent
There is, says Siegel, an "atmosphere of almost a criminalization of dissent. ... Protesters cannot discount the possibility that the hampering of the right to protest is because of the content of the protest."
Jeff Fogel, legal director of the Center for Constitutional Rights, which is representing some of the organizations seeking permits, questions the approach of city officials. "They don't get the first amendment," he said. "They don't take it seriously. It's the organic law of the United States."
In a written testimony submitted to City Council, State Assemblyman Richard Gottfried called upon the city government to "learn from history." He continued, "There may be some in the Republican Party who think that provoking disruption on our streets will benefit them politically. The Bloomberg administration should not be playing into their hands."
But Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly say that, along with protecting the right to protest, they have other concerns. In explaining the denial of the permit for the Central Park rally, Bloomberg has cited public safety. "What we have to do in this city," he said, "is make sure people have a right to protest . . . and people that want to go about their business without protesting, they have rights too."
One anonymous police department official told New York magazine, "We have more important things to worry about than a bunch of wannabe revolutionaries and anarchists. They're amateurs. It's the professionals, the terrorists, that we're focused on."
Law enforcement officials in Boston, which will be the site of the Democratic convention in July, have issued stringent rules for protest permits during the gathering and announced plans to search people. This even though the Democratic convention promises to attract far fewer protests -- and will not be attended by a sitting president. And, citing fears of terrorism, Boston officials have announced plans to close North Station and miles of roads, including a major highway.
The FBI has termed both conventions targets for possible terrorist attacks, although no specific threats have been reported. The March bombings of commuter trains in Madrid days before Spain's elections increased the concern. "Whether the events in Madrid actually affected the election, the terrorist mind might think that they did affect the election process," Pasquale Damuro, assistant FBI director has said. "So of course there's a concern that they would possibly look at trying to conduct a terrorist attack during the conventions here to try to affect the election."
Law enforcement officials worry that terrorists can use legitimate rallies as a cover for more nefarious activities. "There is an added awareness of needing to break demonstrators into smaller groups because, inevitably, you will have some people among them who will want to cause serious trouble," security consultant Bo Dietl told the Christian Science Monitor.
Even Siegel concedes that 9/11 "does change the balance. It's a different field." And, he says, the civil rights community has to acknowledge that. But he and others believe the city can make things safer by being more forthcoming about its plans. "The overwhelming majority of protesters who come to demonstrate are peaceful and non violent," he said. "The government makes a huge mistake in not showing the respect to protesters that they should get."
The fact that the Republican Party will meet in a state where the president's approval is a paltry 36 percent according to a recent Quinnipiac University poll - and probably even lower in the city - presents additional problems. "What's really complicating the whole security scheme . . . on top of all the protesters and terrorism stuff is this president," former Deputy Police Commissioner John Timoney told a British reporter recently. "There just seems to be this visceral dislike of him, more so than anyone we've seen in the past. The expectation is that you're going to get a lot of motivated people showing up."
For now, the city has been close-mouthed, not only about the permits but about security for the convention in general, including what streets may be closed, restrictions on businesses near the garden and other possible measures.
With so much still unclear two months before the Republicans arrive in town, no one can be sure how the protesters and police will deal with one another. Many people will protest -- permit or no permit. The level of organizing and the web activity heralding one event or another, requesting rides, looking for housing, all indicate a massive effort is underway that will almost certainly not stop.
Whether the event will be peaceful or not, remains to be seen. After all the city of Chicago went to great lengths to woo the 1968 convention only to see it turn into a disaster as club-swinging police confronted anti war protesters outside the convention hall. In the end, the Democrats lost the election and the city -- and its mayor -- lost their reputations.
Related Articles: Suneel(a) Mubayi: Going Beyond Mass Protest Protesters Have A Right To Use The Park The Rally Threatens The Beautifully Restored Lawn
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On August 30, I will be marching with thousands of other New Yorkers in the Poor Peoples’ March and Rally for Justice. We plan to march from Union Square to Times Square in one of a half a dozen different protests and rallies This will take place while the Republican National Convention is in New York City.
But what makes the Poor People’s March different is that we are not just ideologues who have an issue with George W. Bush. We are people who are trying to survive day to day. We face real issues like high unemployment, a lack of affordable housing, and a lack of a health care.
The march is being organized by a coalition of non-profit groups called Still We Rise. We work on issues like poverty, housing, homelessness and AIDS/HIV. We come from neighborhoods like the South Bronx, Harlem and Bed-Stuy. Our faces will reflect the issues facing the city.
We are marching during the Republican National Convention to let all public officials -- Republicans and Democrats -- know that they must have a platform that addresses basic human rights in this country. We are marching for the rights of every New Yorker.
One of the main issues that we are rallying around is HIV and AIDS. I have been living with HIV since 1986. I am blessed to be able to march and be vocal and visible. People think that the epidemic is over because we have pills and some people are living longer. But people are still dying. And in New York City we have an increase in rates of infection in %0}{½?munities of color because of the policies of national and local administrations.
The Still We Rise platform focuses on five main issues.
The Poor People’s March will be peaceful, and we are seeking a permit from the city. We do not want to risk arrest at this demonstration, and so we will not be doing civil disobedience.
And we hope that this is more than just a one-day event. We are not just exercising our right to protest, but are forming a coalition of people who will register people to vote, especially individuals who have been ignored by politicians. We are also meeting with local officials to remind that that we vote.
If there was ever a time to be speaking out and voting, it is now. We are not the policy wonks or talking heads. We are people live with the day-to-day results of this administration’s policies. This is our chance to come out and make our voices heard.
Louie Jones an organizer for the New York City Aids Housing Network and Still We Rise.
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Related Articles: Louie Jones: Why Poor People Will Take to the Streets Suneel(a) Mubayi: Going Beyond Mass Protest The Rally Threatens The Beautifully Restored Lawn |
New York City and the Department of Parks and Recreation have denied United for Peace and Justice a permit for approximately 250,000 people to protest the Republican National Convention and hold a rally on the Great Lawn in Central Park on August 29.
As an organizer of the rally, I understand that the city faces a tremendous challenge with the Republicans coming to town. We are mindful of this and feel that we have proposed the simplest, most clear-cut and safest way for New Yorkers and people from across the country to exercise our First Amendment rights.
The convention will be at Madison Square Garden. We filed for a permit that would allow us to march up Eighth Avenue past the Garden and then continue to Central Park West and into Central Park.
There are few open spaces in Manhattan where large groups of people can congregate within walking distance of Madison Square Garden. The Great Lawn is ideal. This area of the park can handle large crowds. It has held concerts by the New York Philharmonic and Metropolitan Opera, and other events like a visit from Pope John Paul II in 1995.
We are seeking a permit for the entire Great Lawn, not just the oval in the middle. Around the oval are six ball fields and room for people to gather and hear the rally.
The city has suggested that we move the march to Flushing Meadow Park in Queens. This is not acceptable. We should be allowed to protest near the convention and make our concerns heard.
The fact that we were denied a permit, although upsetting, is not surprising. When we were organizing the February 15, 2003 rally against the war in Iraq, we put in a request to march past the United Nations on First Avenue. The city adamantly refused to grant us the right to march anywhere in Manhattan.
I still do not understand the logic of that decision from a safety or a public relations point of view. The only explanation I can imagine is that officials were trying to confuse people and undermine the effectiveness of the demonstration.
I am not saying that the city is doing the same this time, but we are concerned about the city’s political agenda. In the last several years, it has become more difficult to get permits to march in New York City. And the dynamics between police and demonstrators have grown worse. Is it just a coincidence that a Republicans are coming to town and our Republican mayor has denied a permit to march?
My hope is that city officials will come to their senses and allow us to march and rally. We have already launched a national campaign to put pressure on the mayor, who should recognize that this is the best plan for the day.
But one way or another we are going to protest. They will not silence us.
Leslie Cagan is a co-chair of United for Peace and Justice.
Related Articles: Louie Jones: Why Poor People Will Take to the Streets Suneel(a) Mubayi: Going Beyond Mass Protest Protesters Have A Right To Use The Park |
Central Park is over 150 years old. If over the years all the schemes to construct buildings and hold events in the park had been accepted, there would be no park left today.
Now the park faces a new threat. An organization opposed to U.S. foreign policy wants to use the Great Lawn for a rally the day before the Republican National Convention. They anticipate an attendance of 250,000, including many out-of-towners who will have traveled to New York City to participate.
The purpose of the event has no relation to the decision on the use of the park, except as it affects the likely conduct of the demonstrators. The Great Lawn would not be an appropriate site for a memorial service for Ronald Reagan, which would attract a vastly different crowd.
The Great Lawn is a very different place than it was in 1982 when it was the site of a huge anti-nuclear rally. The last two mass events on the Great Lawn – the premiere of the Disney movie Pocahontas and Pope John Paul 11’s visit – took place in 1995. Shortly after the pope’s visit, the city began a major restoration of the area.
Today, the lawn cannot accommodate hundreds of thousands of people. Its limit is about 85,000, with everyone standing. The overflow would overwhelm adjacent areas of the park, hurting trees and shrubs. In addition, the thousands who would have to be turned away would swarm over Fifth Avenue and Central Park West, blocking traffic and most likely expressing frustration at being excluded from watching the events.
The restoration of the Great Lawn included the installation of an underground drainage system to deal with water that came from the former reservoir on the site, a surface drainage system to keep rainwater from forming ponds on the lawn, and an irrigation system with almost two miles of piping to keep the grass green. That elaborate substructure for irrigation and drainage would be jeopardized by intense use.
During the restoration, the lawn was covered with 25,000 cubic yards of topsoil and planted with five varieties of Kentucky bluegrass, with a sprinkling of perennial. To give the roots a chance to penetrate nine inches deep into the sandy loam topsoil, the lawn was closed to the public for nine months. This grass is likely to be highly disturbed by thousands of people standing on it for several hours. It would take a long time to heal.
It cost $18.2 million to renovate the lawn. Some of the funds came from private contributions. How can the city ask citizens for money to restore the park if it will be destroyed when an enormous crowd holds an event?
And this would not be the last such gathering. The courts are very protective of First Amendment rights, as they should be. If the city grants a permit for one political event on the Great Lawn, it will be hard pressed to deny permits to any other group that wants to express its views. That means the lawn would be repeatedly trampled, with each successive event doing additional damage.
There are ample alternate sites for the proposed rally. Dag Hammarskjold Park, across from the United Nations, has been a traditional forum area. If needed, the crowd can overflow onto adjacent streets. If that site is not sufficient, the protest could be held in Flushing Meadows- Corona Park. That park offers unlimited space, and access to transportation. It was also an early site of the United Nations General Assembly.
Natural areas should be protected from exploitation for transitory purposes. In particular, people devoted to peace, justice and the environment should not threaten or injure the existing environment in order to attract public attention to their cause.
The restoration of the Great Lawn transformed a dust bowl into an extraordinary landscape and a pastoral retreat for city dwellers and visitors. Today the Great Lawn is home to 92 trees, including American and English elms, red and sugar maples, four varieties of oaks, silver and little leaf lindens, and flowering crabapples and cherry trees. Salamanders, fish and frogs live in Turtle Pond's clean waters, and turtles sunbathe on its banks.
Both the city and the Department of Parks & Recreation will co-operate to offer alternate sites for the rally in a large park or public place. We Americans are proud of the civil liberties that we, unlike other less fortunate people around the world, enjoy. For a century and a half, New Yorkers have enjoyed the unusual delicacy of Central Park, with the Great Lawn recently restored to exceptional beauty. With good judgment, we can have both civic beauty and civil liberties, without infringing on either.
Henry Stern is former Commissioner of the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation%3ꄨ›p>
Everyone agrees: New York needs jobs.
But when it comes to the specific projects that politicians and developers promise will create them, the issue often becomes more complicated and controversial, particularly for those who live in a neighborhood that will be changed as a result.
In recent months, the city has approved two such projects: a giant IKEA furniture store in Red Hook, Brooklyn and a water filtration plant in Van Cortlandt Park in the Bronx. And in coming months, the fate of another huge project - the development of the West Side of Manhattan that includes a new football stadium for the New York Jets - will also be decided.
Supporters of each of these projects promise that they will bring much-needed jobs to the city. But opponents question such promises and point to the cost to taxpayers, the increase in traffic, and scourge of pollution that come along with new them.
The details and plans of such projects lie largely with the mayor and the city's Department of City Planning, which is responsible for the city's physical planning and review process.
But it is the local City Council member - who is elected by just a few thousand people - has the most to gain or lose politically. Individual council members often use their power over land use decisions and zoning as well as their "bully pulpit" to help shape economic development proposals.
Here are three new economic development projects that will reshape the city and a look at what City Council members on both sides have to say about each.
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YES: Why Brooklyn Needs IKEA - Sarah Gonzalez
Councilmember Sarah Gonzalez, who represents the neighborhood where the new IKEA will be built, argues that "there hasn't been an investment of this size in Red Hook since World War II."
NO: Companies Must Share Our Values - Charles Barron
East New York Councilmember Charles Barron argues that companies can do more to help local residents. "We don't talk about the fact that IKEA is a Swedish company from a country where 90 percent of the workers are unionized," he says, and "none of the IKEA workers in America are unionized."
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YES: A Legacy Investment - Madeline Provenzano
YES: Job Creation for Future Generations - Joel Rivera
Bronx council members Madeline Provenzano and Joel Rivera say that Van Cortlandt Park is the best place to build a new water filtration plant for the city. "We need to provide a job creation program to ensure that future generations will be able to put food on their plate, clothing on their back, and be able to pay the rent," says Rivera.
NO: Wrong Place, Wrong Time - Oliver Koppell
NO: Jobs Don't Trickle Down - Helen Foster
Bronx council members Oliver Koppell and Helen Foster say the filtration plant should be built elsewhere. "The promise of jobs is a red herring," says Koppell. "This is a project being built in the wrong place at the wrong time."
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YES: Time To Develop the West Side - David Weprin
Councilmember David Weprin, who chairs the council's finance committee, argues that the plan to develop the West Side, expand the Javits Convention Center, and build a new stadium for the New York Jets is "an opportunity to leverage private investment to create jobs and economic growth."
NO: Stop the Stadium - Christine Quinn
West Side council member Christine Quinn argues that the Jets stadium will be "the most expensive stadium ever built" and that 21,000 people who live in the area are not being given a chance to say in the future of their neighborhood.