Throughout this period, however, the Plaza has remained a center of controversy as the City has passed ordinances to restrict its use by the public primarily as a means to lawfully arrest the homeless and in recent years certain interests have sought to remove the Plaza entirely in the interests of "development" and business. The debates have focused on what appears to many as an attempt to remove from the City all public spaces that can be used for political speech.
It is in this context that the City has adopted ordinances that officially close the park, which has no physical borders, fences, or gates, at 11:30 p.m. unless it is to be used for an officially recognized "event" for which an entity must pay for the use and can get special permission to go beyond the regular hours. According to that ordinance "It shall be unlawful for any person to remain in [the Plaza] during the hours " [it] is closed to public use, except with prior written approval from the city manager or designee." It further asserts that "Such unauthorized presence shall be grounds for immediate arrest."
Although not willing to concede to the conflation of the exercise of political rights to speech and assembly with a business venture or "event" the organizers of the occupation decided to take every step they could to accommodate the City and seek to establish a spirit of cooperation.
They paid the $29 fee for the application and submitted it with a two-page list of several hundred persons with signatures as those seeking to use the space for the stated purpose: "to exercise 1st Amendment right to peacefully assemble" and for the planned activities of holding "discussion circles." No special requests were made of the City for amplified sound or the erection of tents nor for extending the boundaries or closing the streets. This was simply a notice that a large number of people would be assembling to engage in political speech. The document stated that they were notifying the City that they would be engaging in this activity between October 12th and December 31st.
While one group of citizens was escorted cooperatively by a member of the Gainesville Police Department to its offices where permits are issued another went to City Hall to attempt a meeting with the Mayor or Commissioners to petition them to officially recognize their purposes and to waive any claims that special permits would be necessary. The Mayor, Craig Lowe, was out of town and could not be reached at that time.
At a later point, however, Lowe contacted Maya Garner who had volunteered to place her name on the application as a contact person for the group. By this time it had been asserted by the City Manager, Russ Blackburn, that the group would only be given permission to hold an "event" for one night and that after that they would not be allowed to reapply for a year. The group's legal working group objected that this would be violation of these fundamental political rights and urged the group to have the Commission override the position of the Manager.
According to Garner the Mayor was very receptive and sympathetic to the cause and suggested that the group simply put in an application for a permit every few days and that he would call the City Manager. He stated that he was glad to see them raising these issues in Gainesville.
A conflict, however, seems to have erupted similar to that earlier this week in Seattle where the Mayor has expressed support for the local occupation and stated that they would be permitted to stay yet throughout Monday evening threats of eviction and possible arrest kept coming from the Seattle Police Department and they were continually warned, including several "final" warnings, that the park was officially closed and that their presence was unlawful.
Shortly before the Gainesville General Assembly convened a uniformed police officer, who has been deemed very cooperative thus far with the occupiers, arrived with a copy of a permit. The permit, however, was amended in a handwritten note by the City Manager, that stated that the persons present would only be allowed to stay on the Plaza "for time beyond normal Park closing at 11:30 p.m. for one evening only."
The City sent several of the members of the City Attorney's office to observe the receipt of this message and they stayed to observe the following General Assembly. An attempt was made to force Garner to sign the amended document, which also arrived without all of the original pages including specifically the two-page list of names of those who formally sought the permission and cooperation of the City, but under advice of the legal working group she declined to sign and officially recognize the document.
The occupiers were told that if they did not accept the document that they could re-apply at a later time for another date but that this time they were being done a favor and not being charged for City services. If they did not accept the City Manager's ultimatum they would likely be charged, upon reapplication, fees upwards of "thousands of dollars" to engage in their political activities.
An attorney with the City, Thomas Arden, who attempted to force the signature of Garner but said he would refuse to talk with her about any of the details "because they had a legal working group" later stated that even if they did not accept receipt of the document it would be binding and that if any single person remained on the property past 11:30 p.m. , regardless of who they were, why they were there, or whether they were associated with the Occupy Gainesville movement, that would be deemed an acceptance of the permit and its limitations and that the group would not be allowed to seek a permit for any further date in the future.
Arden and others from his office then observed the General Assembly when it met at 7 p.m. to deliberate on this matter and at that time did in fact engage in discussion with Garner. Arden was observed visibly laughing at the consensus process, whereby ultimately the group concluded that they would not accept the permit and its limitations and would seek to petition the Commission for its rights to peaceably assemble in the following days, and told Garner that their actions "were moot" and that "the permit is a done deal." They had applied, he asserted, and signed, and they had returned it accepted with the amendments.
But Garner did not sign the amended request and it is questionable whether it was legal for the City Manager to make such changes to the permit application. Although the officer on the scene who formally delivered the message and the documents stated he was seeking to get the signature merely for "receipt" purposes and that such a signature was "not binding" it appears that the intention of the City's legal department was to bind the occupation to the limited terms of the City Manager. It was Arden who stressed that if any person was to remain on the public property, open on all sides at all times of the day without barrier, at any point beyond 11:30 p.m. that this would be considered a de facto acceptance of the permit and its limitations and the Occupation would be deemed unlawful and persons would be subject to arrest if they were to stay beyond that 24 hour period.
Garner's husband asked Arden if the City was going to do one of its "cleaning" operations removing the homeless from the site that evening and was told that this would not be done. Thus anyone present in this public square for any purpose would be deemed by the City administrators as the acceptance of the permit as amended and its having been utilized for the evening of October 12th and thereby expiring after that date upon which any further occupation would be subjected to citations and or arrests of those present.
To the credit of the GPD the officer who had been acting as a liason stated to the occupiers that the police, if they witnessed a concerted effort of the occupiers to leave en masse, would not apply that standard and would deem the protest to have not exercised the terms of the permit for that night and thus would be eligible to seek a permit for a further date at a later time.
The confusion, however, and the conflicting statements coming from the City's Attorney and Manager, the City's Police, and the Mayor, served to keep the issue unresolved in the eyes of the organizers and representatives of the Occupation. The General Assembly discussed the matter and debated the option ultimately concluding to expressly not accept the terms of the City Manager, to reject the claims that they had exhausted their single opportunity to hold a protest, and refuse to accept the amended permit.
The ultimate decision was made, by consensus, that the occupation would continue and that those who chose to do so would remain on site overnight and the events would continue again starting the next day. The conflict and confusion, however, did take its toll as the number of persons who chose to remain overnight was significantly less than would have been otherwise -- although a number of persons did take the explicit act of remaining overnight to establish the ground of the occupation.
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
3
3
2
