Should have titled it twists and turns, or you actually believed us the first time, but then cooler heads prevailed and the city followed through on their verbal agreement of Tuesday. It just took till Friday. Unconfirmed reports have it that this the 2nd Occupy assemble and free speech permit allowed in the US for major cities, the first being Portland Oregon. (Hear this other cities!)
The details at this time are sketchy, posted just a half an hour on the Occupy Colorado Springs Community Facebook Page but here are the facts.
Occupy Colorado Springs has a 24/7 permit to the space at the corner of Bijou and Tejon Streets in downtown Colorado Springs adjacent to the Acacia Park.
The agreement provides that the group can keep the three canopy shelters already erected on the public right-of-way between the sidewalk and the street, and erect two more canopy shelters. The city will also provide a portable lavatory to satisfy on going sanitary issues. (Here that Governor Hickenlooper!) The group has agreed it will not erect placards or signs in the sidewalk cracks or the flower beds that are at the intersection corners.
UPDATE: City issues 30-day permit to protesters
THE GAZETTE
The Colorado Springs planning office issued an unprecedented permit Friday that allows Occupy Wall Street protesters to keep their pop-up tents, tables and chairs in a portion of Acacia Park for 30 days, provided they comply with a number of conditions that touch on public health, safety and accessibility issues.
The $100 permit, which was covered by donations to the protesters, also allows them to set up two more 10-by-10-foot pop-up tents and a porta-potty.
“I’m ecstatic today,” said Jason Warf, one of the protest organizers. “We got everything we asked for.”
I think what is important is that the city finally came to terms that they must abide by the Constitution in spirit and literal and not by some stretched interpretation to infringe on the basic Civil Rights of Freedom of Political Speech and the Freedom of Assembly.
Some more background: Yesterday an expected and planned meeting between organizers of the Occupy Colorado Springs and the Mayor's office (originally to be the mayor himself, Steve Bach) was abruptly cancelled less than an hour before it was to take place. The Mayor's secretary called Jason Warf, our front person working through the city, seen here in a videorecorded last week as he was working with Colorado Spring Police Department in attempting to negotiate an agreement.
The breakdown happened when I was told by one of the staff in Mayor Bach's office, that the meeting was going to be with the Mayor's Chief of Staff, Steve Cox, and not with Bach himself, (that was an unannounced switch, not the first time through this morass), then when Cox learned that the press was invited he immediately punted. Like before with CSPD the group asked the meeting could be recorded and Cox's reply was to cancel less than an hour to meet.
Swirling back scene press requests for interviews later while I am at work where upon returning home there is this post on the Occupy Colorado Springs Page:
~~ BREAKING NEWS~~
Occupy Colorado Springs is the first Occupy to be permitted!!
We got everything we asked for: We get to add 2 more Ez-ups for a total of 5
and a portable lavatory.
We can't have signs in the sidewalk cracks or in the flower beds but that's what we have people for, better to have people holding signs in hand anyway.
When I get more details from Jason and the group I will pass it on!
Last note: This is a portion of the email I sent to Jason this morning:
Here is the salient issue: Why not have the press or have the meeting recorded. This is precisely what the protest is talking about...secret corporate-style business in government. This is the people's business and all people's business is open and should be recorded. What is the City hiding...they are hiding some unstated option to renig (SIC) the agreement. That is corporate-speak and in part the culture that has put this nation in its perilous position.
The path you are on is the moral one. It is about giving the rest of us voice against the social injustice that is making our community unsafe. Just point to more police enforcement cuts where they now have to remove the Redlight camera's. It is not whether the camera's are effective or not, it is because the city has to find other things to cut.
According to Justice Anthony Kennedy
[T]he "issuance of a permit is not a matter of grace." That's because the underlying behavior for which a permit is required is presumed to be good and the permit is a sort of notification to the agents of government that the activity is contemplated and what they may need to do to help.
Individuals aren't just presumed innocent of crime. Their behaviors, especially the exercise of their rights, are presumed good. Individuals are not to be deprived of rights, except as a punishment for crime. And, of course, the punishment is supposed to come after the crime, not before.
While the issue of prior restraint has been litigated in regards to the press (in the case of the NYTimes publication of the Pentagon Papers), the rights of persons (to assemble, to congregate, to perambulate, to recreate, to petition, to speak, to sit, to carry out their natural functions) without prior restraint has not been challenged, as far as I know.
What our agents of government are obligated to protect and respect is the Constitution. The agents of government are not tasked with protecting people, much less an amorphous nation, by arbitrarily and capriciously restricting the natural rights of any person. Yes, they can claim to have reason, but prior restraint is not justified unless there's a clear and present danger.
Colorado Springs has an obligation to permit the public use of public space. If they can't prove a danger, the permit has to be issued. Building permits, by the way, address known physical hazards. Temporary structures are not permitted because, in the event of a weather event that might make them airborne, they can be easily moved to a safe location within a permanent structure. Even permanent structures that have been built to code sometimes collapse, but if building specifications have been followed, they likely won't.
Also according to Justice Kennedy,
the people are to enforce the law. How are they to do that if not by calling a halt to violations of the Constitution via the unwarranted deprivation of rights?
~Robert Nemanich