Occupy Madison and the City of Madison recently made an agreement to move off the square to a vacant car lot just a few blocks off the square. It's really an ideal situation for both Occupy Madison and the city: Occupy Madison gets a safe place to set up camp and does not have to bother with the permitting process and the city gets a peaceful occupation.
However, some people are not happy with Occupy Madison and will go to any length to discredit the movement. Surprisingly, one of the outlets attacking Occupy Madison is The Daily Cardinal the newspaper of the University Wisconsin-Madison.
City officials temporarily denied Occupy Madison a new street use permit Wednesday after protesters violated public health and safety conditions and failed to follow the correct processes to renew or amend a permit.
The permit, which expired Wednesday at noon, required Occupy Madison protesters to relocate from their current space at 30 West Mifflin Street, also called 30 on the Square.
A neighboring hotel's staff alleged voiced concerns about having to recently escort hotel employees to and from bus stops late at night due to inappropriate behavior, such as public masturbation, from street protesters.
In addition, officials agreed further occupation should not be allowed to continue without restrooms on site to avoid further public health violations.
That, friends, is a lie. There have been no verifiable reports of anyone involved in Occupy Madison performing public masturbation; this is nothing more than a vicious rumor intended to discredit the movement. Nor has there ever been a permit for Occupy Madison. From the Occupy Madison Facebook page:
Occupy Madison has never sought a permit, and therefore could not possibly have been "denied" one, nor had one revoked. One individual chose to seek a permit for 30 on the square for himself, which had the side effect of temporarily holding off city officials from trying to remove us from that location. That individual did not and was never empowered to represent Occupy Madison. It seems that individual's application to renew their permit has since been rejected by the city. Why the Daily Cardinal thinks that we had anything to do with that, one can only speculate.
In the words of the late Billy Mays, "But wait, there's more."
I recently received an email from Occupy Madison and have also seen this same information on the Occupy Madison Facebook page:
Occupy Madison came under attack by someone who's been repeatedly listing the occupation's supplies on Craigslist. The listing states that the camp is being shut down, the lot must be cleared, and that all of the supplies are free for the taking. As you can imagine, this is becoming an issue for the security team and an alarming trend in recent days.
While Occupy Madison is not under attack by the police department, they are under attack by the Daily Cardinal and some low-life piece of crap who thinks it is okay to put Occupy Madison's supplies up on Craigslist for the taking.