I told Jason, (un-officio and holder of the 30-day permit) this morning when he called to personally give a personal version of the events.
"The city and the mayor's office lied to us," Jason said.
Of course, I figured this was going to happen when upon repeated inquiries to the city planning and mayor's office on Friday where the no word or return phone call was made as the 30-day "occupation" permit was going to expire at 12:01 AM, 11/21/11 (today). Over the weekend this lack of communication continued until at 11:01 PM thirty (30) uniformed CSPD officers came to the downtown corner that Occupy Colorado Springs had used to inform them that they had two hours to vacate the premises or the structures would be torn down, that the permit had expired. STILL NO WORD AS TO WHY IT WAS NOT EXTENDED FROM THE MAYOR'S OFFICE OR PLANNING DEPARTMENT.
At 1 AM as directed the police took down the structures and confiscated the personal property and within an hour and a half the site was cleared. About 50 protesters watched on but there were no arrests. Local newspaper COS Gazette has their version: The city then released a statement this morning:
No arrests were made during the clean-up, which began when officers told protesters at 11:01 p.m. Sunday that their permit would not be renewed, police said.
In a letter to the protesters released by the city, senior city planner Ryan Tefertiller said renewing the permit "will jeopardize the operations of the general City and the public interest." He added the city had received written objections to the permit being renewed.
Specifically, Tefertiller said police calls to the protest site are "significantly higher" than they were at the same time last year for that site. In addition, he said protesters were repeatedly violating city ordinances and that the protest site wasn't safe, clean or orderly.
The protest also appeared to move beyond the physical boundaries set in the permit, he wrote, and it was "negatively impacting" downtown businesses. [bolded emphasis added by me]
Another quote from Mayor Bach at KOAA-TV
Mayor Steve Bach says he denied their permit because he says it was "disrupting" the downtown area.
KKTV has a video up now
My thoughts below Kos's weird scribble
Disruptions, clean, orderly and more police calls do not rise to the level of squashing FREE SPEECH and Right of ASSEMBLY except when it is a threat to the establishment. This "mantra" or justification which thing but a Orwellian of public safety and sanitation concerns is a strawman argument and we know it.
Colorado Springs really was not highly visible Occupy site. It had received a permit like Portland OR and Albany but we saw how those sites were respected, no different than court protected Zuccotti Park or citizen permitted Oakland or where-ever. In the government's eyes there is no accepted Occupy site, it simply is too dangerous and dirty.
Get it, but in the Orwellian logic it is all about trying to stamp out a rallying point, but he trouble is the real rallying point is between the ears of Americans and they know that the Occupy Movement has identified the real culprits in this political economic disaster. The danger as I have been told first hand by a former senator (I will keep his ID confidential) is that Occupy is giving courage and validation to a previous "domesticated" public. Yes this is a class war but not how people think it is being portrayed, it is the "powered" versus "powerless".
He quipped in a person phone call this morning that:
the "powered" think that punitive measures will prevail, if not they will try more psychological warfare but with each foreclosure, each job loss, each graduate who fails to get a job, each personal economic depression of people who followed the rules and is screwed, each pepper sprayed peaceful protester, each busted head or spline the more Occupy will grow.
The bigger problem is when the Euro system finally collapses throwing the world into a second deeper depression taking us from the Lessor Depression to the Great Depression II. This is why there is NorthComm and why quietly as you so smartly picked up the announcement [on my FB page] that the President is deploying 20,000 troops from Iraq (most likely military police units) to domestic readiness units. Hw different is this than allowing the Roman Legions to enter Rome?
Personally chilling
Back to Occupy and real estate. Understand this, Occupy is a moral cause de sa célébrité resulting from a political crisis where those who caused the economic crisis (the 1%'ers) have in fact benefited handsomely from the calamity, let alone not be affected or held to account, WHILE the rest of us (the 99'ers) who followed the rules were greatly harmed and now have to pay for the calamity. Holding hostage a small public park or green space so the righteous morally outraged can petition grievances to their political leaders when up to date those leaders were unmoved to bringing those responsible for the calamity to account or even correct the system that is fixed against them. Instead the political leaders have chosen to send in para-military forces using excessive and cruel measures.
Now by spreading this beyond a real estate issue it is going to be a national consciousnesses issue.