Tag: occupy

Editor: It’s official: the City of San Diego and its Police Department have finally released figures on how much is being spent patrolling the Occupy San Diego protests. (Were they finally pressured to do so by our searing posts? See here.) The City has spent nearly $57,000 daily and a total of $2.4 million on the protests since they began on October 7th. This does not include costs for the County Sheriffs when they were used. Here’s the San Diego U-T coverage:

By Matthew T. Hall and Ashly McGlone / San Diego U-T / Nov. 22, 2011

The city’s police department said Tuesday it paid $143,918 in overtime costs for four major operations during the Occupy San Diego protests against corporate greed that began Oct. 7 at Civic Center Plaza.

PALM DESERT, CA. At a special banquet last night held at Rancho Las Palmas – one of Southern California’s most exclusive resorts – San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders was presented with one of the most coveted awards given out annually by the famous, billionaire Koch brothers.

Mayor Sanders was handed the “Golden Pluto” award by David Koch himself during the lavish banquet feast, which was attended by many big-city mayors, conservative politicians, pundits, and select press from all over the South West.

Sanders earned the sparkling “Golden Pluto” for the manner in which his office handled San Diego’s version of the Occupy Wall Street demonstrators. Early in their occupation of Civic Center Plaza in downtown San Diego, the demonstrators had their tents removed and were ordered upon threat of arrest to get rid of all sleeping bags and personal property.

Editor: Here is a brief report of Occupy San Diego’s day in court by Todd Cardiff, the attorney who argued the demonstrators’ case in Federal Court today.

By Todd T. Cardiff, Esq.

On November 22, 2011, the Occupy SD movement, represented by Plaintiffs Eugene Davidovich, Davina Lynch, and John Kenney, appeared in court seeking a temporary restraining order (TRO) preventing the City from enforcing San Diego Municipal Code section 54.0110. Attorney Todd T. Cardiff represented the plaintiffs. Bryan Pease is the lead attorney on the case.

Plaintiffs argued that the ordinance prohibited people from placing any object on City property.

Today is the court hearing on Occupy San Diego’s application for a TRO (temporary restraining order) against the City of San Diego in enforcing Municipal Code section 54.0110. The hearing is in Federal Court at 2:30 pm with Judge William Hayes in Courtroom 4 (Fourth Floor). The court is located on 940 Front Street (between Broadway and F Street).

People are asked to attend the hearing, but also to abide by federal court rules, ie, no signs, slogans, T-shirts with slogans, video/still cameras, audio recorders allowed, and all cell phones must be off.

Read the court document filed by OSD attorney: Here is the Complaint.

The first Buy Nothing Day was organized in Mexico in September 1992 “as a day for society to examine the issue of over-consumption.” In 1997, it was moved to the Friday after American Thanksgiving, also called “Black Friday”, which is one of the 10 busiest shopping days in the United States. Outside North America and Israel, Buy Nothing Day is the following Saturday. Participation now includes more than 65 nations.

From AdBsuters

You’ve been sleeping on the streets for two months pleading peacefully for a new spirit in economics. And just as your camps are raided, your eyes pepper sprayed and your head’s knocked in, another group of people are preparing to camp-out. Only these people aren’t here to support occupy Wall Street, they’re here to secure their spot in line for a Black Friday bargain at Super Target and Macy’s.

Editor: A shortened version of the following article by Rebecca Solnit appeared on the Op-Ed page of today’s LA Times. We thought the entire piece is worthy of your read, so here it is.

By Rebecca Solnit / TomDispatch.com / November 22, 2011

Last Tuesday, I awoke in lower Manhattan to the whirring of helicopters overhead, a war-zone sound that persisted all day and then started up again that Thursday morning, the two-month anniversary of Occupy Wall Street and a big day of demonstrations in New York City. It was one of the dozens of ways you could tell that the authorities take Occupy Wall Street seriously, even if they profoundly mistake what kind of danger it poses. If you ever doubted whether you were powerful or you mattered, just look at the reaction to people like you (or your children) camped out in parks from Oakland to Portland, Tucson to Manhattan.

Last week Adbusters, a publication that was important to the birth of the Occupy Wall Street movement, put out the following:

TACTICAL BRIEFING #18
Occupy the High Ground!

Hey you creatives, artists, environmentalists, workers, moms, dads, students, malcontents, do-gooders and aspiring martyrs in the snow:

The last four months have been hard fought, inspiring and delightfully revolutionary. We brought tents, hunkered down, held our assemblies, and lobbed a meme-bomb that continues to explode the world’s imagination. Many of us have never felt so alive. We have fertilized the future with our revolutionary spirit … and a thousand flowers will surely bloom in the coming Spring.

But as winter approaches an ominous mood could set in … hope thwarted is in danger of turning sour, patience exhausted becoming anger, militant nonviolence losing its allure. It isn’t just the mainstream media that says things could get ugly. What shall we do to keep the magic alive?

The San Diego chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists is hosting a DON’T MISS event!

Reporters and protesters (including our very own Frank Gormlie) will discuss the media coverage of the Occupy San Diego protest that began on Oct. 7 and has continued outside City Hall daily since then. The local angles of this global story have occupied Twitter, TV, newspapers and the Internet for weeks, involving arrests, business closures, crackdowns on camping in the area. We explore how the coverage has unfolded and discuss the story’s practical and ethical issues.

After being awoken by police bullhorns and rousted from their slumber by an early morning raid – and then removed from the Civic Theater grassy area, Occupy San Diego protesters are planning on marching back to the Plaza this morning.

The protesters will begin to march at 10:00 a.m. from Harbor Drive and Ash Street – near the Star of India – where they regrouped after the police raid.

By now, it is clear that the San Diego Police Department is spending hundreds of thousands of dollars in efforts to deal with dozens of peaceful Occupy San Diego protesters. Many of the police actions in response to these protests are virtual “over-kill” because the numbers of officers used way outweigh the numbers of occupiers.

This morning, for example, a hundred cops were used to roust and remove about four dozen protesters sleeping out on the grassy area next to the Civic Theater. With the Chief watching, these officers clearly outnumbered the protesters and any threats that they created.

Thousands of protesters and supporters in New York City retook Zuccotti Park yesterday, November 15th. The Park was taken over again after demonstrators there had been removed during the early morning hours by police. City workers cleaned the Park, electricity was restored, and demonstrators were allowed back in – but without tents, tarps or sleeping bags – “the San Diego model”. Here is our live blog report from yesterday – see link inside. Here is the MSNBC report inside: …

UPDATE: Occupy San Diego demonstrators plan to march from Harbor Drive back to the Civic Center at 10 am.

A little after 2 a.m. Wednesday morning, San Diego police and Sheriff deputies rousted dozens of sleeping Occupy San Diego demonstrators out of their sleeping bags and ordered them to vacate their last sleeping area. Those who refused to move were arrested – and initial reports are that five people were arrested.

Up to one hundred law enforcement officers, under the watchful eyes of Police Chief Lansdowne, showed up at the grassy area next to the Civic Center Theater without warning and removed people and personal belongings. All donated food, tables, signs and sleeping bags were confiscated. Occupiers were removed and many gathered down at Harbor Drive very early this morning in an effort to regroup.