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Pressure on Occupy Philly comes amidst nationwide crackdown
Mayor Nutter increases pressure on Occupy Philly as cities nationwide move to evict protesters.
Pressure on Occupy Philly comes amidst nationwide crackdown
This morning's arrests at Occupy Oakland cap a weekend of evictions, including raids in Portland and Denver. On Sunday, Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter issued a long press release demanding that Occupy Philly vacate Dilworth Plaza ahead of a scheduled reconstruction project. Two days prior, protesters voted to maintain their City Hall encampment.
Mayor Nutter, like other mayors, has cited reports of filthy conditions and incidents of violence and sexual assault. Unlike other mayors, however, he has largely cooperated with the movement and refrained from the sort of police violence witnessed in New York and Oakland. Plus, the construction project will create an estimated 1,000 jobs, improve handicapped accessibility and, well, just make the place nicer.
While some protesters charge that the Mayor’s arguments are a mere pretext for a coordinated nationwide assault on the movement, others say that protesters should negotiate with the city to relocate the encampment across the street in front of the Municipal Services building. Either way, most protesters that I’ve spoken to on both sides of the debate say they don’t anticipate a serious showdown, and none foresee any potential for violence--at least on the part of the protesters.
But the city’s new push against Occupy Philly, and the sense—whether just a perception or a reflection of the reality--that they are being obstinate while Nutter offers compromise, is already doing damage. The Daily News, which has provided mostly sympathetic coverage to the movement (see Jason Nark, Will Bunch, and various editorials) today ran a news article titled “Occupy Filthy”:
Nothing against drum circles, but the 40-day urban camping session, which has already cost taxpayers more than $500,000 in police overtime and other expenses, is now threatening to derail a $50 million revitalization project at Dilworth Plaza.
That's nearly 1,000 jobs that would put food on the table of the "99 percent" that Occupy Philly claims to represent.
Plus, the campsite is getting kind of nasty.
(Today’s Inquirer article was rather more measured.)
We’ll take a deeper look into this story in coming days. News editor Samantha Melamed is currently at Occupy Philly’s press conference, where protesters are responding to the mayor’s charges. Explaining their current position to the Philadelphia public will be critical.
Meanwhile, protesters in many cities are moving to set up occupations on university campuses. We haven’t yet heard of any such plans from Temple or Penn students.
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