After a verbal beating from an opposing lawyer on New Haven’s classic rock radio station over the botched eviction of Occupy New Haven, and with a newly scheduled court hearing looming, Mayor John DeStefano took to the airwaves — and found popular support.
DeStefano appeared on WPLR’s drive-time “Chaz and AJ” show beginning shortly before 7:30 a.m.
Meanwhile, lawyers learned that they will have a scheduled hearing in New York City at 10 a.m. Tuesday before the Second Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals to argue over whether the city can proceed (for a third, and final?, time) with tearing down the “Occupy New Haven” encampment on the Upper Green.
City Corporation Counsel Bolden (center) delivers the news Tuesday that the eviction would halt.
DeStefano appeared on the WPLR show two days after New Haven started dismantling the remnants of the largely abandoned and trashed encampment on the Upper Green, then had to stop because of a last-minute temporary court order won by Occupy lawyer Norm Pattis. Read all about that here; click on the play arrow at the top of this story to watch a video of the action shot by NHV.org‘s Ian Applegate.
DeStefano appeared on Thursday’s WPLR show one day after Pattis blasted him on the air for not waiting longer Tuesday to take down the encampment until hearing how the court appeal turned out. Pattis followed up that appearance with a scathing blog post which read, in part:
“The Mayor was on a local radio station this [Wednesday] morning. He was frustrated but defiant. The protestors are hypocrites, he said, turning to the courts for relief but then engaging in civil disobedience when it suits them. A politician accusing someone of hypocrisy? The Mayor has been living off the public teat too long; his perpetual campaign for office has made it impossible for him distinguish a campaign promise from the truth. The truth is the Mayor DeStefano had an itchy trigger finger yesterday, and he kept firing well after he knew he shouldn’t have.
“The Mayor took a shot at me on the radio this morning. I was in the case for the free advertising, he suggested. This coming from a press-fleshing ward-heeler with the moral compass of a three-legged donkey. Can he spell principle?
“Mayor DeStefano is a small-town politician who just can’t seem to muster support beyond city limits. His efforts to get statewide office have been rebuffed. He is feared by some, but trusted by few – you know the truth is for sale when you see his lips move. He has cost the city millions in legal fees given his outsized ego and impetuous maneuvering.”
On the air Thursday morning, DeStefano told Chaz & AJ that the city started the eviction because the court had not yet ruled on Pattis’ request for a temporary stay. (That’s true; the subsequent timelines about when the city learned of the ruling, and what information it had had earlier in the day, is murkier.)
DeStefano told the hosts that it’s time for New Haven to reclaim a patch of its destroyed Upper Green. He said it has “probably” cost the city $100,000 so far to deal with the occupation on the Green and to fight in court for the right to evict it. (“Yikes!” his host exclaimed.) And he spoke of how the occupation has evolved since it formed in October as part of a national anti-corporate “Occupy Wall Street” movement.
“Public access now is being denied by a small group of people preventing significant use and harming it,” the mayor said.
“We supported them [at first]. We provided … trash removal and port-o-lets …
“It started as one thing, a good thing. I was supportive of it. We talked to them about it. You made your point. You seem to be a different group. It’s time to move on. There’s still time to make your point [in different ways]. I think they see their removal as an opportunity to make a statement.”
For months, occupiers worked alongside with city police to keep the peace. They embraced cops as part of the “99 percent” of Americans on whose economic behalf they were protesting. Many of those original protesters have left the encampment. And relations with police have taken an ugly turn: On Tuesday occupiers taunted cops with a doughnut on a string (pictured). They chanted: “One, this is a doughnut. Two, it is delicious. Three, you know you want to fucking eat it.” The “99-percenters” with badges and guns did not chant along.
“The police have a job to do,” DeStefano told Chaz & AJ. “I don’t think they have an opinion one way or another. They were operating within he law and the sense of the time to move on. I didn’t think it was fair or right to beat on the police.”
If A.J. and I want to make a public statement, Chaz asked DeStefano, can we camp out for six months on the Green?
“You can go there at 10 o’clock tonight and bark at the moon if you like…” he responded.
The reply: “I’m gonna do that…”
“When the group started it had a message,” DeStefano continued. “It was talking regularly to us. This is not the same group.”
The show then took calls from listeners. Like the show’s hosts, they agreed with DeStefano that the city has been fair.
“Why not just take the port-o-potties away and let them live in the stink?” asked Mike in Milford.
Attorney Kevin Smith, who works with Norm Pattis, called to disagree. He noted that Pattis’ crew had sent the city emails Tuesday morning alerting them to the appeal; he argued the city should have waited longer until proceeding with the eviction that was ultimately halted. DeStefano said the city waited six months, and then got court permission to carry out the eviction.
The exchange grew heated.
“There was a time when the law told people because of the color of their skin they couldn’t sit in a diner …” Smith began.
DeStefano cut him off. “To equate this to racism is crazy and inappropriate and shows what we got here,” he said.
“Who are the people of New Haven?” Smith asked. “The Proprietors [the private group that owns it] or the people who live down there?”
“The 130,000 people” who live in the city,” DeStefano responded. “I am elected to make a judgment about that. I think it’s time to clear the Green.”
Thomas MacMillan Photo
DeStefano blasts Occupy New Haven at a Tuesday press conference.
A messy climax to the Occupy New Haven protest has long been expected, despite or perhaps because the DeStefano administration decided last fall to embrace the protests. It set up port-o-lets. Cops got to know the protesters. While other cities ran occupiers off public spaces, the city helped the local group make it through the winter and praised their exercise of the First Amendment.
In March, as grass started dying on the Upper Green, as the protest encampment dissolved into Lord of the Flies-style infighting, as original organizers fled the mess and went “underground,” as public impatience grew, and as warm weather approached with greater demands for use of the park, officials tried to negotiate a solution with the occupiers for taking down tents. (Read about that here and here.) Some holdouts refused to entertain the concept of leaving. Finally the city issued an order to leave. (Click here for Courant columnist Rick Green’s observation on the irony of how a liberal, welcoming city administration inevitably got tarred as stifling dissent.)
Occupier attorney Pattis won a last-minute temporary reprieve from a federal judge on March 14, the first scheduled departure date. (Click on the play arrow to watch him address occupiers afterwards.)
But the city prevailed on every major point of law when its lawyers and Pattis argued the merits of the eviction before a U.S. District Court judge. The new April 10th eviction date was set.
The city arranged to move out homeless people before the deadline. That went smoothly. It gave protesters advance notice of the plans.
Then on Tuesday Pattis went to the Second Circuit appeals court in New York. The eviction began at noon, with two arrests; uncharacteristically, the city tactically may have set up a confrontation by having public works crews and equipement and cops all descend on the Green at once and go into action immediately. Then the scene dissolved into abortive confusion and finally stopped completely around 12:40 p.m. when official word came of the judge’s order to suspend the eviction until further arguments can be considered next week. Pattis had outmaneuvered the city’s lawyers once again.
At a Wednesday evening “general assembly” at Occupy New Haven, one of Pattis’ clients called for them to pack up. The client, Josh Smith, announced he was pulling out of the case as a plaintiff. (Read about that here.) He called for the remaining occupiers to declare victory and “pack up the camp and make sure the Green gets cleaned up, which I’m 100 percent willing to help with on Sunday.” The rest of the occupiers disagreed with him. They vowed to continue the fight.
“A lot of people from local and regional community organizations are hanging back right now from helping us because of the whole controversy, and the longer we stay on the Green, the more damage we do to our cause. I think that our ranks will easily double or triple if we can get off the Green and prove that we will continue on in our struggle,” Smith continued.