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The Liar in New York's City Hall
If yesterday’s Mayoral press conference is any indication of the truthfulness
of Mayor Giuliani’s public statements, such as his repeated claims that Malathion
is completely safe, we New Yorkers have a lot to worry about. Facing numerous
questions about the public hearing held by the Parks Department on proposed
rule changes that took up six pages in the City Record, Mayor Giuliani vehemently
insisted that:
“They have to have a false story like this every few months...there is no change...the
licensing regulations aren’t changing...it’s been the same policy for 15 years...the
same policy will remain in effect...I have no idea why they chose to do this
story...except to create a diversion...the policy is the same...they do not
pertain to the special permit requirement...it’s exactly the same...there are
people who just like to go around getting other people hysterical, it gives
them a sense of importance...if you want to have your children in the park you’re
not going to have to pay...everything is going to be the same tomorrow as it
was today, everything will be the same six months from now as it was today...everything
is going to remain exactly the same there isn’t a single thing that’s going
to change”.
One might reasonably ask why the Parks Department would publish a six page
list of rule changes which begin with the exact proposed changes to the Special
Event permit the Mayor is referring to, and hold a public hearing on it, if
there are no changes.
The original version of the so called Special Events permit that the Mayor
is commenting on required a permit only for “...any contest, exhibit, public
entertainment, parade, parade review, athletic contest, dramatic reading, story
telling, poetry reading or picnic without a permit unless fewer than 20 individuals
may reasonably be expected to be in attendance”.
The proposed new rule adds the words, “including but not limited to” before
the description of activities that constitute a Special Event, and that therefore
now require a permit. Therefore, a permit is now legally required even for 20
or more people to walk through a park, silently meditate, pray or sit in a circle
and hold hands. Clearly the requirement also applies to any sporting events,
games or even a group of toddlers and their parents or baby sitters playing
together.
A few weeks ago my three year old son’s playgroup of eight children was stopped
from entering a small park in Brooklyn by a Parks enforcement officer who explained
to their teacher that she now needed a permit for them to play on the swings
and sliding pond.
Here is the exact text of the proposed rule change as printed by the City in
the 8/16/99 City Record.
1-02 Definitions: Special Event
“Special Event” means a group activity including but not limited to a contest,
exhibit, ceremony, parade, athletic competition, reading or picnic involving
more than 20 people.
1-05 Regulated Uses
(a) Assemblies, meetings, exhibitions
No person shall hold or sponsor any special event without a permit.
The Mayor and Parks Commissioner Henry Stern made numerous statements yesterday
denying that family groups of 20 or more would need a permit to hold a picnic,
directly contradicting the exact wording of the law. They both claimed that
no one would be harassed, summonsed or arrested who violated the law, yet Commissioner
Stern admitted, though he denied knowing how many incidents had occurred, that
some people had already been summonsed for violating the law.
Seen in the most favorable light possible, the Mayor and Commissioner Stern’s
pronouncements constitute a flagrant and carefully prearranged example of selective
enforcement and unequal protection under the law. Seen as what they in fact
are, their statements are deliberate lies and a clumsy attempt to hide their
latest repressive social policy.
In the 9/22/99 Daily News, Commissioner Stern said that the new law, which
he also claimed is non-existent, had as its purpose creating a way for the Parks
Department to know who is using the parks.
Allow me to reiterate what I said during the hearing. Disney, Nike, McDonalds,
Burger King, Chase Bank, Revlon, HBO, American Express, Citi Bank, and Sony
are who is using the parks nowadays. At the same time the City is creating curfews
and special events requirements in order to keep low income families and minority
New Yorkers out of the public parks, it is turning those same public parks over
to corporations that are friendly to the Giuliani administration and allowing
them to literally do whatever they please.
The bottom line on the new rules is that they are part and parcel of Giuliani’s
ever evolving police state. Whether enforcement of the new rules dramatically
changes today, tomorrow or six months from now, these rules are intended for
a purpose which is directly antithetical to the interests of the people of New
York City, to freedom of speech, to freedom of assembly and to the well established
principle that public parks are a public forum.
Robert Lederman
"Freedom is not a concept in which people can do anything they want, be anything
they can be. Freedom is about authority. Freedom is about the willingness of
every single human being to cede to lawful authority a great deal of discretion
about what you do and how you do it." Mayor Giuliani, New York Times,
March 17, 1994
For a partial list of corporate sponsors of Central Park see: http://www.centralparknyc.org/gi-corppartners.html
Also see: NY Times May 19, 1996 “NYC Allows Companies to Shill in Park if they
make a Buck”; NY Times 3/28/98, “Disney Buys Access to Field That Is
Closed to the Public”; “NY Times 12/1/98 “Bazaars Set Off Debate Over
Role of Parks”; “Rats!”, V.Voice 7/8/98; NY POST 7/20/98, “Stars Planned
Pub Peeves Parents”.
The following are a very small selection of rulings on public forums:
See: Burson, 112 S. Ct. at 1850 ("Quintessential public forums" are "parks,
streets, and sidewalks."); Frisby v. Schultz, 487 U.S. 474, 481 (1988) (residential
street is a public forum); United States v. Grace, 461 U.S. 171, 176 (1983)
(public sidewalks forming perimeter of the Supreme Court grounds are public
forum for First Amendment purposes).
Loper v. New York City Police Dep't, 999 F.2d 699, 704 (2d Cir. 1993), The
sidewalks of New York City constitute a public forum because they "...fall into
the category of public property traditionally held open to the public for expressive
activity."
Hague v. C.I.O., 307 U.S. 496 (1939)
"Whenever the title of streets and parks may rest, they have immemorially been
held in trust for the use of the public...Such use of the streets and public
places has, from ancient times, been a part of the privileges, immunites, rights
and liberties of citizens. The privilege of a citizen of the United States to
use the streets and parks for communication...must not, in the guise of regulation,
be abridged or denied."
Robert Lederman, President of A.R.T.I.S.T.
(Artists’ Response To Illegal State Tactics)
ARTISTpres@aol.com (718) 369-2111
http://www.openair.org/alerts/artist/nyc.html
FROM:
Newsday 9/23/99 LETTERS
BY: John Hynes
EDITION: ALL EDITIONS SECTION: Viewpoints
DATE: 09-23-1999 pg. A57
Mayor Suffers Dissent Badly So Joseph Dolman ["No Malathion Madness in New
York," Viewpoints, Sept. 15] gives the Most Lurid Try award for Malathion scare
tactics to Robert Lederman. Dolman had no similar criticism for Mayor Rudolph
Giuliani, who condemned all critics of his gassing as wanting to "land on television"
and "frighten people out of their minds." If there is anything that should frighten
New Yorkers out of their minds, it is Giuliani. The mayor has had the police
falsely arrest the "tireless gadfly" Lederman close to 40 times without a single
conviction. Millions of tax dollars have been wasted on falsely arresting decent
people like Lederman. The money would have been better spent on mosquito prevention.
Come to think of it, burning the money would have been better than using it
to try to stomp out free speech.
In 1988, I infiltrated a fund raiser for George Bush in order to challenge
California Gov. George Deukmejian on a health and safety issue. The state police
were ready to toss me out but the governor wanted to hear what I had to say
and was a gentleman about it. Had my target been Giuliani, the mayor would have
laughed and joked as the police silenced and arrested me to get my name on the
mayor's enemies list.
John Hynes
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