Poll Position: Was Reed too fast or too slow vs. Occupy Atlanta?
They came, they camped, they got thrown in jail.
The Occupiers of Atlanta, or at least of Woodruff Park, logged nearly three weeks of unlawful “urban camping” before finally pushing their luck with Mayor Kasim Reed. About one week into a three-week extension of the permission he’d granted the Occupiers to stay in the park, Reed sent in the police. The mayor said some Occupiers had demonstrated they “were on a clear path to escalation.”
Unlike in Oakland, Calif., the arrests went peacefully. Now the Atlanta Occupiers say they’re moving on to a new location — and will eventually return to Woodruff, because it “is the people’s park.” (Sure it is. And the people’s duly elected representatives have made laws governing the people’s park.)
But the question remains: Were the Occupiers kicked out of Woodruff too soon, or too late?
How do you rate Kasim Reed's actions toward Occupy Atlanta?
- Kicked 'em out too late. (125 Votes)
- Kicked 'em out too soon. (60 Votes)
- Got it just right. (48 Votes)
Total Voters: 233
Loading ...On one hand, Reed had authorized their stay in Woodruff through Nov. 7 — and, given that he’d already extended his executive order once before, it’s fair to wonder if he meant “at least Nov. 7.” Absent some kind of riot or imminent public threat, why not stick to that plan?
On the other hand, a city ordinance clearly prohibits overnight camping in public parks. Why should Reed have allowed this group to violate the law — at a cost to the city of tens of thousands of dollars, even before last weekend’s flare-up — when other groups have followed the protocol for requesting similar park usage and been denied? (With Reed, maybe it truly is better to ask forgiveness than permission.)
That’s this week’s Poll Position. Answer in the nearby poll and in the comments thread below.
– By Kyle Wingfield
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144 comments Add your comment
UGA 1999
October 28th, 2011
10:52 am
Toussaint….”OWS is full of marxists and scum”…..and?
emo
October 28th, 2011
10:55 am
Pat, that’s anice theory, but in practice we keep re-electing the same people bought and paid for by Wall Street, with a few changes around the edges.
UGA (Could that school really have graduated you? Did they just get tired of seeing you after 7-8 years?), that you will win all branches of government is a stretch, seeing how badly your party has messed up the country. Are you really going to vote for Mitt, Herman or Rick, knowing how much you all despise flip-floppers?
UGA 1999
October 28th, 2011
10:57 am
Emo….a stretch? Really? I guess we will have to wait to see. You are right HAHA what a great job your messiah has been doing for the past two years! Please tell me what you think he has done to deserve a re-election?
Actually I would vote for Mitt, Herman, Rick or Hillary over the joke we have in office right now.
commoncents
October 28th, 2011
10:57 am
emo: “Are you really going to vote for Mitt, Herman or Rick, knowing how much you all despise flip-floppers?”
Would you really re-elect Obama? He’s no different
Pat
October 28th, 2011
10:59 am
emo – True, but those people do not need to be voted back in. If they keep getting re-elected, isn’t it the voters fault?
Billings
October 28th, 2011
11:02 am
Obama blows smoke in the face of his supporters.
At least 15 of Mr. Obama’s “bundlers” — supporters who contribute their own money to his campaign and solicit it from others — are involved in lobbying for Washington consulting shops or private companies. They have raised more than $5 million so far for the campaign.
Some Washington lobbyists suggest that the Obama administration’s tough public stance against lobbyists has served only to discourage those active in the lobbying industry from registering as lobbyists in the Senate.
“What all this rhetoric does is to drive lobbying even further into the shadows,” said a Democratic lobbyist who works frequently with the administration but spoke on the condition of anonymity.
“Obama will not take money from registered lobbyists like me,” the lobbyist said with some bitterness, “but that doesn’t mean that he won’t take money from people who are lobbying. There’s a big difference.”
None that I can see.
The LAW
October 28th, 2011
11:05 am
Those loser scofflaw miscreants should have been arrested the first night in the park. The mayor let this go on for way too long.
emo
October 28th, 2011
11:13 am
Would I re-elect Obama? You bet I would, even though he has disappointed me at times. It would be so much better than becoming a Third World nation, which is the R’s unstated goal.
Market – up 339 to 12,208.55
GDP – up 2.5%
Unemployment claims – down.
I know this is disastrous news for those of you who only profess to love this country, but it’s great for the majority of us.
Halftrack
October 28th, 2011
11:15 am
The Law is supposed to apply equally to all people & groups. Their right to protest has not been abridged. Their right to ‘homestead” on public property is not found anywhere. Also most people are looking for a “Glenn Beck” type leader, one who organizes the right of protest and leaves the park clean and sanitary.
UGA 1999
October 28th, 2011
11:16 am
Emo….it is so funny that everyone is spouting the GDP is up 2.5% hahaha what a joke. Let me ask you a question, what happens to a country when the debt superceeds the GDP? Just asking?
Unemployment claims – down? LIAR! Look at unemployment since he has been in office. What a joke.
Oh and you want to tout the market? Isnt this the people that your OWS thugs are demonstrating against?
Talk about flip flopping!! Dude look in the mirror.
Pat
October 28th, 2011
11:18 am
It is funny how people are saying that when the market goes up, it is because of the government, but when it is down, they blame the bad corporations. Interesting….
#occupy my desk...
October 28th, 2011
11:18 am
Nobody is saying you can’t protest – you just have to do so within the law. The rights of free speech and assemby does not trump every other law in the land. I would have much more respect for them if they weren’t acting like petulant 16 year olds. Maybe they should get a leader that isn’t a convicted felon and drug addict – may shed some sensibility into the situation. I also find it strange that they have not said anything negative about the man who actually did the bailing out – even though these corporate monsters are paying for his reelection campaign.
UGA 1999
October 28th, 2011
11:18 am
Pat…AMEN!
Pat
October 28th, 2011
11:19 am
UGA 1999 – Thanks, you too
Pat
October 28th, 2011
11:20 am
I completely agree #occupy my desk
JDW
October 28th, 2011
11:22 am
For all those consumed by the 39% approval rating Obama draws these days…
“But drill down into that number and you’ll see signs of a stirring discontent on the left,” says CNN Polling Director Keating Holland. “Thirty-eight percent say they disapprove because President Obama has been too liberal, but 13 percent say they disapprove of Obama because he has not been liberal enough…Looking at that figure another way, roughly one in four Americans who disapprove of the president say they feel that way because he’s not been liberal enough.”
It would be a stretch to imagine that 1 in 4 voting Republican. A fact which seems to be borne out in the latest polls…
“Obama leads Romney, the former Massachusetts governor who sits atop the GOP presidential field, 46% to 43% among likely voters. The President has opened a double-digit lead over Perry, 50% to 38%, highlighting concerns percolating through the GOP that the Texas governor would face a steep uphill climb should he capture the nomination. Obama also boasts a 49%-to-37% edge over businessman Herman Cain, whose strong Tea Party support has propelled him toward the top of Republican ranks in recent weeks.”
Read more: http://swampland.time.com/2011/10/13/time-poll-obama-leads-head-to-head-match-ups-with-republican-rivals/#ixzz1c5eqSx00
#occupy my desk...
October 28th, 2011
11:26 am
UGA 1999 – yeah our friend emo is pointing to a brief surge in the market due to Greek debt relief and a seasonal quarterly blip on GDP…which doesn’t prove to be statistically significant grouped YTD. The unemployment thing is just made up. Alas, they trumpet these acheivements by their Dear Leader who is hard at work selling his reelection…er um…jobs plan in states where he just happened to have a narrow margin of victory or defeat. This is really what happens when lunatics take control of the asylum…
UGA 1999
October 28th, 2011
11:30 am
JDW…you do realize that at this point in the last election Obama was getting KILLED by Clinton dont you? Funny facts.
Independent Voter
October 28th, 2011
11:34 am
I will not be voting for Kasim he seem like a angry black man. I see on the news where ever occupy goes helicopter flying over them. He is wasting our tax paying money to stop Occupy Atlanta.
The money he wasting could be helping the homeless in this city or fixing the pot holes in the streets. Use the police to protect Ga tech students.
Recall Kasim Reed.
Chuck
October 28th, 2011
11:52 am
I am so sick of hearing the whining about the rich this and the rich that. If you want your piece of pie, it is out there for the taking. You will have to be willing to risk everything that you have. Starting a business is risky and costly. You will have to be willing to work 80 to 90 hours a week, no leaving at 5:00 P.M. to have a beer and play video games. Forget vacations, to run a succesful business you have to be there, your employees may get 2 to 3 weeks a year, but you never will. You may not be able to have that nice house or nice car for quite sometime, you will have to put most of your earnings back into the business. Everyone wants the success, but very few are really willing to do what it takes to get it.
JDW
October 28th, 2011
12:01 pm
@UGA1999…”you do realize that at this point in the last election Obama was getting KILLED by Clinton dont you? Funny facts.”
All the more reason to believe that by Nov 2012 he will be comfortably ahead of the same people proposing to the same things that created this economic mess to begin with.
Lil' Barry Bailout (Revised Downward)
October 28th, 2011
12:18 pm
Obozo didn’t have a record at this point in the last election. He does now, and that will be the difference. Record unemployment, record poverty, record deficits.
Americans are sickened by his efforts at “fundamental transformation” and the sorry results he’s delivered. Democrats aren’t, but Americans are.
DawgDad
October 28th, 2011
12:25 pm
Nothing but a bunch of mindless marxist/anarchists put forth as pawns by forcces on the left and demagogued to the hilt by the media and the Democrat political leaders. A lot of similarities to what we saw in the sixties here in the US and in Paris.
Reed and the other mayors threw them out too soon, but it’s clear why – they were a free daily-running campaign ad for the GOP.
The Democrat leadership has to operate in the real world. They can only push their marxist agenda as far as the politics of the day allows. They pushed too far, and now they are getting their lunch handed to them by the Tea Party. So, find some useful idiots to make it appear the public in general wants to take this country hard-left (which it clearly does not), and leverage the media in your back pocket (including the AJC) to trump a “coherent message” for the mindless idiots and cast an illusion of populist authenticity. It’s ALL hogwash.
Dusty
October 28th, 2011
12:45 pm
Would those of you here who think so highly of the OCCUPIERS, please list your home address? They need a nice place to camp. List your place only if you have several bathrooms. Thank you.
UGA 1999
October 28th, 2011
1:22 pm
JDW….nope more back peddling by Mr. Obama.
Old Physics Teacher
October 28th, 2011
1:33 pm
Whether or not Reed should have done what he did, how is it that Occupy Atlanta cost the City of Atlanta from “tens of thousands” to one blog post of “300 thousand” dollars for the clean-up? Does Mayor Reed and his cronies have to personally clean up after them? And the cost is figured on his pay divided by exactly the number of hours he really works? Does the entire site need new planted sod put in by landscapers making 1000 dollars an hour? Methinks someone’s estimate is a bit out of line with reality!
This reminds me of the old saw about a neighbor asking his neighbor for a cup of flour. The response was, “No. The temperature in my house is too high.” The neighbor responded, “What does that have to do with it?” The other guy said, “Nothing, but I couldn’t think of a better excuse, and any excuse is better than none.”
Kyle Wingfield
October 28th, 2011
1:39 pm
Old Physics Teacher: The rapid increase in cost, I believe, is attributable to the rapid increase in police presence Reed felt was necessary at the park toward the end. Police overtime costs a lot more than port-a-potties do.
Brad
October 28th, 2011
2:00 pm
Mayor Reed did a good job handling this situation. It could have gotten very dangerous if the police had entered too soon or been more strong handed. Most situations like this tend to “peter out” with time. The frustrations felt by the “Occupiers”, are felt by many of us, even if we are not the type to camp out in a park. As a 54 year old man, I remember the protest against Vietnam and how those young people were treated. We might not always like the message or how it is delivered, but we are paying attention to them. Many Americans feel a twinge of support for these “rebels”, as long as they are not destructive or harming others.
UGA 1999
October 28th, 2011
2:02 pm
Brad…..”but we are paying attention to them”?? Actually no, we are laughing at them. Big difference.
Brad
October 28th, 2011
2:14 pm
True, bout laughing at them.!! Especially when the media finds the most ignorant ones to interview. Sorta like when the tornado sets down in Georgia and they always manage to find the two people who cannot construct a sentence…and that’s who they interview. At least in the 60s and 70s, it seemed the protesters were generally college students who could communicate. The “occupiers” do themselves no favors with the spokespeople they use or allow.
@@
October 28th, 2011
2:23 pm
I’m in the minority. Just about right, I’d say. Long enough to let them get their “messages” out but not quick enough to appear as though he wanted to silence ‘em.
Now, instead of being squatters, they’re vagabonds.
And if they haven’t already figured it out…nobody’s listening.
Im for Change
October 28th, 2011
2:47 pm
Why is it when the Tea party had their rallies they were forced out immediately when their paid permits expired, and this group never paid a cent in fees permits security, sanitation, and allowed to stay that long…double standard thats why…first ammendment didnt have a thing to do with it.. no one was made to pay…except the taxpayers…somewhere around 300,000 or more
#occupy my desk...
October 28th, 2011
3:07 pm
They’re baaaaaack! Haha – let’s see what the convicted felon/ex con has to say…
“Tonight, we stared in the eyes of the 1 percent and those who represent the 1 percent, and they blinked,” Tim Franzen, an Occupy Atlanta leader, said. “We’re staying here.”
Wow…I don’t think anyone blinked dude, you obviously don’t know what that means if you think it happened…
Lil' Barry Bailout (Revised Downward)
October 28th, 2011
3:25 pm
You answered your own question. There is one expectation for law abiding America-loving folks, and another for punk Democrats. You can’t really expect the latter to “do right”.
williebkind
October 28th, 2011
3:42 pm
Most of us know that this Occupy demonstration is a copy cat of the Tea Party. The only difference is that the Tea Party acted like law abiding citizens. When ever have you ever known the liberals to assemble and not create chaos, break the law, and demand their handouts.
DawgDad
October 28th, 2011
6:21 pm
Im for change: Because the Tea Party is comprised of responsible adults, not a squalid bunch of marxist/anarchists resorting to civil disobedience. The difference? The Tea Party people understand economics, and they understand civil disobedience costs taxpayers (other people) money. The Occupy crowd doesn’t care about other people – despite their holier-than-thou Robin Hood rhetoric they’re all about me me me, and how much of other people’s stuff can I get. Think about that REAL HARD everyone, because it’s the core truth.
Doc
October 28th, 2011
8:56 pm
The fix is in. If you are extremely well to do, your interest are very well represented by state and federal legislatures. You may offer your private jet for a politician to use, or throw him a huge fund raiser in your hangar. You don’t want to pay sales tax on your jet parts, so you ask your Governor and legislators for a special tax exemption (Gulfstream). You certainly don’t want to pay landing fees, so you chum will your local commissioners (nearly every general aviation airport in the country). You likely don’t even register your plane in your state (Oklahoma City and Delaware will help you hide for a buck), and enforcement for sales, use and ad Valorem on your jet is liking non-existant, because those same commissioners,have you covered, and their people are trained to look the other way. And, your federally elected officials have you covered, too; you can write your plane off, mucho rapido, with the special accelerated depreciation. Even, the FAA gets in the act, they will develop, expand, and even fund the purchase of an airport by a local government (Tara Field). Heck, they will even fund the purchase of an airport by a private company, if you agree to their easy terms (Gwinnett County). If you hate to pay market prices for your alcoholic drinks at airports, you don’t have to; the FAA will let any federally funded airport subsidize or even pay outright for the cost to rent and maintain free private social clubs for pilots (check federal FAA regs, or Neal Boortz’ former Pentagon Club.at PDK)
JR
October 28th, 2011
9:00 pm
I believe Mayor Reed has shown exceptional leadership. As an Atlanta taxpayer, I am proud of the excellent planning by Mayor Reed and the precise coordination with Police Chief Turner which resulted in a peaceful and respectful clearing of Woodruff Park. The Occupy Group needs to apologize to the Mayor – he was more than accommodating and does not deserve the anger directed toward him by this group.
GT
October 29th, 2011
7:52 am
You ever notice the Republicans are constantly writing laws they cannot execute. Like I want to fly waving my arms and every person who is not flying at noon today goes to jail. The reason they can’t execute is they try to rule by minority, and being a minority they lose a lot in the translation of what is going on in this world. They are like the Amish in a way, cloistering themselves to their own community only reading and seeing FOX type material never dirty their minds with outside opinions. I guess as a minority they feel they can be more stubborn about their positions, than the Democrats who get in most of their deep water compromising with this minority thinking. In this compromise comes the space in between that the majority has no representation in until they hit the streets. The same minority that liked hanging people on trees only a few years ago can’t understand this civil unrest. Maybe it is time they get their heads out of their ….
GT
October 29th, 2011
8:03 am
Doc talking about planes, remember that director of MCI that had the use of a Lear jet for a dollar a year. I think if the FBI wanted to have a gold rush they would just go get that list of Lear jet owners at PDK and 10% at least would be breaking some white collar law over there. The ego that goes with having a toy like that is the same DNA that gins up crime. They want to be separated from the rest of the population in the privacy of a jet yet they want the world to see them. Newt G is a poster boy for this disease. Everything is theory because the real life is only seen from a window passing by. Not unlike Bush flying over New Orleans.
dcb
October 29th, 2011
8:18 am
No permit, no staying beyond the posted time limits. That’s pretty clear to me. I have no problem with Occupy Atlanta protesting – just do it within the letter of the law or on private property. The news media will follow them there as well as they did to Woodruff Park. So no problem with the protestors achieving that objective. Suck it up Mr. Mayor. This is one of the first times I’ve been disappointed with your action. Are we checking and listening to our President on this? Let’s let him do the campaigning – you run our Atlanta ship.
GT
October 29th, 2011
8:26 am
I smelling victory in the air. I woke up the other morning and it dawn on me none of these Republican candidates can beat Obama. What the Republican Parties does well is clog up the road, get in the way of operations. What they don’t do is produce. This lineup of candidates is a prime example. They really do a disservice to the American public. In the good old days they had people that could challenge the minds and hearts of Americans. Now all they have is half baked pies.
Glenn Paul
October 30th, 2011
5:17 pm
Since arriving in Atlanta, Georgia form my hometown (Albany) there have been homeless men and women occupying Woodruff Park. For many years homeless advocates screamed from the mountain tops to the valley about the lack of concern for Atlanta’s homeless community. Fast-forward to 2011 and we have a mayor who is deeply concerned about who is actually sleeping in Woodruff. I have shoved pennies, dimes, nickels and quarters into the hands of countless men and women in Woodruff Park literally since the day I arrived in Atlanta as a teenager. Not a single city official has ever took a serious look at ridding this city of its homeless problem, but we are suppose to concern ourselves with a few folks who at the very least took a stand for something. Once again, not a single city official, from the Jackson adminitration to the Reed administration gave a d#&! about the homeless living in Woodruff after 11pm, but he occupy movement is front page and headling news.
nadia
October 30th, 2011
11:44 pm
@Jack, @Pat… I am a participant in Occupy Atlanta, though I did not stay there every night. I take part in committees and General Assemblies. I have a Master’s Degree and a job that pays well and has benefits. I think the thing people miss about the Occupy Movement, if you didn’t take part in it or stop by to meet us, is that it’s not just about protesting. It’s about assembly – about people from different walks of life who share similar concerns (about growing income inequality and the fact that corporations and the elite have an unacceptable influence on our political system) coming together to have discussions and talk about solutions. From what I’ve heard: people DON’T want a handout. They want a fair shake. I want the growth in the economy to benefit us ALL – not just the top 1% or 10%. I think the bailouts should have “trickled down” to those suffering the most. I want our elected officials to represent our needs rather than the interests of corporations or millionaires. MOST people in this country want the richest to be taxed more, most people think our income distribution should be more equal than it is, yet the discussion is impossible to have in Congress. How do we make a change if not with a democratic movement? I’m taking a leap of faith as an American and trying to be part of the solution.