The AP has a story reporting that Delaware County has cut power to outlets around the county government building that were being used by Occupy Muncie demonstrators.
Delaware County commissioner Larry Bledsoe tells The Star Press that taxpayers shouldn’t be providing power for the protesters and that there are fire concerns if protesters were to run a heater inside a tent.
Keith Roydson has a longer story.
I’m the last one to minimize the right of county government to control county property; but the offered explanation about taxpayer money has a whiff of pretext about it. The follow up question would be how much electrical usage expense is attributable to the protesters? I suspect (but don’t know) that the commissioner would have no idea. And if you’re concerned about running heaters in the tent; prohibit running heaters in a tent. They can still bring kerosene heaters.
It looks like county officials want these folks gone. I’m not sure anyone really cared or were paying attention to them before; but now that there is a news angle, and it looks like they’re getting under someone’s skin, the protestors might just stick around. It’s like one of those mosquito bites that is much harder to ignore once you start scratching.
How are they going to run their electric shavers now?
They’re going to get shaggier and then the charges that they are a bunch of hippies is going to resonate even more. Devious!
“but now that there is a news angle, and it looks like they’re getting under someone’s skin”
I just don’t see the news angle. In difficult financial times, a county official has decided to not provide free electricity to a bunch of protesters. This decision is about as newsworthy as a County Clerk deciding to get rid of the candy bowl of free M&M’s she offered to those that stopped by her office.
It doesn’t matter how much electricity they use. If they are doing this to the Occupy people but not to others, they’re singling out the Occupy people because they don’t like that their speech and it would be a violation of the First Amendment. You can’t punish someone because you don’t like what they’re saying, especially when it involves politics. The rules have to apply across the boar.
The people protesting are Patriots in the highest sense of the word.
I think the news angle, Paul C (as distinguished from Ogden) is that the cost thing seems like a pretext because, as Mr. Ogden suggests, they probably aren’t restricting electricity usage to all non-county visitors to the premises.
If they have some idea as to the usage and it’s an order of magnitude more than your casual visitor, they could make a content neutral policy on visitor electricity usage. But, I’ll bet they had no idea of how much extra the protestor electricity usage was costing before they made the decision.
What are there, like 4 protesters there?
I don’t imagine it could be very extensive. And, if that’s the case, I don’t think this power cutting is probably their best strategic move.
I disagree. The extent of the use is the concern for the County here, and the cause of the protests, whether it be Occupy Muncie, Leave Afghanistan or Free Tibet, that purpose is irrelevant. The electricity is a courtesy, almost similar to the electricity provided by airports to people flying, or bathrooms provided to customers at a mall. If someone loiters at a mall all day without buying something, when security notices, they will ask the person to leave.
While the county can’t ask protesters to leave, the Occupy protesters have been “borrowing” the county’s electricity for a WEEKLONG protest. This isn’t “free speech” as Ogden suggests, this is the (mis)utilization of county resources for an extended period. The purpose of the protest is irrelevant. What is relevant is that the county has no business paying for the costs of such a protest.
Put another way, why should taxpayers have to pay a single cent to fund the protests of others?
If I am the Commissioners, I would pass a resolution stating something like the public is not allowed to use the electricity for more than two days in a month. That should absolve most people’s free speech concerns.
Reporters plugging in their laptops to cover county meetings should love that rule.
The Indianapolis Convention Center doesn’t want conventioneers plugging into their outlets. According to them, those outlets are meant for the cleaning staff only.
Reporters shouldn’t need to plug in their laptops for a County Council or County Commissioner’s meeting. These meetings rarely last more than an hour. Still, if they really need to do so more than twice in a month, issue “press passes.”
The underlying issue is that I’ll bet the County doesn’t have any real idea of whether the protester electrical use is costing them much money or how much it’s costing them. I can’t crawl inside their heads, and I don’t have enough of a dog in the fight to try to build a case in any serious way; but, this looks like a decision they reached to inconvenience the protesters and came up with a justification after the decision to do it had been made.
I really do like that the “Occupy” protests are expanding, and I think I agree with the general idea.
However, I think this is a non-story.
Let’s keep talking about raindrops and ignore the gathering storm on the horizon and the ill winds that are driving it our way.
GOVERNMENT! SO MUCH OVERSIGHT. SO LITTLE VISION.