Protesters cost N.Y.at least $2 million; park not cleaned since Sept. 16
Friday, October 7, 2011 at 9:20AM I wrote this on Thursday as the lede to my column at Examiner.com:
“The gullible kids are in the park, in the hands of big union organizers, hatin’ on the rich and spreading any number of communicable illnesses. Don’t believe that last assertion? Watch a few videos of the protesters sharing food and alternative cigarettes. I predict a bedbug or lice outbreak any day now, followed by some strains of hepatitis, tummy bugs and respiratory illnesses. By the way, those fumes emitted from generators running all those pricey laptops aren’t good for your lungs.”
On Friday, media began to report on what I thought was obvious—the consequences of so many bodies in roughly 33,000 square feet of space.
As a public space in Lower Manhattan, Zuccotti Park where the protesters are basically squatting, functions via a private-public partnership. The news release announcing Zuccotti Park's reopening after being damaged during the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, is still posted at MarketWire.
CBS-New York reported that so far, the kids in search of a cause have cost the city $2 million in overtime pay for police officers.
The Atlantic Wire said the park hasn’t been cleaned since Sept. 16. Normally it’s cleaned and inspected every night. Area residents have also filed complaints about noise.
Numerous videos of the protesters are posted online. In some videos, you can see food for public distribution placed on tables—no covers to keep bugs off and no water nearby to wash hands. The kids won’t do without their cell phones and laptops, and a number of photos posted online show generators lustily exhaling the carbon so many of these protesters say they’re concerned about. Yet another video showed a young woman, hands encased in rubber gloves, administering first aid to a young man.
Hopefully the young woman rendering medical care knows she’s a sitting duck when it comes to liability.
If any of this activity were undertaken by a business, that business would be cited for numerous safety and other regulations.
AW said New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s “domestic partner” sits on the board of the company that owns the park property.
It’s likely the protesters would’ve had their say and headed back to college or to Mom’s and Dad’s house, but once organized labor got involved, the protesters became too useful. Democrats apparently welcome a show of force ahead of the 2012 Elections and the young people were in the right place at the right time for political manipulation.
Much of what these protesters claim to be against—Wall Street, banks, etc.—is part and parcel of the Democrats’ political machine. For many years, many financial issues were controlled by former Sen. Chris Dodd (Conn.) and current Rep. Barney Frank (Mass.), both of whom are Democrats.
In the early 1990s, Dodd slipped an amendment into the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation Improvement Act**. That amendment expanded federal monies for safety nets for investment banks and insurance companies. Dodd’s amendment carries a vast level of responsibility for the taxpayer soaking of 2008 because it enabled great risk taking at taxpayer expense.
Frank of course has long been one of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac’s biggest cheerleaders. Both these government-sponsored-enterprises have rewarded Democrat cronies with huge bonuses and left taxpayers on the hook for hundreds of billions of dollars. If you asked the protesters about those bonuses and these scandalized GSEs, you’d probably come up empty handed on answers.
The protesters appear to be completely unaware of the actions of the Democrats’ party they claim allegiance to.
(Commentary by Kay B. Day/Oct. 7, 2011)
**Reckless Endangerment by Gretchen Morgenson and Joshua Rosner ( pg. 40).