Playing musical chairs at the Republican Party
As Stlo pointed out tonight, a row of chairs was removed from the public gallery and the sign on the wall relating to the fire code had been changed to say maximum capacity:75. Hard to keep up with those damn fire codes!
When I arrived at the county office building at 5:30PM, we were only allowed as far as the front foyer. Stairways and elevators were blocked by uniformed, armed police. 150 people stood there waiting to be allowed to go upstairs where 40 people now sat in the benches reserved for the public. 40 people.
It was suggested by the police that we go back, across the street, to some “holding” area where there was video coverage of the meeting and that they would come over and get us, in small groups and escort us back. Cynthia Elliot, from the school board announced that we should stay put and just remain peaceful. Tom Burke also suggested we stay put, and put we stayed. It was mentioned that, if we left, the doors would probably be locked behind us, and as you can tell by the people who were left outside, that did, indeed, happen.
Gary Brown, who identified himself as a concerned citizen said, and I quote,
“We see the signal real clear. It’s so clear, Ray Charles can see it.”
(Which I, of course, thought was interesting-Ray Charles being both blind and dead.)
“A public meeting to choose a public defender, with no public.”
(How very oxymoronic!)
“This is unprecedented!”
David Gantt is escorted down and out of the Legislative Chambers by the police. Not arrested this time (no, Big Boy, he’s not sitting in jail). He was thrown out this time by insisting that the public be let into this public meeting. Missouri shooting was used as an excuse for heightened security. From David Gantt:
“We will be back.”
Before I am allowed upstairs, Sister Grace from the House of Mercy is arrested.
A Deaf interpreter was also denied access, which would seem to be against the law in regards to the Americans with Disabilities Act.
Many people who are signed up to speak are denied access-Willa Powel, Rick Dollinger, Sandy Frankel, Brian Hethrington, Jon Geenbaum and others.
Bob Bonn is escorted from the room and comes down to read his written speech, passionately, to those of us who remained.
The press pours out of the elevators and several of us are allowed up and into the game. YES! I found a chair before the music stopped!
(H/T to Jon Greenbaum for the great photos)
Related posts:
Great coverage! Thanks.
I find the first picture disturbing
Thanks for being there.
It is disturbing. I think the caption should read, “don’t taser me bro”.
I read in Rachel Barnhardt’s (WHAM 13) Live Blog Report that Jon Greenbaum was removed from the room by deputies and was yelling out “I’m being arrested for taking photos!”
OK - I’m gonna say it - I want Sharpton, the ACLU and Jesse Jackson here. This isn’t government. This is BS!
Most excellent (as always) reporting. Thanks for literally putting your life at risk to bring it home. They also said Maggie was in the building for a short while, but was removed because of so-called security threats.
Tail between her legs, lower than a snakes belly, no good, dirty rotten, and any other word as you may deem fit to insert chicken. She can dish it out from the literal “ivory” tower, but she can’t take it.
Unbelievable. Great post.
Yeah, I was sitting right next to him when that occurred. I don’t know if he was actually arrested, though.
Anyway,
I’m going to bed cause I’m tired-more tomorrow. Boy, are the Repos lame!
TTFN
I know we spoke about the new found use of police at GOP events…I mentioned the ER scene - here’s 2 pics from there - look familiar? Apparently the long arm of the law is the new motto of the Republican party:
http://img110.mytextgraphics.com/photolava/2008/02/13/1000060-49hyeadqz.jpeg
It also didn’t seem to bother the former Majority Leader of the County Leg who is NOT a resident of ER (Bill Smith)…”Mr. Smith Goes To ER”…I thought that was interesting…
http://img108.mytextgraphics.com/photolava/2008/02/13/1000057-fclft6kn.jpeg
[...] and the story is at the D&C, RochesterTurning, and our own Carla Palumbo’s blog.ÂÂ I suspect we’ll be hearing from Jon Greenbaum [...]
First, great coverage. RT has been consistently out front in bringing this story out into the open. You guys have earned significant bragging rights on how you’ve handled this.
I know what I’m about to say isn’t popular, but it needs to be said: this is our fault. By “our”, I mean Democrats in the county.
By choosing not to run a candidate against Maggie Brooks last year, by not having a standard bearer that could bring a new vision and provide a reason to vote down ticket, and by making Maggie look invincible, we have enabled the Republicans to do whatever misdeeds they wish: the FAIR plan, the public defender, MCC president– the ist goes on and on.
Shame on us for giving her a pass. Shame on the leadership for not finding a candidate. Shame on the good people we have in this county who chose to sit that race out.
But make no mistake, the county is getting what it deserves for allowing Maggie to be dictator, I mean, executive.
I don’t know I’d say “our fault”. If you are looking for pure “fault” - It is clearly the Republican’s Majority’s fault - that voted and locked the public out of the process.
That said - there is a reason why the Republicans are in the majority - the local Democratic party needs to run people in all races.
I’ll have more on that later.
Davesnyd, your comment is really offensive:
Monroe County does not deserve this. No way, no how. Every county deserves an open government where the public is allowed to speak and allowed to attend open meetings. This is an absolute requirement that citizens should have of their government, and it doesn’t change because on political party did or did not take a certain action in a certain election.
Furthermore, how do you know this would be any different if there was a challenger to Queen Maggie? You don’t. I’ll go along with Stlo7, lets blame the thugs for their thuggish actions.
I’m with you on this one. I feel that Morelle should resign as chair on November 5 - it should have been last November but that ship has obviously sailed. It is unconscionable that HE failed to field a candidate in that race against Lyin’ Maggie.
I put the blame squarely on Joe. Should someone have stepped up? Of course. But the buck stops with him and he should answer for it.
If Joe had done his job, it might have made the difference in Pittsford and had Ted Nixon prevailed, we wouldn’t be having this discussion now.
It’s a free country Hep - I didn’t see you running for public office, or were you waiting for Joe to call YOU?
haha! that is a nice call out. of course hep could be sue davis, todd dunn, or doreen levin. and i think dem hq put alot of money and time into nixon’s race.
let’s leave the attacks for the d&c story chat jimbo.
I’m not looking to run for anything. But the fact remains that Joe is the freaking party chair. If no one stepped up to run, his name should have been on the ballot. That is his duty as the chair of the committee - IMO as a committee member.
shamrock -
it isn’t a matter of the money they put into that race. County Exec is the big prize in local elections. That is what brings people out. If there had been a contested race - no disrepect to Patrick Christopher - the higher turnout may have made the difference.
Armchair quarterbacking doesn’t score 1 point on the field.
I’m 100% with Hep on this one - in fact, I even diaried about the lack of a county exec candidate over on dKos back on election day last fall.
Morelle and the rest of the MC Dems should have moved heaven and earth to find someone - anyone - to take that line on the ballot last November. (Paul Haney? Lois Giess? Bob Stevenson?)
At the very least, they could have cross-endorsed that guy who ran on the WFP ticket.
Leaving that hole on the ballot blank inevitably cost us turnout on election day - and probably the votes that would have pushed Nixon or Dunn or Davis or Levin over the top and prevented last night’s fiasco.
It’s the equivalent of the “50-state strategy” that Dean crafted and that Obama is using to such success in the presidential race - you fill EVERY hole on the ballot, and your chances of getting at least some of those people elected goes up.
The woman talking to the police blocking the stairs is Myra Brown, who organizes for the Anti-Racism Movement (ARM) in Rochester.
[...] are only 14 of them. There should be more, but as others have stated in the comments of my last 2 posts, that ship has sailed and laying blame at any one individual’s feet is counter-productive. [...]
So my first instinct was to respond somewhat flippantly by saying “I’m glad you’re offended. You should be.” But I’m going to dial back from that.
Hep, below, better understands what I was trying to communicate. I’m frustrated at the lack of leadership on the Democratic side of our community over the eight years or so that I’ve lived in the area.
You’re right. No one “deserves” to have an opaque government without input from the people that does not function in their best interest. Least of all, defendants who are entitled to a competent defence in a court of law– in the end, that’s the point of the objection to the process: the concern that politicizing the office of PD will lead to less than competent defence attorneys handling cases.
There’s another fallout from this that no one has mentioned: if the PD office is politicized, becomes incompetent, and looses cases they should have won, not only will innocent people go to jail– but, in the end, guilty people will end up being set free because of questions over the quality of their defence. I wonder how many Repubs in Monroe will be happy with that?
So, no, the people who will be most affected by this travesty do not deserve it. I was hoping, though, with that term to point out that we need to do *something* to improve the state of the Democratic party in this county.
We are plurality D in registration, we vote D in national and state-wide elections yet have R for exec, legislature, state senate, and Congress.
I don’t know that the answer is as simple as Hep suggests– replacing Morelle.
Replace him with whom? We’ve been floundering, trying to find a good leader of the county Ds for years now.
I wasn’t impressed with Molly. I’m still pissed that Rick walked out when we needed him most– to coordinate legislature campaigns in ‘05. And Joe did the same, this year, along with not even finding an exec candidate.
I don’t like Minarik. I don’t want a D leader who will do what I perceive Minarik does– borderline illegal, probably immoral– to win elections. But I’d like to see us have someone who is as effective as Minarik is. I’m just not sure who that person is.
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