about her longstanding allegations of police brutality. Regardless of the merits of these complaints, many in the local Occupy movement feel that Verbena has lost perspective — if she ever had any to begin with. And they resent her for co-opting the Occupy banner. have lost patience, too. At a Board of Supervisors meeting last month, the board directed staff to work on an ordinance that will set certain restrictions on the time, place and manner of protests allowed at the courthouse. Under the First Amendment, local governments are allowed to place reasonable restrictions on speech. But defining “reasonable” is always a bit sticky. “This is obviously something that’s the subject of a whole body of constitutional law,” County Administrative Officer Phillip Smith-Hanes said last week. “I hope I won’t have to read through every case the Supreme Court has decided in this area.” Smith-Hanes has just begun working on the ordinance by looking at similar guidelines in other California communities. Meanwhile, protesters are complaining that the county has already placed unreasonable restrictions on their constitutional rights. In a recent interview on local radio station KMUD, protesters Jim Decker and Janelle Egger argued that the county should remove the cyclone fence, allow some type of shelter to be erected and even provide portable bathrooms for the “night crew.” “We politely declined that request,” Smith-Hanes said. Second District Supervisor Clif Clendenen joined in the KMUD conversation and tried to instill some camaraderie between local government and the protest-
County officials
ers, saying, “We’re shoulder-to-shoulder with the Occupy folks” while insisting that “we need to treat the courthouse area with a level of decorum.” If anything, tensions between protesters and government seem to be increasing. In December, Egger submitted a Public Records Act request to the county asking for copies of all Occupy-related communications from District Attorney Paul Gallegos. The documents provided to Egger included emails in which Gallegos expressed concern about the public safety risks posed by allowing tents in front of the courthouse. “The risk of potential harm is too great,” Gallegos wrote in a Nov. 18 email to Third District Supervisor Mark Lovelace. “All you need is 1 McVeigh guy.” This reference to the 1995 Oklahoma City bomber was seized on by protesters as an inflammatory accusation. They characterized it as part of an “unlawful government conspiracy to vilify and suppress” their movement. This line of reasoning strains credibility when you consider the context. Gallegos wrote only to Supervisor Lovelace and confided, “Candidly I support the movement.” He also said that he’d “resisted the urge to go and join them” only because he didn’t want to appear biased in any prosecutions. Plus Gallegos said, “I do not suspect that any of those tents contain any explosives or otherwise dangerous materials.” He just couldn’t be certain, which made him nervous. Even Harpham, widely regarded as a conservative “Good Old Boy,” said in an email to Gallegos and Eureka officials, “I too supported the basis [of the] movement, but it has morphed into something ugly that [has] little to do with the original intent.” continued on page 17
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