Occupy Watch: Camp closes; curfew passes; activism continues

Published in the Portland Phoenix


Let's just say it: The first phase of OccupyMaine ended with a fizzle, not a bang. The showing at Friday's 10 pm deadline for Occupiers to be out of Lincoln Park was poor. There were three Occupiers and two journalists, standing near the park's fountain. No police, no city workers — they'd come by earlier in the day and cleaned up what was left in the park, with help from several Occupiers.

Two of the three at the fountain that night had just come from a satirical "Billionaires for Romney" event outside Portland Yacht Services, where GOP presidential hopeful Mitt Romney was speaking, hoping to garner support in the state's Republican caucuses. (He won, according to state GOP officials, though there is apparently some question about whether more votes still need to come in and whether they should be counted when determining how to allocate Maine's delegates.)

After all the promises and threats, including some people publicly pledging to get arrested rather than leave the park voluntarily, the protesters ultimately seemed mollified by the city's go-slow approach to eviction.

So it was a token crew — two women and a man, all between their 20s and their late 30s — who returned to the park to observe the deadline for people to leave or be held in violation of the city's ordinance against loitering in public parks at night.

They sat on the fountain, held signs, chanted, stood around, and even watched police cars drive in and out of the city garage — nothing seemed to attract attention from the authorities. One cruiser did seem to slow down for its driver to take a closer look; with a total of five people in the park, the officer likely assumed the gathering would peter out on its own if left alone.

Sure enough, after some jokes suggesting that the trio were committing "attempted loitering," and even "conspiracy to attempt loitering," the bloom was off the rose and the protesters departed by about 10:15 pm.

Nevertheless, the movement continues, operating from its base at the Meg Perry Center. A "reoccupation" rally at Monument Square and a "rededication" of Lincoln Park happened over the weekend, and served to bring together many of the core group as well as additional supporters, to keep the activism alive.

There was also a brief memorial for John Mutero, known in camp as "Big John," who was found dead in a doorway on Allen Avenue last week, under unclear circumstances; Mutero had run afoul of authorities and received a police ban from being in Lincoln Park. Police said foul play and cold weather were not factors; the state medical examiner is investigating.

The group expects to continue occasional use of the State of Maine Room at Portland City Hall, where a Tuesday press conference called attention to the loss of home-heating subsidies for poor Mainers, while wealthy people here and around the country bask in the warmth of government handouts. Other events along that line are in the works — keep tabs on what's happening at facebook.com/OccupyMaine, and attend the General Assembly meetings at 5 pm on Wednesday and Friday, at the Meg Perry Center, 644 Congress Street, Portland. 

Occupy Transition: As encampment fades, protest shifts back to core issues

Published in the Portland Phoenix


Even as Portland city officials continue to pressure OccupyMaine to leave Lincoln Park, they have done the Occupation a great favor, perhaps unintentionally. By extending the deadline for the encampment to end until Friday from its previous Monday-night limit, they have given the Occupiers a chance to retake the media narrative of their departure.

Had Monday been the final day, the lasting image of the encampment would have been of one man's decision to burn an American flag. Unless he repeats the deed later in the week, that will no longer be the final scene, striking though it was.

As some Occupiers packed up their tents and other belongings, and others stood around in the morning chill talking about Citizens United, austerity measures, the poverty level, and other issues of economic injustice, Harry Brown — one of the four individual plaintiffs suing the city of Portland for the right to stay in Lincoln Park — drew the lens on himself, announcing that while "it might not catch like I'd like," he was going to try to "dispose of" an American flag.

He affixed the flag to the flagpole in the center of the encampment, and after several tries managed to ignite it with his cigarette lighter. The flames burned brightly as photographers converged on the scene, jockeying for position.

As it happened, and even afterward, other Occupiers present were careful in discussing the matter. The flag-burning was Brown's "autonomous act," came the common refrain, and while others said they might or might not have done the same thing or support his choice, they all defended his right to express himself in that way. (A discussion on the OccupyMaine Facebook page was less restrained, but included several impassioned defenses as well as some strident attacks on the action; a woman who stopped by Monday night's General Assembly was extremely upset by the action, but paused her tears long enough to hear Brown's defense, which amounted to him saying he thought he was doing the right thing by the flag.)

Respect for individual differences has been the hallmark of OccupyMaine — and the Occupy movement as a whole — since its inception. People of wildly divergent belief systems and political views have come together and engaged with each other, civilly, thoughtfully, and passionately. And they have often come to consensus on what to do in response to the economic, social, and political injustices that pervade American society today.

That has only happened when people of differing views have come together in good faith, though the Occupiers are resolved to give everyone a chance to truly engage — even detractors.

A passerby in Lincoln Park on Monday afternoon scolded the protesters for breaking laws and told them "the way to protest" is to walk around with signs, and then told them to "stop protesting; start doing something that makes sense." Occupier Evan McVeigh walked along with him, offering to involve him in the conversation the man had interrupted with his crankiness, and responding to his criticism with thoughtful — and passionate — rejoinders. The man wouldn't give his name, and only after several questions did it become clear that he disagreed with Superior Court Justice Thomas Warren's ruling last week that the encampment was in fact free expression.

Warren's ruling essentially declared the encampment was indeed free speech worthy of Constitutional protection, but said that the city's safety concerns about how the encampment was physically laid out were strong enough to override the protection given to free expression. Despite ending in an order to vacate the park, the ruling was a major win for the Occupiers. (Read more on the specifics of this at  thePhoenix.com/AboutTown.)

The support found in Warren's ruling, as well as renewed public support — and discovery that despite councilors' claims to the contrary, the overwhelming majority of Portlanders who contacted the council to express an opinion about OccupyMaine were supportive of the encampment — appears to have breathed new life into the Occupy flame here.

The activism is continuing — two video series (including an ongoing program on Portland's Community Television Network), rallies, marches, and other gatherings are scheduled for the next couple of weeks already, with more in the pipeline. A "Tiny Tent Task Force" is also forming, to continue the tent-based nature of the Occupation, albeit on a smaller scale. Other projects in the discussion phase include Occupying foreclosed properties, turning Lincoln Park into an urban garden, and expanding visible protest throughout the city in various ways.

The efforts to house the needy are also carrying on; some members are forming a commune they hope will be self-supporting, while some will take advantage of the city's extended deadline to further their search for more permanent shelter.

With a base at the Meg Perry Center, the OccupyMaine group is expecting to expand and reinvigorate its activities. More than one long-term Occupier said energy that had gone into maintaining the encampment can now be used for things that are even more productive. What form those take remains to be seen, but the commitment seems solid.

Press Releases: Question authority

Published in the Portland Phoenix


Maine journalists appear to disbelieve their own eyes, decline to do their own research, and prefer to quote officials instead of relying on independent knowledge and experience. Heck, the public editor of the New York Times recently asked readers if reporters should verify public officials' claims — and seemed surprised and defensive when the overwhelming response was "Yes, you dummy. And what kind of idiot would even ask this question?"

A recent local example of this was the ridiculous hysteria around gang violence and membership in Maine. The subject arose because of a legislative proposal that would have allowed a court to extend someone's jail term if they were convicted of a crime that was somehow believed to be connected with a gang.

Gangs are indeed a problem around the country. And an FBI report (which was recently removed from the agency's website) claims our state has as many as 4000 gang members. So the Maine Gang Task Force asked Scarborough Republican Representative Amy Volk to propose the bill.

But the MGTF's leader, Eric Berry, has questionable credibility. He may head a task force involving federal, state, and local law-enforcement officials, but he declines to name the other members of his task force, citing unspecified "security reasons." He also refused to say which gangs are active in Maine — though that would seem a crucial piece of evidence to support his claim that gang activity is here at all.

Then, in a legislative hearing, Berry told lawmakers gangs account for "over 30 percent of crime in the state."

Sure enough, when faced with an official claiming that there is an unseen, unheard epidemic that has become the state's second-leading cause of crime (after domestic violence), reporters leapt to publish the material without really checking it out. That quote itself was carried on MPBN, and multiple similarly credulous, long, high-profile pieces were published in the Bangor Daily News, the Lewiston Sun Journal, and the Portland Press Herald. (MPBN later reported the FBI stats might be flawed, but didn't change its first story.)

But verification wasn't that hard. The Portland Phoenix's Lance Tapley asked Berry for evidence behind his claim, at which point he changed his tune entirely, insisting he meant to say instead that gangs account for more than 40 percent of "violent criminal charges" in Portland and Lewiston-Auburn. A quick call to the Portland police revealed that they had no data available to confirm or refute that claim.

But every beginning journalist should have known the answer already, from reading local police logs, where gang activity is almost never mentioned. It's also really easy to check public statements by prosecutors and police, who so rarely talk about gangs that it makes statewide headlines when a biker gang (which we do have in Maine) runs afoul of the law.

In truth, Maine probably does have some small level of gang activity. And indeed, anti-gang bill supporters in the House Republican Office issued a statement that 24 people arrested around Maine in 2010 had been accused of membership in various gangs.

That number appears in an August 2010 federal announcement touting the results of a New England-wide roundup of people with alleged gang connections, led by immigration officers. Which leads to the apparent conclusion that the only gang-related arrests in Maine in 2010 were those 24.

That gangs are barely here is bolstered by the fact that in May 2011, when the Maine Department of Public Safety issued its "2010 Maine Crime Stats Report," gang activity didn't merit even a passing mention. The report did say that 47,820 adults and 6492 juveniles had been arrested statewide — which means that 0.04 percent of the state's arrests that year were related to gang activity. Hardly a problem, and almost impossible to determine whether it's "rising."

Perhaps it's time to form a gang. We can call it "Actual Maine Journalists." That should really strike fear into the hearts of government officials — and give hope to regular Mainers.

On the burning of an American flag at #OccupyMaine this morning

Published at thePhoenix.com

Calling it "a symbol that no longer serves its purpose," OccupyMaine protester Harry Brown burned the encampment's American flag at the stroke of 8 am Monday morning, as the city's clock tower rang out the deadline for Occupiers to remove their "structures and belongings" from Lincoln Park.

He may have been referring specifically to the camp's tattered flag itself, to the American flag as a guidon for democracy, or even the beacon of hope that has been "the republic for which it stands" (as the Pledge of Allegiance has it), is unclear - and likely intentionally so. It could equally be all three.

As the flames licked at Old Glory, TV and newspaper reporters and photographers watched and recorded, for what will surely be oft-repeated descriptions of what happened. The coverage is less likely to discuss what it meant for Brown, though he spoke his mind clearly and repeatedly.

And certain to go uncovered is any suggestion that the mainstream media should have offered the same sort of breathless reporting as the American republic itself and the ideals for which it has stood for centuries were torn to shreds, and then burned to the ground by those in the halls of power.

#OccupyMaine wins, begins packing up

Published at thePhoenix.com

OccupyMaine can claim victory, even as it prepares to remove its encampment from Lincoln Park. On Wednesday, Maine Superior Court Justice Thomas Warren ruled that the encampment is expressive and therefore is protected by the Maine and US constitutions. However, he also ruled that safety concerns expressed by city officials, as well as worries about damage to the park and access to the space by others wishing to use it, are reasonable limitations on the expressive protest, and so the encampment must end.

That in itself is a major victory (especially since the city not only claimed in court that the encampment was not expressive, but also defied reality and a City Council vote in support of an Occupy petition to oppose corporate personhood and claimed that protesters were not doing anything other than camping), but Warren went further.

He left open several doors for either the Occupiers or other future protesters to use to defend their expressive encampments.

First, he ruled that one reason he upheld the city's safety concerns is that the Occupiers did not voluntarily undertake to follow the city's rules, but rather asked for permission to stay and promised to come into compliance if that permission were received.

Second, he ruled that if the Occupiers wanted to seek a city permit to conduct a non-camping protest either in the overnight hours or on a 24-hour basis, and if that permit were denied in a way that infringed on free-speech rights, the group could come back to court.

And third, he suggested that the Occupy proposal for a "free speech zone" could be successful if it were "‘a Hyde Park Corner' open to all viewpoints" as opposed to a place that one or another group would have permission to occupy for a period of time.

While the decision explored whether the Maine Constitution offers additional protections for free speech and assembly, beyond those in the First Amendment to the US Constitution, Warren found it did not. However, none of the parties in court - not the Occupiers nor a supporting brief from the American Civil Liberties Union of Maine, nor the city - addressed one aspect of the Occupation that is explicitly protected in the Maine Constitution in a way that is not included in the federal one: that they people "have an unalienable and indefeasible right to institute government, and to alter, reform, or totally change the same, when their safety and happiness require it."

It is surprising that the direct-democracy self-sovereign General Assembly did not claim protection under this clause, as they were instituting government (and/or altering, reforming, or totally changing it) specifically because of concerns about their safety and happiness.

Warren's decision can be appealed, but likely only after OccupyMaine's full case against the city is heard and decided, and the protesters cannot stay in the park any longer. (They also have to decide whether or not to continue the lawsuit, which could cost thousands of dollars, even if attorney John Branson continues to donate his services.)

Clearing out the park

As it stands now, by Monday, February 6, at 8 am the Occupiers must have removed everything from the park that they don't want considered trash. The Occupiers themselves can stay until 10 pm, when the park closes, according to a notice from City Manager Mark Rees.

What happens at those times remains to be seen, and was the subject of a very long and well-facilitated GA Wednesday night.

The city originally planned to give the Occupiers two days, but the Occupiers asked for more time and got two additional days, plus a conditional offer of a longer extension if the progress in the existing time is significant.

How much the group is able to clear out is unclear, since the Occupy coffers are empty. "I have more receipts than I have money," finance workgroup member Rachel Rumson told the GA last night. "I haven't received a cash donation in over two months."

The group has promised to raise money to help restore Lincoln Park, and may need to spend some funds to rent vehicles and storage locations for anything they may remove from the park for later use.

The city is providing a large Dumpster to the encampment for disposal of trash, and will take care of emptying the Dumpster when the park is cleaned up.

Staying or going?

Also in question is how many of the protesters will leave voluntarily. It seemed that many attendees at the GA were prepared to practice nonviolent civil disobedience and stay, with one member specifically saying he plans to get arrested; others expressed desire to help support the image of the movement by requiring the police to come in and remove them, for the sake of publicity.

Group members agreed that each person's decision was an individual, autonomous one, but also agreed that protecting the common resources - particularly the OM Dome (whose owner has said he wants it back if the camp is ever dismantled), the contents of the library, and the food in the kitchen area - required removing those community structures from the park.

The food will be donated to a local food pantry, and Occupy members will store the library materials safely until a permanent home is found.

Continuing activism

The group will continue its activities bringing attention to injustices in Maine and around the country.

On Friday, February 3, at noon at Senator Snowe's office at 3 Canal Plaza, ther will be a protest against NDAA, which allows indefinite detention of US citizens without access to the courts, and the Enemy Expatriation Act, which could allow the government to strip people of their US citizenship.

Also Friday, there will be a full-page advertisement in the Portland Press Herald discussing the campaign contributions of Maine's congressional delegation, and a movie night at the Meg Perry Center.

And on Tuesday, February 7, at noon in the State of Maine room in City Hall, there will be a People's Press Conference to object to cuts to heating assistance for poor and elderly Mainers.

Other events are being planned. 

Occupy Watch: Citizens overwhelmingly support Occupy encampment

Published in the Portland Phoenix


As OccupyMaine's request to stay in Lincoln Park is considered by a Maine judge, it appears the Portland City Council's decisions (which the judge is reviewing) were based more on individual councilors' views and less on constituent complaints than elected officials have let on.

Based on the results of a Freedom of Access request for citizen communications with Portland city officials, as well as testimony in public hearings, far more Portland residents (and people who live in nearby towns) expressed support for the OccupyMaine encampment than opposed it.

The public testimony is well-recorded as having been overwhelmingly lopsided in favor of the encampment; now a review of constituent correspondence shows an even split. That alone suggests councilors were being selective when saying during December's city meetings that they were hearing a lot of opposition from the public.

The Portland Phoenix has reviewed all the emails sent by the public to members of the council, and between councilors and city staff. The Phoenix also requested any notes or other records from phone conversations councilors had with constituents on the subject of OccupyMaine, but received none.

A simple tally of correspondence of those writing to express an opinion either way on the OccupyMaine encampment at Lincoln Park shows an even split: the councilors heard from 22 people or groups in opposition, and 21 in support.

The breakdown is as follows: Opposing the encampment (though frequently saying they support the Occupy movement's message, as well as broad First Amendment rights) were 17 Portland residents; one each from South Portland, Cape Elizabeth, and Westbrook; one person who did not specify a place of residence; and the Portland's Downtown District group.

Supporting the encampment (as well as many of Occupy's larger messages) were 13 Portland residents, five people who did not specify where they live, and three groups (the American Civil Liberties Union of Maine, the Social Action Committee of the Allen Avenue Unitarian Universalist Church, and the Maine's Majority/61 Percent group).

• Some messages show thoughts of city staff and councilors on the Occupation.

City attorney Gary Wood on November 10 wrote to councilors, "It seems apparent at this point that my hope for the Russian defense (i.e. winter) is not going to be particularly successful with at least some of these protestors." On December 9, Wood closed another memo to councilors by saying, "I have to say that OccupyME is aptly named in my opinion and that of the many other city staff that have been working on this issue."

On November 21, replying to an email from Acting Police Chief Mike Sauschuck saying that OccupyMaine members had contacted police and assisted them in locating two missing teenagers from Buxton who had visited the encampment, then-councilor Cheryl Leeman wrote: "For me, that's it!! Time to formualte a plan for transitioning folks out of the park with a specific deadline. I believe we have been very patient, but harboring 2 fourteen year olds and drunken fights, numerous calls for service. This has gone way beyond 'free speech', it has become an unauthorized tent city that no longer represents the original mission of the group, 'Occupy Maine'. IT is now a public safety issue of serious concern." Councilor John Anton replied, "I would love to have this discussion with the council in public."

After the council's December 7 decision to refuse to work with OccupyMaine to find a way the encampment-protest could continue, the city's most progressive councilors kept wrestling with the idea. On December 9, Councilor Kevin Donoghue suggested that banning free speech at night on public property collided with the laws allowing people to walk through the city's parks; that is "effectively saying transit [is greater than] speech," Donoghue wrote to Mayor Mike Brennan.

• And there were hints about how an eviction might happen, if and when it comes.

On December 14, councilor David Marshall (the council's lone supporter of working with OccupyMaine) was fatalistic about the outcome. He wrote to Rees, Sauschuck, and city human-services chief Doug Gardner, suggesting a means of carrying out an eviction with less conflict than other cities have seen. "With probably the most humane tactic used so far to evict Occupy protesters, the City of Baltimore offered bus rides to the shelters during the eviction process from the park," Marshall wrote, providing a link to a Baltimore Sun news story on the event. "Hopefully we can borrow this tactic from Baltimore's playbook. Although, I am not sure that riot gear is necessary," he continued

On December 16, Rees responded supportively, specifically saying the city DHHS people should be "present to transition (homeless) people to our shelter system."

Sauschuck was more reserved, writing the same day that "due to the potential safety concerns at the scene I would recommend that officers facilitate the transfer of folks to different locations. The locations in question will depend on the time frame we make contact with the individuals. Just as an example if we are forced to move them out and the decision is made for 8 in the morning on a Sunday then the options would be completely different then another day and time. We're certainly onboard with making this as easy and humanitarian a process as possible."

Online Freedom: White House pans SOPA

Published in the Portland Phoenix


Maine's congressional delegation appears to be in a holding pattern while attempting to form positions on two bills that address widespread copyright and trademark violations via the Internet. The bills are controversial because they would make online censorship much easier, more effective, and harder to combat.

Over the weekend, the White House issued a statement objecting to the provisions of both the Protect IP Act of 2011 (pending in the US Senate) and the Stop Online Piracy Act (pending in the House) that would allow sites alleged to host or assist violators to be effectively blacklisted and technologically cut off from the Internet almost entirely.

Here's an example. Let's say that a person posts a video to an online forum without permission from its owner. (We're sure you've never done that.) Under existing law (the Digital Millennium Communications Act), the copyright owner can contact the forum's administrator, demonstrate that someone had violated the owner's copyright, and specify where on the forum the violation occurs. The law would then require the administrator to remove the offending post or link.

Should SOPA and the Protect IP Act pass in their current forms, any person — whether they were or were not the copyright owner — could file a motion in court and receive a judge's order specifying any or all of the following four restrictions: 1) require all US sites and search engines to remove all links to that entire site; 2) ban US online-advertising services from serving ads to that site; 3) bar all US payment networks from conducting transactions to or from that site; and 4) require US Internet service providers to block customer access to the site.

The sweeping restrictions, coupled with the fact that a complainant need not prove ownership of the copyright allegedly being violated (nor any requirement that a copyright violation be proved), have aroused the ire of the Internet community, with free-information sites like Wikipedia and Reddit planning to turn their pages black this week in protest against the bills.

The issue will come before the Senate first; the Protect IP Act is slated for a procedural vote this week. Senator Olympia Snowe's office did not respond to multiple requests for comment on her position; Senator Susan Collins's spokesman, Kevin Kelley, emailed to say "Senator Collins is still reviewing the bill and has discussed the issue with folks on both sides."

Second District Representative Mike Michaud's spokesman, Ed Gilman, said in an email "We are aware of the concerns that have been raised, and the congressman looks forward to reviewing the final bill when it's available."

Chellie Pingree, 1st District Representative, seemed most on top of the matter. She said through spokesman Willy Ritch's email, "SOPA sounds like it has a noble purpose — stopping online piracy — but the collateral damage from this vaguely worded bill could be significant. I'm convinced that the sweeping language that is used in this bill could have a chilling effect on free speech online. The penalties are overly harsh and it sets up a system in which big entertainment or Internet companies could use the threat of harsh government penalties to effectively stifle competition and innovation."

Occupy Watch: Court looms; camp signs missing

Published in the Portland Phoenix


OccupyMaine has filed its comments on the city's reality-detached answer to Occupy's lawsuit (see "10 Fun Things in the OccupyMaine-Portland Lawsuit," by Jeff Inglis, January 13), and a hearing on the Occupiers' request for court protection from city eviction is scheduled for next week.

The outcome of the hearing will shift the Occupation into a new phase. Either it will become a rare Occupation that has received court shielding, or it will turn into an unauthorized encampment that the city may attempt to clear out. Some Occupiers have said they will leave if a judge rules against them; others have said they will not leave, even if staying means defying a court order.

Portland officials have been peaceful, though bureaucratically aggressive, in attempting to remove the encampment; if the city wins the case and some Occupiers defy an order to leave, what happens next will be of great interest to all concerned about free speech and use of public spaces.

The police attitude toward the protest is in some question, following a mysterious situation over the weekend, summarized in a Facebook post at 8:34 pm Sunday that begins "Every single sign from Lincoln Park was taken." All the signs along the park's fences were removed. It wasn't just handmade signs; wooden signs, professionally made banners, including one for Maine Veterans For Peace, and an American flag were taken down.

"The only thing that was left behind was the exit signs that we had put up at the city's request," says Occupier Jennifer Rose.

It's unclear when it happened, since nobody was caught in the act, but Occupiers who were in the encampment say it likely happened in the midafternoon on Sunday, just before the 3 pm General Assembly, which happened at the Meg Perry Center. (Because most of the stolen signs were on the fence along Congress Street, they are apparently not visible on surveillance cameras at the county and federal courthouses; the Occupiers moved nearer those cameras in October following a bomb attack on the camp, specifically in hopes of catching or deterring future troublemakers.)

Rose, who discovered the theft, says she called the police when she noticed the signs were missing. She was told that the city had not taken them down (this position was repeated by city spokeswoman Nicole Clegg on Tuesday), and that officers would come to the park to take a report.

Some time later, when officers had not yet been by, Rose called the police again, and was asked to come to the station. Between 8 and 9 pm Sunday, she did that, and spoke to two officers, including a lieutenant, whose name she did not record.

The lieutenant "told us first that anything left in a park becomes public domain, so the signs can't be stolen," Rose says, noting that when people lose their wallets or phones, or leave picnic baskets unattended to play elsewhere in a park, they don't give up their ownership of those items.

The officer also told her the encampment was "in the park illegally without a permit" — a conclusion that is undecided, pending next week's court hearing — and suggested that "some citizen took it upon himself to take everything down."

Noting that it is considered theft if campaign signs are removed from public parks, Rose says the political nature of Occupiers' signs should afford them the same protection. But "We were not even allowed to do a police report on it," she says.

Clegg, the city's spokeswoman, said Tuesday that the encounter at the police station was "a respectful conversation" that included a section about whether the signs were abandoned property, but mostly involved the officers' attempts to determine who owned the signs and how much they might be worth.

OccupyMaine's lack of an official leader "made it awkward for the police" to take a report from someone they weren't certain was the owner of the signs, Clegg said. Nevertheless, it appears that the city is acknowledging things should have been handled differently: Clegg said that Acting Police Chief Mike Sauschuck will be contacting John Branson, the attorney representing OccupyMaine, to offer to take a report from a representative of the group.

Legal Ease: 10 fun things in the OccupyMaine-Portland lawsuit

Published in the Portland Phoenix

OccupyMaine sued Portland late last year, seeking a court's permission to stay in Lincoln Park, given that the City Council has refused to brook any possibility of anyone remaining overnight in a city park for any reason (including free speech, expression, or assembly). The city has now replied with a court filing even longer than Occupy's. Together they provide the first full airing of the differences between the two groups' positions on the Occupation in Lincoln Park. We've read the lot, and found some fascinating passages in both filings.

From OccupyMaine

• Occupy observes something rarely considered in Maine courts: that the state Constitution provides additional rights beyond those recognized in the US Constitution and its First Amendment. One such Maine-specific right is "to institute government and to alter, reform, or totally change the same, when their safety and happiness require it." The Occupy suit stops short of saying this is what the Occupiers are doing — though it does suggest that it's what they want.

• While tacitly admitting that the decision-makers at least paid lip service to content-neutrality while denying OccupyMaine's petitions to stay in Lincoln Park, the suit argues that the markedly colder reception given by the City Council (as compared with the inviting welcome given to businesses) constitutes a content-specific action.

• OccupyMaine cites the oft-vilified Citizens United ruling by the US Supreme Court as offering protection to the encampment, saying the Supreme Court "has observed advocacy of a politically controversial viewpoint is the essence of First Amendment expression."

• The Occupiers say that tenting is "integral to the protestors' message," though many Occupiers have been working very hard to establish the Meg Perry Center as a base of operations, and to expand protest activities well beyond the encampment.

• The Occupiers say Portland's anti-loitering ordinance prevents any assembly in the overnight hours, with no exceptions for Constitutionally protected speech or other permissible actions, and argue that this is too restrictive.

From the city of Portland

• Under cover of claiming that descriptions of several discrete parts of relevant public meetings are "summaries" of those entire meetings, the city denies reality by, apparently, claiming certain interactions never happened — such as, for example, the December 7 comments by Martin Steingesser that the city granted a multi-million-dollar tax break to the Pierce Atwood law firm.

• In a further departure from actual facts, the city claims OccupyMaine has not demonstrated in the park, nor protested on sidewalks, nor marched in the streets. The group members "have done absolutely no active protesting other than just living in the park 24 hours a day, 7 days a week," says the city's filing.

• The city admonishes OccupyMaine for filing suit, despite the clear expression by councilors that a lawsuit would be preferable — with councilors Jill Duson and Kevin Donoghue specifically urging getting to court quickly. And it claims suffering "significant harm," though the primary municipal expenditure is as much as $15,000 in hiring an outside lawyer to handle the case, rather than using the city's staff attorney.

• The city says it will not forcibly evict the Occupation. Responding to a passage in the Occupy suit saying "Absent . . . relief by this Court . . . the [Occupiers] face . . . forcible removal by the Portland Police Department," the city says: "City denies the . . . allegations."

• The city gives express written permission for a 24-hour continuous march through Lincoln Park: "OccupyMaine members could march through the park after 10:00 p.m. while expressing their message in a peaceful way, and there would be no ordinance violation." It also gives OccupyMaine specific permission to engage in "their expressive activities twenty-four hours a day on adjoining sidewalks or in other public spaces not subject to the City's Parks Ordinance."

Press releases: New faces

Published in the Portland Phoenix

The Portland Press Herald/Maine Sunday Telegram and its sister papers announced at 4 pm last Friday that an effort was under way to bring in new owners to take over the papers, in the wake of Richard Connor's abrupt departure back in October.

Led by Chris Harte, who back in the pre-Blethen 1990s was president of the Press Herald, the prospective investors say they want to add capital to the papers, and talk nicely about committing to the community. (Personally, Harte has long been a generous giver to causes in town and around the state.) But the announcement also mentioned "disciplined management," which could be corporate-speak for additional cuts.

Releasing news late on Friday afternoons is often a way to limit aggressive reporting on controversial announcements, because fewer reporters work weekends, and because sources can safely claim to be out of the office, and thereby avoid tough questions — at least until the initial round of stories comes out with the news itself.

In any case, there are plenty of important details to be fleshed out over time.

First, there's the deal itself, which is not yet done — rather, the existing owners and the new investors have agreed "terms" under which the investment would happen. So it's really an announcement of nothing except what most Press Herald watchers assumed was happening: talks with potential investors about who is going to run the company now that its only media-experienced leader, Connor, is gone.

Next, the prospective new investors haven't yet met with the union representing most of the company's workers. That's actually two problems. The union is a part owner of the company, and apparently hasn't had any say in the terms of this deal; it is a minority owner, but being denied a seat at the table for discussions like this is a serious blow to the union's claim to a voice in management. And it raises extremely big questions about worker compensation; while the union trumpeted the fact that in September it reached a contract that did not include wage or benefits cuts, that's only true because the new agreement punted talks about pay and extras to the middle of 2012.

Those are the most pressing questions, but there are others. Harte, an heir to the Harte-Hanks newspaper fortune, is a major investor in Current Publishing, a group of community weekly papers covering the southern and western suburbs of Portland. (I worked at Current Publishing for four years, ending in 2005.) It will be interesting to see whether his involvement will lead to increased competition — or perhaps collaboration — between the weeklies and the Press Herald.

Harte politely declined to comment for this piece, saying it was "too early" to say anything. But over the years, in previous conversations with me, he had always specifically denied there was any substance to the recurring rumors that he was interested in purchasing the paper. Perhaps it was a much lower cost than ever before that got him this time, or public-spiritedness on the part of a longtime newspaperman. It's certainly not without bitter awareness of the risk; when the Minneapolis Star Tribune exited bankruptcy in 2009, he walked away empty-handed, leaving millions in investments behind.

Other major investors' effects on the paper will be worth watching, too. The group includes greeting-card executive Aaron Kushner, who told Boston magazine in 2011 that he would not guarantee editorial independence from owners' influence if he were able to purchase the Boston Globe from the New York Times Company.

And there's Jack Griffin, often described as former Time Inc. CEO — but he held that post for just five months before being booted in February 2011 because "his leadership style and approach did not mesh with Time Inc. and Time Warner," according to an email to Time employees from Griffin's boss at the time. Before that, he had been head of the Iowa-based company publishing Better Homes and Gardens,Family Circle, and Ladies' Home Journal.

As for Connor, remember the houses he transferred into his wife's name the day before abruptly tendering his resignation? The Falmouth one (oceanfront, with six-bay garage) is on the market, asking $2.7 million.

Better by the dozen: Twelve sweet ideas for Maine in 2012

Published in the Portland Phoenix; what's below are my parts of a longer piece co-written with Deirdre Fulton and Nicholas Schroeder

Improving opinion polling

Pretty much as soon as the champagne glasses are empty, the state — and the nation — will return to Election Mode. With the presidency, one of Maine's US Senate seats, and the entire state legislature in the running, it'll be impossible to avoid the blitz of advertising, reporting, campaigning. At the core of much of that noise will be public-opinion polls, asking about issues, candidates, political parties, and anything else campaigns and pollsters can think up.

Polls obviously influence campaign efforts and media coverage, but they can also affect campaign contributions and support, particularly in multi-candidate races, as many of 2012's are shaping up to be. For all those reasons — and because polls can offer deeper insights into our collective psyche — it's important that opinion polling be done well.

But what, exactly, does that mean? The central piece is that the way the poll is conducted — from selection of the people who are polled, as well as how they are screened (to find likely voters, for example), and reporting of the results with complete statistical information (margin of error, confidence level) — is made public, so we can know how to respond to the results.

Of course, this takes a degree of public comfort and familiarity with the mechanics of polling — most especially, understanding the statistics behind why, and how, properly sampled groups of 400 to 700 people can, in fact, truly represent the opinions of much larger populations (like a 1.3-million person state, or a 300-million person nation).

The Maine People's Resource Center, a non-profit affiliated with the progressive Maine People's Alliance, has been working for the past couple years on establishing a poll-savvy culture here in Maine. By doing its own polls and releasing not only the results but the underlying data, and critiquing the available information about other polls conducted in Maine (by pollsters in-state and from away), MPRC is elevating the discourse around what Maine people actually think and want.

As the only group that conducted a poll for Portland's first-ever ranked-choice voting mayoral slate, by releasing all of its raw data as well as its methodology and analysis, and certainly as an organization willing to engage in discussions about polling, MPRC is bringing transparency and accountability to a challenging area of public debate. "When people make an argument based on public opinion, they are in a way speaking with the voice of all of us," says MPRC communications director Mike Tipping, explaining why his group is working to improve understanding of what public opinion actually is, and how various pollsters measure it — and is putting its own polls at the forefront of transparency, accountability, and open discussion. With MPRC's help, we'll all be better informed about the real state of Maine politics in 2012, no matter which polls we're looking at.

Wine by the tap

The Maine incarnation of an emergent global trend popped up at Havana South in Portland a couple years back, but is only now gaining momentum, and may really expand in 2012. It's wine in a keg. A boon to wineries, shippers, distributors, restaurants, and wine drinkers alike, wine that is "bottled" in sixth-barrel-sized kegs saves on materials, shipping, and storage, and keeps wine fresher longer. One such keg holds 220 glasses of wine, says Eric Agren, owner of Fuel, a Lewiston restaurant that joined the wine-keg movement a couple months ago. "That's equivalent to cases and cases and cases of wine," he says, marveling at the reduction in glass, cork, cardboard, and fuel needed to package and ship it all.

Kept under pressure with nitrogen, and with white wine run through a cold plate to chill it before dispensing, the kegs save Agren "about 30 percent on the cost of the wine," allowing him to charge $7 a glass for each of his two kegged wines, instead of the $9.50 he would charge if that same wine were poured from a bottle. With an investment of just a few hundred bucks for a tap and pressure system, it's a relatively easy way to save money for restaurants — and isn't out of reach for aficionados at home.

The major stumbling block, Agren says, is consumer perception. Keg wine is not box wine; rather, it comes from the high-end boutique wineries that are most concerned with green practices (like organic vineyards, carbon-neutral production, and so on), so the quality is not a concern. Best of all, like beer kegs, the wine kegs get reused, going back to the winery for cleaning and refilling over and over. It's almost like a neverending supply of eco-friendly, delicious wine!