Videos from 24-Hour "Occupation" Downtown

Overall, I think I speak for most of the participants when I say that I was very pleased with the level of direct participation that we received (which, , included upwards of sixty people -- counting both those who more or less stayed with us for the entire duration of the event, as well as those who came to participate for only a portion of it -- comprised of a remarkably diverse group of individuals, from very young to much (ahem) "less young" adults, like me, representing the , the , organized Labor, MoveOn.org, and the local and LGBT Communities, among others --  and the overwhelmingly positive response that we got from passers-by.  

There were, of course, a few casual observers who made it clear to us that they did not see things in quite the same way we do , which sparked -- at times-- some lively debate, but I am pleased to say that all of those conversations ended on a civil note, nevertheless.

For virtually the entirety of the event, we were stationed at the northern end of the park.  There were two minor incidents that occurred during the event that are marginally noteworthy; the first of these occurred Saturday morning at around 10 a.m., when a fellow who was later described to me as a "park regular" walked off with my almost-brand-new $100 megaphone (police report number available upon request) and the second of which occurred at around midnight Sunday morning, when we realized that the automatic irrigation system that services the park had begun a rotation that would soon be advancing to our location.

However, just before the sprinklers located in the section of the park that we were occupying were activated, one of our very resourceful participants managed to reach someone on the City staff, who quickly arranged to interrupt that process, ultimately sparing us from what at first looked likely to be a near-certain drenching.

This morning, all of the tents came down by about 9:00 AM and immediately thereafter. we removed everything that we came with from the premises.

Following that, we spent at least an hour patrolling the entire park -- even the most substantial portion of it that we did not use at all -- and picked up every single piece of debris or litter that we could find and disposed of it appropriately. 

Finally, I personally checked each and every one of the recycling and garbage disposal "cans" at the site to ensure that none of those was overly full. 

In short, we left the park in a better condition than we found it in when we arrived.

Joanne Gifford