Agreement reached in Cincinnati Occupy disputes

LISA CORNWELL

Asso­ci­ated Press

CINCINNATI — The city dis­missed hun­dreds of charges against Occupy pro­test­ers on Mon­day in return for them drop­ping their fed­eral law­suit against it.

More than a dozen Occupy Cincin­nati mem­bers gath­ered on the steps of City Hall to announce the set­tle­ment, which also estab­lishes a 24-hour pub­lic space in Piatt Park. Pro­test­ers were cited at the park and two other loca­tions last year on charges of tres­pass­ing and fail­ure to leave after clos­ing hours. Mem­bers of Occupy Cincin­nati filed a law­suit claim­ing that the city had vio­lated their First Amend­ment rights to free­dom of speech and assem­bly and ask­ing that the city be pre­vented from enforc­ing the rules.

The pro­test­ers, who are part of a move­ment that started about six months ago on Wall Street against what demon­stra­tors have said is eco­nomic inequal­ity, cheered the settlement.

Mem­ber Aaron Roco called it a “vic­tory for our con­sti­tu­tional rights and for the peo­ple of Cincin­nati.” But he said the goal of the group “has been and will con­tinue to be end­ing cor­po­rate con­trol of our government.”

City Solic­i­tor John Curp did not imme­di­ately return calls seek­ing com­ment Mon­day, but a spokes­woman for city Man­ager Mil­ton Dohoney con­firmed the settlement.

“The city has always been con­cerned about safety, secu­rity and ensur­ing the enjoy­ment of vis­i­tors to the park, and we are pleased that this mat­ter has been set­tled,” Dohoney spokes­woman Meg Olberd­ing said.

City offi­cials had said that the Occupy encamp­ments in the park caused health and safety con­cerns and that the noise dis­turbed other peo­ple in the area.

The charges had been filed in Hamil­ton Munic­i­pal Court, with the law­suit filed in U.S. Dis­trict Court in Cincinnati.

As part of the set­tle­ment, the pro­test­ers agreed that they would not put up tents or other types of encamp­ments in the area.

An attor­ney for the group, Jen­nifer Kins­ley, said that about 300 charges involv­ing approx­i­mately 100 pro­test­ers were dis­missed Monday.

Most major Occupy encamp­ments have been dis­persed around the coun­try over the past sev­eral months, but law­suits by pro­test­ers have con­tin­ued in var­i­ous areas. Pros­e­cu­tors in some cities, includ­ing New York, have dropped charges against some protesters.

The Cincin­nati set­tle­ment, first reported Sun­day night by The Cincin­nati Enquirer, notes that the 24-hour space for pro­test­ers will be open for use from 10 p.m. on March 19 through 11:59 p.m. on March 18, 2013.

Roco said the idea is that per­mis­sion for the 24-hour space could be renewed at the end of the first year.

The pro­hi­bi­tion against tents or other encamp­ments “was a con­ces­sion on our part, but we feel on the whole that this was a major vic­tory,” he said.

“The impor­tant part is that this will be an area where peo­ple can express them­selves 24 hours a day,” he said.

The agree­ment also calls for the city to appoint some­one to act as a pub­lic liai­son with the group on behalf of the city’s park board.

Posted by AP News on Mar 12 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.