Occupy Bangor’s presence in the city’s Peirce Park was a response to the state of our country in which money now equals speech and elections are becoming auctions awarded to the highest bidders. The 24-hour-a-day presence of an encampment in a public space to say “no” to this private hijacking of civic discourse and the political process was an expression of that message.
Bangor’s ordinances prohibit demonstrations in its parks after 10 p.m. They also give the parks and recreation director the discretion to make exceptions, but offer no criteria for how to use that authority. The Bangor City Council’s infrastructure committee acknowledged in the fall that the city therefore had a flawed policy. The committee was in the process of considering ways to clarify its ordinance when the parks director instead called the police to force the dismantling of the encampment.
Meanwhile, the Bangor Public Library, which had no explicit policy regarding a presence on its grounds at night, opted to permit Occupy’s presence until constrained by liability issues to ask Occupy to vacate, which it promptly did. In the face of considerable animosity from many, including some of Bangor’s highest public officials, this decision took considerable courage.
Given this recent history, it is dismaying to read the BDN’s account
of Bangor City Council Chairman and Mayor Cary Weston’s grilling of the library director and board during the library’s request for public funds. ( “Mayor asks library board why it allowed Occupy Bangor to break city’s after-hours park rule,” April 23, BDN)
Of director McDade’s and board member Bragg’s explanation that the library in fact had no policy regarding a nighttime presence on its grounds and thus opted to protect free speech, Mayor Weston is having none of it. He accuses the library of somehow betraying the city’s trust, acting to “cost us time, money, aggravation and lost resources.” The BDN reported Mayor Weston said the library’s decision might affect its funding, based on an “objective decision as to whether we’re spending our taxpayers’ money the right way.”
It concerns me that Mr. Weston seems to be acting as a city father in the most paternalistic sense. He conflates his personal disapproval of the library’s carefully considered and honorable decision to support free speech with what he deems an inappropriate use of taxpayer dollars, and then threatens reprisals. Was it really the City of Bangor that was “aggravated,” or was it Mr. Weston? If he is having trouble telling the difference, I’m leery about his “objective decision” as to whether the library merits public funds.
As a Bangor resident for whom Mayor Weston professes concern, I’d like to reassure him that I think my tax dollars are as well spent safeguarding legitimate political expression of whatever stripe as safeguarding a waterfront concert, business convention, Main Street parade or local sporting event. And the roughly 2 percent of my Bangor tax bill that goes to support the Bangor Public Library is money I’m pleased and proud to pay.
I would remind all Bangor residents who feel likewise to realize that Mayor Weston may be directing his threat to cut the library’s funding at Director McDade and the library board, but he is targeting all of us who use and treasure our library. I urge my fellow residents to express their support for the Bangor Public Library, its director, its board and its principled actions.
Dennis Chinoy lives in Bangor.
One of the reasons for having a Library Board of Directors is to insulate the institution from the politics of the day. One didn’t have to be a supporter of the Occupy Movement to fathom that the Library’s decision to allow the extended use of its grounds for protest and debate helped diffuse the same tensions that led to conflagrations elsewhere. Perhaps we also need reminding that libraries historically have always been among the first community assets to feel politicians’ wrath at times of political turbulence. The City of Bangor has long valued and supported its library as an important cultural institution but that must never be confused with control, ideological or otherwise. The Bangor Public Library should be credited for meaningfully contributing to the peaceful resolution of the local Occupy stand-off.
Hear, hear !!
Mr. Chinoy, Cary Weston’s title is “chair.” He is not the mayor, as Bangor has not had a mayor since the early 1930s. Of course, you may not know this because the Bangor Daily apparently has not gotten around to reading the city charter.
I got my educational start at the BPL, happily developing a love for books in the children’s section, later researching papers in it’s stacks, and hours spent fingering through it’s card files (it was before computers sonny) to find sources that my classmates hadn’t. As did my father and mother before me. Pseudo-mayor Weston threatens that hallowed place at his considerable political risk !
Mr. Chinoy writes, “Was it really the City of Bangor that was “aggravated,” or was it Mr. Weston?”
I expect Mr. Weston heard from quite a few responsible Bangor residents who did not appreciate a bunch of leftist radicals breaking the law in the shadow of two city institutions, Bangor CIty Hall and the Bangor Public Library. I am one of them. I just don’t have time to hang out in a public space making a spectacle of myself as I am too busy working, paying bills, and helping my family, friends, and community in a hundred different ways.
Instead of paling around with such preening poseurs, protesters would be better served to spend some time INSIDE a library.
Aren’t you lucky – you have a job. Quite a few don’t, but not for not trying. And you still find time to help your community. Well, well. Aren’t you lucky. Wonder if those “preening poseurs”, who looked kind of miserable to me after a few days, thought that they might be doing a community service as well ? Just not your community, huh ?
Chair Weston is running into the maw that is the liberal PC machine. I applaud him for his courage and integrity.
Mr. Chinoy, please read Orwell’s “Animal Farm”, especially the section that explains that all animals are created equal but that some are more equal than others. Your insistance to be treated more equal than others in regards to camping out after hours on city property is laughable. Your indignant attitude tells me you are in this for the satisfaction of your ego, not some grand 1st Amendment cause.
Corey Weston is doing a fantastic job. Hope he keeps it up.
I wonder if the library would have been so accommodating to a group that they were not in sympathy with? What if a pro-life protest set up camp? What if gun-owners for Ted Nugent wanted to camp to protest infringements on our 2nd amendment rights? If you allow the OWS people access to the property for their protest, don’t you have to offer the same to others?
In his preface Orwell describes the idea behind “Animal Farm”: “….that men exploit animals in much the same way as the rich exploit the proletariat”.
Perhaps you should read the book again.
I studied Orwell. He was a socialist, so his attacks on the wealthy are consistent.
Here’s Wikipedia’s take on Animal Farm:
The novel addresses not only the corruption of the revolution by its leaders but also how wickedness, indifference, ignorance, greed and myopia corrupt the revolution. While this novel portrays corrupt leadership as the flaw in revolution (and not the act of revolution itself), it also shows how potential ignorance and indifference to problems within a revolution could allow horrors to happen if a smooth transition to a people’s government is not achieved.
In my view, if there was ever an ignorant and indifferent revolutionary movement, it is OWS. In time, it may likely prove to be quite corrupt.
My point is that OWS seeks to be exempt from the rules they rest of us must abide by. No matter how much they pitch a fit, OWS must not be allowed to pitch a tent!
“In my view, if there was ever an ignorant and indifferent revolutionary movement, it is OWS. In time, it may likely prove to be quite corrupt.”
I think it was corrupt from the beginning. Naive people are being exploited.
These “revolutionary” movement have a way of spiraling out of control. Rosa Luxembourg opposed Lenin’s vanguard elite approach as a short cut because she thought it would lead to terror. She was right.
Orwell was an interesting character. Both the left and right claim him to a degree, and there’s been spectulation on the right that he was migrating away from socialism. We’ll never know.
I find it impossible to understand how anyone would choose collectivism over individual freedom.
No mention at the end of the article that Dennis Chinoy is a Power in Community Alliance member and participated in Occupy Bangor.
Cary Weston is a follower of ALEC and the Koch brothers. Being such, Weston is out to take away the rights his masters do not want us to have.