City Privatizes Park in Effort to Eliminate Citizen’s Normal Civil Rights

If this sort of thing is unchallenged, it’ll continue and grow. Cities will lease public parks and even sidewalks to private companies, and then pay the private companies to maintain them. Thus, they’ll be able to control who can be on that property and what protests or speech will be allowed.
This is definitely their way of trying to get around our First Amendment rights. The city owns the land, but it’s managed by a private company!!! This must be challenged in court.

Just saw a press conference where the officials said they would crack down on visitors for anything they deem unwanted, not illegal, because they can.

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If anyone would be willing to upvote this in hopes of increasing the likelihood of Jeff responding, I would be incredibly grateful.

 

Can’t wait to hear the rest of this story. I’m trying hard to imagine the relationship of the citizens to a future Urban State where all property is leased to businesses.

 

Interesting trickery to keep out what they consider to be undesirables. Can’t wait for the follow up. Its a sad day when God blessing someone gets you trespassed and possibly arrested. Appreciate all you do.
A small point which may be irrelevant. You’ve requested copies of contracts, but only contracts. (This might be the irrelevant bit – ) I used to work with IBM, and whilst there was a lot of detail in the contracts (aka schedules), the most important docs were Documents of Understanding (DOUs) which were arguably not contracts, but agreements on how the contract would be operated on a day to day basis – i.e. incredible detail. If this system (or similar) is used, you will get a great deal more insight from these DOUs (and other ancillary documents) than you will from the contract, which is normally set out more lofty wording. Hope this helps. More power to you, sir!
I have a feeling that a law firm probably provided a legal opinion stating that they would be legally allowed to trespass for this stuff – so the law firm will need to fight Jeff in order to avoid getting sued by the city and the private company.
They force you to pay for the park while paying for the cops to force you out of the park..
A perfect example of “Privately Managed – Public Property” was Washington, DC’s Union Station. A historical and national landmark. Everyday tourists and commuters would arrive to Washington’s Union Station by train and walk through the station. Since it’s architechture is ornate and historic, visitors would always snap photos of the inside of the building especially it’s ornate domed ceiling. A private company that manages the retail/restaurant vendors inside union station decided shortly after 9-11 that they would prohibit any photographs inside Union Station. They employed a private security force and instructed them to stop anybody they saw taking photos, and if you refused they would escort you out or have DC’s Metro Police or the Amtrak Police forcibly escort you out or arrest you. Word of this unconstitutional restriction reached Eleanor Holmes Norton, a DC delegate to the House of Representatives. She personally sought out the private property managers and convinced them to rescind this ridiculous policy. She explained that just because you’re leasing publically accessible public property, you cannot ban individual constitutional rights. The day after the unconstitutional policy was lifted, a local news crew showed up to interview the property manager in the public corridors of the station about the lifting of the photo ban. As soon as the interview began, two security guards walked up and interrupted the interview and told the local news crew that there’s no photography allowed in Union Station. They had no idea that the rules had been changed and they didn’t even know that the local news crew was interviewing their boss. You simply cannot make this shit up. The video about this was somewhere here on YouTube.
Big insurance company across the street from a public park. They don’t like seeing “undesirables” using it, so they engage with the city in some kind of corrupt semi-privatization scheme so it’s still essentially a public park, but they get top-down power over it like it’s private property. Rest assured that if this model isn’t successfully challenged, you’ll see more and more of it in the future.
Your definitely doing this the smart way, I probably would have taken the arrest on this one. What your doing is of great Service to the community. Thank you from all that value freedom.
This has become a small loophole that a number of cities have used to “control” the homeless.. I ask though, with this particular assessment the city officials say their estimated yearly maintenance of the park is 1.5 million, in which they have always paid from their budget.. Now leasing that land to a corporate institution for $800k a year, cutting “WE THE PEOPLE”s expenses (for this property) by over half.. If homelessness is such an issue in their eyes, will that NOW FREE $800k a year from the city budget, now go to assistance to the homeless.. I venture to say not a single dime has increased in housing, food, or programs for those in need..
“No longer have to put up with homeless populations” Wow what a disgusting way to treat other human beings
“You’re not trespassed, but if you come back you will be arrested.” “Sarge told me to make you leave, but not to trespass to avoid a lawsuit.”
Guy says “You’re making people uncomfortable.” While also saying that he respects it and he’s happy he’s doing it. So who is saying they’re uncomfortable? What exactly is supposedly making people uncomfortable? If he were to go back and just stand without the sign? To walk with it in his hands but say nothing? To walk with it in his hand but down at his side? What if having to watch out for a golf cart makes me uncomfortable?

Good job identifying this problem, Jeff. Please challenge it.

To anyone who thinks this is okay, it may seem like a small matter for some private company to “manage” a public park, but it is still a public park. It is still owned by the city and is still being funded with public money even as members of the public are capriciously denied access to it. If a company wants to put money into making it better, great! We should welcome investment into our communities, just like we would from a volunteer group doing clean-up work or whatever. But at no point should the company or the volunteers become empowered to decide who can and can’t use the park.

If a company wants to own a park, it can make its own park on truly private property. There’s no rule against it. What’s happening here is some kind of unholy alliance between corporations and local authorities who want to be able to do things they’re prohibited from doing under the law. Normally the cops can’t kick Jeff (or any homeless person, or any person period who’s acting lawfully) out of the park, but now all of a sudden they have this new authority thanks to some questionable public-private deal.

 

This is wildly unacceptable. Do we have to worry soon about corporations “managing” public sidewalks and other city services so that they can exclude people at their pleasure?

 

“We appreciate with what you are doing but we are still going to stomp on your rights.” What kind of person prostitutes themselves in this manner? How does a city lease public property out to a private entity specifically to restrict public access to public property? I’d love to see how this works through the courts.

 

How offensive that the city thinks it can ignore the constitution by entering into a public private partnership or that a corporation like Brown and Brown who could use their significant resources to compassionately assist people experiencing homelessness instead choose to bribe the city to allow them to instead banish them. This isn’t just unconstitutional, it’s morally wrong. The city can’t outsource its unconstitutional actions. Their intent was clear in the statements made in advance. They should be ashamed of themselves and be held legally accountable for their egregious violations of the constitution.

 

Privately managed doesn’t make it private property. It’s still public land ☺️ “I understand that’s not your intent…” Intent madders a lot!
“You’re not even being trespassed.” Immediately followed up by: “If you go back on there, you’re going to jail.”
“It’s technically like city property and private property”. That’s some extremely efficient Bee Ess, right there. The security thing should consider a career in energy/physics.
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Who Is Postmaster General Louis DeJoy? | NowThis

Louis DeJoy is the first person in nearly two decades to become postmaster general without any postal service experience.

However, he does have $1.2M of experience with political donations to Trump and another $1.3M to the GOP.

So how did DeJoy end up at the center of Trump’s attempt to upend the 2020 election?

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In US news and current events today, Louis DeJoy, a Business Executive, Trump mega-donor, and the 75th United States postmaster general, who by the way, has absolutely no experience working in the postal service is today’s focus for Who Is. DeJoy is the first person in nearly two decades to become postmaster general who was not selected from the postal service’s ranks. But DeJoy was a shoe-in nonetheless, he was appointed by the Postal Service’s board of governors who have deep ties to the GOP and Mitch McConnell. DeJoy himself donated over 1.2 million dollars to Trump’s 2016 campaign and 1.3 million dollars to the Republican Party. But what does all this back scratching mean? As a North Carolina businessman, DeJoy had significant investments in companies that compete or do business with the U.S. Postal Service AKA USPS, including financial interests in private delivery competitors to the USPS—meaning he stands to benefit if the public service went private. DeJoy has already taken drastic measures to upend American democracy as the nation largely looks to vote by mail amid a global pandemic which has killed nearly 200,000 Americans. Under DeJoy’s leadership the USPS has removed high-speed mail sorting machines from facilities, which would be used to sort ballots come November 3rd. One report says they planned to remove 502 mail sorting machines, or about 13% of its total inventory by September 30, conspicuously before the election. As if that weren’t enough, they’ve unbolted corner mailboxes, eliminated employee overtime, mandated that mail be kept until the next day if distribution centers are running behind, and as USA today notes, DeJoy has also restructured the USPS by “removing or reassigning nearly two dozen agency leaders, including displacing the two top executives who oversaw day-to-day operations.” He has also banned employees from making extra trips to deliver mail.

Betsy DeVos openly admits she’s using the pandemic to impose her private school choice agenda

“Yes, absolutely,” DeVos replied when asked if she was trying to “utilize” the crisis to help “faith-based schools”

Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos admitted that she was trying to use the ongoing coronavirus crisis to push through her private school choice agenda during a Tuesday radio interview.

DeVos made the comments during an interview with Cardinal Timothy Dolan, the archbishop of New York, on his Sirius XM show. The interview was first flagged by the nonprofit education news outlet Chalkbeat.

Dolan asked the secretary whether she was trying to “utilize this particular crisis to ensure that justice is finally done to our kids and the parents who choose to send them to faith-based schools.”

“Am I correct in understanding what your agenda is?” he asked.

“Yes, absolutely,” DeVos replied. “For more than three decades, that has been something that I’ve been passionate about. This whole pandemic has brought into clear focus that everyone has been impacted, and we shouldn’t be thinking about students that are in public schools versus private schools.”

Department of Education spokeswoman Angela Morabito said in a statement to Chalkbeat that DeVos “is helping Catholic schools just as she is helping all schools; this does not mean she is favoring any one type of school over another.”

“There is no question that this crisis has impacted all students — no matter what kind of school they’re enrolled in,” she added.

DeVos’ comments came as she defended her decision to redirect coronavirus relief funds away from public schools with high numbers of impoverished students to private schools which tend to serve wealthy students. Congress allocated about $13.5 billion to help schools, most of which was intended to go to schools based on a formula that determines how many poor children they serve.

The formula has long allocated some of the funding for poor children who attend private schools, The Washington Post reported. But DeVos said states should calculate how many total students private schools serve rather than just the number of poor students. As a result, millions in aid will be redirected away from schools with high poverty rates to private schools which may not have many poor students.

The move drew criticism from lawmakers on both sides of the aisle.

“My sense was that the money should have been distributed in the same way we distribute Title I money,” Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., the chairman of the Senate Education Committee who is typically a DeVos ally, told reporters Wednesday. “I think that’s what most of Congress was expecting.”

Democrats also decried the decision.

“[The guidance] seeks to repurpose hundreds-of-millions of taxpayer dollars intended for public school students to provide services for private school students, in contravention of both the plain reading of the statute and the intent of Congress,” House Education Chairman Bobby Scott, D-Va., House Education Appropriations Subcommittee Chairwoman Rosa DeLaura, D-Ct., and Senate Education ranking member Patty Murray, D-Wash., said in a letter to DeVos on Tuesday.

“Given that the guidance contradicts the clear requirements of the CARES Act, it will cause confusion among states and local education agencies that will be uncertain of how to comply with both the department’s guidance and the plain language of the CARES Act,” the lawmakers urged, asking her to “immediately revise” the guidance.

But DeVos defended the decision Thursday to reporters.

“It’s our interpretation that [the funding] is meant literally for all students, and that includes students no matter where they’re learning,” she said.

The Democrats’ warning has proven right, however, as states are already dealing with confusion sparked by the policy.

The Education Law Center said DeVos’ policy was a “patent misreading” of the federal law and could redirect $800,000 in aid from Newark Public Schools in New Jersey to private school students. Tennessee’s education chief said she plans to follow DeVos’ guidance, but other school leaders argue that it is not legally binding and should be ignored.

Indiana’s schools chief Jennifer McCormick said that  the state would ignore the guidance after consulting with the state’s attorney general.

“I will not play political agenda games with relief funds,” she said.

Scott told NPR that “there is rightfully pushback” on the decision.

“The actions of the Department of Education have left states and districts stuck between compliance with the law,” he said, “and adhering to ideologically motivated guidance.”