Circle of Benches

The General Assembly of Occupy Sebastopol agreed to work with The City to create a designated area in the Mario Savio Plaza with permanent items such as a circle of benches that will serve as a gathering place to encourage free speech and political discussion.

OS has suggested a simple design to form a circle of curved benches which match the existing benches in the plaza. This design would include:
1. being able to cover the area of benches with a temporary pop-up
2. being able to add a permanent cover in the future
3. keeping a spot open for a possible bulletin board/kiosk
4. seating for approx 16

There is also sentiment from some of City Council Members and Occupy Sebastopol to memorialize the Occupy Movement with some type of plaque.

If you agree with this idea it would be helpful if you would email the Planning Commission [email protected] to let them know that you support it. Even better, come to the meeting this Tuesday
and tell them in person.

Thank you.

Occupy Sebastopol


Planning Commission Meeting
Tuesday 10/22/2013
7 pm
Sebastopol Youth Center 425 Morris Street

https://ci.sebastopol.ca.us/city-see...ect-town-plaza

https://www.sonomawest.com/sonoma_we...a4bcf887a.html

Please consider joining us this evening at the Planning Commission to establish a circle of benches in the Mario Savio Plaza in Sebastopol where people of diverse perspectives can practice their constitutionally-guaranteed Free Speech. This is especially important at our time in history when our privacy is being violated by the NSA and other government intrusion into our lives. In the future, we are likely to need such a place even more than now, so that the public can go somewhere to think together and make plans to defend our eroding freedoms.

I like the benches in the plaza that we currently have, with backs on them, which are especially helpful for elders and leashing dogs to them. If we could get some benches facing each other, as the Mario Savio Free Speech Corner at Sonoma State Univ. has, that would facilitate good, interactive conversations.

Planning Commission Meeting
Tuesday 10/22/2013
7 pm
Sebastopol Youth Center 425 Morris Street

https://ci.sebastopol.ca.us/city-see...ect-town-plaza

https://www.sonomawest.com/sonoma_we...a4bcf887a.html

This is a good idea but I don't think I can support it unless somebody comes up with a couple thousand dollars or however much it would take. What with west county roads increasingly deteriorating and umpteen other urgent needs to spend taxpayers' money on, I just don't see this as important enough to spend the dough on. People who really wanna discuss things will do so with or without benches facing one another, and such benches would probably usually be occupied by people who aren't talking, or at least aren't talking about anything important. So sure, go ahead and do it--if you can find the money without raiding the public coffers.
:spentmoney:

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Posted in reply to the post by Shepherd:

Please consider joining us this evening at the Planning Commission to establish a circle of benches in the Mario Savio Plaza in Sebastopol where people of diverse perspectives can practice their constitutionally-guaranteed Free Speech.

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I think you and I are using the term "raid the public coffers" slightly differently.

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Posted in reply to the post by ronliskey:

It's not logically possible for the public to "raid the public coffers," to build public benches, on public land, for the public good.

That form of theft is typically reserved for those who--well-wrapped in some gaudy local flag--hide behind such fictions as Corporate Personhood so they can privatize the commons, exploit the natural resources, strip the state, manipulate the foolish, exploit the vulnerable, gun down the children, externalize the costs, and steal from the future.

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I read in Sonoma West that this great and worthy project is hitting a wall as there is no money to pay for it. I feel it serves a social benefit to our community, and city parks, to have circular benches for public use. I see no reason why the city cannot pay for this improvement to our town square. It is not a private usage, or even a specialized non-profit (serving a limited segment of the community).

Check out my post here, fourth down, describing the $500,000 in surplus funding being earmarked for an expansion of the modern fire station, with no public debate, no publicly expressed need, no public support that I have seen.
https://www.waccobb.net/forums/showt...893#post172893

Yet our City Council, flush from a huge budget surplus last year, is saying that Occupy is supposed to fund a significant --and popularly supported improvement for our public park, one costing perhaps one-fiftieth the fire station expansion, themselves? This does not feel right to me.

hey, let's not infantilize everyone but you and your enemies... maybe some of the rest of us aren't the mindless victims you seem to presume we are.

and the rest of the definitions seem to prefer the hyperbolic to the simply descriptive. I suppose coming from me that's the pot calling the kettle black, but still...

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Posted in reply to the post by ronliskey:

The fiction of "Corporate Personhood" is currently the dominant legal mechanism for converting public goods into private profits.

• ".. the English .. created a traumatized, landless working class ready for exploitation by the new capitalist industries--soon partially replaced and further impoverished by the creation of the North Atlantic hereditary slavery system.
• "Manipulate the foolish" is commonly known as PR or advertising.
• "externalize the costs" is standard Econ 101, such as cynical tax breaks for the rich, unregulated pollution, blaming the victims, slap suits, wars and social unrest, poverty and starvation, downwind/down river issues, preventable super storms, etc.

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Ron, contrary to your implications, I didn't refer to either discussing or proposing the circle of benches as raiding the public coffers. I referred to actually using public funds for that purpose. My argument was, and is, that it's inappropriate to spend money on the circle of benches when it's more urgently needed for other things such as fixing the roads, etc. You may not agree with that, but if, as I believe, it's true, it is not hyperbole to use the term "raiding the public coffers".

Re: your list of bullet points--I have no idea why you deemed it relevant to go off on that tangent but, FWIW, I endorse pretty much all you said in that section.

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Posted in reply to the post by ronliskey:

Your use of the phase seems strangely off balance to me. How does the public discussing in open debate the idea of building some public benches with public funds on public land to be available to the public become 'raiding the public coffers"?

Indeed, we do seem to have very different definitions. To clarify my terms:...

An example of hyperbole might be saying that those who politely propose adding some park benches to a public park are raiding the public coffers.

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I will respectfully suggest that those of you who feel strongly about getting this 'circle of benches' project done set up an account with a few bucks of seed money and then publicize it and solicit donations for the project.
When you have enough money to make an impact, go to the city council and ask for matching funds and input into design.
This might show them that there is indeed enough public support for the project and it might actually become a reality.
Good Luck,
Tom