Occupy Madison Forced to . . . Occupy Dane County Parks

Bizarre twist of events made Occupy Madison accidental Occupiers. The Parks Staff are refusing to take our money – but we keep paying. It’s been a bizarre week, yet again.

LETS REVIEW
Occupy Madison has moved about 30 times, the longest stay was at 800 E Washington Ave from October 2011 – May 2012. They camped in the County Parks all summer long, with minor harassment, but it worked. Paid about $5,000 to do so. When the parks closed, the group moved back to 800 E. Washington, got kicked out, so they moved to the front lawn of the County Human Services Building for a week, the county then involuntarily relocated people to Token Creek Park for the winter at a cost of $11,000, then kicked them out March 17th before the parks reopened and with things still frozen to the ground (when it melted we did go back and clean up even tho they didn’t want us to), so the group moved to private property and the owner was threatened with $11,000 in fines but stood up for the homeless, and when the parks opened again for the season, the group moved back to the campgrounds.

All this is an attempt to find a legal place to sleep. The parks are the only place this is possible, but there is only one campground in the City of Madison. Over 100 people have camped with Occupy since the first move from 800 E Washington, about 20 – 25% have found housing, others just move on in some way. The group remains around 15 – 30 people.

THIS WEEK’S RECAP
Tuesday
We moved when we said we would. We left the Vang Property (which still needs to be cleaned up) around 3:30 on Tuesday, by 5:15 the an off duty parks ranger was at the park with the second in command telling the group that they couldn’t have more than one camping unit per site and that we needed to request an exception to the policy. When they left, we were under the impression that Darren Marsh would be showing up Wednesday morning to speak with the group and that they should have the letter ready at that time.

Wednesday
That conversation on Tuesday evening prompted me to write this email.

Darren Marsh did show Wednesday morning, but he stayed in his car and took pictures, didn’t approach any of the campers. Finally, one of the campers approached him and asked him what he was doing. He said that he was taking pictures and that he would return my email when he got back to the office. He lied.

Thursday
Thursday evening, around 5:10, the parks department was back, delivering a . . . sigh . . . letter. They can’t seem to communicate with us in any other way, very frustrating. And, the letter was full of lies. They didn’t tell us to comply by Wednesday morning, they told us to write a letter and when we asked how, they refused to answer, and then blame us for not complying. Also, they only gave us 19 hours, just 4 business hours to figure out what to do.

Friday
We met at camp at 9:30 in the morning to decide what to do. Being a Friday, there were few people who don’t work who could attend, in fact, 2 of us. That didn’t leave us with many options to move 19 people and all their belongings by noon. While we were meeting, channel 27 showed up, drawing the attention of the neighbor. One swell “neighbor”. I had to call the police.

EVICTION?
Anyways, noon came and went. We waited for the parks department to show up and show us the group camp site because the gate is closed.

We only knew what was going on because the South District Police Captain Joe Balles was emailing me and telling me what to expect.

Brenda,
I’m not working today but upon seeing your e-mail I have made an inquiry to Dane County Parks Manager Kevin Connors. In short, Brenda, the current campers you refer to below have been assigned individual, family camp sites. County Park Rangers over the past few days have reported a number of administrative County park rules these campers have been violating. I understand Kevin spoke to you a short while ago and that the plan for later on today is to get this group of campers to move down to the Lake Farm “group” camp site which will allow them to be able to continue camping at Lake Farm Park and be in compliance with current rules and guidelines governing this public space by Dane County ordinances.

I do not foresee any MPD involvement with this matter at this time. Kevin tells me that Dane County Parks Department is committed to a peaceful resolution here and that works for everyone.

Please feel free to contact me, Brenda, if you have further concerns or questions…

More lies. I responded.

I didn’t talk to Kevin, I have no idea what you are talking about. Me and the 16 campers standing out here have not been informed about this or communicated to in any way besides the letter. This is news to us. Would welcome discussing this with them if someone would talk to us.

He responded

Brenda…
I’m off work today… but I did call Kevin at Dane County Parks about 20 minutes ago… he advised he was in route down there to show you the Group Camp Site options…. Hopefully he will be arriving soon….
Joe

Thank you to the police department for helping bridge the communication gap. I can’t believe we rely on the police to help us, but that is where we are at with the County Parks Department. Ridiculous waste of city resources AND it was his day off and he still helped! So many thanks to Captain Joe Balles.

Brian M the park ranger showed up – offered to show us the site. So we piled in to several cars and made the 1.5 mile drive to the camp site.

It would probably be a great place to camp for the weekend with friends, but not much longer than that.

There are pit toilets and no showers.

This is the water supply.

The showers are just right over here – about a mile away.  It’s another .75 miles to the bus.

Chris made this video on the way back to where they are currently camping.

At that point, it became clear, this was not acceptable. I told the park ranger that I would talk to Vang and see if we could move back to his land. I went home and called him, unfortunately he had some family hospitalizations and was busy with that and needed to talk with us more before we moved back, so that wasn’t an option for the weekend. ARGH!

COMPLIANCE
So, we did the next best thing. Spent $850, bought three large tents and got in compliance. Cuz, even tho we think they are selectively enforcing the rules, that the rules were just made up and not passed by the parks commission as required, we have no legal place to go and our options are limited. And there are 18 very nervous persons just wondering when and where they can legally sleep at night.

Sorry, don’t have a great picture of the third tent, but three tents, three sites, one camping unit per site.

SELECTIVE ENFORCEMENT
Hmmmmm . . . why is this ok?

Right next to us this weekend were these campers. We observed for a while, then went and talked to them. Peter and I asked them several questions and we found this out.

1. They have more than 6 people on the site. (rules say only 6 people)
2. They have 2 camping units on the site.
3. They did not ask for permission to have an additional camping unit.
4. They were not told by parks staff to request the additional unit in writing.
5. They were not told by the park ranger they were in violation.
6. They are not a family (group of young people, perhaps underage drinking?)
7. They were not asked to go to the “group camp”
8. They did not return their money and refuse their registration because they have two camping units.

REFUSAL TO TAKE OUR MONEY AND GENERAL CONFUSION
On Saturday I returned to camp and talked with Brian M, the park ranger. He returned the money to the group. We had a long conversation, but he had no answers for us. Are the people there banned for the season? What does it mean to be evicted? Do they understand that “eviction” has a specific meaning and only the court can evict, do they intend to go through that process? What is going to happen next? Why can’t we stay if we are in compliance? What could we do to help the parks, understanding that there is wear and tear to the sites, do they want us to move around the park more often than every two weeks? Are they enforcing these rules on everyone? etc. etc. etc. Didn’t matter what he said, he can’t make these decisions, its all above his head.

WE PAID, AGAIN
We are trying to be in compliance, we aren’t meaning to OCCUPY!, but they just won’t take our money.

We will keep paying, they can keep returning the money.

ODD SIDE NOTE
A guy that wasn’t camping with us showed up, paid for the site and let another person put up their tent on his site and because he was camped by us, the parks returned his money too. Didn’t mention anything about having two tents, just that he was “associated with” Occupy and they couldn’t take his money. I’d never met the guy before.