{"id":34339,"date":"2011-12-12T06:13:41","date_gmt":"2011-12-12T13:13:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/?p=34339"},"modified":"2011-12-12T06:13:41","modified_gmt":"2011-12-12T13:13:41","slug":"are-occupiers-treated-better-than-tea-partiers-in-santa-fe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2011\/12\/are-occupiers-treated-better-than-tea-partiers-in-santa-fe\/","title":{"rendered":"Are Occupiers treated better than TEA Partiers in Santa Fe?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Is the city government in Santa Fe treating the Occupy movement better than the TEA Party? That\u2019s the question asked by Santa Fe New Mexican reporter Steve Terrell in a weekend column.<\/p>\n

From Terrell\u2019s column<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\u201cLast week a couple of local GOP activists raised a valid question about basic fairness. Jim and Sheryl Bohlander emailed that they don\u2019t think it\u2019s fair that they had to pay hundreds of dollars to use the Santa Fe Plaza for tea-party events while members of the Occupy Santa Fe movement camp out at the city\u2019s Railyard Park for free.<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2018As two of the principal organizers of the 2009 and 2010 tea-party rallies on the Plaza, we can confirm that we had to secure a permit to use the Plaza, $400 for each event, plus we had to secure at liability insurance policy for both events, well over $300 each time,\u2019 the Bohlanders said in their email. \u2018The permit fee for 2011 was $455. Additionally, we had to state specifically the time frame of the events.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cI realize some readers will be thinking, \u2018What the heck? They\u2019re Republicans. They can afford it.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cBut setting political prejudices aside \u2014 if that\u2019s ever possible \u2014 one can ask if it\u2019s fair to make one group of citizens pay to use a city park for a political gathering while another group gets to use a park for free?\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The answer Terrell got from Santa Fe Mayor David Coss:<\/p>\n

\u201cThe mayor, a Democrat who presides over our nominally nonpartisan municipal governing body, said the main reason is because of where the tea-party rallies took place, as opposed to where the occupiers are occupying.<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2018They\u2019re at a distant corner of the Railyard Park,\u2019 Coss said. \u2018They\u2019re not really affecting anybody.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cOn the other hand, the mayor pointed out, the tea-party events took place on the Plaza, \u2018which is the center for commerce in downtown Santa Fe.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cCoss also said he didn\u2019t waive any fees for anyone camping out at the Railyard Park because there is no fee schedule in place for that.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Jim Bohlander isn\u2019t satisfied. Here\u2019s what he told Terrell:<\/p>\n

\u201cA public park is a public park,\u201d he said. \u201cThis is an unequal application of the law.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Read Terrell\u2019s full column here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Is the city government in Santa Fe treating the Occupy movement better than the TEA Party? That\u2019s the question asked by Santa Fe New Mexican reporter Steve Terrell in a weekend column.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[222,179,199],"class_list":["post-34339","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","tag-occupy-movement","tag-santa-fe","tag-tea-party"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34339","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34339"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34339\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34339"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34339"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34339"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}