{news} Nader Petitioners Booted Off Green

[David Bedell]

http://www.newhavenindependent.org/archives/2008/07/nader_petitione.php

Nader Petitioners Booted Off Green

by Paul Bass | July 23, 2008 1:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (40)


The Squirrel Nut Zippers had the mic. The cops told Ralph Ferrucci and his
band of petitioners they had to exit the Green stage right.

Or, if they preferred, given their political leanings, stage left.

Ferrucci - a New Haven political activist who has run for mayor and U.S.
Senate and Congress on the Green Party ticket - is no stranger to flyering
and collecting signatures on petitions at public events, such as last
Saturday's city-sponsored Squirrel Nut concert on the Green. He didn't think
he was breaking any rules when he brought a team of six petitioners to
gather signatures of voters to place presidential candidate Ralph Nader's
name on the state's November ballot.

The cops thought otherwise.

Ferrucci said the "lieutenant in charge" approached him "and told me I'll be
arrested if I didn't get the petitioners off the Green."

Ferrucci said he protested that he had a right to be on public land.

"This isn't owned by the city," the cops told him, according to Ferrucci.
(It's true; a not-for-profit organization known as the Proprietors of the
Green controls the space.)

"But this is a public space," Ferrucci said he (correctly) pointed out. "My
rights apply."

For at least three decades, volunteers and staffers from political
campaigns - including those of Mayor John DeStefano and Democratic
candidates like U.S. Senate hopeful Ned Lamont - have routinely circulated
petitions or handed out flyers at summer events on the Green.

Which lieutenant was it who threatened the arrest?

"I should have gotten his name," Ferrucci said. "But I was more concerned
about getting arrested. I didn't mind taking the bust," but he worried about
his crew of volunteers. So he sent them off the Green, to surrounding
sidewalks (uncontested public space), where they harvested signatures from a
smaller, less compact field of passersby.

Ferrucci said he remained by the middle of the Green, where he received
"nasty looks" from five cops on duty.

Since the weekend, Ferrucci brought his complaints to the mayor's chief of
staff, Sean Matteson.

According to Ferrucci, Matteson confirmed that the petitioners should be
allowed to work the Green. Matteson promised to investigate the matter,
Ferrucci said. Ferrucci asked for a letter confirming the permission to
petition. "That way if the cops bother us I have a letter saying we're
allowed to be there."

Matteson didn't return repeated phone calls to confirm the conversation.

"There is no letter," mayoral spokeswoman Jessica Mayorga said. "There's no
discussion about a letter."

Mayorga said Matteson "has had a discussion" with Assistant Police Chief
Stephanie Redding about the matter. She said Redding "has agreed to look
into it."

Mayorga said that while it's Matteson's "personal opinion" that the Nader
campaign should be able to petition on the Green, the city does not yet have
a position on whether it can at another concert this coming weekend. She
said she wants to wait to hear back from Redding.

"I don't know what the turnaround will be on that," Mayorga said.

"We're not trying to make things difficult for anyone. We're trying to make
sure we're on the same page."

Mayorga said it would not be possible to identify the lieutenant who
threatened Ferrucci with arrest.

(Update: Reached at a press event at City Hall Wednesday afternoon, Matteson
said he plans to make clear to the cops that the Nader campaign may petition
at Saturday's concert.)

One member of the Proprietors of the Green, Anne Calabresi, was surprised
that a petitioner would be removed or threatened with arrest.

"How could they?" she asked when told of the incident Wednesday. "The Green
is dedicated to free speech. It's that simple."

A Trend

This is the latest in a string of embarrassing cases of city government
flouting the constitution or the public's right to know.

Some incidents have occurred at the hands of mid-level or lower-level
employees who acted on their own (though in the spirit of higher-ups).

 City government lawyer Dinella Dodd, for instance, last month booted the
press from a public hearing on parking ticket appeals.

 The city's elderly services chief suspended an employee for, in part,
speaking to the press on off hours, without first checking in with the mayor
's spokeswoman.

 The mayor has implemented a press policy - blasted as flagrantly
unconstitutional by the ACLU - which forbids thousands of city employees
from speaking about anything with reporters at any time without express
prior authorization from his press office; that has set a chill over
government.

 The DeStefano administration has also subverted the intent of a ruling by
the State Freedom of Information Commission that required that job
evaluations of top administrators be publicly available. The administration
has basically stopped doing written evaluations as a result.

He's Back

Ralph Nader is running as an independent in this year's presidential race
rather than as a Green. Nader ran in 1996, 2000, and 2004 as well. He didn't
win.

Ferrucci said the campaign technically needs 7,500 valid signatures of
voters to make the Connecticut ballot. In actuality it probably needs to
collect more like 12,000, he said, because election officials often
eliminate many signatures as invalid. The deadline is Aug. 6.

"We're at 5,500 signatures," Ferrucci reported. He said he's confident the
campaign will make its goal.

Assuming the law doesn't shut them down.

(Nader, a former Green candidate, is running as an independent this year.)