Although Voice of Freedom Park owner Joe Redner told the Tampa City Council last month that he had made an agreement with the Occupy Tampa group that they would vacate his park in mid-September, Councilman Frank Reddick insisted that city officials still come before the Council today to discuss possible violations in the park because of the Occupy encampment there, which has been ongoing since last December.
The only real news that came out of Thursday's hearing was that the city's code enforcement division determined that the encampment of protesters in the park violated a section of the city's zoning ordinance in commercial-intensive districts. Jake Slater, the city's director of Code Enforcement, said that his department had issued that violation order on August 14, and therefore protesters would have 21 days to comply. If Redner does not begin enforcing that edict, a hearing would be held 45 days out.
But since Occupy and Redner had already agreed that the encampment would move out by September 15, the whole issue was moot.
But that didn't stop the Council from engaging in over an hour of discussion about the conditions not only at the park, but the West Tampa business district as well, and about the power of allowing the activist group to have a place to speak out against various issues, particularly when the Republican National Convention hits town in less than two weeks.
Councilman Reddick represents West Tampa, and he was emphatic that the rights of the residents and business owners are being trampled upon by not cracking down on the activities at the park right now, especially with the fact that beginning next week the activist group Food Not Bombs has announced that they would begin serving meals at the park.
Reddick continued to throw out attendance figures between 3,000-5,000 people who he says will be flock to the park, and says that will stress out local law enforcement. And he said there had been numerous complaints about sanitary conditions there, displaying a photo that showed a Portalet that had been not been properly cleaned.
This article appears in Aug 16-22, 2012.