Wednesday, Oct. 5, International House of Pancakes, Clearwater. Four days ago, Occupy Tampa held its second rally and the first meeting of the group's consensus-based general assembly. Tonight, members of the logistics/tactical work group have gathered to plan the next day's assembly in Downtown Tampa's Gaslight Park, where they plan to organize, talk and march against corporate greed and injustice, and maybe spend the night.
The banquet room at IHOP is a jumble of coffee carafes, breakfast plates, notepads and pens, laptops and cords. A paper placemat reads "Pancake Revolution."
"They must be cashing in on the Occupy movement already," someone jokes.
Chris Dorsey, 24, is part of the logistics team. A USF journalism and media studies graduate student, he works fulltime at Starbucks when he isn't working on his thesis — or helping to organize Occupy Tampa.
"I started watching what was happening in New York and was extremely skeptical," Dorsey told me in an interview a few days earlier. "But the more I explored and researched, the more I was like, this is everything I've thought. This is my philosophy in action."
Blake Westlake, 27, of New Port Richey probably had no idea what he was starting when he created the Occupy Tampa Facebook group. In just four days the page amassed nearly a 1,000 likes. (By Friday, the number would reach 6,355.) Westlake was recently let go from his job at the St. Petersburg Times distribution center. He has no cell phone: when fellow members see "Unknown Number" on their phones, they know it's Westlake calling.
"I had to call Weird Al's agent and apologize for the Twitter bomb," Westlake says. Hours earlier, knowing that Yankovich was in the area to perform at Ruth Eckerd, someone had sent out a plea to load the comic's Twitter with messages urging him to join the protest.
Media calls have been pouring in all day to Dorsey and others in Occupy Tampa. But they are leery of the coverage, after a St. Petersburg Times article that focused heavily on a video on Occupy Tampa's wall which came across as a threat to the police. It wasn't meant as such, but the video was taken down — yet the article harped on it anyway, leaving Dorsey and others disappointed. When one reporter from the local ABC affiliate pleaded with Dorsey that an interview could publicize the cause, Dorsey declined and said, "Sorry, we are really busy."
Dorsey receives a call on his cell phone from one of the arts and culture work group members. "Fox News and ABC just showed up at their house," he tells us. Her phone number and address was listed on her Facebook; media crews unable to get interviews with Occupy Tampa were scrambling to find other ways to preview the story.
The protesters are learning the ins and outs of organizing a movement at warp speed. A local 501(c)3 incorporated them to allow for fundraising and raised over $1,000 in just a few days.
Westlake is on the phone with Angela Hadley, the team's legal researcher. He looks concerned. "The police are putting up barricades right now," he tells the group. There is talk of a possible mobile arrest center, barricades three blocks around and camera checkpoints. A press release is posted on Facebook and on occupytampa.org. Everyone jumps into their cars and heads to Tampa to check out the scene. There are television crews present from Fox and ABC, but the barricades — stacked against the traffic signals in the quiet of night in downtown Tampa — don't look very menacing. Pretending to be curious bystanders, the Occupy Tampa members ask an ABC reporter what is going on; he doesn't recognize anyone in the group, and hurries to explain.
The reason for being worried about arrests? The City of Tampa has an ordinance which requires 60 days' notice for any public gathering of more than 50 people. Fees and paperwork are required. Costs range from $300 per day to $1,000 for police or fire department services, and a two-week maximum stay. No overnights or continental breakfast included.
"We did not get those permits," Angela Hadley says. "We believe those permits are unconstitutional by way of silencing us to the point where we cannot meet."
Thursday, Oct. 6: Rally Day. The day goes incredibly smoothly, considering the rumors that had been spreading beforehand. The number of protesters depends on who's doing the counting. Bay News 9 says the total is roughly 1,000; the three people taking count for Occupy Tampa facilitators say there are 600. For the two marches through downtown Tampa in the afternoon, the esimates vary between 500 and 700.
"We had vets, we had children, hippie kids, different races, genders, ethnicities and religions," Dorsey says after the march. "It happened so quickly, so organically."
