Compromise with city officials has led to a change in
tactics
Occupy Sebastopol exists no longer. Occupy Sebastopol may live
forever. Both of these statements may be equally true at the same
time because while the tent encampment is being removed from the
Town Plaza, the combustible message of the mostly young occupiers
continues to spread.
On Saturday, various camps of people turned out for what was
billed as Solidarity Saturday, a direct spinoff of the Occupy
Sebastopol protest that first occupied the square on Nov. 5.
A banner declaring Peacetown USA was unfurled from the gazebo
and lots of tie-dyed garb was on display. Some old and some very
old hippies gathered to sing protest songs from the ’60s. Grateful
Dead and reggae music was played as well.
“We are not about protest,”  Shaman Francis Rico said softly to
a gathered circle of singers, “We are about affirmation.”
Sebastopol’s Mr. Music (Jim Corbett) assembled his Love Choir in
front of the gazebo and next to the Occupy Sebastopol small tent
city.
Nearby, members of the Veterans for Peace had a petition table
and Occupy Sebastopol members handed out literature as well.
“Welcome to the Mario Salvio Memorial Town Plaza,” Corbett said,
referring to the 1964 Free Speech activist of UC Berkeley and
Sebastopol resident who died in 1996. “We are here today, but this
is just the beginning.”
Or the end. A day earlier, after a third special meeting, the
Sebastopol City Council was set to deny a camping permit to Occupy
Sebastopol when a compromise was struck.
By their own unanimous motion, the members of Occupy Sebastopol
agreed to remove their tents if the city would allow the placement
of an Occupy Sebastopol information kiosk.
Mayor Guy Wilson and Sebastopol Police Chief Jeff Weaver both
called the compromise a “good thing,” allowing for continued free
speech and assembly without violating the city’s no camping
laws.
The Occupy Sebastopol camp had peacefully coexisted with other
Plaza activities, including the Sunday’s farmers markets, other
than three arrests for probation violations.
Occupy Sebastopol is a local expression of the Occupy Wall
Street protests against the concentration of power and wealth in
the hands of the few. Their slogan is that 1 percent of the
corporate banks and CEOs control or own 99 percent of the nation’s
wealth.
In Sebastopol, the protests have included marches and pickets at
local branches of the national banking firms such as Bank of
America and Wells Fargo.
Besides the planned Solidarity Saturday events to be held from
12 to 3 p.m until further notice a “town hall” meeting is being
planned by other local citizens for Dec. 8 at the Sebastopol United
Methodist Church.
