With the military being sent to DC, and the recent arrests, one wonders what preparations are being made.
The legal suits from the RNC detentions are still not settled....very disturbing.
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RNC suits vs. Hudson River Park gain steam three years later
by Chris Lombardi
Sep 9, 2007 5:07 PM
First In A Series
Three years ago this week, 550 people from all over the country were sleeping at Pier 57, located at West 15th St. and the West Side Highway, and not because they wanted to. Among them were Matthew Roth, a staff member of the Chelsea-based group Transportation Alternatives, who was there because he was fighting for the environment. Dennis Kyne, a San Jose writer, musician and Gulf War veteran, was there after protesting the new Iraq war. And Rebecca Stoneback, a jewelry designer, told newspapers she was just passing by Union Square when the police scooped her up and took her to the pier, where, she said, the floor was covered in grease and the air stank of chemicals.
All three are among dozens of plaintiffs now suing the city, the NYPD and the mayor’s office for the events of that week, during the 2004 Republican National Convention. Many are also suing Hudson River Park Trust (HRPT), the city-state agency that leased Pier 57 to the police during the convention.
HRPT is named as a defendant in at least five such lawsuits, most of which assert that the Trust should have prevented Pier 57 from being used to house anyone, since the agency had already known about documented unsafe conditions at he pier. “They own the pier. They’re responsible,” said attorney Rose Weber, who has 120 clients in 13 different lawsuits, all concerning what was known for a brief time as “Guantanamo on the Hudson.”
>> The city had tried to withhold the information on the basis of “national security.”
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In 2003, as the Trust was getting underway, the big news in town was not the park but the Republican National Convention. Developer and leading New York Republican Roland Betts, owner of Chelsea Piers (and former co-owner with President George W. Bush of the Texas Rangers) had succeeded in his campaign to bring the 2004 Republican National Convention to New York. Bloomberg and Doctoroff celebrated the event’s anticipated tourist income, while the New York Police Department began to prepare for what they called a “National Security Event.”
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A letter dated June 22, 2004, to HRPT from NYPD Deputy Commissioner of Administration Charles De Rienzo, former head of the Port Authority Police Department, formally requested use of Pier 57 as a “secondary processing facility” for the duration of the RNC. The letter also listed what NYPD intended to do to prepare for the convention, based on inspection of the pier by commanders who would be responsible for the operation.
These “relatively minimal modifications” would be confined to: “installation of fencing with razor wire; surveying and replacing any first-floor lighting as needed; surveying and repairing ventilation fans on first floor; surveying electrical system and hooking up backup generator if possible; painting certain areas of first floor; and installation of many telephones.” Neither that letter nor published remarks from police officials at the time mentioned the asbestos, oil on the floor or broken exit signs contained in the environmental assessment reports.
Next week: what all that razor wire was used for, how the Trust responded, and why the NYPD is reluctant to release hazardous-exposure reports filed by its own officers on the scene.
RNC suits vs. Hudson River Park gain steam three years later
http://chelseanow.com/cn_51/rncsuitsvshudson.htmlpeace~