The article below was originally published on OpenMike at MichaelMoore.com on Jan. 24 under the headline “Documents Reveal DC Mayor Gray, U.S. Conference of Mayors Dramatizing and Inflating Cost of Occupy DC to the District.” Mara Verheyden-Hilliard is Executive Director of the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund.
As the Mayor of the District of Columbia came to the aid of Tea Party
favorite Congressman Darrell Issa at his political hearing today
designed to demonize the Occupy movement, the PCJF is exposing that the
Mayor’s office in coordination with the U.S. Conference of Mayors has
intentionally sought to inflate the cost of the Occupy movement.
The PCJF has obtained documents in response to its Freedom of
Information Act initiative about the coordinated crackdown on the Occupy
movement. These documents reveal that the District of Columbia
Executive Office of the Mayor (EOM) has been misrepresenting the cost of
the two Occupy DC encampments to the media and the public.
Hoping that no one will read the fine print, the Mayor’s office
deceptively testified today that the “cost to the District exceeds the
previously requested reimbursement of $1.6 million dollars.”
Politics has very much been at play in assessing costs. Internal
communications between the Mayor’s office and DC agencies, as well as
public communications to the media, reveal that the Mayor’s office
dramatically inflated publicly announced costs to the District in a
matter of just 15 days. The Mayor’s Office’s cost estimates rose from
$21,000 (as of 10/19) on November 15, to $894,000 on November 18 to $1.1
million in MPD costs on November 22 to $1,579,000 on December 1.
The huge inflation in cost estimates came in response to inquiries
from the media and the U.S. Conference of Mayors. The U.S. Conference of
Mayors has engaged in a national coordinated campaign to provide
talking points and rationales for evicting encampments, including an
effort to assert that encampments are causing a financial hardship to
American’s cities.
Mayor Gray’s office today pandered to the call to shut down the
encampments coming from Rep. Issa, the richest member of Congress who,
with an estimated net worth of $450 million, is firmly rooted in the
upper 1%. Issa is also the architect and principal cheerleader for the
massive attacks, cutbacks and layoffs targeting postal workers.
While Representatives Elijah Cummings and Eleanor Holmes Norton
exposed the hearing as an effort to inhibit or subvert the free speech
rights of a new progressive social justice movement, the Mayor’s office
functioned as a prop for Issa’s campaign.
Background: The Evolution of Changing Cost Estimates
Initially, on November 15,
the Mayor’s office estimated total costs to be “about $21,000” and
acknowledged that any costs were within “normal daily duties” and
further, that were any additional costs to arise they would be covered
by the “congressionally appropriated funding from the federal government
for [these type of] events.” The District receives $15 million a year
in federal funds designated to cover demonstrations and other national
events. Three days later, on November 18, the Mayor’s office claimed that Occupy DC cost the MPD alone $870,000.
The Mayor’s second round of numbers sought to extract regular
budgeted agency costs of carrying out normal daily business as though
they were special costs incurred in response to the Occupy
demonstrations. Moreover, they used an estimate of the normal police
costs for an average day of staffing significant demonstration and march
activities and multiplied it out over the days of the encampments
regardless of actual deployment and costs.
On November 15, the EOM reported to the media that as of October 19
the total cost to the city been $21,000, including only $1,000 incurred
in police overtime.
In the email, Senior Communications Manager Doxie McCoy writes,
“These are not additional costs because city agencies are performing
normal daily duties.”
But in an update on November 18
to the same reporter, McCoy writes that the cost to MPD rose to
$870,000. DDOT reported $4,400 of costs related to the Key Bridge march
and $14,000 of costs for traffic control officers but that, “both
figures are regular expenditures and not overtime.” These costs included
such routine duties as emptying trash cans, street sweeping and parking
enforcement on public roads.
The Mayors False Narrative Continues to Pick up Momentum
Only four days later on November 22,
the EOM reported, “MPD has spent about $1.1 million for patrols on
marches, protests and other duties associated with Occupy DC,” to a
different reporter.
Correspondence also includes an email from the U.S. Conference of Mayors
from November 28. By then, the multi-city campaign to evict encampments
was in full swing. They wanted to emphasize the purported financial
burden that was being placed on cities. That email solicits the EOM to
recalculate MPD’s costs which had been reported to them as calculated at
$65,000 since demonstrations began at both Occupy locations. The email
from the U.S. Conference of Mayors states, “That seems low to me, so
wanted to make sure it’s correct.”
In response, the EOM adjusted the reported cost related to the DC
occupations upwards to nearly $1.6 million both in submissions to the
U.S. Conference of Mayors and in public statements including today’s
testimony. The U.S. Conference of Mayors representative writes back:
“Thanks so much for pulling this together. I’ll make sure they replace
DC’s previous responses. This will be especially helpful as we try to
show what the Occupy Movement is costing cities.”
The Tea Party-backed Congresspeople and the Mayor are promoting a
false narrative. Rep. Joe Walsh, a leader of the Tea Party,
histrionically asserted at the hearing today that, “the city of
Washington, D.C. is at a breaking point right now.” Walsh and the others
are not referring to D.C.’s staggering unemployment rate, or the
soaring poverty that is devastating communities throughout the District
of Columbia. He is referring to two small encampments in downtown
parkland that are protesting a system that rewards the 1% while keeping a
large segment of the population mired in poverty and unemployment. The
Mayor would do better by abandoning his allies at the hearing and
attending to the real needs of the people of the District of Columbia.
