[A-List] Free Speech Victory in Central Park Lawsuit!

[Carlos Rovira <carlitoboricua@xxxxxxxxx>]

NY1: http://www.ny1.com/ny1/content/index.jsp?&aid=77296&search_result=1&stid=3
New York Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/08/nyregion/09cnd-lawn.html?em&ex=1199941200&en=22ff1f8a58e03d04&ei=5087%0A
Reuters: http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSN0852291120080109
Associated Press:
http://www.silive.com/newsflash/metro/index.ssf?/base/news-30/119982930944610.xml&storylist=simetro
 
Central Park Great Lawn Lawsuit 
Results in Important Victory for Free Speech Rights
 
Settlement Strikes Down Regulations Banning Mass Assembly Protest
City Must Now Establish Constitutionally Valid Permitting Scheme for Protests in
Central Park
~~ See New York Times article below ~~ 

The Partnership for Civil Justice has announced today the filing in Court of a
landmark settlement agreement with the City of New York that strikes down key
provisions of controversial and unconstitutional regulations aimed at restricting
access to the Great Lawn of Central Park. The National Council of Arab Americans
(NCA) and the A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition (Act Now to Stop War & End Racism) are the
plaintiffs in the lawsuit. 

The City must now establish a constitutionally valid permitting scheme for
protests in Central Park and must undertake a feasibility study into the optimum
and sustainable use of the Great Lawn and what efforts can be undertaken to
maximize the availability of the lawn for large events including rallies and
demonstrations. 

The settlement not only strikes down the 50,000 person limit on the Great Lawn --
which was used as the pretext to deny permits during the RNC -- it opens the door
to a massive campaign enlisting all New Yorkers to insist on the right to
maintain the Great Lawn as a public space available for mass assembly protest.
This significant victory in the courts can be utilized to further mobilize the
people in defense of Free Speech rights. Rather than acquiesce to the City when
it denied permits for mass action during the RNC the NCA and A.N.S.W.E.R. fought
back.

The settlement also requires the city to pay damages to NCA and A.N.S.W.E.R. for
discriminatorily denying us the right to hold a demonstration on the Great Lawn
during the Republican National Convention in August 2004. It also requires the
City to pay attorneys fees and costs for the litigation.

The litigation was originally brought in advance of the Republican National
Convention (RNC) by the Partnership for Civil Justice (PCJ), a Washington
DC-based public interest law firm, when NCA and A.N.S.W.E.R. sought to hold a
demonstration in support of civil rights and civil liberties including the
targeted Arab and Muslim community. The demonstration was timed to coincide with
the opening of the RNC and was to be held on August 28, the 41st anniversary of
Dr. King's historic March on Washington, but was blocked by the City. Other
organizations had also been denied permits to stage protest rallies in the Great
Lawn during this period.

After the Republican National Convention concluded, the NCA and the A.N.S.W.E.R.
Coalition determined that we would continue the litigation in order to block the
effort of Mayor Bloomberg and wealthy and corporate backers to privatize Central
Park, including the Great Lawn, and make it off limits to mass political
assembly, while at the same time allowing corporate-sponsored, politically
approved events.

This three-year long litigation has been hard-fought, and included depositions of
top city officials as well as successful obtainment of more than 10,000 pages of
critical documents including internal emails and other materials. These documents
proved the falsity of the City's representations as to the basis of the denials
for protest permits in 2004. They also revealed that Mayor Bloomberg and his
office were directly involved in political decision-making as to who should have
access to the Great Lawn.

"The lawsuit and today's settlement successfully challenges the brazenly
unconstitutional efforts to bar protests from the Great Lawn," states Carl
Messineo, a co-founder of the Partnership for Civil Justice. "The Bloomberg
administration, along with the NYC Parks Department, took concerted actions to
illegally block mass assembly protest during the Republican National Convention
in August 2004. The Arab-American community and anti-war protestors were barred
from the use of Central Park's Great Lawn for mass assembly protests." he
continued.

The litigation filed in the United States District Court for the Southern
District of New York, National Council of Arab Americans and the A.N.S.W.E.R.
Coalition v. The City of New York City, et.al., 04-CV-6602 (WHP) has far reaching
consequences not only for New York but for Free Speech rights in cities
throughout the country.

"The lawsuit is not merely about the use of the Great Lawn of Central Park. It
serves as an historic challenge to the privatization of public space and the
ability of corporations to "purchase" our fundamental rights," states Mara
Verheyden-Hilliard, co-founder of the PCJ. "Mayor Bloomberg wanted to ban mass
assembly protest from Manhattan during the Convention and forever after. The
Great Lawn, with 13 acres of open space, has historically been used for the
largest mass assembly events in NYC. We assert that if New York's Great Lawn can
be closed off to political assembly and protest, it will establish a precedent
that will be replicated nationwide. There will be no parkland that will be safe
for the continued use of the Free Speech rights of the people,"
Verheyden-Hilliard emphasized.

While New York barred the use of the Great Lawn for political protests against
policies of the Bush Administration, the Great Lawn has been the site of many
large gatherings in recent years including an American Online-sponsored rock
concert by the Dave Mathews Band that promoted an AOL product, the Metropolitan
Opera, the Philharmonic Orchestra, and other international celebrations and mass
gatherings. The City denied the permits to the NCA and A.N.S.W.E.R. on the basis
that the presence in Central Park of those intending to gather for civil rights
would "damage the grass."

Through this agreement, NCA and the A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition retain our right to
continue a legal challenge to any resulting regulations following the feasibility
study that are not constitutionally sound. The City is obligated to provide
notice to the organizations regarding the feasibility study and any regulatory
changes. The organizations are each receiving $25,000 for the deprivation of the
right to hold a protest on August 28, 2004. Separately, the City is also paying
attorneys' fees and costs for the three year long litigation. The attorneys on
the litigation are Carl Messineo and Mara Verheyden-Hilliard of the Partnership
for Civil Justice and Carol A. Sobel.

To view a copy of the settlement agreement and for more information on this
litigation and other constitutional rights challenges, please visit the website
of the Partnership for Civil Justice http://www.justiceonline.org/.

Below is an article from the New York Times on the settlement.


---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition <ANSWER@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx >
Date: Jan 8, 2008 7:51 PM
Subject: Free Speech Victory in Central Park Lawsuit
To: becker.ben@xxxxxxxxx

ANSWER&#8232;Coalition.org


Settlement on Use of Central Park's Great Lawn
By ALAN FEUER&#8232;Published: January 8, 2008

After three years of contentious litigation, the New York City Parks Department
agreed Tuesday to back away from a controversial regulation to limit public
events on the Great Lawn, in the heart of Central Park, to 50,000 people. The
decision to rescind the rule ? put in place, the city said, to protect the lawn
and used in an early form to deny permits to antiwar demonstrators ? was hailed
by its critics as a victory for the First Amendment and for the public use of
public land.

"It's an enormous victory for New Yorkers and for everyone who comes to New York
City," said Mara Verheyden-Hilliard, a lawyer for the Partnership for Civil
Justice, which had challenged the regulation. "Not only for their free-speech
rights, but for their rights to public space that belongs to the people."

Enforcement of the rule was temporarily set aside as part of a settlement
agreement with two antiwar groups that Ms. Verheyden-Hilliard's group represents
and that sued the city after they were denied a permit to hold a demonstration on
the lawn in advance of the Republican National Convention in 2004. While the rule
was not formally adopted until December 2005, the city had an informal policy of
protecting the lawn in place since 1997, officials said, when it spent $18.2 to
restore the 13-acre area.

Under the agreement, which staved off a looming federal trial, the city will now
conduct a study to determine "the optimum and sustainable use of the Great Lawn
for large events." Officials said that current regulations governing the lawn
would remain in effect while the study is conducted, except that the maximum
number of attendees permitted on the lawn will be up to 75,000 people.

"We believe that the settlement of this matter is in the city's best interests,"
said Michael A. Cardozo, the city's Corporation Counsel. "The study will allow
the Parks Department to obtain a recommendation that will help it determine
whether, and to what extent, the Great Lawn can accommodate large concerts and
rallies without significantly damaging the lawn or impeding its day-to-day use
for softball and other recreational activities."

When the regulation was officially?and quietly?established, city officials said
that only six events with 5,000 to 50,000 spectators would be permitted each year
on the lawn in order to protect its fragile 13 acres of Kentucky bluegrass. Of
those six event permits, four were reserved for the Metropolitan Opera and the
New York Philharmonic, whose musical events drew "passive" crowds, officials
said, which did little damage to the lawn.

The move to limit the gatherings was met at once with spirited criticism from
groups who questioned the constitutionality of the restrictions and who argued
that the possibility of damage to the lawn was no more than a pretext to mute
political action. There were those who said the city was seeking to prevent
demonstrations against the Iraq war and those of a more nostalgic bent who could
remember a time when the Great Lawn was used for Simon and Garfunkel concerts and
large-scale papal masses.

Before the regulation was adopted, there were no explicit limits on the number of
people allowed to gather on the lawn, nor on the number of gatherings held there.
Permission to assemble was granted on a case-by-case basis with any group of more
than 20 requiring a permit.

The lawsuit which led to the agreement was filed in Federal District Court in
Manhattan by the National Council of Arab Americans and the Answer Coalition,
which applied for ? and were denied ? permission to stage a rally on the Great
Lawn on Aug. 28, 2004, before the Republican gathering in New York. The judge
presiding in the case, William H. Pauley III, ruled in March that the city was
constitutionally permitted to limit events on the lawn to protect it from damage
but had to defend itself against the specific charge of violating the two groups'
First Amendment rights by denying them permission to march.

The study, which will be undertaken at the city's expense, will be conducted by
an independent committee, including at least three experts in "turf management"
and one expert in crowd control, the settlement agreement says. Upon completion,
its report will be sent to the parks commissioner who will then adopt or not
adopt its recommendations.

Should the two plaintiffs in the lawsuit be unsatisfied with the city's response
to the study, the settlement agreement affords them the right to reopen the case.
The agreement also requires the city to pay each of the groups $25,000 and
reimburse them for $500,000 in attorneys' costs and fees.

"The Parks Department has consistently made appropriate decisions to protect the
Great Lawn's primary function, which is to provide high-quality green space for
active and passive recreation, as well as to accommodate cultural and political
events," said Adrian Benepe, the commissioner of parks and recreation. "We
welcome the opportunity for further study."


&#8232;A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition
http://www.answercoalition.org/ 
info@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 
National Office in Washington DC: 202-544-3389
New York City: 212-694-8720
Los Angeles: 213-251-1025 
San Francisco: 415-821-6545
Chicago: 773-463-0311






      ____________________________________________________________________________________
Be a better friend, newshound, and 
know-it-all with Yahoo! Mobile.  Try it now.  http://mobile.yahoo.com/;_ylt=Ahu06i62sR8HDtDypao8Wcj9tAcJ