It was almost sort of cute,in its' way, at first. Funny.
Its' charm has worn off for me though.
Boot 'em.

Tightened policy on drugs? When did that start? I got baked just walking down 4th ave the other day.

Can you ask Fish how much it costs to restore Waterfront Park every summer after Cinco De Mayo, the Rose Festival, the Blues Festival, the Brewers Festival, and so on? Of course, I guess it's ok because there people are spending money. Occupy Portland are just exercising their civil rights, so by all means, lets get Fish his $19,000.

@rth - all those groups you mentioned pay to restore the area when they are done. Every one.
There was a story on Oregon Live about it when someone else brought up the same question.
So, is Occupy gonna pony up like everyone else does?

I think Fish is correct when he says it is time to shift things to the "political side of the ledge." Starting with HIS seat on the council.

OWS raised $300,000, I'm sure OP can drum up at least part of the cost in donations. The city blew money dumping our reservoirs and purchasing a neon sign to keep it from the shady likes of (gasp!) the University of Oregon, I'm pretty sure $19,000 to preserve a peaceful political assembly is not too great a cost.

Fish is one of the rich guys. Duh.

Good article, but hey Denis, why don't you arrange to tour Occupy with an arborist from the Parks Dept and one of their restoration staff and the eco team from Occupy. You could get an exclusive, and do some on spot journalism. It would be a shame to loose those big trees. Maybe Waterfront Park would be a better spot?

So, when does the 99% get its' parks back from the 1% ?

The Occupiers letter is awesome: they're using the city's own propaganda and p/r tactics to tell Fish to blow. Not unlike the way City of Portland bureaus frequently tell average citizens to blow.

Welcome to the receiving end of a greenwash, Nick.

I agree with you bruce that it is reminiscent of a letter the city would write to an opponent.

Still, it basically boils down to "we're hippies, so we know how to take care of a park just as well as professional park staff." Um, no. The record zuccini harvest from your home garden doesn't qualify you to restore a city park.

...and planting non-native invasive bamboo in there was pretty damn dumb too.
I woulda thought a hippie would know better.

Simple solution: collect the money now for park repair, and just leave it in a city bank account ready to be used when the protestors move on.

How many parks are not occupied? If you want to reflect on all the good citicorp has done you while enjoying the artificial nature of a park, go to one of those parks.

#12 - you obviously do not have a background in arboculture, otherwise you would understand the concerns that Fish is expressing. the continual occupation of the park will have likely long-term detrimental effects on the trees there. compaction of soils and well as starving the trees of oxygen by having tents and tarps over the root structure is already adversely affecting their health. the longer they remain there the more damage they'll do. if their "Green Guardians" really cared about the parks and the trees in them they would be upping stakes and moving the whole thing to a more appropriate location. IMO waterfront park would be much more suitable.

and while I'm glad to hear that the OP folks will provide reasonable restoration of the parks following their exit, I have to question whether that will happen if things get ugly w/ the City and people start getting arrested.

The trees in those parks are elms. They are stressed even without Occupy by the Dutch elm disease (which they could catch any time and die - look it up) and by being in an urban environment limiting their root spread. So yes, depriving roots of oxygen and water by covering them in plastic and walking on them is something to think about. Re-Occupy!

On the other hand, FUCK DUTCH ELMS.

@14:
Oh noes! INVASIVE bamboo is now going to INVADE Portland!
You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid, stupid stupid!!

I love you guys who still seem to think that a bunch of wastoids singing "fuck the USA" in the rain is going to bring down citicorp. These guys are already hurting whatever cause they claim to support. And it will only get worse.

This is how this ends. These guys hang out for a few more weeks while every one else in the city becomes even less sure of what it is they're even trying to accomplish. Finally, everyone else (you know, the 98%) looks at each other and says, why do we now have a huge homeless camp in the middle of downtown? It is broken up by police in an ugly fashion. The protest kids have now "won" because they have fought some minor skirmish with the cops which was always their goal - the rest is just window dressing. They retreat to wait for the next excuse to have a minor skirmish with the cops, because that is their goal.

Blabby--you missed the part about how each rainy/cold day will siphon off a few more of the reasonable protesters, until all you're left with is the hardcore group of long-term homeless, drug addicts, mentally ill, and anarchist black-booted protest kids. That's when this thing gets ugly, but I think we've got about 2 more weeks until the reasonable/responsible people in the movement say "eh, enough of this."

HOW LONG TILL DYSENTARY, TRENCH FOOT, TB AND ENNUI LEAVE THE #OP WITH A BUNCH OF CRIPPLED COUGHERS?!?

Diseases and dreadlocks and how can they oppose the reckless and corrupt influences of globalized capitalism and yet use COMPUTERS and bongo drums and marijuana and black clothing and anarchism and nihilism and granola and they hate america and patchouli and I don't understand what they're protesting and Marxism and the people actively protesting are not really 99% and drum circles and twinkles and my intuition tells me consensus decision-making can never work and drum circles and they're hurting plants even though they're obviously a bunch of hippies and there are lots of other ways take care of our problems without rallies, like voting for the right candidates and this doesn't look good for our usually clean-looking city and these people should get a job and shut up and not be drug addicts.
There, that's a critique, right?

It sounds alot more coherent than what the protest is supposedly actually about.