NYC Residents Voice Outrage Over Protests: ‘Neighbors Do Not Beat on Drums While Children are Sleeping’ “The occupiers are not our neighbors,” Manhattan resident Linda Gerstman, who lives on Broad Street, told those at the Community Board 1 meeting on Thursday night. “Our neighbors do not beat on drums while children are sleeping. Our neighbors do not verbally attack people on their way to work.”
She wasn’t the only resident who lives near the Occupy Wall St. encampment that voiced displeasure to boards Quality of Life and Financial District sub-committees regarding the almost two-month long demonstration. Many residents gathered at the meeting to complain about the sanitation, the noise, and the safety issues caused by the protest.
“Their entrance ways and door stoops are being defecated on, urinated on,” said another woman, who appeared to sit on the board, about local businesses.
Still another man took umbrage with them being called neighbors: “Neighbors pay rent.”
A well-dressed Occupy spokesperson, Han Shan, said that there’s a growing “consensus” among the protesters that they need to be “better neighbors:”
So what did the board end up doing about the complaints? NBCNewYork.com has the answer:
A resolution passed by Community Board 1 during the meeting recognized Occupy Wall Street’s First Amendment rights to protest and to assemble, and said it opposed the use of force by the city or by Zuccotti Park‘s owners to address the community’s concerns.
But the resolution also called for protesters to help address the residents’ health, public safety, noise and sanitation concerns.
Among the goals detailed in the resolution:
- limiting the use of drums, trumpets, bugles and air horns to two hours a day, during midday;
- arranging access to bathrooms off-site to eliminate urinating and defecating in doorways of retail shops and residential buildings;
- removing police barricades that block access to homes and businesses
By the way, if there was a girl who looked familiar in the background of the above video, that’s because Blaze readers have seen her before. Did you happen to catch a glimpse of this woman?
According to The Village Voice,
that’s Nelini Stamp, one of the Occupy representatives at the meeting. She’s the woman featured in
our earlier video who works for the Working Families Party — you know, the group that is
really behind the “grassroots” protests:
Like a good neighbor, the Wall St. protesters are there.
