Occupy Philly: From the Frontlines - Part 3: The Move

Yesterday, November 18th, a vote was held at the General Assembly about a possible preemptive move from Dilworth Plaza to Thomas Paine Plaza at the Municipal Services Building. The vote to move was in response to the eviction notice that was sent from the City of Philadelphia. After hours and hours of debate, a vote was held at around 10PM.

Here are the raw details of that vote:

Proposal: To move across the street to Thomas Paine Plaza in response to the eviction notice immediately after General Assembly (GA).

Amendments:

1. To move to Rittenhouse Square instead
2. To postpone the move until noon the next day
3. To block traffic while doing the move.

In the end, no amendments passed and the vote to move that night was around 65 to 74. On a whole, a vast majority of people were OK with moving over there in general, but the main reason for the split in the vote was because of the time of the move; that night.

Why else did we want to move?

1. The City of Philadelphia, along with the mayor's office and various other offices, indicated that they would like to see us move and actually proposed Thomas Paine Plaza multiple times.

2. The Unions has said they supported us, but the longer we waited to move, the less likely they were to support us. During the General Assembly, it was stressed that the unions would help us in the move as well.



So what happened once we had the vote to move that night? No one helped us.

Immediately after GA, people began packing up their materials to move across the street. At the same time, there was no visual support from any of the Unions, at least none that I could see. Within minutes of people beginning to set up at Thomas Paine Plaza, reports came in to the rest of the camp that the police weren't allowing anyone to setup. Soon, there was an official order to disperse. In return, everyone at Occupy Philly, after some discussion, returned and picked up their things and moved them back across the street.



In the end, the entire affair was hectic but civil. Again, there were no arrests and save the confusion, everyone was OK. The Philadelphia Police are currently blocking anyone from moving over. All the while, Occupy Philly is trying to reach a solution on being able to move.