Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson

Editorial by Kathy Wray Coleman, Editor of the Kathy Wray Coleman Online News Blog.Com (www.kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com) 

(Editor's Note: The Imperial Women, the People's Forum, the Greater Cleveland Immigrant Support Network, Stop Targeting Ohio's Poor and a host of other grassroots organizations support Occupy Cleveland and its mission to continue camping out at Public Square in downtown Cleveland at least until the end of the year to bring attention to the disenfranchisement of poor and middle class people through corporate greed and malfeasance. Leave the young and peaceful protesters alone or city officials shall hear from seasoned community activists)

Editorial:

Will Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson take on the Occupy Cleveland protesters who say they will camp out at Public Square in Cleveland at least until the end of the year with or without the city's renewal of the permits required to be there and to pitch tents for overnight sleepovers? My guess is a flat out no.

It's not Jackson's style to pick on people that don't pick on him, unless of course there's something in it for him, or unless it pertains to the malfeasance by his administration and police around the case of since convicted Serial Murderer Anthony Sowell, or a potential lawsuit for police brutality or something like malicious prosecution by his all non-Black top level prosecutorial team that includes the city's since ousted law director and still aboard chief prosecutor. And these protesters, primarily in there 20's and 30's and affiliated with Occupy Wallstreet, a national movement across the country against economic strife and corporate greed and malfeasance that has approval ratings higher than most of America's presidents, are not bothering the mayor, or anyone else. 

Led by activist Erin McCardle, the group's permits expire Friday at 10 pm for simply congregating on Public Square in downtown Cleveland and Saturday to continue pitching tents. They say that they are prepared to break the law and remain intact if the city denies requests to renew the permits, but through organized civil disobedience.

The protesters took center stage in Cleveland on Oct. 6 beginning with a protest at City Hall, and have had several others since then, some generating hundreds of people. Its members are holding a mass protest set for Fri, Oct 21 at 1 pm to take Jackson on if he has any intentions of interfering. And he is not likely to pick on an organized group of majority White protesters that have been at all times peaceful to the risk of generating national news. 

I predict that Jackson, a reasonably smart Black man and the 56th mayor of the predominantly Black major metropolitan city of Cleveland, will renew the permits and leave the young and peaceful protesters alone, and I say that if he does, it would be a smart move. Why bother those that are not bothering you and that do not pose a threat to the safety and welfare of city residents and others? And he does not have ousted law director Robert Triozzi, who resigned last month, to urge him to make incompetent and irresponsible decisions on pertinent issues of public concern anymore.

Reach Journalist Kathy Wray Coleman at www.kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com, ktcoleman8 [at] aol [dot] com and phone number: 216-932-3114.