Occupy Chattanooga has issued a (very well written) press release on their blog today, blasting the County Commission for seeking to waste our tax monies for the purpose of pursuing legal action against peaceful demonstrators who, by the Commission's own admission, are doing nothing illegal. Occupy Chattanooga also noted that the "emergency resolution" detailing the initial steps for this potential legal action, which I had detailed at length in a
previous post, was brought to the floor with no prior public comment period, no prior public deliberation (except one
previous meeting with County Attorney Taylor that violated the Sunshine Law) and no prior announcement. This, argues Occupy Chattanooga, has exposed the County Commission's real motive in pursuing potential legal action against Occupy Chattanooga:
Occupy Chattanooga believes the real reason for this challenge is that our protests have targeted corruption in all levels of government and spoken out against our County Commission’s willingness to ignore state laws that require transparency. Our County Commission is standing against free speech and transparency in government. We stand in favor of both. We are the 99%.
You can read more of the Occupy Chattanooga blog post
HERE.
The real question is, what's next for Occupy Chattanooga? Will they be able to organize enough folks around a successful political strategy and mobilize enough broader public support to effectively challenge the Hamilton County Commission?