Council rescinds earlier approval of downtown square for protesters

LOS ANGELES - In the latest clash between city officials and activists intent on protesting the Democratic National Convention, the City Council voted 12-1 Friday to rescind its earlier support of designating a downtown square for demonstrators.

The decision came just two weeks after council members approved Councilwoman Jackie Goldberg's request to make Pershing Square available to the protesters. Goldberg had refused to support a request by convention organizers for $4 million unless council members backed her effort to designate the square.

A committee recommended that Pershing Square be deleted as the official demonstration site after police and business owners warned that businesses and citizens would be vulnerable, especially if protesters became violent.

Goldberg, the only one to vote ''no'' Friday, said the move sets the stage for an antagonistic relationship between police and protesters. Protesters don't need the special designation to seek permits and assemble at Pershing Square, but Goldberg said she had hoped the designation would prevent the kinds of riots that rocked the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago.

''All I was trying to accomplish from the very beginning was to make it a cooperative and not a confrontational exercise in free speech,'' she said after the vote she called a very ''bad sign.''

Protesters tied strips of cloth around their mouths during Friday's debate and waved signs in the air asking to be heard, but were not allowed to speak because public comment on the issue was heard at previous meetings.

''We're concerned that the Democratic National Committee and the multinational corporations don't want our message to go out,'' said Brett Doran, a member of the activist coalition Direct Action Network who removed his gag to speak to a reporter.

''We feel it's a free speech issue,'' he said.

The meeting grew raucous as some protesters shouted at council members during the debate, prompting an officer to threaten them with removal if they didn't quiet down.

Councilman Nate Holden taunted the protesters to ''come on'' and warned them that ''forewarned is forearmed,'' so to not be surprised by a police response to their demonstrations. He accused them of being willing to do anything to get on television.

Councilman Nick Pacheco said the protesters were welcome to participate in acts of civil disobedience, but admonished them to not complain when they got arrested.

Activists, who are expected to number 50,000 by some estimates, are upset by law enforcement authorities' decision to establish a wide buffer zone around the convention site, thus keeping protesters far from earshot of delegates.

Activists also have criticized the designation of a parking lot near the Staples Center as the official protest area, complaining that it is too far from the site and from delegates.

Police have said protesters are free to demonstrate elsewhere, outside the buffer zone, as long as they don't break any laws. The designated area will come equipped with bathrooms, sound equipment and a stage.

Pershing Square is even farther from Staples Center, but is close to the Biltmore Hotel, where the California delegation will stay and Vice President Al Gore considered staying at one time.

A coalition of activists sued the city and Police Department one week ago for greater access to the event site. The plaintiffs want a preliminary injunction to prevent the city and police from keeping protesters outside the current planned ''no-access zone'' and from requiring protesters to get parade permits.

The plaintiffs say they have no plans to use the police-designated protest area. The plaintiffs claim there's no way delegates would ever see or hear protesters from that location.

Michael Everett, a protester who attended Friday's meeting and who works with the protesters coalition known as the D2K Network, said the vote would not affect him.

''We will go on with our protest, and we'll march to Staples Center,'' he said. ''Nothing's changed. We're going to be in Pershing Square.''

In a related matter, council members failed to muster the necessary votes to approve a motion that would have taken back $2 million set aside to help convention organizers out of a budget shortfall. The city already handed over the other half of $4 million the council members agreed to give the organizers.

The measure received the support of seven council members, but fell a vote shy of the number needed to pass.