Occupiers Given Free Rein By Mayor

Richmond Virginia's Mayor Dwight Jones has backed occupiers and now wants to audit the local Tea Party.  The Richmond Tea Party delivered an invoice for charges incurred in their previous three Tax Day rallies at Kanawha Plaza because Mayor Jones chose to allow Occupy Richmond protesters to convene in the same park for two weeks.

The local Tea Party received a letter from the City of Richmond formally stating that the city is auditing our Tea Party. This audit is an obvious attempt to intimidate and harass them for standing up against the unfair treatment and discrimination against their Tea Party.

The Mayor not only allowed the Occupiers to break the law, but he visited them in the city-owned park. “Jones said that as a ‘child of civil rights’ and protests, he had allowed the group to remain in the park but understands his mayoral responsibility to uphold laws of the city.”

It appears Jones mayoral duties included preferential treatment for the occupiers, a group he sympathizes with ideologically at the expense of the taxpayers.  It has been reported that the city provided services such as portable toilets, trash pickup, etc. The incomplete invoices obtained from the city totaled $7,000.

This was only a portion of the actual costs to taxpayers because the costs of police, helicopter and incarcerations were not included.  Also not accounted for was the 24-hour police protection of the Mayor’s home after the Occupiers moved their camp next door to the Mayor’s house. The Richmond Tea Party, conversely, paid for all services for our rallies, including the police, portable toilets, park fees and permits, amounting to approximately $8,500.

At least two Richmond City Council members agreed with our plight. “I guess we’ll be writing a check to the Tea Party people,” said Councilman Bruce W. Tyler, as quoted in the Richmond Times Dispatch. “You can’t treat one group different from the other. It’s unfair.”

On November 14th, representatives of our Tea Party attended the City Council meeting to speak to the Mayor and Council during the citizen forum. Mayor Jones, apparently too busy to listen to his constituents, got up and left before we spoke. He had no problem inviting members of the Occupy group to his office for a closed door meeting days later, at the same time refusing to meet with us.

His administration, however, found the time to send the Tea Party an audit letter.  No need for the city to audit the Occupiers, because, as the Mayor knows, all of their costs were provided by the taxpayers of Richmond.

The left always show their true colors.

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