Felstiner Hammers Sledge:

Alek Felstiner eloquently responds to William Sledge's op-ed in the YDN today. "Out of respect for the prospective voters in Ward 1," says Felstiner, "and the eight members of our university who faced a year in jail for handing out pieces of paper, I'd like to get the true facts out in the open."

1.
The leafletters were arrested because of what was on their leaflets, not where they were standing. And as such, the conflict had nothing to do with "criminal trespass" and everything to do with free speech. Jorge Perez (Board of Aldermen President and co-author of the resolution) wrote in a Nov. 17th letter to the New Haven Register that "[no one was] able to explain how an individual with privileges to enter a building on a daily basis could be charged with trespassing."

2.
Hospital constables aren't city cops, they are private security forces serving a private corporation, with arrest powers granted them by the New Haven Board of Police Commissioners and the mayor. Being the only constabulary force in New Haven, Hospital constables enjoyed a unique city benefit that they abused, prompting the Board of Aldermen to vote 18-2-2 to recommend its revocation. After extensive hearings, the Board of Police Commissioners voted 4-1 to revoke arrest powers, with Commissioner John Einhorn arguing that "the general concept of private companies having special police powers, it doesn't belong in the 21st century." (New Haven Register, "Constables' arrest powers likely to cease" 12/12/2002)

3.
The constables' loss of arrest powers has no bearing on emergency response times, patient training, or on-site policing. Constables retain all the authority and freedom that they possessed before the incident, which includes detaining people, policing hospital grounds, and assisting staff and patients in emergencies. They just can't physically hand you a citation. And, given that the constables and the Hospital administration display a tendency to abuse those arrest powers in attacking freedom of speech, removing them seems an appropriate response that produces zero impact on hospital safety.

4.
I believe that Kruger and Sledge are trying to foster paranoia around "special interests" to distract voters from the central (and swiftly growing) problem of Kruger's candidacy: he has made a handful of campaign promises without offering any concrete policy plans.

Damn. I would not want to be Sledge right now. Kruger's master's tea in Stiles today should be interesting. I will not be there. (Need some sleep.)

Happy Birthday, Babu!!!!
Today's my grandmother's 87th birthday!

Sounds like the GESO membership meeting went really well. Even Claudia Brittenham is happy.  ¶ 11:21 AM