Junta for Progressive Action
by Paul Bass | March 10, 2006 12:16 PM | Permalink
Paul Bass Photo
Whether or not an upcoming march brings peace to the Middle East, it has succeeded in overcoming tensions in Fair Haven. Organizers of the March 18 antiwar and pro-immigrant-rights protest reached a compromise Friday morning with Grand Avenue merchants (many of them immigrants themselves) concerned about losing business when their street closes to allow ralliers to march. After some tension, everyone (including merchant Norma Franceschi, at right in photo) left Friday's meeting happy.
According to the compromise, hammered out at a meeting in a second-floor room overlooking Grand Avenue at Junta for Progressive Action, the rally's march down the neighborhood's main commercial strip will start at 12:30 p.m., not 11 a.m. And organizers will use their web site to urge marchers to spend at least $10 apiece at local businesses.
City officials insisted that protest organizers work out differences with the merchants' association, GAVA (Grand Avenue Village Association), before receiving a permit to march. (Click here to read about the dispute. And click here to hear and read a conversation about the march and immigration between a rally organizer and an Exchange Street man.)
Thirteen people, about half from each side, gathered at Junta for the meeting. Kica Matos, of Junta and GAVA, began by stressing that the merchants support the rally's goal of ending the war in Iraq. But they worried about the impact of the march on small business people whose business is already hurting from the closure of the Ferry Street bridge. Past Saturday marches, such as an Arts & Ideas-related one two years ago, shut down Grand Avenue at the busiest time of the week.
Rose Cimino of Apicella's Bakery stressed how everyday people in Fair Haven would be hurt by a Saturday morning march.
"The banks are open. People cannot do their banking during the week. They work all week. They pay their utility bills on Saturday morning. You can only pay until 1 o'clock." The Fair Haven Community Health Center also runs a free clinic Saturday mornings.
Cimino also spoke of how a Saturday morning street closing would prevent a trucker from delivering her weekly supply of flour. He comes from upstate New York and comes only then. Similarly, Franceschi spoke of how businesses rely on Saturday morning deliveries from Coca Cola.
Franceschi owns a Fair Haven grocery and co-chairs GAVA. "If we don't have delivery on Saturday, we miss a whole week," she said. "I'm in favor of the march because my son is in the Marine Corps, OK?" But she didn't want to see Grand Avenue merchants hurt.
Paul Bass Photos
"Our beef is not with GAVA. We're part of the same community," responded John Lugo (pictured), a rally organizer who does a lot of immigrant rights work in Fair Haven. Lugo said organizers did meet with merchants in planning the rally to enlist their support. Some of the merchants signed a petition in favor of a permit to march.
Franceschi and Cimino noted that the petition didn't mention the time the march would shut down Grand Avenue. They also spoke of how many merchants had approached GAVA to complain. The organizers should have gone through GAVA in planning the march, they said. GAVA member Angelo Reyes called the organizers' approach a "slap in the face. GAVA doesn't say no to anyone. We find a way."
Lugo responded that the city never specified meeting with GAVA when it first told organizers to consult merchants. He added that, unlike prior marches, this one won't close Grand Avenue for hours. It will close small portions, on a rolling basis, for 20 minutes at a time as the march proceeds.
"We don't want to fight," he said. "I'm sorry about the misunderstanding."
Then the participants (including GAVA's Paul Wessel, Matos, and Franceschi, from left in photo) got to specifics. The march organizers wanted to start at 11. What about 2?
Can't work, the organizers responded: The march meets up with other ralliers and speakers on the Green at 2.
What about 1? GAVA asked.
What about 12:30? countered the organizers.
It was a deal.
Then GAVA added a second suggestion: When your supporters spend an hour or more gathering before the march, why not use the rally web site to urge everybody to spend $10 or more at local restaurants and stores?
Deal again.
"We all make mistakes and go forward," Angelo Reyes said. "Today was a good day because we managed to step back. We did a good job here."
At least in Fair Haven, it appears, if not in Iraq or elsewhere in the Middle East, negotiation and compromise are possible.