Encore Performance of The Asshole Show & Summonses Issued to Me!
This update is for September 29-October 15. Our federal lawsuit is progressing, albeit slowly. In the last week, I learned that 8 of the 10 defendants (NYC and its departments and heads of those departments) can be served at no/little cost because the NYC Legal Department has a window at 100 Church Street that will accept service for these entities and individuals in their official capacities on Tuesdays and Thursdays. This will save almost $600 on our costs of serving the defendants.
But we will have run out of time because the 21 days to serve the defendants expires next Monday and the nearest opportunity to do this at the window is the following Tuesday. Fortunately, it is not difficult to extend the deadline for service and I will do this "nunc pro tunc", which effectively backdates the extension if it is granted. Later next week, I will attempt to serve the remaining two defendants, which are the Central Park Conservancy and its President. The lawsuit will then continue forward slowly while we try to raise additional funds.
The FreeFunder campaign is also moving slowly. I staged an encore performance of my stunt in the crosswalk where I call out the assholes running the red light for three hours on Saturday afternoon October 15. You can see the downstream footage here: https://4R.MS/Oct15DownStream and the upstream footage here: https://4R.MS/Oct15Upstream and you can download that footage for the next 30 days. As a result, we got our first two donations of $5 each and somebody handed me a $1 bill while I was in the crosswalk. This is not nearly enough to fund this lawsuit but it is a start, demonstrates support, and is very much appreciated. Thank you!
The footage shot on October 15 was the first time we have evidence of any changes in the behavior of the pedestrians in the crosswalk after the installation of the APS crosswalk buttons. These buttons make a lot of noises, including "Wait" when it is first pushed and an intermittent pinging sound while the white safe-to-cross light is on. The pedestrian safe-to-walk light also displays a timer showing how many seconds are remaining before the vehicular signal light turns green.
My sense of it is that because they are noisy, the signal buttons are now being used by substantially more people than before the APS buttons were installed. This does not help with the problem of vehicles speeding and failing to stop but it does put pedestrians in a better legal position should they be struck and injured by a vehicle in the crosswalk.
During my performance on Saturday in the crosswalk, NY Parks Enforcement finally issued me two summonses for violation of park rules, one for noise and one for no permit for the banner that I displayed during the performance. I have been asking them to issue a citation for the amplified sound violation they have been threatening to issue since late summer so despite seeming to be bad news, this is actually very good because it gives me an opportunity to dig into the NY State court system to use discovery to learn more about why and how the city's departments are failing and refusing to take remedial action to control the vehicles entering our crosswalk.
The hearing is set for January 10, 2023. I will request that the hearing be done in public so that interested parties may attend. It is interesting that they did not actually issue the citation for amplified sound but instead cited me for disturbing the peace. This is likely because NY Parks Enforcement does not have the power or the proper form of the summons to issue such citations. FYI, the penalty for these violations is $50 each but it is very unlikely the disturbing-the-peace charge will survive a motion to dismiss and also unlikely the no-permit charge will prevail on the merits.
Here is a link to the summonses: https://4R.MS/Oct15Summonses
Today's photo is the image on the banner displayed during Saturday's encore performance in the crosswalk.