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Hearing delayed in Occupy Youngstown case
YOUNGSTOWN
A postponed preliminary-injunction hearing to permit Occupy Youngstown to use a tent, burn barrel and other items at the group’s protest location in the city’s Central Square is rescheduled for next Friday.
Kim Akins, the group’s attorney, sought the postponement of Thursday’s scheduled hearing because she is ill.
The city, the defendant in the legal action, didn’t object to the delay.
Magistrate Timothy G. Welsh of Mahoning County Common Pleas Court rescheduled the hearing for 9 a.m. next Friday.
Welsh rejected a Nov. 16 request by the group for a temporary restraining order to permit the use of a tent, burn barrel and other items.
But he agreed to hear arguments for a preliminary injunction to consider the group’s request.
The group contends the city violated the rights of Occupy Youngstown members to free speech and assembly as well as to protection against unreasonable seizure of their possessions.
City officials say the group can protest but not establish an encampment downtown because that violates city ordinances.
City police and firefighters confiscated the items the morning of Nov. 11.
That came after the police chief ordered Occupy Youngstown members about noon Nov. 10 to remove the tent, burn barrel, chairs, tarps and sleeping bags by midnight that day.
The group opted to ignore the chief’s order, leading to the confiscation.
Police returned the tent to its owner, an Occupy Youngstown member, on Nov. 16.