PDX Duplicity: Photographer Told He Must Have Permit to Use Portland Park--The Same One Occupy Uses for Meetings

Like a bird of prey lasering in on her next conquest, Alicia Hammock swooped in on the photographer at downtown Portland's Directors Park, pointed an accusing talon and poked him with questions. Who are you? What company are you from? Where's your permit? 


"Your permit?" Your PERMIT?

Where's Ashton Kutcher? Where's the camera? Portland Parks are asking someone for a permit much less one to take pictures? You've GOT to be kidding, right? 

Uh, no. 

Apparently Portland Parks are in the habit of demanding permits only for LEGAL activity. 




Hammock, the Park Event Coordinator, hectored the photographer "for about five minutes" in front of his clients--a newly married couple-- and then made this pronouncement according to an email detailing the series of events, 

She ... told him "we have your picture now" so they could identify him if he repeated the offense. He was embarrassed in front of his clients.

 

Trashed by Occupy

The Portland Parks Bureau, and indeed the entire City of Portland, certainly has an, ah, interesting set of priorities. It tolerates and fetes anarchists taking over and trashing bushes, statues, trees and grass in Portland parks for weeks without a permit. Two hundred fourteen days later, Portlanders still cannot use Chapman and Lownsdale Parks. Occupy Portland which has a bank account, an office, and leaders, has never been sent a bill. 

So you understand why it must have been a shock to the photographer and his wife to get a demand for a permit. Here's their account of the story and listen to the rest of the story in my interview on KPAM here) :

My husband and I own a very small photography business. On April 27th, he was hired to photograph a wedding in the Crown Ballroom in downtown Portland. He suggested the wedding party might want to be photographed by a beautiful public fountain not far from the wedding venue. As my husband was taking photographs, a women named [Alicia] Hammock, Cultural and Event Programming Director for the Portland Parks and Recreation Department, interrupted him, stopping him from taking pictures. She told him that as a professional photographer he could not take photos of any object maintained by the Parks and Recreation Department without obtaining a permit ($195 a year). She also told him "we have your picture now" so they could identify him if he repeated the offense.

"We have your picture now"?  The City of Portland is so concerned about photographers using their parks for pictures that its Park Permit Policianista admits she's in the business of keeping tabs on business owners by taking their pictures? Try this on the Occupiers and watch the Green Hats at the National Lawyers Guild and the ACLU bury you in briefs.

Show us your papers, Occupy Pro Photog

Furthermore, there were probably dozens of professional photographers in the parks during the Occupy take overs--like this guy near by.  Did this professional photographer have to have a permit to take these shots? If not, why not? Where was the Permit Policianista hectoring him to show her his papers? All of these nearby shots were taken in Directors Park.

Occupying Directs Park at GA

Most ironic? Directors Park has been ground zero for many Occupy Portland activities as we see in this lead in the Zero:

Occupy Portland at Directors Park

 Labor union members are gathering with Occupy Portland protesters for a rally at downtown Portland's Director Park, just west of the Fox Tower.

Where was the Portland Park Permit Police when this rally and march was based at Directors Park?

Occupy Makes Money

Occupy at Directors Park

Where was the Portland Park Permit Police when Directors Park was used for several General Assemblies?

Portland's policy on photography in the parks is a real gobsmacker. The City of Portland sent us its policy which appears to be concerned with people making money on the beauty and art in the parks.  Occupy, which used Directors Park as its site for General Assemblies, begs for money constantly and uses the photographs and video of Portland Parks ALL. THE. TIME!

Portland Parks officials told us the copyrights of the art in the parks are another reason it's concerned about photography:

The Regional Arts and Culture Council (RACC) is responsible for 1832 art objects in its permanent collection owned by the City of Portland and Multnomah County. Most of these objects were made by living artists and are covered by copyright protection. It is the policy of RACC to leave the copyright protection with the artist, reserving for itself a non-exclusive license to reproduce the object for standard collections purposes.  

Our taxes pay for the parks, pay for the grants for RACC and we now have to pay to take pictures which may capture part of the image of an artist's work which we paid for? And Occupiers take pictures, use the space without a permit and are not asked for a thing?

This is just another small example of Portland's abeyance to the anti social Takers of Occupy while sticking it to the Makers. Shame on you.

This one email from another photographer who heard me talking about this on the air sums up the problem,

Victoria...my wife just told me about the  photo pass for Portland parks...are they all just idiots...looks like I will not be using Portland for any photos shoots...