[Imc] The bookmobile is an obstruction, according to the Office and the City of Urbana

Mon Jul 1 03:44:40 UTC 2002

Fellow IMCistas,

I hope that you have had an opportunity to read the open letter Danielle sent the IMC list Friday night detailing the capricious punishment levied on the volunteers of the Bookmobile for daring to bring a display of books to the downtown streets.  If you have not, I encourage you to go back into your e-mail to read it, or read it in the IMC list archives ( http://lists.cu.groogroo.com/mailman/archive/imc/2002-June/002886.html ).

Danielle articulated well the issues that are at hand, and so I won't attempt to do so here.  But as the co-organizer of Bookmobile visit and the accompanying events I want to let you know how absolutely embarassed I am for Urbana, and how badly I feel for the treatment the Bookmobile volunteers received from our neighboring downtown business and our City's police force.  

The Bookmobile visited Urbana because several people, including me and Sarah Kanouse, contacted the organizers telling them what a neat, active and progressive town this is.  Impressed by what they heard they decided to schedule a visit to Urbana _instead_ of Chicago.  That's right -- we made such a case for Urbana that they decided it would be cooler to come here instead of the 2nd largest city in the US.  As far as I can judge Urbana is the second smallest city on the Bookmobile tour (the 1st is Bowling Green, OH, which hosted the Underground Publishing Conference) of 38 cities across North America.

People seemed to be excited for the visit, and so was I.  We had a nice article about the 'mobile in this week's Cityview along with lots of airtime given to a PSA on WEFT announcing the visit on.  The Bookmobile really looked to be the big event for the weekend.

I also visited the Underground Publishing Conference last weekend, and so many people I talked to from all over the US were starting to hear about Urbana -- our reputation is starting to precede us.  They were hearing about the IMC, and then saw that we were one of the cities on the Bookmobile tour, and even screening one of the films (DIY or DIE) that was being shown at the conference.  Several artists, authors and publishers from Chicago told me that they're really excited to come down south and visit Urbana because of all the cool stuff going on.

And all those things are true. But man, what a fucking buzzkill it was to see the Bookmobile given a $75 ticket for "obstructing traffic" and then to have the day manager of the Office come out and hysterically scream at the Bookmobile volunteers on Saturday morning. 

It makes me wonder if perhaps we oversold this place.  I wouldn't blame the Bookmobile volunteers for thinking they'd been duped into coming to a small-minded little town and hung out to dry.  And, I will be very surprised if the Bookmobile folks will be rushing to repeat the experience next year. 

What a tremendous reception we give our guests!  (Unless, of course, they're thirsty Bears fans.  We welcome them with open arms and open liquor stores on Sunday morning!  Gosh, I hope they don't try to park their trailers downtown.)

Now, the weekend was not a disaster, and lots of people came to puruse the Bokmobile's books and to participate in the workshops inside the IMC.  While inside the 'mobile reading some zines I heard a group of women come up and exclaim "We read about this in Bust magazine, and now it's here!  That's so cool!" That makes me very happy, and reminds me that the trouble was still worth the results.

Yet, I'm still amazed at how absolutely pointless all the trouble was.  I cannot possibly believe the Bookmobile harmed anyone or anyone's business.  In fact, I can only believe that the Bookmobile drew many more people to downtown Urbana than would otherwise be there during a sleepy, hot and humid June weekend.  On any given weekend afternoon or evening downtown Urbana is usually deserted save for a few people walking about, doing their business, or some drunken bar patrons stumbling down the street as the taverns close (unless, of course there's an event at the IMC!).  The Bookmobile changed that for an evening and an afternoon, and I guess that was too much for the City to bear.

I have no intention to exaggerate the importance or impact of the harassment of the Bookmobile. Everyone's life will go on and the IMC will still throw kick-ass events. And, indeed, I've learned some things from it -- including some pointers on how to do things better next time, and that I overestimate the reasonableness and good will of our downtown neighbors.  But that doesn't stop me from being disgusted and quite hesitant to make the effort to bring another similar event to town in the near future.

But that will not be the end of things for this.  I do intend to see something positive out of this if at all possible.  Most immediately, I'll be contacting the City's legal department to see if we can't modify the ticket so that it's charged to me rather than the Bookmobile volunteer who cannot reasonably return to contest it, or even see it dismissed. If they change it to me, I will contest it, based on the fact that the ticket was nothing but capricious punishment having no relevance to safety or anyone's actual ability to use the damn sidewalk.

I will also be attending the Urbana City Council meeting this Monday evening, July 1, at 7:00 PM, to take advantage of the public comment section to let our elected officials know just how disappointing this treatment was. I invite everyone to join me and make it clear that we are sincere about revitalizing downtown with something besides the Captain Morgan Party Van and the Hooters girls.

Thanks for taking the time to read this.  If you want details, I've written a full chronicle of the events that I'd be glad to share with you.  It's long and dry, but it's complete and gets them out of my head.  I'll also be posting something more public to the Newswire for everyone to see.  It may take a day or two because I'm pretty tired of thinking about it.

--Paul
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