Dylan Brogan
Hundreds of protesters marched up to the Wisconsin State Capitol as part of the Global Climate Strike happening around the world on Sept. 20.
Fighting to save the world isn’t cheap. That’s what Max Prestigiacomo and other youth activists who organized the Sept. 20 climate strike to draw attention to global warming discovered.
On Nov. 8, the Youth Climate Action Team Wisconsin got a bill from the Madison Police Department for $4,631.66 to cover police expenses for the march.
“We’ve literally done so many protests and we’ve never been charged,” Prestigiacomo says. “Most of us were surprised.”
The activists had also organized a climate protest on March 15, 2019, which Prestigiacomo says was a longer march, likely needing more police personnel, but the group was never billed for it.
The bill for the Sept. 20 event includes the names of officers who worked during the protest, along with their hourly rates. “There was no friendly greeting or anything, it was just here’s the bill, pay up,” Prestigiacomo says.
Madison Police Captain Brian Chaney Austin, in a voice message to Isthmus, points to the group’s street use permit for the event, which notes that “there are charges for these services. Organizer will pay all costs of the city of Madison police, parking enforcement, and Madison fire staff assigned to the event.”
But Prestigiacomo doesn’t understand why the police took such a hard stance. “It’s very clear from our side and it should be clear from their side that charging a bunch of youth for using their First Amendment rights is not something that benefits anyone,” he says. “It restricts our ability to be acting as a nonprofit.”
Climate Strike
Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway agrees. Although her staff could not be reached for comment today, an Isthmus reporter ran into her shopping at the Willy Street Co-op on Friday evening. Asked about the charge, the mayor said: “It’s going to go away.”
Ald. Marsha Rummel says that the city has for a while been wanting to move to a system where groups would be charged for impacts of large events. “It’s been a long time in coming, but this is the first I’ve heard of a really large bill being issued,” she says.
Rummel also wants the city to waive the charge for the youth protesters, noting that “it’s not the right message to send about the climate crisis we’re facing.”
But she also wants city staff to be upfront with groups that apply for street-use permits for events like these. “I’d hope that staff would let you know if a route is going to cost you a lot of money so you could consider another route.”
Prestigiacomo says the organization raised almost $20,000 for the event, to pay for things like transportation, permit fees, sound systems, crowd control materials (like signs and flyers) and pizza. It also spent money helping other groups around the state plan for their marches. More donations are now rolling in after a plea to help pay for the bill went out on social media.
Prestigiacomo says if the fee is waived, the group will have to decide what to do with those donations.
