MDN Weekly Update – Apr 17, 2011

MDN attended a meeting of the Central New York Landowner’s Coalition on Saturday, April 9th in New Berlin, NY. Look for stories coming in the near future that detail what was discussed at the meeting. The CNY Coalition held two sessions that day, one in the morning for part of the members of the coalition, and another identical meeting in the afternoon. The coalition is so big it requires two sessions to handle all the members.

The crowd in the morning session, which MDN attended, numbered around 400 in the audience. The Evening Sun reports the crowd in the afternoon session was about 600 people. The meeting in the morning was orderly and uneventful. But it seems MDN missed the “fun” in the afternoon session:

An otherwise civil gathering of about 600 members of the Central New York Landowners Coalition at Unadilla Valley Central School Saturday turned ugly as protesters erected ‘no frak’ signs out in front of the school, took photos of cars and, later, defamed a coalition’s leader’s ‘Pass Responsible Gas Drilling’ banner located on the lawn of his Route 8 home.

CNYLC Steering Committee member Steve Gage said the perpetrators were taking photos of business decals on automobiles so people also opposed to drilling would know not to patronize those businesses. He said he called the police to his home to investigate his banner which had a swastika painted on it in red along with a racial slur.*

MDN has previously written about anti-drilling protestors who have broken the law by disrupting meetings and shutting down workplaces. To be fair, not all those who oppose drilling resort to these tactics—it’s a small minority. However, these incidents seem to be happening with more frequency.

Below you’ll find the “top 5” lists and this week’s calendar listings.

Happy reading,
Jim Willis, Editor

*Norwich Evening Sun (Apr 11, 2011) - Protesters target gas landowners meeting (PDF format)

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