It may be time for Occupy D.C. to leave McPherson Square

NATIONAL PARK SERVICE officials have bent over backwards to accommodate the First Amendment rights of the Occupy D.C. protesters at McPherson Square. Those rights, though, must be carefully balanced against other public interests. That’s why federal officials are right to take seriously the warning from D.C. officials about the health and safety risks posed by the increasingly unseemly encampment. The time may well have come to reclaim this public space. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, under whose jurisdiction the Park Service falls, told us Friday that he will convene a meeting next week with the head of the Park Service, U.S. Park Police and others to try to “chart a path forward” for McPherson Square and Freedom Plaza, where the Occupy protest is entering its fourth month. Most immediately, federal officials plan to undertake a joint assessment with D.C. officials of health and safety conditions at both sites. Mr. Salazar was reacting to a letter from Mayor Vincent C. Gray (D) detailing concerns about conditions at McPherson Square. Inspection by the District’s director of health revealed a dangerous rat infestation as well as the potential for communicable disease, hypothermia and foodborne illness; there was also concern about the safety of makeshift heaters used by some inhabitants of the tents that crowd the square. “It falls to you to take immediate steps to remedy this dangerous situation,” Mr. Gray wrote...more