"It's kind of like if a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it. Did the tree actually fall?" said Glenn Spagnuolo of Re-Create '68.
Spagnuolo says the analogy fits as far as he is concerned when talking about the "Public Demonstration Zone" (PDZ) set to go up in parking lot A at the Pepsi Center this August.
The PDZ he says is neither close enough to allow protestors to be heard nor close enough to allow them to be seen by the delegates expected to pour into the site during the 2008 DNC. Spagnuolo says the city has pledged to make the site close enough to allow delegates to "see and hear" the expected protestors.
He's tried himself to yell at friends going into the front of the Pepsi Center while standing within the proposed PDZ site.
It was an experiment that I, 9NEWS reporter Chris Vanderveen, tried to duplicate with a pair of volunteers.
As they stood close to the entrance of the Pepsi Center, Jeremy and Heather couldn't hear me when I yelled "hello" a number of times while standing within the PDZ. They could however barely hear a whistle I used.
Before you go wondering why in the world we would care about something like this, Spagnuolo says you should consider a lawsuit he and others have joined that is directed at the city.
By the end of the month a federal judge will consider whether the city is living up to its part of the bargain as far as protestors are concerned. She's even expected to visit the Pepsi Center to see for herself if the PDZ site is appropriate.
Protestors at the 2004 DNC PDZ in Boston often referred to that site as a cage. It was bordered with tall fences and, in some spots, barbed wire.
The city of Denver has said it intends to surround its PDZ with some sort of chain-link fence but does not intend on using any barbed wire.
