Protest can’t use Square

WILKES-BARRE – The Alliance for Retired Americans will protest Republican Sen. John McCain’s visit to the city today, but will not gather on Public Square as planned.

According to city spokesperson Bridget Giunta, the Committee to Elect John McCain has reserved Public Square for the entire day, forcing the alliance to stage its protest elsewhere.

“Nobody else will be allowed to use the Square to hold any type of event,” Giunta said. “People can still walk across the Square and sit on the benches.”

Giunta said the cost to rent the Square for the day is $200. She said the McCain campaign made the reservation first thing Monday morning and the reason was “to support the candidate.”

Giunta said several other organizations have rented Public Square for a day, such as the Fine Arts Fiesta and the Kiwanis Club for its Coal Car Race. She said various church groups have held prayer meetings on the Square.

“When they reserved Public Square, the McCain campaign was told that the area is a public park and that people will likely pass through on foot and sit at the tables and chairs,” Giunta said. “Pedestrian traffic will still be allowed on Public Square tomorrow, just as it was at any of the above-referenced events.”

Michael Buckley, communications director for the Alliance for Retired Americans, said the protest will be held and he expects 25 to 30 retirees to be part of the event.

“We will find space nearby on street corners or sidewalks,” Buckley said. “We will adapt accordingly. We will set up on the corner of East Market Street and Public Square.”

Buckley said the alliance is upset that McCain recently called the Social Security system “a disgrace” and claims the Arizona senator supports the privatization of the program.

A McCain spokesman said that when McCain used the word “disgrace” it was a reference to the “failure to fix the long-run imbalance in Social Security” and was a description of the “looming pressures confronting the Social Security system and Washington’s failure to address it.”

McCain’s Web site said the presumptive GOP nominee does not favor privatization of Social Security but proposes a reform of the system.

McCain, according to his Web site, supports supplementing the current Social Security system with personal accounts “but not as a substitute for addressing benefit promises that cannot be kept.”

Buckley said the alliance is airing ads in Northeast Pennsylvania on the Comcast cable television system on channels such as CNN and Fox News Network and the Hallmark channel, Food Network, USA and Lifetime.

In a prepared release, Edward F. Coyle, executive director of the Alliance for Retired Americans, said 42 million Americans receive Social Security benefits and helping them is “not a disgrace.”

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