Burning Issue Unites GOP Stroller Moms & Lefty Activists

BURNING ISSUE UNITES GOP STROLLER MOMS AND LEFTY ACTIVISTS
By ANDREA PEYSER - New York Post

May 21, 2003 -- THEY meet in secret, at night, in a Brooklyn funeral parlor - an odd coupling drawn together by mutual desperation.
On one side of the room are two lefty activists, teachers with advanced degrees in civil disobedience.

On the other side are stroller-pushing moms and doting dads, some with babies in diapers. They are proudly American, politically conservative, and more likely to have voted for President Bush than to have even thought about participating in a protest.

What brings these opposites together, in a funeral parlor, is an unlikely passion: The activists are conspiring with the stroller moms, teaching them techniques by which they can use their own bodies to prevent Mayor Bloomberg from shutting their local firehouse.

"I have never done anything like this before. I've never demonstrated. This is not part of my personality," Stephanie Folwell, mom of Gillian, 17 months, was telling me yesterday.

Stephanie was one of about 10 Cobble Hill residents who gathered in secret for a class in civil disobedience on Sunday, and for another last night.

And she's a Republican.

When Bloomberg's henchmen come to padlock Engine Co. 204 in Cobble Hill, possibly as soon as this week, Stephanie plans on being there with her baby daughter, along with many other area residents.

These patriotic Brooklynites are plotting a good, old-fashioned, circa-1969 sit-in. Some intend to handcuff themselves to the firetruck.

"She's the reason I'm doing this," Stephanie said of her baby.

Folks here in the most populous outer borough feel as if Bloomberg has taken out a contract on their lives - while protecting his own Upper East Side turf.

Originally, the mayor had planned to shut eight houses, all but one outside Manhattan. Then this week, he gave a reprieve to one house each in Brooklyn and Queens, saying enough state money had magically appeared to keep them open. That did little to appease those protected by the doomed, 150-year-old Engine Co. 204.

Lori Burch, leader of Mothers Against Closings, told me some rules of nonviolent lawbreaking. "When we get arrested, we'll immediately put our hands up and say, 'I will go peacefully.' State it out loud so anyone can hear," said Lori.

The budding domestic protesters were told to arrange for someone to pick up their children, to prevent them from being placed in foster care.

These dedicated moms deserve better, Mr. Mayor.