#Anyone who protests at people’s homes deserves to be defunded

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City Council Speaker Corey Johnson denied claims by VOCAL-NY that he nixed a $2M grant in retaliation for the group leading protests against the recently passed city budget.
Taidgh Barron/NY Post

City Council Speaker Corey Johnson says he didn’t kill funding for the activist group VOCAL-NY because several of its members and staff targeted his boyfriend’s home for a protest, and we have no cause to doubt him.

But it would be ample reason to cut off funds. Heck, targeting CoJo’s own residence, or any decision-maker’s, would be enough.

Public officials still have a right to privacy, no matter how sanctimoniously self-righteous their critics may become. Besieging their homes is an assault on civil society and democratic norms.

That also applies to the demonstrations on Sen. Chuck Schumer’s street and the recent protest at Police Commissioner Dermot Shea’s residence. It’s all nothing less than an attempt at mob rule.

Certainly, no one taking a public protest to a private residence should get a dime of taxpayer money.

VOCAL-NY led protests as Johnson negotiated the new city budget, demonstrations that culminated in the Occupy City Hall encampment. And VOCAL staff joined a march to the home of Johnson’s S.O. — a protest that saw vandalism of the building (which the boyfriend doesn’t own) and ringing buzzers in the middle of the night.

Johnson was rightly angry: “He’s not a public figure; I am.”

But there’s no clear sign that’s why the council axed a previously-OK’d $2.25 million for VOCAL to buy a new building in Brooklyn: Lots of grants vanished as the city closed its coronavirus-caused $9 billion shortfall.

VOCAL claims CoJo has attacked “our First Amendment rights to speak truth to power” and threatens to sue. Good luck.

Nobody has a right to “a permanent home to build political power” at taxpayer expense — and VOCAL’s vile behavior has forfeited any reason to indulge its complaints.