BANISH BIGOTRY -- JOIN US ON THE SIDEWALK IN FRONT OF THE BOOKSHOP SANTA CRUZ 2 PM TODAY

Weather permitting, the merry Sleeping Ban Shamecasters will be back in front of Vice-Mayor Coonerty's Bookshop Santa Cruz, urging progressive purchasers to ponder before they put out bucks for books.

Coonerty's Bookshop Santa Cruz continues to denounce protesters against the Coonerty Sleeping Ban and add to their "banned" list. Though the Bookstore itself has an open public bathroom and often ignores a few homeless people sleeping in its alcoves, it is owned by Supervisor Neal Coonerty--whose anti-homeless downtown ordinances are supported by his son soon-to-be-Mayor Ryan Coonerty.

We will continue to sample opinion regarding the prevalence (or absence) or racial or class profiling downtown. Councilmember Madrigal made a brief comment at a September Council meeting expressing concern about possible profiling during Halloween 2006. It touched off a firestorm of repressive denunciations from City Council, the SCPD, and the S.C. Sentinel. Register your views in this INFORMAL POLL.

The Vice-Mayor's BANNED list now apparently includes Humanity for Homeless website worker Tim Rumford (http://humanityforhomeless.blogspot.com/) in retaliation for his pointed inquiries regarding Coonerty's support for the City Council's 11 PM to 8:30 AM Sleeping Ban. Rumford has also recently been active posting various Copwatch videos downtown.

Those attending the Banish Bigotry tabling will also be offered "Not Yet Banned at the Bookshop Santa Cruz" stickers--and for the favored few: "Banned at the Bookshop" labels.


JONES SETTLEMENT IMPLICATIONS

Activists will also discuss the implications of the recent Jones decision settlement in Los Angeles, which extend the right to sleep to the entire city (previously only Skid Row) between 9 PM and 6 AM. It also requires such sleeping be at least 10' from a storefront. This sleeping ban ceasefire will end when the city has finished constructing 1200 units (for its 30,000-80,000 homeless people).

L.A. activists from LACAN (Los Angeles Community Action Network) denounced the settlement for a number of reasons. The ACLU decided to accept it without consulting with either homeless activists, homeless supporters like the Catholic Worker, or the involved homeless plaintiffs themselves. It removes the actual 9th Circuit Court of Appeals Jones decision itself of April 2006 from the published record, so it may no longer be cited as precedent.

This significantly impacts other homeless people fighting their own bans in Fresno, Sacramento, Santa Cruz and elsewhere, since the decision can't be cited as ruling precedent, which it previously was. However, legal longtimers Kate Wells and David Beauvais haven't stopped gathering local sleepcriminals for the lawsuit, since the underlying reasoning (sleep deprivation is torture, i.e. cruel and unusual punishment) is still true and sound.


COMMUNITY TV SHOWCASES THE SLEEPING BAN TONIGHT 7 PM- 8 PM

Host and Free Radio Santa Cruz broadcaster Louis La Fortune advised me yesterday in a phone message that the call-in show Voices from the Village Live! will be featuring the Sleeping Ban, including Wells, Zimmerman, and Coonerty, as mentioned in the summary above. However the Community TV website at http://63.249.88.159/cablecast/public/Show.aspx?ChannelID=3&ShowID=1315 does not seem to reflect this. Hopefully the on-line schedule lags reality.

Coonerty has thus far declined to debate the Sleeping Ban. It also seems a tad strange that street activists have not been invited to the show. All three participants are attorneys and ACLUsters (though Wells is a leftie outcast in the ACLU).

Coonerty has recently gained local infamy by successfully pushing for his new "no loitering/no public assemblies" law which removed 4 parking garages and 20 public parking lots from traditional public access. [See "Council Kills Public Space in the Parking Lots" http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2007/10/23/18455629.php] Coonerty stage-managed this local "disappearing rights" act while at the same time brandishing his credentials as a "constitutional lawyer".

The ACLU had its civil liberties credentials upstaged by the UC and Santa Cruz PDs in August when ACLU Board of Directors member Mike Rotkin physically obstructed and then attempted to arrest me for carrying a "where is the ACLU on the Sleeping Ban" sign into an ACLU public meeting last August. [See "Activists ask ACLU to help end sleeping ban" at http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2007/08/26/18443532.php?show_]

The ACLU, which also has a general meeting this Thursday at Louden Nelson,

VftVL! allows call-in's and (I believe) in-studio audience participation. Show up at Community TV (816 Pacific) if you want to be a part of the live audience--if things are as usual. Call in: 831-425-8848.


UPCOMING EVENTS

This list doesn't include the important ongoing protest at UCSC which is brilliantly highlighted with Bradley's photographs in many other stories on santacruz indymedia.

But here are some upcoming events in the next few days that antsy activists can agitate at:


Sunday Nov 11, 2007 2 pm - 4 pm Coonerty Watch Continues at the Bookshop Santa Cruz.
Help flier, pass out ballots, urge a "no" vote on Coonerty for Mayor (likely to happen at the second Council meeting in November). Pass out the word, gather accounts, seek more plaintiffs for the Sleeping Ban lawsuit.

Monday Nov 12, 2007 10 am - 3pm. (offical holiday) There will be a meeting at Santa Cruz City Hall (809 Center Street). This meeting is to recruit more plaintiffs and to obtain more affidavits for the federal lawsuit to stop the spraying. Edna Williams says that she will be available to answer questions regarding plaintiffs and affidavits. Edna will address people at 10am, 12 pm, 2 pm. More info: http://lbamspray.info/. Challenge Councilmembers Madrigal and Porter to advocate for safe shelter from the spraying for homeless people. Help recruit anti-LBAM spray folks with a petition supporting right to homeless safety. Build coalition.

Monday Nov 13 2007 7-9 PM Sleeping Ban Legal Committee Meeting. Call 423-HUFF or 479-9291 for more info.

Tuesday Nov 13, 2007 Santa Cruz City Council Meeting. Afternoon Session at 3 PM has an agenda item against extending the war to Iran (though not directing we disinvest from war profiteers or condemn war votes by Laird and Farr). This item, if pulled from the agenda, will probably be put at the end of the evening session. Evening Session at 7 PM has Oral Communications on any subject and a long Safeway debate. Speak out at 7 PM as the Armory is slated to open 11-15 (?), which may end the letters dismissing Sleeping Tickets for those unwilling or unable to go. For early birds (or late-night owls if Mayor Reilly puts the issue at the end of the agenda), demand city disinvestment from war profiteers Camp Dresser & McKee, who've gotten $2 million from the city to begin a desal plant and full disclosure on other city investments. See "Desalination and War Profiteering in the City of Santa Cruz" http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2006/09/27/18314697.php

Tuesday Nov 13, 2007 2 Hour UCSC Class on Assessing Homeless Issues in Fresno 6:30 PM Kresge College Room #225 Professor Franklin Williams: visiting activist Mike Rhodes and two homeless homeless activists. Offer some local perspective on the homeless scene in Santa Cruz. Explain what a "Sleeping Ban" is. See "Like a Grinch, City of Fresno Takes Homeless Peoples Property" http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2007/10/26/18456235.php.

Wednesday Nov 14 2007 9:30 AM -11:30 AM HUFF meeting in the basement of the County Building at 701 Ocean St. in the Cafeteria. Organizing how to deal with next three meetings and possibly do some direct radio broadcasting.

Wednesday Nov 14, 2007 6:30 PM City Council Chambers Measure K Committee ("Lowest Enforcement Priority for Marijuana") Meets Again. Support Measure K Commissioner Anita Henri as she struggles to get police to disclose statistics and city officials to restore the measure to its prior strength. See

Thursday Nov 15, 2007 7-9 PM Louden Nelson Center Slide-Illustrated Lecture by Sandy Lydon, Cabrillo College Historian, asking "How Are We Doing Ninety Years Later?", "Have we Learned Anything?" and other amusing questions that the local ACLU answered through action when it tried to arrest HUFF members for coming in with a sign at their last "free" "public" meeting with a sign about the ACLU and the Sleeping Ban. Come help Rotkin-blinkered ACLUsters catch a glimpse of reality. Sign up a few allies. Inform the good liberals that liberalism doesn't extend to homeless people in Santa Cruz. Come prepared to be disappointed. http://www.aclusantacruz.org/membermeeting2007

Thursday Nov 15 2007 Vet's Hall (next to the main Post Office) 6:30 PM Live Music at 7 PM Fundraiser Project for Project Safe Haven and Courage to Resist. 7:30 PM Film: "Breaking Ranks--AWOL in Canada" Q and A Discussion following the film. Jeff Patterson, old Persian Gulf War Resister. http://www.couragetoresist.org Help recruit anti-war activists for the Vigil Against Two Wars (on the poor and on the Iraqi/Iranians). Remind the Vets that 1/4 of the homeless are reportedly Vets. Get allies for the Vet struggle to end police harassment under the Sleeping Ban and other Santa Cruz laws. Advise them to oppose the Council's upcoming election of Coonerty as Mayor.