Current Notes:

• Cabrillo Estates Mobile Home Park tenants beg the Capitola Board of Supervisors/Planning Commission for legal help against a predatory landlord
• Food Not Bombs under attack at the Town Clock and Elsewhere

Flashback to August 23, 2007

• Santa Cruz refuses to annul Sleeping Ban as L.A., Richmond, and other cities follow the Court’s Jones settlement
• Phony rationale by SCPD Spinmeister for closing down the Homies for the Homeless
• 8-18-07  Chris Williams reports Homies being harassed at City Hall at 3 am, many driven away.
• Amisa—eviction threat for talking with homeless or allowing them to visit—at 155 Felker St. apartments
• Lighthouse Linda—in studio guest–on her experience as chair of the Homeless Issues Task Force
• Razor Ray, Matt, De Moan & others on the Homies harassment and a proposed lawsuit
• DeMoan organizes a meetings to prepare for dialogue with the Mayor

A nasty combination of illness, weather-related power-out’s and computer problems is prompting a HUFF “recess” for this week.  Back again next Thursday, March 30^th at 10:45 AM.  
In the meantime, HUFFsters are encouraged to keep their eye on the Food Not Bombs [FNB] situation at the Town Clock.   Though it’s not clear whether St. Francis Soup Kitchen has opened for sit-down hot meals, Food Not Bombs leaders voted Monday to shut down weekday meals and to serve only on weekends.  Recent threatening letters from the City to FNB activists  and direct police action March 10^th at Parking Garage #10 and City Hall indicates police are now threatening force to stop the meals and may do the same at the Town Clock.   Health  permitting, I’ll be at the Town Clock noon on Saturday March 25^th to watch and support FNB.
A rumored  agenda item on next Tuesday’s City Council meeting on 3-28 will focus police enforcement on banning panhandlers from medians.   This hasn’t been confirmed.
This is happening at the same tine as Keith McHenry of Food Not Bombs has posted the following on his facebook page after an emergency meeting yesterday: SANTA CRUEL CALIFORNIA – City launches new war on our homeless.  Hundreds of people are struggling to survive along Hy 9 in Santa Cruz during these winds and rain. They have no access to shelter as the Alert says.   People could be crushed by falling trees. One unhoused person who participated in our Food Not Bombs meeting last night reported that the city has not provided portable toilets at the huge camp along HY 9 and that their pit toilets are flooding into the camp. One woman had to have her foot amputated this week due to it becoming infected due to the lack of sanitation.   The  police are forcing people out of the empty city parking garages while leaving the Civic Auditorium and Warriors Stadium empty.Just imagine spending days in these atmospheric rivers with all your clothing soaked and no place to get dry.   People could be killed as a direct result of the cruel policies of city officials.   The city may attempt to close the Food Not Bombs weekend meals as part of their new campaign against the homeless.City of Santa Cruz – 831-420-5010   Mayor Fred Keeley  – fkeeley@cityofsantacruz.com  City Manager Matt Huffaker – mhuffaker@santacruzca.gov Police Chief  Bernie Escalante – bescalante@cityofsantacruz.com

HUFF adviser Laura Chatham passes on some  state legislative reminders:  

• Support AB 920 (Bryan). This bill, which prohibits discrimination based on housing status, 
  • Template letter: https://docs.google.com/document/d/14YVNDc60rqIeRGzNNC94xSk_XXss4-vUczonHHghuhI/edit
  • We’ll follow up later this week with a toolkit folx can use leading up to the hearing.  (Contact From: Eve Garrow <EGarrow@aclusocal.org> at the
    Equal Rights for Every Neighbor Campaign er4en@googlegroups.com <er4en@googlegroups.com
• Oppose SB 31 (Jones)! SB 31, a bill which makes it a crime to sit, lie, or camp within 1000 feet of daycare centers, libraries, parks, and schools  is scheduled to be heard in the Senate Public Safety Committee on 3/28 at 9am. SB 31 would take failed policies statewide and further criminalize the very existence  of our unhoused neighbors in public space. People can voice their opposition by submitting an opposition letter to the Committee by 3/21, reaching out to  members of the Senate Public Safety Committee to share your concerns, or attending the hearing in person on 3/28 to say “vote no!
• Oppose SB 43 (Eggman), which would vastly expand the definition of “gravely disabled” in the Lanterman Petris Short (LPS) Act, making it easier to enforce  involuntary and forced mental health treatment. Please see Melanie’s forwarded message below and attached template opposition letter,  courtesy of Disability Rights California. SB 43 is set for a hearing on Wednesday, March 29^th.

She also suggests taking a look at Paul Boden of WRAP (Western Regional Alliance Project)’s report:   https://housekeysactionnetwork.com/pipe-dreams-and-picket-fences/

If anyone is interested in working on HUFF projects around local treatment of the “mentally ill”, recent arrests and tickets for unhoused. 

folks in public places,, organizing for legal or direct action protest against the exclusion of those outside from protective buildings 

during storms or any other items on recent HUFF agendas, please contact me at 831-423-4833.

On the March 19th Show:

• [3-12]  “Long Road” Logan Barnes on his travels as well as evictions by police and accommodations by Funding Matters (aka “Housing Matters”)
• Songs from the vinyl From Where I Stand by Peggy Seeger and the MacColls [Throughout the program]
• Reggie Meisler and others challenge City Council’s Rubberstamping of the Memorandum of Police Understanding as police abuse vehcular residents, food servers, and those seeking shelter from the atmospheric river rains
• Food Not Bombs foodservers Drew and Angela raise questions about police surveillance and harasssment of social gatherings at the Town Clock
• A bit of https://www.answercoalition.org/the_untold_history_of_nato_and_case_for_its_abolition 
  
• [3-15] Keith’s bedside updates
• Vehicular survivor Gen-I on the struggles to deal with govt.-provided shelter
• [3-17] Jeweler J on street life during the storms; Greetrich Greg on Armory life
• James, Supervisor Surveiller, on latest Board of Supervisor shenangans
• Beth with a gloomy Armory report
• Joyphil at the 3-18 “Stop Arming Ukraine” anti-War Rally
• [3-18] “Call to Heaven” Cooper’s Last Interview before her tent was removed from the Post Office
• [3-19] Tales of terror from Michele indicting “Housing Matters” and “Dominican Hospital”
• Summary of the July 5, 2012 Flashback

On the July 5, 2012 Flashback:

• Dr. Doug Loisel, former Coral St. shelter director, and the struggle to improve conditions there
• Santa Cruz 11 Updates a plenty.  
•  “Benefit at India Joze Held for Desiree Foster of the Santa Cruz Eleven” at https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2012/07/03/18716804.php

The 3-16-2023 Show is a Flashback to May 10, 2012 and includes:

• Summary of the Flashback
• Santa Cruz 11 Update
• Jumbogumbo Joe Schultz, Lighthouses Linda Lemaster, Former Mayor Don Lane (“Gone Lame”), Joy, and others  at a March 25 benefit at India Joze.
• Reading from Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables
• Ashland, OR Sleeping Ban “Criminal” Hackston 
• Exchange with Smooth-Tongued Steve Pleich on the local ACLU’s deficiencies
• April protest against Obama’s 2012 “Defense” Authorization Act authorizing stripping U.S. citizens accused of terrorism of their civil rights

The March 12, 2023 Show features: 

• Bathrobespierre updates the Felton Mountain Community Resource Center’s failure to change its “out into the rain with you” policies, though it did drop charges against activist Helga.
• Oakland “Nuisance Boats” Ordinance attacks anchor-out’s: https://www.facebook.com/robert.powelson (go to Dolphine Brody’s post)  https://localnewsmatters.org/2023/03/06/sailing-into-rough-waters-oakland-eyes-rules-to-halt-people-from-living-on-boats-in-estuary/
• Keith-from-sickbed reports on recent City refusals to open shelter during atmospheric river storms
• Keith on risking arrests in local protests, censorship, bank failure, and nuclear war in Ukraine.
• Friday 3-10 police obstruction of public assembly at City Hall and attack on food servers there

The December 9, 2007 Flashback includes: 

• Straight and silly talk from Swami’s Blanket
• “Get out of town”, cops tell street jewelry pair
• Lass–Pregnant and Panhandling
• Terry, the Fire Sign maker, Faith, and Alicia 
• Robert Wolber on crutches—given a camping ticket
• Jerry & Kimberly “washed along” by a sidewalk cleaner
• William Brass on the Hippie Revolution
• 11-23 A writer/renter on exorbitant rent raises
• 11-24 At the Saturday Market:  Cupman on the Sleeping Ban
• Marlena Zaro, survivor of the judicial rack 13 years after the 1994 police riot.
• Tenderfoot Tim, co-host, introduces Ancient Clown and David Arthur Johnson from the Victoria, Canada encampment
• [selections from the musical Urinetown throughout the rest of the show]
• Jhond Golder on reclaiming Lighthouse Linda Lemaster’s seized vehicle recalling his old fights
• Donna Deiss’s struggle with Chief Ranger John Wallace—restriping Westcliffe Dr. parking lot.
• Downtown Hair Salon owner Chai on overpolicing and Santa Cruz’s anti-homeless laws
• Oregonians Alice and Alicia from Ashland
• Yasman from Mendicino’s update: Ukiah outlaws all outdoor growing “because of the smell”

The March 9, 2023 flashback to November 23, 2007 includes: 

• Bathrobespierre Robert analyzes the defanging of Measure Z—the Lowest Enforcement for Marijuana ordinance
• Dialogues Tabling at the Bookshop Coonerty in a Nov 18 Boycott Bigotry demo targeting vice-Mayor Coonerty
• Steve from Olympia, WA, on the anti-war and homeless struggle here, there, and in Eugene, OR
• Capricious Craig Canada (palmspringsbum.com), medical marijuana researcher on his ban from the Catalyst & more
• Madmouth Madison on the exclusion of independent artists from setting up sidewalk tables
• More from the anti-LBAM spray and Sleeping Ban tables from Joanne of Bakersfield, , Zack Weiss and Ella Mae
• Craig Canada on abuses at the Homeless (Lack of) Services Center  at Coral St.
• Interviews from the Thanksgiving meal chow line
• Difficulties in dislodging records of sleeping ban citations from the SCPD

The March 5, 2023 show includes:

• Interview with activist Alicia Kuhl on Reggie Meisler’s success in forcing local authorities to remove “No Parking at Night” and other restrictions from the Coastal zone—signs that have no Coastal permits assuming local access.
• [throughout] Topical 1980’w songs critiquing right-wing UK prime minister Margaret Thatcher by Ewan MacColl and Peggy Seeger in their Naming the Names album.
• 3-2 Interview with “Backstory” Brent Adams on the history of Footbridge Services, Evan Morrison (who runs a govt. RV parking program), future documentary work, and more…
• The 1381 Peasants War in song and story
• Parks & Recreation [P&R] Dept’s gentrification presentation at the Hotel Paradox
• “Reckoning Now!” Reggie Meisler’s analysis of the P&R show.
•   “Sanctioned Encampments, Police Profiling…in Salinas”, video by Salinas activist Wes White at  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_HrDEdgwXPw
• Raffa Sonnenfeld responds to criticism of the City’s CACH committee and the poverty pimps (“shelter and ‘road to housing’ services”).
• “Crazy Mary” on her link up with Housing Matters
• “Side of the Road” Suzanne on organizing survival campers along Hiway 9

The September 29, 1995 show includes: 

“Nutcracker” Nick on the Harassment-prone Downtown Hosts  

Nick and Bathrobierre discuss the now dead, then toxically-active “Butchie” Loren “Sticky Fingers” Baker—accused harasser of poor women. 

“Judgment Day” John Stuart on the arrest of Food Not Bombs [FNB] activist “Red-Top” Robert Flory at the courthouse 

Hospitality “Host” Christine at the Pacific Ave. table 

FNB activist Sara on Santa Cruz’s 1995 FNB and collecting donated food

  Free Radio Santa Cruz [FRSC] broadcaster previews his then-forthcoming show. 

“Bubbah” Brian Koepke on the Gina assault case 

S.F. Chronicle story “Judge Continues Ban on Redwood Logging” 

Attorney Ed Frey attacks D.A. Art Danner for funding then firing Assistant D.A. Catherine Gardner 

“Calamity Jane” Imler gives the background of the Citizen’s Committee for the Homeless [CCH] 

“Lighthouse” Linda Lemaster of Housing Now in Santa Cruz” announces the new Newsletter for the Streets 

Bubbah on the Closing of the Open-Air Shelter 

“Pardonez-Moi” Paul Marceau, Director of the Open Air Shelter defends CCH and its program to close the shelter. 

Marlena Zaro, acquitted of “Failure to Disperse” in the mini-riot by Police during the protest against the Sitting Ban in May 1994 

Ed Frey on Danner’s refusal to prosecute Deputy Todd Liberty for a brutal assault captured on video.  https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1992-04-02-mn-220-story.html