HUFFsters: Councilmember Posner got this S.C. ACLU Resolution opposing the expansion of MC 13.08.100. Most of it is taken up citing another case, the Cyr case, to persuade the City Council that the Stay-Away expansion would run afoul of the Constitution as recently interpreted by the courts. It’s rare and positive to have the ACLU issue such a statement, though I understand it is not soliciting legal help locally to challenge the ordinance. Vice-Chair Steve Pleich has told me that his Homeless Persons Legal Assistance project (which is primarily his solo venture) will take it on if he can find five plaintiffs (See “Time to Step Up and Fight City Hall on “Stay Away” Ordinance” at https://www.indybay.org/
The ordinance also not only gives a stay-away at the whim of the cop once she or he issues an infraction citation, but also includes all prior areas where 13.08.100 stay-away’s were given in the prohibition. So for instance if you get a ticket for smoking in a distant area of San Lorenzo Park for the first time, you get a one-day stay away (if it’s your first stay-away). If you then get a ticket for camping in the Pogonip some days later, you get a week stay away, but also a week stay-away from San Lorenzo Park.
The ordinance is also retroactive to the hundreds of one-day stay away’s already given in the prior year. HUFF activists have been tracking these orders and there are hundreds of them. Given almost entirely to homeless people and for such “crimes” as smoking, camping, and being in a park after dark.
The iron hand of the Parks and Recreation Department not only extends to a few parks but also to the following areas (according to MC 13.04.0111, “without limitation all city parks, greenbelts, all city park trails and roads, all city park facilities and buildings, including Lighthouse Field State Beach, DeLaveaga Golf Course, Main Beach, Cowell’s Beach, Steamer Lane, Harvey West Pool, the Beach Flats Community Center, the Louden Nelson Community Center, the Teen Center, the Civic Auditorium, City Hall Courtyard, Mission Plaza, the Town Clock, the Natural History Museum, the Surfing Museum, Santa Cruz Municipal Wharf, Pacific Avenue, West Cliff Drive (Pelton Street to Swanton Boulevard), the San Lorenzo River Levee and bike path, the San Lorenzo Benchlands, the inner banks of the San Lorenzo River within the City limits, the Branciforte and Cabonera Creeks within the city limits, Jessie Street Marsh, plus any other facilities or areas assigned to the parks and recreation department by the city manager.”
In spite of hundreds of unconstitutional Stay-Away orders from the park (1 day stay-away orders) given out over the last year, the ACLU has said nothing & offered no help (even in the form of public statements opposing the sweeps and targeted harassment of homeless people). Now ACLU Chair Peter Geldblum opens hiss dusty lawbooks to suddenly discover it’s been unconstitutional for the last 15 months. Pardon my bile, but the prior collusion continues to smell very bad. Geldblum is the same smiling chairperson who voted against the homeless right to sleep at night, ordered homeless guests out of the ACLU meeting before the agenda item was over, and successfully muzzled the ACLU on the issue during the prior year (See “Homeless Take ACLU Sleeping Ban Suspension Resolution to City Council”
at https://www.indybay.org/