| Title: | “Critical Mass” The City Council – Demand They Reinstate The Youth Bicycle Program |
| START DATE: | Tuesday January 28 |
| TIME: | 2:00 PM – 2:00 PM |
| Location Details: | |
| Time. as always, Approximate. Santa Cruz City Council Meeting, City Hall | |
| Event Type: | Critical Mass |
Since Santa Cruz seems unable to develop decent jobs & affordable housing for It’s young people the LEAST they can do is give abandoned bicycles to them so they can make it to those three low-wage jobs they need to make the rent.
Added to the calendar on Thursday Jan 23rd, 2014 9:19 AM |
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Every year the City ends up with hundreds of bikes which are not claimed and must be dealt with. Because the bikes are generally of moderate to low quality and many are in disrepair, they offer little cash value to the City through auctioning. Therefore in 1996 the City began distributing them to youth in need, turning these old bikes into a valuable community resource. The distributions were open to any qualified nonprofit or government agency, and got out many hundreds of bikes to youth who otherwise might not have had the opportunity to own a bicycle.
Although a valuable program, participation varied over the years and sometimes the administration felt like a drain to the SCPD, which in 2008 stopped distributions and began sending bikes instead to the landfill. At that point the nonprofit repair shop the Bike Church approached the City, offering to handle most of the administration of the program. For the next four years, the Bike Church held 16 distributions, getting out 415 bikes through a variety of nonprofits, while salvaging tons of usable material from the scraps that no one else was able to make use of.
In early 2012, the City ended the program without any notification to the Bike Church or other participating groups. Bikes were delivered instead to a for-profit business that did not invite the former nonprofit participants to take any of the bicycles. The five groups that had matched up the most bikes to youth prior to this change—Barrios Unidos, Green Ways to School, Project Bike Trip, Watsonville Bike Shack, and Western Service Workers Association—all wrote letters to the City praising the former program and the Bike Church’s management of it, and asking that it be reinstated. However no changes were made at that time.
In August 2013, acknowledging that the municipal code does not allow distributions through a for-profit business, the City suspended distributions entirely. City Manager Bernal stated at that time the intention to invite proposals from nonprofits to partner with the City in renewing the program. However, this plan has not been realized, and bikes are now being auctioned off for the first time since 1996.
Fortunately, the City Council will have the opportunity to vote on this matter on January 28, and we hope they will listen to the overwhelming community support for giving the bikes to youth instead of auctioning them off.
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Related Stories:
Restore City of Santa Cruz Unclaimed Bike Distribution
http://www.peoplepowersc.org/
People Power Hands Out Free Bikes to Metro Riders
http://www.peoplepowersc.org/
Comments (Hide Comments)
Sunday Jan 26th, 2014 11:15 PM
The three proposals do not include directly restoring the bikes to the Bike Church, much less exposing who in the SCPD and City Staff was responsible for this backroom bikenapping. Instead the proposals are to (1) “select a qualified distributor through a fair and open process” with additional requirements such as licensing of all donated bikes–a proposal has the lengthiest objections by the staff and which it does not recommend; (2) “on-line auctioning through Property Room.com–apparently the police department’s current policy–set up as a kind of straw man apparently to encourage the Council to accept the third proposal; (3) auctioning surplus biicycles through Property Room and giving usable ones to the Teen Center.
Collins, Shull,, and Bernal–apparently the real movers, shakers, and bike blockaders in the City are giving the thumbs up to the last proposal–which doesn’t even consider restoring the bikes to the previous effective distributor (the Bike Church), nor even a “fair and open process” to request proposals–but simply dictates that they be sent to the Teen Center.
This is clearly a shaft in the ass of the Bike Church as well as those demanding the SCPD and City Council come clean about the machinations going on for the last two years on this issue.
From it’s failure to demand open process and mount public demonstrations (say a bike distribution at the police station), it may be that the Bike Church is either too timid to stand up to these abuses, or simply thinks it’s too much trouble and is finding other ways to help youth and low-income people. However they do no service in allowing this travesty to go on month after month with no strong exposure and counteraction.
Letting the SCPD and staff–not to mention the City Council to stonewall the bike distribution for two years and punish the Bike Church for providing them to youth and needy locals is another example of the perils of trusting Lane and Cosner and bowing to the power of the Robinson majority.
To catch the slimy details of the latest round of ripoffery, see the staff report at http://sire.cityofsantacruz.