Following Fast and Fancy City Council Footwork, Freedom Sleepers Return for 86th Time Tuesday February 28th

Date Tuesday February 28  Time 4:00 PM – 4:00 AM

Location Details Dodging raindrops and rangers, the nimblefooted Freedom Sleepers continue their relentless quest for sanity and justice outside City Hall on Tuesday night. Food usually arrives in the late afternoon, and coffee the following morning. The protest runs from Tuesday afternoon through mid-morning Wednesday. Come early Tuesday afternoon if you want to raise your voice at City Council. Bring video, warm bedding, and good humor to deal with the cold night and the city’s paid nightmare providers.

Event Type Protest  Organizer/Author Keith McHenry (story by Norse)

BATHROOM BARRICADE LAST WEEK BY BUREAUCRAT BADGIRLS
The City Council bathrooms are regularly closed and locked during Freedom SleepOut’s (perhaps to enable to the City to yowl about “urine and feces” being left outside?)> But last week, Freedom Sleepers last week reported even during regular business hours, Assistant administrator Bonnie Bush refused to open the bathrooms, even for a disabled patron, who then relieved himself on a wall. Bring your own catheter or colostomy bag.

MISSION ST. LOCKOUT OF UNHOUSED PATRONS
Julie Shaul and other report what may be an organized crackdown on homeless folks trying to use the laundromat to clean and dry rain-soaked clothing and bedding. Safeway and nearby shops have reportedly removed or walled off outdoor seating. Other businesses such as MacDonald’s are becoming vehemently abusive towards “loitering” customers.

HOMELESS (LACK OF) SERVICES CENTER STRIKES AGAIN!
POVERTY PIMPS DENY HOMELESS WOMAN HER MAIL AFTER SHE WALKED OUT WITH A GRANOLA BAR
Food Not Bombs activist Kim Argula reported being refused access to her mail after she picked up a bar and a bag of chips from a table which looked open to homeless folks. “Denise”, the sharp-tongued poverty pimpstress who confronted her, then “banned” her and called the police even as Kim walked away. Mercifully, the officer responding declined to handcuff the hungry mail seeker and haul her away.

“Bucks for Bums” Boss Phil Kramer subsequently allowed Kim mail access to mail–provided she stood on the sidewalk across the street from the famed “Homeless Services Center”.

Homeless folks are now banned from parking their cars on Coral, Fern, and Limekiln streets with 24-hour Permit-required signs posted along all three.

The Homeless (Lack of) Service Center [HLOSC] has excluded all but a fraction of the homeless community from its breakfast and dinner meals in spite of a $3 million budget and much donated food. The massive cutback in HLOSC services prompted the first Freedom SleepOut on July 4, 2015.

GET THE BAD NEWS DIRECTLY FROM COUNCILMAN CHRIS
9 AM-10 AM: Councilmember Chris Krohn has a pre-Council huddle with members of the public at the Cafe Pergolesi 418 Cedar St.

NO RELIEF FOR TENANTS
Sometime after 2 PM: Tenant activists have asked those supporting renter protection and rent control to come to the afternoon session to speak on Item #17, which grants $10,000 to gab about “affordable housing” without any mention of key renter concerns or inclusion of renters as a primary participatory group.

A BRIEF CHANCE TO SPEAK IF YOU DON’T MIND WAITING 3 1/2 HOURS
Oral Communications: End of the Council’s afternoon agenda (historically 5 PM, but now at a time uncertain–perhaps to discourage speakers who have to wait through the whole afternoon not to miss it?). The period when the Mayor cuts you off after 2 minutes of struggling to make the community aware of issues NOT on the agenda.

RESOLUTIONS AND RABBLTY-BABBLE, BUT NO DOCUMENTS & NO ACCOUNTABILITY
7 PM: City staff returns, after twice delaying a resolution and ordinance banning SCPD collusion with DHS/ICE raids against undocumented immigrants.

The agenda packet includes no documentation of the actual communications between the SCPD and the DHS/ICE. Vogel of the SCPD says one thing and Schwab of the DHS says another (See http://www.santacruzsentinel.com/social-affairs/20170223/feds-santa-cruz-police-trade-jabs-after-february-gang-busts)

Bring your blankets and sleeping bags into the chambers to see if either the SCPD-subservient Council or their “liberal” critics will physically support Sanctuary for and stop busting Santa Cruz’s homeless population–documented or undocumented. That’s what the Freedom Sleepers are all about.

SLAMMING THE BOOK CLOSED ON SCPD’S ARLT KILLING
Missing from the agenda is any follow-up to Vogel’s closed-to-alternative-media press conference 2-16 exonerating Officer Eric Bailey for the slaying of Sean Arlt last October.

The D.A.’s report and the witness’s accounts have not been released.

There has been no indication of any change in SCPD’s “shoot to kill” policy nor have other questions raised by the household that called the SCPD to restrain Arlt. (https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2017/02/16/18796574.php?show_comments=1#18796828).

TALK BACK ON TALKABOUT TALK SHOW WEDNESDAY NIGHT
Broadcaster John Malkin will be interviewing witnesses and relatives in the law enforcement killings of Sean Arlt and Luke Smith on KZSC (88.1 FM) at 7 PM Wednesday 3-1. Call in at 459-4036.

VIEW AND LEAVE COMMENTS AT https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2017/02/27/18796875.php.

 

First of the 2017 Flashbacks: Bathrobespierre’s Broadsides on the stream of Free Radio Sunday 2-26 at freakradio.org — the March 2, 2002 Show Returns!

Free Radio Santa Cruz has lost its studio.  Sunday’s (2-26) Bathrobespierre’s Broadsides show will be a 15 year flashback.

We’ll be streaming on freakradio.org.

The show will archive at http://radiolibre.org/brb/brb170226.mp3  .

The March 2, 2002 replay features numerous interviews from olden times.

Highlights include

  • former Seaside Councilman and Black Panther activist Mel Mason on police abuse and the police murder of Charles Vaughn Sr.;
  • Venice homeless activist David Busch on his arrest in a sports bar for ordering a cup of coffee while wearing an “unhoused” sign around his neck;
  • UCSC Steve HUFF organizer’s Update;
  • “Battling” Bob Lamonia on Rudeness Downtown;
  • Attorney Jim Fossbinder and “Beggarbacker” Becky Johnson on her LAPD lawsuit for beating at the 2000 Democratic National Convention;
  • Ben Mazel on LAPD Violence;
  • Ed Howes, The Janitor, Linda Lemaster, Dangerous John T.  and more

No call-in’s, but if you have comments or questions, call 831-423-4833, leave a message, and I’ll get back to you.

Help us find a studio and my live show will likely return to the air.  Also there’s a $500 reward if you can find us a 10′ X 10′ space for a year (indoors or outdoors) with access to internet, electricity and a toilet.  We’ll pay reasonable rent.

 

Video Shows SCPD Blocking Media from Sean Arlt Killing Press Conference

Video Shows SCPD Blocking Media from Sean Arlt Killing Press Conference

by Wes White and Robert Norse (rnorse3 [at] hotmail.com)
Thursday Feb 23rd, 2017 2:36 PM
https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2017/02/23/18796773.php

Activist Wes White documents the exclusion of alternative media from the SCPD’s 2-16 Press Conference. There SCPD Police Chief Vogel announced that Officer Eric Bailey was the killer of Sean Arlt, who, police say, approached them aggressively with a metal rake back in early October. The only evidence presented was Vogel’s account, some partial audio, and a partial obscured video that had no recognizable figures in it and ended ten minutes before Arlt died.
Wes White came over from Salinas to film the two press conferences (by D.A. Jeff Rosell and Police Chief Kevin Vogel). He was admitted to the D.A.[‘s conference, but subsequently denied entrance to the second held at the Police Department’s “Community Room”.

Also excluded were Robert Norse (a Free Radio Santa Cruz broadcaster), John Malkin (a reporter with Good Times and KZSC) as well as Food Not Bombs activists Keith McHenry and Abbi Samuels.

The video and audio shown by police give no clear picture of Sean Arlt’s approach to the four police officers. There was no offer to release the D.A.’s investigation or the original police reports.

The few media present at Vogel’s press conference asked very few questions. That section of the video (shown at the closed Press Conference) and subsequently posted on the SCPD’s website and Santa Cruz Indymedia) can be seen at https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2017/02/16/18796574.php?show_comments=1#18796590. Questions begin 57 minutes into the audio file and some are unintelligible. It is unclear which media were allowed into the room.

Wes White is a video-journalist, recent candidate for Salinas City Council, and co-founder of the Monterey County/Salinas Union of the Homeless. His video of the SFPD Press Exclusion is at
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGnW82WWpww&feature=youtu.be .

Norse’s audio of the D.A.’s press conference plus some commentary is at http://radiolibre.org/brb/brb170216.mp3 (15 minutes into the file).

Commentary outside the SCPD Press Conference which he was excluded from is at http://radiolibre.org/brb/brb170216.mp3 (1 hour and 4 minutes into the file).

HUFF again, though the winds blow wet and cold Wednesday 2-22 11 AM Sub Rosa

Come HUFF again with the oldtimers, brooding on the results of the D.A.’s “investigation” of the Sean Arlt killing released last week; new reports of Rangers ripping tents, seizing homeless property, and driving away campers from their survival encampments; and the usual Norse round-up of scattered tales of terror, heroism, and mindless bureaucracy.   Coffee as usual will be perking nearby.

Freedom SleepOut #85 To Face Wettest Winter and Squad Cars at Midnight?

 Date Tuesday February 21

Time 4:00 PM Tuesday9 AM Wednesday

Location Details Back again to City Hall–still the dark center of Sleeping Ban law and enforcement under City Manager Martin Bernal and the Watkins-Terrazas City Council. Determined activists and a crew of homeless folks will be huddling beneath the eaves of the buildings at City Hall until being driven out into the rain , wind, and cold. Just looking for a night of community and relative safety from the Sleeping Ban, they’ll be in sleeping bags, under tents, in vehicles, whereever they can, hoping to spark conscience from the broader community. Food Not Bombs and Joe Schultz will feed. Protest goes, as ever, from mid-afternoon Tuesday to mid-morning Wednesday.

Event Type Protest

Organizer/Author Keith McHenry (story by Norse)

Email keith@foodnotbombs.net

Phone 575-770–3377

FIGHTING TRUMP EVERYWHERE BUT NOT LOCAL TRUMPISM IN SANTA CRUZ
Protests against Trump across the state and nation have failed so far to catalyze any local protests against Trumpism in Santa Cruz. Particularly concerning the most basic civil rights of our own refugees who face sweeps, property confiscations, harassment, and the nighttime Sleeping Ban–all measures designed to drive them out of town and out of sight.

Folks at a recent Black Lives Matter protest in Capitola this Saturday did seem sympathetic to concerns that SCPD policies impacting black folks, immigrants, and just ordinary folks were also a matter of serious concern regarding homeless folks. See “Community Support for Black Lives Matter in Capitola” at https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2017/02/18/18796619.php

POLICE SWAMPED PROTEST WITH FLEET OF VEHICLES LAST WEEK
Freedom Sleepers return this Tuesday fresh from the harsh memory of massive police response against last week’s protest on 2-14.

During that protest, eight SCPD squad cars showed up to arrest activist Maxwell Green in the dead of night ( https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10154889337533820&set=pcb.10154889337793820&type=3&theater ).

SUDDEN POLICE INTEREST IN MAXWELL GREEN
Though Green spoke earlier that day at City Council and could have been served with a citation at that time, the city’s uniformed gunmen showed up at midnight in absurdly disproportionate force, frightening other sleepers there.

Green was charged with 184 (a) willfully obstructing an officer. He will be arraigned in Judge Denine Guy’s court on Mar 16th at 8:30 a.m. The “obstruction” incident allegedly happened over a month ago on 1/18 with the complaint and warrant suddenly issued on 2/15; right after a city council meeting when Green publicly denounced Councilmember Richelle Niroyan. Niroyan authored a failed RV nighttime ban, leading to a caustic exchange between the two of them that homeless-aphobic city staffers may still be trying to patch up behind the scenes.

Green is a mainstay of the Freedom Sleeper protest, who works and lives in Monterey, and regularly commutes to defend the rights of the Santa Cruz homeless here.

FOOD NOT BOMBS EVENTS
Food Not Bombs [FNB], which regularly feeds the Freedom SleepOut’s, is facing harassment from reactionary neighbors, who ban the organization’s street food and literature tables.

FNB will hold an Emergency Meeting 2 PM Friday 2-24 at India Joze 418 Front St.
They also urge folks to sign a petition to Mayor Cynthia Chase urging the City respect the right to share food: Sign it at https://www.change.org/p/cynthia-chase-support-the-right-of-food-not-bombs-to-share-free-food-info-and-ideas-in-public-spaces?

FNB co-founder Katzemjammer Keith McHenry also announced “Direct Action to Fight Fascism” Presentation at 612 Ocean St., Resource Center for Non-Violence 6:30 PM Free to all.

ANTI-VIOLENCE ADVOCATES DEMAND RELEASE OF D.A.’S REPORT
Homeless folks are another minority that faces police harassment and violence.

Activists pressing to end police violence are demanding the release of the police reports and the full D.A.’s investigation in the killing of Sean Arlt. In a quick closed-to-the-public press conference, Chief Kevin Vogel announced D.A. Jeff Rosell’s finding exonerating the killer–Officer Eric Bailey.

There has been no change in the SCPD’s “shoot to kill” policy, nor were details given of how close Arlt was to Bailey when Bailey shot him dead in October. The D.A.’s “investigation” has taken 4 months, and now Vogel’s SCPD announces it will “investigate” further. Meanwhile the witness accounts and the D.A.’s report remain under lock and key. The “Official Story” can be seen on line at https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2017/02/16/18796574.php?show_comments=1#18796616

JOIN THE FREEDOM SLEEPERS
Bring lots of rain gear, blankets, and “protective” video equipment to the protest. Heavy rains may not deter police and ranger attacks on those sheltering themselves at City Hall. But documenting their behavior may awaken the community to the menace of local Trumpism against the poor.


TO COMMENT GO TO https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2017/02/20/18796677.php.

 

Community Support for Black Lives Matter in Capitola

Saturday Feb 18th, 2017 3:31 PM

Several dozen activists gathered at two corners of the 41st Ave. and Capitola Road intersection in support of reversing police violence. I was there s a HUFF activist and Free Radio Santa Cruz reporter.
huff_supports_black_lives_matter.pdf_600_.jpg
TO COMMENT ON THIS STORY , GO TO:  https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2017/02/18/18796619.php

It was encouraging to see so many new faces there–new to me, anyway. Some told me they had on entered or reentered the activist arena after the election of Trump and the recent refugee and traveler bans.

Other than an inquiry from a Capitola cop who drove up in a car to on my arrival to ask if I were responsible for the protest (which I wasn’t), no police showed up except in passing patrol cars.
Regular honks from other cars and trucks seemed to indicate strong sympathy.

With few exceptions the men present were there with their families. The overwhelming majority of those gathered were women. Virtually all participants were “white”. It was an enthusiastic and friendly group. I arrived around 10 AM when there were only a handful of people, and left around 11:30 when the protest had grown and was still going strong.

I distributed the attached flyer, and interviewed a number of the folks holding Black Lives Matter signs.

The interviews will be played tomorrow on Free Radio (streams currently at http://www.freakradio.org and archives at http://radiolibre.org/brb/brb170219.mp3 (about an hour into the audio file).

__._,_.___

Attachment(s) from Robert | View attachments on the web

1 of 1 File(s)

HUFF Assesses Latest Outbreak of Democracy at City Council Audience on Valentine’s Day, Meets 11 AM 2-15 Sub Rosa Cafe, As Ever

In the uproar over police collusion with the Department of Homeland Security’s Monday raids, and as Freedom Sleepout #84 prepared to bed down outside, were there indications of some Direct Action politics in Santa Cruz that might impact the homeless civil rights struggle as well?  Check out the HUFFmeet tomorrow (Wednesday the 15th) where we’ll also trudge through Public Records issues, Merchant Signboard Scams, the latest $90,000 grant being given to First Alarm Insecurity thugs and how to address it, as well as whatever the wind, rain, and cold blow in.   With coffee.

Valentine’s Day for Freedom SleepOut #84

 Date Tuesday February 14
Time 4:00 PM Tuesday10 AM Wednesday
Location Details Covering Up Warmly at City Hall 809 Center St or on the nearby steps, take your choice. The protest runs from Tuesday early afternoon to mid-morning Wednesday. Bring your sweetie to celebrate restoring civil rights for the rain-soaked renegades of Santa Cruz.
Event Type Protest
Organizer/Author Keith McHenry (story by Norse)
Email keith@foodnotbombs.net
Phone
575-770–3377

NO JUSTICE WITHOUT DEMANDS
Freedom Sleepers continue their relentless pursuit of decent respect for the survival needs of unhoused people outside. Both the Sleeping Ban’s 11 PM to 8:30 AM ban on the act of sleeping for the homeless and police practice enforcing this cruel ordinance are the weekly target of this year and a half long protest.

A WAKE UP CALL FOR THE CITY COUNCIL
In a sardonic blast at the City’s cruel anti-homeless law, activists have circulated a flyer suggesting that the City Council at its Tuesday afternoon meeting will be distributing methamphetamine to help homeless people follow the City’s MC 6.36.010a and stay awake all night. See http://www.mercurynews.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/sjm-meth-0210.jpg

Activists are expected to make mock demands for meth at the Oral Communications period. Usually around 5 PM, Mayor Chase has failed to specify when that period will be.

PROTESTS PLANNED ON BEACH FLAT STORMTROOPER RAIDS
Activists angered by local police collusion with a Monday 4:45AM raid in the Beach Flats with armored Vehicles and soldiers with machine guns escorted by Police Chief Vogel’s SCPD. Reportedly breaking down doors, detaining women and children and checking immigration papers the military style operation searched house to house, supposedly, for M-13 gang members”. Protesters plan a 2 PM march from the Town Clock to City Council meeting.

BOOS NOT BLESSINGS FOR AN OUTGOING POLICE CHIEF
Item #3 on the day’s City Council agenda is a special Service Celebration of Vogel’s 30 years on the SCPD. Vogel’s “accomplishments” included setting loose the armored BearCat vehicle on the community; refusing to release the video of the Sean Arlt slaying as well as the identity of the police officer who killed him.

Vogel has also presided over the 2012 theft and rerouting of SCPD-confiscated bikes from the Bike Church’s redistribution plan to a City Council connected business. He personally led the massing of more than 100 cops to disperse the Occupy encampment in San Lorenzo benchlands and later coral protesters marching to City Hall in early December 2011. All this was followed by the phony (and costly) prosecutions of the Santa Cruz Eleven for peaceful support of a Wells Fargo bank occupation at 75 River St.–chilling the income inequality protest across the city.

Though this is an officially agenda-ized action, it is likely the Mayor will try to stop any public comment.

PUTTING FOXES IN THE HOMELESS-HELPER HENHOUSE
Item #9 will ratify the appointments of anti-homeless politicians to the babble-bubble of the Homelessness Governance Ad-Hoc Committee–specifically Mayor Chase (who voted to keep the Sleeping Ban last year) and an assistant City Manager–from the gang that created the “homeless-as-criminals” Public Safety Task Force, pushed anti-homeless laws on Pacific Avenue, and has attacked the Freedom Sleeper protests and protesters.

CASH FOR THE CAMPER-CRUSHERS
Item #11 will hand $90,000 to First Alarm Security thugs to fund their stalk-and-scare raids in the City parking garages to run homeless people out into the cold and rain. The language in the proposal is surprisingly candid: to combat ” a large influx in the transient population in the last three to four months and the impacts associated with encampments.” Of course, there is no expansion of shelter, reining in of uniformed thieves seizing homeless property, and/or opening needed facilities like public bathrooms and wash stations.

Other items include appointing homeless-hostile hacks (Terrazas and Mathews) to the Library Board–where they helped extend the Sleeping Ban and other repressive measures to the downtown library.

GOOD NEWS IN BERKELEY
Meanwhile homeless activists in Berkeley are maintaining self-governing encampments like First they Came for the Homeless and recruiting the legal muscle to push back against psuedo-progressive politicians, who are violating the campaign pledges they made last year. See http://www.dailycal.org/2017/02/06/first-came-homeless-threatens-lawsuit-alleges-city-violated-constitutional-rights/ .

DILLYDALLYING FOR DOLLARS
Meanwhile as ACLU fund-raisers haul in heaps of money (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2017/01/30/the-aclu-says-it-got-24-million-in-donations-this-weekend-six-times-its-yearly-average/), local ACLU activists give lip service but no organizing time to protecting homeless survival gear and ending the local “poverty deportations” that happen every night to those outside.

While NAACP, SCCCCR, and the ACLU dither, Black Lives Matter will be protesting in Capitola next Saturday (https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2017/02/12/18796425.php ).

THE FIGHT GOES ON
Freedom Sleepers from last week (at SleepOut #83) reported successful resistance to Park and Ranger harassment of homeless people trying to illegally move them along. Uniformed heavies were met with video cameras and copies of the law, as well as “this is a protest” signs and solidarity among those trying to sleep.

There is likely to be food in the evening and coffee in the morning. And, for the first time in weeks, dry weather. All are invited.

No Need for Trump’s ICE, Oakland City Authorities Destroy Homeless Sanctuary: Santa Cruz Ranger Rousters Menace Freedom Sleepers But Freedom Sleepers Fight Back

NOTES BY NORSE:   Last week, Oakland cops and city demolition workers tore apart a homeless encampment/self-managed service facility created in response to Trump;’s inauguration (and the City of Oakland’s abject failure to respond to homeless survival shelter and services).   [See stories below]  A second City-funded encampment (essentially trash pick-up’s, portapotties, and a washing station) faces extensive overcrowding and a end-of-March eviction date.

 

Berkeley has a continuing intentional encampment, which has now gone 3 weeks without an eviction notice or demolition raid by Berkeley police, BART cops, or the Oakland PD–it’s called First They Came for the Homeless [FTCFTH].  They are now expanding their aggressive demand for basic rights to shelter unhoused people as a class in Berkeley.   [See http://www.dailycal.org/2017/02/06/first-came-homeless-threatens-lawsuit-alleges-city-violated-constitutional-rights/and their facebook page at FTCFTH].

 

History Lessons at the Huffmeet–11 AM at the Sub Rosa Wednesday February 8th

Coming Up on the Wednesday February 8th HUFF Agenda:

Updating the Homeless Issues Task Force Recommendations; Catching Up with Oakland and Berkeley–on Encampment Protection Demands; What the City Council’s Parks and Recreation Study Session Missed–“Homeless People Stay Away from the Parks!”;  Why Isn’t the Winter Shelter Program More Popular?….and more!   Hoist a cup of coffee with your cornies while taking shelter from the weather!