Local ACLU Vice Chair Announces Candidacy
Bike Church supporters lined up to urge City Council to end the SCPD’s political boycott of The Bike Church and restore the flow of abandoned and damaged bikes stopped a year and a half ago. Bike Dojo bozo Rob Mills, the new Bike Mafioso who’s the SCPD’s designated dumpsite for bikes, spewed fire and brimstone at critics of his business. I played the infamous Ken Collins video showing Collins poking a homeless man in a sleeping bag as part of a Clean Team “clean up” operation.
COLLINS VIDEO BACK–BRIEFLY– IN PUBLIC EYE
Four months after the actual incident, and two months after it hit You-Tube (via Santa Cruz Patch) and was then removed, I played the Ken Collins video showing the fiery Ken and his Clean Team bigotistas harass a homeless man in a red sleeping bag.
Though the video has been repeatedly removed from You-Tube, it is still posted along with a lengthy story on Santa Cruz Indymedia at http://www.indybay.org/
Councilmember Comstock responded by denouncing me and attempting to distance her own Take Back Santa Cruz organization (of which she is co-founder) from The Clean Team.
Councilmember Robinson was not there, though reportedly was part of The Clean Team clean-up the day that Collins decided to abuse and denounce the homeless man in the video. She has made no statement on that expedition so far.
A tip of the hat to City Clerk/Administrator Bren Lehr, who assisted me in setting up the video after initially alarming me with requests that I allow “pre-viewing” so Mayor Bryant could “warn parents” to cover their childrens eyes and ears. Something the Council has been pretty good at doing generally regarding its abuses against the homeless.
Videos like this one are vital to show the public what’s really happening beneath the “Public Safety” pontificating and Needle Hysteria of The Clean Team, Take Back Santa Cruz, the SCPD, and associated right-wing groups.
Brent Adams’ video of Officer Vasquez dropping Richard Hardy face-first to the sidewalk in handcuffs is still a shocker (and still unexplained by the ever-evasive SCPD) (See “Use of force investigation not complete in videotaped arrest in Santa Cruz” at http://www.santacruzsentinel.
SCPD BIKE BOYCOTT TO BE LIFTED? MAYBE.
The main action of the afternoon was a series of Bike Church supporters asking that the Council direct the SCPD to resume distribution of bikes cut off in a right-wing retaliatory move eighteen months ago and stalled by higher-up’s in the SCPD and City Manager’s office (specifically Assistant Manager Tina Shuul).
Bike Church supporters were on their best behavior, making little mention of the hostile and unjustified actions of the SCPD, the failure of Councilmembers Lane and Posner to take strong public action on this issue, or the complicity of the Bike Dojo in signing on to this “punish the lefties” action.
I suspect the decision by the SCPD was taken under cover of the Terrezas, Bryant, Mathews majority. See http://www.indybay.org/
(“Help Restore City Youth Bicycle Distributions”) and http://www.indybay.org/
Steve Schnaar raised the issue nearly a year ago (“City Ends Successful Bicycle Distribution Program in Secret Back-Room Deal”at http://www.indybay.org/
Micah Posner claimed victory by noting that (a) the Bike Dojo was no longer receiving bikes from the City, and (b) there was now an open process to apply for that status. The question of why the bikes were stopped in the first place and why this issue was stalled for over a year and a half was “diplomatically” ignored. So apparently the SCPD will suffer no consequences for what appears to be abusive and arbitrary intervention denying distribution of bikes for over 18 months without warning or explanation.
Rob Mills and Paul of the Bike Dojo insisted that they were distributing hundreds of bikes to kids. Mills, however, had no problem with the SCPD’s using his group to steer bikes away from The Bike Church, even though Sandino of Barrios Unidos testified that bikes piled up undistributed over a period of months at the Bike Dojo. Dojo Bozo Mills (who kept insulting activists in a steady stream of invective both during and after the Council meeting) reportedly refused to allow the bikes to be distributed when a Watsonville group tried to wrest them from his clutches. This according to Sandino and Schnaar.
While it’s nice to hear prospects of the bikes being distributed again (Mills insisted the bikes had continued to go out over the last few months)–and potentially via the Bike Church–the failure of Posner, the Bike Church, and the Council to reveal the full extent of SCPD interference here allows them to walk away with clean hands from what seems to me like a rather dirty backroom business.
Mayor Bryant continues to violate the Brown Act by denying the public the right to speak on Consent Agenda items. She had no answer to my recent request as to why she is treating members of the public differentially (See “Mayor Cuts Off Comment in Consent Agenda Crackdown; Brown Act Complaint Rejected” at http://www.indybay.org/
However, to her credit, Bryant did allow all the speakers who wanted to speak do so at Oral Communications (when relatively few people were in the room compared to the normal session)–even though this meant spending 40 minutes or more (the usual time is half an hour) and giving each speaker 3 minutes. The Mayor may also have been more sensitive to this issue because an organized group (the Bike Church supporters) was present. Still, I thanked her for it afterwards.
It was all far too genteel to deter any repetition of SCPD/TBSC mischief in the future. And glossy flyers bemoaning the deaths of Butler and Baker were still stacked in piles to remind members of the community about who’s running the show at City Council.
NORSE NOTES: Contrary to the latest Santa Cruz “Public Safety” mythology, it’s not that
…Santa Cruz is a “magnet” with its homeless-hostile laws;
…that the meager services (which really don’t include shelter–except for 5% of the homeless) are too welcoming;
… that the homeless are addicts, alcoholics, and crazies who would naturally become homeless (the majority of homeless people are women, children, and vets)
… that homeless people “flock” to Santa Cruz because of its reputation for “easy life” (though the climate–like all coastal cities–beats Fresno, and many have roots here or are aware of the continuing cultural residue of a counter-culture here)
…that homeless people are producing a “crime wave”–as Deputy-Chief “Clatterbox” Clark repeatedly pronounces (unless you regard survival sleeping, sitting next to a building, peacefully asking for spare change, or drinking a beer in an out of the way place as being “crimes”–which Clark does; he should know, his SCPD got city Council to define these behaviors as “criminal”.)
I’m hearing that the broader housed and tourist community got a graphic taste of the Police State at 10 PM on July 4th when massive lines of cops began “rolling up” the previously public space. All for our own security–of course.
Housing, work, and safety net repair for the disabled are the most immediate needs of the homeless population, say I.
Arvin Temkar
Tent residents of Chinatown in Salinas celebrated Christmas with decorations last year.
Posted: Tuesday, June 25, 2013 6:39 pm | Updated: 10:25 am, Thu Jun 27, 2013.
Sara Rubin
That’s according to the 2013 homeless census, conducted in January and presented Tuesday to the Board of Supervisors. The census represents a point-in-time snapshot of homelessness, based on data collected in one day by volunteers, who work on teams led by paid homeless individuals.
The 2013 census reports a 3-percent increase over 2011, bringing the county’s total homeless population to 2,590.
That number almost definitely is lower than the reality, says Glorietta Rowland, an analyst with the county’s Community Action Partnership. That’s because the census is, by its snapshot nature, imprecise.
“It is historically an under-representation of homeless in the community,” Rowland says.
The census estimates over 6,000 individuals experienced homelessness over the course of the past year—that annual estimate is a 58-percent increase from 2011.
In South County in particular, Rowland worries the numbers don’t accurately reflect the homeless population.
“Because we did not have people familiar with South County, the numbers there were very low,” Rowland says. “We know there are more homeless in that area.”
According to the census, there were 99 fewer homeless individuals in Greenfield, and also declines in Gonzales, King City and Soledad.
On the Peninsula and in North County homeless was up, census data shows. Monterey, Seaside and Prunedale all reported increases.
About three-quarters of the individuals surveyed do not live in shelters.
“There is a need for housing,” says Jill Allen, director of Dorothy’s Place in Salinas’ Chinatown.
Dorothy’s converts a day-use room into an emergency shelter each night, called Women Alive, and last year provided sleeping space to 188 women—many of them mentally ill, and many of them seniors, Allen says.
The nonprofit is in the midst of a fundraising push and education effort to “get people talking about better emergency facilities for women, and aging women who are out on the street,” she adds.
About 20 percent of homeless individuals live in families, the census found, though the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development definition of homeless doesn’t count families that might be doubling up in houses.
HUD requires all communities that receive federal funds to support homeless services conduct a bi-annual census.
So blah blah blah, Robert.
Some months back, Razor Ray reported a similar incident at City Hall. Ray, however, insisted the SCPD be called, and the cop advised the First Alarm guard that no law was being violated. He also documents a continuing pattern of First Alarm harassment in San Lorenzo Park (“What $160,000 dollars a year buys in contracts to ‘First Alarm’” at https://www.indybay.org/
Photojournalist and former Santa Cruz Eleven defendant Alex Darocy has also documented escalating harassment by First Alarm Security thugs in San Lorenzo Park: See “First Alarm Security Guards Profile and Stalk San Lorenzo Park Users” at https://www.indybay.org/
Please post any videos, photos, or other accounts of such darkening police state behavior on line at you-rube as well as at www.indybay.org/santacruz .
An incident such as is described below is a likely prospect in Santa Cruz. We’ve already experienced Officer Vasquez’s “Sidewalk Smash” of Richard Hardy (see http://www.santacruzsentinel.
The increasing demonization of homeless people is encouraged by by neo-fascistic groups like the Public Hysteria Citizens Task Farce (which calls itself the Public Security Citizens Task Force) set up to legitimize “an unwelcoming attitude towards the homeless.”
This situation will grow worse on July 11th when a new anti-homeless “Public Safety” ordinance goes into effect. (See “Anti-Homeless Laws at Santa Cruz City Council” at https://www.indybay.org/
The First Alarm Security Thugs are reported covered under MC 13.08.090(a) which reads ” Any person who willfully harasses or interferes with a City of Santa Cruz employee in the performance of his or her duties in a City park or beach, shall be guilty of a misdemeanor.” This, of course, turns around the kind of security thug “move along or be intimidated” harassment that is increasingly reported by homeless-looking folks in the parks.
The resulting ritual humiliation and harassment by First Alarm, boardwalk security, Panther Protective Services, and other would-be stormtroopers is almost certain at some point to spark verbal or physical resistance and violence. Which, in turn, will lead to lawsuits–if adequately documented.
(Photo: Nick Ut, AP)
A California jury has awarded nearly $58 million to a 43-year-old house painter left brain damaged and deformed after a security guard crushed his skull during a beating outside a Los Angeles-area bar.
“His skull is like a pie with 25% cut out of it,” attorney Federico Sayre said at a news conference Monday.
Doctors had to removed part of Antonio Lopez Chaj’s brain and skull after the April 2010 beating at La Barra Latina in Torrance. He can no longer speak, needs help walking and requires 24-hour care.
Sayre said an unlicensed, untrained security guard with DGSP Security and Patrol Service beat Chaj with a baton or metal bar, kicked him in the head eight times and bashed his skull on the pavement four times. Chaj was attacked after he tried to intervene in a fight between one of his two nephews and the bar manager.
The guard was never charged; police said they lacked independent witnesses. He and the bartender who started the fight disappeared before the civil trial.
The damage award against the security firm — $35 million for past pain and suffering, $11.5 million for future medical expenses and $11 million for future pain and suffering — is one of the largest ever given to an individual in California.
Chaj’s lawyers, including the oldest son of the late farm workers’ leader Cesar Chavez, expect the security firm to ask the judge to reduce the judgment.
“I have explained to him that he now is going to be taken care of the rest of his long life,” Sayre said he told
Chaj, the Los Angeles Times reported.
The issue seems to me part of a larger crackdown on services that help poor people spearheaded by the Bryant majority at City Council and “Hysteria Against the Homeless” groups like Take Back Santa Cruz, The Clean Team, the Downtown Association, and Santa Cruz Neighbors (not to mention the SCPD). Politically motivated & legally suspect backroom deals free from meaningful public comment or notice seems to be increasingly the Council’s Path.
Personally I think mass occupation of the City Manager’s office and protests outside the Bike Dojo and the SCPD would be a more productive approach, but public pressure on the City Council isn’t a bad thing either as the e-mail below suggests.
http://www.radiolibre.org/brb/
According to her phone message today, jury selection begins in her case tomorrow morning (July 3) in Monterey Municipal or Continue reading