Category Archives: Bathrobespierre’s Broadsides Radio Show

Hope and Despair in Palo Alto

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NOTES BY NORSE:  Activists are proceeding on several fronts to defend the rights of vehicularly housed folks up there.  Chuck Jagoda yesterday described on the stream of Free Radio Santa Cruz how Palo Alto activists invited and funded a Santa Barbara social worker involved in the government-run park-and-sleep program down there in hopes of replicating it in Palo Alto.  Attorneys, as can be seen from the press release below, are not waiting for the city to start ticketing homeless people peacefully and harmlessly sleeping in their vehicles, but have llaunched a pre-emptive strike with a demand letter to be followed by a letter.

Jagoda’s account is at
http://www.radiolibre.org/brb/brb131124.mp3.towards the end of the audio file.

Meanwhile Santa Cruz’s “Smear the Poor” Sentinel’s headlines for yesterday scream out the fraudulent “Task Force on Public Safety” pre-constructed agenda redefining homeless survival campers as public safety threats. (See http://www.santacruzsentinel.com/santacruz/ci_24587717/public-safety-task-force-armed-solutions-santa-cruz   ).  Strangely enough, the usually toxic stream of comments following the story has some defenders of basic human rights and common sense.  Jump on and provide your own perspective.


FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE, NOVEMBER 17, 2013
COALITION OF PRO BONO LAWYERS TO FILE SUIT TO STOP PALO ALTO FROM
ARRESTING THE HOMELESS FOR LIVING IN VEHICLES: CALLS PALO ALTO LAW “INCREDIBLY HARSH.”

A group pro-bono lawyers from Palo Alto, California has notified the City of Palo Alto that they intend to file suit to prevent enforcement of a new ordinance that they say effectively bans all homeless people from within the city limits. According to the letter, sent by Palo Alto-based attorney Carrie LeRoy, along with co-counsel William Abrams and Paul Johnson, of the Silicon
Valley law firm of King & Spalding, and Stanford Law School professors Juliet Brodie and Michele Dauber, the law criminalizes the homeless in their daily lives and activities and is unconstitutional. The letter also contends that Palo Alto’s ordinance discriminates against the disabled homeless.
The lawyers represent several clients who stand to be arrested and imprisoned if the law goes into effect, according to Abrams. “James and Suzan Russaw are elderly grandparents who need to stay in the area to be near their granddaughter and grandchildren. Mr. Russaw is receiving regular kidney dialysis and needs to be able to drive to his medical appointments. Fred Smith is an elderly man and long-time resident of Palo Alto who, since he lost his job a few years ago, has been unable to afford conventional housing. Since Mr. Smith’s wife passed away and is buried in Palo Alto, where the two resided for most of their lives, he hopes that he will not be forced to leave the city. Mr Smith also needs to sleep in his vehicle rather than outdoors in order to avoid exacerbation of health issues. The Russaws and Mr. Smith are on every affordable housing and shelter bed waiting list in the area, but there is simply insufficient shelter in Palo Alto and Santa Clara County for Palo Alto’s vehicle dwellers.”
The lawyers are contesting the legality of Palo Alto’s Vehicle Habitation Ordinance, which was passed by the City Council on August 5, 2013. The ordinance is one of the broadest bans of its kind, banning all eating, sleeping, and resting in any car within the city limits. “This law is overly broad, and effectively means that the homeless who happen to rent or own a vehicle must leave Palo Alto or risk arrest. They cannot even stop here to eat a sandwich or read a book. This is needlessly draconian,” said Abrams, who noted that a violation of the law carries a possible fine of $1000 and six months in jail. “This is incredibly harsh,” he said.
The pro bono lawyers are working without pay in order to stop the law from being enforced.
“Our clients have done nothing wrong, are not criminals, and do not belong in jail,” said LeRoy. “They need housing, not criminal prosecution.” LeRoy was quick to point out that Palo Alto has no available shelter beds for the homeless. The local Opportunity Center which provides some housing for the homeless currently has a 20 year waiting list. “Santa Clara county in general and Palo Alto in particular have a dramatic shortage of available housing,” according to LeRoy. “It is the height of cruelty to tell people that it is criminal to sleep in your car, but that we have nowhere else for you to go within the entire county.”
The city has also banned overnight use of all city and public parks and facilities. “Palo Alto has been uniquely inhospitable to the homeless and poor,” noted LeRoy.

According to the city, the VHO was passed in order to prevent the homeless from congregating at Cubberley Community Center, a city recreational facility. However, according to LeRoy, there was no need to ban vehicle dwelling everywhere and at anytime in the city. “What about commercial and industrial areas as is permitted in Menlo Park and Mountain View? What is the basis for banning sleeping in areas where there are no homes, parks, or other people at night?” For LeRoy, who grew up in Palo Alto, the question is about the character and values of the city itself. “To me, the question is what kind of town do we want to be? I grew up in this city and have always thought of it as a compassionate, creative, resourceful and inclusive one. It would be one thing for the city to ban vehicle dwelling where it could point to readily-available, conventional housing alternatives. It is wrong, offensive and contrary to the spirit and values of Palo Alto to pass a law that, if enforced, will serve only to punish and injure Palo Alto’s poorest and most vulnerable residents—that is the criminalization of poverty.”

Attachments: Letter to Palo Alto City Attorney Molly Stump; City Staff Report 8-5-13 (Excerpt)
Contact:

William F. Abrams (650) 590-0703  BAbrams@KSlaw.com
Carrie LeRoy, (650) 470-3144 carrie.leroy@skadden.com

Palo Alto Homeless Update - Despondent Husband Found Dead At Don Barr's $25 million dollar Homeless Asylum

---------------------------------------------------- Decaying body found at shelter by Angela Ruggiero, Palo Alto Daily Post Staff Writer Mon Nov 25 2013 The decomposed body of a man who lived at a Palo Alto homeless center was found in his room, and may have been there for weeks. Lonnie Gullett, 63, was a resident of the Opportunity Center at 33 Encina Ave., where homeless people are provided rooms and services.  The Santa Clara County Medical Examiner-Coroner was called at noon Friday for his body.  The office said his death appears to be from natural causes. Friend and neighbor Lorin Krogh said he had not seen Gullette for several weeks and believes he was dead in his room for a long time. Mila Zelkha, director of strategic relations for the InnVision Shelter Network, which runs the Opportunity Center, said that employees had noticed Gullette had not been around for some time.  Employees decided to check his room on Friday, and found his body. Krogh said that Gullette had been through some bad luck recently after his longtime girlfriend Vivian “Venus” Sarmago, was attacked.  She had been beaten at the center and suffered a traumatic brain injury that nearly killed her.  Michael Rowe Guilford, 46, of San Jose, was arrested in connection with the attack on suspicion of battery and being drunk in public. Gullette spoke to the Post at the time, and said that at first, Venus seemed OK, but was later in a coma after she wouldn't wake up one day.  She was  left Stanford Hospital paralyzed and is currently in a nursing home. Victim once owned his own business Krogh told the Post yesterday that he had known Gullette for at least 10 years.  Gullette had hired Krogh to work with him on a street team to help get homeless people off the street.  Before, Gullette had been a general contractor and owned his own business in Sacramento for 15 years.  After being hospitalized he became seriously ill, and went on disability. “He was a really good guy,” Krough said. “and he was really bummed out about Venus.” Krogh said Gullette had told him “I don't know what to do,” after Venus was left in a vegetative state. Chronic health problems Krogh said that he and Gullette used to drink together years ago, before they turned sober.  Gullette had chronic health problems and used a wheelchair and Krogh said he thinks the cause of his death was natural. Gullette made Post headlines on April 4 when he fell down the embankment of San Fransquito Creek.  Gullette, who used a wheelchair to go long distances,, was able to stand.  He said he had gotten up to relieve himself, but lost his balance and tumbled 39 feet down the side of the creek bed.  Firefighters had to lift him out of the creek, but he was not badly injured. As the firemen began to pack up and leave the creek that day, Gullette pointed to the crown of first responders and said, “That's your tax dollars at work.  Those guys don't get paid enough.”

Palo Alto: Opposition Produces Results–Legal Fightback against Anti-Homeless Bigotry

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NOTES BY NORSE:  Attorneys in Palo Alto previously stepped up to the microphone when the ban was being debated several months ago and warned the city they would take every case, challenge every arrest, and fight the ban.   Since then, activists in Santa Cruz and Palo Alto have urged attorneys to preemptively seek an injunction and not wait until police actually wrote tickets.

The suit is gratifying news to those interested in an immediate and pre-emptive strike to stop the further criminalization of the homeless.  No evidence was presented of car-camper problems except in one area (the Cubberly Community Center) where the city had failed to provide adequate oversight and there the problems were hugely inflated by NIMBY community members concerned with disappearing homeless people from their neighborhood as an aesthetic problem and “perceptual” threat (i.e. no indication of serious crimes but a fear of such).The arguments used supporting the Ban are similar to those used in Santa Cruz before the rise of the “homeless are criminals and a Public Safety menace” Big Lie.  “Why don’t those who support homeless rights, simply provide private space for them?”
“The homeless aren’t parking in front of their homes!”  “Banning the right to sleep is perfectly legal.”   “City Council knows best.”  etc.

Palo Alto activists, lawyers, and attorneys, however, are fighting back unlike Santa Cruz–which sinks more deeply into paranoia, repression, and bigotry.  See the infamous Task Farce for Public Hysteria (aka the Task Force on Public Safety)’s proposed recommendations at http://www.cityofsantacruz.com/index.aspx?page=1924 ).

Mon, Nov 18, 2013, 4:39 pm

Suit threatened over city’s car-camping ban

Coalition of pro bono attorneys argues that Palo Alto’s new ordinance is cruel, unconstitutional

by Gennady Sheyner / Palo Alto Weekly

A group of Palo Alto attorneys is threatening to sue the city over a recently adopted ban on vehicle habitation, a law that they claim effectively criminalizes homelessness and that is far more draconian than car-dwelling restrictions in other jurisdiction. The coalition, led by local attorney Carrie LeRoy, is working pro bono and is representing several homeless residents who will lose the right to live in their cars when the car ban takes effect on Jan. 6. The plaintiffs include James and Suzan Russaw, a couple who the attorneys say wish to stay in the area to be close to their grandchildren. James Russaw, 84, is also receiving regular kidney dialysis and needs to be able to get to his medical appointments, the attorneys said in a letter to City Attorney Molly Stump.

[The text of the letter can be found at http://www.paloaltoonline.com/media/reports/1384880185.pdf ]

Fred Smith, a homeless man who had spoken publicly against the ban, is also a client. At the Aug. 5 meeting, shortly before the council voted 7-2 – with Karen Holman and Marc Berman dissenting – to approve the ban, Smith urged the council to reconsider.
“I recently lost my job, my wife and my house. I now live in an RV in a commercial zone. Please don’t criminalize me,” Smith said, drawing an applause.

LeRoy said in an interview Monday that the list of people represented by the group may further expand as she and her colleagues in the effort proceed with their legal opposition to the ban. Other attorneys involved in challenging the ban are William Abrams and Paul Johnson, both of the firm King & Spalding, Stanford University professors Juliet Brodie and Michele Dauber, Menlo Park-based attorney Jeff Koppelmaa, criminal attorney William Safford and Nick Selby. The group contends that the city’s new ban is far too broad and that staff has misrepresented other cities’ ordinances to the City Council before the vote.
“There were an number of attorneys who expressed real concerns and had deep reservations over whether this was actually a

constitutional ordinance,” LaRoy said.

Abrams, a partner at King & Spalding with a long history of pro bono work and high-profile cases involving civil rights intellectual property, called Palo Alto’s new ordinance “overbroad.” The effect of the law, he said, will be to force homeless individuals who own or lease vehicles to leave Palo Alto or risk arrest. It will target the city’s “invisible” population, he said, people who don’t have any other options for shelter.

In their letter, the attorneys request a meeting with Stump by Dec. 5. Unless the request is met, the letter states, “We will proceed with filing a complaint in court against Defendants on behalf of the Plaintiffs.” The defendants in this case would be the City of Palo Alto, the Palo Alto Police Department and Police Chief Dennis Burns.

The attorneys are challenging an ordinance that the council adopted on Aug. 5 after nearly two years of community meetings, outreach efforts and persistent criticism from the homeless community. The ordinance makes it illegal for individuals to use “a vehicle for a dwelling place” (it makes exception for mobile-home parks and for guests of city residents). The council adopted it largely in response to a growing encampment of homeless residents at the Cubberley Community Center and the resulting increase of police complaints about what city officials dubbed a “de facto homeless shelter.”

According to police data, the number of complaints about Cubberley dwellers had risen from 10 in 2010, to 16 in 2011 and to 39 in 2012. An August staff report noted that in some cases, vehicle dwelling has resulted in “nuisances or more serious disturbance to residents and businesses.” The passed ordinance states that vehicle habitation causes the city to “incur increased costs for policing, maintenance, sanitation, garbage removal and animal control” and that it “creates a risk to the health, safety, and welfare of those persons in the vehicles, as well as the public at large.”

Abrams rejected this argument. The city, he said, already has plenty of ordinances in places for addressing incidents in which people disturb the peace, engage in violent conduct or engage in public drug or alcohol use.

“This is directed toward getting rid of homeless people in Palo Alto,” Abrams told the Weekly.

At the Aug. 5 meeting, Stump told the council that violation of the car-dwelling ordinance would in most cases result in an infraction, though it could be turned into a misdemeanor at the city attorney’s discretion. Staff noted that enforcement would be largely based on complaints. The most severe penalty would be a fine of $1,000, Stump told the council.

Critics contend that this proposed punishment is not only draconian but illegal. In her letter, LeRoy argues that the new ordinance will “cause the poorest and most vulnerable among us to lose the only protection that they have from exposure to the elements and to ensure some measure of personal safety.”

“It cannot be disputed that sleeping in a vehicle affords better protection for homeless persons’ health and safety than living or sleeping outdoors on streets, sidewalks, benches, or the ground,” LeRoy wrote. “Enforcement of VHO (vehicle habitation ordinance) will exacerbate serious health issues and disabilities prevalent among Plaintiffs, who will be forced out of their vehicles or Palo Alto altogether to avoid criminal liability.”

In recommending the vehicle-ban ordinance, staff from the planning department from the city attorneys office cited similar bans in other neighboring jurisdictions and noted that 92 percent of the cities in Santa Clara County (all except Monte Serreno) have restrictions of some sort in place. In San Mateo County, all cities except for Colma, East Palo Alto and Portola Valley regulate vehicle habitation, a report from city staff states. Not having such an ordinance makes Palo Alto a “magnet” for vehicle dwellers, proponents of the ban argued.

Before voting for the ordinance on Aug. 5, Councilman Larry Klein talked about the city’s “obligation to protect our neighborhoods.” He told his colleagues that he had seen dozens of homeless campers during two recent tours of Cubberley.
“The dramatic increase in homeless in Cubberley sleeping in their vehicles shows that we have inadvertently become a magnet,” Klein said. “That has to come to an end.”

The attorneys contend that this argument — other cities have such ordinances and so should Palo Alto – is a misrepresentation. While most cities do indeed have restrictions, Palo Alto’s new law is both broader and more punitive than those elsewhere, LeRoy said. In Mountain View and Menlo Park, for instance, vehicle bans are limited to residential areas (in Menlo Park, this includes 300 feet within a residential zone). In Los Altos, it is illegal to “stop, stand or park a vehicle” for longer than 30 minutes between 2 and 6 a.m., when a notice is posted on the block. Palo Alto’s law, meanwhile, applies to all streets, all the time.
Furthermore, punishment for violating this ordinance in other cities is a parking citation. In Palo Alto, it could potentially be incarceration, LeRoy said. The difference between a parking ticket and possible jail time, is huge, she said. Palo Alto’s ordinance, she argued, effectively makes homelessness a crime.

“Cities across our nation have come up with restrictions that may be directed at homeless residents, but include exceptions so as to avoid punishing homeless residents for involuntary acts necessary to human survival, such as the acts of resting or sleeping,” her letter stated. “The VHO, on the other hand, is one of the most punitive ordinances in the area and it has the effect of criminalizing the status of homelessness.”

In addition to the vehicle-habitation ordinance, the council adopted a separate law on Aug. 19, mandating that all community centers, including Cubberley, be closed between 10:30 p.m. and sunrise.

LeRoy noted in an interview that the council’s ban on overnight parking at Cubberley and other community centers already addressed the major problem that the city was trying to solve in banning vehicle habitation. Given the new restriction on community-center hours, the broader ban on vehicle dwelling wasn’t tailored to address any legitimate concerns, she said.
“If vehicle dwellers can’t be here at night during normal sleeping hours, do you still need to ban vehicle habitation throughout the city?” she asked.

She contended that if the City Council knew that the proposed ordinance goes far beyond those of neighboring cities, it may have been less likely to support the proposed vehicle-habitation ban. She couldn’t say Monday what an acceptable alternative ordinance would be, noting that this might be the subject of settlement discussions.

“I think the effort now is to repeal the vehicle ordinance,” LeRoy said.

Though Stump said on Aug. 5 that violations would only be prosecuted as misdemeanors as a “last resort,” Abrams said the assurance is insufficient. The attorneys may be open at a future date to discuss alternative ordinances, but that’s a “different conversation.” The goal now is to get the recently passed ordinance off the books.

“Now, we have an ordinance that is illegal, that is unconstitutional and that needs to be stricken down,” Abrams said.


Many Posted Comments at http://www.paloaltoonline.com/news/2013/11/18/suit-threatened-over-citys-car-camping-ban

 

A sample:

Posted by Phil, a resident of Downtown North on Nov 18, 2013 at 5:10 pm
No worries. Law suit away if you’d like. San Francisco, Berkeley, and Santa Cruz are three of the most open and liberal cities in the country. They have all have overnight camping/parking bans which have all been tested and successfully defended in a civil court. Like I said, no worries. It also leaves me to think how quick one of these attorneys crying foul would be the first to call the police if someone was sleeping in a car in front of their house every night. A perfect example of compassionate and open when convenient. If they’re that concerned, then these attorneys and advocates should open up their personal driveways and homes to give these folks somewhere to sleep.

Posted by boscoli, a resident of Old Palo Alto 22 hours ago
They way I see it, as long as financial institutions are still allowed to sell and trade junk mortgages, as long as not one Wall Street conman has gone to prison, car-camping should not be criminalized. Once the big criminals are punished, I’d be willing to deal with car-camping. Speaking of double standards, how interesting that the already existing leaf-blower ban ordinance isn’t enforced, unrelated of course to the pressure by the manufacturers and landscape contractors, who promised demonstrations and hunger strikes in front of city hall if the ordinance is enforced.
Posted by Very Simple, a resident of Midtown 22 hours ago
If all of these attorneys and others are so concerned, they can open up their own personal property and have the homeless live there. We don’t have that many homeless in Palo Alto that they couldn’t all be accommodated in this easily by a small subset of ban opponents. That’s what real generosity is– giving of yourself to the less fortunate. Not morally preening and harassing the overwhelming majority of residents who don’t want our city turned into an open-air homeless encampment, don’t want the “San Franciscoization” of Palo Alto and are concerned about the safety of say, their kids (as mine do) going to preschool right next to a site of a homeless encampment.
Posted by Retired Teacher, a resident of Duveneck/St. Francis 20 hours ago
I applaud Carrie Leroy and her coalition for challenging this ordinance. This incredibly well-off community with its sky-high home prices and outrageous rents should find ways to help people on the margins, not threaten them with fines and jail. Many of the so-called affordable housing projects are well out of the reach of the homeless–we need more places like 801 Alma. Meanwhile, we should find more humane ways to manage the problems that do often accompany homelessness.
The suggestion that anyone who is concerned about the homeless should take them into their own homes or let them camp out in front of their homes is clearly an attempt to confuse the issue. Taking care of the less fortunate is not just the job for a few concerned people. It’s the responsibility of our entire society, and right now, we’re doing a lousy job of it.
Posted by Enough!, a resident of Greenmeadow 19 hours ago
I’ve had people living in front of my house. It was especially unsettling when my daughter was 2 years old and I couldn’t let her play outside and had to keep the drapes closed because the guy would watch us. More unsettling when we would jugs of undefined liquid on the ground, some knocked over, between his vehicle and the curb. Totally unsettling when we came home once to find the guy having a seizure on our front door steps, with paramedics attending. Disgusting when I had to go out and clean up after both the medics and the homeless person, gloves, needles and booze bottles.
I wouldn’t object if an area with a sort of rest stop with shower and toilets and cameras were to be established.
Meanwhile, the attorney’s who brought the suit are welcome to offer their driveways to anybody they please!
Posted by Concerned Retiree, a resident of Midtown 18 hours ago
Homeless means that these people do not have a home, place to live. Therefore, they are NOT “residents” of Palo Alto and are not entitled to the same rights residents are. They are also not entitled to be a nuisance or a danger to said residents. If these lawyers bringing the suit feel so strongly about the plight of the homeless, they should work with non-profits — the churches for example — which pay no taxes because of their supposed public benefits and services and get them to cooperate in finding a solution.  I do not want a homeless family or persons living on my street and I am glad that the City Council has finally done something to see that this does not happen.
Posted by Elizabeth, a resident of Midtown 18 hours ago
Palo Alto is generally a well-educated community, however there seems to be a significant lack of compassion in evidence. Perhaps it’s time to offer some free classes (open to all ages) on the subject.
All of those who think this ban is fair and wise really need to open their hearts. Sending a check off to some distant place to help others doesn’t buy you freedom from concern for those closer to home.
Get a heart!

Posted by JoAnn, a resident of Ventura 17 hours ago
Another basic human need is elimination. If porta potties were installed in a few commercial (non-residential) areas, the cars would go there. I agree it doesn’t solve the drug/alcohol problems though. A lot of these people were Palo Alto residents until skunked out of their homes by the banksters or just going broke due to divorce, layoffs, etc. They shouldn’t have to skulk away from their home town, too. What I hear about shelters is they are dangerous and people get robbed there. Would all night security help? It might be cheaper to fund. Of course, those with cars would still need a place to park them. I don’t see that the RV’s parked along Park Blvd. hurt anyone. I’ve ridden my scooter there many times and never seen an actual person, nor jugs of urine left at the curb.
Posted by Sensible, a resident of Crescent Park 17 hours ago
A real issue is simply taking a persons shelter, in this case a car, and depriving them of no other option for freedom from harm. If a city blankets a wholesale requirement then it should be at the forefront to provide an equal and opposite opportunity to balance the deprivation of a constitutional right. Even in a government shutdown when employees are deprived of their right to work and pay, they are latter paid what they are entitled to. Now I know that is a horrible example of entitlement for many who don’t like that sort of thing, but this is one of the reasons people all over the world come to enjoy the rights Americans still have…

Updates from Albany and Palo Alto

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NOTES FROM NORSE: In Palo Alto, activist attorney are supporting homeless struggles to retain basic rights.  In Santa Cruz night before last, reportedly a dozen tickets for survival camping were issued–though there is no legal place for the overwhelming majority of the 1500-2000 unhoused in the City.  One angry victim reported that he has been told that future citations will be misdemeanors for sleeping–even though that was specifically banned in 1999 when the Sleeping and Blanket bans were softened to allow only infraction prosecution.

Meanwhile the NIMBY Task Farce for Anti-Homeless Hysteria (deceptively termed the Citizens Task Force on Public Safety) is shitting out its final recommendations that likely include: getting the District Attorney to prosecute Sleeping Ban citations (rather than the City Attorney as is currently the case), pressuring judges to deal harshly with “repeat offenders” (i.e. survival sleepers), driving needle exchange (already banned in the City) even further away, implementing a non-“best practices” model for that exchange (while simultaneously claiming to be implementing safe practices).

Casual destruction of homeless bedding and property by Cal Tran authorities and other agencies continues to be reported by cold and gloomy homeless elders.

Where are the Santa Cruz attorneys?

Updates from the Palo Alto Daily Post

> 1. Daily Post update – HOMELESS EVICTION: A federal judge in San Francisco yesterday turned down a bid by 10 homeless people to block the city of Albany’s plan to evict them and others living on a bayside landfill known as the “Bulb.” Judge Charles Breyer said that the homeless people and a nonprofit group that joined them in the case had “failed to establish a likelihood of success on the merits” of their lawsuit, which was filed last week.
>
> 2. NEWS – Car camping ban draws legal threat:  lawyer says new law goes too far
by Breena Kerr Daily Post Staff Writer

>
> A group of attorneys are warning the city of Palo Alto that they will sue on behalf of homeless people who have been prohibited from camping in their cars under a new city law.
>
> In a letter sent to City Attorney Molly Stump, lead attorney Carrie LeRoy says that the car camping ban essentially prohibits people who live in their cars from entering the city for fear of being cited.
>
> No Citations Yet
>
> Although Palo Alto police say they do not intend issuing citations for car camping until early next year, the fine can run up to $1000 or six months in jail
>
> LeRoy, a Palo Alto-based attorney, said she represents car campers James Russaw, Suzan Russaw, Fred Smith and others. She indicated that she thinks Palo Alto should modify its policy and enact parking restrictions that are punishable by a ticket rather than misdemeanor charges, or make the ban only applicable to residential areas, as the cities of Mountain View and menlo Park do.
>
> LeRoy said in an email to the Post that she had two people with her as co-counsel, William Abrams and Paul Johnson, both of whom are professors at Stanford Law School.
>
> “Enforcement of the (ban) will cause the poorest and most vulnerable among us to los the only protection that they have from exposure to the elements and to ensure some measure of personal safety,” the letter said. “…Sleeping in a vehicle affords better protection for homeless persons’ health and safety than living or sleeping outdoors on streets, sidewalks, benches, or the ground.”
>
> LeRoy said that the disabled, chronically ill or elderly are especially vulnerable under the new law.
>
> Forced out?
>
> “Enforcement of the (ban) will exacerbate serious health issues and disabilities among plaintiffs, who will be forced out of theier vehicles or Palo Alto altogether to avoid criminal liability,” LeRoy’s letter states.
>
> “The (ban) criminalizes the homeless in their daily lives and activities and is unconstitutional,” LeRoy wrote in her letter.

Questions for a Councilmember

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Micah (Posner):   Following up on the HUFF meeting of several weeks ago, I’ll attempt to briefly summarize what I’m now seeking–either clarification or action–from you on the issues raised there and earlier.  Please do it briefly and in writing.  If you feel unable to do so because of “tactical” or other concerns, please contact me by phone.  I also include some of the prior e-mail for reference.  Again, short answers are fine.  And I’d be happy to meet with you if you need clarification or elaboration.

1.  Forward to Vogel a request for an update on Vasquez’s sidewalk smash of Richard Hardy (http://www.santacruz.com/news/2013/04/30/police_video_goes_viralwith the video itself referenced in the comments that follow).  If you’ve done this, when did you do it?  If you won’t do it, why not?2.   As I understand it, at the HUFF meeting 3 weeks ago, you committed yourself to making sure that any member of the public got 2 minutes to speak on each individual Consent Agenda item–whether by pulling it yourself or some other means.  Am I correct here?  Our previous dialogue:    Is it still your position that 2 minutes is adequate public comment time for 6-30 items on the Consent Agenda that are supposed to receive a Public Hearing at the request of the public or city council?  Your response:  I think that the public should be able to speak ONCE for two minutes on each consent item that they are concerned with. I believe that this is how Mayor Bryant has been holding the meeting.   BUT THAT IS NOT THE POSITION OF THE MAYOR OR YOU AT THE LAST FEW COUNCIL MEETINGS.  RATHER YOU CAN TALK FOR TWO MINUTES ON A TOTAL OF ALL THE ITEMS AS A GROUP NOT ON EACH ONE.  AND YOU MUST COMBINE THAT WITH YOUR EXPLANATION OF WHY YOU WANT ANY OF THESE ITEMS PULLED  AND YOU MUST BE CAREFUL NOT TO SAY ANYTHING OF SUBSTANCE ON THE ITEM THAT ACTUALLY DOES GET PULLED OR YOU WON’T BE ALLOWED TO SPEAK AT THE PUBLIC HEARING–AS GUARANTEED BY THE BROWN ACT.   ARE YOU CLEAR ON THIS? Do you still support Bryant’s position claiming that you will still not be able to speak on any particular item even if you’ve successfully coaxed a council member to remove it from the agenda because you’ll then “have had your comment time?”  What if you want to speak on several Consent agenda items?  Then the time you’ve spent “persuading” a Council member to “allow” a Public Hearing on one item will leave little time to address any other item essentially violating the spirit if not the letter of the Open Meetings (Brown) Act?  I THINK YOU’VE AGREED THAT 2 MINUTES IS NOT ENOUGH TO SPEAK ON 15 ITEMS (OR EVEN A SUBSET OF THEM).  WHAT ARE YOU WILLING TO DO TO BACK UP THIS UNDERSTANDING?

3.   Have you followed up on your commitment to attend an ACLU meeting and/or letter them specifically urging them to publicly oppose the cutbacks on space for street performers, vendors, and artists recently passed by City Council over your and Lane’s objections?  Will you be doing so?  (It’s actually probably equally if not more important to request a statement supporting homeless survival rights and opposing police sweeps when there is no alternate shelter being offered–are you willing to do this?).  My previous comment is still apt:  If you are really interested in putting some energy into public education here, I believe it would ultimately encourage allies and challenge the level of hatred (and merchant discrimination) against homeless people.   I’d suggest public statements as well as public appearances at the ACLU Board and other organizations, seeking to enlist their aid and buck up their spaghetti  spines.   Useless as these groups have generally been locally, they seem like political animals who perk up at the appearance of a public official.  It also might make up in some degree (in their eyes) for your sell-out on the Cowell Beach issue  (I believe the harsh term is accurate).  Your response: That’s a great idea but is a better role for activists then elected. That’s partly what I learned by encouraging the ACLU prior to the Council Meeting.   TO REPEAT–THE CLOWNS AT THE ACLU BOARD, SCCCPL, NAACP, DON’T RESPOND TO ACTIVISTS.  BUT POLITICAL CLIMBERS AND POWER-WORSHIPERS THAT THEY ARE, THEY DO RESPOND TO VISITS FROM POLITICIANS. YOUR PROPOSAL TO SEND THE SIDEWALK-SHRINKAGE ORDINANCE AMENDMENTS TO THE ARTS COMMISSION IS A NICE TACTIC; USE IT IF YOU NEED TO REASSURE YOURSELF YOU CAN RAISE THE ISSUE PERSONALLY AND PUBLICLY WITH THE ACLU & OTHER GROUPS, BUT GO IN PERSON OR SEND WRITTEN LETTERS.

4.   I appreciate the additional info about the segregated costly Levee portapotty (i.e. potential plumbing).  I’d still like some insight into who is pushing this in the staff rather than the much more reasonable and dignified alternatie of keeping open the San Lorenzo Park bathroom, say?  Hence my request about who you talked to, when, their responses, any written communications, etc.  Hence my inquiry to you in late October:  “THE STAFF” IS NOT A HELPFUL REPLY.  ACCOUNTABILITY IS THE QUESTION HERE.  WHY WAS THE OBVIOUS KEEPING BATHROOMS THAT ALREADY EXIST OPEN AT NIGHT REJECTED?  WAS IT EVEN CONSIDERED?  I REPEAT THE QUESTION BECAUSE YOU HAVEN’T ANSWERED IT.

5.   What’s the follow-up on your request to Barisone re:  Sparks v. White?  Specifically–has Barisone responded–in writing?  If not, please renew the request–it’s likely to be helpful in court and in dealing with cops on the street.   It is my feeling that his vindictive response to finding street art and culture constitutionally protected from the “no price tags” nonsense being pushed by the police were these bogus time-place-manner restrictions that essentially constrict-to-death street performing, vending, art, and tabling downtown.  Do you have any indication around this either way?
        You replied:  I will follow up, however, the issue doesn’t seem very timely to me.
FOR ANY ARTIST TRYING TO DISPLAY HIS WORK IN A 3 1/2′ x 3 1/2′ SPACE IT’S OBVIOUSLY VERY IMPORTANT.  THEY CAN PRESENT THAT OPINION IN COURT WHEN THEY’RE HARASSED.   When did you follow-up on the Barisone request?6.   You may ignore the internal conservative pressures  that  shut down the 5 Krohn Krappers a decade ago, but I suspect we’ll hear the same crap soon about your costly portapotty “solution”.   Or we’ll find the same two-tier “homeless get surveilled; middle-class people get privacy” that is now the case in the Locust St. Parking Structure.   I suggest you head this off by getting the real records of real police concerns.   Otherwise you may find yourself swept up in a Council response to mob myths fearprompted by TBSC et. al.   This is a repeated request.   Please review  the requests in bold below and forward those questions to staff.  They are currently claiming to “have no records”.  Which frankly strikes me as steaming horseshit without benefit of portapotty.
You replied:  I don’t see what happened in the past is relevant. We will soon open the bathroom and I will be very careful about reported “problems”.  With regard to privacy issue, these didn’t seem very important to the homeless at a well attended HUFF meeting several months ago.   HOW WILL YOUR “CARE” WITH PROBLEMS MANIFEST ITSELF?    IF THE PORTAPOTTIES WERE CLOSED IN THE PAST BY AESTHETIC PRIMADONNAS LIKE MATHEWS & ROBINSON OR THEIR STAFF ALLIES, THEN IT’S LIKELY TO HAPPEN AGAIN.  ALL THIS IS USUALLY DONE WITHOUT POLICE STATS (AS THE ORDINANCES WERE PASSED–NOR DID YOU OR ANY OTHER COUNCIL MEMBER DEMAND THEM).  IT’S NOT A “BATHROOM”, BUT A PORTAPOTTY, BY THE WAY, SO LET’S NOT TRY TO SELL SHIT BY ANOTHER LABEL.

7.  Dan Madison reports being banned from Verve for backpacks/homeless appearance.  Similar stories are coming out of New Leaf and Lulu Carpenter’s as well as the  Coffee Roasting Company.  What’s the result of your inquiry to the Roasting Company?
      You replied:  I’m having a hard time getting ahold of the owner of the Roasting Company. It changed hands several years ago from a well known local to some guy in Watsonville and the staff gave me a bum phone number for him. Could a HUFFster work on finding the contact info for the owner? If not, I will keep it on my long to do list.   A LETTER TO THE DOWNTOWN ASSOCIATION WOULD BE HELPFUL HERE ASKING THEM TO CLARIFY THEY DON’T SUPPORT POLICIES THAT DISCRIMINATE AGAINST THE HOMELESS.  Yes?8. The request you ignored seeking specific written response from P & R and the SCPD regarding the requirements, advance notice time, specific limits, costs, & appeal processes regarding Special Permits and Amplified Sound permits.  You responded:  I’ll work on this.   I did  the work and the “info” such as it is, is at  https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2013/11/09/18746169.php?show_comments=1#18746356    PLEASE KEEP A RECORD OF REQUESTS TO STAFF, TO WHOM THEY WERE SENT, WHEN, AND THE REPLIES RECEIVED–SINCE STAFF ARE THE REAL RULERS OF THE CITY UNDER KING BERNAL.  WE WILL AT LEAST THEN HAVE A PAPER RECORD OF WHAT’S (NOT) HAPPENING. I REMIND YOU THAT YOU HAVE AN INTERN THROUGH WHICH MANY OF THESE ACTIONS CAN BE FUNNELED.

9. What is the status of the police-napped bikes?  Are they still being held hostage by city staff and the SCPD (with the help of the Bike Dojo)?  I don’t want to hear you’re “working on it”, please.   We’ve heard that for a year and a half now.   Please specify recent meetings, timetables, claims, and responsible parties.   You replied: I’m looking into this.   AGAIN…MEANING WHAT?  SPECIFICALLY?  PLEASE SEND ME A SUMMARY OF THE NUMBER OF TIMES YOU’VE MET WITH THE BIKENAPPERS AND THEIR STAFF PALS, WHEN THESE MEETINGS HAPPENED, WHAT PROMISES WERE MADE, AND WHETHER THE PROMISES WERE FULFILLED. REMEMBER–YOU’RE THERE TO SERVE THE COMMUNITY, NOT TO GREASE THE SOFT PARTS OF THE STAFF.   POOR PEOPLE ARE GOING WITHOUT BIKES BECAUSE OF YOUR “CONCERN” FOR STAFF SENSIBILITIES.  STAFF STONEWALLING ON THIS BIKE BULLSHIT  WE’VE PUT UP WITH FOR NEARLY TWO YEARS NOW.   LET US KNOW THE DATE SENT AND THE PERSON TO WHOM THE MEMO WAS SENT.  PLEASE PROVIDE A LIST OF ALL COMMUNICATIONS TO AND FROM STAFF ON THIS ISSUE IN THE LAST YEAR AND A HALF, AND PARTICULARLY IN THE LAST SIX MONTHS.


10.  You might want to consider that your complaissance with staff (the constant strokings you do as they mendaciously remove everyone’s rights using the phony Public Safety mythology are embarrassing and repugnant).  I refer to the earlier issues the Parks and Recreation blank check 24-hour stay-away-or-face-a-year-in-jail ordinance, the median law, Cowell’s Beach closure, the bucks-for-baloney “Security” gate out at the H(LO)SC.  You replied:   I consider it all the time.   AND YOU ARE TO BE COMMENDED FOR ACTUALLY RAISING THE ISSUE SHARPLY FOR THE FIRST TIME–IN THE CONTEXT OF THE LATEST SCAVENGING “INVESTIGATION” SCAM AT LAST COUNCIL MEETING.  EVERY TIME YOU CHALLENGE THIS MYTHOLOGY WITH A REQUEST/DEMAND FOR STATS, THE MORE SHAKY THEIR HOUSE OF CARDS BECOMES.  SEE ITEM xxX BELOW.

11.  I have no written response from you on CruzioWorks discrimination against Dan Madison and his son Gryphon, which I requested you seek info from.  Didn’t you agree to look into that–as a private party if not as a Council person?  What have you learned?  You replied: I’m not at all convinced that Cruzio was discriminating against the Madisons based on their housing status and don’t intend to get involved.   YOU BASE THIS ON WHAT?  YESTERDAY AT CAFE BRASIL I SPOKE WITH A CRUZIO CLIENT WHO WORKED NEXT TO MADISON FOR SEVERAL HOURS AFTER HE’D PAID HIS $300; THIS GUY WAS BAFFLED WHEN THE MANAGEMENT CAME IN AND BOOTED MADISON OUT WITHOUT EXPLANATION.  WHAT HAS LED YOU TO ABANDON THIS ISSUE?
12.  Any sign of restored Needle Exchange in the City?  Please forward me a map of where Sharps Containers are available.  You replied:  Staff is working on a Sharps Container in the new bathroom. This is a good effort as it gets them in the business of figuring out how to do Sharps Containers and could be used for other locations. With regard to Needle Exchange, the Council here’s a lot more about getting rid of needle exchange at Emeline rather than the converse.   I REPEAT PLEASE FORWARD ME A MAP OF WHERE SHAPRS CONTAINERS HAVE BEEN PLACED OR DETERMINE THAT THEY DON’T EXIST.12.  When will you appoint a real activist (or anybody, for that matter)  to  the Measure K Commission?  Craig Canada might still be interested if you approach him.  The Commission is a joke, but having a strong voice there would still be helpful in exposing the rising marijuana bust rate here (and the freeze and cutback in dispensaries within the city).  What really needs doing, of course, is public statements regarding legalization and medicalization–something to talk back to the poisonous nonsense being spread by Comstock and Robinson and their TBSC friends.


You replied: I appreciate your suggestion. I think I did reach out to Craig at some point and he wasn’t interested. Feel free to refer him to me. It’s hard for me to recommend this position to someone given that the Commission is a joke. I don’t like to waste people’s time.   GIVEN THAT THE PUBLIC SAFETY TASK FARCE IS CONSIDERING ELIMINATING MEASURE K, LIMITING OR SHUTTING DOWN HEAD SHOPS, AND USING THE DRUG WAR AS PROTECTIVE COVER ON THEIR WAR ON THE HOMELESS, I THINK HAVING A STRONG VOICE THERE–EVEN ONE THAT CAN’T WIN VOTES IS IMPORTANT.   I’LL PASS THIS ON TO CRAIG.  DO I UNDERSTAND YOU’LL AGREE TO APPOINT AN ADVOCATE, IF ONE COMES FORWARD (I CAN’T VOUCH FOR CRAIG).

Sorry for the backlog, but these issues don’t go away.   Though the tone and extent of these questions may put you off, please try to respond however briefly.  That is your job.

Thanks again for getting back to the basics by attacking the Public Safety mythology as far as you did.  You need to talk to Vogel and get his specifics–since it’s my understanding from a conversation this summer that there has been no increase in crime subtantially in Santa Cruz in the last 20 years–all the comparisons with other cities of its same size aside.  Not that Vogel is the most disinterested source, of course.

Date: Wed, 25 Sep 2013 13:32:44 -0700
From: micahposner@cruzio.com
To: rnorse3@hotmail.com
Subject: Re: Reiterating some requests and questions

Dear Robert,Sorry to miss the HUFF meeting.

With regard to the shitter questions. I don’t find them pertinent/ am not interested in them. I was directed by HUFF (a couple months ago) to get a 24 hour bathroom, “any bathroom”. That’s what I’m trying to do. The one we are going to open is not the most efficient or obvious or “best” use of funds. It’s the easiest one for me to get. Welcome to government.

I’ll forward your question to Barisone.

I would be very happy to talk to the owner of the Cofee Company about backpacks. Then I’ll get back to you.

Micah

Micah:Thanks for the heads-up on the latest attack on street vendors.

Please quickly request an opinion from Barisone–who continues to stonewall me–on the City of Sparks v. White decision’s applicability here (i.e. the constitutionality of banning street artists from showing price tags for their artwork).  I’d have thought you’d have done that back in February actually,  or several weeks ago.

On the shitter front, regarding item #9 is it correct to assume that the former public bathroom in the Locust Street garage  is now gone?    I believe I’ve also pointed out to you both the wasteful and discriminatory aspect of spending $15,000 to set up what is essentially a segregated portapotty on the leevee instead of using that money to open the San Lorenzo Park and/or Soquel/Front bathrooms all night.  Your response? 

Also what’s the status of the most-expensive-portapotty ever?  How does its cost compare with the cost of the 5 portapotties set up in 1999 under the Krohn Krapper Kommission?

I have not been able to secure police data  in spite of a Public Records Act request regarding the removal of those portapotties in terms of actual crime or vandalism then.  Please seek this directly from the SCPD or via the City Manager.

You should also be advised that certain cafes are now banning people from bringing their backpacks in the store (the Coffee Roasting Company for one)–which means, unless an individual wants to risk losing her or his stuff by setting it outside (and being ticketed too boot for “abandoned property”), they can’t access that public service.   Are you willing to publicly step up to mediate problems so that cafes have another alternative to expressing their bigotry than banning homeless-looking people with backpacks (or without–Brent Adams noted a family of three turned away earlier this week from the same Coffee Roasting Company).

 

.

Subject: Re: City of Sparks v. White and letter to City Attorney
From: micahposner@cruzio.com
Date: Sun, 8 Sep 2013 22:07:26 -0700
To: rnorse3@hotmail.com

Dear Robert,
I hope you are aware of further efforts by 3 councilmembers to reduce selling art. It is on Tuesday’s agenda.
MicahSent from my iPad

On Sep 3, 2013, at 9:58 PM, Robert Norse <rnorse3@hotmail.com> wrote:
John:  While I appreciate this fairly boilerplate answer, I do know that in the interests of both fairness and saving the City money, you have clarified the status of certain practices and rights in Santa Cruz in the past.  Robin told me that he conferred with you several years ago after the City of Sparks decision came out, and got your agreement to encourage the SCPD to lay off (to put it gently).   Was I misinformed?
Are you saying that you’ll answer a question for a Council member but not a member of the public about this issue?
Hopefully not.
Since police are still variously misinforming artists on Pacific Avenue that they can’t display prices on their artwork (when they’re not harassing them for other things), I’d again encourage you to simply do what you did before when approached by an artist trying to stop this practice, which unnecessarily lays the city open to litigation.
It is my understanding that the decision is still valid law (one of the attorneys involved actually practices in this area), so please, step out from behind the template and be direct here.
I am also requesting Chief Vogel and the Council contact you for your “advice” here, so I’m not ignoring your suggestion either.Thanks,

Robert

From: JBarisone@abc-law.com
To: rnorse3@hotmail.com
Date: Fri, 22 Feb 2013 15:43:58 -0800
Subject: RE: City of Sparks v. White and letter to City Attorney

Robert, I passed your concern along to the Police Department and if it has questions I will do the necessary research and answer them for the department. As you are aware I work for the City Council and the various City departments. I don’t take instructions from, perform work for, or provide opinions to members of the public; nor do I publicly divulge my advice and communications to my clients unless the clients make such  a request. I would suggest that in the future, if you have a complaint or concern concerning a City employee or practice, you contact the responsible City department head. If that department head seeks my advice in connection with your issue, I will be happy to assist him or her. Thanks, JGB

 

From: Robert Norse [mailto:rnorse3@hotmail.com]
Sent: Wednesday, February 20, 2013 9:19 AM
To: John Barisone
Cc: Robin the rightsfinder; Ricardo Lopez; Brent Adams; Tom Noddy; Becky Johnson
Subject: RE: City of Sparks v. White and letter to City Attorney

 

John:  On 2-7, as you probably remember, I sent you an inquiry regarding City of Sparks v. White.  On 2-13, you advised me you hadn’t got to it yet.It’s now a week later and street performers will be attending the HUFF meeting today at the Sub Rosa.

I’d like to be able to advise them if they are acting legally, based on your understanding of the law and the police enforcement policy.

If I don’t hear from you in the next few hours, perhaps later today you can let me know–and I can them contact the performers by e-mail.

Thanks,

Robert
(423-4833)

— On Thu, 2/7/13, Robert Norse <rnorse3@hotmail.com> wrote:
From: Robert Norse <rnorse3@hotmail.com>
Subject: City of Sparks v. White
To: “John Barisone” <jbarisone@abc-law.com>
Cc: “Robin the rightsfinder” <circulation999now@yahoo.com>, “Jonathan (!) Gettleman” <jonathangettleman@yahoo.com>, “David Beauvais” <davebeau@pacbell.net>, “lioness@got.net” <lioness@got.net>, “Ed Frey” <edwinfrey@hotmail.com>, “J.M. Brown” <jammbrow@gmail.com>, “Alexis of Pier 5” <alexis@pier5law.com>, “Ricardo Lopez” <riclopez35@yahoo.com>, “Joe the strummer” <talljar@gmail.com>, “Tom Noddy” <tnoddy@aol.com>, “Brent Adams” <compassionman@hotmail.com>, “Coral (!!!) Brune” <coralbrune@hotmail.com>, “Free” <overthrowproperty@yahoo.com>, “John Malkin” <jsmalkin@hotmail.com>
Date: Thursday, February 7, 2013, 11:05 AM

John:

You may remember Robin coming in to secure an agreement from you that he could resume displaying his artwork on the sidewalk without a permit and without harassment from the SCPD even though he attached price tags.  This was several years ago in response to the City of Sparks v. White (http://seattletrademarklawyer.com/storage/White%20v.%20City%20of%20Sparks%20-%209th%20Cir.%20Opinion.pdf) decision.  He told me that you and he made such an agreement.

Several artists have told me that “Hosts” and SCPD officers have been telling them they’ll be cited if they do what you apparently oked for Robin.  I know Robin also requested an explicit change in the law and to my knowledge and his you never recommended or created it.

I want to know if you’ve change your position here and now regard art work as not First Amendment-protected (as far as explicit pricing goes).  What is the current policy and direction to the SCPD?

This clarification is particularly important because some police officers are not merely banning explicit pricing, but also claiming that showing artwork without a business license is “panhandling” even if it’s done for donation in accord with the explicit exemption of MC 9.10.010(a)  which states “A person is not soliciting for purposes of this chapter when he or she passively displays a sign or places a collection container on the sidewalk pursuant to which he or she receives monetary offerings in appreciation for his or her original artwork or for entertainment or a street performance he or she provides.”

Please let me know what the status of the White decision is regarding city policy as well as assurance that MC 9.10.010(a) is still active law.

Hope you are well.

Robert
(831-423-4833)

 

From: rnorse3@hotmail.com
To: mposner@cityofsantacruz.com
CC: micahposner@cruzio.com; seandeluge@gmail.com; becky_johnson222@hotmail.com; lemasterhearth@hotmail.com; spleich@gmail.com; jeanpiraino@gmail.com; deetler@gmail.com; sschnaar@riseup.net
Subject: Questions
Date: Mon, 2 Sep 2013 07:53:15 -0700

Micah:

Included for diversion:  http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Disguises-for-portable-toilets-with-something-to-4780198.php

What’s the status of the $15,000 portapotty slated to be installed near the Levy?  Why aren’t you proposing that that money be spent instead to open up the Soquel garage bathroom or the San Lorenzo restroom at night?  It would probably be cheaper, more durable, less segregated, and more sensible.

Have you e-mailed your Cruzio server to ask them why the discrimination against homeless client Dan Madison and his son Gryphon?   (See https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2013/08/14/18741605.php ).  I include Dan’s e-mail (he does a Free Radio show under the name “Sean Deluge”) in case you wish to speak with him directly.

Robert

Running Roughshod over the Recyclers: More Stench from the Santa Cruz Hatemongers

Posted on by

NOTES  BY NORSE:  City Council will be asked to research a non-existent “criminal problem” around recycling based on the fears, fantasies, and political buttons being pushed by right-wing NIMBY’s in our community.  The City Attorney and Police Chief (surprisingly) have already pointed out that (a) state law preempts attacks on local recycling centers, and (b) there are zero reports of bikes being stolen to be sold for recycling profits.  Still the staff forges ahead.  The following was my comment on the Sentinel on-line article at http://www.santacruzsentinel.com/ci_24486415/santa-cruz-council-examine-impact-recycling-centers :


        A pretty transparent assault on homeless survival activity that hurts no one and actually benefits the environment. Even throw-aways now aren’t good enough for the Evil Homeless. Any scheme, no matter how cruel and counter to the Santa Cruz community (as distinguished from its governmental) compassionate traditions) is now on the table.
        Looks like centrist Democrats are now eagerly feeding from the fascist trough, their snouts in the air scenting the foul wind and which way the plague of hate blows as they eagerly troll for votes from the activated Hate Mob.
        Expect attacks of food-providers soon–as “criminal enablers”. Oh, wait,, that’s already happened out at the Homeless (Lack of) Services Center turning an already no-shelter-for-most “campus” into a prison annex with a $100,000 “security gate”, ID cards, and other “public safety” measures–as the zombie corpse of Drug War insanity stalks the day.
        The results of the City Council’s latest attempt to placate the Take Back Santa Cruz NIMBY’s with their street performer slaughter legislation can be seen downtown: Of the few that remain, almost all are in “illegal” locations. Self-righteous bigots and their SCPD and yellow-jacket
Hostile-apatality allies [“Hosts”] are apparently biding their time. Waiting for legitimate outrage against these laws to cool before moving in to pick off individuals with threats, citations, and arrests.
        Is the sight of poverty so unbearable and frightening that otherwise intelligent people can descend to this kind of abuse? Give a politician a constituency, I guess, and they’ll run with it, no matter how deep the slime.
        The spurious use of environmental, public safety, and economic concerns is, of course, liberal cover for another attack on the visible poor. So much easier to treat humans as trash, if you cover the roar of the compactor and the cries of pain with reassuring rhetoric, sweet reason, and checkbook ethics.

Santa Cruz council to examine impact of recycling centers

By J.M. Brown  Santa Cruz Sentinel  Posted:   11/08/2013 05:44:01 PM PST

SANTA CRUZ — The Santa Cruz City Council will consider Tuesday recommendations for the city to more closely monitor the impacts of recycling redemption centers.


Out of mounting concern about the theft of recyclables, bikes and copper, the Transportation and Public Works Commission suggested in September the city scrutinize records of California Redemption Value centers that pay people for turning in cans, bottles and scrap metal. The panel also recommended requesting the state reconsider laws requiring such centers in local communities.


Noting that many people recycle at home now, commission Chair Richelle Noroyan said she doesn’t believe the redemption centers are needed.


“It’s almost encouraging people to break into the recycling containers,” she said.


Noroyan understands there are disadvantaged people who are not committing crimes and are picking up littered recyclable material for income. But she fears the theft of recyclables and scrap metal may partially fuel the local drug trade, and stealing from curbside containers costs the city revenue that funds environmental programs.


Public works staff have suggested the council ask the state for help in address scavenging and change zoning rules to treat redemption recycling centers as a conditional use in all areas where they are allowed. The staff also suggested reviewing for six months reports that Santa Cruz’s two CRV centers are required to file with police to determine what kind of scrap metal is being recycled and by whom.


Councilman Don Lane said stealing should certainly be discouraged, but he said he also feared requesting the removal of recycling centers could eliminate a way for poor people to earn money and increase the amount of recyclable material that ends up in the garbage.


“If you don’t have a recycling center for them to turn it in to, there isn’t much incentive,” Lane said. “It would be important to get a little more analysis of that before we move in that direction.”


Also Tuesday, the council will consider a request from the parking division to halt the 11-year practice of allowing electric vehicles to park for free at downtown meters and in parking garages. Since the incentive program was started in 2002, the city has reported a surge in electric vehicles charging at city stations for free, growing by more than 180 percent since 2010.


The city will continue the free charging because the state only permits electric companies to sell power, but the cost is expected to go up as the popularity and performance of electric vehicles increase. Electric vehicles pay to park near the beach and wharf, but the city has lost nearly $8,000 since 2010 on free parking for nearly 3,500 vehicles at the Soquel/Front garage downtown.


“As the numbers have grown and we’ve been adding more electric charging stations, (the incentive program) has achieved its desired purpose,” City Manager Martín Bernal said.


The council also will vote Tuesday on awarding a $7.1 million contract for the final phase of the Bay Street Reservoir replacement. The costs will be covered through capital improvement funds.


The Public Works Department will request spending $100,000 in capital improvement funds to share in the costs of roadway, bike lane and sidewalk improvements sought by the city on the southwest corner of Ocean and Water streets so a property owner can more easily develop the long-empty site.
Follow Sentinel reporter J.M. Brown at Twitter.com/jmbrownreports

IF YOU GO

SANTA CRUZ CITY COUNCIL

WHEN: 3 p.m. Tuesday
WHERE: Council Chamber, 809 Center St.
INFORMATION: www.cityofsantacruz.com

 

SOME COMMENTS:

 

 

So here’s what we have going on: People advocating for more nanny state! We have a small group of haters that can’t stand unsightly poor people in their neighborhood, attempting to force absurd draconian policies upon the community. They’re getting away with it because most people in SC are apathetic, and don’t bother to do a little research. Perusing this document, I see Michael Becker a Take Back Santa Cruz admin, Brook Crumpton from the Clean Team, Richelle Noroyan a flip-floppy City Council hopeful, and several other TBSC sympathizers. When is Santa Cruz going to wake up and see the agenda of gentrification that’s being pushed here? This war on the poor is pretty blatant, and eventually they’ll climb the ladder to where the policies that they’re pushing affect those of us who live in houses and earn moderate incomes.
How about this City Leaders… We’re going to start a movement to pull out all of the CRV from your blue money bins that we put out once a week for you to extract! We pay the CRV, and then basically hand it over to you, and now it sounds like you rely on it as a source of income. If you’re going to try and ram through another poor hating agenda, I think it’s time for a little push back.

Raleigh – I think you are absolutely correct that there needs to be a recycle center – just for the reasons you stated. However, it becomes a little concerning for people to have people going through their garbage.
The reason I commented to your first comment, and you continue on with the response is about “progressive”. It appears that you support allowing homeless to hangout at street corners, smoke pot, drink, bum for money, collect recycleables and just basically not respect our community or neighbors’ property. If I misunderstood you – sorry.
I bet that we could sit down at a table, and have very, very similar viewpoints on most things. However, I’m a bit more libertarian in my views. If people want to dig through my garbage to find a scrap to live, fine! I threw it out, you can have it! Also, I support ANYONE hanging out in any public space, as long as they’re abiding by the laws of common sense and respect. People that look dirty, or who are poor have just as much right to be downtown as you or I. We each will have a different line of acceptable behaviors, and laws make for that societal demarcation. I personally don’t care if people are hanging out on Pacific asking for money, I simply tell them no. Simple. Done. Do we need more laws to deal with it? Have we become so dependent on the government (police) that we can’t even say no? Are we so helpless that we grovel to the City Council to be our savior? Apparently so.
Collecting recyclables? Go for it. To me that’s actually respecting our community! And who am I to stifle some poor soul from putting food on their table after they work all day collecting a valuable resource that would have otherwise gone to a landfill?
Do I trust any report from these small town crony politicians, and hater community groups who are trying to enact a surveillance state in conjunction with more ridiculous laws? No way!
Yes this is a serious issue in Santa Cruz, and it needs to be dealt with. Don Lane loves to neglect and enable.

NORSE NOTE:  For more about Ken Collins and his idea of “clean-up’s” see https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2013/05/15/18736901.php  

Richelle Noroya, you are showing everyone in this town just how narrow minded and classist you really are. I will not even mention how morbidly obese you appear on the web.
So, in a town that encourages reacycling and sustainablity, you suggest to close recycling centers because it might spur drug trade? The we should close the Flea Market, Yard Slaes, Pawn Shops or any other business for that matter as it could also contribute to this problem. Get Real, people need to make a living, including these recycling center owners who are taxpaying busuness owners contributing to Your community.
Please be aware that there are anti racketeering laws put in place just to stop the cornering of markets. That includes the recyclables you speak of as a commodity. You simply cannot control an open and legitimate market, it is against the law and you should know that.
You might be in a postion now where you don’t need the money. That could change, be very thankful you are where you are. Don’t underestimate your fortune and try to show some compassion for your fellow humans. Even the middle class family that uses a recycling center to help pay bills!

Homeless Human Rights Violations–in Fresno and Santa Cruz as Winter Approaches

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NOTE BY NORSE:  Santa Cruz’s downtown main drag, Pacific Avenue,  is now a curious scene of regular violation of the new Downtown Ordinances that exclude 95%+ of the sidewalks in business districts from sitting or setting up a table.  The laws impact anyone with a “display device”–expansively described as “anything capable of holding tangible things” (i.e. a cup for a panhandler, a table for a political petitioner, a guitar case seeking donations for a busqueer).  Almost every singer, sitter, performer, or vendor that I’ve seen is in technical violation of these ordinances since so much obviously innocent behavior is simply rebranded as “criminal”.   This fits in nicely with the right-wing claims of a homeless “crime wave” requiring public money and police attention–soon to be ceremoniously announced by Mayor Bryant’s new Citizens Task Force on Public Safety (http://www.cityofsantacruz.com/index.aspx?page=1924 ).

                               Obviously uninterested in going after every instance of sitcrime, strumcrime, or sparechanecrime, cops and their cheery parapolice pals the “Hospitality” Hosts walking the beat beside them pick and choose who to harass and “move along” or ticket.  The casual and regular use of selective enforcement has soaked its way deeply into political acceptability as to be clearly visible almost  any time of day along Pacific Avenue.
That’s not enough for some CSO’s (Community Service Officers) who reportedly loom over homeless folks thumbing through their ticket books announcing new unwritten crimes that require the sitter to be 50′ from a crosswalk or building.  Or suddenly a Host announces the homeless sparechanger is sitting in a “performance zone” (of which there are none) and must move on.  And seeing to get a permit to play music or display artwork in more than 12 square feet is generally not an option, except in a very few locations (See “Shrinking Sidewalks and the Permit Fantasy” at https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2013/11/09/18746169.php  ).   Some homeless wiseheads are learning to justify either their peaceful panhandling or their simply sitting by making colorful signs and selling them as artwork;  this is similar to the brief rush of kazoo players a decade ago that hit the avenue when expanded forbidden-to-sit zones were created for homeless people but not those “performing”.
And mass ticketing of homeless people continues in San Lorenzo Park as recently as 11-10, according to one rudely awakened sleeper.
Property seizures are still a relatively ordinary occurrence with receipts haphazardly given, much property being taken to the city dump, and the police property room open only two days a week for two hours on those days.
Coming up next at City Council tomorrow afternoon–investigation into the feasibililty of cracking down on homeless recyclers by relocating recycling centers to more distant places or eliminating them entirely.  The City Attorney has already reluctantly told the bigotbackers on the Council that this conflicts with state law, but the “cut off all survival avenues” staff presses on.   Julie Hendee, a particularly nasty entrenched city staffer was recently heard scolding a church group for feeding people in public on the sidewalk, urging them to move indoors and out of sight.
  Food Not Bombs soupslinger Keith McHenry reports on crackdowns across the country against FNB food servers (http://anarchistcook.wordpress.com  ).
   Fresno, at least, is still the site of an ongoing lawsuit against earlier police violations (see http://www.necn.com/12/27/12/Fresno-homeless-lawsuit-survives-legal-c/landing_nation.html?&apID=d6771ce98a814833907a33ec0be52b35 and http://weap.org/humanrights/the-pursuit-of-justice/homeless-victory-in-fresno-has-implications-for-the-nation—by-mike-rhodes.htm).

Are Homeless People’s Human Rights being Violated in Fresno?
by Mike Rhodes ( editor [at] fresnoalliance.com )
Monday Nov 11th, 2013 5:15 PM

Homeless people in downtown Fresno, like the two in the photo below, are being harassed by the Fresno police. They are being told they can’t sit on public sidewalks, their property is being taken, and some say their constitutional rights are being violated.

 

 

“They told me I could not sit on the sidewalk and that I could only stay if I sat on the curb with my feet in the gutter, or if I sat entirely in the gutter,” Lori (not her real name)* told me. “A friend of mine got a citation for sitting on the sidewalk, because her sleeping bag and other stuff was beside her.”Violet (not her real name)*, a homeless woman who lives near the Poverello House, confirmed that citations are being given by the police to people who have their property with them. “If you go into the Pov (the Poverello House – a homeless social service agency in downtown Fresno) to eat and you leave your stuff on the sidewalk the police will take it,” Violet said. If homeless people have property with them they are being cited for having “debris on the road” and if they leave it for a few minutes it is hauled away.

One woman told me she had been taken to the hospital and when she returned everything she owned was gone. She does not know if the police took it, but said that even if they did she could not re-claim it, because she is too sick to walk to the storage facility and carry it back. She begged me for a couple of dollars to buy some adult diapers, to replace the ones that had been taken.

Down the street, Ben (not his real name)* said that on Saturday he had received a sleeping bag and tent from a the Sleeping Bag Project. He put up the tent on Santa Clara street Saturday night. In the morning he got up to go to the bathroom, but when he returned it was gone. He is sure the police took it.

Violet said the same thing happened to her daughter a couple of days ago. “She was gone for a few minutes and when she returned, the tent was gone,” Violet claimed. “The police come every morning at dawn and kick our tent, yell our names, and tell us to get up and move on.” Violet says that the harassment is so bad that she and her friend have to take shifts watching their property. Sometimes she will go eat at the Poverello House and sometimes her friend can go. They can only go together if they hide their property somewhere that can’t be found by the police.

For more information about attacks on the homeless in Fresno, see:

Where Hope Goes to Die
Sunday Nov 3rd, 2013
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2013/11/03/18745912.php

The Grain Silo/Canal Bank Homeless Encampment is Destroyed
Wednesday Oct 23rd, 2013
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2013/10/23/18745312.php

Grain Silo Homeless Encampment Posted for Demolition
Thursday Oct 10th, 2013
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2013/10/10/18744664.php

City of Fresno Finds New Ways to Harass the Homeless
Wednesday Oct 9th, 2013
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2013/10/09/18744608.php

***

Mike Rhodes is the editor of the Community Alliance newspaper. He can be reached by email at editor [at] fresnoalliance.com .

* Homeless peoples real names are not being used in this story out of concern of retaliation.

 

Fresno v. Santa Cruz–a Contrast in Homeless Activism

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NOTES FROM NORSE:   Fresno activists, provide material support (portapotties, toiletries, a water source) to existing encampments in Fresno (with no legal authorization from authorities or financial support from government sources).   Fresno activists also rush to encampments being dismantled, document the havoc being wrought by authorities, and even actively resist that destruction by placing their own bodies on the line.

                  Santa Cruz activists content themselves with e-mail reports (like this one), appeals to political and community authorities to create a “Sanctuary Camp” , NO support or regular documentation of the tightening grip about the throat of the local Santa Cruz homeless, touchie-feelee “let’s understand the homeless” sessions, and chats with public officials in the airy hope of finding a “solution”  acceptable to a homeless-hostile City Council.  Meanwhile police crackdown on those who rest, socialize,  display their art, or perform for donation downtown as well as sleepers with no legal place to be at night.   The latest assault is City Council’s scheduled research into an anticipated attack on homeless recyclers at City Council today at 3 PM.

Identifying Potential Sites of Campgrounds for (Homeless) Members of
The Public: A Quest for Humanity on the Streets of Fresno, California
By Paul T. Jackson
T  a  b  l  e     o  f     C  o  n  t  e  n  t  s
Prologue
Formulation of a Legal Solution to a Legal Problem
Liability with Respect to Third-party Conduct
Liability with Respect to Water on Proposed Campgrounds
Liability with Respect to Use of Fire on Proposed Campgrounds
I.     Along the East Side of Regional Sports Complex: Proposed Campground for Semi-autonomous, (Homeless) Members of the Public                                                  
II.    93721 Heavy-industry Corridor: Proposed Campground for (Homeless) Members of the Public with Mobility Issues
III.   93706 Light-industrial Corridor: Proposed Campground for Campers Who Are Bicyclists, Electric Wheelchair Users and Addicts                                                 
Conclusion                                                                                                                 
Prologue
For many years now, local churches, masjids, synagogues, and temples—their members impelled by a desire to reduce suffering in the homeless communities of Fresno, California—have raised funds to purchase fire-and water-resistant tents. So have conscientious, albeit agnostic residents in this city. Such tents are vitally necessary to the lives of homeless people, and are to be the only form of shelter in any campground the City will permit on the proposed public campgrounds to be discussed in this paper.
However, without assurance that, after the tents are set up, neither the City nor any other public entity will declare a “cleanup” only to tear the tents down and store them in bins virtually inaccessible to the owners of the much-needed tents awaiting alleged abandonment thereof, the religious, spiritual, and just plain decent impulses to live and let live would be imprudent. Our modest efforts to alleviate such needless suffering in our community would be frustrated by a City impelled by alleged concerns of health and safety necessitating abatement of each and every homeless encampment under the terror of the City’s territory, including even that which had been set up near the grain silos where concern for neither health nor safety appeared to anyone yet on this past October 23rd suffered the fate of all other woebegone people who, though lacking customary homes, seek to keep body and soul together. They seek to survive, despite the edict of some less-enlightened, if not benighted institutions whose leaders have the audacity to declare them to be mere street people or “infidels,” allegedly alienated from the dignity which we know to be inherent in every natural person.
Now, therefore, we have come to realize that definite steps must be taken so that our efforts to alleviate such suffering will no longer prove vain; that tents and sleeping bags purchased with hard-earned money for the health and safety of homeless people undoubtedly living harder lives do not end up forever lost to their owners as a result of measures allegedly taken for their health and safety; and that the people who need these donated items may use them safe and secure in the knowledge that the land on which they do is legally available to them under reasonable conditions and not a labyrinth of rules and regulations, such as are imposed at one facility housing some two percent of the local homeless population, while the remaining 98 percent endure waves of officially sanctioned repression.
Formulation of a Legal Solution to a Legal Problem
Since solutions concerning availability of land to those people who truly need it, must come through the legal system, it is self-evident that solutions will be wrought in that system. If traditional politicking—letter-writing, lobbying, petitioning, and picketing—were enough to bring about the necessary land reform, it would have been achieved long ago in an area with plenty of food and land to share.
We know solutions to homelessness must exist in Fresno, land-poor though the city is. The area is very rich in land and the foods grown here. Land, food, tents, and sleeping bags are primarily what the homeless people here need. If the City would but open public lands to the public—a seemingly obvious proposition—caring, socially responsible residents will see to the other three needs. A reasonable legislative body will open public land as a campground if furnished with unlocked bathrooms with running water for rinsing one’s hands, a duty of personal hygiene which most of our homeless wouldn’t shirk if given the chance, and if not entirely forgotten after having been locked out of public bathrooms downtown for so very long. With the bathrooms and dumpsters that will be made available to them, the living conditions of homeless individuals will satisfy the “health and safety” requirements of which local public politicians and officials drone in their attempt to justify “cleanups.” And a court of law could find a campground with these basic amenities of hygiene satisfies those requirements, often cited by those officials, though by means never the officials intended: Unimproved public land opened as a campground for (homeless) members of the public!
Most homeless individuals in Fresno, California need access to public services which are delivered downtown. Selecting the location of a proposed campground is usually made with that consideration in mind. Though land is plentiful, vacant public land is not. Selection of potential sites, which the writer makes using the City’s website (http://gis4u.fresno.gov/viewer/), is a quest for all of the prerequisites the City must satisfy to use the law empowering it to open unimproved (or vacant) public lands; to avoid schools and parks incurring opposition to a proposed campground; and of course to choose location where it’s possible for us to enable (homeless) campers to meet the basic necessities of life.
Liability with Respect to Third-party Conduct
Criminality among homeless individuals has recently been documented and reported in The Fresno Bee. It’s sure to be the hue and cry of those local politicians who will oppose any proposal of the Fresno Homeless Advocates that the city open a campground. Generally, the City, as any public entity, is not liable for injury resulting from third-party conduct, whether negligent or criminal, on unimproved public land opened pursuant to chapter 2 of the Tort Claims Act. (See, e.g., Gov. Code, § 830.2 and § 835.)
However, in opening public lands as campgrounds for (homeless) members of the public, the City incurs liability if it’s reasonably foreseeable that a person will use property adjacent to public property (or the property itself) with due care, yet the person’s use results in danger due to a condition which exists in conjunction with some particular feature of the public property. “If the third party’s negligence or criminal conduct is foreseeable, such third party conduct may be the very risk which makes the public property dangerous when considered in conjunction with some particular feature of the public property.” (Swaner v. City of Santa Monica (App. 2 Dist. 1984) 150 Cal.App.3d 789, 804 [198 Cal.Rptr. 208].)
The City, by erecting a barrier on the perimeter of a campground, addresses its said liability if it takes a precaution against a motorist who (using due care) tries to make a U-turn crossing into a proposed campground or negligently crosses into it. The barrier need not prevent any possibility of a large truck from entering one of these proposed campgrounds. However, it must be so constructed as to make entry thereinto by a motorist an act of negligence entirely on his part, and not the City’s. It must be high enough above ground level and present a vertical face to the average motor vehicle that would alert any responsible motorist he is violating the boundary of the street and putting life and limb at risk.
Additional study is necessary to determine the specifications of the barrier.
In virtually all other conceivable cases, the City is immunized under Government Code, section 835 for any injury resulting from third-party conduct.
Liability with Respect to Water on Proposed Campgrounds
Access to potable (drinkable) water will remain a challenge for occupants of a proposed campground. Such water is not furnished in all wilderness areas, governed by the same law (ch. 2 of the Tort Claims Act, contained in Cal. Gov. Code, §§ 830—840.6) as that under which public land will be opened within our city limits. Where potable water is not available, a bathroom faucet may be set to produce only a trickle of water for cleaning one’s hands, discouraging its consumption and satisfying the minimum requirements of the Health and Safety Code.
We anticipate that occupants in outlying campgrounds lacking running, potable water will, at least over the short term, demonstrate the self-reliance, resourcefulness, and cooperativeness of homeless people of former tent cities “cleaned up” or destroyed by the City. We believe that they’ll secure and replenish drinking water for their own communities.
Liability with Respect to Use of Fire on Proposed Campgrounds
“Fire rings” are shallow concrete basins, usually about 4 feet in diameter. (Historically, these were used on California beaches, both for recreation (bonfires) and cooking, though they’re now banned on most of the state’s 108 public beaches.) Barbecue pits tend to be deeper.
The California Fire Code is contained in Part 9 of Title 24 of the California Code of Regulations (www.calregs.com). The San Joaquin Air Pollution District has jurisdiction to give prior approval permit any open burning under conditions stated in the District’s authorization (Cal. Fire Code, § 307.2.1). And if an open burning “creates or adds to a hazardous or objectionable situation,” the fire code official may order such fire extinguished (Id., § 307.3).
To keep themselves warm in wintertime, homeless people would probably be happier with a fire 15 feet away, rather than 50 feet away from any structure. Generally, an open burning must be 50 away (Id., § 307.4). However, if built in an “approved container,” a fire may be as close to a structure as 15 feet therefrom (Id., § 307.4, exception 1).
Additional study is needed to determine the specification of an “approved container.”
But if the pile size is 3 feet or less in diameter and 2 feet or less, the fire must be at least 25 feet away from a structure (Id., § 307.4, exception 2).
 “Open burning, bonfires, recreational fires and use of portable outdoor fireplaces shall be constantly attended until the fire is extinguished. A minimum of one portable fire extinguisher complying with Section 906 with a minimum 4-A rating or other approved on-site fire-extinguishing equipment, such as dirt, sand, water barrel, garden hose or water truck, shall be available for immediate utilization.” (Cal. Fire Code, § 307.5.)
Selection of a campground may require consideration that a fire may create a hazardous or objectionable situation on certain lands. The first of three proposed locations could produce such a situation, requiring further study.
I. Along the East Side of Regional Sports Complex: Proposed Campground for Semi-autonomous, (Homeless) Members of the Public
Just to the east of the Fresno Regional Sports Complex are three large tracts of vacant land, presumably publicly owned. Their current use is actually non-use; they’re vacant. The City’s current plans are to use them as an open space/regional park, which would be adjacent to the sport complex.
With respect to the intersection of S. West Ave. and W. Annadale Ave., the tracts are on three corners, excluding the SE. The tracts to the NE and NW of the intersection span almost as far N as W. Jensen Ave. The tract on the SW corner is about half the area of that on the NW corner of that intersection. All three tracts are remote from residential parcels.
As vacant land without landscaping, buildings, or other improvement, these appear to qualify as “unimproved public land” within the meaning of California Government Code section 831.2, so that “[n]either a public entity nor a public employee is liable for an injury caused by a natural condition” thereof. (Ibid.)
The Fresno Homeless Advocates may propose that the City leave all three tracts unimproved, except for the paving of roads, construction of bathrooms, and furnishing of dumpsters and access to sanitary (though non-potable) water. These public works do not “improve” the land such as would remove it from coverage by section 831.2, supra. But these public works furnish the land with the basic necessities of an overnight, long-term campground. The Fresno Homeless Advocates may propose that the City revise its plan accordingly.
Whole families will have the opportunity to come from local churches to visit this large campground. While parents serve and/or share food with needy campers there, children (under proper supervision) will use the sports facilities at the adjacent complex. Churches that now serve food in Roeding Park and that sometimes find they end up with excess food, will coordinate with others in Fresno’s religious community, so that food and potable water are served to meet people’s needs in both large parks. (The sports park is about 4 mi away from the Pov’.)
We anticipate these proposed campgrounds will comport with the City’s recent (Nov. 9, 2013) recoding of the nearby Running Horse property, now called Mission Ranch, for large-scale commercial farming. The presence of such farming implies the absence of residences and schools, which would likely incur opposition to the proposed campground.
However, a threat to the feasibility of a campground on this tract appears if the vacant land, like the sports complex adjacent thereto, is reclaimed landfill. If so, methane emissions would appear to present a safety hazard to anyone using a controlled fire on such land, whether for cooking food, bodily warmth, or storytelling or other fireside recreation. The heat of a barbecue pit could raise the temperature of the soil on which it rests, possibly resulting in methane emission at dangerous levels. And if methane were emitting on hotter days of the year, any fire could present even greater risk to the public.
Further study is necessary.

 

 
II. 93721 Heavy-industry Corridor: Proposed Campground
For (Homeless) Members of the Public with Mobility Issues
Two vacant parcels lie to the S of the intersection of S. Cherry and S. Railroad avenues. The parcels are particularly helpful to those homeless individuals who have difficulty cooking for themselves, and/or mobility issues hindering them from walking long distances.
The parcels are only 0.6 mile away from the Pov’, an estimated 12-minute walk (or wheelchair ride). To the S of those two are three more, also in the 93721 ZIP code, i.e.: Parcel Nos. 28282828 and 23202320, both lying to the SW of the intersection of E. Florence Ave. and S. Tulip St. These are 1.1 mile away from the Pov’, an estimated 21-minute walk.
While constructing restrooms on all public campgrounds, including both of the parcels at Cherry and Railroad, the City would do well to furnish the two last-mentioned parcels with ramps leading to the restrooms. The City, as any public entity, is not required by the Americans with Disabilities Act to make every recreational area accessible to disabled individuals. But, to fulfill the ADA’s purpose of making public facilities equally available to disabled individuals, the bathrooms at the 93721 campgrounds should be furnished with ramps.
III. 93706 Light-industry Corridor: Proposed Campground for Campers Who Are Bicyclists, Electric Wheelchair Users and Addicts
In the 93706 ZIP Code, there’s a cluster of five parcels, all of which are listed as vacant land.
In the industrial corridor, no residential parcels or public parks are nearby. Nor are there any schools, the nearest being the Teocalli Dance Academy, which is 0.3 mile to the northwest.
The cluster of parcels has one which is fairly remote: A large parcel on the SW corner of the intersection of E. Church Ave. and S. Golden State Blvd. Just 0.1 mile to the west of that intersection is S. Sarah St.; on that street, 475 feet to the S of Church is Foundry Park Avenue, from which the same corner lot is accessible. Continuing  0.2 mile on Foundry Park Avenue (past Wilson’s Motorcycle), the said avenue comes to a fork: A 0.2 turn to the NE, connecting with Golden State, and the same avenue continuing SE another 0.1 mile to reach Ry-Den Truck Center at the cul-de-sac.
The four remaining parcels in the cluster are on either side of the 0.2 mile long avenue connecting to Golden State.
As vacant land without landscaping or buildings, these appear to qualify as “unimproved public land” within the meaning of California Government Code section 831.2, so that “[n]either a public entity nor a public employee is liable for an injury caused by a natural condition” thereof. (Ibid.)
Assuming campers have some means of transportation, they’ll have two services within their reach. The Turning Point G Street Residential Re-Entry Center is just 0.3 mile to the northeast, an estimated 7-minute walk on Golden State Boulevard. The proposed campground will be convenient for recovering addicts.
The Pov’ is 1.4 mile away—an estimated half-hour walk or ten-minute bicycle ride—mostly along Golden State Boulevard. Using this route, which is low traffic and also the shortest to the Pov’, campers will avoid the dance academy, which is the only public facility in the area.
Conclusion
In our quest for legally sustainable, politically suitable, and truly feasible solutions to homelessness, we are confronted by chapter 2 of the Public Tort Claims Act. This chapter contains laws permitting a public entity to open unimproved public land to the public. To provide a base of stability for Fresno’s harried homeless population, we propose homes be made available to them in the manner of a campground. Such a proposal appears the quickest for the great majority of the people and the least costly without jeopardizing life and limb, let alone the immorality of the City’s apparent war against homeless individuals.
To that end, we have moved that the Fresno Homeless Advocates propose the City open the above mentioned “vacant” parcels near downtown, and the large “vacant” tract three miles to the east thereof. To make our proposal legally and politically viable, we must see it through the City’s eyes. Therefore, we attempt to address liabilities arising if the City were to open the vacant (unimproved) public lands for our stated purpose. Whatever liabilities each location poses to the City, and  whatever advantages each poses to the proposed campers, the writer hopes this paper has invited the Fresno Homeless Advocates to engage in serious thought into the kinds of considerations necessary to formulate a viable proposal that would alleviate the living conditions of our longsuffering homeless communities.

In latest Santa Cruz Street Performer Sweep Away, Permits Not Available

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NOTES BY NORSE:   The attack on street performers, activists, and artists downtown to seems to me directly related to the ongoing sub-humanization of the homeless population through Drug War smears, “lazy bum” stereotypes, and “public safety”  scare stories.   Many of the street performers are themselves homeless or travelers.  There is a fundamental push to Carmel-ize Santa Cruz by right-wing groups which have always had this agenda (the Downtown Association, the SCPD, Santa Cruz Neighbors, etc.).  We need a broad coalition of artists, performers, unhoused folks, renters, workers, and bankster victims to fight back, or get picked off.

Shrinking Sidewalks and the Permit Fantasy

by Robert Norse
Saturday Nov 9th, 2013 7:12 PM

With the suffocating reduction of sidewalk art and performance space under the modified Downtown Ordinances that went into effect in Santa Cruz on October 24th, repression apologists are reassuring those facing a matrix of exclusion that all the need to do, if they want to play, table, display, or occupy more than 12 square feet (approx 3 1/2 X 3 1/2 feet) is to apply for a permit at the Parks and Recreation Department. This is camouflage and cover for a fundamental change in the downtown scene being orchestrated by those engaged in class and culture war to gentrify Pacific Avenue and use the myth of Poverty Crime and Clutter to tramplel Santa Cruz values & traditions of diversity & inclusion. Described below is what is actually offered in the “permit process”.

In fact performers, other than those singly cramming themselves into 12 square feet downtown are now technically illegal. Those you see down there are either unaware of this fact or being temporarily ignored by the police (perhaps while protest heat subsides).   However the new laws are as clear as they are devastating.  It signifies the legal end to street performing as Santa Cruz as has traditionally known it.

 

NOTES ON STREET PERFORMERS PERMITS
(These notes are based on the Parks & Recreation [P & R] office worker info on 11-7-13 as well as the City’s Street Performance Downtown Santa Cruz website. If anyone has new info or corrections, please contact me).PERMITS TO BE GRANTED IN ONLY 5 SPOTS DOWNTOWN
The only spots for which P & R will grant permits are
(1) Compass Rose area near the post office;
(2) Memorial Plaza near Jamba Juice;
(3) Pacific and Cooper;
(4) Pearl Alley;
(5) Scribner Statue area.

In other areas where performing for donation was traditional (say in front of New Leaf Market), it is simply banned with NO provision for any permit. This means from Laurel St. to Water St. there are a total of 4 spots to play with more than one performer, assuming the two aren’t in a carnal embrace and playing harmonicas (i.e. have instruments like guitars that require at least some space).

ADVANCE NOTICE COULD BE REQUIRED DAYS IN ADVANCE
Permits can be filed only Monday – Thursday 8 AM – 4 PM at the P & R Office at 323 Church St 36 hours in advance of performance. So, if you want to perform with a fellow guitarist on a Monday, you’d better have applied on Wednesday or Thursday of the prior week. P & R worker Betsy assured me that two people playing could easily fit into 12 square feet—the maximum allowable space without a permit for someone with an open guitar case, cup, or other “display device”.. She must have been quite the rage at college phone booth stuffing events.

REPRESSIVE TIME LIMITATIONS
Maximum time length allowed is 2 hours on Pacific and 3 hours in the alleys, one performance per day, and only between 11 AM- 10 PM. Additionally it’s not clear when these rules will be altered given the new ordinances (and new bleak mentality to enable performance “regulation” by police, hosts, security guards, city staff, & merchants). Only one event per weekend. And only in the five spots indicated. Otherwise you are expected to squeeze your instrument, effects, companions and hynee’s into 3 of those sidewalk squares.

When Betsy checked, no one had applied for (and been granted) a permit subsequent to October 24, though 2 groups had applied for events in November before that date and been granted permits. Actually though I’ve only heard second hand accounts of smoking tickets being issued and none of sitting or “display device in wrong place” or “taking up too much space” citations, the number of performers down there has looked tome to be markedly less and those who are there are newbies who often don’t know the rules. Today I saw two homeless people sprawled in “illegal” spots (but not blocking traffic, of course, just “illegal under the “merchant freeway” rules) and, I think, one performer–this was around 4 PM.

Though the permits are free, if you’re using a keyboard or any kind of “amplification” however minor, you’ve got to go through the SCPD and pay $33 with a much longer lead time. I’ve filed a Public Records Act request asking for specifics from them—which they’re supposed to respond to in the next 10 days.
I’ve also requested a list of the names and positions of the Hosts (the Hostile-aptaility squad) and the First Alarm thug patrols–no response yet.

PRICE TAGS ON YOUR OWN ARTWORK AND MUSIC IS CONSTITUTIONALLY PROTECTED (BUT CONVENIENTLY OMITTED IN THE CITY’S LITERATURE)
Contrary to what rule#7 at reads at the Street Performance Downtown Santa Cruz city website http://www.cityofsantacruz.com/index.aspx?page=1289 (“no commercial sales”), recent court decisions acknowledged by the City Attorney’s office allow you to both sell and price tag your own original work (if written, audio, or video)–though this is not explicitly acknowledged (and not respected by some police).

The published decision is Steven C. White v. City of Sparks. It can be found at http://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-9th-circuit/1300114.html . There’s a news story at http://www.firstamendmentcenter.org/no-license-needed-to-sell-art-in-parks-of-sparks-nev

The City’s Street Performer website has also not been updated to indicate that a permit is required for any space more than 2′ X 6′ (not 4′ X 6′ as it now reads).

What you don’t read in the latest cheery Street Performing Downtown Santa Cruz hand-out being passed on by police and hosts (from their unmarked HQ at 607 Front St.) is the alarming (and absurd) clarification that the 12 square feet is only 3 “sidewalk squares”–difficult for one performer with an instrument and its case, impossible for more than one.

POSSIBLE ESCAPE HATCH?
MC 5.43.010 only limits “a display device for noncommercial use ON ANY PUBLIC SIDEWALK” [emphasis mine]– so if the device itself doesn’t sit on the sidewalk, but on you, it arguably isn’t covered by the ordinance. So one alternative for performers is to attach a cup to your clothing and have no display device at all. Perhaps add a small sign “City law forbids me to place this cup on the sidewalk.”

This has the additional benefit of arguably allowing you if you perform while standing to do it anywhere and everywhere and still get donations from those brave enough to approach. The 14′ setbacks only apply to sitting, display devices placement, (and panhandling—which is explicitly defined differently than performing for donation).

I include below copies of the Permit Application, the Permit “Rules” from the City website, the Santa Cruz Performers Guidelines flyer being pushed by the Hosts and cops, and a flier that outlines the information I’ve outlined above.

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by Robert Norse Saturday Nov 9th, 2013 7:12 PM

 

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by Robert Norse Saturday Nov 9th, 2013 7:12 PM

 

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by Robert Norse Saturday Nov 9th, 2013 7:12 PM

 

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by Robert Norse Saturday Nov 9th, 2013 7:12 PM

 

 

by City Staff (posted by Norse)

Saturday Nov 9th, 2013 7:16 PM

 

 

The site at http://www.cityofsantacruz.com/index.aspx?page=1289 has not been updated. So the sentence “The performance requires a space greater than 4 X 6 feet” has now been amended to read “greater than 2 X 6” or more accurately, 12 square feet.

Albany Homeless Driven to Nowhere

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NOTES BY NORSE:  As here and elsewhere, an unholy coalition of gentrification gents, NIMBY’s, homeless-o-phobes, “public safety” flimflam hysterics, and (strangely) environmentalists are pushing or backing the deportation-to-nowhere of homeless folks, who haven’t created any notable problems (and certainly less than when they are dumped and dispersed).  In Santa Cruz, this takes the form of Clean-Up’s, a Public Safety Task Farce, a collection of tightening restrictions on the use of public spaces for everyone, & a neighborhood siege mentality targeting homeless survival camping as the Menace of the Month.

                   The first two stories are from the Berkeley Daily Planet, an on-line paper at www.berkeleydailyplanet.com .  The third an earlier one from the S.F. Chronicle.
Laying waste to the primitive hovels and tents of poor homeless people is billed in the mainscream newspapers as garbage disposal, drug dealer seizure, and public security enhancement. ( See http://www.santacruzsentinel.com/santacruz/ci_24168246/illegal-camp-cleanup-slated-carbonera-creek-property-santa  &  www.santacruzsentinel.com/copsandcourts/ci_24429612/deputies-clean-out-corralitos-creek-homeless-campsite  ).

The Sierra Club and the Albany Bulb

By Lydia Gans
Thursday October 24, 2013 – 08:17:00 PM
The backlash against the Sierra Club for joining with Citizens for East Shore Parks in lobbying to incorporate the Bulb into East Shore State Park is not surprising. The San Francisco Bay Chapter, in the May issue of their newspaper, the Yodeler, states the rationale for their action. It gives a very troubling image of the group. The story is titled “Changing the Albany Bulb – creating a bright spot on the East Bay Shoreline”. Apparently in order to “create a bright spot” the first step requires evicting the people who are camping there, people for whom the Bulb is their home. Why is this Sierra Club chapter participating in evicting people? The mission of the Sierra Club is the maintenance and protection of the environment for the enjoyment of the people. It does not mean only certain people, only the“right kind” of people.In going over some of the Bulb history, the Yodeler article says; “In the 1990’s people started camping illegally on the Bulb, and in 1999 the city and the Park District removed that camper population, but the land was again left unprotected …” From what, or from whom did the land need to be protected? From people who cared for it as their home, who planted trees, made trails, worked at mitigating rebar and concrete hazards on the site?

Protected from people who created works of art out of found materials, set up and operated a free lending library?

Over the years the police occasionally sent homeless people from the streets out to the Bulb but otherwise the city of Albany pretty much ignored the camp. Some churches and community organizations and local citizens who enjoyed the place regularly brought food and supplies to the campers. The Sierra Club never took an interest in them. Other than contract with Berkeley Food And Housing Project to provide “Outreach and Engagement” the city has done nothing for the campers. Albany has no homeless shelters and apparently little or no affordable housing – only one of the 60 or so campers has been housed.

One might ask the question, why now? Why do the Sierra Club and Citizens for East Shore Parks demand the Bulb incorporated into the Park at this time? The Bulb juts out from the shoreline and would not be an integral part of the Park nor would any section of the Bay trail go through the Bulb. With a few amenities such as toilets and running water and possibly some help in getting rid of the rebar and concrete it could continue to serve as a campground – at least until Albany can provide proper housing for homeless.

Albany Landfill Evictions Affect Berkeley

By Daniel J. McMullan III
Thursday October 24, 2013 – 08:28:00 PM
In 1999 I was asked by some of the then long time residents of the Albany landfill to come out to the bulb and advocate for those who were being evicted, some them after living there for over 10 years or more.At the time the City of Albany had no services whatsoever for the homeless and their only design, that became very clear by the end, was to dump their homeless problem on the City of Berkeley. The residents of the landfill then as they are today came from places all over the state and country.

I watched the City of Berkeley spend 100’s of thousands if not millions of dollars on the people they ejected from the landfill, most of whom eventually died on our streets. With the help of a non-profit they paid a nominal $13,000 they shifted their responsibility to their homeless to Berkeley.

Now they are in the process of doing it again. In the 14 years since the last big dump upon our City, Albany has done nothing. Still not a single penny has been spent on any program or plan to deal with its homeless.(Unless you want to count the very recent plan to put it’s responsibilities on the backs of the Berkeley taxpayer)

To keep the heat off themselves they permitted their homeless to occupy the landfill again but now they want to pull another people dump at our expense. Every item in their plan is the same except that this time instead of employing conservation corps members to tear out the foliage. They have employed goats. I like goats and to use these noble creatures to serve their hateful plan is very disturbing.

Albany has already hired a willing Berkeley non-profit to do their fakery. And the rest of their non-plan is rolling along. I ask the Mayor and City council to direct the City attorney to put a stop to this in and by any and all means available to us.

We have been hard at work with our own responsibilities,The Homeless Task Force, the revitalization of our SRO’s and creating movement in that system among many, many other things.) And now Albany wants to throw another 70+ people on our streets and into our programs and services?

Albany has one plan. One Action

Dump all its problem’s and expenses on us, on Berkeley.

Time to flip switch at Albany Bulb park, city says

Carolyn Jones
Published 5:21 pm, Monday, September 9, 2013
  • A view of the bay from inside the Castle, a piece of conceptual art that was built by an Albany Bulb resident. Photo: Sam Wolson, Special To The Chronicle
    A view of the bay from inside the Castle, a piece of conceptual art that was built by an Albany Bulb resident. Photo: Sam Wolson, Special To The Chronicle

For more Albany Bulb Art go to http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Time-to-flip-switch-at-Albany-Bulb-park-city-says-4800115.php

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Albany’s version of People’s Park appears headed for a showdown next month when police begin rousting 60 to 70 homeless people who’ve taken up residence at a long-neglected shoreline park.The City Council recently voted to begin enforcing no-camping laws at the Albany Bulb, a 31-acre former landfill that juts into San Francisco Bay just north of Golden Gate Fields racetrack.

But some of the homeless, a few of whom have camped there for decades, pledge to resist any relocation efforts. Affordable housing in the Bay Area is scarce, far too expensive and potentially too far away or unsafe, they said.

In short, Albany is their home, and they want to stay there, they said.

“It’s frustrating, aggravating, scary,” said Katherine Cody, 60, who’s lived at the Bulb for about two years. “I’m comfortable here. I feel safe here. Rainy season is coming – I don’t know where I’ll go except the streets of Albany.”

The Bulb, named after its shape, is comprised of old concrete, rebar, dirt and other debris from the construction of East Bay highways. Since the landfill closed in 1984, it’s evolved into a somewhat more natural setting, with a beach and dense acacia, broom, eucalyptus and other plants.

Decades ago, artists began colonizing the Bulb as a sort of outdoor studio not unlike the old Emeryville mudflats, leaving anonymous works of all shapes, sizes and quality. Some works have endured and others have disintegrated over the years.

In the 1980s, homeless people also started moving in, taking advantage of the relative quiet and million-dollar bay views. Some have semipermanent homes, with generators, sturdy wooden walls and even multiple stories.

The Bulb is also a favorite among dog walkers, who enjoy the informal off-leash rules, beach and relatively wild environment. Some have noted it’s one of the only shoreline parks that’s not manicured or developed with paved paths.

Part of state park

In the mid-1980s, the Bulb became one of the original pieces of the Eastshore State Park, envisioned as a continuous strip of bayside greenery stretching from Oakland to Richmond and linked by the Bay Trail.

Most of the park is completed. But the Bulb remains as woolly as ever, due in part to complications with the Regional Water Quality Control Board over seepage.

Those issues are finally resolved, and last spring the city began moving ahead with plans to clean up the Bulb and turn it over to the East Bay Regional Park District and California State Parks to incorporate into the Eastshore State Park.

Relocating the homeless is an important part of that transition, said Robert Cheasty, a former Albany mayor who’s president of Citizens for East Shore Parks, a nonprofit.

“Thousands of people have worked for three or four decades to turn this area into a usable shoreline park,” he said. “We cannot break the faith of all these people just to allow a small group to essentially privatize public land.”

Helping the homeless

To ease the transition for the homeless, the city has spent $60,000 on a contract with Berkeley Food and Housing Project, a nonprofit, to help the Bulb campers find homes, counseling and other services.

The anticamping enforcement should have come months, if not years, ago, said City Councilwoman Peggy Thomsen.

“It’s a safety issue and a health issue, and we need an end point,” she said. “A lot of people are afraid to go out there. We need to worry about the safety not just of regular park users but the inhabitants as well.”

That’s little comfort to the homeless, who say they’re safer there than they would be at a shelter or at affordable housing in sketchy areas.

“Everyone’s stressed,” Cody said. “We don’t know where we’re going to go. It’s very discouraging.”

 

Fresno: Where the Disappearing Blankets and Tents Went

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NOTES BY NORSE:  Santa Cruz homeless activists have long demanded that Santa Cruz store rather than discard homeless property.   I have had conflicting accounts of whether this is done, but rarely of people being able to reclaim their property.  More recently a camper near “Nasty’s Camp”, the camp targeted by SCPD and sheriffs for seizure of their (legally grown) marijuana crop [http://www.santacruzsentinel.com/santacruz/ci_23880596/santa-cruz-police-clear-hundreds-pot-plants-trash?IADID=Search-www.santacruzsentinel.com-www.santacruzsentinel.com ]  reported all her property twice stolen and dumped by workers affiliated with the city though she wasn’t charged with anything.

Santa Cruz is a much smaller community than Fresno and reclaiming property should be easier.  Simply citing state law and the constitution clearly doesn’t do the trick if you don’t have the power of people on the street and perhaps attorneys behind you.  Still I encourage any Santa Cruz homeless person who’s had her property taken by police post their accounts of whether they were able to reclaim it or not.  Public exposure is much cheaper than trying to find legal help–though the possibility of Small Claims Court is still open.
Where Hope Goes to Die

These photos show where the City of Fresno is temporarily storing property taken from homeless people during the sweeps over the last two months.

 

 

The large blue tarps flap in the wind and catch your eye as you drive down south down H street, on your way to the center of downtown Fresno. Few people know that this small city of blue topped storage containers is where the City of Fresno, complying with a Federal court order, has brought the confiscated property of homeless people, as they fled the destruction of their humble shelters. Today, the police are confiscating shopping carts filled with homeless people’s property and adding those to the collection – even if the owner of the property just left their property in front of the Poverello House while they got a bite to eat.This confiscation of homeless peoples property started about 2 months ago with the demolitions of downtown Fresno homeless encampments. It continues today as the police and city workers round up homeless people’s property and lock it away behind a barbed wire fence, guarded 24 hours a day/7 days a week, with very little chance that it will be given back to its owners.

Even when homeless people are with their property, on the streets of Fresno, they are harassed by the police. In an incident that happened about a week ago, a group of homeless people were given “debris in road” citations. The “debris” was their blankets, food, and other items they need to survive.

There is little chance that homeless people who lost all of their belongings in these raids by the police and city workers will be able to re-claim their property, because there is no place in the city that is currently safe for them to keep it. Nobody can carry everything they need to survive with them all day/every day. Therefore, the “technical” compliance with the Federal court order is simply a cover for the city’s ongoing policy of taking and destroying homeless peoples property, endangering their health, and decreasing their overall quality of life.

For information about what homeless advocates are doing to respond to this crisis, see: http://www.helpfresnoshomeless.org/

 

 

§These Shopping Carts Were Taken From the Homeless

by Mike Rhodes Sunday Nov 3rd, 2013 5:31 PM

 

 

§Sign Identifying Who the Property was Taken From

by Mike Rhodes Sunday Nov 3rd, 2013 5:31 PM

 

 

Comments  (Hide Comments)

by Kit Williams

Sunday Nov 3rd, 2013 7:44 PM

The sergeant of the police task force charged with following the homeless to ensure that they do not resettle anywhere told me that the police were taking the shopping carts because the carts belonged to stores and would be returned to them, their rightful owners. Apparently this isn’t true, as the carts remain lined up beside the storage containers. Are store owners clamoring for the return of their property? I’ve read nothing that indicates they are.The receipt given to a homeless person whose property is confiscated says clearly (on the bottom of the form) that a photo of the property is placed on the reverse side of the form. I have yet to see a single photo of any property.

The idea that the City is complying with the court order is clearly a farce. At the end of ninety days, the property, if unclaimed, can be discarded by the City. If the City isn’t doing so, it’s undoubtedly because they don’t have the resources (the personpower) to do so, not because they are holding it out of the goodness of their hearts.

The idea that a homeless person is capable of reclaiming their property before the end of the ninety day period is likewise a farce, as this article states. Because they are homeless (and lack vehicles), they have no way to transport their belongings and no place to put them were they able to reclaim and transport them.

It is time for all of us to stand up to the City, to insist on both emergency and transitional housing, for safe and legal campgrounds, for some form of housing for those without shelter of any kind. Contact your City Council member now!

The temperatures are dropping into the 40s, into the range at which people can suffer from hypothermia. Can the City be held liable or found culpable in the deaths of any homeless people who have had the most basic of shelters torn from them? A possible question worth exploring ….

by paulal

Sunday Nov 3rd, 2013 9:27 PM

It looks like it would be impossible for a person to find their belonging in those big containers.