Category Archives: Bathrobespierre’s Broadsides Radio Show

Correcting the Record on Analicia Cube’s Take Back Santa Cruz

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https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2013/09/30/18744094.php

Missing from the S.C. Weekly Puff Piece on Take Back Santa Cruz Co-Founder Analicia Cube
by Robert Norse ( rnorse3 [at] hotmail.com )
Monday Sep 30th, 2013 2:11 PM

The Santa Cruz Weekly published a lengthy chitchat boosting the public image of Take Back Santa Cruz’s public face Analicia Cube. Hopeful as I’ve been for Georgiana Perry’s writing, this one has a sweet stench to it and prompted me to write an extensive reply in the on-line comments section. Though it’s not exhaustive, it summarizes some of the major concerns I have about Analicia’s group and those who cater to it and its mythologies. At http://www.santacruz.com/news/2013/09/24/take_back_santa_cruz_leader_pulls_no_punches , there are 35 comments as of this writing, most of them praising Cube, but a number are worth reading. I reprint mine for indybay readers and invite them to share their thoughts.

Analicia Cube is a high-spirited,strong-voiced, effective activist whose TBSC agenda and actions menace poor and homeless people in Santa Cruz and empower the darkest elements of our community.

Missing from G. Perry’s article are some key accomplishments of her Take Back Santa Cruz and allied or infiltrated groups, now grown in power with their leaders in significant government positions.

TBSC accomplishments: They and their needle-rattling allies have closed down the only Needle Exchange in Santa Cruz—doing so without public hearings or evidence of any real problems at the Barson St. site. They have stopped a second marijuana club from opening in the Harvey West in another medieval anti-mariuana move. They’ mobbed a court to keep the innocent Ken Maffei in jail for three weeks (the guy who brought his own flowers to the SCPD memorial and was then falsely accused of stealing posies).

They raised the temperature of anti-homeless sentiment, serving as a forum for those who want to defund the very limited homeless shelter services that currently exist. Their clean-up’s for years have not advised their participants to respect homeless campsites (the only shelter Santa Cruz’s 1500-2000 homeless have).

They have spread the hateful and false broadside that sleeping and camping are crimes (something currently being entrenched in the Public Safety Citizens Task Farce). This has resulted in harassment and assault against homeless people, as documented in the famous (but frequently suppressed) video of Clean Team activists bullying a homeless camper (See http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2013/05/15/18736901.php ).

They have colluded with and encouraged the most reactionary and dangerous higher-up’s in the SCPD (such as Deputy Chief Steve Clark—notorious for his ceaseless attacks on activists, homeless people, and “liberalism” in Santa Cruz).

Additionally they have driven previously sympathetic critics who disagree with their obsessive and futile Drug War posture from their website. T.J. Magallanes, the founder of The Clean Team website, has repeatedly noted that TBSC activists kidnapped his site and their hostility made his presence in town uncomfortable. (See http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2013/05/22/18737249.php )

Those who come out for medical rather than police solutions to social problems created by the illegal status of methedrine, cocaine, heroin, and other drugs are reportedly removed from their website and discussions. The futile enforcement of these laws, of course, funds police departments nationwide and gives politicians a boogeyman to intimidate and co-opt politicians. The toll in ruined lives and wasted money is immense here—yet that is one of their main “law and order” selling points.

What’s really depressing is how these clear issues are ignored not only in Perry’s article but in the mainstream media generally. In response liberals like Lane, Posner, and Pleich surf this sick tide and buy into the Public Safety mythology in order to ride the wave of groundless hysteria that Cube’s group and related ones have created.

THE FULL ARTICLE AND FOLLOWING COMMENTS CAN BE FOUND AT http://www.santacruz.com/news/2013/09/24/take_back_santa_cruz_leader_pulls_no_punches  .  The article is also the cover story for the current Santa Cruz Weekly.

Anaheim Moves Against Its Homeless Community

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NOTES BY NORSE:   Both Anaheim and Santa Cruz are ramping up their assaults on the homeless, without specifying what they’re doing (why acknowledge unconstitutional and cruel behavior?) or masking it under other labels.  In Santa Cruz it’s “public safety”, “the needle menace”, and “the perception of danger”; in Anaheim, they’re calling it “blight”, “increasing police tools”, etc.

The latest Santa Cruz City Council’s anti-homeless expansion of Smoking, Vending, Tabling, Performing, Art Display, Sparechanging, and Sitting Bans downtown are similarly camouflaged and rationalized as “congestion”, “clarity”, and “clean and tidy” aesthetic concerns.    Today at Santa Cruz City Council at 2:45 PM supporters of a Downtown for All will be gathering to share food, experience, ideas and speak to the Community during the Council meeting (the Council itself isn’t listening) in the brief televised period.  That’s at 809 Center St. across from the Main Library and Civic Auditorium.  Bring instruments and friends.

Another “more respectable” effort is being made by activists supporting a Santa Cruz Sanctuary Camp to the County Board of Supervisors–calling for a small tightly controlled “drug free” Camping Area.  9 AM at 701 Ocean St. on the 5th Floor of the Board of Supervisors.   The supporters led by Brent Adams will be presented a business plan and may have recently gotten the support of Paul Lee, a local author and philanthropist who tried himself unsuccessfully to set up an Eco-Village a decade ago and a Community House a decade before that.  In the 80’s Lee supported activist Calamity Jane Imler’s hunger strikes against the Sleeping Ban, police abuse, and the call for a cold-and-rainy-night Shelter.  Adams has been a target of political repression in the aftermath of the Occupy Movement as one of the Santa Cruz Eleven–when hundreds occupied a vacant Wells Fargo-leased bank at 75 River St.

The Anaheim ordinance’s definition of “camping” (Yuppie-speak for “survival sleeping”) is “Residing in or using any Public Area for living accommodation or lodging purposes with one’s personal property or while storing one’s personal property;  and/or constructing, maintaining, occupying, or inhabiting or using camping facilities and/or constructing, using or maintaining camping paraphernalia.  For the purposes of this section “camping” shall not include merely sleeping outside in a park or the use of a blanket, towel, or mat in a park during the time the park is open to the public.”

Santa Cruz activists have long agitated against Santa Cruz’s Sleeping and Blanket Bans, which defines and criminalizes camping as sleeping after 11 PM at night outside on any public property, on much private property, or in a vehicle, even if legally parked on public property.   It has its own “abandoned property” rule, and in today’s City Council vote will finalize a severe shrinkage of space where homeless people (and to be “fair” this affects any one and everyone) can place their possessions if trying to display art, engage in political activity involving a table, vend anything, or perform music.  This is a social sickness that is spreading everywhere.

The City’s gentrification adovocates are countering traditional toleration and compassion in the community (though not in the police, City Council, or City Manager’s office), right-wing NIMBY’s with the Downtown Association, Santa Cruz Neighbors, Take Back Santa Cruz, and other reactionary groups propaganda and agitation.  These exclusionary Upper Class warriors are making much of the Drug War and a xenophobic “outsiders flooding our community”.  They can be seen in full frightening bloom at the Mayor’s Public Safety Task Force.  The group meets every Wednesday in October usually at the police department’s Community Room on Laurel and Center streets.  The public is generally allowed to watch but not to comment.

Anaheim City Council Now Declaring War on Homeless

By Gabriel San Roman Mon., Sep. 23 2013 at 2:31 PM
lapalmapark_tent.jpg
Josue Rivas
Homeless tent

A week after activist Stephen Baxter held a ‘sleep-in’ protest in downtown Fullerton over the city’s war on the homeless, Anaheim will try to one-up them with a punitive ordinance of its own. The city municipal code already forbids staying in a public park between the hours of 10:30 p.m. and 5 a.m., which has the homeless laying their head elsewhere for the night–but that’s not enough for councilwoman Kris Murray and her crew!

On Tuesday, council members will decide on a proposal aimed at banning camping and storage of personal property on public property at any time.
In a staff report submitted by Director of Community Services Terry Lowe, the ordinance is framed as one that will “serve as a tool in the City’s effort to promote and support safe, clean and accessible neighborhoods and eliminate blight.” Never once are the homeless referenced directly, but it couldn’t be clearer who the intended target is.

If Anaheim’s city council should approve the crackdown–and it almost assuredly will–no homeless person can use a tent for living purposes at any hour in public areas including parks, alleys, parking lots, or any other publicly owned property. Nor could they store personal belongings such as the tents themselves, sleeping bags, bedrolls, cooking equipment, books, money and appliances in addition to other possessions in such spaces.

Public parks are the most visible places where the city’s homeless population set up tents during the day. Since the eviction of a sizable homeless encampment in Fullerton by the shuttered Hunt Library earlier this year, many of those displaced turned up on the east lawn of La Palma Park in Anaheim.

lapalmapark_homeless.jpg
Josue Rivas / OC Weekly
La Palma Park in Anaheim

The belongings of the homeless would be subject to 90-day impounds so long as they are given “proper notice.” Anaheim police can immediately confiscate possessions if they are left after hours at the park or deemed to be contraband, a threat to public health and safety or evidence of crime. Retrieval is allowed when the Chief of Police finds proof of ownership to be “satisfactory.”
If that’s not the case, the city stands poised to make money off of the confiscations, whether through depositing unclaimed money into the general fund or holding auctions.

Enforcement of the ordinance entails fines for infractions. The first violation would cost $100. A second violation within a year is punishable up to $200 with every subsequent infraction in that time span costing $500.

“I would categorize this ordinance as part of the larger ‘criminalization of homelessness’ that many communities fall back on when they choose to be less creative with their problem solving,” says Jennifer Lee-Anderson, Co-Chair of the Anaheim Poverty Task Force and policy planning consultant on homelessness. “The $100 to $500 fines that are noted in the proposed ordinance are part of the reason that many chronically homeless are simply cycled through the criminal justice system repeatedly.”

Near La Palma Park, the city is just weeks into a newly opened storage area and outreach center. The homeless can take advantage of Conex boxes set up to leave their personal belongings during the day. The city-owned parking lot by Glover Stadium is close to where people continue to set up tents. In a heavy-handed way, the ordinance could encourage more homeless to participate in the pilot program but is also a cause for concern and clarification. “There’s no language that exempts the storage area,” adds Lee-Anderson expressing disappointment that she learned about this proposal from the Weekly and not city staff. There is also the issue of other public areas in Anaheim far beyond La Palma Park where homeless persons stay.

For the past six years, Jim Carter has taken students at Servite High School, where he works, to serve meals at La Palma Park every Thursday. “I understand where the city comes from. I understand where the police come from,” says Carter, also a member of the Anaheim Poverty Task Force that has drafted a 15 point plan to address homelessness. “I don’t think [the ordinance] is a good thing. Unless it comes with a long-range plan to help these people move out of this situation, it’s just going to add stress to them. Where are the homeless going to go?”

“What would have been nice is if the city adopted the 15 point plan in full,” Carter mentions, emphasizing the key recommendation of establishing a multi-service center. “If the city is not willing to find a location where we can put a shelter, it’s never going to change.”


Follow Gabriel San Román on Twitter @dpalabraz


Follow OC Weekly on Twitter@ocweekly or on Facebook!

FURTHER COMMENTS AT http://blogs.ocweekly.com/navelgazing/2013/09/anaheim_homeless.php

TEXT OF THE ORDINANCE AT http://www.anaheim.net/docs_agend/questys_pub/MG41822/AS41861/AS41864/AI44292/DO44294/DO_44294.pdf

STAFF REPORT AT http://www.anaheim.net/docs_agend/questys_pub/MG41822/AS41861/AS41864/AI44292/DO44293/DO_44293.pdf

HOMELESS ENCAMPMENT EVICTION STORY AT:  http://blogs.ocweekly.com/navelgazing/2013/06/hunt_library_fullerton.php

YET ANOTHER “NO SHELTER, NO RELIEF” 15-POINT PLAN TO “END HOMELESSNESS” BY FUNDING POVERTY PIMPS:  http://www.anaheimptf.org/plan .

Demonstrations Against the Santa Cruz Sidewalk Snatchers Continue Tuesday 3:45 PM

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Title: Last Change to Stop the Sidewalk Snatchers
START DATE: Tuesday September 24
TIME: 2:45 PM – 3:45 PM
Location Details:
809 Center Council Chambers at City Hall across from the main library and the Civic Auditorium
Event Type: Protest
Contact Name Robert Norse
Email Address rnorse3 [at] hotmail.com
Phone Number 831-423-4833
Address 309 Cedar PMB #14B Santa Cruz, CA 95060
SUCCESSFUL PROTEST ON SUNDAY
After a rousing demonstration downtown on Sunday (see http://www.facebook.com/events/483912138373592/?context=create) Downtown for All activists will gather to oppose the Bryant-Robinson City Council’s steamroller seizure of the sidewalk beginning at 3 PM.

Neither the Santa Cruz Sentinel (though a reporter was there) nor indybay.org/santacruz chose to cover the protest.

Councilmember Micah Posner put in appearance as the protest was dispersing. I’ll hope to post my own impressions later today.

TUESDAY PROTEST WILL PROVIDE FOOD
Meet earlier and share some hot tasty soup, a strong dose of common sense and citizen outrage, and organizing for future action outside Council chambers.

A special tip of the hat to India Joze’s Jumbogumbo Joe Schultz for providing tasty vegan soup at both the Sunday and Tuesday protests.

THE LAWS
The new Shrink-Sidewalk-Space law changes are described at http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2013/09/09/18742960.php?show_comments=1#18743583 though the latest clarifications are included in the attached flyer.

The text of the proposed ordinances is at http://sire.cityofsantacruz.com/sirepub/cache/2/mgx3p145ppgk5z45tcxxok45/379504109232013080657617.PDF (the extended Smoking Ban) and;

http://sire.cityofsantacruz.com/sirepub/cache/2/mgx3p145ppgk5z45tcxxok45/379504209232013080741906.PDF (the Ban on Street Performing, Street Art, Street Vending, Political Tabling, & Peaceful Sparechanging on 95% of the Pacific Avenue sidealks and entirely in other business districts where sidewalks are adjacent to buildings).

COUNCIL’S RUSH JOB
Neither of the ordinances were vetted before the public in a Council Committee or Commission–as is customary with such changes. Nor were stakeholders in the major groups impacted consulted.

They were proposed with only 72-hour notice 2 weeks ago and passed by City Council 5-2 without only 2 minutes public input allowed per person (instead of the 3 minutes customary in a Public Hearing on a law change). There was no estimate of the amount of city money and police time already being spent enforcing these “don’t sit next to a building”-style ordinances

THE USUAL SUSPECTS
They are being pushed by some merchants in the DTA to sanitize the sidewalks and lure more shoppers in the belief that less vibrant street life is a bigger draw. The pretexts are “congestion”, “trip and fall hazard”, and “upgrading the tacky look”.

The ordinances also seem to be part of a continuing campaign to make Santa Cruz an “unwelcome” area for homeless people, hippies, and poor people generally.

Since it seems unlikely that the Council will disobey its Downtown Association, Santa Cruz Neighbors, and Take Back Santa Cruz masters, this meeting will also be an organizing opportunity to plan the next phase of the resistance.

More protests like Sunday’s street demonstration and the spontaneous Saturday Chalk-In (see http://www.flickr.com/photos/97198640@N08/ http://sfbay.craigslist.org/scz/eve/4078506873.html ) are a likely outcome of this kind of special interest repressive legislation. To challenge the surrender of traditional Santa Cruz street vitality to the prim Victorian standards of the New Puritans.



READ THE TEXT OF THE FLYER AT
https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2013/09/23/18743666.php 

SAVE VIBRANT STREET LIFE DOWNTOWN !

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(Text of flyer for Sept. 22, 2013, protest of latest anti-homeless legislation by City Council.)

(Flyer in pdf format at bottom)

SAVE VIBRANT STREET LIFE DOWNTOWN !
PROTEST, CHOW-DOWN, AND SPEAKOUT !
SUNDAY SEPTEMBER 22nd 1:30 PM
on Pacific Avenue in front of Forever Twenty-One
SING BACK AT CITY COUNCIL
TUESDAY SEPTEMBER 24th 3 PM
Council Chambers 809 Center St.
In a disguised attack on the entire non-commercial street scene, City Council will vote to restrict still further
the very limited public space currently allowed the community downtown. Under the guise of health concerns,
reducing congestion, and preventing a “trip-and-fall” hazard (none of which is documented), the reactionary new laws
crowd street performers, vendors, homeless people, tablers, local residents, & tourists together. This will classify
95% of the sidewalk as sterile “forbidden zones” with no resting, vending, or performing. This attack on street
counter-culture has nothing to do with “bad behavior.” It’s about “bigot aesthetics”-& homeless cleansing
clearing away visible poverty, traditional Santa Cruz diversity, and political activism. Council staff took no input
from those targeted. They provided no info on the costs of current selective enforcement, nor stats of real
problems. This merchant monopolization of sidewalk space is part of a broader “drive the homeless away” agenda.
THE NEW LAWS AS AMENDED
+++ Extends the Smoking Ban to the side streets one block in either direction from Pacific Avenue, including all
alleys & side streets & to to all surface parking lots between Laurel Street & Water St. perhaps private parking lots as
well. Ignores that current law already bans smoking 25′ from a door or window in the side streets.
+++ Bans tarps & blankets now used to display jewelry, artwork, political fliers, etc. and requires all devices
on the sidewalk to be “free-standing”. This okays guitar cases and cups, but arguably makes backpacks and
anything placed perpendicular to the sidewalk “display devices” requiring a 12′ distance from the next “device”.
+++ Reduces total allowed space to 12 sq ft area [3 “squares”] which now includes table, instruments, chair,
people & possessions—virtually requiring special permits. The ill-defined space requires a tape measure.
+++ Requires 12′ distance between display devices, isolating performers and forcing away other vendors.
+++ Reduces total available space 4/5 to exclude 95% of the sidewalk by expanding the “forbidden zones” to
14′ from buildings, street corners, intersections, kiosks, drinking fountains, public telephones, public benches, public trash containers,
information/directory signs, sculptures or artwork, ATM-style machines, outside street cafes, vending carts, and fences. This bans
sitting on any sidewalk that is narrower than 14′ (no sidewalk use in other business districts at all if buildings adjoin).
+++ In conjunction with Santa Cruz’s unique “Move Along Every Hour” law, police can then ban
individuals from any one spot for 24 hours & require them to move 100′–further reducing “legal” spots.
When added to the frequent merchant expansion of their displays onto the sidewalk in front of their shops this
exclusion of non-commercial activity will be nearly all-embracing. This, of course, suits those whose real
objective is to drive away the once-vibrant street scene in Santa Cruz and ‘Capitola-ize” the Avenue.
The resulting congestion will have people competing for the public spaces (when there is actually room for
all). It will severely crowd not just those using display devices, but others trying to sit down in the few
remaining spots available whether these be elderly residents, homeless locals, visiting travelers, UCSC
students, or naive tourists (who will, of course be selectively ignored or courteously directed to pay-cafes). And
either drive such people away or produce a hostile response and more conflict downtown. Police will be
given greater power to drive away a significant number of people currently using the sidewalk.
Flier by Norse of HUFF (Homeless United for Friendship & Freedom) 831-423-4833 www.huffsantacruz.org 9-22-13
DOWNTOWN FOR ALL ! NOT JUST THE RICH, CONSERVATIVE, & FEARFUL
+++ Use your video phone to capture evidence of authorities harassing the public on the streets downtown. Post on
You-Tube and www.indybay.org/santacruz . Send them to HUFF (rnorse3@hotmail.com ); pass on links.
+++ E-mail City Council at citycouncil [at] cityofsantacruz.com .and demand these ordinances be reviewed for cost,
effectiveness, impact, and unintended consequences. Send them back to citizen committees for public input.
+++ Spread opposition; Write local papers; Use Facebook & Twitter;. Ordinances become final a month after a
2nd vote in two weeks (October 24) Support businesses who oppose, publicize those who don’t.
+++ Post your own accounts of discrimination downtown. The Coffee Roasting Company, Verve, & Starbucks
refused service to homeless people with backpacks; CruzioWorks refused 24-hour service to homeless Dan Madison.
+++ Come to City Council 3 PM September 24th to oppose the 2nd Vote on these laws!
+++ Witness & support other street performers & streetfolk when they face harassment from authorities.
+++ Get familiar with the Downtown Ordinances, often misquoted by police and hosts. Copies available
through HUFF (Wednesdays 11 AM, Sub Rosa Cafe 703 Pacific) & soon at the Sub Rosa Cafe (703 Pacific).
+++ Prepare to sustain a long struggle by documenting police and merchant behavior regularly, organizing
solidarity between vendors, activists, and others seeking to use the public space. Report harassment accurately.
Flier by Norse of HUFF (Homeless United for Friendship & Freedom) 831-423-4833 www.huffsantacruz.org 9-19-13
DOWNTOWN FOR ALL ! NOT JUST THE RICH, CONSERVATIVE, & FEARFUL
+++ Use your video phone to capture evidence of authorities harassing the public on the streets downtown. Post on
You-Tube and www.indybay.org/santacruz . Send them to HUFF (rnorse3@hotmail.com ); pass on links.
+++ E-mail City Council at citycouncil [at] cityofsantacruz.com .and demand these ordinances be reviewed for cost,
effectiveness, impact, and unintended consequences. Send them back to citizen committees for public input.
+++ Spread opposition; Write local papers; Use Facebook & Twitter;. Ordinances become final a month after a
2nd vote in two weeks (October 24) Support businesses who oppose, publicize those who don’t.
+++ Post your own accounts of discrimination downtown. The Coffee Roasting Company, Verve, & Starbucks
refused service to homeless people with backpacks; CruzioWorks refused 24-hour service to homeless Dan Madison.
+++ Come to City Council 3 PM September 24th to oppose the 2nd Vote on these laws!
+++ Witness & support other street performers & streetfolk when they face harassment from authorities.
+++ Get familiar with the Downtown Ordinances, often misquoted by police and hosts. Copies available
through HUFF (Wednesdays 11 AM, Sub Rosa Cafe 703 Pacific) & soon at the Sub Rosa Cafe (703 Pacific).
+++ Prepare to sustain a long struggle by documenting police and merchant behavior regularly, organizing
solidarity between vendors, activists, and others seeking to use the public space. Report harassment accurately.
Flier by Norse of HUFF (Homeless United for Friendship & Freedom) 831-423-4833 www.huffsantacruz.org 9-19-13
DOWNTOWN FOR ALL ! NOT JUST THE RICH, CONSERVATIVE, & FEARFUL
+++ Use your video phone to capture evidence of authorities harassing the public on the streets downtown. Post on
You-Tube and www.indybay.org/santacruz . Send them to HUFF (rnorse3@hotmail.com ); pass on links.
+++ E-mail City Council at citycouncil [at] cityofsantacruz.com .and demand these ordinances be reviewed for cost,
effectiveness, impact, and unintended consequences. Send them back to citizen committees for public input.
+++ Spread opposition; Write local papers; Use Facebook & Twitter;. Ordinances become final a month after a
2nd vote in two weeks (October 24) Support businesses who oppose, publicize those who don’t.
+++ Post your own accounts of discrimination downtown. The Coffee Roasting Company, Verve, & Starbucks
refused service to homeless people with backpacks; CruzioWorks refused 24-hour service to homeless Dan Madison.
+++ Come to City Council 3 PM September 24th to oppose the 2nd Vote on these laws!
+++ Witness & support other street performers & streetfolk when they face harassment from authorities.
+++ Get familiar with the Downtown Ordinances, often misquoted by police and hosts. Copies available
through HUFF (Wednesdays 11 AM, Sub Rosa Cafe 703 Pacific) & soon at the Sub Rosa Cafe (703 Pacific).
+++ Prepare to sustain a long struggle by documenting police and merchant behavior regularly, organizing
solidarity between vendors, activists, and others seeking to use the public space. Report harassment accurately.
Flier by Norse of HUFF (Homeless United for Friendship & Freedom) 831-423-4833 www.huffsantacruz.org 9-19-13

Flyer in pdf – Flyer for 9-14, revised 9-22.pdf

Fiddling With the Sidewalk Snatchers in Berkeley

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NOTES BY NORSE:   Carol Denney has been puncturing pompous panjandrums up in Berkeley monthly for nearly two decades with her Pepper Spray Times (which comes out monthly in the Berkeley Daily Planet on-line) as well as her work with the satirical Jolly Roger Comedy Troupe, which I occasionally play on the stream of Free Radio Santa Cruz ( (http://tunein.com/radio/FRSC-s47254/ )  down here.
Unlike Santa Cruz, Berkeley activists mounted a successful campaign against a Sitting Ban last year.  The last significant successes Santa Cruz has had were to overturn the original 1994 total sidewalk Sitting Ban, passed in the spring of that year by the Rotkin-Kennedy Council.  It resulted in a nearly-unprecedented local court victory when Judges Salazar and Barton both ruled the ordinance unconstitutional.    This was prompted by scores of arrests when hundreds of people flooded downtown to protest by sitting down at eating food with Food Not Bombs at Cathcart and Pacific.
Undeterred, the Council quickly passed a more limited Sitting Ban (6′ from buildings).
Essentially rubbberstamping and ratifying illegal police behavior that selectively enforced and arbitrarily expanded the Ban, the Council gradually expanding it in 2002 (14′ from buildings) to include all manner of other objects that created “No Sitting” zones  (buildings, street corners, intersections, kiosks, drinking fountains, public telephones, public benches, public trash compactors, information/directory signs, sculptures or artwork, ATM-style machines, outside street cafes, vending carts, and fences).
This reduced real Sitting space to less than 5% of the Pacific Avenue sidewalk and constitutes a total ban in other business districts where there are buildings adjoining with a sidewalk less than 10′ wide.
In a successful attempt to split street performers from the homeless people and peaceful panhandlers that were true targets of these laws, the Council agreed to limit “forbidden zones” to 10′ distances from all those objects.
At 3 PM on Tuesday September 24th, City Council (809 Center St.) will broaden its attack to include street performers, street artists, political tablers, & street vendors by expanding the forbidden zones to 14′ and  requiring an additional 12′ distance between all of these.   In addition all “non-free standing” display devices such as blankets and tarps will be banned as an aesthetically unappealing “trip and fall” hazard  (and far too easy to use)
This second reading of the Ordinance if passed will make it law on October 24th.
Perhaps Carol Denney will come down to Santa Cruz to do a little fiddling here.
More info at:  https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2013/09/12/18743122.php?show_comments=1#18743584 .

Sitting on a Chair Playing the Fiddle: A Crime? The PRC Hearing

Sitting on a Chair Playing the Fiddle

Carol Denney
Sitting on a Chair Playing the Fiddle

Berkeley’s last election had a contest between anti-sitting law proponents and those who opposed making simply sitting down a crime. “Measure S”, the anti-sitting law, was defeated at the ballot. It was considered a civil rights victory. But who really won?

It was the most expensive campaign in Berkeley history. It was funded by well-heeled real estate interests and supported by merchant associations, most of the Berkeley City Council, and the Chamber of Commerce. Criminalizing the simple act of sitting down was described by otherwise intelligent people as a humane response to human need, since living on the streets was so hard.

So can you sit on the street and watch a cloud go by? The results are still not in.

I worked on the campaign opposing the anti-sitting law. A large part of our work was simply educational. Misleading pro-anti-sitting law materials in expensive, shiny colors were everywhere. But once people found out the extremity of the anti-sitting law, they generally opposed it. Most people realized that the law would most probably be used against some people but not others; it’s hard to ignore the Cheeseboard pizza eaters sitting undisturbed by the “Don’t Sit on the Median” signs on Shattuck in North Berkeley.

Two days before the election on Sunday, November 4, 2012, I put poetry opposed to the anti-sitting law from poets all over the Bay Area up on the fence near the corner of Haste and Telegraph and sat down with some musicians to play. We were trying to illustrate that simply sitting on a chair playing music, perfectly legal behavior under the law, would become a crime in two days if Measure S were to pass.
I got a ticket.

Artists were inside the fence perimeter touching up the mural facing Haste Street. People trickled by, enjoying a sunny day. We sat close to the fence, so there was seven feet of unobstructed nine-foot wide sidewalk in front of each of us, more than enough space for two wheelchairs to pass without issue. Our instrument cases were beside or under us, out of the way.

A few people stopped and asked about the “This Is Legal” sign and its significance, but our demonstration was pretty unobtrusive until Berkeley Police Officer Heather Cole rode up on her bicycle. She accused us of obstructing an empty sidewalk, and since I had carefully researched both the ordinance and the best place on Telegraph to make sure to cause no hardship for merchants or passersby, I found it pretty funny.

This wasn’t civil disobedience. This was carefully planned obedience to illustrate the absurd overreach of the proposed anti-sitting proposal. I had checked the law, checked with attorneys, planned every aspect of the demonstration so that no one and no one’s instruments would be jeopardized.
Officer Cole continued to threaten us, arguing that we were in the way despite there being no complaining party. The muralists were amazed. News that someone was getting a ticket for sitting on a chair playing the fiddle traveled fast up and down Telegraph. A reporter snapped pictures for the local paper. A Channel Two news crew began filming.

Officer Cole kept insisting that other people had no right to be on the sidewalk, either. She moved a nearby plein air painter to the curbside and hassled a guy about twenty feet away collecting signatures.

I had heard about this police harassment from friends on the street and people who worked at the Homeless Action Center and the East Bay Community Law Center, but it never occurred to me that an obviously political demonstration would be targeted, especially with Channel Two News cameras running.

We kept playing. Officer Heather Cole kept shouting “I’ll take you to jail if you don’t stop playing,” while we played Soldier’s Joy, a moment which made the news that night. But it was turning into a strange scene. People were shouting at the cops. Two attorneys showed up who tried to explain to Officer Cole that she was misapplying the law. Officer Cole’s supervisor showed up and argued with them. I finally said, fine; give me a ticket, hoping to get back to playing.

But our effort to illustrate legal behavior was in ruins. I still don’t know what Officer Cole’s problem was that day. Alameda County District Attorney Nancy O’Malley dropped the case against me after a couple of court dates.

I filed a complaint with the Police Review Commission which was not sustained. Can you sit on the sidewalk? The law is pretty clear about it, but no one else seems to be. A couple of the police review commissioners asked questions which implied that someone could be accused of obstructing the space one occupies with one’s body, a patent absurdity which, if true, would put us all in jail.

You can’t accidentally block a sidewalk under Berkeley’s law as written and clarified by former Police Chief Meisner’s memos. People can’t be accused of blocking a sidewalk for just being there, or for having a backpack or other personal items beside them, the law makes clear. But the police either don’t realize that or realize it and don’t care what the law actually says or what it was intended to do. The Police Review Commission, the Police Department, the City Council all look the other way as people continue to get these absurd tickets which at some point, if unaddressed, turn into jail time and court costs for which the public picks up the bill.

My ticket cost me at least three days of work, about ten cumulative hours of police officers’ time both in and out of court, court time for several pre-trial dates, and baffled a boatload of reporters, students, and Channel Two News watchers who are probably as confused as I am about why Berkeley would conduct the most expensive campaign in its history against sitting down if it is already against the law.

Is sitting down against the law? Maybe it depends on who you are. The Cheeseboard pizza eaters obviously get a pass. Maybe it depends on whether or not you are demonstrating against something like Measure S, a kind of content-based provision. Or maybe Officer Heather Cole hates traditional old-time music, a kind of fiddle-based objection.

It’s an Alice in Wonderland world up there on Telegraph. The hookah smoking caterpillar can’t figure it out, and neither can I. The muralists painted me into the mural after that day, for which, I suppose, I should thank Officer Heather Cole.

Say No to Stupid Laws Sunday 1:30 PM Downtown Santa Cruz at Pacific near Soquel [1 Attachment]

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CUT AND PASTE VERSION OF THE LATEST FLYER:

SAVE VIBRANT STREET LIFE DOWNTOWN !

PROTEST, CHOW-DOWN, AND SPEAKOUT !

SUNDAY SEPTEMBER 22nd 1:30 PM

on Pacific Avenue in front of Forever Twenty-One

SING BACK AT CITY COUNCIL

TUESDAY SEPTEMBER 24th 3 PM

Council Chambers 809 Center St.

In a disguised attack on the entire non-commercial street scene, City Council will vote to restrict still further the very limited public space currently allowed the community downtown. Under the guise of health concerns, reducing congestion, and preventing a “trip-and-fall” hazard (none of which is documented), the reactionary new laws crowd street performers, vendors, homeless people,tablers, local residents, & tourists together. This willclassify95% of the sidewalk as sterile “forbidden zones” with no resting, vending, or performing. This attack on street counter-culture has nothing to do with “bad behavior.” It’s about “bigot aesthetics”-& homeless cleansing clearing away visible poverty, traditional Santa Cruz diversity, and political activism. Council staff tookno input from those targeted. They provided no info on the costs of current selective enforcement, nor stats of real problems.This merchant monopolization of sidewalk space is part of a broader “drive the homeless away” agenda.

THE NEW LAWS AS AMENDED
+++ Extends the Smoking Ban to the side streets one block in either direction from Pacific Avenue, including all alleys & side streets & to to all surface parking lots between Laurel Street & Water St. perhaps private parking lots as well. Ignores that current law already bans smoking 25′ from a door or window in the side streets.
+++Bans tarps & blankets now used to display jewelry, artwork, political fliers, etc. and requires all devices on the sidewalk to be “free-standing”. This okays guitar cases and cups, but arguably makes backpacks and anything placed perpendicular to the sidewalk “display devices” requiring a 12′ distance from the next “device”.
+++ Reducestotal allowed space to 4′ X 4′ area which now includestable, musical instruments, chair,people & personal possessions—making playing without a special permit difficult if not impossible.
+++ Requires 12′ distance between display devices, isolating performers and forcing away other vendors.

+++ Reducestotal available space 4/5 to exclude 95% of the sidewalk by expanding the “forbidden zones” to 14′ from buildings, street corners, intersections, kiosks, drinking fountains, public telephones, public benches, public trash containers, information/directory signs, sculptures or artwork, ATM-style machines, outside street cafes, vending carts, and fences. This bans sitting on any sidewalk that is narrower than 14′ (no sidewalk use in other business districts at all if buildings adjoin).

+++ In conjunction with Santa Cruz’s unique “Move Along Every Hour” law, police can then ban individuals from any one spot for 24 hours & require them to move 100′–further reducing “legal” spots.

When added to the frequent merchant expansion of their displays onto the sidewalk in front of their shops this exclusion of non-commercial activity will be nearly all-embracing. This, of course, suits those whose real objective is to drive away the once-vibrant street scene in Santa Cruz and ‘Capitola-ize” the Avenue.

The resulting congestion will have people competing for the public spaces (when there is actually room for all).It will severely crowd not just those using display devices, but others trying to sit down in the few remaining spots available whether these be elderly residents, homeless locals, visiting travelers, UCSC students, or naive tourists (who will, of course be selectively ignored or courteously directed to pay-cafes). And either drive such people away or produce a hostile response and more conflict downtown. Police will be given greater power to drive away a significant number of people currently using the sidewalk.

DOWNTOWN FOR ALL ! NOT JUST THE RICH, CONSERVATIVE, & FEARFUL
+++ Use your video phone to capture evidence of authorities harassing the public on the streets downtown. Post on You-Tube and www.indybay.org/santacruz . Send them to HUFF (rnorse3@hotmail.com ); pass on links.

+++ E-mail City Council at citycouncil [at] cityofsantacruz.com .and demand these ordinances be reviewed for cost, effectiveness, impact, and unintended consequences. Send them back to citizen committees for public input.
+++ Spread opposition; Write local papers; Use Facebook & Twitter;. Ordinances become final a month after a 2nd vote in two weeks (October 24)Support businesses who oppose, publicize those who don’t.
+++ Post your own accounts of discrimination downtown. The Coffee Roasting Company, Verve, & Starbucksrefused service tohomelesspeople with backpacks;CruzioWorksrefused 24-hour service tohomeless Dan Madison.
+++ Come to City Council 3 PM September 24th to oppose the 2nd Vote on these laws!
+++ Witness & support other street performers & streetfolk when they face harassment from authorities.
+++ Get familiar with the Downtown Ordinances, often misquoted by police and hosts. Copies available through HUFF (Wednesdays 11 AM, Sub Rosa Cafe 703 Pacific) & soon at the Sub Rosa Cafe (703 Pacific).
+++ Prepare to sustain a long struggle by documenting police and merchant behavior regularly, organizing solidarity between vendors, activists, and others seeking to use the public space. Report harassment accurately.

 

Flier by Norse of HUFF (Homeless United for Friendship & Freedom) 831-423-4833 www.huffsantacruz.org9-19-13

Attachment(s) from Robert Norse

1 of 1 File(s)

Playing Pattycake with Crime Stats in Santa Cruz

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NOTE BY NORSE:  My comments are below.

Ramping up hysteria against “the crime wave” seems to be SC Patch’s Brad Kava’s favorite dish.

I see this kind of hysteria being turned to target homeless people–who are far more often victims of crime.

Even worse  is te offiicially-sanctioned and funded criminal practices such as destruction of homeless property, abusive ticketing for life-sustaining activity, and discriminatory treatment in coffee shops (Coffee Roasting Company, Starbucks, Verve), grocieries (New Leaf Market), other businesses (CruzioWorks), and public facilities (parks, the library, City Hall) not to mention exclusion from the Boardwalk for appearance.

Santa Cruz Crime is Worst in the County

Check the comparison to other county cities here.

Posted by Brad Kava (Editor) , September 18, 2013 at 06:53 PM
patch

Property crimes in Santa Cruz took a big bite in 2012, according to recent FBI statistics for the year. There were 59 cases of theft or burglary for every 1,000 people in the city of 61,000 people.

There were three murders in the city; 433 violent crimes; 34 rapes; 83 robberies; 313 assaults; and 3,585 property crimes.

For comparison in 2012 Watsonville had a violent crime rate of 4.8 known offenses per 1,000 residents. Santa Cruz reported a higher violent crime rate: 7.1. Capitola’s violent crime rate was similar to Watsonville’s, at 4.6 known offenses per 1,000 people.

The FBI releases annual reports here every year. See current Santa Cruz crimes here.

For Brad Kava’s “Crime Chart” go to http://santacruz.patch.com/groups/police-and-fire/p/santa-cruz-crime-is-up-watsonville-is-lower?ncid=newsltuspatc00000010 .

Robert Norse September 19, 2013 at 11:38 AM
As with the hysteria roused by Take Back Santa Cruz and The Clean Team in their destructive and agenda-heavy Needle-Shaking before City Council, this comparison ignores a more crucial analysis as to whether crime has increased from a decade or two ago.

When I spoke with Chief Kevin Vogel at City Council a few months back, he denied this. Now, there may be a certain cosmetic or defensive element involved there, but I’ve not seen stats indicating a rise in crime in Santa Cruz.

Which gos to whether this is all a “crisis”–the claim of the Comstock-Robinson majority on City Council. This mythology justifies the escalating scapegoating attacks on homeless people, the paranoid police state mentality and the absurd and misnamed “Public Safety Task Force”.

The Task Force seems designed to lay the groundwork for the favorite NIMBY/Downtown Association mythology–that Santa Cruz is too welcoming to hippies, travelers, and homeless people. The crime scare mythology (pushed regularly by the Sentinel) seems designed to create the rationale for further (futile and abusive) crackdowns on homeless people.

I’m sorry Brad and SC Patch have bought on to this calculated b.s., which is the kind of right-wing nonsense that feeds a crypto-fascist populist agenda.

It is, of course, the criminal behavior of the rich and the powerful (we can see this most clearly at the national level) that needs to be fought not economic fall-out like survival sleeping bt poor Santa Cruzans driven to the edge.

Brad Kava (Editor) September 19, 2013 at 08:55 PM
Robert…Don’t the numbers speak for themselves? And if you break them down further, you’ll find this isn’t happening to everyone in town, but a lot of the same people are causing the problems, many of them transients. Simple numbers show this. No opinion or spin needed.
Brad Kava (Editor) September 19, 2013 at 08:55 PM
Plus, for all the heat Watsonville gets, it’s numbers are considerably lower than those in Santa Cruz.
Brad Kava (Editor) September 19, 2013 at 08:56 PM
As for paragraphs..requested and waiting. Need to think in short bites.
Andi Sanchez September 19, 2013 at 10:36 PM
It’s beyond “just numbers” and “city council propaganda”. It’s CLEAR that transient crime has increased. We can all still have immense sympathy for the homeless while being incredibly angry at crime. Robert Norse, whose work I admire except when his blinders are on, is misguided here. And “right wing” just because we are concerned about the significant and measurable increase in violent and personal property crime? Robert, that is just so lame. You lost me.
Perhaps Brad can provide us with property crime stats. And not just comparisons with other cities, but with Santa Cruz at points in the past.

It’s true and infuriating that bike theft has increased. And as for “homeless crime”, it, of course, depends on your definition.

If you’re a member of the ludicrous “Task Force on Public Safety”, it looks like sleeping, camping, drug possession, trespass, violating the Downtown Ordinances, etc. are the kind of “crime” you’re interested in using as a pretext to drive homeless people away.

If you have sympathy for the homeless, then look at real crime not defining the homeless as criminals because of their real needs. I notice the property stats are missing even in comparison with other cities.

Also, none of those cities have two college campuses, a massive Beach Boardwalk, and a status as County Seat to contend with. Minor details, of course. We don’t want to interrupt the “War on Crime” narrative, now do we?

My sarcasm is directed at Brad Kava not at Andi Sanchez, incidentally. Kava’s been playing police PR sock puppet for some time. Sorry, Brad, but it’s true.

A Lawsuit Against the Homeless (Lack of) Services Center

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NOTE BY NORSE:  It’s ironic that it would be a Security Guard with a racial angle who exposes some of the abuses at the Homeless (Lack of) Services Center, which is currently  under heavy attack (for generally the wrong reasons) by right-wing Take Back Santa Cruz NIMBY’s.  Attempts to get fair policies for dealing with disabled people last year via then-Mayor and former HLOSC Board of Directors member Don Lane and Executive Director Monica Martinez failed to get a real hearing much less a solution.
Martinez and her bunch out there have provided testimony that helped convict homeless activists who protested the Sleeping Ban in 2010 (by falsely claiming there was “room” at the Paul Lee Loft and the River St. Shelter when the waiting list was weeks long).  They’ve resisted providing documentation that homeless people are on the Waiting List so they can present such evidence to the police to encourage no ticketing (though police then use other laws in their relentless drive to “end homelessness in Santa Cruz” (by driving homeless people out of the city and county).
Still the upchuck of vitriol and venom in the comments section following is an example of the toxic fuel that’s firing up hatred in town.  See
http://www.santacruzsentinel.com/santacruz/ci_24132950/security-guard-alleges-harassment-at-homeless-services-center?source=rss where I also leave a long comment.

Security guard alleges harassment at Homeless Services Center in Santa Cruz

By Stephen Baxter

Santa Cruz Sentinel

Posted:   09/19/2013 12:25:34 PM PDT
Click photo to enlarge

Jeremy Miller is suing the Homeless Services Center for mistreatment while he… ( Shmuel Thaler )

SANTA CRUZ — A former security guard at the Santa Cruz Homeless Services Center sued the center this week, alleging that he was harassed by its homeless clients, and wrongfully fired.

 

The lawsuit describes a “hostile work environment” at the center at 115 Coral St., where he was taunted with racial slurs by homeless people who ate and slept there.

“They have 101 policies and one of them needs to be to protect their employees from harassment,” said Eric Nelson, an attorney representing Jeremy Miller, the former employee.

“They could have helped their employee and they should have offered training other than ‘Just take it on the chin.'”

Miller, 32, also contends that the center did not pay him overtime or provide him proper meal breaks and work breaks. He is seeking money in the suit, but his attorneys said have not specified the amount.

A lawyer for the Homeless Services Center acknowledged Wednesday that Miller sometimes was called racial slurs by homeless clients — but he said there were far fewer instances than the daily problems Miller claimed.

The lawsuit really started with Miller’s firing, said Tom Griffin, an attorney for the center.

“It’s a very challenging group of individuals to work with,” he said of the homeless clients. “All of the people running the program have been exposed to hostile and verbal (abuse) instances in the course of their work,” he said.

“The Homeless Services Center takes their responsibilities to the community, their clients and their employees really seriously. They’re striving to do a better job with limited resources in all of those areas,” Griffin said.

Miller has lived in Santa Cruz for about 20 years and has been homeless himself. He received services as a client at the Homeless Services Center in 2011, which is where center staff got to know him.

The center provides two daily meals, showers, a mail room and beds for about 110 homeless people as well as other services on its campus. It is funded privately and also receives money from the state, Santa Cruz County and the city of Santa Cruz.

Miller volunteered there from July 2011 to March 2012, when he was hired as a campus supervisor.
 

 

WORKING CONDITIONS

 

A First Alarm guard often patrols outside the property, but Miller’s job as campus supervisor essentially was to patrol the lot and make sure there were no fights or illegal drug use. He wore a necklace badge and clothes similar to a mechanic — as he described it — in part because homeless clients often don’t respond well to uniformed guards.

Miller, who is black, said he was threatened several times and called the “N-word” when he tried to enforce the rules, Nelson said. He endured daily harassment and the homeless clients sometimes spit on him, pushed him and punched him, according to the lawsuit.

The threats included death threats to Miller and his family, the suit contends.

Miller said he did not receive training to deal with the center’s clients, “many of whom had serious mental disorders,” the complaint states. At least one other employee witnessed the threats — and was deposed by attorneys during settlement talks with Miller this month.

When Miller asked other staff members if he was qualified for the job, another staff member allegedly asked him, “Do you know how to take a punch?”
Griffin, an attorney for the Homeless Services Center, acknowledged it’s a difficult place to work.

“You’re talking about a group of individuals, some of which are confrontational, abusive and under the influence of a variety of intoxicants. But that’s our clientele,” Griffin said.

Because Miller had been homeless and received services at the center, the staff who hired him “were looking for a win-win situation,” Griffin said. “It turned out not to be a good fit.”

In part because Miller had been homeless and knew some of the clients, he was not universally respected in his new role.

“You have to separate yourself from people and maintain a level of professionalism,” Griffin said. Miller was unable to that, he said.

Miller’s lawsuit contends that none of the staff backed him up when he tried to enforce the rules, and that dynamic “emboldened” the homeless clients to harass him, Miller’s attorney said.
 

 

LAID OFF

 

The problems continued until July Fourth, when Miller was laid off ostensibly because the job description changed and he was no longer qualified. Miller’s attorneys contend that he was fired.

“Rather than addressing the harassment, (Homeless Services Center leaders) terminated Mr. Miller, thereby furthering the discrimination and retaliating against Mr. Miller based on his race,” according to the complaint.

Miller subsequently became homeless again, and returned to the center to eat a free breakfast on July 30.

“It was extremely humbling and humiliating for him to go back for breakfast,” his attorney said.

That day, a staff member of the center came up to Miller and asked him, “What the (expletive) are you doing here? Get the (expletive) out of here,” according to the lawsuit.

Griffin said that since then, the center’s leaders have apologized and allowed him to return for meals.

The center’s leaders also hired a new supervisor who has training as a security guard, Griffin said.

Claudia Brown, board president of the Homeless Services Center, declined to comment on the lawsuit.

Miller’s attorneys said they expect a response from the center’s attorneys in the coming weeks.

“I think the Homeless Services Center has recognized the importance of having a certain kind of personality — a certain skill set — to defuse and not escalate certain kinds of behaviors,” said Griffin.

“Miller didn’t have those skills and couldn’t effectively deal with them. They put some new requirements of the job to the person who comes in.”
 

Further Notes on the City’s Attack on Non-Commercial Street Life

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Members of the Public and City Council members:

City Council is scheduled to vote on the extended “forbidden zones” laws on September 24th.

Before they do, the public should know (and they are advised of) the follow:

CURRENT SMOKING BAN LAW IGNORED
An inconvenient fact not mentioned and an area not examined by staffers Hende and Collins in their no-input-from-smokers presentation on September 10th  was the current law:

Current law MC 6.04.060 (u)   provides:

    Areas which share their air space, including, but not limited to, air conditioning, heating, or other ventilation systems, entries, doorways, open windows, hallways, and stairways, with other enclosed areas in which smoking is prohibited. It shall be the responsibility of any person smoking outside where smoking is otherwise permitted to ensure that smoke does not enter any buildings where smoking is prohibited through open windows or doors; however, in no event shall smoking be allowed within twenty-five feet of any such door or open window or within twenty-five feet of any other air-intake facility through which air may flow into a building from outside that building. Notwithstanding the prohibition set forth in this subsection an employer may establish an outdoor employee smoking area within twenty-five feet of an employer’s service entrance door; provided, that said door is closed while employee smoking is taking place.
In other words, there’s a 25′ setback for smokers already on side streets and hence no need to create a total ban and thus a clustering on streets still further away.    Mentioning this inconvenient existing law might strip some of the wind from the sales of law supporters (though no clear evidence of complaints was presented by the SCPD or any other staffers around this issue and certainly no input from the affected group).
Additionally, as the tenor of the town turns more hateful under pressure from Take Back Santa Cruz and other hobophobic groups, recent accounts and common experience documents that  homeless people smoke at a significantly higher rate than the housed population (see http://articles.latimes.com/2013/jul/18/news/la-sn-homeless-smoking-20130718 ).   Hence this ordinance unduly impacts the poorest portion of our downtown community and seems likely to be used as another tool to move them out of the downtown, out of sight and out of town.
STREET PERFORMER IMPACT SEVERE; EVEN MORE SO FOR VENDORS
 this huge restriction of space (coming on the heels of an already sterilized sidewalk which irrationally excludes people from sitting, peacefully sparechanging, performing for donation, vending, and/or politically tabling from more than 75% of the sidewalk on Pacific Avenue (and 100% of virtually all sidewalks in other business districts—-which are less than 10′ wide.
Additionally, the notion that one street performer–much less two–can comfortably perform within a 4’X4′ are is ridiculous.  The notion that a vendor can do so and also have a chair and her or his personal possessions in that area is even more far-fetched.
And the notion that this all should be put on boxes or tables increases the burden on performers unnecessarily and to a ludicrous extreme in the interest of a hostile aesthetic–again imposed without any input from performers.
STREET PERFORMERS SPECIFICALLY INCLUDED NOT EXCLUDED
Collins and Hende (and City Attorney Barisone) misleadingly implied that street performers aren’t impacted by the display device provisions since they can “play anywhere on the avenue” (and that artists can “hold up their art with their hands” and so also not be impacted.
While it is true that a street performer without an open guitar case or cup or cap on the sidewalk is not limited as to where he or she may play, that’s only if they don’t have one of those items out to collect donations.  This, of course, ignores how street performers operate.  Cups, caps, guitar cases, etc. are indeed  “display devices”–as defined by the peculiar wording of the ordinance and have been treated as such by police for the last 19 years.
The specific definition of  MC 5.43.-000(b) defines display devices as “a table, rack, chair, box, cloth, stand, or any container, structure or other object used or capable of being used for holding or displaying tangible things, together with any associated seating facilities…”
In addition the few spaces left in the area street performers, political tablers, and vendors usually set up (between New Leaf Market and Locust St.)  are further constricted by the Move-Along law (another unique Santa Cruz DTA creation) which forbids using any particular space for more than 1 hour in any 24 hour period.    This means that even if a space is suddenly emptied of someone sitting, sparechanging, standing, performing, vending, or tabling, the person who used it before won’t be able to come back for a day.    Given the severe expansion of the “forbidden zones” (now covering 95% of the sidewalk), as well as the new 12′ distance required between display devices, this seems both likely and indeed designed to drive away those seeking to use the public space for any of those activities.

Santa Cruz Suffocation of Street Culture

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NOTE by NORSE:  Apologies to those who received the first version of this addition to my indybay article at https://www.indybay.org/comment.php?top_id=18742960 .  This is a corrected and amended version of that e-mail.
Most of the following I e-mailed to City Council.

The question, of course, is whether the community is prepared to tolerate this crackdown on street performers, vendors, smokers, and homeless people downtown and what effective resistance strategies can be mounted.  Next Sunday’s 1:30 PM protest in front of Forever Twenty-One may provide some ideas.

There’ll be an additional gathering at City Council on the afternoon of the 24th when Council votes pn the 2nd reading.

I played some of the staff’s defense of the proposed amendments on my show–archived at http://www.radiolibre.org/brb/brb120915.mp3 (about 2 hours into the audio file).

In response to what I heard, I wrote the following–some of which has already been detailed in the main article:

CURRENT SMOKING BAN LAW IGNORED
An inconvenient fact not mentioned and an area not examined by staffers Hende and Collins in their no-input-from-smokers presentation on September 10th  was the current law:

Current law MC 6.04.060 (u)   provides:

Areas which share their air space, including, but not limited to, air conditioning, heating, or other ventilation systems, entries, doorways, open windows, hallways, and stairways, with other enclosed areas in which smoking is prohibited. It shall be the responsibility of any person smoking outside where smoking is otherwise permitted to ensure that smoke does not enter any buildings where smoking is prohibited through open windows or doors; however, in no event shall smoking be allowed within twenty-five feet of any such door or open window or within twenty-five feet of any other air-intake facility through which air may flow into a building from outside that building. Notwithstanding the prohibition set forth in this subsection an employer may establish an outdoor employee smoking area within twenty-five feet of an employer’s service entrance door; provided, that said door is closed while employee smoking is taking place.

In other words, there’s a 25′ setback for smokers already on side streets and hence no need to create a total ban and thus a clustering on streets still further away.    Mentioning this inconvenient existing law might strip some of the wind from the sales of law supporters (though no clear evidence of complaints was presented by the SCPD or any other staffers around this issue and certainly no input from the affected group).

Additionally, as the tenor of the town turns more hateful under pressure from Take Back Santa Cruz and other hobophobic groups, recent accounts and common experience documents that  homeless people smoke at a significantly higher rate than the housed population (see http://articles.latimes.com/2013/jul/18/news/la-sn-homeless-smoking-20130718 ).   Hence this ordinance unduly impacts the poorest portion of our downtown community and seems likely to be used as another tool to move them out of the downtown, out of sight and out of town.

STREET PERFORMER IMPACT SEVERE; EVEN MORE SO FOR VENDORS
This huge restriction of space comes on the heels of an already sterilized sidewalk which irrationally excludes people from sitting, peacefully sparechanging, performing for donation, vending, and/or politically tabling from more than 75% of the sidewalk on Pacific Avenue.  It also (currently) impacts 100% of virtually all sidewalks in other business districts—-which are less than 10′ wide.

Additionally, the notion that one street performer–much less two–can comfortably perform within a 4’X4′ area is ridiculous.  The notion that a vendor can do so and also have a chair and her or his personal possessions in that area is even more far-fetched.

And the notion that this all should be put on boxes or tables increases the burden on performers & vendors unnecessarily and to a ludicrous extreme in the interest of a hostile aesthetic–again imposed without any input from performers.

STREET PERFORMERS SPECIFICALLY INCLUDED NOT EXCLUDED IN THE ATTACK
Staff members Collins and Hende (and City Attorney Barisone) misleadingly implied that street performers aren’t impacted by the display device provisions since they can “play anywhere on the avenue”.  There was also the absurd suggestion that artists can “hold up their art with their hands” and so also not be impacted.

While it is true that a street performer without an open guitar case or cup or cap on the sidewalk is not limited as to where he or she may play, that’s only if they don’t have one of those items out to collect donations.  This, of course, ignores how street performers operate sine the point of the performance usually is to collect donations.  What collects donation?    Cups, caps, guitar cases, etc.   These are indeed  “display devices”–as defined by the peculiar wording of the ordinance and have been treated as such by police for the last 19 years.

The specific definition of  MC 5.43.-000(b) defines display devices as “a table, rack, chair, box, cloth, stand, or any container, structure or other object used or capable of being used for holding or displaying tangible things, together with any associated seating facilities…”   Could anything be any clearer (or more sweepingly inclusive)?

In addition the few spaces left in the area street performers, political tablers, and vendors usually set up (between New Leaf Market and Locust St.)  are further constricted by the Move-Along law (another unique Santa Cruz DTA creation) which forbids using any particular space for more than 1 hour in any 24 hour period.    This means that even if a space is suddenly emptied of someone sitting, sparechanging, standing, performing, vending, or tabling, anyone who’s “set up a display device” during that day won’t be able to come back and use that space for a day.

Given the severe expansion of the “forbidden zones” (now covering 95% of the sidewalk), as well as the new 12′ distance required between display devices, the new laws seem both likely and indeed designed to drive away the “unsightly” cluttered scene that so offended Mathews, Comstock, & Robinson–who are essentially imposing their own aesthetic dictates upon the entire community.

SIGN-MAKING TOMORROW (Monday September 16th)  AT THE RED CHURCH 5-6 pm at Lincoln and Cedar Streets.  The Occupy Santa Cruz Homeless Justice Working Group and HUFF will be making signs for the September 22nd and 24th protests tomorrow at the Red Church.  Come on down and mingle with those who will be affected.

There is also some discussion of this issue on Steve Pleich’s website at Citizens for a Better Santa Cruz facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/groups/463105420413280/ ).  Pleich posted that I was permanently banned from the page for posting a link to the revealing and abusive Ken Collins video (https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2013/05/15/18736901.php ) illustrating, I think, the mentality behind these anti-homeless laws and many of those who support them  (Collins was weighing in heavily on the issue and I felt the video of his threatening and harassing a homeless camper was pertinent; Pleich’s strong censorship response, I think, shows too much concern with offend Take Back Santa Cruz sensibilities.