🚀 go-pugleaf

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>From Robert Norse Fri Feb 2 08:40:30 2007
To:	 huffsantacruz@yahoogroups.com
Subject:	 [huffsantacruz] Confronting Santa Cruz Vice Mayor Coonerty
on Repression of the Homeless


Confronting the Coonerty in his Lair: Another Protest at B.S. Santa
Cruz
by Robert Norse Friday Feb 2nd, 2007 8:32 AM

1-3 PM Today (Friday February 2nd) A Gathering in the "Free Speech
Zone"
Outside Vice-Mayor Coonerty's Bookshop Santa Cruz Asking for Answers
to
Simple Questions About Homeless Survival Shelter and Public Access to
Information: Get Fed (Thanks to Jumbogumbo Joe Schult'z Vegan
Yumyums), Have
Fun, Sing & Sign Petitions! Help the Vice-Mayor hear the voice of
those his
cops are harassing.

CONSTITUTIONAL EXPERT NEEDS CONSTITUTIONAL COACHING
Vice-Mayor Coonerty, who also teaches courses in Constitutional Law,
at UCSC
and has a law degree, has stated that it's constitutional and
acceptable for
Santa Cruz to have a law that bans all outdoor and vehicular sleeping
11 PM
to 8:30 AM. This law seems to fly in the face of the L.A. Jones
decision,
which requires L.A. to set aside a safe sleeping area at night.
[http://www.ca9.uscourts.gov/coa/newopinions.nsf/
8138B5E4723C6FE988257150 005B327E/$file/0455324.pdf?openelement ]

City Attorney-for- Life John Barisone has given an opinion to the
City
Council in secret, which Mayor Reilly and Vice Mayor Coonerty decline
to
release to the public. We are asking that this opinion be made public.
They
say this requires a vote of the City Council, but have so far refused
to
schedule such a vote.

SCANT SHELTER, MORE HARASSMENT
Meanwhile each night there is shelter for less than 160 of the City's
1500-2000 homeless people and a law that fines them $90 for Sleeping
outside. Enforcement in the primary sleeping area--the Pogonip--has
been
increased exponentially.

With a new City Council appropriation of $700,000 last month, four
additional Community Service Officers and three Park Rangers have
been
assigned to harass and ticket survival campers. Homeless property,
according
to Ranger John Wallace, is being routinely destroyed instead of being
stored
(as the federal court has now ordered in Fresno:
[ http://indybay.org/newsitems/2006/12/15/18337877.php ]
Another $700,000 appropriated for "shelter" at the Homeless Service
Center
won't expand existing shelter significantly, just replace the ISSP
church
program. That program is apparently going bankrupt because of the cost
of
busing people to distant church floors.

COONERTY SILENT ON KEY ISSUES
Coonerty has refused to say why he feels the City's Sleeping Ban law
is
constitutional. His e-mails and phone messages have been limited to
saying
he "disagrees" with activists who believe the Ban violates the Jones
decision.

We hope to persuade him to come out of his lair today and talk to us
at
length, answer questions, and explain his position. He might also
indicate
where 1500-2000 homeless community members can legally and safely
sleep,
particularly the vulnerable.
His phone number at City Hall is 420-5027. An alternate phone number
which
he provides on his City Hall voicemail is 423-8939.

LATEST SENTINEL ASSAULT SCARE LOOMS
Homeless people have traditionally been 4 to 10 times more vulnerable
to
assault than housed people (according to the city's own statistics in
1999).
So now more than ever, it's important that those who sleep outside be
able
to do so in groups, in well-lighted areas, and with the ability to
contact
police if they so choose. All these possibilities are lessened or
foreclosed
by the city's Sleeping Ban enforcement policy.

My own interviews with homeless people (specifically homeless women)
do NOT
indicate an upsurge of violence against homeless women outside,
Sentinel
stories notwithstanding. Still, the usual level is bad enough for us
to
demand long overdue restoration of constitutional rights for the
vulnerable
poor.

UPDATES ON THE "JONES" DECISION
The Jones decision is currently law and precedent in all nine states
over
which the 9th Court of Appeals has jurisdiction. It is currently on
appeal,
with no decision made yet as to whether it will be reviewed by a
larger ("en
banc") panel of the Court, as has been requested by the City of Los
Angeles.

The City of L.A. is currently engaged in settlement negotiations with
the
ACLU down south with the next mediation session scheduled for mid-
February.
While all this goes on, the time is ripe for an appeal of our own ban,
using
the Jones decision as precedent.

Meanwhile the Cities of Los Angeles and San Diego have reportedly
stopped
enforcement of their Sleeping Bans at night. Richmond changed its law
to
incorporate Jones decision language (stopping police for citing or
arresting
for "camping" unless shelter is available). The "Progressive"
Reilly-Coonerty City Council in Santa Cruz refuses to do this.

Now, while the Jones decision is the law in California, we are most
likely
to get a favorable decision at the District Court level if we file a
lawsuit. The threat of that kind of decision is what forced Richmond
and San Diego to either change their law or suspend enforcement. We
need to present
the same demands here, with public protest and legal action. That's
what the
continuing visible protest outside Coonerty's Bookshop is all about.

HARASSMENT OF THE HOMELESS INTENSIFIES AND CONTINUES
The LAPD has also ratcheted up sleeping and camping arrests during the
day
and bogus drug arrests at night. I recently interviewed L.A.
Community
Action Network activist Becky Dennison
[ http://www.radiolib re.org/brb/brb070201.mp3 ] who describes the
situation
there. See also
http://www.laweekly.com/news/dissonance/between-a- rock-and-a-soft-
place/15544/ ]

In Santa Cruz, Public Works crews continue to roam the Pogonip
destroying
campsites and compacting homeless property, without storing it as
required
by state law and court decision. Ranger Wallace simply tacks up a
notice,
and then sends in the crews several days later, according to his own
account. Coonerty has been informed of this and not taken any action
that
I've heard of.

COONERTY & DAD BOGUS PROGRESSIVES ON HOMELESS ISSUE
Ryan Coonerty not only supports the Sleeping Ban, but initiated and
pushed
the Parking Garage Trespass Law last year which bans anyone from
entering a
parking garage (or Parking Lot #9 on Elm St.) unless going to or from
a car
or bicycle parked there. (It also bans those who've paid to park from
remaining for more than 15 minutes).

He has also pushed for expanded police powers against "unruly
partyers", for
banning homeless car parking at night on the West side and downtown,
for
expanded "ban the homeless" powers for Parks and Recreation boss
Danettee
Shoemaker, and rubberstamp support for the SCPD and out-of-control
Ranger
John Wallace.

Neal Coonerty--now Supervisor, previously Mayor--though selling t-
shirts
with the logo "Keep Santa Cruz Weird", having one of the few open
public
bathrooms in town, and occasonally allowing homeless people to sleep
outside
his bookstore (technically illegal even with his permission) was the
author
of the original anti-homeless Downtown Ordinances (banning nighttime
peaceful panhandling, even with a sign, sitting in most places,
turning
performing and political petitioning into a "get the police
department's
permission" event).

IF YOU MISSED THE PROTEST, WE'D STILL LOVE YOUR HELP!
HUFF (Homeless United for Friendship & Freedom), the HRO (Human
Rights
Organization) , Humanity for Homeless, and the Cabrillo Homeless
Rights Task
Force can use your help. We're looking for help getting together
tickets
over the past year and investigating court records for a potential
lawsuit.

We need help with flyers, press releases, phonetreeing, and e-mailing.
We're
looking for outreach people to get in touch with activists in other
cities
and to contact allied activists in Santa Cruz. We need folks to write
letters, go to (shudder) Council meetings, and keep tabs on local cops
and
bureaucrats.

Give a call to 423-4833. Check out the HUFF, HRO, and HfH websites.
Listen
to Free Radio Santa Cruz's Bathrobespierre' s Broadsides show every
Thursday
6-8 PM and Sundays 9:30 AM - 1 PM (archived at
http://www.huffsantacruz.org).

The more help we get, the more chance we have of restoring basic
rights to
those outside.
This event is also part of the Vigil Against Two Wars (the War on the
Poor
in Santa Cruz and the War/Occupation Against Iraq). We urge the
community to
mobilize resistance against both.

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