2013-05-29 Anti-Homeless Laws at Santa Cruz City Council

Defend those without homes! campaign page [link]
Santa Cruz is attacking houseless people [link]

2013-05-29 Mayor's Stacked and Packed "Public Safety Task Force" meets (posted by Norse)
[http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2013/05/28/18737491.php]
START DATE: Wednesday May 29
TIME: 6:00 PM - 9:00 PM
Location Details: Tony Hill Room of the Santa Cruz Civic Auditorium at Church and Center Streets [809 Center St., Santa Cruz, CA].
Contact Name Scott Collins [scollins (@) cityofsantacruz.org] [831-420-5030]
The Public Hysteria Citizen Task Farce (more officially known as the Public Safety Citizen Task Force) meets every other Wednesday, starting May 29.2013 through November, from 6:00 pm – 9:00 .
The draft minutes of the last meeting (and their first meeting) are at [http://www.cityofsantacruz.com/Modules/ShowDocument.aspx?documentid=32263].
The meeting room is relatively small (the group of 15 takes up more than half of the room). It can also be hard to hear some of the speakers. The first few meetings are scheduled to be "presentations" from police, poverty pimps, etc. with a meeting or two slated for public comment, but no public comment period regularly allowed.
More on the Task Farce at [http://www.cityofsantacruz.com/index.aspx?page=1924].
The group is stacked with right-wingers (a Seaside Company boss and a retired cop are chair and vice-chair), has no homeless advocates or homeless people. And there is no regular provision for public input, at least no Oral Communications period. The group was hand-picked by Mayor Hillary Bryant and excludes strong critics of the Take Back Santa Cruz-prompted hysteria.
This part of the on-going anti-homeless laws and increasingly brutal crackdown.
Scott Collins is the staff member who is recording and facilitating this meeting, but is not responsible for this posting and the commentary here.

RECENT POLICE ABUSE
 A recent report from W. notes that while crossing Union Grove parking lot, he was tackled and assaulted by Officers Warren and Ahlers, sending him to the hospital with 4 stiches in his lower lip.
He noted he'd earliler been twice ticketed for performing downtown, and denounced the officers for hounding him in colorful terms at which point they attacked him. I haven't run into Ahlers or Warren to get their side of the story. He goes to court for "interfering with an officer", of course. W. says the assault was viewed by numerous people. I don't know if it was videoed.


2013-05-28 "Anti-Homeless Laws at Santa Cruz City Council"
posted 2013-05-26 by Robert Norse [http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2013/05/26/18737433.php]:
Tuesday, May 28, 3:00 PM - 4 PM
Location Details: 809 Center St. Santa Cruz City Council Chambers

NO LOITERING ON THE MEDIANS
Santa Cruz is now considering an anti-homeless "no loitering on the median" law (not just a study of an anti-homeless law as Monterey was doing with Sit-Lie, the Smoking Ban, and the Parking-Overnight Ban proposals). This is item #15 on the Afternoon Agenda for Tuesday 5-28 at 3 PM (likely to come up slightly later).
As is typical for those trying to restrict public spaces and criminalize homeless presence without saying so, the staff report (and the complaint anti-homeless "Public Safety" Committee) uses a "public safety" pretext without any statistical documentation.
Even the staff report (go to [http://sire.cityofsantacruz.com/sirepub/mtgviewer.aspx?meetid=461&doctype=AGENDA] click on item #15) acknowledges there is no documentation backing up the "Public Safety" cover story for this latest "pander to prejudice" proposal.

NO STATS JUST NIMBY NATTERING AND SCPD PATTERING
No statistics indicating any accidents involving people, no car crashes--simply some traffic signs crashed into (which has nothing to do with people on the median--who may actually make drivers more careful).
The Terrazas-Mathews-Comstock "Public Safety" committee also used a police report about complaints about folks on two medians and anecdotal anti-panhandler NIMBYtalk to ratify a staff proposal. That proposal impacts ALL medians and roundabouts in the city. If it passes (as is likely without massive protest), we shall have "thou shalt not loiter" restrictions starting July 11th.
The ordinance as written not only outlaws traditional use of the medians downtown (in front of Zachary's, for instance) for socializing, but will outlaw holding political signs during the regular protests that happen.

PUBLIC HYSTERIA COMMITTEE RUBBERSTAMPED THIS LAW
The right-wing crowd attending the "Public Safety" Committee meeting (Deborah Elston of Santa Cruz Neighbors, for instance) made it clear that their target was "panhandlers" (by which they meant poor homeless panhandlers, not City Council enablers of million dollar De Sal consultants, of course).
The gruesome threesome making up the committee also noted they'd be considering stay-away orders from public parks (after citation and prior to any charges being filed or trial), triple-fine zones throughout the city for (homeless) infraction offenses, more park rangers replacing security guards, and other anti-homeless delicacies.
Repeated twice in the no-First-Amendment-on-the-Medians ordinance is the homeless-hostile rhetoric which reveals the ordinance's true targets: " a purpose other than...assistance in crossing the street including the purposes of disorderly conduct, solicitation of money, solicitation of prostitution, consumption of alcoholic beverages, or other activity not related to crossing the street. Ironically all these activities are already illegal (including panhandling someone in a vehicle).
Making illegal asking for help with signs is grossly abusive of the First Amendment, of course, as well as a callous slap in the face at those in need. It is also a violation of elementary morality, as well as a sign of the desperation and determination of NIMBY bigots to clear the streets of visibly poor people messing up the fantasy of healthy happy neighborhoods.

"DISORDERLY CONDUCT IN PARKS AND BEACHES" LAW
A second ordinance being proposed (item #16 on the afternoon agenda) proposes up to $1000 fine and six months or a year in jail for someone who "willfully harasses or interferes" with a city employee in the park or on the beach--which will create a wealth of jury trials for those who want to challenge them.
Attempts of the city attorney to later reduce such measures to infractions (which would strip folks of their trial and public defender rights) comes into conflict with state law limiting such shenanagans.
The real focus, however, seems to be Section 2 which provides for 24 hour stay away orders from the park at the whim of the offended officer if any "no smoking", "no sleeping" or other crimeless crime citations are issued. And again the ordinance provides for misdemeanor penalties. Dangerous, overbroad, unconstitutional, and targeted legislation.
The restrictions of these ordinances do provide for an interesting Constitutional challenge for those willing to face jail (say by holding up a political sign in a park after dark or on a median).
The police-partial city staff got the 24-hour stay away ordinance from San Jose and Santa Clara County. Councilmember Posner reported that the ordinance did receive two negative votes in the Parks and Recreation Commission when it was heard there (no publicity either before or after).
The ordinance will require a second reading to pass, so in theory there will be a second opportunity to fight back, perhaps with help from folks in other cities fighting similar ordinances.

HOPE FROM A CITY TO THE SOUTH
Monterey activists recently forced an unanimous vote to turn down even a study of a Sitting Ban (Sit/Lie) Ordinance at last Tuesday's City Council meeting there. See [http://www.monterey.org/en-us/cityhall/themontereychannel/councilmeetingsvideoondemand.aspx] and click on the evening meeting, to witness the outpouring of public testimony against it).
The Monterey City Council did forward for study a "no smoking" ordinance and a "no parking overnight" law which pretty clearly were motivated to give the police "tools" to "move along" homeless people--which is the point of the two Santa Cruz laws.

VIDEOS
Videos of police (and private citizens) harassing people under the Downtown Ordinances are helpful tools for those of us resisting these not-so-subtle attacks on the poor outside. Take them and post them!
I may be showing a video myself at the 5 PM session of City Council during Oral Communications.
It's [ ... ending not included ... ]
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2013-05-29 "A Few Comments" by Robert Norse
The fast-track bigotry of the City Council majority--and in the case of the expanded Misdemeanor 24-hour stay-away-order law, the unanimous bigotry--has a swift silent deadliness to it. Such was my feeling at the Council this afternoon. Bryant didn't say a word about either ordinance (at least while I was listening), but simply voted for them.
Lane and Posner did point out that ordinances that involve people "feeling safe" but that don't address objective situations where there are real threats, treating perception as reality--is not a good way to go.
Heather Rider, Chief Ranger, praised the 24-hour Stay Away Order law, saying it "had worked well" in San Jose, but she had no stats--nor did Deputy-Chief Clark or Chief Vogel--both of whom were in the room. They didn't need them, of course. The "Take Back Santa Cruz" majority was in full command.

THE PATHOS OF POSNER
Posner had the faulty notion that part of the 24-hour stay-away ordinance was analygous to the Bike church's telling someone to get out "but not involving them in court". But the 24-hour stay-away can't be invoked unless a citation is isssued, meaning fines of $200-300 with the additional penalty of immediate eviction from one of the few spots where homeless people are allowed to linger---during the day only, of course. Plus, of course, there's the ever-friend 3-unattended-infractions-are-a-misdemeanor law and its ugly brother the all-unattended-infactions-after-the-3rd-become-misdemeanors laws passed back in 2009 or thereabouts (with the vote of Lane and no public opposition from Posner--not on the Council at that time).
Posner also had his usual lickspittle praise for park employees--ignoring their role in the destruction of homeless property, the harassment of homeless people, and the ongoing elimination of homeless people from public spaces. I've grown real tired of his endless paens of praise to staff for their "good work". These laws are as far from good work as you can get. It's a kind of simpering subservience here that I sense--a desire to be "a part of the gang". In this case, the Gang of 7. The price for that kind of membership is pretty high.
Posner and Lane did date to utter the "h" word at points. Posner tried to organize some kind of write in opposition (and indeed e-mails opposing the law outweighed those supporting it by 10-4 or thereabouts)--but only to the Median ordinance. His endless praise of the staff--who are largely responsible for this wretched laws, lifted wholesale from other cities with no examination of the legal, social, and fiscal consequences there--makes me ill.

DEEPER INTO NAUSEA
Even more nauseating were the remarks of Cynthia Mathews, who tried to defend the initial language of the ordinance which prescribed misdemeanor (up to a year in jail and $1000 fine) for violating Section 13.08.090(b): "Any person who by his or her conduct or by threatening or profane language annoys, willfully molests, or unreasonably interferes with the use of a City park of beach by any other person". Her prudish suggestion that coarse free speech should result in immediate exclusion and ultimate jailing has a Big Nurse oppressive feel to it that's hard to describe.
I believe the words "annoy" and "profane" were removed (a little unsure of this).
But the expanded Section 13.08.100 makes the police officer, in the words of one attorney I spoke with, "Judge, jury, and executioner" as far as the 24-hour stay away order. Any citation or arrest becomes the pretext for excluding someone for a day from not just a park or beach but "any property maintained by the Parks and Recreation Department" which includes City Hall, the Library, Pacific Avenue, the Levee, and many other properties around the City under threat of a year in jail or $1000 fine.

PUBLIC COMMENT IN FREEFALL
Earlier in the meeting the Mayor moved to cut short speaker Gillian Greensite's critique of cutting back the City's Commission for the Prevention of Violence Against Women meetings by 50%. I was banned from speaking to the item, after spending my time persuading a Councilmember to allow the public to speak to it as a specific item to be separately voted on. At my urging, Posner pulled the item off the Consent Agenda for an independent staff report and vote, and then went into his usual puff-and-praise of the staff. When I attempted to speak to the item, as is customary when such items are pulled off the agenda, Bryant cut me off saying I had "already spoken" (by trying to persuade them to allow the item be opened to public comment), and Posner not only declined to support me but started gesturing with his thumb that I should leave.
It's been so long since we had a Consent Agenda amenable to standard public comment as is the case in most cities. In those cities, any member of the public can pull an item from the block vote on the Consent Agenda, and demand that it be discussed and voted on separately. (This is also true at the Board of Supervisors) It's chilling to think that the entire Council is so ignorant of this basic process and so complaint with what the Mayor wants to do that they'd not only go along with this censorship but express annoyance that I'd challenge it (which is what Posner did). I've prepared a Brown Act complaint demanding the item be revisited.

LIGHT IN THE GLOOM
I welcome Steve Pleich's comments, of course, but remind people that where Steve has a position of power (as on the ACLU where he is vice-chair), for the last year he's taken no actions to bring up resolutions defending homeless people there. (See "ACLU Chair Closes Monthly Boad of Directors Meeting, Homeless Issues Off the Agenda" at [http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2013/05/21/18737162.php].). Steve was also conspicuous by his absence at the Council meeting (though it's hard to blame anyone for not wanting to play with a stacked deck). As the Homeless Legal Assistance Project person, you would have thought he would have applied his legal acumen here.
The one encouraging thing about the meeting was the number of people who showed up to oppose the ordinances and who wrote in. Though the fix was clearly in (Comstock, Robinson, Terrazas, and Bryant said virtually nothing), the overwhelming majority of speakers and e-mail was against the ordinances.
The question now is whether folks can find a way to resist or challenge the ordinances, and more important to defend more basic survival rights of homeless people as the darkness deepens.
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2013-05-29 "Earlier Comments on the Monterey City Council Meeting of 5-14" by Robert Norse:
Indybay writer and videojournalist Alex Darocy and I were at the Monterey City Council meeting last night. The agenda seemed designed to drive away by exhaustion homeless people and advocates who packed the chamber.
The homeless issue was split in half between proposed noxious anti-homeless ordinances "to be studied" and solutions "to be discussed" with other candytreats-for-the-hotel-owners agenda items shoved in front of the two homeless topics. As a result Alex and I only stayed until 11 PM when discussion of the first item had finally concluded. The people won one out of three--with any "study" of the Sit/Lie Ban thrown out, but likely "no smoking downtown and on the wharf" and "no parking overnight" laws to come out of new studies--passed by the Council.
Mayor Della Sala seemed markedly more tolerant than past Santa Cruz panjandrums, which may have been due to the size and restiveness of the audience. He warned people not to clap, which resulted in sustained clapping in response to his warning. I made the occasional off-hand "First Amendment!" shout (but no "don't act like a Nazi" salutes). Santa Cruz mayors have similarly tried to "quiet the public", claiming it's "disrespectful" and "takes up too much time." No doubt in Santa Cruz soon we'll hear it's a 'Public Safety hazard" or as former Mayor Fitzmaurice warned, "it frightens away the public" for folks to be too demonstrative.
Unlike Santa Cruz, Monterey City Council rules "allow" community members to require a separate voice and discussion on Consent Agenda matters which prolonged the meeting, but provided a shadow of real democracy, long absent from Santa Cruz City Council meetings. Councilmember Alan Haffa, a professor and sometime Occupy Monterey Peninsula member was often outspoken in opposition to anti-homeless measures. He also, however, had a usual Liberal Control Freak aspect to him, where he was impatient of other views, desirous of combining items to cut short testimony (though with an understandable objective of getting testimony before people collapsed from exhaustion), difficult to access individually).
Police were in the chamber, but their response to a rather annoying if sincerely motivated homeless interrupter was to talk with him, escort him outside at one point, allow him back in, and generally show far more respect than has traditionally been shown to discordant voices in Santa Cruz.
To view the public and City Council discussion of the homeless items in question (Items #10 and 16), go to [http://www.monterey.org/en-us/cityhall/themontereychannel/councilmeetingsvideoondemand.aspx].
Check out the Afternoon and Evening Sessions of the May 22nd meeting as well as the April 24th Homelessness Study Session. Some of the testimony is moving, some annoying, but there is not a single mention of "needles" at least on the 22nd. Looks like Take Back Santa Cruz hasn't established a Take Back Monterey chapter yet.
There is also less phony-balony "Public Safety" cover.
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CORRECTIONS TO AN EARLIER STORY
I reported on a Monterey City Council meeting that turned back 1 of 3 anti-homeless measures being proposed for study several days ago. There were several significant typos in the story ("11 AM" should have read "11 PM"; "two out of three" should have read "one out of three"). Just to clear up any confusion, I'm forwarding a corrected version of my notes, with apologies.
The story I was commenting on is at [http://www.montereyherald.com/ci_23296764/compassion-or-crackdown]. There are also some interesting comments there after the story.
The lengthy testimony at the Monterey City Council (though some of it fuzzy and distorted) is heartening and can be found at [http://www.ampmedia.org/asx/24614.asx]. Unlike Santa Cruz City Council, everyone was allowed three minutes--even though it took hours to hear everyone. The force of that testimony may have been responsible for the defeat of any further consideration of the Sit/Lie law (which has been Santa Cruz law since 1994--when we were the first City to adopt such a regulation in California).

NO LOITERING ON THE MEDIANS
Santa Cruz is now considering an anti-homeless "no loitering on the median" law (not just a study of an anti-homeless law as Monterey was doing with Sit-Lie, the Smoking Ban, and the Parking-Overnight Ban proposals). This is item #15 on the Afternoon Agenda for Tuesday 5-28 at 3 PM (likely to come up slightly later).
As is typical for those trying to restrict public spaces and criminalize homeless presence without saying so, the staff report (and the complaint anti-homeless "Public Safety" Committee) uses a "public safety" pretext without any statistical documentation. Even the staff report (go to http://sire.cityofsantacruz.com/sirepub/mtgviewer.aspx?meetid=461&doctype=AGENDA click on item #15) acknowledges there is no documentation backing up the "Public Safety" cover story for this latest "pander to prejudice" proposal.
The Terrazas-Mathews-Comstock committee also took anecdotal complaints and a police report about two medians to ratify a staff proposal that ALL medians in the city now have "thou shalt not loiter" restrictions. This not only outlaws traditional use of the medians downtown (in front of Zachary's, for instance) for socializing, but will outlaw holding political signs during the regular protests that happen.
The right-wing crowd attending the meeting (Deborah Elston of Santa Cruz Neighbors, for instance) made it clear that their target was "panhandlers" (by which they meant poor homeless panhandlers, not City Council enablers of million dollar De Sal consultants, of course). The gruesome threesome making up the committee also noted they'd be considering stay-away orders from public parks (after citation and prior to any charges being filed or trial), triple-fine zones throughout the city for (homeless) infraction offenses, more park rangers replacing security guards, and other anti-homeless delicacies.
Repeated twice in the ordinance is the homeless-hostile rhetoric which (unnecessarily) reveals the ordinance's true targets: " a purpose other than...assistance in crossing the street including the purposes of disorderly conduct, solicitation of money, solicitation of prostitution, consumption of alcoholic beverages, or other activity not related to crossing the street. Ironically all these activities are already illegal (including panhandling someone in a vehicle).
Making illegal asking for help with signs is grossly abusive of the First Amendment, of course. It is also a violation of elementary morality, as well as a sign of the desperation and determination of NIMBY bigots to clear the streets of visibly poor people messing up the fantasy of healthy happy neighborhoods.

"DISORDERLY CONDUCT IN PARKS AND BEACHES" LAW
A second ordinance being proposed (item #16 on the afternoon agenda) proposes up to $1000 fine and six months or a year in jail for someone who "willfully harasses or interferes" with a city employee in the park or on the beach--which will create a wealth of jury trials for those who want to challenge them. Attempts of the city attorney to later reduce such measures to infractions (which would strip folks of their trial and public defender rights) comes into conflict with state law limiting such shenanagans.
The real focus, however, seems to be Section 2 which provides for 24 hour stay away orders from the park at the whim of the offended officer. And again provides for misdemeanor penalties. Dangerous, overbroad, unconstitutional, and targeted legislation.
The restrictions of the ordinance does provide for an interesting Constitutional challenge for those willing to face jail (say by holding up a political sign in a park after dark and then ignoring, i.e. "interfering" with a uniformed thug's demand that you leave, or leaving and then coming back the next day during the daylight hours with a sign inside the 24-hour forbidden time zone time).