John Colby's Freedom of Information Campaign against Human Rights abuse in Santa Cruz [link]
* Santa Cruz retaliates against Human Rights advocate John Colby [link]
* Human Rights abuse in itty-bitty Santa Cruz [link]
"Request governing statutory and regulatory authorities supporting your position"
2014-01-23 letter from Dr. John Colby to Amy Bernstein, Director of Communications for the Federal Transit Administration of the U.S. Department of Transportation:
Dear Director Bernstein,
U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein's San Francisco staff have offered to determine what the actual jurisdiction for my civil rights complaints against the Santa Cruz Metro Transit District (SCMTD) and the Santa Cruz Police Department (SCPD) about incidents which occurred and might still occur in relation to services (or denial thereof) by the SCMTD and SCPD's defending them by refusing to conduct necessary investigations therefore impeding my disabled homeless clients Ms. Laura Boyd and her 10 year old daughter Portia from exercising their disability rights under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and (potentially) Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973.
The initial incident:
The initial incident occurred on or about Tuesday, January 14, 2014 around 3:45 PM. Ms. Boyd reported to me that the window clerk took her money but denied her service to give her a disabled pass in return. When she demanded to speak to a supervisor, she was ganged up on by several SCMTD security guards harassing her, trying to chase her out of the Metro bus station. After she told them I was going to call the police, they scattered, then the supervisor came out with her pass and gave it to her. This was attempted theft, denial of services based upon disability and criminal harassment under color of law attacking Ms. Boyd's emotional disabilities, causing her extreme distress and making her fearful.
The second incident:
On or about both Tuesday and Wednesday, January 21 and 22, 2014, SCMTD ParaCruz staff refused to make a reasonable immediate disability accommodation so that Ms. Boyd could travel to the Main Soquel Drive Palo Alto Medical Foundation (PAMF) urgent care clinic where we believed (at the time) that she required tests to determine whether she had a pulmonary embolism — a life threatening condition. ParaCruz Dispatcher Daniel LNU and the female ParaCruz Transit dispatcher — who I can name later — working the night before denied Ms. Boyd and Portia a reasonable immediate disability accommodation when I called to schedule a ParaCruz ride for Ms. Boyd and Portia at or just after 5:05 PM. I asked that an ADA coordinator speak to me after being denied this accommodation, as well as leaving two voicemails after speaking to Daniel LNU on Wednesday morning to SCMTD General Manager Les White asking him to call me ASAP to facilitate the accommodation I had requested. Not only did Mr. White never return my calls, but every SCMTD staff member I have left voicemails for has completely ignored me. This is both a denial of services impeding Ms. Boyd from exercising her disability rights, but is also a blatant refusal to accommodate Ms. Boyd's disabilities. I have never been allowed to speak to an ADA compliance officer at the SCMTD — I believe they are violating the ADA by not employing one.
By enabling this with your apparent obstruction in the copied email below, you might also be impeding me from gaining timely enforcement of their disability rights in violation of Section 504. To forestall a long process of Senator Feinstein's staff querying your agency and researching the applicable statutory and regulatory authorities governing this, I ask you to do the following to expedite civil rights complaints by the appropriate federal agencies.
Request:
Please cite the applicable statutory and regulatory authorities supporting your position that ADA and Section 504 complaints against the SCMTD and as I explained against the SCPD for their denial of services in not investigating the SCMTD — particularly by SCPD Officer Wes Hansen — are the jurisdiction of the U.S. Department of Justice (USDOJ). This will allow me to quickly file these complaints with the correct federal agency.
Note:
From my prior reading of the USDOJ's governing regulations for processing ADA and Section 504 complaints — which I know from filing Section 504 complaints against HUD's FHEO — I am certain you are misinformed.
Thank you for responding in writing ASAP so I may quickly perform my duties as a Gorilla Advocate for Ms. Boyd, her daughter Portia and other to be named parties. To understand what that means please inspect the following Facebook page as well as my LinkedIn profile:
* [https://www.facebook.com/GorillaAdvocacyInc]
* [http://www.linkedin.com/pub/john-colby/3/920/baa]
Thank you for helping me enforce Ms. Boyd and Portia's civil rights (against the SCMTD and the SCPD) by fulfilling my request with the utmost urgency.
Respectfully yours, [signed] John E. Colby, Ph.D.
"CPRA request because I believe my client Laura Boyd was discriminated against by the SCMTD"
2014-01-14 message from Dr. John Colby to Les White, General Manager of the Santa Cruz Metro Transit District (SCMTD):
To
let you know — if you don't know already — I filed an open U.S.
Department of Justice (USDOJ) discrimination complaint against the City
and County of Santa Cruz, as well as against the Santa Cruz Police
Department (SCPD). They have forced me to become a Gorilla Advocate. To
understand what that means please inspect the following Facebook page as
well as my LinkedIn profile:
* [https://www.facebook.com/GorillaAdvocacyInc]
* [http://www.linkedin.com/pub/john-colby/3/920/baa]
Santa
Cruz County and City (as well as SCPD) officials are aware of this.
Some are also aware that I have asked them to be named as respondents to
this complaint.
This afternoon, on January 14, 2013, I believe
around 3:45 PM, an incident occurred targeting Ms. Boyd at the Downtown
Santa Cruz Metro Transit District (SCMTD) bus station. Not only do I
believe employees of the SCMTD violated Ms. Boyd's civil rights — in
apparent retaliation for my USDOJ complaint and aiding Ms. Boyd exercise
her civil rights — but I also believe it involved attempted theft and
criminal harassment. Since these employees seemed to be abusing their
positions of authority, I believe these were color of law violations
(which could be investigated by the FBI).
Considering these allegations, I ask for the following under the California Public Records Act (CPRA):
*
a bio or other document containing the name, title, telephone number,
fax number, email address and snail mail address for each of you and
your civil rights compliance officer.
* a staff roster including the names and titles of every SCMTD employee.
* copies of your most current Section 504 (self) evaluation and transition plan, if applicable.
* the most current copies of all other SCMTD civil rights policies, guides, handbooks, certifications, evaluations and reviews.
I ask:
*
if you determine that any or all or the information qualifies for an
exemption from disclosure, to note whether, as is normally the case
under the Act, whether the exemption is discretionary, and if so whether
it is necessary in this case to exercise your discretion to withhold
the information.
* in case you decide that any of the information
is exempt, please explain how the interest in not disclosing the
information outweighs the public interest in disclosing it.
* if
you determine that some but not all of the information is exempt from
disclosure and that you intend to withhold it, that you redact it for
the time being (while citing the statutes exempting the redacted
elements) and make the rest available as requested.
* if there is
any information in these records which is private and you decide it is
exempt information, yet it is in an otherwise disclosable document,
please segregate the private information by redacting it (citing the
statutes exempting the redacted elements), while providing me the rest
of the unredacted record.
* If these records are available in an
electronic format such as standard video, audio and image formats, MS
Power Point (PPT), Apple Keynote, Portable Document Format (PDF),
standard spreadsheet formats like MS Excel File Extension (XLS), MS Word
Document (DOC), Hypertext Markup (HTM), any standard database format
(like those listed here
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_file_formats#Database), Rich Text
Format (RTF), plain electronic text (TXT) or native email formats — like
AOL for Windows, Apple Mail, Claris Emailer, Compuserve, EML,
Entourage, Eudora, Maldir, MBOX File, Mulberry, Neoplanet, Outlook,
Outlook Express, Outspring, Powertalk, Quickmail Pro, Thunderbird,
Windows Mail, Windows Live Mail and Yahoo Archive! — or as links to the
Internet then I ask that they be provided to me in one of those forms,
preferably in their native format.
* I am willing to pay a fee of
up to $35 for this request. If you estimate the cost of completing this
request will exceed that amount, please contact me first before
completing it with a fee estimate. If this request would entail special
searches which would incur search fees to me, please contact me first
with a fee estimate.
In the public interest — because I
plan to provide these records to the news media, constituency services
staff for U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein, Congress, Governor Jerry Brown,
the California state legislature, state and federal agencies and
investigators, as well as posting them on these Facebook groups:
* [https://www.facebook.com/groups/OpenTransparentAccountableGovernment/]
* [https://www.facebook.com/groups/SantaCruzWhistleBlowers/]
* [https://www.facebook.com/groups/DisabledHomelessAdvocacy/]
* [https://www.facebook.com/groups/CitizensForPositiveChangeinSC/]
I
ask you to waive all applicable exemptions and applicable fees (for
search, retrieval, redaction and duplication). I especially ask you to
waive any and all fees because the County and City of Santa Cruz's
discrimination against Ms. Boyd and her 10 year old daughter Portia
forced me to pay about $220 — from my own monthly SSDI income — for
three days/nights in a disabled room at the Pacific Inn in Santa Cruz (www.pacificinnsantacruz.com). To date, I have not been reimbursed for this.
Please confirm receipt of this CPRA request via email.
Thank
you for fulfilling my CPRA request to help me assist Ms. Boyd in
exercising her civil rights as well as any other legal rights guaranteed
her. Thank you for providing me evidence for: the USDOJ, the FBI, the
Federal Transit Authority (FTA), Governor Jerry Brown, the California
Department of Justice, CalTrans, the state and federal legislatures, and
for U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein's constituency services staff.
Sincerely yours, [signed] John E. Colby, Ph.D.
"Confirm receipt of CPRA request because I believe Laura Boyd was discriminated against by the SCMTD and SCPD"
2014-01-18
message from Dr. John Colby to Rebecca J. Daniel, Paralegal to Margaret
Gallagher of the Santa Cruz Metropolitan Transit District:
To let
you know — if you don't know already — I filed an open U.S. Department
of Justice (USDOJ) discrimination complaint against the City and County
of Santa Cruz, as well as against the Santa Cruz Police Department
(SCPD).
SCPD Officer Wes Hansen — likely instructed by his
supervisors — has refused to investigate my and Ms. Boyd's allegations
about criminal harassment and potential hate bias crimes against her
based upon her disabilities by Santa Cruz Metro Transit District (SCMTD)
employees. SCPD Officer Leonardo Gomez — probably instructed by his
supervisors too — denied Ms. Boyd an investigation of criminal
harassment and potential hate bias crimes which occurred at the Santa
Cruz National Guard Armory Winter Shelter. These seem to be retaliation
for my filing a USDOJ complaint against the SCPD. These are apparent
color of law violations by SCPD officers and their supervisors — crimes
which I will lobby the U.S. Senate to force the FBI to investigate.
Points:
On behalf of Ms. Boyd these blatant denials of service — violating sworn duties to serve and protect — will not be tolerated!
The discrimination against Ms. Boyd continues to escalate.
They
have forced me to become a Gorilla Advocate. To understand what that
means please inspect the following Facebook page as well as my LinkedIn
profile:
* [https://www.facebook.com/GorillaAdvocacyInc]
* [http://www.linkedin.com/pub/john-colby/3/920/baa]
After
hearing both sides of the story, I believe SCMTD employees violated Ms.
Boyd's civil rights as well as committing color of law violations
(which I will lobby the U.S. Senate to force the FBI to investigate). To
facilitate filing more civil rights and color of law complaints on Ms.
Boyd's behalf (against the SCMTD and the SCPD), I need the records I
requested in the copied email below.
I have left you two
voicemails about this with no response — this request is time expedient.
Please confirm receipt immediately or inform me that I must resend the
email. Also provide me a fax number to transmit it to.
Thank you
for helping me enforce Ms. Boyd's civil rights (against the SCMTD and
the SCPD) by providing me the records I require to file more civil
rights complaints on her behalf with the appropriate state and federal
agencies.
Sincerely yours, [signed] John E. Colby, Ph.D.
No comments:
Post a Comment