Thursday, August 1, 2013

Smoking gun of criminal network of collusion at Mission Gardens Apartments

John Colby's Freedom of Information Campaign against Human Rights abuse in Santa Cruz [link]. Human Rights abuse in itty-bitty Santa Cruz [link] 
For more information about this campaign contact John E. Colby [colby@docktorcat.com].

2013-08-01 "City of Santa Cruz seems complicit in crimes against Mission Gardens residents, Carl Reimer and the taxpayers"
message from John Colby to Santa Cruz Mayor Hilary Bryant and Santa Cruz City Council:

Dear Mayor Bryant and Santa Cruz City Council:
As you know, the City of Santa Cruz granted the owners of the Mission Gardens Apartments — a Section 8 and California Tax Credit Allocation Committee (CTCAC) funded housing project managed by The John Stewart Company (JSCO) at 90 Grandview Street in Santa Cruz, California — almost 1.25 million dollars in HUD HOME block grant funds for the acquisition and rehabilitation of the property in 2009. Moreover the City of Santa Cruz loaned the same owners about 400,000 dollars for the same. Information about this is included in Mission Gardens HOME grant application to the City of Santa Cruz, linked to below:
http://tinyurl.com/n8aehcs

As a law abiding resident of Mission Gardens who has been terrorized by resident criminals I am exercising my First Amendment rights to petition your body, asking that Rory Lachica, whose family has been committing (violent) crimes at Mission Gardens for the last 20 years, be immediately evicted under your powers as a grantor and administrator of the Mission Gardens housing project.
Please note that Santa Cruz Police Department (SCPD) Sergeant Connor asked me on July 30, 2013 to stop reporting crimes by Rory Lachica and her fellow Mission Gardens criminals to the SCPD, implying that I was bringing their wrath down upon me, that I shouldn't be trying to protect Mission Gardens from the terrorizing reign of a small gang of criminals here. He implied that being a whistleblower about crime is bad. He implied that the SCPD sanctions Rory Lachica and her cohorts making prisoners of me and other Mission Gardens residents. I hope his views do not reflect those of your governing body.
Allow me to lay out the evidence to persuade you to require your planning commissioner and JSCO Senior Vice President Mari Tustin to immediately evict Rory Lachica:

Rory Lachica and her family live in a City of Santa Cruz administered HOME program unit Apt. F–103. Please see the master list for HOME units provided to me by your Housing Programs Manager Carol Berg. It is attached as a PDF and may be viewed using the following link: http://tinyurl.com/m5gsv2x

Rory Lachica is a dangerous driver who drove recklessly while on a suspended license with four convictions. She may be driving on a revoked license now, as I brought her current reckless (DUI) driving to the attention of the California Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) after she almost ran over my caregiver in the Mission Gardens parking lot on April 6, 2013. Please reference those convictions and her traffic violations below.
http://tinyurl.com/bokh7ua
http://tinyurl.com/blbb82n
http://tinyurl.com/cwt2lsr
http://tinyurl.com/c36qxdr
http://tinyurl.com/brzvwq6
http://tinyurl.com/ceksjh9
http://tinyurl.com/bu3943r
http://tinyurl.com/cbw5ftf
http://tinyurl.com/co6jxpy

Rory Lachica has been arrested for theft at least twice and maybe more. Please refer to the court records and supporting information linked to below. Note that Rory Lachica has been convicted for theft at least twice as indicated for her conviction on California Penal Code 666, which can be viewed using the links below:
http://tinyurl.com/cu49t6t
http://law.onecle.com/california/penal/666.html

Rory Lachica's son Dax Lachica resided with her in their City of Santa Cruz administered HOME unit while he was a three time violent teenage felon and then after he was arrested and convicted for illegally possessing a Glock semi–automatic handgun (for an entire year) like the one used to murder his friend Carl Reimer. Dax Lachica began his criminal career at age 12. He committed two armed robberies and an assault with a deadly weapon as a teenager while living at Mission Gardens under the tutelage of his mother Rory Lachica. Please inspect his probation report, a Watsonville Police Department record and his court document, linked to below:
http://tinyurl.com/9dsogda
http://tinyurl.com/7poqheg
http://tinyurl.com/3jl93rl

Dax Lachica's father Michael E. Lachica was a felon dating back to 1974 according to records from the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. He was charged last summer in Trinity County with possession of marijuana for sale, cultivating marijuana, manufacturing a controlled substance, illegal possession of a firearm and illegal possession of ammunition. They are linked to below. The Lachica family should never have been allowed to move into Mission Gardens.
http://tinyurl.com/k29veza
http://tinyurl.com/kyj2kqg
http://tinyurl.com/k76pyhs
http://tinyurl.com/mj26qvu
Bluntly:
The taxpayers have been wrongly supporting the criminal careers of the Lachica family far too long. The taxpayers have been footing the bill while the Lachica family — friends of Mission Gardens Property Manager Lamonica Bell's family — have been subsidized to terrorize Mission Gardens residents while using Mission Gardens as a home base for their criminal activities. Worse, Rory and Dax Lachica drew gang violence to Mission Gardens which was responsible in part, or whole, for the death of nineteen year old Carl Reimer three years ago last April.
I don't believe Congress ever intended for HUD HOME block grant money to misused so criminally.

My request:
Remove Rory Lachica from Mission Gardens immediately before she brings more gang violence and causes more deaths here like young Carl Reimer's. Mission Gardens has already been traumatized by one murder. No one else should die at Mission Gardens due to the Lachica family.
Please do not retaliate against me for providing you this correspondence nor share my provision of it to you with JSCO nor their senior vice president and your planning commissioner Mari Tustin. Please protect me from JSCO and their attorney Nathan Benjamin retaliating against me for exercising my First Amendment rights in petitioning your body with this information.
I hope that you and the rest of the Santa Cruz City Council decide to do what's right and what's legal, that you serve the interests of law abiding Mission Gardens residents — especially families with children, the elderly and the disabled — and taxpayers who deserve accountability over those of your planning commissioner Mari Tustin.

Sincerely yours,
John E. Colby, Ph.D.


2013-07-26 "HUD OIG HOTLINE obstinately denying me copies of my July 2013 complaints submitted via online form"
July 26, 2013

U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development
ATTN: Hotline Staff
Office of the Inspector General (OIG)
451 7th Street, SW
Washington D.C. 20410

via email to: HOTLINE@hudoig.gov
via facsimile to: 12027084829@nextivafax.com
cc: DMontoya@hudoig.gov
via facsimile to: 12024012505@nextivafax.com
cc: RRitzema@hudoig.gov
cc: JLuu@hudoig.gov
cc: RSalom@hudoig.gov

Dear HUD OIG Hotline staff:

It has been more than been since I last emailed you pleading for a copy of my HUG OIG complaints submitted on July 1, 2013, content showed below. Moreover, I have called HUD OIG's Office of Inspector General for the last three weeks and the Washington Duty Agent last week and now this week — who said he contacted you — asking for copies of those July 1, 2013 complaints as well as the new complaint I submitted on July 22, 2013.

Bluntly:
Because of my testimony to HUD's OIG I am being retaliated against by John Stewart Company (JSCO) attorney Nathan Benjamin who has given me notice of termination of tenancy effective September 20, 2013, less than two months from now. I am at risk of being made homeless, losing my emotional assistance animals, losing my access to medical care and losing my access to evidence for HUD OIG's continuing investigations.
I went beyond what HUD's OIG asked of me to prove a criminal conspiracy at the Mission Gardens Apartments connected to Property Manager LaMonica Bell, aided and abetted by her supervisors, enabled by local law enforcement. In return your agency has abandoned me by not enforcing federal laws to prosecute Mr. Benjamin for interfering with a federal law enforcement investigation by retaliating against me as a witness in your investigations.
The first business day after I submitted the copied complaint below dated June 29, 2013 via email and facsimile — on July 1, 2013 HUD's OIG revamped its website and complaint submission requirements. Your staff can no longer be contacted via telephone, although your website lists a telephone number for the hotline.

Note:
You sent me a copy of my HUD OIG complaint submitted on July 11, 2013 with days of me asking. Thus you have the ability to provide me copies of my complaints within a short time.

Note:
It has been almost four weeks since I first began asking for copies of my July 1, 2013 complaints submitted via your newly revamped website to HUD's OIG and still no reply. This is either unacceptable incompetence or intentional obstruction of justice.
The HUD Office of Inspector General informed me that my other complaint sent on June 29, 2013 was received via email and facsimile, yet your hotline now required me to submit the complaint via on an online form. Subsequently I submitted two complaints that morning, one comprising what I submitted below via email and facsimile. Then I submitted a new complaint on July 22, 2013 — I need evidence your staff received these complaints in their entirety. Your online form asked me if I had suffered retaliation for providing HUD's OIG evidence, which I answered yes to.

Questions:
* will HUD's OIG relocate my sister and I away from Mission Gardens criminals who wish to kill us while also preventing us from being evicted until that relocation is facilitated?
* why won't HUD OIG's Office of Legal Counsel obtain an injunction against JSCO attorney Nathan Benjamin evicting me as retaliation for bearing witness to the crimes of his clients against the taxpayers?
* why does HUD Special Agent–in–Charge Jim Todak in Los Angeles refuse to allow HUD OIG's Office of Legal Counsel to relocate us, minimizing the crimes committed at Mission Gardens and the threat the criminals here present to us — like violent criminal Dmitri Palmer and Rory Lachica whose son is a violent felon with three strikes against him?
* why is Special Agent–in–Charge Jim Todak in Los Angeles making excuses why Dmitri Palmer and Rory Lachica shouldn't be evicted?

Note:
* my investigations were conducted using public records.
* HUD launched their own investigation from my correspondence to HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan about this.
* JSCO attorney Nathan Benjamin terminated my tenancy during HUD and HUD OIG investigations of crime, fraud, program abuse and public corruption connected to Mission Gardens and perpetrated mostly by JSCO and its employee Mission Gardens Property Manager LaMonica Bell.

More questions:
* what will it take for your staff to provide me copies of my July 1, 2013 and July 22, 2013 complaints which I submitted using your online form?
* how many other complainants is your staff causing unnecessary suffering?
* why is it so difficult for your staff to provide me copies of my July 1, 2013 and July 22, 2013 complaints submitted via your newly revamped website, while you provided me a copy of my July 11, 2013 complaint within days of asking for it?

I would appreciate if your staff would fix the *glitches* with your four week old website and provide me copies of my July 1, 2013 and July 22, 2013 complaints which are imperative to enforcing my rights as whistleblower, to stopping JSCO attorney Nathan Benjamin from evicting me for being a witness to HUD's OIG.
Request: I ask that these complaints be forwarded to me by close of business today or I will be forced to ramp up my advocacy to obtain them.
Thank you for acting immediately upon this request.
Respectfully yours,
John E. Colby, Ph.D.


2013-07-25 "Expedited FREEDOM OF INFORMATION REQUEST for current Mission Gardens Section 8 HAP contract"
message from John Colby
July 25, 2013
U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development
ATTN: Deborah R. Snowden, Chief
Freedom of Information Act Office

Dear Ms. Snowden:
In order to assist the residents of the Mission Gardens Apartments — at 90 Grandview Street in Santa Cruz, California — exercise their rights to secure, safe and crime free housing, I am writing to submit an expedited FREEDOM OF INFORMATION REQUEST under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). I ask that you expedite processing of this request because the requested information is extremely time sensitive.

First, please note:
* HUD San Francisco Multifamily Director Thomas Azumbrado, as described below, implies that Mission Gardens owners have the ability to opt out of the Mission Gardens Section 8 HAP contract, although he claims they do not presently intend to.
* John Stewart Company (JSCO) Senior Vice President Mari Tustin, City of Santa Cruz Housing Programs Manager Carol Berg, California Housing Finance Agency (CalHFA) Asset Management Chief Chris Penny and HUD all made (false?) representations to Mission Gardens residents that the new owners — Bentall Residential and La Palmas Housing — would sign a 20 year Section 8 HAP contract, providing security for 20 years from Mission Gardens residents losing their Section 8 subsidies. This is described below.
* As of July 1, 2011, CalHFA backed out as the Section 8 contract administrator for Mission Gardens although they had arranged the financing for the sale, preservation and rehabilitation of Mission Gardens as a Section 8 property in their portfolio. Mr. Penny assured me in December 2007 that no Mission Gardens residents would lose their homes from the impending sale of the property to Bentall Residential and Las Palmas Housing. How do you explain all of this?

I believe fraud has been perpetrated upon Mission Gardens residents by the aforementioned parties.
That said, I ask for the following:
A copy of the most current Section 8 HAP contract for the Mission Gardens Apartments located at 90 Grandview Street in Santa Cruz, California.

The lack of a 20 year Section 8 HAP contract at Mission Gardens would mostly endanger secure housing for families with children, the elderly and the disabled.
I am willing to pay fees up to $20. If you estimate that the fees will exceed this limit, please inform me first.
However, I request a waiver of all fees for this request. I believe disclosure of the requested information to me is in the public interest because it will likely contribute significantly to public understanding of the operations or activities of the government and is not primarily in my commercial interest.
Specifically, I intend to share this material with federal investigators, Congress, the news media to whom I have been carbon copying these communications with HUD, and with nonprofit (legal) advocacy organizations for their dissemination of information — and to learn how they may better serve their constituents/clients — about how HUD and its contractors work to preserve or fail to preserve Section 8 properties at risk of privatization. Moreover, I intend to post the requested materials on the Internet for other academic, legal and political researchers to view, so that they may better understand the aforementioned subjects. These materials will be posted to the following Facebook groups:
[https://www.facebook.com/groups/OpenTransparentAccountableGovernment/]
[https://www.facebook.com/groups/SantaCruzWhistleBlowers/]

I ask that if the requested materials are available electronically in Portable Document Format (PDF), MS Word Document (DOC), MS Power Point (PPT), HyperText Markup (HTM), eXtensible Style Language (XLS) or Rich Text Format (RTF), that they be provided to me in one of those forms.

Thank you for your expedited consideration of this request.
Respectfully yours,
John E. Colby, Ph.D.


2013-07-24 "Providing Santa Cruz important correspondence with HUD which JSCO may not have shared with you"
message from John Colby to Santa Cruz Mayor Hilary Bryant and Santa Cruz City Council:
Dear Mayor Bryant and Santa Cruz City Council,
Please read the copied email correspondence below to HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan. Since it concerns the City of Santa Cruz because you administer the Mission Gardens Apartments through the HUD HOME block grant program, I believe you should possess a copy of it.
Please do not retaliate against me for providing you this correspondence nor share my provision of it to you with The John Stewart Company (JSCO) nor their senior vice president and your planning commissioner Mari Tustin.
JSCO was provided a copy of this correspondence, wrongly, by the San Francisco HUD Office of Multifamily Housing, which their attorney Nathan Benjamin later cited in notifying me that he intends to terminate my tenancy effective September 20, 2013, claiming my provision of this evidence to HUD and the news media was harassment of Mission Gardens criminals, the manager and her family, that I violated their privacy. Note that all of my research was conducted using public records. Mr. Benjaimin's notice contains all falsehoods, misrepresentations or allegations that are so vague that I can't determine what he is referring to.
JSCO may have already shared copies of this correspondence with the City of Santa Cruz, since JSCO Senior Vice President Mari Tustin is a long time Santa Cruz planning commissioner who endorsed two Santa Cruz mayors and three sitting Santa Cruz City Council members. The City of Santa Cruz seems to serve Ms. Tustin's agendas over those of Section 8 residents — who are poor, many families with children, or are elderly and/or disabled.
Please do not direct any of the subjects in my investigations to alter, delete or otherwise hide Facebook information — this would impede potential law enforcement investigations, which carries a penalty of up to 10 years in federal prison.
Please refer to the following links:
[http://tinyurl.com/mpcvlr6]
[http://tinyurl.com/nrlg8rm]
[http://tinyurl.com/lft2rqo]
[http://tinyurl.com/lsc3sos]
[http://tinyurl.com/ot4zmey]
I hope that you and the rest of the City Council decide to do what's right and what's legal, that you serve the interests of Mission Gardens residents — especially families with children, the elderly and the disabled — over those of your planning commissioner Mari Tustin.
Sincerely yours,
John E. Colby, Ph.D.


2013-07-22 "JSCO, CalHFA, the City of Santa Cruz and HUD lied to Mission Gardens residents about Section 8 contract?"
message from John Colby
July 22, 2013
The Honorable Shaun Donovan
U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development
sent via mail and email to: shaun.l.donovan@hud.gov
sent via facsimile to: 12026198365@nextivafax.com
Dear Secretary Donovan:
I just received a letter today from HUD San Francisco Multifamily Director Thomas Azumbrado. It is very disturbing to me. Likely it will terrify and anger the law abiding residents here when they learn of it.

Director Azumbrado writes: "Although you have concerns about Mission Gardens Apartments not retaining project–based Section 8 in the future, there are no plans for the project to opt out of the program" [emphasis mine].
His letter can be viewed as a PDF or using the link below:
http://tinyurl.com/ltnsvpj

This implies JSCO and Mission Gardens owners can opt out of the Section 8 program. To the understanding of me and fellow Mission Gardens residents, the owners signed a 20 year extension to the Section 8 HAP contract which expired in 2011. Please read the following correspondence to Mission Gardens residents from JSCO Senior Vice President Mari Tustin and City of Santa Cruz Housing Programs Manager Carol Berg which is attached as a PDF while viewable using the link below:
http://tinyurl.com/my932xb

Note:
Tustin, the City of Santa Cruz, CallHFA Asset Management Chief Chris Penny and HUD all made (false?) representations to Mission Gardens residents, who were troubled by the possibility of losing their homes after former JSCO Regional Manager Keri Swenson and her supervisor Warren Reed claimed in their first meeting with us in January 2009 that new owners Ken Reiner and Las Palmas Housing had no intention to renew the expiring Section 8 HAP contract. To cover for Swenson and Reed, Tustin and the City of Santa Cruz went to great lengths, writing to Mission Gardens residents that the new owners intended to seek out and sign a 20 year extension to the expiring Section 8 HAP contract.
If Director Azumbrado is not lying to me then they all lied to us, to try assuage our fears while they prepared to remove Mission Gardens from the Section 8 program, to put almost 50 families on the street.

Note:
Project based Section 8 provides residents the most security. Unlike the extended vouchers they receive when they are displaced using the so called protections Director Azumbrado alluded to, many can still lose their homes or otherwise not qualify for the extended vouchers they are provided. Moreover, because Santa Cruz landlords generally don't accept Section 8 vouchers except in the worst, most dangerous properties, displaced families would likely have to leave Santa Cruz, as well as their family and friends here.

Points:
If Director Azumbrado was truthful to me, then JSCO, CalHFA, the City of Santa Cruz, Mission Gardens owners and HUD all acted duplicitlously to calm us down while selling us out. They didn't seek out and sign a 20 year extension to the expired Section 8 HAP contract.

Question:
Is Director Azumbrado lying or did all the aforementioned parties make false representations to Mission Gardens residents — while JSCO continues to aid and abet resident criminals — guaranteeing these criminals homes while all the law abiding residents can and will be displaced at some future date?

Points:
I showed with evidence in the copied email below, that JSCO and Mission Gardens owners had no intention of this property remaining on the Section 8 program. Clearly they never did, while they were not above lying to unsuspecting residents to betray their misplaced trust. Law abiding residents here have been betrayed by JSCO, Mission Gardens owners, the City of Santa Cruz, the State of California and HUD.

My final question: how do you respond to these allegations?

My last points:
Director Azumbrado's staff shared my confidential communications to you about a criminal network of Mission Gardens residents tied to Property Manager LaMonica Bell, while being aided and abetted by JSCO. They facilitated JSCO in terminating my tenancy. Now they refuse to do anything to right that wrong beyond sharing what I already know to be my right under California law.
They betrayed my trust and now have abandoned me without an attorney to be evicted by JSCO attorney Nathan Benjamin. I cannot find an attorney who will defend against corporate goliath JSCO. Director Azumbrado and his staff sealed my wrongful eviction. That is illegal. It is deplorable. You seem to have sanctioned this. I intend to hold HUD officials fully accountable for my eventual displacement, homelessness, loss of medical care, and the potential loss of my emotional assistance cats.
Thank you for clarifying whether Director Azumbrado just lied to me or whether all the aforementioned parties lied to Mission Gardens residents, betraying them in the most despicable manner.

Thank you for a prompt written reply by fax, email, or next day air to show me that I have not misplaced my faith in your integrity.
We anxiously await your response.
Respectfully yours,
John E. Colby, Ph.D.


"HUD OIG still denying me copies of my July 1, 2013 complaints submitted via your online form"
message from John Colby
July 17, 2013
U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development
ATTN: Hotline Staff
Office of the Inspector General (OIG)
451 7th Street, SW
Washington D.C. 20410

via email to: admin@example.com
cc: HOTLINE@hudoig.gov
via facsimile to: 12027084829@nextivafax.com
cc: DMontoya@hudoig.gov
via facsimile to: 12024012505@nextivafax.com
cc: RRitzema@hudoig.gov
cc: JLuu@hudoig.gov
cc: RSalom@hudoig.gov

Dear HUD OIG Hotline staff:
The first business day after I submitted the copied complaint below dated June 29, 2013 via email and facsimile — on July 1, 2013 HUD's OIG revamped its website and complaint submission requirements. Your staff can no longer be contacted via telephone, although your website lists a telephone number for the hotline.

Note:
Yesterday you sent me a copy of my HUD OIG complaint submitted on July 11, 2013. Thus you have the ability to provide me copies of my complaints.

Note:
It has been almost three weeks since I first began asking for copies of my July 1, 2013 complaints submitted via your new website to HUD's OIG and still no reply. This is either unacceptable incompetence or intentional obstruction of justice.
The HUD Office of Inspector General informed me that my other complaint sent on June 29, 2013 was received via email and facsimile, yet your hotline now required me to submit the complaint via on an online form. Subsequently I submitted two complaints that morning, one comprising what I submitted below via email and facsimile. I have asked the HUD Office of Inspector General to have your staff forward me copies of what I submitted — I am being retaliated against for submitting evidence to federal law enforcement of a criminal conspiracy the Mission Gardens (by violent resident criminals, the property manager and her supervisors at The John Stewart Company) — I need evidence your staff received these complaints in their entirety. Your online form asked me if I had suffered retaliation for providing HUD's OIG evidence, which I answered yes to.

Questions:
* will HUD's OIG relocate my sister and I away from Mission Gardens criminals who wish to kill us while also preventing us from being evicted until that relocation is facilitated?
* why does HUD Special Agent–in–Charge Jim Todak in Los Angeles refuse to allow HUD OIG's Office of Legal Counsel to relocate us, minimizing the crimes committed at Mission Gardens and the threat the criminals here — like Dmitri Palmer and Rory Lachica — present to us?
* why is Special Agent–in–Charge Jim Todak in Los Angeles making excuses why Dmitri Palmer and Rory Lachica shouldn't be evicted?

Note:
* my investigations were conducted using public records.
* HUD launched their own investigation from my correspondence to HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan about this.
* John Stewart Company attorney Nathan Benjamin terminated my tenancy during a HUD investigation of crime, fraud, program abuse and public corruption connected to Mission Gardens and perpetrated mostly by JSCO and its employee Mission Gardens Property Manager LaMonica Bell.

Questions:
* I laid out all the evidence necessary for HUD and HUD's OIG to mop up the criminal conspiracy at Mission Gardens. Why won't HUD and HUD's OIG mop it up?
* why does HUD's OIG encourage Section 8 beneficiaries to report housing crime and fraud but then do nothing to protect them from easily anticipated retaliation, thus violating federal laws protecting whistleblowers to federal law enforcement?
* by federal law JSCO attorney Nathan Benjamin should be indicted for interfering with a federal law enforcement investigation. He could receive up to 10 years in federal prison for this. HUD's OIG can't allow him to flout protections for witnesses to federal law enforcement by trying to evict me. Why won't HUD's OIG enforce laws protecting me which Congress passed?

More questions:
* what will it take for your staff to provide me copies of my July 1, 2013 complaints which I submitted using your online form?
* how many other complainants is your staff causing unnecessary suffering?
* why is it so difficult for your staff to provide me copies of my July 1, 2013 complaints submitted via your newly revamped website, while you just provided me a copy of my July 11, 2013 complaint?

I would appreciate if your staff would fix the *glitches* with your one week new website and provide me copies of my July 1, 2013 complaints which are imperative to enforcing my rights as whistleblower, to stopping JSCO attorney Nathan Benjamin from evicting me for being a witness to HUD's OIG.
Thank you for acting immediately upon these requests.
Respectfully yours,
John E. Colby, Ph.D.


2013-07-11  "Underhanded retaliatory attempt to remove Mission Gardens from Section 8 program"
message from John Colby using the form submission from Hotline Report Form [Hotline@hudoig.gov]

--What--
Provide details of the alleged fraud, waste, abuse or mismanagement:

July 10, 2013
The Honorable Shaun Donovan
U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development
sent via mail and email to: shaun.l.donovan@hud.gov
sent via facsimile to: 12026198365@nextivafax.com

Dear Secretary Donovan:
I would like to think that you are honest and caring, that you have impeccable integrity. Since President Obama has supported you so strongly, I would like to think you are honest, that you sincerely care about the safety and well being of Section 8 residents. I would like to think you wouldn't sanction placing the majority of Mission Gardens residents on the street to retaliate for my whistleblowing, for me exercising my First Amendment rights.
I fear that your subordinates are colluding with or will allow The John Stewart Company (JSCO) — which manages the Mission Gardens Apartments in Santa Cruz, California, a Section 8 and HUD HOME program housing project — to illegally terminate Mission Gardens Section 8 Housing Assistance Program (HAP) contract, which was supposed to be guaranteed to run for 20 years from August 2011. 
Please inspect the PDF attachment of the notice and utility information authorization form Property Manager LaMonica Bell — a known criminal and fraudster — placed on residents' doors this afternoon (after business hours). It is a notice asking Mission Gardens residents to complete an authorization for Pacific Gas & Electric to share all our utility usage date — including that from smart meters — with JSCO for a utility analysis. This can be viewed using the link below:
http://tinyurl.com/lrgpb57

I lodged my objections to this form two years ago and HUD made it optional in response. Please see my letter to HUD Assistant Secretary Carol Galante about the 2011 notice and that letter from former JSCO Regional Manager Maya Powis dated October 18, 2011. They are attached as PDFs and can be viewed using the links below:
http://tinyurl.com/lhfl3nc
http://tinyurl.com/kncnwao

Note:
Property Manager LaMonica Bell states that if every resident does not complete and return these authorizations in 7 days then Mission Gardens Section 8 HAP contract will be nullified.

To quote from what I circled:
"What if I don't sign the form you ask? Well - if we don't get these forms signed then we cannot renew our contract with HUD and the Section 8 subsidies for the property will stop."

Note:
Former JSCO Regional Manager Maya Powis wrote on October 18, 2011 that these forms would be completed at our annual recertifications, which occur annually every February, not in July with only 7 days advance notice.

Point:
If this was true then any Section 8 owner could surreptiously opt out of the Section 8 HAP contract by merely claiming some resident decided not to complete the subject authorization. Alternatively, HUD could do the same. This would make Section 8 HAP contracts meaningless documents — they would provide Section 8 beneficiaries no security for maintaining their Section 8 subsidies.

Question:
Did this underhanded attempt to remove Mission Gardens from the Section 8 program to evade responsibility for aiding and abetting criminals, some violent felons, originate with your subordinates at HUD, with JSCO, or with both in collusion?

Request:
Invalidate this notice and remove JSCO from Mission Gardens before the close of business this Friday, July 12, 2013, for attempting to illegally remove every Mission Gardens resident from the Section 8 program as retaliation for my whistleblowing about them aiding and abetting criminals, for them and Property Manager LaMonica Bell conspiring with a network of criminals to defraud the taxpayers and terrorize law abiding Mission Gardens residents.

To the U.S. Senate:
I ask for a Congressional investigation of the criminal practices of JSCO at Mission Gardens and other JSCO managed properties to safeguard the 65,000 or more Californians in more than 250 properties under JSCO's iron fisted criminal regime.
I beg the U.S. Senate, the news media and legal advocacy groups to help us, to protect Mission Gardens residents for my reporting government malfeasance, crime, fraud, program abuse and public corruption centered on Mission Gardens. 
We shouldn't all be put on the street for my reporting criminals which JSCO has hidden and protected from eviction in connection with their friend and relative Property Manager LaMonica Bell!
Thank you for a prompt written reply by fax, email, or next day air to show me that I have not misplaced my faith in your integrity.
I anxiously await your response.
Respectively yours,
John E. Colby, Ph.D.

--When--
When (date): 2013-07-10
When (time): 5:00 am

--Where--
Street Address 1: 90 Grandview Street
Street Address 2:
City: Santa Cruz
State/Province: California
Zip/Postal Code: 95060

--Who--
First Name: LaMonica Bell
Last Name:
Street Address 1: 90 Grandview Street
Street Address 2:
City: Santa Cruz
State/Province: California
Zip/Postal Code: 95060
Email Address: LBell@reinercommunities.com
Company, organization, or other entity affiliation of the primary person who engaged in the alleged misconduct (if applicable): The John Stewart Company
Additional individuals involved in the alleged misconduct:
Amy Gear, John Stewart Company Regional Manager
Mari Tustin, John Stewart Company Senior Vice President

--Other--
Please provide any additional information concerning this misconduct:
1. Current Section 8 HAP contract for the Mission Gardens Apartments
2. Current HUD policies about termination of Section 8 HAP contracts
3. Current HUD utility allowance analysis reporting policies for project based Section 8 landlords
4. Current HUD policies for discontinuation of Section 8 project based subsidies.
5. Communications between HUD and The John Stewart Company about utility allowances and utility usage analysis.
6. Communications between LaMonica Bell, Amy Gear, Mari Tustin and other John Stewart Company employees about 2010-2013 utility allowance and utility usage analysis
7. Forms The John Stewart Company uses to gain access to Section 8 beneficiaries utility usage data at all its South Bay Regional Office properties.
8. Correspondence from November 2008 to the present between The John Stewart Company employees and Mission Gardens tenants about utility allowance (usage data) and utility usage analysis.
9. Copies of all completed Mission Gardens tenants' utility allowance usage data release authorization forms between October 2011 and the present day.
10. 2012 utility usage analysis report for Mission Gardens which showed that not all tenants released their usage data to The John Stewart Company.
11. Verbal instructions given to Mission Gardens residents in 2012 that the utility allowance authorization was optional. Request that all tenants residing at Mission Gardens between January to May 2012 be interviewed about whether they authorized their utility usage to be released to The John Stewart Company.

Specific witnesses to this —
[John Colby listed 6 witnesses at the Mission Gardens, whose personal info has been omitted for this website posting of his message]

--Your Information--
Please select a filing status.: Confidentiality and anonymity are not requested
First Name: John
Last Name: Colby
Street Address 1: 849 Almar Avenue, C242
Street Address 2:
City: Santa Cruz
State/Province: California
Zip/Postal Code: 95060
Email Address: colby@docktorcat.com
Phone Number: 831-471-9767

--Whistleblower Protection--
Have you been discharged, demoted, or otherwise discriminated against because you disclosed this alleged misconduct? Yes If yes, please explain below:
The alleged misconduct is for my prior complaints to HUD's OIG about The John Stewart Company, especially regarding a criminal network — some violent felons — of Mission Gardens residents connected to LaMonica Bell through friendship and family ties, aided and abetted by The John Stewart Company which has refused to evict them, allowed to reside and return to reside after incarceration by local Santa Cruz law enforcement agencies (like the Santa Cruz Police Department).
The most recent example of this is Dmitri Palmer, in Apt. F202, who was recently arrested for felonious aggravated assault, but was not evicted by The John Stewart Company. Moreover, certain officials of the Santa Cruz Police Department are attempting to hide that Dmitri Palmer lives at Mission Gardens and was arrested here to evade responsibility for not requiring The John Stewart Company to evict him.
The results of this submission may be viewed at: [http://www.hudoig.gov/node/95/submission/116]

2013-07-16 "Form submission from: Hotline Report Form" from OIG Hotline [Hotline@hudoig.gov] to John Colby:
Good Morning Mr. Colby,
We've received your Hotline report form via our homepage. We review complaints in the order in which they are received. Have a great day.
Thank you,
HUD-OIG Hotline


2013-06-29 "JSCO's retaliatory tenancy termination for providing HUD evidence of crime, fraud, program abuse and public corruption"
message from John Colby to U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development Office of the Inspector General (OIG), ATTN: OIG Hotline Staff  [Hotline@hudoig.gov]:

Dear HUD OIG Hotline staff:
I ask for a HUD OIG investigation into The John Stewart Company (JSCO) attorney Nathan Benjamin giving me a 90 day notice of termination of tenancy — citing my providing HUD evidence of a network of criminal Mission Gardens residents, connected to Property Manager Lamonica Bell, aided and abetted by JSCO, enabled by local Santa Cruz government and local law enforcement agencies (who have allowed criminals to live here unimpeded and return to live here after being incarcerated) — as harassment and an invasion of their privacy.

Note:
* my investigations were conducted using public records.
* HUD launched their own investigation from my correspondence to HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan about this.
* Mr. Benjamin terminated my tenancy during a HUD investigation of crime, fraud, program abuse and public corruption connected to Mission Gardens and perpetrated mostly by JSCO and its employee Mission Gardens Property Manager LaMonica Bell.

How can HUD's OIG allow this?
This is:
* JSCO and Nathan Benjamin retaliating for HUD's legitimate investigation of crimes committed as well as aided and abetted by JSCO employees and officials.
* JSCO and Nathan Benjamin retaliating for my providing HUD evidence of crimes (from public records) of crimes committed as well as aided and abetted by JSCO employees and officials.
* Nathan Benjamin retaliating against me under color of law — being a legal hit man — violating his ethical oath as an officer of the court.
* JSCO and Nathan Benjamin retaliating for me providing this evidence to federal law enforcement agencies — most notably HUD's OIG.

The Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) confirmed these allegations fall under HUD OIG's jurisdiction, not theirs. Please:
* reinspect the following evidence and launch an investigation into the aforementioned allegations.
* investigate the validity of Nathan Benjamin's allegations against me in his 90 day notice terminating my tenancy.
* have HUD OIG's Office of Legal Counsel enjoin Nathan Benjamin from evicting my sister and I, as well as protecting us from further retaliatory actions until the federal government acts upon the evidence I presented.
* have Nathan Benjamin's bar license revoked — he should not have a license to practice law.
* relocate my sister and I from Mission Gardens — where we can live safely — away from Mission Gardens criminals who wish to kill us (provided my evidence of their crimes from HUD San Francisco passing my correspondence to HUD Secretary Donovan to JSCO, then Property Manager LaMonica Bell, finally passed to them).
* investigate my previous requests for HUD OIG investigations copied below.

Please inspect my correspondence to HUD General Counsel Helen Kanovsky. It incorporates my correspondence to HUD Secretary Donovan. It shows how my evidence was passed down from HUD San Francisco to JSCO, finally reaching Property Manager LaMonica Bell and the network of criminals connected to her. Please inspect Nathan Benjamin's illegal 90 Notice of Termination of Tenancy served upon me on June 19, 2013.
HUD's OIG cannot allow Nathan Benjamin to flout JSCO's crimes by evicting me after I presented the federal government with smoking gun proof of the criminal network of collusion at the Mission Gardens Apartments. I cannot be allowed to be evicted for being a whistleblower about crimes against the taxpayers, corporate fraud, HUD program abuse, and public corruption enabling it all.
Thank you for acting swiftly to protect my tenancy, investigating my allegations, then having JSCO and Nathan Benjamin prosecuted for the crimes they have committed (against the taxpayers), against law abiding residents of the Mission Gardens Apartments, and against my sister and I (who have been terrorized for more than five years by resident criminals aided and abetted by JSCO and the previous management TerraCorp Financial).

Thank you for acting immediately upon my requests.
Respectfully yours,
John E. Colby, Ph.D.


2013-06-24 "Did the City of Santa Cruz retaliate against me for my FOI advocacy?"
message from John Colby:
To whom it may concern:
Santa Cruz City Attorney John Barisone is threatening to shutdown my Freedom of Information (FOI) advocacy which would embarrass the City of Santa Cruz because of their connections to illegal charity Take Back Santa Cruz and their lack of protection at Mission Gardens for my sister and I from resident criminals. Please read his threat to seek a protective order against my future PRA requests — this is an attack on the public's right to know, on FOI rights, on democratic processes in City of Santa Cruz government.
Will federal and state government and the news media allow Mr. Barisone to shutdown my investigations shedding light on the City's relationship to shadowy community groups, illegal charity Take Back Santa Cruz and their refusal to protect us from criminals? Will the news media allow him to shut me down from sharing these records with you?
Point: I believe the City of Santa Cruz ordered their planning commissioner and Mission Gardens management senior vice president Mari Tustin to have her attorney Nathan Benjamin pull the plug on my tenancy at the Mission Gardens Apartments partly as retaliation for my FOI advocacy.
This is an attack on my due process, First Amendment and Fair Housing rights. It's despicable and totalitarian — completely unacceptable!



2013-06-19 "Fear I was evicted now because of my CPRA requests about illegal charitable org tied to local government corruption" 
message from John Colby:
Dear Registry of Charitable Trusts,
On an anonymous tip — which I conferred with the local FBI office about (who referred me to you) — I submitted a complaint about the illegal charitable organization Take Back Santa Cruz. I have been submitting California Public Records Act (CPRA) requests about them recently to local government, suspecting they were an illegal charity using their illegal nonprofit status for personal gain and to illegally influence local government.
This complaint to your unit was confirmed as received last week via certified post.
Soon after I submitted these CPRA requests, I was given a 90 day notice of termination of my tenancy at the Mission Gardens Apartments. The management senior vice president Mari Tustin is also a Santa Cruz City planning commissioner who has undue influence and ties with local government.
I suspect local authorities — fearing I would learn of Take Back Santa Cruz being an illegal charity and their ties to it — persuaded Ms. Tustin to falsely terminate my tenancy without just cause (although she was planning to do at some time). They might have triggered it. The CADOJ Public Inquiries Unit told me on the telephone today that your unit would know what government agency would investigate retaliation for exposing Take Back Santa Cruz's illegal nonprofit status related to public corruption in local government.
I will be forwarding you my CPRA requests about Take Back Santa Cruz to you.
Thank you for any assistance you can provide me regarding potential retaliation for exposing Take Back Santa Cruz and local government corruption because of ties to it.
Sincerely yours, [signed] John E. Colby, Ph.D.





2013-05-06 "Laws and regulations under which HUD is acting to address criminal network at Mission Gardens?"
message from John Colby

May 06, 2013
The Honorable Helen R. Kanovsky
Office of General Counsel
U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development
sent via mail and email to: Helen.R.Kanovsky@hud.gov
sent via facsimile to: 12027083389@nextivafax.com

Dear General Counsel Kanovsky:
I am writing to you about an urgent matter. It is of great importance to my sister Patricia Colby and I, as well as to the rest of the law abiding residents of the Mission Gardens Apartments — a Section 8, HUD HOME program and California Tax Credit Allocation Committee (CTCAC) financed property — at 90 Grandview Street in Santa Cruz, California, managed by The John Stewart Company (JSCO).
I have been writing to your associates at HUD for the last four years about the dangerous, volatile situation here. After nineteen year old Carl Reimer was murdered here three years ago last month, my communications to HUD became more urgent. In September 2011, I began obtaining objective evidence of criminal residents. As time passed, my pleas became more desperate because the situation here worsened as these criminals and JSCO were allowed to run amuck, acting brazenly with impunity. I gathered more objective evidence from public records that JSCO and the former management firm TerraCorp Financial acted as quasi criminal enterprises by hiding and protecting criminal residents from government scrutiny.
First TerraCorp Financial then JSCO, and the criminals they protect(ed), have waged a terror campaign against my sister and I. They also terrorized other law abiding residents here, especially the elderly and disabled. I have pled for a year for JSCO to be removed from Mission Gardens, to no avail. Then I asked that Property Manager LaMonica Bell be removed, to no avail.
Last week I emailed HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan asking more assertively that the federal and state government hold JSCO and TerraCorp Financial accountable, as well as ripping out from the roots the criminal network of collusion based here, delivering justice for law abiding residents. You were carbon copied this email and also received a copy via facsimile.
I confronted HUD with concrete evidence supporting my allegations of this criminal network of collusion between Property Manager LaMonica Bell and resident criminals, assisted by her superiors at least up to JSCO Senior Vice President Mari Tustin, and perhaps all the way to JSCO corporate headquarters. I proved the existence of this criminal network is factual. It is no longer an allegation.

I provided federal and state government, as well as the news media, the information necessary to reproduce my analysis of this criminal network, confirming my conclusions, to firmly act upon them. Please review once more that email. It is attached as a PDF and may be viewed using Google Docs with the link below:
http://tinyurl.com/d39gylw

Last week I received two letters from HUD in response to my serious allegations and supporting evidence about a criminal conspiracy, fraud, program abuse, criminal misconduct, abuse of power and public corruption regarding mismanagement, negligence and HUD's lack of oversight of Mission Gardens. HUD has shirked its administrative obligations to protect law abiding Mission Gardens residents.

Please read my letter to you responding to those from Administrative Staff Specialist Anna Dennis, a low level functionary at San Francisco HUD's Multifamily Hub. I ask for the laws and regulations under which HUD is acting to address my criminal allegations and the evidence supporting them. My letter to you is attached as a PDF. It may be viewed in Google Docs using the link below:
http://tinyurl.com/chmfolg

Please review the letters from Ms. Dennis which I am responding to. Her first letter postmarked April 29, 2013 is attached as a PDF. It may be viewed using the link below:
http://tinyurl.com/c9ow9w9

Her second letter, HUD's response to my email to Secretary Donovan about the criminal network of collusion based at Mission Gardens, is dated May 1, 2013, the same day Secretary Donovan received my email. This second letter I received from Ms. Dennis, HUD's response on behalf of Secretary Donovan, is attached as a PDF. It may be viewed using the link below:
http://tinyurl.com/cztcdjo

These letters from Ms. Dennis greatly disturbed my sister and I. We found them offensive. They are unsatisfactory.
We believe HUD has violated our privacy rights as crime victims by sharing my private correspondence about this network of criminals with JSCO. We fear retaliation from both JSCO and the criminals they have been protecting at Mission Gardens. HUD's provision of my private correspondence has tainted future investigations by HUD and other agencies of the egregious crimes committed here. Now JSCO can concoct its defenses, tamper with documents, destroy and hide evidence, as well as prepping criminal residents possessing complete knowledge of the allegations and supporting evidence against them. Moreover the May 1, 2013 letter from Ms. Dennis raised other alarming questions about HUD's potential mishandling of the allegations and evidence I provided.
Thus I ask you to answer the questions I posed in my letter to you about the laws and regulations upon which HUD is acting to address the crimes, fraud and program abuse I corresponded about. We feel you are obligated to respond to afford us due process.
These letters from Ms. Dennis and past evasion by senior HUD officials suggest HUD is moving to secretly coverup an expanding scandal from public scrutiny by Congress and the news media. I have been carbon copying them my correspondence with HUD and other agencies about the crime, fraud and corruption here for several years. They have been scrutinizing HUD and other agencies shirking their duties to ensure Mission Gardens is a safe, habitable community.

To restate:
Mission Gardens must be freed from the iron grip of these criminals and the criminal management supporting them. On behalf of other Mission Gardens residents, I asked Secretary Donovan to save Mission Gardens. Residents here should no longer live in fear — the federal and state government now have the necessary information to resolve this.
In light of the letters from Ms. Dennis and then my letter to you, please review once more my letter to Secretary Donovan chronicling the history of criminality at Mission Gardens. It is attached as a PDF. It may be viewed in Google Docs using the link below:
http://tinyurl.com/bt2nsld
Please review once more the documents referenced via links in my email to Secretary Donovan. I asked HUD and those at other federal and state investigatory agencies to closely review the information I provided. I am confident other's analyses will reach my conclusions:
There is a criminal network of collusion based at Mission Gardens, turning upon Property Manager * LaMonica Bell's relationship to alleged Westsider gang member Dmitri Palmer and their relations to other criminals who have resided and still reside here illegally.
* LaMonica Bell's superiors at JSCO know about her relationship to Dmitri Palmer, alleged Westsider gang member Drew Levine, (violent) felon Nebosia Freeman, Kim Ellis and the criminal Lachica family, particularly Rory Lachica.
* To protect LaMonica Bell and deny criminals live here, JSCO has refused to institute security measures after Carl Reimer's murder — they have hidden and protected criminal Mission Gardens residents from government scrutiny.

Moreover in my letter to Secretary Donovan, I described how local law enforcement agencies and local government, seemingly influenced by JSCO Senior Vice President Mari Tustin, have allowed criminals to live here and return here after being incarcerated. Criminal residents have not been prosecuted. In other cases, they seem to have been prosecuted laxly. I believe that local law enforcement agencies and local government have helped hide and protect criminal Mission Gardens residents.
For the goals of preventing more violence, making Mission Gardens safe, and holding responsible parties accountable, please respond to the questions I posed. Thank you for your prompt reply.
Sincerely yours,
John E. Colby, Ph.D.


2013-05-01 "Smoking gun of criminal network of collusion at Mission Gardens Apartments"
message from John Colby to The Honorable Shaun Donovan, U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development:
Dear Secretary Donovan:
I am writing to you about an urgent matter. It is of great importance to my sister Patricia Colby and I, as well as to the rest of the law abiding residents of the Mission Gardens Apartments — a Section 8, HUD HOME program and California Tax Credit Allocation Committee (CTCAC) financed property — at 90 Grandview Street in Santa Cruz, California.
I have been writing to your subordinates at HUD for the last four years about the dangerous, volatile situation here. After nineteen year old Carl Reimer was murdered here, my communications to HUD became more urgent. In September 2011, I began obtaining objective evidence of criminal residents. As time passed, my pleas became more desperate because the situation has worsened as these criminals and JSCO have been allowed to run amuck, acting brazenly with impunity. I gathered more objective evidence from public records that JSCO and the former management TerraCorp Financial acted as quasi criminal enterprises by hiding and protecting criminal residents from government scrutiny.
First TerraCorp Financial, then JSCO, and the criminals they protect(ed), have waged a terror campaign against my sister and I. They also terrorized other law abiding residents here, especially the elderly and disabled. I have pled for a year for JSCO to be removed from Mission Gardens, to no avail. Then I asked that Property Manager LaMonica Bell be removed, to no avail. I come to you asking more assertively that the federal and state government hold JSCO and TerraCorp Financial accountable, as well as ripping out from the roots the criminal network of collusion based here, delivering justice for law abiding residents.
Now I come armed with concrete evidence supporting my allegations of this criminal network of collusion between Property Manager LaMonica Bell and resident criminals, assisted by her superiors at least up to JSCO Senior Vice President Mari Tustin, and perhaps all the way to JSCO corporate headquarters. The existence of this criminal network is no longer an allegation — it is factual.
I am providing federal and state government, as well as the news media, the information necessary to reproduce my analysis of this criminal network, confirming my conclusions, to firmly act upon them.
Mission Gardens must be freed from the iron grip of these criminals and the criminal management supporting them. On behalf of other Mission Gardens residents, I ask you to save Mission Gardens. Residents here should no longer live in fear — the federal and state government now have the necessary information to resolve this.
Please read my letter to you which chronicles the history of criminality at Mission Gardens. It is attached as a PDF. It may be viewed in Google Docs using the link below:
[http://tinyurl.com/bt2nsld]
Please review the documents which are referenced as enclosures in my letter.
First review Property Manager LaMonica Bell's family tree, which I recreated using genealogical databases. It is attached as a PDF. It may be viewed in Google Docs using the link below:
[http://tinyurl.com/c7hh4kz]
Next inspect the graph gleaned from Facebook friend information of this criminal network of collusion based at Mission Gardens. It is attached as a PDF. It may be viewed using the link below:
[http://tinyurl.com/cmlqmow]
The following documents obtained from public records and a genealogical research service were used to recreate LaMonica Bell's family tree.
* the Santa Cruz County Assessor's parcel information for 215 Surfside Avenue in Santa Cruz, which is owned by LaMonica Bell's grandmother Mildred Whitley — LaMonica Bell and many of her relatives have  lived there at one time or another: [http://tinyurl.com/cox3bxd]
* the Santa Cruz County Clerk Recorder's index for real estate records for Mildred Whitley which corresponds to the APN for 215 Surfside Avenue in Santa Cruz: [http://tinyurl.com/csw7hzd]
* a living person search record for Mildred Whitley in Santa Cruz which connects her to Lottie Whitley, who I believe is her mother: [http://tinyurl.com/chmk6wz]
* contact information for Mildred Whitley in Santa Cruz which confirms she lives at 215 Surfside Avenue in Santa Cruz: [http://tinyurl.com/cy65oql]
* a birth record for Lottie Whitley which I believe to be the correct one: [http://tinyurl.com/c6a4w4r]
* a birth record for Mildred Whitley which I believe to be the correct one: [http://tinyurl.com/c6ecxsn]
* the birth record for LaMonica Bell's mother, Mildred Whitely's daughter Diane Lynette Dixon: [http://tinyurl.com/cl2hhga]
* the birth record for LaMonica Bell's half sister, Diane Lynette Dixon's daughter Eryca Lynn Mahone: [http://tinyurl.com/cqlj4uf]
* the birth record for LaMonica Bell, Diane Lynette Dixon's daughter: [http://tinyurl.com/cbhlevl]
* the birth record for LaMonica Bell's aunt, Mildred Whitley's daughter Lisa C. Harper: [http://tinyurl.com/cbgnetm]
* the birth record for Lisa C. Harper's daughter Felicia Shante Palmer: [http://tinyurl.com/c3eq3ra]
* the birth record for LaMonica Bell's relative Dmitri Denzell Palmer through Felicia Shante Palmer: [http://tinyurl.com/chramat]
* a living person search for Dmitri Denzell Palmer's mother Christa Tetrick in Santa Cruz: [http://tinyurl.com/ck2hryg]

The following snapshots of Facebook friend pages for some of the individuals named in the graph of the criminal network based at Mission Gardens prove my claims about this network, as well as supporting my genealogical analysis of LaMonica Bell's family. They indisputably connect Property Manager LaMonica Bell to Dmitri Palmer, showing his illegal residency at Mission Gardens is fraud.

Rory Lachica's Facebook friends with the last name Palmer: [http://tinyurl.com/ctuvb95]
Rory Lachica's Facebook friends with the last name Tetrick: [http://tinyurl.com/d27g9oo]
Rory Lachica's Facebook friends with the last name Levine: [http://tinyurl.com/cl3a3ex]
Rory Lachica's Facebook friends with the last name Ellis: [http://tinyurl.com/c5g55kw]
Rory Lachica's Facebook friends with the last name Freeman: [http://tinyurl.com/bntypfn]

Nebosia Freeman's Facebook friend Kim Ellis: [http://tinyurl.com/cgkuuf4]
Nebosia Freeman's Facebook friends with the last name Palmer: [http://tinyurl.com/d6akhsy]
Nebosia Freeman's Facebook friends with the last name Whitley: [http://tinyurl.com/cqscye2]

Tania Story's Facebook friends with the last name Lachica: [http://tinyurl.com/bspfrnu]
Tania Story's Facebook friends with the last name Levine: [http://tinyurl.com/ccckfvp]
Tania Story's Facebook friends with the last name Ellis: [http://tinyurl.com/chyuwzh]

Dmitri D. Palmer's Facebook friends with the last name Tetrick: [http://tinyurl.com/cosve4e]
Dmitri D. Palmer's Facebook friends with the last name Palmer: [http://tinyurl.com/cqppavu]
Dmitri D. Palmer's Facebook friends with the last name Mahone: [http://tinyurl.com/ch24jnz]
Dmitri D. Palmer's Facebook friends with the last name Levine: [http://tinyurl.com/c2s9oos]

Felicia Palmer's Facebook friends with the last name Whitley: [http://tinyurl.com/cx7o4qm]
Felicia Palmer's Facebook friends with the last name Mahone: [http://tinyurl.com/co84g2t]

Lisa C. Harper's Facebook friends with the last name Whitley: [http://tinyurl.com/d5xvfcj]
Lisa C. Harper's Facebook friends with the last name Palmer: [http://tinyurl.com/c5jkjum]
Lisa C. Harper's Facebook friends with the last name Mahone: [http://tinyurl.com/d7mfdts]
Lisa C. Harper's Facebook friends with the last name Bell: [http://tinyurl.com/cksv3ej]

Christa Tetrick's Facebook Timeline: [http://tinyurl.com/d8bra7j]

FaceBook network of collusion
Whitley Family Tree

I ask your staff, and those at other federal and state investigatory agencies, to closely review the information I have provided. I am confident that other's analyses will reach my conclusions:
* There is a criminal network of collusion based at Mission Gardens, turning upon Property Manager LaMonica Bell's relationship to alleged Westsider gang member Dmitri Palmer and their relations to other criminals who have resided and still reside here illegally.
* LaMonica Bell's superiors at JSCO know about her relationship to Dmitri Palmer, alleged Westsider gang member Drew Levine, (violent) felon Nebosia Freeman, Kim Ellis and the criminal Lachica family, particularly Rory Lachica.
* To protect LaMonica Bell and deny criminals live here, JSCO has refused to institute security measures after Carl Reimer's murder — they have hidden and protected criminal Mission Gardens residents from government scrutiny.

Moreover in my letter to you, I described how local law enforcement agencies and local government, seemingly influenced by Mari Tustin, have allowed criminals to live here and return here after being incarcerated. Criminal residents have not been prosecuted. In other cases, they seem to have been prosecuted laxly. I believe that local law enforcement agencies and local government have helped hide and protect criminal Mission Gardens residents.
To forestall more violence, to make Mission Gardens safe, and to hold responsible parties accountable, I ask you to act quickly and decisively. Thank you for protecting law abiding residents here terrorized by criminals and a criminal management firm.

Sincerely yours,
John E. Colby, Ph.D.


HUD sharing my private correspondence about fraud crime & program abuse with JSCO
May 01, 2013



HUD blowoff letter, re: Rory Lachica and LaMonica Bells crimes, postmark April 29, 2013

Santa Cruz attacking houseless people

Defend those without homes! campaign page [link]
Human Rights abuse in itty-bitty Santa Cruz [link]

More info from:

* Dr. John E. Colby, the "Gorilla Advocate" [colby@docktorcat.com]
* "Homeless United for Friendship and Freedom (HUFF Santa Cruz)" [huffsantacruz.org] [info@huffsantacruz.org] [831-423-HUFF]
* NOTES BY NORSE are from Robert Norse, who is an organizer for "HUFF Santa Cruz". He writes, "I regularly provide commentary like this to stories I post on the HUFF e-mail list. For those who want it, drop me an e-mail at [rnorse3 [at] hotmail.com]."

Supporters of Human Rights abuse include "Take Back Santa Cruz (TBSC)", which is a wealthy-person's activist network for supporting the police, giving political support for vigilante terror-squads, and promoting the tourism industry [takebacksantacruz.com]. Their membership actively engage in covering-up any evidence of Human Rights abuse, and engage in monitoring the behavior of lower-class people, and even political dissidents. Their mission is summed up at their website: "FBI Statistics Show Santa Cruz Crime Among State's Highest. Thanks to the solid investigative journalism and research of TBSC member Erik Bovee, there is undeniable fact-based evidence to support the reason that Take Back Santa Cruz exists: the need to better support public safety and the members of the community tasked to protect us."

Articles:
* "SANTA CRUZ'S PANHANDLING PROHIBITIONS" (2014) [link]
* 37 residents without homes in Santa Cruz found dead during 2013 [link]
* Thanksgiving meal recipient Ms. Jasmine Byron assaulted by off-duty SCPD Officer Joe Hernandez [link]
* "Homeless Veterans in Santa Cruz - Veteran's Memorial Hall Closure, Thanksgiving 2013" [link]
* Santa Cruz City Council considers closing recycling centers specifically to punish Homeless residents [link]
* Santa Cruz attacks independent arts, culture and artisan vednors [link]
* Homeless Dad and Son Still Denied Service at CruzioWorks Because of Classism! [link]
* 2013-08-16 "Santa Cruz harasses, arrests two for the crime of appearing poor" [link]
* "Right On!" Raven Resists The "Take Back Santa Cruz" Terrorism Tide [link]
* "Public Hysteria Citizens Task Farce Meets Again!" [link]
* 2013-07-10 "A Teapot Tempest or Two at Oral Communications" (including info about Santa Cruz Clean Team's abuse of homeless, transcript of video showing abuse) [link]
* Decrypting Santa Cruz "Public Safety" mythology against the homeless [link]
* 2013-07-04 "Security Santa Cruz Security Guard Thuggery Receives Go-Ahead on July 11th" [link]
* 2013-07-02 "Bike Church Calls for Restoration of Bike Distribution to Santa Cruz Kids Blocked by SCPD" [link]
* Santa Cruz outlaws freedom to hold a sign at certain areas in public [link]
* 2013-06-27 "Santa Cruz attacks Robert Brunett for the crime of poverty" [link]
* 2013-06-27 "Santa Cruz ACLU ignores Human Rights abuse against those without homes in Santa Cruz" [link]
* 2013-06-10 "New Anti-Homeless Laws Return for a Final Reading" [link]
* Santa Cruz's human-rights abuse against residents without homes: Video testimony of Casey Wright at Santa Cruz City Council [link]
* 2013-04-27 Poverty Crime in Santa Cruz: Walter Lilly [link]
* 2013-04-18 "Santa Cruz HUFF does what Santa Cruz Homeless Services won't" [link]
* 2013-05-29 Anti-Homeless Laws at Santa Cruz City Council [link]
* Santa Cruz's treatment of the homeless compared to other cities' Wet Houses [link]
* 2013-05-15 "Santa Cruz Clean Team attacks homeless, censors internet of evidence" [link]
* Santa Cruz residents engage in death-squad behavior against homeless [link]
* "Visible Sleepers" action for Human Rights in Santa Cruz [link]
* Santa Cruz HUFF organizer Becky Johnson statement of solidarity, and a look at City Council's Latest Anti-Homeless Propaganda [link]
* Santa Cruz Sanctuary Camp is a snitch trap [link]
* 2013-04-16 "Santa Cruz harasses, arrests two for the crime of appearing poor" [link]
* Instructions for Homeless Self-Defense [link]
* 2013-04-10 "Police discover hidden underground tunnels used by the homeless" [link]
* 2013-03-22 "Human Rights advocates for the Homeless set to invade Take Back Santa Cruz's hate parade" [link]
* 2013-03-21 "Man steals memorial flowers while drunk in Santa Cruz, local fascists call for 'more Law & Order'" [link]
* 2013-03-16 "Santa Cruz Council Members threatening to restrict & destroy any homeless services that exist" [link]
* 2013-02-07 "Santa Cruz deals with the homeless of the Felton encampments as it would garbage. No rights, no recourse" [link]
* 2013-01-30 "Santa Cruz and Poverty Crime needs an investigation" [link]
* 2013-01-29 "Santa Cruz City Council's Public Safety Committee Meeting to discuss engagement in more Human Rights abuse" [link]

facts & figures from [www.180santacruz.org] (PK doc. Version 3.0 Updated 3/29/13):
2,771 homeless individuals in Santa Cruz County
67% were already living in Santa Cruz County when they became homeless
63% of the homeless in SCC have a disability (serious mental illness, post traumatic stress disorder, substance abuse, cognitive impairments from physical trauma and chronic physical illness or disabilities)
54% are homeless for a year or more
25% reported job loss as the primary reason for their homelessness
17% said alcohol or drug issues were the primary reason for their homelessness
49 = average age at death for homeless men and women in Santa Cruz County
78 = average age of death for all Americans
6 weeks = current wait time for an emergency shelter bed
67% homeless men in SCC
32% homeless female in SCC
1% homeless transgender or “other“ in SCC
11% are homeless Veterans
84% of homeless Veterans were unsheltered
11% of homeless women were experiencing domestic violence
Sources: 2011 Santa Cruz County Homeless Census and Survey; 100k homes website; HPHP report on homeless deaths.


More info from commentators on various articles in this archive:

2014-02-08 NOTE BY NORSE:  Santa Cruz, of course, has its own "blanket ban" (MC 6.36.010b) which is still used (though less frequently than the "crime" of sleeping(MC 6.36.010a), or that of setting up a tent against the rain and cold (MC 6.36.010c).  A tip of the hat to Steve Pleich for bringing this story to our attention on his website.  Now if he (and others he's recruited to the Board) would only draw the attention of the Board of the ACLU--where has been vice-chair for many months--I'd feel a bit of warmth against the cold.    Not to mention the illegal theft of homeless property, the destruction of homeless camps, the ordinances and police practices driving homeless people from the downtown, the parks, and other supposedly "public" areas.

2013-12-25 NOTES BY NORSE:  The winter (summer, spring, and fall) destruction of survival encampments has become a growth industry in Santa Cruz under Mayors Bryant and Robinson--with persistent, arbitrary, and destructive raids on the privacy, property, and well-being of those outside with no shelter.  
The pretexts are age-old:  environmental protection (but not the human environment), public health (but let's not build any 24 hour bathrooms), drug "crimes" (how's the prohibition war going for you?), and, the latest and most trumpeted but least substantial--"public safety" (gee, Martha, all those police calls and tickets for sleeping, sitting, and being in a park after dark--they're willfully violating laws that our police department advised the  City Council to make!...and creating...a crime wave!). 
The growing number of homeless people are a symptom of housing, jobs, war priority, and bankster fraud, it's become easier and more profitable to discover or attribute flaws, faults, and failings in homeless people themselves to explain away rent profiteering, job flight overseas, and a bloated corrupt and overpriced  health care system.    But let's just call them drunks, addicts, crazies, and lazies.  Sort of what's always been done when you wish to dismiss legitimate basic survival demands and sub-humanize folks. 
The city can't even see its way clear to two decent mass meals for homeless people per year (Thanksgiving and Xmas).  Food Not Bombs has stepped in to feed on the sidewalk near the main post office today.   Nor has there been any official provision for warming centers as the temperatures drop.

2013-12-06 NOTE FROM NORSE: Chuck Jagoda, whose letter is included here at "San Jose: Four people die of exposure overnight" [link], is a Palo Alto activist struggling--as any of us in Santa Cruz struggled two decade ago to open up the Armory as emergency shelter in the winter--though it served (and serves now) only a fraction (100) of the homeless community here (1500-2000). In Santa Cruz, it's also a costly psuedo-solution, run by the military which prohibits support animals, doesn't allow users to come in later in the evening if they have jobs, doesn't allow conjugal activity, can't be driven to directly, and is essentially one big room filled with 50-100 people on cots--which can be difficult when some are ill and some are Vets with PTSD.
The Homeless (Lack of) Services Center has recently been misinterpreting MC 6.36.055, which requires dismissal of camping tickets if one is on the waiting list of two always-filled shelters or if the armory is filled. Instead, I was told last week that being on the waiting list does not give you automatic dismissal of the $156 citations--as it has before the Armory opened. Instead the Armory must have been full that night--which is often only the case on rainy or cold nights. Harsher policies being followed by the city attorney in the wake of homeless-ophobia by groups like Take Back Santa Cruz have prompted misdemeanor prosecutions if more than three tickets are left unpaid for--with a fine of up to $1000 and a jail term of up to 1 year. These are terrorist tactics, used to appease bigots, who feel that harsher policies will make Santa Cruz "less welcome" and "less enabling" to homeless people, who, they mistakenly believe, flock to Santa Cruz to use drugs, steal, and harass customers and merchants downtown.
  I have a dim view of the Armory, though I risked ail two decades ago to get it open. It is used instead of opening up buildings or campgrounds that would be much cheaper and more convenient. Under the incoming Mayor Robinson, who has asserted her hostility to homeless civil rights and homeless services and after the Council's acceptance of the Public Safety Task Force, things are likely to get worse.

"If you can't scare 'em out, starve 'em out..."
2013-12-05 NOTE FROM NORSE: Ironically it was during the Xmas season the attacks on homeless food providers in Santa Cruz escalated.  Mass arrests began in January 1989 in a half-year long struggle that ended with the uniformed food filcher's giving up and (a) ending--for a time--their attacks on those regularly serving food outdoors to homeless people downtown, and (b) setting up a meal at 115 Coral St. (then a vacant lot and a garage behind the  River St. mini-Shelter). 
                  A year later police raided Las Chorales (or "Lost Charlie's" as some called it--on Front St. near where the Community Credit Union is now because that restaurant was both feeding the homeless and allowing tem to fall asleep--in the month after the earthquake.  At that time Salvation Army and United Way made a nasty distinction between the pre-earthquake homeless and the post-earthquake homeless, cutting off the former and providing aid to the latter. 
                   Keith McHenry's recent account of attacks on food servers can be hard on the audio file of my streaming radio show at http://huffsantacruz.org/radio/brb/BB%2012-1-13.mp3(1 hour and 47 minutes into the file).  Keith has written about actions against Food Not Bombs chapters recently at http://www.foodnotbombs.net/fnb_resists.html and at http://anarchistcook.wordpress.com/2013/10/24/the-world-series-of-hunger-the-nationwide-campaign-to-hide-hunger-goes-into-extra-innings/ .

2013-11-12 NOTE BY NORSE:  Santa Cruz's downtown main drag, Pacific Avenue, is now a curious scene of regular violation of the new Downtown Ordinances that exclude 95%+ of the sidewalks in business districts from sitting or setting up a table.  The laws impact anyone with a "display device"--expansively described as "anything capable of holding tangible things" (i.e. a cup for a panhandler, a table for a political petitioner, a guitar case seeking donations for a busqueer).  Almost every singer, sitter, performer, or vendor that I've seen is in technical violation of these ordinances since so much obviously innocent behavior is simply rebranded as "criminal".   This fits in nicely with the right-wing claims of a homeless "crime wave" requiring public money and police attention--soon to be ceremoniously announced by Mayor Bryant's new Citizens Task Force on Public Safety (http://www.cityofsantacruz.com/index.aspx?page=1924 ).  
Obviously uninterested in going after every instance of sit-crime, strum-crime, or sparechagne-crime, cops and their cheery parapolice pals the "Hospitality" Hosts walking the beat beside them pick and choose who to harass and "move along" or ticket.  The casual and regular use of selective enforcement has soaked its way deeply into political acceptability as to be clearly visible almost  any time of day along Pacific Avenue.
That's not enough for some CSO's (Community Service Officers) who reportedly loom over homeless folks thumbing through their ticket books announcing new unwritten crimes that require the sitter to be 50' from a crosswalk or building.  Or suddenly a Host announces the homeless sparechanger is sitting in a "performance zone" (of which there are none) and must move on.  And seeing to get a permit to play music or display artwork in more than 12 square feet is generally not an option, except in a very few locations (See "Shrinking Sidewalks and the Permit Fantasy" at https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2013/11/09/18746169.php  ).   Some homeless wiseheads are learning to justify either their peaceful panhandling or their simply sitting by making colorful signs and selling them as artwork;  this is similar to the brief rush of kazoo players a decade ago that hit the avenue when expanded forbidden-to-sit zones were created for homeless people but not those "performing".
And mass ticketing of homeless people continues in San Lorenzo Park as recently as 11-10, according to one rudely awakened sleeper.
Property seizures are still a relatively ordinary occurrence with receipts haphazardly given, much property being taken to the city dump, and the police property room open only two days a week for two hours on those days.
Coming up next at City Council tomorrow afternoon--investigation into the feasibililty of cracking down on homeless recyclers by relocating recycling centers to more distant places or eliminating them entirely.  The City Attorney has already reluctantly told the bigotbackers on the Council that this conflicts with state law, but the "cut off all survival avenues" staff presses on.   Julie Hendee, a particularly nasty entrenched city staffer was recently heard scolding a church group for feeding people in public on the sidewalk, urging them to move indoors and out of sight.

2013-10-10 NOTES BY NORSE:  Santa Cruz's policy of "unwelcoming" homeless people involves arbitrary and unpredictable police and ranger behavior towards homeless property.  Authorities claim now that they are storing homeless property when it's taken, but this does jibe with the accounts of homeless people who speak of their property being hauled away by city workers, or not being available at the police station.  Even when police have it, they only allow homeless people to reclaim it from 12:30 to 2:30 PM,  Tuesdays and Thursdays. 
Reports from the Homeless (Lack of) Services Center indicate still no restored lockers there after several years.  The new laws due to go into effect on October 24th downtown may or may not ban putting down a blanket on Pacific Ave. to sit on--depending on how the police interpret them.  Though that may be academic, since the number of allowable spaces has shrunk almost to the vanishing point--not just for performers, artists, vendors, and tablers, but also for residents, tourists, and homeless people--who simply want to sit down.  The diminished number of benches do allow you to sit for an hour (and as yet are not metered LOL). 
The recent Host assault on activists peacefully protesting the Ordinances last Sunday has become quite a buzz on local websites and will be the subject of renewed protest October 13th at 1:30 PM in front of the Forever Twenty-One store (one of the few large sidewalk spaces left that will be shrunk-and-snatched on October 24th. For more on the Host incident, go to [https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2013/10/08/18744527.php].


"Eugene Activists Force City to Act on Homeless Sanctuary Camps"
2013-09-30 NOTES BY NORSE: 
Eugene pioneered the Safe Parking/Camping Zones, in part because of pressure from homeless activists there two decades ago and recently from SLEEPS (Safe Legally Entitled Emergency Places to Sleep) as well as an active leftist and anarchist community.   
Meanwhile Santa Cruz drops deeper into paranoia and anti-homeless hysteria with the Take Back Santa Cruz-inspired Needle-Free Zone homeless-aphobiacs.  The repression contagion has spread---now street performers, vendors, artists, and political activists are under attack downtown. 
New laws go into effect in Santa Cruz October 24th that will limit performance spaces to a 12' square area and make traditional assembly and political activity illegal on 95% of the downtown sidewalks.  These laws follow earlier ones that make it illegal to hold up peace signs on city medians (to outlaw panhandling there) and empower park officials to issue 1-day stay away orders prior to trial for "crimes in the park" like "trespass after dark" "smoking" and "sleeping after 11 PM".   An expansion of the Smoking Ban downtown targets homeless people (in a recent New England Journal of Medicine study, 17% of the general population smoke as distinguished from 75% of the homeless population).
Instead of opening existing bathrooms for 24-hour use, authorities are setting up a fenced off segregated portapotty as well as funding a $100 "Security" gate and fence around the Homeless (Lack of) Services Center.  Activist Brent Adams has put forward a Sanctuary Camp plan disdained by the City Council majority.   Instead Mayor Hillary Bryant's  band of bumbusters is backing  a "Citizens Public Safety Task Force" which defines homeless survival activity like sleeping outside, camping in parks, and urinating and defecating in the woods as "criminal behavior". 
Though the City has announced multi-million dollar surplus in their budget this year, none of it will be going to fund campgrounds or restrooms or showers for the most needy.  Eugene soars on, while Santa Cruz descends into a darker period.

2013-09-24 NOTES BY NORSE: 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.
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 advocates 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.

2013-09-10 NOTES BY NORSE:  Fresno activists provide portapotty facilities and trash pick-up's for the surviving homeless encampments, and document the City's destructive activities--as shown below.  They have also prompted renewed ACLU legal activity to require the City to live up to the "store, don't destroy homeless property" order of the $2.3 million Kinkaid settlement of 2007.  
Santa Cruz, by contrast, has no 24-hour bathroom, and its only concession to homeless (and indeed broader public) health and safety is to spend $15,000 on a segregated fenced-off portapotty (still projected with no actual facility yet set-up) on the San Lorenzo levee.  
The cost of renting a portapotty is $100 per month.   Instead of using thr $15,000 to keep open bathrooms already there in San Lorenzo Park and the parking garages, Santa Cruz city council homeless-degraders are spending three times that amount to set up a "Security Gate" at the Homeless (Lack of) Services Center at Coral St.

2013-08-16 NOTE BY NORSE: Santa Cruz homeless van-dweller Robert Brunette reported that a local judge turned down his request that he be allowed access to his towing-company-snatched van even though he never received adequate notice of hearing, and when he went to a CHP hearing, was denounced and expelled by a CHP officer.

2013-08-13 NOTES FROM NORSE:  The climate of darkening discrimination in Santa Cruz has not yet erupted into arson as against the most vulnerable (though several fires have been blamed on homeless people).  The new toxic climate that enables "trollbusting" has resulted in abusive police activity.
Incidents reported to me last night include reports of deputy theft and destruction of the blankets of a 50-year old woman and cops ignoring Santa Cruz Muni Code 6.36.055 which dictates that those on waiting lists for shelters are not susceptible to the Sleeping, Blanket, and Camping Ban laws.  
Last week a homeless man reported he was given a 24-hour stay-away order from San Lorenzo Park for "sleepcrime" after his property had been twice stolen and thrown.  Now active apparently is  away the new "discomfort someone in the park with profane language, face a 6 months jail/$1000 fine sentence".
Meanwhile the closing down of the  Page Smith Community House for three months renovation and the relocation of clients there into the spaces of the Paul Lee Loft, means there's zero "emergency" shelter (though there's been a waiting list for that for years as well).   
Santa Cruz really needs some constitutional counteraction against its own Downtown Ordinances. For a toxic selection of these nasty ordinances see "Deadly Downtown Ordinances--Updated" at [www.indybay.org/newsitems/2010/08/29/18657087.php].
As homeless people are increasingly caught up in a bogus "Public Security" crackdown involving private security thugs harassing the homeless around city hall, the library, the levee, and in the Pogonip, documenting these abuses with video and audio--and posting the accounts becomes increasingly important. A good place to post is [www.indybay.org/santacruz]. Plus you-tube, of course.
Steve Clark is a deputy chief of police. He has been known to be physically abusive to homeless persons.
How many disabled people will suffer if Steve Clark becomes Mayor of Santa Cruz?
Homeless activists must start scrutinizing SCPD Deputy Chief Steve Clark's oversight of SCPD harassment of the poor and homeless, as well as his role in breaking up peaceful First Amendment protected protests against City Council homeless criminalization.
 From his comments on other forums, Steve Clark seems to despise disabled people — 63% of the homeless interviewed in Santa Cruz County reported having disabilities in the recent ASR survey of the Santa Cruz County homeless population [hwww.appliedsurveyresearch.org/storage/database/homelessness/santacruz/SantaCruz_ExecSummary_FINAL.pdf].
 There are at least 1000 disabled homeless people in Santa Cruz right now. Steve Clark wants to make criminals out of them. If he is Mayor of Santa Cruz, we can expect more cuts in the few homeless services local government provides for these disabled people. We can expect more paramilitary sweeps of homeless camps.
 It's time to organize to protect the (disabled) homeless in expectation of Steve Clark's run for Mayor. 1000 disabled homeless people cannot afford for us to be behind the curve.


2013-08-01 NOTES BY NORSE:
Santa Cruz has cracked down recently on vending artwork and services on the street in violation of the White v. City of Sparks ruling by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals (caselaw.findlaw.com/us-9th-circuit/1300114.html), and a local understanding reached several years ago between Robin--an artist selling his work on the street--and John Barisone, the City Attorney--who acknowledged police would be violating the Constitution if they continued harassing him. A costly settlement only awaits one of the city's over-eager newbie cops or security thugs and then some lawyer with itchy pockets.
New anti-homeless hysteria is being generated by groups like Take Back Santa Cruz [TBSC], and the Santa Cruz Neighbors, and supported by the Bryant City Council, the Bernal City Management Team, and the "Public Safety" Citizens Task Force (more aptly termed the "Public Hysteria Mayor's Task Farce"). The Farce meets every other Wednesday at the Police Station Community Room (natcherally) 6-9 PM. Its next meeting is August 7. When reminded to do so, city staff puts its minutes, staff reports, agendas on line--though still no sign of the audio (www.cityofsantacruz.com/index.aspx?page=1924). Public Comment is usually barred. The "crimes" focused on are homeless survival camping, drug and alcohol use, and the "disturbing" presence of homeless people in the sacred commercial and residential public spaces. Also to be spotlighted: the "enabling" menace of free food and other services (with the Homeless (Lack of) Services Center's Monica Martinez lining up to support ID programs and a "security gate"), and other NIMBY-generated issues.
Real violent crime is not the focus. Nor, of course, the continuing hate crime policies of destroying homeless property, harassing vulnerable homeless people, and prosecuting them for life-sustaining behavior like sleeping or previously First Amendment-protected activity like petitioning and protesting.
Recent exposure of the reactionary views of Steve Schlitt of the Task Farce (www.santacruz.com/news/2013/07/30/anger_over_leaked_facebook_post) showing the rotten underbelly of the TBSC-inspired group is no surprise, considering the leaders of the group are a Seaside Company flak (Reyes) & a notorious anti-homeless cop (Howes). The only novelty is the candor with which the group and those backing it express their anti-homeless bigotry. It's been traditional to mouth pro-homeless pieties while passing anti-homeless legislation and backing police seizure of homeless property, the Sleeping Ban, the Sitting Ban, the Tabling Ban, the Move-Along Law, the Curfews, etc. (e.g. Don Lane and Micah Posner).


Decrypting Santa Cruz "Public Safety" mythology against the homeless...
2013-07-06 "The Problem with All These Homeless People is..."
from NOTES BY NORSE:
...they lack homes. They ain't got housing. They have no legal place to operate from with dignity and privacy. They have been forced--most of them--into a furtive 3rd class citizen existence. Instead of respect, they get suspicion, blame, and abuse.

Contrary to the latest Santa Cruz "Public Safety" mythology, it's not that
...Santa Cruz is a "magnet" with its homeless-hostile laws;
...that the meager services (which really don't include shelter--except for 5% of the homeless) are too welcoming;
... that the homeless are addicts, alcoholics, and crazies who would naturally become homeless (the majority of homeless people are women, children, and vets)
... that homeless people "flock" to Santa Cruz because of its reputation for "easy life" (though the climate--like all coastal cities--beats Fresno, and many have roots here or are aware of the continuing cultural residue of a counter-culture here)
 ...that homeless people are producing a "crime wave"--as Deputy-Chief "Clatterbox" Clark repeatedly pronounces (unless you regard survival sleeping, sitting next to a building, peacefully asking for spare change, or drinking a beer in an out of the way place as being "crimes"--which Clark does; he should know, his SCPD got city Council to define these behaviors as "criminal".)
I'm hearing that the broader housed and tourist community got a graphic taste of the Police State at 10 PM on July 4th when massive lines of cops began "rolling up" the previously public space. All for our own security--of course.
Housing, work, and safety net repair for the disabled are the most immediate needs of the homeless population, say I.


commentary for 2013-06-29 "Say What? Chalking It Up to Big Brother, Guy Faces 13 Years For Sidewalk Slogans" by Abby Zimet [www.commondreams.org/further/2013/06/29] from NOTES FROM NORSE: While Santa Cruz has not cited or arrested anyone recently for chalking (that we know of--contact me at rnorse3@hotmail.com if you know of any cases), the City moved to criminalize protest against the anti-homeless laws when they were ramped up in 2002/2003. The case of HUFF activist Becky Johnson: See [www.counterpunch.org/2003/02/22/hopscotch-rebellion] & [santacruz.indymedia.org/newswire/display/2663/index.php] Given the step-up in First Alarm, Panther Protective Services, and other Private Security thug surveillance downtown and the massive response of the SCPD to minor infractions like sitting near a building or smoking near Pacific Avenue, I suspect any overt political chalking would result in another DTA-Take-Back-Santa-Cruz attack elementary First Amendment rights.



2013-06-22 "Alaska and Berkeley: Prejudice and Passion"
NOTE BY NORSE: Tip of the had to John Colby for passing on these stories. The Alaska "compassionate cop" tale assumes and promulgates the mythology that homeless people are homeless because of alcohol, drug, and "mental illness" problems. It's not a housing, job, or income problem (when it's a problem and not simply a life-phase or rebellion against the abusive social-political order), goes this status quo-buttressing mythology--it's the people themselves who are defective and need "to be fixed". This, of course, allows for the money that might be spent on the obvious solution--housing--to be rerouted to social workers, police, drug programs, psych wards, and other "helpers." It also paves the way for treating the homeless as incompetents who need to be forced to "take help". This encourages "solutions" that involve ignoring civil rights, forced "medication", homeless sweeps, etc.
It also sets the stage for treating homeless--as is happening in Santa Cruz now--as a "crime" or "public safety" problem based on NIMBY apprehensions, police-initiated legal definitions, and class war politicies. In my 25 years of direct interviews with folks outside, I've found less than 10% have an obvious alcohol problem. Maybe the snow in Alaska is toxic. If anyone has any local figures on Santa Cruz city or county, I'd like to see them. Stigmatizing the homeless community as disabled because of "illness" (whether alcohol, drug, or "mental") ignores the real disabilities created by sleeping bans, sitting bans, park closures, and other laws that destroy what community exists and aggravate confrontations with the police.
[http://hardlynormal.com/blog/2010/03/08/alaska-homeless-as-seen-through-the-eyes-of-a-police-officer].
More typical, familiar to me, and positive (though still depressing) is the story of Sandy and others in this "invisible people" clip and story from Berkeley at [http://invisiblepeople.tv/blog/2010/03/sandy-homeless-berkley]
In Santa Cruz it's illegal to sleep either in your car OR by the side of the road. Santa Cruz wins the "least enabling of bad behavior" (i.e. homeless survival behavior that annoys, frightens, or angers middle class residents and merchants.


2013-05-27 Note by Norse:
Santa Cruz continues to ban sleeping in vehicles on ALL public property, and has intensified this life-threatening restriction by banning parking at night on many streets. It has also banned being in one's vehicle while awake in all downtown city parking lots.
Coming up at City Council tomorrow are new laws that would ban standing on a median or resting on the surface of a roundabout as well as granting police and their para-military pals extraordinary powers to ban people from parks (for 24 hours) without trial or charge once a citation is written for ANYTHING. These ordinances are on the 3 PM agenda at City Hall. You can e-mail the Council to tell them, no thanks, at citycouncil@cityofsantacruz.com .
Recent attempts by a small group of churches (such as the Red Church--Calvary Episcopal) to create a 2nd Interfaith Satellite Shelter Program with rotating beds at a variety of churches has stalled with only about 20 people being served per night. Considering the population of Santa Cruz has 1500-2000 people who sleep out each night, this, though commendable in intent, is pathetic in consequence. As was the earlier ISSP, which only served 80 people at its highest point about five years ago before it was disbanded because of vehicular (gas and maintenance) costs.
Even more abusive, of course, is the anti-homeless Sleeping Ban ordinance (MC 6.36.010a) which bans all sleeping inside or outside vehicles on any public property (and much private property) anywhere in City Limits. Toleration of this unaddressed Shelter Emergency is, of course, part of the NIMBY wealthy-only perspective of the police, city staff, and complaint city council(s). Ironically it would likely cost far less to establish the health and rest facilities (campgrounds, bathrooms) than to clean up the environmental destruction and to pay for the police and court costs of citing/arresting/trying people for what they have to do every night.
Chanting "it's illegal, arrest them!" (as the Santa Cruz Neighbors, Take Back Santa Cruz, and other thinly-veiled hate-the-homeless groups do) is both dumb and sadistic as well as being costly. Unfortunately this is not a rational phenomenon, but an issue of prejudice similar to that which enslaved blacks, enforced racial segregation, promulgates racial profiling, and motivates foreign wars. Education, agitation, and organization are needed to combat this--and the power that comes with saying no to this NIMBYism.
Palo Alto activists need to be supported in their fight to retain the right to sleep in vehicles there (now under challenge), and organized sustained protests may be useful here to overturn these corrupt and cruel ordinances.


NOTES BY NORSE:  Attempts by churches in Santa Cruz to protect and shelter homeless people have been mixed.  The Interfaith Satellite Shelter Program--which operated from 1988 through 2010 (or thereabouts) involved busing homeless people to  different churches every  night and its height served 40-80 people.  Since Santa Cruz has a homeless population of 1500-2000 and a law that makes homeless people  criminal who sleep either outside or in a vehicle in the city limits--this had limited effect in combatting the fear and insecurity homeless people felt at night.   The ISSP  ended because of "transportation costs", as I understand it.
A new program spearheaded by Calvary Episcopal Church is housing about 20 people each night in a variety of churches.  A Sanctuary Campground proposal is being hammered out by Brent Adams and others at the same time as there is rising hysteria against homeless people in a political "anti-crime" wave mounted by Take Back Santa Cruz, The Clean Team, and other "clean up our town" groups.
The Coral St. Open Air Shelter (1993-5)--a tolerated campground at River St. and Highway 1--was shut down by pressure from the Citizens Committee for the Homeless, and then-Mayor Mike Rotkin.  Rotkin also moved against Father Mike Marini's Holy Cross Shelter subsequently in the summer of 1996 by (according to the recollection of Becky Johnson) inciting the neighbors against the shelter.  Under his leadership (with Cynthia Mathews a loyal second), the Sherry Conable/Barbara Riverwomon State Parks Sanctuary proposal for the homeless (under which homeless would be bused to state parks to camp) was
vetoed. 
Religious leaders, who were otherwise reactionary, have also played a role in standing up for homeless people by sheltering them in their church.  See, for instance, [www.huffsantacruz.org/StreetSpiritSantaCruz/066.Rev.%20Drake%20Wins%20A%20Moral%20Victory=10-97.pdf].

Transport and Public Sector Unions: Strike in Support of the BART Workers and Their Unions!

“In Unity there is Strength”: This truth is manifested when unions strike as one, simultaneously. Since the first days of the BART strike, there has been a sense of solidarity and unity coming from union workers, non-union workers, the unemployed, and the youth of our working class communities. There is a wild card in our deck: Many of the Bay Area families who have lost loved ones to police murder, and their supporters, favor militant union action—for the unions, the workers, and their communities. These righteous sentiments of solidarity in the fight for justice can and must give rise, through organizing and mobilization, to a united working class movement for a common defense against our common enemy.
On July 1st 2013, when BART’s contracts with its unions expired, BART workers defiantly threw up picket lines and began their strike. The struggle brought together workers from three different unions—Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) 1555, Service Employees International Union (SEIU) 1021, and American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) 3993—which collectively represent BART’s train operators, station agents, and maintenance and clerical workers.
After four and a half days of a solid strike, BART workers should not have gone back to work. When the BART strike started, contracts had also just expired for union workers at the East Bay Municipal Utility District (EBMUD), the City of Oakland, and AC Transit. All those unions should have gone on strike simultaneously when the BART workers went out. Even now, the ATU 192 workers at AC Transit, and the AFSCME 444 & 2019 workers at EBMUD, still have not settled their contracts. This gives the workers an opportunity to correct the tactical mistake made by the BART unions in returning to work before they had achieved the goals of their strike. To take advantage of that opportunity, AC Transit and EBMUD workers need to walk out and strike in tandem and solidarity when the BART workers strike, as is anticipated, starting on August 5. No Contract, No Work!
Enter ILWU Local 10—Time to Organize and Apply Labor, Black and Brown Power!
There is a mutual need for support between the labor movement and the oppressed Black and Brown communities. We have the same enemy: the rich and powerful who control the economy, and the politicians and police who do their bidding. In this current Bay Area labor battle, the workers and the communities should come together to support each other. The Black and Brown communities should stand shoulder to shoulder on the picket lines with workers fighting to get back the pay and benefits that were stolen from them. Union workers and the oppressed communities should fight together for goals such as decriminalizing poverty and making sure all of our children get the high quality education they need and deserve. The pinnacle of this solidarity is achieved when the unions organize political strikes against the current wave of murderous police killings, of which most of the victims are Brown and Black youth.
Fortuitously, one of the unions in our own backyard, Local 10 of the International Longshore & Warehouse Union (ILWU), has long been in the forefront of the U.S. workers movement, organizing political strikes for international working class solidarity, demanding freedom for Mumia abu-Jamal, and other vital working class issues. The ILWU rank and file have also been a major factor in organizing their members, together with the communities, for the benefit and sometimes defense of the workers and their communities. Recently, in February of this year, ILWU Local 10 came to the aid of the beleaguered family of Mario Romero, slain by the Vallejo Police on September 2, 2012. They put the Vallejo politicians—flunkeys of capitalism—on notice about the police department’s harassment and intimidation of this brave family.
We of Labor Black and Brown (LBB), and our comrades in HWRS, saw this as an opportunity to correct the demise and dissipation of the unity between union, Brown, and Black forces that organized the historic October 23, 2010 shutdown of the Bay Area ports to demand “Justice For Oscar Grant.” We don’t believe in merely applauding and speechifying about the proud and important traditions and contributions of the ILWU. We believe that the union movement cannot just stand by while ILWU Local 10 does all the heavy lifting. Now is the time for the members of ATU, SEIU, AFSCME, and other unionists, to make their own contribution to the historic, pioneering steps the ILWU has taken and truly institutionalize, for the workers movement, the class struggle truth that “An Injury To One Is An Injury To All!”
Let us not get caught off-guard. The working class needs to be in the mood to “play for keeps.” The upcoming BART strike could and should spread, across unions, communities, and localities. Rank and file radicals and revolutionaries in every union need to articulate to their brothers and sisters the need for self-organization of the workers and the oppressed communities, independent of the capitalists and their politicians. Now is our chance to build a united movement that can push back against the epidemic of budget cuts, reductions in public services, police brutality, and union-busting exemplified by the defeat of the struggle against the Wisconsin anti-union legislation in March, 2011. That’s what a political strike is all about. Workers and their allies change the ground rules, acting by themselves and for themselves.
To do anything politically meaningful will require taking on a fight with the capitalists of Wall Street, of course, but that’s not all. We must also be wary of the cowardly political opportunists, from trade union bureaucrats to “progressive” democrats—including an array of fake socialists—who try and disunite and confuse us. They will howl about irresponsible unions and radical workers shaking everything up by fighting not just for money, but for the people, for every worker, every union. They will want to water down our determination to achieve full justice, and try to keep us separated and unprepared for the knock-down, drag-out fight that it is going to take to press our demands.
This is the same sell-out bureaucracy that dis-organized the rank and file union membership that tried to stop the union-busting in Wisconsin. In February and March of 2011, behind the backs of the tens of thousands of workers occupying the Wisconsin State Capitol building, the Wisconsin Republicans and their Governor Walker pulled a legal fast one, in effect decertifying public employee unions. And the unions did nothing but cry “foul” and then meekly surrender. The union bureaucrats diverted the organizing into impotent electoralism, mounting a “Recall Scott Walker” campaign—a disingenuous and pathetic move, and one that predictably failed!
No wonder that the following year, 2012, the Republicans passed a similar union-busting law aimed at the United Auto Workers (UAW) in Michigan. Yet rather than calling on workers to fight back with strikes and sit-ins until the law was defeated or withdrawn, the UAW leadership merely mouthed opposition to the law. In reality, the union officials were more concerned with the threat to the UAW’s dues base than with the attack on the rights of workers as a class.
Strike While the Iron is Hot
After all the dirty tricks, parliamentary sleight of hand, and divide-and-conquer nastiness that the capitalists have been beating us up with, it should be ABC to any union leader or any union radical that NOW is the time to take this opportunity and unite the rank-and-file to smack them back! Take back all the take-backs!
Across the nation, the banksters who wrecked the economy are safely back in their saddles (made of our money). Meanwhile, the police have free rein to kill our children. Now they are even stalking the families of those whose lives they have taken! On top of that, our schools and social services agencies have nowhere near the resources necessary to do their jobs.
We need to rescue our children and our schools! All the problems we have came about because the system gave away our money to Wall Street, and we are paying for it with our children’s futures! And the politically bankrupt union bureaucracy helped. They tell us to vote, not fight. They let us blow off steam with solidarity at lunchtime (!) rallies. They want us to work with and within this anti-worker, racist system that is at the mercy of its destructive and greedy capitalist class. We can’t count on them for leadership—we have to become our own leaders!
Today, the BART and AC Transit workers are counting on the respect and support of the poor, and of the best of Oakland’s working class, to help them win fair contracts. By the same token, now is the moment when the Bay Area transit unions, the Oakland City Workers, and the ILWU can be pulled together in a movement that works both to stop the police murders and defend the victims’ families and to support the workers’ struggle against attacks on our rights and our standard of living.
The next few weeks, if the BART strike stays unresolved, will be critical. Now is the time for class conscious or concerned workers to seek revolutionary solutions, strategic political collaboration in united fronts, and opportunities to unite the unions and the people around a program for common class struggle. We say now, because these opportunities are fleeting. Now, because many union members got their minds right about solidarity and are in a mood to fight.
How about a movement that openly says what it wants, and how it thinks workers can win? We say: “Shut the Bay Area down with a strike by all transit and municipal workers until all the unions’ demands are met, and all the take-backs and concessions are rescinded!”
* No trust in the union bureaucracy! For elected rank-and-file committees to conduct the strike!
* Elect committees of rank-and-file workers and representatives of the Black and Brown communities and the unemployed to organize political strikes against police brutality and attacks on unions and workers!
* Organize Workers’ Councils to express and realize our demands and needs!
* Convene Delegated Rank-and-File Labor, Black and Brown Tribunals; let the masses put killer cops, environmental polluters, and corporate tax evaders on trial!
* Organize and deploy Labor Black and Brown defense guards. No more police murder and harassment!

Co-authored by
* Labor Black and Brown: [www.facebook.com/laborblackbrown]
* Humanist Workers for Revolutionary Socialism: [www.facebook.com/pages/Humanists-for-Revolutionary-Socialism/80134436166]
August 1, 2013 • Flier printing is Labor Donated

Prisoner Hungerstrike Solidarity Action in Oakland

Statewide Prisoner Hunger Strike to Stop Torture, Long-Term Isolation & Indefinite Solitary Confinement in Prisons [link]

2013-08-01 "East Bay Action" 
[http://radmul.blogspot.com/2013/08/east-bay-action.html]:
Spent the Day in Oakland joining Friends, Loved Ones and Allies in solidarity with the Striking prisoners in the California Department of Corrections system [http://prisonerhungerstrikesolidarity.wordpress.com/]. We had cool weather through the valleys and clear skies by the bay. I was able to listen to the stories of those directly touched by the evil of the Prison Industrial Complex. Witnessing the collateral damage of the "War on Crime", the "War on Drugs" and the class wars puts a sharper edge on the strike for me. here are some of the sights.