Hayward City Workers Strike for Justice

2013-08-16 "Hayward City Workers Strike for Justice"
from "California Labor Federation Spotlight" V.1, N.287:
This week, hundreds of workers employed by the city of Hayward launched a three-day strike, after the city management declared an impasse, refused to negotiate and ended contract talks. The workers, who were forced into a strike by the city’s bad-faith bargaining tactics at the table, are now urging elected city officials to come back to the table for productive negotiations.
“Since July 1, the City of Oakland has done a one-day strike, the BART workers did a four-day strike, and now Hayward workers are doing a three-day strike,” SEIU 1021’s Pete Castelli told striking workers at a Tuesday noontime rally. “There’s something going on here. Workers are standing up and saying we’re not going to watch you hide money in your budget, hire managers, and put in it other places, and then dictate to us, ‘more austerity, more concessions, more cutbacks’ while refusing to negotiate.”


2013-08-13 "SEIU 1021 Members Strike in Hayward"
by "SEIU 1021" [seiu1021.org/2013/08/13/hayward-strikes/]:

City of Hayward workers began a three-day Unfair Labor Practice (ULP) strike on Tuesday after the City subjected them to seven months of delays, surface bargaining and intimidation. In response, workers have filed almost a dozen ULPs against the City and voted in June to authorize a strike. The city declared impasse on July 26, refusing to negotiate and ending contract talks.
“Since July 1, the City of Oakland has done a one-day strike, the BART workers did a four-day strike, and now Hayward workers are doing a three-day strike,” SEIU 1021 Lead Director Pete Castelli told striking workers at a Tuesday noontime rally joined by BART workers from Local 1021 and ATU 1555. “There’s something going on here. Workers are standing up and saying we’re not going to watch you hide money in your budget, hire managers, and put in it other places, and then dictate to us, ‘more austerity, more concessions, more cutbacks’ while refusing to negotiate.”
SEIU 1021 represents more than 350 full-time and part-time Hayward workers who fix roads and sewers, trim trees, find homes for stray animals, read to children at libraries and safeguard our neighborhoods. They feel they were forced into a strike by the city’s bad-faith bargaining tactics at the table, and now they are urging the city’s elected officials to return to the table for productive negotiations. SEIU 1021 members will continue to provide essential services like 911 dispatch, animal control and services at the wastewater treatment plant.
Workers’ incomes have been stripped away since 2010. First, it was furlough days. Then it was a 12 percent cut in take-home pay. Now the city is demanding five percent more — a total of 17 percent. City of Hayward workers gave up over $4 million in the last contract and over $7 million over the last four years. Since 2010, the City has eliminated over 43 positions Citywide, saving approximately $5.8 million over that period.
“We have drawn the line. This is the line,” Senior Utility Leader Daryl Lockhart told the Tuesday crowd. “No more concessions, no more bullying. It’s time to stand up. It’s time to let them know we are part of this city just like anybody else. Our back is against the wall. We come out swinging.”

Santa Cruz: Protest for Human Rights, Homeless Dad and Son Still Denied Service at CruzioWorks Because of Classism!

Defend those without homes! campaign page [link]

Human Rights abuse in itty-bitty Santa Cruz [link]

2013-09-02 "Update on Santa Cruz CruzioWorks Discriminatory Treatment of Dan Madison"
by Robert Norse [rnorse3@hotmail.com] [https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2013/09/02/18742587.php]:
Four weeks have passed since CruzioWorks took Dan Madison's several hundred dollars to pay for a 24-hour computer workspace, then turned around several hours later and broke their contract, apparently because a co-tenant in the building was "uncomfortable" see Dan and his son standing near their bikes in the CruzioWorks bike parking area. She suggested to Dan that they would cause junkies to gather in the area because of their homeless appearance and the sight of homeless possessions on their bicycles. An e-mail to this effect, was apparently enough to cause the "liberal" management to tear up Dan's contract. His subsequent request in writing for a formal hearing and clarification of why service was being revoked was denied. HUFF (Homeless United for Friendship & Freedom) picketed the business on two successive Fridays. The management declined to clarify its rationale.

BACKGROUND OF THE BIGOTRY -
The background and some prior correspondence to and from CruzioWorks is at [http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2013/08/14/18741605.php]. Follow the links to find more details and documents.
Fliers are available to download, read, and distribute. There are also some radio links. Dan currently has a radio show on Free Radio Santa Cruz which streams every Sunday 1 - 3 PM at [http://tunein.com/radio/FRSC-s47254].

STONEWALLING CUSTOMERS UPSET WITH THE DISCRIMINATORY BEHAVIOR -
More recently, several concerned community members wrote to the CruzioWorks management in search of answers and clearer understanding of what happened. CruzioWorks "responded" with the e-mails below:

On Aug 24, 2013, at 1:31 PM, James Weller wrote message to Cruzio Customer Service [office@cruzio.com]: I am a long-time loyal Cruzio customer, and I am in general very pleased with the sercvice I have received, and supportive of the organization, its work, and what I perceive to be its values. However, I have a very serious concern regarding a matter of management practice or policy that I want to discuss with someone who has authority to correct what i feel is a critical problem. I would like a response inviting me to meet in person with a senior manager to discuss my concerns at your office some time next week. Thank you in advance for what I expect will be your courteous accommodation. [signed] Jim Weller

On Aug 27, 2013, at 10:54 AM, Cruzio Customer Service replied: Hi Jim, Thanks for reaching out. Our management team take any customer questions extremely seriously and are always happy to discuss any issues. But without an idea of your area of concern, it's hard to know who on our team would be best placed to address them with you. If you could please email an outline of your concern, I'll be sure to ask the appropriate member of our senior staff to respond to you directly. Thanks again for contacting us. Best Regards, Sandi, Cruzio Customer Service

On Aug 29, 2013, at 10:40 AM, James Weller wrote: Hi, Sandi. My concern has to do with the experience of a man I know whose pre-paid Cruzio Works facilities use agreement was summarily terminated by Cruzio in a prejudicial and wrongful manner. It appears to me this man has been done a significant injustice, and I want to ask that proper amends be made. Regards, Jim Weller

CruzioWorks' Final Reply - On August 29, 2013 10:53:46 AM, Cruzio Customer Service replied: Hi Jim, Thanks for reaching out to us. While we never comment on the specifics of our interactions with individual customers, I can say this: Cruzio Internet does not discriminate against any group or individual, for any reason, nor do we tolerate discrimination from any of our employees. It is our commitment to serve all individuals in our community who are eligible for our services and abide by our terms of use. Our Cruzioworks coworking center is open to the whole community, as evidenced by our willingness to sign up members with no permanent address. Clearly homelessness in itself is not an issue for us. Cruzioworks has had members who are homeless, and some of our staff have been homeless. However, since coworking requires a mutual trust among all members, especially after hours when Cruzio staff is not always on hand, we must be strict about our membership rules. We respond only to actions and do not make judgments based on categories, but it is our responsibility and our legal right to act when there is a concern. For the last 25 years Cruzio has served the Santa Cruz community and supported many diverse local organizations -- including Community Bridges, the Homeless Garden Project and 2nd Harvest Food Bank -- with free or discounted services, donations and active involvement. We stand by our track record as an ethical, non-discriminatory company, with a long history of community involvement. I hope this goes some way to assuage your concerns. Thanks again, [signed] James Hackett, Business Development, Marketing & Communications Manager, Cruzio Internet

A SECOND CUSTOMER GETS STONEWALLED -
Scott Galloway, a Calvary Church activist, also wrote to the Cruzio management and received the following reply:
Hi Scott, Thanks for contacting us, we appreciate your concern. While we do not discuss specifics of our interactions with individual customers, we will say this: Cruzio Internet does not discriminate against any group or individual, for any reason, nor do we tolerate discrimination from any of our employees. It is
 our commitment to serve all individuals in our community who are eligible for our services and abide by our terms of use.
Our Cruzioworks coworking center is open to the whole community, as evidenced by our willingness to sign up members with no permanent address. Clearly homelessness in itself is not an issue for us. Cruzioworks has had members who are homeless, and some of our staff have been homeless.
However, since coworking requires a mutual trust among all members, especially after hours when Cruzio staff is not always on hand, we must be strict about our membership rules. We respond only to actions and do not make judgments based on categories, but it is our responsibility and our legal right to act when there is a concern. We'll often insist that a new member spend a certain amount of time as a 9-5 user, before we give 24/7 keycard access to the facility. This provides a good way for new members to access the space, while reassuring existing members. It is in no way a reflection on any individual.
We are disappointed that we seem to have become the object of an unwarranted attack. We don't believe the group attacking us accurately represent the views of the majority of the Santa Cruz homeless community. Their rush to judgment is harming a company which has always been an ally.
For almost 25 years Cruzio has served the Santa Cruz community and supported many diverse local organizations including Community Bridges, the Homeless Garden Project and 2nd Harvest Food Bank. We stand by our track record as an ethical, non-discriminatory company and we'll continue to strive to build an open, creative, and safe community.
Hope this allays your concerns. Thanks again for reaching out. [signed] James Hackett, Business Development, Marketing & Communications Manager, Cruzio Internet

DISINGENUOUS RESPONSE -
CruzioWorks manager James Hackett mentions "responding to actions", but has refused to specify either to the customers asking or to Dan Madison himself what specific action concerned the management. The "privacy" excuse is also bogus, because Dan Madison has made the issue quite public and waived any privacy concerns. Most tellingly, they have not returned his own specific request to know why he was refused service, whether he will be provided an appeal process, and what specific rule---if any--he violated.
The conclusion is difficult to avoid that CruzioWorks, in spite of its liberal cover story, is showing by its actions what kind of phobias and prejudices actually create its policies. This is a Santa Cruz-wide issue and needs to be confronted.

RESTATING THE OBVIOUS -
My own response to a friend of CruzioWorks:
Thanks for your inquiries. I think the issue is whether a homeless-looking person--on complaint of a nervous tenant--who is applying for a 24 hours space gets segregated into a "we'll only serve you during daylight hours" status, All because of the non-specific apprehensions of a person who finds the sight of the man's son standing next to a bike with saddlebags "suspicious" & "likely to draw junkies".
The issue is not whether they have other homeless customers, but whether someone who's apprehensive about the homeless can veto him based on their fears. There was no allegation that voices were raised, simply that some unidentified woman made bizarre and bigoted demands on someone who was already a customer. Several hours later Dan's 24-hour membership was "revoked" in apparent violation of the one-month notice to change a contract.
I see this as succumbing to the kind of Cynthia Mathews bigotry that had her attacking Father Joel Miller at Calvary Episcopal four years ago. If someone's appearance makes someone else uncomfortable, then that person can get a whole organization to restrict or ban that person? Come on, Joseph.
If you've learned any more specifics that might indicate new facts here, I'd be interested in hearing them. You would certainly in a better position to know.
To reiterate. As for "feeling comfortable"--that's the excuse for running blacks out of restaurants decades ago and homeless out of the downtown in Santa Cruz. It doesn't wash, and I'm surprised you're repeat this excuse. Many people of different ideologies can use a workspace without requiring they all be bosom buddies. These are customers after all. Am I missing something?
There really is never a "clear way back to a better outcome" (witness the decades long struggle against the Sleeping Ban). That doesn't mean we abandon our understanding of what is right in this situation and what the truth of the circumstances are. Please clarify if I've misstated or missed anything.
[signed] Robert Norse

KEEP UP THE PRESSURE -
I urge those concerned about the spread of paranoia and bigotry against homeless people in Santa Cruz to write to Cruzio at office [at] cruzio.com and ask the hard questions. It might be time for the community to clarify that it doesn't stand for anonymous bigotry behind closed doors. Tell them there are other service providers. I also suggest raising the issue on Yelp (http://www.yelp.com under "Cruzio Internet")

2013-08-16 "Picketline at CruzioWorks to Address Broader Homeless Discrimination Issue"
by Robert Norse [https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2013/08/16/18741655.php]:
Last Saturday Occupy Santa Cruz and its Homeless Justice Working Group resolution proposed and endorsed a picket against CruzioWorks discriminatory termination of a signed and paid-for contract to use the group's 24-hour workspace. Building on this decision, HUFF (Homeless United for Friendship & Freedom) decided the following Wednesday to broaden the scope of the picketing and protest Friday.
The protest will collect and document accounts of discrimination against homeless people at the nearby library, in public spaces downtown, and at downtown businesses. The picket's focus Friday is still the Dan Madison case. He was abruptly and unlawfully terminated without any specific reason several hours after paying, apparently on the instigation of a co-tenant in the building.
The anonymous woman was made nervous by the sight of Dan's son, Gryphon, who has Asperger's Syndrome, minding two bikes loaded with their possessions in the CruzioWorks parking lot which she felt "encouraged junkies."

BACKGROUND OF REPRESSION
Police & sheriffs reportedly continue to sweep homeless campsites, seizing homeless property and destroying it in violation of state law and the state and federal Constitutions.
At the last Friday CruzioWorks protest on 8-9, Mystaya Magawa an older woman in tears, reported losing her job and then her health care and her job in Bakersfield. A cancer & MS patient newly arrived in Santa Cruz and homeless with her teen-aged daughter, she described how Starbucks made her leave the coffeeshop after buying coffee because she had her backpack with her. How unlike Bakersfield, police made her stand up when resting on the sidewalk. How she was told it was illegal to cover-up with a blanket at night outside. (Listen to Mystaya's account in the last five minutes of the audio file at [http://www.radiolibre.org/brb/brb131508.mp3])
Hate cartoons in the Sentinel by de Cinzo portraying homeless people as needle-strewing fly-ridden bums while the Mayor creates a phony "Public Security" Citizens Task Force. The group, meeting at a police department ever eager to have new "tools" like the Sleeping Ban, Stop-and-Frisk, the end of needle exchange, curfews, triple-fine zones, and other policestate-heavy measures, is headed by a Boardwalk publicist and a homeless-hostile ex-Cop.
The pre-fabricated agenda excluding most public testimony justifiles a NIMBY crackdown on the limited services homeless people currently get. The ambitious and smiley-faced Homeless (Lack of) Services Center director Monica Martinez backs the measures while denying homeless clients the documentation they need to avert harassment citations for sleeping and covering up with blankets--as the Paul Lee loft closes down to any newcomers for three months.
City Council and the Board of Supervisors have squandered over $100,000 to fund a "Security Gate" out at the Homeless (Lack of ) Services Center to pander to the paranoia and homeless-get-out agenda of groups like the Santa Cruz Neighbors, the Downtown Association, and Take Back Santa Cruz. (Some activists intend to denounce the waste at Oral Communications 9 AM at the Board meeting Tuesday 8-20 on the 5th Floor of the County Building).
Instead of pointing out that crime has not risen in Santa Cruz for decades--other than smaller property crimes like bike theft-- liberals nervously pander to the "Safety" myth that hysteria hotheads preaching, endlessly harping on the atypical killings of Shannon Collins, Butchie Baker, and Elizabeth Baker. This kind of political cowardice and opportunism is similar to the Obama regime's signing on to the foreign wars, the war on terror, domestic surveillance, and the heightened attacks on whistleblowers.

THE MADISON CASE
It is this myth that seems to have prompted the complaint against Dan Madison by a still unidentified tenant for simply having a homeless son standing next to a bike filled with homeless possessions. Worse, and more telling, the "liberal" CruzioWorks management had no problem in summarily denying Madison's 24-hour service (violating a 30-day notice requirement) without even giving him a hearing.
Nearly a week has passed and Madison's e-mail requesting a clear explanation from CruzioWorks has gone unanswered (See [http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2013/08/08/18741236.php?show_comments=1#18741257]).
Attempts by Cruzio's customers to get a straight answer have also failed ([http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2013/08/08/18741236.php?show_comments=1#18741493]).
If we patronize businesses that bill themselves as liberals but actually take their marching orders from NIMBY bigots, if we accept their succumbing to the myth that homeless people are a "Public Safety" danger, we enter a truly dangerous time.
While activists will be encouraging folks to either not patronize CruzioWorks or to demand some explanation for the exclusionary action, we will also be asking homeless people to speak out on abusive practices elsewhere. Such practices include Head Librarian Teresas Landers's new "no signs in the library" policy directing a homeless person to turn his sign to the wall--the man had a political sign denouncing George H.W. Bush--or leave the library.
Landers also has implemented a "bring your backpack into the library, get kicked out" notice given to Madison a few days ago. Madison also reported a thuggish "wake up or get out" policy by security guards for nodding off in the library.
I've also received reports of First Alarm heavies excluding homeless people from the library grounds during daylight hours before the library opens, driving them from the grass at City Hall, and stalking them in San Lorenzo Park (See "First Alarm Security Guards Profile and Stalk San Lorenzo Park Users" at [http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2013/06/24/18738888.php]).
Sweeps on the levee, in Harvey West Park (one this morning), and in the Pogonip are on-going and threaten the dignity, health, and safety of the homeless community.

WHAT IS TO BE DONE
Homeless folks and those who wish to oppose this crackdown are invited to join the picket, witness, and/or testify to what they have seen. If you can't make the protest but have seen particular abuses, please post the details on-line or contact HUFF at 831-423-4833 and leave your account.
Contact Cruzio at 831-459-6301 or office [at] cruzio.com to demand justice for Dan Madison and the homeless community.
To paraphrase Edmund Burke, "All that is needed for evil to prevail is for good folks to do nothing."
On the other hand, consider this posting by activist Colin Campbell Clyde: [http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10151821128440854&set=gm.565530216837466&type=1&relevant_count=1].
The choice is ours.
For more background on the case go to [http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2013/08/08/18741236.php] and follow the comments.


Picketing Prejudice at CruzioWorks 
Call to Action!
Friday, August 16, 1:00 PM - 3:00 PM
In front of CruzioWorks HQ in Downtown Santa Cruz at Church and Cedar Streets
Address 309 Cedar PMB #14B Santa Cruz, CA 95060
Dan Madison, denied 24-hour service after he'd paid for it CruzioWorks on 8-6, has received no response to his written demand that service be restored. (indybay.org/newsitems/2013/08/08/18741236.php?show_comments=1#18741257)
HUFF (Homeless United for Friendship & Freedom) has also received no reply or further information from manager James Hackett or anyone else there. No managers and workers appeared to address the issue at an informational tabling and protest outside CruzioWorks 8-9.
Steve Schnaar, a Cruzio customer, got a boilerplate response that failed to reassure him. (indybay.org/newsitems/2013/08/08/18741236.php?show_comments=1#18741493 )
No activists or customers have reported getting any substantive response from Cruzioworks about the "incident" which they claim justified breaking their contract with Dan.
They have not described any specifics as to why the management responded to what appears to be a fear-and-prejudice-based stereotyping of Dan and his son Gryphon by a tenant in the building.
Meanwhile, AIDS survivor 70-year-old David Silva revealed that he too had been denied services there once he told them he was homeless.
A longer description of the background and issues is posted at http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2013/08/08/18741236.php?show_comments=1#18741281 .
PICK UP A PICKET !
SIGN THE PETITION TO RESTORE SERVICES TO DAN!
CONTACT CRUZIO & GET THE FULL STORY...IF YOU CAN!
CruzioWorks: 831-459-6301 peggy [at] cruzio.com

"Cruzio Works bans homeless customer: protest and informational Picket"
Friday August 09, 1PM - 3PM
In front of Cruzio Works HQ in Downtown Santa Cruz at Church and Cedar Streets
Contact Name: Robert Norse [rnorse3@hotmail.com] [831-423-4833]
The following is Dan Madison's account of discrimination and contract breach at Cruzio Works.
Dan describes himself as a computer graphics designer with a 19-year old son. Both have disabilities and are homeless.
On Monday August 5, Dan Mattison reports he and his son Gryphon paid around $300 for a Cruzio sign-up and a Cruzio Works 24-hour workspace. He advised them that he was homeless and was told there would be no problem.
As Dan made financial arrangements, Gryphon watched the bikes, which also held their possessions, as they were temporarily parked in the storage area in the back of the Cruzio building.
At some point a woman who later turned out to be someone who worked in the building but not for Cruzio, demanded to know what they were doing there. Dan, went out to speak with her. He explained they were paying customers who had rented a 24-hour space but would be moving the bikes to a city bike storage locker (which he did shortly thereafter).
The woman said she'd already called the police and was concerned with "homeless junkies" being attracted to the area and that she had some issues with their being there at all. But her fears were apparently allayed by the fact that Dan was a paying patron of the business.
However later when Dan returned to get his key, a Cruzio employee (who refused to give her name or her superior's name) told Dan that his membership was being revoked because of the woman's apprehensions which she had read in an e-mail. She would not specify what particular behavior was of concern.

This is Dan's account.
He came to a HUFF (Homeless United for Friendship & Freedom) meeting the next day and told us his story. We joined him in going to Cruzio to ask their side of the story.
I was present for this meeting and an audio was made.
Another woman and an escort again refused to give any specific reason why his membership had been terminated (though she said they would allow him a daytime membership on a "trial basis"). She did mention that they had a "community" there whose "safety" and "comfort" was of primary concern. She would not give any policy or act that suggested there was any violation of a rule that justified either calling the police or terminating his 24-hour membership.
HUFF members conferred outside and decided it sounded like anti-homeless discrimination. We will be setting up Cafe HUFF--an informational table with coffee to seek further information and to inform the community of what appears to be a rather sinister kind of backroom bigotry which is impacting a work-seeking homeless person, who has paid his bill.
We will be demanding that Cruzio Works restore Dan's contract, issue a non-discrimination pledge, and further survey folks about their experiences with Cruzio Works.
Some HUFF members are pressing for a boycott of Cruzio Works (though not necessarily of Cruzio, the internet service).
The recorded interchange between Dan and the Cruzio rep on 8-7 is difficult to hear but somewhat illuminating in that Cruzio refuses to specify what rule was broken, what the complaint by a third party was, and what the "incident" consisted of.
INTERVIEW WITH DAN AND HIS SON GRYPHON ON FREE RADIO SANTA CRUZ: http://www.radiolibre.org/brb/brb130808.mp3
COME CHECK OUT THE PROTEST AND SHARE A CUP OF COFFEE ON FRIDAY TO FIND OUT FOR YOURSELF !


Daniel Madison's Formal Letter Seeking Redress from CruzioWorks
Date: Fri, 9 Aug 2013 09:49:28 -0700
Subject: Discrimination at Cruzioworks
From: dannydsml [at] gmail.com
To: [bkkeep@cruzio.com] [office@cruzio.com] [support@cruzio.com] [peggy@cruzio.com]
To Whom it may concern.
My son and I paid for a 24/7 account at Cruzioworks and then a few hours later after Cruzio received my payment I was told they were canceling the account over some vague incident involving someone "feeling" uncomfortable with us being there. The actions taken by the staff at Cruzioworks is wrong, demeaning and discriminatory. We did nothing to deserve this treatment and demand that Cruzio allow us to keep our 24/7 accounts with an apology and written assurance Cruzio won't discriminate against the homeless and others again.
If this is unacceptable to Cruzio, please give a detailed account of why my 24/7 service was terminated so that I may continue taking legal action of unlawful termination, breech of contract and discrimination.
[signed] Daniel Madison


2013-08-09 "Brief But Boisterous Table-a-thon"
by Robert Norse [https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2013/08/08/18741236.php?show_comments=1#18741281]:
HUFF under the leadership of "Beggarbacker" Becky Johnson set up a small table on the sidewalk in front of the CruzioWorks entrance at Cedar and Church Streets about 1 PM as scheduled. The homeless father and son smeared as some kind of "security risk" were there. So were several thermoses of coffee and condiments for thirsty passersby.
Dan wielded a "Don't Discriminate" sign and gave out flyers to folks coming and going from the "Sentinel Cafe" in the Cruzio building. Gryphon sat across the street minding the two possession-laden bicycles and bike cart-as he'd done three days before on the same Tuesday they were barred because he was "loitering".
A friendly Cruzio employee explained to me that the other tenants of the building were "on edge" because of an earlier break-in, perhaps explaining the pathology of the service denial. I was reminded of the broader atmosphere of hysteria created by Santa Cruz Neighbors, the Sentinel, the SCPD, and, of course, The Clean Team and Take Back Santa Cruz that has ramped up harassment of innocent homeless people in Santa Cruz generally.
"Dead On" David Silva sat with a placard outlining the contradictory and hypocritical contrast between CruzioWork's claim of non-discrimination and its illegal cancellation of a the 24/7 contract with Dan Madison a few hours after he signed it.
Officer Azua double-parked his car half a block away and strode up to insist we "not block the sidewalk". An older woman, upset by what Cruzio was doing, pursued the officer back to his car, trying to educate him on the issue. Azua, ever oblivious, suggested she 'take a homeless person into your home."
Passersby in cars did lots of rubbernecking, almost all surprisingly positive with thumbs up and Victory finger signals as well as broad smiles and nods. The one negative shout suggested "close down the homeless bum center" (perhaps referring to the Homeless (Lack of) Services Center.
One crying woman happened by, noting she was dying from cancer and recently barred from Starbucks a block away (perhaps our next target) because of a backpack. Several other travelers reported police harassment and hostility. Other housed locals expressed outrage. Even some other First Alarm Security thugs chatted informally with Dan and David, perhaps taking time off from surveilling "suspicious" homeless locals at the library.
I'll be playing her account and other sound bytes from the tabling Sunday August 11th at 10AM on the stream of Free Radio Santa Cruz at http://www.freakradio.org (also reachable through http://tunein.com/radio/FRSC-s47254/ and archived at http://www.radiolibre.org/brb/brb130811.mp3 (about an hour and a half into the audio file).
No CruzioWorks customer were clearly convinced at the door to turn back by cries of "Bigotry Big Time Downtown!" and other loud announcements made by protesters. A dozen or so signed the two petitions.
All in all the protest was a positive first step towards informing the community about CruzioWorks untenable and bigoted position. A Santa Cruz Weekly reporter spoke with Dan and several others at some length.
There was brief mention of the secondary question of whether Cruzio is secretly cooperating with the feds and the NSA in turning over our e-mail to the Obama snoops. An answer there is yet to be forthcoming. If you care who's reading your e-mail, give Cruzio a call at 831-459-6301.
While you're at it, ask if their subsection CruzioWorks, is still discriminating against homeless and disabled folks. And just how they feel about that.

Santa Cruz harasses, arrests two for the crime of appearing poor

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

2013-04-16 "ALERT: Two Arrested For "Being" in the Pogonip"
by Robert Norse [http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2013/04/16/18735297.php]:
I received the following information by phone a few minutes ago. The charges against the two arrested were not clear, though they may be something like "camping" (i.e. survival sleeping during the day--which is not illegal).

I just received a preliminary report from two of six people who were accosted by authorities in the Pogonip about an hour or two ago. Two others in the group--Freedom of Occupy Santa Cruz and Andrew--were arrested for failing to leave (the charge was unclear). Since it was during the day, the Pogonip was open. One of those I spoke with, Baba, told me that when he asked what their crime was and why they were being told to leave, one of the three officers (a ranger, a SCPD officer, and a sheriff) told him "what if a family with some children came down and saw you here?"
 Baba noted that he first found this offensive with the implication that they were "unsightly" because of their appearance (youthful traveling alternative culture folks). Then on reflection he was even more deeply troubled because the officer's comments implied that the area was open to families but not to "his kind".
 Baba noted that the officers did not confiscate any property, gave them time to move their stuff (including two dogs), and told them they could "go to some other city". It was still not clear what Freedom and Andrew were arrested for, but I hope to learn more soon.
 Freedom had widely announced her interest in convening a meeting to deal with safe and secure sleeping space for the 100 people denied shelter when the Winter Armory Shelter had its last night on April 14th-15th.
 The weekly HUFF meeting, as described at http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2013/04/15/18735243.php tomorrow at 10 AM will discuss the situation. All are invited.
I'm attaching a history of criminalization of the homeless from WRAP (Western Regional Advocacy Project), a group of West Coast organizations fighting for the civil rights of those outside.

Update: I just spoke with Cody by phone--who reported being there throughout the incident. He clarified that the "crime" for which the two were arrested was "being in a closed area" rather than sleeping. Cody's impression was that the officers (he counted two SCPD and one ranger) would have allowed them to go elsewhere in the Pogonip, though not necessarily to sleep the night (the Pogonip is "closed" at night).
According to the police, Cody reported, the two wouldn't be released until Friday. He said he urged the two of them not to be arrested, and was able to persuade one other in the group to leave. Cody said he'd be at the HUFF meeting tomorrow if people want a direct account.

Report Problems to Keep Us All Informed -
Please post any threats, abuse, or violence by police or vigilantes with time, date, and particulars. That's another subject to be discussed at the meeting today and in the days ahead. It would be great to have someone like Brent put together a video documenting recent abuses downtown by police in their massive overpoliceing against homeless and street people. In a separate comment, I'll be posting a form that can be downloaded and used.
 I encourage those interested in restoring civil rights to check out the Saturday 2 PM meeting at Sub Rosa. Since folks do have to sleep every night, I encourage people to sleep in groups and seek out one person with a cellphone or other audio/video device a a form of protection and documentation.
 If people do plan protests, I encourage them to seek support from housed people including witnesses, video, media contacts, and the prospect of having their property taken.
 As outlined in a previous flyer ("Arm the Homeless with Cell Phones... at http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2013/04/15/18735243.php ), issues to be discussed at that meeting include Organizing protection against the new rash of attacks on homeless people; Start a Thug Watch Santa Cruz; Education about the California Homeless Bill of Rights; Discussing the formation of a Homes Not Jails housing occupation movement; Strategies for Responding to the growing knowledge that we are facing another Great Depression.
 While I'm a continuing supporter of sanctuary camps established with official buy-in over the long run, I'm not terribly optimistic about this prospect in Santa Cruz, given the history of prior attempts here by individuals as presitigeous and well-funded as philanthropist Paul Lee (the Eco-Village movement of a decade or two ago).
 It may be particularly difficult given the ravenous right-wing hysteria of the last year, as well as the increasingly powerful position of toxic NIMBY drive-away-the-homeless groups like Take Back Santa Cruz, masquerading as Public Safety groups.
I don't think there is any magic bullet, but solidarity is a key factor here. If we do not hang together, we will surely hang separately, as the old Ben Franklin adage goes.

2013-08-13 "1021 strikes back"

from "1021 NewsWire"

You’ve seen them. They’re all over the news.
Maybe you’re wearing one now. You know, those purple SEIU 1021 “Will Strike If Provoked” t-shirts.

With BART and the cities of Oakland and now Hayward going on strikes this summer, Local 1021 has been making national headlines by taking a stand against the politics of austerity that are destroying our communities to enrich a few. What has not made the news -- until this issue -- are the many contracts our members have settled without a strike (although some came close). Large or small, pretty much all of them passed under the media radar, but they’re notable for a reason: Unlike the concessionary contracts that filled these pages a couple years ago, members are winning good contracts in the upswing economy, with long-delayed cost-of-living adjustments and an end to furloughs.
Strike or no strike, SEIU 1021 members have been striking back everywhere.

Part 1: Cooling off, heating up

City of Hayward -
Hayward city workers are holding a strike of their own this week (pictured throughout this issue). Workers began a three-day Unfair Labor Practice (ULP) strike on Tuesday after the City subjected them to seven months of delays, surface bargaining and intimidation. In response, workers have filed almost a dozen ULPs against the City and voted in June to authorize a strike. The city declared impasse on July 26, refusing to negotiate and ending contract talks.
“Since July 1, the City of Oakland has done a one-day strike, the BART workers did a four-day strike, and now Hayward workers are doing a three-day strike,” SEIU 1021 Lead Director Pete Castelli told striking workers at a Tuesday noontime rally joined by BART workers from Local 1021 and ATU 1555. “There’s something going on here. Workers are standing up and saying we’re not going to watch you hide money in your budget, hire managers, and put in it other places, and then dictate to us, ‘more austerity, more concessions, more cutbacks’ while refusing to negotiate.”
SEIU 1021 represents more than 350 full-time and part-time Hayward workers who fix roads and sewers, trim trees, find homes for stray animals, read to children at libraries and safeguard our neighborhoods. They feel they were forced into a strike by the city’s bad-faith bargaining tactics at the table, and now they are urging the city's elected officials to return to the table for productive negotiations. SEIU 1021 members will continue to provide essential services like 911 dispatch, animal control and services at the wastewater treatment plant.
Workers' incomes have been stripped away since 2010. First, it was furlough days. Then it was a 12 percent cut in take-home pay. Now the city is demanding five percent more -- a total of 17 percent. City of Hayward workers gave up over $4 million in the last contract and over $7 million over the last four years. Since 2010, the City has eliminated over 43 positions Citywide, saving approximately $5.8 million over that period.
“We have drawn the line. This is the line,” Senior Utility Leader Daryl Lockhart told the Tuesday crowd. “No more concessions, no more bullying. It’s time to stand up. It’s time to let them know we are part of this city just like anybody else. Our back is against the wall. We come out swinging.”

Bay Area Rapid Transit District (BART) -
It’s not over until it’s over, and over is when we have a fair, equitable contract for BART workers. Gov. Brown ordered a 60-day cooling off period to keep the trains running, but if we have not reached an agreement with BART management by midnight on October 10, the next day our members will be back on strike, and the governor won’t be able to intervene this time.
This fight is not about one transit district. We are not taking on only BART but the entire system that wants to destroy good jobs and blame working people for bringing down the economy instead of the real culprits, the big banks and financial industry.
“We are not ashamed to be defending middle classes wages and benefits,” the union team told a panel of state investigators looking into the stalled negotiations last week. We reject the “race to the bottom” propounded by the media and public opinion. We call upon the media to have the courage to tell the truth and the stories of BART workers instead of just repeating management’s point of view.


Part 2: Contracts we settled without a strike -

City of Fairfield -
The Fairfield chapter ratified 3–1 a two-year no-concessions contract that puts an end to more than three years of furloughs. In addition, the City picks up all health premium increases for the term of the contract and will provide training pay.

Blood Centers of the Pacific -
The contract contains significant pay increases and salary range adjustments, including a 4 percent raise over the three years of the agreement. Other merit and equity adjustments range from one to 10 percent. Educational Assistance doubles to $5,000 per year, and members can reopen the contract to discuss health and dental options without reopening the entire contract.

Asian Health Services -
Members get five percent over two years plus a three percent flexible spending account folded into their base salary. They also get step increases back, plus an additional floating holiday.

City of Oakland -
Oakland workers got management back to the table after a one-day strike and left with a no-concessions contract and three percent in COLAs over the two-year term. They also got a variety of allowances and reimbursements and several non-economic benefits.

San Joaquin County -
This was the largest contract we’ve settled lately, but only after coming to the brink of a countywide shutdown. Members won a four percent COLA over three years and the end of furlough days. Part-time medical benefits will continue for those working 25 hours/week. The contract also creates an ongoing health care committee and a part-time committee to develop a path to full employment for current part-time workers.

City of Berkeley, CSU Chapter -
The bargaining team fended off takeaways, including a 30 percent employee health care contribution, and got a wage reopener next year.

City of San Ramon -
Members opted to take an increased pension contribution (per PEPRA regulations) to install a merit pay system which, if the last performance evaluations are a guide, should result in an average raise of 3.75 percent per year.

Hayward Area Park and Recreation District (HARD) -
Part-timers unanimously ratified a no-concessions contract that provides a nine percent COLA over two years and vacation accruals up to five years instead of the previous two.

San Francisco Unified School District -
Workers won a 2.5 percent wage increase for the first year and reopeners in years two and three. Also a 75/25 split on medical (a big improvement), a 10 cents/hour longevity increase, and an increase in uniform allowance.

City of Sutter Creek -
Members in this small Sierra foothills city signed a one-year contract with a five percent step increase added to each classification (current employees get an additional five percent if at the top of a step).

River Pines Utility District -
The one-year contract includes a $3/hour pay increase and a wage and retirement reopener in January, as well as premium pay for being on call for 24 hours during the week.

Cities of Sebastopol, Rohnert Park, Santa Rosa (Police Techs) -
Sebastopol workers won two percent plus an increase in hours during their wage reopener. Santa Rosa’s police techs and the employees of Rohnert Park both secured one-year contracts with no concessions and an end to furloughs amounting to a six percent pay increase.

Arson at Fresno Homeless encampment, on the eve of Fresno City's campaign to exile those without addresses

Human Rights abuse in the City of Fresno [link]
Defend those without homes! campaign page [link]

The tragedy of the Fresno Homeless Arson Attacks is that the City of Fresno is still proceeding with it's abusive plans to exile all those without an address within city limits, and is not doing anything to remedy the Human Rights abuse suffered by the People.

2013-08-16 "According to the Fire Department" comment by Dan Waterhouse: Homeless people are responsible. The fire on August 7 where the arrest was made was set by a homeless man who was involved in a dispute with someone in that camp. A second fire was caused by people burning insulation off wiring. The third fire's precise cause is still under investigation but was caused by homeless. Story on line on the Fresno Bee website.

2013-08-12 "Who is burning down the Fresno Homeless Encampments?"
All photos and text by Mike Rhodes (editor [at] fresnoalliance.com):
More information about the treatment of those without homes are archived by Michael Rhodes at [fresnoalliance.com/wordpress/?p=1313]
There have been 2 major fires at homeless encampments in the last week. One was a confirmed arson and the fire department has not determined the cause of yesterday’s fire. The photos below show what remains.

When I was there this afternoon I did not see anybody from the City of Fresno, the Red Cross, or anywhere else trying to help the homeless who lost everything they owned. In fact, the City of Fresno has signs up saying they are going to bulldoze this (and other) homeless encampments in downtown Fresno starting later this month. The demolition notices do not explain how this city action will help the homeless or where they are supposed to go.
Monterey and E street 1: The woman in the foreground was looking for anything of value left after the fire. The man behind the fence is putting up a new shelter.

Monterey and E street 2: Looking north from California street

Monterey and E street 3: These shelters at the north end of the encampment did not get destroyed

Monterey and E street 4: A boat that burned on the north end of the encampment looks out of place

Golden State Off Ramp 1: This is the fire that happened last week

Golden State Off Ramp 2: Another View of the fire damage

Golden State Off Ramp 3: This is the Homeless Encampment just south of the fire

Golden State Off Ramp 4: These are shelters a little further south on Golden State

Golden State Off Ramp 5: Toy police car on the side of the road

Golden State Off Ramp 6: Notices of the Eviction - next to homeless shelters on Golden State blvd.

Golden State Off Ramp 7: The Homeless Have posted signs of their own

Santa Clara Street (looking east from E street):

The City of Fresno says they are going to destroy this homeless encampment later this month. For more information, see [http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2013/07/30/18740629.php]


NOTE FROM NORSE of "Homeless United for Friendship and Freedom" in Santa Cruz [www.huffsantacruz.org]: 
The City of Fresno, though also attacking homeless encampments, has also been set back by successful lawsuits.  Plus the sheer volume of homeless people setting up camp in these houseless times because they have to.  In response Mike Rhodes and the Fresno Homeless Alliance has been providing TP and dumpsters as well as servicing to deal with the public health crisis that the City will not.  Santa Cruz activists, contemplating encampments here, might cast an eye Fresno-wise. 
---
2013-03-01 message from Mike Rhodes, Editor of "Community Alliance Newspaper" [www.fresnoalliance.com]:
This afternoon I delivered the last 30 rolls of donated toilet paper to the homeless encampments in downtown Fresno.  As you may know, we have seven portable toilets in 4 different encampments and they go through a lot of TP.  I have hired a homeless guy to supply each of the portable toilets with TP each day.  He puts 3 rolls in a locked dispenser and keeps the portable toilets free of clothing and other trash.  It is really working out great, except that now we are completely out of TP. 
If you can help, please drop off packages of TP to my office at the Fresno Center for Nonviolence, 1584 N Van Ness (on the southeast corner of Van Ness and McKinley).  We are open Monday - Friday from 11 a.m. - 3 p.m.  You can also call the center at 237-3223 - Richard Gomez is often there before or after regular hours (and weekends) and can let you in to drop off the TP.
Alternatively, you can send a check to The Eco Village Project of Fresno, C/O Mike Rhodes, 4773 N Arthur Ave, Fresno Ca 93705 and we can buy TP in bulk at wholesale prices.  Either way works, but we need to do something soon.
Also, we have placed a couple of large trash bins at 2 of the homeless encampments and that is helping to keep them a lot cleaner.  Again, I’m hiring homeless people to do the difficult work of clearing the garbage from the encampments and putting it into the dumpsters.  This has been going on for a couple of weeks now and you can see a big difference in the encampments where we have located the trash bins.  You can help support this effort by sending a check to the above address.


2013-03-14 message from Mike Rhodes, Editor for "Community Alliance Newspaper" [www.fresnoalliance.com]: 
The Fresno Bee article about the Press Conference held yesterday at Ventura and F street is below. Note that at the end of the article City Council member Oliver Baines blames the lawsuit for their problems.  Just when they get some momentum going to keep the streets clean, they get sued. . . according to Baines.  For some reason, The Bee did not mention that the Community Alliance is able to put 8 portable toilets and 3 dumpsters at the encampment without incident.  If we can help keep the encampments clean without destroying homeless peoples property, why can't the city do the same thing?  Maybe they should call me up and ask for our secret.
---
2013-03-13 "Residents near downtown Fresno urge faster city action on homeless trash"  by BoNhia Lee from "The Fresno Bee" [http://www.fresnobee.com/2013/03/13/3211982/residents-near-downtown-fresno.html]:
Residents who live south of downtown Fresno know the homeless problem in their neighborhood won't be solved right away. But they think the piles of trash that come from the homeless are an easy fix.
Members of the Golden Westside Planning Committee and residents who live in tidy houses near Ventura Avenue and E Street held a news conference Wednesday to urge city officials to clean up their neighborhood.
Late Wednesday, city officials said they're working on a solution.
The group gathered in front of a small alley on Ventura Avenue, between E and F streets, where trash had accumulated over the last four months.
Capri Sun juice packets, restaurant takeout boxes, clothes, blankets, hangers, soup cans and more were scattered on the ground.
The trash "carries feces, it carries roaches, it carries rats, it carries all kinds of things as our children walk through the neighborhood," said Debbie Darden, the group's chairwoman. "It's an ongoing problem. We feel it's the responsibility of the city of Fresno to act on it quickly and on a regular basis to get it cleaned up."
The trash is what you would see in Third-World countries like Pakistan and Nigeria, said Kevin Hamilton, deputy chief of programs for Clinica Sierra Vista.
"When you have piles of trash sitting around for months, it gets wet, the elements start to work on it and it becomes a place where bacteria live," Hamilton said. "This is truly a health hazard to our community."
The committee and resident Jeff Tapscott said calls to Council Member Oliver Baines, who represents the area, the mayor and city manager since January have not resulted in a cleanup yet.
"The trash never seems to leave," said Tapscott, who has lived in the neighborhood for 17 years. "I pick up what I can pick up."
Their suggestion: put Dumpsters in the alleys and on the streets.
When contacted on Wednesday, city spokesman Mike Lukens said in a written statement that the city will put trash bins in the neighborhood.
"The city will cooperate with residents in the neighborhood and place trash bins there, but we're also working on an overall cleanup of the area," Lukens said.
Baines said residents should expect to see the trash cleaned up within a month.
"I share their frustration," Baines said. "They're right. It's an issue that needs to be taken care of."
But the process takes time, Baines said. The city has to figure out whether the property that needs cleaning is publicly or privately owned. Then there are the lawsuits.
The city has been sued by homeless advocates twice before for destruction of property after cleaning up homeless encampments.
"It really slows the process down and almost stops the process all together," Baines said. "That has been a big hinderance. Just when we get the momentum going we get hit with the lawsuit and we have to of course work through all that."


2013-02-11 "Fresno has no Heart - Will Evict the Homeless on Valentines Day"
by Mike Rhodes from "Fresno Community Alliance" [http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2013/02/11/18731822.php]:
 Mike Rhodes is the editor of the Community Alliance newspaper. He can be reached by email at [editor (@fresnoalliance.com].
---
The photo below shows the north end of the Monterey and E street homeless encampment.

An eviction of a significant number of homeless people at a downtown encampment will probably take place on Thursday, February 14. According to residents of the homeless encampment, located near Monterey and E street, they were told by the owner of the property they are living on that they have until Thursday to “move on.” The owner was accompanied by several officers from the Fresno Police Department and a truck & crew from the Fire Department.
 One homeless man told me this afternoon (Monday, February 11) that the owner of the property said he would be bulldozing the vacant lot on Thursday and everything would be destroyed. “He told me to get the fuck out of here,” he shared with me as he sorted through recycled items sitting in several shopping carts on the property. When I asked if he was sure it was the owner, he said “well, he had the police with him, so it looked pretty convincing to me.”
 Unlike other evictions by the City of Fresno, there are no signs posted to notify the residents of the demolition that is to come. Julie (not her real name), said someone had posted an eviction notice about a month ago, but those were torn down within an hour or two. The owner told her that he did not have to post notices because it is his property.
 There was an eviction that took place in the spring of 2012 at another homeless encampment, behind the grain silos near Palm and H street, that was similar. This was private property, the owner made numerous attempts to force the homeless to move, and eventually put a fence around the property to force the eviction. Many of the homeless people from that encampment moved about 200 feet south and occupied a different vacant lot. They have not been threatened with eviction again, as far as I know.
 Most of the residents at the Monterey and E street homeless encampment who are being threatened with eviction said they were planning on moving, but I was told that not everyone would pack up and move. I was told that it is only the north end of the encampment that has been threatened with eviction. The dividing line is Monterey street. Everything north of Monterey street will likely be destroyed on Thursday. Everything south of Monterey street is said to be safe from the demolition.
 Can the owner of a vacant lot take and immediately destroy homeless peoples property? Did the City of Fresno threaten the owner with legal action if he did not move against the homeless? Will FPD officers participate in the demolition or arrest anyone if they resist? Observers are needed starting early Thursday morning. If you can help, meet at the encampment starting at 7 a.m. on Thursday. Bring your video or still camera to document what takes place. If you can’t come until later, let me know so we can coordinate having someone there all day.
 Demolitions of homeless encampments in October and November of 2011 resulted in over 30 lawsuits against the City of Fresno claiming that the city violated homeless peoples legal rights by taking and immediately destroying their property. Those cases are working their way through the court. Without this litigation it is likely that the city would have been more aggressive in their attacks on the homeless. A new strategy of forcing property owners to evict the homeless may be emerging as City Hall seeks to avoid additional lawsuits.

"Another view of the norht end of the encampment" by Mike Rhodes Monday Feb 11th, 2013 5:43 PM

"This shows the entire area impacted by the evictions" by Mike Rhodes Monday Feb 11th, 2013 5:43 PM

"Typical Shelter in the Area" by Mike Rhodes Monday Feb 11th, 2013 5:43 PM

"This is the center of the homeless encampment looking north" by Mike Rhodes Monday Feb 11th, 2013 5:43 PM



2013-02-17 "Burning the Homeless out"
by Mike Rhodes [http://fresnoalliance.com/wordpress/?p=1313]
This is a follow up to an earlier Indybay article about an eviction of homeless people at the Monterey and E street encampment in Fresno.
As I drove toward the Monterey and E street homeless encampment on Valentine’s Day, I could see a huge plume of smoke rising into the sky. When I got a little closer I could hear and then see the fire trucks screaming towards the smoke. They got there about 5 minutes ahead of me, but they already had most of the fire under control by the time I arrived.
 I was going to the encampment to check out reports that the owner was going to bulldoze the vacant lot, inhabited by about 100 homeless people in downtown Fresno.
 After taking a few photos of the scene I headed over to the police and what looked to be the fire department supervisor. I asked the officer if there was anything suspicious about the fire. He looked puzzled. I told him that the owner of the property had told the residents that he was going to bulldoze the encampment today. More puzzlement in the eyes of the two guys I was talking to. I said, “have you looked into the possibility that the owner started the fire to force the homeless from this area?” This the police officer seemed to understand and he assured me that nothing like that had happened. “How do you know that?” I asked. “Well, these people out here would make a complaint if something like that had happened. Oh, they do all kinds of things themselves, but if something happens to them they will file a complaint.”
 Seemed to me that the officer had some bias against the homeless and unlike any other house fire in this town, there would be no investigation of what happened here. After all, these were just homeless people, squatting on somebody’s land. Arson? An attempt to evict the people that lived there? Obviously, the police or the fire department were not going to be bothered to investigate what had happened.
 This is one of the realities of the homeless encampments in Fresno. There are a lot of fires, some of which are caused by candles and other light or heat sources. Sometimes, as Gloria (a homeless woman who used to live in the area) told me, there are people who will burn your house down because you owe them $10.
 Several people told me that the fire on Valentine’s Day was not due to the vigilantism of the property owner, but was the result of a personal dispute.
 The eviction by the owner, who told everyone he was going to bulldoze their property, did not happen. This is not unusual and has become a pattern in Fresno. What usually happens is that you have a property owner who may or may not care that homeless people are living on his property. He or she is contacted by someone from the City of Fresno (usually code enforcement or the police) and they are told they have to do something about the homeless encampment on their property.
 If the owner does not move to dislodge the homeless the city official will ratchet up the pressure. This could be in the form of telling the owner that if they don’t remove the homeless, the city will do it and send them a bill for the clean up. Another approach I have seen them use is to threaten the owner, saying that if they don’t remove the homeless, they will make life more difficult for them. In one case they told a home owner with obvious code violations that if they did not remove the homeless people from their property they would come and do an inspection. If the homeless people move, then there will be no pesky government officials turning over every stone at your house to make sure you are in 100% compliance of all local, state, and federal laws. You get the idea.
 In this case, the owner came out to the encampment on Monterey and E streets, with the fire department and the police watching his back (from a safe distance) as he threatened them with eviction and a bulldozer on Valentine’s Day. This created enough anxiety among the homeless that at least ½ of them moved away. That was the desired result. If the city and property owner can get the homeless to leave, without bringing out the bulldozer, that is a win for them.
 Most homeless people don’t want to be a part of a confrontation and they will move on when threatened with the destruction of their property. Of course, they usually just move over to the next vacant lot and the process starts all over again.


Why was their no investigation of this house fire?

If any other home burned in Fresno, there would be an investigation.

California Prisoner Hungerstrike: Excellent Letter & Radio Show about Prisoner Hunger Strike, Day 36 Updates

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

KPFA show dedicated to Prisoner Hunger Strike! [http://www.kpfa.org/archive/id/94236]

A Response to CDCR Secretary Beard
by Caitlin Kelly Henry, Esq. (Attorney at Law, Adjunct Faculty, UC Hastings College of The Law [P.O. Box 641050, San Francisco, CA 94164] [http://californiacorrectionscrisis.blogspot.com/2013/08/a-response-to-cdcr-secretary-beard-by.html]:
(sent to the LA Times, but not yet printed)
In a recent OpEd, CDCR Secretary Beard, defends his agency's use of torture, and justifies it by vilifying and dehumanizing some of its victims. Conditions in CDCR’s SHUs meet international definitions of unlawful torture. Sensory deprivation is torture. Prolonged isolation is torture. California, unlike most states and nations, refuses to recognize that it is both unlawful and poor public policy to punish people with prolonged isolation. Though no other jurisdiction appears to deny that these practices constitute solitary confinement.
These conditions cause permanent physical and psychological effects. As an attorney and academic, I have conducted over 60 interviews with people sequestered in SHUs, and have witnessed the physical and psychological effects of isolation. Having recently visited strikers, I can attest that as a result of their non-violent demonstration, they are experiencing irreversible and life threatening effects that will only worsen if CDCR and Governor Brown do not take action immediately.
Hunger and work strikes by disfranchised people, who have little to leverage but their bodies, have earned a dignified and noble legacy in human and civil rights movements. The last three California prison strikes have succeeded in shining light on atrocious living conditions typically shielded from the public behind prison walls.
The OpEd misrepresents CDCR's de-jure policies, and avoids addressing its de-facto policies, which arise from prison staff’s vast discretion in policy interpretation and execution. The OpEd attempts to narrow the discussion to CDCR's treatment of the sub-group of people staff accuse of being affiliated with gangs and focus on the strike's second demand. However, the other four demands, concern issues affecting all prisoners in solitary, many of whom are never accused of gang activity.
CDCR continues to arbitrarily discipline and move people to solitary confinement without adequate due process, whether for a determinate term (though people are often held after the term's end) or indeterminate term. Currently, CDCR is issuing rules violations to hunger strikers simply for not eating, and charging participants and non-participants with “gang related activity” for showing support for the strike. These violations can be used to send people to the SHU, keep them there, or deny people post-conviction relief (parole, prop 36 re-sentencing, etc.). To issue so many on such specious grounds at a moment when CDCR is mandated to release 10,000 people is emblematic of the due process violations the strike seeks to address.
As CDCR moves people to or within the SHU, staff have denied people access to their property. This includes placing people in a cell with a mattress, but no sheets or blanket, for days on end. Pelican Bay SHU cells have no windows or skylights, and the murky slits in the concrete at Corcoran can hardly be called windows. Light comes from a fluorescent bulb that is never shut off.
Especially since the strike's announcement, CDCR has routinely denied people the ability to leave their cells for weeks on end, whether to shower, use the “yard” (either a metal cage or a small room with four concrete walls but no roof), or access the law library to meet court deadlines. With no access to the yard, some people exercise in their cells…but if they do so at the same time as others, the exercise is labeled as gang activity.
Access to other in-cell activities - like television, radio, books, or education - is contingent on having funds. Funds require either work (which many SHU inmates are prohibited from) or contacts on the outside. In the OpEd CDCR lauds how its “[r]estricting...communication...has saved lives both inside and outside prison walls” yet claims people can send and receive letters and visit every weekend. In reality, CDCR's extreme prohibitions and restrictions on phones, letters, and visits destroy lives by interfering with constructive family and attorney communications. This flies in the face of correctional best practices, which evidence that maintaining community ties decreases recidivism and supports reentry. As a rule, SHU inmates are also denied reentry-facilitating activities, such as interaction with other people in religious service, therapy, classes, or meals. Since the strike CDCR has even confiscated books, mail, TVs and radios.
Governor Brown and Secretary Beard must cease their deliberate indifference and end the standoff by meeting the five demands.


"Day 36 (August 12) Countdown for Humane Conditions"
by prisonerhungerstrikesolidarity:
Hundreds of California prisoners are on their 36th day without food. For what?
This hunger strike is an extension of the one that began July 1, 2011. The core demands then and now are:
to provide prisoners in the isolation units (SHUs and AdSegs) with adequate and nutritious food, regular and meaningful social contact, adequate sunlight, as well as meaningful self-help treatment, work, education, religious, and other productive activities, to provide decent health care, to abolish the practice of “debriefing”, in which prison staff continually pressure inmates into informing on others and then use the resulting dubious information to throw more prisoners into isolation, to abolish the practice of group punishment for individual rule-breaking, to end long-term isolation (hundreds have been in isolation units for 10 to 42 years!)
How is it possible that Jerry Brown and his correctional officials refuse to grant these reasonable demands? The state is already legally required to comply with most of them. Federal courts years ago ordered California to provide decent prison health care. Human rights law mandates most of the demands.
While some people may condone correctional personnel taking punishment into their own hands, most of us believe in the rule of law. People of conscience are horrified by the deployment in our state of techniques of authoritarian regimes: group punishment, extraction of information by persecution, and findings of guilt by association.
Speaking of the rule of law, how were the hunger strikers and the thousands of others in California put into the isolation units?  Our correctional officials call California’s extreme isolation “administrative,” and they apply administrative, not judicial, procedures. The prisoner is accused of being affiliated with a gang. Much of the evidence is considered secret and therefore is withheld from him. Without a lawyer, and without knowing all of the evidence against him, he  gets a chance to argue his side to a board composed only of correctional personnel. The decision can be appealed, in which case it is reviewed by correctional personnel higher up the chain, never by an independent arbiter.
The hunger strikers are only asking that inmates in our state be treated according to the standards of a just, democratic society.
On behalf of the Mediation Team,
[signed] Marilyn McMahon, California Prison Focus, (510) 836-7222

Hunger Strike Mediation Team
 Dr. Ronald Ahnen, California Prison Focus and St. Mary’s College of California
 Barbara Becnel, Occupy4Prisoners.org
 Dolores Canales, California Families to Abolish Solitary Confinement
 Irene Huerta, California Families to Abolish Solitary Confinement
 Laura Magnani, American Friends Service Committee
 Marilyn McMahon, California Prison Focus
 Carol Strickman, Legal Services for Prisoners With Children
 Azadeh Zohrabi, Legal Services for Prisoners With Children
http://wp.me/p1BB1k-U0

HAIKU for Hunger Strikers  [sent August 11, 2013 from Charlie]
I wrote these words after my return from Pelican Bay in November, 2011.

How spell inhuman?
Pelican Bay State Prison
Concentration camp

Twenty three hour day
Confined to 6 x 10 cell
Never see sunlight

Cold, mechanical
Not one thing green or growing
Pelican Bay hell


Call Governor Jerry Brown to protest these conditions and demand/ask/plead that the Department of Corrections negotiate in good faith with the strikers.
 Phone: (916) 445-2841, (510) 289-0336, (510) 628-0202
 Fax: (916) 558-3160
Suggested script: I’m calling in support of the prisoners on hunger strike. The governor has the power to stop the torture of solitary confinement. I urge the governor to compel the CDCR to enter into negotiations to end the strike. RIGHT NOW is their chance to enter into clear, honest negotiations with the strikers to end the torture.
...Please keep these hunger strikers in your thoughts and prayers....

"Song for Pelican Bay" by David Rovics

Published 2013-08-11 for the hunger strikers in solitary torture. Originally posted at [youtube.com/watch?v=XX2E5h2_WF4]:
Statewide Prisoner Hunger Strike to Stop Torture, Long-Term Isolation & Indefinite Solitary Confinement in Prisons [link]