Ten Minute Trespass Law + Protest March 23 8:30 AM

\THURSDAY MORNING GET-TOGETHER
Thursday Morning March 16th folks gathered for a small but encouraging protest against the Coonerty-Mathews attempt to ram through the anti-homeless 10-Minute Trespass Law. We gathered in front of City Hall about 7:45 in the morning, 45 minutes prior to the special Downtown Commission meeting.

Councilmember Ryan Coonerty and Mayor Cynthia Mathews had pressured Downtown Commission [DC] chair Julie Shattuck to hold a special meeting of the DC one week before their regular DC meeting. The goal: to rush the law onto the Tuesday 3-28 Council agenda.

Hopefully videojournalist Becky Johnson will be able to post some photos later of the protest and meeting. (Her account is posted at
http://indybay.org/news/2006/03/1807633.php) Rumor has it she may be working on a video about the 10-Minute Trespass rule.


Jumbogumbo Joe Schultz supplied coffee cake; street vocalist Valerie Christy from SAFE [Society for Artistic Freedom and Expression/Street Performers Against Foolish Enforcement] strummed songs; ten ten streetwise houseless observers braved the early morning cold.

PUBLIC SPEAKS
Once inside activists spoke to the Commission. These included Grant Wilson, Human Rights Organization workers (Bernard Klitzner, John Thielking, and Bob Patton), the community organizer Sherry Conable, Roger Etcetera--street veterans advocate, street musician Angela Jolie and a variety of homeless locals.

LAW BACKERS SPEAK
The Commission, to their credit, got some of the main suspects to attend. Testifying were Parking supervisor Matt Farrell, in-uniform police officials Deputy Chief Kevin Vogel and Sgt. Flippo, Parking lot maintenance supervisor Steve Sawyer and two workers, and City Attorney John Barisone. Speaking in the public comment line apparently in favor of the 10-minute trespass law were Downtown Association Executive Director Keith Holtaway, several merchants, and more.

THE DISCUSSION
Farrell gave a presentation with video aids, discussing the 541 of “calls for service” from the four Parking Lot garages over the past year, less than 150 which involved crimes. Compared to the 75,000+ calls for service the SCPD gets annually in the city as a whole, critics suggested this was a very small number. [see http://www.ci.santa-cruz.ca.us/pw/dc/CurrentAgenda /LotsGaragesRpt.pdf for his staff report and the specific figures].

Farrell, Vogel, Barisone, and Flippo had no real reply to questions from the Commission about why existing laws weren’t enough, what would prevent stupid, arbitrary, or selective enforcement of the law, or what specific documentation justified the need. The answers were along the lines of “the police will be reasonable”, “the law is Constitutional”, “we’ll examine it again in 6 months”, “we can include a warning provision”...

Commission member Joe Ferrara (who owns Atlantis Fantasyworld) asked how the law could be fairly rather than selectively enforced, since everyone would, under the wording of the law, be required to (a) be parking a vehicle or bicycle, and/or (b) be gone within 10 minutes.

AUDIO ARCHIVED
The entire meeting will be archived at http://www.huffsantacruz.org as partr of the Sunday March 19 Bathrobespierre’s Broadsides show. Check out the 6-03-19 (March 19, 2006) file at http://www.huffsantacruz.org/brb.html .

FINAL OUTCOME
Chair Julie Shattuck resisted pressure from Barisone to submit to the “public policy” leadership of City Council and forward it quickly. Since there was no time to discuss, Shattuck put over the matter to the next Commission meeting, which Barisone hurriedly interrupted to point out could be the next weekend.

ISSUE TO RETURN 3-23
So the issue will reappear on Thursday March 23 8:30 AM at City Council chambers. HUFF (Homeless United for Friendship & Freedom hopes to have some morning food available--perhaps hot soup). Instead of treating this issue in a deliberate fashion, the Commission, under pressure from Council and City Attorney are putting it in special meetings and at the front of the agenda.

WANT TO SPEAK? ASK JULIE OR KATHY.
Those who have not spoken on the law but want to should contact either Julie Shattuck or Kathy Bisbee (phone numbers below) to make a special request. Public discussion has been closed, but there was some concern that not everyone who wanted to was able to speak--a refreshing change from City Council.

EARLIER DISCUSSION
Earlier discussion on this issue can be found at:
http://www.indybay.org/news/2006/03/1807633_comment.php#1808293

WHAT Y O U CAN DO
E-mail the Commission at e-mail: pw-downtown-commission [at] ci.santa-cruz.ca.us and tell them to vote NO on this law.

If Coonerty and Mathews want to unnessarily expand police powers and reverse traditional open space policy in Santa Cruz, let them do so on their own initiative, not under cover of the Downtown Commission.

COMMISSION MEMBER PHONE NUMBERS
Individual members of the Commission can be reached at the following phone numbers. (It takes a little squeezing, but this is public information).

Julie Shattuck (chair) home: 427-3262 work: 457-0313
Kathy Bisbee home: 475-1404 work: 459-6301
Jim Brown home: 238-2158 work: 466-9770
Sheila Coonerty home: 454-9449 work: 429-4115
Joe Ferrara home: 427-3467 work: 426-0158
June Hoffman home: 462-5272 work: 420-0135
Gerry Mandel (vice chair?) home: 427-0328 work: 426-5557

Jim Brown is out of the country. Kathy Bisbee is probably most sympathetic to dumping this law. Julie Shattuck and Joe Ferrara are possibilities. Some of the rest seem intent on getting the issue to City Council.

ANY MOVE BY THE DOWNTOWN COMMISSION TO PASS THIS TO COUNCIL, EVEN WITH A NEUTRAL RECOMMENDATION OR WITH “CONCERNS” IS WORSE THAN MOTION TO TABLE THIS LAW UNTIL SUCH TIME AS MORE INFORMATION IS AVAILABLE.

Commission members are nervous because they are appointees and serve "at the pleasure" of the City Council. In fact, they are supposed to serve the community (and have actually been trying to do so in this case). Remind them that if City Council wants to put a bad law on their agenda, they can do so without help from the Downtown Commission.

VITAL INFO STILL MISSING
I encourage you to urge members of the Commission to continue to TABLE IT, pending more substantial information. Still absent: the written report of the Parking Authority; a formal decison by the Commission for the Prevention of Violence Against Women, which has sent it out to two subcommittees; and a formal statement by the ACLU, one member of whom warned the Commission of problems with the law as written. IN FACT THERE IS STILL--THREE MONTHS AFTER IT WAS FIRST PROPOSED--NO WRITTEN DOCUMENTATION OR CHRONOLOGY OF THE SPECIFIC COMPLAINTS AND CONCERNS THAT MOTIVATED THIS LAW.

SUPPORT FOR PARKING ATTENDANTS IS A REAL ISSUE
The main issue is more support for parking lot attendants who are upset with the increased camping use in the garages. What's needed her is a reapportionment of some funding to relieve the pressure on the staff. Or perhaps some volunteer clean-up squads (don't look at me). But in the meantime, getting hysterical and removing all city parking lots and garages from public use other than to scurry in and out is an unnecessary police state measure.

What's needed is a real deliberative open public process that could consider additional resources and solutions instead of singlemindedly pressing forward with yet another criminalization of innocent behavior and seizure of public space in the name of "security".