Potty Talk

from: from: http://www.santacruzsentinel.com/archive/2007/September/20/local/stories/02local.htm

"September 20, 2007
Neal Coonerty 9/19/2007 4:35 PM

Since Robert Norse and Becky Johnson have targeted Bookshop Santa Cruz with political camping ban demonstrations every weekend, the bathrooms at Bookshop Santa Cruz have been heavily vandalized. Someone has repeatedly smeared feces all over the walls and backed up the plumbing by stuffing material down the toilets and repeatedly flushing. Of course, given the privacy rights of people using a bathroom, we do not know who is doing this. However, we are aware of the fact that this vandalism was not happening before Robert Norse and Becky Johnson started their ill-informed protests, but the vandalism started once we were targeted by them.

Since we offer one of the few available bathrooms downtown at great expense to our business, it is always hard for us to understand why people would insist on trying to close them for political reasons or any other reasons.

What is also clear is that Robert Norse and Becky Johnson have always been a destructive force in our city and their efforts have continually harmed our homeless community."


MY COMMENT: First, if anyone wants to read the rash of anti-homeless bigotry that Sentinel story provoked, check out the webpage mentioned above. If it's been taken down, e-mail me, and I'll send it to you.

Second, it would be nice if the Coonerty concern for public access to bathrooms were more than a devise to attack activists who expose their hypocrisy. Ryan, and Neal: translate your toilet talk into City Council initiatives to open real public bathrooms!

Neal took no such action that I recall when he was on the Council in the 1990's. Ryan has done nothing to stop the closing of the Krohn portapotties, put in supposedly on an interim basis in 1999 or 2000, until real bathrooms could be installed. The last one disappeared from Parking Lot #4 adjacent to the Farmer's Market many months ago.

Nor has Ryan moved to facilitate the opening of the costly self-cleaning toilet kiosk imported from San Francisco (but held up because of merchant squeamishness). He did vote to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars refurbishing Lighthouse Field bathrooms.

I have always acknowledged and thanked the Coonerty's for their public bathrooms. I thank them again, even though I--and others the Coonerty's have banned for political reasons--can't use them. I was banned in 1994 for leading protests against him at his store, as I am doing again. Ryan's response is to follow the bad example of his father by banning Becky Johnson and Bernard Klitzner--who had nothing to do with his bathroom problems.

We raised public awareness of Ryan's hypocrisy in hypeing himself as a progressive bookshop manager (his insistence that he's "only a part-time worker" does not persuade me).

We encouraged people to raise concerns about his "arrest the homeless" law since he's likely the next Mayor, is the self-designated "homeless expert" on City Council, and gives classes in constitutional law at Cabrillo and UCSC. Also because he's rarely to be found at City Hall, but does hang out at the Bookshop.

Neal and Ryan now attempt to deflect legitimate concerns about their support for the ridiculous, unconstitutional, and soon-to-be very-costly Sleeping Ban. This potty talk is on a par with SCPD propagandist Zach Friend, denouncing Sleep Ban protesters at City Hall for poo-ing and pee-ing (especially hypocritical because Mayor Reilly refused to open the bathrooms which the protesters agreed to monitor). The only citations at City Hall were for sleeping.

It's similar to the Sentinel's strategy of regarding a painted "Fuck the Sleeping Ban" on City Hall as being a bigger crime and more important story than the Mayor, City Attorney, City Manager, and Police Chief ignoring the 9th Circuit Court's opinion for the last year and a half and ramping up illegal arrests of homeless people.

The Coonerty's are uncomfortable with our exposure of their hypocrisy on basic civil liberties issues. Well, if you support absurd laws against the homeless, don't be surprised if you're challenged. And when challenged, folks show their colors: Ryan Coonerty banned two activists for First Amendment activity. Yesterday, he came out on the sidewalk, said he found 40 of our "end the sleeping ban" flyers placed inside his books, and announced he would "prosecute for vandalism". This is the attorney who teaches constitutional law classes at UCSC and Cabrillo.

If the Coonerty's are really concerned about their workers and separating their politics from the management of the Bookshop, why not have the workers vote on whether they support keeping homeless people criminals for an involuntary activity? It would be refreshing to see a sign in the window of the Bookshop suggesting that the Coonerty's allow their workers the freedom to express a different opinion.

It's pretty basic. In fact, the most basic civil right of a poor people may be not to be criminalized for doing something we've all got to do: sleep at night.

The 9th Circuit Court's Jones decision has persuaded even conservative Los Angeles, San Diego, and Richmond to establish a safe zone or stop nighttime citations for sleeping entirely. If there's no shelter, you can't arrest a person for falling asleep. It's that simple.

If politician-merchants continue to support these laws, the community should choose whether to support their businesses. In all candor, probably most merchants downtown support the anti-homeless laws. They certainly don't oppose them.

But none of them are Vice-Mayor soon to be Mayor or the author of new anti-homeless laws. (Coming up next week: a "no public assembling in the parking lots" law at the Downtown Commission 9-27 8:30 AM City Council chambers--compliments of Ryan Coonerty).

No--don't vandalize Coonerty's bathrooms. Yes--demand open public bathrooms. Yes--demand an end to the Sleeping and Blanket Bans. Yes--Support the Lawsuit! Yes--Boycott Bigotry in Santa Cruz!