Three New "PLEDGE" Fliers from HUFF

This is starting to really get ridiculos. Shiny new fliers are not going to make this protest look any better.

What happened to Streetlight Music and Taqueria Vallarta.

They used to be on your list and now they are off. And they didn't move to the against group.

More recent discussion on this issue can be found at
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2009/08/05/18614102.php?show_comments=1#18615039

Some stores are part-time or unclear on their postings, in answer to the questions raised above. Please encourage stores you know to post the pledge (http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2009/06/12/18601539.php ).

Robert says "Some stores are part-time or unclear on their postings, in answer to the questions raised above. "

What does that mean??

You've been very emphatic that people are either with you or against you. Good or bigots.

Isn't it the truth that some businesses upon hearing of the protest tactics have decided to disengage? Streetlight was one of your first to sign on. Now they are not. Vallarta was one of the first, now they are not. And Vallarta has never displayed the "pledge" in their other locations.

Just to note a point of reference.

13 downtown businesses have displayed the pledge. There are over 600 registered businesses in the downtown district. (a few mentioned are not downtown)

In 9 weeks you have been able to coerce around 2% to come on board.

And let's face it, you had more and some have pulled out.

It looks like it's not going very well for you. Maybe time to change strategy?

Now I know who will no longer get my business:

Bad Ass Coffee, Caffe Bene, etc

I will make sure to stop in and tell them why they will no longer be getting my business and that of my friends. Its time for us to take back our city. Robert does not even lice in Santa Cruz.


Thanks again for the list Robert!!

It's amazing to me that some can actually oppose a non-discrimination pledge. It's also interesting the amount of energy some folks put into opposing it considering how few stores have posted it.

Sarah, I commend you for actually giving your name, unlike those hiding behind psuedonyms. You (and the psuedonymsters as well) are invited to call in tomorrow to Free Radio Santa Cruz (101.1 FM) at 427-3772 between 9:30 AM and 1 PM to explain just what it is about the pledge that the oppose, and why they support the Sleeping Ban.

With zero shelter space available in Santa Cruz (waiting list only), unless there are legal places to go, people will go to illegal places--which probably means more problems for downtown businesses. Seems counter-productive to me.

Robert says "It's amazing to me that some can actually oppose a non-discrimination pledge."


I don't think as many people oppose a non-discrimination pledge as you think.

What people oppose is you holding a gun to someone's head at the same time you're demanding them to sign the pledge.

And it's now a matter of trust. People know just getting people to sign the pledge is not your goal. It's what you want to do with those signatures that makes people question your motives.

People don't trust you anymore. Even the homeless community you pretend to care for does not trust you. You made them look bad with your personal protest agenda.

Vasili's is on Mission St. The one you're thinking of is called "The Greek". It's run by Vasili, but it's not Vasili's. It is however, really tasty.

Shadow: Personal attacks aside, do you favor the right of homeless people in Santa Cruz to sleep at night not "anywhere and everywhere" but "somewhere"? If so, then denounce me all you want, but take some action to support that right--whatever you choose to do. Same question to Tim B. and Sarah W.

Bernard G.: Thanks for the clarification.

If anyone actually has something constructive to say (whether critical or not), you can phone in Thursday 6-8 PM at 427-3772 on 101.1 FM. Of course, actual dialogue isn't something critics are apparently interested in. Sort of like the Downtown Association.

I don't have a chance to listen to your show live. You only post hit and run on the Sentinel board and have a habit of stopping posting here when the questions get to hard, such as the last post with video, where it's been almost two weeks. Becky's blog should be one woman talking to herself. So that means this thread, so let's hash out somewhere. Since the current system is sub optimal and does not really work for anybody.

Somewhere needs to be a city owned lot. You might be able to get something from the county, as a cost. Or a piece of private property, but the owner would most likely wash their hands of the liability and pass that along to the city as well.

Somewhere is not going to be the pogonip, the river or downtown. The pogonip is the crown jewel of the city parks system, and I doubt the general population of the city will stand for it being used as a giant campground. The river is not a good idea a we're looking at another el nino year and the last thing we need is risking having the homeless washed out to sea like last time. As for downtown, I'm not saying that it _can't_ be there, but that it _won't_ be there. The businesses won't stand for it. Which is why the protesting at Bunny's is a waste of time because once we find somewhere, they'll sweep dowtown clean at night.

But, somewhere may have to be somewhat close to downtown, or have very good transportation to downtown. Which leads to a series of questions that I have that I think need to be covered.

First - what is the distrabution of homeless in Santa Cruz? Is it as some say that there's a "homeless corridor" that goes from downtown to Harvey West? Or is it more evenly scattered throughout the city. The best spot might be out on the westside somewhere, but if the masses are downtown, that's not going to work.

Second, how big is this going to have to be? For 1500, I'm betting that it's going to have to be pretty sizable. That's over 2 UCSC Inns worth of rooms (4 per), and you won't be able to stack floors. Now I know tents can be packed a little closer, but I'm thinking that 100 square feet per person is a miserable minimum. But even that works out to 150,000 sf. More if you give them a little more room. I'm not sure there's that kind of open space left. Maybe in an abandoned industry building on the westside, but see question 1.

Running out of time, so here's the last question to be asked. If there is a somewhere, does everywhere else go off limits? As I said, downtown will be wiped clean of sleepers because they can. But will it be the camp or nothing?

Robert, hopefully you'll answer those questions. i reaaly do not have my finger on the pulse of the homeless, so I need a better idea of the size of the problem we're looking at.

...because you certainly aren't doing any favors by having a young woman like this as one of your "stars" in your videos. I refer you of course to this girl pictured here:

http://extras.mnginteractive.com/live/media/site6/2009/0821/20090821__CSS4EF10~1_GALLERY.jpg

which was taken from this recent Sentinel story here:

http://www.santacruzsentinel.com/ci_13174847

and of course, is the girl admonishing the viewers about their lack of support for the homeless, ranting about how degrading it is for her to panhandle and the "out of town wingnuts" making her look bad from this video here:

http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2009/06/15/18601786.php

And yet, here we have a picture of her panhandling for beer money????

I'm sorry, I have a really hard time mustering up an ounce of anything resembling pity for this woman, and she's damaging your image even more. If you want to cast your lot in with her lot, don't expect to engender a lot of sympathy from the downtown business owners, voters, or politicians.

Bernard: Sorry you can't tune in the show and talk on-air. If you'd like I'll read what you've posted there.

The Sentinel board is essentially a bashing forum by folks who don't accept the notion that homeless people have the right to sleep, not anywhere and everywhere, but somewhere--to use a familiar phrase. Until we start with that premise, there's not much to discuss (it's sort of like talking to Nazis about Jews, calvary about Native Americans, Americans about "Japs" during WWII). So there's not much point.

Calling the current "system" (i.e. ZERO emergency shelter; about 250 people in transitional or waiting list programs) "sub-optimal" is wildly euphemistic, one might even say, a falsification. But in so far as you're looking towards something better, right on.

Activists (including myself) don't have the resources to acquire property. Even if we did, it seems quite clear from the struggle to establish what services currently exist, there'd be no political will to allow an actual usable campground for the numbers of people who really need it.

That will comes only when--essentially, there's overwhelming public opinion, legal force, or economic pressure. Hence our focus on agitation and the pressure on merchants.


City bureaucrats will miraculously find a "somewhere" once the court rules, as it has in Los Angeles, San Diego, Fresno, Laguna Beach, and Palo Alto that Sleeping Bans are unconstitutional.

The game of "not here, nor here, nor here" will become "better find somewhere, or they'll be everywhere" (which actually is the current illegal "system").

Sherry Conable tried back in 1990 to get City Council to act with her Coalition for A Safe Place to Sleep. The Laird-Wormhoudt majority defeated it. The Coral Street Open Air Shelter in 1995 was closed in a dirty deal between the Citizen's Committee for the Homeless and Mayor Rotkin. Councilmembers Celia Scott and Katherine Beiers earlier that year went on a "search" for property for carparks and campgrounds and reported with straight faces they could find nothing. In an area like Santa Cruz, that's a ridiculous conclusion--but it shows how frightened the politicians are of this issue.

Six months later, Rotkin pressured the Church on High Street to close down its campground. The Homeless Community Resources Center exiled director Frank Pucelik when he proposed a serious campground for 200 several months later. Several years later Paul Lee got together a large group of people to build an Eco-Village--apparently vetoed by the City. The 2000 Safe Sleeping Zones proposal where Councilmembers Sugar, Fitzmaurice, and Krohn belatedly made token efforts to fulfill their campaign promises of guaranteeing the "right to sleep somewhere" foundered on police misinformation, the Rotkin faction's opposition, and Beier's betrayal. The three refused to put the issue on the November ballot as well.

All these proposals only got to the stages of discussion because of extensive protest downtown.

Camp Paradise was indeed washed away in 2001, but there was no provision made for the people there.

It doesn't seem unreasonable to set aside 1/50th of the precious Pogonip for some smaller campgrounds, frankly, though I agree with you, it would be a struggle.

In 1997 and 1998, activists tried unsuccessfully to put an Initiative on the City ballot that would allow sleeping (rather than camping with full gear) in all non-downtown, non-residential, non-beach front areas. The wording of that initiative would be a good place to start.

I agree that being somewhat close to downtown, or have very good transportation to downtown is a sensible notion. Your other questions: What is the homeless distribution? I think folks go downtown because that is essentially the social and community center of downtown (much as merchants want to turn it into a purely commercial area). But since homeless folks are willing to trek long distances to avoid harassment, I don't think where they currently are is an issue.

To accommodate hundreds of homeless, you'd need several campgrounds, probably dispersed so as not to be like inner city housing projects. The industrial area is an obvious chttp://www.indybay.org/comment.php?top_id=18614270hoice.

If there are adequate sleeping facilities, sure, you can make sleeping in other areas unacceptible--requiring people to move. There would be some controversy about this among libertarians, for sure, but the stage has never been reached because Santa Cruz authorities continue to enforce the indefensible "no sleep anywhere" law.

HUFF has historically opposed the entire Camping Ordinance, as has CAB (Community Action Board). Plenty of other organizations weighed in against it in the 90's (WILPF, Peace and Freedom, Green Party, UCSC groups, the Homeless Issues Task Force).

The Homeless Issues Task Force report can be found at http://www.cabinc.org/Research/HTFFinalReport.htm

For a shorter descriptive article on the Camping Ban specifically go to http://www.huffsantacruz.org/StreetSpiritSantaCruz/136.Homeless%20Issues%20Task%20Force%20Recommends%20Repeal%20of%20Camping%20Ban%20in%20S.C.=12-99.pdf).

You can trace the history of this controversy by going to back Street Spirit articles at http://www.huffsantacruz.org/StreetSpiritSantaCruz/ .

Thanks for your inquiry. A lot of these questions have been raised and answered many times over, to no avail. Hence the agitation and protest.

Robert continues to try and whitewash reality and reinvent history. He says"The 2000 Safe Sleeping Zones proposal where Councilmembers Sugar, Fitzmaurice, and Krohn belatedly made token efforts to fulfill their campaign promises of guaranteeing the "right to sleep somewhere" foundered on police misinformation, the Rotkin faction's opposition, and Beier's betrayal. The three refused to put the issue on the November ballot as well.".


And I say, as I will every time he posts that fabrication: Bull-s. My neighbors and I voiced our opposition to that travesty of a campground. Drunk campers staggering down my street to and from their camper. . Syringes in the trash so thick that city workers balked and refused to clean the campgrounds up. A hue and cry from residents who watched the instant degredation of their neighborhood, who feared rightly for the safety of their property and kids.

It was a grass roots, across the board cry to get rid of them. Robert is fantasizing when he tries to portray it as based on misinformation and an inside political job. Talk about misinformation? He's spewing plenty of it.

While neighbors may have had individually bad experiences with particular people (for which laws other than the Sleeping Ban exist), there actually was no campground open. Police and deputies misleadingly herded people there--when there were no
facilities.

Check out

http://www.huffsantacruz.org/StreetSpiritSantaCruz/148.Smoke,Mirrors%20And%20Texas%20Instruments=7-2000.pdf

and

http://www.huffsantacruz.org/StreetSpiritSantaCruz/149.Smoke,Mirrors%28cont.%29=7-2000.pdf

A) I don't find printing propoganda generated by your own organization a credible resource or response. That's laughable. Particularly the slanted mathematical equations you produce with your own stats.

B) There were porta-potties placed on the West Side. Saw em with my own eyes. And saw the city workers who refused to touch them due to their dangerous contents of drug paraphanalia.

C) The one thing you did accurately capture were the resulting conditions caused by the camps: Drunks. Urine and feces. Garbage. Panhandlers. I called the cops when a guy squatted and crapped in the churchyard in my neighborhood. I had a drunk guy knock on my door late at night to beg money from me. Incredible, and all new activity that hadn't happened in the 7 years that I lived there prior to the camps arrival. And none of it happened again for the next 6 years after the camps closed, until I moved away.

Delude yourself and try to snowjob the others...but you'll never convince those of us who saw the reality with your fabricated history. And that reality was seen by enough people that its the very reason your subsequent attempts to get another campground have failed for the past decade.

Sorry, the campground proposal never passed a second reading so it was never formally established. You're the first person I've encountered (sorry, the first psuedonynamous poster) that has actually seen any portapotties out that way. There were a five set-up in lieu of bathrooms that were never constructed in 1999, but those were downtown and out on River St.

Do you favor a homeless person's right to sleep not anywhere and everywhere, but somewhere? If not, your comments are not a legitimate part of this discussion.

You can always come on down to Lulu Carpenter's tomorrow to discuss the issue around noon. Happy to chat with you then.

"Do you favor a homeless person's right to sleep not anywhere and everywhere, but somewhere? If not, your comments are not a legitimate part of this discussion."

So in order to engage you in discussion, he first has to agree to your elliptically phrased demands? How is that anywhere close to debating in good faith?

RN: “Bernard: Sorry you can't tune in the show and talk on-air. If you'd like I'll read what you've posted there.”

BG: Yeah, no problem there, but it’ll be a week until I can hear what you say about it.

RN: “The Sentinel board is essentially a bashing forum by folks who don't accept the notion that homeless people have the right to sleep, not anywhere and everywhere, but somewhere--to use a familiar phrase. Until we start with that premise, there's not much to discuss (it's sort of like talking to Nazis about Jews, calvary about Native Americans, Americans about "Japs" during WWII). So there's not much point.”

BG: True, but at least the Sentinel lets you post. Too many times I’ve spent 15-20 minutes on a post here only to have it disappear without a trace because some unknown person didn’t think it “radical” enough.

RN: “Calling the current "system" (i.e. ZERO emergency shelter; about 250 people in transitional or waiting list programs) "sub-optimal" is wildly euphemistic, one might even say, a falsification. But in so far as you're looking towards something better, right on.”

BG: Irony, Robert. Embrace it. My actual feelings are that the current system is unworkable.

RN: “Activists (including myself) don't have the resources to acquire property. Even if we did, it seems quite clear from the struggle to establish what services currently exist, there'd be no political will to allow an actual usable campground for the numbers of people who really need it.”

BG: I did not say in that post that you needed to the person with the private property. I was thinking more of the city leasing an industrial building. But liability might become a liability. I hope you are incorrect on the last statement. If not, then all the protests and this discussion are basically mental masturbation.

RN: “That will comes only when--essentially, there's overwhelming public opinion, legal force, or economic pressure. Hence our focus on agitation and the pressure on merchants.

City bureaucrats will miraculously find a "somewhere" once the court rules, as it has in Los Angeles, San Diego, Fresno, Laguna Beach, and Palo Alto that Sleeping Bans are unconstitutional.

The game of "not here, nor here, nor here" will become "better find somewhere, or they'll be everywhere" (which actually is the current illegal "system").

[Stories about past attempts cut]

All these proposals only got to the stages of discussion because of extensive protest downtown. “

BG: So Santa Cruz is so much more conservative then LA, Sacramento and Fresno? What is different here then those places?

RN: “Camp Paradise was indeed washed away in 2001, but there was no provision made for the people there.

It doesn't seem unreasonable to set aside 1/50th of the precious Pogonip for some smaller campgrounds, frankly, though I agree with you, it would be a struggle.”

BG: No provision in what way? 1/50th of the Pogonip is 12 acres or over 550,000 square feet. Much larger then it needs to be and way larger then you can sell to the city or it’s citizens. What’s the usual density of a camp, like one in Sacramento or Fresno? How many people can camp in an acre? I know that a state park isn’t high density, but that’s a different critter then what we’re talking about. What’s your opinion on the Pajaro River camp?

RN: “In 1997 and 1998, activists tried unsuccessfully to put an political will on the City ballot that would allow sleeping (rather than camping with full gear) in all non-downtown, non-residential, non-beach front areas. The wording of that initiative would be a good place to start.

I agree that being somewhat close to downtown, or have very good transportation to downtown is a sensible notion. Your other questions: What is the homeless distribution? I think folks go downtown because that is essentially the social and community center of downtown (much as merchants want to turn it into a purely commercial area). But since homeless folks are willing to trek long distances to avoid harassment, I don't think where they currently are is an issue.

To accommodate hundreds of homeless, you'd need several campgrounds, probably dispersed so as not to be like inner city housing projects. The industrial area is an obvious choice.”

BG: The wording of that initiative would be a great place to start. Do you have a copy of it? A quick look at google earth shows that the easy spots are Harvey West, the Westside industrial area and maybe depot park. However, depot park is really close to some housing, and the big lot on the Westside is being developed into more housing. Maybe an industrial building is the way to go. A short while ago I was kicking around an idea of starting my own business, and I was looking at warehouse/industrial space. There’s an 80,000 sf building on Delaware @$.60/sf/month. It was about twice as big as I needed and 33% more then I wanted to pay. Since you can use bunks instead of tents, it might work, but I don’t know if the city, or anybody, can cough up $48,000 a month in rent.

[Some more cut out for space]

RN: “Thanks for your inquiry. A lot of these questions have been raised and answered many times over, to no avail. Hence the agitation and protest.”

BG: Let me know how well that works out for you…

Robert says "Do you favor a homeless person's right to sleep not anywhere and everywhere, but somewhere? If not, your comments are not a legitimate part of this discussion."

The translation, quite honestly, of that statement is "If you don't agree with me I won't talk to you".

THAT is being a bigot. A word Robert throws at people with abandon.

This is why HUFF gets nothing accomplished. Unless they are guaranteed the outcome they want HUFF won't even have the conversation.

Robert says the campground never passed a second/formal hearing, so as such it never "really" existed?! *Rotfl*. So without official sanction, it didn't exist?


...then Camp Paradise never existed either. You don't get to play situational ethics Robert. If it works that way for one camp, it works that way for all of them.

As for the inane statement of "if I don't agree with your sleep premise than I have no place in the conversation"? That, my boy, is why you've been irrelevant and unsuccessful in your 20-year jousting with the windmills. You don't seem to comprehend that you don't get to determine the discussion or the discussors simply based on your agenda.

Robert, you guys wasted my time today. I waited for almost two hours at Lulu's for the fireworks to start. First, you show up late to your own protest. WTF? then there's only two of you, and no audience for almost the entire first hour. In the second hour, there were another two of you, and you managed to stick recorders in the faces of about a dozen people, every one of whom got pissed at you for doing so.

And that was all that happened. Lulu Guy didn't even show up.

Tell Becks that pancaking on extra makeup doesn't make her look smaller.

Some "protest" you guys run. Pussies.

Bernard:

I don't favor censorship on this forum (see http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2008/01/18/18473304.php ). While the political will doesn't exist currently, when there's enough anger from the community's base, then the will will materialize--that's the theory of protest generally.

Yes, unfortunately on this human rights issue Santa Cruz is more abusive to the homeless then LA, San Diego, Richmond and Fresno? More active lawsuits and homeless activism may have made the difference in those cities. Liberals can be more hypocritical and repressive than conservatives on these issues (as well as major warmongers--check out LBJ and Vietnam, Obama and the Afghanistan escalation, etc.)

As far as the Pogonip goes, I really meant something like a few acres, pardon my math. Camps are pretty dense in Fresno where they are makeshift, perhaps less so in Ontario, CA where they are run by the city. The Sacramento proposed Tent City next year houses only 60 homeless people according to projections. I haven't visited the Pajaro River Camp--are you referring to the camp profiled in the Santa Cruz Weekly? If so, I'd say folks put together what they can in housing emergencies.

If you e-mail me, I'll try and find you a copy of one of the initiatives (there were three, all different). Your specific suggestions of Harvey West, Westside Industrial Area, perhaps Depot Park, are reasonable, of course, but likely not to go anywhere. To get some idea of the flak in your way, give a call to Councilmembers Don Lane or Katherine Beiers--likely to be the most "sympathetic", and you'll hear the kind (largely political) roadblocks you face unless there's a groundswell of public opinion and grassroots activism.

Shadow, Sim Dum, and the other Redneck Psueodnymsters might join the discussion at some future time. But baiting and sneering at activists and posturing for fellow bigots doesn't constitute meaningful (much less productive) discussion.

I notice none of the above answered the question "do homeless people have a right to sleep at all?" I can understand why they're a bit bashful about the issue. It's embarrassing to openly acknowledge this kind of Klan mentality in 2009. You can really only get away with it in forums with fellow NIMBYs (as on the Sentinel website) or where you conceal your identity.

Meanwhile lawsuits proceed in Sacramento, Santa Monica, and Santa Barbara. Santa Cruz's attorney Ed Frey won a case in court Friday involving homeless worker Sharon Paight (see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJjZFmCmDnw ).

My, don't we sound sulky! I hope someday Robert, you'll contextualize your constant characterizations of your detractors as "bigots" and "Nazis". Do you even know what these terms mean? You sound really stupid when you repeat that mantra, you know.

I'd suggest you get it through your skull that you weren't put on this planet to teach us all how to be better human beings. For one thing, lots of people have opinions that are at least as valid as yours in a discussion. Mostly, since they're not often informed by the same degree of over-privileged lunacy that yours are, they actually are considerably more pertinent to rational discourse.

So take off your mortar board, the one you never earned, and stop presuming to tell us how superior is your worldview. It just might improve your efficacy as an "activist", as well as your general outlook on the rest of us.

You still owe me an apology for wasting my time yesterday.

Latest protest update at http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2009/08/23/18618668.php

http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2009/08/23/18618668.php

Come on Robert.

"If you haven't gotten enough of me here, look to this link to read more about me over there. And I'll link that place so you can find out even more about me in another place. And then I'll link Becky's website that says the same stuff you've already read everywhere else, but she'll have a link back to the first and second comments about me which will bring you back to somewhere close to where you started. And it's all about ME!!!"

"Shadow, Sim Dum, and the other Redneck Psueodnymsters might join the discussion at some future time. But baiting and sneering at activists and posturing for fellow bigots doesn't constitute meaningful (much less productive) discussion."

Says the man who sits in the Mayor's office in his underwear for weeks on end, and flashes Nazi salutes at City Council when they tell him to tie up his bathrobe during council meetings so they don't have to look at his privates during his allotted 90 seconds at the podium.

LOL.