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Zooming At You: Public Assembly Ban in City Parking Lots: 8:30 AM City Hall 9-27
The Downtown Commission will be on the business end of staff and police "persuaders" come next Thursday September 27th, when the SCPD returns with thin stats to push through the Coonerty "Parking Lot Panic" Law. Listed below are the phone numbers of Downtown Commission members (City Hall doesn't have their e-mails for some reason). Call them and tell them to vote no or at least wait until we can get more public records.
Marlin Garlund, the Parking Authority guy, sent me the attached reports for the Downtown Commission's meeting next Thursday.
For some of the grim prior history of the attempt to constrict public spaces for the convenience of the police and city workers see http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2007/ 09/06/18445965.php .
The following are the phone numbers of the Downtown Commissioners who should be available to the public. If they're not, ask them to delay any decision until they actually meet with you.
Once they pass it, it'll slide through City Council like shit through a goose. If they don't, Ryan Coonerty may have some trouble removing these public spaces "in the interests of security".
Sheila Coonerty: 429-4115
Joe Ferrara 426-0158 postmaster [at] atlantisfantasyworld.com
June Hoffman 420-0135
Jeffrey Kongslie 650-470-6000
Geri Mandel 426-5557
Julie Shattuck: 457-0313
Ron Slack: 458-1100 X205
Marlin Granlund (staff person) 420-5184
I'm also attempting to upload a map of City parking lots affected, the staff report, the SCPD's chart justifying this parking lot public assembly ban, and a brief summary of restrictive laws in other cities re: parking lots and garages.
I shall comment on the SCPD's figures in a future comment. The problem, of course, is that there's no chance to get independent or even more extensive police records if the Downtown Commission acts to forward this recommendation to City Council (even without as a neutral matter).
Earlier in the summer, the Downtown Commission turned down the SCPD and Parking Authority's request because they declined to provide any new figures. Now they are providing a few (a very few). This might cause publicity-sensitive Commission members to pass the buck to City Council where, as we know, anything the SCPD wants, the SCPD gets.
So CALL MARLIN and/or DOWNTOWN COMMISSIONERS and ask them to delay any final action on this matter until there's time to get some real stats and check the ones we're given. And start figuring out creative protest strategies to stop this latest police power grab.
Otherwise, kiss 6 square blocks of public space goodbye and say hello to more harassment (particularly of poor people).
Oh, yeah, I forgot, there's the SCPD doesn't do profiling or selective enforcement.
For some of the grim prior history of the attempt to constrict public spaces for the convenience of the police and city workers see http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2007/ 09/06/18445965.php .
The following are the phone numbers of the Downtown Commissioners who should be available to the public. If they're not, ask them to delay any decision until they actually meet with you.
Once they pass it, it'll slide through City Council like shit through a goose. If they don't, Ryan Coonerty may have some trouble removing these public spaces "in the interests of security".
Sheila Coonerty: 429-4115
Joe Ferrara 426-0158 postmaster [at] atlantisfantasyworld.com
June Hoffman 420-0135
Jeffrey Kongslie 650-470-6000
Geri Mandel 426-5557
Julie Shattuck: 457-0313
Ron Slack: 458-1100 X205
Marlin Granlund (staff person) 420-5184
I'm also attempting to upload a map of City parking lots affected, the staff report, the SCPD's chart justifying this parking lot public assembly ban, and a brief summary of restrictive laws in other cities re: parking lots and garages.
I shall comment on the SCPD's figures in a future comment. The problem, of course, is that there's no chance to get independent or even more extensive police records if the Downtown Commission acts to forward this recommendation to City Council (even without as a neutral matter).
Earlier in the summer, the Downtown Commission turned down the SCPD and Parking Authority's request because they declined to provide any new figures. Now they are providing a few (a very few). This might cause publicity-sensitive Commission members to pass the buck to City Council where, as we know, anything the SCPD wants, the SCPD gets.
So CALL MARLIN and/or DOWNTOWN COMMISSIONERS and ask them to delay any final action on this matter until there's time to get some real stats and check the ones we're given. And start figuring out creative protest strategies to stop this latest police power grab.
Otherwise, kiss 6 square blocks of public space goodbye and say hello to more harassment (particularly of poor people).
Oh, yeah, I forgot, there's the SCPD doesn't do profiling or selective enforcement.
Add Your Comments
Comments
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FW: Next DT Commission Meeting
From: Marlin Granlund (MGranlund [at] ci.santa-cruz.ca.us)
Medium risk You may not know this sender. Mark as safe | Mark as unsafe
Sent: Mon 9/24/07 8:11 AM
To: Robert Norse (rnorse3 [at] hotmail.com)
Robert,
I’m forwarding this email to you as it might answer some of the question you had regarding the DTC Staff report.
Marlin Granlund
Parking Program Manager
City of Santa Cruz
(831) 420-5184
mgranlund [at] ci.santa-cruz.ca.us
FW: Next DT Commission Meeting
From: Marlin Granlund (MGranlund [at] ci.santa-cruz.ca.us)
Sent: Mon 9/24/07 8:11 AM
To: Robert Norse (rnorse3 [at] hotmail.com)
Robert,
I’m forwarding this email to you as it might answer some of the question you had regarding the DTC Staff report.
Marlin Grandlund
From: Donzim [at] aol.com [mailto:Donzim [at] aol.com]
Sent: Thursday, September 20, 2007 6:22 PM
To: Marlin Granlund
Cc: julieshattuck [at] post.com; sheila [at] cruzio.com; johnthompson [at] cruzio.com
Subject: Re: Next DT Commission Meeting
Marlin
I was pleased to find posted at the DT Commission's web page the Agenda Report and attached documents on the proposed Parking Lot Use and Trespassing Ordinance Amendment. I would appreciate some clarification of certain aspects of the table of "Incidents at Downtown Parking Lots," which covers just five of the 18 city parking lots proposed to be added to the ordinance.
The "Crime Type" column specifies 37 incidents constituting identifiable crimes at these five lots – "Vehicle Burglary,” "Drug Sales," "Resisting Arrest," "Battery," “Brandishing/Assault With Firearm," “Grand Theft," and "Assault With Deadly Weapon” – presumably all of which already are defined as crimes elsewhere in the criminal code. If my math is correct, that is a monthly average of less than one crime per parking lot (or less than two if the undefined "Alcohol Related" category is added).
Was each arrest or citation for criminal activity that actually occurred within the boundaries of these parking lots? Are there any such crime data for the 13 other parking lots proposed for inclusion in the ordinance?
Lot 9 (the one surface parking lot that has been covered by the ordinance since last year) includes an entry for “Criminal Field Interviews,” which the Agenda Report says is a demonstration of the success of the warning provision in the existing ordinance. Does this term equate to a SCPD warning specifically issued under Section 9.64.050 of the parking lot ordinance?
There are 29 incidents entitled “Warrants/Parole Violations” at four of the parking lots proposed for inclusion. If these were arrests of individuals for crimes committed at some other place and time, how does this demonstrate the extent of criminal activity occurring on public parking lots?
Separating out the “warrants” category in the table, yet still including the undefined “Alcohol Related” category, leaves 22 crimes listed for Lot 9, and an average of less than 16 crimes for the five parking lots proposed for inclusion. How does this place “Lot 9 near the bottom of the data range for the surface lots sampled,” as asserted? And how does the data for Lot 9 demonstrate the effect of the ordinance, positive or negative, in the absence of any comparable crime data for a similar period prior to the enactment of the ordinance?
Finally, there are 344 incidents shown by adding the “Total” row for each parking lot. But the total of the actual incident entries is only about half that (181). What accounts for the apparent discrepancy?
It may be worth noting that of the three city parking lot ordinances (out of 478 CA cities) quoted in one of the other attached documents, one of them (San Jose) applies solely to private parking lots. Constitutional rights of public assembly, free speech, etc., are essentially inapplicable there, and, therefore, irrelevant to the proposed ordinance amendment.
Thank you for your assistance.
Don
------------------------------------------
Don Zimmerman
Chair, Legal Committee
Santa Cruz Chapter
ACLU of Northern California
Donzim [at] aol.com
831-420-1224
(cell) 831-5881948
413 Western Dr., # 9
Santa Cruz, CA 95060
From: Zach Friend
Sent: Friday, September 21, 2007 8:34 AM
To: Marlin Granlund
Cc: donzim [at] aol.com; julieshattuck [at] post.com; sheila [at] cruzio.com; johnthompson [at] cruzio.com
Subject: RE: Next DT Commission Meeting
Dear Mr. Zimmerman:
I was forwarded your extensive email with a request to address some of your concerns. I will address some of the issues that are quick to answer:
When compiling the criminal information at these five lots for arrests or citations I only listed the top crime types – not all of the citations and crimes. As you are well aware there are pages and pages of possible citation reasons and penal code violations. A number of violations only occurred once and I didn’t think it was appropriate or reasonable to list all of the incidents by type. This is the reason behind 181 of the 344 incidents listed (the 181 constitute the top 5 crimes - respective of those lots). Your calculation that there was less than one crime per month does not count the entire 344 incidents.
I am not sure if it is a rhetorical question as to whether there is crime data in all 18 lots – there is crime data for all locations within the city limits. These five lots are a sampling of lots in the downtown corridor. Pulling information for these five lots took a significant amount of staff time and I’m sure you can imagine multiplying that out to cover all 18 lots would fundamentally delay the process for unforeseen amount of time.
All of the arrests or citations occurred within the five lots – regarding the warrant/parole violations I can imagine that the majority of the initial crimes that would have caused the individual to have a warrant to be on parole occurred somewhere else. However the individual with a warrant was located on one of these five lots.
Field Interview/Field Identification data provided from lot 9 shows those that were contacted under the auspices of 9.64.050
I hope this addresses some of your concerns and hope that any additional questions can be addressed at the public meeting.
Sincerely,
Zach Friend
Santa Cruz Police Department
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