The Fresno City Council has passed, with a 6-1 vote, an ordinance that will remove homeless people from median islands while allowing established community groups to continue using the space for their fundraisers. Bill Simon, the chairperson of the Greater Fresno American Civil Liberties Union, called the measure discriminatory.

Simon said, "Perhaps Mr. Westerlund was well intentioned when he proposed this median safety ordinance, but on its face it has a discriminatory intent and motive against poor people, especially against the homeless while protecting two popular fundraisers - The Fresno Bee Day for Children's Hospital and the Firefighters fundraiser. But, the equal protection guaranteed by the Constitution does not allow one set of rules for some people and another set for others. Equal treatment means everyone or no one. If fundraising on a median is unsafe for some, then it is unsafe for all."

Fresno City Council member Larry Westerland defended his ordinance, saying that if "somebody who wanted to, up to one time every six months, they would be able to come in and there would be a form they would fill out, a one page form, it would be like here is my name, here is the median I would like to occupy on this date, whatever that date would be. We talked about a 48 hour notice before going out there." Westerlund's ordinance would require the applicant to pay a filling fee, provide proof of insurance, and require the use of a brightly colored vest.

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On January 12, 2010, two banners were strategically placed on the UC Davis main library, reclaiming public space as well as "announcing Happy New Year to the administrators who hoped we would disappear," according to an article posted to Indybay. The banners read “We are the crisis” and “Our education, our workplace, our university.”

The banners highlighted the connections between the struggles of UC’s students, faculty, and staff members. An article posted to Indybay states that the message of the banner hang is that, at the beginning of the new quarter in which students are being required to pay 15% more in fees for their education (with an additional 17% fee increase set to occur in Fall 2010), "resistance to the UC administration’s decision-making is alive and mounting."

Shields Library was reportedly chosen as a target for these banners because of the chronic underfunding of UCD library collections, staff, and resources. The action is a precursor to mobilize protesters for a statewide day of action against the privatization of public education on March 4th. Read more

New Posters from Students in the Valley | Napa Valley College shows solidarity with statewide protests and rallies. | Update on the protests at UC Berkeley | Students protest fee hikes: an interview wit’ journalist Dave Id of Indy Bay Media | Communiqués from the Valley: New pamphlet on Student Strugggle in the Central Valley | The Enemy Within | What We Lack is Life. | Reflections on Kerr Hall (by student participants)

Older Coverage: Eight Arrested at UC Berkeley After Concert & March | Students Occupy Business Building at SFSU | On the Occupation of Kerr Hall; Demystifying the University's Erroneous Claims | California Students Protest and Occupy as UC Regents Approve 32% Fee Hike

The latest National Alliance Membership Bulletin has a detailed cover story about the Sacramento unit’s recruiting activities at local gun shows. In the article the unit leader, Jim Ring, brags about his success at signing up neo-Nazis at these events.

This notorious hate group intends to have several tables at the Cal Expo Center this weekend, January 2nd and 3rd. Jim Ring has claimed to local racists that the show sponsor, McMann Roadrunner, is "sympathetic" to the National Alliance message. McMann ignores complaints from customers and vendors when the NA appears at their shows in California and Arizona, according to Ring, who brags that McMann gives him a discount for his tables and allows him to promote and sell copies of the Turner Diaries at the show.

Antifa write that, "Sacramento has literally become 'ground zero' in our fight against these fascists." Read more

A poorly researched article on California water, the "New Dust Bowl," is online and appeared in the November-December edition of Mother Jones magazine, a publication known for its investigative reporting. Dan Bacher, an Indybay contributor and editor for Fish Sniffer, critiques the article, stating, "The 'New Dust Bowl' sounds just like a headline from the Sean Hannity Show or Fox 'News' - and the article reads like a propaganda piece for growers on the west side of the San Joaquin Valley."

"On the west side of the valley, which is often last in line for deliveries from federal water projects, farmers are selling prized almond trees for firewood, fields are reverting to weed, and farmworkers who once fled droughts in Mexico are overwhelming food banks," claims the author, Josh Harkinson. "In short, the valley is becoming what an earlier generation of refugees thought they'd escaped: an ecological catastrophe in the middle of a social and economic one—a 21st century Dust Bowl."

In falsely portraying the west side as "a 21st century Dust Bowl," Harkinson sounds here like a speech writer for one of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's rants for a rally of the Latino Water Coalition, an "Astroturf" organization set up by the Governor and San Joaquin Valley growers to put a "human face" on corporate agribusiness in order to promote the construction of a peripheral canal and more dams and to strip protections for Central Valley salmon, Delta smelt and other fish species under the Endangered Species Act.

Read more | The PR Firm from Hell | Another Right Wing March and Rally for Water | The Three Big Lies Behind the Peripheral Canal | Arnold Astroturfs His Way to Environmental Destruction | Environmental Groups Around State Oppose Scary Legislative Water Package | San Joaquin Poverty and Industrial Agribusiness: Law Review Article by Lloyd Carter | We Expected Better of the Network That Gave Us Edward R. Murrow | USDA Data Dispels Myth that West Side Growers 'Feed the Nation'

Does your right to carry a skateboard vanish into thin air when you step onto the Fresno City College campus? Ask Greg and Demone Moultrie, who are still sitting in the Fresno County Jail, what they think. According to witnesses, Greg Moultrie was walking on campus with his skateboard in his hands on September 25, 2009 when he was stopped by a campus police officer. The officer ordered Moultrie to hand over his skateboard. When he did not want to comply with what he felt was an unreasonable request, the incident escalated and Demone Moultrie, Greg's brother, got involved. As officers scuffled with the Moultries, a student at the Native American Intertribal Student Association table got on the group's PA system and encouraged students to use their cell phones to film the incident.

In video on the Internet, you can see the chaotic scene, including one of the officers hitting Demone with his baton. Greg was sprayed with mace. Greg is now, more than three months after this incident, still sitting in the Fresno County Jail. He has just been given a three year sentence for charges filed against him in the skateboarding incident. Demone is also still in jail and is scheduled to be sent to Chino State Prison on January 21, all because of this skateboarding incident. How could something as simple as walking across the FCC campus with a skateboard end up with two young men in jail for a prolonged period of time? Read more

Saturday, November 21, 2009 - Students at CSU-Fresno took over the university library, keeping it open for 24 hours from Friday - Saturday morning. About 100 students and supporters occupied the second floor of the Madden Library, demanding that more university resources go towards keeping the library open for more hours. Ali Espinoza, one of the student leaders who helped organize the takeover, said the university keeps their bowling ally and pool hall open more hours than the library.

The student demands, however, go beyond longer library hours - they want a larger voice in how the university is run. In addition to more library hours the students want co-governance and greater transparency in financial matters on campus. The “study-in” ended at 8 a.m. on Saturday morning, with the students saying progress had been made in discussions with the dean of library services.

Photos | Audio and Photos

On Friday, November 6th, 2009, the Fresno Brown Berets and California Prison Moratorium Project organized a march and rally in protest of what they say is “Fresno Police Chief Jerry Dyer's corrupt and racist administration.” They called for his resignation or termination as police chief.

There have been 9 murders by police this year, 40 since Dyer took office. Every single one has been deemed justified by Dyer. He and his force consistently resist any calls for transparency or accountability. Activists say that "No matter what Dyer says, drug use and crimes of poverty do not justify a police officer implementing the death penalty."

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See Also: Fresno Police Kill 2 Unarmed Men this Week | Justice for Lonnie Graham and all Victims of Police Brutality

On November 10th, the Stanislaus County District Attorney was not interested in anything less than a misdemeanor conviction against two volunteers arrested for offering syringe exchange, and harm reduction services in the Airport District of Modesto. In an act of punishment and criminalization of public health service, the District Attorney offered the defendants a plea bargain that included jail time, three years probation, and a "Stay Away Order," requiring them to stay out of the park where they were arrested. The stay away order was added the day after defendants began conducting syringe clean-ups and public education about safe disposal in the Mono Park area.

The Mono Park 2 assert that, "the D.A. keeps sending the wrong message LOUD & CLEAR: the lives of users, residents and workers in this community are not worth protecting from accidental needle sticks, disease or injury. In the mean time, the user's worst nightmares of disease or injury, a parent's worst thought of their child getting stuck, and the risk to park and public safety workers looms over Mono Park." In addition to the public health concerns, the "stay away" order on defendants' records would appear as if they were child molesters, abusers or drug dealers -- all of which would have a variety of negative consequences in their future.

Read more | Syringe Exchange Defendants Prepare for Battle in Modesto | Busted for Handing Out Clean Needles | Interview with "Modesto Mono Park 2" | Off The Streets Project

On October 21st, Fresno State saw one of its largest mobilizations since the 1960s. The student walkout was in protest against the recent fee increase of 32% (fees go up almost every year typically by around 10%), class furloughs (pay more get less), over-crowded classrooms, faculty layoffs, staff layoffs, a corrupt administration, a corrupt Associated Students, Inc., which refuses to represent the students, and the entire California State University (CSU) system. The CSU master plan from the 60s promised free education to all, but the university is now run like a for-profit corporation.

A rally was attended by 300 students and faculty who spoke and expressed their shared rage. This was followed by a march of well over 600 students chanting things like "no cuts! no fees! education should be free!" and "hey! hey! ho! ho! [university president] Welty's gotta go!". This march went down Shaw from Maple to Cedar and around the Shaw/Cedar intersection several times before rallying in front of the school.

After the march, a group of students took a list of demands to President Welty's office on the 4th floor of the library -- during the rally there were many references to Welty's tower where he could look down on his subjects and maintain inaccessibility. The students were initially met by campus police who blocked the elevator saying they had to make sure it was okay to come up, so the delegation instead took the stairs. Once the small group made it up, it was met in the hallway by campus police who said President Welty was not there. As this dialogue was going on, students just kept coming out of the elevators, and by the end the students had moved forward nearly 30 feet and 80 students were clogging the hallway leading to the administrators' offices. Welty's assistant explained that the president was at a meeting. The students responded "fine, we'll wait" and all sat down.

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About 50 protesters, demanding police accountability, marched to the Fresno police department headquarters on Friday, October 9th. They were upset at the death of Lonnie Graham on September 23rd, which was the 8th officer involved shooting of the year in Fresno. Adriana Becerra, a member of the Brown Berets who organized the protest, said the account of Graham’s death is disputed. Becerra said “his family did say that he was shot without a warning, as soon as he stepped out of the house. He was called out of the house, he was on his cell phone, and the cops said they believed he had a gun. They shot him and they found out he didn’t have a gun, he had a cell phone."

Juan Avitia, a spokesperson for the Brown Berets, said “we want the police department to get their act together. We want them to look in the mirror and really look at tactics and options that are available to them. Shooting first is an option to them, but it is not the only option and that is what we’re saying. We want them to seriously look at their options... In this case specifically, judging from what The Fresno Bee wrote and Chief Dyer said - they shot this man, there was a cell phone, he had no gun, and under the circumstances, just judging what was said, that in itself raises a lot of questions."

Audio and photos

On July 26, with a brief back page article, the Sacramento Bee broke the story that Nestle Waters is coming to Sacramento. A glowing article in the Business Journal and a critical article in the News and Review followed, and then the story was mostly forgotten.

Since this initial publicity, Nestle and the city of Sacramento have worked hard to quietly fast-track this project so Nestle can open its south Sacramento bottling plant in the next few months. City staff consider this project "non-discretionary," which means if all goes as planned, there will be no public comment, no city council vote and no environmental impact report.

Nestle claims that their Sacramento plant will be a "micro-bottling plant," bottling only 50 million gallons of water. According to Nestle, approximately 30 million gallons will come from Sacramento's municipal water system and 20 million will be trucked to the plant from nearby "private springs." City staff have refused to answer questions about the springs and Nestle has provided no information about their location, other than telling the Sacramento News and Review that they are in the Sierra Nevada foothills. A search of water extraction permits issued by the State of California over the last two years reveals nothing. The only clues come from other communities struggling to keep from being robbed of their water. Read more

Stop Nestle Waters | Inside the Bottle | Baby Milk Action, Boycott Nestle | Save a child today! Stop Nestlé! | Nespressure, good life good food and serial violations of workers rights | All Bottled Up: Nestlé’s Pursuit of Community Water | Should Water Be Legislated as a Human Right? | Bottled-water scam finally feels squeeze | Nestle water plant? Not in our town, Enumclaw says

Boston Woodard, a prisoner/journalist who is a frequent contributor to Indybay, has been put in solitary confinement in retaliation for an article he wrote about conditions at Solano State Prison. Woodard, in a letter sent from Solano, stated "I was placed in Administrative Segregation ['The Hole'] on July 9, 2009. I was NOT given any disciplinary action and there is NO charges/violations leveled against me. The official 'lock-up order' (CDC-114-D) states I was being removed from the general population because I am a 'security problem' and pose a 'threat' to the safety and security of this institution, because of my writing."

Boston's article, "Rogue Prison Staff: Breaking all the Rules," published on Indybay in April, describes in detail the threats and intimidation taking place at Solano - the filing of false disciplinary charges, mail tampering, verbal threats, etc. After reading that article, representatives from the California Department of Corrections (CDC) held what Woodard described as a Kangaroo Court. According to Woodard, "CSP-Solano's warden John W. Haviland told me that I am being transferred to another prison (possibly Folsom) because of my journalistic activities. They even put that in writing."

On Monday, August 3, David Newdorf, Woodard's legal counsel, filed a lawsuit against warden John W. Haviland and those responsible for the violation of his client's free speech and civil rights. The lawsuit states that "State prisoner Robert 'Boston' Woodard, a jailhouse journalist, was placed in administrative segregation ('ad seg'), denied visitation and telephone calls, and separated from his property (including typewriter and legal papers), because California jail officials did not like what he wrote about their prison for an outside audience. Officials also retaliated against him when he filed grievances complaining about the harassment and retaliation by correctional officers for his writing."

Wednesday, August 12 update: It has now been confirmed that Boston has been transferred to the State Prison in Susanville and is no longer being held in solitary confinement. The publicity and the lawsuit against the California Department of Corrections seems to have worked.

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Other articles by Boston Woodard: A Snow Job Is No Job!: What’s in a Report? | Zip Gun II | Arts in Corrections | Zip Gun | The Shell Game | Foreign National Prisoners, Targeted For Out-Of-State Transfers | The Parole Conundrum

The Community Alliance Newspaper

Fresno County was the focus of the War on Drugs, as Gil Kerlikowske, director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy (also known as the Drug Czar), came to town. Kerlikowske and Fresno County Sheriff Margaret Mims held a press conference to announce operation Save our Sierra (SOS), which has now resulted in 90 arrests and approximately $1.4 billion worth of marijuana plants seized.

Mims said Mexican drug cartels are behind most of the marijuana being grown in the Sierra mountains, east of Fresno. At the time of last Wednesday's press conference, 81 of the 82 people arrested in the raids were Latinos. Speakers emphasized the damage done to the environment by marijuana growers, displaying fertilizers, pesticides, and trash left behind at the camps.

But Nancy Botwin (not her real name), a marijuana grower at the 3,000 foot elevation in eastern Fresno County with over 10 years of experience in the business, said she has never seen any sign of the Mexican Mafia in the Sierra. Botwin says she has, however, seen plenty of evidence of the SOS campaign. "They have been flying back and forth in their military helicopters for a couple of weeks now," Botwin said. "A couple of days ago they hovered over a garden a few hundred yards from here. What that did was tell the locals where the pot is at. Sure enough, a local teenager went down and harvested the pot and he was busted later in the day."

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Kettleman City is a small town in the southwestern San Joaquin Valley. The city is next to the I-5 Interstate Highway and is the site of the largest toxic waste dump in the western United States. About 200 residents held a march and rally on Saturday, July 18th, to protest a cluster of birth defects that has recently been exposed.

Maricela Mares-Alatorre is a mother and has lived in Kettleman City for 31 years. She also helped organize the march. Mares-Alatorre said "in the past we have fought a lot of issues with our local toxic land fill, which is the largest in California. Currently they are in the process of an expansion, but what we are asking for is a moratorium on all of those permits until there is an investigation as to why there are so many children being born with cleft palate. We have had a cluster here — in a 14 month period from 2007 to 2008 five children have been born with cleft palate. We just found out this morning that there is another woman who is pregnant who will also have a child with cleft palate and we believe that until that is investigated and they know why it is happening that there shouldn't be any more permits issued."

Maura Alatorre is one of the mothers whose child was born with a cleft palate. Alatorre said she was at the rally because "it is in honor of the children that were born with these deformities and thanks to the attention that everybody is putting into this rally, there will be attention put to the problem in Kettleman City and that will help."

On Friday, July 17th, Kings County health officials said they were on a fast track to investigate the high incidence of birth defects in Kettleman City. The US Environmental Protection Agency also released a statement on Friday saying that it will be working with the county and the state to determine if the incidents are related to environmental factors.

Photos and Audio Report

From Death Row, San Quentin, Donald Ray Young Writes: "We had strange fruit for breakfast today...a death row prisoner committed suicide at San Quentin, in East Block. But, I can’t worry about that guy....Wait; how can I not think of the suicide in this very building - - his family...loved ones? What if he was innocent? Do I know him? How many other people on death row have contemplated killing themselves to escape this madness? I believe that when one dies - - a part of all of us all dies....

"How many innocent men will California execute because of the 1996 Anti-Terrorism & Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA)? The courts Attorney Generals misuse this law (AEDPA) in order to bar newly discovered evidence and/or evidence of actual innocence.

"Donald Ray Young I AM: I am Troy Davis.. .I am Kevin Cooper.. .I am Rodney Reed.. .I am Reginald Clemons ... I am Oscar Grant III.. .I am Stanley Williams.. .I am Emmett Till. . . I am the future – present and past. I am innocent on California’s death row – don’t rush to execute me... I must prove my innocence. When will the justice system rush to justice & fairness? How many have been exonerated from death row? How many innocent people on death mu have been put through a state sponsored, premeditated, torturous murder? State sponsored, taxpayer funded, barbaric, draconian, torturous murder equates to the lethal injection process. We all see how much the system will spend on death.. .how much will the system spend on life? Life is education. Life is shelter. Life is food. Life is clothing. Life is employment. Life is clean water. Life is freedom...." Read more

Method of execution | Poems by Donald Ray Young | Community Alliance Newspaper