July 23rd! Smash the State - Build the Community! Why we are Occupying Tower Park!

Why Reclaim the Parks…
…and the streets…and the city…

We are calling for the people of Modesto to occupy Tower Park on Saturday, July 23rd. Parks represent areas in communities that are largely still communal and free. They are open spaces where people can come and enjoy green space, and not have to worry about pressures of the city, and the distractions of the commerical/work world. In the past we have occupied Tower Park to protest the police harassment and treatment of homeless, the policies of the Gospel Mission, and also the lack of permanent year round shelter. However, it’s a bigger problem than just the homeless facing difficult times, it’s the entire bloc of working people in this city, (and central valley), that are facing the effects of urban sprawl, police abuse, environmental devastation, and lack of the basics of life. Below are some reasons we not only need to come together to reclaim the parks, but the whole city.

Urban Sprawl
In one of his last speeches as California's top health official, Dr. Richard Jackson said conventional urban planning, (urban sprawl), is a culprit in urban health problems, mass pollution, and leads to stress and friction within families as parents spend two to four hours on the freeways getting to and from work each day. Jackson also takes issue with local governments that allow residential areas to be built without bicycle trails and playing fields (Modesto Bee, June 23, 05).
Urban sprawl is the growth of roads and industry, which destroys local culture and control, and replaces it with corporate power and destruction. The loss of farmland and open space often causes unexpected economic challenges for rural communities. In communities like ours, farmland, forests, ranch land and open space tend to be the economic drivers that feeds us, provides beauty, and is a home for eco-systems. Sprawling development compromises the resources that are the core of the community. Current development patterns also create substantial air pollution, largely because of the increased automobile dependence that is associated with sprawl. With local economies wiped out, people now rely on strip malls and shopping centers, and the only realistic choice for running out to these places is to drive.
An academic study commissioned by SGA, Measuring Sprawl and Its Impact, shows that people in sprawling places breathe more polluted air. The study found that the severity of ozone pollution is strongly related to the degree of sprawl. In fact the difference in ozone levels between the most sprawling and least sprawling metro areas is 41 parts per billion: enough to shift a metro area from ‘code green’ air quality status to an unhealthy ‘code red.’ Other pollutants emitted by cars, such as benzene and particulate matter, better known as soot, are associated with increased risk of lung and other cancers, particularly for those who live near major roadways. Ninety percent of total cancer risk in the Los Angeles Basin is attributable to toxic air pollutants emitted by mobile sources. As a recent headline in USA Today put it: “City, suburban designs could be bad for your health.”
Urban sprawl then has several affects. It removes farm land and green space, it removes local autonomy and increases corporate power, and also leads to more pollution and less healthier cities. Corporate urban sprawl also means that certain people suddenly don’t fit into a plan of success of a more “urbanized” Modesto. This means that homeless people, youth, poor and working people ultimately don’t fit into a plan of a Modesto where Starbucks sit across from each other, and million dollar homes line the street.

Environmental Justice
While urban sprawl pushes out communities of working and homeless people with high rents and loitering laws, many communities of people of color and poor people are being affected by large corporations that threaten our health and safety. One of the worst polluters is the Modesto Tallow plant. The plant renders animal corpses, and turns them into pet food and livestock feed. This causes massive amounts of air pollution, which have devastating affects on the community, which is mostly Latino in South Modesto. According to the Modesto Bee, “Over the past 10 years, Modesto Tallow violated air quality rules more often than any other company in the Northern San Joaquin Valley. The company's 124 violations include creating a public nuisance, malfunctioning equipment and failing to process carcasses within 24 hours, according to the San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District.” Modesto Tallow has been fined at least $1.4 million over the years, about half of which has not been paid. Modesto Tallow refuses to pay at least $765,000 in air district fines dating back to 2002. Modesto Tallow also owes $246,607 in taxes dating back to 2000 for its property at 925 Crows Landing Road, according to county records.
The Tallow Plant has a sever affect on local people. One man interviewed by the Modesto Bee stated that the stench is especially bad at night and on weekends, because air district officials aren't readily available to investigate. Students at the near by Shackelford School, suffer from headaches, nausea, and vomiting. As a school worker said, “The students come out from lunch, start smelling that stink, and it's just overwhelming. They start heaving up."
But it’s not just the Tallow Plant, another major polluter and threat to the local community is the Covanta Plant. The Covanta plant takes trash, (mostly things like computer parts), from other communities, and burns it in order to create energy for the city. According to community groups like Grayson Neighborhood Council, the effects however are disastrous. “…The incinerator emits dioxin and other highly toxic pollutants into the air. Dioxin is the most toxic substance known to science, even at low levels of exposure. Dioxin causes cancer, birth defects, reproductive illnesses and other health problems.” The toxins leak not only into the air, but also into the soil, infecting animals, which are then eaten by humans.
This says a lot about the kind of town that we live in, and what kind of people decide the quality of life for many people. It says that poor people and people of color take the blunt of environmental terrorism, and toxic chemicals. It also says that while city leaders often claim that not enough money is available for homeless shelters, school books, firefighters, etc, various local corporations owe literally hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines and have yet to pay up. It also says that while children grow violently sick, the city cares more about getting energy and money. Is this the kind of city we want?

Labor Struggles
While our living environments in our communities may be being destroyed, our workplaces are also declining in their social worth. With many skilled and industrial jobs leaving the area, (often moving to other countries because of “free trade”), the economy in the Central Valley and in the US is largely moving into the service industry. While small family owned businesses are pushed out by Starbucks and Wal-Marts, and union jobs are replaced by unionized jobs, people’s benefits, wages, and standard of living are under fire.
On average union workers receive a median of 27% more money than un-unionized workers. Unionized workers also get 54% more in pension funds than un-unionized workers. Union workers also get better health insurance, disability coverage, and life insurance. While the benefits of organizing on the job are clear, the direction that many jobs in this area are going are not towards sturdy union jobs, but to unstable service industry jobs. Low-wage workers have been particularly hard hit by wage trends and have been left behind as the disparity between rich and poor has mushroomed. To compound the problem, the real value of the minimum wage in recent years is actually much less than in the past (Mishel, Bernstein, and Schmitt, 1999). Although incomes appear to be rising, this growth is largely due to more hours worked - which in turn can be attributed to cut social programs and the tight labor markets.

Homeless Issues
As jobs pay less, and workers receive less benefits, the cost of living for many people is continuing to rise increasingly. As people in the bay area flee their own rising rents, landlords and property owners take advantage of the new market, and raise rents in this area sometimes by 100’s of dollars. According to the Modesto Bee, this isn’t going to change anytime soon, as they reported that rents are forecast to grow 4.4 percent this year and 4.9 percent over the next year. In the mid to late 90‘s, rents increased faster than income for the 20% of American households with the lowest incomes.
But there are other serious issues that are contributing to homelessness other than rising rents and low paying jobs. Nationally, approximately half of all women and children experiencing homelessness are fleeing domestic violence (Zorza, 1991; National Coalition Against Domestic Violence, 2001). Approximately 22% of the single adult homeless population suffers from some form of severe and persistent mental illness, and many of them are unable to enter into programs that will help them not only in their illness, but also become an able member of society (U.S. Conference of Mayors, 2001).
Under these conditions, the majority of people that face homeless do not choose it. They are either forced into the position through the affects of capitalist society: loss of jobs, rising rents, lack of assistance programs, etc. In this context, the city of Modesto has largely ignored these problems, and instead of helping to open shelters and secure programs, it has passed aggressive anti-panhandling and other laws aimed at homeless. They city has also recently considered selling off public parks that are largely used by the homeless. In doing so the city has sentenced a section of the cities population that have been placed in a bad position to an even harsher existence.

Problems with Local Police
According to the Modesto budget of 04-05, the Modesto Police, (although facing some cuts), will receive around $46.6 million for the year. This comes in the wake of a police officer being shot in Jan. 05’ in Ceres, where police have aggressively stepped up efforts against suspected gang members. During the intensified gang enforcement, 83 individuals were arrested, 270 home searched, and 160 vehicles stopped. Arrests took place all over Ceres and Modesto but concentrated in the predominantly farm worker communities. Police also received new automatic weapons, which were used in stops of largely younger adults that were “suspected” of being in a gang. Robert Rubin, the Legal Director for the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights (LCCR) said: "However legitimate law enforcement activity might be, it must not be used as a cover for wholesale targeting of the Latino community.” While drug dealing and gangs are a problem, just small fractions of the money going into automatic weapons and police units, could instead go to programs that would instead help youth get out of poverty, and end gangs.
2005 also marks the 9th person being shot by Modesto Police since 2000. Recently Modesto Police have come under fire by one of the families of the victims, and are involved in an ongoing lawsuit. Police have also routinely harassed homeless people in parks and public areas, youth in the downtown area, and also anarchist activists, (the collective who is writing this), in their attempts at documenting police misconduct and organizing.
The Police department is also un-democratically responsible to the communities they work in. Complaints that are issued against police officers are reviewed by internal affairs, which are other police officers. This process allows police to police themselves, and thus are accountable only to their own internal organization. The Police Chief is also only directly responsible to the city council, and not the community.

Possible Solutions
The current problems that are facing working people in this community are a result of a system that puts all the means of which we all need to survive into the hands of a small elite for the sake of profit, (we call this system capitalism). The answers lie however not in more government regulation, but in the creation and maintenance of genuine organs and institutions of direct democracy and community control, (what we call anarchism - or self-organized workplaces and communities).
Firstly, people need to get organized. Organizing unions in their work places, (especially if they are service industry - go to http://www.iww.org), and forming tenants associations and unions to fight landlords and high rents. Urban sprawl can be countered by communities planting gardens and new bike paths, and pressuring the city to develop better ways of zoning areas. Communities and neighborhoods also need to become organized such as the local Grayson Neighborhood Council, which is organized to fight Covanta and other companies which hurt the local environment - and the people in it. Homeless people can squat buildings and fix them up, and create the kind of autonomous villages that exist now along rivers and in Modesto’s woods. Communities can also come together to monitor and stop police harassment, as citizens in Ceres have done, while at the same time organizing their own systems of mediation and problem solving instead of involving police. You can also get involved with the D.A.A.A. Collective, and organize with us! More info at: http://www.modanarcho.tk

Smash the State…
…Build the Community!