Feature Archives

In 2013, the Santa Cruz City Council approved a number of new ordinances that disproportionately affect homeless and low income people. Local ordinances now govern such behavior as "loitering" on traffic medians and "disorderly" conduct in parks, which has been redefined and may now result in a 24-hour stay away order. Additionally, the amount of space artists, activists, street vendors and performers may use in downtown Santa Cruz has been significantly reduced.

The Center for Biological Diversity reached a settlement agreement on March 11 with the California Department of Parks and Recreation that will substantially increase protections in the Santa Cruz Mountains for the marbled murrelet, an endangered seabird that nests in old-growth forests. The settlement requires the agency to reduce dangers posed by visitor trash, which harms murrelets by unnaturally increasing the abundance of predators that eat eggs and chicks.

On March 7, the California Department of Corrections modified a San Francisco billboard to read, "HOW DO I FIND A TAX LOOPHOLE?" and "NO INCOME TAX FOR BOEING, GE and VERIZON." The billboard was modified one week after the Center for Tax Justice published a report comparing the profits and income taxes for Fortune 500 companies. Twenty-six, including Boeing, General Electric and Verizon, generated a combined total of $170 billion in profits, but maintained negative tax rates every year from 2008 to 2012.

Santa Cruz Sentinel photographer Dan Coyro has called members and supporters of the Santa Cruz Eleven "roaches" and "street vermin" in recent public statements, in addition to making comments disparaging the local needle exchange program, and calling the homeless "bums" while blasting their photo on social media. The Santa Cruz Sentinel is considered by many to be the newspaper of record in Santa Cruz County, which has some questioning the ability of Coyro to function objectively at his position.

A nine week official mourning for 13-year-old Andy Lopez has begun in the Moorland Area of Santa Rosa where Andy was shot seven times and killed by Sonoma County Sheriff Deputy Erick Gelhaus on October 22, 2013. Traditionally, a Novenario is nine days of prayer after a death. Attributed to the Catholic religion, these prayers assist the deceased in getting to Heaven, and it is the family’s way of getting some form of closure and peace over their loss.

The corporate media's narrative on the opposition protests in Venezuela is that the Venezuelan government caused this crisis, because it is a dictatorship that has ruined the economy in a failed attempt to impose Cuban style socialism. In San Francisco, activists gathered for a rally at the 24th and Mission BART Plaza on February 17, to protest the one-sided media coverage. Another event on March 6 featured a reportback from Venezuela and commemorated the one-year anniversary of the death of President Hugo Chavez.

On March 5, students at UC Santa Cruz occupied the Hahn building in an ongoing resistance to the appointment of Janet Napolitano as president of the University of California system. The occupation follows a march to Kerr Hall on February 26, when students attempted to enter the offices of UCSC's Chancellor. Support for UC workers is central to the demands of student demonstrators, and over the course of the recent protests, labor victories have been gained as the university has given into demands by Graduate Student Workers and AFSCME Workers in separate negotiations.