Feature Archives

The Save the Peaks Coalition is fighting the United States Forest Service in a legal battle to protect children from hazardous endocrine disruptors and to protect the San Francisco Peaks sacred site in Arizona from desecration. On Monday, January 9th, The Save the Peaks Coalition et al v. the United States Forest Service will be heard by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, CA. The case argues that under the National Environmental Policy Act and the Administrative Procedure Act, the Forest Service failed to adequately consider the impacts associated with ingestion of snow made from reclaimed sewer water in its Environmental Impact Statement. Organizers are calling for a strong turn-out for a march and rally before the court hearing, and a welcoming reception will be held the previous day on Sunday, January 8th.

Hundreds of people participated in the 7th Annual Last Night DIY New Year's Parade on December 31st, 2011 in downtown Santa Cruz. Hundreds more lined Pacific Avenue to watch and document the grassroots New Year's Eve celebration created by the community. The event has become both a homespun, family-friendly alternative celebration and a controversial embarrassment for the city.

In a call-out for a march at 1pm from 14th Street & Broadway to a rally at the Fruitvale BART station on January 1st, 2012, organizers write: "The movement that touched ground in January 2009 — the organizing to address police terrorism — laid the ground work for the movement against the 1% here in Oakland. The polarizing disparity of wealth and the numerous police killings in our communities are inextricably linked. To unravel a system that forecloses homes, pushes our families into poverty and criminalizes our youth while gentrifying our neighborhoods, we need to not only address a system based on greed but a system that needs police brutality to survive and thrive through state terror. On this 3rd anniversary of Oscar’s murder, lets take to the streets to show that Oscar Grant is gone but not forgotten. Oscar lives on in the memories of his family and friends and in our resistance to the police."

The twelfth and final profile in the series “Hidden in Plain Sight,” by Peter M, concerns Jose Manuel Martinez, whose creative life has been story telling. As a recording artist — a singer-songwriter — he made his mark in Rock, Latin Rock and Salsa. Now having just completed a Master’s degree in Education at Stanford University, he is an English teacher, relating to young people how stories can empower, and the ways they can bring people together.

On December 8th, the California Coastal Commission voted 10-1 to approve the controversial $5 million Arana Gulch Master Plan. The vote was expected to resolve a fifteen year long battle between cycling advocacy groups and environmental groups that oppose a bike path through the Santa Cruz greenbelt. But in a move that has some long time Sierra Club members crying foul, cycling advocacy groups are running a slate of three candidates for the board of the Santa Cruz County Group of the Sierra Club in the December election. This would be the second cyclist-sponsored candidate slate in two years, and is expected to decide control of the Santa Cruz Group Executive Committee.

On December 17, approximately 75-100 community members protesting the desecration of Rattlesnake Island, the spiritual center of the Elem Pomo community, marched to the Piedmont mansion of John Nady, the owner of Nady Systems, who has been one of those pushing for the development of the island as the location of two luxury-style vacation homes. Community members first circled up and held a rally near the Lakeview library branch in Oakland, then proceeded to march two miles up and into the hills of Piedmont where Nady owns a large home, and a short demonstration was held that featured speeches as well a spirited singing of the AIM song.

Eighteen months after he was first detained on accusations of revealing information to WikiLeaks, PFC Bradley Manning appeared before an Article 32 investigating officer for a pre-trial hearing on December 16th at Fort Meade in Maryland. Supporters gathered outside the gates of Fort Meade to call for Manning's freedom and denounce the proceedings as unjust. Supporters have long argued that PFC Manning could not receive a fair hearing due to unlawful command influence from President Obama, who publicly declared in April that the former Army intelligence analyst "broke the law."