Feature Archives

It has been over a month since KB Home contractors unearthed the skeletal remains of a young Ohlone child at the Branciforte Creek construction site in Santa Cruz. On August 25th, 75 people marched in downtown Santa Cruz to the City Council meeting in an action organized by the Save the Knoll Coalition. One person maintained an indigenous chant throughout the march, many people carried signs and banners, and several distributed educational flyers.

Joshua Hart, Director of Stop Smart Meters! was arrested on June 21st after blocking the entrance to the Capitola PG&E payment center in protest of PG&E’s illegal “smart” meter installations in the County. The County of Santa Cruz, as well as the Cities of Capitola and Watsonville, have adopted urgency ordinances prohibiting the installation of wireless “smart” meters within their jurisdictions. Forty-three local governments throughout the state have formally demanded a halt to the program because of concerns about health, privacy, accuracy, and fire safety.

After six months of organizing rallies and actions behind the "redwood curtain" protesting CalTrans' plan to expand Highway 101 through Richardson Grove State Park, Richardson Grove Action Now took the fight to the state capital in Sacramento, where they carried out a flash mob action. The highway expansion plan threatens some of the last 2% remaining ancient redwoods on Earth.

UPDATE 6/7/11: Bay Trail and Association of Bay Area Governments Suspends $200,000 Grant to GVRD!
On May 31st, supporters of the Glen Cove native encampment converged outside the offices of the Bay Trail project in downtown Oakland to demand that Bay Trail divest from desecration of the Sogorea Te sacred burial ground in Vallejo. Over 65 people gathered in front of the Bay Trail offices and vowed to pursue further action if the $200,000 is not immediately pulled from plans to bulldoze the burial grounds and build on top of it.

Japan's Chubu Electric Power Company started shutting down its nuclear power plant in Hamaoka, approximately 100 miles southwest of Tokyo, this week. On May 6th, Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan made public his directive for the company to suspend its operation. His announcement came just hours before an anti-nuclear power demonstration of 10,000 people in Tokyo. On the same day, activists rallied in solidarity with their Japanese counterparts in front of the Japanese consulate in San Francisco.

Activists in the Bay Area are marking the 25th Anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster with rallies, speakers, street theater, and educational events. Calling the catastrophe in Ukraine "the most significant nuclear reactor failure in the history of nuclear power", anti-nuke enthusiasts say they want the world to remember that April 26, 1986 was the day when one of the reactors at the Chernobyl nuclear power station exploded, killing plant employees instantly and leading to a projected increase in cancer deaths in the hundreds of thousands.

To protest the continued development of nuclear weapons in the Bay Area and the United States, a demonstration was held at Livermore Nuclear Lab in Livermore on April 22nd. At dawn, an interfaith prayer service was followed by Stations of the Cross. The demonstration ended at the front gate with the mass arrest of approximately two dozen protesters who refused to stop blocking the entrance when ordered to by police.