Feature Archives

4/22 Update: The plaintiffs rested their case in chief Thursday, April 21, with the exception of the possible testimony of former California Attorney General Dan Lungren, who has been subpoenaed to appear as a final witness on Monday, April 25. Lungren is fighting the subpoena. The office of the current Attorney General of California, Bill Lockyer, has filed a motion to quash the subpoena on various technical legal grounds. A hearing on the motion to quash has been rescheduled for Monday April 25th, 2005, at 1:30 PM, before Judge Illston, immediately following the regular trial session. Read more

After nearly eight years, two trials, a trip to the Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court, the “Pepper Spray 8” – forest activists whose eyes were swabbed with pepper spray-soaked q-tips during peaceful protests – are heading back to court for trial number three. “We’re hoping the third time’s the charm,” said Plaintiff Spring Lundberg, who was seventeen when members of the Humboldt County Sheriffs Department held her eyelids open while applying pepper spray during a sit-in at Pacific Lumber Company in protest of ancient redwood logging in Headwaters forest.

This civil rights trial will be heard again in federal court on April 13th after two hold-out jurors prevented a verdict in the September 2004 trial. At issue is whether police used excessive force when they forced pepper spray into the eyes of protesters staging a sit-in. The defendants are Humboldt County Sheriffs' Dept., Eureka Police Dept., the former Sheriff and current Sheriff of that county.

Read more | More Details at the No Pepper Spray website.

On March 14th families from San Gaspar de los Reyes in Jalisco, Mexico, who now live in the Bay Area, converged on the Mexican Consulate in San Francisco to protest the construction of a dam in their home town.
Speakers spoke of the catastrophic social and environmental effects the dam will cause, including the forced displacement of approximately 10,000 people from 48 communities.
Read More With Photos And Video

On March 23rd, Bayview Hunters Point residents delivered a 30-day eviction notice for the Hunters Point Power Plant to PG&E Headquarters on Beale Street in downtown San Francisco. The mothers, residents and allies demanded a meeting with CEO Peter Darvey but were not allowed inside corporate headquarters. PG&E instead sent its Sr. Public Relations director, Guillermo Rodriguez, to accept the 30 day notice—but did not comment. Photos | Video

The power plant, situated adjacent to residential neighborhoods and San Francisco Bay, represents the city's largest point-source of such air pollutants as mercury and carbon monoxide. Notice was served by the Coalition to Shut Down the PG&E Hunters Point Power Plant, the Huntersview Tenants Association, All Hallows Garden Residents Association, Greenaction for Health and Environmental Justice, Code Blue, and the Community First Coalition. Read more

2005 MLK March | 12/8/04 Protest

On Tuesday, March 15, In Defense of Animals (IDA) joined dozens of animal and environmental protection groups in a massive worldwide protest of the annual Canadian seal slaughter scheduled to begin just days from now. Every year, the Canadian Government sanctions the killing of 350,000 seals off the country's eastern shores, most of whom are just days or weeks old, and are shot, beaten, stabbed and often skinned alive. Many eyewitnesses have even seen hunters sadistically torturing seals with apparent pleasure and absolutely no regard for the animals' pain. Demonstrations were held in 50 cities in twenty-eight countries, including four Canadian provinces. Read More with Photos

Z, who is also known as Ellen, is an Indymedia reporter from Oregon. She reports that this past weekend, she went to Southern Oregon to interview women from the Sisiyou. These women conducted an action on Monday, March 16th in which they took over the only bridge that can be used by log trucks to get to the forest to cut the old growth at the Biscuit.

She said, "... women all over the world collaborating to take back the earth...Wow! I went to Southern Oregon this weekend and interviewed the women warriors of the Siskiyou...I taught the women how to post their media release of this morning's action to Portland Indymedia and did a mini-workshop on being the media and the Indymedia worldwide network.

"I interviewed a 72 year-old woman who was arrested last week because she blocked the bridge. She came back from jail and taught other local and regional women how to do direct action. There are women warriors needing our support. Bush wants to take ANWAR and the 850 year-old California Sequoias. He is destroying what is most sacred." Read the interview

Portland Indymedia Save the Biscuit Stories | More of this story on Indybay's Women's News Page

Discussion of Oakland's pesticide ordinance has been postponed to March 22nd at 12:30pm. The topic had been on the Committee's agenda for March 8th, but it was removed at the last minute. The ordinance will be rewritten for the next phase of discussion because a requirement for an Environmental Impact Report has been added to the ordinance, and likely also because the latest version does not address concerns that Public Works Chair and City Councilmember Nancy Nadel had previously raised. Thus, this topic was not to be discussed at this week's City Council meeting, and will also be postponed there until at least March 29th.

The City's earlier claim that "spraying" is not implied in the ordinance has been invalidated completely as they now describe the process as involving "spritzing." Edible plants have not been removed from lists of of treatable plants in recent editions of the ordinance. Read more

More details can be found on the East Bay Pesticide Alert website Stop Toxic Trespass's Oakland Pesticide Page Past Coverage of Oakland's Pesticide Decisionmaking Process

On Wednesday, March 23, 2005, there will be a protest at the PG&E Headquarters to say, "Shut Down the Hunters Point Power Plant Now!" The demonstration will take place at 12 Noon, at the PG&E Corporate Headquarters - 77 Beale Street, San Francisco (Market Street near Embarcadero BART). The event will be sponsored by the Coalition to Shut Down the PG&E Hunters Point Power Plant, the Huntersview Tenants Association, All Hallows Garden Residents Association, Greenaction for Health and Environmental Justice, Code Blue, and the Community First Coalition. Read more

2005 MLK March | 12/8/04 Protest | Greenaction website