Feature Archives

John E. Colby reports: "On July 30, the Homeless Services Center (HSC) in Santa Cruz threw Megan Andrea Morgan — a severely disabled woman who suffers from anemia and other disabilities which cause her severe fatigue and exhaustion — onto the street, denying her access to the HSC campus where she was receiving shelter at the Paul Lee Loft. Ms. Morgan has trouble standing without her walker — she is five feet one inch tall.

On Friday, August 24th, Gary Johnson was ordered by Judge John Gallagher to report to the Santa Cruz County Jail at 3 p.m. The jail refused to accept Johnson, ordering him to return on Monday at 8 a.m. Johnson was frustrated with this and returned to the Santa Cruz Courthouse. Upon entering the Courthouse, Johnson was immediately arrested by a sheriff's deputy.

Brent Adams writes: "The City of Santa Cruz has been using the Santa Cruz Police Department and the City Parks Department to attack homeless camps. We are in the 7th week of this campaign that has seen more than 300 citations given, more than 100 camps destroyed, personal belongings trashed, and more than 150 arrests. While the Homeless Services Center has closed the Paul Lee Loft Shelter, the City has offered no other solutions to people who are survival camping in the woods, river levee, and downtown."

On August 24, supporters of GMO-Free Santa Cruz and Proposition 37 on the California ballot, marched and sang along Pacific Avenue to raise awareness about the proposition, and encourage people to vote in favor of it. Throughout the United States, people currently eat genetically engineered food, but they generally are not aware of it. The California Right to Know Genetically Engineered Food Act, Prop 37 on the November ballot, would simply require food sold in retail outlets in California, such as grocery stores, to be labeled if it is produced with genetic engineering.

Joshua Hart reports: "If the California Coastal Commission’s August 10 decision is any indication, no endangered species, viewshed, or habitat is safe from a Distributed Antenna System (DAS) 4G cell tower popping up right next door. It’s open season, as smart phone addictions drive a kind of selective blindness toward wireless damage to life itself. Those groups who are meant to protect remaining wilderness areas have grown silent, awkward, in denial. We cannot count on the traditional defenders of nature to protect us from the threats of the 21st century."

On August 7th, a vigil was held at the Santa Cruz court house for Attorney Ed Frey, who was ordered to report to jail on August 8th to begin serving a six month sentence he received for his participation in the Peace Camp 2010 sleep ban protests. Community members occupied the court house steps for 15 hours until escorting Frey to jail, where he was fitted with an ankle bracelet security monitor.

An abandoned historic building in Oakland was unveiled on the morning of August 13th as the Victor Martinez Community Library. The building was one of seven library branch casualties of budget cuts in the late seventies, and since then it has mostly sat empty. On the first day of the re-opening, donations of books poured in and area children helped to start a community garden in a side lot. In less than 15 hours, however, OPD raided the Community Library. The next morning, activists re-opened the library on the sidewalk in front of the building and it has been growing since.