Feature Archives

Brent Adams writes: The police department has begun a very strange public relations campaign lately and I’m a bit confused about the message I should be getting. As we all know, the economy is hurting and difficult cuts are being felt in most areas. The City of Santa Cruz is grappling with this reality and has just settled on a medium-range funding plan (massive cutbacks). There is increasingly a large amount of available office and retail space downtown and it wouldn’t be a stretch to say that the economic climate is desperate, which is why I’m a little surprised at what I’ve been seeing from our local police department.

A new film, Medical Cannabis and Its Impact on Human Health, exposes the lies about the medical use of marijuana that led the San Diego City Council to enact a virtual ban on medical marijuana dispensaries in the city. Director James Schmachtenberger, who works at a local dispensary, appeared with the film on April 30th at a showing sponsored by Activist San Diego. The film is a bit dry, and even Schmachtenberger describes it as not especially entertaining, but it lays out the facts about marijuana's medical uses and makes the case for allowing the substance to be used to treat disease and preserve health.

"Surf City Revolt!" writes: The rental ordinance, passed in August 2010 by a 5-1 vote, spells bad-news-bears for those of us renting in Santa Cruz. The rhetoric around the measure was mostly about cracking down on illegal units and rentals that don’t meet basic habitability standards. At first glance, this might seem like a step towards a safer and saner rental market in Santa Cruz. Will this finally be the end of uninsulated garages listed as studios (at $800 a month) or two-bedroom bungalows crawling with rats and mold (at $1400-1600)? Maybe it will, but it’s going to cost us.

Stop Smart Meters! and allies held a protest in Mountain View on April 14th as Julius Genachowski, Chair of the Federal Communications Commission, spoke about the need to increase wireless capacity, ignoring those who suffer ill health from "electrosmog" throughout the U.S. Several passers-by stopped and joined the demonstration. Activists smuggled a Stop Smart Meters! banner inside the talk and just when they thought everyone in the audience was about to go to sleep, they stirred things up with a classic banner drop disruption.

Activists in the Bay Area are shining a light on the connection between recently announced budget cuts and a corporate culture of tax evasion. Late last month, members of San Francisco's US Uncut movement held a sit-in at a Bank of America branch in the Mission District to call attention to the fact that the mega bank paid no federal taxes for years 2009 or 2010. As the April 18th tax filing deadline approaches, banks in Santa Cruz, San Francisco, and Oakland are protest targets.

Squatter's group Homes Not Jails took over a large long vacant apartment building at the corner of Divisadero and O'Farrell, off Geary, in San Francisco on April 11th. The building is owned by Kaiser Permanente. Kaiser Permanente had let it sit empty for years after evicting the families who lived there. Homes Not Jails took over the building and opened it up for people to live in. On the front of the building a large banner proclaimed, "Kaiser Thrives, People Die."

"Some Angry Queers" write: Look around you! Some new benches have appeared on the streets of San Francisco! These benches are more than places to sit. They are a visible resistance to the privatization of public space.... We believe that public space should be for everyone, and right now it is being taken away from those of us who need it most.... Sometimes we need a place to sit down. Build your own benches! Find ways to take back public space! This city is for all of us!