Feature Archives

Bob M writes: In the wake of the Stoneman Douglas shooting, the high school students at that school and across the country are calling for a walkout on March 24 and again on April 20, the anniversary of the Columbine shooting in 1999. The students are calling for national leaders to listen to them, but as of yet they do not have demands other than getting AR-15s "out of the hands of people who should not have them." Many radicals still hold strong to the important point that de-arming must start with the cops and military, and not take away self-defense from oppressed communities.

Maria Anderson is one of many tenants facing eviction from eight units in two apartment buildings at 2661 and 2651 Fresno Street in Capitola. The buildings were sold to a house flipper registered in Morgan Hill. The buyer — Charity Homes, LLC — is owned by John Francisco Paiva who, according to a 2014 press release from the San Jose Real Estate Investment Club, is a former executive with Cisco Systems and has acted as the full time president of Charity Rehabbers, LLC since 2013. Soon after the purchase cleared, each apartment in the two buildings received 60-day eviction notices.

The National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty released a report, Tent City USA: The Growth of America’s Homeless Encampments and How Communities are Responding, reviewing the rapid growth of homeless people living in tents across the United States over the past decade, as measured by documentation in media reports. Research showed a 1,342 percent increase in homeless encampments reported between 2007 and 2017, with at least one encampment reported in all fifty states and the District of Columbia. As encampments become increasingly common, local governments have enacted laws to prohibit living in tents.

Hundreds of Californians rallied against President Trump’s offshore oil leasing plan on February 8 in Sacramento, marching to the plan’s only formal hearing in California. Ahead of the hearing, thousands of Californians rallied in seven cities to oppose Trump’s proposal to open up the Pacific and other U.S. oceans to offshore drilling for the first time in more than 30 years. Rallies were held February 3 in at least seven communities after the federal government ignored requests by California’s congressional delegation and state leaders to hold additional hearings closer to coastal communities threatened by offshore drilling.

A broad-based coalition of community organizations and activists is championing a renter protection ballot initiative for the City of Santa Cruz on the November ballot. The initiative includes rent stabilization, eviction protections, and the formation of an elected “Rent Board” which will handle the regulation of rent prices and evictions. The rent control campaign kickoff will begin with a party at the Resource Center for Nonviolence on Sunday, February 11.

An annual census of monarch butterflies overwintering along California’s coast reveals that populations in western North America are at their lowest point in five years, despite recovery efforts. Volunteers with the Xerces Society’s Western Monarch Thanksgiving Count visited more sites this past year than have ever been counted since the survey began in 1997, yet they tallied fewer than 200,000 monarchs. Pismo Beach State Park was down by 38%, a private site in Big Sur was down by 50%, and the Monarch Butterfly Sanctuary in Pacific Grove was down 57%. The few sites in which monarch numbers remained stable or increased compared to 2016, include Natural Bridges State Park, Moran Lake, and Lighthouse Field State Park, all in Santa Cruz County.

On January 20, the one-year anniversary of the inauguration of President Trump, women, children, and allies worldwide demonstrated in hundreds of cities, often in freezing temperatures, to stand up against against Donald Trump and his policies, patriarchal and racist violence and oppression, and for a brighter future for women. The numbers were massive across North America, with 300,000 Chicago, 200,000 in New York City, a half million in Los Angeles, and at least 100,000 in San Francisco. Tens of thousands marched in medium-sized cities such as Oakland, and in smaller towns such as Fresno, thousands took a stand. On January 21, many more took to the streets of Las Vegas, Berlin, Paris, London, and other cities across the globe.