Feature Archives

The Freedom Sleepers held a protest in front of the Palomar Inn in downtown Santa Cruz on December 8, where the city council was eating a celebratory dinner in honor of the appointment of the new mayor, Cynthia Matthews. A small group of protesters also entered the Inn's banquet room during the council’s meal with a sign reading “A Ban on Sleep is a Ban on Life.”

Direct Action Monterey Network (DAMN) organized its eleventh sit-in protest in downtown Monterey on December 4. Since February, community members have been gathering monthly on the sidewalk of Alvarado Street to defy the city's sit-lie ordinance, which has been in effect for just over a year now.

Immediately following the Paris attacks of November 13, France announced the prohibition of mass marches in cities across the country. Large rallies scheduled for November 29 and December 12 in Paris during the UN climate conference have been forbidden due to this new ban. French rally mobilizers are asking why demonstrations are prohibited while sporting events and Christmas markets are being permitted. In Northern California, climate activists marched in Oakland and Santa Cruz during the weekend of November 21-22 in a lead-up to the Paris climate summit.

Led by those inside California prisons, who often put their lives on the line, a settlement was reached on September 1 in the federal class action Ashker v. Governor of California that will mostly end indeterminate, long-term solitary confinement in all California state prisons. Subject to court approval, the agreement will result in a dramatic reduction in the number of people in solitary across the state and a new program that could be a model for other states going forward. Over a thousand people are set to make it out of Security Housing Units (SHU).

The Day Worker Center of Santa Cruz County is asking for the community's help to raise funds for a Tool Lending Library. The Center already possesses the tools, but currently lacks a reliable shed in which to store them, and as an organization that works to provide workers with job opportunities, a place to store tools is invaluable.

On November 12 students at UC Santa Cruz joined students at college campuses across the country for a "Million Student March," a day of local actions organized nationally around three principle demands: tuition-free public college, cancellation of all student debt, and a $15 minimum wage for all campus workers. Million Student March actions were organized at over 100 schools.

On November 2, red paint was splashed across the front door of Mission Santa Cruz. Following the Catholic church's canonization of Junipero Serra, a series of acts of vandalism has occurred on the Central Coast, including the beheading of a Serra statue in Monterey in October, and the splashing of paint on Mission Carmel and the toppling of a statue of Serra in September.