Fresno Mayor Autry to Eat Crow at 10 AM on Tuesday

As i pointed out when this was announced, Autry's statement about exploiting the homeless was immature and antagonistic. Settlement's are meant to be done in good faith. Since the top down isn't acting in good faith, I hope the judge finds Autry in contempt of court and puts him in jail for a few days to think about his immature behavior. Nothing like kicking people when their down on their luck and trying to live.

with a million foreclosures in the US, its not laziness or what privileged people assume people are because their homeless. most people are only a few pay checks from being in the streets in all honesty.

shame on Autry and the councilman for making those statements. how would they feel if they had their belongings seized, thrown away and then told, well there isn't a damn thing you can do about it.

I'm glad to see that the judge is holding them accountable for those grotesque statements in the city's press release. Time for someone to step up and take on this mayor in the next election and clean house at city hall in fresno.

Judge orders Autry to explain
Fresno mayor complained about the city's proposed settlement with homeless residents.
By John Ellis / The Fresno Bee
06/09/08 22:30:31
Accusing Fresno's mayor of "challenging the integrity of the United States Court," a federal judge Monday ordered Alan Autry to explain himself in court today.
The mayor's complaints Friday about the city's multimillion-dollar proposed settlement with homeless residents last week raise questions about whether it should be canceled, wrote U.S. District Judge Oliver W. Wanger in a five-page order.

Wanger said comments by Autry and Council Member Mike Dages call into question whether the city is committed to the settlement and willing to carry out the agreement. The settlement would end a suit that claimed the city illegally destroyed personal property in clearing homeless encampments.

In a statement Friday hours after Wanger gave preliminary approval to the settlement, Autry said the city would "comply with the court's order and look forward to continuing our 10-year plan to end chronic homelessness. However, this white-collar exploitation of the homeless by the court and the lawyers is unconscionable. I am calling upon the [American Civil Liberties Union] and Judge Wanger to require half of the exorbitant lawyer fees of $750,000 to be donated to homeless programs."

Autry's comments, Wanger wrote on Monday, accuse the court of criminal wrongdoing, "challenging the integrity of the United States Court, and bringing the court into disrepute."

An entire paragraph of Wanger's order explores the dictionary meaning of "exploitation."

The order also notes that Dages said he "did not like the settlement."

Georgeanne White, Autry's chief of staff, said the mayor has seen Wanger's order, but would not comment prior to the hearing.

Under the terms of the proposed settlement, Fresno agreed to pay $2.25 million and the California Department of Transportation $85,000 to end the lawsuit, which was filed after the city raided homeless encampments and destroyed personal property.

When Autry comes to court today, Wanger's order said he "shall ... provide evidence as to any basis in fact or in law to support his statement that the court has exploited the homeless."

Wanger's order also noted that as judge, he "had no role in the settlement before it was presented in open court for preliminary approval. It is the parties who reached settlement agreements."

This isn't the first time Autry has chastised Wanger in the homeless case.

After Wanger granted a preliminary injunction stopping the city from destroying homeless residents' property in raids, Autry issued a statement saying it "would behoove Judge Wanger and benefit this community greatly, if he wishes to continue to express his personal opinion rather than judge, to venture out of his robe and chamber occasionally, enter the real world and find out the real truth."

This time, however, Autry's statement came in response to a settlement agreement negotiated by the city's attorneys and the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California and the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights, who represented the homeless residents.

Brian Landsberg, a professor at the University of the Pacific's McGeorge School of Law in Sacramento, found it strange that the city reached a settlement and then disparaged it.

"A deal is a deal," Landsberg said. "If [Autry] felt the lawyers' fees were excessive, it is certainly a matter [the city] could have bargained on."

City officials should not be surprised, Landsberg said, that Wanger is ordering them to explain public comments that questioned the agreement. It's not uncommon for judges to object when litigants contradict their courtroom statements.

That's what happened in 2001 with accused Symbionese Liberation Army member Sara Jane Olson, who faced attempted bombing charges.

She pleaded guilty in court but denied her guilt outside the courtroom. A Los Angeles judge then said he would hold a hearing to decide whether to throw out the guilty plea. Olson later confirmed that her guilty plea was genuine.

"Normally, a judge is not supposed to approve a settlement if a settlement is not fair to the parties," Landsberg said. "If the mayor is suggesting the settlement isn't fair, it is not unusual for the court to have a hearing to approve fairness."

The proposed settlement between the city and the ACLU -- which declined Monday to comment on Wanger's order -- would end litigation dating to October 2006, when the homeless residents sued the city. But if Wanger voids the settlement, his order says, he will reinstate a trial scheduled to begin a week from today.

Wanger already has ruled that Fresno violated the constitutional rights of homeless residents whose personal property was destroyed in a series of 14 city raids on makeshift encampments between February 2004 and August 2006.

But he left other issues undecided, and those issues would be decided in a trial, as would the level of monetary damages due from not only the city, but also each individual defendant.

Those include Autry as well as Police Chief Jerry Dyer and others.

The reporter can be reached at jellis [at] fresnobee.comor (559) 441-6320.

Autry's Atrocities! Various residents of Fresno, CA are being RUN OFF THEIR OWN PROPERTY! Being annihilated / eliminated in order to "secretly" divert the city's water! "Suspected" homicide; unsolved murders as this continues - others are robbed, forced into foreclosure, deluged in toxic, infectious, disease-carrying raw sewage as sewer/water lines are altered/replaced without notice - illness, lung/respiratory, infections, amputation, death.
Once the property is vacated, structure is extensively damaged in order to alter the sewer and water lines; quickly patched back/reconstructed differently without permits or inspections. Property lines altered; new deeds entailing fraudulent information and forged signatures; sold as "original" to unsuspecting buyers.
Entire city setting on clamped sewer and water lines. In violation of environmental, building, safety codes; soil, air and water pollution. State and Federal compliance issues kicked aside as the public is assured of their safety and welfare in tact.
Mayor Autry concerned about the lives or welfare of others?!? He had the Dept of Public Works (involved in this) issue a Restraining Order against me - they committed perjury to discredit their own records, which verify exactly what they are doing, in order to call me a "liar." They further prohibited me from reporting this to anyone at the City of Fresno other than the senior risk analyst who committed perjury.
This is why there are no older records of Fresno. This is why Fresno is such a shambles. With residents being annihilated / eliminated to pull this off.

I researched the trails of the 2 main goons who wiped my family out, robbed and tore our properties apart; 1 neighbor never seen again; another neighbor dead; forged and fraudulent documents. Check this out:
http://fresnorealestatefraudtheft.blogspot.com/2008/07/local-agencies-city-and-county-actually.html

Note: One is a former employee of the City of Fresno; the other is the owner of Mono Hot Springs Resort - where our water is headed! Including the new Mono Casino!