ACLU Chair Closes Monthly Boad of Directors Meeting, Homeless Issues Off the Agenda : Indybay

SHUT OUT OF THE BOARD MEETING
A number of homeless advo cates and critics of police abuse showed up for the 7 PM meeting at Louden Nelson Center last night It's regularly held at that time on the 4th Monday of the month.

The ACLU has a 20 year history of ignoring homeless issues as politically inexpedient. This has often been credited to the toxic leadership of former Mayor Mike Rotkin, who has spoken out publicly in this city and others cities for Sitting Bans, the Sleeping Ban, and homeless protests. He, however, was not present when decisions to exclude were made at this meeting.

Chair Peter Gelblum announced the meeting was closed (even to ACLU members who were not Board members) and demanded we all leave the room. This was the first such demand in the several meetings I've attended in the first year and a half where the public was forced to leave. Gelblum did not suggest there were internal litigation or personnel matters on the agenda (the only legitimate justification for holding closed meetings of the City Council, for example).

Initially Gelblum insisted that the Secure Communities presentation, to be held at 7:30 PM, was also off-limits to both public and Board members. Perhaps due to my pressure, he shifted his position on that, allowing the Public in for the purposes of the presentation only. Those who wished to comment or bring issues to the Board's attention would have to wait until the tail end of the meeting, presumably in the hallway.

I interviewed my fellow deportees and will be playing those interviews at 6:30 PM Thursday night on Free Radio (101.1 FM, http://tunein.com/radio/FRSC-s47254/ . The file will archive at http://www.radiolibre.org/brb/brb130523.mp3 (half an hour into the file).

"LIBERAL" BOARD MEMBERS REMAIN SILENT
More depressing (but not really surprising) was the response of the Board when I asked for a vote of the Board on this matter--embarrassed silence. Emboldened, Goldblum continued to demand in an authoritarian tone that I leave because "this [exclusion of the public, including ACLU members] has always been the ACLU policy".

Since that had clearly not been my experience, as recently as the March or April Board meeting (which Gelblum admittedly did not attend), I resisted this interpretation. I also was concerned about the placing of Public Comment at the tail end of the meeting at 8:45 PM, requiring that those wishing to speak publicly to the Board wait in the hallway for nearly two hours.

No one on the Board challenged this or responded to my request that the Board declare the meeting open to the public (unless for a specific internal litigation/personnel section, which even in the past had not excluded those visiting). To my surprise, Steve Pleich, co-chair declared his support for this policy. Board member Ron Pomerantz refused to support public access (leaving his partner Jane Weed in the hallway).

PLEICH AND POWER
In Pleich's case, I had the feeling he was defending his "credibility" with more conservative Board members. Or perhaps he acted in part because I had earlier pressed him in an e-mail, by phone, and in person to bring up the on-going anti-homeless measures being pressed by groups like Take Back Santa Cruz through the City Council such the perennial Sleeping Ban, Downtown Ordinances, police sweeps, and increasing curfews--which he again refused to do.

Perhaps this was simply an assertion of power. The unspoken message "I control the keys to the kingdom here and will only do what I choose to do and not be pressured." Perhaps it was an attempt to retain the additional power that Board members have when meeting behind closed doors, now that he was ascending the power structure as vice-chair.

I had also suggested Pleich accommodate members of the public by pressing for a brief public comment period at the beginning of the meeting. He refused with a sarcastic "good luck with that".

Pleich did bring up and secured local ACLU support for Ammiano's AB5--the Homeless Bill of Rights currently "suspended" in the Appropriations Committee, indeed asking for a stronger bill (at my suggestion). However, what he refused to do (and what he has refused to do for a year) is challenge local Santa Cruz laws and policies at the Board, even when he clearly had the votes to do so or could have raised the issue on principle for future passage. Supporting AB5 under these circumstances seems a token gesture, which one can put on one's resume and chat about on TV shows (which Pleich regularly hosts) without taking substantive local steps.

HISTORY OF THE PLEICH AND THE ACLU
HUFF (Homeless United for Friendship & Freedom) has urged Pleich (who heads a "Homeless Person's Legal Assistance" Project) to do so in the past. I have asked him repeatedly, and he has brushed off such concerns--even as homeless people's survival gear is destroyed, and people are brutalized by police (see http://www.santacruzsentinel.com/ci_23185274/use-force-investigation-not-complete-videotaped-arrest-santa ).

The local ACLU has refused to oppose the Sleeping Ban publicly for the last 20 years--while other ACLU's around the state have been quite candid in denouncing such laws. The local ACLU chair (then Rotkin) even attempted to have me arrested for appearing at one of their announced public meetings with an "End the Sleeping Ban" sign (see http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2007/08/26/18443532.php?show_comments=1#18446049). (Local police ironically recognized I had a "First Amendment" right and declined to act on then ACLU chair Mike Rotkin's demand)

The current silence on basic issues is a continuation of this process and no real surprise. However this is the first time in recent memory this was mixed with an exclude-the-public process.

You can get Pleich's perspective by e-mailing him at spleich [at] gmail.com. or phoning him at 831-466-6078. To his credit, he has generally been quite responsive to phone calls (at least initially).

BROADER IMPLICATIONS
In another thread, a video was recently censored showing an individual on The Clean Team (now largely dominated by Take Back Santa Cruz members) harassing a homeless sleeper in a sleeping bag (http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2013/05/15/18736901.php). An interview with T.J. Magallones ( http://santacruz.patch.com/groups/jeremy-leonards-blog/p/bp--fever-pitch-interview-with-sc-clean-team-founder-0c63abc71a?ncid=newsltuspatc00000010) suggests how authoritarian leadership in a group can lead to toxic consequences when internal dissent is sidelined or crushed.

I believe this is relevant to groups like the ACLU, who seem to value their political connections with the existing city power structure more than the application of their principles locally. The fear of "sticking out" and "alienating political capital" apparently extends to well-spoken and ostensibly-principled activists like Pleich, who a year ago was urging homeless people to join the ACLU to "change it". It seems even when he gets into a position of some power (Vice-Chair), he suddenly decides not to use that power even to agenda-ize issues that he otherwise gives lots of verbal support to, even when urged to do so by other activists.

It's my view that the structure of these organizations is somewhat to blame here. But unless individuals muster up the grit to challenge them, they will continue to be establishment-compliant, whatever rhetoric their members spout.

Take Back Santa Cruz has been criticized for its repressive internal structure and its lack of transparency. We need look no further than to the local ACLU and its insulated, exclusionary, and locally-irrelevant policies to understand such sickness is not limited to right-wing groups.

WHAT THE ACLU HAS DONE FOR HOMELESS PEOPLE OVER THE YEARS
The Santa Cruz ACLU has had a horrible history of ducking basic civil rights issues concerning homeless people—in my personal experience dating back to 1978 when the County was destroying vehicular shelter for many homeless families out at Scott Creek Bluff. I gave up on it years ago and have suggested that those with civil rights concerns need to form a new group.

However... It did come forward with some legal defense for some activists arrested en masse in 1994 in the Sitting Ban protests. I believe there may have been some local ACLU support for the creation of the (now dead) Citizens Police Review Board in the early 90's (though most of the support came from the Northern California ACLU, who had to be invited in by another organization).

Bob Taren did speak against Cynthia Matthew's youth curfew in 1997 or thereabouts. Don Zimmerman and even Rotkin himself expressed reservations about the Parking Lot Panic law in 2006-7 (which makes Santa Cruz nearly unique in having a law that criminalizes sitting in your vehicle in any public parking lot downtown, or socializing near it).

And, though most of the defendants were not homeless, the Santa Cruz Eleven got some partial support in an ACLU resolution, which Pleich himself pressed. Most recently, Ron Pomerantz spoke at the City Council against the Cowell Beach curfew on unanimous resolution from the ACLU at Micah Posner's urging (who then turned around and voted for the curfew),

However, time and time again when activists have come to the Santa Cruz chapter trying to get the most elementary statements of support (not even legal assistance or money), the Board has shied away from any public statements dissenting from City Council's anti-homeless policies on the most basic issues: sleeping, the right to rest in public spaces, the right to serve free food (successfully overturned by direct action), police violence, the destruction of homeless property, and selective enforcement.

So it's seemed pretty hypocritical to me to wave the flag for AB5 while not making a statement about local laws that AB5 is designed to ameliorate. It also seems strange to me that someone billing himself as a "homeless advocate" fpr over a year will not move to have our ACLU endorse what other ACLU's do around the state and country, except perhaps to save embarrassment and conflict from others in power who prefer these issues not be raised at all.

The ACLU has also been approached recently and specifically about particular Santa Cruz city ordinances and practices and buried those issues. One can't blame any one person for the ACLU's behavior. The danger is that in pandering to such behavior or remaining silent, one can become complicit and ultimately corrupted.