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Santa Cruz Sierra Club Group Endorses Leonie Sherman and Bruce Van Allen for City Council
The Santa Cruz Sierra Club Group is endorsing Leonie Sherman and Bruce Van Allen for Santa Cruz City Council based on their "commitment to the environment" as evidenced by their answers during the candidates forum the group co-sponsored in August, as well as their responses to a questionnaire provided by their political committee.
The Santa Cruz Sierra Club's website summarizes all of the candidates responses, and here are Sherman's and Van Allen's:
"Bruce Van Allen stated that the Climate Action Plan shouldn’t be “just a plan on a shelf” and that if he were on the City Council, he would insure that goals and actions in the plan were “carried out on staff assignments.” He agreed that sustainable transportation goals are important, shared that he hasn’t had a car since 1986, and that he was opposed to the widening of Highway 1. In addition to transportation, Van Allen said that he is against desalination, citing its enormous energy use. He concluded his answer by expressing the need for our community to work in harmony with our natural environment.
"Leonie Sherman had the last word on this question, agreeing with nearly everyone else that sustainable transportation is an important way to reduce carbon emissions in Santa Cruz. She said we need to reduce the number of car trips by improving infrastructure for sustainable transportation, including improving bike infrastructure, making “simple improvements” to encourage more people to drive less, and “invest in improved public transportation.” Another strategy for reducing carbon emissions that she mentioned is providing more “incentives for investing in solar” and examining the budget more closely to ensure that we can invest in projects to reduce carbon emissions."
Read more about the candidates forum here: https://ventana2.sierraclub.org/santacruz/node/166
Candidate websites:
Leonie Sherman for City Council
http://leoniesherman.com/
Bruce Van Allen for City Council
http://vanallenforcitycouncil.org/
Santa Cruz Sierra Club
https://ventana2.sierraclub.org/santacruz/
"Bruce Van Allen stated that the Climate Action Plan shouldn’t be “just a plan on a shelf” and that if he were on the City Council, he would insure that goals and actions in the plan were “carried out on staff assignments.” He agreed that sustainable transportation goals are important, shared that he hasn’t had a car since 1986, and that he was opposed to the widening of Highway 1. In addition to transportation, Van Allen said that he is against desalination, citing its enormous energy use. He concluded his answer by expressing the need for our community to work in harmony with our natural environment.
"Leonie Sherman had the last word on this question, agreeing with nearly everyone else that sustainable transportation is an important way to reduce carbon emissions in Santa Cruz. She said we need to reduce the number of car trips by improving infrastructure for sustainable transportation, including improving bike infrastructure, making “simple improvements” to encourage more people to drive less, and “invest in improved public transportation.” Another strategy for reducing carbon emissions that she mentioned is providing more “incentives for investing in solar” and examining the budget more closely to ensure that we can invest in projects to reduce carbon emissions."
Read more about the candidates forum here: https://ventana2.sierraclub.org/santacruz/node/166
Candidate websites:
Leonie Sherman for City Council
http://leoniesherman.com/
Bruce Van Allen for City Council
http://vanallenforcitycouncil.org/
Santa Cruz Sierra Club
https://ventana2.sierraclub.org/santacruz/
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Environmental issues — although poor communities often suffer unequally from toxic polluters — often are misused as wedges for class warfare against poor and homeless people: i.e. homeless people despoil our greenbelt and poor people drive old cars which pollute our air.
What does it matter to someone without a home, or even struggling to pay the rent, if our carbon footprint is smaller.
The issue is that Capitalism — a failed ideology — is destroying the ecosphere. If Sherman and Van Allen are "progressive" Capitalists, then their support for environmental issues is just window dressing. We can't adequately address the most pressing environmental issues facing us unless we tackle Capitalism head on to inject a good dose of Democracy into our politics.
What does it matter to someone without a home, or even struggling to pay the rent, if our carbon footprint is smaller.
The issue is that Capitalism — a failed ideology — is destroying the ecosphere. If Sherman and Van Allen are "progressive" Capitalists, then their support for environmental issues is just window dressing. We can't adequately address the most pressing environmental issues facing us unless we tackle Capitalism head on to inject a good dose of Democracy into our politics.
An earlier account of Sherman's responses can be found at https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2014/08/16/18760128.php?show_comments=1#18760212 .
More recently she gave a more individualized response to each of the questions itemized there.
In most cases, she didn't specifically address the particulars of the question nor propose specific solutions. She also declined to take clear positions against particular laws specifically impacting homeless people However her answers give an indication of her broader views.
She doesn't seem to be willing to speak out plainly and clearly against repressive legislation passed in previous years, nor express a willingness to cast votes on principle around those issues unless she can persuade others on the Council to join her.
On September 10th, she sent me the following responses to the following questions:
Will You demand an end to the after-dark curfews in Santa Cruz? To make parks and greenbelt areas inhospitable to homeless people with no other places to sleep at night, NIMBY lawmakers have made all parks, the levee, and Cowell's Beach “forbidden zones.” In response to peaceful protest, being on the City Hall or library grounds was also made a “trespass” crime. Using Drug War “needlemania” hysteria & inflated police stats that label camping a crime, a costly and phony “Public Safety” scare campaign has increased fear and hatred of the poor.
SHERMAN: I will not demand changes when I serve on City Council, I will work carefully with other Council members to achieve the majority needed to bring about meaningful change. While I recognize the need for a safe and secure sleeping place, I do not support widespread camping in our greenbelts areas. I have seen too much damage to fragile ecosystems and too much garbage in our parks. I support changes which address the underlying causes of homelessness.
Will You support a moratorium on laws that punish sleeping outside or in vehicles at night as proposed by the Santa Cruz American Civil Liberties Union? Instead of acknowledging the emergency need for shelter, sleeping space, or housing for several thousand homeless outside, media mudslingers have turned facts on their head redefining survival sleeping as a crime.
SHERMAN: Insofar as a moratorium on laws that punish sleeping outside has any chance of gaining traction and enactment in the City of Santa Cruz I will work towards that. Again, let me stress that my goal in dealing with our chronic problem of homelessness in Santa Cruz is to address the underlying causes and bring an end to homelessness. Last year several people died of exposure sleeping outside; that should never happen in our City. We need to work towards getting people safe and secure places to sleep at night. Sleeping outside, as I have learned from many of my students, is not safe, particularly for women.
Will You act to defend the few possessions homeless people have in their makeshift campsites at night and on their persons during the day? Cities like Fresno have been the successful target of lawsuits against their police for seizing and destroying homeless property—something that is routinely done here targeting blankets, bedding and other survival gear.
SHERMAN: If elected I will work with police officers to make sure they are not targeting homeless people and their possessions. I do not support the establishment of camp-sites in our greenbelt areas as they degrade the natural environment that people have worked so hard to preserve.
Will You restore the public space to the community by eliminating “forbidden zones” &“move-along” laws downtown and elsewhere ? The City Council last year eliminated all but 1% of the downtown sidewalks for traditional Free Speech activities such as vending, performing, sitting, sparechanging, & political tabling with police the new judges.
SHERMAN: If elected to City Council I will work to change the downtown ordinances that restrict street artists downtown.
Will You help reestablish police priorities to focus on real crime instead of having the act as a quasi-military auxiliary with intense
focus on “crimes” such as “sitting”, “sleeping”, and “smoking”? Police, security guards, and yellow-jacketed “hosts” now patrol Pacific Avenue in record numbers, swarming to mob “undesirable” poor people in a concerted effort to effect economic anti-homeless “cleansing” downtown.
SHERMAN: If elected to City Council I will work with police to ensure the prioritize the most dangerous violent criminals and property theft.
Will You support immediate renter protection, stabilization,and/or rent control laws as well as penalties for vacant property speculation here? Rent profiteering against residents and businesses alike has become second nature in Santa Cruz. Living here has become prohibitive for those who work here. For the poor, affordable housing is a vehicle—which is illegal.
SHERMAN: If I am elected to City Council I will work hard to establish affordable and low income housing options in town.
Will You take time out of your day to document police overkill and support regular community street presence to stop Ferguson-style
police barbarity here? Community control of police is an ever more important issue as police departments across the country, including ours become more militarized and insulated from public input and transparency.
SHERMAN: If I am elected I will work hard to ensure that Police are accountable to citizens.
Will You stand up for unpopular positions and be a whistleblower even at the cost of alienating the established political and economic
powers? The political structure resists real change. In the end it's principled individuals in the community & dissenters inside the power structure like Snowden, Assange and Manning that provide the passion and tools for change. Those hoping to “infiltrate” the power structure usually find it infiltrates them.
SHERMAN: My goal an an elected official will be to bring the voice of the people to the people in power. I will listen carefully to a wide range of people and work towards finding solutions that benefit the wider community.
Bruce Van Allen (and all the other candidates) have so far declined to respond or not been reachable by direct e-mail.
More recently she gave a more individualized response to each of the questions itemized there.
In most cases, she didn't specifically address the particulars of the question nor propose specific solutions. She also declined to take clear positions against particular laws specifically impacting homeless people However her answers give an indication of her broader views.
She doesn't seem to be willing to speak out plainly and clearly against repressive legislation passed in previous years, nor express a willingness to cast votes on principle around those issues unless she can persuade others on the Council to join her.
On September 10th, she sent me the following responses to the following questions:
Will You demand an end to the after-dark curfews in Santa Cruz? To make parks and greenbelt areas inhospitable to homeless people with no other places to sleep at night, NIMBY lawmakers have made all parks, the levee, and Cowell's Beach “forbidden zones.” In response to peaceful protest, being on the City Hall or library grounds was also made a “trespass” crime. Using Drug War “needlemania” hysteria & inflated police stats that label camping a crime, a costly and phony “Public Safety” scare campaign has increased fear and hatred of the poor.
SHERMAN: I will not demand changes when I serve on City Council, I will work carefully with other Council members to achieve the majority needed to bring about meaningful change. While I recognize the need for a safe and secure sleeping place, I do not support widespread camping in our greenbelts areas. I have seen too much damage to fragile ecosystems and too much garbage in our parks. I support changes which address the underlying causes of homelessness.
Will You support a moratorium on laws that punish sleeping outside or in vehicles at night as proposed by the Santa Cruz American Civil Liberties Union? Instead of acknowledging the emergency need for shelter, sleeping space, or housing for several thousand homeless outside, media mudslingers have turned facts on their head redefining survival sleeping as a crime.
SHERMAN: Insofar as a moratorium on laws that punish sleeping outside has any chance of gaining traction and enactment in the City of Santa Cruz I will work towards that. Again, let me stress that my goal in dealing with our chronic problem of homelessness in Santa Cruz is to address the underlying causes and bring an end to homelessness. Last year several people died of exposure sleeping outside; that should never happen in our City. We need to work towards getting people safe and secure places to sleep at night. Sleeping outside, as I have learned from many of my students, is not safe, particularly for women.
Will You act to defend the few possessions homeless people have in their makeshift campsites at night and on their persons during the day? Cities like Fresno have been the successful target of lawsuits against their police for seizing and destroying homeless property—something that is routinely done here targeting blankets, bedding and other survival gear.
SHERMAN: If elected I will work with police officers to make sure they are not targeting homeless people and their possessions. I do not support the establishment of camp-sites in our greenbelt areas as they degrade the natural environment that people have worked so hard to preserve.
Will You restore the public space to the community by eliminating “forbidden zones” &“move-along” laws downtown and elsewhere ? The City Council last year eliminated all but 1% of the downtown sidewalks for traditional Free Speech activities such as vending, performing, sitting, sparechanging, & political tabling with police the new judges.
SHERMAN: If elected to City Council I will work to change the downtown ordinances that restrict street artists downtown.
Will You help reestablish police priorities to focus on real crime instead of having the act as a quasi-military auxiliary with intense
focus on “crimes” such as “sitting”, “sleeping”, and “smoking”? Police, security guards, and yellow-jacketed “hosts” now patrol Pacific Avenue in record numbers, swarming to mob “undesirable” poor people in a concerted effort to effect economic anti-homeless “cleansing” downtown.
SHERMAN: If elected to City Council I will work with police to ensure the prioritize the most dangerous violent criminals and property theft.
Will You support immediate renter protection, stabilization,and/or rent control laws as well as penalties for vacant property speculation here? Rent profiteering against residents and businesses alike has become second nature in Santa Cruz. Living here has become prohibitive for those who work here. For the poor, affordable housing is a vehicle—which is illegal.
SHERMAN: If I am elected to City Council I will work hard to establish affordable and low income housing options in town.
Will You take time out of your day to document police overkill and support regular community street presence to stop Ferguson-style
police barbarity here? Community control of police is an ever more important issue as police departments across the country, including ours become more militarized and insulated from public input and transparency.
SHERMAN: If I am elected I will work hard to ensure that Police are accountable to citizens.
Will You stand up for unpopular positions and be a whistleblower even at the cost of alienating the established political and economic
powers? The political structure resists real change. In the end it's principled individuals in the community & dissenters inside the power structure like Snowden, Assange and Manning that provide the passion and tools for change. Those hoping to “infiltrate” the power structure usually find it infiltrates them.
SHERMAN: My goal an an elected official will be to bring the voice of the people to the people in power. I will listen carefully to a wide range of people and work towards finding solutions that benefit the wider community.
Bruce Van Allen (and all the other candidates) have so far declined to respond or not been reachable by direct e-mail.
Desal Alternatives endorses three candidates for SC City Council: Cynthia Chase, Leonie Sherman and Bruce Van Allen.
From Rick Longinotti:
"At a City Council Candidate forum that Desal Alternatives co-sponsored on August 18th, twenty-three members cast their votes to endorse Cynthia Chase, Leonie Sherman and Desal Alternatives Co-Chair, Bruce Van Allen. I urge you to donate, volunteer, and talk it up for these three candidates."
"Two other candidates, current Council member David Terrazas and Richelle Noroyan didn't endorse Measure P in 2012, the right to vote on desal. To my way of thinking, that did not automatically disqualify them from the current Desal Alternatives endorsement, as I appreciate people who can change their mind. However, in response to a question about lessons learned from the desal experience, the two didn't express any regret about the $7 million in ratepayer funds spent studying the project. Nor did they draw the lesson that had the Council responded to citizen voices earlier on, the City could have saved a bundle."
You can view a short video clip of the three endorsed candidates responding to the $7 Million Question posed by Desal Alternatives:
Cynthia Chase: http://youtu.be/RBHY5W9lYio
Leonie Sherman: http://youtu.be/9B4ZQ0ysuGw
Bruce Van Allen: http://youtu.be/uNWamqWhSDY
From Rick Longinotti:
"At a City Council Candidate forum that Desal Alternatives co-sponsored on August 18th, twenty-three members cast their votes to endorse Cynthia Chase, Leonie Sherman and Desal Alternatives Co-Chair, Bruce Van Allen. I urge you to donate, volunteer, and talk it up for these three candidates."
"Two other candidates, current Council member David Terrazas and Richelle Noroyan didn't endorse Measure P in 2012, the right to vote on desal. To my way of thinking, that did not automatically disqualify them from the current Desal Alternatives endorsement, as I appreciate people who can change their mind. However, in response to a question about lessons learned from the desal experience, the two didn't express any regret about the $7 million in ratepayer funds spent studying the project. Nor did they draw the lesson that had the Council responded to citizen voices earlier on, the City could have saved a bundle."
You can view a short video clip of the three endorsed candidates responding to the $7 Million Question posed by Desal Alternatives:
Cynthia Chase: http://youtu.be/RBHY5W9lYio
Leonie Sherman: http://youtu.be/9B4ZQ0ysuGw
Bruce Van Allen: http://youtu.be/uNWamqWhSDY
Santa Cruz "progressives" have a checkered history when it comes to supporting renters. They created the current housing crisis for renters — reducing available land for building while making it unprofitable to build affordable infill apartment projects.
I CHALLENGE Van Allen, Sherman and Chase TO COMMIT to a STRONG RENT CONTROL program.
Relevant links:
http://www.metroactive.com/papers/cruz/05.16.01/rent-0120.html
http://beyondchron.org/santa-cruz-where-the-left-and-no-growth-politics-meet/
http://www.santacruzsentinel.com/santacruz/ci_26609203/ucsc-students-burned-by-hot-rental-market
http://www.santacruzsentinel.com/ci_17979940
http://www.metroactive.com/papers/cruz/03.22.00/housing-0012.html
http://www.santacruzsentinel.com/news/ci_26562501/santa-cruz-county-shame-child-poverty-surges
http://cfpa.net/GeneralNutrition/CFPAPublications/CountyProfiles/2003/SantaCruz.PDF
I CHALLENGE Van Allen, Sherman and Chase TO COMMIT to a STRONG RENT CONTROL program.
Relevant links:
http://www.metroactive.com/papers/cruz/05.16.01/rent-0120.html
http://beyondchron.org/santa-cruz-where-the-left-and-no-growth-politics-meet/
http://www.santacruzsentinel.com/santacruz/ci_26609203/ucsc-students-burned-by-hot-rental-market
http://www.santacruzsentinel.com/ci_17979940
http://www.metroactive.com/papers/cruz/03.22.00/housing-0012.html
http://www.santacruzsentinel.com/news/ci_26562501/santa-cruz-county-shame-child-poverty-surges
http://cfpa.net/GeneralNutrition/CFPAPublications/CountyProfiles/2003/SantaCruz.PDF
The Monterey Bay Central Labor Council endorses three candidates for SC City Council: Cynthia Chase, Leonie Sherman and Bruce Van Allen.
Read all of their endorsements here:
https://www.facebook.com/montereybay.clc/posts/339514132894604
"The Monterey Bay Central Labor Council (MBCLC) is the local body of the American Federation of Labor-Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO). We are a membership organization serving as a coalition of the Labor Community in Monterey and Santa Cruz Counties. Over 60 unions are affiliated with the MBCLC, representing more than 30,000 union members and their families."
http://www.montereybaylabor.org/
Read all of their endorsements here:
https://www.facebook.com/montereybay.clc/posts/339514132894604
"The Monterey Bay Central Labor Council (MBCLC) is the local body of the American Federation of Labor-Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO). We are a membership organization serving as a coalition of the Labor Community in Monterey and Santa Cruz Counties. Over 60 unions are affiliated with the MBCLC, representing more than 30,000 union members and their families."
http://www.montereybaylabor.org/
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