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Indybay Feature

Council Armors Up

by Robert Norse
City Council (through Mayor Don Lane) and the City Administration behind it (i.e. the Martin Bernal, the City Manager, and his staff) will be voting on more repressive decorum rules as the first order of business in the afternoon session of the January 13th City Council this Tuesday. This is apparently their response to the public outrage at the December 9th meeting over the SCPD's sneak rush of the quarter-of-a-million-buck BEARCAT armored personnel "rescue' vehicle. Lane has also placed the wildly-unconstitutional and explosive Stay-Away law to the end of the evening agenda. I suspect these two measures are specifically designed to shrink, cool, and discourage protest.
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The staff report and other documents regarding the decorum rule changes are attached and also available on the City's website at http://scsire.cityofsantacruz.com/sirepub/mtgviewer.aspx?meetid=622&doctype=AGENDA under Item #12.


Scheduled protests:

Stop the Bearcat at 2 PM https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2015/01/03/18766326.php
Protest New Anti-Homeless Law and Urban Assault Vehicle at https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2014/12/13/18765514.php
A HUFF (Homeless United for Friendship & Freedom) protest at times to be announced.

The City has also adopted a new, less publicly accessible means, of responding to Public Records Act requests. The SCPD no longer takes such requests directly, but routes them through Nydia Patino at City Hall. More importantly, the requests are being responded to in hard copy letters (usually rejection or restriction) from the City Attorney's answer.

It has still not responded to my request of weeks ago to see documentation that confirms the exact date and the real deadline for accepting the BEARCAT vehicle.
§The Councilmember's Handbook as Lane Would Like It
by Robert Norse
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Lane has given no explanation as to why leaving an "unattended" recording device creates any problem. So if you sit in your seat and want to leave it turned on, that would be cause for Council harassment if no one is "attending" it unless you put it in a special spot.

His new definition of "disruption" is "whenever a rule is broken and a Mayor is 'forced' to stop the meeting". So whenever a Mayor disrupts his own meeting, this becomes the fault of the public. So, if you turn your back on the Council while speaking and there's a rule against doing so (which there arguably now is--that's an additional change), you are "disrupting" the meeting. This flies in the face of the 9th Circuit Court ruling that states a "disruption" can only be an actual disruption not a potential one or one created by the Council's have a "hissy fit".
§Current Rules
by Robert Norse
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Bad enough as they are--as folks attending the December 9th meeting saw and experienced.
§Resolution Amending the Current Rules
by Robert Norse
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The technical resolution that changes the rules, I presume.
§Proposed Escalated Stay-Away Order Law
by Robert Norse
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Somewhere between 500 and 1500 people have already gotten one-day Stay-Away orders. They will be subject to the week, month, 6 month, and year orders in ever-expanding areas. Careful examination of the infraction tickets given with these orders show they are overwhelming used to punish sleeping, camping, simply being in a closed area, or smoking. It also seems they are overwhelmingly being given to homeless people.
§Current Law
by Robert Norse
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The current Parks and Recreation laws allow designation of "closed areas" at any time at the whim Parks and Recs Czarina Dannettee Shoemaker. They also prescribe a high penalty for violating the "Stay Away" orders (up to a year in jail and $1000 fine).
Add Your Comments

Comments (Hide Comments)
by Razer Ray
"They also prescribe a high penalty for violating the "Stay Away" orders (up to a year in jail and $1000 fine)"

A Missydemeanor... That's a GOOD thing. THEN you get to have a lawyer to discern, along with a JUDGE, whose toes [cf. jurisdiction and purview] are stepped on by more than the shortest of emergency orders, whether the stay-away could actually applies to you (Ur TSOL if you're a fuckup.. fuckups), and perhaps whether the city has any right at ALL to issue 6 month or year long "stay away orders" in lieu of a court hearing the case.

Listen Robert, the council is going to do whatever they fucking well please, b/c "Corrupt", and the courts are where it's going to get un-fucked, by someone deprived of their right to use public space without good cause.

Ps. Where the fuck d\id you get that 1000 to 1.5k number for short stay-away orders issued? OUt of your ass? It defies any probability unless your favorite backstabbing (literally... 3 stabbing incidents since he was 'security' @ Occupysantacruz), idiot "Squirrel" garnered a few hundreds of them. No one at the park misses HIM at ALL.
by Robert Norse
...to have an attorney, a judge, and a jury trial. The threat of jail (particularly if you're inside awaiting bail) has been enough to get an overwhelming majority to abandon their right to trial. Most cases are settled that way--or such is what Public Defenders tell me.

Counting up the number of 1-day Stay-Away's issued by Parks and Rec alone through individual citations yielded over 500 for July 2013 through late summer 2014. The SCPD, I estimate has issued a similar number.

The law as it reads will count prior Stay-Away's within the last year. So hundreds of people are likely at risk for longer stay-away's all guilty-until-proven innocent.

See "Stay-Away From Human Rights ! An Activist Examines the Escalating Stay-Away Orders Law" at https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2014/10/25/18763326.php .

The listing of the SCPD Cites and Stay-Away's is at https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2014/11/24/18764553.php ”Stay-Away Stupidity Not on Tuesday's 11-25 Council Agenda ”
by Razer Ray
Robert: "The threat of jail (particularly if you're inside awaiting bail) has been enough to get an overwhelming majority to abandon their right to trial."

DUDE! Unless your a TOTAL FUCKUP (one of those in need of a year long park ban) the first time you see the judge and demand a court trial you're simply gonna be released on your own recognizance even IF you used 115 Coral as an address!

Has anyone ever told you your own confused narrative is counterproductive to producing the results you allegedly want?
by RR Hates Everyone but Himself
RR particularly hates homeless folks with drug and alcohol issues, so of course he is in favor of harsher penalties for them. He wants them locked up and away from his "territory" downtown. RR reiterates this over and over again when he expresses his political views. This is simply pro-police state garbage on RR's part. It's sad to see him being so dishonest with himself.

One more time for Ray:

People charged with misdemeanors rarely choose to go to trial because of the risk of jail. Those charged know they will not receive a fair trial, especially with a public defender, and if they are found guilty they will most likely receive a six months jail sentence, so they take pleas and accept whatever punishment they are given.
by Razer Ray
meth_b4_after.jpeg
[Photo: Tweakers... Not "Breaking Bad..." Just plain Broken]

I think they're Useful Idiots, literally, for the DTA, the SCPD, the Senile, and TBSC to use, and I TELL THEM THAT.

Somehow, many count me as a friend anyway... for speaking what I feel to be the truth to them.

PS. I don't make friends on the basis of what substances one uses or doesn't use.
by Razer Ray
I've made use of local public defenders over the years. If one realizes they know better than you regarding the intricacies of the law, they can be quite useful in getting a case thrown out or an acquittal.

If you try to tell a mechanic how to fix your car, you'll end up fixing it yourself. If you try to tell a lawyer what can and can't be done, you'll find yourself alone in front of the judge. Like Robert, and his Supreme Court loss, and the ACLU or any other lawyer's refusal to work with him.
by Robert Norse
I always leave it to the well-paid experts. They have my best interests at heart.

That's why over 90% of the cases are plea-bargained--because public pretenders do so well. Why bother with trials when you can have the D.A. and the P.D. shake hands? And it's so less expensive for the government.

And, of course, we know that 90% of those charged are criminals. If not, why would the cops arrest them?
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