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Indybay Feature

Santa Cruz City Council votes down change to sleeping ban law

by zh
The Santa Cruz City Council voted 5 to 2 against a change to the law that would decriminalize public sleeping, covering with a blanket, and sleeping in a vehicle.
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The Santa Cruz city council voted 5 to 2 opposed this evening against an amendment to the city law Municipal Code 6.36.010, also known as the camping ban. The proposed amendment would have removed references to sleeping and covering up with a blanket from the text of the law, as well as removing references to sleeping in cars. Effectively, these changes would have made it legal for people sleeping outdoors to do so without fear of citation by police.

Ex-mayor Don Lane brought the amendment forward with an effort to allay community fears that such a change would lead to sudden influxes of people into the community or increases in behaviors many commonly associate with unhoused people. Councilmember Lane specifically referred to camping, public defecation and urination, and littering, with the point that laws already exist in the Santa Cruz municipal code that make these behaviors illegal. Thus, the proposed amendment to the camping law would have little effect on the tools that the police force already uses to control such activity.

Other councilmembers had many questions and concerns for Lane. They discussed issues of encouraging houseless people to come to Santa Cruz, maintaining tools for police to use to discourage houselessness in general, and whether city resources could be better spent on assistance programs over decriminalization efforts. Considerable bad feeling followed some of their questions, as the crowd of people present for the council's discussion was almost overwhelmingly in support of Lane's proposed change.

The council chamber was entirely packed, with completely full benches and many people standing in the rear and along the walls. Very few people spoke against the change during the public discussion period, though some were present. Common sentiments from those who spoke against the amendment included fears of increased presence of car sleepers in local neighborhoods, revulsion at public defecation or urination, and the idea that more houseless people would come to Santa Cruz if sleeping were decriminalized.

Supporters of the amendment spoke repeatedly about the morality of criminalizing people for sleeping outdoors given no other alternatives, the negative effects of sleep deprivation on houseless people trying to keep themselves healthy enough physically and mentally to get off the street, and fears of lawsuits against the city or loss of federal money due to new funding criteria from the department of Housing and Urban Development.

Councilmember Lane also mentioned HUD in his presentation. He referenced a consultant hired by the city to deal with applications for funding, who stated in an email that criminalization laws were likely to negatively impact Santa Cruz's application for money from HUD. Councilmember Rochelle Noroyan questioned the city manager and city attorney on this point, who responded that the possibility of losing large sums of money was unlikely, given that this particular issue was worth only a few points in the city's application for Continuum of Care funding. Continuum of Care is the series of programs and bodies shared between the city and county that provide services for houseless people.

Several angry outbursts occurred during the meeting. In particular, one person present yelled out at Councilmember Pamela Comstock “You need to get off it lady! You don't know what it's like, you're just out there!” Comstock had, just before this outburst, made the assertion that the average of forty camping tickets given per week by Parks and Recreation rangers was “not excessive.”

After the council voted, the room erupted in angry mutterings which built rapidly to chants of “Shame on you! Shame on you!” Several members of the assembled crowd stood at the rail between the council and audience benches and shouted at the councilmembers as they exited the chambers. They appeared to fluster the councilmembers to no small degree; Councilmember Comstock actually flipped one angry community member her middle finger on her way out.

A lot of energy was present among the people waiting around after the council session. Clearly this issue was not put to rest last night and it's likely that Santa Cruz will be in for more activity around the camping ban in the near future.
§Exterior courtyard of council chambers
by zh
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§forest of hands from people who want to speak
by zh
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§signs in the council chamber
by zh
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§chants of "shame on you!" after the vote
by zh
Copy the code below to embed this movie into a web page:
Look out for councilmember comstock flipping someone the bird at the end of the video. she's on the left side, in blue.
Add Your Comments

Comments (Hide Comments)
by G
Even though such blatantly targeted hate ordinances and laws directly violate the Constitution, the Judiciary and the Executive have also been shown to be a dead end. These facts have been submitted to a candid world, and met with indifference at best.

Are we exhausted yet?
by no see
lousy video, no pam c.
by lemon tree
When Richelle Noroyan says, "It's about people's health", she is speaking about some people, certainly not the poor, and homeless of Santa Cruz. Her tendency to equate homeless constantly and always with needles shows the ignorance she promotes as factual information. She therefore promotes ignorance constantly. This is dangerous for our community and contributes to a degraded cultural climate in Santa Cruz. Apparently she does not mind wasting the time of the police, and tax payer dollars. For the need to sleep does not necessarily equate with drug use, but it does equate with 1,555 citations issued by the police, related specifically to sleeping, which do not get paid, as Police Chief Vogel presented at the meeting last night. Vogel stated that most (96%!) of these tickets go unpaid. Someone, though ends up paying for all these visits by police to the sleeping homeless! It is the taxpayer, the poor and the working people of Santa Cruz. It is probably better for Ms. Noroyan to promote ignorance and conflate issues than to speak more truthfully about the fact that her campaign donor was a wealthy man from a property company in Santa Cruz, (Redtree Properties) and that she is involved in an effort to gentrify Santa Cruz for the very rich. Using the poor and the homeless as a scapegoat for the privatization and gentrification of Santa Cruz is just a whole lot easier than being more honest! Mr. Ley who likes to log supposedly, "diseased" redwood trees (which I surmise from the little bit of research that I did into his holdings and interests), I am guessing, certainly would rather have us more regular folks keeping police busy harassing sleeping poor people than to have the police investigating possible-illegal logging of redwood trees in the nearby hills and mountains! Also, keeping City Council, and TBSC busy talking about needles, needles, homeless and needles, is a way to distract and move the public conversation away from the fact that we have a health and human crisis underway in our city with an economic, human, and housing catastrophe. Main reasons that we have so many homeless people, is because of displacement of people. The dearth of jobs that pay a living wage, (not to mention a sheer lack of meaningful work), zero affordable housing, and lastly a critical housing shortage all lead to homelessness, poor people living outside! Do our council members, (all 5 of these people seem to work together by the way, to keep their political and business interests fat and healthy) ever address this health and human crisis? Not so much! Lack of housing is ultimately a health crisis as well as an economic crisis. The mayor and her four mean and petty buddies have to be ousted from the council! They won last night in the short term, but their resemblance in their flagrant, disgraceful use of the real facts reminds me of a certain presidential candidate, and leaves the card game, and the final Trump card to be determined.
by John Cohen-Colby
The 5 Council members who are anti-homeless hate mongers will be swept aside to remake a fairer, more equitable Santa Cruz.
by Sylvia Caras
Rochelle also spoke of people who were "service-resistant". That allows us to ignore the kind of service, the quality, the quantity, the helpfulness. It is language that maintains the status quo.

Just one for instance, there is not much point in going through the process to get a housing voucher if local landlords won't accept the vouchers.
by Razer Ray
Ending the camping ban and saddling the houseless with a law that leaves them 'uncovered' would have created ENORMOUS liability for the city for endangering people's health and welfare. The WHOLE LAW needs to go to comply with the DOJ's statement of intent in re Bell V. Boise.

As far as I can tell almost every camping law, sleeping in cars law in Santa Cruz is in violation of the 8th Amendment according to the DOJ and the city's government is MORE THAN LIABLE for that continued violation of their houseless citizen's rights.

Today's Washington Post: "Lifting bans on sleeping outside won’t stop criminalization of homelessness" elucidates the scummy ways a number of cities have continued to vilify victims of their own greed-corrupted governance.
by Yup
The "no bird" comment, I assume, is a mild complaint that the video in this article did not have footage of Pamela Comstock using her middle finger to flip off her detractors outside of of council chambers last night after the meeting. I haven't looked at the video yet myself.

Did anyone else get a video or photo of her doing that?
by Old News
The WaPo article is very good, however it's not today's news. It's from August 13, 2015.

"Housing and shelter accommodations across the country haven’t kept pace with the homeless population’s surging numbers since the recession. In Santa Cruz, Calif., more than 80 percent of the homeless have no safe shelter options, according to a report by the National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty. In Orlando, it’s a third of the homeless population. In total, more than 40 percent of the homeless population sought shelter in places not intended for human habitation last year, Justice’s filing said. They bedded down under bridges. On park benches. Huddled inside vacant buildings. Crammed inside vehicles."
by Pat Colby
I am sure Razor Ray meant "sleeping ban" leaving people unprotected instead of "camping ban"!
When he states the whole camping ban needs to be repealed, I totally whole heartily agree!
Thank you Ray for posting such a valid point.
by Pat Colby
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I went frame by frame to capture just the right frame of the disgraceful City Council Pamela (Bigot TBSC) Comstock with her arm and hand in the flip of position! Remember every second of film is three frame. That video class I took at Cabrillo College really paid off. I guess that A I earned is well deserved.I had to run past it like ten times to get the exact frame. Her arm is up and her hand backwards in the standard position of the finger aka the flip off. A video expert could blow up this frame and up the resolution so we would have concrete evidence of this unprofessional, inappropriate, offensive gesture done by a Santa Cruz City Council and supposed Community Leader Pamela (Bigot TBSC) Comstock aimed at city residents!

I demand she get censured by the City Manager or City Council publicly. An apology with no punishment is not enough! She violated City Council Chamber own rules of Decorum! Look what her part in the undeserved political attack on her fellow city council member Micah Posner for a code violation. Some one needs to check into Ryan Coonerty statement of Economics to see if he listed his alleged rental properties and or his financial interest in PrePol INC predictive policing.
by Yep
Linda L., who is a very honest person, described it this way on Facebook:

"She was "flipping off" ( what a genteel term) David M-S because he apologized to her for having raised his voice..."

It's more confirmation that Pamela Comstock is unstable.
by GT
Is Comstock unstable? No. Just fed up. I give people the bird regularly when I think they're being assholes.
by John Cohen-Colby
Since you feel free to flip people off, I suspect the answer is no. President Obama has been called the N-word but he has never flipped anyone off. Pamela Comstock could learn decorum from President Obama.
by stiff right arm salute to you
Is Take Back Santa Cruz a non profit advocating public safety or just a breeding ground for wannabe brown shirts?
by GT
That screen shot doesn't show Pamela giving anyone the finger. All it shows is some blurry people and a large TV camera in the center of the picture.
by G
Their habitual ad hominem and defamation, aimed at studious critics of many potential TBSC crimes, kinda smells like a tell.

If only those TBSC vigilantes were able to take on real perps, among their membership...
by Gotcha GT
Denial land is the place for hypocritical bigots who get caught with their pants down.
Um like witnesses and she apologized to David afterwards for doing it.
So she admitted to it after the fact, now she denies it.
TBSC lies when trapped. Not even human, animals the bunch of them.
by Natalie Clifford Barney
Whenever humans want say someone(s) is acting in a horrendous manner they refer to them as "ANIMALS". The only animals that acts in this manner are Homo Sapiens Sapiens. No Other animal on this planet destroys the planet and wipes out species the way they do. No other animal acts with the level of cruelty that humans do!
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