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I founded the Santa Cruz Bus Rider's Association
I founded the Santa Cruz Bus Rider's Association for the purpose of defending our community of bus rider's lives against the Neoliberal attack on our fundamentally human need for a truly public bus transportation system that serves our entire community, and visitors, nomadic and/or transient people who come to this city on the coast of the land mass known currently as Santa Cruz, California, USA. The attack by the METRO board and the management of the METRO was anticipated by me after observing the cuts to the METRO ParaCruz of 2015, after a year of talking to the bus drivers when I rode the buses.
My purpose today in writing this news article is to boost my own morale as a vital activist and person who is willing to sacrifice a great deal to my community here in Santa Cruz because I love Santa Cruz, and also because I know, as "I" have learned that "I" am also not only "myself", in fact, "I" am my community, to a large extent, to an extent that I can not fully know or understand at times as well as "I" want to understand.
My people, my community of people- of all kinds, as well as all others, like, for instance, trees, plants, soil, animals, bugs, sky, earth, other activists, people who watch TV, as well as those who do and those who do not have homes or shelter, in the proper sense and others, more or less "abled" people, as well as the wider community of housed people, and pets, all exist in this area together, and I do not leave out the water ones, the lizards, four leggeds, or the birds- all of us, are included in my beloved community, except sometimes it is very hard for me to include executives and management, the rich and the very rich, the technocrats and the democrats, like Debbie Wasserman Schultz, and the Clintons, and the well to do folks and others who like to dominate, threaten and cut out the rest of us.
When I saw that the harsh cuts were announced formally, threatening our lives, us bus riders, and that the bus driver's and mechanics jobs were threatened, I knew that I would start "activating people", as much as I could by announcing the proposed cuts in order to engender awareness amongst bus riders.
But I went beyond that.
I passionately implored people to understand, beginning in February, what exactly was happening was not mundane, but an attempt to further privatize our public bus transportation system, and I gave political rants to the bus riders as we shared rides, starting in February. I began to agitate, to educate and to do as much outreach as I personally could do to alert bus riders of the impending threat of the cuts and inform people to the larger perspective, as I saw it, as to the real reasons for the cuts. I worked to politicize people.
Later, after the METRO public comment meetings began, and it became clear that multitudes of people, bus riders, as well as bus drivers were turning out to the public comment sessions to speak to the METRO board and management at the sessions that were being strictly regimented and offered, it became fully clear to me that the public was being glad-handed.
Beginning in March and moving into April, I attended every possible meeting of the public with the board, including a Metro Advisory Committee meeting, and I agitated and worked to inform and alert people about what I saw happening. Drivers assisted me and told me about an event at the new transit building. I then disrupted this event to show strong dissent about the cuts, and to my great happiness, other activists were in attendance to protest.
Yet it seemed that the promotional attitude of the management and the board, especially with the professional assistance of Barrow Emerson and Alex Clifford was, "Hey, we and our consultants are doing a great job to figure out what we will need to absolutely cut", while at the same time these two were presenting themselves as professionals, "just doing their jobs", who really cared about the public, while they were actually going to bludgeon the bus routes and the bus rider's lives along with the cuts to the bus routes (and the driver's jobs). The METRO board was on track to cut a whole lot of bus lines. We needed a group to come together to show the power of the bus riders.
So, in April I put out the call to establish a core group of activists, in order to start to build and form a bus rider's association in Santa Cruz. Later on the eighteenth of May, at the Louden Nelson Community, we held our first meeting and other activists showed up and drivers as well as representatives from the driver's union.
The reason that I write this is because the five people that came together in April and early May came together because, I worked to establish this core group so that we could organize together and bring in others in the community to defend our lives against the threats to the bus lines and the driver's jobs.
If I had not done that, we would not have created an effective defense for our community.
My people, my community of people- of all kinds, as well as all others, like, for instance, trees, plants, soil, animals, bugs, sky, earth, other activists, people who watch TV, as well as those who do and those who do not have homes or shelter, in the proper sense and others, more or less "abled" people, as well as the wider community of housed people, and pets, all exist in this area together, and I do not leave out the water ones, the lizards, four leggeds, or the birds- all of us, are included in my beloved community, except sometimes it is very hard for me to include executives and management, the rich and the very rich, the technocrats and the democrats, like Debbie Wasserman Schultz, and the Clintons, and the well to do folks and others who like to dominate, threaten and cut out the rest of us.
When I saw that the harsh cuts were announced formally, threatening our lives, us bus riders, and that the bus driver's and mechanics jobs were threatened, I knew that I would start "activating people", as much as I could by announcing the proposed cuts in order to engender awareness amongst bus riders.
But I went beyond that.
I passionately implored people to understand, beginning in February, what exactly was happening was not mundane, but an attempt to further privatize our public bus transportation system, and I gave political rants to the bus riders as we shared rides, starting in February. I began to agitate, to educate and to do as much outreach as I personally could do to alert bus riders of the impending threat of the cuts and inform people to the larger perspective, as I saw it, as to the real reasons for the cuts. I worked to politicize people.
Later, after the METRO public comment meetings began, and it became clear that multitudes of people, bus riders, as well as bus drivers were turning out to the public comment sessions to speak to the METRO board and management at the sessions that were being strictly regimented and offered, it became fully clear to me that the public was being glad-handed.
Beginning in March and moving into April, I attended every possible meeting of the public with the board, including a Metro Advisory Committee meeting, and I agitated and worked to inform and alert people about what I saw happening. Drivers assisted me and told me about an event at the new transit building. I then disrupted this event to show strong dissent about the cuts, and to my great happiness, other activists were in attendance to protest.
Yet it seemed that the promotional attitude of the management and the board, especially with the professional assistance of Barrow Emerson and Alex Clifford was, "Hey, we and our consultants are doing a great job to figure out what we will need to absolutely cut", while at the same time these two were presenting themselves as professionals, "just doing their jobs", who really cared about the public, while they were actually going to bludgeon the bus routes and the bus rider's lives along with the cuts to the bus routes (and the driver's jobs). The METRO board was on track to cut a whole lot of bus lines. We needed a group to come together to show the power of the bus riders.
So, in April I put out the call to establish a core group of activists, in order to start to build and form a bus rider's association in Santa Cruz. Later on the eighteenth of May, at the Louden Nelson Community, we held our first meeting and other activists showed up and drivers as well as representatives from the driver's union.
The reason that I write this is because the five people that came together in April and early May came together because, I worked to establish this core group so that we could organize together and bring in others in the community to defend our lives against the threats to the bus lines and the driver's jobs.
If I had not done that, we would not have created an effective defense for our community.
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Thank you for your advocacy!!
What's the status of the cuts?
When and where are the next meertings of the neo-liberal Board?
What do you advise supporters to do?
When and where are the next meertings of the neo-liberal Board?
What do you advise supporters to do?
I appreciate your comment, thanks very much for asking, Mr. Norse. As a brief answer to your first question, I would reply that we only achieved a minimum level of success. What I mean by this "minimum level of success" is that we achieved only one of the most important goals: to minimize the amount of cuts to the bus lines within the extremely short amount of time with which we had to work. However, other very important things were accomplished, I believe by the coming together of the activist community. The first and most important is the experience that we endured, shared and attempted to help each other during, can allow to see a little bit into what it might look like if we had a more truly-public transportation system here in Santa Cruz and beyond.
Here I will just refer to some of these "campaigns", measures, and elections briefly. What I hope to show is the complexity of our situation, the huge diversity of bus riders and that the pace that the METRO Board, and the various city and county officials allowed us as riders was enormously pressurized. We were given so little time, as a large and diverse and wide community of bus riders, to be able to even comment and weigh-in on, let alone truly have a voice or any power to reduce or have an effect upon the bus lines slated for cuts and it was all extremely pressured and fast.
For example, one of the most important aspects of the whole situation of the METRO's bus cuts was the student election at Cabrillo College which was held to (supposedly) "help make up for the cuts to the METRO system" which would have decimated some of the bus lines that students depend upon, such as the 91X. The election at Cabrillo, as I understand it, "allowed" the students there at Cabrillo to vote on a proposed amendment to their constitution which would impose a mandatory fee of $40 dollars (basically, this is a extremely short and imperfect summary) upon them for a bus pass which enabled them to ride the bus, as I understand it, all over Santa Cruz County, and would therefore allow the students transportation where ever they might need to travel. This mandatory fee which was approved by the students in the election this past spring is similar to what the UCSC students have.
One of the student activists who became involved in the short campaign of the Bus Rider's Association this spring, I will simply refer to here simply as, "M", worked a great deal with the students at Cabrillo College to give the students as much power and voice as possible in the whole fast-paced situation of the METRO's harsh bus cuts. "M" brought a whole different level of student involvement and demands for a voice and power to their election than what the METRO and Cabrillo College originally had planned. "M's" particular personal activist efforts to offset the terrible impact that the METRO cuts would have had on the Cabrillo students lives and of course, their travel needs to and from schoo- took that whole student effort to a different level, because "M" struggled and lobbied, he fought for student control of the funds that were to be approved by the fee. I think that he was given some support and realized he had backing from our group, the Santa Cruz Bus Rider's Association.
As the vote went forward at that college which was to determine a whole lot, "M" became more and more involved in the proceedings of the Bus Rider's Campaign and also was working at Cabrillo to influence students and the student senate there, to think about their control or lack of control, over the money that would be allocated by the Cabrillo Student vote. I think (and hope) that the communities of riders who were impacted, such as the students at Cabrillo, were given some support, and increased ease of communication with other activists.
I believe that there was developed for the students at Cabrillo and other riders, a greater sense of unity with other concerned riders in the wider bus riding community, such as those who wish to pollute less and take the bus by choice, instead of using a car. There were other people, for example, bus riders who have greater challenges with mobility, and are in wheelchairs, or who use walking aids, students at UCSC, and many other riding groups, who became unified and more aware of our togetherness as bus riders, and I think as well that we had increased leverage for our requests, demands and wishes by having this Bus Rider's Association.
With so little time, we had an impossible amount of things to do to develop a voice for bus riders and to just to begin to see what having a powerful union of bus riders might do for us in the future. It was very late into the whole METRO cuts situation by the time mid April rolled around and the public comment meetings with the METRO board were happening.
First of all, we needed to establish some kind of rider's group, or "association" of people and activists to get to know each other at least a little bit, politically and if not fully on a personal way, at least in some collegial way, and hopefully develop quickly, and positively in terms of some other organizational ways.
Secondly, we needed to begin to bring togetherness to the activists that were already working to oppose the cuts out in the wider community. This happened, and we pooled our efforts to reach out to the community by helping put up posters, organizing a rally, and in other ways. We worked a lot with the drivers and the driver's union for example. Thanks to the drivers and Eduardo the union leader, we were given a room to meet in and that helped a great deal with our efforts.
Thirdly we needed to work together to find commonality in terms of goals and demands and we also had to work to organize, bring together other people, other bus riders in particular and other activists, such as the communities in Watsonville, and build a larger, powerful group. At the time that we had the meeting that really brought in the wider community of activists on May 18th, we only had about five and a half weeks left before the end of the whole METRO program, which was set to culminate on June 24th. Therefore, we had a great deal of pressure to do as much as we could. It was often tough for us to determine exactly how to proceed, and I think we could take what we learned and bring it into more dialogue as a community and as a Bus Rider's Association when we get together again in the future.
Consider for example that at the very beginning of the assemblage of the first core group of activists, we hardly knew each other. At the time that I put out the call and asked the group of five activists to come together to start planning and developing some sort of rider's association at the end of April-beginning of May, and before the larger group of activists came together on May 18th, 2016. At the time of the first larger meeting of activists, on May 18, 2016, we had only 5 weeks and 3 days left before the last day of the meeting of the board with the public on June 24, 2016.
The larger group of (mostly) activists that showed up at the first meeting of the public called at Louden Nelson Community Center, on May 18th was widely diverse in terms of individual politics, such as awareness of and orientation to class issues and other "intersectionalities". There were many people of different experience levels, and orientations to the idea of political action and organizing. Many of the activists and bus driver's union representatives and other groups and individuals who showed up at that May 18th meeting were of a wide variety of political styles and varieties, and experience levels. With so little time to make a difference and build a wider, larger membership into the BRA, as well as oppose the bus cuts, then actually prevent the cuts as well as form coalitions with other groups, such as the Campaign for Sensible Transportation group, among other goals that may have been established, we could only strive to attain modest achievements while striving for more.
Altogether, I think we did well, and we saw there were many challenges.
The next METRO board meetings are ongoing, and I am not sure when they are, Mr. Norse, but we should find out.
As for advise for our Santa Cruz Bus Rider's Association supporters, we should rise up again and reorganize for our voice and our power. For sure.
Thanks to everyone who came out and all power to the people.
Elise Casby
Here I will just refer to some of these "campaigns", measures, and elections briefly. What I hope to show is the complexity of our situation, the huge diversity of bus riders and that the pace that the METRO Board, and the various city and county officials allowed us as riders was enormously pressurized. We were given so little time, as a large and diverse and wide community of bus riders, to be able to even comment and weigh-in on, let alone truly have a voice or any power to reduce or have an effect upon the bus lines slated for cuts and it was all extremely pressured and fast.
For example, one of the most important aspects of the whole situation of the METRO's bus cuts was the student election at Cabrillo College which was held to (supposedly) "help make up for the cuts to the METRO system" which would have decimated some of the bus lines that students depend upon, such as the 91X. The election at Cabrillo, as I understand it, "allowed" the students there at Cabrillo to vote on a proposed amendment to their constitution which would impose a mandatory fee of $40 dollars (basically, this is a extremely short and imperfect summary) upon them for a bus pass which enabled them to ride the bus, as I understand it, all over Santa Cruz County, and would therefore allow the students transportation where ever they might need to travel. This mandatory fee which was approved by the students in the election this past spring is similar to what the UCSC students have.
One of the student activists who became involved in the short campaign of the Bus Rider's Association this spring, I will simply refer to here simply as, "M", worked a great deal with the students at Cabrillo College to give the students as much power and voice as possible in the whole fast-paced situation of the METRO's harsh bus cuts. "M" brought a whole different level of student involvement and demands for a voice and power to their election than what the METRO and Cabrillo College originally had planned. "M's" particular personal activist efforts to offset the terrible impact that the METRO cuts would have had on the Cabrillo students lives and of course, their travel needs to and from schoo- took that whole student effort to a different level, because "M" struggled and lobbied, he fought for student control of the funds that were to be approved by the fee. I think that he was given some support and realized he had backing from our group, the Santa Cruz Bus Rider's Association.
As the vote went forward at that college which was to determine a whole lot, "M" became more and more involved in the proceedings of the Bus Rider's Campaign and also was working at Cabrillo to influence students and the student senate there, to think about their control or lack of control, over the money that would be allocated by the Cabrillo Student vote. I think (and hope) that the communities of riders who were impacted, such as the students at Cabrillo, were given some support, and increased ease of communication with other activists.
I believe that there was developed for the students at Cabrillo and other riders, a greater sense of unity with other concerned riders in the wider bus riding community, such as those who wish to pollute less and take the bus by choice, instead of using a car. There were other people, for example, bus riders who have greater challenges with mobility, and are in wheelchairs, or who use walking aids, students at UCSC, and many other riding groups, who became unified and more aware of our togetherness as bus riders, and I think as well that we had increased leverage for our requests, demands and wishes by having this Bus Rider's Association.
With so little time, we had an impossible amount of things to do to develop a voice for bus riders and to just to begin to see what having a powerful union of bus riders might do for us in the future. It was very late into the whole METRO cuts situation by the time mid April rolled around and the public comment meetings with the METRO board were happening.
First of all, we needed to establish some kind of rider's group, or "association" of people and activists to get to know each other at least a little bit, politically and if not fully on a personal way, at least in some collegial way, and hopefully develop quickly, and positively in terms of some other organizational ways.
Secondly, we needed to begin to bring togetherness to the activists that were already working to oppose the cuts out in the wider community. This happened, and we pooled our efforts to reach out to the community by helping put up posters, organizing a rally, and in other ways. We worked a lot with the drivers and the driver's union for example. Thanks to the drivers and Eduardo the union leader, we were given a room to meet in and that helped a great deal with our efforts.
Thirdly we needed to work together to find commonality in terms of goals and demands and we also had to work to organize, bring together other people, other bus riders in particular and other activists, such as the communities in Watsonville, and build a larger, powerful group. At the time that we had the meeting that really brought in the wider community of activists on May 18th, we only had about five and a half weeks left before the end of the whole METRO program, which was set to culminate on June 24th. Therefore, we had a great deal of pressure to do as much as we could. It was often tough for us to determine exactly how to proceed, and I think we could take what we learned and bring it into more dialogue as a community and as a Bus Rider's Association when we get together again in the future.
Consider for example that at the very beginning of the assemblage of the first core group of activists, we hardly knew each other. At the time that I put out the call and asked the group of five activists to come together to start planning and developing some sort of rider's association at the end of April-beginning of May, and before the larger group of activists came together on May 18th, 2016. At the time of the first larger meeting of activists, on May 18, 2016, we had only 5 weeks and 3 days left before the last day of the meeting of the board with the public on June 24, 2016.
The larger group of (mostly) activists that showed up at the first meeting of the public called at Louden Nelson Community Center, on May 18th was widely diverse in terms of individual politics, such as awareness of and orientation to class issues and other "intersectionalities". There were many people of different experience levels, and orientations to the idea of political action and organizing. Many of the activists and bus driver's union representatives and other groups and individuals who showed up at that May 18th meeting were of a wide variety of political styles and varieties, and experience levels. With so little time to make a difference and build a wider, larger membership into the BRA, as well as oppose the bus cuts, then actually prevent the cuts as well as form coalitions with other groups, such as the Campaign for Sensible Transportation group, among other goals that may have been established, we could only strive to attain modest achievements while striving for more.
Altogether, I think we did well, and we saw there were many challenges.
The next METRO board meetings are ongoing, and I am not sure when they are, Mr. Norse, but we should find out.
As for advise for our Santa Cruz Bus Rider's Association supporters, we should rise up again and reorganize for our voice and our power. For sure.
Thanks to everyone who came out and all power to the people.
Elise Casby
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