THE FOLLOWING FLYER IN EARLIER FORM WAS DISTRIBUTED AT THE SEPTEMBER 10 PROTESTS AND COUNCIL MEETINGS. The Council ended up passing unanimously, unchanged, as predicted, the "patch-up" delay of one of the ordinances. Folks hanging out (whether poor, homeless, young, or whatever) will have 95% of the sidewalk made forbidden for sitting and peaceful soliciting.

This will also ban those musicians who want to sit down while performing and don't have their own chairs on virtually all the sidewalks in all the business districts in town. Or if they indicate verbally or by a sign that they are soliciting (though an open guitar case of unlabeled cup or can is okay).

Porter, Reilly, and Primack (and others as well) vilified the activists who exposed the absurdity of their laws and continued to deny that their laws affected homeless people unduly (though that is exactly where the laws came from and what they mean to do).

The flyer follows:

Downtown Terrorism Against the Santa Cruz Poor
Beyond September 11th: Building Free Public Spaces

City Council Takes A Half-Baked Step Back
But OKs Blank-Check for Police War on Musicians & Activists
++++ During the 7 PM Session today (Tuesday September 10th) City Council will introduce (Item #37.1) a 4-month delay (until early January) on enforcing the new 14’ guidelines--for “non-commercial displays and activity” only. The core laws targeting homeless and poor people not engaging in tourist-fluffing activity became law Aug 23; they will still be enforced after Sept. 10th.
People sitting and peacefully sparechanging will still be barred from 95% of all the city’s sidewalks;
including those who sit quietly with signs. Hackeysacking, unattended backpacks, juggling, “non-performance”
bubble blowing will still be subject to $162 fines (and for subsequent offenses up to $1000 fine and a year in jail).
The same ticketing will continue of people sitting on the edges of planters, using erasable chalk on the sidewalk,
having a “display” of art for donation or sale.
++++ About the same time, Council will discuss the report (Item #37) of its appointed Downtown Commission[DC], which voted on August 30th to ask for a two-month delay to consider more information for the non-commercial display and activity law only. The DC called the issue “complex and legally complicated”, said
it needed to “solicit more substantial input and gather additional critical data” and wanted to avoid “expensive
litigation....unnecessary political demonstrations downtown, or ....confusion among the many users of downtown.”
++++ Mayor Krohn is limiting discussion of Items ##37 and 38 by scheduling them as “administrative
business”. “Fuhrer” Tim Fitzmaurice (who had an activist arrested for a brief “the Mayor is acting like a fascist” Nazi salute) may attempt
to limit taping and sign-holding in City Council meeting.
++++ Unfortunately the DC also asked “the City Council to inform the Police Department that all
existing ordinances governing behavior downtown passed by previous City Councils should continue to be fully and vigorously enforced during the interim. This was the same mistaken instruction that City Council unanimously gave the police on June 25th, which ratified--after the fact--the repressive police actions against street performers and homeless people this spring and summer.
++++ If Council repeats this blank check, even suspending enforcement of the ordinances will not
protect street performers from citations on citizens complaint or arrest under the old laws which bar
performing-for-donation (or distributing flyers requesting contributions) within 4’ of a drinking fountain, public
telephone, or bench; 6’ of a building entrance, fence, kiosk, mid-block crosswalk, or vending cart; 10’ of any
street corner or intersection; or anywhere up to the curb in front of any sidewalk cafe. (MC 5.43.020)
City Council: (1) Suspend enforcement of Downtown Ordinances criminalizing innocent behavior (like sitting, peaceful sparechanging, displaying artwork, riding bicycles
“the wrong way” on Pacific, playing music, performing, etc.); (2) Work with the Downtown Commission to expand the successful voluntary Street Performers Guidelines to other groups like panhandlers, skateboarders, hackeysackers, etc.; and (3) Direct police to enforce laws that genuinely protect people from assault & property damage.
++++ A second ordinance (Item #38) will allow cups, guitars cases, and donations cans if they don’t
have any signs attached. This is another attempt to divide street performers and political activists from ordinary poor and young people who hang out. Use of “Hungry” “Need Work” type signs will now be
barred at night, from a seated position, and/or in groups of two (as is currently the case with peaceful verbal
requests for money or food).
++++ The Background to this Brouhaha is Police Harassment and Social Engineering from the Downtown Association, those sympathetic with the Jackson Shoes petition, and the Redevelopment Agency. Sometime this spring, police harassment of street musicians killed the 22 year-old successful voluntary Street Performers Guidelines, proposed by Tom Noddy and others back in 1980. Police use of laws rather than mediation was foreshadowed by Lt. Sepone’s attacks on music in bars and Sgt. Baker’s harassment of marimba players. Sgts. Baker & MacPhillips, perhaps prompted by “cleanse the mall” staffers harassed guitarists Cosmic Chris, Mike True, and a variety of others with $162 tickets. Police used the Rotkin-Kennedy 6’ forbidden zones of 1994, “no trespass” (in the alcoves of closed businesses) laws, “excessive noise” warnings, and selectively enforced “merchant-approved music only” around New Leaf Market, Ali Baba’s Cafe, and Sushi Now!.
++++ At the Reilly-Porter “Downtown Problems” hearings June 28 and July 1, police harassment and
selective enforcement of musicians, activists, and homeless folks was a major concern. This was subsequently
ignored by City Council, which passed Porter’s prefabricated anti-homeless laws, but it will be an issue at the Citizens Police Review Board Public Meeting 5:30 PM Monday October 14th at City Hall. MAKE OUT FORMAL COMPLAINTS ABOUT ANY POLICE HARASSMENT IN THE LAST SIX MONTHS THAT YOU HAVE KNOWLEDGE OF AT THE DOWNTOWN-FOR-ALL TABLE 4:30 PM AT COOPER + PACIFIC.
++++ Unconstitutional attacks on activists for “chalking” and “blocking the sidewalk” continue to clog
the courts. Becky Johnson and Tim Rinker go to trial on in Dept. 1 Friday September 13th 1:30 p.m for “defacing” the sidewalk with water-soluble chalk erasable in fifteen seconds. Parks and Rec Employee Mia Duquet’s cop-concocted “vandalism” citizens-arrest made upon Becky Johnson at a “Merry Monday” political rally across from the Cinema 9 has been reduced to “defacing the sidewalk” (though Johnson wrote in the street) which will be heard September 18th at 8:30 AM for chalking “Are we so mean-spirited we deny homeless people the right to sleep at night, beg for food with a sign, sit or cover up with a blanket? How can Vice-Mayor Emily Reilly, Tim Fitzmaurice, and Ed Porter sleep at night” along the gutter of Pacific & Cooper Sts.
++++ Courts have long colluded with the city attorney, police, and politicians to strip homeless people
of basic survival rights, like the right to sleep and camp safely somewhere in the midst of a shelter and housing
crisis. Camp Paradise is due to be evicted from its Aptos Church sanctuary on October 1st after being ousted from
their office in early September. Vandweller Ed Howes goes to trial Wednesday September 18th in Dept 1. using
a necessity defense against the Sleeping Ban for sleeping in his own legally-parked vehicle. Critically-ill cancer
patient Dennis Rehm had two vehicles towed by police after multiple tickets including a Sleeping Ban ticket.
++++ These courts are now joining the “Purify Downtown” campaign. Judge Irwin Joseph refused to
dismiss “Obstructing the Sidewalk” charges against Robert Norse for a peaceful legal table in front of Sushi Now!
last January even though the code section specifically exempted politically tablers. His court trial is set for Friday September 27th at 10 AM in Dept. 1. After massive felony busts of minuscule marijuana dealers downtown this
summer, Officer Brad Hilliard is asking for “stay-away” orders from Pacific Avenue for Becky Johnson for her
after making numerous false statements about her case in the Mia Duquet-generated court case .
++++ In response, after blustering and waffling, Councilmember Ed Porter declared he would
enforce “high school rules” on the downtown community (which he apparently regards as the larger equivalent of
his teen-age class). Instead of keeping his repeatedly-betrayed commitment to introduce Sleeping Ban Repeal
which he made to the Green Party two years ago, Porter is considering another confused law that would make
“voluntary” guidelines mandatory. Porter rammed through the current Downtown Ordinances in record time
drawing them up in secret and then camouflaging them with phony public hearings that admitted of no changes.
++++ Business-owner and “bums begone! law” co-sponsor Vice-Mayor Emily Reilly declined to
disqualify herself from these votes, though she owns “Emily’s Good Things to Eat” Bakery on Mission St.
which is “protected” by these new laws. Her new forbidden zones would prohibit the political protest storm she
prompted last fall when she rushed through a “no homeless parking in the Harvey West” resolution followed by an
“enforce all laws (including the Sleeping Ban)” against the poor on the River. The Reilly-Porter laws reduce the
space where performers can play for donation to less than 5% of all commercial zone sidewalks in town.

NEW TIME: Downtown-For-All now meets WEDNESDAYS 7 pm Wired Wash Cafe 146 Laurel St.
HUFF (Homeless United for Friendship & Freedom) 8:30 AM Weds at Baker’s Square 1107 Ocean St.
Come to “Merry Mondays” 4:30 PM Pacific and Cooper Sts. for Food Not Bombs Food, Video Shows,
and Speak-Outs By Candidates Who Care; Legal Help May be Available for Ticket Problems!
Support Camp Hope, Camp Paradise, and the Homeless Community in opening up legal Sleeping Space.