What could be more non-commercial, local, and under-reported than reporting on the activities of the local HUFFists? The Santa Cruz contingent of Indymedia ought to call itself something along the lines of THE HUFF & PUFF, or THE PC NEWS -your source for inflammatory flyers free of facts. Either that or renew its dedication to what Indymedia is about: “Indymedia is a democratic media outlet for the creation of radical, accurate, and passionate tellings of truth.” If I were exposing the evil doings of corporate America, no doubt my expose would not be censored, or relegated to some hidden page.

Most likely this article on HUFFist activities and lies will get placed in some hidden little corner where people will have a hard time finding it. But even so, that will not stop me from sharing with everyone the falsities of the vicious attacks by HUFF on all creative loving people who volunteer their time to help our community. Why no one has called HUFF on their lies for so long in our community is hard for me to comprehend. I understand the viewpoint that one should ‘not give the hateful people any energy’ and ‘just ignore it, people are smarter than you think, they will see through it’, but people come and go so often in Santa Cruz, they don’t really get a chance to see through the HUFFists hustle, especially when they never hear the truth. HUFFists are far from stupid and are extremely adept at latching on to good causes and associating themselves with the underdogs. This understandably persuades naive good-hearted young people that are new here to join with HUFF’s forces. If people never hear the truth, how can we expect them to understand what is going on in our town? I don’t think we should be silent any longer we must speak out and let their lies shrivel under the brilliant beams from the light of truth.

Here’s a laugh for all of you long-time locals, Robert Norse is in tears about personal attacks on his character. I’d better say it again for those of you who are not rolling on the floor laughing but are still staring at that statement in gape-jawed disbelief. Robert Norse is complaining about my attacks on his character. Okay, so pointing out that he is really Robert Norse Kahn of the extremely rich Kahn clan, who seem to have banished him because of his lifelong devotion to hate-mongering, or that he doesn’t have any first hand experience of what it’s like to work and be poor in Santa Cruz, is an attack on his character and experience, and maybe is less relevant than the lies he tells. Even reprinting what Paul Lee said about him in his book The Quality Of Mercy Homelessness in Santa Cruz 1985-1992
...During that time we had to cope with the counter-productive tactics of Robert Norse, a self-styled homeless advocate who suddenly appeared one day out of the blue. We had no idea where he came from and what he was up to except that he was going to be trouble, not only to the local authorities, but also to us. He reminded us of the worst vision of a 1960s “outside agitator” type who comes to town to fuss things up. The type that never does anything productive, and never means to do anything productive-but is especially good at making a fuss. For its own sake. An old style agent-provocateur with a t-shirt reading “epater le bourgeoisie”. There were those among us, especially Fred, who came to believe that Robert intended to cause disruption for the benefit of those who wanted our enterprise to fail. Most of us came to believe that he lived off an annuity of some sort and was free to agitate full time. Moreover he got lots of press


is probably a type of personal attack, so I will try to refrain from making too big of a deal about his wealth and lack of experience of being poor and focus on what I always do: HUFF’s lies and attacks on the personal character of our locals who volunteer for public service.

Becky Johnson’s latest foaming is so full of lies it’s hard to figure out where to start, I guess I’ll start with the small stuff.

1. Reilly did not name the unregulated parts of the sidewalk ‘opportunity zones’ credit for that can be given to Porter who word has it was inspired by the mural on the wall where the old Bookshop Santa Cruz was: The one with people with outstretched arms holding up a farm that has the word ‘opportunity’ on the barn door.

2. Johnson claims ‘opportunity zones’ for panhandlers will be almost non-existent. Total lie. It’s true that panhandling zones have the greatest reduction in space, but there is still way more prime space for panhandling than there are panhandlers on the mall. Check it out for yourself if you don’t believe it.

3. Johnson accuses Reilly of ‘upbeat bigotry’ Reilly has many, many friends of color and has donated regularly to the River Street Shelter, and in fact she used to personally deliver large amounts of food to us, as Norse, if not Johnson knows.

4. Johnson claims 400-500 homeless risk tickets because of Reilly. Neighbors at Harvey West complained vehemently about how trashed their neighborhood was getting and demanded the city help them. Only a few cars, not 400-500 people, have to move their vehicles in order to let the street sweeper come in to clean up after the trashers. Only two people who actually parked there, which is a sucky place to park anyway, came to council meeting to complain about having to move.

5. True, three HUFFists hoisted a banner saying “Emily Reilly’s Votes Hurt The Poor” in front of the building she rents to bake bread. But their plans backfired and were laughed out of the neighborhood because all the neighbors know of her generosity and kind spirit.

6. Johnson attacks Fitzmaurice because he was so emotional when recalling a sexual assault incident told to him by a friend and complains he wasn’t ‘sensitive’ to the person assaulting his friend. Hunh? This makes no sense, for starters he wasn’t even there at the incident his friend relayed to him, so how in the world could he have ‘sensitized’ the criminal.

7. Gimme a break, Johnson knows what is going on with the hackeysackers. Hackeysacking junkies ARE selling weed to get money for smack. I’m for legalizing drugs altogether, but that’s another issue.

8. Johnson calls the Mammary Manifesto’s article ‘well-researched’ The piss poor research is evidenced even by Johnson’s own mention of the nipple-showing nonsense. There was never any possibility or consideration given to banning breast showing, ‘we’ve come a long way baby’ a LONG TIME AGO. (the blue-and-black Mohawk was as magnificent as Johnson says, though)

9. Johnson claims that the downtown commissioners are ‘generally pro-ordinance’ This is so unbelievably false, it’s hard to imagine how Johnson can say this with a straight face. The Chairperson of the downtown commission, Kathy Bisbee, spoke against the ordinances before they were passed. And clearly both Julie Shattuck and Jane Mio are not pro-ordinance. The most anyone could fairly say about the downtown commission’s leanings would be that they are split right down the middle. But my suspicion is that, if anything, with Sheila Coonerty’s latest comments, that in fact the DTC is slightly anti-ordinance. But more importantly, these volunteers were obviously doing their best to come up with something fair to everyone, not pandering to the ‘merchants’(read local knick-knack shops, used-book sellers, coffee dispensaries etc.)

10. Johnson claims that the ‘undeniable conclusion’ is that the ordinances purpose is to ban beggars. CAB supplied council with a guide on how to write laws about panhandling, a guide which recommends far more restrictive laws than the council passed.
www.cjlf.org/publctns/Panhandling/Ptoc.htm

11. I suppose that’s enough for now, oh, who am I? Mr. Norse, I’m Stivey Cooper, Artie's son. You might be able to dig up dirt on me, but I’m not afraid of you anymore.
I'm sure that when Chuck Abbott envisioned Pacific Garden Mall he never thought there would be people like Mr. Norse who would try to steal it from the people of Santa Cruz.