Floodlights, noise, 24 hr security guards placed at Peace Camp 2010

NOTE TO READER: Our protest is a legal demonstration attempting to redress the government grievance of the Sleeping Ban. Claiming the lights make anyone "safer" is ludicrous. Not mentioned in the article is that a private security guard has been stationed at Peace Camp 2010 for almost 2 weeks now. When asked, the guards will not say who has hired them. Despite this scrutiny, people continue to sleep and be cited for Sleeping, illegal use of a blanket, illegal "lodging", and for setting up a campsite with the intent of spending the night. It's impossible to determine why one code is used for one person, a different code for another person, and some only get more and more citations while others are arrested. ---- Becky Johnson, Ed.


Santa Cruz police light up camping protest with floodlights
By Jennifer Squires
Posted: 08/19/2010 01:30:51 AM PDT

found online at: http://www.santacruzsentinel.com/localnews/ci_15823598

SANTA CRUZ -- The day a convicted child molester was arrested at a homeless camping demonstration on the City Hall lawn, Santa Cruz police officers hauled in large floodlights to illuminate the protest.

Deputy Santa Cruz Police Chief Kevin Vogel said the aim of lighting the protest is to protect public safety. The lights went up Tuesday night and will be there until the demonstration ends.

"The lights at City Hall are simply an additional security measure and were put in place for the safety of our community," Vogel said Wednesday. "With yesterday's arrest of the convicted child molester at City Hall, it's apparent that the City Hall protest has reached new proportions."

Mark Greer, a 29-year-old local transient, was arrested at the demonstration Tuesday under the state anti-lodging law but he gave the officer a fake name, according to police.

The discrepancy was sorted out at County Jail, where he was fingerprinted and his real name popped up. Jail records showed he is registered sex offender and has five warrants from San Luis Obispo County.

As part of his child molestation conviction, Greer is required to register with police every month, but hasn't checked in with law enforcement since June, police said.

Vogel said Greer's arrest, along with fights, trash and other issues at the camp-in demonstration, show participants can't police themselves.

The so-called Peace Camp protest launched July Fourth at the county courthouse
and moved to City Hall a week ago. Participants are calling for an end to the city ordinance that prohibits camping outside between 11 p.m. and 8:30 a.m.

Police have been going to the demonstration nightly to ticket and arrest participants. Two people were ticketed around 2:30 a.m. Wednesday for violating the camping law. Vogel said it seemed there were fewer protest participants than on prior nights.

Illuminating the demonstration with floodlights costs about $100 a day, police reported.

More tickets issued at Santa Cruz camping demonstration; protestor arrested for alleged stealing another man's bedroll

By Jennifer Squires

Posted: 08/14/2010 01:30:55 AM PDT

found online at: http://www.santacruzsentinel.com/localnews/ci_15776512

SANTA CRUZ -- Police ticketed three demonstrators camping on the City Hall lawn were ticketed early Friday and, later in the morning an argument between two protesters led to an arrest, Santa Cruz police reported.

Friday was the third day the Peace Camp 2010 protest has been held at the city complex.

The demonstration targets the city's camping ordinance, which prohibits sleeping outside between 11 p.m. and 8:30 a.m. It launched in front of the county courthouse on July Fourth and moved to City Hall early Wednesday.

An argument between two protesters around Friday morning merited drew police. One demonstrator claimed another demonstrator stole his bedroll the night before and a security guard told police he overheard the alleged thief threaten the bedroll owner with a knife, Vogel said.

David Hooser, 50, from Washington state, was arrested on suspicion of disturbing the peace and theft, police said.

"It's a sad commentary when the participants of Peace Camp 2010 are the ones disturbing each other's peace," Vogel said.

Demonstrators are calling for the City Council to lift the so-called "sleeping ban" and exonerate everyone cited under the law since 1978. They say the tickets are unreasonable because there isn't enough shelter for the city's large homeless population.

City leaders and some homeless advocates have said the protest represents a small group of homeless and that those people are choosing not to take advantage of the city's many homeless services.

The numbers of campers at the protest has declined from nearly 60 at the courthouse to eight when police went to the demonstration around 2:40 a.m. Friday, Santa Cruz Deputy Police Chief Kevin Vogel said. He credited the reduction to police enforcement.

The camping tickets are less than $100, but if people rack up more than three city ordinance citations and fail to pay the fines, the violations become a misdemeanor.

Of the three people ticketed Friday, two listed the Homeless Services Center on Coral Street as their address. The third told police she was from Indiana but transient, Vogel said. He did not say how long she had been in the area.

As We See It: Snooze, you lose

Posted: 08/13/2010 01:30:26 AM PDT

EDITORIAL: SANTA CRUZ SENTINEL

found online at: http://www.santacruzsentinel.com/localnews/ci_15764951

It was a refreshing wake-up call to hear how Santa Cruz police handled the latest protest of the city's camping ban by homeless activists.

The time for warnings has passed, said Deputy Police Chief Kevin Vogel, and demonstrators who show up and sack out at City Hall will be cited.

The SCPD has years, if not decades, of trying to work with activists, who seemingly ignore the fact that Santa Cruz, city and county, provide far more homeless services than most other communities in the country.

The city's ban on sleeping in public places didn't materialize out of thin air. It was enacted with other regulations because residents long ago said enough was enough with having to wade through downtown crowds of panhandlers, drunks and small-time dope dealers, who give the legitimately homeless a bad name.

Santa Cruz's reaction to an incipient demonstration this week stood in stark contrast to what happened outside the county courthouse on Ocean Street for nearly six weeks. Activists, vagrants and homeless folks set up camp, seemingly thumbing their noses at law enforcement and county officials, who took weeks to begin cleaning up a situation that had become intolerable for many county employees trying to get to work and for visitors to the courthouse.

Finally, sheriff's deputies moved in, and the camp moved out. Some of the campers then tried to move their protest to Santa Cruz City Hall.

We agree with Santa Cruz City Councilman Don Lane, who has long worked to support shelter services for the homeless, that people sometimes fail to make the distinction between protesters and transients -- and those who by circumstance or health find themselves without shelter and need help.

We also hope protest supporters read Thursday's Sentinel report, which quoted Monica Martinez, executive director of the Homeless Services Center in Santa Cruz. Martinez noted that while there were no shelter beds available the day she was interviewed, only five people had signed up to be placed on a waiting list. Every Monday, she said, beds open for those who need shelter and that people who really want a bed will almost always get one relatively quickly.

If camping ban protesters need a place to sleep, the center is at 115 Coral St. in Santa Cruz's Harvey West area. The phone number is 316-5000.

ROBERT NORSE NOTES:

I responded to this misinformation-laced editorial with a challenge at

http://peacecamp2010.blogspot.com/2010/08/challenge-to-sentinel-editor-don-miller.html

I encourage those interested to read it and respond with their thoughts. Also to be ready on fairly short notice, to invite homeless friends to go down to the Homeless Services Center to find the missing beds that both Miller and Martinez claim are there.

I posted this challenge both on Miller's original Thursday blog and on the comment section of his Friday editorial.

Finally, I sent a copy of my challenge to his personal e-mail (dmiller@santacruzsentinel.com).

We'll see if he responds.

There's also an upcoming meeting of the Board of Directors at the Homeless Services Center which folks might be interested in attending, either this Thursday or next out there at 115 Coral St. at 5:30 PM. More news on this as I get it.

Santa Cruz homeless activists take their fight to City Hall, literally; city leaders vow to enforce camping ban

By JENNIFER SQUIRES and J.M. BROWN

August 12, 2010

found online at: http://www.santacruzsentinel.com/ci_15751792?source=most_viewed

NOTE TO READER: This article appears to be an updated version of yesterday's story. --Ed.

SANTA CRUZ -- One person was ticketed when a six-week protest of the Santa Cruz camping ban took up residence on the City Hall lawn early Wednesday.

The so-called Peace Camp 2010 changed tactics overnight when campers moved their demonstration from the county courthouse steps to the city property. Protest leader Christopher Doyon said they moved so they could better target the city ordinance that prohibits camping from 11 p.m. to 8:30 a.m.

Wednesday morning, a few men rested under a tree on the City Hall lawn while a woman and her puppy sat amid cardboard protest signs.

"We have not heard anything from City Hall," said the woman, who goes by Red. "Basically, we'd like people to notice."

A First Alarm security guard patrolling city property noticed the camping demonstration around 5 a.m. and notified police. A 20-year-old Salinas man was cited, according to police.

Officers will return nightly to ticket demonstrators, Deputy Santa Cruz Police Chief Kevin Vogel said.

"We're not going to issue any warnings," Vogel said. "The people involved in this protest have been warned for the past six weeks."

The demonstration began July Fourth on a swath of county-owned land in front of the Santa Cruz County Courthouse. Initially billed as a sleep-only protest, the activity morphed into an all-day hangout and drew criticism because of health and safety concerns.

Demonstrators were cited for violating a state anti-lodging law, not

the so-called "camping ban" that has been contested on and off in Santa Cruz for years.

The sleep-in was designed to specifically violate the municipal ordinance, but county officials said they couldn't enforce the city's law, while city police said they wouldn't write tickets on county property.

Demonstrators want the City Council to rescind the no-camping law and forgive all tickets ever issued under it. Red said it's unfair for people to have to pay hundreds of dollars in fines for falling asleep.

She said she started living on the street in May when her motor home broke down, was towed and sold at auction. She can't go to the homeless shelter because her pup, 8-month-old Wiley, isn't allowed, she said. Also, according to protesters, all of the beds at the Homeless Services Center on Coral Street are taken.

"There's no room at the shelter," Red said. "There's absolutely nowhere for us to go."

City Attorney John Barisone typically dismisses camping tickets if the shelters were full the night the citations were issued. However, Vogel said officers would continue to cite campers at the City Hall demonstration regardless of the situation at the shelter.

"The plan is enforcement," he said. "City Hall is not a place for people to sleep during the nighttime hours."

Councilman Don Lane, a longtime volunteer at the Homeless Services Center, said he supports ticketing those who violate the camping ban.

"The folks who are protesting are not really doing any favors to the greater homeless community in Santa Cruz, most of whom aren't involved in that protest," Lane said, adding that the demonstration tests the community's will to help those who truly need it. "People don't always make a distinction between activists trying to make a political point and the average homeless person who is just trying to get services and make their life a little better."

Lane acknowledged shelter beds can be hard to come by, but he said he doesn't believe the demonstrators have necessarily tried to seek shelter.

"From their perspective, they want the camping law to be enforced and get arrested to make a political point," he said. "What we're trying to do is say to people who are vulnerable to homelessness, 'At least go over and get on a waiting list.'"

Monica Martinez, executive director, confirmed there were no beds available Wednesday and that only five people signed up for the list, which is consistent with the five to 10 people who sign up on average every day. The center has 46 beds available for 30 days at a time, and every Monday beds open for those who are leaving.

"It could take a couple of days or it could take a couple of weeks, but those people who want beds get beds at the center," she said.

The River Street Shelter, a separate facility on the same Harvey West property as the Homeless Services Center, has a 32-bed emergency shelter for adults to stay up to 30 days, but about 60 percent of the space is set aside for referrals from the county mental health agency for clients to stay up to 90 days. The remainder of the beds are subject to a waiting list that requires checking in every two days.