Free Speech Lawsuit Appeal Gets Re-Appealed

City of Santa Cruz's Council Decorum
Upset by Zippy Nazi Salute in 2002 ~~
Facing En Banc Ruling Tuesday, June 22


Story by PAUL ELIAS, Associated Press Writer * Update: 06/19/2010 10:03:26 AM PDT

found online at: http://www.mercuryn ews.com/breaking -news/ci_ 15333443

SAN FRANCISCO AP — Robert Norse's Nazi salute lasted fewer than five seconds before he was removed from the Santa Cruz City Council meeting in handcuffs. But the Santa Claus-bearded gadfly's free speech lawsuit against the city has lasted more than six years and may be destined for the U.S. Supreme Court.

On Tuesday, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals will convene a rare 11-judge panel to consider how thick-skinned and tolerant public officials need to be before they can silence and evict dissenters from meetings.

"It's not about a Nazi salute. It's not about that gesture," said Norse, who has been arrested numerous times for his outspoken support of the homeless, who are highly visible in Santa Cruz. "It's about City Council rules that are becoming more oppressive because they don't want to deal with homeless issues."

Norse said he was protesting what he viewed as the mayor's unfair cutting off of a speaker criticizing the council. Norse said he abhors the Nazi's views.

Santa Cruz city council meetings attract an endless stream of dissenters, gadflies and activists demanding to be heard. In response, the city council enacted rules prohibiting disruptive behavior and imposed time limits on speakers.

"There is an ongoing struggle here to push back on attempts to destroy our meetings," said Santa Cruz Mayor Mike Rotkin. "We wrestle with this all the time. Our goal is to maximize public input."

Rotkin alleges that Norse's salute during a 2002 meeting was part of a concerted effort to disrupt proceedings and was done in support of others that night intent on disrupting the meeting.

"It's not his views that are at issue, I support people's rights to stand up and tells us that we are idiots," Rotkin said.

A three-judge panel of the appeals court sided with the city in a November ruling, which upheld a trial court's decision. But underscoring how contentious the legal issue is, a majority of the 26 active judges on the court voted to rehear the case. Such "en banc" rehearings are rare and often lead to review by the U.S. Supreme Court.

Officials across the country have grappled with this issue for decades, especially when agenda topics are particularly controversial. Most open meeting rules contains prohibitions against disruptive behavior and limit the amount of time speakers can discuss items on the agenda.

The question then becomes, what is disruptive?

"There is a line between disruption and discomfort," said University of California, Davis law professor Vikram Amar. "And the bar for disruption has been set too low—the courts have given local governments too much leeway in defining disruption."

Last week, the chairman of an Elmhurst, Ill. City Council committee evicted Darlene Heslop from a meeting discussing a lobbying contract for rolling her eyes, pretending to yawn and making funny faces.

Last year, the Virginia Supreme Court upheld a disorderly conduct conviction of Duane Howard, an outspoken gadfly who was removed in handcuffs from a Roanoke City Council meeting in 2005 for yelling "let him speak" during a contentious debate over whether to tear down a historic football stadium.

"In the end it becomes a matter of principle," Roanoke's chief attorney Donald Caldwell said of the city's aggressive defense of Howard's conviction and $100 fine. "Your First Amendment rights are not unlimited and for government to work it has to work in an orderly fashion."

For Norse, his arrest on March 12, 2002 was a culmination of tactics employed by the City Council to silence his outspoken support of the homeless population in Santa Cruz.

The issue is a contentious one in Santa Cruz, pitting downtown merchants and longtime residents against college students and activists who view such city ordinances prohibiting sitting and lying on public sidewalks as Draconian overreactions to the highly visible homeless population.

Norse's salute and arrest captured in videotape and a federal trial court judge and a three-judge panel of the appeals court relied on the clip to rule in the city's favor. The five-minute clip shows a frustrated City Council trying to maintain order during a rancorous meeting. At the midway point, the mayor tells a speaker her time has expired and asks her to step away from the lectern. As she leaves, Norse raises his left hand in a Nazi salute in support of the dismissed speaker.

The mayor didn't see the salute, but it was brought to his attention by another council member who urged Norse's eviction. When Norse refused the mayor's eviction order he was arrested and charged with disorderly conduct. The charges were later dropped and Norse sued.

"I didn't intend to disrupt the council meeting, it was just a show of dissent," said Norse, who said council rules allow for clapping but not hissing and also authorizes audience members to silently hold up signs. "It's ridiculous that you can hold up signs, but not your hand."

# # # #

Linda's Hearth note: As it happened, I was present to see the fast withdrawal of Norse's "saluting hand". From where I stood, he clearly did NOT intend to disrupt that meeting, and it was also clearly shown that he was not working in concert with others who spoke during public comments that evening -- and particularly he was not with the woman at the podium who was shut down just before she was finished speaking. -LEL

Fav Poems n Short Stories #4

Daydreaming


I do not love you as if you were salt-rose , or topaz,
or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.
...I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,
in secret, between the shadow and the soul.

I love you as the plant that never blooms
but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers;
thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance,
risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.
I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;
so I love you because I know no other way

than this: where I does not exist, nor you,
so close that your hand on my chest is my hand,
so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep.

-Pablo Neruda

Future funding for local homeless folk

Santa Cruz County Homeless
Action Partnership's RANKING COMMITTEE Meets and Reviews 2010 Submissions for Federal Funding Stream

Linda's Hearth note: I was one of six participants who comprised this year's ranking committee. We met to deliberate last Wednesday afternoon. Our rules: no one could have even a sniff of "confilct of interest" relative to the funds being requested, and each of us would bring a relevant perspective about dealing with local homelessness to the table. We were elected by the executive committee for HAP(described below). Some of us have historical involvement with HAP; some, new to Continuum of Care's federal agenda. Our deliberations hinged on HUD's definitions of terms such as "homelessness," and relied on HUD's prescribed "points" system.

Sunday, June 20, 2010
dateline Santa Cruz - The Homeless Action Partnership's Ranking Committee, convened annually, met June 15 to review and approve local proposals for HUD Continuum of Care funding needed in Santa Cruz County. Tony Gardner, HAP's admin consultant reported "with pleasure" that local proposals reviewed were all approved for submission in the County's annual HUD Continuum of Care application for 2010.

The local organizations whose proposals were approved: Page Smith Community House Transitional Housing—Homeless Services Center; Homeless Management Information System--County; Clean & Sober Transitional Housing--Families In Transition; Scattered Site Transitional Housing--FIT; Brommer Street—Housing Authority/FIT; Sudden Street Transitional Housing—PVSS; Corner House Permanent Housing—Salvation Army; Anderson Homeless Permanent Housing—Santa Crux Community Counseling Center; Freedom Cottages Permanent (supportive) Housing—SCCCC ; MATCH Permanent Housing – Homeless Persons Health Project.

Money For New Program "Hard Costs" Next Year

Each of these renewals are expected to be renewed. Additionally, 'MATCH 2 Permanent Housing', from HPHP, requests funding for a new shared housing project potentially serving half a dozen to a dozen adult individuals, is considered a "bonus" request by HUD.

Gardner, who provides legal support for our HAP -- countywide collaborative -- offered thanks from HAP and from it's CofC function to those project representatives who visited the Ranking Committee for short interviews, answering questions and sharing pertinent information which doesn't particularly fit on HUD computerized grant request forms.

Information and insights, "were invaluable in helping the Ranking Committee understand the full importance" of specialized services being offered on behalf of homeless subgroups in Santa Cruz County, Gardner said. The Continuum of Care is managed via County's Planning Department, in case you want to volunteer or attend regular HAP meetings.

For more information contact Tony Gardner -- tonygardnerconsulting@yahoo.com

PROPOSITION FOURTEEN ON JUNE 8 BALLOT ROUSES CALIFORNIA GREEN PARTY

GREEN PARTY OF CALIFORNIA CONSIDERS CHALLENGING BIG MONEY POLITICS
Save Democracy and Nullify Proposition 14's Hypocracy
http://www.cagreens.org

Greens support lawsuit, consider initiative to nullify Prop. 14; Measure is a
clear example of how big money buys California elections, charges Green Party
gubernatorial nominee

CAN CORPORATIONS BUY CALIFORNIA ELECTIONS ALREADY?

SACRAMENTO (June 9, 2010) - The Green Party of California's gubernatorial
nominee Wednesday called the passage of Prop. 14 and near victories of Prop.
16 and 17 clear examples of how big money is buying elections in California,
using tens of millions of dollars to mislead voters.

The state's most progressive political party said it is mulling its options
after Tuesday, including joining a lawsuit to overturn Prop.14 and a possible
statewide initiative to nullify it.

"The rotten part of Prop. 14 is that what it promised - open elections - is
the exact opposite of what it will do. Prop. 14 will keep dissenting voices
off the big November ballot," said Laura Wells, who won the Green Party
nomination for Governor Tuesday night with a victory over Los Angeles social
justice activist Deacon Alexander.

Greens are already working with representatives of the five other
ballot-qualified parties on plans to challenge Prop. 14 on constitutional
issues. And, they are discussing a possible challenge to Prop. 14 on the
streets - putting a ballot measure on the ballot that would give more power
and more choices to voters, not less.

More details later this week.

At least $54.4 million was spent in support of various corporate propositions for the June 6th election, including $40.5 million on Prop 16, $8.9 million on Prop. 17 and $4.6 million on Prop. 14. Combined, only about $1.2 million was spent to oppose these ballot measures.

"Silicon Valley mega-corporations, big insurance companies, the state Chamber of Commerce and Arnold Schwarzenegger bought the Prop. 14 election which is (heading to) allow corporations to buy other elections, buy candidates and buy our government.

"There will come a day when people will realize that we can either take care
of the mega-corporations and billionaires, or we can take care of the rest of
us. I see days ahead when Californians will, indeed, follow the money, and run
the other way," said Wells, a financial specialist in Oakland.

She also noted the language of Prop. 14 confused voters, and that a similar
measure, but not written in the same manner, was rejected by voters in Oregon.

# # # #

Green Party of California (GPCA) ~ ~ Subscribe: http://www.cagreens.org

Linda's Hearth Support efforts to peel back proposition 14, which was flat-out lying, quite evidently to con Californians into voting against themselves. Once those Money-God people have successfully silenced "third parties," it will be a snap to silence RepubliCrats, also.

Linda's Hearth commends City on a Hill Press for It's Look into Homeless Sleepers

Linda'sHearth Note: This article is copied from City on a Hill Press, which is the student-run newspaper for University of California at Santa Cruz. Wish I had asked the reporter during interview if she could mention Housing NOW! in Santa Cruz, a grassroots project for which much of my 30+ years of family outreach work has been gathered. Thanks, City on a Hill, for not only Steinwick's article, but also for the paper's photo features that surveyed students regarding the anti-public-sleeping situation. I really like the headline!~ LEL

How Do You Sleep at Night?

by Blair Steinwick, City on a Hill Press

A few years ago, advocate for the homeless Linda Lemaster knew a family in Santa Cruz that couldn’t afford a traditional home. Instead, the family members lived and slept in their bus. Soon they couldn’t afford to keep the bus either, and were forced to sell it and split up: mother and daughter went to a shelter, father and son lived under a bridge.

“The whole family came apart,” Lemaster said with a sigh, her voice cracking with tears. “The father was really resourceful, but nobody has what it takes to run a household without a place to be, without plumbing, you know?”

The cost of living was made more difficult for the family of four by parking fines they incurred — which included fines for sleeping in their vehicle between 11:00 p.m. and 8:30 a.m., made illegal in Santa Cruz by law 6.36.010. The law also bans camping, sleeping, and using blankets on public property during those hours.

This ordinance, in conjunction with the lack of emergency shelter, makes finding a good night’s sleep a difficult task for Santa Cruz’s homeless population.

6.36.010

In April, the Santa Cruz Police Department listed 122 service calls regarding illegal camping. Of these, 22 resulted in citations, usually including a fine of around $20 — though subsequent citations can add up to over $100.

“There are approximately 1,000 to 1,500 homeless people in the Santa Cruz area, so it’s a pretty small number, and that’s because the police are really only citing people when they’re in very visible, problematic places,” said Councilmember Don Lane of the per capita number of citations among the homeless population. “It’s not like they’re going out and looking for people to give tickets to.”

Still, the “sleeping ban,” as it has been dubbed by activists, is an issue keeping both homeless people and sympathizers up at night. The ban went into effect in 1978, and has been stirring up controversy ever since.

Santa Cruz is certainly not the first or only California city to have a sleeping ban. This year, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom is pushing to get a similar law passed, which would forbid sitting and lying on sidewalks for most of the day in California’s city by the bay, much to the chagrin of local and national activists.

Los Angeles did not allow people to sit, lie, or sleep on any public sidewalk until Jones vs. City of Los Angeles in 2006 ruled that this was unconstitutional under the Eighth Amendment. Despite the attention sleeping laws receive, not one Santa Cruz City Councilmember has proposed repealing the sleeping ban.

Activists from Santa Cruz’s Homeless United for Friendship and Freedom (HUFF), as well as the Human Rights Organization, have held protests and debates for over a decade with the hopes of repealing the ordinance. They have had no luck to date.

Robert Norse, founder of HUFF, suggested the ban might be an effort to make the city look more appealing.

"The Homeless death rate (in US) is almost twenty years premature." - Becky Johnson

Illustration by Joe Lai

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

“There’s a concerted effort to drive homeless people out of sight, at least, if not out of town,” Norse said.

Lane cites public opinion as the driving force behind the sleeping ban’s creation and longevity.

“I don’t think the majority of the people in the community want [sleeping laws] to be changed …most people have a sense that we don’t really want people to just be able to sleep anywhere,” Lane said. “It’s a real problem … there aren’t enough legal places for everyone to sleep, but the question is, does that mean people should just be able to sleep anywhere?”

Vice Mayor Ryan Coonerty suggested that because Santa Cruz residents support homeless services in other forms, repealing the sleeping ban could actually harm the community.

“Santa Cruz provides more services for homeless people than any other community in California or the country,” Coonerty said. “One of there reasons we do that is that we have community support, and a very quick way to dry up the community support is to allow people to start camping on the streets or in parks.”

Coonerty said the city offers a variety of services, including food distributions and counseling for homeless community members.

“We provide services that other cities are unwilling to provide. … In turn, we have a larger homeless population, and then, because we’ve done the right thing, we’re not allowing people to camp,” Coonerty said. “Whereas the communities that actively drive homeless people out of their communities and give them no tools to turn their lives around, aren’t criticized for having a camping ban there, because they’ve driven all the homeless people out of their community.”

Activist Lemaster said that the ban itself took a toll on the family she knew that was trying to sleep in their car.

“Little things like that ate up their ability to live as a family,” she said. “Homeless families are so at risk, there’s so many things that could go wrong to destabilize them. … One ticket can be a year’s worth of hell. I’ve just seen families pulled apart.”

Hope for Compromise?

“What’s ironic about this whole thing is that it doesn’t have to be this way,” Robert Norse said, his voice rising with passion and anger. “[Santa Cruz] needs to set up areas where homeless people can sleep and park their vehicles.”

Having specific camping and parking areas is an approach that has been tried before.

In 2000, Linda Lemaster led the Homeless Issues Task Force in Santa Cruz. The task force researched and discussed different issues plaguing homeless people in the area, then presented the City Council with a list of suggested actions it could take to help curb these problems. Among the findings was an idea to have a designated area where people can legally sleep at night without being harrassed, a so-called “Tent City,” a goal that never fully came to fruition.

“We got kind of a cold shoulder from the City Council to most of these recommendations,” Lemaster said. “Maybe they did whatever they had to formally, but they didn’t even discuss it … because most of [the recommendations] were either controversial, or the city thought it would cost something.”

Don Lane cites a different reason for not currently having designated sleeping areas in Santa Cruz.

“There have been [homeless camping sites] in the past, and, every time that the city has tried to do that, it ended up being pretty much a disaster and in disorder,” Lane explained. “Even the majority of homeless people who were staying in those camping areas started moving away from them themselves.”

According to Ryan Coonerty, the chaos would put a strain on the city and present insurmountable challenges.

“If you set up an area like that, then you are responsible for maintaining public health and safety … you’re screwed,” Coonerty said. “You’re basically telling people ‘it’s OK to camp here, and you’ll be safe,’ which is a big responsibility … both the health and safety of people was compromised.”

In spite of housing woes, there is hope for those who can’t put a roof over their heads. Shelters in Santa Cruz do offer some relief.

Shelter for Some

During easier times, Jane Cooper* lived in a rental house with her 13-year-old daughter and three sons, aged 11, five, and 10 months. Then one day, the house burned down.

“We lost everything. Pictures, keepsakes, my animals,” said Cooper, sitting in a cozy meeting area in the Santa Cruz Homeless Services Center. “We just left with what we had on. … I still have nightmares, they [the children] have nightmares all the time about the fire.”

The family didn’t have renters’ insurance, and Jane had trouble finding work as a veterinary technician. As a result, the Cooper family was forced to stay in a slew of hotels, and then an empty rental house owned by Jane’s aunt — “We were sleeping on a hardwood floor,” Cooper said.

On Feb. 17 of this year, Jane got onto the waiting list to stay at the Rebele Family Shelter in Santa Cruz, part of a complex of shelters run by the Homeless Services Center. After a couple month’s wait, the Cooper family moved in during early April. They have been living there ever since.

“I love it here. I love it. It’s been very, very positive for me and my kids,” Cooper said with a smile. “It’s a lot of burden off our shoulders, just knowing that we have a place to lie down and food to eat. And everyone’s been really supportive.”

The Rebele Shelter, which receives funding from the federal, state, and city level, as well as private donations, houses families like the Coopers for between three to six months, usually around 28 families at a time. The families come from a variety of different situations.

“We get families who are sleeping in their cars, who are couch surfing, who are in hotels, who have a family member to stay with. So it really depends on the family,” said Sonya Goodpaster, a case manager for the shelter. “Part of the case plan here is getting sustainable, long-term housing, so we work with different agencies for that. … We’ve also had a couple of families who faced different barriers, as far as immigration and employment and whatnot, and have had to go to different shelters.”

Shelter Director Letita Schwarz said that about 85 percent of families do find secure housing after leaving. She also noted one condition required to stay at any of the Services Center’s shelters, which include the Paul Lee Loft Shelter and the Page Smith Community House, along with the Rebele Family Shelter.

“We do require that this is a clean and sober place,” Schwarz said. “So, if they have prior drug history, I will drug test them before coming into the shelter.”

Advocate for the homeless Becky Johnson said that this policy unfairly discriminates.

“Food, shelter, and sanitation should be provided for anyone who is without, just out of basic human dignity,” Johnson said.

Despite the success of the shelters, Goodpaster emphasized that Santa Cruz lacks adequate emergency shelter.

“You get people who call the shelter wanting emergency housing, like ‘I need a place tomorrow night or tonight.’ And, unfortunately, our program is a waitlist,” Goodpaster said. “I think one of the obstacles that I’m facing today is a single father with a 15-year-old son. … He calls all the places and they’re all full, he wants to know where he can go.”

There is the Santa Cruz National Guard Armory, which provides emergency shelter, but only during the winter months, and Schwarz said it’s currently lacking funding.

Vice Mayor Coonerty said it is unclear how much of Santa Cruz’s population is without housing, and called the statistic “difficult to calculate.”

“Some homeless people are sleeping on couches, or hotel rooms, or other places,” he said.

Coonerty also said that no one can receive citations for camping or sleeping in their vehicles on nights when shelters are completely full.

According to the City of Santa Cruz Municipal Code, however, “Any citation issued for a violation of this chapter shall be dismissed by the City Attorney in the interest of justice if, at the time of citation issuance, the winter shelter at the Santa Cruz National Guard Armory is filled to capacity.” This means that campers only have this particular legal protection in the winter months.

Additionally, Linda Lemaster said that because many homeless people do not know this information, they end up getting tickets anyway, and don’t have adequate information to contest the charges.

“If they call the Homeless Resource Service Center, and they say ‘No, we have no beds’ … then those people’s tickets get dropped,” Lemaster said. “But how many [homeless people] know that?”

“Not One Face of Homelessness”

Cooper hopes to rent a house when she leaves the Rebele Shelter in a few months. Until then, she says she’s realizing more every day that being homeless is not always the individual’s fault.

“Everybody has their different stories. Some people lost their homes to foreclosure, some people lost their homes [from being] laid off, our house burned down,” Cooper said. “I mean, we’re all normal people,” she added with a laugh.

Rebele Family Shelter Director Letita Schwarz said that people don’t always end up on the street because of poor decisions, and that, sometimes, it’s simply a matter of “unforseen circumstances.”

“There’s not one face of homelessness,” Schwarz said.“There’s not one picture of who that person is, or what that person looks like, or what their circumstances have been. I think there’s a lot of misconception that someone has done the wrong things or made the wrong bad choices, and that’s why they’re here.”

The debate over the sleeping ban will most likely continue for years, and shelters will do their best to accommodate people in need. Meanwhile, activists will keep working to see that every homeless person has a safe place to sleep legally. According to the Washington Post, the average life expectancy for homeless people in the U.S. in 2006 was 51 years, compared to 78 for the average American.

“The homeless death rate [in the U.S.] is almost 20 years premature,” activist Johnson said. “Robbing a homeless person of sleep ultimately deprives them of life.”

~~~~~~

*Name has been changed.

Originally Published June 3, 2010
© 2010 City on a Hill Press, Vol 44 issue 30

"The Insanity Virus"

BRAIN MAPPING:
Has Science Found a Way To Cure Schizophrenia, Autism and MS?

by Linda Lemaster, Last Chance Rd.

I read with undivided interest, in Discovery Magazine, about 'The Insanity Virus'. Brains and minds and constellations of neurons are a topic of study and interest in my household. Not least because in 1959 my mother hung herself, after somehow wrestling herself free of a recurring nut house nightmare.

This quickie review is not about my mom; I am recommending this news that borught her to my thoughts. Her name was Ann. Story I am reviewing begins on page 58 in the current issue, June 2010.

The Insanity Virus, by Douglas Fox, wears a huge subtitle: "Schizophrenia has long been blamed on bad genes or even bad parents. Wrong, says psychiatrist Fuller Torrey. The real culprit, he claims, is a virus that lives entwined in every person's DNA".

He goes on to describe that little bugger's life cycle, features several families whose lives have been quite literally destroyed by their children's mental problems, and then he polishes off the article with encouragement for us all. He says "a simple neurological test" can reveal those cases wherein this retrovirus has taken hold millions of years before any of us were concieved.

The story begins by comparing twins, one of whom suddenly struggled with autism while the other continued forwardly in his B+ life. These twins have helped science get a more plausible handle on the "genetics versus environment", or t0 jingoise, the "nature versus nurture" discourse. In short, in this article the scientists say, "both!" Like those forces are too entangled and begin way before any one person's birth. and yet they get "triggered", or activated, by mortal stress.

There are 0ther interesting details to recommend this article, and I enjoyed the read. Most importantly, this writer shares a wholly new theory by claiming schizophrenia, autism and multiple sclerosis are all seen as the result of very ancient retroviruses and retro-fungi lodged dormant within us two-legged mammals.

Check out this article, dear Reader, and let me know if this excites you the way it has excited me? Have we finally, maybe, come a long way since the lobotomy's nobel prize-winning Ice Pick? Or are we still stuck between a rock and a hard place when it comes to the cause of such devastating and often sudden "brain" dysfunctions and all the suffering it causes?

I found it interesting the author attributes more to the nervous system for incubating and reacting to those bugs, than to the brain itself.

I appreciate the consistently clear exposition in The Insanity Virus because science jargon can leap quickly beyond my reach.

I am looking forward to learning more and more on this, and already I am "seeing" (in my own brain, at any rate) another possible world wherein this find may be the long and lucky stride toward a resolution for auto-immune dysfunction as well?

Fav Poems n Short Stories #3

Love

I cannot sleep in your prescence.
In your absence, tears prevent me.
You watch me My Beloved
On each sleepless night and
Only You see the difference.


...Rumi