The Face of Education Cuts: What They Actually Mean for One Local School
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WATSONVILLE —In the lobby of Landmark Elementary School, Lupita Galvan, the office manager, answers calls from parents, most of them in Spanish.
To her left is a poorly lit nurse’s office, no nurse in site, with the door open. A boy sits on a plastic bed holding his knee.
And to her right sits an overflowing bulletin board. TEACHER WISH LISTS, it reads. A dozen or so wish lists are stapled to the board. Each one has a picture of the teacher, her name and a list of basic school supplies that she’ll have to dig into her own pocket to pay for if parents don’t chip in. The lists include requests for pencils, markers, glue sticks, paper, tissues and printer cartridges.
But their biggest wishes don’t make the list.
After the Pajaro Valley school board announced an anticipated loss of $17 million in state funding this year, the teachers’ requests have become more fundamental. They hope for a library, buses, after school programs, music classes and most alarmingly, their own jobs.
“If these budget cuts go through we’ll lose a third or more of our staff,” said Jennifer Wildman, the principal at Landmark Elementary School. “We’re scrambling asking ourselves what we can cut. But we’ve already cut so much.”
Now she is asking herself not what she can cut but who.
“We’re being forced to ask what’s more important to the school — a custodian or a librarian,” Wildman said. After a brief pause, she added, “Well, the bathroom has to be cleaned.”
In five years of operation, Landmark Elementary School has seen two major budget cuts. Last year alone, the district sliced $8 million from the district’s budget. At Landmark Elementary School that has meant pulling the plug on music classes and slimming down the physical education programs. Long before that teachers started to dig into their own wallets for basic school supplies.
But with a $17 million deficit now lingering over the Pajaro Valley Unified School District (PVUSD), changes are about to cut right to the bone.
Wildman said the cutbacks would impact all levels and departments in the school district. Pay freezes, pay cuts and layoffs are all possible. If half of Landmark Elementary School’s teachers receive pink slips — a worst case scenario — that would push class sizes beyond 30 students. This at an already underperforming school where only 20 percent of the students read at the state level.
Most of the students come from socio-economically disadvantaged homes. More than 75 percent of them receive free lunches through a federal program designed to provide nutritious lunches to those who can’t afford them.
“The kids are already being hit hard by the economy,” Wildman said. “Their families are losing their homes and they need clothes.”
But the added pressures of larger classrooms, fewer teachers and fewer after school programs could mean even fewer opportunities to achieve success, according to Roberto Torres, the assistant principal at Landmark Elementary School.
The two administrators applauded the teachers for their hard work in the face of these potentially dire circumstances.
“Teachers are tricky,” Wildman said. “They can make do with very little.”
That means working 12-hour days sometimes and grading homework on weekends. But they do an excellent job of keeping the students focused on school and not school cuts, Wildman said.
“The students have no idea.”
So now, Landmark Elementary School must wait along with the rest of PVUSD for the final draft of the district budget that will be released on March 15. The district will send out pink slips to teachers and employees on that date. Though the state’s final budget won’t be finished until late June, the district is preparing for the worst.
“The big thing right now is the uncertainty,” Torres said. “What we have now is barely enough. But it could get a lot worse.”
For now the school is holding staff meetings to discuss what else they could possibly cut. They’re hoping that parents, teachers and administrators will continue sending letters to local and state legislators. But other than that, all that is left to do is wait.
“We’re just hoping it’s crazy talk, and everything will settle,” Wildman said, with a measured laugh. “We’ll do what we have to when the time comes.”
Distance performs at open mic
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A riveting performance at open mic night.
Peter Lindener Stands in Defense of Freedom of Expression, Talks of Civil Disobedience
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Peter Lindener is not happy about the city council’s recent ruling that music and art cannot happen together. You probably don’t know Peter Lindener by name. You probably know him as “that saxophone guy from downtown”. Or maybe you’ve never taken notice, save for a brief moment walking down Pacific when you hear his bluesy notes and see him smiling back at you. That’s the Peter Lindener that downtown Santa Cruz used to know. But now Peter is rather upset because working musicians have been caught in the crossfire over the battle for a safe and respectable downtown. The Santa Cruz City Council recently passed a package of ordinances that places greater restrictions on where musicians can play their instruments and use a “display device”, such as a hat or guitar case to collect tips.
Among the most questionable restriction found in the ordinance package bars local musicians from performing within 10 feet of public sculptures and other works of art. In a recent email to city council (passed on to the Courant Times) Lindener expresses his outrage:
” …Don [Lane] pretty much spotted the concern of somehow art installations somehow being declared as incompatible with Musical performance… if the Musician happened to put out a place to put tips. …I chose to relocate to Santa Cruz because Pacific Ave has the potential to be one very nice place for musical collaboration with others one might meet on the avenue… I am concerned enough to feel like I would want to speak up for others who might feel more effected by this evenings revision of places considered suitable for making music in the City Of Santa Cruz.
I do feel it a bit ironic that somehow amid it’s not all so clear rationals for where musical performance might be considered permissible, Public Art and Music will not be allowed to coexist withing ten feet of one another, for exactly what reason, perhaps might in the end escape most all of us….”
Musicians have a right to raise concern over the ordinance, which explicitly labels as incompatible musical performances (for tips) with our many great public works of art. These are not the people urinating in public, panhandling aggressively, verbally accosting those walking by. Musicians are not the vagrants that these ordinances are designed to target. These are the people who are being unjustly caught in the crossfire. These are the very people who bring Santa Cruz its unique and wondrous charm and provide free entertainment to all of the downtown shoppers.
And so, I am inspired to hear Lindener announce to city council (via an email shared with the Courant Times) his intentions to explicitly disobey this new ordinance which he feels is an infringement on his constitutional rights:
…I am currently considering explicitly making music within the ten foot exclusion zone where Art and Music are not legally allowed to coexist, and to do so while placing a receptacle for tips, just to make my point…… I will be expecting to be cited, for that matter I will notify the authorities of this infringement myself, when cited, I will refuse to sign, and expect that the full consequences of the violation will then unfold. I will then expect prompt due process as I will decline any terms for release on bail. Then before the court I will question the constitutionality of these ordinances and then rest my case after submitting a copy of Thoreau’s Civil Disobedience also into evidence. One option the city would have could to refuse to cite me for my infringement, if so, we would document such, and the issues of selective or perhaps non enforcement would likely then at some point also follow………
These charged words bring to my mind the image of Rosa Parks, who refused to sit in the back of a bus for her belief in equality of life. She is widely regarded as a hero for standing up for the equality she believed in. And it is by the same logic, the same token of heroism that if art and music cannot co-exist legally in downtown Santa Cruz, Peter Lindener is preparing to act in defiance, to stand up for his basic beliefs about freedom of expression. And all he asks for, his one request of city council, is that art and music can co-exist legally, in the same place at the same time. He asks this of the same city council that never fully explained why they were banning musicians from public art.
In fact it was Ryan Coonerty who justified the the public ordinance 5.43.020, which bans working musicians from downtown sculptures. He stated at the city council meeting on Jan. 26 that this was a necessary ordinance so that the public can comfortably approach and enjoy the public works of art, which they can’t necessarily do if working musicians are performing in the immediate vicinity.
But are the musicians themselves not creating works of art, live and on the spot? Is the live music not more enjoyable than the sculptures themselves? Whereas the latter is subject to personal taste, the former is undeniable. And so, to draw the argument full circle, it is by the same logic that one could arguably contend that public sculptures should not be installed within 10 feet of performing musicians.
Some of the best music I’ve ever heard in my life I’ve heard downtown, from incredibly skilled and talented musicians. I understand the need for a safe, enjoyable downtown experience. But street musicians are the very reason that I and many others enjoy downtown Santa Cruz. Why were they targeted in the recent package of ordinances? How many people complained that they didn’t have access to sculptures because of musicians? How many would trade the musicians for the sculptures?
I have to hit the streets now, to find out the answers to all these questions. In the mean time, keep an eye out for Peter Lindener playing his saxophone in musical defiance of a city council who ruled that art and music cannot happen together.
Santa Cruz City Council Cracks Down on Homeless, Panhandlers, Street Musicians, Political Tablers, Streetperformers
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Inside the City Council chambers it was warm. Local business owners had gathered for the epic showdown that was to be tonight’s meeting dressed to varying degrees of suits, button down shirts, fine leather shoes and sport jackets, each of them convinced that the ordinances at hand will have a direct bearing on their business’s bottom line. And maybe they’re right.
Outside in the cold, by chance or by design, stood almost all of the homeless members of the community in attendance. They had shown up to find out the ways in which their lives would be fundamentally impacted tonight, and to raise what meager voice they had against the new ordinances on the table which arguably aimed the crosshairs on each one. Some of them raised their voices loud and with anger. They might have been drunk. Others did nothing but sit on a bench outside, listening to the whole thing from the loudspeaker in somber distress. Their supporters gathered round outside as well, who ranged from UCSC and Cabrillo students, to long-time residents of 30+ years.
It is the opinion of this reporter that almost everyone in attendance was either misinformed or unclear as to what the package of ordinances entailed. I had reviewed them for hours before the meeting, and knew first hand how complicated and bureaucratic they really were. Essentially what the entire package amounted to, when you boil it down, was giving the police more coercive power over the homeless, pan handlers, activist tablers, street musicians and street performers. It did this through increasing the restrictions placed on where these groups of people can legally be present.
By chance or by design, the city council members themselves were confused and unclear with respect to the new ordinances. The seven ordinances in the package were the result of a collaboration between Mayor Cynthia Matthews, and council members Ryan Coonerty and Lynn Robinson. The goals were to bolster business downtown and enhance people’s safety and willingness to come downtown and spend time there. Yet they drew sharp criticisms from some members of the public, who cried foul over the back-door meetings that Matthews, Coonerty and Robinson had with the Downtown Association and other owners of local businesses. These meetings, through which the new ordinances were drafted, were closed off to the rest of city council and the general public.
The lack of transparency, combined with the rushed process in which it was brought up publicly for the first time, voted on, and unanimously approved all in the same night, represents an erroneous system of local government. These ordinances are real. They effect people’s lives. Based on public comment tonight, there were many, many people who felt passionately both in favor of and against this ordinance package. It is therefore my feeling that this is not an issue that should have been rushed through, but one that should be carefully deliberated over a period of at least two city council meetings. But I digress.
It was city council member Don Lane who made the only real attempt to discuss the laws in any depth, questioning specific aspects of the different ordinances in an attempt to gain clarification on what he was about to vote for. He also publicly noted the fact that today was the first opportunity council members had to discuss the ordinance package. The ordinances in question, of which there were seven, ranged from sensible to just plain illogical and should have been voted on idividually instead of an all-or-none fashion.
One ordinance in the package was aimed at people who don’t take citation from law enforcement seriously. It made three unanswered citations an arrestable offense. This could potentially be seen as a relocation program by which homeless people are physically removed from the streets and thrown in jail. If you examine the logic of this ordinance in detail, one thing becomes immediately apparent. No homeless person has the money to pay their citations. The vast majority of citations given to homeless and panhandlers probably go unanswered (and I have to check with the police department for confirmation). Previously, you could get literally hundreds of citations and still walk the streets a free man. Now after just three unpaid citations you would be arrested. If you can’t make bail, which most homeless and panhandlers can’t, you’re going to jail.
Another ordinance imposes a one-hour limit on public benches. This was originally described to be enforced based on complaint. However, upon deliberation with city council, prompted by the suggestions of Don Lane, this was expanded to include a definitive time limit on all benches to one hour by the entire public and not based upon complaint. Lane’s contention was that imposing a time limit on benches based solely on complaint would result in the selective targeting of homeless people along with people who just look homeless.
And then there was ordinance 5.43.020 which shrinks the spaces avaialble to street performers and musicians. Under the new ordinance anyone with a display device, which includes a hat for people to throw money into, can no longer perform within fourteen feet of any public sculpture or artwork, directory or trash compactor.
Members of the public spoke, one after another, for hours. It seemed that almost everyone who supported the ordinances were local business owners. However, one notable speech was given by a young woman who used to be homeless and pulled herself out of her situation to overcome. She stated that not once had she resorted to panhandling to being uncivil, and urged city council to pass the ordinance package.
For each person that supported the ordinances someone spoke out against them. Wyatt Johnson, a student at Cabrillo College, vowed to boycott downtown shops if these ordinances were passed. Colin Campbell Klein, a local writer and graphics arts designer, emphasized that the underlying problem we’re dealing with is poverty in the midst of a global economic crisis and that these ordinances don’t address the real problem. Klein went on to say that, “I think there is an underlying unconscious fear of people in the middle class who don’t like the fact that the homeless are reminders of where they might be in six months if the economy keeps going in the direction that it is.”
Ten minutes or so before 11 p.m., after hearing public comments for hours and then each stating why they support the ordinance package, the city council voted unanimously to approve the entire package of seven ordinances.
Economic Crisis Hits Home
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AARON FLYNN ARRIVED TO work early as usual two weeks ago. Nine-thirty in the morning. A Circuit City store manager and employee of eight years, he went to work opening the store.
He unlocked the doors. Loaded the registers. Updated employees with the daily news.
But while he was tucking a drawer of cash into a register, an employee approached him with his own news. Have you heard about the layoffs, he asked.
Minutes later Flynn read along with millions of Americans skimming morning papers what he most feared. Circuit City Stores, the nation’s second-largest consumer electronics chain and his security net for more than eight years, was going belly up.
“We had an idea that we might possibly be bought out,” said Flynn, a single father who supports a 3-year-old daughter. “But no one mentioned the idea that we’d close for good.”
Saving no time at all, he began calling old friends and colleagues hoping there might be one open job in this broken economy.
Flynn and 50 employees at the Santa Cruz branch will lose their jobs on March 21. They will join 34,000 other Circuit City employees globally.
The 59-year-old company, originally known as Wards Company, announced it would liquidate all of its merchandise and layoff its entire workforce on Jan. 16. It became one of the latest victims of a serious economic crisis that has paralyzed the world economy.
Yesterday Home Depot, the country’s largest home improvement retailer, announced it was cutting 7,000 jobs and closing its Expo stores as the recession continues to freeze the housing market.
“I’m always worried I’ll be laid off,” said Robin Volstorff, a part-time employee at the Home Depot in Santa Cruz. She said they’ve been cutting hours since last November. The part-timers are the first to go.
Santa Cruz-based Plantronics, the world’s leading producer of lightweight headsets, announced it was cutting 18 percent of its workforce earlier this month.
The crisis has pushed unemployment past 10 percent in Santa Cruz. Watsonville has reached 21 percent, nearly three times the national average.
That’s more bad news for guys like Scott Glass, who has sold TVs at Circuit City for more than a year. Since finding out he’d be fired in March, he’s lost his house and totaled his car. And no one’s hiring. Now he spends his days split between sending out resumes, couch surfing and walking a few miles to a job that won’t exist in less than two months.
“I’m sending out resumes everywhere,” Glass said, with a somber sigh. “Anything I can possibly think of.”
So far, Circuit City hasn’t provided any resources for employees who will soon be cast into a needle-thin job market, according to Flynn. “There’s no communication from up top,” he said. “I talk to my boss, the liquidator, and as far as I know he is all that is left.”
Flynn has posted fliers in the break room that the Job Exchange, a national job placement firm, dropped off recently. But other than that these employees are on their own. “A few employees have asked me for letters of recommendation,” he said. “But that’s about all I can do.”
As for Flynn himself, single father and soon to be ex-manager — he’s optimistic that he’ll be able to find a new job. He has an interview this Wednesday. But he warns it won’t be so easy for a lot of these employees.
Another store manager is on maternity leave, he explained. She’s expecting her sixth child. She will lose her job along with everyone else at the store on March 21.
“A lot of these guys will have to go on unemployment,” Flynn said, waving his hands out on a store full of empty boxes, discount posters, and sullen employees in red. “This is their livelihood.”
Read more of Daniel’s work at his blog, DanielWilkinson.me.
Peace Scholars from the Middle East Present (and Pose an Important Question to All of You)
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A small group of 12 gather at 7:30 pm on the 25th of January to allow for UC Santa Cruz’s visiting Peace Scholars to make their presentation on their role, their objectives, perspectives, and insights. Who are the Peace Scholars? The United States Agency for International Development has launched a large scholarship program for young leaders in the North African and Near East region to gain leadership skills and cultural exposure both within their own region and in the United States. With an emphasis on forging solutions to the regions many issues and a commitment to community service, these impressive individuals shared their experiences to the small but receptive audience with strength, passion, and grace.
Nancy Sharabi
The first speaker of the night is an education major from Egypt, with her ambitions focused on working within the Egyptian government in the field of education, aspiring to the position of Minister of Education. “Through education, we can achieve anything,” Ms. Sharabi asserts throughout her presentation. During the course of their scholarship she explains that the participants have learned not only the differences between the Arab countries and between the Middle East and the United States, but also the similarities. As they learned about other cultures and their values, they have been through a lot of personal transformation. Despite differences amongst the Scholars, she explained that they were able to negotiate productive solutions to many of the regions problems. She believes that it is through experiential learning that we can break down barriers of misunderstanding and misinformation.
Zakaria Dalli
The second speaker completed his degree in American Studies from Morocco, aspiring to work in providing better job opportunities in his country. More along cultural lines, Mr. Dalli exposes many cultural misunderstandings between the cultures of the Middle East/North Africa and the United States. Frustrated by the common assumption that his country only has camels, he addresses the need for the people of the United States to expand their awareness of lifestyles and realities outside their borders. He explains that the media in the US is not a productive force for education on topics regarding the Middle East. In addition to culture, he remarks on the need for citizens of the United States to take part in political consumerism, supporting companies that do not have conflicting political ties with their customers. Mr. Dalli makes it clear that the US policy around the world is not bringing peace, but is in fact having the opposite effect, and he hopes that the people will influence their government to take a different direction.
Anonymous
The third speaker chose to have her name withheld and is from Palestine, majoring in French Literature with a desire to work with disabled children. She acknowledged that different people have different ideas of peace, but that her vision of peace consists of “the ability to live normally, peacefully, and with identity.” In agreement with Mr. Dalli, she communicated her frustration with US media outlets and their lack of substantial and accurate information regarding the Middle East. Due to the recent events between Hamas, the government of the Gaza Strip, and Israel, the speaker stated that the war was “not equal in casualties, and not equal in weapons,” emphasizing this point with the statement “…homemade rockets vs. chemical weapons? Is that fair?” Education, in her opinion, can be the medium that can rid the world of hate and misunderstandings.
The Peace Scholars Question
Following their presentation, they wished to use this publication as a medium to inquire to the reason that the people of the United States are not interested in knowing the truth about the Middle Eastern culture, politics, and point-of-view. They wish that the people here would be as interested in knowing the realities of the situation and not simply being content with the information they receive from the media and the government.
Please leave your comments if you would like to respond to this question or to the presentation as a whole, and your responses will be given to the presenters.
For more information on the Peace Scholars program, please visit:
http://www.usaid.gov/locations/asia_near_east/countries/omep/
A closer look at Eight Tens at Eight
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The idea was beautiful in its simplicity: eight plays, each ten minutes in length. Curtains draw at 8 p.m. sharp. This was the vision of Wilma Marcus, the artistic director who began the program known as “Eight Tens at Eight.” Today, fourteen years later, it is Brian Spencer who has taken the reigns as Artistic Director of the sellout show that has fast become a Santa Cruz tradition. And so, on a rainy Friday afternoon, I sat down with him to discuss the history of the show, the current production, and the future of the program.
Brian Spencer, artistic director of Eight Tens at Eight
He begins by explaining that originally, Eight Tens was open only to submissions from local playwrights. Slowly but surely, over the years, word of the event started to spread and they expanded their submissions. They started receiving submissions from all over the West Coast. As they continued to expand, and open the submissions to everyone, playwrights from all over the country made submissions. This last year, they crossed a major milestone when they put on their first international play, a submission they received all the way from Russia.
Submissions for Eight Tens at Eight tends to get hectic these days. Actors’ Theatre, the company that puts on the show, received no less than one hundred and fifty five plays submitted this past season. Because one written page roughly translates into one minute of showtime, submissions are limited to ten pages. However, Brian tells me that it is the first page which holds the most importance. Many of the plays will never be read past the first page.
Actors’ Theatre emlpoys the help of five readers, all with varying backgrounds in theater but none of whom are playwrights, to narrow down the entire pool of submissions to a mere 16 plays. When you have over a hundred plays to read, Brian explains, the first page needs to grab you. If the first page of a play doesn’t grab the reader, how is it supposed to captivate an audience? The first page is critical.
The sixteen plays that make it past the five readers are then passed on to the eight directors, each one of whom will be directing one of the final plays chosen. The directors vote on, and eventually arrive at a list of eight plays that will be produced for Eight Tens at Eight. But not all is lost for the eight plays that didn’t make the final cut. The eight runner ups are labeled “The Best of the Rest” and are read at a separate event.
To keep the event fresh year after year, the readers and directors responsible for the judging submissions are rotated and replaced. Sometimes, however, one or two are asked to participate again the following year. For example, two of the readers that participated this year were also readers last year as well. Because each reader and director may have intrinsic preferences for a certain genre, writing style, setting, etc. the rotation of readers and directors is seen as a necessary practice. This year, the plays selected by the readers and directors fell into a mix of genres. Two of the plays are dramas, one is an existential / character study, one is an experimental performance piece, three are comedies and one is a tragedy.
Sometimes there is friction between the playwright and director, especially if the playwright is local and drops in on rehearsals. Spencer related to me a situation that ocurred in the past in which a local playwright, who shall remain nameless, was unhappy with how a specific director was directing her play. She kept giving her input and disproval of the director. The situation continued to escalate and she was asked to leave by the director. On occasion, some playwrights have a hard time dealing with the fact that when a play is turned over to the Actors’ Theatre for production, the director takes full control over the creation aspect of how the play is brought to life.
Spencer related another situation to me in which he directed a play a number of years back. The playwright was so unhappy with how he directed it that the playwright did not talk to him for over a year. Eventually, the playwright said that he saw his play directed in San Francisco the way that he wanted it, and ultimately came to the conclusion that the play didn’t work that way and Spencer did a much better job with the direction.
Spencer assured me that such conflicts are quite rare, and only occur with local playwrights who drop in on the rehearsals. A much more common problem is getting the plays to a length of just ten minutes. Even though submissions are limited to ten pages, even a ten page play can exceed ten minutes of stage time. In such cases, cuts need to be made to the script. Such cuts are made to plays almost every year.
Unfortunately for Santa Cruz, the Actors’ Theatre has had to make an entirely different type of cut this year. The company, which traditionally puts on a full season that consists of Eight Tens at Eight along with three other plays for a full season, has had to cut two plays from the roster. So this year, in addition to Eight Tens, Actors’ Theatre will only be putting on one other play. Sadly, they cannot afford to put on a full season; ticket sales in this economy cannot support it.
Thankfully, Eight Tens at Eight is incredibly well insulated from a troubled economy. They sold out on opening night and they sold out on the following Friday as well, on the 23rd of January. The show will go on every Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday from now until February 15th. Tickets cost $17 for students and seniors, and $20 for general admission. If that is too pricey for your wallet, on Thursdays and Sundays they run a special: two tickets for just $25.
As for Brian Spencer, he’s looking forward to the future. Despite the fact that he has been with Actors’ Theatre for 25 years since its inception, this is his first year as the Artistic Director of Eight Tens at Eight, and he’ll be at it again next year, too. The way he sees it, ” This is the year for me to learn how to do it properly, and next year is when I will hone my skills and put to use everything I have learned.”
Actors Theatre Calendar -including show dates and times
Robert Norse issues charged email to Mayor, City Council
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In a highly critical and scathing email sent to the Santa Cruz city council, mayor Cynthia Matthews, and local activists, Robert Norse raises his concerns for the upcoming city council meeting and condemns their attempt to curtail the public’s ability to voice their opinions. The email is republished here with permission:
Cynthia:
Please set aside at least five minutes for HUFF (Homeless United for Friendship & Freedom) for the evening agenda’s 7-part Downtown Ordinance item.
I encourage you to expand time beyond the 3 minutes for individuals/5 minutes for organizations traditional speaking times. Or break up the item into several sections so they can realistically be the subject of meaningful community input.
You declined to provide any advance information on this item, though I requested it of you a week ago by phone. Special interest groups have met behind closed doors without public input or input from homeless advocacy groups. There seems to have been a special attempt to keep this hushhush. The City Attorney refused to release any information when I sent him an e-mail a week ago. This is the opposite of a transparent process and one that involves the community.
The measures were developed without any formal presentation to the Downtown Commission and weren’t even on its Thursday morning agenda. In the past, without exception that I remember, every Downtown Ordinance involving such significant modifications have gone through that board–stacked as it is with harsher enforcement bias. What is your reason for ignoring it this time?
Thus far you’ve chosen to retain Councilmember Coonerty’s reduction of public comment through cutting testimony time, cramming everything onto afternoon agendas, and refusing the public the right to remove items from the Consent Agenda–in oppostion to the practice in virtually every other California city.
These acts of disdain for community input only heighten tensions in difficult economic times–as do the criminalization of the poor people for the convenience of the police under pretext of dealing with “behavioral problems”. They also reflect badly on you.
An expression of outrage from the audience should not be the trigger for threatening to remove someone from the chambers, unless it meaningfully disrupts the meeting. That is the point of the costly lawsuit the City has chosen to spend over $100,000 pursuing defending its “rules of decorum”. Nor should an attempt to respond to personal comments made be the basis for a threat from the chair to shut down the publci process for a member of the public. I have seen both these kinds of actions from you and other Council members in recent meetings.
Though we had long-standing disagreements, I was heartened by your accessibility when you were last Mayor several years ago. I felt you had grown in office. Now I fear you are taking a more repressive path.
Please advise me of whether you intend to restore what meagre time we had a few years ago, and confirm my speaking time on the Downtown Ordinances item. Again, I suggest you break it up and allow public comment on it in sections–if it is to be more than a token rubberstamping.
Thanks,
Robert Norse
(423-4833)
Brent shows Santa Cruz the harmonium
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It was in India two summers ago that Brent found it. An Indian friend whom he was staying with during his travels took him to where they were sold, and helped him get a good price. Eighty dollars later he was the owner of a brand new, beautiful harmonium -an instrument that is as commonplace in India as the guitar is in America. It wasn’t by chance that Brent came to acquire a harmonium; he had been on the lookout for one, drawn to its portability and unique sound.
I’m at Brent’s house on the east side of Santa Cruz as he explains the history to me. We’re seated on the floor of his practice/meditation room, sipping yerba matte. He tells me that during his final days in India that his friend took him to Delhi to find the instrument. As a token of his gratitude, Brent gave his friend a plastic recorder. In India, the recorder is a very rare and foreign instrument.
Wearing a blue sweater and faded rainbow suspenders that seem to come straight from an old 50’s movie, Brent performs John Wayne Gacy, a song originally written by Sufjan Stevens. It is a powerful song, written about the serial killer clown who raped, tortured and murdered 33 boys in the 70s and buried them in a crawlspace under the floor of his house. The lyrics are as follows:
His father was a drinker
And his mother cried in bed
Folding John Wayne’s t-shirts
When the swingset hit his head
The neighbors they adored him
For his humor and his conversation
Look underneath the house there
Find the few living things, rotting fast, in their sleep
Oh, the deadTwenty-seven people
Even more, they were boys
With their cars, summer jobs
Oh my GodAre you one of them?
He dressed up like a clown for them
With his face paint white and red
And on his best behavior
In a dark room on the bed
He kissed them all
He’d kill ten thousand people
With a sleight of his hand
Running far, running fast to the dead
He took off all their clothes for them
He put a cloth on their lips
Quiet hands, quiet kiss on the mouthAnd in my best behavior
I am really just like him
Look beneath the floor boards
For the secrets I have hid
The muddy mash of tone from the harmonium and the high pitch of the recorder create a gloomy and eerie sound that properly sets the stage for grim lyrics that bring to life heinous deeds. Brent’s powerful voice echos through the room as he goes in an out of trance-like states, mourning, chanting and evoking a sense of vulnerability and sorrow in the listener that works all too well for the subject matter. With his harmonium, recorder and unique voice, Brent performs John Wayne Gacy with more raw emotion and lament than Sulfjan Steven did in the original.
Next, Brent performs a song that he wrote with his friend Johnathan Brent Davis. It is inspired by the diary of a boat captain who finds himself inside a hurricane. This he performs using not only the harmonium but a neon green and black Kawasaki keyboard that he found at a bus stop. The lyrics are haunting as he sings the the chorus, “Did I have a vision? I don’t know…”
Johnathan Brent Crosson has been now been playing the keys for 11 years, since he was 18. He is currently pursuing a masters degree in anthropology at UCSC. If you’re intersted in hearing him play,come to open mic night at Sub Rosa on Thursdays at 8 and you might just catch him.
City Council rumored to push new ordninances targeting homeless
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Local resident and pro-homeless activist Robert Norse has received some interesting information from an unnamed member of Santa Cruz city council. According to his source, which we believe to be credible,
“On Tuesday evening the Santa Cruz City Council will consider recommendations by Mayor Cynthia Mathews and Council members Lynn Robinson and Ryan Coonerty to make Santa Cruz’ downtown and beach area more safe, vibrant and welcoming for community members and visitors alike. This effort will improve and expand existing ordinances in order to make them consistent, understandable and enforceable; other programs will address specific issues. The proposal includes:
- Revising existing ordinances for greater consistency and enforceability. Making existing distances and definitions consistent for activities such as aggressive panhandling. (Distances are not increased.)
- Adding new protected areas around public art, directory signs, and trash compactors
- Adding one hour limit on public benches, based on complaint.
- Adding ordinance directing that three unanswered citations become a warrant, thus creating a meaningful consequence for chronic offenders.
- Direct City participation in a “Real Change, not Spare Change” program by the DTA.
- Authorize chronic inebriate program limiting alcohol sales.
- Work with District Attorney for stronger enforcement of new graffiti laws and stay-away orders for chronic offenders.
- Explore increased law enforcement presence through non-general fund revenue sources.
- Launch public rest room program in partnership with local businesses.”
As Robert Norse points out in an article on Indybay published here, these ordinances give law enforcement the tools they need to selectively choose who they consider to be an undesirable presence and take actions against them. According to Norse, “The folks behind the new laws–if this Councilmember’s info is correct–would be Mayor Mathews, ex-Mayor Coonerty, and Councilmember Robinson. The laws were cooked up in meetings closed to the public, but open to merchants, city staff and police of the Downtown Working Group.”
The ordinances should appear on either the afternoon or evening agenda of city council on Tuesday January 26th.
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