Urgent Announcements

* Bradley and Alex go to court on Monday. (update: https://www.aclunc.org/cases/active_cases/people_v._allen_and_darocy.shtml )
* Robert in court on Friday to ask for video evidence that has been withheld from defense.
* Santa Cruz community vigil for late Shannon Collins who was slain last week, on Monday, May 14,  2012 -6:30 PM at Campbell and Broadway.

Working Group Reports

Foreclosure: Announced event online for Tuesday, discussed later.

75 River Defense: Event on Friday at India Joze raised $325.00 for the defense fund.

Block Parties: Meet at San Lorenzo Park 2PM Mondays

24/7 Occupy:  Changing the meeting locations from the former Occuhouse to SubRosa. Seeking location for a 24/7 occupation, meetings etc. Contact Kim.

Direct Action: Meet at SubRosa at 6PM on Tues.

Reach In/ Reach Out: Changing meeting times.

June 2nd: Pending

Agenda Items

Event on Tuesday at Quaker Hall has been listed as an Occupy Santa Cruz event with WILPF and MoveOn. No one informed GA of this event before now, and the name of OSC is being used without permission. Proposed that we remove the name of Occupy Santa Cruz from this event and ask that people respect GA enough to come and not to subvert it. 

Stack
1) What is on the website isn’t always agreed upon.
Point of Info: This was an invitation and event title online on FaceBook
2) I don’t like that this is a MoveOn event.
3) There was supposed to be a media working group meeting that hasn’t happened, it needs to as there are some deep divisions.
4) I don’t think we should be too concerned. The more Occupy is said in general, the better.
5) We never voted to add our name to this. Remove the name because we are not represented in this Working Group at all.
6) General assembly can take the name off if we want. You can’t trademark the name but it is ours.
7) We should put a statement on the website in accordance to this, that no one should use our name if we do not agree upon it. It is a sign of respect for your peers to come to the GA and present idea/ event if you are going to represent something as Occupy.
8 ) The name doesn’t matter as much to me, the brand. I think that at the Camp we all learned some important things. It would be nice to do some more direct action such as helping homeless on the spot.

Vote: Yes / Passed

24/7 Occupation Ideas: Looking for a place for our community to stay for free for a 24/7 occupation space. 

Stack
1) Try and buy land to build mud huts on.
2) We do not have the numbers for an outside place. I would look for an inside space, a house maybe that is under foreclosure.
3) The camp is not there, now we need a space for group to work out of.

Occuhouse Owner [[upset]] over [[vandalism of political]] sign

Stack
1) [[Owner]] said everyone has to leave and no more meetings there. Sheriffs [[to serve eviction]] on Wed.
2) Do the Occupants of the house have some kind of action they would like to see happen as a whole?
3) It would be interesting if the media went.
4) [[Owner]] doesn’t want help and seems to be [[upset with us]]. I think he needs to stay away and we should part ways in general.
5) This split up is what is supposed to happen.
6) People in the house have their own opinions and ideas. I haven’t heard anything so far that says everyone wants to do one action.

Proposal: Buy two tents and [[occupy Owner's]] lawn even though he said no. 

Stack
1) The funds seem wasted on this. B said he doesn’t want to fight and will most likely take it. If not the sheriffs will. We want to save someones home that wants us to and cares.
2) I would hear from the people living in the house.
3) He does not want to hold the house, he even told me this. We can learn from this but no on the tents.
4) Tents not a bad idea but there seems to be no agreement on this. If people staying there agreed it might be worth it.
5) This is a chance to get photos and put up a fight.
6) We don’t want to be aligned w/ him as he doesn’t seem like a good [[candidate]] to help.

Vote: No/ Withdrawn

Brent Needs $32.50 to help with costs related to harassment/ charges of SC11

Vote: Yes

The Bike Cart Needs a new Converter to play movies, lights etc. Cost $75-120

Vote: Yes

General Announcements

* Last date to register to vote for Presidential Election is on May 21st.
* There are lots of people that need help, lets find them instead of what happened.
* Some contacting Foreclosure working group not getting hooked up w/ info – we need them to contact Direct Action.

Did you know that just in the month of April over 53,000 California homes are scheduled for auction? That is 2,500 homes on the auction block every single weekday! And the overwhelming majority of them are actually “fraudclosures”, the result of illegal & fraudulent actions by the big banks.

In Santa Cruz there are 192 scheduled auctions just for the month of May. Multiply that by 12 months and you get about 2,300 for the year. Each one entails hardship, stress & expense for families, neigborhoods, counties and State.

What can we do to stop these devastating foreclosures? There is a lot we can, and must, do. Our local WILPF and Occupy Working Group are co-planning strategies & actions we can take to stop fraudulent foreclosures in our County. At our May program local activists will share effective ways we can get involved to stop this injustice.

The featured speaker of the evening is CJ Holmes, creator of the nonprofit Homeowners For Justice. Ms. Holmes is leading a nationwide effort to stop foreclosures and keep people in their homes. (Learn more at her website www.hofj.org)

As CJ Holmes writes: “The rampant and systematic foreclosures of our family homes is deliberate, and is destroying the very fabric of our society, including persistent unemployment, loss of social services, and decreased money for our children’s education.”  It is also cheating our cities, counties & states out of millions of dollars from unpaid recording fees and 30% lower home values. Also, every foreclosure actually costs the local economy about $20,000.

“With 8,000-homes in this country already foreclosed, and another 11,000 in the pipeline, much of our country may not belong to citizens by the time it’s over unless we stop the foreclosure machine”. (That comes to 19 million homes; if each home housed 4 people, that comes to 76 million people facing foreclosure and that means Every Fourth Person In This Country!) “Cash from anywhere in the world can buy our real estate at unbelievably low prices, but right now over 80,000 families in the 11 Bay Area Counties cannot get a loan to buy a home regardless of income, credit score or cash reserves since they lost a home to foreclosure or short sale in the last 3 years.”

CJ Holmes is a licensed broker with an extensive background in real estate investing, client representation, and market analysis, who accurately predicted this current home value meltdown in late 2008. Her talk will include detailed information about foreclosures, their affect in our area and how we can get involved to stop “fraudclosures” in a variety of effective ways.

Please join us for this important program. Co-sponsored by Santa Cruz WILPF and OccupySC StopForeclosure Working Group.

WILPF Public Program, 7 – 9 p.m. May 15th, Quaker Meeting House in Santa Cruz.. Free, donations welcomed!  For information, chair@wilpf.got.net or call 457-6797.

OCCUPY SANTA CRUZ
PROPOSED RESOLUTION OF SUPPORT

WHEREAS, Occupy Santa Cruz believes that all of the defendants charged in the River Street action are either journalists, members of our local press, and/or activists committed to Social Justice, the Occupy Movement, and particularly Occupy Santa Cruz and,

WHEREAS, Occupy Santa Cruz believes that the constitutionally guaranteed rights to freedom of speech and peaceful assembly may not be abridged by governmental fiat, and

WHEREAS, Occupy Santa Cruz believes that civil liberties are being broadly threatened by the continuing prosecution of these cases, and

WHEREAS, Occupy Santa Cruz believes that the criminal offenses prosecuted by our local District Attorney are overly broad and overreaching in consideration of the facts, and,

WHEREAS Occupy Santa Cruz believes that these defendants are being selectively prosecuted in a manner directly related to the existing adversarial relationship several of these defendants have with local police, past and present civic officials and the District Attorney’s office and,

WHEREAS Occupy Santa Cruz believes that the Constitution of the United States of America and simple social justice require that the enormous power of government be exercised fairly and evenhandedly, and not based on the identity or past actions of the defendants and,

WHEREAS Occupy Santa Cruz believes that these defendants posed no threat to public order or private property by their actions either as chroniclers of the events or as supporters of the River Street action,

BE IT HEREBY RESOLVED THAT Occupy Santa Cruz calls for the immediate dismissal of all charges presently lodged against the River Street defendants and further calls for an end to all further prosecutions based upon any and all participation by any member of our community in the River Street action.

RESOLVED THIS 29TH DAY OF APRIL, 2012 IN SANTA CRUZ, CALIFORNIA

Agenda Items:
-Occupy Tables
-GA frequency
-May 1st
-Traffic Helpers
-Wells Fargo Action

Occupy News

Julian Assange, who has been in house detention for 500 days, has released 12 episodes of interviews. These are available online and through RT.

Vermont passed a resolution 90-4 saying that corporations are not people and that money is property not speech. Part of the ongoing effort to undo “Citizens United.”

Citibank shareholders have sued over excessive payments to CEO. Shareholders can refuse CEO salaries as part of Dodd-Frank. Originally it was thought that nothing would come of this, but these shareholders have sued.

Brazil Oil Spill: Brazil had an oil spill much smaller than the BP spill in the Gulf of Mexico. In Brazil, passports have been taken away from U.S. executives connected with the spill, and they are being prosecuted by the Brazilian government.

OWS sleeping on the street on Wall St. They were kicked out Friday morning. Prior to that, they had been relying on a 2000 New York State Supreme Court decision affirming street sleeping as political protest to be protected speech.

Friday 4/20 Isaac was arrested at UCSC for selling marijuana. He is facing felony charges. This is the first felony arrest at UCSC meadow in 5 years. He is being held on $5000 bail but an attorney could get in to see him. He will appear in court Wed 8:15am.

Working Group Reports

Foreclosure: Ken Foster accepted a short sale and the escrow has closed. The difference between the amount Ken owed and the sale price was only $50,000. He has until the end of May to leave his home. The couple that bought it is interested in permaculture, and has expressed a desire to continue it as a permaculture property.

Members of Foreclosure WG attended Judges’ Forum sponsored by “Santa Cruz Neighbors.” The judges told them, “Well, you have to change the laws.” The Sheriff said the same thing when they met with him. Board of Supervisors meetings 5/8, 5/15, 5/22 at 9am. All encouraged to attend. We do have the support of WILPF. Their meeting is 5/15 7pm Quaker Meeting Hall. Cities/counties have already passed ordinances requiring foreclosure filers to have the “authority” to do so (meaning they must show they own the house with non-forged documents). No foreclosure meeting this week and possibly not next week. Communicating via e-mail at this time.

Reach-in Reach-out: Has created an interfaith chapel. Will carry around on May 1st. They will be building it this Tues at 7:45 pm at someone’s house. Contact Abbi for address.

Santa Cruz Eleven Support: Meeting tomorrow 11:45am El Salvador Restaurant by Jury Room on Ocean St. Four pre-lims tomorrow: Grant, Cameron, Ed, Angel 1:30pm Dept. 6

24/7 Occupy WG: First meeting tomorrow 12 noon Occupy House

Direct Action: 6pm Wed Occupy House. Going to SF for Wells Fargo shareholders meeting action Tues 4/24.

Legal: Ed accused of contempt of court during Gary Johnson’s trial for not wearing a tie. Ed now has a public defender and a continuance. Two cases with City of Santa Cruz. Looking for anyone who feels a sense of urgency to continue cases. Steve continuing his part of litigation on his own.

Strategy: Sun at noon west steps of courthouse.

Movie Night working group: Will be showing Wall St. (original 80s version) Wed 4/25 west courthouse steps. That may be changed to Wed 5/2 due to conflict with Food Justice Working group film / fundraiser and possibility of rain.

May 1st Organizing: Meeting currently combined with Direct Action. Wed 6pm Occupy House. Have item on today’s agenda. Will continue report back then.

Agenda

Occupy Tables:
Where are they?
Many at Occupy house. Will talk to Bob.

GA Frequency
GAs are currently Tue, Thur 6pm courthouse steps and Sat, Sun 2pm post office. Discussion of possibility of fewer GAs. Proposal for 2 GAs a week: Sun and some weekday. Suggestion to bring working groups back into GA. Suggestion of Sat, Sun, Wed and text tree. Suggestion to try to get a person from each working group to give a report if we only have 2 GAs per week. Support for Sun and one weekday (Tue, Wed or Thur).
Consensus for Sunday.
Some people expressed that they cannot go on Thursday. Thursday eliminated. Support for Tues or Wed. Show of thumbs for Tues or Wed. Wednesday with slightly more support. Test for consensus on Wed.
Consensus.

**OCCUPY SANTA CRUZ WILL NOW HAVE TWO GAs PER WEEK: WED 6PM COURTHOUSE STEPS AND SUN 2PM POST OFFICE**

New schedule begins May 1st. GAs will be Tue, Thur, Sat, Sun for this week. No GA May 1st. First Wed GA on May 2nd.

May 1st 
Several members of OSC attended a meeting Thurday night about May 1st activities. Meeting included unions, community members, student organizer. Labor organizers are holding a rally at 5:30 pm in front of the post office (which has a permit). Students are holding activities on campus, then marching to the post office to meet with labor rally. No permit for student march. Students meet 7pm tomorrow Kresge Student Lounge. Request for suggestions/comments on May 1st activities. Proposal that OSC officially endorse student march and labor rally.
Consensus.

May 1st Traffic Helper
There was a discussion of the role of monitors at Thursday’s May 1st planning meeting. Members of OSC expressed unhappiness with monitors at March 11th march, dislike of being told what to do, “because I said so” attitude. Unions / community members were going to have monitors at May 1st events, but after hearing concerns by Occupiers suggested OSC provide monitors, and only for traffic safety. Does OSC want to do this? yes. (consensus)

Wells Fargo Action
Members of Occupy Santa Cruz going to SF for Wells Fargo action Tues 4/24. Member of Santa Cruz Eleven to speak.

Go to stopwellsfargo.com for demands.
Meet directly after GA for carpool arrangements.

Announcements

Aqua lawn chair left at courthouse steps Tuesday. See Mithrell to reclaim.

MONDAY, APRIL 23

CALIFORNIA @MONTGOMEREY ST. (MONTGOMERGY BART) SF

4 P.M. – MIDNIGHT

SPEAK OUTS BY THE 99%, TEACH-IN, FOOD, MUSIC, ART

4-5 p.m.: Outreach to Financial District workers and other 99%ers

5-8 p.m: 99% SPEAK OUT:

Come hear the stories and struggles of people on the front lines of the communities and movements of the 99% — impacted by and fighting Wells Fargo, big banks and Wall St.:

5-5:30 Foreclosure Fighters

5:30-6 Labor

6-6:30 Immigrant rights/prisons/detention centers

6:30-7 Feminists

7-7:30 Students

7:30-8 Environmental Sustainability

AND MORE:

6-9 p.m.: Nonviolent Direct Action Training:

Prepare for the take over of the Shareholder Meeting the next day. Hands-on skills and info about how to engage in effective direct action and occupation, tools for de-escalation (and escalation) and dealing with arrest and legal consequences.

8-9 p.m.: Outdoor Film Screenings by Occupy SF Media:

A series of short documentaries on Foreclosure Fighter Victories, Bank Occupations, and Subervtisements.

9-Midnight: Silent Movies & Music and Wells Fargo Teach-In:

by the Occupy SF Ideological Liberation Work Group

Mortgage Mess: How Wells Fargo defrauds the public with mortgages every step of the way: from origination to securitization to foreclosure.

Predatory Lending: How Wells Fargo uses payday loans, student loans, and interest rate swaps to keep customers, students, and local governments trapped in a vicious debt cycle.

Too Big To Exist: How Wells Fargo abuses its powers as a large bank, from exorbitant bailouts and abusing the FED discount window, colluding with other banks to restrict any semblance of a free market.

Let’s show our solidarity

and Monday

start the heat on Wells Fargo!!!

News

-Occuhouse to be evicted any day now!
-UCSC Student Union calling for a general strike May 1st. There’s a march planned from campus to downtown
-Courthouse plaza filled with tax protesters Tues, Apr 17th: flags, signs, umbrellas, honks, it was great.
-Helped with a table at Project Connect working with HUFF. Didn’t feel comfortable, too regimented.

Urgent Announcements

-None

Inspirational Minute

-”Everyone does better when everyone does better.”

Working Group Reports

-Foreclosures: Ken Foster has accepted a short sale (he’s given up). He feels ok about it. He may be able to stay. The people buying the house are interested in a permaculture garden. Another house was auctioned on Monday (4/16/12). Still meeting with government peeps trying to get a code change for the county. Still working on it. Talked with the mayor and such. Will be asking judges some questions. Next meeting Sat. 4pm at the Octagon.

-Direct Action: Going to Wells Fargo shareholders meeting on the 24th in San Francisco. Working on carpool list. Meeting Wed 6pm and Sat also at 6pm at the Mission St. house. March at 4pm on May 1st, rally at 5:30pm at San Lorenzo. Movie showing Wednesdays at the courthouse 8pm.

-River St. Defense: Meetings on Mon. 3pm at Mission St. house. New webpage santacruzeleven.org

-Strategy Committee: Meets Sundays 12 noon at the courthouse.

-Legal: Ed Frey’s contempt court case April 27th at 1:30pm Department 2. Show your support!

Agenda

24/7 Occupation Discussion: Occupy the mission st house. Probably wait until there’s a critical mass, like around May 1st. May 1st yes, rally will include tent games. Occupied building in SF, join the action. Will be sad to lose some occupiers, maybe visit SF but come on back to SC. Noticed that if we go public many houseless folks will
participate; dealing with tweekers, shit got out of hand frequently; best option would be to have privately owned and donated property; the weather will be nice; like it outdoors. Last time we talked we brought up the idea of a mobile occupation; great power in being mobile. Think about being self-sustainable, not a public health hazard, not trashy,
want it to be safe; how will it look, drugs all day or build something; food is very important. Mobile occupation at the post office, harassed by police there; should be there Saturdays indefinitely. Suggestion to form a working group to talk about
re-occupation. Meeting scheduled for Monday at noon at the Mission st. house.

99% Spring Discussion: (bad? good? huh?): Idea came up some months ago by people who didn’t identify with occupy wall st but wanted to use the rhetoric; possibly for electoral reasons. 99% isn’t owned by OWS, Noam used the term in 1985. They put on art shows, and there’s no evidence of political motives.

Announcements

-Precautionary Principal: Cabrillo College 5:30pm Forum 450. Event around the idea that all products should be proven safe before being proven to not be safe.

-Movie showing Wednesday night (4/18/12) will be “Idiocracy” 8pm at the courthouse.

-Got the Santa Cruz 11 petition onto the OWS facebook page and as of this GA it has 785 signatures! Also on the OSF facebook. Please go to these pages and leave your comments.

-Weather is nice

-Saturday is the Earth Day Festival at San Lorenzo park, all day.

Occupy Santa Cruz General Assembly

Wednesdays 6PM County Courthouse (steps), 260 Water Street.
Sundays       2PM  US Post Office (steps) , 850 Front Street.

Online Discussion for Occupy Santa Cruz

http://groups.occupysantacruz.org
http://facebook.com/groups/OccupySantaCruz

Idiocracy is a 2006 American film, a satirical science fiction comedy, directed by Mike Judge and starring Luke Wilson, Maya Rudolph, Dax Shepard, and Terry Crews.

The film tells the story of two ordinary people taken into a top-secret military hibernation experiment to awaken in a dystopia wherein advertising,commercialism, and cultural anti-intellectualism run rampant and dysgenic pressure has resulted in a uniformly stupid human society devoid of intellectual curiosity, social responsibility, and coherent notions of justice and human rights.

I only began taking notes towards the end of the meeting, so these notes do not include Urgent Announcements, Occupy News, Inspirational Minute, or Working Group Reports. They may also contain some inaccuracies.

Happy to note there was no further harassment by police or postal workers. Steve Pleich facilitated most of the G.A. Brent facilitated the rest.

Agenda Items

Proposal to Endorse ACLU Statement of Concern Regarding Prosecutions of a Select Few at 75 River St. Steve Pleich proposed and the G.A. consensed to support the ACLU’s Statement of Support from Peter Gelblum of the local chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union. This passed with one thumbs down.

Proposal to Create a Working Group to Create a More Comprehensive Support Proposal at a Future Meeting This was passed with 2 stand asides.

Proposal that Without a Notetaker There Be no G.A. Proposed by Ed Frey, debated, and withdrawn.

Announcements

Abbi announced a Reach In-Reach Out Meet 7:45 PM Tuesday April 17 at India JoZe.
[[Someone]] announced [[on Facebook]] that movie night Wednesday April 18 for a showing the 1980′s Wall Street would be postponed [[to Wed 25Apr2012]].
A 4-6 PM Tax Day Action for April 17 was announced–courthouse steps by WILPF.
Steve Pleich announced a Judical Forum to be held 7-9 PM April 17th at the Community Room of the Police Station.
Abbi quickly reported on yesterday’s police intervention and successful maintenance of the right of public assembly on the post office steps during the G.A. Meeting.

Someone announced a Grateful Dead dance April 15 at the 418 Project 10 pm – 3 am.