At a preliminary hearing on January 8, all charges against Desiree Foster, Robert Norse, and Becky Johnson in association with the occupation of a vacant bank building in 2011 were dismissed by Santa Cruz Judge Paul P. Burdick. Charges still remain in effect for four defendants, though Burdick removed conspiracy from the counts they face. Additionally, the judge sanctioned District Attorney Rebekah Young with a $500 fine for the violation of a discovery order, saying that he had never imposed a sanction like this on the District Attorney's office before.

For the second New Year's Eve in a row, nearly two hundred people chose to forgo traditional evening indoor parties and instead demonstrated in the streets of Oakland against the racist prison industrial complex. After a noisy march with a sound system, a symbolic attack was made against the North County jail by a barrage of fireworks shot high into the air towards the jailhouse walls. Participants marched back to the plaza in time for the midnight count down to 2013, right in the middle of the intersection of 14th & Broadway.

Family and friends remembered Oscar Grant during a January 1st, 2013 vigil at the Fruitvale BART Station where his life was taken New Year's Day 2009. Four years after his murder by BART police officer Johannes Mehserle, Oakland has not forgotten Grant. Over 150 people came out in Grant's memory.

As the holiday season hit full force at the shopping/vacation destination of Carmel by the Sea, former La Playa Hotel workers continued to remain hopeful that some of those in attendance at a labor rally at the hotel on December 20th would receive back the jobs that they lost over a year ago. Since the hotel re-opened over the summer, only three of the former 113 workers have been re-hired.

On December 12th, dozens of protesters rallied outside a federal auction in Sacramento against plans to lease more than 17,000 acres of California public land to oil companies for drilling and fracking. Demonstrators fear that opening up thousands of acres of public land to oil and gas exploration would directly undercut the state's commitment to clean and renewable energy and endanger an already threatened water supply. Land spanning Monterey, San Benito and Fresno counties lies on what is known as the Monterey Shale, a formation of underground minerals. Oil and gas companies are targeting this expanse for hydraulic drilling.

A forum on the UC Berkeley campus called “We Witness: A Panel on Digital Video, Social Media, & Political Protest,” was held on Monday, December 10, and presented by the CITRIS Data and Democracy Initiative. It featured Witness, an NGO documenting human rights violations, The New Media Advocacy Project, and Ustream, a commercial service for live video streaming.

Saying that Wells Fargo has "case after case of folks who are in foreclosure, forced out of homes they have lived in for decades," protesters portrayed the mega bank as "the Grinch that stole Christmas" on December 18th. Two senior citizen organizations took their money out of Wells Fargo and joined a protest rally outside at Grant and Market in San Francisco.

Occupy the Farm writes: "On Friday November 16, 2012, the University of California (UC) razed all of the publicly planted crops on the Gill Tract. Occupy the Farm is disappointed that the UC has unnecessarily destroyed the hard work of the community and food that could have fed it. The weekly distribution and harvest events could have continued that, over the course of the summer and early fall, have yielded over one ton of food from the crops planted during the occupation last Spring.

In a narrow 6-5 vote on November 20, the Board of Supervisors voted to ban public nudity in the City of San Francisco. Community members have protested the legislation, proposed by Supervisor Scott Wiener, for weeks, culminating when individuals stripped nude after the decision was made at the meeting. The ban will be put to a final vote by the Board on Tuesday, December 4th.

On November 22nd & 23rd, Walmart workers and supporters demonstrated at the Richmond and San Leandro Walmarts as part of the national Black Friday protests against the nation's largest retailer. In San Leandro on November 22nd, Walmart threatened the use of the police to remove the protesters, including their own workers. On November 23rd, demonstrations were held in San Leandro and Richmond. Walmart workers spoke about the intimidation and terrorism on the job to silence them from speaking out and organizing.

On Wednesday, December 5th, the Local Agency Formation Commission (LAFCO) will reconvene for what may be the final hearing concerning the request by UC Santa Cruz to extend the water service needed to develop 240 acres of Upper Campus natural habitat, which would require over 250 million additional gallons of water per year from the Santa Cruz water supply.

Attorney David E. Mastagni of the Sacramento law firm Mastagni, Holstedt, Amick, Miller & Johnsen has demanded that the San Francisco Bay Area Independent Media Center (Indybay) remove a post by Vallejo Copwatch. It is unclear on whose behalf the overly broad demand was made as it requests that Indybay "remove any and all information pertaining to public safety officers employed by the City of Vallejo." The specific Vallejo Copwatch post listed in the demand letter, though, identifies Vallejo police officer Dustin B. Joseph as the killer of Mario Romero on September 2nd of this year. The Indybay Collective has no intention of removing the post.

For a few hours on November 17th in San Francisco, a Wells Fargo Home loan bank branch was turned into a homeless shelter and soup kitchen to highlight the harm caused by the bank to numerous communities across the U.S. The action was "Brought to you by Occupy Bernal, ACCE-SF, Occupy Direct Action Workgroup, Occupy Action Council of SF, Occupy SF Environmental Justice Workgroup, Community Not Commodity, Occupy Noe, San Francisco Tenants Union, Senior and Disability Action, Manilatown Heritage Foundation, Communities United in Defense of Olmsted."

On a small hill next to Deer Hill Road in the City of Lafayette, over 6,000 crosses have been erected and displayed as an on-going tribute, and to memorialize the soldiers, who have been killed in Iraq or Afghanistan. The hillside has been marked with controversy, and has sparked anger and even attracted counter protests to its existence.

On October 30, the family of Derrick Gaines, the 15 year old who was shot and killed by South San Francisco Police Department officer Joshua Cabillo, filed a federal civil rights action against the City of South San Francisco. Family members, who are seeking $10 million in damages, hired Attorney John Burris to represent them in the wrongful death action. Burris says, "This is a clear case of racial profiling that lead to disastrous results."

Occupy Oakland Anti-Repression Committee writes: "Over the past year, we have experienced many forms of overt police repression, from the camp eviction and night of tear gas on October 25th, to raids on the vigil, to snatch and grab squads on May Day. We have come to expect the riot-clad police, with their batons and chemical weapons, although repression comes in other forms as well. As a community, we have not been sufficiently attuned to these other faces of repression."

Program managers delivered a $114 million cost estimate for construction of the proposed desal plant to the members of the Desalination Task Force at their October 17 meeting in Santa Cruz. The $114 million figure is to be considered a range, representing a possible cost of between $97 million and $143 million for the plant, and it does not include the millions spent already during the early phase of planning and promotion of the proposed water project.

BayOfRage writes: "The spectre of state repression has been growing over Bay Area radical milieus. Grand juries in the Pacific Northwest and in Santa Cruz, threats by police of using gang enhancements against activists, the recent string of mass arrests, the profusion of political divisions and threats, abundant conspiracy theories, surveillance of our social spaces, FOIA paperwork that references a confidential informer--The list goes on and on and on. Even though everything we hear cannot be entirely proven or disproven, recent events underscore the importance of preparing for a possible crackdown."

Surf City Locals write: "Pamela Comstock is one of the only candidates to not accept voluntary campaign spending limits. She has raised more money than anyone in this city council race. Her money has paid for nice-looking glossy fliers, but they only tell half the story. Pamela Comstock is one of the founding members of Take Back Santa Cruz, a group that claims to advocate for public safety, but what has their role in the community really been?"

After more than a dozen labor demonstrations at La Playa Carmel this summer which followed the announcement of a boycott of the hotel, community members had new answers to the question, "Is this working?" At a rally at the hotel held on September 28, Mark Weller of UNITE HERE Local 483, the hospitality union that represents workers in the Monterey Bay area, cited the recent contract approval negotiated for workers at Quail Lodge in Carmel Valley as a victory for La Playa workers also.

On October 10th, Homes Not Jails and their allies occupied a building in the Castro neighborhood in San Francisco in solidarity with the 3rd annual World Homeless Action Day. The action began with a rally in Dolores Park, followed by a march to the occupation site. Homes Not Jails reclaimed the vacant space in an attempt to provide housing through direct action and protest the criminalization of homelessness. San Francisco police arrested twenty people on charges of burglary, conspiracy, and vandalism. Homes Not Jails intends to continue “to take to the streets to and take direct action” by occupying vacant buildings until their needs are met.

Following the lead of Occupy Wall Street, Occupy San Francisco, and other cities across the U.S., Occupy Oakland established itself on October 10th, 2011, with a large rally of thousands in the Frank Ogawa plaza in front of City Hall. Regular rallies, marches, workshops, and skillshares began to emanate from within the encampment. A second smaller camp was established in nearby Snow Park. Despite the encampments having been destroyed by police, and throughout numerous dramatic ups and downs, large and small, Occupy Oakland in various forms has persisted. Occupy Oakland celebrates its one-year anniversary at Snow Park on Lake Merritt at 5pm on Wednesday, October 10th.

Over 350 people marched in the annual Peace and Unity March on the unusually hot Sunday afternoon of September 30, 2012 in downtown Watsonville, CA. This year's march was held to protest gang and domestic violence in the community of Watsonville, and was organized by the Watsonville Peace & Unity Coalition, which was initiated by the Watsonville Brown Berets. The turnout was significantly larger than previous years, due to recent violence, a larger coalition including the City of Watsonville, and well-organized outreach throughout Watsonville.

Decolonize the New World 2012 writes: "Columbus Day 2012 marks the 520 year anniversary of the genocidal and ecocidal project of Empire building and colonial expansion that began with the conquistador invasion of this continent and continues to this day through the daily violence and exploitation of global capitalism. This year during Columbus Day weekend, a West Coast Anti-Colonial, Anti-Capitalist convergence is being organized in San Francisco." Scheduled are a Day Of Action Against Mexican, US & Canadian Consulates; a West Coast Anti-Colonial, Anti-Capitalist March; and a protest on the 11th Anniversary of the US/NATO War in Afghanistan.

Darwin Bond-Graham writes: "All summer long the slaying of teenager Alan Blueford by a police officer festered in the city of Oakland, a metropolis already stained by its troubled police department which for nearly ten years has been spiraling toward federal receivership due to its institutionalized culture of brutality and misconduct. It was no surprise then that the first meeting of the City Council [September 18], in its new session after the Summer recess, was met by over one hundred outraged protesters and the family of the young man whose death at the hands of OPD frustratingly remains a mystery, with all known facts indicating an unjustifiable murder."

Around 500 peaceful but rowdy protesters came out on September 17th in San Francisco to mark the first anniversary of Occupy Wall Street. The protest began with several separate actions around the Financial District, which coalesced in a rally in front of the Bank of America building. The protesters then marched to Wells Fargo corporate headquarters, filling more than two blocks with signs and banners, accompanied by the Brass Liberation Orchestra. Separately, similar anniversary events at Wall Street in New York City were met with a heavy police police presence followed by over 200 arrests.

Over the last ten weeks, a series of raids targeting the homeless has been conducted as part of a coordinated effort by the Santa Cruz Police Department and the city's departments of Parks and Recreation and Public Works. In response, community members who are hoping to form a new coalition with the intention of ending the criminalization of homelessness and sleep in Santa Cruz, held a candlelight "tent" vigil on September 9th.

Bradley Stuart Allen writes: "On Wednesday, September 12, at approximately 7:45 p.m., Santa Cruz Police officers Travis Ahlers (Badge # 144) and Brian Warren (Badge # 154) parked the police car they were using on Soquel Avenue at Pacific Avenue. The officers recognized a homeless man who was on the Pacific Avenue sidewalk in front of New Leaf Market, while other people performed music. The man appeared to be walking south on the sidewalk when officer Warren called out "Frank" and told him to stop."