Month: November 1961

As the Bay becomes more like LA and our regional transportation decision-making body, the “MTC” (More Trucks and Cars Commission/Metropolitan Transportation Commission) continues to be developer-controlled, creating sprawling suburbs and locking in automobile dependency, a strong and creative bike and pedestrian movement is blossoming and continues to become more effective. Bay Area bicycle and pedestrian direct actions have been on a steady increase. Real change is mighty slow in coming, but we are having some successes. Action and organization has happened all around the Bay and on all kinds of fronts.

BayPeds is a new group which champions the rights of pedestrians and the Bicycle Civil Liberties Union is another new group which seeks equitable treatment for non-motorized travelers. Noting that bikes and peds make up at least 11% of all trips in the Bay Area, yet suffer 25% of the traffic fatalities, these two groups came together to protest the adoption of the 20-year, 88-billion dollar Regional Transportation Plan (RTP) which committed only 1/200th of the funding to bikes and peds. The protest involved outfitting bicycles to be *as big as cars* (with PVC pipes suspended on rope in a rectangle around each bike) circling the building where the commissioners were making their horrible decisions.

The solidarity link between bicyclists and mass transit was emphasized by a direct action ride across the Bay Bridge on September 10th. A large group of bikes showed just how easy it would be to permit bikes to ride across the bridge by Just Doing It, pedaling all the way from Oakland to the transbay terminal in San Francisco during rush hour traffic. Five of the cyclists supported a 62-foot sculpture of a train on a suspension bridge to protest the lack of rail capacity in the new Bay Bridge design. The bikes often went faster than the stalled traffic, although police attempted to sabotage the message by deciding to arrest the cyclists on the off ramp from the bridge, rather than on city streets which would have minimized inconvenience to commuters.

Expect more protests and lawsuits if there is no change in the Bay Bridge design, particularly as to the bike/ped path which the authorities finally voted to build as part of the Bay Bridge retrofit (which was a major victory in itself). Caltrans wants to place the bicycle path directly adjacent to harsh freeway traffic, exposing cyclists to unnecessary fumes and danger, rather than sunken below or above the traffic lanes. (This will also permit Caltrans to easily convert the bike path to another traffic lane causing even more car traffic later.)

Meanwhile, in the world of policy change, the Berkeley Bike Plan is finally, after SEVEN YEARS, coming up for adoption. It’s critical that we show public support to help push this through. A web site has been constructed to allow sending a letter with a click of a button: http://users.lmi.net/~jmeggs/bikeplanyes.htmYou can send a letter to Mayor Dean and City Council, 2180 Milvia St., Berkeley, CA 94704, FAX: (510) 644-8801 and send a copy to the Transportation Commission, 2118 Milvia St, Suite 300, Berkeley, CA 94704, FAX: (510) 883-6565. The Berkeley Transportation Commission is to consider the Plan as Slingshot goes to press and the plan may go to the City Council as early as December 15. For more information, contact the Bicycle-Friendly Berkeley Coalition: 510 549-RIDE, bfbc@ lmi.net.

Critical Mass bike rides continue to occur throughout the Bay Area, giving cyclists one day a month to ride safe and proud, and demonstrating what the streets would look like if everyone rode their bikes. Recent police abuses have hurt the ride in Santa Cruz, although Berkeley (2nd Friday of the Month, 5:30 Berkeley BART) is still hanging in strong and San Francisco (last working Friday, 5:30 Justin Herman Plaza) is making a heady recovery after police crackdowns last year. Other rides (Silicon Valley, Santa Rosa, Marin) have been trooping right along although Walnut Creek has recently fallen defunct.

A new group, “GRIP” — “Great Routes Inspire Pedalers” — is a direct action/protest group in San Francisco which has held numerous protests in recent months, storming City Hall with bicycles (inside the lobby!) while a giant “Willie-Head”, an effigy of the mayor, remained calm and smiling even as the real mayor ran terrified for his limousine.

While Free Radio Berkeley has sadly been off the air, the alternative media is still strong on the internet and through video productions such as July 25th: The Secret is Out! about the orchestrated and corrupt police crackdown on the SF Critical Mass (conveniently masking major transportation scandals at the time). To get involved in some of the essential activism around these issues, contact BayPeds at 510 540-6509; Bike the Bridge! Coalition at 510 273-9288; Bicycle Civil Liberties Union at http://xinet.com/bike/bclu/; and the Transportation and Land Use Coalition at 510 843-3878

A movement to significantly raise the minimum wage to a “living wage” is catching on across the country, raising the standard of living for hundreds of thousands of workers. At least 18 cities, including Oakland, San Jose, Los Angeles, and Boston, have already enacted living wage legislation, and campaigns in over a dozen more are being waged by coalitions of organized labor and community groups.

Living wage laws usually state that the wage earned must be enough to sustain a family of 3-4 above the federal poverty line ($16,400 for a family of four.) Currently, workers who earn the current federal minimum wage of $5.15 an hour make an average of only $10,700 a year. Most ordinances apply to all employers who contract with or receive substantial tax incentives or subsidies from the city government. The rates vary from city to city.

San Jose’s tentatively passed living wage ordinance is the nation’s highest minimum passed so far at $12.50 an hour with benefits, and $15 without. Oakland by contrast passed a similar ordinance in April that guarantees city contract workers $8 an hour with benefits and $9.25 without. L.A. and Pasadena are requiring $7.25 w/benefits, $8.50 w/out. Other cities weigh in at: Boston $8.2; Portland $7; Baltimore $7.10; Milwaukee $6.05; Jersey City, NJ $7.50; Des Moines $9; and Santa Clara County, CA at $10 w/health benefits. Some ordinances concern only wages, others just benefits, while still others set minimum standards for both. Most include a package of both.

In San Francisco, a living wage resolution is pending before the Board of Supervisors, having been sent to the Finance Committee for approval by a newly created living wage task force. The Association of Bay Area Governments has said that a Bay Area single parent with one child must earn $14.50 an hour to stay above the poverty line. Living wage advocates in San Francisco say a law there would need to set wages near $10 an hour, almost twice the current minimum wage. If the task forces derails the movement, advocates say they will put an initiative on the ballot. The Board is expected to vote on a study proposal at its November 23 meeting.

The ordinances normally apply only to businesses which contract for or receive in assistance a minimum $25-100,000 from the city and have more than say 25 employees. Oakland’s ordinance, while not the highest in pay, is one of the most comprehensive in other ways. Employees of qualifying firms, agencies and non-profit organizations are ensured of at least 12 days of compensated days off per year for sick, personal, or vacation leave and 10 days of uncompensated time off per year for other reasons. And in Boston, covered employers must use community-based hiring halls and cannot displace employees covered by collective bargaining agreement.

While efforts to create a living wage have received substantial support from unions around the country, needless to say business interests haven’t been so supportive. Steve Tedesco, president of the San Jose Silicon Valley Chamber of Commerce, said that San Jose’s living wage ordinance would cause a domino effect in the city, with unions demanding more money from companies that otherwise would not be affected by it.

“There is going to be a ripple effect on labor contracts,” he said. None of the living wage ordinances applies explicitly to workfare workers. This has presented problems in Baltimore, where the city is undermining the intent of the ordinance by hiring workfare workers instead of contract employees. It is also important for ordinances to consider annual rises in the cost of living without the necessity of obtaining legislative revisions.

This September, the U.S. Senate rejected a $1 election-year increase in the federal hourly minimum wage pushed by Sen. Edward Kennedy. By a 55-44 vote, senators killed the proposal, which would have raised the minimum wage earned by some 12 million Americans to $6.15 on Jan. 1, 2000. The first 50-cent increase would have taken effect next New Years.

Weekly wages for average American workers are about 14% below 1973 levels, adjusting for inflation. In the last few decades the United States has been redistributing wealth away from workers. The average CEO made 326 times the pay of factory workers last year, up from 1980, when CEOs made 42 times as much. The net worth of the bottom 40 percent of households in 1995 was 80 percent less than in 1983.

Labor, in a market system, is just another commodity; the wage a woman or man commands has nothing to do with how much she or he needs to support a family or to feel part of the broader society. The living wage movement is simply a way to raise the minimum wage through local action.

“It smacks of socialism to me,” said City Councilman Robbie who recently opposed Greensboro, North Carolina’s living wage drive.

There are other strategies to consider. Berkeley’s recent measure to shorten the work week with no loss in pay would in effect raise the minimum wage, with the added bonus of spreading work around to more people, thereby reducing competition for jobs and unemployment. Another strategy would be state-wide and national calls for a guaranteed job at a living wage for all people who want one. Or how about sweeping aside the wage system all together in favor of an economy based on voluntary association.

To get involved in the living wage movement locally, contact: Temp Workers Union, 1095 Market Street, Suite 616, San Francisco, CA 94103. For local contacts of ongoing campaigns elsewhere, contact ACORN at 202-547-2500.

A caravan of about 200 people from the Bay Area drove out to protest conditions at two of California’s state prisons in the central Valley on October 17. The caravan met up first in front of the women’s prison in Chowchilla where a roadside rally was held to draw attention to the substandard condition women face inside the facility. Much of the Caravan then continued on to the next demonstration a few hours later all the way down to the mid- state high security men’s facility in Corcoran. Corcoran has received extensive media attention in recent years for its notorious brutality. Guards have been exposed for engaging in numerous atrocities including, but not limited to, numerous murders of prisoners, setting up fights between prisoners as sport, and placing dissident prisoners in the same cell as a known prison rapist as punishment.

The Corcoran demo was also attended by about 200 activists who drove up from the Los Angeles region. People chanted “shut Corcoran down” and listened to speakers some of whom have relatives inside, including the father of Preston Tate who was murdered by Corcoran guards. The prison’s warden and other prison officials were present to observe the demonstration. Fresno Food Not Bombs served lunch.

A speak-out about police brutality and misconduct in Oakland was held at the First Congregational United Church of Christ on November 5. The speak-out was organized by the local activist group PUEBLO (People United for a Better Oakland.) Several dozen Oakland residents from many ethnic backgrounds took the microphone one after another for an hour, giving personal accounts of how they had been mistreated by the police who are out of control and apparently consider themselves above the law. In the end a bleak picture was painted of Oakland’s finest as! speaker after speaker described a force that seems to do what they want, when they want, and to whomever they want. Accountability to the community and respect for human rights are obviously not serious contenders when it comes to priorities for the department.

Mayor-elect Jerry Brown fulfilled an election promise and attended, although his address to the crowd left something to be’ desired. Ron Hampton, Director oi the National Black Officers’ Association also spoke at the end. There were approximately 200 people present.

For more information about PUEBLO, call 510) 452-2010.

A speak-out about police brutality and misconduct in Oakland was held at the First Congregational United Church of Christ on November 5. The speak-out was organized by the local activist group PUEBLO (People United for a Better Oakland.) Several dozen Oakland residents from many ethnic backgrounds took the microphone one after another for an hour, giving personal accounts of how they had been mistreated by the police who are out of control and apparently consider themselves above the law. In the end a bleak picture was painted of Oakland’s finest as! speaker after speaker described a force that seems to do what they want, when they want, and to whomever they want. Accountability to the community and respect for human rights are obviously not serious contenders when it comes to priorities for the department.

Mayor-elect Jerry Brown fulfilled an election promise and attended, although his address to the crowd left something to be’ desired. Ron Hampton, Director oi the National Black Officers’ Association also spoke at the end. There were approximately 200 people present.

For more information about PUEBLO, call 510) 452-2010.

A speak-out about police brutality and misconduct in Oakland was held at the First Congregational United Church of Christ on November 5. The speak-out was organized by the local activist group PUEBLO (People United for a Better Oakland.) Several dozen Oakland residents from many ethnic backgrounds took the microphone one after another for an hour, giving personal accounts of how they had been mistreated by the police who are out of control and apparently consider themselves above the law. In the end a bleak picture was painted of Oakland’s finest as! speaker after speaker described a force that seems to do what they want, when they want, and to whomever they want. Accountability to the community and respect for human rights are obviously not serious contenders when it comes to priorities for the department.

Mayor-elect Jerry Brown fulfilled an election promise and attended, although his address to the crowd left something to be’ desired. Ron Hampton, Director oi the National Black Officers’ Association also spoke at the end. There were approximately 200 people present.

For more information about PUEBLO, call 510) 452-2010.

Schoolkids On the Block

Frustrated and angered by repeatedly absent teachers and inadequate or non-existent resources, students and schoolchildren in France have taken to the streets in demonstrations that began in Paris and have now have spread across the country. On Thursday 500,000 people marched in different locations, proclaiming themselves ‘on strike’

Demonstrators in Paris clashed with the police with bottles, window-smashing and car-trashing. 122 people were arrested. Many students appeared to be as frustrated by the way the demonstrations had gone as what they were about “It’s inevitable,” said Marcel, 16, “they treat us like idiots, we’ll behave like idiots. Everyone has the right to demonstrate and if the police block our route, this is what happens.”

Education minister, Claude Allegre, conceded that the school system needs reform and promised to present plans next month. However, pupils are aware that this will not bring about immediate change or remedy the injustices done to them personally. “It’ll take years,” said Rachid, 17. “My exams are this summer and I don’t have a teacher in three subjects.”

Nous Sommes Tous Des Casseurs A history and analysis of youth revolt in France in 1994. A month of demos, protests and riots forced the French government to back down from a proposed 20% wage cut. #2 (inc p+p) from AK Distribution, PO Box 12766, Edinburgh, EH8 9YE.

Thousands of school pupils walked out of classes in 30 towns across France this week, complaining about overcrowded classes, long hours, crumbling schools and a shortage of teachers.

The leaders of the protests, which began in Nimes, have called for a nationwide strike next week if their demands are not met. The Education Minister, Claude Allegre, met a representative of the main union of lycee pupils yesterday to try to defuse the crisis.

In a sense, he brought the problem on himself. Last year he circulated all 1.5 million lycee pupils, asking for comments and ideas on the future of the state school system.

He was inundated with replies, many supporting his own arguments that the curriculum was too heavy and fact-based, that the hours were too long and the schools ill-equipped and badly organised to meet the demands of modern education.

In summer he admitted nothing could be done to improve the pupils’ lot in time for the new school year, which started last month; it would be another year before effective reforms would be in place.

The Nimes protesters said they had to study demanding science and language courses with up to 39 pupils in a class; that constant repair work on their schools made studying impossible; and that a shortage of teachers had forced the cancellation of sports and some subject combinations. Pupils in the southern town are also upset about the presence of neo-fascist National Front members on school governing bodies.

At some schools, especially in the Paris area, protesters complained that their lives were being made impossible by violence and protection rackets.

13th October

[…] Chanting “solidarity,” the students set off at midday from squares in the east and south of Paris, and headed for the Education Ministry, where two separate marches across the city centre were to meet a rally in the late afternoon. Police did not cut off traffic, leaving the children to maneuver dangerously in and out of passing cars.

“Through strikes you can dream”, said stickers the children slapped on lampposts and telephone boxes along the way.

Students have been protesting in a number of French cities over the last 10 days, just weeks after starting the new school year. Monday’s demonstration was the first in the capital.

The protests began after children returned from summer vacation and found little change from the year before. Classrooms remained too full, and instruction materials, including lab equipment, was often in short supply.

Protests were held in more than a dozen cities on Monday, with as many as 10,000 demonstrators in Paris, 8,000 in Bordeaux and 7,000 in Toulouse.

Police intervened to disperse hundreds of students who were running through a shopping center in Montparnasse, in southern Paris. Dozens of others, their faces masked, stole empty CD boxes from music shops and took food from bakeries, police said.

The trouble began as demonstrators gathered in the Place de la Nation to march on the education ministry in western Paris.

In Paris, where 30,000 turned out, 150 children overturned cars after a 15-year-old girl was seriously injured (*) when hit by a truck, smashed telephone booths, set a newspaper stand ablaze and looted stores and cafes on the Place de la Nation. Four people were injured and 82 arrests were made. Police blamed the trouble on roving “commando style” bands of masked children from troubled suburban areas, who they alleged used mobile phones to co-ordinate a two-hour looting spree.

After the trouble flared, police demanded the students call off their march before it reached the ministry. Instead, the marchers turned around and broke up into groups that dispersed throughout the city. (*) the girl later died.

13th October

[…] Several children were detained in Thionville, a town in eastern France, after dozens of students smashed shop windows and turned cars over.

Eighty children were detained for questioning in Paris and 10 in Rouen, police said.

In Bordeaux, an estimated 20,000-25,000 students packed the streets, while in nearby Toulouse more than 12,000 turned out.

In Lyon, some 15,000 protesting students joined with a second demonstration by angry farmers accompanied by 2,500 sheep.

There were about 9,000 marchers in Rouen, 3,000 in Mulhouse and an estimated 7,000 in Montpellier.

There were also protests in Avignon, Clermont-Ferrand, Grenoble, Marseille and Nice in southern France, Le Havre in the north, and Besancon, Metz, Nancy and Strasbourg in the east.

[…] up to 10,000 students walked through the streets of Bordeaux in the south-west, while 2,500 were on the march in the southern city of Toulouse, 1,500 in Lyons, 2,000 in the western town of Vannes and a similar number in Grenoble.

“They are not doing this for the fun of it,” Mr Daniel Bach, a headmaster in Seine-et-Marne outside Paris, said. “With high unemployment, they know they need the best education they can get – good teaching, an atmosphere that’s conducive to work, modern equipment. They’re not getting any of that.”

The marches, sit-ins and protests seem to have begun at a public lycee, or high school, in the southern city of Nimes and spread rapidly, in a self-organised ‘wildcat’ manner.

In France, where education is a responsibility of the central government, officials were caught napping at the onset, but now are paying attention. In 1968, discontent among students was the catalyst for near revolution that brought tanks onto the streets.

17th October

122 held in Paris pupil protests

French police were holding 122 students and schoolchildren in detention yesterday, including 75 minors, after Thursday’s protests and riots in the centre of Paris.

As many as 500,000 children are estimated to have taken part in Thursday’s demonstrations, which thugs in Paris used as a pretext to smash and burn cars and loot shops.

In the wake of the massive nationwide demonstrations by secondary pupils, Claude Allegre, the Socialist Education Minister, renewed promises yesterday to provide more teachers and meet other demands. Paris, meanwhile, braced itself for more trouble as pupils’ leaders said they planned another day of protests on Tuesday. Some teaching unions are also balloting members on joining the protest.

Across France yesterday, several thousand children kept the protests going. In the Basque city of Bayonne, about 500 paralysed train services by occupying the railway station
for much of the morning. Others took over toll booths on the Pont de Tancarville bridge spanning the Seine estuary in Normandy, allowing motorists to drive across for free.

After meeting M Allegre, a delegation of the National Lycee Union said the minister had repeated promises to meet pupils’ demands.

21st October

Paris police staged a highly aggressive show of force on the second nationwide day of children’s demonstrations yesterday.

In the French capital, where an early police estimate put the number of children in the city at 25,000, armoured police coaches carrying the notorious CRS riot police and paramilitary gendarmes brought 5,500 extra officers. From around 8am, with sirens blaring, they pushed through the rush-hour traffic towards the city centre.

Police vehicles swung across side streets to form barricades and towed away those cars the owners of which had not taken heed of police demands to keep away from the demonstration.

Two hours before the march began yesterday, police said they had arrested 53 children. Plainclothes police arrested suspected offenders along the route. Teachers’ unions, which had joined the protest, and university students’ unions provided marshals to defend children from police provocation.

By mid-afternoon, police said protests had brought out a total of 275,000 children all over France. 4,500 police checked identity papers of students who streamed out of the subway to join the protest, and conducted thousands of body searches.

“We’re here because we’ve got 40 people in one classroom that’s falling apart,” said Ablo Tham, from the working-class suburb of Trappes. “If the government doesn’t listen, we’ll make sure it does.”

Six weeks after the school year began, some students are still without teachers. Many schools, especially in disadvantaged neighborhoods, badly need modernizing.

Many students wore yellow-and-black stickers calling on Education Minister Claude Allegre to resign. Others waved banners with colorful slogans reflecting their anger.

Allegre is scheduled to meet today with students for the second time, and new reform measures are expected to be announced.

Some students were skeptical their demands would be satisfied.

“I would be very surprised if the government can do anything,” said Spresa Mamud, 15. “It costs a lot of money. We won’t see anything, but we’re fighting for those people who come after us.”

The Interior Ministry said that more than 80 young people had been detained by mid-afternoon, including those arrested before the protest began.

Police spray tear-gas at students, Paris.

October 21st

Sixteen-year-old Lucas sat on the pavement in the Boulevard Raspail. The designer boutiques of the sixiÅme arrondissement looked inviting with several shattered plate glass windows. At Kenzo, across the street, a sales assistant hurriedly undressed the mannequins. “Too many cops,” Lucas sighed with a nod towards the Boulevard St Germain, where hundreds of riot police charged on the students. The son of West Indian workers, Lucas told of why he had come to yesterday’s demonstration. “We live badly,” he complained. “There’s no money.”

Water gushed from hoses into the gutter in front of us. Among dozens of shattered facades were the Pronuptia bridal boutique, expensive Le Raspail brasserie, two spectacle shops and a Renault car dealership — last week a 15-year-old girl died when hit by a truck while marching, because the police had not stopped the traffic for the first march.

The marchers have a variety of complaints. Emilie, 17, said: “We have a teacher of Spanish who speaks no Spanish, so it’s difficult to make much progress – especially when he’s away every other week. In English, we’re 38 in class. It’s chaos and the teacher refuses to take the course.” For El Hadj, 16, the problem was still more basic: “My school has 2000 pupils. Some days you are lucky if you even find a chair to sit on.”

The Paris prefecture deployed 5,500 police for an expected 25,000 demonstrators. Police said 85 people were slightly injured in Paris. About 110 young people were arrested nationwide. In all of France, 275,000 students and teachers marched, compared to 500,000 last week.

Polls show 88 per cent of French people support the school students.

22nd October

Students will wait and see if French reforms work. French school students could call more protests if they aren’t satisfied with steps announced Wednesday to solve funding problems and improve the country’s overcrowded high schools, a student leader said.

The students’ frustration has clearly not dissipated despite government promises to hire more teachers, buy new equipment, and reduce the heavy course load.

“It’s not yet a victory,” Loubna Meliane told France-Info radio. “We’ll have to see.” A weeklong vacation begins at the end of the week. Meliane said the vacation will give students time to examine the measures.

The strikes continue…

Half a million high-school pupils demonstrate in France

ARIS (AFP) — Thursday 15 October 1998 — 7:35 p.m. Paris time – On Thursday, some 500,000 pupils across France, according to the police, took part in demonstrations, with sporadic violent incidents in Paris, demanding more study resources.

“We’re not hooligans. We just want some teachers.” chanted the demonstrators in Paris, in a procession of 28,000 people, according to the police. In spite of police warnings, a few hundred very young rioters, often with their faces covered with scarves, smashed up and looted several dozen shops and some cafÄs. They also turned over and damaged about a hundred cars, including about ten vehicles between Place de la Nation and the Ministry of Education (Rue de Grenelle, 7th Borough), which were set alight, according to the Police Department.

Five people were hurt, including a police sergeant with head injuries and a young man who was stabbed, during these incidents. They are in a stable condition. The police have revealed 110 people were arrested.

We are picketing Cody’s today to draw attention to the fact that Cody’s owner, Andy Ross, has been one of the main proponents of the crackdown on street people that we have witnessed on Telegraph all year. Andy Ross and some of the other merchants united through the Telegraph Area Association are the ones who call in the Berkeley Police as though they are their private security firm. Anyone who is not spending money and remains in the area is subject to harassment because the merchants think they own the sidewalks and streets.

In reality the streets and sidewalks are public space and everyone should be able to use them however they want as long as they are not interfering with other people. This type of live and let live situation, though, is not good enough for Telegraph’s merchants. They want to maximize their profits and this means gearing their stores to middle and upper class people who’ll spend money. The merchants want to get rid of poor and unsightly people because the class of people they want to attract would prefer not to associate with the lower classes. The sight of poor people makes them uncomfortable and reminds them of the fact that their wealth is at the expense of other people’s poverty.

Andy Ross and others want the poor to disappear, or at least be out of view. Middle class people are appalled that poor people can hang out on Telegraph and have a good time without spending any money. Why, they’re wasting air and space that could otherwise be made available to shoppers and people with money. Andy and others therefore call in the cops to arrest these people, or harass them until they leave the area.

Why do the streets have to just be for shopping? Why does the entire focus of our society and our public spaces have to be for people to try and make money off eachother? Really everyone would be happier if as a people we sought satisfaction not believing that happiness comes through more consumption and consumer items. Telegraph’s merchants are setting up a situation for all of us where the only option is to come to spend money.

To defend the street people does more than just come to the aid of those people. It also defends the right of everyone else to come to the area for other reasons. It makes us all a little free-er from the constraints of the market economy and treadmill of consumerism in which we have to spend money–have to have money–to feel good about ourselves.

Let’s encourage Andy Ross to spend more time reading some of his own books and less time calling 911 by boycotting his store this holiday season.

The Albuquerque Police shut down the Food Not Bombs serving today the 31st of October, 1998. We were told to pack up and leave. The Police officer cited that some businesses in the area had made some complaints. He didn’t specify who, or what they were complaining about. The officer told us that we needed to get a “Special Events” permit. And if we are to get one then he wouldn’t shut us down.

This is all happening as Albuquerque’s mayor is trying to again implement “an out of site out of mind policy”! by consolidating the Homeless into one area. He also requested that the police begin again to enforce an existing law and arrest “aggressive” panhandlers.

Also adding fuel to the cities war on the homeless is the announcement from the mayor that control of the “4th street mall” [will be turned] over to the Downtown Action Team. The 4th street mall is three blocks of 4th street between central avenue and the civic plaza that were converted into a park. The Downtown Action Team is the downtown business association. The mayor hopes that by turning over the mall to the D.A.T. the group can take the necessary steps to begin the further revitalization of the downtown area. Part of that revitalization is cleaning the downtown area of the homeless population that “loiters” in the area. 4th street mall is one area where a fair number of people can be seen hanging out. Of which many are homeless people.

We of Food Not Bombs Burque believe that the big reason behind todays shut down of our serving is due to the recent focus on the revamping of the downtown district. Especially because we serve weekly in the 4th street mall.

Todays shut down will not prevent us from serving. Our location may change a little, or our tactic, this all depends on the consensus of the group. More will be added to this as things develop.

We will be working to build a homeless advocacy coalition within the next week to begin to deal with the policy changes that are happening. This coalition will involve many of the service groups including Food Not Bombs Burque and most importantly many of the people that live on the streets.

Sunday, December 13 1-2 pm

The latest post-election crackdown on Telegraph Avenue has resulted in up to 150 arrests, endless police harassment, and a new round of anti-poor laws to drive people out of the area. Telegraph merchants seem to thing they own the sidewalks and the streets and that public space is only for those who come to shop.

“We want street punks to stop feeling that it’s cool to hang out on Telegraph Avenue,” Cody’s owner, Andy Ross, told the Daily Cal in February. Andy Ross has consistently been one of the leading proponents of a kind of middle-class sanitation of the area.

The latest November round-up basically saw the Berkeley police come up with anything they could to arrest people and clear the sidewalk between Haste and Dwight. Over half the arrests were for marijuana sales, despite the fact that the 1979 Berkeley marijuana ordinance clearly states that the police department make “no arrests and issue no citations for violations of marijuana laws.”

Please support human rights in Berkeley and opposed the dictatorship of exchange by joining these events: PICKET Cody’s with us. Bring a sign.

SIT-IN on the sidewalk between Haste and Dwight from 1-2 pm.