The Assault on the Public Commons Continues

If anything it grows fiercer every day. The movement to privatize practically everything in sight is busy nailing down every piece of public commons it can get its hands on, to extract every nickle it can and leave the husk of public interest and value in the trash can.

The Cal Expo folks continue to scheme a way to put considerable land into the hands of private developers and leave the rest up to the entertainment industry (Disney we can hear you). CEAV can do little about that until people wake-up, organize and push back. Till then, The CEAV vision or any vision of the public interest and its future must wait, while Cal Expo goes right on scheming. In the meantime, we will continue to report on other assaults on our precious public commons and efforts to preserve it. – The CEAV Project/California Advocates for the 21st Century

Sacramento City Council and Sac Bee conspire to do it again for the 1% – Homeless shafted

Here’s the published story – well, sort of… “Sacramento Homeless Evicted from American River Camp” (Sac Bee, Dec 29, 2011)

It has nothing to do with “camping”, nothing to do with the environment, absolutely nothing to do with public health and safety. It has to do with a decades old vicious and relentless attack on anyone who is too poor, sick and tired to harness themselves to the 1% or become expendable work-slaves to fuel their engines. In short, who would dare claim any unused portion of this earth as a place to rest, think or even dream about having a future. “If it ain’t a “shelter” we provide and control, then we own it anyway and you can’t even sit on it,” is the violent refrain of a City that doesn’t even pretend to care very convincingly. It’s all charade, folks.

More than a decade ago, when Mather Air Base was being close, I proposed that the more than 800+ units of base housing, in perfect condition,  might be turned over to the homeless and working poor to build their own community and begin to reconstruct their lives.  I had many willing to help, architects, builders, social workers, business people. Even Sac State took some interest in locating a special section of their School of Social Work at the site to assist in the development of a new community.  What did the city father’s say?  “We’ll give them a few rooms in a couple of dormitories over by where our new police training academy is going to be built. That way, “we can keep an eye on them.”  Then we’ll give them a little exploitative job-training program where we can do a photo-op now and again.  To tell the truth, I couldn’t even get the clergy and religious leaders of  Sacramento to try to get together and turn the church on the hill above the base housing community into an ecumenical facility and church to serve those new residents, if we could make that happen.  So much for the teachings of Jesus, and the rest of the gods of River City.

A few years ago, when Oprah used one of her programs to shine a spotlight on how shameless Sacramento’s treatment of the homeless is, the city officials ran around like chickens in heat, wringing their hands and crying about doing something for those “unfortunate people”.  Bullcrap.  It was all theater.  The heat died down and shame continued.  They rousted them from an unused piece of vacant land behind a factory; a peaceable community that had very strict rules to govern its own behavior.  Why? Because a couple of residents complained that “those people”  walked by their homes on the way to town (and, oh yes, someone probably urinated somewhere they weren’t supposed to).  So you go and forcibly eject an entire community because a couple of “good people”  don’t like your looks (“residents complained” is the favorite excuse the city uses to apply its draconian hand to anyone who doesn’t contribute to their campaign coffers).

Not long after that, Sacramento did it again, when a local attorney gave the homeless a place to stay on his fenced, private property.  Once again, those “neighbor’s complaints – what? one, two? – served the city’s purposes.  And what are those purposes, exactly?  What is its real policy with respect to the homeless?  Its called ‘enforced mobility’.  In short, you deny a demonized and marginalized group of people the right to even lay down anywhere on this planet,  (unless its is in your own regimented, policed, social worked to death, meager quarters where you can constantly surveil and harass them with your “mainstream programs”.)  In short, where you can deny them the right to have enough ground to stand on for a moment’s respite, to begin to heal, develop a strategy for their own development, perhaps to dream of something larger than this stingy little town with no imagination of its own would deny them.

Yes, that’s is Sacramento’s “homeless policy”  in a nutshell.  The one they parade so visibly, right next to the half-million dollars they just approved for consultants to take a look at their other great scheme of the decade – building a sports-palace for the Kings Basketball team.  Ya, with priorities like that,  the homeless should consider themselves lucky they aren’t just taken to some other remote “camp ground” and shot.  And let this bit of official brutality be a lesson to the rest of you work-slaves at the bottom of the ladder, “THIS IS WHAT WILL HAPPEN TO YOU IF YOU DARE COMPLAIN OR ASK FOR A LIVING WAGE!”   And the Sacramento Bee Newspaper?  Right in there pitching&wooing the 1%,  along with the rest of the shameless rascals they fawn.  Ain’t it all so grand?  We’ve got 60 “shelter beds” – oh great. There are about 1500 homeless in the immediate Sacramento area.  Nice offering boyz, and a happy yuletide to you.

In 1921, George Orwell (the same one) wrote a little book, “Down and Out in Paris and London”, that detailed the brutality and false-economy of forced mobility and of making homeless vagrants “move on”.  Britain had a system of ‘spikes’ (shelters) placed a day’s march apart, making it impossible for the homeless to sit for a moment and reset their lives.   With Orwell’s pressure, a year later the British did away with the system and began programs to insure the homeless were able to have places and tools to begin building their own lives.  Sacramento is only about 100 years and 99% out of date.  Time for a clean sweep of all these 1% public officials and a police force with nothing better to do.

Unfortunately, we’ve yet to see a progressive group in this community come forth to really mount a challenge to the status quo and sweep the house clean.  It remains the first place we need to cut the power lines of the 1%  is in the halls of local government.  Occupy Wall Street may be the ambition; but that effort is certainly going to have to remove locally corrupted and 20th century politicians that serve as their agents.   Ah, Sacramento, the city that puts the U.S. Constitution to bed at 11pm.

 

yes, “God bless us, everyone!”  …and to all, a good night. Oops, not you, “move along.”

related article:  “Sacbee’s Shameless Occupy Editorial“

 

Part 2 – THIS IS WHAT DEMOCRACY OUGHT TO LOOK LIKE

Part 1 is at: ‘This Is What They Want You To think Democracy Looks Like’

October 18th, Sacramento City Hall – What Democracy Ought To Look Like:

[video of meeting at: Occupy Sacramento ]
summary at: Mr. Smith Goes To Washington Times 40

But, Sometimes Democracy in America Looks like this,
‘We Get It!’ and we can all be proud to be Americans:

The arrests continued unabated during the interim that the Council was “thinking things over”. What we know going in is that, at any moment it chooses, the City Council can easily take an informal consensus among itself and simply turn to the City Manager and suggest that the arrests and interference with the assembly, as long as it remains safe and otherwise reasonably well behaved, be put on hold – a brief moratorium – while the Council considers the matter and decides what to do next. Does anyone for a moment believe that the City Manager would not have called an immediate halt to the use of the police to oppress and disrupt the petitioners exercise of their rights? If you do, then you don’t know very much about City politics. We’re spared the argument, however. The Council doesn’t raise a hand in that direction. Not even a glance. What they did at the last meeting was invoke another document, The Brown Act, intended to extend the right of the people to speak, but used in that instance to delay and thwart granting that right to the occupiers of Cesar Chavez Park under the guise that more time was needed to formally place the matter on the city’s agenda, required by the Brown Act to insure the people receive advance notice of planned government actions. How ironic to see laws intended to promote and protect the people’s right to participate in government being employed to deny them that right.

It didn’t really matter, however, because the Council didn’t really need the Brown act to insure their action at this second meeting would be lawful and proper. They had no intention of taking any action on the matter of relieving the occupation from the impediment to exercise its constitutional rights. As far as the city was concerned, in Sacramento the Constitution of the United States is to be put to bed promptly at 11pm.

What they knew and did instead of either an informal cessation of the violence being done to our Constitutional rights, or a formal action to permit overnight presence of the peace assembly and petition, was to attempt to co-opt and define the nature of that assembly and insert themselves into the process and draft of that petition. However, the next act of the City Council’s Dog&Pony show would have to wait for a little while. First, there were forty ordinary Americans that had a right to speak before the Council, under the Brown Act provisions. That was a delay the city could neither prevent nor set aside. The speeches between the opening presentations by the Chief of police and City Attorney, and the Council’s own deliberations were required. That much table space was reserved to the people by law, and there were enough cameras present to insure that the Council complied. The City could fetter it some. They could limit the first twenty speakers to 2-minutes each; and the next twenty to 1-minute each; they could mute applause and permit only ‘jazz-hand’ approval from the audience. Beyond that, the people would have their say, and say they did.

For the next hour, the people spoke as I had never heard them speak before any public body. They were ordinary Americans handling the reins of democracy as our Founders intended when they wrote the First Amendment. They were lawyers and engineers and students and housewives, business owners and the unemployed. They were old and young and middle-aged. They were sick and well, better off and poor. And they had all come to instruct their government to obey the will of the people and lift the source of their immediate anger so that they might exercise their rights to assemble and be heard.

From the first speech to the last, a remarkable display of democracy happened. There was no fawning this time. There was no wasted time telling the Council how excellent it was, nor attempts to include them as comrades in the people’s grievances. Something very surprising had happened in the space of one short week, between a meeting of beggars, pleading with their government to recognize and heed its citizens and of this meeting, demanding that their elected officials pay attention and comply with the will of the people.

Later, one council member would weakly reply that she didn’t agree with the people and had a “right to speak” just as they did. But Angelique Ashby’s insistence was already unmasked before she uttered those words. What the people had laid before that Council that night, though the council members attempted to wear masks of the people, be a part of the 99%, was that they did not have any such right at all. Not while they are serving as the people’s representatives. That is precisely what separates the speech of representatives in a democracy from the speech of the people. It is the very fact of their office and their oaths to represent the people that denies them their own voice in doing the people’s business. When a public official performs their duties on behalf of those they represent, they do so precisely in agreement to give up their right to speak on behalf of themselves.

The people spoke for nearly an hour. The Council however heard almost none of it. They had their own agenda, and if they were even mentally present at the meeting it was hard to tell when it came time for them to have the floor. Councilman Cohn again began with his rousing attempt to include himself and his colleagues in the 99%, just some more ‘peoples’ in ‘We the People’. “I am one among the 99″ he said – “I’m convinced you are on the right side of history, and I’m there with you”. It was the same speech he made the previous week. Only this time he wasn’t applauded. Nor was he praised as he began to define the issue as a matter of convenience “to work something out to insure you can keep your equipment in the park,” or feign to “want to be clear” about Occupy’s intentions, when what he really wanted was a hook to control their processes.

Except for two speakers* who attempted to make some type of proposals for separate “negotiations” with the Council about resolving logistical details and drafting “resolutions” to define Occupy Sacramento, we can’t find any suggestion at all in any of the other thirty-eight speeches that the abridgment of Constitutional rights, or the stretch of the meaning of a “reasonable time, place and manner” that was overlaid on that right by the courts and a local judge, was reducible to a conversation on storing equipment or making Occupy demands clear to the Council members. As some pointed out, what on earth is reasonable about shutting down a peaceful protest at 11pm, after it has given ample demonstration of its safe and orderly exercise? What of ‘reasonable’ requires the City to close the park and disrupt the assembly itself during the overnight hours? Is there some special event that occurs at midnight? Do the police vehicles turn into pumpkins? Do the quite conversations of small groups of people, or the sleeping bodies of weary occupiers become more threatening at 1am? Or, 2am? What does the ‘reasonable’ application of local ordinances that contravenes the Bill of Rights mean exactly? Certainly it can’t simply mean that such assemblies may only be conducted at the “convenience” of the state? That would make no sense at all when protest itself is to inconvenience the state in its pursuit of the status quo.

Does it then fall to the state to define the meaning of the assembly as well? Because that is exactly what Mr. Cohn proceeded to do, after he had defined the scope of discussion on the right to have an assembly. Apparently having heard almost nothing of what was said to the Council by the citizens, he launched into what appears to have been the result of some private conversations with one member of the occupation to propose “…we take up some kind of resolution.” Make no mistake, the operative term in that phrase was “we”. “I would like to work with you on that,” he said to some Mr. Kranz (sic) in the audience. Now what on earth, and by what authority does Councilman Cohn think is the City’s part of defining the intents and purposes of the occupation in the form of resolutions, or whatever form they may take? What business is that of Mr. Cohen, or anyone else on the Council? Do they think our action is some kind of one of those “public-private partnerships” they are so fond of promoting on behalf of their own 1% friends?

Or, perhaps the City Council entertains the notion that this is just one more facet of the state’s right to define the ‘manner, time and place’ of our assembly; to get down on the ground with us and helps us draft the statements of who we are and what we are doing. I don’t really believe that is what they have in mind, at all, as violent as it may be to the methods and intentions of the movement. Rather, it seems pretty evident that the Council is not so much interested in being included in our movement as it is in trying to suggest that they will favor us in some way by including us in their way of doing things. In short, to co-opt Sacramento Occupy as an unofficial arm of the City Council, that they can then carry some co-authored resolution to President Obama and the Congress (as the Mayor will suggest a little later in the meeting) to get the Federal government to fix the problems of Sacramento. Of course there are national issues that the Occupy movement is proposing; not least the removal of the control of this country by the 1%, and the reigning in and tight leashing of all levels of government and law enforcement that act as its agents.

What is wrong with this picture? Could it be that Sacramento, its public officials, its City Council and, its own 1% is also “The Problem”? Could it be, that before we can even address those national problems we have a little removing&leashing of our own to do, right here in Sacramento? Every move the Council made this night, every word out of its mouth was somehow directed towards making it seem like they were part of the movement in order to deflect any notion that they are, and have been for the past half-century, a core part of the problem for the citizens of this community. Every word they uttered at this meeting was that it was ‘the national economy’, or ‘the country’s wealth distribution’ or that Wall Street was some place ‘back there’ in New York or Washington, D.C. What was not heard was any possibility that it is the back-rooms of our own Council, their defaulting the design of our city to developers and basketball moguls and consultants from Tennessee and any of the other 1% marriage beds they sleep in and do “business as usual” in. What was noticeably absent was a single acknowledgement that perhaps the deplorable failure of our downtown, the emptiness of our treasury, the horrendous persecution of our homeless, the enthusiasm about throwing our scant assets at doubtful sports-palace schemes, the callous disregard for the needs of ordinary citizens and the host of other problems of decline and distress that have beset this region are not merely the corruptions of Washington politics and the Fortune 500 that don’t live here, but of our own 1% and their collaborations with our city government and local police.

Councilwoman Angelique Ashby was busy painting us the picture that it was some “Republicans” and their earmark rules and the issue of her getting federal funds for her levees that made Occupy Sacramento useful to her, as if we are here fulfill her need to turn on the spigot of a thoroughly corrupted government so that it flows in her direction. To this she has the gall to add that the curfew and police are their to “protect our safety”. Ms Angelique has no end to horror stories about the dangers of our occupation. Her grand finale is replete with her reminder that “there was one injury” – a loose dog that bit some police officer. We might also add to her list of wonderful examples of why we need dozens of police in full riot gear standing by to help kick us out of the park her astute observation, when a few people in the audience moaned about her silly examples, that “So you can see everyone’s not peaceful, and that’s my whole point!”. One can only wonder if, among Ms Ashby’s qualifications, channeling Sara Palin and Michelle Bachman were listed in her vitae?

So that’s it, the abridgement of our Constitutional rights as a matter of the City “protecting our safety” (as if being surrounded by phalanx upon pharynx of riot-equipped police made us safer?) and funneling federal funds from a Wall Street operated national government into some local politicians Districts? Nothing, not a single word about how those corrupted politicians might live in our own backyard and pull the levers of our own dysfunctional government.

It was no surprise that our Council doesn’t admit to “Getting it.” when it comes to what Sacramento Occupy is about. Given the amount of deception, disingenuous “identification” with the movement, pretense about concern with “public safety” as they persist in their arrest policies and rights abridgements, and absolute silence on how they have double-dealt the citizens of our community for decades, there is little reason to wonder why they wouldn’t wish to expose themselves.

The surprise was that it only took one week, between Council meetings, for our own citizens of the Occupy movement to “get it.” We’ve tolerated the shredding of democracy in Sacramento for a very long time. But when it came down to it, we proved that we can actually learn democracy pretty quickly, and begin to apply it to the most entrenched opponents of it, no matter how they try to dilute, divide or co-opt what we are doing. They were ordinary Americans, all of them, and they did what ordinary Americans can do when democracy is threatened by the few who have the audacity to think they own it, along with their agents which serve and protect no one but the 1% they work for and themselves.

What we proved on the night of October 18th was that Occupy Sacramento, the 99% of the citizens of this community, are quite capable of defining their own democracy and how they wish to use it, and what it means to remove the controlling 1% and the abusive and corrupted agencies they employ to remain in control. We no longer need our politicians to carry our message. That is what the right to assemble and petition the government for a redress of grievances is about; it is the moment when the people elect to carry their own messages. If the government or the 1% it serves find that uncomfortable or inconvenient, that is no concern of the people. We do not require massive police force to keep us safe among one another. We do not require public officials to “come to the park” to help us define ourselves; nor do we really need to go to them and beg favors for our existence and convenience.

We have proved, in our speeches to the council, in our refusal to be discouraged, in our resolve to right this country and give it back to the people, that democracy is our birthright and rightfully belongs to us, not to a pack of city ordinances, or “fetter” speeches from city attorneys, or even Judges who refuse to hear our petitions, or police that arrest us and dishonor their oaths to defend the Constitution of the United States from all enemies foreign and domestic. Most of all, we have proved, despite the “public face” of our local government and its willingness to do anything to protect the enclaves of its own 1%, that our community is still made up of citizens who take their democracy seriously, who expect their full and unfettered rights under the Constitution and will not sit back and let a very few destroy an irreplaceable, if sometimes difficult, inheritance. On that night, in those chambers, we established that We the People are the rightful stewards of the legacy of our Founders, and it is for us to decide when and how and where we will exercise that stewardship for our own benefit and to the benefit of future generations. We the People may make mistakes, but we also learn fast. One of the things we learned this night was that we must look as much to repairing our own local house and putting that in order before we march off to Congress and the President and demand they put their houses in order as well. It was the job we were given to do in Philadelphia at the birth of this nation, and we are proving every day we occupy Cesar Chavez Park and stand our ground, that we are quite capable of doing it.

* [these were the only two speakers that strayed from simply making their case and introduced separate negotiation and compromise positions into their speeches. One might reasonably ask if they did not also have private conversations with one or more of the Council members before they made their public remarks, but we have no way of knowing that at this time. ]

part 1 – THIS IS WHAT THEY WANT YOU TO THINK DEMOCRACY LOOKS LIKE

OCTOBER 11TH, SACRAMENTO CITY HALL
by Red Slider

Part 2 is at: THIS IS WHAT THEY WANT YOU TO THINK DEMOCRACY TO LOOK LIKE:

All Too Often, Democracy in America looks like this:

On October 11, 2011, the citizens of Sacramento, California waited expectantly for the members of their city council to do the right thing and grant the occupation across the street in Cesar Chavez Park the right to peacefully assemble and petition their government for the redress of grievances without curfew or unreasonable restriction of that right guaranteed them under the Constitution of the United States. They had no reason to expect their government would do otherwise. Why, that very afternoon one of our own core facilitators, via livestream, had argued with an online citizen of the occupation, assuring the virtual occupier that he had spent the day at city hall talking with Council members and they were quite ready to recognize the rights of the people; to waive the local “camping ordinance” and other restrictions, and to give the people what they needed to conduct their assembly round the clock.

The online citizen texted back to the facilitator, warning that the City Council didn’t operate on good faith or the recognition of people’s rights, and had not done so for fifty years. Instead, he cautioned that they worked in back rooms and at private meetings, making promises they have no intention of keeping; giving signals meant to obscure their real purpose, suggesting progress when all they were really doing was delaying matters and covering their real agenda with false hopes. The facilitator didn’t heed the warning; nor did the other, mostly youthful, occupiers listening in to the conversation. Many of them had never been to City Hall before. What they knew about our city government was what they had learned in school; the official view of democracy, the one they expected to be fully responsive to their needs and rights.

Now they were sitting in the audience at a Council meeting, fresh from having delivered their speeches on the need for camping in the park overnight and their petition for a “waiver” of ordinary restrictions on their assembly. Why should they have any doubt at all that their request would wholeheartedly approved? Indeed, the citizens that spoke that night spent more time praising the police and the City Council than they did in raising the points intended in their 2-minute talks. When they were finished, and the Council members were fawning each other and including themselves in the 99%, the audience cheered and approved. When the Council members spoke about “democracy” and the importance and welcome of citizens participating in their government, the occupiers greeted their statements with jazz-handed cheers of more approval. They were all as one in those chambers that night, officials and citizens all passionately engaged in the work of democracy.

Save one citizen, unable to attend the meeting, but watching closely from home during its live broadcast. He knew the way the Council members shifted in their chairs, the way they made back-chair comments, the way they raised seemingly trivial concerns and postured in serious thought. He knew, because he’d seen it all before, over and over again, through many years of watching. He knew this Council was no different. It hadn’t the slightest intention of granting the occupiers modest demands. Moreover, he knew as one of the members began to hem and haw over the matter, raising the need to “look into some questions a little further”, that the Council not only would deny the waiver, it would cleverly avoid saying that it intended to deny it. Instead, it would delay the matter, keeping the occupiers on the defensive, making them hostage to a promise that would never be fulfilled, buying time for more maneuvering and to wear down the resolve of the group. He’d seen all that before, too.

And so it was. The denial was wrapped in the clothing of putting it off until the next Council meeting. There would be no waiver, no granting of rights, no shred of democracy, not in those chambers. Not then, or ever, if the Sacramento City Council had anything to say about it. But ‘We the People’ would not know that. We the People did not even get that when the “Brown Act”, that great legislative attempt to give the people a seat at the table of their public bodies, was invoked as a reason the Council could not stop the arrests until the following week (inferring, of course, they might do just that), the people accepted that these formalities of government were for the protection of their own interests. They did not stop, were not suspicious enough, to think that the city could have suspended the arrests or informally nullify enforcement until a formal decision could be made. Instead, the people would leave those chambers a little disappointed, but fully believing everyone, the Council, the people, the City Manager, the police were all one big democracy doing its job on the high road of American ideals. It was nice to think so, for a few days anyway. But that was not to be, of course.

Still, there was one surprise in store that even the lone dissenter couldn’t have predicted. Something he had never seen in the endless days of watching the Dog&Pony shows conducted by Sacramento’s public officials. It would be a phenomena he had never seen before in all his years of following the news and the machinations of local government. Certainly, had he been told such a thing were possible, he would not have believed it could happen in the short week between what he had just witnessed, and the next Council meeting scheduled for October 18th. For now, he simply waited for what he already knew would be the outcome of the charade he just witnessed. The arrests would continue at the park. The disruptions of setting up a public assembly each night and having to reassemble it each morning would tax the petitioners. And, the next meeting with the City Council would arrive soon enough…

(Part II – This Is What Democracy Ought To Look Like …)

RESPONSE TO SHAMEFUL BEE EDITORIAL ON OCCUPY SACRAMENTO

The Sacramento Bee’s October 18th editorial, “Occupy Sacramento Wears Out Its Welcome” was a shameful exercise in manipulating information to its own benefit and a select few whose interests it has served above, all else, for many decades, the 1% of the Sacramento area. Less the Bee managers and editors are tempted to haul out their wallets (as the City Coucil, which whom they collaborate, are want to do) to prove that they, too, belong to the 99%, let me remind them that the 1% is not merely some litmus test of wealth, but an identifier of self-interested power and control in which The Bee Newspaper has long presented itself as a more than ample case-in-point.

The Bee Editorial needs little exegesis and pretty much speaks for itself, Bee Editorial, Oct 18,2011

Besides being the Bee’s version of good theater, this little hit piece certainly exposes the Bee as the voice of the 1%. Their total inability to even comprehend the nature of the Occupy actions around the nation, coupled by insane comparisons between an ordinance designed to affect enforced mobility on the homeless (itself, a draconian application of law couched in the euphemism of recreational “camping”) and the occupation of a public space as a necessary and essential enablement of the citizens Constitutional right “to peaceably assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances”. In this, the Constitution does not set a limit on the number of days or the number of successive hours such a right may be exercised. That does not mean they left such matters up to the states (for you “strict-constructions” the words aren’t there), but that they did not specify and therefore left it up to the exercise of the right to determine what continuity of hours and days was needed. As a number of Supreme Court decisions has made clear (most recently in 2009), the exercise of the Constitution’s establishment clauses is not to be weighed against the convenience of states and their jurisdictions or to be qualified by other applications or intents of laws that may come into conflict with that exercise.

The establishment clause, being so fundamental to the practice and preservation of our democracy, trumps all other considerations. It is elemental and not at all persuaded by desires to control the homeless or some duress a park lawn may undergo during such exercise.

But the Bee’s assault on the right to peaceably assemble is much more than just a specious and faulty understanding of the U.S. Constitution. It is a transparent attempt to marginalize, trivialize and dismiss an undertaking in collaboration with the very 1% they would profess to distance themselves from. Their attempt to reduce the matter to some complaint about the clarity of demands and a litany of issues which have been stymied by the 1% for fifty years or more or, to deflect it into questions of who owns the public commons and to sowing fears of how the occupation might “spiral out of control” is little more than a clumsy attempt to mask their own part in the matter.

Like our city council, the Bee is desperately trying to control and disappear the public’s expression of discontent by co-opting the authority in an attempt to define the movement themselves. As the vague illusion to serious yet unspecified issues, or to underscore the peacefulness without examining the reasons for that; or, reporting the matter as something that can be resolved with some accords about overnight storage, the Bee attempts to displace the movement’s definitions with its own. In doing so, the Bee, like the politicians and the police all seek to impose definitions upon the occupation in order to manage the discussion and manipulate the matter to a place where they can dismantle it and make it go away as quickly as possible.

But the occupation of Sacramento is not a “bike race” or a “nazi demonstration” and will not so easily be dismissed. The occupiers have their own definitions of what they are doing and, after a few lessons provided by the the City Council and the Bee, are returning to their own sense of mission and method in their bid to restore this democracy and return it to its rightful owners from those who have stolen it.

If one wishes to better understand what the occupation regards of its mission and demands, rather than presuming the Bee’s or City Council bogus attempts to define it to serve their own interests, definition, here are two resources that will be of some value:

one should review the film of last night’s City Council meeting;

Council meeting, Oct 18, (agenda item #22, ->1h31m56sec) for a view of some of the most articulate, clear and impassioned descriptions of what is meant by ‘democracy’ and the right to assemble;

and a short essay by myself, “What is the Purpose – The Mission – of Occupy Sacramento.

If you still have trouble understanding what the Occupy movement is about, we suggest you go down to Cesar Chavez park and see for yourself. First , spend some time contemplated the many for whom the park was named. After that, go and talk to some of the people there, visit with them for awhile. Not only do we think you will understand why “Sacramento, the city that puts the Constitution to bed promptly at 11pm” is not something to promote in a Bee editorial such as this one, but why it is a serious and shameful symptom of condition that a few very courageous people have assembled to correct and which the rest of us should join, support and be present, if possible to insure that it accomplishes what needs to be done.

SAC County Considers Super-agency for Parks & Recreation

Sometimes the best intentions threaten our public commons as much as the worst of schemes.

The American River Parkway folks have fought long and hard to preserve miles of riverfront for public recreational purposes. If it were not for them, we’d have river-condos from shore-to-shining-shore by now. However, their recent petition to the Sacramento County Board of Supervisors to create a super-agency for oversight of all county recreational lands could undo all that and ultimately threaten what they work so hard to preserve. Through a ‘grassroots’ group spawned by the parkway folks, they are recommending that the County create a joint-powers super-agency to encompass the entirety of County parks and recreational facilities of all kinds, including the American River Parkway. This super-agency would have jurisdiction over every kind of public recreational facility in the county, from the American River Parkway to local parks, senior centers, golf-courses, bikeways, archery ranges, horseshoe pits and every other public recreational facility. At first thought, it Sounds good, one agency to protect the whole range of public commons facilities. But that’s the rub and the danger as we explained in response to article in the Sacramento Bee . Here is what we wrote the Bee (though they chose not to print it):

To: Viewpoints, The Sacramento Bee Newpaper
RE: “COUNTY STAFF WILL ASK FOR 90-DAY DELAY” (7/19/2011, page 1)

“The intention is laudable, and the preservation of parks and public commons is of paramount importance. But the plan to create a joint-powers super-district to manage all of the recreational land and facilities in the County is a minefield of unintended consequences that could spell disaster for public commons and recreational facilities alike.There are two great divisions of purpose, vision and potential here. One involves the American River Parkway, contiguous nearby protected lands (Bushy Lake, e.g.) and considerable undeveloped or marginally developed land on its borders that may, someday, become part of its mission. The other includes all kinds of “recreational facilities” spread throughout the County, from golf courses to senior centers and neighborhood parks.

The problem is, the two missions are entirely different and often at odds with one another.If these two dissimilar jurisdictions are merged into a single overarching agency, the politics, visions and other future concerns for both types of endeavors will tend to get compromised and argued to death within a single agency. It’s as if you merged the police and fire departments into a single agency. At first it works, but eventually they are fighting over whether their priority is to chase the arsonist down the street or put out the fire. Two different professional responsibilities, portfolios and missions. The staff at the new park agency may think they can handle both, may even hire different people for the two types of jurisdictions. But they can’t. Even differing ideas on park codes and code-enforcements will butt up against one another and compete for primacy. Eventually things get muddled and muddied, politics and money intervenes and you wind up endangering both projects.

It is enough that there is considerable difference of opinion and vision within each of these types of responsibility. That will already require considerable skill to sort out and unify into a single vision. To put two competing types of missions together becomes a nightmare, for the new agency, and for the County that takes on this perpetual balancing act.

It is a well-intended idea, meant to preserve and protect public parks and recreation. But in the end, it is a disaster waiting to happen.The County should reject the grass-roots plan, and draft another; one that separates these two important types of public assets, and offers separately, and to each of them, the dedicated oversight they will require to preserve and improve them for future generations.”

Red Slider, Steward
The CEAV Project
California Advocates for the 21st Century

THE PRIVATIZATION OF NASA – DISMANTLING OUR PUBLIC COMMONS

[Response to a Sacramento Bee article boosting the privatization of space flight without a single reference to what dismantling the public vision of the future might mean to America. Another cheer for greed, spoils and selling of America:

Dear Bee:

‘Subcontracting’ and ‘Outsourcing’/Privatization are two entirely different things. Make no mistake, what is happening to NASA is the dismantling one of the most important public agencies we have – a general part of the ‘privatization of practically everything’ our leaders seem hell bent on achieving. There is plenty and always will be for the private space industry to do. But taking down the flagship of the effort (and the only public vessel in the fleet) is not the way to do it. In the end, it will be a loss to the private and public commons alike. Imagine if the ‘Whole Earth’ photo we all know, had been taken by a private company? It would still be proprietary information and the item that touched off global environmental consciousness (and launched 10,000 businesses) would be locked in a drawer. Here is how I see it:

The Poem Not Taken

Today, we begin the dismantling of our pride and so much more
as the last shuttle weaves into the loom of the sky,
for NASA was a public commons of a most uncommon kind
where our imaginations journeyed free among the stars
for all to see and none to own, the wonders we discovered there
with launch upon launch to thrill us as it rumbled in our bones;
that took us to the shores of space and well beyond,
and let the curiosity of children play endlessly in its embrace;
where all might wander on that sheer expanse of wondering;
for NASA was a public commons of the mind that none
should ever own, where the wealth of what was kept
in that repository, stewarded for all to see,
belonged to all of humankind.

To step upon the moon, to glimpse the birthplace of the stars
and far beyond; to watch amazed as telescope and island sky
made limitless those gifts delivered wondrous to our surprise.
All that was ours, and more, dearer us than precious life
and dearest of all, an image taken from the shores of space
of that other public commons, concealed in a photograph
that NASA kept, until one of us compelled it to be shown;
an image all of us know well, a gown of blue-white mist
revealed as it shone upon the heavens, too;
a fragile globe that slept within the arms of space
that we then knew was all we’d ever know of home;
the Whole Earth was ours to keep and hold or, to let it go
should we insist dismantling it, piece by piece, as well.

Some wish to own what we now tear asunder, and insist
the marketplace and profit is the best that we can make of it;
that competition and invention are a private thing that only
their self-interest can release; that progress isn’t plunder
and what they do with what is left is to our benefit.
The best of us will hesitate, the looting of the public commons
is an art that those who practice it do well; the worst
can only calculate, they cite “the bad economy” as reason,
and know the ways to profit from excuses. Even now
they claim that other public commons for themselves
and eye this little NASA prize among the spoils,
to strip her of her gown and lay her bare, and usher in
what may be the final season of her shine, for we’ve cut
far more than fat, we’re into bone and muscle now,
and what remains; but one bright moment left
before the window closes; “mission scrubbed.”

Before the darkness drops and what once shone above
is gone; before the face of death lays heavy on her brow,
without tears, nor any witness to express what happened
where we stood and, dry-eyed, watched the crumbling edifice
of human joy ’til nothing more remained of it, and less of us;
before the final cut is made and all is lost, there is a moment
to stand up, in full possession of our own uncommon art,
and put between the knife and what remains, that one prize
that is ours and ours alone, what those who would wage war
on our imagination cannot dismantle, nor will they ever own;
a photo no one else can take but us, and from a place much further
than the furthest star, much closer than your eye is to this page;
a picture of the ‘Whole Earth Heart’, residing in ourselves,
and there unto the keeping of ourselves alone or,
to give away.

- red slider, 2011

————–
‘Mission Accomplished‘ has a petition and interesting way to help save NASA at Change.org Go there and sign it.

Sacramento Arena and Regional Interest – An Open Letter

[notes: 1. A sports arena is not part of CEAV's primary mission, and CEAV takes no position on whether one should or should not be built. Our interest and the NSEC concept were composed at the time the sports arena was attempting to locate at Cal Expo as a means of transferring valuable public commons into private developers hands. We believe the NSEC concepts has continuing value as an alternative to current planning, so we include it as a secondary offering of the CEAV project. - rs;

2. The original NSEC concept paper can be read here]

June 4, 2011

Senators Darrell Steinberg and Ted Gaines,
Co-Chair, Regional Sports Arena Interest Group
District Office (Steinberg): 1020 N Street, #576; Sacramento, CA 95814
District Office (Gaines): 1700 Eureka Road, Suite 120; Roseville, CA 95661

Dear Co-Chair,

We felt it advisable to bring to your attention a concept (NSEC Link) for arena amplification and investor interest which we proposed to city officials and others some years ago. During one Sacramento City Council meeting last year, city staff and others involved in the process of arena development brought up the subject of “regional interest” in the development of a Kings arena for Sacramento. While all suggested that it would be very desirable to have such interest, they also frankly admitted there was none and further offered that they could see no reason for such interest, considering the local scope and value of the project. We do not see any reason now for changing that original estimate; nor do we see that the project has been altered in any way that would argue for such regional interest. It remains, whatever its packaging, an arena for the Sacramento Kings basketball team augmented with some entertainment industry offerings. Whatever ‘trickle-out’ value might be postulated for the region, we see nothing, in its present form, that would justify substantial regional interest or investment, particularly if public assets are involved.

In contrast, our vision for a National Sports Education Center (NSEC, enclosed) associated with a multi-use sports arena dedicated to the full range of sports interests, from bicycles to Olympic trials and national franchise participation by any number of sports, could well alter the scope of the project to one of substantial regional value. What we suggest in the enclosed sketch is that the vision of the project 1) be open to accommodating the entire range of sports and sports-related interests; 2) that it be of such scope and value that it can attract national and international attention as a nexus of sports interest and activity around the world; 3) that its national and international draw be of such volume sufficient to attract private investment from the entire sports industry, making any need for public funds or assets unnecessary; and, 4) it be sufficiently comprehensive and of such public value that it will be used and appreciated by nearly all ordinary citizens the year round, whether they are basketball fans or not. We believe, given proper analysis and development, NSEC might well fulfill all of those requirements. In doing so, NSEC would also have broad implications, not only of local and regional value, but for the state economy as well.

We hope that this adds a dimension to the project that might convince members of your group there may well be good reason for significant regional interest in the development of a Sacramento arena. However, this can only happen if the project itself warrants such appraisal. We believe NSEC provides that reason. Certainly it offers much greater public interest and value than a project which concerns only a small, if very vocal, minority our citizens. NSEC not only opens the door to the arena’s regional importance and support, but to national and international attention as well. Planned and designed correctly, and with the full backing of the sports industry, NSEC offers compelling reasons to consider supporting a world class sports complex. It simply makes good dollars and sense that a complex for all sports interests, complemented with sports-related retail and public interest facilities investment offers a vision that would easily trump a very local project, serving only a single sports franchise and a small minority of citizens. NSEC is a niche in the general sports industry market which, for the moment, remains vacant and waiting to be filled. That is our opinion of the matter and we hope that you agree with us.

California Advocates for the 21st Century would appreciate it if you would circulate this letter and the NSEC enclosure among your group’s members for their consideration. While we have no special expertise in this matter, beyond envisioning an unrecognized potential for the project, we welcome inquiries and will try to answer any questions you might have.
Sincerely,

Red slider, steward
California Advocates for the 21st Century

The CEAV Project FAQ

The CEAV Project FAQ provides some brief answers to frequent questions asked about ‘Cal Expo – An Alternate Vision. The following questions are briefly answered in the CEAV FAQ:

FAQ Index

What does the name ‘CEAV’ stand for? The CEAV Project – Introduction and history Who is The CEAV Project? What is The CEAV Project? When will Cal Expo Green happen? Where will Cal Expo Green be located? Why should Cal Expo Green be built? How will Cal Expo Green be implemented? How will Cal Expo Green be financed? What about the traditional fair offerings?

Click here to read The CEAV Project Faq

If you wish to have additional questions answered in the faq, please leave them in the comments here or on the faq page. Thank you.

SHAME ON CAL EXPO; SHAME ON THE BEE

Once again, Cal Expo forges ahead with its scheme to rip off state land and destroy the State Fair in the process. The Sacramento Bee continues its policy to black out news on any alternatives to their land-grab schemes and lack-of-vision plans for Cal Expo’s future. Today’s article on Cal Expo’s latest schemes can be viewed at sacBee.com

The following is text of some of our comments and our responses that we put online at the Sac Bee website – comments which have since ‘mysteriously’ disappeared:

(posted by CEAV to sacbee comments:)

Shame on the Bee (& Bizjak), Shame on Cal Expo. Cal Expo has had at least three other proposals on the table for years and has completely ignored them (the Tatara proposal, The CEAV Project and a recent addition ‘A Movable Fair’.) A target on its back and “Cal Expo is the bull’s-eye, right in the middle,” is absolutely correct. What they are planning is nothing less than the murder of the last large urban public commons in the state; the core asset of state land that was gifted for the purpose and mission of a State Fair. Once that is sold to private developers for houses and shopping malls it is gone forever, ripped-off from our grandchildren and their children to line the pockets of a few developers and provide a temporary quick fix to save a fair so badly mismanaged that its vital and vibrant mission is practically moribund in the hands of its current Board. What small-minded ignorance that represents. “If Cal Expo is going to be here another 43 years, we need to (modernize).” Another 43 years? The CEAV Project proposal projects an international, world-class, global green hub that could bring in billions in revenue, 10,000 jobs, 10 million plus visitors per year and the prize in the race for the green center of the world. Not for 43 or 53 years, but for a century or more. “We know Cal Expo has great potential; we just don’t know what it is” say the developer boosters and the Board – It’s right in front of them and they totally ignore it. They never will know, until and unless people of real vision and boldness replace the current Board of Directors and begin to solicit and analyze alternatives to the current Board’s lack of imagination.

“Cal Expo officials acknowledge they have little experience in private land development,” says the article, and, clearly, they have NO EXPERIENCE in public land development either. All they have are schemes to enrich a few of their members (Rex Hime is chief lobbyist and Owner of the California Business Properties Assn. – need we say more?) and aspirations to cut Cal Expo and its mission loose from the State of California and join the private entertainment industry (see the memos in their last Board meeting agenda packet at their website); an ambition at which the present Board will also, predictably fail. Time to get loose of small minds and smaller designs and think about what a prosperous, world-class future would really be like for Sacramento. Write Cal Expo and tell them to stuff their schemes and leave. Tell the new Governor and legislature to just say NO! and get a new Board that can really take on a 21st century vision on behalf of all Californians and their future generations. Tell the Bee (&Tony Bizjak) to get off their high-biased horse and start reporting on alternatives that have been before the Board for years and on future ideas to come. It’s time to get organized folks. Email The CEAV Project at ceav@ceav.us if you’re interested interested in helping put an end to this charade and moving on to something much better.

RESPONSE COMMENTS BY CEAV:

comment by kat61969 (11/08/2010 12:59:29 PM) who wrote (on using state workers to devise a plan for Cal Expo): “This is an outstanding idea. Not only the upper management in the departments, but the common state worker, who is financially invested in the Sacramento region with homes and families, should be included in this discussion. I think that a good managable decision could be made this way.”

CEAV’s Reply:

This (the state’s official involvement/selection) should really come after the state solicits ideas from all the people of California, not just developers and the finance community. One of the failures of the last 3 decades of Cal Expo planning is that they design financial packages first and then consider what kind of project the financing will support (they still have no plan for the State Fair itself, and never did). It’s been the tail wagging the dog, all along. A state-wide competition for the public use of that land should produce far more interesting ideas than state workers (though some of them may also have good ideas). A ‘California First’-like committee similar to the original ‘Sacramento First’ group (only better) might do the trick of sorting out the wheat from the chaff. Also remind folks, this isn’t about Sacramento (though a winning idea ought to benefit us as well.) It’s state land and belongs to the people of California – we need to get over our obsession that this is about us and principally for our benefit. – red slider, The CEAV Project

——
comment by KurtMIchaels who wrote (11/08/2010 12:31:04 PM): “This time, since the Cal Expo Board seems to be driving the rehab of Cal Expo, I just hope that leeches like Kamilos and “VisionMaker” will NOT be given sweetheart exclusive negotiating rights, as was done by the city council. Why is it that the parasites who call for a “world-class” city are the same carpet-bagger leeches that simply want to line their own pockets. Who exactly do Kamilos and VisionMaker own here? We need to identify them and terminate their political careers.”:

CEAV’s Reply:

The present Cal Expo Board is a dinosaur with a few “leeches” of its own. They have not, nor will ever do anything but what they’ve been determined to do all along – sell off the property (some now, eventually all of it) to private developers and end the public commons use and accountability that would protect it for future generations.

Comment by kat61969 (11/08/2010 12:59:29 PM): “This is an outstanding idea. Not only the upper management in the departments, but the common state worker, who is financially invested in the Sacramento region with homes and families, should be included in this discussion. I think that a good managable decision could be made this way.”:

CEAV’s Reply:

This (the state’s official involvement/selection) should really come after the state solicits ideas from all the people of California, not just developers and the finance community. One of the failures of the last 3 decades of Cal Expo planning is that they design financial packages first and then consider what kind of project the financing will support (after all their schemes and planning, they still have no plan for the State Fair itself, never did and it’s a fact that doesn’t much seem to concern them either.) It’s been the tail wagging the dog, all along. A state-wide competition for the public use of that land should produce far more interesting ideas than state workers (though some of them may also have good ideas). A ‘California First’-like committee similar to the original ‘Sacramento First’ group (only better) might be an appropriate vehicle for conducting such a competition for best ideas. Cal Expo and the Bee, however, would prefer you hear nothing about alternatives to their own ‘best ideas’ to destroy the land and the State Fair in the process.

——

Comment by giley on 11/08/2010 03:26:18 PM:“The best solution is to privatize the fair grounds. Recently, the Orange County fair was sold to a private company and its on the verge of remodeling the infracstructure. It would also be wise to re-think the moving of the Arco Arena and create a people friendly downtown atmosphere near the Arena. I am not a big fan of Los Angeles, but having been to their LA Live center near the Staples Center and the revenue that it creates it would be a great way for the city of Sacramento to generate tax revenues.”

CEAV’S REPLY:

Spoken like a private developer. What? “privatize” the last remaining large urban public commons in the state? There are much better and higher public uses for that land (like The CEAV Project) which are also highly beneficial to California commerce, agriculture and industry. Do we need shopping malls and housing on the Cal Expo site to compete with local businesses and services, especially when there are other places such private ventures can be built? You don’t mention LA got 32 miles of river lands already preserved for its public commons. Sacramento has 23 miles of river parkway which will be endangered by the encroaching pressures of futher development if Cal Expo falls into private developer’s hands. Instead, under The CEAV Project, Cal Expo land could become the crown jewel in our own preservation effort and also serve as the showcase and economic centerpiece of California’s industries and technology. And you want to throw that away for some shopping malls? Get real.

[More information CEAV's proposals for a global green hub and 'A Movable Fair' proposals can be read in previous articles on this blog and at www.ceav.us]