Politics & Government

Not Evicted, but Occupy Starts to Move Out

As Occupy Santa Cruz starts packing up at San Lorenzo Park, here's a look at the people and cultures that made the camp what it was.

The Occupy Santa Cruz tents dwindled from about 100 to fewer than 40 Wednesday night, two hours after they were supposed to be evicted by police.

No police arrived, but many protesters decided that getting arrested wasn't going to help anyone.

A lot of the political types who started the Occupy movement in solidarity with Occupy Wall Street in New York were commuting from warm homes to attend the General Assembly meetings and to decide what their next, "positive" steps would be.

Find out what's happening in Santa Cruzwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

While about 40 people were sitting on the courthouse steps hearing reports from the clean-up and media committees, a fight broke out in the distance behind the meeting facilitator toward the San Lorenzo River.

A man hit another man with a log and a woman reported she had been raped. Police picked up the report and put it out on their radios.

Find out what's happening in Santa Cruzwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Two other men squared off closer to the meeting and were surrounded by a crowd of others. 

A man ambled through the meeting offering a small tent for $3 and later, a three-bedroom tent for $20.

The political occupiers on the steps seemed to draw in a shocked breath all at once and did what they called a "vibe check" – that is, they led a cheer, almost like they were at a football game.

"What do we want? Peace. What do we want? Unity."

The trouble drifted off. The meeting went on for hours with all the tediousness of a Congressional committee investigating the vicissitudes of Roberts Rules of Order. This was government, with all the intricacies, self-aggrandizement and contrasting agendas of the bigger one they were rebelling against.

As some wag once said, it was like sausage: you don't really want to watch it being made.

In 50-degree weather that felt colder, the General Assembly talked ad infinitum about the protocols of their Facebook page and who should post and who shouldn't and how they could administer it so some people don't post too many times or too lewdly. They debated how many days a week they should hold General Assembly and whether they should move it to the Clock Tower or keep it by the courthouse.

They used the more-than-a-little-awkward verb consense a lot, describing their process of making decisions by consensus. "We consensed on that yesterday," one said.

When the meeting started, they asked media members to introduce themselves. Later, two of them harassed Patch reporter Daniel Wootan, who was recording (on video) the discussion, perhaps for historical reasons.

Alex Darocy, who says he is a reporter but behaved like an activist in last week's bank takeover when he covered the building's windows with brown paper, raised a hand and told the group that Wootan was "videoing" the meeting.

When asked if that was OK, most didn't consense, so they asked Wootan to stop. Others in the group said he didn't have to stop because it was his First Amendment right to film a meeting in a public place.

However, Darocy kept following Wootan and snapping a flashbulb in his eyes. Another fellow kept standing and dancing in front of Wootan and threatened to take his camera.

Finally, someone in the audience stopped the discussion to point out the harassment and ask the people to stop. Darocy claimed he was just trying to get a clear picture of the reporter, although he had already taken dozens. He stopped.

Conversations with people who had been in the camp for much of the past two- month period revealed there were a lot of good intentions and some misguided ones. Clearly, there was a split on last week's takeover of the vacant Coast Commercial Bank building at 74 River St.

The group didn't consense it, but some people took it over with the intention of creating a genuine community center in an unused building owned by Wells Fargo, a bank they considered evil because it had given out bad loans and foreclosed on thousands of people.

However, the takeover turned into a party with loud music and "young punk anarchists," according to one insider, who said their only political view was "destroying things and ripping up wires."

Many of the occupiers had great sympathy for the homeless people who set up tents and joined them. But then another group of meth users— who are by the river night and day anyway — set up shop nearby and saw the camp as a place to get food and blend in.

They were the ones who resulted in what the sheriff reported as 138 calls for service around the camp, according to some observers.

Homeless advocate Robert Norse (see video), argued that the camp was necessary for homeless people to be comfortable and safe and to get services and food that the city wasn't providing for them.

Just the fact that they were there proved the truth in it. And the fact that others were a paycheck away from being there drove the political types to keep looking for more solutions.

One said it was time to take the movement indoors to the halls of the legislatures, to occupy them, not as sleeping places, but with their ideas.

And if there is any good to come out of all of this, it's in that thought. Not much is being accomplished in the streets. It's time to take the movement to the halls of power.

There seemed to be some consensus on that.


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