The Invisible People of Fresno

By Jeff Pflueger

Just off the highway on Olive Avenue in Fresno, is the Donut Queen. Framed but faded pictures of smiling clients hang on the walls. A tight community of regulars crowds the chairs and tables. They chat loudly as they read the paper and wash down big bites of doughnuts with coffee. I met Al Williams here each morning.

Al would lock his bike outside. "My mule," he'd say, grinning. He had with him a small black bag tidily containing all his valuables. Everything else, his bedding, shelter and clothes, were cached somewhere on the streets of Fresno. He'd always joke with the smiling woman serving doughnuts at the counter, "You ready to marry me yet?"

"We'd do anything for each other," Al said of his friends at the Donut Queen. "We're all here every morning."

Over two days, Al showed me the underbelly of Fresno, a California city crippled with staggering poverty. I'd learn about the silent, but violent, war against the homeless and the inefficiencies and dysfunction of the services provided. I'd see firsthand the massive difficulties faced by the city and its homeless residents.

If one is looking for inspiration to help the complex and ballooning homeless situation in our nation, the violent and politically conservative town of Fresno, seems an unlikely place to search. But as I learned, it is precisely because of Fresno's brutal response to its growing homeless population that an unusually hopeful story unfolded. Desperation, the victory of an epic legal battle, the unexplained death of one of the homeless movement's leaders, a heroic local journalist, a visionary architect and villages made from recycled waste and straw bales are each pieces of a story that may transform Fresno into an international model for housing the homeless.

Across the street from the Donut Queen is the McDonald's where Al's deceased wife was once arrested for trying to use the restroom. Al told me that the police rolled her in her wheelchair into the middle of the parking lot in the cruel summer heat while they slowly did their paperwork in the shade. Each day, some of the homeless come to the parking lot to sell trinkets and crafts, or ask for money. Next to the McDonald's is the Ambassador Motel. Al and his wife lived in the dirt field behind the motel for some time before she died. She was in her mid 40s. Al explained that she had been "patient dumped." After denying her treatment for a prolapsed rectum, the hospital dropped her off in the parking lot with what Al described as "open wounds." Al's wife died a week later from an infection she contracted from her untreated condition.

Al told anecdotes like this, of life on the streets in Fresno, as if he were talking about the weather. I was reminded of when I was interviewing Iraqi refugees in Syria fleeing from the war, or when I was in southern Lebanon talking with families in their destroyed homes after the 2006 war with Israel. The injustices endured are so great, and so numerous, that the understated stories can easily be missed even though the words are being spoken.

Cynthia and Al

Al Williams was born in 1947 in Oklahoma. Soon afterward, the family moved to the San Francisco Bay Area where Al's father, in the military, worked in the shipyards. In 1952, the family moved to Bakersfield. When Al graduated from high school in 1963, he left home and moved to Fresno. Al then spent nine years in the military and fought in Vietnam.

Al was first homeless in 1991. He had two children at the time and was working as a plumber. Losing his children is what Al says put him on the streets.

"I came home one night to an empty house. My two kids gone, my lady gone. I went to court about my kids and the judge said, 'She can do anything she wants to do.' To hell with the system, to hell with society, I spent a lot of money on court...and she took my kids out of the state, which is illegal, and I just gave up then. I was homeless for probably about eight years."

 

Cynthia Green lives across town, but Al and Cynthia have grown close through their years on the streets.

Cynthia told me, "Me and Al became tight in that we was thinking along the same lines. He was losing his loved ones, I was losing my loved ones, we was getting beat up, harassed and everything, put down, sit on the curb, so that made a bond between us that will last a lifetime."

Al said, "A lot of people say we're married...but we can't stand each other half the time, but we love each other dearly.... We call each other brother and sister basically."

In 2000, Cynthia was working three jobs, one at Fresno's Zacky Farms and two in-home service jobs caring for medical patients. Cynthia's in-home service work was taking all of her time, so she quit working at Zacky Farms. Soon after that she lost her other jobs along with her apartment and "was on the streets overnight."

Cynthia explained that she was fighting hard at the time to create a union for in-home care workers. She said that a month and a half after she lost her job and apartment, the union formed. "I wouldn't have lost my jobs and my apartment if we had the union, but the timing wasn't meant to be."

She has been homeless ever since.

Fresno's Challenge

The city of Fresno, is struggling under enormous pressures due to poverty.

A 2006 Brookings Institution report, using 2000 census data, ranks Fresno as having the fourth highest poverty rate in the nation at 26.2%. But Fresno ranks first on perhaps a more important figure; with a 43.5% concentrated poverty rate, or the percentage of poor individuals in high-poverty neighborhoods, Fresno's poor are geographically concentrated like nowhere else in the nation.

By city estimates, roughly one in a hundred people in Fresno, is homeless. According to some homeless advocates the number is much higher; if "homeless" also includes the people who are "displaced," that is, without a home but living temporarily in some form of shelter like a motel room, the number may be as high as one in 20.

Across the city, homeless encampments have swelled into villages. Each has a name like "The Hill," "New Jack City" and "L Street." They are composed mostly of camping tents packed closely together. Sleeping bags, blankets and tarps are often draped over the tents to provide additional insulation and weatherproofing. Some homes within the encampments are shanties made of freely available materials such as pallets, plywood, and blankets.

 

Fresno, Cal Trans and the Fresno Police addressed the homeless situation by conducting coordinated sweeps of the encampments. After police ordered residents to leave, bulldozers scooped up entire settlements and literally threw them away.

Al described one sweep: "They were brutal. They took everything. They threw our food away. They threw our clothes away... They destroyed my wife's wheelchair. They destroyed her medications... When I tried to stop them from destroying our stuff, they would actually pull guns on me."

Cynthia told me about everything she lost. "I don't have a thing left. No identity. No papers. Nothing to say that you existed. They took my birth certificates, all ID, all family photos... That's why they call homeless people invisible people."

In October 2006, a federal judge issued a temporary restraining order to stop the city from conducting sweeps. Soon after, the homeless of Fresno won a rare victory in the form of a $2.35 million class action lawsuit. Funds from the lawsuit went to the individuals whose possessions had been destroyed, as well as into an account to provide money for housing and medical care for them.

During the legal process, Pamela Kincaid, homeless herself, was a high-visibility named plaintiff. She was beaten in the streets and hospitalized with brain injuries. Local journalist and homeless advocate Mike Rhodes is a central figure in helping to improve the situation for Fresno's homeless through his tireless reporting and activism. Mike Rhodes reported that, according to a witness, the people who beat Pamela Kincaid were saying, "Drop the suit, drop the suit, you're hurting us, you're hurting them, now we're hurting you."

Two days after the class action lawsuit was certified, Pamela Kincaid was found dead after falling four stories from a balcony in the hospital where she had been recovering. Rhodes thinks that her death is suspicious. Pamela Kincaid's death was not investigated by the Fresno Police
Department, nor was the beating.

Since the settlement, the city of Fresno has changed its behavior. Fresno now pays consenting motels $65 a night to house a homeless person. According to Al, after the voucher period is over, the people are most often back on the streets. Many of these hotels are dangerously run down. Recently, the city of Fresno closed one of its voucher motels, the Story Land Inn, because of building code violations including mold, broken windows and bad plumbing. Roughly 100 residents were evicted.

Fresno also began housing homeless people in tool sheds. In October 2009, Fresno dismantled the "H Street" camp and relocated the estimated 150 residents at a cost of $700,000. Many of the H Street residents were moved into "The Village of Hope," a settlement made of dozens of plywood tool sheds packed into two fenced lots. Residents live two per shed, without electricity, water or insulation. Nobody can be in a shed between the hours of 8 a.m. and 5 p.m.

Violent behavior toward the homeless is apparently still common and defended by Fresno's police department. Brutal stories circulate on the streets that are difficult to verify, but on February 9, 2009, two officers in the police department were filmed as one restrained a homeless man while the other punched him repeatedly in the face and head. Fresno Mayor Ashley Swearengin and Police Chief Jerry Dyer both promised an internal investigation and an external investigation conducted by the Fresno County District Attorney. Today, nearly nine months later, according to Rhodes, no external investigation has occurred and the Fresno Police Department refuses to release the results of its internal investigation. And the two officers? "As far as I know, they are still with the Fresno Police
Department," wrote Rhodes in an e-mail.

Radical Solutions

As bleak and violent as the homeless situation has become in Fresno, Fresno is a city desperately in need of creative solutions. Local architect Art Dyson has been working on solutions as radical as the problem. "All marvels of history would have been history without bold decisions," Dyson wrote in his proposal.

Dyson served his architectural apprenticeships with Frank Lloyd Wright, Bruce Goff and William Gray Purcell. His work has received more than 150 local, state, national and international design awards and he is featured in more than 400 publications and two dozen books.

Dyson's work is integrative, drawing upon many traditions and ideas. His approach to helping the homeless situation is perhaps the most integrative of all.

Art Dyson is creating a visionary program through Fresno Pacific University. The program is interdisciplinary, integrating sociology, anthropology, planning, architecture and revolutionary ideas from sustainable building to create "Eco Villages" to house the homeless. The graduate students in the program will design and ultimately build the villages with the assistance of volunteers and the homeless themselves.

Each village will be limited to 20 residents. Small private shelters, built from reused and sustainable materials, will be arranged around community space and centered on a small-scale local economy such as the production of bamboo and crafts created from bamboo. Due to the recent housing collapse, land is cheap in Fresno. The villages themselves can be built for nothing, claims Dyson, since the materials will be either reused or donated.

Dyson hopes to make Fresno a model for how other cities around the globe can help people without homes. Already he has traveled internationally to present his vision in cities desperate for solutions.

As ambitious and technical as his plans are, they are rooted in a deeper passion about connecting diverse people experientially through the process of the project. Dyson writes in his proposal, "The program will help cultivate a culture of mutual acceptance and respect, solidarity and compassion, open communication and cross-cultural outreach by example. The program will serve as a catalyst to produce the highest aspirations of humanity into a practical reality."

Dyson's approach is modeled clearly in the first tangible outcome of the project. Al and Cynthia collectively invested $16,000, a portion of the settlement money, in the purchase of a home that will become the Pamela Kincaid Neighborhood Center. Art Dyson and some other investors also chipped in to purchase the $28,000 home that sits on one-third of an acre. Cynthia moved into the residence, along with some students who are assisting with the renovation, landscaping and experiments in small-scale economies. The center is to be a place to help the homeless. Dyson's drawings for the property feature extensive gardens and a vegetable stand. The investors hold weekly meetings in Dyson's office.

Talking with Dyson and advocate and journalist Rhodes, it is clear that the partnership is empowering the homeless to help themselves. Through their support, Cynthia and Al are bolstered in their work with the homeless. Cynthia told me simply, "It's about caring. You just need to care."

"We won the money, we didn't win the war... The whole thing was to keep on fighting," Cynthia said defiantly as she sat in the Pamela Kincaid Center that she partially owns.

Today, though Al and Cynthia are still very poor and on the brink of homelessness, they are leaders of the homeless community, fighting to improve a broken system. Al is on the editorial board of Rhodes' Community Alliance newspaper and writes articles for the paper. Both he and Cynthia tour with Rhodes, presenting around the state about homeless issues. Al's business card reads, "Al Williams, homeless advocate."

As Al and I visited the homeless encampments across Fresno, Al was like a gentle father, dispensing hugs, love, and occasional reprimands to the massive homeless population. Everyone seemed to know and respect him.

In the Donut Queen, I sat with Al as he checked messages on his cell phone. At that moment, gathering stories about life on the streets of Fresno felt like gathering belongings from a burning ship. There are too many important stories and too few hands on deck. Most all of the stories are being ignored. Eventually they will be lost. Tragic stories of homeless children and families were hidden everywhere across the city. I was anxious to get back to the streets.

Al put his cell phone away and looked at me. "OK. Where do you want to go?"

*****

Jeff is a San Francisco Bay Area based photographer. You can see his work and contact him at JeffPflueger.com.

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Reaping Riches in a Wretched Region: Subsidized Industrial Farming and Its Link to Perpetual Poverty
Part 1 of a 2-Part Series

By Lloyd G. Carter

This two-part series shows how a long American tradition of helping small farmers has, in the past few decades in the San Joaquin Valley, morphed into a massive government aid program for large industrialized agribusiness operations-a program that not only drives small farmers off the land but also perpetuates rural poverty because agribusiness requires huge numbers of low-paid, seasonal harvest workers, many
of whom are undocumented workers who choose to stay in the
United States.

In the last few decades, well over a billion dollars in taxpayer aid has been provided to a few hundred growers in the Westlands Water District, which is part of the San Luis Unit of the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation's Central Valley Project (CVP) in central California. The CVP is the largest publicly funded water management system in the United States, and the Westlands is the biggest agricultural irrigation district in America. At nearly 1,000 square miles, the Westlands is still dominated by a few pioneer dynastic families although Congressional backers of the San Luis Unit half a century ago promised that 6,100 small family farms would be created if northern California river water was brought to the desert on the west side of the San Joaquin Valley (henceforth "the Valley"). The promise was never kept, and the larger landowners are still in control.

Although the Westlands, considered one of the nation's most politically powerful irrigation districts, has produced an undisputable bounty of cotton and field crops over the decades in western Fresno and Kings counties, irrigation of this mineral-laden desert has created huge environmental problems, and the wealth generated has not trickled down to farmworkers or the surrounding poverty-stricken communities.

The 20th Congressional district, encompassing the Westlands and a portion of the western Valley through Kings and Kern counties, has the dubious distinction of being the poorest of the country's Congressional districts. The region is rife with social problems ranging from high unemployment to gang and drug problems, high teen pregnancy rates, an appalling high school dropout rate (25%-35%) and other side effects of poverty.

Federal irrigation and farm subsidy policy in the San Luis Unit since the 1960s has exacerbated grinding poverty while enriching a few dozen of the factory farming dynasties to the detriment of the environment, the human population of the region, small growers and the public treasury. There are few farms under 500 acres. Rule is by the rich. Indeed, in the Westlands, which is a public agency, the growers with the most land have the most votes in electing directors to the district's board. The late Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas called this voting control by the big growers "a corporate political kingdom undreamed of by those who wrote our Constitution."

Government Assistance to Farmers: A Long History

As time went on, the business men had the farms, and the farms grew larger, but there were fewer of them.Now farming became industry, and the owners followed Rome, although they did not know it. They imported slaves, although they did not call them slaves: Chinese, Japanese, Mexicans, Filipinos. They live on rice and beans, the business men said. They don't need much. They wouldn't know what to do with good wages. Why, look how they live. Why, look what they eat. And if they get funny-deport them.

And all the time the farms grew larger and the owners fewer...And it came about that the owners no longer worked on their farms. They farmed on paper; and they forgot the land, the smell, the feel of it, and remembered only that they owned it, remembered only what they gained and lost by it.

-The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck, 1939

The federal government has always helped American farmers, even before there was a United States. While fighting the British on the East Coast, George Washington, commander of the Revolutionary Army, sent troops west in the late 1770s to conquer and exterminate the Iroquois Confederacy and to seize native lands west and north of the Allegheny-Ohio River systems in western New York, Pennsylvania and Ohio. Those rich lands, which had been farmed by Native Americans for countless generations, were then promised to landless young soldiers as an inducement to stay in uniform. After the war, gentleman farmer Washington, a longtime land speculator, and some of his top aides helped themselves to some of this conquered land.

In the Valley, which would become the nation's leader in fruit and vegetable production, the sad story of the Iroquois was repeated 75 years later, following the Gold Rush. The Tachi Yokut tribe lived in central California since time immemorial before being forcibly removed in 1934 to a 40-acre reservation on barren land near Lemoore in Kings County.

After California was granted statehood in 1850, Spanish and Mexican land grants totaling 8.5 million acres (land that had also been stolen from the Indians) were acquired by American land speculators. The east side of the Valley was America's wheat-growing capital after the Civil War. During the boom, Sierra Nevada snowmelt flowing to the Valley in several big rivers was diverted to the wheat fields by gravity-flow canals dug by horse-drawn scraper plows and Chinese laborers. The railroad arrived in the Valley in the early 1870s to carry the wheat harvest to other parts of the nation. When the wheat market collapsed in the late 1800s, the wheat barons' estates were carved up to establish east-side irrigation colonies with individual farms ranging from as little as 20 acres to several hundred acres.

In 1900, the west side of the Valley remained an inhospitable desert with no surface water and only intermittent flow from small seasonal creeks emerging from the Coast Range foothills. The first wells in western Fresno County were sunk a few years after the start of the 20th century by a few hardy pioneers. Deep wells were drilled during World War I by large landholders in order to plant cotton, a salt-tolerant crop in demand by the military. By 1922, about 33,000 acres of Westlands land were "under deep well irrigation," allowing for extensive crop production, including cotton. A second cotton boom followed during World War II, but by the mid-1940s the groundwater aquifer was quickly being depleted.

The Westlands Is Born

In 1942, west-side growers, who were running out of groundwater, formed the Westside Landowners Association to gain support for federal assistance in delivering northern California river water to their region. In 1952, pursuant to the California Water Code, the growers formed the Westlands Water District, which would grow to become the nation's largest federal irrigation district, with more than 600,000 acres. At 400,000 acres, the original Westlands was dominated by large growers. The West Plains Storage District, at 214,000 acres and located adjacent to the planned San Luis Unit, was merged with the Westlands in 1965.

In 1959, Rep. Bernard F. Sisk (D-Fresno), who represented the Westlands area, pushed for Congressional approval of a U.S. Bureau of Reclamation (henceforth "the Bureau") project to deliver northern California water to the San Luis Unit. In remarks to a Senate committee, Sisk, a former tire salesperson who had been recruited by the Westlands growers to be their promoter for a federal water project, contended:

[I]f San Luis is built, according to careful studies, the present population of the area will almost quadruple. There will be 27,000 farm residents, 30,700 rural nonfarm residents, and 29,800 city dwellers; in all, 87,500 people sharing the productivity and the bounty of fertile lands blossoming with an ample supply of San Luis water.

Recent surveys show that the land proposed to be irrigated is now in 1,050 ownerships. These studies show that with San Luis built, there will be 6,100 farms, nearly a sixfold increase. And in the breaking up of farms to family-size units, antispeculation and other provisions of the reclamation laws will assure fair prices.

In 1960, Congress approved the San Luis Unit, and seven years later there was a massive earthen dam containing the waters of the San Luis Reservoir in western Merced County, with a storage capacity of more than two million acre-feet, and a giant canal built jointly with the State of California. Water deliveries to the Westlands began in 1968. Controversy soon followed.

Rep. Sisk's promise of 6,100 farms and 87,000 people living in a bucolic farming area proved a mirage. To get the federally subsidized water, large landholders in the Westlands were required to sign recordable contracts to sell off all acreage in excess of 160 acres (320 acres for a husband and wife), which, at that time, was the acreage limitation for subsidized federal water. In the mid-1970s, members of a group known as National Land for People tried to buy 160-acre parcels in the Westlands from the large growers but were rebuffed. The group went to federal district court in 1976 and won an order requiring the Bureau to formulate criteria and procedures requiring the large landholders to actually sell off their excess holdings.

The U.S. Supreme Court had ruled almost two decades earlier that the principal purpose of the reclamation laws was to encourage small family farms:

From the beginning of the federal reclamation program in 1902, the policy as declared by the Congress has been one requiring that the benefits therefrom be made available to the largest number of people, consistent, of course, with the public good. This policy has been accomplished by limiting the quantity of land in a single ownership to which project water might be supplied. It has been applied to public land opened up for entry under the reclamation law as well as privately owned lands, which might receive project water.

While National Land for People battled in court to break up the large landholdings in the Westlands, newly elected President Jimmy Carter, who criticized many western water projects as pork barrel, ordered the creation of an Interior Department Task Force to look into the Westlands controversy.

The 1978 Special Task Force Report on [the] San Luis Unit concluded the following:

Nine years after water deliveries began, there was not a single 160-acre farm in the San Luis Unit. The average farm size was about 2,200 acres. In contrast, the average farm size in the rest of Fresno County was 343 acres, and the average irrigated farm in California was only 157 acres.

The irrigation subsidy for construction of the San Luis Unit water delivery facilities (dams, canals, pumps, hydroelectric facilities) amounted, in 1978 dollars, to $770 million, or $1,540 per acre. This figure was based on the following: San Luis Unit water districts were not required to repay interest on funds borrowed from the U.S. Treasury to construct the irrigation project that accrued "during the period the funds [themselves were not being] repaid," and part of their repayment amount was excused as being "beyond the ability of the irrigation users to repay."

Major design changes had been made in the San Luis Unit since Congress' review of the 1956 Feasibility Report, including increasing the size of the service area by merging with the West Plains Storage District in 1965, the addition of the Kesterson Reservoir evaporation ponds and lining the proposed San Luis Drain Canal, all "in the absence of adequate congressional authorization."

Because funds intended for completion of the drainage system were instead spent on an expanded water distribution system to service an additional 150,000 acres (the West Plains Storage District), there was insufficient funding to complete the drainage system.

The total estimated cost of the San Luis Drain to carry away salty wastewater had increased from $7.2 million in 1955 to as much as $185 million in 1978, due mainly to inflation, the cost of building the Kesterson Reservoir and the cost of a cement lining for the drainage canal, which originally was to be earthen. There was no Congressional authorization for these expanded costs. Thirty-one years after the Task Force report, the estimated completion costs of the still unfinished drainage system were as much as $2.7 billion, a figure the Bureau candidly conceded was beyond the ability of the Westlands' 700 growers to pay.

In the early 1960s, the Bureau kept expanding the size of the service area to include what were characterized as Class 4 soils, which "are marginal in their suitability for irrigated agriculture...because of highly saline, slowly permeable soils with anticipated or present drainage problems." The original proposed San Luis Unit excluded such marginally useful land, but "by 1962, 12 percent of the [service area] was comprised of Class 4 soils." The Task Force further noted that "the very areas which require the most extensive capital requirements for
removing drainage water have the least ability to pay for irrigation and drainage in the service area."

San Luis Unit growers were paying a surcharge of only fifty cents per acre-foot of water to repay the cost of constructing drainage facilities, and "[b]ased on the estimated cost to complete the drain and the rate of payment provided for in the contract," it would take the growers 270 years to pay back the cost of the drain.

Mary Louise Frampton, counsel for National Land for People, later wrote a law review article criticizing the Bureau for taking the side of big growers and abandoning the Reclamation Law goals of small family farms. She noted that instead of Rep. Sisk's prediction of 6,100 farms and 87,500 people living in the Westlands, there were only 216 large farming operations and the district's biggest town, Huron, was "a decidedly nonprosperous center with a population of 2,348 and a concentration of undocumented workers, bars and houses of prostitution." Nearly two-thirds of the Westlands farmers did not live within 50 miles of their "farms," although the residency requirement was still in effect. Among the "family farmers" was Southern Pacific Railroad at 106,000 acres, Standard Oil at 10,474 acres, Boston Ranch (owned by cotton billionaire J.G. Boswell) at 26,485 acres and Harris Ranch, operator of the world's largest cattle feedlot, at 18,393 acres.

In 1982, the Reclamation Reform Act was passed, eliminating the residency requirement for farms, increasing the acreage limitation to 960 acres, and supposedly eliminating the "leasing loophole," which had provided cheap water to big growers dating back to the 1920s. The Bureau took five years to formulate new rules for limiting the amount of subsidized water to the mega-farms, issuing the final rules on April 10, 1987. Rep. George Miller (D-Martinez), who has long been a critic of the Westlands and who helped write the 1982 Reform Act, called the new rules "`a double-cross,' an `outrage' and `a horrible insult to Congress.'" Congressional critics said that large loopholes rendered the rules virtually meaningless.

The big Westlands landholders had dodged another bullet with elimination of the residency requirement and an increase in the acreage limitation to 960 acres, plus new leasing rules that would still allow them to operate on vast tracts of land. The critics, however, did not let up. In 1985, the Natural Resources Defense Council and the California Rural Legal Assistance Foundation released a study called Turning Off the Tap on Federal Water Subsidies. It concluded the average subsidy per acre in the Westlands, which was paying less than $10 an acre-foot for water at the time, was $217 per acre, whereas the average net revenue per acre was only $290, meaning that the most expensive irrigation project in American history was built so growers could make $73 an acre. The study also said that "[t]he average farm operation in Westlands [was receiving] an annual subsidy...of almost $500,000." The actual cost of delivering water to the Westlands was 10 times what the growers were paying for it.

In 1989, the General Accounting Office (GAO) reported to Rep. Miller, then chairman of the House Subcommittee on Water, Power and Offshore Energy Resources, that large farming operations in the CVP (mostly the Westlands) were reorganizing through partnerships, corporations and trusts to circumvent the new acreage limitations on leasing that had been placed in the 1982 Reclamation Reform Act.

In a 1990 report, the GAO described how cotton king J.G. Boswell had sold 23,238 acres he owned in the Westlands to the Westhaven Trust, which Boswell had set up supposedly to benefit 326 employees of his J.G. Boswell Co. The GAO report said that had the trust been required to submit to the 1982 Reform Act's 960-acre limitation (unsurprisingly, the Bureau saw no problem with Boswell's trust), the trust would have had to pay an additional $2 million a year for its water.

The 1980s became a turning point for the Westlands, not because of the 1982 Reform Act, which it managed to continually circumvent despite congressional grumbling, but because of another lurking problem. The unsolved drainage dilemma, which had been merely a nagging annoyance in the early years of the district, reared its ugly head in national headlines about deformed ducks and the poisoning of a national wildlife refuge. Along with ongoing, ruinous economic problems stemming from decades of unsustainable water subsidies, the Kesterson controversy, signaled the beginning of the decline of the Westlands' legendary political clout.

Part 2 of the series will address the eruption of the drainage crisis, the Westlands today and the subsidies that keep it going, and the devastating effect of that arrangement on the residents of the Westlands. Read the entire article, complete with footnotes, online at http://www.ggu.edu/lawlibrary/environmental_law_journal/eljvol3/attachment/Carter.pdf.

*****

Lloyd Carter has been writing about Valley water issues for 40 years. His Web site is www.lloydgcarter.com.

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From the Editor

The Outrage of the Month

A couple of weeks ago I got a call from someone who wanted to remain anonymous. He said that law enforcement officers, at an event he had attended, were commenting on what a good deal Fresno Police Chief Jerry Dyer got; they said Dyer had retired, but he is still getting his full salary, plus his retirement. My anonymous friend wanted to know how Dyer could have retired without anyone hearing about it or the job being posted. He also thought it was pretty outrageous that Dyer was now getting two salaries, particularly given the grave economic situation, with layoffs looming at City Hall.

I asked one of our writers, Dan Waterhouse, to look into it and see what he could find out. Dan got nowhere with Fresno Police Department Public Information Officer Jeff Cardinale. It didn't seem like they wanted to talk about what for all appearances looks like double dipping at the public trough. It is interesting how a taxpayer-financed PR department, which by the way has a budget more than twice as big as the Community Alliance, can't find the time to respond to an e-mail asking for information.

Dan did get a response back from the Fresno City Clerk, who described the "DROP" retirement plan. The City Clerks's office said it is possible for Dyer to participate in that retirement plan without leaving his job. What a deal! I think everyone should have a retirement plan like that. But, since few of us have anything remotely comparable, I think the word outrageous pretty accurately describes the situation.

How can the city afford to pay Dyer more than $200,000 a year in salary, plus $10,000 a month in retirement, when he hasn't even retired? The city won't spend the money it would take to provide drinking water for the homeless, and yet they don't blink an eye at this gouging of us taxpayers to feather the nest of the police chief. How can Dyer allow employees of the City of Fresno to be laid off and furloughed as he double dips at the public trough?

I asked some of our supporters and subscribers if they thought Dyer's retirement might be the winning entry in the Community Alliance's Outrage of the Month column. A majority of those who responded thought Dyer's compensation was the most outrageous thing they have heard this month. One of those readers brought the matter to the attention of the Fresno Bee, who said that they would look into it. I got a call from a Bee reporter the next day who thought DROP was a perfectly reasonable plan, not very different from many other employer retirement plans.

A couple of days after the call from the reporter, the Bee had a front page story titled "High Fresno police pensions not made public." The article went into detail about how the DROP plan works, and how it was "cost neutral" and nothing for the public to be concerned about.

The problem that I have with how the Bee framed the story is that they never question the underlying assumptions about the right of the wealthy and politically connected to maintain their wealth and privilege. The fact that workers will be laid off, that the homeless will never get drinking water or that children in this city are going to bed hungry is not discussed in the article. The Bee story justified the greed of the few, at the expense of the many and declared Dyer's retirement scandal a non-issue.

I have to admit that the limitations of being a monthly newspaper can be frustrating. When the Bee and other corporate media are able to define the parameters of the debate and stop people from seeing the injustice that is taking place, it just makes me work that much harder for the day when we become a weekly newspaper.

Incidentally, the other nominees for the Outrage of the Month were pretty strong contenders.

The runner-up was the story of a West Fresno minister who told me that he and his congregation have been feeding the homeless, near Ventura and H streets for the last several months. The minister was given a citation for $1,000 because he was serving the homeless food without using plastic gloves. Contrast this with the informants, paid for by the Fresno Police Department, who are selling drugs a short distance away. In other words, the City of Fresno is giving citations to people who are trying to help the homeless and they are paying the people selling drugs.

The third nominee for the Outrage of the Month turned into a short article, which is on page 3. That is the story about the ongoing saga of Glen Beaty, who was beaten by two Fresno police officers back in February. Dyer promised an independent investigation of the incident, but this newspaper has learned that investigation never took place. Instead, Beaty was kept in jail for seven months, never charged with a crime in the incident, and is now in a southern California mental hospital. The only silver lining is that we did find out that the Department of Justice, through the FBI, is now conducting a Civil Rights investigation of the whole sordid affair. So, Dyer may be getting an independent investigation, just not the one he expected.

In the meantime, if you see Jerry Dyer in your travels around town, please ask him to lead by example. The Community Alliance is asking Jerry Dyer to do the right thing. To help the City of Fresno balance its budget and bring drinking water to the homeless, we are calling on our police chief to give back half his salary and drop out of the DROP program. We want to see Dyer living more simply, so that others can simply live. After all, if you can't live on $100,000 a year, you are incapable of understanding how the majority of people in this community live.

Another article on page 3 describes the anger many in this community feel following the shooting deaths of several more individuals at the hands of the Fresno police. One man got into an accident and did not get out of his car fast enough when ordered to by an officer. The officer emptied his clip into the unarmed man.

Another case involved a man who was distraught. Instead of sending someone trained to deal with an individual with mental health problems, two police officers were dispatched. Again, they shot and killed a man who was unarmed. As a result, several community groups are calling on Dyer to resign, the ACLU is likely to request a pattern and practice investigation by the Department of Justice, and you can see the families of the victims holding car washes to bury their loved ones.

The Community Alliance will report, to the best of our ability, the truth about what is really going on in this area. In addition to unsurpassed reporting on police issues, you will find a dynamite front-page story about the homeless, and an in-depth look at water issues in the Central Valley. I hope you will enjoy this issue and consider subscribing to support alternative/independent media. If you are already a subscriber, then I encourage you to send in gift subscriptions for your friends and family. For us to continue telling the stories about what is going on, we need your financial support. We can't do this without you.

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Progressive News Briefs
By Mike Rhodes

Stop Hate Radio

The Fresno Stop Hate Radio Campaign is a new organization, established in October 2009, to put an end to the racism and bigotry heard on local radio station KMJ. Les Kimber, a founder of the organization, speaking on KFCF 88.1 FM on Nov. 11 said, "Hate radio is the most divisive thing going on in our country right now. The continuous daily bombardment of hate by extreme conservatives and talk radio hosts, I think has created an atmosphere of distrust in this country that sooner or later will lead to violence."

The campaign held its first organizational meeting on Oct. 31. The meeting was well attended and focused on defining what actions could be taken to stop radio stations, like KMJ, from spewing hate and misinformation. Participants at the meeting discussed the progressive value of Free Speech and the right of community members to respond when racism and the advocacy of violence is promoted on the air.

Vickie Fouts, one of the organizers of the Stop Hate Radio group, addressing the issue of Free Speech, said, "Our constitution says that the government cannot take away people's freedom of speech. The airwaves do belong to the citizens of the United States; they do not belong to the corporations. So those airwaves are ours. I, as a citizen, have free speech and I have a right to talk to people at KMJ and say `I don't like what is on your airwaves. I'm not going to support your advertisers.'"

One outcome of the Oct. 31 meeting was an interest in looking into the advertising on KMJ by CSUF. Many at the meeting felt that the mission of the university was inconsistent with the hate and racism they say is on KMJ and that there should be a campaign to end CSUF advertising on that station.

If you are interested in more information about the Fresno Stop Hate Radio Campaign, contact Fouts at UprootingRacism@sti.net or 559-658-8260.

Police Accountability, Transparency, and How We Do Things in Fresno

Following the release of a video showing two police officers beating a homeless man in February 2009, Fresno Police Chief Jerry Dyer and Mayor Ashley Swearengin held a press conference to assure the community that the incident would be thoroughly investigated. The mayor promised transparency and Chief Dyer said that in addition to the Internal Affairs investigation, the District Attorney's office would conduct an independent investigation and that report would be reviewed by the State of California Attorney General's office.

Rev. Floyd Harris, who attended the press conference, was impressed with what Swearengin and Dyer said and was hopeful that a new day was dawning, where police accountability was a priority. Harris said he liked the idea of an independent investigation. The promise of an independent investigation and talk of establishing an Independent Police Auditor helped shift the focus away from the beating of Glen Beaty. Many in Fresno's progressive community sat back and waited for the "system" to work.

What happened instead, according to Dyer, is that the District Attorney's office never investigated the incident and the State AG's office had no report to review. Beaty was locked away in a dungeon at the Fresno County Jail for seven months, never charged with a crime in that incident, and has now been transferred (involuntarily) to a state mental hospital, where he may (or may not) ever be heard from again.

Last month, I asked Mayor Swearengin about the results of the "independent investigation" that the DA's office was supposed to conduct. She said she did not know the results of the investigation but would look into it and get back to me. Her office sent an e-mail saying that Dyer told them the DA's office "had to conflict out from overseeing the investigation into the officers' actions on Beaty," because they (the DA's office) were looking into allegations that Beaty had committed a crime. Dyer now says the Department of Justice is looking into the incident. Sonia De La Rosa, in the DA's office, said, "I spoke with the District Attorney and learned that early in March of this year, the District Attorney's Office referred the case along with all our information to the FBI for a civil rights investigation." The FBI confirms that there is an ongoing civil rights investigation in the incident.

The Community Alliance will continue to follow this story and report on the FBI investigation and any new developments in the case. A civil lawsuit has been filed on Beaty's behalf, but that will probably take years to wind its way through the court system.

Meanwhile, Scott Payn, one of the officers involved in beating Beaty last February, was in the news again last month. He was the officer who shot and killed John Cooper, the unarmed, distraught, and possibly suicidal man on Shaw and Santa Ana.

 

Dyer Is a Liar

Participants at a demonstration against police brutality, held in front of the Fresno Police Department on Nov. 6, called for Fresno Police Chief Dyer's resignation. Adriana Becerra, a spokesperson for the Brown Berets, who helped organize the rally, said, "Liar Dyer has got to go now! We will no longer tolerate his lies to the public about the victims of officer-involved shootings or his corrupt and racist administration. Forty people dead under his administration are too many. For many years, he has attempted to justify his over-policing, surveillance and even murder in our community by calling it suicide. The use of drugs and crimes of poverty do not justify police officers to be judges, jury and executioners. Just this week alone, the City of Fresno lost three lives to the police."

A statement issued by the Brown Beret's and California Prison Moratorium at the Nov. 6 demonstration said:

Dyer is a man of contradictions and hypocrisy. Quick to vilify and demonize victims of officer-involved shootings with misinformation and facts designed to favor the Fresno Police Department, Dyer by pattern and practice will immediately announce at a press conference that the suspect in the officer-involved shooting was a criminal, gang member, violent and on probation or parole or as in several cases, they wanted to die at the hands of the police. Dyer should not be pointing fingers at the victims of police shootings, as the community is well versed that he has neither "denied nor confirmed" whether he had sex with a minor. And since THAT PARTICULAR INVESTIGATION was conducted by Internal Affairs the public will never know the truth as to whether Dyer should be on Megan's list or whether he should even be chief of police.

Police Accountability at Last?

The City of Fresno has hired its first police auditor. Eddie Aubrey will start the new job on Nov. 30. Aubrey will be the director of the Office of Independent Review and report to the city manager, but he will have no authority to independently investigate allegations of police misconduct. His reports will be given to the city manager, and it is not known whether they will be released to the public.

Gerry Bill, a member of the Central California Criminal Justice Committee, which has worked for years on police accountability issues in Fresno, wrote about the challenges of the new OIR director in last month's Community Alliance. Bill wrote:

The downside is that the OIR can be fired at the whim of the city manager, and the police chief could pressure the city manager to do just that if the OIR becomes too critical of the police department. Of course, what is the point of having an OIR if he/she cannot be critical of police actions?

Fresno had hired a temporary person to help get the OIR office going. That person was Bob Aaronson, who had been a consultant for the city on this matter back in March and who does part-time police oversight in Santa Cruz and Davis.

The CCCJC met several times with Aaronson and found him to be highly competent and knowledgeable about the job. He provided the CCCJC with an understanding of the internal city politics that come about when there is an internal police auditor (or an OIR in our case). He stated that the OIR will be under constant pressure from the police department to side with the police and from the city attorney not to say (or write) anything that could put the city at risk of a lawsuit.

The pressure is on the OIR as they have already been targeted for budgetary cutbacks. Ironically, Ashley Swearengin, the mayor of Fresno, floated the idea of cutting back the OIR's funding the same week the Community Alliance learned that Police Chief Jerry Dyer had dramatically increased his salary by retiring and retaining his current job. There was no job announcement or process to hire a new police chief when Dyer retired.

The OIR job sat vacant for seven months, saving the city money during that time. As soon as someone was hired for the position, the mayor started talking about cutbacks. It appears likely that the budgetary crisis at City Hall will be put on the back of a department that "might" have an impact on the police department's use of excessive force. On the other hand, the police chief's ability to double dip at the public trough is not being discussed as a concern at City Hall or in the corporate media.

SEIU Thuggery Discussed at Board of Supervisors Meeting

In dramatic testimony at the Nov. 10 Fresno County Board of Supervisors meeting, the tactics used by Service Employees International Union-United Healthcare Workers (SEIU-UHW) in last summer's homecare workers election was discussed. Carlos Martinez, who worked for SEIU on the election campaign, said he was trained to threaten and intimidate workers to vote for SEIU. The next day, the Wall Street Journal published an article about the situation, making this an issue of national importance. In the article, Martinez said he and other staffers were also told to pressure voters to spoil ballots that had been filled out for the National Union of Homecare Workers (NUHW). In other instances, he filled ballots out for them. He says he even took some to the post office, as did other SEIU campaign workers.

Martinez tried to give the information he had about election misconduct to the Labor Department and several other government agencies, but he said they were not interested. That is why he spoke before the Board of Supervisors meeting and filed his complaint with the NUHW. Martinez said he knows most of the claims by the NUHW about SEIU election violations are accurate because he was trained by SEIU staff to engage in the fraud, threats and intimidation.

Richard Drapper, a staff member of the NUHW, also spoke at the Board of Supervisors meeting. Drapper said, "SEIU staffers
violated the integrity of the election process and the principle of ballot secrecy by committing the following acts: SEIU staffers riffled through voters' mailboxes, removing ballots and voting instructions, SEIU established and communicated to their campaign staff policy that encouraged them to obtain and alter ballots if a voter had previously voted to support NUHW. SEIU took completed ballots from voters and told them they would mail them for them. To this date, we don't know what happened to those ballots that were in the possession of SEIU."

Drapper told the Board that SEIU staff threatened immigrant voters with deportation if they voted for, NUHW. They were told that if they supported, NUHW, they would lose their wages, they would lose their benefits and they would lose their job. There were numerous accounts of homecare workers having their homes vandalized if they supported, NUHW. "There are folks that reported to us that they were visited as many as five times in one day by SEIU," Drapper said. "They were told that if they did not support them they would just keep coming back until they actually did vote for them. In one instance, there were SEIU staff members who showed up and when the voter didn't answer the door they began to bang on the walls. In at least two instances that are recorded in police reports, SEIU staffers vandalized the homes of NUHW supporters."

NUHW supporters are hoping for a new election for the 10,000 homecare workers in Fresno. They are hoping for a fair election that will be free of the threats and intimidation they say took place in last June's election. The NUHW is also expecting criminal charges to be filed against SEIU, in part based on the account of Martinez, who was an eyewitness and participant in those illegal activities.

ACORN Sprouts in Fresno

ACORN has been in the national news recently, as right wing media and congress members try to destroy the organizations credibility and strip funding. ACORN is a grassroots organizing campaign which focuses on helping the poor and has an office in Fresno. They are pretty much under the radar screen in the progressive community and that is why I visited them one day last month. I wanted to see what they are up to in this community and what their members have to say about the organization.

Jamie Wilson has been an ACORN member for several years now. He says "ACORN's name has been out there a long time and we have taken on a whole lot of issues over the last 39 years. We have been a real positive organization." Wilson mentioned local campaigns to pass health care reform, helping the homeless, and struggles in west Fresno, such as trying to close or relocate Darling International, an animal rendering plant.

In addition to the projects Wilson mentioned, ACORN has been active in the community by getting better lighting and other improvements at Lafayette Park in Central Fresno, they got a new bridge over a canal near Del Mar elementary school, and they have worked with the police to improve safety issues in several poor neighborhoods.

If you are interested in finding out more about ACORN, you can contact them at 1300 E. Shaw, Ave. #125, Fresno, CA 93710, Phone: 559-222-9013, ca.fr@acornmail.net and www.acorn.org.

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TP Nazi Sends 70-Year-Old Woman to the "The Hole"

By Jane Dorotik

A lot has been written about the prison system lately: why we as a nation incarcerate so many, why the bureaucratic and unwieldy system is only expected to make minimal cuts to its $11 billion budget while education and social supports are slashed to the very core, and why California's prison system has the highest recidivism rate of any state in the nation.

But little is written of the individual suffering that occurs in devastating ways on the inside of prison walls. That's because the system does not want you to know. It's easier for all of us to compartmentalize our thinking and believe all of those behind bars are monsters of one kind or another-undeserving of kindness or consideration.

I'm going to tell you one story of suffering, so you can know, really know, what it is like to be incarcerated. And also know how your $11 billion in tax dollars is being spent.

Doris has been locked away now for more than 28 years. She is 70 years old, stands 5' 1«" (that «" is important to Doris), and weighs less than 100 pounds. She's a gregarious little lady, talks with her hands a lot and always has a smile for anyone-guards and prisoners alike.

I don't know what sent Doris to prison; whatever happened 28 years ago doesn't matter now. I only know Doris is a lifer and as a lifer her hope of ever being released from prison is kept alive by a tenuous thread. I know her from her demeanor and interactions now, today in this prison. I know she has never had a serious disciplinary write-up...until now.

You'll probably find it hard to believe these events occurred, but I assure you they are all 100% documented. You can look it up on the court's pacer Web site in the writ Doris now files in an effort to clear herself. The really unbelievable part, beyond the personal pain and grief Doris suffered, is the cost to society all of this inflicts. As taxpayers and members of a so-called civilized society, we all pay for it in so many ways greater than the tax dollars.

Doris is very expressive, effusive in her speech, with her ready smile and her silver blunt-cut hair falling over her eyes in a youthful style. She reminds me a little of Yenta from Fiddler on the Roof, only more petite. On this particular day, she was sitting in her cell chatting with a friend. The housing CO (guard) was conducting a cell-to-cell search for "excessive toilet paper."

Searching cells for these personal hygiene "excesses" is a phenomenon peculiar to the prison system. Why any woman would hoard, in the tiny cell space available, a necessary item like toilet paper if it were consistently available is a question that is never asked. It is a prison rule and that makes it inviolate.

So the CO asks how many rolls of toilet paper are in Doris' cell. Doris answers, "I see three." Well, it turns out there are more than three rolls stacked beside the toilet and this angers the CO. The CO is now yelling at Doris.

"DO YOU KNOW WHY I AM CONFISCATING YOUR TOILET PAPER? BECAUSE YOU LIED AND THAT MAKES YOU A LIAR."

As the CO pulls out the toilet paper rolls and confiscates them in the plastic bag she carries, Doris gets up from her bunk and goes to look. From the anger emanating from the guard, Doris thinks something must be terribly wrong.

"I'm so sorry, I didn't know," Doris says as she leans over to look at the stack of toilet paper. In leaning over, she may have inadvertently touched or brushed against the CO's uniform. After all, Doris is 70 and balance can be a problem. Now the CO is angrier than ever and yells at Doris.

"YOU COULD BE CHARGED WITH ASSAULT."

Unclear about what the CO is intimating, Doris is stunned and asks, "What?" Every prisoner knows when faced with an angry cop, the safest demeanor is to shut up and grovel if necessary.

Finally, after the requisite tongue-lashing, the CO leaves and continues on down the hall collecting and confiscating more and more "excessive toilet paper" from another 15 cells...and this should have been the end of the unpleasant interaction. But it wasn't.

Thirty minutes later, Doris is summoned to the program office and handcuffed by the toilet paper cop and her partner. The sergeant is notified, comes in, takes one look at the frightened Doris, and asks the toilet paper cop if she feels threatened by Doris. The CO answers "no" and so the sergeant orders Doris released from handcuffs and tells her to go back to her cell. The sergeant also tells the toilet paper cop that "there is no need for a 115" (disciplinary write-up) as "it will not fly."

Now this really should have been the end of the issue. But it wasn't.

Enter a new, more aggressive sergeant spoiling for a show of dominance. He is overheard to say: "I'll make sure she gets arrested. I'll body slam that old bitch."

The previous, more humane sergeant is not to be seen for the rest of the night, and the new sergeant sends the goon squad to escort Doris back up to the program office. There she is spread-eagled against a wall, feet kicked out to a wider and wider stance by the aggressive sergeant, pat searched, handcuffed and escorted for a medical evaluation. She is then sent to Ad-Seg ("the hole") for 60+ days. She is charged with "Assault on a Peace Officer." The toilet paper cop substantiates the charge by her own trip to the medical evaluation clinic (more than two hours after the alleged incident, according to the time on the form). The evaluation form states "slightly reddened forearm."

Now this same CO has a habit of taking her pepper spray gun out of its holster and twirling it or shaking it. Perhaps she bumped her own arm with pepper spray and that's how the "redness" occurred. Wouldn't be the first time!

The prisoner witnesses who saw the whole exchange in the cell wrote statements that no assault occurred, but they were not allowed to testify at Doris' hearing. And so, of course, Doris was found guilty.

Doris spent 60+ days in Ad-Seg and now has a serious disciplinary write-up on her records, her first serious in 28+ years of incarceration -all over the presumption of what constitutes "excessive toilet
paper."
Does this sequence of events make anyone wonder how the prison system's $11 billion budget is being utilized?

Does anyone wonder how Doris may fare with the parole board (if she ever is even allowed in front of them) with this kind of charge on her record?

Does anyone even care about what goes on behind prison walls?

The sequel to all of this - now six months after it all happened - is Doris' seriously deteriorating health. She has now suffered a perforated bowel requiring emergency surgery, secondary to debilitating ulcerative colitis, a disease closely related to psychological stressors. She's lost more weight than she can afford to lose and looks more waif-like than ever.

As Dostoyevsky writes, "The degree of civilization a society exhibits is best determined by how it treats its prisoners."

*****

Jane Dorotik is incarcerated at the California Institute for Women. She works tirelessly to demand human rights for women who are imprisoned.

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A Revived San Joaquin River

By Chris Acree

The San Joaquin River is again flowing, slowly making its way back toward the connection with its lower tributaries and the Delta. So what is the significance you ask? Most Valley residents are unaware that the San Joaquin, the state's second largest river, runs completely dry year-round for nearly 60 miles along its course to the Pacific Ocean. A series of restoration test flows have rekindled the notion of a living river and offered a glimpse of what is ahead and what it means to our valley.

On November 1, 2009 the US Bureau of Reclamation increased experimental flows to 700 cfs at Friant Dam.  A normal release for this time of year is 120 cfs.

The Restoration Program

The five-agency San Joaquin River Restoration Program is now in full swing implementing a legal Settlement Agreement that ended an 18-year lawsuit between the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, Friant water users and a coalition of conservation and fisheries groups led by the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC). The legal agreement and the resulting restoration program builds off of previous court rulings, which reaffirm that dam operations must provide for the maintenance of a viable downstream fishery, or in other words, a dam cannot kill a river.

The program is working to restore a 153-mile section of river through dual program goals of fisheries restoration and water management. A new water supply will be released through the dam, barriers will be removed to allow salmon and other fish species to return, and the water released will be recaptured downstream and re-circulated back to its intended users to reduce any adverse water supply impact.

Experimental Flows

Downstream of Friant Dam nearly 40 miles, a little known stretch of river sits dry among lush agricultural lands. This sandy stretch of river only sees water once or twice a decade when rainfall exceeds the storage capacity in Millerton Lake and spills over the dam into the river below.

Historically, this stretch of river had a floodplain that extended miles in either direction away from the river channel, with sloughs and wetlands that provided habitat for native plants and animals in great abundances. Those who grew up near its shores recall a dense riparian "jungle" that had to be navigated to even reach the banks of the river. At times of migration, a sharp stick was all that was needed to bring home a feast of wild caught salmon.

The restoration flows that began Oct. 1, termed Interim Flows, are experimental precursors to the full restoration releases that are scheduled no later than 2014, with Chinook salmon reintroduction by late 2012. The full restoration releases will provide enough water to reconnect the river to the Delta and allow for Chinook salmon to once again migrate upstream to Friant Dam.

The re-wetting of the dry San Joaquin River is a wonderful sight, although few are able to access this section of river due to large tracts of private lands and levee district restrictions. Those that find their way to the river during these Interim Flows will see a tongue of cold and clear water winding its way down the dry and thirsty channel. Standing bare-footed at the leading edge of these flows, the ankle-deep water rushes past and disappears diving into the sandy underground aquifer only several feet ahead.

 

A Turning Point

The restoration of the San Joaquin River marks a significant turning point in the story of California's ever-evolving water challenges. After more than a century of water development, California has managed to harness its water resources with more than 2,600 dams on nearly every river in the state. This era of traditional water development has virtually come to an end as our wetland environments are now showing signs of stress and decline demanding more integrated infrastructure solutions to a growing demand for water.

At the center of our modern water dilemma is the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, which is stretched to its limit from an over allocation of its available freshwater supplies. Half of the state's streamflow drains to the mighty Delta, but a trend of increasing exports and pollution has led to violations of bottom-line water quality standards and near-extinctions of important fish species. With 25 million residents relying on the Delta as a drinking water supply, and Valley farmers depending on it, sustainability planning must occur before we "Turn on the Pumps!"

Promises of water, wealth and abundance were somewhat overstated by the Fresno Bee in 1935 claiming "It is figuratively true that the waters of the reservoir behind Friant Dam will store up a veritable flood of controlled money which will pour into Fresno County." After decades of rapid growth, however, the Fresno area now finds itself without enough water to grow and relies on extensive groundwater pumping creating a severe groundwater overdraft problem. As the Fresno-Madera region now anticipates a population increase of 1.5 million new residents by 2050, sustainable urban water supplies must be on our local agendas.

The Benefits of Restoration

Restoration of the San Joaquin River is bringing back to life the most dominant natural feature of the Valley. With this will come a gradual enrichment of our quality of life for all residents through new opportunities whether they are recreational, economic, aesthetic or spiritual. The value of restoration is not only a local phenomenon, but also reconnecting the river to the Delta may provide much needed improvements to our State's ailing water supply system and provide broad-reaching water quality benefits.

Early Fresnans of the 1920s could hop onto an electric rail car downtown that would take them to Fresno Beach, a place where families could picnic, fish and swim at the river's edge. While the river plays less of a role in Fresno today, a living river system will usher new opportunities for low-cost family outings, fishing and recreational boating (without dragging across the riverbottom). Native Americans will again have an opportunity to carry out their long-idled salmon ceremony. Schools will have an interactive laboratory to learn about nature and work to promote a lasting stewardship for its many resources. A new source of 'Green Jobs" could flow into the Valley from construction, conservation and recreation and tourism activities surrounding restoration.

The restoration of the river will also bring new protections and oversight to ensure water quality is maintained establishing a "clean water corridor" essential to our rural communities and natural ecosystems. As groundwater tables around the Valley are dropping and often becoming unusable due to pollution, restoration turns the tables as it recharges our aquifers with a clean source of water. After six weeks of Interim Flows, nearly 42,000 acre-feet of water was returned to the aquifer below the river-the valley's most extensive natural groundwater bank.

While Bay-Delta planners and legislators lose sleep over the cause and effect of the Delta collapse and the disappearing Delta Smelt, salmon and other threatened species, San Joaquin River restoration provides a much needed solution. Delivering a supply of clean water to the South Delta offers a chance for fish species to rebound, while lowering salinity levels and the impact of other pollutants released by agriculture and cities. Restoration releases can improve the core function of the Delta and can be realized in a short time frame compared to other decades-long "peripheral" projects with less certain outcomes.

Our state has inherent problems with our water delivery infrastructure and how it is managed. The water sector uses nearly 30% of all energy produced in the state moving water from source to user. San Joaquin River restoration can be seen as a model for next-generation water projects in which water supplies can provide multiple benefits before reaching an end user. Restoration uses the river channel as a new form of conveyance, and gravity instead of coal-fired electricity to move water more efficiently, offering more water supply flexibility to a somewhat rigid state water infrastructure system.

Restoration releases also create new storage opportunities. Releasing 250,000 acre-feet of water on an average water year from Friant Dam creates more space behind the dam that can be used to capture floodwaters that otherwise would have been spilled. These storage efficiencies can create comparable new water supplies without the damaging environmental impacts of new dam construction, and at a fraction of the cost. Reduced flooding can also save the state billions annually by reducing the intensity and frequency of floodwaters. Programs for groundwater banking and off-stream supply improvements are also being funded to further enhance the overall effectiveness of the restoration program.

Next Steps

While local media outlets thrive on the dramatic controversy of "fish vs. farm" water, the real story of restoration is being played out in our own communities and it is a story we should all tune into if we are to make progress in this new era of water shortages. We need to take a fresh look at water as a shared resource that belongs to all Californians and make informed decisions on the costs and benefits of our proposed water solutions.

The local benefits of restoration are not going to happen to us, and we will need to understand what restoration means to our communities and make it happen. The public must put new pressures on our water agencies and legislators to break out of their old ways; it is time to make some waves.

*****

Chris Acree is the executive director of Revive the San Joaquin, a grassroots non-profit promoting community stewardship of the San Joaquin River. Learn more at www.revivethesanjoaquin.org
 

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Singing Back the Lake

By Lillian Vallee

Once upon a time, about two million years ago, there was an "especially large and persistent lake" in the southern reaches of the great trough between uplifted mountain ranges in the center of what we now call California. This was the great, great grandfather of a later lake with interior drainage, a lake that became the centerpiece of the Tulare Basin, a depression in the southern end of the Great Central Valley. In high water years, in times of prodigious rainfall and snowmelt, Tulare Lake was the largest freshwater lake west of the Mississippi and was linked by a slough to two sub-basins holding Kern and Buena Vista lakes. Tulare Lake could stretch 75 miles from north to south and 25 miles from east to west.

Many of the plant communities around the lake, such as the lowland heath communities, could thrive there only because of the high water table created by the entrapped drainage of four rivers-the Kings, Kaweah, Tule and White. The alluvial fan of the Kings River created a barrier ridge (30 feet higher than the lake bed), keeping the river waters in the basin except in years of heavy rain and snowmelt when basin waters joined the flooding San Joaquin River (via Fresno Slough) to create a freshwater inland sea draining into the Delta. Beneath the basin were aquifers of freshwater and pockets of "fossil" saline water, the latter relics of the basin's former life as marine shelf and inland sea.

Surrounding the lake were diverse soils and terrain, rich in plant and animal foods nourishing the densest non-agricultural aboriginal population in North America (19,000 Yokuts in the Tulare Basin on the eve of European contact). In addition to the savannas and riparian forests on alluvial soils in the river deltas, there were marsh, prairie and desert saltbush habitats. Perennial grasses, herbs, forbs and shrubs were the norm. The earliest evidence of human habitation in the Tulare Basin goes back 11,000 years to Tulare Lake's western shore. The lake teemed with wildfowl, fish, turtles, frogs, mussels and clams. Acorn leaching (discovered about 4,000-5,000 years ago) added "a vast new food supply" to the array of animal and plant foods, and burning to enhance plant productivity and to attract game helped created even greater stability in basin communities. According to William Preston, the Tachi Yokuts village of Bubal (near present-day Alpaugh) was not only a cultural center but an important focus of long-distance trade with mountain and coastal tribes. The Tachi and other groups would trade fish, obsidian, salt from saltgrass, seeds, steatite beads, herbs, baskets, antelope and elk skins, rabbit-skin blankets, elderberries and asphaltum, to name just a few items, for various shells (limpet, haliotis, olivella), dried starfish or abalone, sinew-backed bows, stone mortars and pestles, clay, digging sticks, fire drills and white paint, among other items. When the Tachi Yokuts refused conscription into forced labor at the missions, the Spanish destroyed this village. The Yokuts responded by moving the village site farther from Spanish reach. Later, they proved resourceful in extending their trade to horses and cattle.

It is almost impossible for us to imagine the vibrant natural world of a basin that has been so drastically altered by water diversion and reduced (in diversity if not in productivity), yet any effort to revive it must begin with an imaginative and informed reconstruction. Tulares, the Spanish word for the reeds and rushes lending the lake their name, sometimes formed a rim two miles thick. Tule elk would use these edges for cover when browsing marsh grasses in the basin. Pronghorn antelope migrated seasonally between the grassy plains, lightly timbered foothills and water holes of the eastern Coast Range. James Audubon called the basin "the chosen country of the antelope."

Gray wolves prowled after the antelope, and grizzlies would sometimes leave the shelter of oak forests to raise their young on the lakeshore. Coyotes, bobcats, kit foxes, raccoons, badgers, grey foxes, minks, jackrabbits, cottontails, ground squirrels, chipmunks, porcupines, skunks, weasels, gophers, rats, moles, shrews, voles, bats, river otters and beavers animated the landscape. Latecomers, such as William Brewer, saw the basin as "unhealthy" because of the (also teeming) insect life ("mosquitos of unparalleled ferocity" and "tarantulas by the thousands").

Islands in the lake were littered with bald tule nests-white pelican rookeries. Indian women used the feathery skins of the white pelicans "to wrap their babies in," wrote Pedro Fages in 1775, "for the skins are as large as those of moderate-sized lambs, and very soft." In the 1870s and 1880s, Tulare Lake became a market hunter's paradise. Trout, turtle soups, frog legs, ducks, geese, and even sandhill cranes were in demand in San Francisco restaurants. Just one haul of a horse-drawn seine through Tulare Lake could net eight tons of fish.

Gerald Haslam has called Tulare Lake "the lake that will not die," a phantom lake that keeps breaching its levees and reaffirming its passion to rest in its ancient bed. Nor have the pelicans forgotten: They are still circling, circling, looking for Tulare Lake.

Many years ago I bought a cassette recording of Tachi Yokuts songs. The first recording is the "Tulare Lake Song" sung by two women identified as O. Atwell and Clara Barrios. I don't know what the words mean, but I have made a phonetic transcription and have learned the song. Its plaintive repetition haunts me.

Every time I cross the San Joaquin River I sing to it, and now brave and monumental efforts have begun to revive the most important artery of the San Joaquin Plain. Maybe two decades of lawsuits had something to do with it, but I will always believe the singing lets the lingering spirits know we remember how it was and how much we yearn to repair what we have broken. It's time to do the same for Tulare Lake.

Sources: California Indian Music Sampler #4, "Tachi Yokuts," P.A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology, University of California, Berkeley; William L. Preston, Vanishing Landscapes: Land and Life in the Tulare Lake Basin.

***
Lillian Vallee is a writer and translator who teaches at Modesto Junior College. She can be reached at valleel@yosemite.cc.ca.us.

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Fresno-Based Candidate Training

By Michael D. Evans

So you want to get elected to public office? This upcoming training seminar focuses on optimizing one's capabilities as a candidate to enhance electability. The all-day 2010 Central Valley Candidate Training for progressive candidates will be held on Saturday, Jan. 9, at CWA Local 9408 (4422 E. Ashlan Ave.).

Sponsored by the Fresno County Democratic Central Committee, the Fresno, Madera, Tulare, Kings CLC and the College Democrats (Fresno State/Fresno City), the training focuses on being a better candidate and connects attendees with experienced people who have "been there and done that." Find out what it takes to be an effective candidate, enlarge your circle of advisers and learn about valuable resources that can help you succeed.

The training is designed with candidates in mind but will also benefit potential candidates and all campaign staff. It provides an opportunity to interact with people who know what it takes to be an effective candidate and learn about valuable resources for candidates. Learn the do's and don't's from experienced campaigners.

There will be a networking breakfast for the attendees prior to the training at 8 a.m. The training will take place from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Lunch will be provided. The total cost is $15 per person.

The training will cover such areas as Building Your Team, Fund-Raising, Presentation, Messaging, Public Speaking, Meeting Voters, Understanding Labor, Personal Life & Sacrifices and Attitude & Motivation.

Presenters include Michael Rubio, Kern County 5th District Supervisor and candidate for State Senate District 16; Henry T. Perea, Fresno City Council District 7 representative and candidate for State Assembly District 31; Patsy Montgomery, director of public affairs for Planned Parenthood; and Randy Ghan, secretary-treasurer of the Fresno, Madera, Tulare, Kings Central Labor Council.

Other contributors are T.J. Cox, an engineer, businessperson and former candidate for U.S. Congress District 19; Susan Good, district director for State Sen. Dean Florez; Debilyn Molineaux, founder of Quantum Evolution Coaching and president of the Fresno chapter of the National Women's Political Caucus; Chuck Riojas, business agent for IBEW Local 100; Mai Thao, community political organizer for United Healthcare Workers; Warren Meyers of CalVoter; and Michael D. Evans, a political consultant and a former Democratic county party chair.

For more information or to register, e-mail evansm@usa.net.

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Food Not Bombs Keeps on Truckin'!

By Kelly Borkert

Fresno Food Not Bombs serves thousands of meals a year at Roeding Park, every Saturday at 1 p.m. As the years go by, the continuing presence and participation of founding members Tom Machado and fellow "Silverback" Keith Jackson inspires others to help in gathering and delivering resources for segments of our community that could use some help.

Keith Jackson picks up produce every Wednesday at the Farmer's Market, and makes early Saturday morning trips to Whole Foods, where produce trimmings, bread and pastries are donated to the Saturday group. No one knows whether that thousand-yard stare Keith exhibits comes from his many years of Food Not Bombs, or from keeping an eye out for beer thieves. But everyone knows when Keith shows up, the deal is going to get done. He's a doer.

Another key player in the getting it done department: Who doesn't know Al "Radka" Williams? King of all media, Al has not only
championed the cause of the homeless in Fresno throughout the state, he has also been a bulwark against the unruly masses that form at Roeding Park in anticipation of a better meal than last week. If Al weren't there to maintain order, there would doubtless be chaos, with the fastest hands running off with all the pastries and fruit before the meal begins. Great job, Sheriff Al! Dirty, thankless work, but nobody does it better.

But the cherry on top of this Saturday crew is elder statesman, radical activist emeritus, motorcycle enthusiast, husband, father, lynchpin and brains of the bunch, 75-year-old Tom Machado. Health considerations and family commitments have recently kept him from the perfect attendance he strives for, but he does his best to actually "be there" at the park more than anyone. His mountainous contributions to the comfort of less fortunate people living in the area of Roeding Park cannot be overstated. Normally, people give what time they can to FNB when they can, coming and going from week to week, and it always works out just fine. But when Tom is absent, all heck unfolds. Heck, someone forgot the cups. Heck, someone didn't bring enough ladles. Where the heck is Tom? Everyone wants to know. Why isn't he here? When will he be back?

A few years ago, he took a week off to ride one of his motorcycles to Sturgis, S.D. Promising not to do that again, once in a while he does take a wild ride down from his Oakhurst home in a beautiful 1937 Ford Pickup and brings it out to the park for a festive car show among friends.

In the last few years, some long-term participants moved away, and there was lots of room for help in their absence. The need was met as a handful of remarkable volunteers made their way to Wesley United Methodist Church, where we prepare our meals nearly every Saturday from 9:30 a.m. until 12:45 p.m. or so. People like Dr. Mary Ann Quann, Heather Balcom (and her parents) have done so much, an accurate accounting would exhaust ink supplies. Garden growing garlic farmers Doug Halloran and Ali Espinoza are really digging it. And this one guy, Bob. Bob Walker sorta came out of nowhere, like most great volunteers. He just showed up one day and wanted to help. Never too soon to punish a good deed, we put him on vegetable scrubbing. The first, possibly worst, and certainly the most important job of all. Bob has yet to stop washing and scrubbing vegetables, has yet to complain about the ridiculous amount of work he does every time he comes in, always early, and always busy. Then you find out he is currently 70 years old. A phenomenal volunteer, well worth gawking at from a shady corner. Not that anyone would sit around and watch.

When the meal is served Saturday sometime after 1 p.m., almost everyone is cheerful, happy to have Tom around, annoyed to have Al telling them "Not to do that!" and almost certainly, not so hungry for a good while after. We have been working at making better soup and tea each week, and if you would like to see how far we've come, you are welcome to join us at Roeding Park every Saturday at 1 p.m., just north of Storyland.

Along with large quantities of food and clothing, for many years sleeping bags have been distributed to people needing them in the Roeding area and elsewhere. Often theft or city cleanups have put the same individual in dire need repeatedly. Donations of sleeping bags, tarps, blankets, small tents or money can be made to the Sleeping Bag Project through KFCF or other drop-off sites such as Wesley United Methodist Church and the Unitarian Universalist Church.

Contact The Sleeping Bag Project at (559) 438-4088 if you have any questions or contributions.

A GREAT BIG THANK YOU! is in order to a number of supporters and participants. As funds dried up along with supplies, we were looking sad a few weeks ago. Educator and FNB Angel Gail McCabe contacted one of our regular supporters, and they kindly donated the contents of their donation jar and quite a few dead presidents on top of that. As a result, Food Not Bombs was able to stock supplies at the last minute and look ahead another two months before worrying about operating costs. So, at the top of our hearts and lungs, we really want to thank our friends at The Brass Unicorn!

Additional fund-raising efforts by Ali Espinoza, Lynn Graham and Robin Trayler have assured Food Not Bombs a more secure immediate future in uncertain times.

Thanks to these soldiers of fortune and great volunteers. It is because of them that Saturday Food Not Bombs cooks!

And thanks to everyone who has supported the work of folks like Tom Machado and Keith Jackson. It means a lot, to many more, than anyone could know.

*****

Kelly Borkert can be reached at kellyborkert@hotmail.com or 559-438-4088.

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Is It a Power and Money Grab?

By Dan Waterhouse

Are Fresno Mayor Ashley Swearengin and her public safety leaders just after the money and grasping for power? The city's budget just developed a $28 million hole for the fiscal year beginning next July; $5 million in new money would be a godsend. And insiders report that her police and fire chiefs still want to control public safety in much of urbanized Fresno County.

According to the Fresno Deputy Sheriff's Association, the City of Fresno just wants the $5 million in property tax revenue it would receive if it either contracts with the county to provide law enforcement services or it annexes the large county islands in the metropolitan area. Chief Jerry Dyer told the Association representatives he has no plans to add officers to provide services to those areas if the city takes them over.

"In a meeting with Mayor Swearengin and Chief Dyer," Eric Schmidt, the Association's president, writes, "when asked about his plans for replacing 50-60 deputies who are presently working to protect residents who live in these [islands], the Chief said he would NOT be adding any City police officers" to provide police protection. Schmidt adds, "Think about it.40,000 new residents to protect, thousands of acres of new land to patrol, yet no new police officers to do the job. What will that do to service levels within the County pockets located in metropolitan Fresno?" He says the 50-60 deputies would lose their jobs if the city takes over.

The city's strategy of taking over services in the county portions of the metropolitan area in exchange for the property tax revenue is not new. A few years ago, the city's fire department took over fire protection services for the North Central Fire District, which served northwestern Fresno and west of Fresno beyond Kerman, using that strategy. The fire department also has been attempting to absorb areas in southeastern Fresno served by the county fire protection district, saying it would provide services in the Calwa area if the fire district turned over the tax revenue. The city's position is that it should be serving any area within an eight-minute radius of a city fire station.

The fire protection district replied "no." Negotiations for new instant aid (where the closest agency responds to emergency calls) and operational agreements have been stalled for several years. Last year, City Fire Chief Randy Bruegman told the City Council that he considers a large proportion of county firefighters (who are employed by the state and have to meet the training requirements set by the State Fire Marshal) too untrained to respond to calls within the city limits. For their part, county firefighters retort the city hose-handlers are so well trained that they can't make decisions unless one of their battalion chiefs is telling them what to do.

The city has been taking advatage of a change in state law to annex the smaller county areas, without a vote of the affected property owners. State law allows the summary annexation of areas less than 150 acres in size without a vote. However, one of these annexations is on hold. An island in the area bounded by Kings Canyon Road, Fowler, Belmont and Clovis Avenues was annexed this way earlier this year; the homeowners' association contacted the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association (HJTA) for help. The HJTA attorneys say that any fees for city services imposed in a formerly county island are subject to a vote of the property owners pursuant to Proposition 218. Assistant City Manager Bruce Rudd asked the Local Agency Formation Commission (LAFCO), which oversees the annexation process, to reconsider its approval. The commission did, approving the annexation subject to the Prop 218 vote. In his letter, Rudd expressed concern that if the HJTA was successful in court, this could derail the small area annexation program. The city is now suing LAFCO, maintaining the commission "overstepped its authority (according to city planner Bruce Barnes)" by doing something the city manager essentially asked it to do.

When Sheriff Margaret Mims announced this summer that, due to the budget crisis, she would have to make cuts in jail services, the mayor and the police chief were quick to accuse her of endangering public safety. These accusations might be viewed as hypocritical in light of the following: Earlier this year, the Fresno County Board of Supervisors authorized an examination of jail releases between Jan. 1 and Sept. 16, 2008. The study revealed that, out of 16,457 bookings by Fresno police, 2,344 were released.

After deducting the 817 people arrested for public drunkenness who were held for a few hours to sober up somewhat and released without charges (per a long-standing agreement between law enforcement, the district attorney and the courts) and the 31 other people released after no charges were filed, 1,496 were released because the police department could not get its paperwork done in a timely manner. According to the study, the financial cost to the taxpayers due to the police department's inability to do its job was more than $230,000.

The latest talk from City Hall insiders is that Dyer retired several months ago but stayed on as chief. Some view Dyer's remaining as chief as double-dipping; others see it as Dyer saving the city some money. The same insiders also say Dyer still has his eye on the sheriff's job. Police spokesperson Jeff Cardinale would neither confirm nor deny that Dyer had taken retirement.

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Peace and Justice Festival on March 21

By Camille Russell

Peace Fresno's annual spring gathering of the peace and justice community will feature Kathy Kelly, coordinator of Voices for Creative Nonviolence. A young actor and musician, Thomas Ian Nicholas, who portrayed Abbie Hoffman in the upcoming film The Chicago 8, has been booked to share his musical talents and deliver a speech in the persona of Abbie Hoffman.

 

Kelly is a three-time nominee for the Nobel Peace Prize who has dedicated her life to peace action. She speaks from personal experience about the effects of U.S. militarism on the people of Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan and about the living conditions endured by the Palestinian people. She has visited Iraq 24 times since 1996. Kelly also coordinates and participates in traditional political activism and direct action campaigns in the United States. (see www.vcnv.org).

Nicholas has many TV and movie roles to his credit, plays both the acoustic and electric guitar, and is a singer/songwriter.

The Peace and Justice Festival will commemorate the beginning of the U.S. attack on Iraq. We come together to strengthen the movement against militarism, to bear witness and to learn from each other. Last year more than 50 local organizations showcased their work.

This year, Peace Fresno has secured an indoor venue at the Fresno Fairgrounds and free covered parking.

*****
Camille Russell is a retired teacher, president of Peace Fresno and a member of the Fresno County Democratic Central Committee. Contact her at camille.russell@att.net or 559- 276-2592.

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POETRY CORNER

Edited by Richard Stone

More poetry from prison, which seems to be our main source of contributions. Any non-incarcerated poets out there? Thanks to Steven Nary, residing at Avenal State Prison, for sending us the following.

THE BOX
By Steven Nary

Trapped in a box
with two cots
a cell door
reaching from the top to the floor.
Daily stressing
a life of constant testing
testing our love
our deepest urge
our deepest rage
our every nerve.
It starts when we walk through the gates
suddenly it hits us in the face
separated by race.
What do we see
life in the penitentiary
people being all they can be
our people fighting to keep their body, soul and mind free
while saying I believe
that one day I will be free.
Things come, things go
people come, people go,
to get here
we commit crime
and our time
we lose a lot
trapped in this box.

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Grassroots Profile: Bobby Joe Neely

By Richard Stone

When I asked Bobby Joe Neely about his work in the community, he seemed surprised. "I'm just a musician. I play around town here and there, and some benefits. But I'm just doing my music, not organizing or anything." Yet it was Rev. Floyd Harris who told me, "Check out Bobby Joe for one of your profiles." And Al Williams, one of the leaders in the "rights for the homeless" movement-when asked if he knew Neely, said, "He's my main man." Maybe it's only guilt by association, but Neely's music must be moving and shaking someone.

Neely's style of making music is unique: he sings, drums and plays guitar at the same time (see picture). He used to bill himself a one-man-band, but now thinks people get the wrong picture with that term. "Call me a solo performer," he says. Either way, he creates a lot of sound, mostly in the R&B mode.

Neely's musical roots run deep. His father was the manager of a gospel group, The Tennessee Harmonizers, and then (after moving to Chicago) of a family group called The Highway Travelers. "I never heard them perform per se, but a lot of times I'd come home to see a crowd around the house so I knew they were rehearsing. It would get so crowded I couldn't get in-people would pick me up and pass me all the way up to the second floor where we lived."

 

Absorbing the musical spirit with no formal training, Neely says he began his career banging on pots and pans, then an old set of bongos. He never touched a drum set till once, at an audition, he had to sit in.and voila, he was a drummer. When his Marine brother came back home with a ukulele, Neely began learning to strum and play chords, again without instruction.

When he was in his 20s, he began playing with a program for at-risk youth called Teens With Talent, affiliated with the Greater Church Foundation. The local CBS station heard about the program and requested them to prepare a show. All his friends thought that was a fine idea, but no one did anything about it. So Neely took it on himself to get the show together. "I picked up a guitar, and wrote a series of songs telling the story of the Crucifixion in rhythm-and-blues, with narration in between songs. It went over so well they asked me to do another. This one was a portrait of our community in song, again with narration. They liked that, too, and I was sent twice to Mexico, for several weeks, to perform."

Later on, Neely moved to California and found a female singing partner. They began playing at flea markets but graduated to playing clubs around the state. After they split up, he stayed mostly in San Jose. At the apartment complex where he lived, he got involved with organizing against teen violence and drug dealing, but when he discovered the dealing was controlled by public officials, it became dangerous for him. He was being treated for a disability, and it was "suggested" that he get his rehab in Fresno, where his mother-in-law lived. Many years later, he's still here.

Neely is a professional musician with a monthly gig at Cherry Ave Auction ("third Saturday") and a self-produced CD. But music is really a kind of ministry for him. He has performed often at the Rescue Mission, the Salvation Army and Safe Haven, and he's on call for volunteer sets for Rev. Harris, Al Williams and DJ/Minister Solomon Johnson. Feeling an urgency to go back to his roots in the church and "do something for God before I go," he is currently working on a gospel CD that he hopes to have finished in December. "I'm calling it Heavenly Party because that's what I think awaits us. I hope the music can touch and inspire some people to change their lives."

Neely says people can sample his music on You Tube (his card reads: "A must see and hear artist. Google me.") Those interested in his CDs or having him perform can contact him at 559-903-6017 (cell) or 485-2173 (home).

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Community Groups Push for Changes in the Fresno Police Department

By Bill Simon

Last Feb. 13, a few days after the Glen Beaty beating, about 20 Fresno organizations including the Fresno ACLU Chapter held a joint press conference. We called for 1) A federal department of justice investigation into the Fresno Police Department, 2) appointment of an IPA, 3) community meetings, 4) culture and sensitivity training for the FPD and 5) full implementation of community based policing. In March, six members of the coalition met with Chief Jerry Dyer and two deputy chiefs about those demands.

At long last, the IPA, now called the OIR, will begin work on Nov. 30. On Nov. 17, seven members of the coalition again met with Chief Dyer and, this time, four deputy chiefs (Robert Nevarez couldn't be there), five captains, four training sergeants, a rep from the City's legal counsel and a few others to ask for a report about the community meetings that were held in June, to ask if the resulting restructuring of the FPD led to greater community based policing, and to ask if the culture and sensitivity training had taken place.

There is no public report from the June meetings, but Chief Dyer promised to produce one in the near future. But the deputy chiefs summarized the results, which included a desire for greater community-based policing, a perceived lack of officers' respect for Fresno residents and concerns about towing, school zone speeders and cell phone use by drivers. There have been thousands of cell phone tickets issued at a total cost of $170 per offense.

On Nov. 17, there was a great deal of discussion about the perception that police make members of minorities sit on the curb when they are stopped. The police thought that the perception was inaccurate. There was also some discussion about decriminalizing drugs, which was mentioned at the June meetings. The chief and others thought that was a mistake but admitted that changes in drug policy need to be made with more emphasis on drug courts and treatment.

In discussing community-based policing, Chief Dyer pointed out that it is expensive because it requires hiring more officers. The budget reality is that there are currently 23 vacant officer positions, soon to become 38. But the department is still trying to figure out how to do more community-involved policing. There was discussion that police officers need to look less combative and military. Effective Jan. 4, all tactical officers, except K-9, will wear friendlier Class B uniforms.

In discussing culture and sensitivity training, the chief said his priority was character and communication training, which is or is just about complete. This training was largely aimed at asking the officers: "What can officers do to get better?" Police officials said that the culture training we recommended is expensive and that it needs to be "post approved," which it is not. Nevertheless, the department is now looking for good culture and sensitivity training, but the Chief thinks it's hard to find.

Chief Dyer also mentioned a few other interesting things. The department is arranging specialized training for officers who generate a lot of complaints from Fresnans. They are also putting together a booklet about how to interact with a police officer in an encounter. They expect to distribute the booklet after the new OIR reviews it. The FPD is also working to create district advisory boards.

It's always hard to evaluate such a meeting. The chief and his staff had all the right answers. Are they sincere or mere PR? Who knows? But I am beginning to realize that, if you get the right answers, you can hold people to deliver on those answers -if you take good notes. And if people know the right answers, they are much more likely to do the right thing than if they don't know the right answers.

That leaves unaddressed the request for a Department of Justice Pattern and Practice Investigation of the Fresno Police Department based on excessive use of force and other instances of police brutality. Eight months later, we now have 11 shootings of Fresnans by police officers with six deaths and numerous charges of abuse. The Fresno Area Chapter of the ACLU is looking into that situation and will almost certainly draw up the case for the original coalition to request that DOJ investigation. Why? It still seems like business as usual at the Fresno Police Department. There are the shootings. There are other charges of police abuse. But what convinced me that we must do this is a personal experience I had with three Fresno police officers on Oct. 22.

On that day, there was a program at my church. Afterward, an elderly gentleman collapsed in the parking lot. He didn't move. He didn't talk. To the untrained eyes of those who came to help, he seemed like he would never move again. But he did have a pulse, and his eyes kept blinking. We called 911. That seemed to be a laborious process. First, I had to turn my cell phone on. An interminable process in an emergency. Then there were the repeated messages: "All of our agents are talking to other people." Actually, to the credit of the City of Fresno, what seemed like forever in an emergency, probably meant that it took four minutes to get hold of 911 and then hear the sirens that meant help was a block away. The help that came was shocking.

As I hung up the cell phone, we were all astounded that the man managed to stand up. He was pretty unstable and we were all trying to steady him and convince him to sit in a chair. When he saw the police cars, the first responders, he finally said his first words: "Keep them away from me. Keep the police away from me." That startled us, but we knew the only problem we had was convincing him to sit down. Three police officers got out of two police cars. Without so much as asking: "What's going on?," they immediately charged into the situation. The lead officer nervously, but rapidly, went after the man and told the rest of us to stay away from the man. That seemed strange since the man had no problem with us. I tried to tell one officer what had happened. She seemed totally uninterested. It looked like these officers were going to escalate what now seemed to be a minor medical emergency in need of a paramedic into a major confrontation. When I saw three fire trucks arriving, I just left. I didn't want to have anything to do with this display of police overreaction.

Later, I asked another Good Samaritan, one with police, security and homeland security experience, what happened after I left. He said he left too. He said he told another officer what happened. "He didn't seem the least bit interested in what I said. He seemed a little bit excited and shrugged me off. The young male officer seemed to be acting as if the incident was something that was possibly volatile. He was a little edgy."

So, in a minor medical emergency, the Fresno police officers apparently managed to scare away everyone who knew anything about the incident. The only police escalation that was still possible after the officers' initial approach was violence. I think this kind of behavior merits an investigation into police training and behavior.

I brought this experience up at the Nov. 17 meeting with Chief Dyer and staff. They took more notes about this incident than anything else.

*****

Bill Simon is chair of the Greater Fresno Area Chapter of the ACLU of Northern California.

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Brief Notes: Confucius' Idea of Rén

By David E. Roy

At the beginning of November, my son and I spent 12 days in China. Part of the time, we were the guests of Dr. Gao Fengqiang, a professor of psychology at Shandong Normal University in the city of Jinan. Dr. Gao also was in charge of the entire 12th Chinese Congress on Psychology at which I presented a paper.

In his generous response to my interest in Confucius, Dr. Gao assigned two graduate students and a driver to take us to Qufu, the hometown of the 6th century BCE social philosopher. We spent the night at a nice hotel and much of the rest of the day touring the grounds of an enormous estate containing temples and residences for Confucius and his family.

One of the central tenants of Confucius' social philosophy is the concept of r‚n. This can be understood as pursuing and maintaining right or proper relationships with others. Importantly, the motivation for this emerges from within the individual. Indeed, for it to be valid, it must be at the center of one's beliefs. In many ways, I believe that r‚n expresses something close to the concept of compassion.

Although Confucius may not have felt he was founding a religion, millions in China and elsewhere have pursued it in that fashion for centuries. The question today is whether Confucianism has any real influence on the emerging socialist-capitalist China. (More on this next month.)

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The Nuts and Bolts of a Constitutional Convention

By Michael D. Evans

The continuing concerns over the inability of California's state legislature to effectively govern and, in particular, control the budgetary process have led to numerous proposals as to how this situation might be fixed. Perhaps the most romantic of these proposed solutions is the constitutional convention. Many analysts have put this forth as the be-all and end-all of governmental reform efforts.

This article is meant neither to endorse nor reject a constitutional convention but to make more information available so that the progressive community can better address the ramifications of such a convention for the people of California.

The Calitics Web site describes how a constitutional convention would work: "Article 18 of the California Constitution explains the convention process. First, the legislature must vote with a 2/3 majority to put a proposition on the ballot to call a convention, and a majority of voters must approve that proposition. If the convention is approved by voters, within 6 months there will be a convention. Delegates to the convention will be chosen by the voters based on districts. The convention does not have the authority to actually change the Constitution itself-only the voters can actually ratify Constitutional changes. What the convention does is debate and refine proposals, and agree on what will be submitted to voters."

Currently, there are at least two initiatives with the Secretary of State's office that address a constitutional convention. The initiative that appears to be gaining the most traction is endorsed by Repair California. That initiative consists of two propositions: the Citizens' Constitutional Convention Act and the Call for a Citizens' Limited Constitutional Convention. You can read the complete text of both propositions at the California Secretary of State's Web site (www.sos.ca.gov/). If you would prefer to skip the legalese, there is a more user-friendly Constitutional Convention Ballot Measures Fact Sheet at www.repaircalifornia.org/.

Repair California contends that "all political power is inherent in the people. Government is instituted for their protection, security, and benefit, and they have the right to alter or reform it when the public good may require."

We asked Steven Hill, director of the Political Reform Program of the New America Foundation and author of 10 Steps to Repair American Democracy to provide some clarity on the constitutional convention proposal.

Community Alliance: How likely is it that we will have a constitutional convention in California?
Steven Hill: It's very likely it will be on the November 2010 ballot. If the voters will vote for it, that's another question.

CA: Explain why the initiative is being presented in two parts.
SH: The only way to do a constitutional convention, or what's called a constitutional revision, is that the legislature has to vote to put something on the ballot and a majority of the voters have to pass it. Proposition 1 would give the people of California the right to call a convention or to pass a constitutional revision.

The constitution that we're using right now is over 100 years old. It's been amended over 500 times. It's the third longest constitution in the world. The only ones that are longer are India and the State of Alabama, and Alabama's is so long because it still has provisions going back to the Civil War and Reconstruction that are clearly unconstitutional.

Proposition 2 would call the convention, and it would lay out the structure, the delegate selection, the scope and the mandate of the convention, those sorts of details.

CA: What would be the convention's mandate?
SH: Four areas: One would be elections; another would be spending and budgets; the third would be governance, which would include the relationship between state and local governments; and the fourth would be reducing bureaucracy and government waste-reviewing different agencies and departments to see if they're still doing what they were set up to do or if they need to be merged or even gotten rid of. These are the four areas of the constitution that the delegate body would be mandated to weigh in on.

Everything else that's in the constitution-civil rights, education, healthcare, any of these things-this delegate body would not be able to weigh in on. It's what we call a limited constitutional convention. It's being limited to the rules and the structure about our elections, our government and our budget system.

CA: How would the delegate selection process work?
SH: There will be two types of delegates in this convention. The first will be what we call citizen delegates, who will be everyday Californians selected by lot from the 80 Assembly districts. There will be three per Assembly district for a total of 240 of these sorts of delegates.

The second type of delegates will be selected by local officeholders-county boards of supervisors and mayors. In the case of the three cities in California with over one million population-Los Angeles, San Diego and San Jose-the city councils would also pick some delegates. You get one delegate per 175,000 population in your county, but every county will have at least one. It's going to be about 50-50 of citizen delegates and appointed delegates, so the total delegate body is probably going to be around 480 delegates.

CA: What is the process for citizen participation?
SH: It would be selected by Assembly district. The [Auditor's Office] will compose a list using the DMV list, the voter registration list and the California Franchise Tax Board list, and they'll combine them all to one master list and then de-dupe the list. Then they will randomly select 400 people per Assembly district who will be sent a letter. The letter will say you have been selected to participate in this constitutional convention, the convention will go for about eight months, you'll be paid to participate, here's what your duties and responsibilities will be, things of that nature, and a fact sheet will be included. If you would like to participate in this constitutional convention, please let us know by e-mail, phone or whatever works best for you. Of those 400, probably a good half will respond.

Of those who respond, 50 will be selected again to be invited to a meeting in which they'll go over some of the same information but just more intensively to make sure they really know what they're getting themselves into. At that point, people will be able to indicate whether they're still interested and whether they will be able to fulfill the commitment because they will have to miss work. Legally, their employer will have to give them time off from work, but still for some people they can't always do that.

Of those who still want to do it, three will be selected to be delegates from that Assembly district.

CA: Who will do the selecting?
SH: The selection will be done by the Auditor's Office. There's a structure for the convention: The FPPC (Fair Political Practices Commission) is going to form the constitutional commission. That commission will hire a clerk of the constitution and work with the auditor, who is going to oversee the delegate selection process. The clerk of the constitution is going to oversee the administrative and day-to-day operations of the constitutional convention.

CA: Has this lot process been done anywhere else?
SH: In British Columbia, they did a convention like this of all selected citizen delegates. No appointments at all. So we're kind of doing this hybrid. The rationale behind the hybrid is that the appointed delegates will be people who have some experience, some expertise. The citizen delegates, they're there for their values. We think that having both of those is going to be the best combination. If you have just the usual appointments and insiders, it's not going to have any credibility with the public. In a sense, it's going to empanel an ongoing focus group of everyday Californians who are just like the people who are going to be voting on whatever the convention comes up with.

CA: How will the convention proceed?
SH: It's going to start off with an education process in which the delegates will undergo education about the problems and challenges and potential solutions for California. Even if people are selected who have some expertise on budgets, they're not necessarily going to have expertise on political reform. Everybody is going to need a pretty massive brain dump of information. That will go on for a good month or so in which they will just be getting a huge education in all these things.

In the second part, the delegates will go out and hold public hearings around the state, probably about two dozen of them. Wanting to hear input from Californians, they'll also spend a considerable amount of time in their own area talking to editorial boards, local officeholders and average people, and just trying to foment a robust public discourse about all this. Of course, we will be using all the modern technologies-the Internet, live Web casting, e-mail-to make this a constitutional convention like has never been done before. The goal of all that technology is to maximize public input, really allow people to watch, to listen, to have input and to be involved even if they're not delegates. We really see this as a kind of vehicle for creating a civic dialogue that just doesn't exist in California right now.

The last part will be the final deliberation and proposal stage in which the delegates will come back together and for a period of about three months just do nothing but finalize their proposals. The convention will have the ability to puts its proposals directly on the ballot. It does not have to go through the legislature to do that.

CA: Once the delegates are known, what is to prevent lobbyists from trying to influence them?
SH: Lobbyists will be required to publicly record any contacts they have with delegates. And the delegates themselves will be required to publish their meeting schedules. So anybody they meet with will be public knowledge.

CA: Will the delegates meet in the same place?
SH: There will be some times that all the delegates come together at one place. When it comes to the public hearings, the delegates who are from the region where the public hearing is occurring will be there in person. The other delegates will watch it via live Web cast. There's no point in having 480 people traipsing up and down the state continually when you have technologies to do this stuff through things like live Web casting. So it will be a combination.

CA: What do you see as the pros and the cons of the initiative?
SH: All sorts of people from all across the political spectrum are pretty much saying, "Yeah, California's broken. Something needs to be done." This is the state that used to be the cutting edge of new ideas, and now we're the state where we issue IOUs to pay our bills. Where the disagreement comes is not only in what's to be done but how you do it.

There's three different ways to reform things. One, the legislature can do it. Everyone acknowledges the legislature can't do it, they don't want to do it and they're not going to do it. That avenue is closed.

The second way is you put a bunch of individual initiatives on the ballot. There could be some good things to do through individual ballot measures. But the problem in California is so severe that you would need ballot measures A through Z. And that costs a lot of money to qualify each one of those. Then the opponents can start picking off one here, one there, so you lose the comprehensive nature of the reform, and it might even make things worse to some degree. Finally, ballot measures are inherently polarizing. They're yes/no; they're pro/con. Each side's got their money to say what they want voters to know, and by the time you vote you're not even sure what you're voting on sometimes.

The constitutional convention creates a new deliberative process for reform. The other thing that it does, which is the big issue in California right now, is that it creates trust. For example, you can look at polls in which the public says we should extend term limits. But when the legislature puts term limit extensions on the ballot, the public votes it down because they don't trust the legislature as a proposer of reform.

So the big question is who the public trusts as a proposer of reform. Do they trust the legislature? No. Do they trust the special interests who often do ballot measures? No, not really. But what they might trust is a constitutional convention in which 50% of the delegates are citizen delegates, everyday Californians just like the voters. We think the constitutional convention with this particular delegate selection process has the advantage because it is going to be a new type of proposer of reform, and it's going to include people just like the public in order to craft the proposal. Voters trust themselves much more than that they trust the politicians or even the so-called experts.

In fact, we've had over two dozen town halls up and down the state-asking people what they think. Each of the rallies ended by my asking how many people think you would be a good delegate to this constitutional convention. No matter where I ask that question, whether in Orange County with a room full of Republicans or San Francisco with a room full of Democrats or Santa Clara County with a room of both, 90% of the hands go up. People are clear that they feel they would be good delegates. They could bring the values that are needed to craft responsible reform.

CA: Once the convention concludes its work, what happens next?
SH: Once the delegates finish and come up with their proposals, they are sent to the governor, who has seven days to call an election. The schedule calls for the delegates to finish sometime in either late 2011 or early 2012, and the governor will then put the proposals on the next regularly scheduled ballot. So you're looking at voting on it in either February 2012 when there's a presidential primary, in June 2012 when there's a statewide primary or in November 2012 when there is a presidential election.

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Michael D. Evans is a political activist, editor and writer. He can be reached at evansm@usa.net.

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