OccupyV is officially re-opened to the public! We still need a few more shifts filled!
Ask about Orientations scheduled upon volunteer availability. Sign up for a short shift and let’s make the best use of the OEV building while we have it!
Goal: 2 volunteers per shift. Please look at the Site Staffing Calendar.
Find a time that’s good for you and sign up! Call Jana at 541-606-6139,
use a Volunteer Form, or put your name on the schedule at the OEV Info Desk.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: press@occupyeugenemedia.org
occupyeugenemedia.org, @OccupyEugene
Occupy Eugene to City, “Show Us the Money”
As freezing temperatures return once again to the Eugene area we continue to be concerned about the 4,000+ homeless people in Lane County and wonder how they will survive. While many of us are sharing this Valentine’s day with our loved ones, we wonder if the City will show that they too “have a heart” by living up to their commitments to help our citizens in need.
During a Dec. 14 meeting, the City Council of Eugene passed a proposal to spend up to $100,000 to open a 7 night a week “Egan-like” facility to help those with mental health and addiction issues throughout the winter.
Then, two days before Christmas, the City moved in to close down our occupation site in Washington-Jefferson park that had been providing shelter, safety, and an estimated 500-800 hot meals per day to people in need.
While the City did open an emergency shelter at the Lane County Fairgrounds on Dec. 22 to accept some of the people that were displaced by the closure of our camp at Washington-Jefferson, that shelter only stayed open for 2 days closing on Christmas Eve morning and sending people out into the streets to fend for themselves.
Feb. 14 marks two months since the City Council voted to approve funding for a temporary “Egan-like” facility, and to date we have seen unsatisfactory efforts from the city in terms of following through on their own proposal. Was the vote by the City Council just a “Christmas Miracle” meant to make us all feel good for the holidays, or does the City of Eugene actually plan to follow through on their proposal of spending $100,000 to help our most vulnerable citizens make it through the winter?
This press release is from the Communications Committee of Occupy Eugene that has been empowered to speak on behalf of the larger Occupy Eugene body.
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Join your neighbors as we share resources and teach each other ways to make our homes, neighborhoods and communities safer, healthier, more resource efficient and more fun!
– Take part in hands-on skill building workshops
– Connect with public and private organizations that have practical information you can use
– Learn from panels hosted by local experts
When: Saturday, March 3, 2012; 11am to 2:30pm
Where: First United Methodist Church, 1376 Olive Street
FREE EVENT!
Workshops
– food preserving
– edible landscaping
– seed starting
– backyard chicken keeping
– rainwater collecting
– disaster preparedness
– composting
– bike repair
– and lots of other subjects
Youth Activities
– school gardening
– conservation projects
– poetry
– cooking demonstrations
Food and Drinks
– food carts will be located in the parking lot during lunch
– coffee cart will be available all day
– free snacks inside
From 10:00 to 11:00 am, noted author Richard Heinberg will speak on “Transitioning After Growth – Connecting, Community, Economy, Energy, & Environment.” A donation of $5-10 is suggested to support Richard’s talk.
To help pass the word about the Green Neighbors Faire, please forward this message to friends and family members. I hope you will join me and your neighbors at the Faire.
For a Detailed Schedule and Map of the building, see below this email. If you cannot view the map or schedule, please visit this web address: http://heliosnetwork.org/
Presented by: The Neighborhood Leaders Council Committee on Sustainability
Contact Cary for more information: 541-686-5562
National self organized conference of occupy move-
ment citizenry held in Olympia. Two days of visioning
panels and discussions, creative tactics workshops,
non-violent direct action trainings, grand strategy
development, actions and fun social networking.
Day of activism, marching to follow Monday Feb 20, President’s Day
Where: 201 8th St SE, Olympia, Washington
When: Saturday, February 18, 8:00am until Monday, February 20, 2012 at 9:00am
poster link:
http://www.ossf2012.org/
Occupy Eugene – Kesey Square Action from Reid Bryant Kimball on Vimeo.
“You don’t lead by pointing and telling people some place to go. You lead by going to that place and making a case.”
– Ken Kesey
Reclaim Kesey Square as a place for street artists, entertainers, friends and activists to gather as a community. Join in every Friday, noonish to dusk-ish.
Since the breakup of the Washington Jefferson Park occupation site, many of the displaced homeless have been harassed by some within the Eugene Police Department.
They have been unfairly targeted, charged with small crimes, and then told they can’t return to a 20 block area surrounding Kesey Square.
This “Downtown Public Safety Zone” is being used to discriminate against the homeless. Alley Valkyrie demonstrates how easy it is to break these laws, and not get arrested because she doesn’t look homeless.
Join in every Friday, noonish to dusk-ish.
Teaching energy Healing as well as doing energy Healing
Event contact: Jennifer Frenzer and Rick Seivertson 541-844-1852
When: Wednesday, February 29, 2012, 1-3pm
Where: Occupy Eugene V, 1274 W. 7th, Eugene
This will be an on going weekly healing event for occupy eugene and greater community
This is the anniversary of the conviction of five of the Chicago Seven for intent to incite a riot while crossing state lines, they were sentenced to $5,000 fines and five years in prison each…and this was AFTER the conspiracy charges were dropped. The case was appealed to the Seventh Circuit Court on the grounds of unfair proceedings but that court decided not to retry the case. It is widely believed that the social pressure of the times and the activists that took a stand in those times are the reason why the Chicago Seven’s charges were eventually overturned. Take a stand with us to help those whose voices have been unfairly silenced while we celebrate what unity and solidarity can do when, together, we put the Justice System’s feet to the fire!
Many activist are sitting in jail on unjust charges just so they will be silenced! THEY CAN’T SILENCE ALL OF US! Please join us as we march in solidarity with all political prisoners across the world who have faced imprisonment and worse because they fight for what they believe in.
We will be marching to the jail and courthouse calling for the release of everyone tried unfairly and imprisoned because of their political beliefs and actions. We will take the streets to show our comrades we will always support their freedom from this injustice that put them behind bars &/or continue to illegally keep them behind bars. Here’s the idea…..it’s a march, be responsible and respectful.
We are working on Speakers…….
When: Saturday, February 18, 12 -3pm
Where: Wayne Morse Free Speech Plaza, 8th & Oak, Eugene
flyer image http://i41.tinypic.com/
Street theater, games, a surprise prank or two, interviews with the homeless and harassed as well as speakers from Occupy, the ACLU, CALC, and the CLDC will highlight the absurdities of the Downtown Public Safety (Exclusion) Zone will all begin at noon in Kesey Square. (Also, keep your eyes peeled and cameras aimed all day, before and after the press event!),
The zone, also known as the Confusion Zone for the warren of legal paths the accused person has to follow to escape exclusion, allows people to be banished from the downtown for 30 days even without conviction of any offense. To escape exclusion, the accused must pursue two separate legal paths for as mild an offense as leaning against a building while standing on the sidewalk -and, of course, more serious offenses such as noise disturbance or having LESS than an ounce of marijuana in your pocket. Most accused are unaware that they must fight their exclusion along a whole different legal path than the one through which they can plead innocent to the actual offense. Therefore, they are unlikely to show up to protest the exclusion and so it becomes imposed based on the testimony of a policeman or witness affidavit.
Perhaps most aptly dubbed the Downtown “Exclusivity Zone”, the law was ostensibly passed to alleviate the pressure on jails ….but with a clever turn of events, the offenses for which people are being excluded are lowered to violations precisely to deprive the accused of a free public defender and therefore they are offenses that do not lead to jail terms! Police reports on the Zone have done nothing to prove that making the zone so exclusive has reduced crime.
This law violates the due process clause as well as the equal protection clause by permitting law enforcement to target people based upon their appearance — if you look poor, you are cited and excluded; if you look like a shopper or of a higher class, you are not cited. This police discretion has permitted vast abuse among our unhoused community members.
Perhaps rather than excluding people from the commons, the city of Eugene should once again take action to alleviate the plight of the poor by providing alternatives such as community spaces, non-religious housing options, and access to services.
The city should be addressing the plight of the poor – not treating them like a blight.
The events at noon at Kesey Square (where we are reclaiming public space every Friday afternoon will provide much needed insights into why the Downtown Exclusivity Zone can not be extended. Armed with these insights and lots of information, Eugenians are encouraged to show up and speak out at the city’s Public Hearing on the Downtown Public Safety Zone on Tuesday the 21st of February. Sign up at 7:00 pm to speak at 7:30 pm.
Didn’t anyone ever tell the council that a busy downtown is an INTERESTING, FLAVORFUL downtown, not some antiseptic version of a homogenous society. Ask the vendors at Kesey Square how their business is doing on Friday Afternoons while we are occupying Kesey Square….they sold out of food!
For information, call Jean Stacey, 541-870-2580 or Michael Carrigan, CALC, 541-485-1755
Our six-strong Occupy group met that morning at the gazebo in our Central Park little dreaming of the success which awaited us at the 2012 Oregon State Legislature. Or that our story would attract the attention of Mother Jones.
Earlier that week, we had been alerted by one of our fellow Occupiers who had combed through the proposed 2012 bills and found one which appeared to be directly targeting freedom of assembly and free speech. Senate Bill 1534, which criminalized electronic communication, changed any misdemeanor into a Class C felony if it was arranged via the internet “aggravated solicitation”) and carried a $125,000 fine and up to five years in prison. Sound like anyone you know?
We posted a Stop Senate Bill 1534 iPetition which gathered around 200 signatures over the weekend. Fliers were distributed around town. Very late on Friday, SB 1534 appeared on the list of scheduled hearings for Monday. One of us caught it.
Ironically, we had arranged this particular Monday action face-to-face at our Saturday potluck; if this bill had been in force, we would have been in no fear of having our jaywalking misdemeanors morphing into Class C felonies.
We joined two Occupiers from Salem, so Occupy made up eight of the ten citizens who testified against SB 1534 with no one testifying in favor. One of us caught most of the testimony on video (part 1 and part 2). We spoke of the threat to civil liberties guaranteed Oregonians under the Oregon Constitution by this bill which could be used as a threat to our right to practice civil disobedience and free speech. We also promised “extreme opposition” if it somehow passed through the committee. The attorney representing the Oregon Progressive Party remarked at the end of this testimony, “I have to say, this is the kind of law that I would expect to see in Myanmar, Turkmenistan, North Korea or Zimbabwe, but not in Oregon.”
After the hearing, we decided to visit the Republican Senator from our adjacent town who had been a cosponsor of this ill-conceived attack on our civil liberties. He sat down with us for a long rather uncomfortable dialogue about the bill since he was not on the Judicial Committee which heard the testimony. We asked him to withdraw his sponsorship, and he did distance himself from the bill. We also told him that we were watching the legislature very closely this year which is how we found this particular bill, and we would follow up if the bill moved forward.
I stayed overnight, meaning to drive right home in the morning. However, I just felt drawn back to our Statehouse. I wanted to be very sure that SB 1534 was no longer listed, but it turned out to be more than that. I spent the entire day there. I visited the office of the Eugene Democrat, Senator Floyd Prozanski, who as Judicial Committee Chair had declared the bill dead, and left my thanks. I enjoyed the buffet lunch—along with legislators–served by the compost/recycle organizations which were set up in the lobby. I was given a small complementary bag of compost. I visited my own representative. I wandered around every floor and hallway, reading posted bills, viewing art, checking schedules, stuffing my parking meter, and watching the Senate Assembly from the gallery.
I wore my red suit coat and Occupy shirt from yesterday’s meeting, complete with my 99 percent button. I began to notice that I was being noticed which is when I realized why I was there.
This was the walk around.
Not that I was gloating. Well, maybe a little. I was proud of all of us and how we the people had made our voices heard. In Western Oregon, local Occupys had organized into a loose coalition of “Occupy Oregon” so we could Occupy the Legislature for this month-long session.
And it all worked.
Here is a very nice video report by KMTR about Occupy Eugene’s new free medic tent.