Downtown Community Dialogues, May 23-25, 2010

Responses from the question “What positive solutions can you recommend for the future? Do you have requests or offers you would like to make?” This list was compiled from responses given by the 80 people who attended these dialogues over three days.

Specific Suggested Actions for the Short Term

Continue these kinds of dialogues

Bring in a greater diversity of voices from our community, for example more business owners, council members, Take Back Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz Neighbors, Chamber of Commerce, Downtown Association, Barrios Unidos, schools, colleges & faith communities.

Make dialogues more ethnically and politically inclusive by assuring that the core group convening these activities is itself made up of leaders from all constituencies.

Give them the tools they need to work together and with their constituencies.

Keep the invitation open to those who so far have not responded to the offer to dialogue.

Make this kind of dialogue on a more regular basis, widely advertised in the paper, all the time contributing to our community decision making.

This email forum can continue the dialogue.

Future dialogues could be an open public event more like a city council meeting.

Evolve from talking in these dialogues to forming an organized group and going out into the streets.

Request a meeting like this with the City Council, as right now they are under a lot of pressure from people reacting out of fear.

Armando Alcaraz (facilitator) is organizing a longer three day event to delve deeper into these issues, with a broader group.

Support Youth in getting their own new initiatives launched

Peace in the Streets–POTS (SC High)

Lucha (Soquel High)

Newly forming SC Brown Berets (different schools & neighborhoods)

Keep Ariel Rojas (Soquel) and his peers on their jobs

Sentinel Topix Forums

Request the Sentinel close down the forum, at least temporarily, to advocate for changes like requiring people to register with a name and real email address.

Rocks on Pacific Avenue

Remove rocks from Pacific Avenue to prevent others from throwing them.

Support SubRosa, DIY, and Wes Modes

Support SubRosa and DIY projects that are receiving negative media and police attention; go visit them, or participate in their events.

Let the City and Sentinel know you don’t appreciate attacks against them without evidence.

Support Wes Modes by sitting in on his court dates for DIY-related activities like the Drum Circle at the Farmers’ Market and the New Year’s DIY parade. 1:30 PM Friday, May 28.

Wes Modes offered to listen to anyone who wants to talk with him, and explain his personal perspective on anarchy; he works at SubRosa Friday mornings.

Specific Actions for the Longer Term

Police and Justice Alternatives

Advocate for the City to consider alternatives to more police to address violence.  While people understand the desire for more police to feel safer, many thought that rushing into this expensive decision was unwise.

Research the effectiveness of strategies from other communities before making future city decisions. For example, check out Salinas’ Community Alliance on Safety and Peace (CASP) anti-gang program

Develop a “Community Response Team” of people trained in Nonviolent Communication and some “protective use of force” to try resolving heated situations before bringing in the police.

Slow down and consider our options before responding to gang violence or other problems. Promote the idea that our city officials and community stop and think instead of reacting out of fear, consider what is actually proven effective.  For example, the war on drugs has not stopped drug addiction and drug-related violence, yet we continue with the same failed strategies.

Don’t rely on City Council to solve our problems; keep working and organizing among ourselves.

Support the police in keeping people accountable who commit crimes and make downtown unsafe.  At the same time, realize that police solutions come only after the fact; they cannot prevent crimes in the first place. Prevention takes community solutions.

Promote a shift towards restorative justice, rather than punitive justice. For example, the idea of Neighborhood Accountability Boards where both juvenile and adult first time offenders can go before this Board instead of going through the justice process.

Respect interconnections and differences across the recent events and concerns. (Benefit from increased awareness, but resist the fanning of fear by talk of “waves of violence” etc. Treat each aspect on its own terms; spell out the interconnections with care; look for distinct but convergent solutions.)

Who’s affected

What are the different causes

Whose efforts are needed to turn it around

Establish “safe houses” with trained staff to have safe spaces for women and children who need them.

Youth Leadership

Follow up on Peace on the Streets (POTS) held at Louden Nelson Center on Sat., May 29.

Bring “Challenge Day” to Santa Cruz high schools.

Teach conflict transformation methods in schools and neighborhoods. Use youth mediators.

Support Soccer for Peace

Save, support and expand youth programs through the city, the schools, non-profits, and/or partnerships between them, including arts programs, POTS, Lucha, Familia, Brown Berets, Barrios Unidos, and Soccer for Peace.

Politics/Neighborhoods

Work to bring new faces to City Council in upcoming elections.

Work towards making Santa Cruz a “Compassionate City”—there is a similar campaign happening in Seattle, which would have effects in schools, police, and city council, etc. We can go online and start collecting signatures for a Compassionate City request. http://my.compassionateactionnetwork.com/  See the Charter for Compassion.

Build more community within neighborhoods and therefore build neighborhood resiliency: get to know neighbors, have neighborhood potlucks, look out for each other and families, organizing, facilitated dialogues to help people heal where there is mistrust and harsh feelings.

Bring people together from different churches or other religious communities.

Take Individual Action

Take personal responsibility, try to help address problems directly instead of always deferring to the authorities.

Promote volunteerism and public service, including community service involving young people so they feel connected with their community in a positive way.

Make a commitment each week to perform a specific course of action.

Practice random acts of kindness,  e.g. do a favor and ask someone to “pay it forward” to three people.  Follow the golden rule.

Use local media to continue discussing these ideas.  Free, Coral, and Thomas Leavitt invite calls to their shows on Free Radio 101.1 FM.

Seek more dialogue with City Council members, and make them feel that they need to respond more to the ideas and needs of the citizens in order to be re-elected.

Oppose further cuts to social services.

Connecting as People

Try to understand the motives of those who are violent and/or destructive.  For example, why did these folks on May 1 feels so angry or disenfranchised that they smashed windows?

Make use of classes and resources at Nonviolent Communication Santa Cruz..

Engage people you don’t know or agree with, listen to them.  Also, consider how you have common ground despite your differences.

Recognize that we all have the same basic needs.  (Even people who are having a hard time understanding or relating to each other can seek to understand each other’s needs and treat each other with respect, dignity, and honesty.)

Local anarchists could work to clarify to the general public who they are and what they believe in.  Peaceful anarchists might use a different word to describe themselves.

Working with the Whole System; Seeking Solutions

Seek to address our problems holistically, rather than just addressing one aspect of the problem.  Adding more police to address violence may not be effective or sufficient without addressing the bigger picture.  Another suggestion is to see our local problems in the context of the overall economic crisis in our country.

Take seriously the fears, needs, and contributions of all: those downtown, in the neighborhoods, and in the outskirts; those accused of being the “cause”of the problems; those responsible for “solving” the problems.

Create alternative models to the existing ones that are not working.

Reach out locally and elsewhere for solutions to different pieces of the problem.