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By MARY CALLAHAN
THE PRESS DEMOCRAT
Occupy Sebastopol demonstrators put their voices, and their feet, behind the movement on Saturday.
Tim Ryan, 23, of the west county, protests with Occupy Sebastopol on Saturday outside Wells Fargo Bank. (KENT PORTER/PD)
Two days after the Santa Rosa City Council gave Occupy campers permission to remain on the lawn at City Hall if they meet a range of conditions, close to 60 marchers in Sebastopol distributed fliers at shops and offices along several blocks of downtown.
They hope business owners will post them as pre-printed statements of support in advance of a Tuesday meeting at Sebastopol City Hall over their right to camp in the central square.
“We want people to open their minds to how much change needs to happen,” said Andrew DeRoos, 21.
“The idea of holding the square is about creating the space for dialog,” said Erik Ohlsen, 32, who cut his activist teeth during demonstrations at the 1999 ministerial meetings of the World Trade Organization in Seattle. “Grassroots organizing takes time.”
The march passed the branches of several national banks, where supporters pumped their fists and chanted their dissatisfaction with traditional financial institutions. A few exuberant demonstrators shouted directly at a woman who was trying to exit the Bank of America, until another supporter persuaded them to back off.
(See more photos of Occupy Sebastopol)
Otherwise, there were no confrontations as the group walked along downtown sidewalks, followed intermittently by a police sergeant who tailed them in his patrol car and later thanked the group for “how you conducted your business.”
It was their second Sebastopol march. The first one, last Saturday in the rain, marked the start of Occupation Sebastopol in solidarity with a nearly two-month-old demonstration in New York’s Wall Street area protesting the concentration of political and economic power in the hands of corporations and the nation’s wealthiest one percent.
Though only a few people have been staying the night in three or four tents erected in the northeast corner of the Sebastopol plaza, the city has alerted Occupy supporters that staying there violates city ordinance.
They were given a 20-page permit application Wednesday evening that’s supposed to be completed by Tuesday, several members said.
But it’s not at all clear what the consensus for handling the city’s demand will be.
As part of the cross-pollination that’s occurring between demonstrators in different cities, Ben Browner, an Occupy Santa Rosa participant who helped negotiate a permit obtained last week for camping at Santa Rosa City Hall, urged his Sebastopol counterparts to make a good faith effort to meet the Tuesday deadline and avoid forcing the council’s hand on enforcing the ordinance.
Occupy Sebastopol members are to hold a general assembly meeting today Sunday to discuss how to proceed.
One supporter, Chris Rockwell, 33, said it makes no sense for an individual to accept responsibility and liability for the entire group by taking out the permit in his or her name.
Rockwell said he’s working to get the group incorporated so the permit can be obtained by the corporate entity — though that would require additional time and the patience of the city council, he said.
Rockwell said the group, meanwhile, was trying to be respectful in its use of the plaza, prohibiting alcohol, for example, and planning Sunday to move the tents to another portion of the square to spare the grass excess wear.
Ohlsen, who owns a local permaculture consulting and sustainable landscaping business, plans to hold ecological base camp design training in Sebastopol on Tuesday for Occupy supporters.
“Our intent is to work with the city in as cooperative a way as we can,” said Sebastopol resident Linus Lancaster, a Healdsburg High School art teacher and Navy veteran who has supported Occupy encampments in Santa Rosa and Sebastopol.
Lancaster said he joined the Occupy Wall Street movement “because it’s the first political movement I’ve seen that in broad terms understands the issues America is facing in a systemic way.”
“I’ve been waiting for the revolution for four years,” 88-year-old Geneva Folsom said. “This is the first time I’ve been passionate about getting out and fighting for something.”
The marching, chanting and camping out is just the beginning of a process aimed at raising awareness, engaging large numbers and reaching consensus on common goals, demonstrators said.
In Santa Rosa, junior college business student Frank Anderson, 19, said he’d camped out at Santa Rosa City Hall for nearly a month and now thinks of it as home.
When the lease on his apartment is up Jan. 21, he plans to give it up altogether since he’s living out front of City Hall to support the occupation.
“When this goes down in the history books,” he said, “it’s going to go right next to the Civil Rights movement.”
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Whilst we need a defence force and Cadets is a great institution, Maybe the Army could better support cadets if money wasn’t wasted fighting wars in Afghanistan and Iraq or stealing natural gas from East Timor.
To Jay: heavily documented ‘paranoia’.
Enough with this crazy Agenda 21 paranoia! Hey folks, at least shorten up your posts. No one reads these long raving screeds that you think are imparting critical inside information. These are the children of the old John Birch “US out of UN” wing-nuts. Old hat.
@ Joyce- love your post! I gather the “occupiers” do not feel we “nn-campers” can understand the problems that special interest groups have created by buying politicians and then influencing legislation that pays back their supporters. I think I understand. Now get your tents in a campground.
@Occupy Santa Rosa…”and will even pay you money…”?
Don’t I have a say in how my union money is spent? For ANYONE who question’s the Occupy movement is a “grassroots” movement…get a grip of reality and wake the hell up!
Occupy Santa Rosa is begging for help from people from other cities now. Guess they don’t have the local support they thought they did.
ALERT ALERT ALERT!!! Occupy Oakland, please come support us at Occupy Santa Rosa or Sebastopol.
We have tents, warm food, new clothing, beverages and will even pay you money. We NEED your support. We will refund your bus fare or gas money to get here. Please tell all your friends, bring your friends, let as many people know so that we get the support we need. The city council is supporting us!!
@ brasilas “We want people to open their minds to how much change needs to happen”
Our minds are open and we just have something called common sense, life experience and free will to choose between right and wrong! Change? No…it’s not change this Nation needs…it’s restoration.
One more thing, brasilas….people’s minds are open, you don’t accept people having a different solution from the one you all are told to have! Have you listened to the other side and done your homework on all arguments before you made up your mind? Or do you just believe what you are told? Maybe it’s you the one who needs to open your mind before you make a decision that may be the most destructive decision of your entire life!
Dear Where there’s smoke
Yes, some of the younger demonstrators shouted directly at a woman trying to exit, I was right there. I and other protestors asked them to back off, and they did. Yes, many of the Occupy Sebastopol campers are homeless, isn’t it good that homeless people in the middle of a relatively prosperous community have someplace to live? Yes, they make you feel unsafe, how do think they feel with no home to go to at night? As to your precious property values decreasing, that is happening with or without the protestors thanks to corrupt politicians and corporations.
As to accusation that Linus Lancaster is wrong to try to get a permit for the protestors if he believes corporations are evil, poppycock! At the pre-demonstration meeting that day, the group grappled about if they should or should not even apply for the permit. They consensus was that it would be better to show respect to the city council by trying to follow what legalities they could since the council has been very open to the protestors up to this point.
Also Where there’s smoke, you mentioned about how the group is disregarding laws and violating city ordinances. Remember that it was once legal own slaves, shoot Indians, and beat your wife. Some laws must be broke to fix them. I am not an anarchist sir or madam (I am unsure because you were too cowardly to five your real name), but peacefully protesting is what makes this country great.
You advocate shutting down the camps before someone gets hurt, but someone already has. That someone is the good old USA. I know many who, despite working hard at 1 or 2 jobs, are on the verge of becoming homeless themselves. It is time to wake up America and fight for what is right. I for one am grateful that these protestors are putting their energies towards something aimed at helping the whole world.
What do you propose Where there’s smoke, rounding up the camp and sending them to a concentration camp, running them over with a tank, or having the police come in the middle of the night to beat them up. Your idea of a better Sebastopol seems much scarier than a few tents down town 1 block from the police station. Ghandi and King were not liked so much by the powers that be, and look what they accomplished. Power to the people Where there’s smoke.
Temujin Licklider
Interesting sign about Occupy Every Home. Their little intimidation tactics need some work. They need to understand the difference between public and private property. Based on the violence the protesters showed in Oakland, Seatle and SF, people will need to defend themselves. Since they are less than 1%, the population and are agaisnt the top 1%, the other 98% won’t put up with their silliness or violence on private citizens and their property.
To all of us that occupy the planet:
Know this…
EVERYTHING THAT IS WRONG with ALL facets of our world can be connected to the hundreds of globalist’s that truly believe the world and all of it’s citizens and spoils are theirs for the taking.
EVERYTHING, INCLUDING that which we are told are acts of god.
Examples? OK…
AIDS, Tsunamis, 9/11 ,Economic ‘crashes’
(both),the FED (devaluation/inflation are forms of enslavement), various disasters, all our wars, the ‘health’ care paradigm, the decline/curriculum/expense of our educational system, all manner of cancers and mental dis-orders; autism,
bi-polar,etc,etc..
It goes on and on and on.
Affecting(infecting)our ENTIRE society, our whole economic landscape, the erosion of our civil and unalienable rights is legislatively, incrementally socially engineered to be a relationship of their convenience, their oppression, their profit and their control.
These globalists through the United Nations (which is theirs) came up with a complete plan for complete control.
It was pitched at the ’92 Rio Earth Summit, Bush senior signed us up for it.
It was ‘soft law’ so he didn’t need congressional OK.
The plan is called Agenda 21 Sustainable Development, the Agenda for the 21st century.
The guise, the premise, the EXCUSE is ‘green’. All manner of contrived engineered shortages, lack, ‘not enough’ fears. They employ proven methods from past oppressive tyrants; divide and conquer, fear, Hegelian Dialectic.
It’s not about green, these people could care less (the Gulf proved that)…
it’s about CONTROL.
In the wake of orchestrating their deliberate impoverishment they employ the same carrot and stick brand of leverage with other countries (IMF) that they use on a local level.
International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives (ICLEI an NGO) is the instrument used to implement globalist objectives on a local level.
The Objectives?
‘The de-idustrialization of the US’
(read; ruin our economy)
‘The abolishment of private property’.
Implementing ‘Smart Growth’ which provides for our containment, surveillance, and control.
Doing away with private transportation
(unless it’s a bike-ring a bell?).
Ultimately reducing the world’s population by 80-90% (documented).
ICLEI will legislate small business, small agriculture and property ownership to death every way it can, incrementally-like they do everything else.
Approximately 600 cities and towns, and counties are ‘signed up’(literally) with
this almost satanic oppression. Not only is all of Sonoma County on board-we are a ‘hotbed’ for this tyranny.
Our ‘public servants’ don’t tell us, they want ICLEI structured grant money to ensure their ‘sustainability’, besides they are literally brainwashed.
To familiarize yourself with Agenda 21 is to truly understand why everything is so screwed up right now.
ICLEI has given Sebastopol the software, the planning books(Growing Smart;a legislative guidebook), the ‘training’
to sabotage, restructure (impoverish)
and oppress. It dictates your General Plan-everything!
Doing so is in treason with the Constitution and simple oath they took.
THE POINT IS YOUR LOCAL GOVERNMENT HAS ALIGNED ITSELF WITH THIS EVIL!
SO…
IF YOU WANT TO MAKE A REAL DIFFERENCE,
do like several other cities across America have done…
KICK ICLEI OUT!!
Hurry up, ’cause once this One Bay Area crap is implemented we will relinquish whatever influence and sovereignty we have in favor of a big model of globalist control and oppression.
Think Europe circa 1930.
Search:
Democrats Against UN Agenda 21.
Freedom Advocates
Lots of information on Youtube this last year or so, lots of folks are putting it all together.
I knew they were dismantlng our government but I never dreamed they would be able to deploy large groups of rabble rousers who are actually clamoring for Communism. Boy, they’re good. They’ve really outdone themselves to get the general public begging for big government ‘for the common good’. The only thing grassroots about this movement is they’re sleeping on the grass and smoking it.
The people who are joining occupy must not know what they are asking for. They must not know history. Does this group of misfits and the unemployed actually think they will be better off living under communism? Does it bother them that the Nazi Party and the Communist party have endorsed them?
My research into United Nations Agenda 21 Sustainable Development and ICLEI has led me to the realization that many communists are behind the agenda. The majority of people in the world live under communism or some other form of tyranny. Americans are some of the last holdouts for freedom. UN Agenda 21 Sustainable Development and ICLEI seek to quantify all greenhouse gas releases including all amounts related to human activity. Soon, everything we do will be reduced to a numerical value which quantifies our usefullness, or uselessness, on a global scale. If we are putting out greenhouse gases (living) and not doing anything to offset it, then we will have no value (or a negative value) under the new system. Think about old people, children, pets, and all forms of recreational activites. They’re not sustainable. The new world order will be more like communism than capitalism. You will be a member of the ‘herd’. When fully implemented, UN Agenda 21 will result in total control of people’s lives.
Communism has never resulted in any reasonable standard of living except for the few at the very top. With the new global plan, there will be even less than 1% of the people with most of the money. How much money do you think the leaders of China have? How much do the people have? The global plan is to reduce our wages, shrink living quarters, restrict transportation, and monitor all human activites,
The occupiers are being duped. They should be reading some history books. The change we need is to go back to adhering to the Constitution and the Bill of rights and enforcement of our laws. The rule of law is being circumvented by the occupiers. If they can break the law, then how can they say that the 1% are wrong when they break the laws? Lawlessness never works.
Is America is being overthrown by communists? Now they appear to have troops on the ground cheering for communism. Big brother, for lack of a better term, is using the theory of man-made global warming as the excuse for all the losses of our individual rights and the lowering of our quality of life. Even though the theory has been totally debunked by tens of thousands of scientists, they still won’t admit that they’re lying. It doesn’t have to be true, you just have to get people to believe it. I’m fairly certain that the occupiers are in complete agreement with AGW and fully support UN Agenda 21 Sustainable Development.
We should have seen this coming.
Interesting action, with us also to collect on this.We want people to open their minds to how much change needs to happen
“One supporter, Chris Rockwell, 33, said it makes no sense for an individual to accept responsibility and liability for the entire group by taking out the permit in his or her name.”
But it makes sence to Chris Rockwell for 1% to responsible for 99% by giving them their wealth they made through (mostly) their hard work, sweat and tears?
The hypocracy is UNBELIEVABLE!
“A few exuberent demonstrators shouted directly at a woman who was trying to exit the Bank of America”
Exuberent? I call that aggressive and hostile.
If any of the invaders do anything agressive to me I will be filing a harrassment complaint or restraining order against them and will hold the Council responsible for telling the police to ignore the law for this group.
The picture shows Tim Ryan’s sign saying “occupy every house”.
Why don’t they start by occupying the homes of their supporters that live nearby? Come on friends of the occupiers,Jonathon Greenburg, Sheppard Bliss, supportive Council members, share your homes with these people. Where does Tim Ryan live? I bet he has room for some occupiers, their kids and pets as well. They will most likely need food and clothing,occasional medical attention and transportation to get downtown each day, too.
“They hope business owners will post them (fliers)as pre-printed statements of support in advance of a Tuesday meeting at Sebastopol City Hall over their right to camp in the central square.”
Camping in the central square is not a right no matter what your progressive handlers and teachers may have said.
In case you havn’t heard, it is against City ordinance (law) to camp in the town square, but the police are being directed by Council not to enforce the law.
Any business that supports this group is one I will never patronize again.
Leave your politics out of business if you want to remain viable.I’ve stopped going to some local shops due to their need to shout out their political opinions through their business establishment.Why would you want to alienate any potential customers?
All Sebastopol residents and business owners should attend Tuesdays Council meeting at the youth annex at 6:00. P.M. meeting. It may be your last chance to have a voice regarding what transpires in the town that you have worked hard to improve and maintain.It used to feel like a safe town.
Do you want to allow squatters to live in the middle of town or wherever they want to indefinately?
Is there any criteria for who gets to camp in town or does anything go?
Is it a good idea to have unidentified people who have shown blatent contempt for the law and Council’s requests of them camping so close to elementary, middle and high schools? What other laws do they disregard?
What has the occupy group or individuals in the group done in volunteer work for this town or it’s residents, besides trying to get a ban on leaf blowers?
Crime will increase and property values will decrease if you allow or encourage this invasion to continue unchecked,as it has in Oakland,Berkley,Santa Rosa, Portland, Burlington and pretty much wherever these occupy groups are. Business owners, do you really want to support a small fringe group of law breaking radicals that will cause the destruction of your business? Check out Santa Cruz for a preview.
“the city has alerted Occupy supporters that staying there violates city ordinance.”
“Our intent is to work with the city in as cooperative a way as we can,” said Sebastopol resident Linus Lancaster, a Healdsburg High School art teacher and Navy veteran…”
How about respecting the no camping ordinanance as the City Council has asked you to, Linus? That would be a good place to start your cooperative efforts.
“Rockwell said he’s working to get the group incorporated so the permit can be obtained by the corporate entity”
Wait a minute- I thought corporations were evil in the occupiers minds- I guess it’s O.K. if it’s their corporation. “End corperate personhood” sounds good on a cardboard sign but really doesn’t mean much when you get right down to it.
“In Santa Rosa, junior college business student Frank Anderson, 19, said he’d camped out at Santa Rosa City Hall for nearly a month and now thinks of it as home.
When the lease on his apartment is up Jan. 21, he plans to give it up altogether since he’s living out front of City Hall to support the occupation”.
Are the cities going to charge special use permit fees or will that be ignored in favor of this free for all and planned permanent encampment at City Hall? We could use the $350.00 per day to replant the lawn or delouse our new public restroom after these people are forced to leave or the movement implodes under it’s own absurd contradictions, lawlessness or internal conflicts.
Better to shut these camps down now before they become any more entrenched, or someone gets hurt.
Isn’t Sebastopol already occupied? How can an old hippie commune occupy itself? This may cause a tear in the fabric of space and time.
I’m sure grandma will swing by in her bumper sticker laden Subaru and drop off some nice warm hash brownies every evening.