Here is your chance to see bias at work and a great example of how the media and politicians misinform and shape public opinion. Go to the Youtube channel for River City Waterway Alliance and look at any of the videos of river cleanups posted by this all volunteer group which recently received an award for environmentalist of the year (there are 186 videos from some 280 cleanups). RCWA has pulled over one-million pounds of trash this year from Sacramento’s rivers and creeks. Do you see the work of Canadian Geese in any of these videos? The Sacramento Bee thinks it does.
Here is the Sacramento Bee’s headline from its opinion piece on Thien Ho’s much welcomed suit against the City of Sacramento which he recently amended to include environmental violations:
“Sacramento DA Thien Ho is suing the city for river pollution caused by Canada Geese”
Granted, I haven’t read the piece beyond the headline, because it is behind the Bee’s pay-wall, and I do not wish to subsidize irresponsible journalism – that is, journalism which purports to present facts, does no investigation, and is merely the mouthpiece of undisclosed groups (disclosure here – I volunteer for RCWA). Based on previous editorials, the Bee has it out for Ho.
Mayor Steinberg and others have tried to claim that Ho’s suit is a political stunt, because they think Ho wants to be Attorney General. So what if he does – how is that an argument? I would like to see an AG who actually represents salary-paying citizens, so he has my vote. We have written the current occupant of that office on some important public safety matters…not a peep or the honk of a Canadian Goose have we heard from Rob Bonta. We have also written Steinberg and Councilmember Valenzuela – still nothing from gander or gosling. Just the sound of crickets.
It is heartening to see wildlife return to areas RCWA has cleaned. As just one example, deer are back to the Riverdale area next to Camp Pollock because this area was cleaned, and is being kept clean, by RCWA. We did recently see geese along the beach at Camp Pollock – but Canadian Geese? No immigration problems here…these are American Geese!
Most west coast cities have wrongly concluded that Martin v. Boise prohibits cities from banning camping. Here is that brief opinion from the Ninth Circuit:
“We consider whether the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment bars a city from prosecuting people criminally [emphasis added] for sleeping outside on public property when those people have no home or other shelter to go to. We conclude that it does.”
The discussion of civil rights in the case summary reiterates this criminal aspect of prosecution – “…the government cannot criminalize [emphasis added] indigent, homeless people for sleeping outdoors…” In its reference to the Eighth Amendment, the court again emphasizes criminality by holding that “…an ordinance violates the Eight Amendment insofar as it imposes criminal [emphasis added] sanctions…”
One of the facts stated in Boise is that the plaintiffs were “…denied access to the City’s shelters.” It appears that shelter beds were available but one was refused by a plaintiff, because he was required to take part in a religious program operated by the shelter. “Stay limits” were also mentioned as a reason for being denied shelter, however, this again involved a refusal to participate in the shelter’s religious program. Interestingly, the following is noted in the Procedural History – “there has not been a single night when all three shelters in Boise called in to report they were simultaneously full for men, women or families.” Thus, the plaintiff denied the offer of shelter because of his religious beliefs.
A municipality can ban camping, particularly in sensitive habits such as the American River Parkway. What a city, county or state cannot do is criminally prosecute those who sleep outside on public property. Obviously, this leaves a whole basket of other laws which can, when violated, be prosecuted, and camps can be moved off the Parkway. But the City of Sacramento has refused to protect sensitive habitats and the tax-paying public through its misinterpretation of Boise and has allowed countless crimes to be committed within the City and the Parkway (technically, the Parkway is under County jurisdiction). Most egregious of which has been the destruction of forests and wildlife in the Parkway resulting from illegal camp fires, and the extensive pollution and trash resulting from these camps. By way of example, Sacramento County park maintenance crews removed 109 tons of trash from the illegal encampments at Bannon Island on the Sacramento River earlier this year. This is right next to Discovery Park (itself inundated with hidden trash) where many recreate at the confluence of the American and Sacramento Rivers.
Cottonwood Forest destroyed by fire from homeless camp
Oddly, municipalities have ignored this observation made by the court in Boise– “Our holding is a narrow one. Like the Jones panel, ‘we in no way dictate to the City that it must provide sufficient shelter for the homeless, or allow anyone who wishes to sit, lie, or sleep in the streets…at any time and at any place.’” The Jones reference is to a case against the City of Los Angeles.
My point is that Sacramento has used the American River Parkway as a dumping ground for its homeless problem – and in the process, willfully ignored the ongoing damage to life (including the homeless) and the environment – all the while using dubious legal interpretations as cover. Homeless camps should be across from City Hall, in front of court houses and the California Capitol and other government buildings, and in Gavin Newsom’s neighborhood – not in the American River Parkway. Politicians must be forced to confront this crisis every day they go to go work, because as long as the true extant of the destruction is hidden from them, and taxpayer money is spent, they will wrongly assume that progress is being made.
That Eighth Amendment? Here it is in full – “Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.”
“I know he would not be a wolf, But that he sees the Romans are but sheep: He were no lion, were not Romans hinds. Those that with haste will make a mighty fire Begin it with weak straws: what trash is Rome, What rubbish and what offal, when it serves For the base matter to illuminate So vile a thing as Caesar!”
What is to be done? Tolstoy’s question is immediately relevant upon first opening the door of an abandoned shipping container along the American River. Abandoned in the sense that its owner has given up in frustration over its constant assault by vagrants. Abandoned in the sense that to the City of Sacramento, it is out-of-view from the general public, on land belonging to a third-party, and therefor does not exist and can be disclaimed. Abandoned in that it can be adjudged to be out of jurisdictional bounds.
However that shipping container is not unused. It has become a drug-den and an attractive nuisance as demonstrated by the abundance of used needles and half-eaten meals left to decay, as well as a place for romantic assignations evidenced by used condoms and the word “Love” scrawled on one door. But there is no love in the brilliant sunshine of these trash strewn, concrete pads on which the container sits – only honey-buckets lining the very back of the darkest corner of this receptacle, concealed on, and emptying into the American River.
The American River has become a receptacle for those “snarled and entangled in the extreme penury of things…” The river is a convenient place to hide human detritus while providing a false sense of confidence. Cities have become complacent with their tent-lined streets, but to wander along Sacramento’s rivers and streams is to witness the full-extent of squalor and failure. Politicians speak an infinite deal of new rounds of homeless funding, proclaiming progress because money is being spent. Yet the tales told along the river and near homeless camps tell otherwise.
Near the entrance of the shipping container lies a dead dog, or cat. The state of decomposition is advanced, so the distinction is irrelevant. Sink a spade into a patch of ground that looks clean, and indeed was recently cleaned. Turn over that shovelful of dirt, and the smell immediately informs that a trash pit has been unearthed: used needles, always needles; always batteries leaking their toxins into the soil and drinking water; clothing soaked with so much mud that a plain shirt weighs five-pounds or more; uneaten meals in single-use plastic containers; shredded canvases and bits of what once were tents now decomposing into attractive bite-sized pieces for fish to devour; and yes, plastic reusable bags for which Californians pay 10¢, ironically to keep out of landfills. One need hardly mention the Styrofoam which degrades into thousands of pieces. Some of the trash has been burned, and the fire damaged trees leave no doubt as to the cause…as to the excrement, some things shall remain unmentioned. But in summer, people swim downstream from this spot in nearby Discovery Park.
These problems are not new. During Tudor times (England in the 1500s), it is estimated that perhaps 20% to 30% of the population lived in poverty. Elizabethan prayer books “…implored mercy for the poor” according to Lucy Wooding in Tudor England. But a distinction was made between the “helpless poor” who “merited compassion,” and the vagrants who were undeserving and “…who had the capacity to work, but did not do so.” Towns feared that their limited resources for the “deserving poor” would be rapidly depleted if an overly permissive attitude was taken, so “vagrants” were sent back to their village of origin.
A great deal of money has been put towards seeking a solution to homelessness. And much more has been pledged for the future. So much so that tending to the needs of the homeless has become a multi-billion dollar industry. But why, for instance, is there an inverse relationship between funding and success? Over the last twenty-years, more funding has only resulted in growing numbers of homeless individuals. Could it be that the promise of free housing and services has attracted a new westward migration? In Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath, the poor came to California seeking work rather than handouts. “Muscles aching to work, minds aching to create…” When the migrants reached California, they found an oversupply of labor and limited work opportunities. The opposite is now the case, and often idleness abounds. Quoting Steinbeck again “There is a failure here that topples all our success.”
The types of housing and services required are expensive. A unit of affordable housing in California costs $600,000. The Corporation for Supportive Housing published a report calling for a rather exact 112,527 apartments to be built at a cost of $67.9 billion – which is $603,411 per apartment unit. In the absence of supportive services, this housing is quickly destroyed, since drug addicted or mentally-ill residents are usually unable to live independently. Many fine organizations have attempted to remedy these problems. Yet the nonprofit groups which have been tasked with this intractable work often find themselves overwhelmed and short of funding or the technical expertise necessary for long-term success.
California purports to be a leader in environmental issues, yet its rivers warn that it is best not to follow some leaders.
George Orwell’s introduction to Animal Farm, written nearly eighty-years ago, is worth quoting at length:
If publishers and editors exert themselves to keep certain topics out of print, it is not because they are frightened of prosecution but because they are frightened of public opinion…Unpopular ideas can be silenced, and inconvenient facts kept dark, without the need for any official ban…At any given moment there is an orthodoxy, a body of ideas which it is assumed that all right-thinking people will accept without question…Anyone who challenges the prevailing orthodoxy finds himself silenced with surprising effectiveness. A genuinely unfashionable opinion is almost never given a fair hearing…
Richard Watson 