In the immediate wake of the pepper spraying, the initial response from the leadership at UC Davis was actually to defend the actions of the police.
There is no truth to the rumor that Mayor Joe Krovoza was actually the one who ordered the pepper spraying attack on students last Friday in an effort to take the water issue off the front page.
Saturday featured a flurry of activity as UC Davis had to rapidly backtrack in the wake of national and worldwide coverage, from CNN to the New York Times to the Huffington Post to the BBC.
by Lamar HeystekThe following is an open letter to the Davis City Council:
Just when it seemed that the Occupy movement was about to die out, a confrontation that was brewing all week exploded as police officers used pepper spray and other non-lethal means to expel protesters from an encampment on the campus Quad.
Officials report at least ten protesters arrested.
Occupy This: Will We Ever Learn?
One of the most riveting moments of the civil rights movement was when Bull Connor turned the firehoses and attack dogs on protesters. It galvanized public sympathy and support for the civil rights movement.
Two weeks ago, the Public Employment Relations Board ruled that the city improperly canceled fact-finding and imposed the last, best and final offer on DCEA.
Those who believe that the parcel tax is dead ought to at least look at the polling that was completed on November 9 by DJUSD. Whether those numbers change after water rate hikes take effect is uncertain at this point.
Yolo County Judge Janet Gaard held Davis resident Paul Delgado to answer, in a preliminary hearing for two felony charges of attempting to sell meth, despite the fact that there is no evidence that he ever possessed the drug that he allegedly offered to sell to an undercover agent of YONET.
In a decision viewed as a major victory for opponents of same sex marriage, the California Supreme Court granted the proponents of the ballot initiative standing to defend measures in court when the governor and attorney general refuse to do so.
Anger and outrage emerged over the city’s last-second legal brief by City Attorney Harriet Steiner who wrote, “In our opinion, the City’s newly-adopted water rates are not subject to challenge by referendum.”
I’d like to be able to tell you that, in the end, justice was served, a murderer got what he deserved and we are all better off for it. To wearily quote Bob Dylan, “In the courtroom of honor, the judge pounded his gavel – to show that all’s equal and that the courts are on the level – and that the strings in the books ain’t pulled and persuaded…”
By E. Roberts Musser
As an alumnus of Penn State University, I was shocked and appalled by the child sex abuse scandal that has unfolded there in recent days. However, I was not all that surprised. When I attended Penn State in the years 1972-1973, only on campus for one year to obtain my Masters Degree in Applied Mathematics, there was an ugly rumor floating around Penn State even then involving sexual impropriety.
More than two months after the September 6 vote, after a signature-gathering campaign garnered over 5000 signatures, over 3800 of which actually counted, Mayor Joe Krovoza dropped a bombshell in an email to the Vanguard as he questioned the legality of the referendum in overturning a 218 process.
When Judge Richardson dismissed Juror No.11 on Monday morning, granting her request for dismissal based on what she claimed to be a language barrier, it created several red flags for the Vanguard, which questioned why she seemed able to understand sufficient English to render a guilty verdict, but not enough to participate in the deliberation on the penalty phase.
It turns out the water referendum needed every one of those 5124 signatures and probably needed to spend every dime that it did on the petition drive. That is because 1258 of the signatures, around one quarter, were found insufficient by the Yolo County Clerk’s Office.
On Monday morning, after a brief inquiry with Juror No.11, the judge granted her request for dismissal based on what she claimed to be a language barrier. Left unanswered by the judge and unquestioned by the defense is how she could understand enough English to render a guilty verdict, but not enough to participate in the deliberation on the penalty phase.
The ACLU of Northern California and the National Lawyers’ Guild filed a lawsuit Monday in federal court against the Oakland Police Department for what they are calling “its egregious constitutional violations against Occupy Oakland demonstrators.”
The lawsuit asks for an emergency temporary restraining order to stop police violence against political protesters. The restraining order is urgent because another police encounter with demonstrators is imminent, after the removal of the Occupy Oakland camp early this morning.
With any luck, we will know by the end of the day if the water referendum qualified for the ballot. As we have noted for the last several weeks, the water issue, if goes on the ballot, will be a polarizing issue, encompassing about seven months’ worth of debate.
On November 3, 2011, 285 people packed the Yolo Judicial Watch Fundraiser and Awards Ceremony to listen to a night about wrongful convictions highlighted by Maurice Caldwell, an individual who spent 20 years in prison for a crime he did not commit, and Linda Starr from the Innocence Project, one of the attorneys that helped to free him.
