South Coast Advocate

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O7YFKm9gnKo

Urgent Action Alert: Oppose
a "Merger" Which Wipes Out the South Coast Homeless Advisory Committee
(SCHAC) Until There Is A Fully Qualified New Committee Which Will
Defend the Human Rights of the Homeless/Houseless with Regard to
Police/Sheriff/Jail Operations

WHAT YOU ARE ASKED TO EXPRESS

Kelly Thomas was beaten
to death by police officers who did not expect his father, retired
Orange County Sheriff's Deputy Ron Thomas, to pack city council meetings
and rally hundreds of citizens creating an international outrage. We
ask you to help to MAKE SURE that such a horrible thing NEVER AGAIN
happens anywhere, and certainly not in Santa Barbara County. We ask your
support in preserving, not destroying, the structures that will serve
to provide the necessary oversight to monitor citizen complaints and
also to make constructive suggestions on how to improve the mechanisms
which are necessary to provide assurance that the civil and human rights
of ALL CITIZENS will be honored.

(1) Oppose the so-called "Merger" of Bringing Our Community Home, Common Ground, and the County Homeless Advisory Committees unless the proposal preserves the South Coast Homeless Advisory Committee (SCHAC)

(2) Require that the "Merger" be a true merger and not a cover-up for wiping out the SCHAC.

(3) Register your disappointment that proponents of the merger have called for support letters without disclosing the specific contents of the staff report proposal.

(4) Express your outrage of the harsh and often brutal of
homeless/houseless and mentally ill persons who are subject to police
action or confinement in the county jail.

(5) Express your appreciation that the horrible brutality
which the Los Angelos Times is documenting in their county jail system
has not migrated to Santa Barbara County, and that the horrible
brutality demonstated by the Fullerton, California police has not migrated to Santa Barbara County.

(6) Demand that the Board of Supervisors recognize that there is
nevertheless room for improvement in the treatment of the "homeless" in
Santa Barbara County jail and with regard to police interaction with
citizens who are experiencing homelessness.

(7) Let the Board of Supervisors know that the time is not right to take action on this half-baked proposal until and unless
there is full disclosure of how it intends to preserve the function of
the SCHAC and how it intends to preserve the institutional memory,
knowledge, skills and abilities of its members.

Departmental Item #6: The Board of Supervisors will consider unpublished recommendations regarding a "Homeless Support Systems" Merger

Please come to the Board of Supervisors meeting room on Tuesday, May 15, 2012 time certain 1:30pm. The Board of Supervisors Hearing starts at 9am.
You can call (805) 568-2240 for an update on the time of agenda item.
If you can't make it, please send emails, calls and letters to all of
our BOS members.

WHAT
There
is a move to create a new agency to address homeless issues. This
agency would split elected officials off from the South Coast Homeless
Advisory Committee and those officials would be the executive
directorate of the new agency. Under that directorate there would be
several committees, but its promoters have been evasive with regard to
an apparent hidden agenda to get rid of the SCHAC, which has been a
persistent and pesky thorn in the side of the power strudture.

Rob
Fredericks presented the proposal to the SCHAC in a form in which the
SCHAC was preserved intact as a separate committee of the new entity. Supervisor Farr indicated that
she did not want to have two meetings per month to attend, and it was
proposed that perhaps some of the elected officials could be split from
the SCHAC, but that the rest of the SCHAC would remain intact.

However,
at the general planning meeting in the San Ynez Valley, Fredericks has
inexplicably erased the SCHAC. He never adequately accounted for this
erasure and there are other indications that, unless you take action,
the county will create a new bureaucracy and a new "Czar" but will
demolish one of the few entities - the SCHAC - which has monitoried on
reported on alleged police misconduct with regard to "the homeless".

WHY THIS IS URGENT

Santa

Barbara has a good overall record with regard to police excessive use
of force but (1) it is not at all perfect, (2) there are serious
problems with the current jail and (3) there is no assurance that at
some future date there may be an incident in which an advisory committee
of some kind would be a key ingredient to achievement of a favorable
resolution. The SCHAC has received and issued reports on alleged officer
excess; routine bureaucratic failure of jail property management;
environmental health issues at the jail. Families ACT and others have
recently highlighted one of many complaints regarding management of
inmates in the local jail and there have been numerous unanswered
questions with regard to the service provided to our jail by Prison
Health Services, Inc.

How To Contact The Board:
Persons may address the Board at the County Administration Building,
Board Hearing Room, Fourth Floor, 105 East Anapamu Street, in Santa
Barbara or at the Betteravia Government Center, Board Hearing Room, 511
East Lakeside Parkway, Santa Maria.

Board Members:

1st District: Salud Carbajal, Vice-Chair
Phone: (805) 568-2186 | SupervisorCarbajal@sbcbos1.org

2nd District: Janet Wolf
Phone: (805) 568-2191 | jwolf@sbcbos2.org

3rd District: Doreen Farr, Chair
Phone: (805) 568-2192 | dfarr@countyofsb.org

4th District: Joni Gray
Lompoc: (805) 737-7700 | jgray@co.santa-barbara.ca.us

5th District: Steve Lavagnino
Phone: (805) 346-8400 | steve.lavagnino@countyofsb.org

Please forward!