Letters
• Support the grocery strikers - Shannon D.
Donato
• Ring in the New Year! - Hans
Etter
• Happy Birthday! - Howie
Siegel
• The Old Safeway - Bryan
Rogers
• Lincoln Blvd. - Stephanie
Denyer
• Santa Monica Airport - Joan
Winters
• Homeless in Venice - Ray
Packard
Support the grocery
strikers
Dear Beachhead: Friends of
Labor.com would like to remind you that the UFCW members are entering their
eighth week on the picket lines in Southern California. 859 stores from
Bakersfield to Baja have an estimated 20,000 striking members at Vons
and Pavillions and an average 50,000 locked out
members at your local Albertsons and Ralphs
stores.
Please note that the picket
lines representing 18,000 workers at Ralphs have been removed but SCABS
have replaced those members inside the stores. Most Ralphs workers have
been moved to Albertsons stores or have traveled to Northern California and
across the Nation to Washington DC and
Baltimore.
You can help these UFCW
members by walking a local picket line, delivering coffee, or making a donation
at <www.ufcw.org>. As the Christmas holiday grows near, one
anti-war group has set up baskets at Whole Foods and Trader Joes to collect
canned goods from the stores shoppers on the way out. The donations are then
distributed to the area workers on the line. The Adopt-a-Store program is still
available by contacting the LA County Federation of Labor at
<www.launionaflcio.org>.
You can
read the coverage from Detroit Michigan's Labor Notes activist newspaper online
at www.labornotes.org of the ILWU Rally in support of the UFCW on November 10th,
2003 in San Pedro, Ca.
The latest news
from the UFCW has been that they will return to the bargaining table with the
Federal Mediator and the employers. A news black out on the details is still in
effect. Check www.FriendsofLabor.com website for the latest print coverage as we
receive it.
The motto is "We will
last one day longer! Hold the line for
healthcare."
In Solidarity, Shannon D.
Donato, Director
Harry Bridges Institute
&
Community Labor Center, San
Pedro
************
Ring
in the New Year!
Dear Beachhead:
For the last couple of months I have written a few letters to the Argonaut about
the mismanagement of Marina Del Rey as well as of my perception of the
corruption of our local politicians and
Scumlords.
I live on a sailboat in
I-Basin Playa vista AKA Ballona Creek. I do this because I refuse to give money
to the county and Scumlords for decrepit docks and having some one telling me
what I can do or not do with my boat!
I
have no intention to rent a slip so I am not intimidated or scared for being
retaliate against by Scum lords for speaking up against them and the Counties
corrupt BurocRATS.
However there is a
saying that the nail that sticks out gets hammered. Two years ago I jumped in
the water in Deauwille Marina and pulled a man out of the water that was
drowning, He later died on his way to the
hospital!
Doug Ring and his wife Cindy
Miscikowski, City councilwoman of La city, own these derelict docks. They were
never charged with manslaughter but should have been if there was any
justice!
However, they were sued by the
family of the deceased man in a three and a half million dollar lawsuit Mr. Ring
and his wife insurance company paid a very large settlement to the deceased mans
family. Prior to the settlement Mr. Ring could not get financed until the
settlement was taking cared of. This meant that the destruction of small slips
and building of big slips and apartments was
delayed.
Since then La County, Beach
& Harbor has retaliated against me for be a witness in the above wrongful
death suite.
Doug Ring had proposed in
a meeting with the Harbor commission that he would commission some artwork for
his new building. I suggest he spend that money on a war memorial dedicated to
those people that have lost their life or been injured on his property. Thats
right a war memorial because he and the rest of the scum lords has with the help
of the county declared a class warfare on the boating community and its
residents!
J’ ACCUSE the County
of directing the Sheriff of LA County to harass me and directing their employee
at the Burton Chase Park of the same! The Sheriffs has come to my boat at one AM
shined light inside my boat and honked their horns when I was anchored outside
of the harbor asking me who I was, what I was doing there, whose boat it was,
how long I was staying there! I called their supervisor and filed a complain
over the phone with no results Imagine that happening at your house at 1
AM!
Since then there has been many
more incidents including the Sheriffs doing twenty knot and u-turns into the
anchorage causing me to almost falling overboard when I was setting my anchor
from the swells.
Last incidents was in
June 03 when I came in to the public docks in Burton Chase Park At 8 PM with a
broken windlass and 60-70 feet of chain out and a 110 pound anchor! I barely
parked the boat, motor still running and with only one bowline securing a 57
foot 22 ton sailboat. I was approached by a very hostile and boorish public
servant, Deputy Clark and his female deputy protector behind him. He immediately
ordered me to leave told me that I was banned and black listed from the public
marina.
I told him that I was not
banned and that I had an emergency and that he could not intimidate me to
leave!
I proceeded to tie of the stern to
prevent my 22 ton reinforced concrete boat from hitting public property the dock
and causing severe damage, that moment deputy Clark stops me and hand cuff me
and put me on his patrol boat. His female protector runs my records and find
that I have no warrants that they can arrest me on so they let me go and leave
me in the slip.
I asked to see the
blacklist deputy Clark said that he had seen my name on it but he said he did
not have the list. I know he was lying because I asked the security that night
if I was on the black list and he said I was
not!
I thought here in America there was such
a thing as due process!
I did file a
complain but never heard from them again I called SGT. Thornton in beginning of
September he told me that the investigation into my complain about having my
civil rights abused was closed and letter I never got was sent to me on July 28,
and he said that the deputy did nothing
wrong.
The deputy claimed I failed to
register at the park and felt that I was verbally abusive to him and threating.
I find that the fabrication of deputy Clark was both amusing and pitiful since
you first has to tie up your boat at the dock before you can walk up into the
park, and after five o’clock you have to put your check in a
box.
What was it that I could have said that
a big strong deputy with a gun and a bullet proof vest as well as having deputy
female protection holding his hand could be so afraid of?? It is too bad that
brains are optional when hiring deputies. Since then I always carry a video
camera to document the abuses. I have also instructed my attorney, friends as
well as relatives if I am found floating dead in the marina or locked up in jail
on some trumped upped charges it will be because the counties
actions.
I will sue as soon I have
enough evidence against the county as well as the sheriffs and I will continue
exposing their crimes for as long as I can. I was willing to risk my life in an
instant trying to save a stranger from drowning and to take the heat by
testifying against very powerful interest. So taking on the county as well as
the sheriffs does not daunt me It may very well cost me my life or my freedom
but I hope I can encourage others to come forward to expose the scandalous
behavior by the county and the sleazy developers as well as the very selective
law enforcement done by LA county Sheriffs
Department!
Sincerely, Hans
Etter
Coalition of the willing
VIVA’ LE’
RESISTANCE!
P.S. The black list that
they used but no official knows anything about was rescinded on the 15 of July
the heat was getting to them, call and ask park supervisor Jose’ Matta,
Dusty Crane his supervisor at Beach and Harbor and Sgt. Thornton at the Sheriffs
Station in Marina Del Rey to see if your name is on the list, that should
irritate
them!
*************
Happy
Birthday!
Dear Beachhead: Best
Birthday Wishes to the Beachhead. If anyone remembers me from the "olden days,"
please write.
Howie Siegel
<hsiegel@shaw.ca>.
************
The
Old Safeway
Dear Beachhead: I was
wondering if you knew the history on the building used by the U.S. Postal
Service for the Postal Annex on Windward circle. It appears to have been a
large grocery store at one time as well as being the land where Abbot Kinney
himself lived.
It is too bad that it's
not used for anything other than parking mail trucks and sorting mail, like
being a great community grocery store for
Venice.
Let me know if you have any
information.
Thanks, Bryan
Rogers
(Beachhead responds:
It was the location of a Safeway for many years. It was a great loss to the
community when the store closed before 1980, even though it was one of the "low
income" stores with "green meat and brown vegetables," as people said. Its
closing hit seniors hard, since many are without cars, but could walk to the old
Safeway.
It would be a great
site for a Trader
Joe's!)
************
Lincoln
Blvd.
Dear Peoples of Venice:
Lincoln Blvd. functions as a through fare. Either a tunnel or overpass must be
built for it to funtion properly. Any further development which will dump more
cars on the road, already at gridlock capacity, will make the city claim one
side of the street for public domain.
Here is my proposal. We construct
pedestrian foot bridges over Lincoln resembleming the Venice cannel bridges at
the turn of the century. We empose strick building codes for any future
building. Facades of buildings must be from the turn of the
century.
Most importantly, I would like
to see Venice validate graffiti art, be the first in the nation which gives it
the respect and forum to be seen world wide. Each building to be built must have
a reproduction Victorian front and side walls which accomadate Graffiti art.
There would be a need to document the art being that it changes so rapidly so
there would be the need for cameras and a log so we could index the artists
later.
Then at Christmas I would like to see
each business put out a graffiti calendar...It would be hot ...hot ...hot.
Anyway..Dont let them take our valuable property and make a mess with it.
We could do better. One more "Thang"..I say we make it a toll road to really
piss people off.
Stephanie Denyer,
Venice
************
Santa
Monica Airport
Dear Beachhead: I
find it interesting that the City of Santa Monica appears to be making it very
comfortable for the jet centers at Santa Monica Airport. I attended the most
recent Airport Commission meeting and found it quite upsetting that yet ANOTHER
limousine service, with a fleet of four limos, was given the recommendation by
the Santa Monica Airport Commissioners to be granted a permit to operate a
business at the airport.
When I hear
commissioners say that there are two other limo services and a car rental at the
airport already, that they feel don’t increase air traffic, it appears
that they don’t get it. Could there be a slight possibility that the red
carpet is being laid out for the jetsetters? One of the limo company’s
clients is the Santa Monica Airport jet center Super Marine. This really is a
slap in the face to activists who are trying to fight for clean air and a
REASONABLE level of noise from the airport.
As it stands now, we residents around
the airport are experiencing a noticeable increase in huge jets. All of the
creature comforts that are made available for jetsetters to use the airport
would most certainly increase jet
traffic.
Joan
Winters
**************
Homeless
in Venice
Dear Beachhead: I had the
pleasure of spending a few years homeless in the Rose Av. parking lot in several
vans and memories of police harassment but at the same time knowing some of the
most interesting people in the world and a variey of experiences too numerous to
mention - the “beach-house” is yours to do whatever......... (see
back cover for Ray Packard’s
painting!)
Have a great
35th!
Ray Packard
Posted: Mon - December
1, 2003 at 04:11 PM