San Diego Unseen: An Urban Portrait
- Photo by Dave Rolland
In the wake of the mass arrests at Occupy San Diego on Oct. 29, CityBeat filed a broad public-records request for all communications regarding the movement sent and received by San Diego City Council offices, the Mayor’s office and the City attorney’s office.
This week, the city made most of the records available—more than 1,000 pages of emails, phone messages and handwritten submissions. We invited three young Occupy San Diego activists to review the documents with us. None had ever before filed or inspected public records under the California Public Records Act. The experience, they say, was simultaneously uplifting and off-putting.
Though the records request had been filed more than three weeks earlier, the documents were not exhaustive. Council President Tony Young’s office did not provide records and Councilmember Carl DeMaio provided only limited documents via email. Of the 1,070 made available over two days, many were duplicates sent to multiple council members, yet the overwhelming majority were in support of the movement. Councilmember Marti Emerald received the most emails—more than 160— including dozens lauding her (and two condemning her) for speaking before Occupy San Diego.
“These are not just ‘smelly hippies’ or idealistic college students—this movement is made up of all ages and walks of life,” wrote Susan Hammons Mautner, thanking Emerald. “Their protest of corporate greed and its influence on politics cannot be denied, just because people may not like the messengers. Please encourage your colleagues to listen to a movement whose time has come.”
Many asked the City Council to vote for a resolution backing the movement, while others expressed outrage over police use of pepper spray and physical force.
“It was just reassuring to me that I’ve picked the right side,” Occupy San Diego activist Jeff Bates said after reviewing the emails. “I’m not the crazy one, like I’ve felt up to this point. I feel like I’m just beating my head against the wall, and, all of a sudden, now I’m seeing the wall maybe isn’t as hard as I thought it was.”
Amy Wright, a small-business owner who’s become active in local politics for the first time since joining the Occupy Wall Street movement, adds: “The people who wrote in support were very well informed about the issues, they sounded intelligent, they were not resorting to emotional outbursts or name-calling, and, to a T, every single person that wrote in with opposition to the City Council support of Occupy was rude, name-calling, offensive, aggressive, emotional—you name it.”
The few negative emails came mostly from Tea Party supporters; Roger Ogden, the conservative activist who organized the “Impeach Obama” sky banner during the president’s Veterans Day visit to San Diego, sent a slew to several council members. Several thought Mayor Jerry Sanders should be removed from office for not dealing more harshly with the protesters, such as local businessman Jeff Scholz, whose company markets pro-military T-shirts (including one with the slogan “Give War a Chance: Happiness is a Mushroom Cloud”).
“Sir, you are a total embarrassment to our town and nothing more than a complete coward,” Scholz wrote. “Kindly resign your post to someone with a backbone who will not cave-in to the anarchist trash of Occupy San Diego.”
Initially, City Hall security attempted to bar the three activists from ascending the elevators to view the documents, saying that “Occupy people” were not welcome in the Mayor’s office. However, the law states that “public records are open to inspection at all times during the office hours of the state or local agency and every person has a right to inspect any public records.” After being shown an email confirming that records were available, security allowed the activists to pass.
“Personally for me, the experience was not as welcoming as I thought it was going to be,” Wright says, noting that a police officer questioned the group as they inspected the records in the mayor’s lobby. “I just thought: Could we get any more police state-y? It was getting a little absurd…. He didn’t speak to the gentleman that was sitting there who was from SDG&E. He did not ask him what he was doing there.”
Email davem@sdcitybeat.com or follow him on Twitter @DaveMaass.
