Women Will March (text & slideshow)

Destinee Flores
Dflores286@alamo.edu



Market Street rang with shouts of "Hyatt, Escucha! Estamos en la lucha!" "Hyatt, Listen! We are in the struggle!" Saturday, March 6, as approximately 2,100 mothers, daughters, teachers, students, veterans, activists and other supporters gathered at the Grand Hyatt downtown to kick off the 20th Annual International Woman's Day March.

Women from all walks of life came together to celebrate their gender and to eliminate abuse and other hate crimes directed at women. According to organizers, the event drew twice as many participants as last year and ended with a rally in the Plaza del Zacate that highlighted many of the struggles that women face.

"Every year we have a theme, so we wanted to do something with 'Women Leading the Struggle,' because there are so many women who go unnoticed," Esperanza Peace and Justice Center staff member Rosalynn Warren told the Current at a sign-making rally the week before the march.



After a blessing and a moment of silence at 10 a.m. for the missing and murdered women of Juarez, Iola Scott, an active member of Unite Here, accused the Grand Hyatt of mistreating housekeepers, especially minority women. Scott spoke of the abuses she and others suffered while she worked for two years in the laundry-service department, and how her experiences led her to join the Unite Here union.

   

Viola Casares and Petra Mata spoke of how injustices against women and the "exploitation caused by corporate greed and free trade has to stop." They spoke on behalf of Fuerza Unida, an organization that once was called a "bunch of illiterate women" but that has given voice to the concerns of women workers for more than 20 years.



Dozens of organizations and supporters, including the P.E.A.C.E. Initiative, Girls Inc., Fuerza Unida, San Antonio Free Speech Coalition, Planned Parenthood, the Rape Crisis Center, and the UTSA Mexican American Studies Student Organization participated in the Woman's Day March, making it colorful and diverse.



Peacekeepers, all of whom were women, were designated to ensure that everyone at the march was safe, and that bystanders wouldn't interfere with the peaceful nature of the event. March organizers said this was an important gesture, demonstrating to San Antonio that women can take care of their own safety without relying solely on the police force.



People downtown stopped to watch as the march progressed from the Hyatt and snaked its way from Market all the way to the Plaza del Zacate rally. Local soul siren and musician Suzy Bravo opened the rally with an inspiring rendition of "Heavy Cross" by the Gossip.

Leading the speaker lineup was Lisa Caldera of Planned Parenthood,  who was followed by a wake-up call from San Antonio's long-time activist Elizabeth "Betita" Martinez. For more than 45 years Betita has been a social-justice activist and organizer. She's published six books and written many articles highlighting the struggles faced by people in the Americas. She is currently the co-founder and director of the Institute for Multiracial Justice, which builds alliances between peoples of color.

Martinez's speech focused on the idea that women should come together as peacemakers.



Following a poem by Merle Woo read by San Antonio activists Rosalynn Warren and Justine Blakemore, Antonia Padilla spoke of her experiences as a 50-year-old transgender woman who has faced years of discrimination since she came out in her 30s.



To end the rally, Patricia Castillo, Executive Director of the P.E.A.C.E Initiative proudly announced that along with her organization, Fuerza Unida and Ezperanza are celebrating 20 years of work in the San Antonio community to end the oppression of women.

New Dem Party Chair comes in like a lion: Extended QueBlog remix

COMING HOME TO ROOST
At 8:30 Saturday morning, the dining room at the Luby’s on N.E. Loop 410 was already full of the party faithful. It was the first meeting of the North East Bexar County Democrats following the March 2 primary, and the first order of business after the usual agenda protocol was Dan Ramos, new Bexar County Democratic Party Chair.

As folks filled their coffee cups, checked the precinct map, and snacked on pastries, immediate past chair and County Clerk candidate Carla Vela settled into a seat, defiant red nails clutching a plate bearing a large cinnamon roll. Judge Michael Mery — one of several incumbents who unexpectedly lost to a primary challenger — shook hands and kicked off the meeting with a thank-you that drew a heartfelt standing ovation. Immediately prior to Mery’s farewell, Northeast Bexar Dems Chair Scott Nelson introduced the VIPs, which included a dozen officeholders and candidates, and told the crowd they needed to focus on Democratic turnout, which was notably lower than Republican numbers.

Then Ramos, a small bear of a man with a full beard, took the mic. Ramos beat long-time operative and Henry Cisneros ally Choco Meza 59 percent to 41 percent, and he was not there to offer balm to a party burned by last fall’s theft of more than $200,000 in 2008 primary funds owed to the County. (Former Treasurer Dwayne Adams, a Vela pal and would-be business partner, is suspected of taking the money.)
 
“We’re going to see if what [County Judge] Nelson Wolff said on the steps of the courthouse is true,” Ramos said, alluding to a promise by Democratic officials to raise funds to fill the hole left by the theft. “I heard he made that pledge because he didn’t think I was going to win.” (In fact, the Express-News reported the next day that Wolff says the deal is on hold; read on.) “There’s plenty of money in Bexar County,” Ramos assured the audience. “What there has not been is integrity and trustworthiness.”

Ramos had visited the party offices last week, he added, and heard that precinct packets not picked up after the primary election would be tossed, “a third-degree felony.” Taking another shot at the party leaders he believes have it in for him, he reminded the members that “Your County Executive Committee is the only authority that runs the party … I’m just your servant.”

Vela snorted quietly into her coffee.

When a party member questioned the significance of the precinct paperwork and Ramos’s interpretation of the election law, he retorted “I’m not going to quibble with you … that’s why we had a lot of problems under your [tenure].”
A gasp and loud murmurs of disapproval filled the room, and Ramos departed.

As the meeting turned to relatively mundane business — will Bill White’s campaign take over the lease payments for the San Antonio Area Progressive Area Coalition offices? — one elected official lamented Ramos’s debut. “He insulted a longtime party volunteer, and then left,” she said, shaking her head, incredulous. But, she added, she’s not sure the party matters like it used to. “Candidates really have to do it for themselves.”

NO QUARTER (OR DOLLARS)
County Judge Nelson Wolff agrees that candidates have to work beyond the local Democratic Party to win elections, but he said, it’s “a little naïve to think that an indictment and a financial mess wouldn’t be derogatory.”

Wolff says he’ll meet with Congressman Charlie Gonzalez, State Representative Trey Martinez Fischer, and others later this week to chart a course. He’d like to talk to incoming Party Chair Dan Ramos, too, who has issued public challenges in the press, but hasn’t picked up the phone. Concerns that need to be addressed before they would move ahead with plans to replace the lost funds include Ramos’s vision on issues such as the joint primary, which he’s opposed in the past.

“What we’re going to have to get straight is financial management,” Wolff said. “ Who can come in that we have confidence they can manage the money?”

Ramos has done little since the election to allay concerns that he will be a divisive force. In a phone call Friday with the QueQue, he indicated that he’s looking to settle old scores.

“I ran before, and I was cheated. And I ran again and I was cheated, and I’m taking those cases to the FBI,” Ramos said. Certain established Bexar County Democratic Party fixtures, he said, “are now out of a job, because they will never extort any more Bexar County candidates.” He’ll also be suing Compass Bank for “negligence” over the stolen Party funds, but not with Democratic donor and trial attorney Tim Maloney (who writes a column for this paper). “No, no, hell no,” Ramos said. “He’s not qualified to do that type of work.”

The former Kelly Air Force Base machinist and union organizer says the results in his primary election were “a referendum … on Henry Cisneros, Leticia Van de Putte, Nelson Wolff, and the other co-conspirators on our Commissioners Court.”

The QueQue observed that Tommy Adkisson and Paul Elizondo (whom we might term a super-incumbent, now that his tenure is trans-generational) won their primaries handily. But Ramos has a message for the Precinct Four commissioner, too:
“The toll-road people saved Tommy. He’s either gonna have to straighten out or I’m gonna get an opponent after him.”

Ramos’s election may mean the restoration of at least one pre-Vela Party official: Former Party Treasurer Fernando Contreras, whom alleged thief Dwayne Adams unseated in 2008, served as Ramos’s campaign treasurer. But if Ramos can’t get Wolff’s team of elected officials back on board, there may be little to manage.

“The party’s in deep trouble, I guess,” said Wolff of that potential outcome. “At some point the County has to take some legal action.”

One longtime donor told the QueQue that local clubs such as the North East Bexar County Dems could step in to fill the void. Jacob Middleton, chair of the Northwest Democrats, says that "Personally ... I fear for the Party,” but that his group is very strong right now, and just held its most successful Superbowl fundraiser yet.

Ramos takes office May 3.

SAPD promises justice in transgender sex assault, question of training unanswered

Greg Harman
gharman@sacurrent.com

One week after a local trans-gendered woman, described in the arrest warrant as a “Latin Male,” walked into the South Frio police sub-station alleging she had been raped by a San Antonio Police officer, SAPD Chief Bill McManus and two officers met with members of the San Antonio Gender Association pledging to take swift action on the case and work to prevent future assaults.

However, there was no talk about expanding transgender sensitivity training to veteran officers at the Thursday night meeting. Currently, only incoming SAPD cadets receive the four-hour training on transgender issues.

After nearly three years of quarterly trainings by the all-volunteer Police Officers Training Committee, only one session for more senior officers has been held. That meeting exposed innate prejudices among officers, according to training committee member Antonia Padilla, which she attributes to negative interactions with transgender individuals on the job that are likely exacerbated by a lack of exposure to those with less traditional gender expression.

They’re prejudices not typically found among the younger cadets, she added.

The trainings include a definition of terms, brainstorming about stereotypes, and breakout discussion groups. “It’s in these small discussion groups that the tensions in the veteran officers became apparent,” Padilla said. “Most everyone expressed some sort of, ‘Hey we’ve been cops for years and we know what it’s about. We have to deal with it on a daily basis. It’s not pretty and we don’t like it. We just wish it would go away’ is basically what they were saying.”

One officer in particular kept referring to transgendered individuals as a “subset,” Padilla said. “He was saying subset like every 30 seconds. ‘Oh, you’re in a subset this and you’re subset.' I felt, and this is just my opinion, I felt he was actually instead of saying subset he really wanted to say sub-human. I really had to sit on my hands with that guy.

“Just the very fact they feel that way when dealing with someone is going to cause them to have less empathy, or even no empathy, and to feel like, ‘They don’t really matter. They’re not important. And we don’t have to offer them the same level of civil protections … We’ll just treat them as less than human and it’s OK and nobody’s gonna care,” Padilla said.

Officer Craig Nash, arrested on charges of sexual assault and official oppression in the alleged rape, is a seven-year veteran officer.

Nash was arrested the same day a transgendered woman walked into the Frio Street substation at 4:20 am February 25 saying she had been abducted by an SAPD officer and raped, according to Nash’s arrest warrant affidavit. She told an officer on duty that her assailant, later identified as Nash, “wasn’t going to get away with this” and “she ‘had cum up her butt’ which would prove her truthfulness.”

The victim said Nash handcuffed her and took her to an unknown location, where he demanded a blowjob. She complied. Then she said he raped her while in uniform.

After the alleged incident, the woman took the bus to the South Frio substation to make her complaint and was quickly taken to Methodist Specialty and Transplant Hospital for an examination. At the hospital,  “suspected DNA” was collected from the victim’s body and clothing. A search of GPS logs confirmed the vehicle assigned to Nash was in the area reported.

SAPD media officer requested the Current submit its questions about last week’s meeting in writing, but a promised interview didn’t materialize before press deadline Tuesday.

Reverend Mick Hinson of Metropolitan Community Church, whose church hosted the forum and who serves on the training committee, said he hoped the trainings would one day expand to all SAPD officers and the Bexar County Sheriff’s Department, but he did not want to comment on them for publication out of fear that potential negative public reaction would jeopardize their continuation. The Current agreed at the start of the trainings in 2007 to delay reporting about them until they got more established at SAPD.

UPDATE: Ruby Krebs, president of SAGA, got hold of us (1:50 pm) and offered glowing words for Chief McManus, saying that just the fact he showed up to a SAGA meeting made it "a very good day for the transgender community" in San Antonio. She added that, "10 years ago if we got any response at all from the chief of police it would have been hostile."

Below are the questions and answers we received back from SAPD about an hour after deadline today (making this truly an "online exclusive," as it's too late for print edition).

San Antonio’s woulda-been-groundbreaking solar PACE program on the rocks

Greg Harman
gharman@sacurrent.com

Thirty-nine percent of San Antonians are ready to install solar panels and solar hot-water heaters on their rooftops, according to a survey performed last year for the non-profit clean-energy-advocating Solar San Antonio. That is, they’re ready to go solar — if they could afford it.

Even with the on-and-off-again solar rebates offered through City-owned CPS Energy (now on again), solar remains a game largely reserved for wealthier greens. Homeowners must shell out thousands of dollars for even the smallest rooftop arrays, a daunting challenge in very un-affluent San Antonio. However, a bill carried through the Texas Legislature last year promised to eliminate all up-front costs by allowing Texas cities to float the loans themselves, receive payment through the accumulated energy savings realized, and lighten the load on homeowners by tying the loan to the property itself rather than to the individual.

Loans would be offered not only for the installation of solar panels, but also for solar hot-water heaters, geothermal systems, reflective roofs, and a variety of energy-conserving home improvements.

Leaders in several Texas cities began hammering out the fine print necessary to breathe life into San Antonio state Representative Mike Villarreal’s broadly worded House Bill 1937 — the only renewable-energy legislation to slip through the 81st Legislature thanks to Perry's Voter ID kerfluffle. Members of San Antonio’s PACE (Property Assessed Clean Energy) Task Force started meeting way back in August.

This month, PACE — based on programs operating in Berkeley, California, and Boulder, Colorado — appears to have become another victim of the housing and financial crises.

According to Lanny Sinkin, executive director at Solar SA, members of the city’s bond council wanted to establish liens to ensure the PACE loans were paid off before the home’s mortgage, something that appears to run contrary to Texas real estate law.

Laurence Doxsey, director of the City’s Office of Environmental Policy, said the inability to tie the loan to the front of a mortgage so that it is required to be paid back first makes securing the backing of the bond market unlikely.

“That doesn’t give us the position we need to get a good interest rate,” said Doxsey. “If we go to the bond market and try to sell this idea, they’ll say, ‘That looks pretty risky to me.’ You know, the way the real estate market is and the way people are losing work, we could be stuck with something here.”

In the event of a foreclosure, it would be harder to recoup home-improvement costs and reclaim the value of the installation.

While city staff continues evaluating options, Doxsey said salvaging the program will likely take a return to the state Legislature to work out the apparent conflict with other state laws or require loan guarantees to be issued by the federal government, a route now being pursued.

Despite the serious problems grounding this highly anticipated program, Sinkin remains upbeat.

“One of the things it has done is inspire creative thinking,” he said. “If that model is not going to be the thing that works, how can we do something similar that offers people the opportunity to get rid of the up-front cost in a low-interest, long-term loan fashion of some kind.”

To that end, Solar San Antonio will host a roundtable with local bankers on May 18, a couple weeks after this year’s Solar Fest, to explore ways the financial institutions could meet federal pressures to open up the taps on new loans and create renewable-energy opportunities.

“We’ve got ourselves running around chasing our tail in some ways," Doxsey said, "and then also have these distinct issues that need to be solved to make this function right."

Meanwhile, as the coal kings at TXU rolled out a solar leasing program with no up-front costs and free installation in North Texas, national and state-level solar outfitters are on the prowl in San Antonio as solar costs continue to drop, hoping to cut costs further through community-level co-ops and by sweetening the pot with additional rebates.

Three new hunger strikers at Port Isabel

By Enrique Lopetegui
elopetegui@sacurrent.com

Three detainees [names changed awaiting their permission to reveal their identities] from the Port Isabel Detention Center in Los Fresnos sent out letters to the Southwest Workers Union announcing hunger strikes, in protest for the condition of their detention and the uncertain status of their immigration cases.

“[My] few brushes with the law have been only for self-use of marijuana,” wrote “D.,” a 42-year-old native of Trinidad in a letter received by the SWU on February 11. “They are all minor brushes with the law. So how is it that if I broke state law in my state [Maryland] and was punished for them by my state … that DHS and ICE want to deport me for those same crimes?”

“No due process,” continued D., a legal resident since the age of 13. “Never being able to contest, object, or deny the transfers means no due process ... I do not deserve this. I am not a criminal … Whatever DHS and ICE want to do, let them do it in my home state. This is my reason for embarking … [on] this hunger strike. I will not stop until I get the proper and right results.”

“I’ve made up my mind 1000 percent,” wrote “J.O.,” a 24-year-old Jamaican legal resident since age 13, on February 28. He has been detained for eight months and claims that, after 13 bond hearings with no decision due to resetting of court dates, he was attacked by ICE guards when he took part of the last organized hunger strike. “If I don’t receive some form of relief from Texas or this facility, I refuse to eat or be forced-fed, just in case they try, as I was told by Asst. Field director M. Watkins.” [The QueBlog assumes he refers to the in-house ICE official in charge of Port Isabel, whom could not be reached for comment on Saturday]

“I used to talk to him everyday, but I haven’t heard from him in a week,” his mother told the QueBlog on March 5. “I was told he’s in the infirmary [of PIDC].”

Another Jamaican, 21-year-old “R.K.,” also accuses guards of excessive force and said that Texas pro-bono lawyers can’t assist him in court.

“I’m sick of this place and I’m fed up to the point that I don’t care anymore,” he wrote February 27. “I’m going on a hunger strike and I’m not going to break, until they either release me or move me back to New York where I can get a free legal representative … My case is a piece of cake if I had the help [of a lawyer]. I have no drugs or weapon charges, just two false impersonation [cases], which [are] minor … but I still risk being deported. I haven’t been to Jamaica since I was a kid … and I know how rough Jamaica is and I wouldn’t know what to do if I was [separated] from my family and friends.”

He started his hunger strike on March 1.

Besides being held at PIDC, the three hunger strikers have another thing in common: They all have to face judge Howard E. Achtsam, who handles all Port Isabel cases.

“Everyone in this place knows [Judge Achtsam],” D. wrote. “He never gives bail, always denies bail, and always denies change of venue. All he does is deport, deport.”

According to the Syracuse University’s Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, between 2001 and 2006 Achtsam denied 75 percent of asylum-seekers, a rate of denial 16 percent higher than the national average. During the 2004-09 period, Achtsam denied 78.3 percent of asylum claims. The national rate of denials for the same period was 57.3.

“If judges were ranked from 1 to 261 - where 1 represented the highest denial percent and 261 represented the lowest - Judge Achtsam here receives a rank of 66,” according to the TRAC page on Achtsam. “That is 65 judges denied asylum at higher rates, and 195 denied asylum at the same rate or less often.”

Jodie Goodwin, an immigration attorney in Harlingen, knows Achtsam well from her work with Cuban refugees. In 2008, she told the Houston Press that, "If you're unfortunate enough to get Judge Achtsam, that means you're probably going to get denied … I think he has got to be the only immigration judge in the country that routinely denies asylum for Cubans."

"He's pretty horrible when it comes to discretion, and pretty horrible when it comes to bonds," Goodwin told the QueBlog Friday. "I don't know if it just gives him satisfaction, or what. I've never been able to figure out why he's like that."

 

“We do not force-feed at ICE,” said ICE spokesperson Nina Pruneda on Wednesday. “But what do you mean by forced-feeding?”

She then sent the us ICE’s policy on hunger strikes.

"Before involuntary medical treatment is administered, staff shall make reasonable efforts to educate and encourage [the detainee] to accept treatment voluntarily,” reads the official policy, without specifying whether “involuntary medical treatment” refers to I.V.-feeding or feeding by tubes forcibly placed through the nose, as some detainees have denounced they’ve been threatened with, a system condemned by the World Medical Association.

“Where a prisoner refuses nourishment and is considered by the doctor as capable of forming an unimpaired and rational judgment concerning the consequences of such voluntary refusal of nourishment, he or she shall not be fed artificially,” reads the World Medical Association’s Declaration of Tokyo of 1975. “The decision as to the capacity of the prisoner to form such a judgment should be confirmed by at least one other independent doctor.”

 “U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) respects the fundamental right of individuals to advocate for reform of our nation’s immigration laws,” reads an ICE statement released after the February 25 rally in front of ICE building in San Antonio. “Moreover, last fall, ICE announced a major overhaul of the immigration detention system to prioritize health, safety and uniformity among our facilities while ensuring security, efficiency and fiscal responsibility. These reforms include aggressive steps to increase oversight and fundamentally change the immigration detention system. ICE has taken important initial steps to change this system and is committed to finishing the job.” 

“I don’t buy that at all,” Goodwin said of the statement. “I think it’s propaganda in the part of ICE. It’s just a PR move announcing that they’re going to do things differently, but the proof is in the pudding: Until I see action on the ground with actual changes, I won’t believe it. Have I seen any actual changes? No.”

Census undercount threatens to punish our vulnerable for another 10 years, Perry shrugs

Greg Harman
gharman@sacurrent.com

What’s a billion dollars of free social services worth? Apparently, not the carefully cultivated anti-Washington rugged-individual political image of Governor Rick Perry. Less than two weeks away from Censusmania, the state’s true hair-care magnate has failed to make any motion to ensure Texas’ consistently undercounted population is accurately recorded.

It was nearly four months ago when state Representative Mike Villarreal wrote to Perry, urging him to “ensure our state government is taking every appropriate step to ensure the highest possible level of participation by Texas residents” in the Census. Response? Dialtone.

As the second-highest undercounted state of the 2000 Census, Texas may be about to flub its chance to not only rake in hundreds of millions in taxes (taxes we have already paid), but also increase the number of Congressional seats we hold, according to Anna Alicia Romero, regional census director for the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF). (You can hear our full conversation below.)

Specifically, Texas should set up a “complete count” committee as 18 other states have done and make use of state agencies to get the Census message to historically hard-to-count populations, such as “elderly, children, minorities, renters and low-income.”

Now, we get that poor folks aren’t exactly Perry’s base, but why would the state throw away $1 billion for social services like foster and child care, substance abuse and treatment, Medicaid payments, and jobs training by risking another undercount? That’s how much the state was estimated to have lost thanks to an undercount of more than 370,000 residents, according to a report by PricewaterhouseCoopers.

Other states haven’t been as shy about working to get the maximum share of their taxes back from the Feds. Complete-count committees have been set up in Alabama, Florida, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Connecticut, North Carolina, Tennessee, Louisiana, Utah, North and South Dakota, Wyoming, Ohio, Hawaii, Mississippi, Montana, and New York.

Romero testified before the House Committee on Redistricting late last year that:



Perry has spent much of the last year endearing himself to the most anti-Washington/anti-immigrant voters of Tea-Party dispositions, suggesting that the Lone Star has a right to secede from the United States (wacko applause meter ringing) and that we don't need those federal funds to extend unemployment assistance as our burgeoning work-hungry ranks swell. Needless to say, he didn’t so much as write Villarreal back on the topic, a staffer confirmed this morning.

Perry’s inaction has pushed the burden of Census organizing back onto the Census Bureau and whatever grassroots community-action orgs care enough to hit the street. MALDEF will focus its efforts along the exploding U.S. border counties, but here in San Antonio Southwest Workers Union will be walking blocks across the Alamo City in a “Count Us Right” drive. And here’s a call-out to area artists: create a new logo for the campaign and earn yourself $1,000. (This Census stuff is paying off already, right?!)

Watch your mailbox mid-month for the bi-lingual forms containing detailed instructions on how to officially celebrate “Census Day” on April 1. Word is we get just a few weeks to mail ’em back before the newly mobilized border mobs seeking expanded political representation and reliable childcare begin the march north to make this registration stuff personal. And, no, your landlord doesn't get a copy.

If neither the social-responsibilty nor mob-justice stuff hooks you, allow us to trot out the Census Bureau’s Secret Weapon…

Bexar County Jail overcrowding … it’s all in your head

Greg Harman
gharman@sacurrent.com

If you’ve got a naturally sunny disposition (despite the long shadow of those prison bars falling on your shoulders), chances are you’ve got more room to roam on the inside of Bexar County Jail these days. You may even be tempted to crack open a $3.59 can of “no bean” commissary chili to celebrate the new-found breathing room.
 
Hey. We know surviving the pileup of ’09 was no easy feat. [For background on overcrowding, scary voices, and suicide, see "Hang Time."]

Most of last year, the land of Los Orejones was full all the way up to its “Mother”-tattooed neck. With a capacity just shy of 4,600, Bexar County’s admin found itself juggling another 100 on top of that. Now we’re down in the 4,000 range and things are runnin’ smooth again — unless you happen to be mental.

It seems that despite all our cubic yards of reclaimed turf, the mental-health and suicide-prevention units are still packed tight. That is the initial assessment of national suicide expert Lindsay Hayes, who completed a three-day investigation of the jail policies and procedures with regards to suicide prevention last week. And it’s no wonder.

According to officials at University Health System, “The vast majority of persons screened by mental health at the time of booking had evidence … for a major mental illness.” And yet only a handful (about 25 per week — or the kind of crazy impossible to ignore) are weeded out at the door, according to Community Health Care Service officials.

UHS officials tell the Current that 900 Bexar County inmates (nearly one in four) on average are receiving psychiatric assistance from their staff. And the U.S. Department of Justice estimates three-quarters of county-level inmates nationally are suffering from one mental disorder or another.

“We’re not overcrowded in jail space; the nuance is, we are overcrowded in terms of mental-health space,” said Debra Jordan, deputy chief at the Bexar County Sheriff’s Office.

Although UHS had last year recommended expanding the mental-health unit into an adjacent area and been rebuffed by the jail administration, this time it really appears to be happening.

“We’ve asked the Texas Commission on Jail Standards about opening some space across the street at the annex for a mental-health unit,” Jordan said. “Because the classification is what makes all the difference in the world. You can’t just house people wherever you want to house them. We need more mental-health space.”

We can hear the shrinks at UHS breathing a collective sigh of relief from here.

We’ve always thought of the Bexar County icebox as a crazy-making machine: If you’re not crazy going in, you soon will be. So this small victory (if its plays out) goes out to our manic-depressive comrades in stir. You are not forgotten.

Fire and ICE

By Enrique Lopetegui
elopetegui@sacurrent.com

 On February 25, about three dozen vociferous activists gathered in front of the U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement building on Fourwinds Dr. to demand the closing of the Willacy County ("Tent City") and Los Fresnosï' Port Isabel (PIDC) detention centers.

 As part of the "Dignity, Not Detention campaign organized by the Detention Watch Network, the activists - including members of Southwest Workers Union, Texans United For Families, Grassroots Leadership, and the Reverend Lorenza Andrade Smith, of the Westlawn United Methodist Church - accused ICE of serious human rights abuses against detainees. And none of the activists was louder - or more specific - than SWU's Anayanse Garza, who denounced abuses against hunger strikers at PIDC and pointed to the alleged culprit.

 "This is the pain," she said, holding a petition, "these are the 243 signatures of the people at Port IsabeI that have been tortured, beaten and humiliated, and these orders were coming from [ICE's field office director] Michael J. Pitts, who is sitting very comfortably in his air-conditioned room, while other people are being tortured and threatened with force-feeding by having a tube inserted through their noses. I don't care if the government says that immigrants have no human rights. Immigrants do have human rights. It's not a crime to hunger strike, it is your right, and that's why [Pitts] should be tried. He shouldn't be allowed to even be there right now."

She broke down in tears and had to be consoled by fellow activists.

The copy of the petition faxed to the QueBlog reads that "the human and civil rights of our families and those who wish to assist us are ... violated."  It is signed by 235 names (our count), each with its respective legal resident number and their city of origin.

The activists tried to present the letter to Pitts, but couldn't get past security.

"We were rejected," Grassroots Leadership's Bob Libal told the QueBlog. "They told us to mail it."

According to Amnesty International's "Jailed Without Justice" report, "immigrants and asylum seekers may be detained for months or even years as they go through deportation procedures that will determine whether or not they are eligible to remain in the United States.

"According to a 2003 study, individuals who were eventually granted asylum spent an average of 10 months in detention with the longest reported period being 3.5 years ... Individuals who have been ordered deported may languish in detention indefinitely if their home country is unwilling to accept their return or does not have diplomatic relations with the United States."

Under U.S. law, those in deportation proceedings can secure legal representation but not at the expense of the government. Therefore, according to Amnesty, "84 percent of those in immigration detention do not have a lawyer, and instead represent themselves."

AI's report says that "detainees are often detained in jail facilities with barbed wire and cells, alongside those serving time for criminal convictions. They are not able to wear their own clothes but instead wear prison uniforms. Immigrants are unnecessarily exposed to inappropriate and excessive restraints including handcuffs, belly chains, and leg restraints ... [and] physical and verbal abuse."

"After mentioning that  "lawful permanent residents can be placed in 'mandatory detention' with no right to a bond hearing before an immigration judge or judicial body," AI concludes that "conditions of detention in many facilities do not meet either international human rights standards or ICE guidelines."

In September 2008, ICE announced the publication of 41 new performance-based detention standards, but AI was skeptical: "They are not legally enforceable and do not provide adequate sanctions for violations."

Silky Shah, member of board of directors of Grassroots Leadership and Organizing and Outreach Coordinator for Detention Watch Network, agrees.

"[The abuses that are] happening right now," she said, "will outlast any comprehensive reform that [takes place], and we need to continue working together restoring justice for all."

Sarnata Reynolds, Amnesty International's campaign director for refugee and migrant rights, visited Port Isabel in July 2009 in a rare field visit by a human rights group.

"We were there last June, and besides what we told the media we haven't released an official statement [on PIDC]," Reynolds told the QueBlog on Friday. "I don't want to misspeak. I want to review my notes before I get back to you."

In June 4, 2009, a day after her visit to PIDC, she told the Houston Press that AI's preliminary findings confirmed that detainees are "locked up, and you have no right to a bond hearing. You have no right to ever demonstrate that ... 'I'm not a danger to the community, I'm not a flight risk, so let me out while I proceed [with] my removal proceedings.'"

One of the detainees she spoke to was Rama Carty, a native of Congo who has resided legally in the U.S. since 1971, at age one.

He was detained in Maine in May of 2006 for a drug offense he claims was fabricated. After serving less than two years of prison time, he was held at ICE detention centers in Main, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, and Louisiana, before arriving at PIDC in December 2008.

With two other detainees, he organized a hunger strike at PIDC on April 15, 2009, to expose to the media the conditions of detention.

"We got at least 70 other detainees, maybe 90, but it went down quickly after the authorities started applying pressure on us," he told the QueBlog. "Some people did three weeks [of hunger strike], but they threatened me with cutting me the access to the law library. I needed that, so I stopped."

On June 3, the day he said he was supposed to meet with Reynolds for the second time, at 5 a.m. he was awaken by guards who told him to pack because he was leaving.

"I told them I shouldn't be leaving, since [the Department of Homeland Security] was negotiating with AI to meet with us and I wasn't done with my interviews," Carty said. "I smelled something fishy immediately."

That's when he was attacked, he says, but the guards accused him of assault. On that same day, Carty was transferred to an ICE detention center in Louisiana, but couldn't be deported because no country would recognize him as a citizen.

"I was going to be in limbo until who knows when," Carty said.

In the fall of 2009, Carty successfully sued ICE and obtained a $100,000 unsecured bond that allowed him to walk free in December 2009. After spending time in Massachusetts, he's now back in Texas since February 22, under home arrest at a hotel in Brownsville, awaiting his March trial for the assault

"If I'm a flight risk, why did I come back?" he said. "They offered me [to plead guilty to] a misdemeanor, but I'm not going to do that. I want to go to trial, I didn't do anything."

He also won't go on the record with details of the attack, but wants to set the record straight.

"I don't want to publish specifics that will need to be divulged at trial," he said. "But I do want to let everyone know that I was assaulted, not the other way around. When I could not be deported, I was wrongfully indicted [for supposedly attacking the guards,] in order [for them] to leverage against a possible civil action."

He says he was shaving when the guards jumped on him, and now they're saying that he used a razor to attack them.

"The missing video and the missing razor are two of the most glaring pieces of missing evidence," Carty said. "It's clear in the very little bit of video that the government has produced, which shows my being hit when I was on the floor at the very end of the incident, that the entire video should have been available. The entire video would have made it clear that I should not have been indicted in the first place. But of course, there is no video, because if there is a video, they have no case.

"Everything happens at [PIDC]: Everything from sexual harassment of male and female detainees, assault, pitting black detainees against Hispanics and vice versa, in an attempt to divide and conquer. It's a terrible situation and it has been going on for decades."

"In all my years, I've never seen immigrants raising a hand against guards," said Tony Hefner, a guard at PIDC from 1983 through 1990. "It's always been the other way around."

Hefner, who says he was fired in 1985, got his job back in 1987, and was fired again in 1990, spent years gathering information about abuses at PIDC and will publish his findings, "real names and all," in the book Between the Fences: Before Guantanamo, there was the Port Isabel Service Process Center, due out in May. Some of those names, documents and pictures a la Abu Ghraib can be seen in his website, torchlake.com/hefner.

"The very same thing that happened [in my time] is happening today [at PIDC]," said Hefner. "Stealing money from detainees, beating detainees up ... If detainees from two different countries were fighting, they would handcuff them together and push them into each other and take bets on them."

Hefner will be a witness for Carty during the trial.

"They're framing this young man claiming that he did something that he didn't do," Hefner said. "That's the standard policy there: If you stand up against them, they nail you. What Rama [Carty] is going through is nothing unusual."

Nina Pruneda, spokeswoman for ICE in San Antonio, said the QueBlog's information "is not correct information."

"Torture? That's the first time I ever heard of that," she said Friday. "There are a lot of rumors in the community but, believe you me, there's nothing of that nature going on.

"We need the names of those detainees. For security purposes we don't obtain information like that [letting the activists into the building], they have to mail it. That's the process."

So if we get you the names ...

"Names, dates of birth, and A [resident] numbers," she said. "And Monday we'll get back to you with the other information you requested."

"The other information we requested included whether ICE's 41 new performance-based detention standards have already been implemented, what happens if a detention guard violates those standards, what is ICE's policy in regards to hunger strikes, whether force-feeding is ever used with hunger strikers, and, finally, what actions - if any - Pitts ordered to be taken against the hunger strikers.

We'll be waiting ...

Almost Time: International Woman's Day March signs

Greg Harman
gharman@sacurrent.com

The message is clear; the march is approaching.

Coffee or Tea? Clean-energy protest crashes Tea Party SA birthday

Greg Harman
gharman@sacurrent.com

Dozens of area residents mobilized by MoveOn chapters in San Antonio and Cibolo and a developing Coffee Party gathered Sunday a couple blocks north of Sunset Station on the east edge of downtown to support the rapid development and deployment of non-polluting energy sources to combat climate change and ending the nation’s dependence on fossil fuels.

Meanwhile, in a rented space at the Station, 50 or so Tea Party folks were celebrating the org's first birthday by listening to a speaker berate President Obama and gearing up for an afternoon talk from a meteorologist and climate-change contrarian. David Dilley titled his speech, Climate Cycles ... Unveiling the Man-Made Climate Change Hoax, Earth's Temperatures and CO2 Levels are Natural and Good for Earth, though the Tea Party of San Antonio wisely shrunk it to simply: Climate Change: Manmade or Natural Cycle.)

After hearing from three speakers promote solar, geothermal, and condemn carbon-emitting coal, the MoveOn/Coffee Partiers chanted down the lane to gain the attention of those at the other end of the spectrum. They then positioned themselves across the street to vocalize some more.

While I spent 20 minutes or so inside the Tea Party event, I had to squeeze through a well-packed line of police and private security at the gate to get to the supposedly open event.

Regrettably, I only witnessed one conversation occur between a MoveOn member and a Tea adherent. And that 5-minute exchange on a point of common ground — shared disgust over a recent Supreme Court ruling granting corporations the right to flood the political process with unlimited donations — was probably the highlight of the afternoon. Sadly, it had to take place through an iron fence.

It was a failure lamented by another pro-clean-energy protestor, possibly the only other liberal to brave the police line and tune in another message. You can hear his thoughts on post-partisan dialogue and police intimidation in this video post.

I caught some highlights with a camera (below).

Tree ordinance closes every loophole but cash on the barrel head

Greg Harman
gharman@sacurrent.com

An updated tree ordinance intended to close two major loopholes that have plagued San Antonio’s natural scene is making its final passes along the committee taffy-making circuit as it heads to the City Council.

Councilman Reed Williams opened the public meeting at Igo Public Library earlier this week saying, “We all love trees. I have yet to meet someone who doesn’t love a tree. It’s just that sometimes we think they’re in the wrong place.”

Damn squirrels, interrupting Mother Nature's nut-dropping wisdom and such.

Following the publication of a study of San Antonio's tree cover by American Forests, City leaders asked staff to examine ways of bumping San Antonio’s total tree canopy up from 38 percent to 40 percent, said Rod Sanchez, the city’s director of development services. Two key reforms intended to make clear-cutting, if not illegal, less profitable.

Today, residents living on tens of acres may still declare themselves exempt from tree laws under the “single family exemption” and buzz their holdings to make way for box stores. But the new ordinance moving toward a possible Council vote in April would limit such exemptions to those living on a maximum half-acre, Sanchez said.

And by adopting strict tree canopy requirements, city staff hope they are on the way toward closing the troubling agricultural exemptions that have allowed large tracts of the City and its extra-territorial jurisdiction to be razed in the past.

However, as was pointed out by several in attendance, not even the largest and most stately “heritage” tree is secure from development.

While developers can still buzz away virtually any tree, they will have to double what they pay per tree taken down. For every tree more than an inch diameter taken out developers have to pay $200. Currently they pay $100 per tree. Also, they would have to mitigate for the tree losses. A so-called “heritage” tree requires three trees to be planted elsewhere. Heritage trees are defined as:



Also, developers are currently allowed to shrink the amount of area fenced off for “root protection” on those larger, heritage trees if they pay a little extra. But Sanchez said that provision could be eliminated under the language of the new ordinance.

While many types of trees are not covered in the protections (including destructive non-native trees such as Chinese pistache, chinaberry, Chinese tallow, salt cedar, and Japanese ligustrum), the amount of tree canopy from desired species in the ordinance is currently set at:



However, these percentages are still in play and being hotly debated. They are likely to be revisited at Tuesday's final meeting of the Technical Advisory Committee. It then marches on to the planning commission on March 10 and the infrastructure and growth committee on March 16 before landing in the Council's lap April Fools’ Day.

For more information, contact the Planning & Development Services Department or the Citizens Tree Coalition.

Also, you can read the draft ordinance below...