Alex Darocy Photography

On Friday, October 5, Occupy Santa Cruz celebrated its first anniversary with a general assembly at Laurel Park, followed by a documentary film screening about the Santa Cruz version of the Occupy Wall Street movement. Laurel Park was the site of the first meeting and general assembly of Occupy Santa Cruz on October 4, 2011. Returning there one year later for a birthday celebration, approximately 70 people attended the film screening. Community members reported that there were about 20-30 people at the general assembly held beforehand. The evening in some ways felt like a reunion of old friends, as many in attendance had lived together night and day at the Occupy Santa Cruz encampment in San Lorenzo Park, which existed from October 6 to December 8, 2011. Community members active with a variety of nearby occupations were present at OSC's anniversary, including Occupy Monterey, and one person involved with Occupy San Jose said that he was thinking of moving to Santa Cruz bec...

Quickly morphing from a small neighborhood watch group to a spin-off of Take Back Santa Cruz, Take Back Watsonville has announced it will hold its first major public meeting on October 9, amidst racially charged and pro "American" rhetoric from its founder, Paul Gutierrez. After being featured as a crime victim in an article in the Watsonville Patch, Gutierrez was then made a blogger for the website where he has had the opportunity to establish and promote Take Back Watsonville and raise funds for the new organization, all in less than a month's time. In one comment Gutierrez left on an article in the Watsonville Patch, referring to an individual he perceived to be a member of the Watsonville Brown Berets, he wrote, "You wont be apart of the solution because people like you are the problem. we all get your so proud to be a brown beret and so proud to be Mexican. go the hell back to Mexico if your so proud and hate Americans so much. don't forget its because of p...