What Has Occupy Petaluma Accomplished?

Nearly a year after the launch of Occupy Petaluma, members of the movement say they have achieved tangible victories, including passing a holiday foreclosure moratorium and getting thousands of North Bay residents to transfer their money out of large commercial banks.

The encampment at Penry Park is long gone. So are the sign-waving activists who gathered at the corner of Washington Street and Petaluma Boulevard every Saturday. But much work continues on issues as diverse as the Fukushima nuclear spill, foreclosures, genetically-modified food and income inequality, say members.

“We as a society tend to want instant results, but if you look at other social movements, whether it’s the women’s movement or civil rights, you see that they all take years,” said Tim Nonn, a local author and prominent member of Occupy Petaluma. “There is an initial burst of interest and then they lay dormant for years…In the case of civil rights, it took 300 years to liberate African-Americans and some respects we are still fighting this with the discriminatory voter registration laws some states want to pass.”

Others echo the sentiment, crediting the Occupy movement and specifically Occupy Petaluma, with elevating the discussion about the growing divide between the rich and poor to a national level. The issue was most crystallized by Occupy’s work on foreclosures, in which members contacted banks in an effort to help homeowners stay in their homes and called for a statewide moratorium on foreclosures.

While no statewide moratorium was achieved, the group celebrated a victory when a 2-week foreclosure moratorium was announced over the holidays.

“Occupy groups like the ones in Petaluma, Santa Rosa and Sebastopol provided a platform for foreclosure issues and worked hard to push the foreclosure crisis into the spotlight,” said Councilwoman Tiffany Renee, who attended many Occupy meetings and frequently shared her own experience of having her home foreclosed.

“As a result of Occupy’s work, the city of Petaluma has created an investment policy barring the city from investing with banks that were part of the national foreclosure settlement,” Renee said.

Another accomplishment is the Homeowners’ Bill of Rights, which prohibits unfair bank practices such as dual-track foreclosures, where a lender forecloses on a borrower despite being in discussions over a loan modification to save their home. Under the law, which goes into effect next year, struggling homeowners are guaranteed a single point of contact at their lending institution and may require loan servicers to document their right to foreclose.

Yet another is National Bank Transfer Day, in which tens of thousands of North Bay residents opened accounts at smaller banks and credit unions. Although not organized by Occupy, the action was seized upon as a tangible way to protest large commercial banks and their lending practices.

But as the Occupy movement grows up, it would do well to reassess what it stands for and where it wants to go, says Andy Smith, a social media expert and author of the Dragonfly Effect: Quick, Effective Ways to Use Social Media to Drive Social Change.

“It was groundbreaking and attention-getting when it started and created a gathering place for people who can meet face to face at a time when most of us feel so unconnected,” Smith said. “But a lot of their goals have not always been clear. You have to stand for something...Fragmentation hurts their brand.”

In fact, this fragmentation has happened at the local level, with Occupy Petaluma splintering into working groups devoted to disparate issues such as the nuclear disaster in Japan, GMO-labeling and income inequality.

While Smith said he is not familiar with Occupy Petaluma, he thinks an honest examination of the movement nationwide by its most active members and a reorienting of the mission would be highly beneficial.

“They need some introspection about which messages have resonated the most, what they are about and how they’re going to continue to tell their story,” Smith said. “It’s like that saying: ‘If I stand for everything, I stand for nothing.’”

What do you think of Occupy Petaluma? What has it accomplished? What would you like to see happen to the national Occupy movement?