The Will of the People…
From mcpeepants.com
Arcata City Councilman Mark Wheetly hailed the introduction of Ordinance 1399 as the “will of the people,” yet he, along with Mike Winkler and Alex Stillman, could give two-shits about it. They made this clear when they voted to adopt the panhandling ordinance despite not one single person out of the almost twenty speakers supported it. Not one person. You know, it made me think just who the hell supported this ordinance anyway, aside from disgruntled business owners and a few fearful residents. They obviously didn’t care enough to physically be there to voice that support, probably because they interested parties knew ahead of time that this vote was a for sure thing.
Though Susan Ornelas flipped by the time the vote came, mainly because of an impassioned story shared by a resident, who told of how giving is important to her beliefs and one particular instance helped teach her child about compassion. She was also the only councilperson to echo the pleas of some in the audience, including myself, to put this matter to a community vote. It would have made more sense, right? This ordinance is monumental in its nature and, once it goes into effect in 29 days now, will have severe implications for all Arcatans. If this ordinance truly represented the will of the people, then it should have been put on the ballot.
On that note, the idea of placing this on the ballot was probably too much for the supporters, probably because it would NOT PASS. Though Councilman Wheetly was kind enough to inform the audience that it is their right to get an initiative on the ballot, completely dancing around the fact that we wanted the council to put it on the ballot. Because in essence this is what I see: many people in the community have no idea what this ordinance is, those who do primarily oppose it, as reflected by the meeting, the 71 residents who signed my letter of opposition, and those who didn’t want to sign but were against it. If I didn’t work a full-time job, and my friend who helped out wasn’t bogged down in his own responsibilities, we could have gotten more. But it meant nothing, because the three who voted to enact this already had their minds set, and that’s poor leadership.
And yet again, Councilman Wheetly shut down Councilman Shane Brinton as he asked specifics about the ordinance and derailed the possibility of either toning down the ordinance or putting it to a community vote. It appeared as if the council had no idea what they were voting on or could answer specific legal questions, questions that will arise when the city gets sued. For example, when Brinton asked what constitutes a significant government purpose in restricting this type of speech on a sidewalk, Wheetly kept totting the “aggressive panhandling” line and failed to realize that this ordinance was prohibiting panhandling regardless of behavior. Then there is Mayor Alex Stillman, who, of course, didn’t recuse herself despite the fact she owns one-quarter of the Plaza in real estate and has a business there. I’m sure she wouldn’t benefit from pushing out all the bums from the Downtown area…
So, my dear Arcatans, expect to see a portion of our already tight budget to go toward defending this god-awful ordinance that has more holes in it than swiss cheese. And watch with surprise as this ordinance does absolutely nothing to tackle panhandling, nothing except push the beggars to all the areas of town where they can panhandle at the expense of whomever is there.
Wow, maybe homeless people come to Arcata because it is one of the last place in the USA they can feel safe as homeless, houseless people abandoned by society. The weather isn’t freezing, the people here still have a vestige of humanity intact, and also, since there are a lot of houseless people here, there is a homeless community to belong to, mutual aid if you will. A way to feel not so alone, so lost. Could you imagine being so on your own? Homeless people call on resources that most of us JUST DON”T HAVE. Could you survive homelessness? I wouldn’t want to. I lack the courage, frankly.
The majority of people who are lucky enough to have a roof over their heads know how close we all are to being homeless. And so we naturally have tolerance for people who are already there. Gosh, lets villify those awful victims of the economic downturn everyone talks about. Look around you. Homelessness is a symptom of a diseased society. Homelessness is just one moment in time away for Alex Stillman and Mark Wheatly and everyone, all of us. Just one big natural or man-made disaster away. If that earthquake had been just a bit bigger….we all might have been homeless. We shouldn’t be such hypocrites. And the Arcata City Council ESPECIALLY shouldn’t be such hyps.
And please don’t think I don’t have respect for business owners. I do, I want them to succeed. So they can hire some homeless people, who than may be able to pull themselves up and away from the harsh stress of street life. And so they themselves do not become homeless. Duh.
Gosh Ms. Stillman, maybe you could develop a plan that offers a starter job in your real-estate empire every once and a while for a houseless person who needs JUST ONE DECENT JOB HISTORY under their belt to start to climb out of street life. Maybe that would assuage your conflict of interest in Arcata as Mayor. I am just not sure that stronger panhandling ordinances do anything besides create paperwork for the Arcata Police Department, and criminalize people who are already victims of their own life, and of our society.
There’s a rant for you. amy(Quote) (Reply)
Great post today. I have lots of compassion for the homeless. In my line of work I have clients that are also one step away from having no home (and a few who do live on the streets).
Let’s just sit back and wait for the potential lawsuit.
Oh, and I added your site to my list of links. Good to see you back! tapperass(Quote) (Reply)
Thanks for the love tapperass. I added your site to my list as well. Reporta(Quote) (Reply)