Aaleah McConnell: Hey Kelly. I really want to talk about this spicy city council meeting we witnessed this week.
Kelly Kenoyer: I think a lot of us have been following City Councilman Luke Waddell’s re-proposed ordinance prohibiting certain actions on city property.
AM: Essentially, It criminalizes public encampments on public property: setting up tents, cooking equipment and bedding. And it makes it illegal to leave personal items unattended in these parking decks or sidewalks — or pretty much anywhere within the city’s jurisdiction.
KK: One thing worth noting here is that there aren’t actually a lot of new things covered by this ordinance. The city manager said it mostly is putting all these pre-existing misdemeanors under one ordinance. The only new thing is a ban on staying overnight in surface parking lots. But let’s talk about the supporters. Waddell was the one who brought this, and obviously supported it…
AM: I mean, certainly this ordinance got support from his fellow republican, Charlie Rivenbark. The meeting also started with downtown business owners and leaders asking for “something” to be done downtown.
KK: Right: they cited not just homeless people making their customers uncomfortable, but also rambunctious marines and underage youth, doing things like shooting fireworks at cars on Fourth of July weekend.
AM: Yeah, and these business owners understand there’s no quick-fix solution to those issues, but they are hoping to see the city do something — which proponents argued this ordinance would do. Here’s Joe Apkarian, the owner of Taco Baby, pleading with the council to take action…
Joe Apkarian: We have members of the unhoused community from sunup to sundown, downtown, aggressively panhandling, committing lewd acts. Something needs to be done.
AM: At one point during the conversation, Waddell presented videos of people acting disorderly in front of some businesses downtown in broad daylight.
In one of them, police had a man pinned to the ground for breaking into a woman’s vehicle.
KK: They were pretty harrowing videos, to be sure. But, at the same time, Councilwoman Salette Andrews asked [interim] Police Chief Ralph Evangelous what impact the proposed ordinance would have had in these situations.
Salette Andres: So those videos that Luke showed, I mean those, those are just awful, awful things. What? Which one of those crimes, if any, would this ordinance address?
Ralph Evangelous: Well, I don't know that that would address anything that was a that was a, probably a felony… But, yeah, I'm not saying that the ordinance is the fix of all this, because nothing's to fix of all this.
KK: I would say she and all her fellow democrats on the council were pointing to a lack of services as the cause of homelessness, and saying that was more important to address. Chief Evangelous agreed, calling drug abuse and mental illness a “vicious circle,” and stated that WPD would try to get people help first. But he also talked about social order, and said some folks just refuse to accept services, and there’s a point where you have to say, “enough is enough.” He also said the ordinance could be another tool in the toolbox.
AM: He pointed out previous ordinances that allowed the police to tell the unhoused to move along. But he said, “where do they go?” He clearly thinks there aren’t enough services.
KK: Waddell said he’s never been opposed to more services, particularly at places like Eden Village — though he does oppose housing first policy. And he called the democrats out for weak leadership.
Luke Waddell: Yeah, a lot of impassioned speeches and finger-pointing: it's not us, it's, it's somebody else. And I'm used to it at this point, but frankly, it's weak leadership.
AM: After a whole lot of back and forth and tension, Mayor Bill Saffo ultimately said he’s not willing to have a vote on the measure today. That vote will come in September. Rivenbark chastised him for “kicking the can down the road once again,” but we’ll have to see what happens next month.
KK: I’ll say that we didn’t get a lot of speakers in this meeting who were opposed to the ordinance, but you could hear them in the audience. Homeless services workers and volunteers came out to push back on this proposal and have been all over social media, voicing opposition to the criminalization of homelessness. Waddell’s supporters are similarly in his corner. I’m curious what the public comment period will look like before the vote on this next month.
AM: There’s a lot more to report on with this story, and I know we’ll be digging into exactly why the police can’t effectively enforce existing ordinances right now – that was a question from Councilmember David Joyner. But for now, thanks for talking with me, Kelly.
KK: Thanks, Aaleah!
