Wednesday, October 25
Town Hall meeting
Bottom line: I came away with more information than I went with.
The bottom line is that the ACLU is spinning . They seem to be presenting the idea that the settlement agreement that they had proposed on the 20th of AUgust to the city council to vote on ,somehow prevents the homeless from being arrested.
According to the proposed settlement that was before us last month that the City Council of Los Angeles was going to address , called for the enforcement of ordinance 41.18 d in skid row between the hours of 6am and 9 pm . And allowing for 41.18 d to be enforced outside of these boundaries 24 hours a day 7 days a week. In essence, allowing the homeless to be arrested in skid row during the day and the rest of the city all day, if ,they were in violation of this ordinance.
So how is this protecting the rights of the homeless against 41.18 d? It really doesn't .
These are my reasons for oppoosing the setltlement:
1. It basically allows the legal creation of skid row and the conditions that are bad to continue There may be political will now, but in the future these politicians may not be here , and it will only allow the area to revert to business as usual.
2.Anti-biotic resistant infections are spreading out of control all over the world. There are many people who live in this community with compromised immune systems and we must not allow skid row to go back to the point that the public health of this community is compromised.
It was a long meeting and I believe that many of us came away with an understanding that we didn't have before.
I don't mean to be hard on LA CAN but they did nothing to help the cause tonight , because we are talking about a settlement with the ACLU and not Gentrification. They called these people racists and fascists, they called the audience a bunch of white people who were doing nothing but gentrifying the community.
There were a couple of surprises, and I am disappointed, but knowing people on both sides of the issue were upset with Russell Brown tells me he is taking the dialogue approach seriously and allowing this , actually allowed us to really understand what is in the minds of the ACLU and it allowed us to sift what is really being said as opposed to what is really going to be a part of the settlement. .
Bottom line: I came away with more information than I went with.
The bottom line is that the ACLU is spinning . They seem to be presenting the idea that the settlement agreement that they had proposed on the 20th of AUgust to the city council to vote on ,somehow prevents the homeless from being arrested.
According to the proposed settlement that was before us last month that the City Council of Los Angeles was going to address , called for the enforcement of ordinance 41.18 d in skid row between the hours of 6am and 9 pm . And allowing for 41.18 d to be enforced outside of these boundaries 24 hours a day 7 days a week. In essence, allowing the homeless to be arrested in skid row during the day and the rest of the city all day, if ,they were in violation of this ordinance.
So how is this protecting the rights of the homeless against 41.18 d? It really doesn't .
These are my reasons for oppoosing the setltlement:
1. It basically allows the legal creation of skid row and the conditions that are bad to continue There may be political will now, but in the future these politicians may not be here , and it will only allow the area to revert to business as usual.
2.Anti-biotic resistant infections are spreading out of control all over the world. There are many people who live in this community with compromised immune systems and we must not allow skid row to go back to the point that the public health of this community is compromised.
It was a long meeting and I believe that many of us came away with an understanding that we didn't have before.
I don't mean to be hard on LA CAN but they did nothing to help the cause tonight , because we are talking about a settlement with the ACLU and not Gentrification. They called these people racists and fascists, they called the audience a bunch of white people who were doing nothing but gentrifying the community.
There were a couple of surprises, and I am disappointed, but knowing people on both sides of the issue were upset with Russell Brown tells me he is taking the dialogue approach seriously and allowing this , actually allowed us to really understand what is in the minds of the ACLU and it allowed us to sift what is really being said as opposed to what is really going to be a part of the settlement. .
