Hi, all – Just a quick update on what I had in my email today from the City. I’m providing the update as a way to give you full disclosure of how the City presented their ideas to me as a constituent. I am unconvinced.
- Mayor Koeslch graciously replied via email last night, and he and I still disagree on whether Ordinance 2016-44 is a good idea. He thinks it is important to have this police power.
- I still think Ordinance 2016-44 is a misguided diversion of energy, attention, and resources. I mean, what does it actually accomplish? People too poor to sleep inside are too poor to be able to pay fines, so why would they even care about them? Thus, it’s not a deterrent. And if they’re too poor to pay fines, they’re going to end up swept into the legal system, going to court again and again, and getting warrants for their arrest because they miss their court dates, at which point JPD will have to find them, and then they’ll likely go to jail because they are too poor to sleep inside so they don’t have the money to pay fines or costs of incarceration, or court fees, etc. … And after we lather, rinse and repeat this, how are we as a community better off?
- I received a separate email from Scott Ciambor, CBJ’s Chief Housing Officer, with some interesting links: a packet of information dated 1/4/2017 titled “Update on Mayor’s Ad-Hoc Committee on Homelessness”; a link to the Juneau Community Foundation’s Housing First Project; and the following graphic:
This is a slide from Scott Ciambor showing a list of ideas from a “brainstorming session” on homelessness
There are some very good ideas that have been presented to the Mayor, any or all of which should be pursued instead of the ordinance under consideration tonight. I hope to hear cooler heads prevailing.
Mary
