a little megathread for this seems useful. what’s on your ballot folks? are you going out to vote today or have you already voted? if you haven’t or are interested in what significant elections are taking place today, Bolts Magazine has its yearly cheat sheet.
There are 3 city council positions up in my city. 2 of the 6 candidates want to sound like they would like to help houseless folks when they really just want to give the cops more money. At least they are not running for the same position, so it makes those votes simpler.
We had city commission candidates in my area who expressed similar sentiments (“He says … the city is not doing enough to deal with the homeless population and crime. He wants to improve the budget for both police and street maintenance”).
Seems it’s easy to think any attention is good attention if you believe the subject of your attention is more sidewalk detritus than person.
That statement could have been take from either one of those council members. Like they have almost verbatim statements. The big tell is they want to “add more first responders” but just mean more cops.
I think we live in the same city, one that recently awarded 40k a nonprofit who in turn is giving it to a shady org to sweep the camps. This is the first local election where I feel super strongly about the candidates, mostly because of the cartoonish hijinks going on.
Wow, it sure sounds like it. Small world indeed. I did not know about that particular contract, and it looks like it just happened. What a load of absolute hateful shite. That combined with the recent push to kick houseless folks out of parks/public property and I am just angry at most of the cities leadership. Watch out on the county election too. Our current anti-homeless, pro-cop mayor is running for a county council spot.
oh ya I voted for Teresa. anyway, cool to see a neighbor on here!
Hell yeah, I was not expecting that at all.
Ugh, I looked into it more, and it just gets worse. The director of CARES is also the director of Discover. He got a killer deal from the city on some property from the city, kicked the houseless folks out, and built a tiny dog park. I love animals and always thought CARES was a good organization. Turns out it is run by a exploitative jerk that puts pets recreation before people. Sorry, that is probably enough to pinpoint the city, but I’m pretty upset by that.
yep they’re all in bed together and so shady! have you been by the “dog park”? what a joke. also did you hear the city manager is claiming he didn’t see the email warning them they need to use the 1 mil in homeless funding or lose it? he had responded to it the same day. they have no intention of actually helping the unhoused, clearly.
I haven’t been in in, but I am around there at least once a week. What a joke of a “park.” I had not heard that about the city manager, but that doesn’t surprise me sadly. Only like 2 of the people in any kind of city leadership actually want to help people.