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City Council Punts |
June 30, 2009
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Call me weird (and you won't be alone), but I actually watched the City Council meeting last night. I'm not totally weird, as I had the Rockies game going on in an earphone in my left ear, but it's still at least a little weird to turn on Channel 12 at all.
Besides the usual consent-agenda stuff and some land-use matters, there were two proposed ordinances on the agenda that some people actually cared about. Specifically, they were ordinances on panhandling.
In case you live on Mars and haven't heard, the City Council kicked both ordinances, one banning "aggressive solicitation" and the other banning solicitation on City-owned medians and within 50 feet of controlled intersections, back to staff for more work. In other words, the ordinances the Council was given to review were garbage and the Council didn't feel like word-engineering them in a public meeting.
Good for the Council.
Let me be 100 percent accurate here. I think the City needs to deal with panhandlers. I don't know what that entails, but I have already gone on record in opposition to putting panhandlers in jail for a year, simply because I don't feel like paying for it.
Apparently, at least some of the City Council's resolve was shaken by a letter received earlier in the day from the American Civil Liberties Union. Think what you want about the ACLU, but they are right more often than they are wrong. The letter sent to the Council contained a great deal of common sense. Here's an example:Subsection (g) makes it a crime to solicit "after consuming alcohol." How long after? An hour? A day? A month? Those are damned good questions.
One thing I didn't know until I watched the meeting last night was that these proposed ordinances were on the agenda as "Emergency" ordinances. Emergency? I've lived here for more than 30 years. Although panhandling has grown in the recent decade, it isn't exactly a new phenomenon. Just because the City has chosen not to deal with panhandling for years, that doesn't make it an "Emergency."
One of the two ordinances, the one on aggressive panhandling, was kicked back to staff by a vote of 7-0. The other, on soliciting in medians, actually garnered five votes. Trouble is, as an emergency measure, it needed seven votes. It might have passed, except that two of the Council members tripped to the fact that the ordinance would also have banned "honk and waves," events staged by nearly every political candidate since God was a boy.
If the City staff wants to deal with panhandlers in a meaningful way, it needs to do more than simply trying to get the Council to ram through bullshit "Emergency" measures that deal with non-emergency situations.
The Council did the right thing last night. Let the staff earn their salaries by writing defensible ordinances that are actually worth a shit.
As an aside, a number of homeless people, those who had the most to lose from these ordinances, attended the meeting last night. They carried signs and "emoted" at every opportunity. Although that pissed off a couple of Council members, I found it entertaining, if not inspiring. Participatory democracy isn't always neat and clean. There were a couple of ordinances on the agenda last night, and there were people who had a lot to lose if those ordinances passed. The affected people showed up and spoke their minds. So what if a couple of Council members were pissed off? The affected people had a right to be heard.
Not all of us were trained by "Miss Manners." The people at the meeting have rights that don't go away simply because certain pompous elected officials desire decorum.
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After 239 days, the Minnesota Senatorial election is finally over. The Minnesota Supreme Court decided 5-0 that Norm Coleman's challenge to the results of the election was complete bullshit, and that Al Franken was the winner. Coleman conceded this afternoon.
The Supreme Court decision is here.
Now the Democrats have no excuses. They have a sixty-vote supermajority in the Senate. Instead of whining, Harry Reid will actually have to keep his caucus in line. Can he do it? I think not. Reid is worthless as a majority leader.
It wouldn't hurt for President Obama to get a little Lyndon Johnson going, either. Johnson got some serious legislation through, including a voting-rights act that helped elect Obama, by being ruthless.
There's a lot at stake right now, including health care for all Americans.
With Franken's victory, there are no more excuses for not getting it done. If the Democrats fail, they don't deserve to hold power.
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South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford is the luckiest SOB on the face of the earth. Last week, he showed up after being AWOL for a week and admitted he was in Argentina with his girlfriend. Then what happened? Michael Jackson died and pushed Sanford to page six.
Today, the Associated Press published an interview with Sanford in which he admitted that he had "crossed the line" with more women, and had met with his Argentine girlfriend on more occasions than he let on last week.
So what happened? The Minnesota Supreme Court announced the Franken-Coleman decision and pushed Sanford to page six.
Sanford is a scumbag. Every time he opens his mouth, he embarrasses his wife even more. But maybe there's something to all the "God" stuff he keeps spouting, because God keeps pushing Sanford's indiscretions back to page six.
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