|
|
|
| |
|
Vol.
I No. 8 Arcata Council Shaky Over Shelter
Plans By Charles Douglas
The long-running drive to provide an emergency shelter for displaced persons in Arcata has, despite an approved state grant and pending federal one, run into the uncertainty of conservative Councilmembers, as well as the ostensibly Green-registered Councilmember Harmony Groves, after opposition from business owners at recent Valley West and South G Street neighborhood forums. Larry Oetker, the Deputy Director of Redevelopment, warned from the start that the Planning Commission had considered the product of the Homeless Task Force and Humboldt State University consultants to be unfinished. “Essentially they said it wasn’t a plan,” he said. Groves took this impetus and the complaints of residential and commercial interests in neighborhoods to fuel her barrage against the “ghettoizing” of whatever area of Arcata ends up being associated with an emergency shelter for families in need. “I think it should be limited, I don’t think 120 beds are our share,” she said. Groves echoed the comments of Councilmember Mark Wheetley, as they both pushed for the county and City of Eureka to take on the burden of the area’s dispossessed population, although the Council was informed last year that the Service Center provides for approximately 800 people per month. They also joined Mayor Michael Machi in a now-familiar pattern to question whether the shelter should even be in the same facility as the relocated aid facility run by the Arcata Endeavor, even going so far as to doubt whether the Endeavor should be involved in these operations at all. “The Endeavor has not met the terms of the management agreement currently,” Wheetley said. “We’re setting up a very unfortunate set of circumstances…The City is not a provider of these services.” This was pointedly disputed by Councilmember Dave Meserve, who called on Wheetley to account for his accusation. “From what I’ve seen they have met the obligations of the management plan,” Meserve said. The unenforceability of the current management plan given the cramped quarters inhabited by the Endeavor was cited as the very reason to find a more suitable location, as Councilmember Paul Pitino reminded his colleagues. “We’ve got a tiny little spot, it needs to be bigger in anyone’s mind,” he said. “It’s kind of unfair.” Wheetley countered that he didn’t know what the Endeavor’s Board of Directors was anymore, and called for other options to be put on the table, which staff agreed to explore as the Council did manage to achieve consensus on the subject of scheduling another round of hearings on Jan. 18 to consider a re-worked Homeless Services Plan as well as a Management Plan for the new site. Groves teamed up with Machi and Wheetley as well to push for the piecemeal development of any service facilities, which may now be deployed in three phases. Oetker warned that the Emergency Housing Assistance Program funds being applied for had to be devoted to a single project, and must be for an accessible shelter instead of the tightly controlled transitional housing preferred by Groves. “You can’t put restrictions on who you provide services to,” Oetker said. Councilmembers eventually voted unanimously to schedule another public hearing for Jan. 18 and direct staff to synthesize the work of the Task Force and of HSU into a 20-page summary, followed by an action plan. Community Development Director Tom Conlon said staff had been operating on the assumption that the Endeavor would manager the shelter, although they were willing to consider alternatives. Shelter from the storm While no lives were lost in the Dec. 31 storm estimated by Police Chief Randy Mendosa to have caused $1.1million in damage, the lack of an emergency assembly area for housed residents washed out or cut off from their homes, much less for the homeless, was under scrutiny by many speakers. “There was no place to go for people, especially for seniors who were trapped,” said John McLan, who organized previous disaster relief efforts during a fire in Oakland. “Your city needs a focal place.” Forest activist Kim Starr questioned why police, who had complained of being overwhelmed with information requests and service calls during the storm, still found the time to roust homeless people seeking relief from the high winds and heavy rains. “When it’s an emergency, where do people go who are intimidated by the police, who are harassed by the police?” she asked. “It’s absurd…for the policy to remain as illegitimate, immoral, unethical and outrageous as it is right now.” Starr also complained about the supplanting of the former press table in Council Chamber by a seat for an armed law enforcement officer right next to the public speaker podium. “It’s a very intimidating experience here when the police are right here in front of public comment,” she said. Homeless resident Bruce Ogata said area motels had illegally denied shelter during the storm and noted the lack of power generators at many public facilities, even though some bars on the Plaza were up and running for New Year’s Eve celebrations. “What does it have to be, a Katrina storm for you guys to move quickly?” he asked. Mendosa said his department had received no specific requests for evacuation, so they declined to prepare one. “I can’t advocate for people to come out in the storm,” he said. “Certainly they could have come here [to City Hall].” In his earlier report, Mendosa had noted that City Hall was lacking in sufficient power generation itself, with the entire north side of the building without power. Even considering Groves’ consistent opposition to the entire Homeless Services Plan process, she expressed some shame when faced with Arcata’s continuing lack of an emergency assembly area in cases of disaster, such as the storms which piqued on Saturday. “I feel embarrassed slightly that there was not a plan to provide people shelter during the storm,” she said. Pitino said he didn’t understand why a shelter wasn’t opened through the city’s emergency declaration process initiated by City Manager Dan Hauser and later approved by Councilmembers. “The idea of having a focal place makes a lot of sense,” Pitino said. Arcata still against Bush Joined by Groves, Meserve again brought forward a resolution to call for the impeachment of President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, the third such symbolic statement since 2003. Again, the resolution passed 3-2, although with considerably lessened public interest on both sides of the debate. “There have been further crimes committed and more evidence over the last 16 months,” he said. “There’s a chance that this could be a reality.” Republican activist Gary DeBini repeated the familiar critique of focusing on national issues at the expense of local matters like potholes, suggesting Arcata’s reputation might sink lower among conservatives. “A city does not have proper jurisdiction as to how to impeach an official,” he said. Arcata nurse Judith Maxey countered that if it wasn’t for Bush and the “thieves and war profiteers” in his administration, Arcata would have the funds now wasted on the war in Iraq to fix the potholes. Wheetley urged impeachment supporters to use other channels than a city resolution, suggesting it would strain credulity to criticize the federal government while seeking disaster relief funds from them. “I’m quite confident Congressman [Mike] Thompson will do the right thing at the right time,” he said. Machi again joined Wheetley in dissenting as he had with the previous resolution as he expressed every confidence in Thompson. “We are supposed to let them do their job,” he said. “It’s not audience participation where you call for impeachment.” Thompson has declined thus far to join Senator Barbara Boxer in calling
for an investigation into potentially impeachable offenses. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Copyright © 2005-06, Humboldt Sentinel. All rights reserved. |
ARCATA
– If Wednesday’s Council meeting was any indication, a majority
of the City’s representatives are set to scale back, if not completely
derail plans for a new Arcata Service Center to replace an admittedly
undersized location at the downtown bus terminal.