The
battle over the homeless raged on at the Chico City Council meeting last
Tuesday. This particular conflict had to do with a church feeding the hungry.
Orchard
Church of Chico had been holding weekly barbecues for the needy in the Downtown
City Plaza for over five years until a park ranger recently told them they
needed a permit to continue.
Pastor
Jim Culp applied for the permit, which was approved by the Bidwell Park and
Playground Commission for three months.
Councilmember
Sean Morgan was surprised when he read about the decision in the “Chico
Enterprise Record.”
“Given
the transient issues we are faced with downtown -- a massive amount of emails,
and phone calls, and personal comments and snail-mail that I think we’re all
getting (on the Council) regarding these issues -- I was a little surprised
that this didn’t find its way to (the) Council,” Morgan said.
Morgan
then decided to appeal the permit so it would be put on the agenda for
discussion at the next meeting, but was told that a Council member cannot
appeal a decision once the Commission makes it.
He
then decided to file the appeal as a private citizen, but again was told not to
because, if he did, he wouldn’t be able to vote on it.
“This
is insane,” Morgan said, “I thought to myself, OK, (now) I understand all the
jokes about government, and how none of this process works at all, and to be
quite honest, I was appalled.”
A
local citizen then made the appeal, right before Morgan found out that all he’d
needed to do was ask the City Manager to appeal it for him.
“It
wasn’t that I wanted this agendized so I can overturn it,” Morgan said, “it was
just, I think, this is a big enough issue at this time in the City’s history
that, I think, perhaps the elected officials need to discuss this.”
After
Morgan finished his self-proclaimed “monologue” on what he called the “disturbing
chain of events” that finally brought the issue to the agenda, the Council
voted unanimously to “hear” it at a later date without opening up the floor for
public comment.
Local
activist Mark Herrera, a member of the Parks Commission, had been waiting all
night to speak on behalf of the Commission and to voice his own “personal
outrage.”
“Waste
of my (…) time,” Herrera said, under his breath as he got up to leave.
When
asked how he felt about the decision, Herrera said, “I’m just upset that they
didn’t let the public get an opportunity to stand up. If they have the
opportunity to speak about something, so should we.” He then added, “Some
people just want to get rid of things instead of finding solutions.”
Ironically,
Herrera could have spoken if he would have stuck around for the “From the
Floor” portion of the agenda.
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