Safe And Sound

There are about 50 people at the city’s SAFE oversight committee meeting so far.

Outside, members of Sisters of the Road’s Civic Action Group are handing out fliers asking people which of six people in a sequence of photographs would be cited under the sit/lie law. Here’s Dale Hardway:

There’s a picture of a woman sitting on the sidewalk, then an unlicensed A-board and some unlicensed sidewalk cafe tables. Of course, all the pictures CAN be cited under the ordinance. But only the woman sat on the sidewalk actually will be.

“I almost didn’t come,” says Andrew Landers, a homeless youth. “I just remembered all the city hall meetings and figured it wouldn’t be worth it.”

I predicted the discussion would be broken up into small groups. Correct. I also predicted that the PBA’s vice president of downtown services, Mike Kuykendall, wasn’t going to be here. He is.

“In order to stay productive, the listening shouldn’t turn into a debate. We’re not really here to debate the merits of the ordinance, but for each person to speak about their experience of the ordinance,” says the mayor’s public advocate, Jeremy Van Keuren. “Each person should say what they have to say without humiliating anyone.”