the Daily Planet:
"the Minneapolis Free Speech Group meeting from 11 a.m. to noon in Room 333 of
City Hall.The group includes Mayor R.T. Rybak, Police Chief Tim Dolan, City
Council Members Ralph Remington and Paul Ostrow, as well as representatives of
Minnesota ACLU and other..."
Yep, I sure do rest comfortabley knowing that the Mayor and the rest are
meeting to protect my free speech......oh wait, this is the same Mayor and
Council Person who adamantly fought for the new
panhandling ordinance that clearly restricts free speech and assembly...if you
are poor and/or homeless.
But that ordinance will only be used to harass and hassle homeless folks during
the RNC...as other cities have done, so goes Mpls. i.e. get those poor folks
out of sight during the national conventions...bad for business you know.
Oh and by the way Mr. Mayor and Ms. TenBroeke......are you paying attention to
the weather getting colder? I know, just tell the homeless folks who have to
figure out what to do with themselves during the day and those who survive
outside that they only have 9 more years to go and homelessness will be ended.
Of course since our shelter providers are so into helping homeless folks, maybe
they might want to take advantage of the ability to legally let people stay in
the shelters out of the cold during the day.
And I don't mean for a couple of extra hours. After all, our shelter providers
are touting how they are making things so much better, they are getting what
they now need from HHH in terms of support and funding.
The funding is coming down to them now....or if they say it is not...why are
they so in love with the HHH plan? Can't have it both ways...well actually you
can I guess..if it is at the expense of the people you are supposedly serving.
After all, these are the providers that require someone to be homeless 5 years
before they consider them eligible for housing vouchers. And that is straight
out of Ms. tenBroeke's mouth to a roomful of people at a meeting I attended.
And she is supposed to be the expert on homelessness? God help us all if our
experts think it is ok that someone has to live homeless 5 years before being
eligible for help.
Time to let people in out of the cold instead of turning them out in the early
morning to the streets.
Margaret Hastings
Kingfield