Boy Scouts’ Late Night with City Council

After an expected 6-3 vote on the first ordinance, everyone knew how the rest of the evening would go. The Pensacola City Council would hold steady on the first reading of a group of ordinances that some say target the area’s homeless.

“This is like a bad dream,” said Councilman Charles Bare. “It’s like I ate some really spicy food and had a bad dream about some ordinance we’re trying to put on the books.”

From the very beginning it’d been heavy. After Pastor Brian Kinsey offered up a “blessed-are-those-who-are-kind-to-the-needy,-help-to-change-our-habits,-our-actions,-our-thoughts” prayer, Barbara Mayall laid down Isaiah 10, 1-4.

“I for one, I’m a sinner and I’m saved by grace,” Mayall said. “I just wanted to read you something. It’s Isaiah 10 if you want to follow on your phone, it’s Isaiah 10, verse one through four: “Doom to you who legislate evil, who make laws that make victims. Laws that make misery for the poor, that rob my destitute people of dignity, exploiting defenseless widows, taking advantage of homeless children. What will you have to say on judgment day? Who will help you? What good will your money do you?”

It wasn’t the first time someone had delved into the Bible in a city council meeting this week. Plus, the Boy Scouts were there, taking it all in, seated just behind council, observing the 45th annual Boy Scout City Government Day.

“It’s really sad to me, as a former scout, to see this type of activity take place at a meeting,” said Bare, “where we are being so disrespectful to a certain aspect of our community, and not addressing the problem, but punishing people for circumstances that are often beyond their control.”

Mayor Ashton Hayward has handed council three proposed ordinances for consideration. The first prohibits “camping” on public property, the second prohibits activities such as washing in a public restroom, and the third prohibits urinating and defecating in public; the third also originally included the prohibition of “aggressive solicitation, begging or panhandling,” but that aspect was peeled off for later consideration.

As in the Committee of the Whole meeting earlier in the week, the overwhelming majority of public comment was opposed to the ordinances. People said the proposals were unconstitutional as well as discriminatory.

“I just want to remind everybody,” said City Administrator Bill Reynolds, “this is based on the city of Orlando’s ordinance and it has successfully withstood court challenges.”

Just before council took it’s initial vote, President P.C. Wu directed his comments to the Boy Scouts.

“I was not going to make any comments, but I will because we have a room full of Boy Scouts here,” said Wu. “I want the Boy Scouts that are watching, as well as anyone who is watching on TV, “[to know] that what’s been presented to you, that if you’re a good Christian, you won’t vote for this, and if you’re not a Christian, you’re going to take the other side. That’s not true. It’s been presented that if you vote for this you’re anti-homeless, anti-poor. And I submit to you, ladies and gentlemen, Boy Scouts, that is not true.”

A few minutes later Jason King, who provides food to the homeless via his Sean’s Outpost organization, also addressed the Boy Scouts.

“Very happy that the Boy Scouts are here today, I was a Boy Scout, myself,” he said. “Being here and watching your city government is really important. I know you’re all bored. I know you guys were forced to come here as part of this and most of you are not really interested in being here and that’s cool that you guys are here anyway. But what you’re watching is really important, because what we’re talking about here is we’re talking about the right of human beings. Your fellow citizens here, that we’re discussing here. And the council president just made the comment that this is a democracy, and it is, and 18 people came to speak and 17 of them spoke against this. One person stood for it. That’s not really democracy. Okay? It’s really not. This is how your government works. I want you guys to pay attention to that, because this is actually how your government works.”

A few minutes later, the Boy Scouts left the council meeting. It was getting late, and the bulk of the agenda lay on the other side of these ordinances.

After listening to more public comment, council went on to forward the next two ordinances to a second reading. Later, they also voted to discuss forming a task force to address the issue of homelessness in July.

They also voted—on a 5-4 split—to place the fate of council’s two at-large seats on the June 11 special election ballot, but that’s another story …