Council was told security hired to prevent encampments wouldn’t make arrests. One councillor is questioning why city documents say otherwise. Also, a council motion about tent cities goes before the public in the next few days.
“What I’ve seen is they are very vocal about what they want to happen,” Coun. John Platt told the council.
“I want to make something very clear. This is a city’s right to allow tents. I respect that. But we have to make sure we don’t have people standing in front of their businesses. This is not an issue for me.”
But the mayor was having none of that.
“You know what, we can’t have this conversation,” he interrupted. “This is not an issue for me as mayor.”
Coun. Dan Vandal said he’s “very interested” in being mayor, because he’s the only one who said there would be a tent city.
“I’m very interested in being mayor,” he said, “because I’m the only councillor who, when the public came forward and they were asking what was going on, when they wanted to know where the tents were going to be, when they wanted to know what was the mayor’s stance on this, I didn’t hold back.”
“I’m ready to be mayor if I can be,” he added.
The public also has the vote on council Tuesday evening. After that, the city’s bylaws could change.
The motion says there should be at least one tent city near the airport.
“I have said that I would like to see that not the only tent city. I believe that the city should be working on a policy of having multiple tent cities. It should be a policy that will serve the city well. At this stage, we have one tent city in the east downtown and that was built out at a tremendous cost
