About a dozen officers were briefed earlier this afternoon and are presently at City Hall in anticipation of a large, emotional crowd for tonight's 5:30 city council meeting. Police volunteers are also on site. Many of the officers will be handling traffic and parking, while others will be monitoring the crowd, with at least two officers at posts inside the council chambers. The city council tonight will be voting on various options for the controversial housing navigation center (HNC), which has stirred much emotion city wide. As readers of this blog know, homelessness has been on the uptick for several years now with many mentally ill, drunk or drugged out people roaming the streets at all hours. Until recent months there has been virtually no solution offered up except to arrest or to ask them to "move along".
Update: Police command have advised officers that the city attorney has declared the parking lot as part of the meeting and if the use of a megaphone would disrupt citizens from hearing the meeting, then that would be a violation of city law.
Update: Joey Geha of the EBT is reporting that officials estimate the crowd as between 500 and 750. So far, as of 7:25 p.m, no incidents have been heard over the radio talk group officers are using for this event.
I would be surprised if there aren’t any arrests tonight. It’s most definitely an emotional topic.
ReplyDeleteRadio traffic sure is quiet tonight. I didn’t expect that.
ReplyDeleteThe city council meeting radio traffic is on a separate channel that I'm listening in on on my handheld scanner. Pretty quiet there too...mostly talk about food, batteries and swapping out officers for a break.
ReplyDeleteI was wondering if they were using a different channel. That makes sense. LOL, important chatter. Lol.
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