Posted by a palo alto homeless guy, a resident of the Professorville neighborhood, on Jun 13, 2007 at 9:36 pm

1. Eileen Richardson allocated $90,000 per year for herself in her recent "Streets Team" funding proposal to the city. The indigent trash pickers she hires haven't been even getting minimum wage.

2. One of the councilmembers commented in the recent sit-lie ordinance discussion last week that many of the panhandlers are not homeless.

3. Not all people who might have to panhandle are drug or alcohol users, or nut cases like that guy next to the Whole Foods parking lot.

4. Two of the three homeless deaths last December were probably contributed to a police raid in the lower levels of the downtown parking lot, where it was 30 degrees warmer than at street level where it dropped down to 25 degrees at night, about the time they found the body of Lindi Lawrence.

It may have been appropriate to name it the "Sit-Lie" ordinance. Bureaucrats sit on their butts and lie to the voters and donors.

It's certainly a shame that because of the city's failure to effectively deal with the substance-abusing panhandlers that the freedom of others has been suppressed by the sit-lie ordinance. Girl Scouts can't set up a table and chairs to sell their cookies, and people with meritorious causes can not set up an ironing board and a chair with their literature.

Posted by a palo alto homeless guy, a resident of the Professorville neighborhood, on Jun 13, 2007 at 10:37 pm

I wrote above "contributed to a police raid" which should be corrected to:

"contributed to by a police raid..."

for clarity.

Posted by Walter_E_Wallis, a resident of the Midtown neighborhood, on Jun 14, 2007 at 12:50 pm

It is just a matter of time before the street folk get a good attorney and we have to pay back wages, medical, workmans' comp and, yes, lawyer's fees. My letters to the council on this have been routinely ignored.