Phoenix administration is seeking a second delay for the effective date of an ordinance banning medical care in city parks \u2013 including the use of syringes that many say are left carelessly in areas frequented by children and families.<\/p>\n
The request for delaying the controversial measure was on the agenda for City Council\u2019s March 3 meeting, after this newspaper\u2019s deadline, though it was expected to pass.<\/p>\n
The requests ask that the effective date of the measure be delayed until June 1, to \u201callow staff time to conduct additional research and stakeholder engagement and return to the Phoenix City Council with an update and any proposed clarifications or revisions to the ordinance,\u201d according to the request.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf there are any changes to the ordinance, the revised ordinance would supersede the original in that case.\u201d<\/p>\n
The measure was approved Dec. 17 by Council but then immediately its effective date was postponed until March 30 after medical professionals and homeless advocates and others decried the city staff\u2019s failure to consult with them before developing it.<\/p>\n
As it stands, the measure prohibits \u201cany person, group or organization to invite, promote, advertise, sponsor, organize, or conduct an event or activity designed to provide medical treatment to the public in a park, unless such event or activity is sponsored by or otherwise authorized by the city by approval through established city processes.\u201d<\/p>\n
It also prohibits \u201cany person, group or organization to invite, promote, advertise, sponsor, organize or conduct the sale or exchange of syringes and needles or organize or conduct a needle exchange or a needle exchange program.\u201d<\/p>\n
That prohibition included giving away a \u201charm-reduction kit,\u201d which it defined as \u201cany collection of paraphernalia used to save the life or protect\u201d people from the consequences of drug use, particularly syringes, alcohol wipes and testing kits.<\/p>\n
The ordinance had been in the making for months and came in response to what numerous council members say are\u00a0 barrages of complaints by parents about discarded syringes.<\/p>\n
At one point last December, Councilwoman Kesha Hodge -Washington asked city Parks Department Director Cynthia Aguilar if she kept mentioning discarded needles in parks \u201cbecause we\u2019ve had multiple incidents where our employees have been exposed or pricked by needles, and then those employees have had to undergo medical testing to ensure that they have not been infected with something.\u201d<\/p>\n
Aguilar replied, \u201cUnfortunately, we do every year, experience circumstances where parks employees undergo the situation or experience the situation you described.\u201d<\/p>\n
While no instances of residents experiencing the same issue were mentioned, testimony several months earlier last year before a council subcommittee indicated there have been numerous instances where users and employees have found bloody bandages and other medical paraphernalia scattered around ramadas or in trash cans.<\/p>\n
Looming over the entire debate, moreover, is Proposition 312, which allows property owners to claim a refund of their property tax payments if a city, county or town fails to curb homeless encampments, persistent panhandling or related nuisances.<\/p>\n
The debate became so intense last December between some council members and ordinance opponents who jammed council chambers that at one point, City Attorney Julie Kriegh had to remind Councilman Jim Waring not to interrupt speakers \u2013 who also were yelling and interrupting council members.<\/p>\n
Waring cited one constituent who said bloody bandages, syringes and other medical waste were discard with such abandon at ramadas and other park areas that they were \u201cwrecking her neighborhood.\u201d<\/p>\n
Waring harkened to Council\u2019s 2006 passage of a law forbidding smoking in public places because it was \u201cwrecking it for everybody else.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo now voters have spent billions on our parks and our libraries, and they feel like they can\u2019t use them,\u201d Waring said. \u201cThere\u2019s gonna be pushback. It\u2019s here now. \u2026People are tired of it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Councilman Kevin Robinson said that while he understood the need for compassion for people with no homes who needed medical care, he also was concerned about the city\u2019s liability if a park user contracted a disease through contact with medical waste allowed in parks.<\/p>\n
Scores of opponents of the measure decried city staff for not conferring with medical professionals involved in the park programs before creating the ban.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou cannot respond effectively to homelessness, extreme heat or public health emergencies while simultaneously restricting overdose prevention services in the very spaces people are forced to be (where) these policies are in direct conflict,\u201d said Dominic Orso.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis ordinance does not prevent drug use \u2013 it prevents intervention,\u201d Orso said. \u201cIt does not improve safety. It creates gaps where people fall through and sometimes die. I want to remind the Council of something fundamental. The people most affected by those by this ordinance are also your constituents.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou do not get to pick and choose which constituents deserve care, protection or public health services, people who are unhoused, people who use drugs, people in crisis, every single one of them is a Phoenician. Our parks do not divide people into worthy and unworthy.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the end, Councilwoman Laura Pastore initially moved to delay implementation of the ordinance for 90 days so that city staff could confer with medical professionals and groups that help street people.<\/p>\n
Pastore and colleagues Betty Guardado and Anna Hernandez expressed reservations about curtailing medical treatment for homeless people in parks and blamed the Legislature.<\/p>\n
They also expressed concern about an adverse impact on emergency calls for the city Fire Department and whether those calls would significantly increase if the park programs were not in operation.<\/p>\n
Hernandez complained the ordinance could result in \u201cincreased calls that could very likely result in increased or delayed, longer call response call times to meet all of our residents.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hernandez then apologized to the audience, telling members, \u201cI\u2019m truly sorry that the opinion and the facts that you as professionals in these fields and the providers do \u2013 health care, access to our most vulnerable residents \u2013 seem to not matter tonight.\u201d<\/p>\n
She said the process was being handled in a backwards fashion without adequate study and preparation.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have to take a vote on an empty piece of paper with zero guarantees that we will save lives as the fifth largest city in the United States,\u201d Hernandez said. \u201cIt is shameful that our answer to an overwhelming need for access to care is to lean towards criminalization and restrictions in our public parks.<\/p>\n
\u201cNothing in this ordinance will make our parks safer. Nothing in this ordinance will make our communities across Phoenix safer\u2026 Instead, what we are saying is that as the leaders of this city, we are okay with pushing our most vulnerable residents further into the shadows, further into neglect and further into despair.\u201d \u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Phoenix administration is seeking a second delay for the effective date of an ordinance banning medical care in…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":638375,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5131],"tags":[5229,5643,1587,270165,270168,122170,270167,1589,78288,270166,215128,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-638374","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-phoenix","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-arizona","10":"tag-az","11":"tag-cynthia-aguilar","12":"tag-dominic-orso","13":"tag-jim-waring","14":"tag-julie-kriegh","15":"tag-phoenix","16":"tag-phoenix-city-council","17":"tag-phoenix-parks-department","18":"tag-phoenix-syringe-ban","19":"tag-united-states","20":"tag-united-states-of-america","21":"tag-unitedstates","22":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","23":"tag-us","24":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116187228190995381","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/638374","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=638374"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/638374\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/638375"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=638374"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=638374"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=638374"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}