Thanks for working on this!

a bit of misinformation here which it is really important to fix:

The motion you mention was actually tabled on the 14th. The motion that passed, on the 16th, was for a egan like warming center, to be open 7 day a week 5PM to 8AM to last through the winter and serve those with addictions and mental health issues. (This is important because a “wet bed” is a 24/7/365 operation. we want to be sure that it is clear that this was not some big fancy “wet bed” that was approved, but an emergency operation which was obviously to be opened immediately if it was to “last through the winter”. The city and st. vincents did open it for two nights…21,st and 22nd.

Next FACT: while the city did vote on Dec 20 as a reaction to youngblood fight, to shut us donw, they asked the city manager to do it in the most peaceful and practicable way …it was their clear intention to try to get at least some transition services in place. however, the police, with no provocation from the camp, decided to shut it down on the 21st (not the 22nd as you mentioned.)

Next fact: the city and st. vincent’s opened two centers: one at First Christian, one at the Wheeler Pavillion at the Fairgrounds.
These centers were open the 21st and 22nd, ejecting their residents at 8AM CHRISTMAS EVE MORNING

Additonal Information: To date the city has made no plans. Jean Stacey of Occupy Eugene and of Opportunity Eugene, the Task Force for homeless solutions that the City Council established, has met with city staff, including the City Manager, and has formally and publicly requested information from the City Council. As of Feb. 10 (weeks after the request to staff and 10 days after the request to council) she has been told no progress has been made. In a memo to Council, the City Manager stated that of the $300,000 total package the City pledged on the homeless issue (part to cover policing), $190,00 remains unspent and he expects part of it to be taken away from homeless services and reinvested (in the discretionary funds and park maintenace funds).

As of the writing of this article, our 250 homelessmember of the Occupy site have been sleeping out in the freezing, rainy weather for almost two months while the city staff sits on the Council’s money and ignores Councils orders to create these warming centers. NOTE; I REALLY WANT TO POINT THE FINGER AT STAFF AND I WOULD LIKE THEM TO KNOW THAT IT IS ME POINTING IT…..)

Jean et al, I don’t think the wording of the motion passed (actually on the 14th, tabled from the 12th) justifies calling it Council’s “orders” to create these warming centers. It was also not a “pledge” or “promise.” It was an “authorization” to contract and to spend up to $100,000/$300,000.

The two nights at Wheeler were for anyone, weren’t they, not just the homeless with behavior and addiction issues. I don’t believe they count that cost against the $100,000, but rather just from the $300,000 (which apparently includes the $100,000).

I’ve been trying to factcheck this issue too and here’s something strange: The minutes from the meeting of the City Council meeting on Dec 14 are not on the city’s website with all the other minutes of meetings. As a matter of fact the only December 2011 minutes that are posted are for the meeting on December 20, the emergency meeting when Council decided to shut down the camp.

Those minutes are here: www.eugene-or.gov/portal/server.pt/gate...

And if you read them you will see that Mayor Piercy twice mentions the intention to create a shelter for people with alcohol and drug addictions.

This afternoon I went to the Public Library, where paper copies of the minutes are kept, and could not find the minutes for the Dec 14 CC meeting there either. (If any of you know where the minutes are online, please post a URL.)

So I got a copy of the RG from December 15, 2011. Here is a quote from the article “Council Extends Occupy Deadline” by Edward Russo, which is subtitled : “Camp can stay until Jan 11; City approves $300,000 for safety and help for the homeless”: “Councilors approved other proposals in a series of 5-3 votes: to expand the city’s car camping program to include tent camping; to create an overnight shelter for homeless people with behavioral issues or who are addicted to drugs or alcohol; and to direct City Manager Jon Ruiz to seek emergency council approval for revoking the camping permission if he believes the camp poses an immediate risk to public health or safety.”

So from this it does appear that on Dec 14 a proposal passed to create an overnight shelter for people with alcohol or drug addictions.

That’s very interesting, that the December 15 minutes are not there. If the City Manager can’t or won’t produce them, I bet that’s a violation of the state’s Open Meetings law, and becomes an issue in itself. Seem like this release needs some more consideration. Can someone check with the City Manager’s office?

Fergus

The City doesn’t post minutes until they are approved by the Council. The draft minutes are grouped in big bunches and can be found on-line in the materials for the council meeting at which they are on the “consent calendar.” This can take some looking. Then one also has to notice (by being present or watching the webcast) if there was any correction to the draft minutes (which you can’t read in draft minutes for another 4-6 weeks). Also takes some time to watch to ensure no correction.

I can get an email in to the City Manager’s office for the right people to see on Monday, and they’ll probably reply on the same day. If someone searches through stuff (or asks a councilor) and finds the dates and/or materials, please let me know so I’m not bothering them unnecessarily. (I’m already enough of a pain in the neck to them.)

The RG reporter used the word “create” but my reading of the motions and actions is that word was deleted. So… if there is no existing agency to contract with, the city can’t be blamed for not doing this… (clever on somebody’s part?). Of course the City wasn’t and still isn’t of a mind to be creative and proactive and consider contracting with an entity such as we could create if only they would provide a location for it, and allow warming fires, say at W-J Park. (-: It would be a miracle if this kind of thinking comes out of the Opportunity Eugene Homeless Task Force. I don’t think it quite fits into any of the working group topics.

Sorry I’m getting off track from preparing a press release. But for anyone who has read this far, if you’re interested in organizing to try to make that miracle happen from the task force and subsequent council actions, please be in touch with me, via majeska at efn dot org. This relates to the nonprofit I’ve been setting up called ACT (A Community Together – Lane County) and the new ACT project called Occupy Opportunity. The wholistic community collaboration needed is not going to fall from the sky, but we can make it happen from the nitty-gritty around the grassroots.

How is it possible this press release has 4 stars when there is so much unresolved information?
…and over a 1000 meals a day served at Occupy?
When the fact checking is done, I look forward to starring it. Thanks for working on it.

I’ve made changes to reflect the correct information regarding dates. The 1,000 meals per day figure comes from Big John in the kitchen—I’m assuming he knows how many meals they were preparing each day.

I’m really concerned about the facts. Majeska and Jean have been having differences of opinion on these facts for several weeks.

As for meals, I hear such a wide range of meals being served, first it was 200, then 400, then 600, then 800 and now 1000. It’s losing credibility fast.

Tree has a good point that sometimes the starring process begins prematurely there’s absolutely no reason this should have 4 let alone three stars.

Something definitely sounds fishy. Does anyone have any connections with the RG or EW hwo might be interested in doing a little investigative journalism?

Tree is right. The facts need to be absolutely correct before this goes out in order to maintain our credibility.

I agree that we have a problem with our starring process and that it begins prematurely.

Press releases should be edited and factchecked before we star. Does anyone have any ideas on how this would work? How would we indicate that a press release has been edited and factchecked. How would we ever know it had been well fact checked.

Editing (at least copyediting) is a fairly simple job for people with good writing skills. Fact checking can be be hard and more time consuming than writing. Note three people are trying to check facts here and they disagree on some specifics.

Today I wrote to Mayor Piercy on her FB page:

“On December 20 the Eugene City Council held an emergency meeting on Occupy Eugene during which it ended the camping ban waiver and directed the city manager to begin closing down the OE camp. Twice during that meeting you spoke of providing a temporary shelter for those with mental health and addiction issues this winter. It’s now February. I’d like to know what progress has been made toward this shelter. Thanks!”

She replied:

Hello, you ask a good question. I’ve asked the same. The city manager tells me they’ve been looking for a site with no luck thus far. He tells me Terry McDonald has been trying to find an appropiate location.

The facts of the press release as written are accurate IMHO and easily verifiable except for the issue of how many meals were being served per day which is a figure that only Big John would know. Considering that he was serving breakfast, lunch, and dinner to 250 +/- residents of the camp plus any other volunteers that were on site, the 1,000 meals per day figure seems entirely realistic, however, we could change it to 500-800 meals per day which would be certainly be feasible and in line with other figures that have been released to the media previously.

I know the 12/14 City Council mtg date and info is accurate because I downloaded the video of the meeting and have watched it several times. I also know the closing date of the camp of 12/23 is accurate because I was there onsite cleaning up when they escorted the last occupier (the elderly Vet) out of the site, and into a hotel room across the street—they then locked the gate and posted a security guard who would not let anyone in or out to camp—only to clean. So, ingress and egress to W/J was stopped on the 23rd, which seems to me like a solid criteria for saying when the camp was closed. The dates that the Lane County fairgrounds temp shelter was open is also easily verified.

If we could, let’s please look at what the press release actually states as of right now as opposed to reading through all the conflicting comments.

I want to get this out too, Bret, so please be patient. Let’s get this so right no one can pick it apart on tiny details.

I agree the 12/14 date is accurate. (We were there; the RG reports it as 12/14, and you watched the video of it.)

The number of meals we served a day is questionable I’ve heard Big John answer that question many times, and the answer varies. The most comfortable edit here for me is"several hundred" or simple “hundreds,” which cannot be argued against IMHO.

Another word that bothers me is “pledged.” I find “pledge” a strong word of commitment and am uncomfortable with it because I think three or four councilors gave a grudging OK to the idea. Could we say “During a 12/14 Council meeting the City of Eugene passed a proposal to spend up to $100,000 to open . . .”

Now let’s look at “a 24/7 “Egan-like” wet bed.” Did you hear that phrase on the video? If so, I’m okay with it. But it’s not in RG report, and what Mayor Piercy says twice in the minutes of the Dec 20 minutes is “a temporary shelter for those with mental health and addiction issues this winter.”

Finally, in the questions, "Was this just a “Christmas Miracle, ” I find the word “this” vague, not wrong, just vague. So, I would explicitly state what you mean.

Finally in the nit picking department: change “shelter only stayed open for 2 day closing” to “shelter stayed open for only two days, closing”

If you are okay with all that I think we should put this out. I am going to post it below with my sugested edits included so you can see how it would read.

Bret’s Press Release with my edits:

As freezing temperatures return once again to the Eugene area we continue to be concerned about the 4,000+ homeless people in Lane County and wonder how they will survive.

During a 12/14 Council meeting the City of Eugene passed a proposal to spend up to $100,000 to open a temporary shelter for those with mental health and addiction issues this winter.

Then, two days before Christmas, the City began to close down our occupation site in Washington-Jefferson Park, where Occupy Eugene had been providing shelter, safety, and hundreds of hot meals a day to people in need.

While the City did open an emergency shelter at the Lane County Fairgrounds on December 22nd to accept some of the people that were displaced from our camp at Washington-Jefferson, that shelter stayed open for only two days, closing on Christmas Eve morning and sending people into the streets to fend for themselves.

Was the agreement to create a shelter for people with addictions just a “Christmas Miracle” from the City meant to make us all feel good for the holidays, or does the City of Eugene actually plan to act and spend up to $100,000 to help our most vulnerable citizens make it through the winter?

While I don’t see Vickie’s as a final version, I think it includes many improvements, including the paragraph breaks.

Vickie, do you want to submit that as the next version? I think when editing, you can delete the whole previous version, paste in the new version, and voila, crabgrass shows all the necessary strikeouts and changes that would be so tedious to do one by one.

Thanks, Majeska. I really want to hear what Bret has to say before I replace his version though.

Thanks everyone for all your input! I made some more changes, please see above. Also, I think it would be great timing to issue this press release on 2/14 which not only is Valentine’s day, but also marks 60 days since the City voted to approve the funds—-great timing I think!

Bret, why would we say the vote was for a “24/7” shelter?

As Jean wrote, “The motion that passed ... was for a egan like warming center, to be open 7 day a week 5PM to 8AM to last through the winter and serve those with addictions and mental health issues.”

Noted and changed.

I’m satisfied with the press release as it now stands with the last edit, which removes the 24-hr idea.

I’m a little frustrated by this editing situation, and don’t know how welcome I am to keep editing (nor how much time I’ll be able to give it).

I’m concerned about the credibility of the OE press release, with city people who know the details (not the public which doesn’t have a clue). Also OE credibility with new reporters who will certainly ask the city for responses.

I’m concerned about misinformation and poor messaging on this topic damaging our working relationship with the city employees upon whom this sort-of wet-bed proposal (questionable from the get-go) was dumped without consultation by city manager and city council. This is the same city employee who will be most crucial to work with on actions coming out of the city task force on homelessness (Michael Wisth).

I hope the St. Paul Principles don’t mean that I couldn’t publicly say that, while I am part of OE (focusing especially on the Homeless Solutions committee), I don’t support much of the message of this (potential) press release.

The headline needs changing, I hope we all agree.

Majeska I think the facts are pretty clear and well presented in the current version. While I understand your concerns about working relationships with the City, I think many people in OE feel that it is the City that has damaged the relationship—not us. They are the ones who pledged this money while the camp was active and in the public’s eye and thus a “thorn in their side,” and then once they shut the camp down they figured no one (who matters) is really paying attention to their lack of follow through and this press release addresses that in a respectful, but firm manner IMHO.

This press release now has more than enough stars in accordance with comcom’s process and should be released IMHO.

I appreciate all the comments by everyone attempting to get this press release right.

I think all group editing processes are inherently frustrating because while people may agree on broad issues, their emphasis may be on different particulars of any given situation, and everyone’s way of expressing ideas is different.

Majeska, if you have more edits to suggest, why don’t you add them in a comment? I would say (just me talking here) you have at least 24 hr, until the end of Comm Comm’s meeting tomorrow (2pm to 4pm). I am going to put an item on the agenda for us to send out this press release at the end of or just after the meeting.

And, yes, we need a different headline, although the RG may write its own headline no matter what we want. Does anyone want to make a suggestion for a headline? Here’s mine.

Occupy Eugene Asks: Where’s the ‘Wet Bed’ Homeless Shelter?

news reporters, not new reporters (above)

I have made some tweaks and now I expect to let this go (as a stand aside, if I were in a consensus process with comm comm).

It seems you (Bret?) are convinced you want to focus in this way on this item, rather than so much that needs to be said in a slightly bigger context. I’m not a writer so it’s hard for me to draft it or explain further here, and anyway I see your angle is set. Sorry I could not be of more help under the circumstances.

Majeska, it’s not clear to me what changes you would like us to make? I’d appreciate knowing.

I made changes in the final paragraph:

• added the date, “February 14th”
• changed the “wet-bed” term to “Egan-like” to match what it says earlier in the text
• changed “we’ve seen no results” to “we have seen unsatisfactory results”. I felt it would be a better way to frame our disappointment rather than saying there have been no results. The City could come back showing us that SOME progress has been made, discounting what we said, but the point is, we are not happy with the results.

What I’m hearing is Wisth needs to break a little rank and negotiate with his highers for the permissions to come to Occupy for help in doing his job. Maybe he has. I’ll go ask him. But I’ll ask Majeska first what she thinks about this.

Reid’s “February 14th” reminded me that AP style is Month abbreviated with number and no nd or th. So I made that changed throughout. Papers will edit to their style anyway, so this doesn’t really matter.

Anyway, it looks ready to go to me. Thanks to all.