As the tone of this front page story in the Bee today about illegal camping in the Parkway makes clear, it is the adjacent community who wants to reclaim their Parkway who is in the wrong, not the people whose illegal camping, related crime, and habitat destruction has essentially taken the adjacent community's part of the Parkway from being an option for public use to one of avoidance.
The tone begins with the title byline, Citations...stir controversy; but to the larger community it is not the citations issued for illegal camping stirring the controversy, it is allowing the camping in the first place, and the resulting degradation of a large part of the Parkway, effectively removing it from safe and enjoyable use by the adjacent community.
The article highlights several very sad stories, which should stir the compassion in all of us, and one hopes the mentioned plan soon to be put forth, doesn't continue to forget the adjacent community wanting to see their Parkway usable again.
They also deserve our compassion.
Ticket to nowhere
Citations for homeless stir controversy
By Jocelyn Wiener -- Bee Staff WriterPublished 2:15 am PDT Sunday, September 18, 2005
Tina Marie Krisanda sat in the back of the paddy wagon and cried. She'd never been arrested before. She was terrified.
The police had arrived earlier than normal that hazy morning in late July. They woke up Krisanda and the other homeless people sleeping on the sidewalks and weedy fields in front of the Union Gospel Mission. They issued 23 tickets. They made 10 arrests.
In the pale yellow light of dawn, Krisanda and those huddled around her were breaking city law.
Some of Sacramento's homeless spend entire nights walking in order to avoid illegal camping citations that turn into warrants, then arrests. But most risk curling up in front of the mission, in the shadowy doorways of downtown shops or along the tree-lined banks of the American River.
For the rest of the story: http://www.sacbee.com/content/news/story/13584503p-14425342c.html
