Ken Schram Takes On Tacoma City Council (27. September 2006, 20:42 by Derek Young) ~ Ignorance is...
In what appears to be a complete disregard for the real debate, Ken Schram has given a ‘Schrammie’ to the Tacoma City Council for its recent decision on panhandling. The issue is this:
The city can’t prevent panhandling, in general, as it’s protected speech. So the city’s position was to make it illegal to block or impede the flow of traffic while collecting money. This was intended to target those panhandlers at major intersections and freeway offramps that occasionally hold up traffic as they receive money from motorists. The firefighters had asked for an exemption for their annual ‘fill the boot’ campaign for MS. They said that since they only accept donations when they have the cross walk, and since they use spotters, they had safety in mind and it should be excluded from the new law. The problem, or so we heard, is that the firefighters often didn’t follow their own rules. So, when the council heard this, they removed the exemption since, if safety is the concern and firefighters aren’t being any more safe than the panhandlers, the law should be the same for everybody. No exceptions.
Of course, there is no easy answer to this one. This was obvious during the public hearing last week. The first amendment question alone requires a decent debate to understand.
Ken Schram’s summary is “Apparently the council can’t tell the difference between a firefighter and a panhandler, and has put a stop to raising money for charity.” I can write a sweeping generalization as good as the next guy, but that’s pretty bad. Dumbing down a debate simply because one has a soapbox is… nevermind.
Update: And, as the Takhoman has pointed out, the council hasn’t voted on this yet.
Link to Komo TV
Commenting Is Closed
Comments are allowed for two weeks from the posted date. If you want to make a comment or reopen this discussion, please contact us with your request. Thank you for visiting.
I think them Seattle folks are scared that the Homeless Shuttle Express is heading north.
1 | Posted by Jake | Sep 27, 09:16 PM
Ken Schram is a moron.
2 | Posted by craigA | Sep 27, 09:26 PM
I don’t like panhandling. Never have, never will.
But I’ll tell you something else I don’t like and that’s those VERY aggressive firefighters sticking their boots in my path at an intersection.
The first time I encountered a pack of ‘em swarming all over the intersection at 38th & Tacoma Mall Blvd, I didn’t know what the heck was going on and I almost ran over one of them by accident.
These guys were obviously on a mission and nothing was going to stop them from getting those boots filled with cash.
Their intent was good but too many of them seem to get carried away with their cause and it sometimes becomes an un-nerving situation.
Firefighters deserve all the support and respect that anyone could ever deserve.
But there’s gotta be a better way to raise money for their selected charity than that.
Kudos to the city council for shutting down the practice.
3 | Posted by Steve Hurley | Sep 27, 09:40 PM
I hate to say it- but I had the exact same thought just recently during a fill the boot thing on dreaded 38th near the mall – it seemed like an accident waiting to happen. Don’t they have an online boot?
4 | Posted by morgan | Sep 27, 10:14 PM
“Apparently the council can’t tell the difference between a firefighter and a panhandler, and has put a stop to raising money for charity.”
If the council believed they could have let the firefighters continue without a legal challenge, they would have let the firefighters continue with their boot campaign.
The council wisely included a ban on firefighters as the constitution does not allow one to discriminate based on the “content” of the message. Both groups were going out into traffic asking for money.
Schram either didn’t understand the legal issues, or worse, he did but decided to try to mock the council anyway for the fun of it.
And yes Schram, the Tacoma City Council does know the difference between the someone begging with a cardboard sign and a firefighter collecting for a charity.
However, the state and federal constitutions do not allow the council to bar one group from asking for money in the street and bar the other.
I agree 100%—have a parking lot the firefighters can use for people to safely drive through to fill the boot or, as Morgan, do it online. It’s too aggresive for anyone to be allowed to wander through traffic to solicit money for any purpose. Isn’t that called J-walking?
6 | Posted by KevinFreitas | Sep 28, 05:32 AM
There ya go. That’s a good idea Kevin. They could make a gauntlet in a parking lot with the firefighters and their boots on each side for the cars.
That would actually be fun. The kids would love it, throwing coins and bills out their windows and into the boots.
Less stress on the drivers, more fun for the community, more money for the charity. Everybody wins.
7 | Posted by Steve Hurley | Sep 28, 07:39 AM
I don’t care what Tacoma City Council does, as long as they get rid of all those poor people. I hate looking at them. I just want to go to the mall and have a Cinnabon, and these poor people depress the hell out of me. I like the ingenuity of criminalizing their chosen means of support and criminalizing inhabitance of their chosen places to live. Now they’ll all go to Fife and Parkland to panhandle and sleep. Or, as Jake suggests, to Seattle. I don’t care. As long I don’t have to look at them.
Firefighters, by the way, are heroes. They collect all that money to help people who have a hard time making it in this world. That’s what the Bible says to do.
Deuteronomy 15:7: If there is a poor man among you, one of your brothers, in any of the towns of the land which the LORD your God is giving you, you shall not harden your heart, nor close your hand to your poor brother; but you shall freely open your hand to him, and generously lend him sufficient for his need in whatever he lacks.
Don’t impede the firefighters from doing God’s work. But please, please, please send those homeless people where I don’t have to look at them.
8 | Posted by Simon Moon | Sep 28, 08:01 PM
The Tacoma City Council has never had a “real debate” about anything. At least someone is paying attention to what they’re doing- the TNT sure isn’t. Ken Schram is one of my guilty pleasures, but he is off on this one. It is a free speech issue. Don’t we pay a whole team of city attorneys to point these facts out. Panhandling laws always end up being overturned. Filling the boot is charity but so is helping the poor and homeless. This is one issue that the council needs to let die- before it ends up costing the taxpayers in court.
9 | Posted by J. Campbell | Sep 29, 12:11 PM
Simon,
Do you think Jesus would say “send the homeless elswhere I don’t want to look at them” ???????????
10 | Posted by Larry Stemp | Sep 29, 02:17 PM
Uh, Larry, I think Simon’s post was was sarcasm. And about as subtle as a 2×4 upside the head. Anybody got a 2×6 for Larry?
11 | Posted by cck | Sep 29, 08:51 PM
Commenting is closed for this article.
