I'm not into passes, for anyone - janitors, lawyers, head coaches, street workers or anyone else, including cops. Black, white, yellow, brown, whatever. I don't give a shit.
But I'm guessing doing your job as a cop with the camping ban is pretty much a shit show circus with Spencer Crock as the wayward ring leader. He was assigned as the individual to oversee implementation of the camping ban that went into effect May 1, 2001. He was (and is) in charge of mandating everything around getting rid of tents, trash, urination / defecation and all the other joys relating to our red carpet laid down on every public street in Austin. In charge of dictating what anyone can and cannot do when it comes to eradicating camping in the city. The vast majority of voters, by far, said that it needed to be cleaned up. Cleaned up? Take a look at Ben White today. The homeless aren't into leaving public property. More so, they're now into expansion mode. Think not? Grab an outdoor seat at the Arby's on 71 and Westgate and behold the new sights looking north.
Everyone is just taking direction from Cronk and the 10 buffoons on the city council. This is a tribe that not only wants to ignore the camping ban but, more so, wants public camping to be part of our city's hallmark card from the chamber of commerce as it desperately tries to be a city with a Pacific NW zip code. And, guess what? There's no one that's going to challenge or change that. The voters asked for it to be banned. Alas, two years later, camping in the city is not going away. It's beginning to thrive again. And will continue to do so despite Matt Mackowiak, his goons and their camping ban challenges. They're collectively a medium-sized fart in a sustained, very gusty wind.
I don't blame Cronk, per se. He's just getting marching orders. And this has never been an issue about being anti homeless. It's about being anti-camping in the city. And more so, about being against the idiocy, buffoonery and crookedness in our city government that gets $60,000,000 a year to address homelessness. $60,000,000 a year. And somehow, miraculously, can't figure out how to get a few thousand homeless people off the city streets and into housing, while still being able to line their pockets a little. It's a joke. But the bigger joke has been and will continue to be the collective idiocy of the Austin voting base that continues to put these clowns in charge.