By Emerson Drake
7/29/11
Yes, Joe Muratore’s tainted so-called Blue Ribbon Commission on the Homeless is going to present their recommendations to the Safety and Community Committee Monday night at 5:30, Room 2005, 1010 10th Street.
The committee includes two former Directors of SCAP, the now notorious non-profit known more for bestowing favors to family members and squandering money. It also includes builders and developers and those who would like to profit from becoming Muratore sycophants.
It truly seems that just a few of the committee members are its driving force. Little, if any, public discussion was made regarding what these final recommendations should be, and no vote was taken for members to weigh in or contribute to the final list. Now don’t get us wrong, the committee members were led by the nose in an attempt to portray an involved and cohesive decision-making process, but that just wasn’t how it actually went down.
The committee’s driving members seem determined to push the homeless out of Modesto. They showed examples of how a “private security force” would be utilized to ensure the homeless in Modesto could only spend a short time in public parks. After all, why would we want the public to be in public parks? The security force would not be supervised by the Modesto Police Department, but by Julie Hannon, Parks and Neighborhoods Director who has also been responsible for the city’s SCAP oversight. We’ve seen how well that has gone, haven’t we?
Councilman Joe Muratore was the driving force behind the closure of McClatchy Park (by the county library) to the public, except for two hours a day. Joe and Mayor Jim Ridenour plotted to help balance the parks budgets by closing bathrooms to children and everyone else who needed them. Due to the public outcry about that, the decision was reversed.
When the Blue Ribbon Committee was formed, Councilman Muratore didn’t want the public to be allowed input at the meetings. We had to bring it up at a City Council meeting for the public to even be allowed to make comments. At a recent meeting Mike Moradian said the committee shouldn’t have allowed the public to have a say because the committee members were “chosen” to make the homeless policy for Modesto.
We all remember it was Mike Moradian who used his formerly non-profit LaLoma Neighborhood Association to help Muratore get elected to the City Council in the first place. So letting Mr. Moradian have his way on the committee was a little political payoff between Joe and Mike.
This committee was composed of hack political paybacks, non-profit profiteers, and builders and developers. It also included businessmen cloaked in alleged well-meaning, but who would find doing more business with the Commonwealth desirable. There were also a few misguided do-gooders who have remained silent during the committee meetings and who have had little input to what Muratore and Moradian would like to think of as the “final solution” to Modesto’s homeless problem.
Wouldn’t it have been better if they had concentrated on the problems the homeless face3 and how we, as a city, could improve the quality of life for ALL citizens of Modesto?
This sham of a committee and it’s coming report (which was perpetrated by Joe Muratore on the people of Modesto and the City Council and propped up by the local print media) should be thrown out with the garbage.
