Redmond City Council candidate Clifford EvelynRedmond City Council candidate Clifford Evelyn

On Tuesday, Aug. 23, Redmond city council addressed concerns in regard to safe parking near the Pershall Neighborhood.

Citizens made comments in favor of safe parking, as well as against it. Both sides made excellent points in regard to the benefits and the concerns of the program.

For the record, Safe Parking has been in place and operating efficiently at Mountainview Fellowship Church and Pastor Rick Russell and the staff has done an excellent job at managing it. Because of their attentiveness, this program has been successful.

I am disheartened by the fact that some found this meeting to be an opportunity to degrade the efforts of a pastor, city manager, city staff, the behavioral health case manager and the council who have worked so diligently to address an issue that has affected cities across the United States. Instead, they took the opportunity to exacerbate the issue instead of looking at finding a resolution. We did receive some proposed properties recommended for safe parking by citizens and this may prove to be helpful in the future.

I want to be clear in saying that as a Redmond city councilor I have complete confidence in our city manager, Keith Witcosky, his management team, and my colleagues on city council.

I also want to say that we, the city council, was briefed on safe parking on various occasions, and last fall the city invested $50,000 in ARPA (federal) funds toward this. In addition, state legislation (HB 2006) allows cities to take action in an effort to address homelessness issues and this aligns with reasoning for the safe parking program.

I want to remind everyone that the city of Redmond had a prime opportunity to address homelessness with help from the ARPA funds. After the council listened to several very detailed presentations explaining how the plans would help the homeless, the council — in a 4-2 vote — rejected using ARPA funds for that purpose.

The presentation was made twice. Safe parking was then presented as an alternative to at least do something to begin addressing this issue.

Rick Russell spearheaded this effort and keep in mind he is a citizen — he does not work for the city. He is a community pastor who cares very deeply about our city and the homeless in our city. He used his church to initiate a safe parking program and to help make a difference in our city. Instead of showing gratitude for his efforts, there are those who have chosen to ridicule and criticize him for his efforts instead of applauding his efforts.

Redmond City Council and its staff are going to do what’s in the best interest of the city of Redmond. Keeping Redmond safe for everyone is and always will be a top priority. Getting a handle on homelessness is also a priority. Our job is to find solutions and in doing so we will be transparent and demonstrate a level of character and integrity in this process.

There was a communication breakdown at some point, but I’m sure it was not intentional. Everyone wants the homeless issue addressed, but only a few are doing anything to ensure that it is.

I know that it’s campaign time, but using this as a platform is not how we resolve real issues such as this. We are talking about human lives.

Safe parking is a short-term solution and eventually that area will be a park. I also have complete confidence that our police department will be ready to respond if the need arises. In summary, our city manager, deputy city manager and city attorney and their team are very competent and understand the obstacles.

To win and be effective, I want our citizens to know what we are really dealing with, so we have to dig beyond the distorted perceptions and deal with the reality.

We must first get past the distorted perceptions about the reason for homelessness and then we can get serious about addressing it with a positive plan in place. Safe parking is the beginning of that positive plan.