Another `Odd Couple' emerges
Sean Morgan and Addison Winslow sit next to each other on the dais at Chico City Council meetings, but when it comes to most every issue, they couldn't be farther apart. So, it was somewhat of a surprise when they expressed mutual appreciation and found common ground after attending Tuesday's meeting with Safe Space Chico that closed — at least for now, hopefully for good — a rift that engulfed the city for weeks.
Quick catch-up: Safe Space accepted an offer from the owner of the building at First and Main streets (formerly the downtown 7-Eleven) to host the winter shelter's intake center. Mid-December, three days before opening, Safe Space received notification from the city that the use would violate zoning rules for the site. Safe Space stayed anyway … until last Friday, when code enforcement fined the property owner and the group moved its intake outside city hall.
Saturday morning, Mayor Andrew Coolidge called an emergency council meeting for noon; despite the short notice, Safe Space supporters filled the chambers. The five councilors in attendance heard from over 40 citizens, the vast majority advocating for Safe Space, and decided to have staff include Morgan and Winslow at the Tuesday session previously scheduled. (The council also voted to bar Safe Space from operating on city property and instruct the city attorney to proceed with litigation if Tuesday's talks proved unproductive.)
Once the sides spoke with each other instead of at each other, the maelstrom became a breeze. Safe Space confirmed Trinity United Methodist Church agreed to open its parking lot as the intake location for the rest of the winter sheltering season, thereby rendering moot any discussion of public spaces. The city tightened the communication loop, and together the sides set periodic times to confer.
So, in a way, the unusual — and heated — weekend council meeting was much ado about nothing. A hundredplus people interrupted their Saturday to raise their blood pressures and entrench their positions when the normal course of events brought a resolution that turned out to be inevitable.
Yet, the council meeting also brought councilors to a meeting they otherwise wouldn't have attended, and their presence added heft — as did the church's representative, Larry Wahl, a city planning commissioner who's also a former councilor and county supervisor. City Manager
Mark Sorensen made it four attendees with council experience; like Morgan, he's a former mayor, too.
Morgan suggested his colleagues send him and Winslow to join the confab; on the surface, it was an interesting choice. Morgan, the longest serving active councilor at four terms, for years has been the face — in particular, the mouth — of policies on homelessness that led the city smack dab into federal court for the Warren v. Chico litigation.
The past few months, he's been uncharacteristically quiet at council meetings. Saturday's session relit a spark.
Winslow, one of the two first-termers and the only liberal, championed unhoused Chicoans well before ascending the dais. He and Morgan have been civil neighbors, reminiscent of Alex Brown and Morgan in the same seating arrangement, but they've squared off in contentious debates.
They're not quite “the Odd Couple” of the council; that label fits Winslow and Tom van Overbeek, who've ebbed and flowed more frequently. Still, it was an unlikely pairing, even if logical for this matter.
Morgan made his recommendations for pragmatic reasons. He said he felt optimistic the city and Safe Space would find common ground, even before knowing about the longterm arrangement with the church. (Trinity Methodist initially agreed to host the intake center on weekends.) Morgan anticipated that if he and Winslow came away on the same page, different factions of the community would rally to their consensus.
Similarly, Winslow said his and Morgan's presence, outside the public glare, kept the city/shelter dispute from escalating further.
Might this experience affect their interactions as the year unfolds? That's something to watch.