ProvoCitizens.net - Talking Points

Talking Points - 4 March 2003:

The City Council is not the enemy. Its members care about Provo and want it to be a great place to live.
The City Council also appears perfectly willing to "defend" the "rights" of certain people -- married people and resident homeowners -- even if that means stripping the actual rights of other people: single people, students, homeowners in general, and renters.
If you pin some of them down, they will admit that what they want is for single people and renters to get out of neighborhoods where they are not wanted by some of the residents. What they want is for renters and single people to "get back to living in their part of town."
This ordinance and scores of others like it are political problems, not necessarily legal problems. It is possible, but by no means certain, that a legal challenge would be successful. It is certain, and absolutely possible, to solve the problem the same way it was created -- by persuading or removing members of the Council.
4 members of the City Council (Lockhart, Poulsen, Hathaway, and Sandstrom) are up for election this year. That is a majority.
The people of Provo will listen if they are talked to often enough and hard enough. That means letters to the editor, flyers, phone calls, meetings, and everything in between.
Students are the citizens most affected by this ordinance, and should be the easiest to persuade that it is a disaster. Students could make the difference in the elections this year.
If we lose at the Council level, we will collect signatures and file a initiative to get the measure on the ballot in November. We will organize and we will work and we will sacrifice. And we will win. One day, we will win, make no mistake.

Chris Jones
czr@aminuteman.com

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