Good Week / Bad Week

GOOD: More than a year and a half in the making, the city of Monterey is finally on the cusp of allowing overnight parking programs on private parking lots, a crucial step toward decriminalizing homelessness in a region where the problem stubbornly remains on the rise. The move comes after the city was approached in 2014 by theMonterey United Methodist Church, whose nonprofit Pass the Word Ministry offers safe overnight parking programs on private lots in Carmel Valley. On Aug. 18,Monterey City Council passed the first reading of a city code amendment that would allow homeless service providers like Pass the Word to begin administering similar programs within the city. The proposed ordinance was approved by the city’s Planning Commission last spring, where it was significantly pared down and stripped of regulations. Still on the Monterey books: a sit-and-lie law that may be unconstitutional.

BAD: There’s been a lot of commendable activism to emerge from tragic deaths at the hands of police. We’re starting conversations we should’ve long been having at local police department levels, and as a nation, about race and police accountability. There are constructive ways to do this, and there are not. Bad news this week comes in the form of Direct Action Monterey Network’s campaign to #PauseTheCalls, starting Aug. 29. “We can resolve conflicts among ourselves,” a flyer offers. Great idea. But then this: “Avoid picking up the phone and calling the cops.” Sure, police aren’t always right, and they deserve intense public scrutiny. But substituting vigilantism leaves us with no accountability. DAMN proposes Aug. 29 as a day to get to know your neighbor, which sounds good. They also urge people not to shop, work, eat or call the cops. But pausing society – and policing – are dangerous strategies.