After Ron Tapsscott’s citation on January 26 for holding a “special event” without a license, a class one misdemeanor (pre-trial conference March 19).  Rev. Dr. Tom Martinez, convenor of Tempe Interfaith Fellowship, received a written warning for the same this past Sunday. What will happen this Sunday?

Dave Wells, a Quaker, who has been helping coordinate the New Deal Meal meetings challenged the city manager to live up to her values at a meeting convened by the city related to finding solutions to providing food to the unsheltered this past Monday, He asked her, “I hope you see the contradiction between the shared values statements developed tonight and how the city is treating us at Moeur Park. I hope that we will not see police there again, so we can complete this mediation process.”

One of the value criteria statements to which all agreed, including the city manager, was “Accounting for the most marginalized includes different feeding models, meeting people where they are in their journey to remove barriers.”

Two days later Wells’ opinion piece appeared online for the Arizona Republic that thoroughly explained how New Deal Meal was in full compliance with the city code. He concluded, “If having an event where I can befriend people like Rio and Mario and help save the life of Lee makes me a criminal, then I fully intend to continue.”

Wells also appeared Thursday on the Chris and Joe Show on KTAR Thursday, where co-host Chris Merrill mocked the city’s ethics. “The reason we invited Dave on is because Dave’s one of those public enemies who is out trying to help people who are down on their luck.” Dave  confessed to “Premeditated Picnic” to which Chris added, “he may be charged with caloric assault for feeding the homeless. Dave, I’m trying to come up with other charges that can be thrown on as enhancements.”

BACKGROUND

In September, at the behest of Rev.  Dr. Tom Martinez, convenor of the Tempe Interfaith Fellowship, faith leaders met with the city manager and her team. Subsequent meetings occurred in October and December.
The September meeting was an opportunity for faith leaders to share their decades long work in city parks with people who were unhoused or food insecure, often with acclimation, and how the city had begun to threaten and crack down on their outreach mission.
In October, the meeting focused on the city sharing its perspective which emphasized concern for balancing interests in the city parks (namely property owners) and the array of services the city already was providing to the homeless.
While Moeur Park and the arrest and prosecution of Austin Davis were central motivators for the faith community, the city kept deflecting that conversation.
For December, the city manager announced a city-employed facilitator would be brought in, which seemed to be reasonable, except the December meeting while having useful conversations about criterias for success and shared objectives, ended up being the beginning where the city usurped the entire process and delegated the faith community to the bench.The day after citing Ron Tapscott, the city put out an invite for a meeting this past Monday entitled “Social Innovation Session – Providing food to the unsheltered in Tempe”
Wells immediately notified the facilitator that there was a serious problem: ———————————————————————-From: Dave Wells <makedemocracywork@gmail.com>Date: Mon, Jan 27, 2025 at 9:27 PMSubject: Re: Social Innovation Session – Providing food to the unsheltered in TempeTo: (facilitator–name removed)
<Name removed>,In case you aren’t aware, the city has started to cite those of us organizing the New Deal Meal at Moeur Park for violating the special event ordinance. I am not going to get into the legal aspects of that here. However, in my opinion, this completely undermined everything you worked on at the December meeting.  I have lost faith that the city is actually interested in dialogue–because you don’t  use punitive legal tactics to undermine a community group (which is what the citations are) while supposedly working toward a mutually agreeable solution. I said that directly to the council last Thursday during public comments.  I’ll have more to share on February 3rd.Dave————————————————————
No response was received.When Wells talked to the city-employed facilitator when he arrived at the Monday gathering insisting there needed to be a focused discussion on what the city was doing with respect to outreach efforts at Moeur Park, he was told that the meeting would not focus on the Moeur Park developments. The facilitator would welcome their participation, but, if  he and the faith community were not comfortable, we could leave. The city also invited so many additional people, without consultation, that the faith community was less than one-fourth of those present. The follow-up city-run secession on “Providing food to the unsheltered in Tempe” will be on Tuesday.

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UPDATE: The follow up session had half the attendance–and arguably half or more of the attendees were city staff. It amounted to a brainstorming effort on how to work with homeless people instead of Moeur Park. The faith community brought food for attendees–though many city employees refused to have any. Those from the faith community who attended (5) found it frustrating and a waste of time–so much that one of them decided to leave and another left early due to another commitment.