About two dozen protestors swarmed a special meeting of the Arcata City Council today to protest supposed sweeps of homeless encampments, lambasting city officials and council members and forcing the rescheduling of another city council meeting.

The original meeting, a special city council session to consider awarding a contract to an organization called “Civic Possible” to help them update their Economic Strategic Plan, ended in chaos near the end of the half-hour long meeting when the demonstrators weren’t allowed to address the council on the topic of homeless encampments. Activists shouted down city representatives and questioned their motives, accusing the city officials that they did not care about the homeless and were restricting their freedom of speech by not allowing them to speak.

Council members can’t deliberate on anything that isn’t already on the agenda, and during special city council meetings, public comment is taken at the beginning instead of at the end like a normal city council meeting. In an interview with the Outpost conducted after the meeting ended, City Manager Merritt Perry theorized that that change led to a misunderstanding that helped lead to the outbursts.

Also contributing to the incident was a remark from a Civic Possible representative, who said that he had been working to “eliminate homelessness.” Perry guessed that the crowd thought he meant he wanted to “eliminate the homeless” instead.

“I think the crowd — I don’t think they understood the intent of the speaker,” Perry said.

After a 10-minute recess, Mayor Alex Stillman allowed for open two-minute public comments on any subject, and dozens of people took the opportunity to  decry the state of Arcata’s homeless population and insult dead-eyed, silent city officials.

“Each and every single one of you is a fucking loser,” one anonymous public commenter said. “… I hope none of you ever sleep at night and you’re haunted for the rest of your fucking life.”

“You’re putting people under arrest?” another said. “How fucking dare you! That is disgusting, that is disturbing, that is unjust!”

People in the crowd chanted “stop the sweeps” while the council attempted to continue the meeting. Both Perry and Director of Community Development David Loya separately attempted to compromise with some of the demonstrators, saying they’d be happy to talk with them after the meeting, but the activists shouted over them both times.

The city council did end up awarding the contract to Civic Possible. The city council study session with the Arcata Fire District that was supposed to follow technically started, but adjourned before any action had been taken.

Perry denied that Arcata was sweeping homeless encampments.

The issue at the heart of the protestor’s worries is a private plot of land near O Street and Samoa Boulevard. Perry said that the landowner had asked law enforcement to enforce trespassing laws, and the city was not destroying any homeless camps on public property. 

Perry said the council had done a lot to help Arcata’s homeless, naming various low-income housing projects they’d greenlit, shelters they’ve supported, and rental assistance and mobile home improvement programs.

“You can’t really yell somebody into doing what you want them to do,” Perry said. “I don’t think that’s the way it works. I think it has to be a two-way conversation focused on solutions and not shaming or yelling at somebody and forcing them to do what you want. And I think that’s the area we have to work on, is ‘How can we be more constructive about finding solutions, and what should those solutions look like?’”