Editorial: Finally, a chief plainly lays out what needed to be heard

By Brandi Makuski

I haven’t been able to stop thinking about Monday night’s Public Policy and General Government Committee meeting.

Not because of the proposed ordinances themselves, which addressed living in vehicles on city property. Honestly, I thought they needed to go back for revision and context; there wasn’t even a staff memo explaining them. The city attorney who drafted them was on vacation, so nobody was there to answer the legal questions committee members kept asking. Even committee members who seemed open to giving police another enforcement tool admitted they didn’t fully understand what they were being asked to vote on.

Sending those ordinances back was responsible.

But that’s not what has stayed with me.

What has stayed with me is the conversation that unfolded around those ordinances and how quickly it became about whether Stevens Point was “criminalizing homelessness.”

That phrase came up over and over again.

Many residents argued the proposals criminalized poverty. They said moving people along doesn’t solve homelessness. They questioned why police needed another ordinance when officers already had laws dealing with littering, illegal dumping, abandoned vehicles and other nuisance violations. Others said the city should focus on creating more affordable housing, expanding mental health services and offering more resources instead of creating another enforcement tool.

Those are legitimate concerns. But, for context, the city is limited in how and when it can offer affordable housing options — and it doesn’t offer mental health services or other resources. Those services are the county’s job, as mandated by the state.

We all know homelessness isn’t something you ticket your way out of. If it were, every city in America would have solved it by now.

But what struck me Monday night was that almost everyone who walked to the podium talked about what police shouldn’t be doing. Very few people talked about what police officers are already doing; and how much time they spend doing it. For example, in June alone, the SPPD responded to a whopping 79 calls relating to homelessness issues. 

Then Chief Ed Orgon got his turn.

He didn’t ask the committee to ignore homelessness. He didn’t suggest everyone living on the street should be arrested. What he asked was much simpler.

He asked if anyone in the room actually knew why those individuals were homeless.

After a few moments of silence, he said, “I do.”

That stopped me. It was a reminder that while many of us think of homelessness as a policy issue, he and his officers know it as a human issue. They know the names. They know the histories. They know who’s accepted help before, who’s refused it, who’s struggling with addiction, who’s dealing with mental illness, and who has family somewhere willing to take them back.

He told the committee, “I have met with the mayor, with [the city’s housing authority], to try to get these people off the street. We’ve gotten six people back to family—Arizona, Arkansas, La Crosse, Milwaukee. One guy is going to North Dakota.”

That isn’t the picture of a police department trying to criminalize homelessness. That’s a police department trying to solve a problem with the limited tools it has.

As criticism continued, Orgon looked around the room and said, “To sit here and have you badmouth the police department—we’re not criminalizing it. These (proposed ordinances) are for chronic problems.”

Moments later, he added, “You don’t see it on a day-to-day basis. The trash, the constant calls, the businesses calling us—you don’t see that.”

One image from that exchange has stayed with me.

As Orgon defended his officers, District 2 Councilwoman Jacqui Guthrie, who sat next to him, responded to his remarks with a furrowed brow. I can’t tell you what she was thinking, and I’m not going to pretend I can. But that image perfectly captured what I think was the real story of the night. There was a gap in that room.

On one side were elected officials and residents debating what city policy should look like. On the other was a police chief trying to explain what his officers experience every single day.

That’s a disconnect worth paying attention to.

One side was talking about philosophy. The other was talking about experience.

That doesn’t automatically make the police right, and it doesn’t automatically make the residents wrong. But if we’re going to have an honest conversation about homelessness, then the people responding to those calls every single day deserve more than a passing mention. They deserve to be heard. Really heard.

One of my favorite moments of the meeting came near the end, when Orgon challenged anyone questioning the department’s approach to spend some time with his officers and come along on patrol.

“You think it’s so easy?” he said. “Come on. Feel free to come help us pick up their trash. The door’s always open.”

I loved that. Not because I think everyone would suddenly agree with him after a ride-along, but because I think every council member—and frankly, every one of us who has an opinion about this issue—would benefit from seeing what officers actually deal with during a shift.

It’s easy to debate homelessness from behind a microphone during a city committee or council meeting.

It’s much harder when you’re the one responding to repeated complaints, talking to the same people over and over, trying to convince someone to accept help, balancing compassion with the concerns of businesses and residents, and then coming back the next day to do it all over again.

That’s why I respected what Chief Orgon did Monday night.

He defended his officers and the work they do when nobody’s watching.

And he reminded everyone in that room that whatever policy eventually comes out of city offices doesn’t magically solve itself. Someone has to carry it out.

So yes, send the ordinances back. Rewrite them. Debate them. Improve them. I think that’s exactly what the Public Policy and General Government Committee should have done.

But don’t dismiss the perspective of the people who will ultimately be responsible for enforcing whatever gets passed.

Public policy doesn’t end when the meeting adjourns. It begins the moment someone has to put that policy into practice. So it should be effective. It should be practical. And it should have common sense.

Because when all was said and done Monday night, Chief Ed Orgon did something I haven’t seen in a very long time.

He looked elected officials and members of the public in the eye and called them out, defended the men and women of his department, challenged the assumptions being made about his officers, and refused to let the conversation ignore the reality they deal with every single day.

Whether you agreed with him or not, that took guts.

And I have to say… when it comes to Stevens Point city committee meetings, I haven’t seen the smack laid down like that since The Rock left the WWE.