Watching the great city council debate between incumbent councilmember Kristen Sneddon and challenger Barret Reed, Yogi Berra’s great quote — I know, which one? — came to mind. “Nobody goes there anymore,” Berra was said to have said. “It’s too crowded.”
Reed and Sneddon are both running to represent District Four, which includes the Riviera, parts of San Roque, and Foothill, where voters are older, whiter, and tend to vote with a discipline bordering on religious fervor. The issue was, as always, homelessness.
Debate co-moderator Jerry Roberts — the Bill Plaschke of local political sportswriting — asked Reed whether he was engaging in “dog whistle” messaging by referring to the “criminal element” among the city’s homeless population. Reed denied Roberts’ insinuendo and then doubled down. In so doing, he only proved Roberts’ point. “I won’t take our one-and-a-half year-old downtown,” said Reed, a lean and muscular 35-year-old who can ride his bike up Gibraltar Peak and then do 200 push-ups, all on his lunch break. “It’s a dirty, kind of scary place to be.”