No to the Homeless — for Now

City Councilman Steve Rose showed again on Monday night that he is a stickler on law and order. At the City Council meeting, the appointment of four new members to an advisory commission on the homeless was delayed for a month by a 3 to 2 vote. Mr. Rose was a member of the objecting majority. Six applicants filed for the four seats. But the six only represented two of the four neighborhoods that the City Council previously had determined should be represented. Mr. Rose explained why he voted to postpone the selections, dismissing Vice Mayor Alan Corlin’s contention that compassion for the homeless should override a flimsy geographic consideration. “My reasoning was simple,” Mr. Rose said. “We then would have been changing the rules in the middle of the game. We would have been changing the rules to fit a certain circumstance. I go by a creed that I learned many years ago when I was a member of the Jaycees (Junior Chamber of Commerce). One line in the creed says, ‘Government should be of laws rather than of men.’ I believe changing laws in the middle of a circumstance is not wise. Changing laws for the next time is fine. But we were in the middle.” The Council had agreed weeks before that each of the four neighborhoods should be represented on the homeless commission to accurately gain the flavor of the residents’ feelings in each region…

NOTES — In observance of Yom Kippur, which starts Sunday evening and ends Monday evening, the City Council’s next meeting will be Tuesday at 7 in Council Chambers…