" said Welling Clark, former president of the Organization of Westside Neighbors. Clark added that the complex problem of creekside camping could not be solved without regional cooperation.
Homeless camps near stormwater infrastructure put the city's water quality at stake, said Westside resident Sharon Mullaly. "We’ve got an EPA lawsuit because of our lack of efforts to keep the storm drains clear."
Opponents of the camping ban argued that it disregards the rights of individuals forced to live outside, and ignores the root problem: the lack of affordable housing in Colorado Springs.
And it's not just campers causing the trash problem, said Aimee Cox, a former Manitou Springs city councilor.
"The dog waste in this community is prolific," she said. "And if we really want to begin to address some of the water quality issues and share this equitably, we’d say we can’t have dogs within 100 feet of the waterway either. But if you do that, that begins to impact people who are housed and they wouldn’t stand for that."
"You know what they’re going to do when they need to go to the bathroom or wash their hands, all the things that you’re trying to prevent? They're going to walk 100 feet," she said.
District 2 Councilor David Geislinger ended the town hall on a note of relative optimism.
"This is an incredibly complicated issue because there are so many right sides," Geislinger said. "I think it is right to protect our waterways, to protect our environment, but it is equally right as people have said, that people who are outside, have a place to go to the bathroom, to wash their hands, and to wash their clothes. Just because one side is right doesn’t make the other side wrong, and tonight I heard a respect for that."
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