Members of the Black Lives Matter movement and at least one supporter on the Phoenix City Council want to shut down one of the busiest streets in downtown Phoenix for weeks in order to paint portraits of their heroes on the scorched pavement.
Sam Stone, Chief of Staff for City Council Sal DiCiccio, believes that Phoenix still has some common sense and they’re not going to pay for it.
Common sense and a sense of humor might win the day.
“I’m laughing at the idea of all these activists trying to paint on the streets in this heat, but what the hell,” said Stone.
According to Stone, the approval process could go on for a month or more because it will first be heard by a City Council subcommittee, and then be discussed by the Council in Executive Session, and finally it will come in front of the full Council for a vote which could last until mid-September.
City Council Woman Laura Pastor supports the painting and has been “coddling BLM,” City staff says. The Council leans left but has generally voted more moderately than in other cities, so staff believe there’s a good chance that they’ll pull back.
Large liberal-run cities have had protesting devolve into rioting, but not in the Phoenix Valley. Stone doesn’t believe Phoenix is going to go that route. He says that because there are still a couple of Republicans fighting back and Chief of Police Jeri Williams is doing her job well, BLM has not been given wide berth.
“Our police have done a really good job here,” said Stone. “They stood up and defended public property, they haven’t allowed things to get out of control and when they see people gearing up to riot with flak jackets, frozen water bottles and projectiles out of their backpacks, they move in and grab them and when you do that you can stop this stuff.”
One concern is that BLM is a for-profit organization. Merchandise can be purchased from their website to “uplift radical artists” and they claim that proceeds will, “fund our work to eradicate white supremacy and build local power to intervene in violence inflicted on Black communities.”
From Influence Watch:
BLM has been criticized for taking a see-no-evil approach to violence and extremism within and surrounding its ranks. While the movement’s lack of structure makes it extremely difficult to attribute bad acts to specific BLM groups, there are numerous incidents of BLM-associated persons committing acts of violence and lawlessness, particularly violence against police. [10] This was most on display surrounding the 2016 murder of five Dallas police officers by a terrorist who claimed to support BLM.
Liberal funders such as George Soros, Rob McKay, and other Democracy Alliance donors have given millions of dollars to groups associated with the movement, which have in total raked in over $133 million.
The problem is if the state allows a business to advertise on public land, where does it stop? Should all businesses with a political agenda be allowed to paint the streets and intervene where they see fit? Stone thinks it will end up turning roads into another platform for a political battle that stretches across the country. “There’s organization behind it and I don’t see it as a racial rights movement insomuch as an anarchist, communist movement and if you’re running around the streets intimidating people, tearing down statues, banning Twitter accounts of people you don’t like, you are the brown shirts,” said Stone.