The council had been set to vote on a repeal measure set to be sent to the ballot for the city's March elections. The council could either formally put the measure, which would nix a new special events ordinance that activists say targets mutual aid groups operating in city parks, or pass the repeal measure into city code.
Just 15 minutes after the meeting was scheduled to begin, a Tempe police official announced that the meeting would be postponed due to a safety issue and asked that everyone calmly exit the Tempe Municipal Building, where the meeting was to take place. A leisurely evacuation of the giant inverted pyramid followed.
Mayor Corey Woods was seen on the upper level outside the council building amid a hefty security and police presence.
In a statement to Phoenix New Times, Tempe police said that the the meeting was cancelled in response to a “safety issue” the city was alerted to that “threatened those attending the meeting, city staff and our Tempe City Council." Tempe police added this was the first time a Tempe City Council meeting has been cancelled for safety issues and that an investigation is ongoing.
“It appears there was some sort of bomb threat in Papago,” Dillon Wild, co-chair of the Phoenix chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America, said in a phone call. The DSA chapter collected most of the nearly 4,000 valid signatures to qualify the repeal measure for the ballot.
There was indeed an incendiary device found near the Arizona National Guard military reservation north of Papago Park, though Phoenix police told news outlets that there was "no malicious intent" and that a man was simply trying to turn over the device to military authorities after he discovered it. The military reservation is about a five-mile drive from the Tempe Municipal Building.
A year-long saga
Wild did not suspect any shenanigans on the part of Tempe, which has had a contentious relationship with groups aiding unhoused people in city parks.“My assumption at this point is that out of an abundance of caution, Tempe PD just evacuated public gatherings due to the nature of that threat. I don’t think it had anything to do with the parks campaign, or DSA, or another coalition member," Wild said. "But it is unfortunate, because we all deserve to live in a safe community, including the homeless, and when issues like this come up, it gets in the way of our ability to have important conversations with council.”
At stake at the meeting was a decision on whether to send the repeal measure before voters in a pro forma vote or to admit defeat and vote to pass the repeal measure. The measure would nullify a July 1 special events ordinance that imposed strict rules on the use of Tempe parks, which critics said invests too much power in the hands of city staff to approve or deny gatherings. The new ordinance has not gone into effect while the referendum process has played out.
Ahead of the meeting, the Tempe City Council had hinted it might reconsider the new ordinance after the referendum measure gathered enough petition signatures. Had that happened, it would have brought closure to a year-long drama raging over Tempe parks that’s seen a homeless advocate arrested multiple times and out-of-state mercenaries paid to counter the efforts of the repeal petitioners.
“We were going to talk about some really important things today," said Bobby Nichols, a candidate for the Tempe City Council and the author of the referendum petition, as he stood outside the building following the evacuation. In a later phone call with New Times, Nichols added: “We didn’t get to have a really important conversation. These groups that have been fighting against the referendum are very hungry to see some change in the city."
Nichols said he’d been in contact with Woods, who told him they were possibly rescheduling the meeting for Sept. 2. Nichols added that this wasn’t a firm, official announcement.
