Don’t Give Whoville the Finger?

The Eugene City Council voted 6-2 today to allow the Whoville camp for the unhoused at the corner of Broadway and Hilyard to remain for another 30 days.

Homeless advocate Alley Valkyrie of the Nightingale Public Advocacy Collective attended the meeting and took a rather puzzling photo of Councilor George Poling.

Valkyrie posted the picture to her Facebook page and writes:

This was no coincidence, no slip of the finger, so to speak. Councilor Poling, the only councilor who openly and regularly expresses bigoted and prejudiced views towards the homeless, held his finger up in this position at an audience full of homeless advocates for a significant portion of the discussion about Whoville. I saw his finger up for at least 15 minutes, and at one point he moved his hand to scratch his face and then deliberately put his finger up again.

City Council meetings can be watched live or via Metro TV here.

Update:

According to Jan Bohman, community relations director for the city of Eugene, Councilor Poling “often rests his head on his hand” in this particular position, and he can be seen earlier in the webcast of the meeting during the discussion of the Amazon Headwaters with his hand and finger in the same position, she says. She calls EW “irresponsible” for posting Valkyrie’s photo.

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