Solomon Everta

Following is a letter to the Eureka City Council prior to their consideration on March 18, 2025 of an ordinance to make finding a place to sleep punishable by one year in jail.

The essay has been constructed to fit within the three minute time limit on public comment at city council meetings.

---

City of Eureka Mayor and City Council Members,

I urge you not to make the changes suggested the Bill No. 1040-C.S., making them an enforceable ordinance.

While I have a general disregard for this approach of attempting to address the effects of the housing shortage, particularly of note is Section 2 (D) (1) which among other things states:

“A violation of this section is a misdemeanor, and upon conviction, confinement of up to one year in jail…”

It has been stated that this is simply a tool in which we might force those impacted by the housing shortage to be helped by our efforts to alleviate their condition. However, this suggested ordinance would simply muddy our own waters and render us as frogs, destined to live within those waters.

In book 6 of Ovid’s Metamorphoses, we find the tale of Latona and the Rustics. You may recall that Latona was the mother of Apollo and Diana (the god of the sun and the goddess of the moon). Latona carried her two newborn children as she fled from Juno’s wrath.

Tired and thirsty she chanced upon a pond of clear water where locals were working. She approached and, as Ovid explains, “putting her knee to the ground, rested, to enjoy a drink of the cool water. The group of rustics denied it to her. The goddess, denied, spoke. ‘Why do you forbid me your waters? The use of water is everyone’s right. Nature has not made the sun, or the air, or the clear waves, private things. I come for a public gift, and yet I beg you to grant it to me as a suppliant. I was not preparing to bathe my limbs and my weary body here, only to quench my thirst. My mouth lacks moisture from speaking, my throat is dry, and there’s scarcely a path here for speech.’”

The reply of the rustics was to step in the water, stirring up the mud to prevent her from drinking.

Latona’s thirst gave way to fury and she called down a curse upon these rustics saying, “May they never quit that pool, but pass their lives there!” And so it was that the rustics turned to frogs, who’s croaking about who deserves to stop and rest where can still be heard to this day.

Do not muddy our waters. Do not pass this ordinance, making weary travelers subject to a year in jail for finding a place to sleep. Continue the work of assistance and find creative solutions to the housing shortage. Don’t punish the victims of a failing economic system.

Latona might just grant our wish and our system may find every vagrant and every citizen with a conscience violating this ill-advised ordinance such that hundreds or thousands of your neighbors might end up threatened with a year in jail. Then we might see the mud in our own waters too late.

---

The story of Latona and the Rustics has been taken up by several artists. Following is a selection. I appreciate the Cristall piece for the portrayal of the Rustics focusing on Latona, who meets their gaze kneeling to protect her children.

---

Latona and the Lycian Peasants by Joshua Cristall

---

Latona and the Lycian Peasants by Paolo de Matteis

---

Latona and the Lycians Filippo Laurie

---

Latona and the Lycian Farmers by Jan Brueghel the Elder

---

Latona and the Lycian Peasants by Francois Spiering

---

The Latona Fountain at Versailles

This fountain was first built in 1670 and restored in 2015. I would like to see it someday.

---