By my tally, 40 people testified on Friday night at Anchorage Mayor Dave Bronson’s packed town hall discussing the conversion of the Arctic Rec Center to a homeless shelter. Of those 40, only one was in favor of it. The rest made their concerns known loudly and vociferously. Here are just a few excerpts of the testimony:

“I see people having sex on the side of the road.”

“She spent 20 minutes locked in the bathroom of my business, smearing feces on the wall, and ran out giggling.”

“I coach a girls’ hockey team, and they were flashed after an evening practice by a homeless man on the rink.”

“Anchorage, which is our home, has become a trash dump.”

“How do you know when your Assembly member is lying? When they’re talking to you.”

Those who spoke ran the gauntlet from parents in the neighborhood, to teachers at nearby Willow Crest Elementary School, to business owners on Arctic – and even to recovering addicts, who spoke with pride about their success stories, and urged the few Anchorage Assembly members in attendance to reconsider the plan to convert the ARC into a shelter.

The town hall, organized by Mayor Bronson and his staff, took place in the rec center’s gym, which was already packed to standing room by 6:15 pm. Around 200 people were in attendance, and perhaps a fifth of them spoke. The time warning for public testimony – which is usually a moderator alerting the speaker – was the gym’s buzzer. At 90 seconds, a loud BZZZZ would echo through the gym, and no one ever got used to it, based on the amount of startled jumps I saw around me. But no one disputed its effectiveness.

Anchorage Assembly members Felix Rivera, Meg Zaletel, and Daniel Volland were all in attendance, as was Rivera’s challenger, Travis Szanto. The parking lot outside the rec center was packed with Szanto signs, and homemade “Recall the Anchorage Assembly” yard signs were posted on Arctic. The mood, sufficed to say, was not sympathetic to the Assembly’s recent discussion of purchasing the property, which is priced at $12.6 million.

Rivera and Zaletel were the objects of a significant amount of scorn during public testimony. “I’m amazed you even have the guts to be here,” a business owner addressed Rivera. Zaletel’s employment status on the nonprofit Anchorage Coalition to End Homelessness (referred to disparagingly as “the Anchorage Homelessness Industrial Complex”) was brought up several times, with participants decrying Anchorage’s perceived “homeless industry” devoted to maintaining the homeless population as a source of government dollars and financial incentives.

“You’re directing all your comments up here,” shouted an angry mother towards the end of the town hall, pointing to where Bronson leaned against the front of the room. “You should be directing them that way!” She pointed, to great applause, towards where the Assembly members sat.

For the most part, comments disparaging the shelter plan could be separated into three categories: safety, utility, and effectiveness. In other words: would housing homeless people here be safe? Would it be worth sacrificing the rec center? And would the rec center be the most effective choice, rather than some other property?

Most of the parents and teachers who testified argued with a focus on safety and utility. They were concerned about the effects of moving drug addicts and alcoholics into an area where an elementary school and lower-income families live, noting that many families in the area didn’t have the option to drive their children across town to a safer place to recreate. A teacher at Willow Crest pleaded with the Assembly not to make her low-income students’ lives harder, by potentially depriving them of an area where they could safely play and explore.

Additionally, the utility of the rec center was repeatedly referenced. Ted Snider, a youth rugby coach, talked about holding supplemental practices at the rec center, and lamented the potential loss of the ARC for his team. “The first thing the Assembly attacks,” Snyder said, “is youth sports.”

This sentiment was carried by numerous other parents and teachers, who talked about taking their children to weekend classes and sports clinics at the rec center, all of which would disappear if the ARC were to be converted.

Finally, debate was had as to whether the ARC was the right property – or if it was even necessary to alleviate the homelessness problem. Sarah Short, an activist passing out photocopied spreadsheets of the various homeless shelters that the city operates around Anchorage, argued that there were 844 open beds for the homeless population to use – so why open another facility at the expense of the neighborhood?

It comes down, at the end of the day, to what the surrounding area is willing to bear. Rather, it should come down to if the Assembly actually claims to represent its constituents. Can the ARC be closed down, shutting down sports programs and a gathering place for kids, potentially disenfranchising an already low-income neighborhood in service of a tenuous solution for a problem that might be solved with resources already on hand? Is it fair to ask businesses owners to put up with a new onslaught of drugs, theft, and property damage? Is it in the local community’s best interest in terms of safety, especially given the reticence (or inability) of the police department to respond to calls involving homeless altercations?

Those are questions the Assembly – and voters – have to ask. “The only reason this hasn’t already passed is because it’s election season,” said one concerned neighborhood resident during public testimony, and the crowd agreed. Throughout the town hall meeting, there were multiple calls to get out the vote and replace the Assembly. Time will tell how effective those exhortations will be in the ballot box.

“The place is the most important thing,” Bronson said during his closing statements, as people milled about, ready to leave. And indeed, it is, especially when that place is right in the middle of a neighborhood, across the street from a school, and next to a park. There are vulnerable populations on both sides – the homeless of Anchorage, whom everyone should have sympathy for, and the residents of Arctic and their children.