Why Tempe Mayor Corey Woods voted to rescind controversial parks ordinance

The Tempe City Council made an about-face on a controversial policy earlier this month after facing intense backlash and the threat of a citizen referendum.

The issue at hand? A parks ordinance that city leaders say was about updating an outdated policy and keeping parks safe for everyone — and activists say was aimed at preventing aid groups from feeding the homeless in them.

The ordinance would have required a gathering of more than 30 people to get a permit to meet in a city park. And, it was met with protests and a lawsuit from advocates from the start. They claimed the law would have infringed on their First Amendment rights, allowing city officials to approve — or deny — events.

Now, this all has a complicated history in Tempe. The city has gone back and forth with homeless rights activist Austin Davis, first celebrating his picnics for homeless people in Tempe parks and then telling him he needed a permit to carry them out, which was denied.

The conflict ended in Davis’ arrest and the city banning him from parks until 2026. And so, when the City Council unanimously passed this ordinance earlier this year, advocates were quick to cry foul. They saw it as another example of potential city overreach.

As for Mayor Corey Woods, he cites that lawsuit as the reason city officials couldn’t go through a lengthier public process to approve the measure. The Show sat down with him recently to talk more about the decision — and why he voted to rescind it now.

Full conversation

COREY WOODS: Our last park ordinance was actually updated back in 1967. We are obviously a very different city at this point. We have nearly 200,000 residents. We have the largest public university in the country in ASU right in our backyard, and we obviously have much more in the way of additional parks than we had back in 1967.

So it's sort of a regular thing as a City Council to look at your ordinances and regulations and trying to make sure that you're really keeping up with present day times.

Back in September of 2024, our City Attorney's Office, along with some folks from our park staff began to talk about what they thought could be some updates to the ordinance to kind of bring it into present day.

LAUREN GILGER: OK, so the updates here to this special events ordinance were really controversial right from the start. I know you heard from a lot of angry residents about this. There were protests after it was passed initially. They gathered signatures to to put it back on the ballot for a referendum.

And, and generally, you know, people were outraged because they said this is not just an update to the parks ordinance. This is about homelessness and events to feed the homeless in the parks, and that city leaders were, you know, not upfront about their real motives. What was your response to that?

WOODS: We felt that it wasn't. I mean, if you look at the actual ordinance, the way that it was written, it was completely content-neutral. There were no references in the ordinance to homelessness or unhoused or unsheltered or anything that would have come off as we're trying to target a certain population.

I, I was telling people, hey, if you want to have a child's birthday party, have a sweet 16, have a family reunion, or even if you want to host a mutual aid event to give people water or socks or underwear, you know, all we're looking for is sort of a parks permit, a limited parks permit that would cost anywhere from $8 to $25.

We just sort of thought this seems like a really good update to a very old policy and once again written in a very content-neutral way as not to target any specific group whatsoever.

GILGER: But it still would have applied to those kinds of picnics, the events for homeless folks in the parks, right?

WOODS: Oh, sure, it would, it would have applied to people hosting an event if there were 30 or more people, but the same thing would have happened for a birthday party.

Despite all of that, there was obviously a lot of concern that ensued about the ordinance, and I can talk about that a little bit because the, the issue was that we went through the public hearing process as we are mandated to do. We had public hearings back on June 5 and on July 1, and so we have a two public hearing process and we completely abided by that.

Our residents are frankly very used to having a much longer runway when it comes to sort of public involvement and their ability to give input back to the counsel and back to staff.

The challenge was we actually had a lawsuit that was filed against us in court, and that's sort of what necessitated the expediting of it. It was determined that we needed to go faster to really ensure that we got a past ordinance back in front of the judge as soon as possible.

However, now, given the point that that lawsuit has since been dropped. And we don't have sort of any litigation, you know, hanging over our heads, that was one of the reasons why personally I was very much in favor of rescinding the ordinance and going back to the drawing board and having a much more involved robust community input process.

GILGER: So you're saying this was not in response to the conversation and kind of the long ongoing debate about city parks being used for events to feed homeless folks in Tempe.

But there is a history here. I mean, we've seen this long kind of back and forth between the city of Tempe and homeless rights activist Austin Davis, who used to host picnics in Tempe parks, you know, the city started requiring him to have a permit. Those permits were denied. There ended up being a lawsuit, an arrest made, a plea deal like this goes on and on.

But you're saying this was not in response to that.

WOODS: To me it wasn't. I mean, I can't speak for other people on council, but when I was making the decision to vote for the ordinance during the first go around and then to rescind it, that was not what was going through my head.

GILGER: Advocates were also upset about infringement on First Amendment rights here. I mean, did that factor into your decision to repeal this? I mean, did you think having that ordinance on the books could discourage things like protests and gatherings.

WOODS: I, when I read the ordinance and I read it probably two or three times prior to voting for it, I didn't think in any way, shape or form it would have had a chilling effect on First Amendment protests and demonstrations. If I had had that concern back on July 1, I would not have voted for it.

At the same time though, once again, we do have to be responsive to the needs of residents and the concerns that they raised. I'm looking forward to that public process. I think that the input from residents in this community can only make the policy better.

GILGER: So I've been asking you a lot about what advocates for the homeless have been saying here, and they've been very loud voices in this process.

But there have also been concerns cited from residents in Tempe about the presence of people experiencing homelessness in the parks and, you know, whether it be drugs or, you know, paraphernalia, problems with that. You have to take that into consideration as well, I'm guessing.

WOODS: Sure, I mean that is definitely a consideration when you're in a role like mine, and I've definitely heard from both sides. I absolutely have heard from folks who do mutual aid work, and I also have heard from residents who have had very big concerns about large gatherings in the park and some of the things that they've seen over the last few years.

GILGER: OK, so you, you just outlined a lot of the different views you've been hearing on this debate from various residents from various groups in Tempe. What do you think? Like, how do you view the city's role in addressing homelessness?

WOODS: I think that the role of the city is, frankly, to provide lots of support to people who are unhoused and in need of services.

You know, since 2022 we've invested more than $137 million in trying to really up the services that we offer. We spent $20 million acquiring the Apache Inn on Apache Boulevard, which is going to open later this fall when it's going to be a 60-room shelter for people who are in need and those rooms will be configured to hold anywhere from one to four people.

So my perspective is we have a moral and ethical responsibility to support people in our community who are in need. We should never turn our backs on them. At the same time, we can also make sure that people feel that their neighborhoods are comfortable, safe places, and their schools are as well.

And my hope is that we will end up coming up with a policy at the end of the day that can be accepted by the majority of people in our community as one. That they feel like they had real input and insight on.

And this process may not take weeks, it may take months, because the concern that myself and the City Council have and our staff has is not about speed and trying to get something done in a rapid fashion. It's about trying to get something that actually works and works on behalf of the people in our community and the people of our community, I mean everyone housed or unhoused.