State Rep. Joe Salazar  has a public beef with a Colorado Springs Gazette op-ed contributor over whether his legislation helps the homeless. In the back-and-forth community activist Rachel Stoval alleged his bill was a ploy to secure Democratic votes in El Paso County.

“Right to Rest does not offer a single solution to homelessness. Shame on its authors for even proposing it,” Stoval wrotel, in the Thursday column, calling out Salazar, D-Thornton, and co-sponsor Jovan Melton, D-Aurora.

House Bill 1067 is scheduled to be heard by the House Local Government Committee on Feb. 21. Melton and Salazar have sponsored similar bills each year since 2015.  Salazar won’t be back in the legislature next year; he’s running for attorney general instead of re-election.

Stovall argues in the column, as others have, that services for mental illness and long-term housing solutions make more sense that allowing homeless people to sleep wherever they want.

The debate escalated on Facebook with dozens of comments, including some Stovall said she removed.

“The Right To Rest legislation made me angry,” Stovall posted on Facebook in a string with dozens of remarks. “I felt like we were just giving up on the very people who need a hand up in life. I am not willing for anyone to ‘camp’ because it is dangerous out there.”

Ultimately, she and Salazar are on the same side – they want to help homeless people. Salazar thinks that getting help for the homeless doesn’t start with stripping away the rights Americans who have homes enjoy: the ability to use a public park, a bench or a sidewalk. He said arresting homeless people and breaking up camps doesn’t help them when the government doesn’t provide a viable solution to address the larger issue.

And that’s the quagmire of homelessness.

Colorado Politics asked Salazar for a response Sunday. He said it bothered him that Stovall’s argument was one-sided, because she was deleting his responses. (Colorado Politics invited Salazar and Melton to write their own column about the issue.)

“I responded respectfully on her FB page, providing her the legislative history of the bill, explained the legislative process, identified the stakeholders who wrote and supported the bill and pointed out why we need to address issues of criminalization,” Salazar said via text to Colorado Politics Sunday morning. “In response, Ms. Stovall began attacking me and others who provided their perspectives about her column.”

He provided a private message to him in which Stovall alleged the homeless camps were a ploy to politically “flip” El Paso County with presumably Democratic votes.

“I have known for awhile. I don’t even care,” she wrote to Salazar. “But if you keep on acting like a fool on my page, my next story will probably be about that.”

On her Facebook wall, Stovall told Salazar she wasn’t interested in talking to him.

“Mr. Salazar. (sic) I do not wish to speak to you today,” she posted. “Your constant and creepy attempts to post on my page have been met by having you removed. i (sic) just removed one of your remarks again. Perhaps you should stick to posting on your page. I get it. You disagree. Please give up.”