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Ten-Minute Tyranny Liberalized to Fifteen Minutes
The Downtown Commission dropped its mask and voted 5-1 to support a complete ban on the use of all city parking lots and garages unless you're parking a car or bike. If you're doing so, you will not be allowed to be in the lot (or in your vehicle) for more than 15 minutes but must exist on pain of $100+ citation.
SECOND SPECIAL MEETING
Downtown Commission met Thursday Morning--its 2nd special meeting within a week, in order to speed the parking lot/garages-trespass law freighttrain on to City Council.
The process was pressured by Councilmember Coonerty and Mayor Mathews, with no serious discussion of alternative solutions and no recognition of the drastic change in traditional Santa Cruz policy regarding 8 blocks of public space.
CRIME STATS STILL MISSING
There were still no statistics available indicating the amount of crime going on in parking garages as compared with elsewhere in the downtown area.
Nor were there any stats whatsoever on parking lots (as distinguished from garages). The Commission jovially voted to criminalize any entrance onto a lot or garage without a car or bicycle.
ACLU/MERCHANT CYBORG COONERTY BEAMS ON
Untroubled and smiling, ACLU co-chair, Commission member, and merchant apologist Sheila Coonerty decided that the fears of the women she'd spoken to outweighed their right to use public parking lots and garages on their own schedule--not that of the SCPD, the Public Works Department, and/or that of Parking Lot attendants.
Coonerty's resolution, which passed 5-1 (Kathy Bisbee, to her credit, dissenting) forwarded the Barisone law to City Council, contracting use time in the parking lots from the current "as long as you like or need" to 15 minutes, suggested the police give a warning, and asked for a report back in a year.
PHONEY FERRARA FORWARDS THE TRESPASS LAW
Atlantis Fantasyworld owner Joe Ferrara, who also chairs the Downtown Association--the merchant association that gave us the Downtown Ordinances in 1994, denounced selective enforcement and the city's failure to give them enough info, then heartily supported the measure and forwarded it to City Council. His point: the police would have a "necessary tool" to force people to leave who were not engaging in visibly criminal activity.
I was so upset with Ferrara, that once the meeting had ended, I loudly and publicly denounced him as a hypocrite. Jovial Joe shrugged it off with a grin and slipped back into conference with his cohorts.
Ferrara's Atlantis Fantasyworld was one of the businesses in 1994 selected for boycott after their support for the "no sitting" law and the host of other anti-homeless edicts cooked up by then- Councilmember Neal Coonerty, backed up by Rotkin and Mathews.
No one called on local ACLU activist Don Zimmermann, who sat patiently in the 2nd row, preferring to rely on City Attorney Barisone, Parking Lot Manager Matt Farrell, and Deputy Police Chief Kevin Vogel.
HOMELESS SERVICE CENTER SUPPORTS HOMELESS EXCLUSION?
Matt Farrell did make the surprising though vague report that Homeless Service Center [HSC] workers had posed no objection to the law “as long as it was fairly enforced.” Would homeless tramps seeking shelter from freezing rain and soccer moms waiting for their kids in their cars be given the same treatment? The question dissolves in absurdity even as you ask it--particularly when the newer stats show that the biggest “category” of “Public Service calls” was for “camping”.
It's interesting that this HSC complicity (if it's been accurately reported) comes at the same time that homeless are driven away from the HSC during the day.
REPLAY AT YOUR LEISURE
I'll be playing the whole shameful charade on Free Radio Sunday March 26th shortly after 7:30 a.m. It will be archived at http://www.huffsantacruz.org under "Bathrobespierre's Broadsides".
PROTESTERS PRESENTE!
SAFE street performers Valerie Christy, Greg Montoya, Michael Pentacost and Coral Brune provided musical support. Christy made oatmeal. I provided some signage such as "Ten-Minute Tyranny", "Locking Up the Parking Lots Makes Us Less Seure More Stupid". Others abandoned nicities and held up signs like "Fuck Your Fascist Laws." In the audience were a variety of merchants as well as Grant Wilson of Art and Revolution. No indymedia or FRSC reports (other than me) put in an appearance.
No public comment was allowed. To give the Commission their due, they did not give any special recognition/attention to the merchants who came to watch, who had not spoken at the last meeting. They didn’t need to. There was no serious interest in challenging the law, just in finding reasons to buttress it for the upcoming Council meeting.
The Downtown Commission discussion took about an hour and three quarters. It was not broadcast but was taped by the secretary.
I suppose this is a step up from City Council’s Public Safety Meetings (Rotkin, Coonerty, and Porter) which don’t even record their meetings. This little coterie of SCPD sycophants blindly “oversaw” the police for the last three years, allowing infiltration and snoop operations against peaceful protests. They’ve given Chief Howard Skerry free rein and muzzled public discussion.
SECURITY THROUGH SUBTERFUGE?
The Downtown Commission showed little interest in determining how the community felt about surrendering so much public space in exchange for an imagined increase in security (with no increased security patroling).
In effect, the whole thing seemed a kind of insulting bluff on the public. The new game plan: create a law to drive away undesireables by making it criminal for all people to be there. Don’t appropriate any additional money for enforcement. Rely on the power of an intimidating fine to persuade people go give up their traditional right to a laissez-faire use of the lots and garages. Find another law to criminalize where the undesirables go next in order to harry them further.
Meanwhile more and more power is being given to petty tyrants like Pam Bachtel, the Community Service Officer with the ravenous ticket book. And people are being persuaded to rationalize and police their own exclusion from public spaces built with their own tax dollars.
HOMELESS CLEANSING MADE EASY
Matt Farrell explicitly admitted that they put in a change-making machine at Elm and Pacific (the third within a 200’ radius) to drive away the grungies from Punk Corner next to the Union Grove Parking lot. Now that they’ve moved to the Catalyst parking lot, no doubt Farrell has new schemes afoot to harass them further.
MERCHANTS HOLD CLOSED MEETING
Joe Ferrara and a small coterie of downtown merchants had previously had an open meeting of their Downtown Association (the merchant group that gave us the Downtown Ordinances). On my arrival with two other homeless people, Ferrara suddenly announced they were meeting in closed session. Though they weren't discussing litigation or personnel matters (the usual reasons for closing meetings), they refused to allow us to remain.
Human Rights Organzation activist Bob Patton parked his vehicle in the parking lot garage near the window where the Downtown Association cabal was meeting with a large sign denouncing business bigotry, and ostentatiously began putting fliers on cars in the lot ---an action that would be illegal under the new law, unless you were parking your own bicycle or vehicle in the lot.
FUTURE ACTIONS?
Activists discussed a Critical Mass bike ride through the parking lots flyering cars (another activity that would become illegal under the new law).
Another suggestion was a poll asking specifically if women in particular supported (a) a law that would limit their right to be in the cars to 15 minutes; and (b) a law that would ban them from walking through a pf determine how people actually feel about a law that would make so drastic a change
Another suggestion was a poll asking specifically if women in particular supported (a) a law that would limit their right to be in the cars to 15 minutes; and (b) a law that would ban them from walking through any of the city's 24 parking lots or garages unless they had a vehicle there.
ACTION POSTPONED
The one bright note--Councilmember Ryan Coonerty confided that the Parking Lot Trespass Law would not be on the Council agenda for Tuesday. That travesty will be coming up probably the first meeting in April. Instead we’ll probably see another experiment in anti-homeless social engineering--the “no smoking in San Lorenzo and Grant St. Parks” regulation--which was rushed through the March 1st Parks and Recreation Commission meeting with zero public comment.
ACTIONS WE CAN TAKE
There’s nothing wrong with calling City Council at 420-5020 to denounce these planned “homeless relocation” plans. Denounce the Sleeping Ban while you’re at it (a more important institutional human rights violation).
But if we want to change things, we’ll have to organize in numbers with a variety of different groups--perhaps plan a massive ticketing of tourists, CD occupation of parking lots and garages, solidarity sitting and singing with street performers, or renewed boycott the most bigoted downtown businesses.
HOMELESS GROUPS TO CONTACT
Those interested in coming to meetings of Homeless United for Friendship & Freedom can wander over to the courthouse just outside the metal detectors near the coffee cart 9:30 AM-11:30 AM on Wednesdays (call 423-HUFF for more info or go to http://www.huffsantacruz.org).
Equally militant is the Human Rights Organization which meets Saturdays at 1:45 p.m. at the dining bay of the Human Resources Center at 115 Coral St.
Downtown Commission met Thursday Morning--its 2nd special meeting within a week, in order to speed the parking lot/garages-trespass law freighttrain on to City Council.
The process was pressured by Councilmember Coonerty and Mayor Mathews, with no serious discussion of alternative solutions and no recognition of the drastic change in traditional Santa Cruz policy regarding 8 blocks of public space.
CRIME STATS STILL MISSING
There were still no statistics available indicating the amount of crime going on in parking garages as compared with elsewhere in the downtown area.
Nor were there any stats whatsoever on parking lots (as distinguished from garages). The Commission jovially voted to criminalize any entrance onto a lot or garage without a car or bicycle.
ACLU/MERCHANT CYBORG COONERTY BEAMS ON
Untroubled and smiling, ACLU co-chair, Commission member, and merchant apologist Sheila Coonerty decided that the fears of the women she'd spoken to outweighed their right to use public parking lots and garages on their own schedule--not that of the SCPD, the Public Works Department, and/or that of Parking Lot attendants.
Coonerty's resolution, which passed 5-1 (Kathy Bisbee, to her credit, dissenting) forwarded the Barisone law to City Council, contracting use time in the parking lots from the current "as long as you like or need" to 15 minutes, suggested the police give a warning, and asked for a report back in a year.
PHONEY FERRARA FORWARDS THE TRESPASS LAW
Atlantis Fantasyworld owner Joe Ferrara, who also chairs the Downtown Association--the merchant association that gave us the Downtown Ordinances in 1994, denounced selective enforcement and the city's failure to give them enough info, then heartily supported the measure and forwarded it to City Council. His point: the police would have a "necessary tool" to force people to leave who were not engaging in visibly criminal activity.
I was so upset with Ferrara, that once the meeting had ended, I loudly and publicly denounced him as a hypocrite. Jovial Joe shrugged it off with a grin and slipped back into conference with his cohorts.
Ferrara's Atlantis Fantasyworld was one of the businesses in 1994 selected for boycott after their support for the "no sitting" law and the host of other anti-homeless edicts cooked up by then- Councilmember Neal Coonerty, backed up by Rotkin and Mathews.
No one called on local ACLU activist Don Zimmermann, who sat patiently in the 2nd row, preferring to rely on City Attorney Barisone, Parking Lot Manager Matt Farrell, and Deputy Police Chief Kevin Vogel.
HOMELESS SERVICE CENTER SUPPORTS HOMELESS EXCLUSION?
Matt Farrell did make the surprising though vague report that Homeless Service Center [HSC] workers had posed no objection to the law “as long as it was fairly enforced.” Would homeless tramps seeking shelter from freezing rain and soccer moms waiting for their kids in their cars be given the same treatment? The question dissolves in absurdity even as you ask it--particularly when the newer stats show that the biggest “category” of “Public Service calls” was for “camping”.
It's interesting that this HSC complicity (if it's been accurately reported) comes at the same time that homeless are driven away from the HSC during the day.
REPLAY AT YOUR LEISURE
I'll be playing the whole shameful charade on Free Radio Sunday March 26th shortly after 7:30 a.m. It will be archived at http://www.huffsantacruz.org under "Bathrobespierre's Broadsides".
PROTESTERS PRESENTE!
SAFE street performers Valerie Christy, Greg Montoya, Michael Pentacost and Coral Brune provided musical support. Christy made oatmeal. I provided some signage such as "Ten-Minute Tyranny", "Locking Up the Parking Lots Makes Us Less Seure More Stupid". Others abandoned nicities and held up signs like "Fuck Your Fascist Laws." In the audience were a variety of merchants as well as Grant Wilson of Art and Revolution. No indymedia or FRSC reports (other than me) put in an appearance.
No public comment was allowed. To give the Commission their due, they did not give any special recognition/attention to the merchants who came to watch, who had not spoken at the last meeting. They didn’t need to. There was no serious interest in challenging the law, just in finding reasons to buttress it for the upcoming Council meeting.
The Downtown Commission discussion took about an hour and three quarters. It was not broadcast but was taped by the secretary.
I suppose this is a step up from City Council’s Public Safety Meetings (Rotkin, Coonerty, and Porter) which don’t even record their meetings. This little coterie of SCPD sycophants blindly “oversaw” the police for the last three years, allowing infiltration and snoop operations against peaceful protests. They’ve given Chief Howard Skerry free rein and muzzled public discussion.
SECURITY THROUGH SUBTERFUGE?
The Downtown Commission showed little interest in determining how the community felt about surrendering so much public space in exchange for an imagined increase in security (with no increased security patroling).
In effect, the whole thing seemed a kind of insulting bluff on the public. The new game plan: create a law to drive away undesireables by making it criminal for all people to be there. Don’t appropriate any additional money for enforcement. Rely on the power of an intimidating fine to persuade people go give up their traditional right to a laissez-faire use of the lots and garages. Find another law to criminalize where the undesirables go next in order to harry them further.
Meanwhile more and more power is being given to petty tyrants like Pam Bachtel, the Community Service Officer with the ravenous ticket book. And people are being persuaded to rationalize and police their own exclusion from public spaces built with their own tax dollars.
HOMELESS CLEANSING MADE EASY
Matt Farrell explicitly admitted that they put in a change-making machine at Elm and Pacific (the third within a 200’ radius) to drive away the grungies from Punk Corner next to the Union Grove Parking lot. Now that they’ve moved to the Catalyst parking lot, no doubt Farrell has new schemes afoot to harass them further.
MERCHANTS HOLD CLOSED MEETING
Joe Ferrara and a small coterie of downtown merchants had previously had an open meeting of their Downtown Association (the merchant group that gave us the Downtown Ordinances). On my arrival with two other homeless people, Ferrara suddenly announced they were meeting in closed session. Though they weren't discussing litigation or personnel matters (the usual reasons for closing meetings), they refused to allow us to remain.
Human Rights Organzation activist Bob Patton parked his vehicle in the parking lot garage near the window where the Downtown Association cabal was meeting with a large sign denouncing business bigotry, and ostentatiously began putting fliers on cars in the lot ---an action that would be illegal under the new law, unless you were parking your own bicycle or vehicle in the lot.
FUTURE ACTIONS?
Activists discussed a Critical Mass bike ride through the parking lots flyering cars (another activity that would become illegal under the new law).
Another suggestion was a poll asking specifically if women in particular supported (a) a law that would limit their right to be in the cars to 15 minutes; and (b) a law that would ban them from walking through a pf determine how people actually feel about a law that would make so drastic a change
Another suggestion was a poll asking specifically if women in particular supported (a) a law that would limit their right to be in the cars to 15 minutes; and (b) a law that would ban them from walking through any of the city's 24 parking lots or garages unless they had a vehicle there.
ACTION POSTPONED
The one bright note--Councilmember Ryan Coonerty confided that the Parking Lot Trespass Law would not be on the Council agenda for Tuesday. That travesty will be coming up probably the first meeting in April. Instead we’ll probably see another experiment in anti-homeless social engineering--the “no smoking in San Lorenzo and Grant St. Parks” regulation--which was rushed through the March 1st Parks and Recreation Commission meeting with zero public comment.
ACTIONS WE CAN TAKE
There’s nothing wrong with calling City Council at 420-5020 to denounce these planned “homeless relocation” plans. Denounce the Sleeping Ban while you’re at it (a more important institutional human rights violation).
But if we want to change things, we’ll have to organize in numbers with a variety of different groups--perhaps plan a massive ticketing of tourists, CD occupation of parking lots and garages, solidarity sitting and singing with street performers, or renewed boycott the most bigoted downtown businesses.
HOMELESS GROUPS TO CONTACT
Those interested in coming to meetings of Homeless United for Friendship & Freedom can wander over to the courthouse just outside the metal detectors near the coffee cart 9:30 AM-11:30 AM on Wednesdays (call 423-HUFF for more info or go to http://www.huffsantacruz.org).
Equally militant is the Human Rights Organization which meets Saturdays at 1:45 p.m. at the dining bay of the Human Resources Center at 115 Coral St.
Add Your Comments
Comments
(Hide Comments)
"No indymedia or FRSC reports (other than me) put in an appearance."
Santa Cruz Indymedia is not a collective, it is a TACTIC.
Anyone and everyone is (or can be) an Indymedia reporter.
Robert, you published an article here on Indymedia and therefore there was at least one Indymedia reporter on the scene. thanks!
Santa Cruz Indymedia is not a collective, it is a TACTIC.
Anyone and everyone is (or can be) an Indymedia reporter.
Robert, you published an article here on Indymedia and therefore there was at least one Indymedia reporter on the scene. thanks!
Ask your female friends how they would feel about being in a parking garage at night and being confronted by a psychotic vagrant, or one of the many, many petty criminals who call themselves "homeless". A garage is a dangerous place. NO ONE has any business loitering there. It's a safety issue. And if you are so concerned about the "homeless", invite them to YOUR house.
Ask your homeless friends how they will feel about being in a parking garage at night and being confronted by a psychotic cop.
Perhaps a dusk to dawn curfew would make few people feel safer as well.
Perhaps a dusk to dawn curfew would make few people feel safer as well.
Sherry forwarded me the following e-mails, which are now part of the Public Record at the Downtown Commission. Thanks, Sherry for making this available to the public. (Robert Norse)
From: Sherry Conable <marasavati [at] cruzio.com>
Date: Fri Mar 24, 2006 12:46:32 PM US/Pacific
To: mfarrell [at] ci.santa-cruz.ca.us
Cc: grant wilson <grrrant [at] cruzio.com>
Subject: decision?
Matt
since I could not come yesterday to the DTC meeting, can you send me a record of what their decision was, and when you think it will be forwarded to Council for their discussion and action?
thanks
sherry
On Friday, March 24, 2006, at 02:45 PM, Julie Shattuck wrote:
Hi Sherry,
The Commissioners very much appreciated the correspondence you distributed about the proposed Ordinance. Thanks. Matt sent it out the day before via email so everyone could read the pieces >> beforehand.
The Commission's decision yesterday was to support the Ordinance (5 in favor, 1 opposed, with 1 Commissioner absent). Given the laundry list of expressed issues: the various perspectives on solving the health and safety problems, the consequences on individuals who are doing routine personal activities in the garages, the potential for selective enforcement, the budget situation, the lack of police officers, etc. it was a very difficult issue to deal with. I truly believe that to improve the current situation that a range of interventions and a solid public education plan are needed.
Here were the conditions that go along with the approval:
1) that the time limit is extended to 15 minutes;
2) that a verbal warning is given prior to a written citation;
3) that the City Council develop a comprehensive plan to gather data and information about the performance of this ordinance over a 12-month period and that this evaluation be undertaken by the Downtown Taskforce;
4) that the Downtown Commission extends conditional support for surface lot inclusion in this ordinance since there is not, at present, adequate information regarding public safety needs in these lots which needs should be determined before the surface lots are included in the ordinance;
5) that effective signage and public education are an essential aspect of passage of this ordinance; and
6) adoption of this ordinance must balance public safety concerns and the public's civil liberties.
We are producing a letter to go to Council prior to this item being considered. I want to revisit some alternatives to the imposed time limit again and feel that it is the focus of much of the controversy around this ordinance. It may be that when the police are called to a garage and they issue a warning that it is implied that individuals leave immediately and that no time limit is actually necessary. They are probably escorted out. This needs to be looked at again.
Julie
From: Sherry Conable <marasavati [at] cruzio.com>
Date: Fri Mar 24, 2006 7:44:42 PM US/Pacific
To: "Julie Shattuck" <julieshattuck [at] post.com>
Cc: mfarrell [at] ci.santa-cruz.ca.us, ryan coonerty <rcoonerty [at] ci.santa-cruz.ca.us>
Subject: Re: decision?
thanks for the very detailed reply Julie!
I do think clarifying the time between a warning and a ticket is important - if they get a second complaint a day later about a person who has been warned, is that treated the same as three months later??
I want to remind the Commission that, when the Revised Downtown Ordinances were passed, a built in review and evaluation by the DTC was part of the package - to my knowledge, that has never really happened - I think that kind of condition is thrown in to make people feel better, and then forgotten
peace
sherry
From: Sherry Conable <marasavati [at] cruzio.com>
Date: Fri Mar 24, 2006 12:46:32 PM US/Pacific
To: mfarrell [at] ci.santa-cruz.ca.us
Cc: grant wilson <grrrant [at] cruzio.com>
Subject: decision?
Matt
since I could not come yesterday to the DTC meeting, can you send me a record of what their decision was, and when you think it will be forwarded to Council for their discussion and action?
thanks
sherry
On Friday, March 24, 2006, at 02:45 PM, Julie Shattuck wrote:
Hi Sherry,
The Commissioners very much appreciated the correspondence you distributed about the proposed Ordinance. Thanks. Matt sent it out the day before via email so everyone could read the pieces >> beforehand.
The Commission's decision yesterday was to support the Ordinance (5 in favor, 1 opposed, with 1 Commissioner absent). Given the laundry list of expressed issues: the various perspectives on solving the health and safety problems, the consequences on individuals who are doing routine personal activities in the garages, the potential for selective enforcement, the budget situation, the lack of police officers, etc. it was a very difficult issue to deal with. I truly believe that to improve the current situation that a range of interventions and a solid public education plan are needed.
Here were the conditions that go along with the approval:
1) that the time limit is extended to 15 minutes;
2) that a verbal warning is given prior to a written citation;
3) that the City Council develop a comprehensive plan to gather data and information about the performance of this ordinance over a 12-month period and that this evaluation be undertaken by the Downtown Taskforce;
4) that the Downtown Commission extends conditional support for surface lot inclusion in this ordinance since there is not, at present, adequate information regarding public safety needs in these lots which needs should be determined before the surface lots are included in the ordinance;
5) that effective signage and public education are an essential aspect of passage of this ordinance; and
6) adoption of this ordinance must balance public safety concerns and the public's civil liberties.
We are producing a letter to go to Council prior to this item being considered. I want to revisit some alternatives to the imposed time limit again and feel that it is the focus of much of the controversy around this ordinance. It may be that when the police are called to a garage and they issue a warning that it is implied that individuals leave immediately and that no time limit is actually necessary. They are probably escorted out. This needs to be looked at again.
Julie
From: Sherry Conable <marasavati [at] cruzio.com>
Date: Fri Mar 24, 2006 7:44:42 PM US/Pacific
To: "Julie Shattuck" <julieshattuck [at] post.com>
Cc: mfarrell [at] ci.santa-cruz.ca.us, ryan coonerty <rcoonerty [at] ci.santa-cruz.ca.us>
Subject: Re: decision?
thanks for the very detailed reply Julie!
I do think clarifying the time between a warning and a ticket is important - if they get a second complaint a day later about a person who has been warned, is that treated the same as three months later??
I want to remind the Commission that, when the Revised Downtown Ordinances were passed, a built in review and evaluation by the DTC was part of the package - to my knowledge, that has never really happened - I think that kind of condition is thrown in to make people feel better, and then forgotten
peace
sherry
The very real health and safety of homeless people is sacrifised here to assuage the theoretical safety of women walking to their cars in parking lots. I say theoretical, because of the 541 "calls for service" Vice-Chief Kevin Vogel provided to the Downtown Commission documenting crime or perceived crime in the parking garages (many of those calls were not real crimes--but suspicious person reports, or even a documentation of an ordinary drive-thru) did not include a single assault, attempted rape, molestation, or rape of a women in all of 2005.
This law is not meant to protect women. It doesn't protect homeless women.
This law was cooked up by Parks and Rec maintenance staff, at the behest of the police and Matt Farrell in the Parking dept. They needed a law to arrest people for doing nothing at all.
Not for littering, not for urinating, not for burglarizing cars, not for writing graffiti, not for defecating, not for panhandling, not for drinking from an open container, not for selling or shooting up drugs, not for sleeping, not for camping, not for harassing women, and not to protect against rape. There are already plenty of laws on the books for all of those crimes. The city has no problem enforcing them either, despite their complaints otherwise.
This law's only purpose is so that when someone calls the police and says that there are homeless people in the parking structure (as happens on rainy nights), when the police come they can be arrested. If they are sleeping, covering up with a blanket, or camping under current laws they can be cited or arrested. This law allows them to be arrested simply for remaining in the area (to stay dry).
The very real effect of this ordinance (perhaps its only effect) will be to drive homeless people out into the rain from the parking structures. As City Attorney John Barisone who supports the law said "I'm sure the police will use discretion in citing a person in a wheelchair who is in the garage longer than ten minutes." John, we have a term for that. It's called SELECTIVE ENFORCEMENT!! And it's both illegal and unethical.
This law is not meant to protect women. It doesn't protect homeless women.
This law was cooked up by Parks and Rec maintenance staff, at the behest of the police and Matt Farrell in the Parking dept. They needed a law to arrest people for doing nothing at all.
Not for littering, not for urinating, not for burglarizing cars, not for writing graffiti, not for defecating, not for panhandling, not for drinking from an open container, not for selling or shooting up drugs, not for sleeping, not for camping, not for harassing women, and not to protect against rape. There are already plenty of laws on the books for all of those crimes. The city has no problem enforcing them either, despite their complaints otherwise.
This law's only purpose is so that when someone calls the police and says that there are homeless people in the parking structure (as happens on rainy nights), when the police come they can be arrested. If they are sleeping, covering up with a blanket, or camping under current laws they can be cited or arrested. This law allows them to be arrested simply for remaining in the area (to stay dry).
The very real effect of this ordinance (perhaps its only effect) will be to drive homeless people out into the rain from the parking structures. As City Attorney John Barisone who supports the law said "I'm sure the police will use discretion in citing a person in a wheelchair who is in the garage longer than ten minutes." John, we have a term for that. It's called SELECTIVE ENFORCEMENT!! And it's both illegal and unethical.
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