Mayor Sam Adams and City Commissioner Amanda Fritz met with homeless advocates this afternoon to talk about the city’s replacement to the unconstitutional sit/lie law. Adams opened the meeting—which was attended by reporters from KGW, KBOO, Street Roots and the Mercury—by asking that the media agree to some “ground rules.” If someone wanted to say something they preferred to be kept off the record, they should say so, and the press should agree to abide by that agreement.
The Mercury declined. Our attorneys were of the opinion that we were entitled to report on the meeting, and that if we weren’t, then the city was obligated under Oregon’s open meetings law to give us the specific reason why not. Fortunately nobody at the meeting wanted his or her words kept secret:
During the meeting, the advocates expressed the same concerns they have been voicing for years about ordinances that are targeted specifically against homeless people. If we’re having a problem with harassment or drug activity, asked Brendan Phillips, a community organizer with Sisters of the Road, why don’t we enforce those laws against people instead of creating a broad over-arching ordinance that simply targets homeless people?
“The vast majority of the folks out there slinging dope are standing up,” said Street Roots director Israel Bayer. “We agree 110 percent that there are x,y and z problems around drugs, we’re just not sure using sit/lie is the appropriate way to tackle those problems.”
Adams said he plans to craft a sidewalk management package that takes all the laws about sidewalk obstruction—covering sidewalk cafes, A-boards, newspaper boxes, and so on, as well as access and passage issues on the sidewalk, and put them all under one umbrella of city code. But he also acknowledged that city council is on the third, “or is it fourth?” iteration of trying to regulate its sidewalks for these issues, and said he wanted to make sure that the new ordinance passes constitutional muster as well as being simple enough for everyone to understand.
Then, Fritz said something marvelous: “We get it, we heard, sit/lie is gone.” Let’s hope she says the same thing to the business folks next week. We have a request in to the mayor’s office to find out when that meeting is going to be taking place, and will keep you posted.
Update, 5:14pm:
Attorney Chris O’Connor, who has organized a 350-strong advocacy group against renewal of the law on Facebook, was called by the mayor’s public advocate Amy Stevens four minutes before the meeting. She left a message for O’Connor, saying he wouldn’t be welcome, she thought:
“It’s Amy Stevens from Mayor Adams’ office, sorry I’m just now getting back with you. I’ve looked into the meeting, and it’s really an internal working meeting. I’ve heard that the media wants to be there and I’m not sure that that’s going to be allowed for the actual working meeting, because it’s really just brainstorming, exploring background, trying to figure out what are the biggest problems, that kind of thing.”
“I have made note that you are against sit/lie, and I also want to say that in some ways, Mayor Adams is too—he does not want to stop homeless from being able to curl up and sleep on a park bench if that’s the only place that they can sleep at night. He’s more interested in making sure that there are facilities for the homeless, and in keeping the downtown safe for downtown tourists, retailers and business owners. And not that there’s an increase in criminal risk, but just keeping the sidewalks open and people able to move about easily. So, trying to strike a balance, and it’s not an easy task, but we’re working on it.”
“It didn’t sound like I was going to be very welcome at the meeting,” says O’Connor. “But Commissioner Fritz was very gracious when she saw me walk in. Unfortunately I had a trial to get to on an actual criminal case, but I’d certainly have loved to participate. I hope they have real public meetings on this before a council vote, with more than 23 hours’ notice, and mixed messages about whether or not the meetings are public.”
“Part of my concern is they are determined to have a sit/lie ordinance,” says O’Connor. “When perhaps the real question is whether or not they even need one, and I heard that raised more than once at the meeting.”
So, since when do attendees at a public meeting get to decide whether they’re on or off the record?
That sounds like an idea out of Dick Cheney’s playbook.
Sidewalk Management Meeting
City Hall Portland, OR Rose Room
September 1, 2009
By: Janelle, Post-Baccalaureate student
Sidewalk barriers
Today I attended the “Sidewalk Management Meeting” at the Downtown Portland, Oregon City Hall Rose Room. “Stakeholders” were invited to discuss the “no sit/lie sidewalk ordinance” which has been deemed unconstitutional and those who attended this meeting were told that the “no sit/lie sidewalk ordinance” will officially sunset in October by Commissioner Amanda Fritz. Fritz defined “stakeholders” as any concerned citizen in the downtown Portland community. Now, the city of Portland wishes to discuss a new proposal in the works called “Sidewalk Management.” The city of Portland will next speak with businesses about the “Sidewalk Management” and according to Portland Mayor Sam Adams, there are other “competing interests” involved that will be dealt with. For the most part, I personally enjoyed the meeting; however I disagreed with a few comments and was at one point trying to be shut-down by Mayor Sam Adams saying that I was “judging” an individual because she indicated that the State of Oregon doesn’t need to be involved in addressing the drug addicts/homeless community. I told Mayor Adams, “I respectfully disagree with you. In exercising my freedom of speech, my civil liberties, I have the right to disagree with a statement. I am not judging anyone, I am disagreeing with her comment that the State doesn’t need to be involved; it does. Social services are great, and we need more services such as treatment/healthcare options, however, we need the ability to transition past addict or homeless people back into society and most of this population may have a criminal background which makes it hard to obtain a job.” I also previously asserted that, “Yesterday, I called the House of the Majority in Salem, Oregon and was told that Oregon employers can search as far back as someone’s juvenile criminal background. With Oregon, currently being number four in unemployment and a few months back, number one in homelessness, something needs to be down so those who have a criminal background may be able to get a job.” All, in all, I enjoyed attending the meeting, despite people who may have misunderstood me, a native Oregonian born in Portland, OR but raised in the Oregon Columbia Gorge area with previous homelessness experience as well a minor criminal background from almost seven years ago that still creates employment barriers for myself and others like me. I can see that the city of Portland is trying to ensure a thru-way on the sidewalks and decrease criminal/drug activity, and aggressive pan-handling with recent increases in public restrooms, benches, social services, a day access center is coming and there were also talks of creating zones and places for the homeless population to congregate as well a community court to address sidewalk issues as they arise. Mayor Adams even approached me afterwards to speak with me and it was a productive conversation. Even though, I am not a Democrat or a Republican, as a registered Portland, Oregon voter, I did not vote for any of the Downtown Portland, Oregon city government officials and I even signed a petition the other day to recall Mayor Sam Adams, I enjoyed voicing my voice, even if I am just a minority. As a 30 year female growing up in a single-parent family, someone who has recently completed a bachelor degree in August 2008 with a 3.914 GPA and due to my criminal background, I am a professional college student working on my second bachelor degree, I am thankful I had my voice heard. Thank you Downtown Portland, Oregon City Hall for inviting to the “Sidewalk Management” meeting and for the many homeless advocates such as Street Roots, Portland Mercury, Soapbox under the Bridge, and Sisters of the Road for also attending and all the citizens who came and shared their voice. Janelle
It’s a good thing Patrick had the common sense to ask if any one minded being on the record. I’m sure the city attorney would have liked to have been off the record, but Dave didn’t say anything so that question by Patrick allowed the meeting to continue.
Matt I have a question about the “Content” issue discussed at the end of the meeting. Something about all people and objects being treated equal under the law. Example was made of a newspaper box, if you cite people for being an obstruction, then you must also enforce the ordinance on inanimate objects like tables, chairs, planters and newspaper boxes.
Could you explain how this might affect enforcement of a new obstruction ordinance?
@Dan:
The sidewalk obstruction ordinance has only been enforced against people, even though businesses have routinely broken the law with their sidewalk tables and unlicensed A-boards.
The idea of “content neutrality” is a precedent set by various appeals. If you’re going to make a law about sidewalk obstruction you have to make sure it applies equally to all things, not just people.
Broadly, there are already laws about this set by the ADA, and city fire code. And state disorderly conduct law preempts a “sidewalk obstruction” law. So it’s going to be almost impossible for the city attorney to craft a law that both treats every obstruction equally, is appealing to the business community and homeless advocates alike, and passes constitutional muster.
Right now, if I were the mayor, I would be wondering why I was investing all the energy in a silly idea. Why not put my energy into kick-starting the economy, schools, or our environment? Like he promised before the election? This is a distraction for the mayor.
Can it be possible that the City has been through multiple iterations of this law without even doing a single empirical study to define the geographical extent of the problem, the type and frequency of the behavior the law is trying to address, etc etc, etc. ??? Someone please tell me I’m wrong.
Yes, it is possible. I would love to see some independent analysis. But of course, if that were done, we would see that the problem is really overblown and overstated!
Let’s see the city commission such a study!
I talked to a cabbie in San Francisco about the sit/lie law and he said, “Portland is fucking stupid”.
I didn’t agree with him so much as I agreed with him.
I don’t know what I mean.