The Battle for Santa Monica’s Parks : Homeless: Critics say a proposed ordinance to prohibit camping in the city fails to come to grips with the issue.
Responding to a clamor for a no-camping law for city parks, Santa Monica City Atty. Robert M. Myers has drafted an ordinance that defines camping so narrowly that it is nearly certain to reignite the struggle over the homeless issue that has most divided the city.
Dismissing as unconstitutional a broad definition of camping used in a West Hollywood law that some Santa Monica officials had cited as a model, Myers proposes a law that would allow people to live in the parks 19 hours a day, as long as they did not pitch a tent or bring a cot and camp stove.
A separate law already on the books prohibits sleeping in the parks from midnight to 5 a.m.
By his definition in the new encampment ordinance, “Camp shall not include merely sleeping outside . . . or the use of a sleeping bag, bedroll, blanket or mat or the possession of personal belongings,” Myers wrote.
This describes the paraphernalia used by homeless people whose presence in the city parks has led to a near-mutiny among some residents of the seaside community.
The direction taken by Myers, whose defense of the rights of the homeless has put him at the center of the debate over how to deal with the city’s large homeless population, already is drawing fire, even before the ordinance has been formally presented to the City Council. It is scheduled for discussion Tuesday.
Last month, the council adopted a comprehensive strategy to manage the city’s large homeless population through a combination of stepped-up law enforcement and the creation of more housing and services. The plan was devised by an 18-member citizen task force, which asked for a law against encampments but could not agree on a definition.
Many people in the city are already saying that Myers’ definition is not the proper one. The mayor, the city manager, three council members, a residents’ group and some members of the homeless task force say they are, to varying degrees, dissatisfied with Myers’ proposal.
“This is a negotiating document rather than a serious proposal,” said Conway Collis, a former State Board of Equalization member who headed the task force’s public safety committee. “What the city attorney has done is to adopt a legal interpretation colored by his personal opinion.”
Mayor Ken Genser, a political ally of Myers, said, “I’m not quite sure it gets us where we want to get.”
And in an unusual public statement on such a sensitive matter, City Manager John Jalili said the ordinance “must be strengthened in order to meet the intent of the homeless task force and to respond to public comment.”
A key social service provider on the task force, Vivian Rothstein, who runs the Ocean Park Community Center, said Myers’ proposal does not address the critical question of how long is it appropriate for someone to use the parks.
“We wanted to address the taking over of an area (in the park) and treating it as your own,” she said.
In the past, Myers has said there is no need for any encampment law and he has objected strenuously to the overnight sleeping ban as well, arguing that homeless people have nowhere else to go. Myers said the law he has written “does not drive any segment of the community out of the park during the daytime hours if they are not engaging in the specific camp activities set forth.”
Leaders of a residents group that is demanding a strong law reacted harshly to Myers’ proposal.
“He’s just thumbing his nose at the people of the city, said Jean Sedillos, co-chairwoman of a group called Save Our City. “We don’t have people pitching tents and using propane stoves. Let’s get in the real world.”
About 3,200 people signed cards distributed by Save Our City last fall calling for the council to pass an encampment law that would enable residents to regain the use of their city parks. Sedillos said this week that if the council passes Myers’ law, or modifies it only slightly, her group will launch an initiative campaign to put a stronger measure on the November ballot.
Four of the seven members of one of the nation’s most liberal city councils are up for reelection in November and must now decide how tough to get on the encampment issue.
City Councilman Robert Holbrook, who is neither up for reelection nor a member of the liberal majority, said he would be first in line to sign an initiative petition if his colleagues approve Myers’ measure.
“I think political futures are at stake,” Holbrook said. “I wouldn’t want to be running for office and have adopted (Myers’) ordinance.”
Myers said he reviewed laws governing the parks in 77 California cities before drafting the proposed law. A majority of those cities close the parks at night, most for a longer period than Santa Monica. Seventeen of the cities, including San Francisco, Manhattan Beach, Sacramento and Palm Springs, prohibit camping or sleeping or both during daytime hours.
In a lengthy legal analysis of the West Hollywood ordinance, Myers concludes that it is unconstitutionally vague and said it could be interpreted to prohibit normal picnicking or babies who nod off in the park.
“A family that enjoys having regular cookouts in the local park is left to guess about how often they can use the parks before being subject to criminal prosecution,” Myers wrote.
The West Hollywood law forbids camping, and defines it, in part, as “residing in or using a park for living accommodation purposes, as exemplified by remaining for prolonged or repetitious periods . . . with one’s personal possessions.”
West Hollywood City Atty. Michael Jenkins said he thought Myers’ interpretation was “a totally unnecessary stretch.”
“I just don’t buy that at all,” he said.
Jenkins said he drafted the West Hollywood law to deal with exactly the problems Santa Monica is having. He says it works and he believes it would withstand constitutional challenge.
“The U.S. Constitution has no provision that says people have a right to live in a city park,” Jenkins said.
