State Ruling May Aid City Crackdown on Homeless : Courts: Decision will support Ventura’s plan to toughen municipal ordinance against camping in parks, officials say.

The California Supreme Court’s decision Monday to uphold Santa Ana’s plan to rid its parks of homeless campers will more easily allow Ventura to outlaw the same behavior, local police and city officials said.

Police Capt. Randy Adams said the ruling validates his department’s plan to strengthen Ventura’s outdated camping law, which he said does not give officers enough authority to evict homeless campers from public parks.

“The crux of the issue is fairness,” Adams said Monday. “If there are people who want torefuse any social services, they need to move on because it’s not fair to others in the community.”

The state Supreme Court ruled Monday that a Santa Ana ordinance banning camping in public parks is constitutional. But officials in the Orange County city said they expect the decision to be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Clyde Reynolds, executive director of the Turning Point Foundation, which provides services for scores of homeless people in Ventura, said he was disappointed in the court ruling.

“Obviously my fear is that cities will respond by not providing adequate resources,” Reynolds said. “All we’ll end up doing is shifting people around from community to community.”

Reynolds said the decision reinforces a political backlash that has been launched against homeless people locally, across the state and across the country.

“The problem has been with us for some time, and when something tends to not get resolved, we often get frustrated and lose interest,” he said.

Ventura city attorneys now are working with police officials to draft amendments to the local camping law that officers say does not go far enough to prevent camping on beaches, in parks and in other public places.

“We’re hoping that within the next month or two we could at least have a draft of that ordinance ready to go,” Adams said. “The decision in the Santa Ana case will certainly provide a definition of what the court’s views are in this area.”

Assistant City Atty. Michael Dougherty, who is filling in for vacationing City. Atty. Peter D. Bulens, declined to discuss the case or his office’s progress on drafting amendments to Ventura’s camping law.

“I haven’t seen the (Santa Ana) decision,” Dougherty said.

Meanwhile, the City Council Monday approved the second reading of two other laws that regulate panhandling and behavior on streets and sidewalks.

Those ordinances call for aggressive beggars to first be warned, and then cited for misdemeanors on subsequent offenses, including intimidating people when asking for spare change or blocking their way on a sidewalk or street corner.

The two laws were approved unanimously after a public hearing last week, with council members saying the business community and others have urged them to do something to control the homelessness problem downtown.

They will go into effect next month. Like the Santa Ana ordinance, violations of the Ventura ordinances are punishable by six months in jail or a fine of up to $1,000.

“The community does not want their public parks used for camping,” Councilman Gregory L. Carson said. “They want to take back their public rights of way.

“There are still mechanisms in place that will help people,” Carson said, referring to the city’s temporary assessment center set up in January to aid homeless flood victims who had camped in the Ventura River bottom.

“We’re trying to take care of the people we allowed to be homeless in our community,” Carson said. “The ongoing programs ought to be able to suffice for the future.”

Mayor Tom Buford said he would probably support the tougher camping law when it gets before the City Council later this spring.

“I don’t think camping in public parks is appropriate,” he said. “It creates a negative experience for people who are using them for their intended purpose--temporary recreational uses.”

Reynolds, however, said he hopes the Santa Ana case makes its way to the Supreme Court.

“I would hope (the legal challenge) would be pushed further,” he said. “I’d like it to have as full a review as possible.”

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