Item 3: Downtown Public Safety Zone Ordinance

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Whiteaker neighborhoods. Parks exclusions are used as an effective tool to temporarily forbid certain offenders from remaining in, or returning to City parks. When the downtown core was a pedestrian mall, the City’s downtown mall exclusion ordinance allowed officers to prohibit repeat offenders from returning to the downtown mall for brief periods of time. Officers considered the ordinance to be an effective method for reducing crime. Exclusion zones create an increased sense of safety for community members who live and work in the designated zone. For example, parks exclusions provide officers with an alternative to incarceration that displaces chronic violators, creating a greater sense of safety in our parks and playgrounds. The civil penalty of exclusion is designed to hold offenders accountable for their actions, to remove offenders from unhealthy environments and to break the cycle of criminal and offensive behavior. The absence of repeat offenders from the designated zone can improve commerce and encourage a more welcoming environment for visitors and residents of the area. On the other hand, the use of exclusion zones does curtail the freedom of an excluded person to move about within the exclusion zone. This proposed exclusion ordinance, like the prostitution and the downtown mall exclusion ordinances, allows excluded persons to apply for variances to enter the zone for certain specific purposes (for example, to access social services within the zone). Both the prostitution and the downtown mall exclusion ordinances were applied in some measure to members of vulnerable populations who accessed social services located within the exclusion zones. Allowing subjects excluded by ordinance into the zone for important services was occasionally challenging. The City received complaints that exclusions were not consistently applied, leading to some perception of disparate enforcement. The proposed ordinance requires a municipal court judge to find by a preponderance of evidence that the person committed a certain crime within the zone before the exclusion becomes effective. The 90-day exclusion triggered by arrest or citation will terminate if the excluded person is acquitted, if the charges are dismissed, or if no charges are filed. An alternative version of the ordinance was prepared for discussion at the June 9 City Council work session. This alternative provided for exclusion only upon conviction of certain offenses within the Downtown Public Safety Zone. The council could choose to adopt an amended ordinance that provides for an immediate exclusion triggered by arrest or citation for more serious offenses (such as person crimes or felonies) and exclusion upon conviction for less serious offenses. . The critical component of an effective exclusion zone is a consistent police presence To be effective, the same police officers, familiar with chronic offenders, need to be assigned persistently to the same area. Individuals excluded from the zone are more likely to honor the restrictions imposed on them when they believe consequences are reliable and predictable. Municipal Court Impacts During the June 9, 2008 work session, Judge Allen commented on the expected increase in case filings the Eugene Municipal Court as a result of the proposed ordinance. He indicated that the court would be responsible for timely processing of all exclusion and variance matters in addition to regular court proceedings; resulting in increases to both judicial and court staff time. The additional prosecutions for violation of exclusion orders will also increase City Prosecutor and court appointed attorney hours. The ability to impose meaningful sanctions is critical in addressing the target problem. For many individuals alternative sanctions such as road crew or community service are not a viable option. Z:\CMO\2008 Council Agendas\M080721\S0807213.doc