CC Minutes - 05/13/98 Work Session

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February 4, 1998. He said that there was slightly more activity during that week but the activities he cited were typical. Officer Fellman described how the exclusion ordinance could be implemented. He emphasized that the proposed approach was not new and was currently in use in City parks. He asked the council to consider adopting the ordinances for a nine-month trial period because the department anticipated a high number of exclusions would be issued initially and that it would fall off as the trial period advanced. Officer Fellman stressed that all citations would be issued for criminal behavior, not gender or race. The citations would be issued by officers who work downtown and were familiar with the area. Staff would evaluate the ordinance during the trial period to determine its effectiveness and its impact on the outlying areas of downtown. He expected the result to be a decrease in repeat crimes on the downtown mall and a decrease in criminal foot traffic to and from the mall. Officer Fellman acknowledged that the ordinance was not a solution but said that it would be a tool, like other tools, to address the issues that existed downtown. Officer Fellman referred the council to data included in the packet indicating the mall had a high crime level. He noted the high number of "people" crimes on the mall compared with other areas of the City. Officer Carolyn McDermed discussed how the department would track the implementation of the ordinance. Acting Police Chief Jim Hill expressed appreciation for the staff work that had been done. He agreed with Officer Fellman that the ordinance was not a solution to the situation that existed on the mall. Chief Hill said that people had expressed legitimate concerns about human rights that the department took seriously. He said the ordinances represented a good faith effort on the part of the department to address some of the behaviors officers encountered on the mall. Ms. Taylor believed that once established an ordinance rarely sunsetted. She questioned how many of the people on the mall had been displaced from the 13th Avenue area. She asked where the people on the mall would go if they were excluded from the mall. She did not know if the people involved were homeless or if they had some place to go. Ms. Taylor asked what would happen when an excluded person ignored the order, particularly given the lack of jail space. In response to Ms. Taylor's initial statement, Mr. Johnson said that the ordinance included a sunset date and it would require specific council action to continue it. Responding to Ms. Taylor's question regarding displacement, Ms. Bohman acknowledged that it was difficult to know the impact of the ordinance until it was implemented. She said that while it was not desirable to attempt to simply move those gathering on the mall to another single area, to some extent management of public spaces involved dispersing and displacing undesirable activities. She said that staff anticipated other elements of the multi-faceted approach would help to direct activities. Ms. Bohman said that staff would continue to monitor the situation over time. Officer Fellman added that the downtown mall has become an attractive environment for people who participate in criminal activity. Youth often become victims of that activity. The department hoped to make the mall a safer place by dispersing some of that activity. Officer Fellman th th believed that there was some cross-over from the 13 Avenue area, but the majority of those in the downtown mall area were separate from those who had congregated in the 13 Avenue area. MINUTES--Eugene City Council May 13, 1998 Page 5 11:30 a.m.