Item 4: Ordinance Concerning Downtown Public Safety Zone

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exclusion zone is offered as a deterrent, because jail is a joke to people because of a lack of resources. She said we’ve offered this exclusion zone, and it shouldn’t be dropped. It might need to be adjusted, but not dropped. She said we need consequences for people who offend. Kids downtown see that there are no consequences for adults committing crime, so why should they do the right thing? That needs to be taken into account. The exclusion zone should include some of the younger crowd. Youth that hangs out downtown would benefit from knowing there are consequences for committing crimes. The ordinance gives the officers a tool to help prevent people from committing crime: if excluded, they won’t have access to services they use: can’t use the library, buses any longer. Jail isn’t the answer; the exclusion zone is. Janet Brown: She works downtown and her understanding is that the ordinance doesn’t target a certain class of people. She asked Officer Bremer about behaviors downtown. He answered that the ones he sees are Assault, dealing drugs, disorderly conduct and a significant number of underage girls having sex with older men. He added that Marijuana and Ecstasy are the predominate drugs with alcohol. She observed a correlation between specific behavior of harassment, assault, and drug offenses with under-age kids—a significant amount of underage girls seem to be having sex with adult males. Teenage prostitution occurs downtown. She believes one thing discussed and needs to be added to the ordinance is sex offenses like statutory rape and sex abuse that occur in zone. In the activity report, only one juvenile was excluded in 2008, so this isn’t targeting youth. She didn’t hear any mention of the class of people. She reiterated that it’s only behaviors; stating that needs to be recognized. She asked another question: if the exclusion zone goes away, how would repeat offenders be dealt with? Lt. Mozan answered: we’ve pledged to put officers in downtown as a permanent presence (although not fully until 2012 because of time for training and the selection process). We don’t currently have enough staff to do that right now, just during Spring through Fall. Without this ordinance, downtown officers will be reduced to just two, which is a reduced footprint of enforcement services. Also the number of offenders that were sanctioned will come back to downtown. Then in 2012, those new officers being trained right now will have to be reinvent the wheel to restore Downtown to a level that is manageable. Melissa Mona: She shares in full the concerns in the prepared statement from the ACLU. She has deep concern as a private citizen for the lack of due process and civil rights problems in the ordinance. She would hate to see the City, with good intentions, create situations with costly litigation. She agrees there is a way to create an exclusion zone concept but we’re not there yet. She is concerned with the lack of data in the report on the number of homeless people. She’s also concerned with class issues. There was no data on people alleged or perceived to have a disability—those people have protections. There has been an understanding on part of the judges to look more carefully at people with mental illness. She thinks there needs to be more of a fair application of ADA rules. She was also troubled by location of the forum—in the heart of the exclusion zone. Anyone affected who wanted to come share their feelings would have had to go through a complex process to get a waiver to do so. The very people she’s concerned about can’t be heard. Ofc. Bremer asked to respond to the issue of due process. He stated it is a course of due process that occurs in the normal course of someone being arrested. As an example, for a subject arrested in any part of town, pre- trial services can make decisions for an exclusion from a certain geographical area or exclude who that person can contact. That is all prior to even going before a judge and allowing this accused defendant to be released from the jail prior to a hearing. Post-conviction has possible conditions or restrictions placed on probationers/parolees that may ban them from a certain area or access – this is very similar to the exclusion zone in downtown. He stated the Exclusion Ordinance is similar to a bench probation. The normal pre- conviction process allows people the opportunity to be heard before a judge who then reviews the police report. If a hearing is requested, the officer who made the arrest will be there and the defendant will have an