Item 4: Ordinance Concerning Downtown Public Safety Zone

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Attachment A EUGENE POLICE COMMISSION DOWNTOWN PUBLIC SAFETY ZONE ORDINANCE – PUBLIC FORUM MINUTES Wednesday, September 01, 2010 Eugene Public Library Panelist Responses to Two Questions: 1. What do you feel have been the effects of the downtown exclusion zone? 2. What changes would you like to see the City Council make to the ordinance? Officer Bremer, EPD: He explained the effects of the ordinance, which he said have taken time to be seen. In his work patrolling downtown, he sees a mix of people who come to downtown in transit, to work, for recreation, for school, to shop, to have access to homeless services, street youth who have no place to go and are homeless/street youth who have a place to go but like to hang out at night, young adults, and other adults who fit those categories. It’s a big mix of people, with different activity. As a downtown patrol officer, it takes time to build trust with people. His observation of the exclusion zone is that it’s one tool in a more comprehensive strategy the City of Eugene is doing in order to make downtown a safer place. People who have been excluded are victimizing people who are vulnerable: youth and homeless people. He gave an example of one person excluded who was beating homeless people, and taking their possessions. That person is now off the street and out of downtown. There is a high victimization of vulnerable people. Perpetrators have also been victims. This ordinance has the benefit of protecting people and preventing victimization. It is not merely an ordinance enacted to benefit downtown businesses. Andy Vobora, Director of Marketing & Communication, Lane Transit District: There are approximately 10,000 interactions a day of people moving through LTD. The effort in developing a new LTD station was established to create a safer atmosphere and LTD has a long history of working with EPD toward downtown safety. LTD has their own exclusion ordinance #36 governing situations for their stations, which was worked on with the City of Eugene. LTD needs to work in tandem with the City because once a person is excluded from the LTD property they could stand on the sidewalk and have the same behaviors. 59% of exclusions made by LTD were also excluded by the downtown exclusion zone. Rick Bailor, Security Manager, LTD: Security officers have noticed people preying on youth around the area, and it’s quite noticeable when they’re excluded from the zone. Excluding these perpetrators is one less problem to worry about. Linda Hamilton, Chair of the Eugene Human Rights Commission: She has a concern for safety of the community and young people being victimized. She sees an officer’s role is to protect both. She wants to make sure a resolution is made that youth aren’t victimized. She’s interested in the value of all people. She wants this to be a safe community, free of unpleasant behavior for businesses in downtown. She is often concerned about having her own kids come into the downtown area. However, she also believes in due process, and people excluded are not always done so fairly. The homeless are part of our community and if we don’t deal with them, they will go elsewhere. She wants to see if this causes an impact to downtown. She wants to look more into due process and judges excluding people from the area. Dave Hauser, President, Eugene Chamber of Commerce: He commented that the City’s Annual Community Surveys show our community is interested in public safety. He said Terry Smith’s statistics (the Police Department Report on the DPSZ) was good to see. He was part of a community group in 2009 that looked at strategies for downtown safety. The group Included business representatives, youth advocates, and overall a broad cross-section of interested parties. The group was tasked with giving recommendations to the City on how to make people safer downtown. Four categories of concern were identified: lack of accountability for