Item 4: Ordinance Encouraging Use of Reusable Bags

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Bag Ban Public Testimony 7/24/2012 – 9/17/2012 nearby and perhaps ask for spare change, but while this might be annoying it is not criminal. And if someone is afraid to go somewhere because their little personal bubble might get burst for a second I really have to think they need to get a grip. While it may be difficult for some to share the sidewalks with the homeless comfortably, I am pretty sure that even more or most people feel alarmed and afraid when there are a large number of cops surrounding one or two people. I have seen as many as a half dozen cops surround a single drunk on the sidewalk. I saw just that outside my home on June 5th. I stepped outside my building and initially thought that perhaps the liquor store had been robbed or maybe someone had been shot because of all the cop cars (I counted 5) and cops. My neighbour informed me that he had been watching and all he saw was a drunk that was sitting on the sidewalk and refusing to get up. Besides the waste of taxpayer money in such a large presence to respond to a single drunk it can be alarming to the public to see so many police and not know why. That the above took place in front of a line of people waiting to get into the Dining Room (all peaceful, I didn’t hear a peep from them) serves the impression that I sometimes feel that the police are generating more fear than a situation warrants in order to secure their jobs. I am pretty sure that when people see a number of cops surrounding someone like this their first thought IS NOT “Lets stop and go shopping and then have dinner here”. Just a few years ago, the downtown was a very desolate and depressing area and very concerning. In my opinion, in terms of the “Broken Windows Theory”, I think the city and some downtown interests skipped a beat by not taking the landlords more to task earlier on in fighting urban blight in our midst. Instead of broken windows, we got a slew of “No Trespassing” signs going up all over, an unfriendly blight of a different sort. As an example of community building, I’ll mention the Eugene Storefront Art Project that would contact landlords, many of them absentee, in order to get permission to go in, clean up and place art in the storefronts of otherwise vacant and derelict buildings. I do know that several storefronts were rented directly because of these efforts. Local artists sold art. The downtown had much more attractive storefronts. It has been a win-win-win situation for the landlords, the artists, and the city and a positive step people have taken upon themselves to create a more inviting and attractive downtown. There are more and more people who are and will be creating a vibrant and lively downtown by living and working here. I think the addition of benches would be better for downtown's growth than spending time and money on writing and rewriting the exclusion zone. There will be more businesses and reasons for people to travel downtown. Things are looking better and I like to think will continue to improve. I have seen two versions of the Downtown Public Safety Ordinance. The ordinance as it has been has obvious rights issues as it allows police to exclude people from downtown before they have even been to court. The revision reflects these concerns and eliminates this 90 day exclusion provision. I would urge that neither version be extended for the future. The original version should sunset because of it’s potential costly legal ramifications for the city should someone sue, and the second version because it essentially says that a judge may exclude people from an area as part of sentencing. As I understand, a judge may already exclude a person from an area as part of sentencing, so this ordinance is now redundant. Also, I will quickly say I would urge the council to not pass the amendment to allow the police the right