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Home My WebLink About03-20-2012 B1 StewartGoodwin, Heather Subject: FW: Item 61 on March 20 agenda: Create a pilot "safe parking area" at Prado Road Day Center Attachments: 3 -19 -12 Letter to Council.pdf AGENDA RECEIVED CORRESPONDENCCE�� MAR 2 0 2012 - - - -- Original Message - - - -- DSje"'.�.:.�.1- SLO CITY CLERK From: Stewart Sent: Monday, March 19, 2012 6:01 PM To: Marx, Jan; Carter, Andrew; Ashbaugh, John; Carpenter, Dan; Smith, Kathy Cc: Lichtig, Katie; Codron, Michael; SLO County Advocates for the Homeless Subject: Re: Item 131 on March 20 agenda: Create a pilot "safe parking area" at Prado Road Day Center Dear Mayor Marx, Council Members, Ms. Lichtig and Mr. Condron, Please receive and consider the attached letter which summarizes my serious concerns related to the program embarked on by the City which criminalizes the homeless under the guise of applying ordinance 17.16.015 and penal code section 647(e). Item 131 on the March 20, 2012 Council agenda purports to remedy the temporarily unlawful and unconstitutional application of the ordinance and the statute; but 131 does not provide such. The attached letter contains a short alternative proposed four point resolution which I urge the Council to adopt instead. All the Best, Stew Jenkins Law Office of Stew Jenkins 1336 Morro Street San Luis Obispo, CA 93401 Phone: (805) 541 -5763 Fax: (805) 547 -1608 Email: info @stewlenkins.com Web:.www.stewwenkins.com "Carry on any enterprise as if all future success depended on it." Richelieu 1585 -1642 nerd Co on-lail: 0 COUNCIL CM DIR D CITY MGR r5 STDIR n ASSrCM D PIRE CHIEF D ATTORNEY s ^. PW AIR d CLERVORIG a POLICE CHIEF • P1B n PARKS & REC DIR • TRIBUNE o UTIL DIR • NEWTIMES D HRDIR • SLO CITY NEWS r COUNCIL ❑ CITY MGR a CLERK - - - -- Original Message - - - -- From: "John Ashbaugh" <jashbaug @slocity.org> To: "SLO County Advocates for the Homeless" <]bashbaugh @charter.net> Cc: "Katie Lichtig" <klichtig @slocity.org >, "Michael Codron" <mcodron @slocity.org> Sent: Thursday, March 15, 2012 9:40:15 AM GMT -08:00 US /Canada Pacific Subject: Item on March 20 agenda: Create a pilot "safe parking area" at Prado Road Day Center We have an item on March 20 City Council agenda that recommends approval of a proposal by Community Action Partnership of San Luis Obispo County, Inc. (CAPSLO) to implement a safe parking pilot program at the Prado Day Center. The staff report for this item can be located at: http :l /www.slocity.orglcityclerk /agendas/ 20121 032012/ bIsafeparkingpradodaycenterpublicpa rking.pdf Please read this report at your convenience, and communicate your own insights, concerns, and /or support for this item directly to the Council. You may reach me at *ashbaug @slocity.org , or all members of the Council as follows: Mayor Jan Marx imarx @slocity.org ; Andrew Carter ancarter @slocity.org ; Dan Carpenter dcarpent @slocity.org ; and Kathy Smith ksmith @slocity.or . Please be aware that all correspondence to Councilmembers, including e- mails, are public records and may thus be made public. Finally, you are welcome to attend our meeting on 1 uesday and testify on this item if you wish. Thanks, John B. Ashbaugh Member, SLO City Council STEW JENKINS ATTORNEY 1336 Morro Street, San Luis Obispo CA 93401 rham: (401) 041 -1703 FAX: (80) 947.1601 March 19, 2012 Mayor Marx Council Members Carter, Ashbaugh, Smith & Carpenter City Hall, 990 Palm Street San Luis Obispo, CA 93401 By Hand Delivery & Email jashbaug @slocity.org,jmarx @slocity.org; ancarter@ slocity. org;dcarpent @slocity.org;ksmith @slocity.org. Reference: March 20, 2012 "Safe Parking" in Prado Day Center Proposal — Agenda item B -1 Dear Mayor Marx & Council Members, My friends. For the first time since moving to San Luis Obispo in 19611 am ashamed of my City. When and how could it become acceptable to criminalize human existence based on poverty? That is what the implementation of the City's ordinance 17.16.015 and Penal Code Section 647(e) is doing. I do not believe any of you want or intend to criminalize people simply caught in hard economic times; but that is the result of the recent direction given our police to systematically roust families, couples and individuals who have nowhere to lay their head but the seat of a car or the bench in an RV. The City's recent program of enforcement against the homeless has turned a planning ordinance into an unconstitutional vagrancy law; particularly with the way that has been coupled with PC §647(e). Banishing the impoverished members of the public from public spaces has been repeatedly struck down by American courts and dates back to the rights of even the poorest English citizens to use of "the commons." To make it plain, exempting 5 vehicles out of the 601 that City staff could find where people are forced to sleep on the street is not a solution. The City's implementation of the ordinance already violates California law, and the California and United States Constitution, by criminalizing human existence. Throwing out a bone to give special privileges to those sleeping in 5 vehicles only makes the Constitutional disparity worse. You are better than this. Our City and its citizens are better than this. I urge you to revise the resolution being considered on agenda items B -1 to do four important things: 1) Entirely and permanently suspend ordinance number 17.16.015 on San Luis Obispo City streets; 2) Direct the City Attorney's office to dismiss all currently pending citations, court cases, and prosecutions of violations of that ordinance; 3) Make motion in the Superior Court to expunge any conviction on that ordinance obtained since November 1, 2011, and vacate any fines, penalties, punishments or wan -ants related to those convictions. 4) Refund any fines paid by any individual to the City or to the Court based on that ordinance since November 1, 2011. 1 Plainly, the survey of the City Staff concentrated on the Prado Road vicinity, and common experience tells us that many more than 60 vehicles are being used as overnight refuge by families, couples and individuals in other neighborhoods. In my own neighborhood, common respect yields a more effective remedy than 17.16.015 does. "Locus poenitentiae" is in the Law the point of repentance; a moment when a wrong can be called back before it is given full effect. Adopting the 4 measures recommended above instead of the resolution sought by Staff under agenda item B -1, will put the City in locus poenitentiae; and reverse this public wrong. Any other course will predictably result in legal challenges of the City's actions. I urge you to consider spending the considerable savings the City will enjoy by avoiding such litigation to instead have the police periodically distribute free vouchers to homeless families living in RVs on the street so they can use the $10 sewage pump -out station identified in the staff report. You could consider using those savings to place conveniently located honey -huts near where folks are congregating in creeks and in the scrub, or sleeping in cars. Having police contacting these impoverished families and individuals to help the homeless know about pump -out vouchers and where sanitary facilities were available will positively change the tone of relations between the homeless and the police. It will make it easier for the police to learn when real crimes are committed in and near our homeless neighbors. The fundamental nature of the issues at hand is as old as human existence, and is not simply enshrined in the Constitution. Other authors have addressed the basic duties of public action and restraint we owe each other. Matthew 25:31 -46 (King James Version): "Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: 35 For I was an hungered, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in: 36 Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me. 3' Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungered, and fed thee? or thirsty, and gave thee drink? 38 When saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in? or naked, and clothed thee? 39 Or when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee? 40 And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto tyou, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me. 4 Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels: 42 For I was an hungered, and ye gave me no meat; I was thirsty, and ye gave me no drink: 43 I was a stranger, and ye took me not in: naked, and ye clothed me not: sick, and in prison, and ye visited me not. 44 Then shall they also answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungered, or athirst, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister unto thee? 45 Then shall he answer them, saying, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me. 46 And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal." I thank you for your consideration, service, and a 1 to you to serve all of the residents of our City — including the "least of these" forced to live on the street Stec y Stew ehkins