By Pauline Masson –
By the skin of their teeth, aldermen James Cleeve and Scott Lesh prevailed Tuesday evening in defeating the proposed law that would have made it illegal to camp on city property.
The bill, titled ‘unfit structures,’ which was clearly aimed at ridding the city of homeless campers, dominated aldermanic meetings over the past three months and divided residents and officials on how to address the issue of homeless persons in the city.
Tuesday’s actual vote on the bill was 3 to 2 in favor of the proposed law, with Jerry Eversmeyer, Rick Presley and Sara Jendron casting the Yes votes. Only Cleeve and Lesh voted No. But with alderman Jill Pigg absent from the meeting, the bill failed to capture the four Yes votes that are required to pass an ordinance.
In the discussion, leading up to the vote, Cleeve stressed the fact that ‘no trespass’ and ‘no camping in the city park’ ordinances that already exist would allow police to cite anyone camping on city property. He repeatedly asked whether there was anything in the proposed law that was not already covered in the two ordinances.
“Is there anything in this ordinance that is different from other ordinances?” Cleeve asked.
“I don’t know,” City Attorney Bob Jones responded. “I would have to do hours of research to determine that there is nothing in there.”
Cleeve pressed on, asking, “What would this ordinance allow the police to do that they cannot do today?”
Jones said the original intent of the bill centered on illegal structure, but the repeated changes that aldermen called for had caused the latest draft to lose the original inetent of the law.
“As far as you know,” Cleeve asked, “can the police do more with this bill than with existing ordinances?”
“I don’t see any additional rights,” Jones said. “But I’d rather have a specific ordinance.”
Lesh found some unclear wording in the bill and said it should be cleaned up. But, he added, rather than do that we need to just vote this down.
Jerry Eversmeyer, who has lobbied for a law strong enough to allow police to remove homeless campers, pressed hard for passage of the bill. He cited a city in California that passed a similar law and was able to rid itself of homeless camps while the rest of the state continues to be plagued with homeless persons.
“This is.a good bill and it’s ready to go,” Eversmsyer said.
By failing to capture four Yes votes, this law and the campaign against homeless persons is dead. For now. Only time will tell whether the campaign to target homeless camps will resurface.
Hopefully it is not only dead, but buried as well. Good work, Cleeves and Lesh.
I don’t know for sure the reason the missing vote was absent, but this outcome shows the reason why each alderman should make a concerted effort. effort to attend each meeting that request their presence. Was this a ‘absence of convenience’ so that one would not have, for what ever reason, to take a public stand for or against a controversial issue ?
Actually I don’t believe the Chief wanted this totally because of homeless people, he still wants to go after the property owners if he feels they are helping the homeless. More specific the ones that have told him NO that the homeless have permission to be there. Unfortunately, when asked questions during meetings, he doesn’t answer.
Throughout this process, the city attorney has been somewhere else when the meetings or votes have been taken, of course it has been to his advantage, he has gotten paid to write the same ordinance, with the words just in a different order 3 times. And not paying attention to why, and who was voting it down, and kept going back to the Chief for answers.
And then there is Jerry Eversmeyer, he wanted to try the scare tactics of the California homeless, and comparing it to the approximately 25, between Gray Summit and south of city limits here. He didn’t want to compare it to St Louis that is moving a homeless encampment, but they are making an attempt to find them housing and getting them back on their feet.
Alderman Eversmeyer believes just kick them down the road.
Stupid is Stupid is Stupid. The Chief has an “ ego” inferiority complex and so do the clowns who follow his dumb lead. When property owners assert their rights as to who can be on THERE PROPERTY the Chief freaks out! The city council need not do the same. Leave it alone and see how humanity will deal with homeless people in Pacific. You have a lifetime to work on it STUPID!!!
Fantastic. We don’t need new laws to deal with every new issue. Enforce the existing laws and stay out of the lives of your normal, everyday citizens.
If I want to renovate a property and stay in a pop-up camper on my land, the city should have NO say in that.
Liberty!
At last someone wrote something very important about such hot topic and it is very relevant nowadays.
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