Welcome To Camp Mecklenburg
How dysfunctional is the Mecklenburg Board of County Commissioners? Here’s a good barometer: this week they managed to simultaneously pass a new ordinance without adopting it, essentially hanging out a “Campers Welcome” sign and leaving a door open for the Occupy movement to take up quarters on county-owned property.
An ordinance that would prohibit camping and unauthorized use of county-owned land, to include property not already covered under existing park and recreation ordinance, was approved by a vote of 6-3. But because there wasn’t a public hearing on the proposal (which isn’t required) and it was the first time the ordinance appeared on the board’s agenda, it required a unanimous vote to be adopted. If it received anything less, the agenda item would automatically roll over for consideration at the board’s next regularly scheduled meeting – Feb. 21 – when it could be adopted if it receives majority support.
The new rules cover non-park or greenway property such as parking lots and open space adjacent to county facilities like uptown’s Hal Marhsall Service Center and the Old County Courthouse. The ordinance, crafted in large part in response to the local Occupy movement and the upcoming Democratic National Convention, prohibits “tents, temporary shelters or other camping gear” on county property, regardless of “whether the tents are occupied and/or contain bedding or camping gear, except in locations designated in writing for camping and permitted for such activity.”
The new rules also prohibit campfires or bonfires on county property. Citations for violating the ordinance would carry a civil penalty of $250 per day, and violators could be charged with a misdemeanor carrying a fine of up to $500.
Commissioners Chairman Harold Cogdell, a Democrat, expressed support for protesters to exercise their First Amendment rights, but said that “when it comes to actually establishing a residence on public property, where people are spending the night and actually living on an ongoing basis, I think there is a compelling governmental interest to prohibit that from occurring.”
In that light, Cogdell encouraged his colleagues to approve the ordinance and offered a blunt assessment of what could unfold if they didn’t.
“What is very likely, or certainly what could happen, is that we’re going to have, whether it’s people living in tents or occupying for the next two weeks – we’re inviting a problem, quite frankly,” Cogdell said.
Several commissioners were apparently willing to roll out the welcome mat and balked at the proposed ordinance, which they said could adversely impact the homeless population.
“Right now there are vacant properties that homeless people sleep on without any fear of being arrested,” said Democrat Commissioner George Dunlap. “After this policy is passed, they’re in jeopardy of being arrested.”
Commissioner Jennifer Roberts, a Democrat, expressed similar concerns and worried that the new rules would compel law enforcement to arrest of any homeless person caught sleeping on county-owned property.
“If there’s somebody sleeping in a park and that’s where they live and they’re respectful and they’re neat, the police officer has some discretion that’s already there on public property,” Roberts said. “We need to be careful with the language about directing too much and having those unintended consequences.”
County Attorney Marvin Bethune said such situations weren’t likely to materialize. The anecdotal evidence that county officials collected while crafting the ordinance, he said, suggests there’s not camping occurring on county-owned properties that would be affected. Even if there were, he said, police would be able to use discretion regarding its enforcement, like they do with any ordinance. If it didn’t work that way, Bethune said, “you wouldn’t have drivers on any city street” because “they’d all be pulled over for speeding.”
“Driving on Park Road in the morning I guarantee you there’s nobody that goes 35 miles-per-hour,” Bethune said. “It does not happen. When I try, I get honked at. So I know there’s not strict enforcement of every single rule in the United States, much less in this community.”
The county’s existing ordinance, Bethune said, only covers what happens in county parks where areas are designated for camping.
“This simply extends the same concept that has been in the county ordinances for dozens of years, onto all other property owned by the county,” Bethune said. The new rules, he said, would remain in effect after the DNC.
That sounded fine to Commissioner Bill James, a Republican, who said the board would be making what could prove a costly error in delaying adoption of the ordinance.
“We will have lost the opportunity to put in a policy to prevent the destruction of public property, like what happened with the old City Hall where the lawn was destroyed and they [Occupiers] used it as a toilet,” James said.
“Notwithstanding all of the moaning about the homeless, this isn’t about the homeless,” he said. “This is about a group of angry, disgruntled people with no agenda, who want to seize public property and control it for their own purposes.”
James said if the ordinance wasn’t approved and adopted that, “there’s a real good chance that we’ll end up fighting the same battle that the city council fought.”
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