Asks for changes to the changes, to make rules for second zone along Ashland Street more like current downtown zone

By Morgan Rothborne, Ashland.news

A series of first readings for ordinances to amend and extend the city of Ashland’s Enhanced Law Enforcement Area (ELEA) before the Ashland City Council at Tuesday’s business meeting were unanimously deferred for further discussion at a later meeting. 

Police Chief Tighe O’Meara presented the ELEA, or expulsion zone, already in place in downtown Ashland as an example of a proven tool to decrease negative behavior. Circumstances in the south side of town show the need, he said, for an adapted version of the ELEA to be put in effect there. 

“We had the same people demonstrating the same negative behavior over and over again with no ramifications because they are all violation level offenses. They would not answer the citation they got and they would repeat the same quality of life, disruptive behavior downtown. So this was put into place to address that,” he said of the ELEA’s origins. 

The ordinance was written by then deputy, now acting, City Attorney Doug McGeary and put into place in 2012, O’Meara said. There have been around 1,000 qualifying violations since 2017, a time of “peak negative behavior downtown.” Around 30-40 people have been expelled under the ordinance. 

There has been a steady decline in “quality of life” type of calls for service in the ELEA, such as unnecessary noise, theft, assault or drinking in public. It’s an “easy stretch” to say the ordinance works, he said. 

Comparing data between different “concentrated areas of patrol” (CAP) police call “cap west,” or downtown, and “cap east,” or the south side, “things by the numbers are clearly getting worse in Cap East,” O’Meara said, adding that the reason the Ashland Police Department opened a new office in the Tolman Creek Plaza shopping center area was a response to fatal drug overdoses in the parking lot. 

Since Jan. 1, 19 individuals have received three or more criminal charges in the area. One individual has already earned as many as 13 charges with the year not over yet. 

“Clearly there are some people that have a pattern of chronic negative behavior focused in this area of the city,” he said. 

But drunk driving and other potentially more serious offenses are not handled in the city’s municipal court and therefore not subject to the ELEA, O’Meara said. 

“There was and remains, with all due respect to my colleague here, a really big hole in the current ELEA language. … It only catches in the filter of who needs to be expelled from an area for chronic negative behavior people whose cases are here in this room,” he said, referencing the use of the council chamber for the city’s municipal court. 

“Just to paint a really stark picture, if somebody is a chronic offender and every day when they wake up they decide to go punch somebody in the face down on the Plaza, that would not see the inside of this courtroom; that is a circuit court misdemeanor.” 

Officers would not be able to expel that person who is chronically, day in and day out, lessening the quality of life downtown. But the person who “cracks one too many 40-ouncers” is going to be expelled, presenting a large hole in the otherwise effective law enforcement ordinance, he said. 

McGeary stated the ordinance before council that evening would give law enforcement officers discretion to expel people from the area, rather than leaving the decision to a judge as in the existing ELEA language. 

“That’s how we drafted this ordinance, is to be managed by the police officer on the ground having to make these decisions,” he said. 

An altered ELEA for the south side of Ashland would cover the Ashland Street business corridor from Siskiyou Boulevard on the west to past the Interstate 5 Exit 14 interchange on the east, including Independent way, Jefferson Street, Clover Lane and the Ashland Hills Hotel.

Opportunities for Housing, Resources & Assistance, the 2200 Ashland St. facility and nearby residential areas would be excluded from the expulsion zone, O’Meara said. 

After the presentation, Councilor Jeff Dahle stated he believed data show ELEA works and creating an additional one on the south side of town is overdue, but he remembered council’s request as asking to extend the ELEA to the south side in the same form it has existed downtown. 

“This is a complete rewrite and, given all of the questions that have arisen from this language, I think it’s clear that we need to have additional conversations around this,” he said. 

He went on to say that, in numerous conversations with many citizens, including members of unhoused communities, many indicated immense support for an ELEA in south Ashland and reported feeling victimized and experiencing abusive behavior. 

“I have direct personal experience with this and I’m not going to get into that, but make no mistake, this area has problems,” Dahle said. 

Councilors Dylan Bloom and Gina DuQuenne stated that, as residents of the south side of Ashland, they have personally witnessed incidents of violence involving homeless people as victims. 

“It’s about your behavior, not about your status. To me I think that’s so important that we drive that home and be very intentional. … Everybody wants to be safe, no matter where we live or what we live in,” DuQuenne said. 

Dahle made a motion to bring the existing ELEA ordinance amended to include the “cap east” or south side area, to the Dec. 3 business meeting for a first reading and to find a time within the next three months wherein staff could bring proposed alterations to the ELEA to a study session for further council discussion. 

Councilor Bob Kaplan said the proposed south-side ELEA contained changes “that are to my mind, not supported by any discussion of data or evidence.” 

“There’s just so much that’s stated kind of loosely and impressionistically, that I’d like to get a little more clarity on,” he said. 

Kaplan offered an amendment requesting additional data be brought back by city staff during the future discussion. The amendment died for lack of a second, leading to a brief but tense discussion wherein councilors clarified with each other that additional data should be inherently included in more than one discussion on the proposed alterations to the ELEA because, as Councilor Eric Hansen summarized it, the city needed caution despite the pressing nature of the issue. 

“I appreciate all of the passion and urgency here, and also these are people that are going to be very much affected and our community might litigiously be at risk to address just a couple things, so I am in no hurry to get this right,” he said.

Council voted unanimously to direct staff to amend the existing ELEA to include the proposed south side area and bring it back for a Dec. 3 first reading, and to be prepared to discuss further the proposed changes to the ELEA during the Dec. 2 and Feb. 3 study sessions. 

While the ordinances were tabled to future meetings, Graham allowed the members of the public who had been waiting to speak their three minutes of time addressing their council. 

“You’ve all seen me here before. What I’ve talked about in the past is the way what’s happening in Palestine will come home to us. And this is an exact example of that. … Here in America we just give you a slow death. Just slowly walk your ass to Medford and try to get back to where your community is after we’ve kicked you out,” said Amanda Moorehouse. 

Robin Felton informed councilors creating the additional expulsion zone would incur personal responsibility for any that “your jack-booted enforcers murder or allow to die. Their blood is on your hands.” 

“I have no interest in entertaining the lies and garbled half truths of business owners, landlords, police and other people with unexamined privilege. … If you can’t see how this expulsion zone disproportionately affects unhoused people and the poor then you are unfit for the office you are currently serving in. How dare you invoke the names of the native people whose land your predecessors stole while participating in what can only be described as exterminationist policies,” he said. 

“No exclusion zones in stolen land. Abolish the police and this criminal government, give people houses for free. I do not care what landlords you have to steal them from,” Felton said. 

At the conclusion of his comment, Graham stated, “we are about to be done,” with warning members of the audience who had for the third time broken the prohibition of noise such as exclamations of approval or clapping. 

“If we have another issue with it, we’re going to have to move to the next step which none of us want to do. This has been a respectful gathering, we are hearing this. … There is going to be a longer conversation. There will be many opportunities to share your thinking about this. But this chamber will hold this evening,” she said. 

Cate Hartzel identified herself as a city councilor from 2000 to 2008 with affiliation in years since with the Oregon chapter of the Americans for Civil Liberties Union and a person who has also completed work in community policing. She argued enforcement should simply hinge on enforcing existing laws surrounding offenses such as assault.  

“This is geography. This is not solving crime, this is moving crime around. … If they’re doing bad stuff, great. Exercise the law,” she said. 

Upon reading through the proposed scattering rubbish ordinance, Hartzel said she queried the police chief how the word “junk” was defined, as it would operate under the ordinance and was informed it could be a couple of shopping carts. 

“If that’s what you’ve got, I would say you have a mental health crisis on your hands. … You’re not taking care of what you think you’re taking care of,” she said. 

Debbie Niesewander identified herself as a member of the recently completed 2200 Ashland Street Ad Hoc Committee and an advocate for homeless people regularly offering street outreach. 

“With what you’re presenting we’re just stepping backwards. We keep giving tools to the police. You all want the police to solve this problem. They can’t, not by themselves. We need outreach,” she said. 

In other council business Tuesday, new Municipal Court Judge Ryan Mulkins was formally sworn in, the electric system master plan was approved and Cotta presented updates on homelessness services with the city, including a unanimously approved six month pilot program for storage for guests at the city’s dusk-to-dawn sleeping area, also known as the night lawn. 

Email Ashland.news reporter Morgan Rothborne at [email protected].