Thursday afternoon’s Tacoma City Council public safety subcommittee meeting offered a perfect example of how efforts to regulate bad behavior on the part of some can, at least on paper, turn otherwise law-abiding citizens into violators.
Councilman Mike Lonergan was quick to seize on this and recommended changes to a proposed ordinance to remove that effect.
The ordinance in question deals with the “human habitation of vehicles.”
As assistant police chief Bob Sheehan and other officers told the committee, it was an attempt to deal with squatters, drifters, drug users and other riffraff who pull into neighborhoods, often in RVs, and create trouble, malodor and crime.
“(Heretofore) we used notice of violation letters and did a lot of bluffing,” Sheehan said.
The new ordinance would require RV owners parking for more than four hours to obtain a $10 permit from the city. The permit would last seven days and only one could be obtained in any given year. Nor would one be allowed to get a second permit for a different location.
Enter Mike Lonergan.
He painted a scene of relatives who come to visit in their RV. They show up around 4 p.m. and are invited to dinner. Pretty soon it’s getting dark and they’re asked if they want to spend the night. But they can’t. The licensing office is closed and there’s no way to obtain a permit. Worse, it’s Friday and they won’t be able to get one until Monday.
“In reality, I don’t think it would be enforced that way,” Lonergan said. “But I think we need to have laws that make sense.”
At his suggestion, the time periods were extended so that one could be in the city for 24 hours before needing to obtain a permit and could stay for up to two weeks per year.
Councilwoman Marilyn Strickland asked about the ordinance being used against families who found themselves homeless and police assured her that in those cases officers try to get the people into housing programs and in touch with social services.
The ordinance was forwarded to the full Council for approval.
Ian Demsky, The News Tribune
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