Public camping ban riles Tacoma City Council. Here’s what happened to the proposal
An attempt to pass legislation that would restrict camping on public property in Tacoma failed Tuesday evening after a heated back and forth between Council members.
Council members Robert Thoms, Conor McCarthy and Lillian Hunter attempted to walk on an ordinance to Tuesday’s agenda that prohibits camping on public property, arguing that it’s a tool for the city to use to get people off the streets and into shelter.
The ordinance would have made camping or storing belongings on public property a misdemeanor, with convictions bringing a fine of no more than $1,000 and/or imprisonment not to exceed 90 days.
Council members voted 6-3 on Tuesday to remove the item from the agenda, thereby also removing public comment opportunity from the agenda. Council members Thoms, McCarthy and Hunter voted to keep the ordinance on the agenda, with Mayor Victoria Woodards, deputy mayor Keith Blocker and Council members Catherine Ushka, John Hines, Kristina Walker and Chris Beale voting to remove it.
Tensions rose when Ushka not only made the motion to remove the ordinance from the agenda but also to restrict each Council member’s comments to three minutes.
Ushka said Tuesday that public camping legislation had already been sent to the city’s Community, Vitality and Safety Committee for further review.
“By bringing this up tonight, it further complicates an already complicated issue,” Ushka said.
Proponents of the ordinance pushed back.
“To not let the public speak to it, to not even let the Council speak to it, is probably at the bottom of my experience here in six years on City Council,” McCarthy said.
Proposing the ordinance was a last effort by Thoms and Hunter, who are leaving Council at the end of the month, to get the tool back on the books after it sunsetted in 2019. The legislation came to Council on Tuesday under the name “Pathways to Shelter and Stability,” but was the same proposal made earlier this year.
“I would have not felt like I did my level best to address this issue if I wouldn’t have put it back on the schedule,” Thoms said on Tuesday. “... But I can assure you that much more delay is not something the community wants. It’s not something that’s benefiting those in most need — those are the men and women who will sleep on our streets tonight — and by my own experience, our only limitations are our willingness to get it done.”
Hunter encouraged the Council to pass the ordinance and then fine-tune it in committee. She said not voting on the motion or not taking public comment is “unconscionable.”
“Whoever passes this, whether it’s this council or it’s next council, is going to be vilified … If it’s a disaster, blame us — I’m going to be gone. Put it on me,” Hunter said.
McCarthy said matters are only getting worse in Tacoma, citing a News Tribune story about a Tacoma cider taproom closing and reopening elsewhere because of nearby violence, homelessness and lack of city response.
“We have to wait until it gets really, really bad and people are hurt to remove an encampment ... With the ordinance that’s been proposed, we don’t have to wait until it gets really bad to address significant issues,” McCarthy said, reiterating what he’s said in previous Council meetings.
Council members who opposed the ordinance said bringing it up right now is bad timing.
“I think pretty frankly this is a political maneuver to get an ordinance passed before the Council changes,” said Beale, who is also leaving Council at the end of the year.
Beale opposes the ordinance for its risk of infringing on a 2018 decision by the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals regarding an no-camping ordinance in Boise, Idaho. The court ruled that it is unconstitutional to enforce camping bans if people experiencing homelessness have no other place to go.
Mayor Victoria Woodards said she’s in favor of a camping ban at some point, but that passing one now would circumvent the committee process.
“I think we did a disservice to our community because last night we had a scheduled community meeting, and we had a resolution on the agenda while we were taking public comment. That’s disingenuous … We put something forward before we finished hearing from community. That’s the problem for me,” Woodards said.
As things stand now, a law banning public camping is not yet dead.
Woodards said she’s confident the next incoming City Council will pass a law.
On Monday, city staff held a public meeting with about 400 people about a potential camping ban in Tacoma. A poll held at the meeting showed that 59 percent of attendees did not support a camping ban, 30 percent said they did support one, and 11 percent said it was more complicated than that.
The public will have another opportunity to voice their thoughts about a camping ban. A Community Vitality and Safety Committee meeting will be held at 4:30 p.m. on Thursday to hear a report of Monday’s meeting, and public comment will be held.
This story was originally published December 8, 2021 at 1:04 PM.
