The Fortuna City Council unanimously voted to adopt an ordinance that will criminalize almost all forms of camping throughout the city on Monday. The ordinance will go into effect 30 days after it was passed by the council.

The ordinance, which was advanced at the Dec. 6 council meeting and adopted following a second reading on Monday, will give the city greater power to clear public lands of camps set up by homeless people. The ordinance is within the scope of the 2018 Martin v. City of Boise decision by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals which made it illegal for cities to criminalize sleeping in public if no other options are available, according to Fortuna’s City Attorney Ryan Plotz.

“The court was careful in that decision to note the limitations of its holding. The court, in particular, said that it in no way dictates to the city that it must provide sufficient shelter for the homeless or allow anyone who wishes to sit, lie or sleep on the street at any time, or any place,” Plotz said during the meeting. “Our ordinance before you tonight draws an important distinction between camping on public property and sleeping on public property, providing different regulations for each.”

People may be cited for obstructing pedestrian or vehicular traffic by sitting, lying or sleeping, for sleeping in doorways to buildings, for sleeping in a public place from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m., or for sleeping in a public place between the hours of 10 p.m. and 6 a.m., unless there is no available shelter space. The ordinance also prohibits sleeping in a vehicle between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m. in any public place or private parking lot without the consent of the lot’s owner.

The ordinance does not restrict the use of certain camping gear, such as sleeping bags and bedrolls, however, tents and cooking equipment will be considered camping equipment and therefore illegal to use on the city’s public lands.

The American Civil Liberties Union disagreed with Plotz’s assessment of Martin v. City of Boise and sent the Times-Standard a statement after the first reading on Dec. 6 decrying the ordinance.

“The Fortuna City Attorney’s claim that focusing on ‘camping’ rather than ‘sleeping’ makes their ordinance legal is false and misrepresents Martin v. Boise,” Brandon Greene, Racial and Economic Justice Director at the ACLU of Northern California, said in a statement. “Martin does not apply to sleeping only. It covers ‘the unavoidable consequences of being human,’ which includes the need for shelter, cooking, and having some personal possessions available.”

“Homelessness is not a ‘choice’ that can be deterred by enacting laws that criminalize it. The City of Fortuna’s plan to criminally charge unhoused people for existing in public is cruel, unlawful, and does nothing proactive to solve the crisis of homelessness,” the statement continued.

A key aspect of Martin v. City of Boise asserts that cities cannot criminalize sleeping in public so long as there are available shelter beds. While Fortuna has no homeless shelters, at the Monday meeting, Fortuna Police Chief Casey Day noted that the police plan to offer rides to shelters in Eureka and Arcata.

Day noted that the police department plans on a “soft launch” of the ordinance and will focus mostly on educating Fortuna’s homeless population about the new ordinance before pursuing more serious enforcement should violations occur. He also said that the police department will issue warnings before any potential criminal citation.

“In cases of habitual violations where essentially a resolution cannot be reached by persons either refusing assistance or refusing to adhere to the municipal code as adopted, we will proceed with some sort of warning citation either one or more times before we go to either an administrative or criminal citation,” Day said at the meeting.

The full ordinance can be read at https://bit.ly/3q9Ysp6.

Jackson Guilfoil can be reached at 707-441-0506.

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