Downtown, No Finer Place For Sure
In a 5-3 vote, the Eugene City Council passed the contentious exclusion ordinance that I wrote about last week. A judge can now ban individuals from the downtown area for 90 days without trial or right to a lawyer if they have allegedly committed a long list of crimes, including public urination, furnishing alcohol to a minor and possession of marijuana. If actually convicted, a judge can then ban the individual for up to a full year. (In other news, the Oregon Commentator staff are never going downtown again.)
That ol’ carpetbagger Alan Pittman has an article in the most recent Eugene Weekly about the exclusion ordinance. Despite the usual Pittman-isms, he manages to point out the more glaring problems with the new plan:
The city could jail, for up to 90 days, a person who violates the exclusion order. Before the ordinance, getting caught with a joint could result in a ticket; now, it could result in a three-month jail term. Holding a prisoner costs taxpayers an estimated $350 a night.
And the money quote from City Councilor Betty Taylor:
Taylor said the “unjust” exclusion ordinance will just move the problem from one part of downtown to another. “The people who are excluded will not disappear.” She said those jailed for violating the ordinance will be released quickly from the overcrowded facility, and she said that all the violations in the ordinance are already illegal. “We need to enforce the laws we already have.”
I agree. While I consider most denizens of downtown obnoxious and disgusting, the ordinance is a poor attempt at a solution – costly, hard to enforce and perhaps unconstitutional. As Councilor Bonny Bettman also was quoted as saying in Pittman’s article, “To punish people who have not been convicted of a crime is inconsistent with everything we stand for in this country.”
