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The Renton City Council has not voted on an ordinance to ban camping on city property because of debate over requiring officers to offer services to offenders.
At the Sept. 14 meeting, the Renton City Council was scheduled to vote on Ordinance 6199, which would make camping on city-owned property a misdemeanor and allow police officers to issue trespass orders to individuals who do not leave when instructed. Debate on the topic arose on requiring officers to refer people to available services before and in addition to enforcement.
At the previous council meeting, the council voted to swap the word “encouraged” for “required” in instructing officers to offer services to people violating the new ordinance. This week, councilmember James Alberson requested the wording be changed back to “encouraged” because he said the initial verbiage was designed for the officers to gauge the situation and use their discretion when offering services.
“This ordinance is not just about camping and so there are some situations where offering services or being required to do that would be wholly inappropriate, not applicable and could actually cause some situations that could get more complicated,” Alberson said.
City attorney Shane Moloney said because of where the language is, there are no specifications on what services are required to be offered and the consequences for not doing so.
Councilmember Carmen Rivera said it is not fair to the unhoused community members to make the change to “encouraged” to make sure city employees are not liable. She said officers can document when they offer these services and when they are refused.
“Going back to the original ordinance is going to be a huge mistake,” Rivera said. “This ordinance in itself is not effective. It will move the problem around and I just think that we can do a lot better. I have a higher standard for us.”
Councilmember Ryan McIrvin said that if the intent of the ordinance is not to put people in jail, then the council should work to codify the ordinance to reflect that idea. He said he does believe in the intent of the ordinance, but does not know what future police administrations or city councils may do.
“I think we can be services, housing first, and then if you don’t follow what we’re asking, that there are consequences at the end,” McIrvin said. “For me, the solution, the outcomes that are not positive outcomes are if an individual either ends up incarcerated or an individual just moves to another community that is not addressing the underlying issue that we are trying to solve here.”
McIrvin made a motion to refer the ordinance to the Community Services Committee, which was amended to be brought to the Committee of the Whole to get the comments and suggestions of all the council members. The council voted unanimously to rework the ordinance at a future Committee of the Whole meeting.
