This content was originally published by the Longmont Observer and is licensed under a Creative Commons license.
The ordinance that would have regulated sitting and lying down in public entryway areas outside certain downtown Longmont public facilities dies as a majority of City Council members indicated they'll vote against the ordinance.
During the July 25, 2017, City Council meeting, Councilman Gabe Santos originally made the motion to move the ordinance to a vote before retracting the motion due to Council Members Bagley, Peck, Moore, and Christensen stating they were against the ordinance.
“I kinda changed my mind on this ordinance and here’s why: I think that it is trying to address a homeless problem, which I think we have in our community. But the question becomes: how do we deal with the issue?” Councilman Brian Bagley said. “Criminalizing homelessness or criminalizing homelessness behavior to address the homeless epidemic is an easy solution as we push a button tonight, but I think it doesn’t necessarily fix the problem. It actually makes the problem worse.”
“As I said in the first reading of this ordinance, my problem with this is that we are not getting to the root of the problem. We are kinda nit-picking around homelessness and not really providing a resolution. The wording on it bothers me when the word blocking an entryway would really cover everybody, not just homeless people,” said Councilwoman Joan Peck.
“I was bothered by this during the first reading as well. I think that we are not being the open and friendly and city we want to be by legislating this type of action into a criminal activity. I was uncomfortable with it to begin with and I am uncomfortable with it now,“ Councilman Jeff Moore said. “I don’t think this is what people in Longmont expect their city to be so I’m also going to vote against it."
“I’m also not going to vote for this. In my many years of living here, I have not seen anyone blocking any doors or lying down on the sidewalk,” Councilwoman Polly Christensen said. "As we have been discussing here, the root issue is that we have many homeless people for all kinds of reasons and they need to be individually helped."
Once Councilman Gabe Santos realized that he did not have enough votes, he withdrew his motion.
Mayor Dennis Coombs concluded by saying that "we weren’t going after homeless people, we were trying to not block access from someone that felt intimidated by going to an early morning exercise class. That was the real intent. I think the intent was good but obviously, we don’t have the votes so I guess it just dies."
O-2017-43 was created because patrons of the Longmont Public Library and Memorial Building complained that people sitting and lying on sidewalks and doorway entrances leading up to the facilities created obstructions to entering the facilities. The ordinance would have only regulated sitting and lying down in small areas of concrete leading directly to the Library, Memorial Building, Senior Center and Civic Center.
