You have got to be kidding.
quote:Mark and Cindi Childs say they?ll have little trouble paying the $420 fine they face for allowing unsanitary homeless camps on their property along Eugene?s western edge.
But what irks them about the enforcement action that Eugene city officials took against them in mid-June is that it came after they had made multiple complaints to police about the people who built expansive campsites in a brushy area more than 100 yards behind a fenced-in shop for their business, Evergreen Painting Co. The four-acre property is in the 88000 block of Green Hill Road, not far from an area along West 11th Avenue that officials say is a popular corridor for ?travelers? and others who don?t have a local address.
?We think it?s unfortunate that anyone has to live (without a home), and we don?t want to make anyone?s lives harder,? Cindi Childs said. ?But (the camps) became a real problem for us, and it?s just upsetting that we asked for help and what we ended up getting instead was a fine.
?We can pay it, but we don?t want what happened to us to happen to someone else. What if you couldn?t afford it??
Records provided by police show that nonemergency call-takers fielded five calls from the Childses during the past two years.
Two of those reports were made after cars parked outside the shop were broken into, while a third pertains to a July 2016 shop burglary that the Childses suspect illegal campers carried out. Calls regarding homeless trespassers on the property were made in December and again on June 14 ? the same day the Childses say they received notice from the city?s Code Compliance Services that they?re on the hook for $420 for violating permitted-camping rules in Eugene.
The case raises an obvious question about a property owner?s responsibilities if he or she discovers unwanted campsites. It also illustrates how problems surrounding homelessness in Eugene can touch neighborhoods far from more densely populated areas closer to downtown and the University of Oregon, where officials over the years have tried various strategies to address the issues.
?I believe there has been a significant uptick in homeless camping activity, particularly in my ward,? City Councilor Chris Pryor said. He represents an area of southwest Eugene that includes the Childses? property, and characterized the West 11th corridor as ?a thoroughfare for folks who want to move around.?
Pryor mentioned that the city recently helped another west Eugene property owner connect with a private security firm after experiencing difficulty with homeless campers, and suggested that the Childses? case could present an opportunity for city officials to further consider how they may be able to work with private landowners on strategies for dealing with problems related to encampments.
From the perspective of city police and code enforcement officials, the Childses didn?t do enough to work with them on the issue ? despite their repeated calls to the police department?s nonemergency line.
Records indicate that in response to a few of the calls, police sought or invited the family to provide additional information that never was received, and that officials tried to contact the Childses but received no response earlier this year before issuing the fine.
City records show that someone called in a complaint about the encampments on March 28, mentioning concerns about garbage, sanitation and potential water contamination. Code enforcement initially sent notice to an incorrect address but in April mailed what?s known as an ?order to correct? to the couple?s home address, according to city inspection services manager Rachelle Nicholas.
After subsequent inspections of the property in late April and again in late May, the city left a phone message at a number for the Childses, according to Nicholas. She said nobody returned the message, so her office notified the couple of the $420 fine in a letter dated June 13. It states that the property owners may challenge the penalty if they pay $250 for an appeal.
Nicholas said it?s ?super rare? for the city to fine a landowner under the city?s camping laws. She added that the penalty likely could have been avoided had the Childses contacted her office at any point ?to say, ?We?re working on this.??
It sounds simple enough. But the Childses insist they never received the April mailing from Nicholas? office, nor do they recall receiving any phone message from the city.
?If we would?ve known about that, we obviously would have dealt with it,? Cindi Childs said.
Police, meanwhile, acknowledged that a number of calls had been made to the department?s nonemergency line from the Green Hill Road address. But the trespass and property crime complaints weren?t considered high-priority calls, so officers in the short-staffed police department were not dispatched to them.
Police records show that in at least two of those instances, the caller ? likely the Childses? adult son, Zach ? didn?t follow up with officers who requested additional information.
Zach Childs said call-takers repeatedly advised him to continue phoning in reports, telling him ?the squeaky wheel gets the grease.?
Police were dispatched to the property on two occasions last year. A security alarm sent officers there in one case. In the other, officers in September deemed a reported fight between campers there to be a civil matter and warned people about prohibited camping, records show.
Police say a relative shortage of patrol officers in Eugene means that officers often can?t immediately respond to calls deemed to be low priority. Police Sgt. Chuck Salsbury said with that in mind, property owners who find themselves in situations similar to what the Childses have faced should not hesitate to call in trespassing complaints but also must take responsibility for maintaining and monitoring their own land.
Salsbury said police did speak with a member of the Childs family when ? accompanied by code enforcement staff ? officers visited a neighboring property on June 14 and arrested a woman who had been trespassing there. The family member, Zach Childs, asked officers to help remove campers from a shack built on their property, but Salsbury said police can?t enter an established building without a warrant. After failing to find any campers on the Childses? land, police left and didn?t hear back from the family.
?Essentially, (Zach) did get service? from police, Salsbury said.
The Childses say they received notice of the fine via mail that same day, after authorities had left the area.
Bill could top $7K
The Childses don?t disagree with the notion that they didn?t adequately investigate the extent of the campsites, which were mostly concealed by brush that made them difficult to see from the shop.
?We didn?t think it had gotten to the level that it had,? Mark Childs said. ?We also didn?t know if we could go back there and throw them out. It wasn?t clear to us where their rights end and where ours begin.?
The camps are gone now. After learning of the fine, Zach Childs rented heavy equipment and leveled the sites while also removing much of the brush in the area where campers had been living. Before destroying the sites, he advised campers to remove their personal property from the land.
?When they start charging you, you begin to feel that urgency,? Zach Childs said of the decision to kick campers off the parcel. He said campers had ignored his previous requests to leave, and that he had seen as many as 15 to 20 campers on the property, on occasion.
Photographs taken by the Childses show a recliner inside a wooden structure that, from the inside, resembles a cabin. A smaller camp with structures built on wooden pallets also had been set up.
Left behind on the property are items including shopping carts, various bins and numerous propane tanks. A tiny, makeshift graveyard is the final resting place for two cats, and a rooster that apparently had been staying with the campers remains on the land. Zach Childs said he removed from the sites and dumped bags full of syringes and other suspected drug paraphernalia.
Mark Childs, meanwhile, estimated it could cost in excess of $7,000 to completely clean up of the property. ?The ($420) fine is pennies compared to what we?ll pay to clean up all of this,? he said.
North Eugene City Councilor Mike Clark ? who doesn?t represent the Green Hill Road area but knows Cindi Childs and learned of the situation via a Facebook post that included photos of the campsites ? said he has asked city officials for more information because what he initially heard about the fine ?didn?t sound like it?s right.? Clark said he?s of the opinion that property owners generally shouldn?t be responsible for confronting unauthorized campers.
?If someone is camping illegally and essentially trespassing, I can understand why a neighbor might complain,? he said. ?But I don?t think it should be the individual property owner?s responsibility to deal with it on their own. The city should have some responsibility.?
Nicholas declined to identify the person who filed a complaint against the Childses? property, saying complainant names are kept confidential. She emphasized the city was not asking the Childs family to remove campers, only to follow city code requirements that include providing garbage and sanitary services.
But what irks them about the enforcement action that Eugene city officials took against them in mid-June is that it came after they had made multiple complaints to police about the people who built expansive campsites in a brushy area more than 100 yards behind a fenced-in shop for their business, Evergreen Painting Co. The four-acre property is in the 88000 block of Green Hill Road, not far from an area along West 11th Avenue that officials say is a popular corridor for ?travelers? and others who don?t have a local address.
?We think it?s unfortunate that anyone has to live (without a home), and we don?t want to make anyone?s lives harder,? Cindi Childs said. ?But (the camps) became a real problem for us, and it?s just upsetting that we asked for help and what we ended up getting instead was a fine.
?We can pay it, but we don?t want what happened to us to happen to someone else. What if you couldn?t afford it??
Records provided by police show that nonemergency call-takers fielded five calls from the Childses during the past two years.
Two of those reports were made after cars parked outside the shop were broken into, while a third pertains to a July 2016 shop burglary that the Childses suspect illegal campers carried out. Calls regarding homeless trespassers on the property were made in December and again on June 14 ? the same day the Childses say they received notice from the city?s Code Compliance Services that they?re on the hook for $420 for violating permitted-camping rules in Eugene.
The case raises an obvious question about a property owner?s responsibilities if he or she discovers unwanted campsites. It also illustrates how problems surrounding homelessness in Eugene can touch neighborhoods far from more densely populated areas closer to downtown and the University of Oregon, where officials over the years have tried various strategies to address the issues.
?I believe there has been a significant uptick in homeless camping activity, particularly in my ward,? City Councilor Chris Pryor said. He represents an area of southwest Eugene that includes the Childses? property, and characterized the West 11th corridor as ?a thoroughfare for folks who want to move around.?
Pryor mentioned that the city recently helped another west Eugene property owner connect with a private security firm after experiencing difficulty with homeless campers, and suggested that the Childses? case could present an opportunity for city officials to further consider how they may be able to work with private landowners on strategies for dealing with problems related to encampments.
From the perspective of city police and code enforcement officials, the Childses didn?t do enough to work with them on the issue ? despite their repeated calls to the police department?s nonemergency line.
Records indicate that in response to a few of the calls, police sought or invited the family to provide additional information that never was received, and that officials tried to contact the Childses but received no response earlier this year before issuing the fine.
City records show that someone called in a complaint about the encampments on March 28, mentioning concerns about garbage, sanitation and potential water contamination. Code enforcement initially sent notice to an incorrect address but in April mailed what?s known as an ?order to correct? to the couple?s home address, according to city inspection services manager Rachelle Nicholas.
After subsequent inspections of the property in late April and again in late May, the city left a phone message at a number for the Childses, according to Nicholas. She said nobody returned the message, so her office notified the couple of the $420 fine in a letter dated June 13. It states that the property owners may challenge the penalty if they pay $250 for an appeal.
Nicholas said it?s ?super rare? for the city to fine a landowner under the city?s camping laws. She added that the penalty likely could have been avoided had the Childses contacted her office at any point ?to say, ?We?re working on this.??
It sounds simple enough. But the Childses insist they never received the April mailing from Nicholas? office, nor do they recall receiving any phone message from the city.
?If we would?ve known about that, we obviously would have dealt with it,? Cindi Childs said.
Police, meanwhile, acknowledged that a number of calls had been made to the department?s nonemergency line from the Green Hill Road address. But the trespass and property crime complaints weren?t considered high-priority calls, so officers in the short-staffed police department were not dispatched to them.
Police records show that in at least two of those instances, the caller ? likely the Childses? adult son, Zach ? didn?t follow up with officers who requested additional information.
Zach Childs said call-takers repeatedly advised him to continue phoning in reports, telling him ?the squeaky wheel gets the grease.?
Police were dispatched to the property on two occasions last year. A security alarm sent officers there in one case. In the other, officers in September deemed a reported fight between campers there to be a civil matter and warned people about prohibited camping, records show.
Police say a relative shortage of patrol officers in Eugene means that officers often can?t immediately respond to calls deemed to be low priority. Police Sgt. Chuck Salsbury said with that in mind, property owners who find themselves in situations similar to what the Childses have faced should not hesitate to call in trespassing complaints but also must take responsibility for maintaining and monitoring their own land.
Salsbury said police did speak with a member of the Childs family when ? accompanied by code enforcement staff ? officers visited a neighboring property on June 14 and arrested a woman who had been trespassing there. The family member, Zach Childs, asked officers to help remove campers from a shack built on their property, but Salsbury said police can?t enter an established building without a warrant. After failing to find any campers on the Childses? land, police left and didn?t hear back from the family.
?Essentially, (Zach) did get service? from police, Salsbury said.
The Childses say they received notice of the fine via mail that same day, after authorities had left the area.
Bill could top $7K
The Childses don?t disagree with the notion that they didn?t adequately investigate the extent of the campsites, which were mostly concealed by brush that made them difficult to see from the shop.
?We didn?t think it had gotten to the level that it had,? Mark Childs said. ?We also didn?t know if we could go back there and throw them out. It wasn?t clear to us where their rights end and where ours begin.?
The camps are gone now. After learning of the fine, Zach Childs rented heavy equipment and leveled the sites while also removing much of the brush in the area where campers had been living. Before destroying the sites, he advised campers to remove their personal property from the land.
?When they start charging you, you begin to feel that urgency,? Zach Childs said of the decision to kick campers off the parcel. He said campers had ignored his previous requests to leave, and that he had seen as many as 15 to 20 campers on the property, on occasion.
Photographs taken by the Childses show a recliner inside a wooden structure that, from the inside, resembles a cabin. A smaller camp with structures built on wooden pallets also had been set up.
Left behind on the property are items including shopping carts, various bins and numerous propane tanks. A tiny, makeshift graveyard is the final resting place for two cats, and a rooster that apparently had been staying with the campers remains on the land. Zach Childs said he removed from the sites and dumped bags full of syringes and other suspected drug paraphernalia.
Mark Childs, meanwhile, estimated it could cost in excess of $7,000 to completely clean up of the property. ?The ($420) fine is pennies compared to what we?ll pay to clean up all of this,? he said.
North Eugene City Councilor Mike Clark ? who doesn?t represent the Green Hill Road area but knows Cindi Childs and learned of the situation via a Facebook post that included photos of the campsites ? said he has asked city officials for more information because what he initially heard about the fine ?didn?t sound like it?s right.? Clark said he?s of the opinion that property owners generally shouldn?t be responsible for confronting unauthorized campers.
?If someone is camping illegally and essentially trespassing, I can understand why a neighbor might complain,? he said. ?But I don?t think it should be the individual property owner?s responsibility to deal with it on their own. The city should have some responsibility.?
Nicholas declined to identify the person who filed a complaint against the Childses? property, saying complainant names are kept confidential. She emphasized the city was not asking the Childs family to remove campers, only to follow city code requirements that include providing garbage and sanitary services.
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City doesn't want to answer complaints about the illegal campsite?
Tell them they have 15 minutes to respond. At 16 minutes you are setting fire to the encampment to ease with the clean up task.
Bet they will be there in short order.0 -
Sounds like Oregon has become ?Little California ?. 0 -
Should have told the cops the campers had assault rifles. 0 -
The police didn't do anything to arrest the trespassers, or do anything to get rid of the problem when a person complained about trespassers on the property, instead they site the person that complains about people trespassing on their property????
All I can say is what's the world coming to???[V]0 -
quote:Originally posted by Ricci Wright
Should have told the cops the campers had assault rifles.
And then they would have been in trouble for filing a false police report0 -
Making sure I pass this on to work. We have had a Homeless guy camped out not on our property but real close. We have left him alone cause he keeps a neat camp and seems to be chasing others away.
But if the city is going to be like this we may have to do something.0 -
quote:Originally posted by remingtonoaks
The police didn't do anything to arrest the trespassers, or do anything to get rid of the problem when a person complained about trespassers on the property, instead they site the person that complains about people trespassing on their property????
All I can say is what's the world coming to???[V]
The Police can not just enforce no trespassing laws. They have to have the cooperation and presence of the property owner in order to place a charge, and the property owner needs to appear in court for the prosecution. The article says that attempts were made to contact the property owner and they never responded back. Calling and making a complaint, and then not making yourself available for follow up is not addressing the problem. Too often today folks think they can dump problems off on the police with out "getting involved", this is one of those situations that requires their involvement.0 -
quote:Originally posted by shilowar
quote:Originally posted by remingtonoaks
The police didn't do anything to arrest the trespassers, or do anything to get rid of the problem when a person complained about trespassers on the property, instead they site the person that complains about people trespassing on their property????
All I can say is what's the world coming to???[V]
The Police can not just enforce no trespassing laws. They have to have the cooperation and presence of the property owner in order to place a charge, and the property owner needs to appear in court for the prosecution. The article says that attempts were made to contact the property owner and they never responded back. Calling and making a complaint, and then not making yourself available for follow up is not addressing the problem. Too often today folks think they can dump problems off on the police with out "getting involved", this is one of those situations that requires their involvement.
In this area the police probably showed up at a different address and now say they could not contact the owner.0 -
easier for the city to EXTORT money from the landowner than address and resolve the problem of trespass and other issues...ignore the used drug paraphanelia and garbage found... 0
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