By Neil Farrell ~
The City of Morro Bay has dealt a decisive blow to a group of homeless folks who have been hanging around the Shasta Street Pocket Park and reportedly causing problems.
On July 1, city maintenance workers removed picnic tables and benches from the little pocket park that was built in April 2013 by the Morro Bay Garden Club, Guerilla Gardeners, the 4-H Club and volunteers in conjunction with the City.
According to Rob Livick, public works director who oversees the City’s maintenance crews, over time the pocket park drew larger and larger numbers of people, which led to some problems.
“The groups of people were getting larger gathering there,” he explained. “It’s nothing against the people, themselves, it was the behaviors that were getting people upset.” He said the largely homeless people who had been using the pocket park for socializing, were “drinking, smoking and hanging around,” late into the night, which led to complaints by neighbors. Police had been called out several times and Livick said they’d even had the County Probation Department out there.
The pocket park sits on a City-owned lot that used to house two small apartment buildings that were demolished after they’d became dilapidated. They were first used by the fire department for training in 2011-12, before being bulldozed and the lot cleared. Fire Chief Steve Knuckles said the buildings were not in a good location to burn (too close to the neighboring home), but they all practiced roof venting, breeching walls, vertical second story rescues, and “self-extraction and survival” techniques, among others.
Led by the Garden Club and Guerilla Gardeners, a mini, fruit tree orchard and cut flower beds — featuring dahlias, the official City flower — were laid out and planted, and a drip irrigation system installed. It’s the only city park with fruit trees, which are free for the picking, and cut flower beds. Among the volunteers that day were Mayor Jamie Irons and Councilman Noah Smukler, in what was a true community beautification effort.
Two pads were built by City workers and picnic benches set on them. Guerilla Gardeners have been taking care of the pocket park doing regular maintenance, clean up, and tending the garden and trees.
The park was used by neighborhood residents, pedestrians taking a break, lunch diners, and parents of kids playing soccer across the street, but over the past several months, the environment there has changed. Livick said the pocket park was always a temporary use.
“It was put in as a sort-of holding spot for whatever the City decides to do with the property in the future,” explained Livick. He added that the City bought up every property on that entire block in anticipation of eventually building a new “civic center” that would house the fire, police, public works departments and a new City Hall. But those plans have never been pursued. The pocket park is on a list of potential properties the City might sell in the future.
Livick said the complaints were confirmed every time they opened the window to the Public Works Department’s little conference room, which is adjacent to the pocket park. Cigarette smoke would waft into the building, he said. Morro Bay has an ordinance against smoking in public, but it’s passively enforce.
City parks officially closed at sunset every day, which means hanging around after nightfall is technically against the law as well. And of course drinking alcohol in a park (without a City permit) violates another ordinance. It also has no bathroom, though during business hours one could use the restrooms in Public Works, the library across the street or City Hall.
Indeed, this reporter drove past the pocket park on July 1, after the furniture had been removed, and witnessed a man partially hidden by the fruit trees, who appeared to be urinating on the fence.
Removing the furniture, which was reportedly done even as some folks were using the tables and benches, came at the police department’s recommendation.
Police Chief Amy Christey is a big advocate of “Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design,” or CPTED.
Essentially, that means when problematic people — be they gang members or the homeless — are using a public space for illegal or undesirable behavior, things like removing furniture and changes to the built environment like trimming back hedges and trees, are done to discourage continued use.
The whole episode didn’t set well with Taylor Newton, head of the Guerilla Gardeners, who in a stinging letter to the City Manager, decried the furniture removal. “To remove seating to get rid of a certain type of person from public property is wrong and immoral, no matter how you want to sugar coat it.”
He said their organization worked with former Parks Director, Joe Woods, to plan and build the pocket park, garnering donations of plants and trees, and some of the furniture that was confiscated, came from their organization.
“When did public property stop belonging to the public and become the play thing of municipal government and their favorite types of people?” he said in the letter, which was shared with The Bay News. “If the group of unwanted people in question at this public space were all black, or gay, or Muslim, what would be your response and would you act differently if it was publicized through the media?”
In a response, Buckingham wrote, “To be clear, gathering in a park, whether a soccer mom or a homeless resident, is not a crime. However, over months we have had significant complaints and concerns including middle of the night [3 a.m.] loud, drunk, aggressive gatherings of the tone that neighbors were afraid to go outside to ask the folks in the park to cool it.
“Not noted in your email… is that around 10 p.m. one evening last week three younger people kicked three older people out of the park then progressed to bust up most of the park furniture. This is consistent with the activity in that park for the past few months. The action the city took has nothing to do with profiling, prejudice, or unconstitutional law enforcement. It is appropriate action to help find that balance.”
Livick said the picnic tables were stored at the city maintenance yard and they are working on a possible redesign and may bring it back. He also said that after the tables were removed, somebody went to the Public Works Department’s outdoor break area, and carried one of those tables around to the pocket park.
The pocket park situation is perhaps a microcosm of what is shaping up to be a larger issue with the homeless in town, who had their encampments in the dunes and Morro Creek cleared out last December. Police logs regularly list some of the same men and women being cited or arrested multiple times for illegal camping, and allegedly being schnockered in public, and/or being on or possessing drugs and paraphernalia.
