Street theater, games, a surprise prank or two, interviews with the homeless and harassed as well as speakers from Occupy, the ACLU, CALC, and the CLDC will highlight the absurdities of the Downtown Public Safety (Exclusion) Zone will all begin at noon in Kesey Square. (Also, keep your eyes peeled and cameras aimed all day, before and after the press event!),
The zone, also known as the Confusion Zone for the warren of legal paths the accused person has to follow to escape exclusion, allows people to be banished from the downtown for 30 days even without conviction of any offense. To escape exclusion, the accused must pursue two separate legal paths for as mild an offense as leaning against a building while standing on the sidewalk -and, of course, more serious offenses such as noise disturbance or having LESS than an ounce of marijuana in your pocket. Most accused are unaware that they must fight their exclusion along a whole different legal path than the one through which they can plead innocent to the actual offense. Therefore, they are unlikely to show up to protest the exclusion and so it becomes imposed based on the testimony of a policeman or witness affidavit.
Perhaps most aptly dubbed the Downtown “Exclusivity Zone”, the law was ostensibly passed to alleviate the pressure on jails ….but with a clever turn of events, the offenses for which people are being excluded are lowered to violations precisely to deprive the accused of a free public defender and therefore they are offenses that do not lead to jail terms! Police reports on the Zone have done nothing to prove that making the zone so exclusive has reduced crime.
This law violates the due process clause as well as the equal protection clause by permitting law enforcement to target people based upon their appearance — if you look poor, you are cited and excluded; if you look like a shopper or of a higher class, you are not cited. This police discretion has permitted vast abuse among our unhoused community members.
Perhaps rather than excluding people from the commons, the city of Eugene should once again take action to alleviate the plight of the poor by providing alternatives such as community spaces, non-religious housing options, and access to services.
The city should be addressing the plight of the poor – not treating them like a blight.
The events at noon at Kesey Square (where we are reclaiming public space every Friday afternoon will provide much needed insights into why the Downtown Exclusivity Zone can not be extended. Armed with these insights and lots of information, Eugenians are encouraged to show up and speak out at the city’s Public Hearing on the Downtown Public Safety Zone on Tuesday the 21st of February. Sign up at 7:00 pm to speak at 7:30 pm.
Didn’t anyone ever tell the council that a busy downtown is an INTERESTING, FLAVORFUL downtown, not some antiseptic version of a homogenous society. Ask the vendors at Kesey Square how their business is doing on Friday Afternoons while we are occupying Kesey Square….they sold out of food!
For information, call Jean Stacey, 541-870-2580 or Michael Carrigan, CALC, 541-485-1755
