BY CASSANDRA ABRAM

Turlock City Council, District 3

Are you sitting down? Don’t get too comfortable. Sitting in any public place, including parks and public libraries, will be prohibited under a new ordinance adopted by the Turlock City Council on Aug. 27. How did we get to a point where sitting in public is punishable by a fine or imprisonment? This ordinance is Turlock’s response to City of Grants Pass v. Johnson, the Supreme Court ruling that opened the door for cities and counties to deal with the community impacts of homelessness. To be fair, this ordinance also prohibits acts that are true health and safety concerns, like camping in parks or bathing in fountains. However, rather than choosing to tailor this ordinance to specific problems, the majority of the Council chose the most extreme version of this law, in effect bulldozing over your freedom to sit under a shade tree or lie down on a picnic blanket in a park. I was the lone vote on the Council against this ordinance because I believe we can write laws that address public nuisances without sacrificing your individual liberties.

Your City Council is attempting to respond to valid and reasonable concerns. Our parks, business storefronts, and alleyways are not suitable places for makeshift dwellings. It is not safe for people to block building entrances or driveways. It is not appropriate to bathe in the Columbia Park or Broadway Park splash pads. We can uphold these community standards while also recognizing core principles in our society: that public space is meant for public use and that the ordinary law-abiding citizen has a right to enjoy those public spaces without fear of fines or imprisonment. Will you or I ever be fined for sitting while watching our children at the park? When does innocent sitting become a public nuisance? The answers to those questions depend on judgment calls, setting up scenarios that will inevitably result in unequal enforcement. An overly broad law that criminalizes ordinary public behavior is a recipe for costly and embarrassing civil rights suits against the City. I don’t want our City and our Police Department to have to deal with that. I trust that our police officers will do their best to make the right call in the difficult situations they handle every day, no matter which laws they are enforcing. But as lawmakers, we must do our part to write clear, reasonable, and just laws for our officers to enforce. We have to create policies that balance community standards and our residents’ rights to freely live their lives in public.

This ordinance will be considered for the final time at our next City Council meeting at 6 p.m. on Sept. 10 at City Hall. With a simple vote, the Council could remove the most extreme prohibitions in this law while keeping the parts that address legitimate community concerns. At our last meeting, I suggested we remove the ban on sitting in public, but your representatives didn’t want to hear it. So what now? First, make sure you’re standing or walking at all times in public – it’s the only way to completely comply with this law. While you’re up, come to a Council Meeting. Or simply send your Mayor and Councilmembers an email. Tell us what you think about your Council writing legally questionable ordinances that limit your right to freely go about your business in public. On this issue and any other, I will continue to stand up for what is reasonable, fair, and right for our community. Will you stand up for that too? Remember, sitting on the sidelines is no longer an option.