Shortly before the October 28 session, the City Council announced that the second reading of Santa Cruz Municipal Code Section 13.08.100, pertaining to orders to vacate park property, had been pulled from the meeting agenda. Since 2013, Park Rangers have had the ability to force park users to stay away from city parks when issued citations for low-level infractions, and individuals can be issued a stay away order for a full year after receiving multiple citations. A violation of a parks stay-away order can result in a misdemeanor conviction, which can carry up to a year in jail and/or a $1000 fine.

Civil rights groups have voiced strong opposition to the ordinance and called into question the constitutional sufficiency of the amendment. After analyzing citations and stay-away orders from 2013-14, which were provided by the Parks and Recreation Department, the organization Homeless United for Friendship and Freedom (HUFF) has found that nearly 100% of citations written in city parks were for non-violent, non-disruptive infractions.

ACLU Santa Cruz County writes: The Santa Cruz Chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union is shocked that the City Council is considering a resolution of this problem that involves banning individuals from a park or parks in general, for as long as a year, without any due process or procedure for a fair hearing in front of an impartial judge as to whether they actually committed the acts with which they are being charged or whether the punishment is appropriate for whatever transgression(s) they are cited for committing. This proposal is Constitutionally vague, lacks adequate due process protections, and is ripe for abuse. We sympathize with your need to address problem behavior in the parks and don't doubt that there is a problem that needs to be addressed, but we seriously hope you will find a different approach to addressing it.

Read More | Stay-Away From Human Rights ! An Activist Examines the Escalating Stay-Away Orders Law | Local ACLU Issues Stong Statement in Opposition to "Stay Away" Ordinance | Time to Step Up and Fight City Hall on “Stay Away” Ordinance | Petition and Flyers Opposing the Anti-Homeless Stay Away Orders Ordinance | Nasty Anti-Homeless Stay-Away Laws to Get Exponentially Worse

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