City of Boulder residents are gathering signatures for a ballot measure that would put pressure on city officials to clear out encampments of homeless people more quickly, particularly near schools such as Boulder High, where officials said a propane tank recently exploded near a tent.
The Safe Zones 4 Kids petition, publicly announced on Sunday night, would amend the city’s prohibition of the possession of tents or propane tanks on public property so that any such items located within 500 feet of a school would be “subject to prioritized removal.” The same high-priority designation would also apply to within 50 feet of a sidewalk or multi-use path.
City officials have said they are already prioritizing clearing out tents, propane tanks and other belongings near schools and on multi-use paths as a matter of internal policy. If passed, the measure would make such prioritization part of city code.
The Safe Zones 4 Kids petition is the first to be submitted with the City of Boulder ahead of the Nov. 7, 2023 election, in which voters will directly elect the mayor for the first time and will also elect four other councilmembers. Homelessness and public safety are expected to be among the driving issues in the lead-up to the election. The topics were prominent in Denver’s recent mayoral race.
One of the founding members of the Safe Zones 4 Kids organization, Jennifer Rhodes, a psychiatrist, attended a city council meeting in October 2022 with her daughter, who said she has been yelled at and blocked by people when biking along the Boulder Creek path to Boulder High. Another member, John Neslage, a corporate lawyer, told city councilmembers a man masturbated in front of his daughter at the Boulder Public Library.
“As a community, we have a responsibility to ensure that every child feels safe on their way to and from, and during school,” Rhodes said in a new release announcing the petition.
If the ballot measure language were to pass, it is unclear what effect it would have.
City officials have said they are already prioritizing enforcement near schools, including the wooded area between Boulder High and CU Boulder known as the Andrews Arboretum, a place where people often sleep.
Separately, earlier this year, officials updated their internal policy to no longer provide a 72-hour notice before clearing out encampments on underpasses, multi-use paths and other “commuter corridors,” citing safety concerns. (City officials have said they can immediately remove visible propane tanks from public property.)
Some Boulder residents have advocated for the city to waive its 72-hour notice policy when clearing encampments near schools. But that could open the city up to civil rights lawsuits, according to officials. The city is already being sued by the ACLU of Colorado as part of an effort to block enforcement of its decades-old camping ban, on grounds it violates state constitutional protections against cruel and unusual punishment.
Courts across the U.S. have ruled that the 14th Amendment ensures homeless people are given due process in the form of “reasonable notice” before they are ordered to vacate public spaces.
“We want to do our work in a way that’s within the Constitution and legally protected,” Joe Taddeucci, the city’s director of Utilities, said. “There’s a really strong precedent for giving notice.”
In Oct. 2022, the Boulder City Council approved spending more than $2 million per year for city officials to pick up trash, confiscate personal property and ticket homeless people for violating laws on sleeping in public spaces or possessing a tent or propane tank. A recent city staff memo indicates reports of encampments has continued rising.
Critics of the ballot measure proposal argue it will push homeless people to other locations and not address the underlying causes of homelessness, such as the lack of resources to treat mental illness or drug addiction and the high cost of housing.
“I understand their concerns,” Jennifer Livovich, the executive director of Feet Forward, which provides peer support and other services for homeless people, wrote in a text message. “I do hope they realize that if we don’t allow camping in one place, it says it’s ok to camp in others, including Pearl St.”
The Safe Zones 4 Kids ballot measure committee has until June 9 to collect 3,437 signatures for it to appear on the November ballot. As of early Wednesday morning, it had 91 signatures.
Where can we sign the petition?
It’s about time the city enforces illegal homeless camps. It it not only dangerous it’s unacceptable. For doubters please refer to the once model cities – San Fran, Portland, and Seattle. Don’t let this happen to our beautiful city of Boulder. I’ve had 2 bikes stolen by homeless (1 was recovered).
I am curious why I cannot locate a link to sign the petition within your story?If the link is missing, perhaps you can provide this link in your Friday BRL edition? Thanks
Why is the URL of the petition not included in this article? Here it is:
https://petitions.bouldercolorado.gov/petition/7
The Boulder Direct Democracy (BDC) petition system is almost impossible to use. It requires your Voter-ID plus. Go to the Sec. of State website for that. But that isn’t enough. BDC then rejects your signature unless you have a “publicly available” personal phone number attached to your voter registration. So back to the Voter Registration website. The process for adding that phone number is far from obvious. And, it is my understanding that the entire voter database is available to the public, so you will in effect be publishing your personal phone number. [Most states make the entire voter database (full name, address, birth data, party registration, voting history…) available to anyone who is a candidate for public office, which can be almost anyone.] That’s a in invitation to unlimited phone scam spam.
Don’t take my word for it–try the BDC system for yourself; good luck!
Another way to deal with this would be to build a large steel building outside town where campers could be removed to. The building could offer showers, secure rooms or beds, etc. Spending $2 million to clean up … ok. What if most of the campers are mentally ill?
It seems there have been four (?) apartment buildings in Boulder serving the elderly and disabled that have changed hands in the last year and evicted all the tenants. Has Boulder done anything to replace them or otherwise provide housing for the elderly or disabled?
I’m not saying I like encampments either. I am saying we should be investing in constructing or creating supportive housing for these groups that are increasingly seen within the homeless crowd.
Will be voting against this, as a life time resident that comes from a time that this was not allowed but is now being sold as a children’s safety issue will only solidify more support against it. As much as new boulder hates the poor, disabled and elderly homelessness will only increase as will confrontations, as I have had recently with cops, city officials and those special concerned citizens are doing this.