Skip to main content
In a Tuesday morning press conference one day before it goes before the Portland City Council, Mayor Ted Wheeler went on the offensive to attack a strict camping ban that City Commissioner Rene Gonzalez proposed last Wednesday and has amended several times since.
Wheeler characterized Gonzalez’s ban as slapdash and possibly illegal. Wheeler’s primary issue with Gonzalez’s proposal, presented as an alternative to Wheeler’s: It would put rulemaking power in the hands of the mayor and would be hidden from the public eye.
“What’s fundamentally different is who decides. Do we decide in the light of day…or do we delegate that responsibility to a mayor or a city administrator or to an unnamed designee and have those rules designed behind closed doors?” Wheeler said Tuesday morning. “I feel very very strongly that the City Council needs to be front and center, stand in the light of day, in front of God and country, and say what rules we’re going to enforce.”
Gonzalez first proposed his camping ban as an alternative to a set of time, place and manner restrictions proposed by Mayor Ted Wheeler earlier this spring. The city was forced to rework its camping ban after a Multnomah County circuit judge blocked a camping ban that the City Council approved last summer.
The freshman city commissioner immediately received pushback on his initial proposal, which called for up to six months in jail for violators, should state and federal law allow it. The objections came from Wheeler and City Commissioner Carmen Rubio, who called the proposal “inhumane” because it contained no provision that the city could only enforce fines and other criminal penalties if a person had been offered shelter and declined.
But since last Wednesday, Gonzalez has shifted his alternative proposal in some major ways. He dropped the harsher fines and jail time and mirrored the penalties in the mayor’s proposal. Gonzalez also incorporated into the newest version he published Tuesday morning amendments proposed by Rubio and fellow City Commissioner Mingus Mapps.
The most seismic shift Gonzalez made on Tuesday morning aimed to clarify enforceability: Instead of the mayor creating rules and setting criminal penalties, his latest proposal would create a blanket camping ban and then the mayor could create exceptions and carveouts to the blanket ban.
It remains unclear whether Gonzalez’s proposal—any of the versions—would pass legal muster.
Wheeler cast doubt on whether Gonzalez had vetted his proposal with law enforcement: “I’m not sure, frankly, that some of these proposals have been vetted with those who are responsible for implementing, prosecuting or working with people who are impacted by these ordinances.”
City Attorney Robert Taylor said during the mayor’s Tuesday press conference that he’s confident the mayor’s proposal would pass legal muster.
“I believe the mayor’s proposal would survive a legal challenge,” Taylor said.
But the legal landscape is in flux. The debate between Wheeler and Gonzalez is happening as the U.S Supreme Court hears arguments in a landmark court case out of Grants Pass that could fundamentally change how West Coast cities are allowed to regulate street camping.
In his closing remarks, Wheeler touted his own proposal while denouncing Gonzalez’s (though not by name).
“I think we’ve introduced an ordinance that strikes a reasonable and common sense balance between carrot and stick,” Wheeler said. “Clarity, transparency, accountability and notification...are critically important. It cannot be capricious, it cannot be decided by closed doors, the rules cannot be shifted suddenly overnight.”
Gonzalez’s office did not immediately respond to the mayor’s Tuesday morning criticisms.
Gonzalez’s proposal (in the form of amendments to Wheeler’s proposal) will be heard by the City Council on Wednesday. While Wheeler and Rubio have made their opposition to Gonzalez’s proposal clear, Commissioners Mapps and Dan Ryan have previously said they’re open to it.