(Photo by Michelle Dillon) Marietta City Council had a full table as it discussed several ordinances Thursday night at a city council meeting, including a ban on camping on city property.

Marietta City Council was scheduled to conduct the first reading of a proposed camping ban on city property Thursday evening at a meeting that had not concluded as of press time.

It was a continuation of a conversation started at a Police and Fire Committee meeting Wednesday.

Council members discussed Ordinance No. 105 (24-25), which was introduced by At-Large Councilman Jon Grimm. It would ban camping on city property except in designated areas and possible legislation to ban aggressive panhandling.

Attached to the ordinance is a section that would be added to the Marietta city code that would ban campsites from being maintained in a location on city property – which is defined as alleyways, public or private doorways abutting public sidewalks, multi-use paths, bike paths, streets, sidewalks, public rights of way, parking lots, easements, parks, public grounds, building or other public land owned, lease controlled or managed by the city – for more than 24 hours and would make unauthorized encampments a fourth-degree misdemeanor and repeated violations a third-degree misdemeanor. It would also ban sleeping on city property.

The exhibit defines a campsite as a place where camping materials – defined as tents, huts, awnings, lean-tos, campers, RV’s, camping trailers, chairs, tarps, portable stoves and/or collections of personal property that are used as an accommodation for camping — are placed.

The penalty for unauthorized encampments would be decided by the court but whether or not a immediately removed all their property and litter when asked or if before their hearing a person violating the code section used private resources or service providers to address the reason they that led them to be committing unauthorized camping would be considered as mitigating factors by the court when deciding penalties.

The efforts to create a camping ban on city property were spurred by complaints shared during a Sept. 23 Planning, Zoning, Annexation and Housing (PZAH) and Public Lands and Buildings Committees joint meeting. During the meeting several downtown business owners located near the Washington County Homeless Project’s homeless drop-in center on Front Street shared concerns they had for safety in relation to the center, with the issues expressed including noise, people yelling or cursing, people bothering business’ employees, people camping at or behind businesses on Front and Second streets and more.

During Wednesday’s meeting council also discussed possible sites that would be designated as areas where people are allowed to camp on city property.

City Law Director Paul Bertram said council discussed during an Oct. 28 Police and Fire Committee meeting using Gunlock Park as a possible location for allowed camping. The park is located behind the Lowe’s on Pike Street.

Grimm said he heard questions from community members about using Gunlock Park shortly after the Oct. 28 meeting and then he introduced a community member who does not want camping allowed at Gunlock Park.

Marietta Adventure Company Owner and River Valley Mountain Biking Association President Ryan Smith shared his concerns, stating the association is trying to get Marietta designated as a ride center by the International Mountain Bicycling Association.

“It’s a pretty prestigious thing,” Smith said.

The RVMBA wants to create a destination-worthy location in the region with Marietta as the centerpiece, Smith said, and right now there are no ride centers in the state of Ohio and only one in West Virginia, so Marietta getting the designation would give the Marietta-Washington County Convention & Visitors Bureau something to market.

Smith put biking trails in Gunlock Park eight to ten years ago, according to him, and he maintains them and the park “is critical to our overall goal of establishing the ride center,” he said.

His organization has already submitted an initial application to the International Mountain Bicycling Association and met with them last week to go over the application, he said, and while he does not have an exact date when they might get the designation he expects the process to be done within a matter of months.

If Gunlock park is made the designated area for camping it will be the end of Marietta being designated a ride center, he said.

“If you go out there you’re going to see, it’s parents with kids .. they’re not going to be there,” he said. “The times we have had people move in and camp there I get a phone call usually within a week … because someone’s out there with their little kid and they’re ‘Oh, there’s a scary person back there.'”

Smith emphasized that he does not think the homeless people who have camped at Gunlock Park are bad people but he doesn’t think they have the cleanliness of the park in mind.

Ward 2 Councilman Bret Allphin shared information about other possibly sites, stating he went with City Safety Service Director Steven Wetz and City Development Director Geoff Schenkel and looked at a site on Douglas Avenue and the area at the southwest corner of the Washington County Fairgrounds near the path near where the old pool was and after doing so a factor that needs to be considered is realistic access to services for people who would camp at a site.

Grimm said he looked at the sites also and something to take into consideration is privacy at possible sites.

“Everything I saw down there was just an open field,” he said.

Washington County Homeless Project Chair Robin Bozian attended the meeting, and she shared her opinion on some of the sites mentioned, stating “an open field without hassle is certainly preferable.”

She said the Homeless Project’s first goal before it started the drop-in center and before it started working on opening an overnight shelter, was to have a place where individuals could camp and where there would be tiny homes.

“The problem was, as we saw it, was there was nothing in the zoning that allowed for any of that … if you would allow us to do something like that we would put structure to it,” Bozian said. “We would put a fence around it. We would police the whole thing.”

The idea of the Homeless Project running a campsite for homeless people in Marietta was not discussed further at the meeting.

Grimm shared a concern with Bozian he has about homeless people coming to Marietta.

“It’s clear we’re getting people from other communities here,” he said, and it’s a concern in the community that Marietta is attracting homeless people because the city gives them a better quality of life.

“That is a community perception and should be part of the conversation,” Grimm said.

Bozian answered that she does not believe that.

“If the better quality of life is, ‘Oh yeah you can get a meal at the drop-in center’, I mean come on people, that is not worth coming here from Zanesville.”

She said other places have a lot more things to help homeless people than Marietta.

Grimm said he wants council to be involved in the process of the city safety service director designating the place where camping is allowed and then said the ordinance would be introduced at Thursday’s council meeting, but council would not suspend the second and third readings.

“I want this to go all three readings,” he said.

During Wednesday’s meeting Grimm also introduced the possibility of an ordinance to ban aggressive panhandling.

Bertram gave everyone a copy of Columbus’ ordinance against aggressive panhandling and shared some information about Columbus and its ordinance.

“What you’re seeing is if you go to Columbus and you go off of (highways) you come in and there’s people at the exits and they approach you … it’s not uncommon for people to want to clean your windshield and then ask for money or they have a sign and they kind of reach in your car,” Bertram said. “We have it here to a lesser degree.”

According to Bertram, Marietta used to have aggressive panhandling a lot more, then it lessened for a while but it is starting to pick back up again.

Grimm asked how aggressive panhandling would be defined and Bertam said the Columbus ordinance would probably apply to someone standing with a sign if they went into the road but maybe not apply if they were standing on a sidewalk. He also said the behavior of drivers stopping could violate the Columbus ordinance, not just a person asking for money.

Bertram asked that council members read the Columbus ordinance and Grimm stated it would need to be looked at before council moved forward.

“I will include it in an upcoming meeting,” he said.