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HomeMy WebLinkAbout10-08-24 Public Comment - J. Minalga - Fwd_ ORDINANCE 2147 COMMENTFrom:Jessica Minalga To:Bozeman Public Comment Subject:[EXTERNAL]Fwd: ORDINANCE 2147 COMMENT Date:Monday, October 7, 2024 9:18:05 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Do not click links or open attachments unless you recognize the sender and know the content is safe. Dear Bozeman Commissioners, Thank you for revisiting ordinance 2147. While I appreciate the time you are putting into making this decision, I am writing in a plea for you to prohibit urban camping as it relates to the valid concerns the city staff presented to you last meeting. While we can’t end homelessness with this decision, we can make changes to improve this serious environmental and public safety issue that we’ve gotten ourselves into. As someone who lives on Blondie right next to the encampment there, I can tell you what I see. And I can start by saying that everything the staff presented is true. I see the issue getting worse, and I do not see compliance. I have seen RVs in the same spot for years, trash spilling out into the streets, campsites being built onto the surrounding area, and neighbors being harassed and followed, just by driving down a PUBLIC ROAD. I have seen multiple people still using the fields for bathrooms, break-ins to our vehicles, theft of our packages, and I have become very very scared after some of the things I have personally witnessed. There is an intense aggression towards those who are passing by on these same streets that take us to our homes. I’ve almost run over dogs that lunge out at my car, and the generator noise pollution is unbearable which we’ve had to listen to for YEARS. I am very uncomfortable in my neighborhood and the tension is getting very very high over here. I foresee some seriously bad things happening like more of the violence reported in the camp off of Kimberwicke just weeks ago. https://www.kbzk.com/news/crime-courts/bozeman-urban-camper-assault-sends-pair-to-jail https://www.kbzk.com/news/crime-courts/urban-camping-crime-saturday-drug-bust-in-bozeman-sends-three-to-jail The proximity we have to each other will never work or be accepted. It’s going to get significantly worse if the current situation remains. I am very disappointed in how the city has handled the management of their ordinance, and how nothing is being done to maintain the regulations set in place. Why do you refuse to give your staff the tools they need to regulate against those who are not within compliance? And why are you knowingly allowing all of these very concerning things to be happening? Especially in a residential neighborhood? I was also very disappointed to hear how dismissive you were to our City Manager around his plea to be able to remove the encampment on Blondie and Veronica immediately, and how you almost seemed like you had no idea what goes on over there at all. Hopefully, you did that drive-by you were speaking of. You might not have to live next to these encampments but the local, middle-class citizens of this city have to and in very close proximity and we need to be taken into consideration as you plan the next steps, which need to happen now. This is a public health and safety issue and you are putting so many of your residents in danger, both the housed and the unhoused. Baxter Meadows is a RESIDENTIAL AREA and the encampment off of Blondie is IMMEDIATELY adjacent to a multi- household residential dwelling, which goes against the rules you put in place last year, which are not being upheld nor enforced. Please do something about this and remove encampments from residential areas. I am from Bozeman and am very proud of my town. I have worked and given back to this community since I was 16 years old. I work for a local company that I am proud of and I give back my time on multiple boards and work at the Fork and Spoon during the holidays. I want all of our residents to have a place to live but I in no way support what I’m seeing out here now. That is not community. Theft and violence is not a community looking out for each other. Human trafficking and capitalizing on this issue is not helping others. Unfortunately, some of us are at a temporarily low point in our lives, but that does not mean we get to ignore the other people who don’t want to get better or whodon’t want to be members of this community and look out for one another. You will not win this fight. It needs to beprohibited or you will spend countless taxpayer dollars and have nothing to show for, and will spend precious cityresources on those not looking for help, where you could be putting resources into those that do. Just like what ishappening now. And for that very reason, a permit system will never work. You will never be able to keep up withenforcement of that and you will devote all of our resources to maintaining an initiative like that instead of givingyour energy to other efforts our city needs your leadership on. Moving people every 30 days is not the solution and that is not even upheld or regulated by the city. There needs tobe stricter restrictions in place to be able to tackle this issue and determine who needs help and who is takingadvantage of the situation. After the Supreme Court homelessness ruling allowing Montana to impose our restrictions on the severe urbancamping issues our city is facing, we ask that the city finally do something to address this increasingly growing issuebefore it completely gets out of hand. Please return our town to one that we are proud of and feel safe in. Prohibiting urban camping in the public right of way is not turning your back on the homeless. There are othersolutions besides allowing this to happen on our city streets. This needs to stop.