gaithersblog.net

As mentioned earlier, the City has posted a draft of their proposed anti-solicitation ordinance. The essence of the proposed ordinance is that, at places within the City other than an employment center, the standard scenario where someone drives up to a group of laborers hanging around on a street corner looking for work, offers them a job, and drives off with one or more of them in the vehicle, will no longer be lawful.

Unfortunately, this draft ordinance is not expected to be “introduced” at next Monday’s meeting — rather, it appears that it will only be mentioned in the “from the City Manager” portion of the meeting. As mentioned in the cover memo, it is anticipated that this ordinance will be introduced at the November 6th meeting of the Mayor and Council. With delays for a public hearing, public comment, policy discussion and the normal delay between adoption and becoming effective, it appears likely that, in the event that the County proceeds expeditiously with leasing the site at Festival shopping center, this ordinance will not become effective until after the opening of a day labor center; in fact, unless the process for this ordinance is accelerated, it is unlikely that it will become effective until sometime next year.

Also unfortunately, the draft is contained in a bit-mapped PDF, and thus a transcription is required to make this text searchable. With the assistance of a reader of this blog, I’ve included the transcribed text below. As usual, there could be transcription errors in this text, and I ask that anyone who spots such an error to please let me know so that I can correct it. Note, however, that as I’ve used HTML markup elements (ordered lists in particular), there are some slight formatting differences between this and the original, especially in the indentation of paragraphs and the labelling of item numbers, e.g. you’ll see a “b.” instead of a “(b)”. In any event make sure that you consult the original PDF document before commenting on this text.

First is the transcribed cover memo:

MEMORANDUM TO:	Mayor and City Council
VIA:	David B. Humpton, City Manager
FROM:	Cathy G. Borten, City Attorney
DATE:	October 12,2006
SUBJECT:	Draft Anti-Solicitation Ordinance

Pursuant to direction received at the October 3,2006 Mayor and Council meeting, staff has begun working on a draft of a proposed anti-solicitation ordinance that would be enforceable once a formal employment site for day workers is established. Attached please find a first draft of the proposed ordinance.

Please note that staff considers this an initial draft, that is intended to provide the Council with an idea of the direction we are headed. We are continuing to research legal issues as well as ordinances adopted and/or challenged in other jurisdictions throughout the country in order to develop an ordinance that is in the best interests of the City.

We expect the final draft to be ready for introduction at the November 6,2006 Mayor and Council meeting. Any questions or comments prior to that time are certainly welcome.

Thank you.

And this is the transcribed draft ordinance itself:

Ordinance No. __________

AN ORDINANCE TO REPEAL AND REENACT WITH AMENDMENTS CHAPTER 15 OF THE CITY CODE ENTITLED “OFFENSES - MISCELLANEOUS,” SECTION 15-4, ENTITLED “LOITERING,” SO AS TO CLARIFY EXISTING LANGUAGE WITH REGARD TO PROHIBITED CONDUCT, AND SECTION 15-9, ENTITLED “SOLICITATION IN ROADWAYS,” AND TO CREATE NEW SECTION 15-9.1, ENTITLED “VEHICLE SOLICITATION,” SO AS TO DISTINGUISH THE APPLICABILITY OF THE CITY’S PROHIBITION ON SOLICITATION SPECIFIC TO THIS CHAPTER

BE IT ORDAINED, by the Mayor and City Council of the City of Gaithersburg, in public meeting assembled, that Chapter 15 of the City Code, is hereby repealed and reenacted with amendments to read as follows:

Chapter 15

OFFENSES-MISCELLANEOUS

* * * * * * *

Sec. 15-4 Loitering.

1. * * * * * * *
2. Prohibited Conduct
   1. * * * * * * *
   2. * * * * * * *
   3. It shall be unlawful for any person to loiter remain without lawful business within one hundred (100) feet of any exterior portion of a business establishment selling alcoholic beverages for off-premises consumption, and to fail to obey the direction of a uniformed police officer, or upon identification of a properly identified police officer not in uniform, to move on, where not to obey such direction either endangers the public peace or inhibits unimpeded movement of pedestrians and customers along any public way.

* * * * * * *

* * * * * * *

Sec. 15-9 Solicitation in Roadways

It shall be unlawful for any person to stop, stand, walk or otherwise enter the drive lanes of any public roadway or a median separating the drive lanes of a public roadway for the purpose of soliciting donations, alms, subscriptions, employment or other business from the occupant of any motor vehicle.

Sec. 15-9.1 Vehicle Solicitation

1. Definitions.
   1. Solicit/attempt to solicit: For purposes of this Chapter only, solicit or attempt to solicit shall be defined as and/or include the act of requesting or announcing by any means the availability for or the availability of employment; or any action which seeks to offer, contract for, purchase, sell, or procure employment. The following acts, when accomplished in the context of securing employment, indicate a solicitation: approach between or among individuals; departing the place of approach together; utilization of a vehicle in the approach or departure. Conduct as defined herein is deemed to be a solicitation, whether or not an actual employment relationship is created. Solicitation does not include any activity conducted within or in accordance with the procedures of a lawfully approved formal assembly site for day workers, or other lawfully approved employment center use, issued a use and occupancy permit.
   2. Employment Center: an established location, issued a use and occupancy permit, where employment opportunities are coordinated between persons seeking employment and persons seeking to hire persons for employment.
2. Prohibited Conduct
   
   1. It shall be unlawful for any person, while occupying as a pedestrian any portion of a public or private road, sidewalk, driveway, parking area, or alley, including drive lanes, medians and curbs, to solicit or attempt to solicit employment from any person occupying or traveling in a vehicle on a highway, sidewalk, driveway, parking area, or alley.
   2. It shall be unlawful for any person occupying or traveling in a vehicle, or who temporarily exits a vehicle, to solicit or attempt to solicit employment from a person who is a pedestrian on a public or private road, sidewalk, driveway, parking area, or alley, including drive lanes, medians and curbs.
      
3. Enforcement
   Regardless of adopted or effective date, this Section 15-9.1 shall not be enforced until, and shall only be enforced for so long as, a formal employment center is in operation within the corporate limits of the City of Gaithersburg or in the immediate vicinity.

ADOPTED this ___ day of ________, 2006 by the City Council of Gaithersburg, Maryland

(remainder of validation section omitted).

The City has posted an agenda for the October 16, 2006 meeting of the Mayor and Council. One of the most interesting aspects of this is the inclusion of the draft anti-solicitation ordinance that was handed out in print form at last night’s meeting. I will go into some detail about that in another post, right after this one.

Anyway, items on the agenda include:

• The now-usual City Manager’s Day Laborer Report
• A statement from the City Manager regarding preparations for the upcoming election. OCR’d excerpt:
  

  As you are aware, a number of key elected officials across the State have addressed concerns about the current Diebold electronic voting equipment. In fact, it has been suggested that voters use the absentee process rather than voting electronically. Given statewide problems in the September primaries, it is very likely that the General Assembly will pass legislation during the 2007 Legislative Session that would result in modifications to the existing system or the outright replacement of the Diebold equipment; however, because there will not be a statewide election until September of 2008, it is very possible that new voting equipment that may be mandated by the legislature would not be available for the City’s November, 2007 election.

• A public hearing on T-378, which I’ve discussed before.
• The Draft Anti-Solicitation Ordinance
• Three (ostensibly) routine resolutions (although the first one — a statement in favor of “inclusion” — might mean more than it appears, and in the case of the last one, on “matching grants”, I note that part of the document file name is “matching_rants” :-)

Update: The Video of this meeting has been put up on the web.

It was another long meeting, and almost impossible to summarize. City hall was packed, with many people having to sit in the gallery [*]. The public testimony went for about two hours, with each person getting at most three minutes. The speakers ran the gamut, from law-and-order ideologues to bleeding hearts; from pathetic, sobbing jornaleros to angry, fist-pounding authoritarians. There were moderates seeking practical solutions, clergy concerned that the jornaleros be treated with the consideration that any human is due, and citizens just wanting to thank the Mayor, Council and City staff for working so hard to try to solve a problem that other communities just ignore.

Generally, the former task force members who spoke gave their support to the proposed site. Most of the people who had been involved in the process over the past year were supportive, although insistent that the City pass an antisolicitation ordinance. Several of the regular critics — Demos Chrissos, Susan Payne and Stephen Schreiman in particular — were there and gave impassioned statements against any sort of center. There were a number of people who have, as far as I know, never been to a Mayor and Council meeting before and likely were there only because Chris Core told them to go. Several members of the clergy stood to offer their support for and participation in a proposed local coalition of faith organizations that might run the center. There was a large contingent of day laborers, supported by several advocates including Kim Propeack of CASA de Maryland.

There were accusations of racism and insistence that racism had nothing to do with it; predictions that the city would be overrun by half the population of Mexico City, stories of immigrants bringing and spreading disease and crime, stories of helpless Latinos fleeing rape, abuse and poverty, and owners of businesses at the shopping center predicting the loss of their livelihoods as their customers abandon them because of their fear of the the day laborers.

In the end, the Mayor and Council rejected the extremes and voted (3-1, Marraffa against and Schlichting not attending because of a conflict) for the resolution endorsing the proposed site, with an amendment intended to further nudge the County to hire a local Gaithersburg group to run the center, rather than their Division of Hispanic Outreach, otherwise known as CASA de Maryland. A printed, draft anti-soliciation ordinance was available with the other background materials, although this document is not yet up on the City’s website, and was not introduced for consideration by the Council. Still, the Mayor and the Council did reiterate support for the adoption of such an ordinance, and stated that the County had no say in whether the City were to have such a law. I have a copy of the draft ordinance and if the City doesn’t post it soon I’ll try to summarize it for you.

It’s way too late now, I need to just publish this post and go to bed. I’m sure that there’ll be lots of news coverage tomorrow — there were television cameras and print photographers, and reporters at least from the Washington Times, the Gazette and the Town Courier. So as I see stories tomorrow I’ll try to link to them.

Goodnight.

* If you’ve never been there, the main chamber has maybe five or six rows of leather chairs, providing seating for maybe 75-100 people. There’s another room directly above the chamber called the Gallery — because they do frequently exhibit art up there — where they set up several rows of more spartan folding chairs and a big TV set playing the live cable TV feed. If you get there late and the chamber is full, you have to go up to the gallery and watch on TV. But if you want to speak, there’s a stairway you can come down to get in line for a turn at the podium. Usually, by halfway through a meeting, the crowd in the main chamber starts to thin out and people gradually move down from the gallery to the good seats.