By Howard Fischer
Capitol Media Services
PHOENIX -- Gov. Katie Hobbs has nixed legislation designed to force communities to dismantle homeless encampments and, in some circumstances, arrest those who were staying there.
Hobbs said the proposal offered by Sen. Justine Wadsack, R-Tucson, fails to understand that there are multiple reasons that people become "unsheltered'' and remain that way.
"This legislation addresses none of those root causes, offers no pathways to assistance, and effectively criminalizes experiencing homelessness,'' the governor wrote.
Wadsack, in pushing her legislation, did not dispute that. But she said the problem of people camping on or near private property, defecating on the sidewalk and leaving needles, needs to be resolved because of how it is affecting those who live or have businesses nearby.
The senator, in a prepared statement, reacted angrily to the governor's action.
"If Gov. Hobbs' goal is to turn Arizona into California, her veto of this bill will surely contribute to our state's demise,'' Wadsack said. "In no time, our cities will resemble that of San Francisco, with major corporations withdrawing operations and lawlessness filling our streets.''
Hobbs vetoed six other bills on Monday, bringing her total this session to more than 100. (See related story).
But it is the measure on how to handle homeless encampments that has generated the most controversy.
One provision requires local governments, on hearing of any homeless encampment, to notify everyone on the site they have 24 hours to leave and take their property with them. If someone refuses, the city or county can take possession of the items and, if not claimed within 14 days, dispose of them.
A second says anyone camping on private property is guilty of trespassing and can be prosecuted.
Wadsack said there are a growing number of people in Tucson who are "crying out for help.''
"We are being infiltrated with tent cities,'' she told colleagues.
"Business owners who have told stories of people walking in who have been living in their back alley that come into their businesses with machetes and chase off their business patrons,'' Wadsack said. And she said there are situations where these encampments are on private property, complete with people exposing themselves, but the owners cannot have them removed.
She cited incidents outside a five-star restaurant.
"The person who owns that building has to go into work two hours earlier than everyone else, all of his employees, to clean the human feces off of the front doorsteps, to hose down the human urine, to pick up all the needles and the mattresses that are showing up,'' Wadsack said. "And there have been no support mechanisms through the municipality.''
Wadsack said this isn't intended as a punitive measure. She said it provides an opportunity for city officials to figure out what people need -- whether its dealing with drugs, mental illness or economics -- and connect them with services.
"We are working with Gospel Rescue Mission and multiple churches and nonprofits who are ready,'' Wadsack said. "They have empty beds in their facilities ready to take the people and give them the help they need without having to spend additional money.''
What this legislation does, she said, is push all that along.
"The government is there to restore law and order,'' Wadsack said. "We need to give local municipalities the teeth that they need to actually keep our streets and our private properties clean.''
But Hugo Polanco, lobbying for the American Civil Liberties Union of Arizona, said the problem with the legislation is that it's unconstitutional.
It starts, he said, with allowing the government to seize everything someone owns if that person cannot relocate within the 24-hour window.
"This means the elderly, families, persons with physical disabilities and persons experiencing mental illness can have all their property seized and destroyed including their shelter, medications, identity documents, clothes and money simply because they have no place to go,'' Polanco told lawmakers during testimony on the measure. "This cruel legislation has no place in Arizona.''
He cited a federal appeals court ruling that prohibits property from being destroyed absent any reasonable belief it has been abandoned, presents an immediate hazard to health or safety, or is evidence of a crime.
That raised questions from lawmakers who noted that a Maricopa County Superior Court judge, ruling recently in a case brought on behalf of business owners, ordered Phoenix to clear out an area known as "The Zone'' near the Capitol.
Polanco said that was different because there was first a finding of a public nuisance. And even then, he told lawmakers, the city was not seizing and destroying the property of those who were being removed.
Jacob Emnett with the County Supervisors Association agreed that there are legal problems with the legislation.
He cited an appellate court ruling last September which voided an ordinance by Grants Pass, Ore., which was designed to prevent people from sleeping on sidewalks and streets. The majority of the three-judge panel said the city cannot prevent people from sleeping outside with things like tents and sleeping bags to protect them from the elements, when there is nowhere else for them to go.
And Emnett said there is a more practical concern. He said there would be a cost to counties of not just doing the removal but also providing a site for storage of the property and security to ensure that it is returned only to rightful owners.
But Rep. Rachel Jones, R-Tucson, said none of that should interfere a key part of the legislation: the ability of property owners to be able to call police and have those who are camping on their property removed.
Jones also said that the problem goes beyond whether there are empty beds at shelters. She said some people who are homeless are addicted to drugs and don't want to go somewhere they won't be able to keep up their habit.
"They choose to stay on the street,'' Jones said.
Rep. Nancy Gutierrez, D-Tucson, said it's not that simple. Consider, she said, the fact that many shelters do not allow dogs.
"So rather than leave their dogs on the street they choose not to go into a shelter because, you know, the dog is their family,'' Gutierrez said.
"My dogs are my family members,'' she continued. "I would rather sleep in a tent than be in a shelter without my dog.''
Gutierrez also questioned the assertion that police cannot remove people who are camping on someone else's private property, saying that she believes it already is trespassing.
"What we're talking about here is inhumane and unconstitutional,'' she said. "We're talking about human beings.''
And Gutierrez expressed at a hearing what Hobbs would later say in her veto message about this legislation not dealing with the underlying causes.
"We need affordable housing in Arizona,'' she said.
"We need to put money into health services and mental health services,'' Gutierrez continued. "We need to address the situation, but not by punishing people.''
Other lawmakers, however, had a different view.
"This is not inhumane and unconstitutional,'' said Rep. Steve Montenegro, R-Goodyear. "I think that it's wrong to paint it that way when we are simply trying to protect public safety, people's private property rights.''
Rep. Kevin Payne, R-Peoria, agreed.
"People have places to go,'' he said of the shelters.
"They're given the chance, they choose not to,'' Payne said. "When that's the case, I don't know what else to tell them: Go find a place out in the desert, but get off our property.''
And Rep. Tim Dunn, R-Yuma, said he was not concerned that the legislation was not a cure-all approach.
"This is not to fix the homeless problem,'' he said.
In pushing the legislation, Wadsack specifically mentioned the Tucson Crime Free Coalition which she said has ballooned in membership, particularly business owners who are facing increased problems with the homeless population.
But Kevin Daily, one of the coordinators, said his group has not supported any specific measures at this point. Instead, it is working to create a "transition center'' to "provide more options at critical times of need for those who come into contact with the legal system willing to engage in services.''
He said other areas of focus range from giving law enforcement more tools to putting signs in medians that tell motorists to say "no to panhandling.''
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By Howard Fischer
Capitol Media Services
PHOENIX -- Gov. Katie Hobbs has vetoed a bill its sponsor says was aimed at preventing the filming of sex acts on public property, calling it little more than "a thinly veiled effort to ban books.''
The move on Monday was one of a handful of measures the governor found unacceptable. Others include:
- Prohibiting the state treasurer from investing in companies that donate to Planned Parenthood or other organizations that promote, facilitate or advocate for abortions for minors;
- Banning "ranked choice voting'' or any form of balloting that has multiple stages of counting;
- Increasing the number of people living in an area who would have to consent before the area could be annexed into an adjacent municipality.
The governor also vetoed legislation designed to put some curbs on the use of aerial drones to photograph or observe people in a private place. She questioned whether additional laws are needed and suggested the measure is overly broad.
"SB 1277 will negatively affect and restrict the important work of broadcasters, newspapers, telecommunications providers and insurance providers in Arizona,'' Hobbs wrote. The governor said she is open to signing something worked out with all concerned.
But Hobbs found particular fault with the proposal by Sen. Jake Hoffman, R-Queen Creek.
Part of what is behind the bill was an incident last year reported by Havasu News involving a teacher at Thunderbolt Middle School in Lake Havasu City who, with her husband, a fourth-grade teacher at another school, were discovered were filming obscene videos in her classroom and posting them, for money, on a social media site.
An email to parents from the school acknowledged that some students found the video online but said it had not been taped during the school day.
Hoffman's bill sought to make it illegal to film or facilitate "sexually explicit acts'' at any facility or property owned or leased by a public entity. And the measure goes into detail exactly what that includes.
Sen. Priya Sundareshan, D-Tucson, said she presumed that already was against the law.
"Amazingly, it's not,'' Hoffman responded. "I don't think anybody ever thought to have to believe that folks were going to use public facilities for porn-filming locations.''
That part of the legislation appeared to have little opposition.
What did draw concerns was the other half which said no state or local agency is allowed to expose minors to sexually explicit materials.
"I'm reading this and I'm wondering, does this include a library that has a book with any sexual situation, even if it was in the adult section just because a child could potentially find it on the shelf?'' Sundareshan asked.
"It absolutely does include that,'' Hoffman responded. And he said he sees no reason not to combine both topics within the same legislation.
But Hoffman, in his criticism of the veto, focused almost exclusively on what happened at the Lake Havasu City school -- and not the governor's comment about him using that as an excuse to keep certain books away from children.
"It's absolutely sickening that Katie Hobbs is allowing pornography to be filmed in our state's taxpayer funded classrooms,'' he said.
"These should be safe spaces for our kids to learn in, not venues for the sexually explicit adult entertainment industry,'' Hoffman continued. "No 12-year-old child should ever have to worry that their middle school desk was the location of a porn shoot.''
But the testimony on the bill -- and the objections -- were focused not on the filming but the effect of the other section on what materials should be available to children.
Elijah Watson, who has testified on his own behalf on similar issues, said he understands the desire to protect children from sexually explicit materials. But he called the legislation "dangerously broad,'' failing to provide adequate assumptions.
Consider, he said, examples of literature like "Beloved'' by Toni Morrison which include memories of sexual abuse and exploitation. Then there's "The Great Gatsby'' with homoerotic language, and "Of Mice and Men'' which uses vulgarity and racist language.
And Watson said violations carry a presumptive term of 1.5 years in state prison, something he said should not be imposed on teachers for assigning a book.
Hoffman, however, pointed out that lawmakers actually approved a similar measure last year that already makes it illegal to have sexually explicit materials in schools. What this legislation sought to do, he said, was extend that to all other levels of government and their contractors, including libraries.
Hobbs, for her part, said all that goes too far.
"While I agree that not all content is appropriate for minors, this bill is a poor way to address those concerns,'' she said he her veto message. And the governor took issue with Hoffman for trying to tie the issue of an incident at Lake Havasu City to further restricting access to reading materials.
"The sponsor has stated that this bill was aimed at preventing a specific action from reoccurring, while in reality it is written in such a vague manner than it serves as little more than a thinly veiled effort to ban books,'' Hobbs wrote.
But banning certain books from the library was just fine with other GOP lawmakers.
"I just want to challenge some of the members to get a hold of some of these books,'' said Rep. Rachel Jones, R-Tucson.
"We have precinct committeemen in our district that have started sitting outside of libraries showing parents what is in the book,'' she told colleagues. "My challenge would be to take one of these books, sit down with a five year old, and read it to them.''
Rep. John Gillette, R-Kingman, said he was prepared to bring in a book from his public library to read it out loud at the hearing.
"There was no possible way in the spirit of decorum we have here that I could read this book aloud, a book that was intended for sixth graders, to speak about sexual acts, with photographs,'' he said.
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