The Fresno City Council on Thursday is expected to adopt a handful of changes to city code, with most aimed at granting the Fresno City Attorney more power to pursue legal action against violators of its anti-encampment law.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The updates to city code will come through a single item with sweeping consequences<\/a>, which passed its first hurdle for approval at a council meeting earlier this month<\/a>. That meeting saw the changes approved through a procedural vote.\u00a0<\/p>\n The item includes language to codify loitering as a violation of the law, and will add an amendment to the original ordinance<\/a> that would grant the City Attorney with tools to more easily place misdemeanor charges against repeat offenders of the city\u2019s ordinance.<\/p>\n \u201cAt my direction, amendments to the 2024 Fresno ordinance creates a civil non-criminal process as an alternative option,\u201d Fresno City Attorney Andrew Janz told Fresnoland on Monday. \u201cThis has nothing to do with Mr. Wickey Two-Hands\u2019 class action lawsuit. The original ordinance is constitutional, and upon passage, the City will continue to utilize criminal and civil options to regulate behavior in public spaces.\u201d<\/p>\n The vote comes on the heels of a class action lawsuit filed last week against the city<\/a> over its anti-encampment law.\u00a0<\/p>\n Local homeless advocate Dez Martinez is among the critics that say such a law is inherently\u00a0 \u201cdiscriminatory,\u201d with law enforcement only targeting loiterers who are homeless individuals.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s an ordinance that is for everyone, but it\u2019s only focused on one set of individuals here in the city,\u201d Martinez said, \u201cand that is discrimination.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n A homeless individual who identified herself as \u201cNikki\u201d said she has protested the anti-encampment law at city council meetings before. She told Fresnoland on Monday that she believes the new changes are \u201ctoo broad and confusing,\u201d and that it doesn\u2019t reflect the \u201chelp\u201d people like her need.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s easy for people to say that residents need to be accountable for themselves, which is true,\u201d Nikki said. \u201cAt the same time, you look at somebody who\u2019s doing the right thing and trying to get their act together \u2026 should we blame them for what they have to do? They need a little bit more help.\u201d<\/p>\n The city has already received dozens of digital and in-person public comments, mostly in opposition to the proposed changes.<\/p>\n Though the city council has not discussed these specific changes publicly, they\u2019ve maintained that the anti-encampment policy is a necessary tool to support public health and safety, adding that they represent a large constituency that chooses to remain quiet in their support for the law given its controversial nature.\u00a0<\/p>\n The changes are listed as a single consent agenda item, which generally gets approved unless a city councilmember pulls it for discussion.\u00a0<\/p>\n Martinez said every unhoused person she knows has had the same question ever since the law passed last year.<\/p>\n \u201cThe only question I get back is, \u2018well, where am I supposed to go?,\u201d Martinez said. \u201cAnd nobody is answering that question.\u201d<\/p>\n That question has lingered in Fresno for more than a year<\/a> ever since the anti-encampment ordinance first passed last year.\u00a0<\/p>\n Other proposed changes included in the sweeping action item include new legal remedies against individuals who are accused of stealing city-owned garbage equipment and public shopping carts.<\/p>\n The council is also scheduled<\/a> to hold a hearing on the South East Development Area plan<\/a> on Thursday in the late afternoon.\u00a0 \n\tRelated<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Fresno City Council on Thursday is expected to adopt a handful of changes to city code, with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":96818,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[46100,112,16804,114,53063,113],"class_list":{"0":"post-96817","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-fresno","8":"tag-andrew-janz","9":"tag-fresno","10":"tag-fresno-city-attorney","11":"tag-fresno-headlines","12":"tag-fresno-homeless","13":"tag-fresno-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96817","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=96817"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96817\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/96818"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=96817"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=96817"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=96817"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
The next Fresno City Council meeting is set for 9 a.m. Thursday at Fresno City Hall inside the second floor council chambers. Residents can also follow along virtually through a livestream on Zoom<\/a> or the city\u2019s Youtube channel<\/a>.<\/p>\n