Astoria City Council Work Session: Livability Response and Camping Ordinance – December 9, 2025

The Astoria City Council met for a work session on the City's livability response and camping ordinance. The agenda packet lists the meeting as Monday, December 8, 2025, at 6:00 PM in Council Chambers, 1095 Duane Street; the supplied meeting timestamp is December 9, 2025, 14:00:00 UTC. No minutes were available. Staff from the Parks and Recreation Department, city manager's office, and police department presented the history of the camping code, current service-provider resources, and enforcement data, and council heard from invited community partners before agreeing on next steps.

Discussion Items

• Camping code history and structure: Staff said the camping ordinance was established in 2022 after discussions that began around 2018. A city livability response team was created in 2023, police reported growing enforcement difficulty in fall 2024, and discussions about an enhanced enforcement zone occurred April–June 2025. Staff also met with Clatsop County district court and corrections in July 2025 and with community partners in October 2025. The current code defines time, place, and manner: camping is prohibited outside 9 p.m. to 7 a.m.; the place map mostly allows camping in downtown and limited sidewalk areas while prohibiting it elsewhere; and manner rules limit space to 50 square feet per person, require daily removal of items from rights-of-way, prohibit huts and temporary structures, require six feet of sidewalk clearance, and prohibit blocking building entrances. Enforcement is citation-based through the municipal code.

• Current resources and city actions: Community partners provide 32 units from Clatsop Behavioral Health, 64 beds or up to 21 units from Clatsop Community Action, 22 beds from Lifeboat Services, and 65 beds from Helping Hands. The City provides $100,000 per year through its community organization grant program and is funding a $20,000 cold-weather shelter program with Clatsop Community Action from December 1, 2025 through March 1, 2026, activated at 32 degrees. Staff also cited 2025 housing actions: $200,000 in funding intent for Copeland Commons, a $500,000 housing initiative program, and the Astoria Development Commission's Astoria Partnership Program.

• Police enforcement data: Chief of Police Stacey Kelly reported that prohibited camping calls increased from 419 to 521, a 24% increase, and camping citations increased from 103 to 200, a 94% increase, comparing January–November 2024 with January–November 2025. Parks and Recreation logged more than 1,000 labor hours, over $54,000 in labor, and more than seven tons of garbage in the prior year's livability response. Chief Kelly said the ordinance is not working for roughly 10–12 habitual, service-resistant violators, noted that service providers have rules and consequences while the camping ordinance does not, and said two officers are leaving because they are tired of camping enforcement.

Community Partner Input

• The Harbor representative agreed with Chief Kelly that citations make no sense and called for compassion-based enforcement, outreach, and more low-barrier housing; she said housing is the root problem and providers must work together.
• Helping Hands COO Joshua Blumquist said he worries about business access and ADA sidewalk accessibility, believes behavior and compliance are legitimate issues, and supported community service as accountability. He said Helping Hands has 89 beds across Clatsop County, 59 in Astoria, and he disputed that sobriety is required for entry, saying sobriety is not a requirement in the longer-term program. City staff had earlier described Helping Hands as requiring mandated sobriety for entry.
• Clatsop Behavioral Health Executive Director Shaira Maryland Simmons said citations are ineffective, supports compelling people into care through non-financial paths, noted the high bar for civil commitment in Oregon, and described contingency management, paying people to show up to treatment, as a tool. She said the new 32-unit CBH housing project is scheduled to finish at the end of December and lease up in January, although it will make only a small dent in the crisis.
• Clatsop Community Action's Jerome Stegmans described Seaside's Stepping Stones camp: 25 sites plus four overflow sites on a former vacant lot, currently serving about 25–30 people; each person has a partitioned site; there is no curfew, but people lose their site if absent more than 72 hours and can return after 30 days; case managers and street medicine visit regularly. CCA's Kenny Hansen said outreach is difficult, some clients may never be ready, and community service provides accountability and structure. He said he hopes a Stepping Stones-style site would help Astoria's hardcore group but could not promise it would work for everyone.
• The Harbor representative, Susan, said survivors of domestic violence in rural areas often leave 10–12 times before permanently fleeing, and stressed the intersection of homelessness, mental health, substance use, and trauma.

Council Direction and Key Outcomes

Council did not take a formal vote, but at the end of the work session reached a consensus for staff to pursue four tracks:

1. Penalty escalation: Review the penalties and enforcement section of the camping ordinance to allow a path from civil citations to a municipal criminal violation after repeated violations, with possible deflection, community service, or treatment agreements as alternatives.
2. Circuit court processing: Continue work on an agreement to use Clatsop County circuit court infrastructure for prosecution of camping-related and other cases, with the city attorney as prosecutor; the court was reportedly open to the arrangement, and staff estimated at least six months to finalize it.
3. Private-property camping: Explore and publicize the existing private-property and vehicle camping provisions in the ordinance, Section 5.910, to encourage property owners, nonprofits, religious organizations, and others to participate; staff will develop an education and outreach campaign and assess whether safe-parking models fit the current code or need changes.
4. Place and sanctioned campsite feasibility: Schedule a future work session, likely early 2026, to review the place map and consider the feasibility of a concentrated sanctioned camping site or tiny-home village modeled on Stepping Stones; council may tour the Seaside site, and CCA and Lifeboat have expressed willingness to help staff or operate such a site.

The mayor pressed council for a clear yes or no on whether it was willing to act, saying repeated meetings without a decision waste staff time. Councilor Adams objected that the mayor's tone was insulting, and Councilor Davis said the council had been doing substantial work by gathering information from police, courts, and providers. The mayor and several councilors agreed the near-term focus should be the small group of approximately 10–12 people creating the most recurring livability complaints, while providers cautioned that the service-resistant population is likely to grow and will remain part of the community. The meeting adjourned at 8:02 p.m.