I will call to order the judiciary committee meeting for September 10th, 2025.

Roll call present are um Michelle Shea, Hattie Thatcher, Dan Callahan, Trudy Healy, and Bill Anderson.

Um absent tonight and excused is Commissioner Eric Makins.

Um item number one, communication number 2025-310.

Uh, we have uh deputy county attorney Shea here tonight.

Is there a report on this one that you're aware of?

I'm not we're aware of any report um at this point.

So um I would entertain a motion so we can continue to hold this.

Anything on the question?

All those in favor?

Aye.

Opposed.

Motion passes.

A resolution of intent to alter the boundaries of the city county of Butte Silverbow, Montana's Solid Waste Special District to include the boundaries of Homesteak Meadows 2 subdivision and providing for an effective date herein.

I do not.

Thank you.

Go here for a quick minute.

Thank you.

Um the protest deadline was August 25th for um the expansion of the solid waste collection district uh to include Homestake Meadows 2 subdivision.

As of August 25th, the clerk and recorder did not receive any protests back from the 57 properties that are included in this expansion.

And I just have a sheet here for you that shows that thank you very much.

I will add this to um the materials for the meeting.

Um so it sounds like we could move this resolution to final reading.

I'd like to make the motion to move resolution number 2025-3-1 to final reading.

There's a motion and a second to move resolution number 2025-3-1 to final reading.

Is there anything on the question?

All those in favor?

Aye.

Opposed?

Motion passes.

We have one claim tonight.

Um, Casey Johnston in the amount of uh $35, which is a refund of a variance that's no longer needed per the planning director.

I'll make a motion to approve the claims as presented.

There's a motion and a second to approve the claims as presented.

Anything on the question?

All those in favor?

Aye.

Opposed?

Motion passes.

Communication number 2025-374, Trudy Healy, Commissioner District 8 requesting council of commissioners to look into concerns regarding urban camping on public streets and refer this matter to the Judiciary Committee and County Attorney Enruth to develop an ordinance to address this matter.

Um Commissioner Healy, do you have an update?

Did you come up with some ideas for the ordinance?

So, yeah.

So I'm gonna start with this.

As elected officials, we have a responsibility to protect our citizens, their children, and their homes and businesses from the increasing challenges posed by unauthorized camping.

I am asking that we move forward with clear protections, no camping in front of citizens' homes, no camping in city parks, no camping in front of schools, no camping in front of businesses.

There is plenty of land in the surrounding area where camping could be better managed.

What we need are clear and concise ordinances that strike a balance providing appropriate alternatives without compromising the safety and quality of life in our neighborhoods.

I have reached out to county attorney Enron to review the legal details, but but today I want to make it clear our citizens deserve action and they deserve it now.

Um County Attorney Enrique did tell me he did email me back.

He does want uh want to have a meeting and he did state that he would be gone this week.

So we are setting up a meeting.

Thank you, Commissioner Healy.

I assume the uh Judiciary Committee will be invited to that meeting and be publicly noticed.

Yes.

So are you calling for a special meeting?

Um today.

Well, first I gotta talk to Enrique gets back.

Okay, thank you.

Um I had asked um Parks and Rec Director Um Sean Frederickson to be here since his name came up at the last meeting.

Um so thank you, um Director Frederickson for being here.

Yeah.

Um sounds like your sounds like your staff um helped move out a camp out of the out of Father Sheehan Park fairly recently.

Um can you tell me how often that happens or give me a little detail around that removal?

Yeah, uh thank you, Chair Shea and uh committee members.

Um for the record, I'm Sean Frederickson, Parks and Recreation Director.

Um so we've had to uh move we've had to clear out a uh a couple different camps.

Um basically it was the same one.

Um and we cleared it out probably sometime after the the 4th of July.

Um, and then within a a month, it had grown um rather large, um way larger than I I I thought it was.

Um and so we went down and cleared it out.

Uh and um well I had a uh citizen reach out to me on that was on Thursday, and I I can't I can get the dates to you exactly, but um we had moved pretty quickly and had it cleared out by Tuesday.

Um that camp in particular was um one of the largest ones that we've we've ever had to clear out um from asking the um the parks crews.

It was on both sides of the Blacktail Creek.

Uh it had uh uh a barrier between the walking trail and the creek.

Um there was some elaborate bells to prevent people from you know going in there.

Um and so we the parks department has a uh garbage truck, so we brought the garbage truck in.

We had there was only a a couple people still in that camp when when we arrived, and um they quickly left and we spent the the rest of the day clearing out that camp on that one site.

While we were there, we had gotten word that there was another camp farther down on the trail, and where you go into you go over the the convergence tunnel where Basin Creek comes in through the mall, and then it does a 90 degree turn right into Blacktail Creek.

Uh we went over that, and um my associate Ed Hurd and I there was a camp there, not as large, it was uh a fairly large tent and a and a two-person tent.

Um and they were and the the campers were still there.

Um we asked them to get up, talk to them.

Um they were very nice and said that they would be out of there.

Um we had we told them to get all of their personal items out of there by the end of the day.

And uh so the next day we spent about two hours on that camp.

Um and uh just to go back to the other one.

The the willows are so thick in there.

I think that that's the reason it was it got so big.

Um when we finally got it all cleared out and most of it was garbage.

We didn't um we didn't pick up any needles or anything like that.

It was just um unfortunately a lot of a lot of garbage.

And um, but the the willows down there are so thick.

So um so that's kind of where we're at on that one.

Um really we've only cleared out had to clear out three down at Father Sheehan the whole year.

Um and that's pretty typical for our for our department.

Um, kind of our process is we we either get notified of the camp or our crew members see the camp, and we immediately go ask them to leave and tell them that they're on parks property.

Um parks employees do not have enforcement capabilities, they're laborers and teamsters.

Uh so we can't issue a ticket.

Um and if we we don't if we we can't get them to leave, then we we call the the proper authorities, which we um the previous one that we cleaned cleared out earlier in the summer, um we did work with law enforcement on that camp.

Um but typically you know if it's Father Sheehan's the the main one with uh with all the willows and the cover.

Um we do have camping at Emma Park, um of course but when our crews go in in the in the morning, we ask them to leave and they leave.

Um most of the time I would say almost all the time they're they're really respectful and and leave when we ask them to.

Okay.

Thank you.

So what I'm hearing is you're using the existing regulation to ask people to leave the parks because they can't camp there.

Yeah, um, Chair Shea, thank you.

Uh yeah, the so there's no camping at parks past 10 p.m.

Uh and we ask people if you see someone down there camped at 10 p.m.

Well, most of the parks have gates, and so no one should be in there at 10 driving around.

Um we recently just put a gate in at Father Sheehan Park.

That has really helped with nighttime activity there.

Um and so we have a gate at Foreman Park, Father Sheehan, um, Stoddon, and Copper Mountain.

So those gates get locked at dusk.

Um we have a uh night watchman or who goes to locks locks the gate every night at dusk, drives through the park, make sure that no one is in there and no one's parked, no one's hanging out.

If they are, they ask them to leave.

I've never heard a complaint of someone saying no, I'm staying.

They usually all they all leave and then they lock the gate and the gate gets opened in the morning when my crews show up at 6.

Okay.

Um thank you.

Um thank you for that.

And I'm wondering if um Sheriff Lester, if if you wouldn't mind coming up and helping us understand the process and the uh the ordinances that you currently enforce regarding um unauthorized camping.

So the parks, like uh the director said, that's what we do with the parks.

If they need assistance with us uh moving people out of the parks, we respond and do that.

Um most of our issues are not these uh camps, by and large, they're they're issues with with uh homeless folks, not necessarily camping but causing an issue in the street or they're they're panhandling or they're doing something they that the public doesn't approve of, and that's when we get the calls.

But by and large, the camping issues come to us with people parked in on streets with a motor home or a trailer or something like that, or they're in somebody's yard and and the neighbor calls and said this guy's been in the yard for a couple months, and and you know, it's the either the sewage issue or then it's the health department that gets involved, or something like that.

Those are the issues we deal with for the most part.

Um we certainly work with the parks folks.

We did Friday we worked with the parks folks on a on another issue with homeless in the tunnel near the Civic Center.

Uh those are not uncommon to have folks camped out in those either, and so that was a camping type issue where they were actually on the walkway in the under the tunnel.

Okay.

Um you had said that you have issues with um occasionally with homeless people causing issues in the street or yeah, so you get people who are homeless or mentally having a mental health issue uh and then they're intoxicated or they're out in the street and or they're restricting egress to a business or one of those type of situations.

We do have a fair amount of those.

We do have some folks that gather in the parking garage and we ask them to leave, and they generally don't stay either.

Um but it you end up with your pushing them from one location to another location to another location, and that's basically what we try to do.

But until we get a call again on them at the same location or uh at the next location they move to, we usually, you know, we once they move on, we don't mess with them too much more than we have to because by and large there isn't any law against being homeless.

There's no law against being uh not having any money or indigent, so those are hard things to enforce.

And those are the things that we deal with a lot, though.

Those those kind of calls where people are uh nuisance type issues.

Do you ever get a nuisance call on someone that lives in a house?

We get calls.

We recently had an issue on one where there was no plumbing and no uh water in the house, those kind of issues come up periodically where we deal with not so much the parks, but the health department, yes.

What about people like me that might have a stable job in a house?

Do they cause nuisances?

Uh we yeah, we have a fair not you personally, but we have excluded.

We do have a fair amount of folks who are employed and do have houses that cause problems too, yes.

And the same rules apply to them as well.

Okay.

Um and I guess, you know, I have a I've a lot of exposure to the um community resources that are available and also the lack of community resources that are available.

Um how do you feel that that impacts the situation and the ability for um people to find housing, get medical care, um, all of the things that we have.

Well, there the housing is a huge issue now with the the affordability.

Um those folks that are indigent are not going to be able to rent an apartment.

Um if you look at the history of this the situation that that's gotten significantly worse since 2017 when case management was the the philosophy that was being used by the state where they would pay people to specifically mentally ill or people who are with uh drug addiction or or alcohol addiction issues, they would have case management.

So they they if they had an apartment, they would go to their apartment, make sure that they paid their monthly bill, they took their prescription medication, they got groceries, and if there was any issues with the neighbors or whatever, they would kind of mediate those things for us.

In 2017, the legislature took the money that was spent on case management and removed that.

So in Butte Silver Bow, we had about 400 people who were using that service, uh case management.

So not all of those folks failed, but many of them did because they didn't pay their bills for their apartment, they didn't get groceries, they didn't take their medications as they were prescribed, or they didn't purchase their medications, and then that leads to a self-medicating with with uh fentanyl or alcohol or whatever, and then they seven a lot of those folks that were doing okay under case management, weren't able to function after that, and eventually they ended up in a in a situation where they were homeless or indigent, and that's that's one of the things that we did see a significant spike in those kind of issues with both chemically dependent people or mentally ill as well as obviously a lot of most of the time it's their co-occurring.

Yeah, thank you.

Um do you know, let's just say in the last six months, how many times law enforcement's been dispatched to somebody who was um spent spent the night in front of a school?

Uh I don't have a number on that.

I don't recall anybody spending any time in front of a school, though, not that I can recall.

Okay.

Um and then how about calls in front of homes?

I know that that probably does happen.

We have had that, and especially in the Emma Park area where there are people that are issues in the park and then in in front of some residences there where people were staying waiting for the Action Inc.

is there, and so they wait there, that's where they're real linked any resources is so they stay in that area in in uh camp trailers and and those kind of issues.

We have had people in cars and trailers in that Emma Park area, yes.

Okay.

Okay, thank you.

Um and Commissioner Healy is working on solutions, um, I think said about uh preventing camping in front of or unauthorized camping in front of residences.

Um if the council were to enact an ordinance like that, where do you think people would go?

Well, that's a good question.

I don't I don't know where they'd go, um, but I'm sure there would be an issue wherever they all ended up.

Uh I know Missoula tried to designate a camping area for homeless and injured indigent folks, uh, somewhere near the river, I guess, and they put out houses up and they had kind of a camp setup type there, and they I don't know how long it was set up, but it didn't succeed, and they ended up basically bulldozing that whole area and returning it back to way the way it was before it that didn't work where they had a designated area to go.

Uh and now if if if they don't have something like that, they end up in the walkway or behind the willows or those places that that they end up with the parks folks.

So I don't know where they'd go.

Uh they obviously don't have a home, and so what the sanction is when we continue to deal with these people, I don't know what that would be because of the jail situation, and I don't know what the you know you'd have to if you enact an ordinance, we have to be able to enforce the ordinance, and that's what my biggest concern is if you can't find these people because they don't have any money, they're not going to be able to pay any fine.

So they're gonna they're gonna be held in contempt for not paying a fine, and then they're gonna be issued warrants, and then you know they're probably gonna be arrested.

So I was just looking at some of the ordinances around the state.

There's warnings where you go to the first time as a warning where they tell them to leave, and and and that generally is effective, but they go someplace else to a different location, and then you're back to well, this is a warning for this location, and then this is a warning for this, and so you end up kind of moving these people around, and and we don't have any problem doing that, but it it's a it's difficult.

And uh if you're looking to make it where it's it's a fine or a criminal offense to be camping, then you're dealing with you're basically making a criminal issue out of this, and then we have to have uh the ability to incarcerate people, and number one is a right to incarcerate somebody because they're indigent.

Uh and number two, do we have the ability to do it even if whether it's morally right or wrong, do we have the ability to do it logistically with the jail situation we have?

So those are those are concerns that I have about I don't know what the answer is.

I see the concerns I've talked to people who have concerns.

I wouldn't want the same issues occurring in front of my house that these people are seeing.

Uh by the same token, I don't know what the sanction would be to violators if if you go down there and they move to the next one and the next one and we chase them all night long, eventually arresting them or issuing a citation to me as an is just putting off an arrest because they're not going to pay the citation.

So it's a bit there's I it looks like Bozemans uh had issues, Missoula's had issues, uh there's Savannah George's had issues.

Uh there's a number of them that I was just looking on online.

I didn't see anybody that said they had any solutions.

I did see where there was a bunch who had issues, so it's a it's a difficult, difficult issue.

Thank you.

Um Commer Healy, have you thought about what types of sanctions would would be put in place through your ordinance?

Yeah.

Um looking at consistent enforcement of the ordinances.

Oh, consistent enforcement of the ordinance, escalating um penalties, like you were talking about warning citations, whatever.

Um partnerships with law enforcement, you know, for sweeps, um, and no trespass orders for repeat violators.

Yeah, and all of those things have been tried.

Uh the trespass order specifically, that that has some some weight to it where you can say, listen, we've been told you can't be at this particular location, and we've told you X number of times, and so there is a I mean, and that's an issue where we, you know, we do it all the time with businesses.

Uh you you're not allowed to go to certain businesses.

Uh and if they go to those businesses, then we can charge with trespassing, and that's an issue.

We have some teeth there, and those are those are enforceable, where if you're at a convenience store for the fifth time after you've been told you can't be there, we can arrest you on trespass.

And those are effective.

Uh the issue I see is though if you have somebody that's not maybe not trespassing, maybe it's a serial camper where they're out, they're in a tent somewhere and we move them and they're in a tent somewhere, and we eventually either write them a ticket and with some fine, well, they're not going to pay that, so we're gonna end up arresting that person because they can't pay it.

And then when they are incarcerated for whatever a couple days or or maybe more, when they get out there in the same boat they were in, and all we've you know, we've eliminated the issue for a couple days or maybe ten days, but we still now we're back to where we were before, and so that's frustrating to the public, it's frustrating to everybody.

I imagine that's really hard for the person that's in that stuck in that cycle as well.

Well, it's them.

They can't really, they don't have any means to get out of the system situation they're in, and and they don't have any means to pay a fine, and they don't and in all honesty, with the weather change in the way it is, some of these folks are gonna they're gonna be the best place they can be is in jail for 10 days and we're feeding them and and taking care of them, and some of them intentionally do that, and others they don't, but that's still when they get out there no better off than they were when they went in.

Yeah, thank you.

Commissioner Anderson, thank you very much, Sheriff Flester, for being here.

Thank you, Chairwoman.

And uh thank you, uh Director Frederickson.

I I do have a question for the two of you.

I don't know, probably for the both of you, when you do run into these campers and some of these uh people over and over again, uh who they may be.

Do you uh get them in contact with Action Inc.

or some of the other groups to help them and try to find uh remedy for them?

Yeah, most of the time they're already been in contact with either the mission uh or Action Inc.

Um but you know, Action Inc.'s waiting periods as I understand it pretty long.

And some of these folks don't want to spend time at the mission uh just because they don't want to be in the mission.

And so it's not like we can force people to go to the mission.

Um so that it's just as a matter of uh preference, basically.

But Action Inc.

generally sees a lot of these folks throughout the week that we deal with on a regular basis, too.

So it's we're kind of dealing with the same group of people.

I kind of figured on uh follow-up, please.

I kind of figured on that one that you probably had.

And uh there are some other organizations out there that will offer a lot of help to these uh in the expedition of time, I think I'll cut off and turn over to you.

Okay, Commissioner Callahan.

Thank you, Chairman.

I just want to comment on the you know, the people that you move on and move on.

And uh you and I both know that it's public drunkenness most of the time.

Um between the drugs or the alcohol or what have you.

Uh either that or mental health issues.

Mental health issues seems to be our the drunks will eventually they'll quite honestly they'll sober up and they'll be okay at some point.

The people who have serious mental illness don't get better without some kind of uh treatment.

And so it's it's and a lot of them are both mentally ill and addicted to drugs or alcohol.

So we we do have laws against public nuisance, and we do have public drunkenness that's also laws.

Public drunkenness is not a ordinance or a law, public nuisance where you we if you're committing an act of disorderly conduct.

So if you're blocking the egress to a business or you're passed out in the street in a condition that serves no legitimate purpose as the statute, that can you can be arrested for that, yes.

Or if you're in the parking garage and we tell you to leave and you don't leave, that's trespass, and we can take you to jail for those kind of things as well.

But here's the thing if you're uh well, a lot of times we have people who simply have mental health issues and they're going up and down the street yelling and screaming at each other, or e or themselves or whoever.

Maybe there's nobody even there, and that is not a criminal matter.

That's scares the hell out of everybody.

Uh and we get calls on that, and we try to mitigate them as best we can, but it's not against the law to be mentally ill.

So those are things that we we have to walk a pretty tight line with.

Go ahead.

So um Commissioner Healy, go ahead.

In talking with the um neighbors up by Emma Park, um there was a comment made a couple weeks ago that there had only been one incident in Emma Park.

So the um gentleman who approached me about this, his concerns with the increase of um people camping in front of his house or in their backyards, went ahead and got the re police report.

In the last year, 85 police calls were made in that neighborhood alone.

85.

Now, I am still getting calls and emails from people in other areas.

This is just one area.

So they're concerned that this is getting minimized as just mentally ill people who need a place to to to live.

And these people are having to deal with this on a daily basis where their lives have been threatened or they're being st you know, stolen from.

And so we're gonna need to adjourn this meeting and reconvene.

Um at seven thirty uh at uh after the committee, the whole meeting.