City hears from Constitutional Law expert Michael Kahn

Ordinance no. 2018-06

An ordinance of the City of St. Augustine, Florida, repealing and replacing section 18-8 of the code of the City of St. Augustine; providing for findings and intent; providing for definitions; providing for prohibited conduct, proximity and location restrictions for solicitation, panhandling or begging; providing for penalties; providing for inclusion in the code of the City of St. Augustine; providing for repeal of conflicting ordinances; providing for severance of invalid provisions; and providing for an effective date.

Sixteen pages of beautiful legalese, lawyer spew and gobbledygook will be visited upon the St Augustine City Commission Monday evening; thanks to the employment of one worthless attorney, recommended by another one.

Although $25,000 poorer for the exercise, city taxpayers will hear the proposed “new” panhandling ordinance, needed because our “old” panhandling ordinance was defective — according to City Attorney Isabelle Lopez’ interpretation of a District Court of Appeals decision in Tampa last year.  After learning of the decision, without fanfare, Lopez directed that the city police stop enforcing our laws against panhandlers downtown.

Quickly the merchants and residents, particularly those near the Colonial Quarter, found themselves inundated with hobos, grifters, vagrants, and freeloaders attracted by the warm climate as well as the climate at city hall.  Frustration with the lack of support for citizens and what appeared to be preferential treatment of beggars, bums and thieves, soon escalated to a crisis when those suffering the consequences decided to stand their ground.

Taking a page from the Neighborhood Watch Program, about 1,000 individuals signed up to join a Vagrant Watch Group who communicated with each other on Facebook.  The leaders hit the ground running and before many in town knew what had happened, the group was able to articulate a plan, present it to personnel at city hall, members of the city commission, and the police department.  Their function was to observe and report.  Participants uploaded their photographs of abuse of public property, violations of petty theft, open containers, overnight camping, public urination and defecation, trespassing, disturbing the peace, and aggressive panhandling activities.  Laws prohibiting those actions were outside the scope of the DCA ruling on which Lopez based her “legal opinion”.  Citizens volunteering without city direction or resources began documenting the time, place, violation, and, if an arrest was made, they might even capture the booking information collected and published by the county jail.  Volumes of evidence was collected, documented, and provided to police in support of the citizen initiative.

A review of the jail log showed that city arrests climbed to as many as four-or-five daily, sometimes more.  Not all arrests were for misdemeanor crimes, either.  Some arrests involved burglary, robbery, illegal drug possession and armed battery.  A few out-of-town fugitives were located and returned to their appropriate jurisdictions.  This information was included as predicate for the new ordinance being presented Monday.

From its outset, Historic City News followed and publicized the efforts of the Vagrant Watch Group members.  The word spread to the merchants who put posters in their windows alerting tourist not to give money to panhandlers.  Eventually, other news media began following the success of the resident’s efforts.  The offenders got the word out that St Augustine wasn’t so friendly over the next two or three months.  They used public Internet and free WI-FI connections on their free “Obama Phones” to warn other transients to keep moving.

If you plan to attend, the meeting starts at 5:00 p.m. on Monday, February 26, 2018 in the Alcazar Room at City Hall, 75 King Street.  The agenda and backup materials are available online. The meeting will be streamed live at CityStAugTV.com and will be available later for on-demand viewing.