It’s almost assumed that weekend plans for many University students entail alcohol and loud music.
When parties become too loud, however, and neighbors complain to the police, the Eugene Police Department has to respond, often with several officers at taxpayers’ expense.
Attempting to deter unruly parties, the EPD has drafted a city ordinance that would hold tenants financially responsible for repeated police response to rented properties, including apartments, houses and taverns. The City Council is expected to consider the ordinance in early June.
Many student organizations oppose the ordinance saying it unfairly targets students and would hurt the community, by encouraging evictions, more than it would help. The ASUO has begun organizing opposition to the ordinance and will hold a forum Friday afternoon to educate students.
“We feel students should be educated about this issue, and many of them are not because it’s only a proposed ordinance at this point,” ASUO Community Outreach Director Marian Fowler said.
The latest draft of the ordinance would force tenants to repay the city the costs of police response to disorderly parties if more than one party with 10 or more people is shutdown within 90 days.
Fowler said the proposed 90-day window is too long and would affect too many renters.
EPD Sgt. Rick Gilliam, however, countered that a similar ordinance in Corvallis that uses a 48-hour window has been ineffective in deterring raucous parties or even holding tenants financially responsible for repeated response to parties. Gilliam said police had considered a time window ranging from two days to a year.
“We feel 90 days is a fair compromise,” he said.
After the first police response, a tenant would receive a warning. After the second response within 90 days, a tenant would be given a bill to repay the cost of officers’ wages, injury to officers and damages to uniforms and vehicles. The bill could range from a few hundred dollars to as much as several thousand dollars.
The ordinance was first proposed this fall when police reported writing 75 to 100 citations for alcohol-related offenses each weekend in the University area.
ASUO intern Brian Tanner agreed that something should be done about unruly partying but said the ordinance wasn’t the ideal solution.
“It’s financially punitive,” he said. “It’s not proactive, and it targets a part of the community that doesn’t have much money. To be targeting any segment of the population is wrong.”
On the other hand, Gilliam said the ordinance would affect renters city-wide and wasn’t drafted to target students.
“It’s just a fact of life that [University students] are the people causing the problems that we’re responding to,” Gilliam, the ordinance’s co-author, said. “We want to make sure the people responsible are held liable.”
Live-in landlords could be forced to split the costs with tenants, while absentee landlords would be notified of the fine but not charged. The original draft of the ordinance held all landlords jointly liable with tenants. The City Council, however, asked police to receive and consider more public input before bringing the proposal to the council floor.
After meeting with students, landlords and tenants, police dropped the landlord liability requirement.
The ASUO will hold a forum Friday at 2 p.m. in the EMU Gumwood Room. Public testimony will also be accepted at the Eugene Police Commission May 25 at 5:30 p.m. in the McNut Room of City Hall.