Clarksburg Amends, Approves Camping Ban

Clarksburg’s City Council has passed a camping ban aimed at addressing homelessness in the city. 

The Clarksburg City Council voted 4 to 2 at their Nov. 7 meeting to enact a new article in City Code to ban camping on all public and private property without owner approval. The ordinance was first publicly presented at the council’s previous meeting Oct. 17.

Councilmemeber Martin Howe was present at the November meeting but abstained from the agenda item citing “a new position.”

Penalties listed in the ordinance escalate from a warning for the first violation, up to a $200 fine for the second violation and up to a $500 fine for a third violation. The ordinance specifies that “each day that a violation continues shall be deemed a separate offense.” In contrast to a similar ordinance passed in Morgantown earlier this year, the Clarksburg ordinance does not carry the threat of imprisonment for repeated violations

Several amendments to the ordinance were proposed, including the delay of its implementation until an emergency shelter is open within the city and accepting new entrants. Another amendment would have required written notice to be posted prior to the clearing of encampments, but neither were adopted.

One amendment was approved to delay implementation of the camping ban until January.

Before the vote, council heard an hour of public comment from close to 20 citizens, overwhelmingly against the ban. 

Many of the speakers, like Rev. Chris Scott of Christ Episcopal Church questioned why the ordinance was being pushed forward with little public notice just after the city initiated community conversations on addressing homelessness over the summer. He said that a proposed shelter or syringe exchange would receive more public scrutiny than the ordinance.

“You’d better believe we would have multiple public hearings and multiple public notices and multiple public conversations about it, because we understand that those things are controversial and those things are polarizing,” Scott said. “Clearly this ordinance is controversial and polarizing, and we’ve had one public first reading where it wasn’t even read. And clearly this proposed camping ordinance is also controversial and polarizing, and it was rushed through a first reading, and no publicity was made anywhere. So I ask again, ‘Is this what honest, transparent, responsible government looks like?’”

Rev. Linda Muhly of St. Mark’s Lutheran Church offered more immediate solutions to address some of the public nuisances the ordinance is aimed at addressing using existing infrastructure, such as existing – but locked –  public bathrooms in Clarksburg’s Jackson Square facility.

“There are bathrooms in that facility that are locked all the time unless you rent that space,” she said. “You could easily create a couple of jobs, as they do in Europe and in many other areas where you have a paid staff person to monitor those bathrooms, and those bathrooms become public access, not just for unsheltered people, but for people like me who maybe want to shop downtown, but might need to use a restroom, a restroom that was built with my tax dollars.” 

Muhly, whose congregation offers resources to Clarksburg’s unhoused community, stressed the need for creative solutions over punitive measures.

“This would provide resources for those who are on the street. It would eliminate unsanitary practices occurring in other areas, and it’s a simple thing,” she said. “Again, there are creative ways to address this problem, and that’s where we need each other to think creatively.”

The ACLU of West Virginia published an open letter to the council before its October meeting that warned the ordinance is likely to violate the civil rights of residents, and urged the council to reconsider its passage. Several ACLU employees spoke at the Nov. 7 meeting against the camping ban.

Molly Kennedy, community outreach director with the ACLU, came down from Morgantown to speak against Clarksburg’s camping ban. She asked Clarksburg’s city council to not replicate the actions of their neighbors to the north.

“In the face of all of these people who know about this topic, who know about the people in your community, you have an opportunity to do the right thing here and not make bad policy that hurts more people, and go back to the drawing board and find solutions that are actually going to help make sure that you address the root causes and keep people safe and help make sure people’s needs are met,” Kennedy said. “I urge you to please take a step back and reevaluate and put your time and energy into something that all of these folks here, I’m sure you’ve heard solutions, and they have plenty more. We could all work together and actually make sure that folks have what they need.”

Near the end of the meeting Vice Mayor Jerry Riffle acknowledged that the process wasn’t easy, but the camping ban is what his constituents want.

“Maybe this doesn’t fix it,” he said. “Maybe this is, maybe we got this wrong. I’m not, I don’t, I don’t know. I believe that it’s going to be effective, and if it’s not, we can fix it.”

Riffle expressed frustration that many of the night’s speakers did not stay to hear council’s closing comments.

“This isn’t it. This isn’t walking out. This isn’t part of the conversation. It’s just not,” he said. “The comments that were made tonight were just baseless. Not all of them, but just to attack us, that’s just, it’s unfair. We’ve all come from different experiences. We’ve all experienced different things. We’ve all been in the woods and helping solve this problem.”

Councilmember Marc Jackson, who proposed the camping ban, said similar action in nearby municipalities made it feel like a necessity.

“I brought this forward. You know why? Because Morgantown passed an ordinance. Parkersburg passed an ordinance, Fairmont passed legislation,” he said. “You know what? We’re the only soft spot left. I have, literally, since they passed their ordinances, come home from work and watch people dragging their suitcases down Route 50.”

Jackson said 15,000 other people live in Clarksburg and echoed some of the speakers earlier in the meeting to say that the community needs to come together to resolve the issue of homelessness.

“This was a good catalyst, because look at the people who filled up this room,” he said. “If all the people who came in and spoke and talked about the program, they had all come together and actually start to work together now? These resources are there.”

*Editor’s Note: A previous version of this story stated that all three proposed amendments to the ordinance were approved. Only one amendment, to delay the implementation of the camping ban to January, was approved.