Petition Forces Public Vote For Morgantown Camping Ban

 A camping ban will be on the ballot this spring in Morgantown. 

Wednesday night the Morgantown City Council voted four to three against the repeal of the camping ban ordinance they passed in September. 

The ordinance expands an existing camping ban and carries up to 30 days of incarceration as the penalty for repeated violations. Violators can also face fines ranging from $200 to $500. The ordinance does require that shelter first be offered to those experiencing homelessness before a citation is issued, but there are only around 50 shelter beds for the more than 150 people estimated to be experiencing homelessness in Morgantown. Most of those 50 beds are already occupied.

The vote was triggered by a public petition signed by more than 10 percent of registered voters in the city. The initial petition did not have enough valid signatures to be certified by the city clerk. But an amendment with more signatures, submitted to the clerk last week, put the petition over the required 1,348 signatures.

Councilmember Danielle Trumble voted to repeal the camping ban. She commended the petitioners for their efforts.

“I’m proud of what our community accomplished, and I think that that is definitely an achievement that they got together and got so many signatures, and it should be a voice,” Trumble said. “I’m thrilled that I’m not on the ballot this time around, because I think this election is going to go crazy. But yeah, at the end of the day, I still, I just can’t morally find life. I believe that the will of the people will be had, but I myself can’t vote for it.”

Council seats from the city’s three even-numbered wards are up for election in April. Since it was first proposed over the summer, opponents of the camping ban ordinance like Molly Kennedy, who spoke at Wednesday’s meeting, have warned council members they would remember their actions come election time.

“You can take this opportunity and you can do the right thing, or you can repeat the same cycle and double down on bad policy yet again, and the same folks who trekked all over the hills of this town to collect petition signatures will be ready to do the same thing when your names are on the ballot alongside this bad policy,” Kennedy said. “You can do better. You have the chance to do that right now, and we have the opportunity to put all of our time and energy to better use. Maybe when the time comes for your re-election, we will remember that you listened to expertise and you listened to lived experience, and you represented your constituents.”

Deputy Mayor Jenny Seline supported the ordinance since it first came up for a vote, and voted against the repeal. She said action needed to be taken to create a sense of urgency around the issue of homelessness.

“One of the responses was that it might take a year to talk to someone, perhaps that had an addiction or a problem because they had been out in the unsheltered world enough that they were not used to being in a building. They were habituated to being outside,” Seline said. “I would like to see people more quickly have a housing first model, and getting people into housing, rather than get so habituated to being outside. Those are some of the motivations that I have for creating this urgency and why I – misguided though I may be – continue to push for something like this, because I believe in having a viable community where our space is shared and clean and usable.”

Per the city’s bylaws, the ordinance will go to a public vote and be placed on the April 29, 2025 ballot. The ordinance will remain suspended until after the results of the election.