Trash, homeless camps, and trespass agreements enforcement

1:35:25Thank you, I agree. Commissioner Mariano.

1:35:28Thank you, Madam Chair. Um you know the presentation with tourist development was really impressive and if you remember one thing the high percentage of people like what they saw, they'll come back again. I want you to think along the US nineteen, whether in Holiday or Hudson, when you see the panhandlers that are out there. Now I'm glad next meeting we've got the ordinance I believe is coming up, Jeff. Right away use ordinance.

1:35:53We

1:35:56I thought I told you March, but I may have told you the second meeting in the

1:36:03When when I'm when I'm driving here today, I'm driving down five A Road I see bed frames, I see snipe signs, I see trash all the way down. Um coming down Little Road, on Little Road now, a mattress on the side of the right-of-way. Snipe signs on the right way. A bag of trash on the side of the right Oh what's coming now? Um all the look that we have out there, we need to I think we need to look at getting a cleanup crew that can drive around our busy arterials anyway to get them cleaned up so we get something done. I

1:36:33called on it yesterday, still up there today. Um so Who

1:36:38did you call?

1:36:39Uh went to public works.

1:36:40Yeah, see I didn't even know we're supposed to call public works for that stuff.

1:36:44So, you know, in busy etcetera but When when I look at the trash, there's like a Wendy's that's got a homeless thing in there. We've tried to clean it up once, clean it out twice. They're back with a vengeance now. Right beside it there's a new construction going on. There's a retention area. Trash everywhere. We gotta we gotta clean this stuff up. Um And I and Dan, if you can maybe put a plan together of what we can go do, I'm I'll happy to take it for a ride and go look at it. I mean Pico Woods Drive With the canal is by the Wall Mart? There was homeless

1:37:14people then there? When they did the development, they did it as a conservation easement. Right, a mitigation area. So here's what we've got. We've got a canal on one side of US nineteen toward the Beaconwood side, loaded with trash, both sides, right? Vegetation going everywhere. I get trees where they like to hide under, etcetera. And it just is I g I I got tons of trash. We literally picked up bundles and bundles of stuff. And it's still there. We I'm gonna try to put a cleanup because we gotta go back out there and just rake it all up. So I bring John Powando

1:37:45from Swiftmont out there. I said, John, I says, you know, we gotta let us get this vegetation out of here. The homeless are coming in. It's destroying it. He says, Well we can't do that. It's a conservation easement. I go, wait a second. I says, look at what's here, look at what it's causing because of your conservation easement. I said, now let's go walk and we walked to the bridge. We looked on the side, down the Leisure Canal on the other side. Nothing but grass. Right? No vegetation. No homeless real dead, no big trash on that side anymore with all the fencing we did. So I get A government telling me we can't go clean up what

1:38:15we want to go clean up to to make it set because of the easement, even though on the other side of the same canal we can treat it differently.

1:38:21Let me let me ask you a question and could you put my photo up please because this is what I was gonna talk about, but You're there.

1:38:29Okay. So if it's a conservation easement and it's a Swift Mud is it s Swift Mud I'm I'm just kinda curious because there's one on Sun Lake Boulevard that has a homeless camp where actually they had a guy a dead guy in there and all the camp did was move a little over 'cause he smelled. Um but we can't grub it. Um because it's conservation land. So why don't we start can we ask can we make Swift Mud start cleaning up cleaning those up and

1:38:59then they'll see what we're up against? Why do we have to clean up their their conservation property? And then maybe they'll be more sympathetic.

1:39:08Well let's I mean let's try because we're

1:39:10look at my photo.

1:39:11Yeah, I saw that.

1:39:12So zoom in please. Can you see what's going on there? Someone's sleeping. Yeah, I wasn't sure what he was doing there. I wasn't sure if he was alive or dead. Okay. Uh but this is my Trouble Creek in nineteen. Um They uh are living there. On um And they and there is a trespass agreement with Walgreens here, but it But, you know, they're they're living there and um this isn't the rain. This guy is like

1:39:42out there Frankly. I don't know. I I alerted the sheriff and our county staff and I don't know what happened.

1:39:50Code was out there the next morning and he was already gone and Walgreens had made him leave.

1:39:55But the the the tent is still there. The tent was still there uh and they added to it that that tarp But this is on US nineteen in our county. But that's also private property. Well this side is. The other side is not. It's it goes to both sides. On the other side, I didn't take it from the road side. There is um a shopping cart and uh bikes and garbage and this garbage is up and down the

1:40:25the area here and it's It's really it's incredible.

1:40:30So so why is so the question is

1:40:32why can't we? But let me say that these people our P are like We have gone to this group that's hanging out here. They don't want any county services. This is not the group that will say that we've been able to house, you know, Marcy and her group done a fantastic job. But when he says no, I like living here, what do we do? That's my

1:40:52they gotta go.

1:40:53Where? That's you know, how? That's

1:40:57Well

1:40:57fun let's find out where they came.

1:41:00If Walgreens does not allow him and he does leave, so then he's not trespassed. But it's still private property, so then isn't Walgreens responsible for cleaning up their property?

1:41:11Yes.

1:41:11Yes. So then Walgreens needs to go out and throw it away and clean up their property.

1:41:17But I don't I think I don't I don't know w why I don't know if they're comfortable going up and Telling this guy's he's to trespass him themselves. I mean maybe they hired their own security. Company or something. Um or maybe we'd have to start putting a fire on Walgreens to not allow this on their property? I don't know. We got the Bank of America I that the homeless camp that was behind this where a lot of these guys were living, one person, it turns out, for two years Um the we found the person who owned it. He did clean it

1:41:47out, he grubbed it. Um s uh but I think they're gonna come right back. But Uh yeah.

1:41:53Alex I'm not trying to put you on the spot or at all, but the the Sheriff's Office actually has a business unit. I forgot the exact name of it and they do a really good job. Um I we've been in contact before and working with Chase and if a business is and I'm not just using this as an any any type of issues when they need to trespass an individual or certain parties They do a great job of working with the businesses and they'll show them through the process and take them through the process of what they need to do, which isn't

1:42:24that difficult. The bi you know, this comes down to a business taking the initiative to make the call. If they make the call, they have people in each district. Am I correct, correct. Yeah. Each district in Crime Yeah, Business Crime Prevention Unit, that's it. Uh Business Crime Prevention Unit that they can reach out to and they will meet with the general manager or district manager, whatever it is, with Walgreens and walk through the process. They they can do that. It's already in place.

1:42:51And with the trespass agreement, those have to be renewed annually and I know Coat is working on pro creating their own trespass agreement file and I know the Sheriff's Office also has one.

1:43:05No code can't code doesn't have that authority. Code does not have that I'm not sure why they would be doing that.

1:43:10Okay well maybe I res said that wrong. So if code and the law enforcement goes out, for example one of the One of the concerns in on a property where there was a fire just recently and I was informed that the trespass agreement was expired and I contacted the owner And it was actually renewed in May of twenty twenty one. So it was not expired. So where is

1:43:41a centralized database and How can we have code and law enforcement work together to both have access to that one database?

1:43:53Well the trespass agreement is part of the Sheriff's Office's responsibilities and and program. Um They are the code. Should not be doing trespassing. That's not that's not something that they have the authority to do. That's right.

1:44:15No, that's not what I was meaning. I was m Was a way for them to look it up and have access to it.

1:44:22To see if it has a trespass agreement so they can call the sheriff if

1:44:26Correct.

1:44:26Yeah,

1:44:27I could see that being handy.

1:44:36This one doesn't. Co code does? Code does. I mean well no the sheriff's office had it.

1:44:40Well I know the sheriff does, but it would be interesting, you know It should it would be good if code had the ability to know if this one has that on it so they could call the sheriff to come I I

1:44:49trust they have access. That looks a little better now. They don't have access? All right, so

1:44:56I am concerned if it if it's an annual thing. I'd I'd rather it continue until someone chose to not have it continue. Because

1:45:04exactly where I was gonna go.

1:45:05Yeah. Yeah. That's

1:45:06why I'm gonna bring Alex up to let them let him address that. Because like you say, why do I want to have an annual agreement? I want to put this agreement, keep it in place,

1:45:12and let it run for a yeah. Until

1:45:15ownership changes.

1:45:16Yeah.

1:45:18Alex Hopp, Integriental Affairs Officer for the Sheriff's Office. So basically all the uh to your point Commissioner Fitzpatrick all of the trespass agreements are housed by the Sheriff's Office. It's a program that we do. So normally how trespassing works is if a property owner sees somebody on their property that's trespassing, they can report to the sheriff's office to have them removed from the property. The way the trespass agreements work are: let's say it's a property owner who's no longer in the area or they're not able to supervise it on a daily basis. They

1:45:48have they can set up an agreement with the Sheriff's Office to say, you know, no one's allowed on this property or you know, certain individuals are, but if they're not this individual, they're not allowed on the property. And then they can be trespassed without explicit authorization from the property owner because they've already given it in writing. Um Now to your point, Commissioner Mariano. The trespass agreements are all housed with the Sheriff's Office, but if like Code or one of the commissioners has a question about a particular property, they can always reach out to us and we'll we'll share that information with them.

1:46:18Is there any reason you can't share that with our code directly so they can just access it rather than taking up your valuable time?

1:46:23Yeah, so I can I can check on our end. I don't know if that's something we can share due to security reasons. But I can check on my end if that's something I so I know on an individualized basis we can share it. I don't know if we can give Complete access to somebody outside the agency. I could check though.

1:46:38Just just um so you know that every time we have like a Harbor South Leadership Council meeting and and they come, we encourage everybody to sign that trespass agreement. We want as many businesses as possible to sign that. Or HOAs, because sometimes they're living on the grounds. inside a community and so but you know that form is important.

1:46:58And Commissioner to your point on that, so we actually have a link on our website as well that we can share with the commissioners if they'd like that has the process laid out for property owners that if they're interested in trespass agreement they can go through that process to get that signed up with the Sheriff's Office.

1:47:15So when we see homeless people such as here Leisure Beach. We know they're n it's not legal to go camp out on someone's property and live there, right? So for the for our code people to actually take a look at it, they're gonna have to go look at the file, check one by one by one, just like your officers do as well. Um so having the access would be Definitely beneficial, even just for that piece of information. If that can be a separate data file we can access. It makes it a lot easier for code to be able to say, okay, here's what's

1:47:45going on. Now if we know they're breaking the law by having homeless people live in there, could be starting a fire, there was a smoke, drugs, as you saw pictures last week. You know, we w it's a behavior we want to stop. I mean there's enough opportunity out there, there's enough opportunities for mental health. uh with the opioid thing that's out there now. If you want to get help, if you want to get a job, if you want to find a place, there's opportunities that are out there. Like when we cleared out down at Leisure Beach a few or Leisure Lane a few years back, um thirty-two people were there. None of

1:48:15them took help. What do they do? They just go somewhere else. But I mean we we we've gotta be vigilant that they just can't stay here. I agree. If they're f somewhere else we put money together or you give 'em a bus pass to go back to where they came from. And they have what the Sheriff's Department and others want to have a place where they could land to go to, but you know what, if they just come down here and someone bust them down here, why do I care at this point?

1:48:35So my understanding is the Sheriff's Department and please correct me if I'm wrong, if they have a mental health issue, which most of those who don't want help do, there's not much they can do with them.

1:48:45So basically you can offer them the services and say, hey, these are all your options, these are things you can look into. But let's say we go out to a trespassing situation and we say they need to leave the property owner does not want you on the property and they leave. If they don't want to take the help that we're trying to give them, they're, you know, they have they have the rights and they can just say, no thank you, I'll go about my day. So that's that is that's the difficulty. Um and basically what our behavioral health intervention team does is if whenever they're dealing with these individuals on a daily basis,

1:49:17trying to kind of break down those that wall and say, hey, please accept this help. We're trying to get you help, get you to a better place. Um and that's basically the daily struggle of of p trying to make that happen.

1:49:27I know I know it's a battle and we've got people we've been working with and there's one person on C Ranch we're trying to go ally them to make that fly and you guys many, many trips out there. But If they know they can't stay in a place to go to another place and get kicked out of there too, maybe they'll have enough. Question for you though. Why why do we just have a annual contract for these trespass agreements? Why can't it just run for the life of the ownership of the property?

1:49:50So the reason for that is if property changes hands. So again, it's on a uh voluntary basis. So the property owner doesn't ha doesn't have to have a trespass agreement with the sheriff's office if they don't want to. Want to? So let's say property changes hands and the new owner is not interested in a trespass agreement, it gives them the opportunity every year to renew so if there's a new owner they don't have to go through this process of unrenewing or or something like that.

1:50:13But if you get someone especially if he's out of town, he's gonna not g you're not gonna be able to contact him, you gotta go through the whole loops. We're going through that right now with the ones that have expired. If you just have it where it that property agreement owns, as long as you own the property, we have an agreement in place. And then we'll know if ownership changes that okay, now we gotta get the new guy to go have him sign up. But why have it expire? Why have to go through the hassle of going back through this again? It doesn't make any sense.

1:50:35I we have a meeting with the sheriff tomorrow.

1:50:39Sure. Yeah, and and yeah, that is, you know, kind of a a policy judgment call there. So I think that was the main reason that that was done was again if you have you know They change their mind, or maybe they're not having trespass concerns anymore. They don't want that access anymore. But you know,

1:50:54if they change their mind, let them bring it back and say, look, I don't want to do it anymore. They can do that. But once it's in place, let's keep in place till the ownership of the easement.

1:51:01Or at least longer than one year anyway. Three years or five

1:51:04five years. Why why why but why end it if they don't want to end it? And let's face it, when you gotta renew something, you don't know what's coming up?

1:51:09Yeah. And it's more paperwork to have to renew it every year, so it's less workload of your

1:51:15workload.

1:51:17I'd be happy to have those conversations with uh with the sheriff on our end and see.

1:51:20Yeah. And I appreciate you building the rapport with people with m mental health concerns. And I am working I was I attended a meeting, the ASAP board meeting, and they do have help for people to enter transitional housing. and grants to help them. And I'm also working on getting a list of transitional housing facilities. And also I'm working with Ms. Kathy's team on homeless and homeless

1:51:46um lists. And that flyer should be ready soon, I think. But thank thank you very much. Do you have anything else, Commissioner Oriano?