Jessica Cejnar Andrews / Wednesday, Sept. 25 @ 3:21 p.m.
Brookings City Councilors Want To Gauge Community Opinion Before Weighing In On Proposed Beach Camping Ban
Nearby residents say camping at Mill Beach has led to health and safety issues. | Image courtesy of Oregon.gov
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Though he was loath to see more restrictions on recreation, Councilor Andy Martin differed from his colleagues who wanted more information about a proposal to ban camping on Brookings’ beaches.
Martin, who owns Wild Rivers Fishing, sympathized with Macklyn Cove Condominium residents who say rotting food, broken bottles, plastics and “putrid refuse” from campers have created a health hazard for visitors to Mill Beach.
He compared the beach to other problem areas around the city, including the gravel bar on the Chetco River, and said he supports the condominium association’s petition to the Oregon Parks and Recreation Department to prohibit camping on the ocean shore citywide.
“How long is it before the beaches in Brookings look similar to, let’s say, the side of Highway 101 just south of the Chetco River Bridge?” Martin asked his colleagues on Monday. “Do we want to see a dozen tents on the North Jetty Beach or by Chetco Point or at Mill Beach? We have private and public campgrounds in the area people who generally want to camp near the beach can utilize now. I think this is a problem that can get a lot worse.”
Though they didn’t disagree with Martin, three members of the Brookings City Council, including Mayor Isaac Hodges, voted down his motion to write a letter of support to the Oregon Parks and Recreation Commission supporting the proposed camping ban.
Instead, they elected to wait until Oct 14, just before the public comment deadline, to weigh in on the issue.
“There probably aren’t a whole lot of people that go camp on the beach so maybe it’s not a big issue at all,” Hodges said, adding that he wanted to hear from residents. “I just continue to go back to the basic, ‘One more freedom taken away.’ Yeah, but if you don’t use the freedom, what’s the big deal?”
In its petition to the Oregon Parks and Recreation Department, the Macklyn Grove Condominium Association states that camping on Mill Beach has “caused a demonstrable harm to public health, safety and welfare.” Since the city closed a public restroom in the area, campers have no choice but to use the beach for a toilet, according to the petition, which included pictures.
The condominium association also states that inadequate trash disposal services have resulted in the accumulation of rotting food, broken bottles and plastics and crushed cans in the sand.
“Given the inability by local service to dispose of and handle this trash accumulation, the burden of responsibility and expense for such trash disposal has fallen on the Oregon State Rangers of nearby Harris Beach State Park,” the Macklyn Grove Condominium Association’s petition states.
The association is asking the Oregon Parks and Recreation Commission to add Brookings to a list of cities where camping on the beach is prohibited. Those cities include Gold Beach, Bandon, Rockaway Beach, Manzanita, Cannon Beach, Lincoln City, Seaside and Newport.
The Oregon Parks and Recreation Commission could also enact a new rule prohibiting camping on beaches in all of Curry County. Currently beach camping is prohibited outside of city areas in Clatsop and Tillamook counties.
A public hearing is set for Oct. 9 at Southwestern Oregon Community College’s Brookings campus. The deadline for public comment is 5 p.m. Oct. 15.
On Monday, Public Works and Development Services Director Tony Baron said the city has received complaints from the Macklyn Cove condominium community about transient camping on Mill Beach.
The City Council reviewed the issue in 2009 and again in 2017. In both cases, he said, the City Council opposed restricting beach camping within city limits.
“Under Oregon law, it is legal to camp overnight along the ocean shore to accommodate recreational hikers on the Oregon Coast Trail,” Baron told councilors. “The exception is the beach areas fronting those cities that have requested no camping [within] the boundaries of their city.”
According to Justin Helberg, Oregon Parks and Recreation South Coast District manager, even though overnight camping would be prohibited at Mill Beach and other beaches within city limits, the amended rule wouldn’t impact other recreational uses.
Campers are allowed to stay for 14 consecutive days at Oregon State Park campgrounds, Helberg said. People can book an available site when they arrive at the campground or six months in advance, he said. However, beach camping isn’t intended for long-term stays, Helberg said.
“It’s more associated with [people] traveling the Oregon Coast Trail,” he said. “Folks traveling along that can find an area where they can stay overnight closer to facilities that may have some sanitary options for folks to utilize and food options as well.”
If beach camping is banned in Brookings, Oregon Parks and Recreation rangers would still make enforcement contacts. Brookings could approve a similar camping ban, which would allow OPR to collaborate with the police department to enforce the prohibition.
“By no means is the intent to fully and solely put that onus on the city and resources from the city,” Helberg said. “Really this gives our staff the ability to go out there and make those enforcement contacts. It gives them another tool in their toolbox to address some of the challenges we see on the ocean shores.”
According to Lt. Donny Dotson, of the Brookings Police Department, BPD will respond to calls for service on the beach “within reason,” though Oregon State Police has jurisdiction. If there’s a fire, the Brookings Volunteer Fire Department and Coos Forest Protection Agency would respond, he said.
Though the beach isn’t within BPD’s jurisdiction, Dotson said its dispatch center fields the calls for service from that area.
“I went back and looked at this calendar year and I found six reports of fires, campfires, on the beach. Five of those were actually illegal because they were during fire season,” Dotson said. “I found three calls where somebody was misbehaving, harassing someone or just being disorderly on the beach. I want to note that two out of three of those were in the daytime and the third one was at night and it was a juvenile harassing a person camping on the beach by throwing rocks at their tent.”
Usually if dispatch receives reports of people camping on the beach, the dispatcher explains that, as of now, the camper’s not flouting any laws, Dotson said. Since people have learned that beach camping is legal, they don’t report it anymore, he said.
“We only received three reports of people camping and then one report of fireworks being launched somewhere in the area,” he said.
Back when Macklyn Cove Condominium residents brought their concerns to the City Council in 2017, then-city attorney Martha Rice said that federal and state courts have generally held that the government can't criminalize being homeless. This means, that transients can't be arrested or cited for sleeping on public property if there is no place for them to go, Rice stated, according to the city's staff report.
On Monday, Brookings' current legal counsel, Lori Cooper said that state law requires a shelter or some piece of public property be available where people can lay their head. Since the city is "taken care of on that front," she said, she didn't see any legal problems arising from the proposed beach camping ban.
However, according to Diana Cooper, executive director of Brookings CORE Response, a nonprofit organization that offers services to the unhoused population, the only piece of public property people can camp at within city limits is Stout Park.
The park doesn't have any restroom facilities and its water spigot has to be turned on in order for campers to access water, Cooper told the Wild Rivers Outpost on Wednesday.
"It's not an accessible area for everybody either," she said. "It's right next to [Azalea Middle School] as well, so there are people who cannot go there for that reason. And also it's not really a great location anyway. It's probably one of the worst parks to have [a camp] at."
While Brookings CORE Response typically offers a winter warming shelter, there is no emergency homeless shelter within city limits, Cooper said.
Cooper called the proposal to ban beach camping within city limits a blanket ordinance to prevent other infractions like littering and the public health hazards that occur as a result. She said the city closed the restroom at Mill Beach during COVID due to vandalism, but it wasn't just the homeless who caused that damage.
In many cases, kids vandalized that restroom, Cooper said.
"I think what they're doing is putting a blanket law over it that htey can easily enforce," she said. "But it infringes on the rights of everybody. It infringes on my rights too if I want to go down and spend the night."
On Monday, Councilor Phoebe Perada said after reading comments people have made so far, people don’t necessarily have a problem with camping. Instead, they have an issue with its effects. She brought up previous concerns about pull-outs along U.S. 101 and how, now, people don’t want to use them because they’re now “permanent camping spots.”
“I think these are hard situations to try to figure out how to handle, and there are a lot of different aspects,” Perada said. “I would love to see us be able to find a way to just target the effects and deal with that more proactively and allow people to be able to use [that property].”
Later on, however, Perada said that many residents, as well as visitors, want to see beach camping banned.
Her colleague Clayton Malmberg agreed, saying that he asked friends and neighbors to weigh in on the issue. According to him, they want the camping ban.
“They all remember the days when there were less laws on the books and you could be trusted to take care of your environment and the people looked after themselves and the area they loved,” he said. “But there’s been sort of a change in recent years and people are just not picking up after themselves. They’re not being good stewards.”
Once they decided to table the issue, City Manager Tim Rundel said he wanted to reach out to other communities that have asked Oregon Parks and Recreation to prohibit camping on beaches within their jurisdiction. He said he wanted to find out those camping bans have had a positive or a negative impact on those cities.
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