Chico to remove more camps in Teichert Ponds
The city of Chico aims to enforce anti-camping ordinances to the remainder of the Teichert Ponds park after having removed about half of the camps in early February.
A notice provided by City Manager Mark Sorensen on Tuesday stated the area of Teichert Ponds opposite the highway and next to private residences will be the location of the city’s next planned closure of public property and enforcement of anti-camping ordinances.
Sorensen confirmed the notice was sent Tuesday to Legal Services of Northern California, which is able to object to planned enforcement because of the Warren v. Chico court case.
People living at Teichert Ponds are estimated to receive 7-day notices of enforcement starting March 28 if no objections are made by the legal firm.
Chico previously completed camp removals Feb. 2 in a portion of the park after a legal disagreement delayed a planned enforcement from Dec. 21 to Jan. 17.
At the time, Legal Services of Northern California objected to the planned enforcement because it said the city did not meet the minimum required amount of shelter spaces needed to proceed with camp removals.
The disagreement ended with an order by Magistrate Judge Kendall Newman, who presides over the Warren v. Chico settlement agreement, to bisect the area the city wished to enforce in order to meet the required amount of shelter spaces for the number of people targeted for enforcement.
Now that around half of the park has been removed of camps since Feb 2., Chico plans to remove the rest of the camps in the park with this next planned enforcement.
For this current plan to enforce anti-camping ordinances in the remaining area in Teichert ponds, the city counted 40 campsites — several abandoned — and 25 people living in the area, according to the notice.
Of the 25, the notice said eight have been previously assessed and suggested the eight should not be counted in a minimum required amount of shelter spaces.
An order by Newman on Feb. 24 ruled that the city doesn’t need to count people previously assessed when conducting a pre-enforcement count for shelter, but that assessments should still be re-offered to them and to people living in RVs.
Regardless of the previously assessed eight, the city appears to have enough shelter for the remainder of people targeted for enforcement with 24 open microshelters at its Pallet shelter site on Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and 29 open beds at the Torres Community Shelter.