Federal judge will unfreeze dispersal
PAJARO VALLEY >> A federal judge will not block Monterey County from clearing a Pajaro River levee homeless camp, ordering instead a more robust notice of eviction.
In an opinion issued Wednesday, U.S. Magistrate Judge Susan van Keulen declined to issue a preliminary injunction requested by several named homeless plaintiffs and the Pajaro/Watsonville Homeless Union. Instead, she made an order that will dissolve an emergency restraining order she had issued against the county, effective 8 a.m. Dec. 13. Plaintiffs are ordered to vacate the camp by that same day.
Attorneys for the homeless union and Monterey County dramatically disagree on the number of people living in affected levee areas, with the homeless union estimating 200 individuals and the county 25-40.
County officials are ordered to re-issue a notice to vacate the levee camp by no later than Tuesday, an outline of how it will handle and store remaining personal possessions for up to 90 days. Representatives from the homeless union and county also are ordered to meet and confer to determine reasonable methods for accessing the stored personal property and on how the county will provide assistance with packing the personal property for those who require it. The parties also were ordered to discuss access to additional motel vouchers, should there arise a need for more than the 25 vouchers that the county has stated are available.
Van Keulen, citing a separate court opinion, acknowledged the displacement of people from their encampments will be disruptive, but wrote that the Pajaro/Watsonville Homeless Union and others’ “interest in their constitutional rights are outweighed by Defendants’ interest in clearing the non-public space and maintaining the health and safety of the Encampment residents and the public more generally.”
The case differs from this year’s Santa Cruz homeless civil rights case, pertaining to those living in the public San Lorenzo Park area during the “apex” of the coronavirus pandemic, van Keulen wrote in her opinion. In the latest case, the Monterey County Water Resources Agency-controlled levee is a restricted/protected levee system created to prevent flooding on the nearby agricultural properties and communities, and while coronvirus-related concerns were raised by the plaintiffs, they were not at the core of the issue, she wrote.
The county has argued that a cleanup operation is needed in order to relieve the levee area of public health, environmental and safety hazards.
“There are no toilets, showers, laundry, or kitchen facilities available,” van Keulen summarized in her opinion. “As such, the river has become polluted with human and animal waste, along
with wastewater from cooking, laundry, and other activities, which has a significant environmental impact to the river ecosystem, including California and federally listed endangered species.”
Evidence also showed that abandoned and hazardous materials have polluted the watershed and may impact flow and drainage of the river, increasing the likelihood of flooding, van Keulen wrote.
In general, van Keulen wrote, the plaintiffs had not shown a likelihood of success on the merits of their claims or raised serious questions going to the merits. She wrote in her decision that she had looked at how likely the plaintiffs were to succeed in demonstrating the “clearing and closure of the Encampment at this point in time will put the homeless persons living there at greater risk than the situation in which they currently reside.”
The seminal 9th Circuit Court homeless civil rights decision in “Martin vs. Boise,” while opposing prosecution of sleeping, sitting and lying without alternative available shelter options, “does not establish a constitutional right to occupy public property indefinitely at Plaintiffs’ option,” van Keulen wrote, citing a 2018 case, “Miralle v. City of Oakland.”