Details Disclosed in Homeless Suit Settlement
City officials maintain that Laguna Beach's pact settling a lawsuit that challenged the constitutionality of its treatment of the homeless disabled will allow police to enforce anti-camping rules, contrary to a statement from the plaintiffs.
According to the terms of the settlement, which were fully disclosed Wednesday, Laguna Beach agreed not to enforce a state law that prohibits lodging on public property only until a new ordinance is adopted. City officials did, however, agree to an unusual stipulation that over the next two years they would notify lawyers for the plaintiffs 30 days prior to adopting new regulations that restrict over-night sleeping.
A statement last week from the American Civil Liberties Union implied that Laguna Beach agreed not to enforce the law for several years, Assistant City Manager John Pietig said. "That's not completely true," he said, citing the terms for a notice period over the next two years.
Such a provision, "gives us time in advance to address a new ordinance with decision makers," said Andra Barmash Greene, managing partner of Irell & Manella and co-counsel in the lawsuit with the ACLU and Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of UC Irvine's law school. "They know what happened with the last ordinance," she said. "The whole idea is to prevent this from happening again in the future."
Laguna Beach repealed its anticamping statute shortly after the lawsuit was filed last December.
The settlement also requires Laguna Beach to pay $9,000 in legal fees. Irell & Manella brought the litigation pro bono, but asked for some compensation "as a gesture," Greene said. "That doesn't begin to address the amount of resources put into it," she said, declining to put a figure to the litigation bill. "It was done in the public interest to get an illegal ordinance appealed and to make sure the circumstances in Laguna Beach are improved."
Other terms included expunging from the public record citations and convictions obtained under the city's previous anti-camping ordinance since 2004. The settlement is not an admission of wrong doing.
The progress of the settlement talks may also explain the City Council's inaction on the recommendations of a homeless advisory committee to establish an alternative overnight sleeping area.
"Our commitment to provide advance notice would have had a bearing on the advisory committee's recommendation," City Attorney Phil Kohn said.
Council members Toni Iseman and Mayor Kelly Boyd, who are both also committee members, were aware of negotiations, said Kohn, who did not participate in the committee meetings.
"I didn't want to constrain the innovations of the committee," Kohn said, which did vote in May to seek the council's approval to establish a designated overnight sleeping area in order to direct people out of parks and beaches.
