GREENFIELD — The homeless will have to leave the Common this Friday, Mayor William Martin shared following a Special City Council Meeting held Tuesday evening. The information marked a surprising turn in the ever-shifting deadlines concerning those sleeping in the center of the city.
The latest spin: Because the Greenfield Free Harvest Supper is scheduled to be on the Greenfield Common Sunday, having taken out a license with the city to do so as it does every year, the homeless need to vacate the property by Friday to give the Department of Public Works a chance to clean up.
Martin said Greenfield Police and the DPW will be assisting with this move. The two city departments will move personal belongings across the street to the First National Bank for holding in the meantime. As for the people themselves, the mayor said they will comply with the laws and move off the ground.
“That’s what we’re going to convince them of,” Martin said, as the city continues its effort to work in partnership with local service agencies and house people who have been living on the common.
This decision brings into the fold a forgotten law governing Greenfield and the common. The literature the mayor cites in order to move people off the common comes from a decision from the American Civil Liberties Union.
In June of 2016, the Board of License Commissioners updated its rules and procedures for free speech use on the common, parks and public ways, following guidance provided by the ACLU. Previously, anyone organizing on the common legally needed to have a permit, and with these 2016 rules it loosened it up.
The rules of the board state explicitly any overnight camping on the common must be licensed by the board. It also states use of the common is given priority to people or groups who have been licensed to be on the land.
At this point, though, it’s unclear how the city, with its police or public works, can move people from the common if it tries to enforce these rules Friday.
Greenfield Police Chief Robert Haigh was not aware of this latest development when reached Tuesday night, so he could not provide any clarity on the matter.
The mayor said to not focus on the enforcement of it and more on the work being done to assist people by this new deadline-day.
“It’s our expectation the fine nonprofits and service agencies that exist in Greenfield will tend the best they can to assist this population,” Martin said, “as we are and as we will continue to do.”
There’s another deadline, but it may be redundant at this point.
City Councilor Isaac Mass explained at the special meeting that the goal is to make sure everything is cleaned up, for health and safety purposes, before the Friday, Sept. 6 parade for the Franklin County Fair.
The news about this week’s deadline with the harvest supper was not discussed at the special meeting.
The meeting, though overshadowed by these two deadlines, did vote on ordinance to make overnight camping on the common a violation of civil law.
The City Council on a 5-2 vote approved this ordinance put forward by Mass, which allows the city to issue a $50 fine on the first offense and $100 on a second offense.
“I think the time has finally come for us to take an action,” Mass said at the meeting, which wrapped up in under half an hour.
The action was in response to the Board of Health’s Aug. 20 deadline that looked to enforce state Department of Public Health law. That deadline, which passed on Monday with little fanfare, needed the city to file a cease and desist order in court in order to fully enact it. This would begin a process that could be likened to an eviction, which would need a judge to rule on the city’s order.
Board of Health Chairman Steve Adam said Tuesday after the meeting that the state agency’s attorney informed him the board could in fact enforce this deadline on day-one. With going through the courts, it gives the ruling more weight, he said.
Mass stressed his ordinance allows the city to act immediately and although the municipality will financially back its health board, “We shouldn’t wait through litigation to help through a public health crisis.”
Before this ordinance can become law, the mayor has to sign off on it. Martin did not want to indicate after the meeting whether he will do so, instead pointing to the harvest supper and the laws with the board of license that in effect already do what this ordinance somewhat intends.
Further, the vote may not have mattered because it might not have been in compliance with the city’s charter, Councilor Otis Wheeler mentioned afterward. The charter reads “seven members shall be required to adopt any ordinance or appropriation order.” Through all of this, if the mayor does sign this ordinance, it could face an appeal.
Missing from the special meeting were a handful of councilors who likely would have voted down the ordinance. City Council President Karen “Rudy” Renaud was absent, as well as councilors Bricket Allis, Ashli Stempel, Tim Dolan and Sheila Gilmour.
Vice President Penny Ricketts did not allow for public comment at the special meeting, which yielded about a dozen people to City Hall. She said afterward her intention was to allow the council to discuss the issue in depth. She also said she wanted to talk more about the licensing department, which had met earlier in the day.
“I wanted to make sure we understood fully, before we had this vote,” Ricketts said.
Mass said the ordinance has been brought forward several times and didn’t necessarily need more dialogue on it.
“I thought this meeting was rushed through, like many decisions recently on the council,” Wheeler said.
The question, though, remains what will happen on deadline-day. This time, that day may be Friday, or it may be later, closer to the fair, or when the mayor signs this ordinance or when the city files its cease and desist order in court, which the mayor said he intends to do in the next couple days.
The good news for housing may be the Clinical & Support Options High Street shelter may be nearing its open date. On Monday, the city said state funding for the project seemed secure. On Tuesday, Martin indicated the city is working toward a Sept. 5 date to open up that housing, although there are other factors that could get in the way.
Some of those who have been living on the common during this stretch, which dates back to early July, said if they were offered a housing option by the city they would, in fact, take it.
The impromptu leader and spokeswoman of the people on the common, Madelynn Malloy, said she got a spot in a ServiceNet shelter on Monday. She had been in talks with city officials and service providers.
“The shelter is no place for anybody — but it’s a stepping stone,” Malloy said. “If that’s the stepping stone you need, then sometimes you have to do things you don’t want.”
She said she spent time in the shelter in the winter during the frigid weather. Sleeping on a mat on a living room floor, Malloy said, “You don’t sleep, but at least you’re not frozen.”
Malloy and others on the common Tuesday continued to petition for more affordable housing. Malloy, who does not work because she is disabled, said it’s near impossible to find an apartment that she could pay for, and just as, if not harder to get subsidized housing.
Cynthia Dodge, who founded Greenfield’s commission on disability, said she put the blame on Beacon Hill.
“I think Boston has failed Greenfield,” Dodge said, who was around the common after the meeting. “It has failed this part of the state tremendously.”
Malloy’s partner Bob Morin walked up to her following the meeting, which she had attended.
“So what did they vote on?” he asked.
“Start packing,” she said.
It was more a sentiment than actuality for Morin, who also got housing at ServiceNet this week. He said he isn’t happy; “However, I’ll be alright because I needed a bed.” He said he didn’t like being “shoved in there as fast” as it happened. Morin found it immoral of the city to try to remove people from the common.
A different Bob who had been living on the common has hopeful housing plans, too. He said he doesn’t like talking to people, especially those working with the city, so he found a different path.
“This lady from New York came up” to us yesterday, he said. She offered a shelter somewhere in the Empire State, but he wasn’t clear where that was, just that she was likely going to pick him and two of his friends up Wednesday morning. If it works out, that’ll help him beat this now looming Friday deadline. “It’s better than sitting here on this common.”
You can reach Joshua Solomon at:
jsolomon@recorder.com
413-772-0261, ext. 264