MORGANTOWN — “We’ve been on this journey before,” Morgantown City Manager Paul Brake said. “It’s a marathon. It’s not a sprint.”
The first step of that marathon was taken Friday morning, as Morgantown City Council heard from Police Chief Ed Preston and legal counsel Matthew Elshiaty of Kay Casto & Chaney during a three-hour workshop on the legal aspects of the issues confronting the city’s downtown business district.
Business owners have come forward in recent weeks with concerns about the increase in aggressive and illegal behavior they’re witnessing — not to mention persistent issues like loitering and panhandling, which are not illegal, but can be a turn-off for those looking to shop downtown.
The problems aren’t new. They persist because they’re complex. Fixing them isn’t going to be easy, or fast.
As he has on a number of occasions, Preston laid out the challenges faced by police in trying to respond to mounting problems, just a few of which include:
- Loitering is not illegal. It’s free assembly.
- Panhandling is not illegal. It’s free speech, unless it’s aggressive or threatening in nature or taking place within 15 feet of an ATM or bank entrance.
- According to the courts, it’s cruel and unusual punishment to arrest a known alcoholic for public intoxication.
- An officer must witness behavior in order to make an misdemeanor arrest. Otherwise, a witness must file a report and testify in court.
- Without a public intoxication shelter, police deal with a regular rotation of individuals who are taken to emergency rooms and often released back downtown in short order.
“It is something that we absolutely, positively have to have,” Preston said, explaining the city is in “desperate need” of a public intoxication shelter. “Right now, the hospital is our only option … As I said before, you take someone to the hospital and within an hour or two, they’re dropped back off by the same ambulance that picked them up, and in the same condition.”
Complicating matters further is the fact that North Central Regional Jail won’t accept individuals who are intoxicated until they’ve been medically cleared.
“So even if we can arrest them, we have to take them to the hospital anyway,” Preston said. “Happens all the time.”
Along with the need for an intoxication shelter, Preston said there needs to be changes in how the courts are handling these repeat offenders.
He said that over the last 18 months, the city court has more than 1,600 instances in which a fine was levied, but not paid.
For example, Preston said, one individual who commonly frequents the downtown has 17 pending charges and 12 unpaid fines. Another individual has 62 unpaid fines.
Last week, one individual was arrested three times in one day by three different officers. Another has had more than 100 interactions with the MPD in 2019 alone.
“Looking at just the unpaid fines alone, it comes out to a little over $203,695. So we’re spending a lot of money with absolutely nothing happening on the back side,” Preston said, explaining that those costs don’t include what the city pays in transport costs and jail fees.
By comparison, he estimated a public intoxication shelter would cost between $150,000 and $180,000 annually to operate, which could be split among stakeholders, including the county and WVU.
Preston said he would encourage Council to reach out to the municipal court and magistrate court to consider alternate sentences like community service instead of fines that are never collected, “because we’re just chasing our tails with this.”
While the session was open to the public, there was no participation from the capacity crowd, which included a number of business owners and representatives from the social services.
Members of council said they would like future sessions focused on each of those groups while Brake puts together a plan for moving forward, which he said he could present in the next 45 days or so.
In the meantime, public feedback can be provided via email to info@morgantownwv.gov. Much of the information presented during Friday’s meeting is available on the city’s website, morgantownwv.gov. Under “quick links” on the right side of the main page is a link “Homeless and Addiction Strategy.”
