Boulder could restore jail time for some petty offenses, place more restrictions on where people can panhandle, issue exclusion orders for repeat offenders on the municipal campus and close off the Glen Huntington Bandshell in Central Park.

At a Boulder City Council study session Tuesday night on "social misbehavior," council members expressed broad support for a suite of measures designed to make the municipal campus, Central Park and the Boulder Public Library less appealing to the people — many of them homeless — who hang out there all day and more accessible to the general public.

Council members didn't take any votes, but they told City Attorney Tom Carr they support measures already under way to keep repeat offenders in jail longer if their offenses occur in "high-impact areas" like the Pearl Street Mall and the municipal campus.

Boulder police Chief Mark Beckner said officers already are noticing a difference with the policy, which was implemented at the beginning of the year. Defendants charged with crimes on the municipal campus aren't showing up at their old hangout spots a few days later.

Carr told the council he has doubts about the use of the term "social misbehavior" and stressed that the intent of the policies is to reduce criminal behavior in places that should be open to the entire community.

At the same time, Carr acknowledged that increased enforcement could move the behavior to other parts of the city. However, officials hope that if repeat offenders can't return to their old haunts, new norms will develop among the remaining members of the group.

"Any enforcement effort is going to do what we call squeeze the balloon, make it go elsewhere," he said. "There is a problem with congregate behavior. What the suspensions do is move out the people causing the problem and hope a new norm develops. But displacement is a problem in any criminal justice behavior."

Officials hinted that there may be surveillance going on at the municipal campus. One council member referred to the initiatives the city is already pursuing and said, "One thing that is not up there is cameras."

Carr quickly responded: "We're not talking about that."

"I don't know what you're talking about," Beckner said with a smile.

Asked after the meeting if there was any generalized surveillance going on outside of a specific criminal investigation, Carr said he did not want to talk about the cameras and couldn't comment.

City Council members asked Carr to draft a panhandling ordinance that would restrict the practice near places where people feel stuck or vulnerable, such as at ATMs, kiosks and outdoor seating areas of restaurants, as well as near intersections, though they acknowledged the final form of any expanded panhandling ordinance would be much debated.

Some council members had concerns about taking too broad an approach.

Councilwoman Suzanne Jones said including a panhandling ordinance would move attention away from criminal behavior on the municipal campus and instead open up a discussion about the city's safety net or lack thereof.

"Panhandling doesn't keep people from driving, while scary, criminal behavior in our parks prevents other people from using our parks," Jones said.

Councilman Macon Cowles said he wants to know more about the economy of panhandling and how many people use that money to buy drugs.

But Councilman George Karakehian said there are simple safety concerns, similar to the ones that prompted the city to ban panhandling on medians.

"People are going into traffic to collect money," he said. "I believe that is what we need to concentrate on, not where they're spending their money. I don't really care if they're going to buy drugs. I care about safety."

Council members also asked to see options for closing off the bandshell so that people can't hang out there when it's not being used for a performance.

Councilman Tim Plass said the city needs to follow its own rules and seek a landmark alteration certificate for the historic structure and said whatever is used should be "aesthetically pleasing and unobtrusive."

Karakehian called the current state of the bandshell, which is used by transients to drink and hang out as well as to seek shelter from the elements, "a disgrace."

"I picture it as a tasteful gate that you open when you want to use it," he said of the enclosure.

City Council members have said that cleaning up the area is a top priority.

Specific ordinances will be presented to the council later this spring.

The Boulder County chapter of the ACLU said it will be following the issue closely.

"Contrary to the city's contention that these measures are necessitated by criminal behavior, data provided to the council by the city manager shows that the majority of arrests on the municipal campus were for technical rule violations that had no effect on the public's ability to enjoy the space," the ACLU said in a prepared statement. "Now many proposals before the Council would unjustly criminalize more activities and create more violations and arrests, seemingly to make life so difficult for targeted members of the community that they are driven out of the space."
