Baker City Police recently had a call to address a significant amount of rubbish on the wayside of G Street, west of 10th Street on June 21. The trackside/industrial areas are routinely swept for trespassers and campers, but some were concerned it might have been the makings of a shelter and a site of illegal camping.

The recently passed camping ordinances took effect on June 10 this year, giving some amount of authority to code enforcement officers to reserve public areas from effectively becoming private dwellings.

Ty Duby, Baker City’s police chief, spared comments on the situation and firstly clarified that it was not a camp, but rather a large amount of someone’s personal possessions. “We’ve recently had a young lady who had a whole bunch of stuff at the corner of 12th and G, we cleaned it already. Tuesday morning on the site, it’s all been taken care of.”

The bulk included furniture, home items and refuse, the amount of it lined the corner for some length. In recent years some homes have required city action to remove hazardous amounts of yard debris.

Duby spoke about the new ordinances, saying that their design can extend to private properties in some cases, preventing someone from lending their yard to indefinite camping. “There’s certain parameters in the camping ordinance that if someone tries that it’s regulated.”

On the receiving end of such actions, citizens can expect citations and a degree of escalating consequences, but Duby says that the citations “Don’t have a lot of teeth in them.”

In court, such citations have to be weighed to the costs of action, and many judges have had to balance decisions so as to not outright equate homelessness as a state of automatic criminal offense.

“We’re in the process of overhauling code enforcement, it’s in the infant stages right now,” he said, “What we’ve done in the past hasn’t been successful.” Duby hopes the overhaul will make for a safer environment in Baker City.

In part, the recent turnover in the code enforcement ranks has made progress slow on such calls. “It’s made it hard to get it done, but we’re continually working on these cases and problem properties.” Down the block from the site, a burned down RV frame, unrelated to the call, sits near the G Street roadside as well. Duby says it has already been addressed for disposal as well.