Sonoma County set to start clearing Joe Rodota Trail camp as judge considers compliance

Sonoma County plans to start clearing homeless people camped along the Joe Rodota Trail in west Santa Rosa on Wednesday morning, after a federal judge said Tuesday he will not stop the sweep.

U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria, who last summer issued an injunction requiring authorities to provide written notice and offer shelter before sweeping encampments, wrote in a preliminary decision Tuesday that he was “tentatively of the view that it would be not appropriate for the Court to adjudicate the question of compliance (with that injunction) before the encampment is cleared.”

Chhabria's ruling came in response to a Monday letter from the Public Interest Law Project, which represents trail campers and homeless advocates, asking him to block the county and city from enforcing local anti- camping rules to clear the camp.

The judge ordered Sonoma County to respond to the homeless advocates' letter by 8 a.m. Wednesday - the deadline county officials have set for the roughly 250 residents living along the trail to vacate the trail, a county park within city limits that for months has been the largest such encampment in Sonoma County history. The Public Interest Law Project may file a response by noon, after which Chhabria will make a final decision on whether the county's plan is compliant with his 2019 order.

In spring 2018 Chhabria postponed but eventually allowed the clearance of an encampment behind the Sebastopol Road Dollar Tree and along the Joe Rodota Trail, which stretches 8½ miles between Santa Rosa and Sebastopol.

He also issued the summer 2019 injunction limiting enforcement of anti-camping rules, requiring authorities to provide written notice and offer shelter before sweeping encampments.

At least 50 of the trail's residents had not been offered adequate shelter and were identified to the county in letters from last week and early this week, according to lawyers for the homeless advocates, who sent their request to Chhabria days before the county's self-imposed Friday deadline to clear the trail.

“We have significant concerns that they're not in compliance with closing the encampment,” said Jeffery Hoffman, the directing attorney at the Santa Rosa office of California Rural Legal Assistance, who is also representing trail campers and homeless advocates on this case.

The advocates “have not requested that JRT residents be allowed to continue living in the encampment indefinitely, only that the County abide by the terms of the Injunction if and when it proceeds with any enforcement action on the JRT,” wrote attorney Melissa Morris. “The County's current approach - at least as it is understood by Plaintiffs - presumes that everyone on the trail has been offered assessment and placement despite strong evidence to the contrary and seeks to meet an arbitrary and inflexible deadline for closing the JRT encampments.”

The county's position is that “we are complying” with the rules Chhabria approved, according to a Monday letter from deputy county counsel Joshua Myers.

“This late request to halt the movement of people off the Trail is counterproductive to our work to ensure people have access to services and to abate the public health and safety crisis that exists there,” Myers wrote. “The County has provided sufficient and reasonable notice to all Trail occupants about the services available, how to access them on the phone, and in person, as well as the status of their unlawful camping. The County has attempted to and continues to offer an opportunity for assessment and placement to every person on the Trail.”

Myers also reiterated the county's goal to assess people to gauge their needs, offer them adequate shelter and close the trail by Friday.

A sample notice dated Jan. 15 included as a court exhibit orders its recipient to “vacate the property as soon as possible and no later than January 29, 2020, at 8:00 a.m.”

The letter on behalf of the homeless advocates also anticipates that local governments might claim the camp's impact on the community constitutes an “immediate hazard or obstruction” - a designation that allows them to clear camps on public property in Santa Rosa without written notice and offers of shelter.

Chhabria's injunction, which stretches from Aug. 12 to June 30, allows enforcement of illegal camps on public property in Santa Rosa without limits that would otherwise apply if authorities can demonstrate that a homeless person is at risk or putting others at risk of imminent injury or death, putting the property of others at risk or interfering with access to public facilities.

Myers noted that on Sunday night, “a tent fire burned a tent to the ground and one person camped on the Trail overdosed in a nearby restaurant.”

“The conditions on the Trail are such that it must be closed to abate this emergency,” Myers wrote.

If Chhabria rules in favor of the county, camp residents and homeless advocates could file a claim after the trail is cleared if they believe the county didn't follow the rules of the injunction, the judge wrote. Hoffman said, however, that it is too “premature” at this time to say whether his clients will do that.

Both Hoffman and Myers declined to comment further on the case because it's ongoing.

Staff Writer Chantelle Lee contributed to this report. You can reach Staff Writer Will Schmitt at 707-521-5207 or will.schmitt@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @wsreports.