Santa Cruz City Council contracts Pogonip homeless encampment cleanup – Santa Cruz Sentinel

SANTA CRUZ — In the wake of concerns voiced by several community members Tuesday, the Santa Cruz City Council approved a $140,000 contract to clean up a scattered Pogonip homeless encampment.

The city voted to hire Santa Cruz-based Kenny Robinson Construction after officials had heard complaints about the estimated 40 active and abandoned camps along the approximately 1.5-mile Nature Loop, accessible off Golf Club Drive. Concerns included unleashed dogs, debris and fires, according to a memo to the council.

Vice Mayor Renee Golder said she supported the encampment cleanup, both because the conditions were unsafe for those living there and for visitors.

“It’s our responsibility to ensure that our protected nature areas are protected for everyone and the waterways are protected as the tributaries feed into the San Lorenzo River, which is our water source,” Golder said.

In a letter to the council, Peter Gelblum wrote that the council should not approve the contract without first providing a legal, permanent and more suitable location for all those living in the Pogonip, “Otherwise, the ‘whack-a-mole’ process will continue, and the City will be spending another $140,000 in a few months to clean up the new encampment(s) to which all of the Pogonip campers move.”

City spokesperson Siouxsie Oki told the Sentinel earlier this month that all people located at encampments along the Nature Loop were offered shelter and that none had accepted.

In another letter to the council, Lori-Ann and Jeff Tarter wrote that, as avid hikers, they had encountered a threatening unleashed dog on the trail, in addition to “significant pieces of furniture, shopping carts, bicycles and mounds of trash amidst tarps and camps.” The couple’s letter urged the city to clean up the park and to maintain it going forward.

An underlying concern of many speaking out Tuesday was how the city handled possessions of those who were displaced during camp cleanups.

During public comment, several Santa Cruz County Mental Health Advisory Board members took turns reading a letter originally addressed to the Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors because, as explained by board member Laura Chatham, the letter’s recommendations were relevant to the council. The board, in summary, recommended that the county redesign and establish a health and safety-focused street cleaning encampment protocol “that is trauma-sensitive and follows state law requiring the storage and later retrieval of taken property for 90 days.” A second recommendation was to reduce the number of law enforcement officers used for each cleanup because “more than 3 armed officers is unnecessary, threatening, and expensive.”