The Grants Pass City Council voted unanimously Wednesday to allow police to seize and destroy flammable materials on public property and expand how long people can be excluded from parks for violations.
City officials said the changes are aimed at reducing fire risk in public parks and other city-owned spaces, citing injuries and deaths linked to unsafe cooking and heating practices.
Under the updated rules, police may confiscate and destroy flammable materials and cooking or heating devices. A staff report said that authority is needed to prevent people from simply moving hazardous material from one location to another after an offense.
Some residents who spoke at the meeting were concerned the updated policies target homeless folks trying to cook or keep warm, particularly in the city’s public resting sites.
But Police Chief Warren Hensman said he’s seen incidents where people have burned themselves and even died.
"This is absolutely a public safety matter," he said. "The last thing we need is for a gas tank to explode in a resting site with 50 people there in close proximity to one another. It would be a major disaster."
Councilor Kathleen Krohn agreed.
"I don’t think it’s so much about who has the propane tanks or anything else," she said. "It's about public safety and not having fires start up out of the blue or in public where it could cause a major fire or damage to property."
The restrictions do not apply to city-designated stove pits and fireplaces or to established picnic areas during regular park hours.
The measure also increases how long someone can be excluded from a public park for violations. A first offense can lead to a 30-day exclusion, increasing to 90 days for a second offense and six months for a third offense.
Police officials said nearly half of those excluded from city parks reoffend, averaging 4.5 violations per person.
"Increasing exclusion periods for subsequent violations would minimize repeat offenses in any one location," the staff report said.
Additional changes allow officers to issue exclusion orders for violations of city code or other misdemeanor-level offenses. Previously, only violations of state law could be used as the basis for an exclusion order.
City Attorney Stephanie Nuttall said officers may also now classify a first offense as a violation rather than a misdemeanor to make cases easier to process through the court system.
Nuttall said some of these cases have been referred back to the city because the district attorney doesn't prosecute misdemeanors on the city's behalf unless they are violations of state law. This change, she said, will help clean up that confusion and "allow for swift consequences."
The council also declared an emergency, allowing the changes to take effect immediately.
