Communication mixup in homeless sweep admitted

By Timothy Pratt (contact)

Thursday, Feb. 24, 2005 | 9:18 a.m.

North Las Vegas officials from five departments and the police met Wednesday to evaluate what went wrong in the cleanup of a homeless camp last week and what could be improved in the future.

The immediate conclusion: "There was definitely a lack of communication and coordination ... and we want to make sure that doesn't happen again," city spokeswoman Brenda Johnson said.

The meeting, which included Public Works, Planning and Development, the city attorney, Municipal Court and the city manager, was put together to scrutinize a cleanup staged Feb. 16 on Owens Avenue of a homeless camp that harbored up to 100 people.

As for allegations made by homeless men and women last week that they lost such personal possessions as identification, Johnson said police involved "were shocked" by the claims.

She said police gave people 72 hours notice at the site of the cleanup and also allowed them at least an hour and a half to remove all possessions from the site.

"Staff communicated that they treated everybody with respect and dignity and acted appropriately -- (and) without a specific formal complaint we can take little action against an individual or group of individuals," she said.

But Gary Peck, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Nevada, said the meeting's conclusions "don't inspire much confidence ... and conflict with testimony we've heard."

Peck said the ACLU will continue attempting to gather further testimony from people who say their possessions were lost for potential legal action. Although he said the effort poses challenges.

"These are very difficult populations to work with in part because of the way they've been treated by various government agencies and officials," he said. "It's difficult to stay in touch and work with them in a way needed to go into a courtroom to vindicate their rights."

Peck also said the city, while promising to come up with a new policy, hasn't considered what he said is "an important issue: there still is no mechanism for people to retrieve their belongings" following sweeps or cleanups of homeless camps.

Other cities have designated locations as a lost-and-found of sorts for homeless people affected by such actions, he said.

Dan Tarwater, assistant city manager, said he will be working on developing the new "rules of the road" when it comes to the homeless until. He hopes to have a draft policy available next week for City Manager Gregory Rose.

The lack of communication he and Johnson referred to included a lack of advance notice to Paula Haynes-Green, the Las Vegas Valley's regional homeless coordinator, who said last week she should be in the loop on actions affecting the homeless.

As well, Kenny Young, deputy director of planning and development for North Las Vegas -- and the city's representative on a regional homeless committee chaired by Clark County Manager Thom Reilly -- also was unaware of the cleanup last week.

Tarwater said "we could have done much better."

"This issue is always going to be of public interest," he said. "It's something that's not going away."