The city and county are just bound and determined to keep it illegal for homeless to camp anywhere in Dane County. Here’s the latest obstacle the County Parks Departments sprung on us yesterday within two hours of being in the campground – their new magical rules they made up.
Sigh . . . the audio in this clip kinda explains. Not great visually or audio, so I’ll also type it for you.
So, we started moving the people at Portage Rd at 3:00 or 3:30, probably got the first stuff to the county park around 4:00 and by 6:00 or so there were two parks staff there (one off duty, trying to help) telling us something . . . still not sure what because the story kept changing and they didn’t have much details, they were just there “following orders”.
The audio starts out with one of the campers that they convinced would have to leave the campground and couldn’t be here. However, we just paid $204 for 14 – 16 people to camp on three sites for the next four nights. That’s not money we can just afford to throw away. (By the way, I cut out about 6 minutes of us flipping through pages, looking for the ordinance, figured I wouldn’t waste your time listening to the birds chirping and pages flipping)
Enjoy . . . here’s all the excuses they tried to come up with:
EXCUSE ONE: THAT IS WHAT OUR ORDERS WERE IN THE PAST, TO LET YOU VIOLATE PARK RULES
Camper: So, uh, tomorrow we will talk and we have to go or . . . ?
Parks guy 1: Well, we’re telling you the rules now.
Brenda: Can you tell me what the ordinance number is? (page flipping) I mean, what are you enforcing?
Parks guy 2: That would be having only one camping unit per site.
Brenda: But in the past we were allowed to have more than one tent per site, so why is it different?
Parks guy 1: Because that is what our orders were in the past. To let you violate our campground rules and regulations. Now they’re telling us not to.
Brenda: We read somewhere, that it was 6 units, it was either on the website or it was in the ordinances.
Parks guy 2: That the ordinance
Brenda: Is says you can have 6 units per site.
EXCUSE TWO: YOU NEED APPROVAL
Parks guy 2: With approval
Brenda: And you’re not approving it this year?
Parks guy 2: It’s not my choice.
Pause . . .
EXCUSE THREE: YOU”RE A GROUP CAMP
Brenda: I mean, I’ve read this thing like 15 times (referring to the ordinance) I would think that I would h
ave noticed if it said one tent without permission
Parks guy 2: (Looking at ordinance with me) I’ve read it too many times, see group camp.
Brenda: But we are not a group camp.
Parks guy 2: ummmmmmm
Brenda: I know they kept trying to force us into being a group camp, we are not a group camp.
Parks guy 2: I think you are
Brenda: Ummm, no we’renot
Parks guy 1: That’s why, and I might have mentioned it to. . .
Brenda: It says an area designated for an adult or youth group (the ordinance says its an area that MAY be used by adult or youth group – not MUST) where they may camp over night.
Parks guy 2: That’s right.
Brenda: But that’s different and then you have different fees for it
page flipping
Parks guy 2: A camping party shall mean an individual . . . family or group.
Brenda: groups of not more than 6 people. We have groups of not more than 6 people.
Parks guy 2: ok
Brenda: Right?
Camper: On each site, yeah. We’re following the 6 rule person on each site.
EXCUSE FOUR: 6 PEOPLE BUT NOT UNITS
Parks guy 1: People but not units.
Brenda: Where does it say not more than one unit per site?
Parks guy 2: Now you’re getting beyond me personally
Camper: Isn’t a site a unit
Parks guy 1: A unit is a tent, a camper, a trailer, sleeping bag, anything that you could seek shelter in.
Camper: And its defined that way?
Camper: You guys . . .
Brenda: You guys don’t want to get into the family definition or we’ll end up in court.
Parks guy 2: Right
Brenda: That would be crazy.
pause
SO, WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO?
Brenda: So what are you going to do if there are more than 6 people
Parks guy 2: Either approve or dismiss
Brenda: (sorry its quiet) Are you saying the Brian and Loretta are going to get warnings or something? That is normally what happens when there is a violation. There is a warning, and then they give us a ticket, but I can’t figure out what you would give us tickets for?
shuffling and mumbling
EXCUSE FIVE: OUR GENERIC GO TO, PARKS COMMISSION CAN DO WHAT THEY WANT
Parks guy 2: This is our generic go to . . . (parks commission can make up rules)
Brenda: I think there is something that basically says
Both parks guy 2 and Brenda: Parks commission can do whatever they want (but did they?)
Parks guy 1: I think its there, its towards the end there
EXCUSE SIX: RANDOM ENFORCEMENT
Brenda: Are you just going to randomly enforce rules against a group of people because they are homeless.
Parks guy 2: We are not randomly doing that by any means. We enforce rules by the way they are to be enforced
Brenda: I mean, I have pictures of, like . . .
Parks guy 2: I know
Brenda: 8 tents being up here, with like canoes, are you really going to make them each pay for a separate site? Are you going to put that information on the website? Are you going to inform the public?
EXCUSE SEVEN: ITS ON THE WEBSITE
Parks guy 2: Its on the website
Parks guy 1: Its always been
Brenda: I printed the website, I have the website (shows them)
Parks guy 2: Is it the most up to date?
Brenda: Yeah, I printed it like 4/12 at 2:09
BACK TO THE RANDOM ENFORCEMENT
Parks guy 1: You can have all the pictures you want, and we can go ahead and approve something like that for someone who is coming and staying 2 nights
Brenda: Maximum 6 people per site
Parks guy 1: When you have 6 tents and another one for cooking in set up on one camp site now we are starting to get wear and tear on campsites
Brenda: I know, I might understand that but where are the rules that we are breaking? It says 6 people per site.
paper shuffling, mumbling
Parks guy 2: We understand.
Parks guy: Alright, I’m just saying
Brenda: There is no legal place to go, this is the only legal place to go
Parks guy 1: It is legal, if you register for more camp sites
Brenda: right
Parks guy 1: Rather than stuffing everyone on one
Brenda: Well, we can’t do that, we can’t afford it. We have enough money for one month at the moment. (It will cost between $9.000 and $12,000 to camp April – October)
EXCUSE EIGHT: DO YOU KNOW WE ARE GOING TO HAVE TO PAY THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS TO RESTORE TOKEN CREEK?
Parks guy 1: Do you know we are going to have to pay thousands of dollars to restore Token Creek? That comes right out of the parks budget.
Brenda: You spent thousands of dollars moving people out to Token Creek in the first place
Parks guy 1: The parks department would never have done that
Brenda: The parks department did do it.
Parks guy 1: We were ordered to, but we wouldn’t have done that.
Brenda: Well (incredulously) I know you wouldn’t have, we know who to blame, but no one will say the name out loud.
EXCUSE NINE: THESE ARE OUR ORDERS
Parks guy 1: but, uh . . . these are our orders and
Brenda: I know but . . . you don’t have a ticket to give us, do you.
Parks guy 1: Not til the morning
Brenda: A ticket for what? For what?
Parks guys looking at each other
Parks guy 2: I’m off duty, I’ll still write the ticket
Brenda: For what
Parks guy 2: Violation of . . . county
Camper: Violation of park . . .
Parks guy 2: Violation of campground ordinances
arguing
Brenda: We’re going to go to court then.
Parks guy 2: And that would be what would happen and that’s fine
WHY DIDN’T YOU JUST TELL US?
Camper: I guess it wouldn’t have been so bad had you told us.
Brenda: Right, its not like we haven’t had massive contact with you guys
Camper: If we would have known this ahead of time then you could have put the permit in for the gorup camping, if the thing would have been put in for the group camping it would be fine. Its just reasonable. I see their point, I see ours.
Brenda: Well, nobody has any money to pay and nobody has any way to move now.
Parks guy 1: We’ll be back tomorrow morning.
Brenda: And there will be no way to move in the morning either.
Camper: So we need to buy another site or what
Brenda: Not a single person out here has a vehicle. Not one single person has a vehicle at the moment.
Parks guy 1: You’ll have to register for more camp sites
Brenda: Nobody has any money
Parks guy 2: Yeah you do, you just said you have money for a month.
Brenda: Nobody has any money here. I’m on my way to Black River Falls at 4:00 in the morning.
Camper: Do we have to buy another site, is that ok?
Parks guys: That is what it would take to be in compliance
Brenda: One per tent, $16 a person per night, every night this summer. That ain’t going to work. (By the way, its $17 now, I keep forgetting)
pause
EXCUSE TEN: IT’S ON THE FLYER
By the way, this is the flyer, its new 4/2013. Finally found it on the website. No clue when it got put there.
Brenda: But this is a flyer, this is not the law.
Parks guy 2: This is essentially the law
Brenda: Its a flyer, its not the law
Parks guy 2: It’s campground rules which are defined in . . .
Brenda: Its not in the ordinances
Parks guy 2: It is in the ordinances, its right there (points to my book)
Brenda: No where does it say one camping unit. It defines a camping unit, but it doesn’t say one camping unit per site. It didn’t did it, I mean, if you can find it. Tell me where it is.
Parks guy 2: Is it not inside here? (back to flipping through the ordinance)
Brenda: No
pause
Brenda: We can decide this in the morning, someone else will have to decide
Parks guy 2: I’m certainly not the guy who . . . .
Brenda: Right
pause
Brenda: Well, we’re not getting anywhere, you can’t do anything different so – I guess you can inform him, what’s the violation?
Camper: Sun is going down . . . (they aren’t all set up yet)
EXCUSE ELEVEN: PROTECTING PARK PROPERTY
Parks guy 1: I don’t know if this one is going to cover it? Ultimately we decide six tents is too much for the site because of the period of time you spend on the site, leaving for two days and coming back and plopping down 6 more tents on a site and now the site becomes trampled and damaged and then we have to close that site down. Period. At any time during your stay.
Camper: Cuz we’re destroying the dirt?
Parks guy 1: Because we want to avoid what happened at Token Creek, we’re going to be spending a few thousand dollars because we need to re-sod it.
Camper: Just throw some grass seed down, it will just take a couple weeks to grow back.
some background talking
Parks guy 1: It was the orders that was given me this morning. I haven’t looked at it personally, except this winter
?: Sod?
Parks guy 1: We need to re-sod two sites. The host site and next one . . . trails off
Parks guy 2: You can’t argue that
Brenda: Well, it depends, that tree is not going to let the grass grow there
Parks guy 2: It has historically
Parks guy 1: The pine tree? says something I can’t hear
Camper: describing the tree
Brenda: (Laughter), so, see you in the morning?
Lots of talking, they are essentially telling Loretta to write a letter requesting to have a group site, confusion about if people will be ticketed and if a letter should be written (sorry, in a hurry)
EXCUSE TWELVE: WE DON’T WANT SIX TENTS HERE
Parks guy 1: It might get to the point where we say we don’t want six tents here. And we can do that by ordinance. Because we think it is going to cause damage.
Camper: In my view, if these ordinances were written so there is such and such of this can be here, this cannot be here, if they were to write it that way, instead of the way they do write it, it would be much easier to understand.
Parks guy 2: Like in 1974 when we wrote the ordinances that were for camping it did not have anything to do with
Camper: The good thing is that they can’t go changing them quickly
Parks guy 1: Everyone was in a tent
lots of talking on top of each other, camper concerned that they could just pull out a new ordinance overnight, discussion about if they need to write the letter. Parks people telling them yes, I’m telling her to let me look into it. We are repeating old news.
DO YOU WANT ME TO CALL THE MEDIA?
(Last year, they kept pleading with me not to.)
Parks guy 1: Threatening something I can’t really hear about the morning.
Brenda: I will go home and call the media . . . if that is where we are headed. And that is not what any of us want. Its not where you guys should have to be, its not where we should have to be, its all over our heads . . . right, we can make sure the media is here in the morning. And Darren can explain to the media . . . poor Darren . . . its not fair . . . I know, its awful, its not fair.
Parks guy 1: . . . the parks didn’t want to be involved in this.
Brenda: I know.
Parks guy 1: We want to have a family campground. (oops!) We understand the plight of everyone here.
Camper: I have a kid, I can bring him here.
back to the write the letter not write the letter – I say if you write the letter, they will just deny it, that’s the whole point of them wanting you to write the letter.
pause
WE WON’T TALK TO BRENDA ANY MORE – ONLY CAMPERS
I don’t know where this came from, the only thing edited out was more mumbling and paper shuffling and wind noise . . . I should probably post the whole thing so people understand that – might do it tonight if I have time.
Parks guy 1: The thing is, from this point forward, I’m only going to deal with registered campers. Parties registered to the site. If you want to work with these people out on the side somewhere that is up to you. But we will talk to whomever is registered to the camp sites. That is what I am going to suggest to my bosses.
Parks guy 2: All of us rangers will do the same thing.
Parks guy 1: Like we do with everyone else. Otherwise it is a group.
Parks guy 2: Someone is responsible and its the registered campers.
Volunteer firefighters alarm goes off, parks guy 2 gets in car and leaves.
Alright, thank you, bye . . .
NOW WHAT
Well, wait and see if they show up this morning and what they are saying these new rules are and what the consequences are.
(I did this really quickly, no proof reading or relistening, trying to get to camp early to talk to some really anxious people – where will they live if we can’t get this sorted out?)
