March 10, 2005

Downtown

Homeless camp adds steam to the Ashland pressure cooker

Andrew Scot Bolsinger

The subject line often makes it clear that a particular e-mail may require a little more attention than others. But some are stealth e-mails, seemingly innocuous until you open them or read down a ways when they explode like a Molotov cocktail.

This was one of those e-mails.

Beginning politely enough, it quickly made its point: Things had gone too far. Reading a few more lines and it was apparent that the e-mail's author was angry. He said he represented a powder keg of emotion bubbling under the tourist-dotted streets of downtown Ashland.

The intensity and almost quiet determination of the e-mail singed my eyebrows. I extended an invitation to the author to meet with me and discuss his concerns. He accepted. For the rest of this article, let's call him Mike.

Meeting Mike

Mike doesn't want his name mentioned in any news article right now. At least not yet. But, he's convinced that he, and many others like him, will have to go public soon. He is reticent, he says, because he fears bricks through the window of his store, local customers boycotting his business and other forms of public backlash.

"I read the cop log in your paper," he told me. "Have you seen how often the downtown Starbucks gets vandalized? That's how it is around here."

Mike's concern is that things have just gone way too far in good old liberal Ashland. The growing number of "Plazoids" is a concern. Panhandlers in front of businesses is another concern. So-called "musicians" playing loudly - and often badly - directly in front of storefronts is another concern. These are all, of course, nothing new. Mike knows that. So do those running the city.

Ashland Administrative Secretary Fran Berteau says complaints about these things come across her desk fairly regularly.

"Last year it was probably a bit more so," she says. "Once it warms up, it will heat up again."

Overall, however, it's nothing new, she says.

But Mike thinks the downtown is doing its own impersonation of Mount St. Helens - boiling, brewing, spewing some occasional pressure and most importantly signaling a serious eruption that lies beneath the surface.

He points to the drop in the number of tourist visits to Oregon Shakespeare Festival last year as evidence. He says the city has gotten letters from disgruntled tourists and fretting business owners, as has the festival and the Chamber of Commerce.

"I bet you have too," he says.

He's right. We have. Not waves mind you, but a trickle of frustrated visitors who are fed up with panhandlers, nudists and transients who make them uncomfortable as they come for a weekend of plays, gourmet meals, wine tasting and drives in the country.

The Chamber of Commerce did not return either an e-mail or a phone call asking for comment about the issue.

City administrator Gino Grimaldi isn't alarmed, he says.

"I know it's out there and I know it's a concern, but it's not a topic of conversation," Grimaldi says.

Mike says that if it isn't obvious now, it will be when talk of a homeless camp heats up again. This single issue is the flash point to Mike.

The homeless camp, he says, will do nothing but invite an explosion of all the aforementioned problems, which will in turn ensure a mass exodus of the tourists.

The entire ethos of the city is a delicate balance. The very qualities that make the city the mystical theatrical place that it is can also be confused with less charming behavior, like aggressive panhandling, vandalism and petty theft.

OSF officials share some of Mike's concern, according to Amy Richard, OSF media relations manager.

"We are most concerned with people going to their lodging," Richard says, "and the theater and their restaurants and going to the park and hopefully have a pleasant time doing so."

The festival, which does an extensive survey of its audiences each year, has "piles and piles," of comments they are currently sorting through, according to Richard.

"We've heard a few comments about the panhandlers in town and that sort of thing," Richard says. "There is concern that we hear what people are saying and hope to address it and do something about it, but we haven't heard this is an overwhelming concern."

Richard says past topics like the construction on Siskiyou or smoke from forest fires also raised concern.

"It's hard to know exactly," she says.

The flash point

Mike's an entertaining guy who regales me with stories of passing out money to homeless people late at night and heading to the forests years ago to protest what he views as excessive logging. He explains how he came to Ashland specifically to be a liberal business owner. He loves the politics, embraces the emphasis on the environment and welcomes intense scrutiny from the public.

"I'm no corporate business type," he says with arms outstretched, inviting my scrutiny. He certainly doesn't look it - clad in jeans, an earring in his ear, tattoo on his arm. His speech is punctuated with less than banker-type words. "But this whole thing could crumble and take us all with it."

Ashland has always lived near the edge of the cliff of reasonableness. The homeless camp is an open invitation for freeloaders from across the country to journey here, Mike says. The camp will hurl the entire local economy off the cliff.

Whether Mike speaks for many or an anxious few remains uncertain. What Mike hopes is that very soon people will defend what they have worked for and stop the homeless camp idea.

Helping our local homeless is great, Mike says. Building a Mecca for people to come and live off the government while taxpaying businesses are threatened is an entirely different matter.