MARQUETTE – The Marquette City Commission approved an ordinance Tuesday that clarifies prohibitions on overnight camping on city-controlled property.

The ordinance dates back to March 31, when it was originally introduced at a commission meeting, but further action on the proposal was tabled until further discussion of the ordinance took place.

The language of the ordinance says that it is unlawful to occupy any city-owned property overnight without prior permission from the city. It will also be unlawful to sleep in a vehicle on city-owned property as well.

One of the conditions for adopting the ordinance was to revisit how it is being applied before the end of this year.

“If we’re going to revisit this in six months, I would like to see how the ordinance is actually being used effectively in the next six months,” said Commissioner Cody Mayer. “Anytime the police department is using this ordinance, I would like to just understand in what instances is it being used and how those situations are resolved.”

While the ordinance was proposed to address camping in public parks, some had concerns about how it would be applied to Marquette’s homeless population. Room at the Inn Executive Director Chelsie Wilkinson was on hand to discuss the revised ordinance.

Wilkinson said that city officials attended a meeting to “tweak that ordinance to make that less harmful for the folks that the Room at the Inn serves but also gives the police department the latitude they needed to keep our community safe.”

“I do really appreciate the opportunity to revisit it in six months. I would also encourage the idea to reinstitute some sort of homelessness task force,” Wilkinson said. “Prior to COVID there was a pretty robust task force that was made up of governmental agencies, public agencies and of course, nonprofit agencies that were really working together to come up with solutions that don’t just lean on short-staffed and underfunded nonprofits to do all of that work.”

“No matter what ordinance is passed, we’re still going to have neighbors who are sleeping outside and in their cars, so having the ordinance doesn’t make these people disappear.” Wilkinson said.

The commission adopted ordinance 25-02 with a vote of 6-1, with Mayer being the lone “no” vote.

The full ordinance can be read online at https://www.marquettemi.gov/commission/ under the “Agendas/Meetings” tab on the website under the May 27 meeting date.

Randy Crouch can be reached at 906-228-2500. His email address is rcrouch@miningjournal.net