The city of Bend is moving toward excluding individuals who are found committing crimes in a broader area of downtown, but opposition from the public and two city councilors has influenced city officials to amend the current ordinance.

Recent amendments to a proposal to expand Bend’s civil exclusion zone are intended to cement individual rights, according to Bend Assistant City Attorney Gary Firestone.

The city has had an exclusion zone in the downtown breezeway to and through the Riverfront Plaza and all publicly owned property from the eastern side of Brooks Alley to Drake Park between Franklin and Oregon avenues since 2012.

The expanded zone would stretch from Greenwood Avenue south to Idaho Avenue, and east to Lava Road and Harriman Street from Broadway Avenue and the border of Drake Park.

The most recent draft, read by the council June 3, changed requirements for obtaining a specific exception to the exclusion zone. People excluded from the area may obtain a variance to see an attorney, attend a religious service or “otherwise exercise a constitutional right.”

Under the same draft, the ordinance no longer contains provisions to cancel or suspend specific exceptions to the exclusion if someone is found downtown at a time and for a purpose not covered by that specific exception, called a variance.

“We are trying to be as certain as we can that we are not limiting people’s rights,” Firestone said Friday. He said that certain provisions such as going to church or visiting family hadn’t been written into the original ordinance in part because the current exclusion zone does not extend to residential areas.

Bend Police Chief Jim Porter called the recent amendments “democracy in action.”

“We’d received direct feedback from the council on some of their concerns,” Porter said in an interview Thursday. “So we went in and strengthened some of those areas in protecting an individual’s rights.”

He has argued that the expanded exclusion zone could increase efficiency — last year the department ramped up downtown foot patrols, to the tune of about $62,000 in regular and overtime police hours.

Between 2013 and 2014, downtown calls for service decreased about 15 percent and person-to-person crimes such as assault decreased 26 percent.

By excluding certain repeat offenders, Porter has said, it may help further reduce the number of calls downtown, which accounts for 1 percent of the city’s landmass yet yields 5 percent of calls for police services.

Bend Police have served six people with exclusion notices this year, and excluded 13 last year and 19 in 2013, according to data provided by the police department to The Bulletin.

Barb Campbell, the most vocal opponent of the zone on the city council, said as an owner of a downtown business, she doesn’t feel the ordinance will resolve the issue of crime downtown, which she believes is connected in large part to the number of drinking establishments downtown . Campbell also sits on the county’s local public safety coordinating committee.

“I ask this over and over: Does anybody think we’re actually going to stop those crimes?” Campbell said in an interview Friday. “The answer has never been yes. We’re just moving it out of downtown.” She worries crime will be displaced to other areas of the city, such as NW Galveston Avenue or the Old Mill District, and may be unfairly applied.

Other Oregon cities have experimented with exclusion zones. Both Portland and Eugene opted to do away with them. In Portland, an exclusionary policy was found to be disproportionately exercised against minorities, according to the ACLU of Oregon. In 2007 then-mayor Tom Potter elected to let the zone expire. The city of Eugene let its exclusion zone expire in 2013.

Firestone said Friday that the city of Bend has considered those cities’ experiences “to some extent.” An exclusion cannot be handed down in Bend unless a police supervisor has approved it, according to the ordinance.

People excluded also have five business days to appeal the order. In the short history of Bend’s exclusion zone, however, no one has appealed.

The next reading of the ordinance will take place Wednesday. If approved, the ordinance will go into effect 30 days thereafter.

— Reporter: 541-383-0376, cwithycombe@bendbulletin.com