School District 55, the Sweet Home Police Department and business owners around Sweet Home High School are taking steps and looking for solutions to stem the large gatherings of youths and a new littering problem on sidewalks and around businesses in the area.
Eight business and church representatives met with school district and police officials last week on Tuesday to discuss the problem.
Over the last year, calls to police have escalated about youths gathering around businesses in the high school area, Police Chief Bob Burford said. Several years ago, the most common problem was smoking. The city and school district dealt with that through an ordinance and a partnership to cut down on youth smoking.
The problem now, “smoking appears to be a minor part of it,” Chief Burford said, is that the youth are gathering and are an “intimidation factor.”
Chief Burford said he heard reports last year of middle-aged and elderly women walking along the sidewalks, and they would prefer to go around on the opposite sidewalk rather than walk by the gatherings. There is no crime unless the youths were to actively block the sidewalks and prevent passage.
The majority of those who are the attraction are not students, Chief Burford said. They gather in the area before and after school and during lunch. Police believe that a couple of the youths were selling narcotics last year and that was part of the attraction.
Police caught some evidence of the activity on videotape last year but could not prove anything, Chief Burford said. Police decided that if the youths could intimidate the public, police could do likewise and put uniformed officers and patrol cars with cameras in the area. The result was the gathering shifted from the Donut Supreme on the corner of Long and 15th to Dr. Wolthuis’ parking lot or on down to the River of Life Fellowship as police moved with them.
“This year, we’re getting more complaints than usual,” Chief Burford said. Littering appears to be the biggest problem. Among the biggest problems there is disposable trays from the high school cafeteria.
High school officials said that could be stopped immediately by not allowing the trays to leave the high school.
Business owners expressed concern over the gatherings.
Referring to large groups of youths in front of the Workman & Steckly Funeral Chapel, “I’ve expressed to the kids that people when they’re grieving don’t want to come by you,” owner Bruce Workman said. It has not affected the business itself, but persons going into the chapel have shared those feelings with Workman.
A Wells Fargo representative told how a group typically gathers nears the dumpsters in the morning, with at least two individuals smoking who do attend the high school.
“It’s become quite a problem with my elderly customers,” she said. It is an intimidation factor. At lunch time, there is a problem with litter, including trays and milk cartons, and the youths can get boisterous. “We ask them not to do it. They ignore us.”
If asked to leave the parking lot, they move to the sidewalks around the business, she said.
“Usually, when I ask them to leave, they’ll leave during the day,” River of Life Pastor Gary Hooley said. “But they always return.”
Little Promises’ Vanessa Swindall said that the daycare is not having as much of a problem with youths in the parking lot this year. They have tended to congregate around the Sweet Home Evangelical Church.
She would approach them on a daily basis and tell them that they are role models for the children in the daycare and suggest that, out of respect, they move somewhere else. She must do that each year with a new group of freshmen coming into the high school.
“I get along with most of the kids,” Speedee Mart owner Christian Kim said. Every year, when there are new kids, “they are the only ones I have problems with.”
He tells the smokers to go away and has had some “very bad feedback,” he said. He response by saying, “If I allow you to smoke in the parking lot, I’m condoning (it).”
Chief Burford explained that to charge a person for trespassing or offensive littering, business owners need to be able to identify the offender. When they call police, they need to know exactly who is committing the offense.
For most of the youths, a criminal trespass charge is like “killing a fly with a hand grenade,” Chief Burford said. The majority of the youths are going to do as they are asked but for the influence of a small percentage. “It is a tool, if push comes to shove, that we can use.”
Persons may only be charged with disorderly conduct if they obstruct traffic in the public right-of-way, blocking sidewalks for example, Chief Burford said, but that means they must deliberately block someone from passing.
Intimidated by these groups, some persons cross to the other side of the road half a block away rather than get in that situation, Chief Burford said.
As a solution to the litter, school officials will include a note in announcements, Vice Principal Steve Fletcher said, and lunch trays will not be allowed out of the building.
At times other than lunch, there should not be high school students outside the high school, gathering around businesses, Fletcher said. The school is closed at those times. If students are gathering at that time, business owners are encouraged to call the high school.
Most of the kids gathering are not students, Fletcher said.
“Something the city may want to look at is a daytime curfew,” Fletcher said.
The group discussed closing the campus, which is open only during lunch.
Six years ago, Supt. Bill Hampton said, the district surveyed 32 businesses and found that half wanted to keep an open campus.
“Students were opposed to it,” Supt. Hampton said. The board looked at it, but did not want to close campus. The district looked at closing campus six years and 11 years ago. The community seems to prefer to “allow more decision making” for its students. “I for one am opposed to open campus.”
The problems among high school students are a specific group of individuals, Supt. Hampton said. “If we remove certain ones, we won’t have problems with an open campus.”
“There are only about 50 kids,” Principal Pat Stineff said. “The other 750 are doing exactly what they’re supposed to be doing.”
Among the arguments in the past about the open campus policy was that closing the campus punished the students who were doing nothing wrong.
Stineff pointed out logistical problems in closing campus. Closing campus would require a split lunch period because the high school does not have the facilities to feed all the students at the same time.
Church of Christ at 18th and Long Pastor Jeff Gallup suggested closing campus temporarily in response to problems around the high school area businesses.
“I think we need to voice to the kids that the open campus is a privilege,” Janet McLain of Dr. Wolthuis’ office said. Peer pressure from other youths, resulting from the closed campus, may keep those causing problems in line.
Closing campus for a week and seeing what happens, Gallup said, “that’s when the peer pressure from the other 700 might come into play.”
The school already uses similar tools to deal with widespread behavioral issues inside the school, Supt. Hampton said. When litter becomes a problem in halls, for example, the school may cut off the morning break period.
The whole issue centers around consequences, Police Sgt. George Dominy said. Youths are told that if they come back to the area, they’re going to jail. Law enforcement, schools and businesses get busy, and it never happens.
“We’re too easy,” Sgt. Dominy said. “These people do it time and time again because they know they can get away with it. There’s no consequences for their actions, and they know that.”
Businesses need to be involved and pursue charges, Sgt. Dominy said.
Keying in on some of those causing the most problems, including narcotics sales, may have a strong effect, Chief Burford said. At the same time, using peer pressure in the schools may help.
The school district would follow up with a note to parents and students warning that students may be warned for trespass and possibly prosecuted for hanging around on business property.
Supt. Hampton agreed with Sgt. Dominy.
Efforts like this in the past have been started, Supt. Hampton said, “then staff gets busy and doesn’t follow up.”
Supt. Hampton also said he would like to focus on underage youths smoking within 1,000 feet of school.