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Council Member Sala asks staff to explore vacating sidewalk near Rose shopping center and revising barking-dog ordinance
Summary
Council Member Sala asked staff to investigate whether vacating a sidewalk near the Rose Shopping Center could allow private enforcement of sidewalk-blocking activities and proposed revisiting a longstanding barking-dog ordinance that currently requires two households to file complaints.
Council Member Sala raised two items for staff consideration during the Sept. 23 Finance and Governance Committee meeting: (1) whether the city could vacate ownership of a sidewalk near the Rose Shopping Center (at Rose and Gonzales) so that enforcement of sidewalk-blocking vendor activity might be handled as a private-property trespass, and (2) whether the city should revisit its barking-dog ordinance adopted in the 1960s to change the enforcement threshold from two complaining households to a single household complaint.
Sala said a fellow council member recorded video showing food vendors blocking a sidewalk near the Rose Shopping Center and noted state law has decriminalized certain sidewalk-related activities, making enforcement difficult where the area remains a public right of way. "Since this law only applies to such activity on public property," Sala said, "is there ... a possibility to vacate ownership of the sidewalk to the Rose Shopping Center and then provide an easement where pedestrian traffic could continue? Once it's private property ... the owner would have more control." A staff member responded that if the property included the sidewalk and there were no public easements, a private owner would generally exercise more control similar to other privatization examples the council has considered.
On the barking-dog ordinance, Sala said the city code currently requires at least two households to file a complaint and asked staff to research whether other jurisdictions require only one complainant; she noted the ordinance appears to date from the 1960s. The committee chair and clerk noted that any referral on these subjects might go to a committee other than Finance and Governance, likely a committee handling public safety and community regulatory issues.
No formal action was taken at the meeting; Sala asked staff to look into the legal and procedural options and to report back to an appropriate committee for consideration.
