Lane County eyes curfew on downtown homeless camp site

EUGENE, Ore. (AP) – Lane County may implement an overnight curfew on a parking lot in downtown Eugene where homeless campers have recently set up tents.

The Register-Guard reports county commissioners are set Tuesday to discuss a proposed ordinance that would ban occupancy of the county-owned “butterfly lot” and surrounding property between 11 p.m. and 6 a.m.

A draft of the ordinance attached to commissioners’ Tuesday meeting agendas say the curfew also would affect neighboring county-owned property such as the Lane County Public Service Building,

The county already has implemented a curfew on the Wayne Morse Free Speech Plaza outside the Public Service Building. But county documents say the new ordinance would apply to “the only piece of public property in the immediate downtown Eugene area that did not have a curfew prohibiting occupation from 11 p.m. to 6 a.m.”

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Information from: The Register-Guard, http://www.registerguard.com