Published April 9, 2021 at 10:05 AM PDT
April Ehrlich/JPR
A temporary camp set up in Hawthorne Park in Medford after the Almeda Drive Fire.
Just a short drive up Interstate Five through Medford yields a view of a large number of unofficial campgrounds and tents.
And the Medford City Council recently decided to crack down. The council met in special session to pass
an ordinance banning camping along the Bear Creek Greenway during fire season, but the ordinance goes much further, laying down a number of additional restrictions on where people can sleep or otherwise spend the night, including under bridges. And tents are prohibited; tent campers could be charged with a misdemeanor.
Want a Nice Park on Top of I-5? Too Bad, Democrats From the Suburbs Could Block It
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Did James Plymell need to die?
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Note: This story contains images of a recently deceased person.
A couple of stray dogs were running loose in the parking lot of the Linn County fairgrounds just after 8 a.m. on Oct. 23, 2019, and Gerry Morris, a community service officer (CSO) with the Albany Police Department in Oregon, was on his way to help round them up. Morris turned onto a street that snakes past the blank-looking backs of stores and homes wedged next to railroad tracks. He noticed a beat-up silver Nissan Sentra stranded in the bike lane, partially blocking the road. A man with salt-and-pepper hair, who was wearing baggy gray sweatpants and a sleeveless blue shirt, was struggling to push it out of the way, but he didn’t appear to be making much progress. The dogs could wait.