The American Civil Liberties Union said it will be closely monitoring Uptown Station for any constitutional violations as a revised code of conduct takes effect.
The ACLU of Illinois asked the Town of Normal to repeal or change its revisions with the town council approved July 21, over objections from social service organizations who argued the rules target homeless people.
The letter was cosigned by the Chicago Coalition to End Homelessness.
Rebecca Glenberg, chief litigation attorney for the First Amendment for the ACLU of Illinois, objected to three main points outlined in the code, including the town's ban on soliciting.
“What you can’t regulate is the content of someone’s speech such as, ‘May I have a dollar please?'” Glenberg said in an interview on WGLT’s Sound Ideas.
Town staff said that ban on solicitation has been in place at Uptown Station since the transportation center opened in 2012.
Glenberg said the code gives town staff too much leeway for removing people and for removing their personal property. She said those could also be grounds for a lawsuit.
“That will really depend on how the ordinance is implemented, and we will be watching the implementation to ensure that people’s Constitutional rights are not violated,” Glenberg said, adding the representatives of the Bloomington-Normal ACLU chapter alerted the statewide chapter of the proposed ordinance ahead of the town council’s vote.
The town updated the code after more homeless people gathered in and near Uptown Station in recent months. Town staff said their presence led to problems. A nearby business owner said they had to call the police on them for disruptive behavior more than once.
In a three page response to the ACLU’s request, the town’s corporation counsel, Jason Querciagrossa, cited court cases which he interpreted as an allowance to adopt certain restrictions.
“Courts considering rail and subway facilities have likewise rejected the proposition that station property is inherently or categorically a traditional public forum,” he wrote in a response to the ACLU.
Querciagrossa told the ACLU its revised conduct policy is legal and will administer it "reasonably,” indicating that Uptown staff will try to locate the owner of unattended property.
In a memo issued Friday, the day before the revised policy took effect, Normal’s Director of Inspections and Facilities, Mark Clinch, provided guidance to town staff, parking management and security personnel on how to address unattended property.
The memo stated staff should look in the immediate area for someone who may own the property and ask aloud and to people nearby whether the property belongs to them.
“Staff are not required to conduct a prolonged search for the owner,” Clinch said, adding that removal should not be delayed if the property is “blocking access, interfering with operations, creating a sanitation issue or creating a safety or security concern.”
The memo states if staff find the owner and they don’t comply, the code of conduct may be enforced.
Town staff have said the code is intended to foster compliance but could lead to people being removed from the property or arrested if they refuse to comply.
“The ordinance seems to provide a wide berth for removal of property, not withstanding those procedures. Nonetheless, we are glad to hear that they have those internal procedures and we hope that they will be implemented fairly,” Glenberg said.
