Following more than five hours of public comment that stretched into early Wednesday morning, the Morgantown City Council approved a measure expanding its laws targeting homeless people who camp in public. Council members voted four to three in favor of the ban. 

The ordinance prohibits camping on any public property — including streets, parks and trails — and also prohibits storing personal property in public areas. Second and third violations of the law are punishable by fines of $200 and $300 and/or 30 days in jail, respectively. 

Morgantown already had an ordinance banning camping or temporary lodging within a park without the written consent of the city manager. 

Councilwoman Louise “Weez” Michael originally proposed the ban during the regular July 2 meeting of city council, just days after a ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court upholding an Oregon city’s public camping ban. In the June 28 decision, the Supreme Court ruled that ordinances by the city of Grants Pass, Oregon, prohibiting homeless people from sleeping within the city limits do not violate the Constitution’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment. 

During the July meeting, Michael said she believes homeless people sleeping in public “has become an immediate and serious safety and health issue that we can no longer wish the issue to go away. … We need to send a message that this city will no longer tolerate nefarious behaviors.” A first reading of the legislation was approved with a 4-3 vote on Aug. 20. 

The vote, which took place around 1:30 a.m. Wednesday morning, followed public comments from more than 25 speakers, all but a couple of who opposed the ban. Molly Kennedy, a representative of the American Civil Liberties Union of West Virginia, told the council that the human rights organization would be watching closely if the ordinance passed. An attorney for the organization told West Virginia Watch in July that despite the Grants Pass decision, there are other constitutional challenges that could be made against camping bans. 

Elrick Rose, of Morgantown, was one of at least two homeless people who spoke against the ban during the meeting.

“When I heard about this ordinance, it made me feel afraid,” he told the council. “More afraid than I normally do every night. Being homeless isn’t a choice. We’re not out there because we want to shoot up. We’re not out there because we’re lazy.”

He went on to say that the ordinance being discussed makes him feel like he’s not valued or welcome in the city and that the ordinance would make challenges against him “insurmountable.” 

Dozens of cities across the country have passed or considered similar camping bans in the two months after the Supreme Court’s decision. The new bans come after the United States saw an increase of 12% last year, the highest reported level since the US started doing “point in time” counts of homeless people in 2007.

The cities of Wheeling and Parkersburg also passed ordinances banning public camping last year. 

Morgantown’s law is effective 30 days after the bill passes, provided the city has an emergency shelter that’s open and accepting new people. 

A representative of Mountain State Justice said Tuesday there would be a petition for a referendum on the ordinance to have it either repealed or put to a vote during the city’s election next year.

The West Virginia Mountaineers (0-1) host the Albany Great Danes (1-0) Saturday evening at Mountaineer Field for the first meeting between the two programs.

West Virginia vs. Albany

When: Saturday, September 7

Location: Mountaineer Field at Milan Puskar Stadium

Kickoff: 6:00 p.m. EST

Stream: ESPN+

Listen: Mountaineer Sports Network from Learfield IMG College (Radio affiliates)

WVU Game Notes

– The 2024 season marks West Virginia’s 132nd season of football. The Mountaineers are the 15th winningest program in college football.

– The 2024 year marks the 45th season of competition for West Virginia at Milan Puskar Stadium. WVU has a 197-77-4 (.716) all-time mark at the facility, which opened in 1980.

– WVU is 3-3 in games played on Sept. 7, including 3-0 at home. The last time WVU played on that date was in 2019 at Missouri (L 38-7) and the last time at home was against Western Michigan in 1996 (W 34-9).

– West Virginia is 34-45 against schools from the state of New York. The Long Island game in 2021 (W 66-0) marked the last school from New York, WVU has played.

– WVU is 38-17 in nonconference games since 2010, including 26-2 at home. The Mountaineers are 73-32 since 2000, including 50-8 at home.

– West Virginia is 21-0 against schools that play at the NCAA FCS level.

– Since 2002, the Mountaineers are 100-15 when winning the turnover battle.

– The Mountaineers are 84-74-3 all-time in games played at night, including 34-16-2 at home.

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The new in-helmet communication was an issue for West Virginia in their loss against Penn State on Saturday, with head coach Neal Brown explaining that it wasn’t working early in the Week 1 matchup for the Mountaineers.

Brown explained that communication was an issue early in the game and it forced the Mountaineers to go off their initial gameplan. That included going away from motions before the snap after a pair of bad snaps came on them.

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“We went to it after we took that,” Neal Brown said. “So, if you look at that play, that was in the third series. So, the first series of the game I think we went six plays. My mind’s working right. We went six plays and we had a couple where the play clock — in full transparency, our coach-to-player [communication] didn’t work the first series.”

The coach-to-player communication is new this year and it allows the coach to communicate with one player, typically the quarterback on offense, up to 15 seconds before the snap. That allows for some changes in how a team operates.

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When those in-helmet communications went out, it forced West Virginia to adapt. That included doing things like not going to a huddle and using hand signals.

“It went out, and I don’t know what the case was but we didn’t have our coach-to-player. So, we were gonna huddle the whole time but because the coach-to-player went out, we didn’t. So, we had some issues there.”

Certainly, the West Virginia offense struggled early in the game. Part of that can be attributed to first-game anxiety and the talented Penn State defense. Another part is likely related to those communication issues.

“First play after the turnover, we motioned. Garrett asked for the ball late. Ball hits him. Next play, we’re gonna run a running play because defensively we still got a stop after that. It was still 0-0. We get the ball back. Very next play is a motion play. We’re gonna run the ball…that ball goes boom, off. It was a really hard snap,” Brown said.

“So, at that point, I went off our opening script and just went to some very standard plays, really into that or we went to some motions that aren’t affected by the snap…we got away from those until later…we went back to them later and it was after Garrett had settled down a little bit.”

This also forced Neal Brown and West Virginia to use hand signals more than they initially planned, though they had been prepared to use those signals in the right occasions.

“We did it more than we were planning on. We wanted to play with some tempo vs. those guys because they wanted to match personnel. So, when they went to their their big sets, we wanted to play open…but to play fast you’ve got to still use signals. Okay,” Brown said. “Then, there’s some times when you’re gonna huddle. When you huddle, you don’t need signals. So, you’ve got to have plans for a rainy day, AKA the system goes out. So, you’ve got to still have the signals.”

West Virginia is going to hope to have an easier time communicating on Saturday when the Mountaineers host Albany.