Public urination could soon get twice as expensive in State College borough.
A proposed local ordinance would raise to $600 the maximum fine for the offense — up from the current maximum of $300. It would set $300 as the minimum fine. Under development and in discussion for more than six months, the proposal is expected to face a council vote in May.
Pittsburgh put a similar local measure into place in September, setting a public-urination fine of $500. That served as inspiration for State College, which has been crafting its own crackdown on public nuisances, borough Manager Tom Fountaine said. A separate proposal would impose stiffer penalties for State College residents who host repeated neighborhood disturbances, such as loud parties.
With the Public Urination and Defecation Ordinance, Fountaine said, the borough is looking largely to ‘bring attention to the fact that it really is illegal to pee in public. It’s not an OK act.’
‘One of the common things that police hear is, ‘Gee — I didn’t know it was illegal,” he said. ‘ … Our objective is not to raise revenue; it’s to deter the behavior.’
Citations issued for public urination in residential neighborhoods have held relatively steady in volume lately, though Fountaine and other local leaders said the issue has gained increasing attention, particularly in the Highlands neighborhood. Police issued 28 citations for public urination there in 2006; last year, there were 21 citations.
Residents see a lot more activity than that, as documented in a Highlands e-mail group. Even when police are unable to respond to public-urination incidents, neighborhood residents often document the misdoings via e-mail. That has helped residents to illustrate the extent of the problem to borough officials, said Bob Seibel, a former president of the Highlands Civic Association.
‘The (e-mail list) has encouraged people to record their observations, to get it on the books,’ Seibel said.
Having said that, Seibel added, he could not say with certainty whether the problem is worsening. The evidence is just too anecdotal to deliver any solid conclusions, he said.
Likewise, ‘whether (the incidence) is more or less is a matter of opinion,’ said Ron Madrid, president of the Holmes-Foster Neighborhood Association. His neighborhood borders the downtown to the southwest.
‘I can understand that there is a perception that it’s worse, but I can’t say it’s an issue that’s been brought up by anyone specifically in the Holmes-Foster neighborhood,’ Madrid said.
Still, the boroughwide numbers reflect a steady uptick in overall public-urination citations since 2005. From June 2005 to May 2006, borough police issued 265 citations for the offense; in the same period from 2008 to 2009, the total was 311.
‘It seems to be a perpetual problem,’ said Jody Alessandrine, executive director of the Downtown State College Improvement District. The Downtown Improvement District, or DID, employs a three-person ‘clean team’ that tidies up the downtown nearly every day.
Alessandrine said the DID spends about $7,500 a year on cleaning materials, most of which are disinfectants and other chemicals used to clean up urine.
So far, borough police have been able to slap the offenders only with disorderly-conduct violations, issued under the auspices of the state criminal code. By state law, disorderly-conduct fines are capped at $300.
If Borough Council passes the local ordinance now under consideration, it would supplant state law in the borough and allow district judges to set the fines somewhere between $300 and $600.
But District Judge Carmine Prestia, a former officer with the State College Police Department, said he thinks the local proposal is unnecessary. He would prefer a more comprehensive approach and has lobbied state-level officials to raise the statewide disorderly-conduct fine to a $1,000 maximum, he said.
Under Prestia’s concept, district judges would have discretion to set the amount of each fine, as they do now. He said said the circumstances of each case warrant careful, deliberate consideration.
‘I am very cautious about raising the minimum fine. There are some things that don’t deserve a fine of several hundred dollars,’ Prestia said. ‘There are others that deserve $1,000.’
