State Supreme Court Upholds Local Control of Public Safety; Rules in Favor of City of Lacey

LACEY, WA - [edited] On July 3, 2024, Washington Supreme Court upheld the City of Lacey’s parking ordinance that restricts long-term parking of RV's and other similar vehicles on public streets and other public properties. The case was filed in 2020 by a man named Jack Potter who claimed he had the constitutional right to live, undisturbed by the city, in his 23-foot trailer on city property. Today, he lost his case.

The ruling stated:

“The Washington Constitution provides municipalities with police powers to protect health and safety: ‘Any county, city, town or township may make and enforce within its limits all such local police, sanitary and other regulations as are not in conflict with general laws.’ WASH. CONST. art. XI, § 11.”

This case will likely influence the outcome of similar homeless-focused cases, including the January 3, 2024 lawsuit against the City of Burien, lodged by three homeless individuals and the Seattle/King County Coalition on Homelessness.

Counsel for Plaintiff Jack Potter in the Lacey case includes the Northwest Justice Project, who is also representing the plaintiffs in their legal challenge to the City of Burien. [Seattle Times]. 

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Today’s ruling in favor of Lacey comes on the heels of Friday’s U.S. Supreme Court decision (June 28, 2024), which affirmed cities are constitutionally allowed to create and enforce their own camping ordinances and restrictions. The SCOTUS decision reinforced that cities have local control, especially as homelessness and housing issues have escalated throughout the country.

The Washington Supreme Court decision may also carry some weight in the legal case where King County Sheriff is questioning the "constitutionality" of Burien's "camping ordinance" No. 832.

According to the Potter v Lacey ruling, the Plaintiff Jack Potter had been parking his truck and 23-foot travel trailer on “public lots and streets in the city of Lacey.” But in May 2019, Potter had parked his vehicle and trailer in the Lacey City Hall parking lot, and was living there full-time with other “vehicle-sheltered individuals.”

This prompted the city to pass an ordinance in the fall of 2019 barring people from “parking such large vehicles and trailers on public lots and streets for more than 4 hours per day.” Based on the new ordinance, the city ordered Potter to “move his trailer and truck off the city hall parking lot and off Lacey streets.”  Potter and the other “vehicle-sheltered individuals” complied and moved. 

However, in August 2020,  with the help of the non-profit homeless advocacy group, Northwest Justice Project, Potter sued the City of Lacey for violating the rights of “homeless people who live in their vehicles.” The plaintiff claimed that the city was impeding “his right to freedom of travel guaranteed by the Washington Constitution.”

Over the last four years, the case made its way to Washington State’s top court.

In their Opinion Summary [Full Document], they included the following points:

* "municipalities have the right to enact parking and driving laws of general applicability, even if they limit the ability of residents to use the streets."

* "federal “right to travel is not a right to travel in any manner one wants, free of state regulation”

* “The power to regulate the use of streets and highways by restrictions on the parking of vehicles is one universally recognized, and its reasonable exercise is consistently upheld.”

In their Analysis:

"Potter has failed to show that Lacey’s parking ordinance violates his asserted state constitutional right to reside in the manner that he has chosen."

In their Conclusion:

"Does the RV parking ordinance codified in LMC 10.14.020-.045 violate Potter’s claimed Washington State constitutional right to intrastate travel? No. Potter has not established that his claimed constitutional right to travel intrastate, or Potter v. City of Lacey, No. 101188-113 to not travel intrastate, or to reside, protects his preferred method of residing in Lacey: by siting his 23-foot trailer on a public street in violation of generally applicable parking ordinances."

Today’s ruling Potter v. Lacey affirmed that the City of Lacey and other cities have the “constitutional authority to adopt parking laws of general applicability.” [Full Opinion Here]  It also sets an important precedent regarding local control, especially since it relates to a small city so close to Burien.

Burien.News will report further as we learn how this influences the current cases against the City of Burien.

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