Change in Moses Lake parks rules affects activity trails

MOSES LAKE — Bad behavior on the activity trails in Moses Lake can get people prohibited from their use under a revised ordinance approved by the Moses Lake City Council last week.  

The ordinance already applied to city parks.  

Mike Williams, captain with the Moses Lake Police Department, told council members at the regular meeting Oct. 23 that adding the city’s activity trail system would help with maintaining order along the activity trails, especially in certain parts of the city. 

“That’ll give us more options for enforcement,” Williams said. 

The ordinance prohibits people from using city parks if they have violated city regulations, state law or park rules. The prohibition doesn’t require that people be charged with or convicted of a crime or infraction in connection with their behavior to be excluded from using the park.  

The revisions do include changes to some of the exclusions. Moses Lake Police Chief Dave Sands said in a presentation Oct. 8 that the revisions were designed to provide law enforcement with more options. 

The revisions allow people to be excluded from city parks for a minimum of three days on the first offense. 

“It’s all about modifying behavior and trying to work within those confines,” Sands said.  

“We are pretty liberal in handing out exclusions, especially at certain times of year such as Springfest,” he said. “What we are asking for in this new model is to give us another (option of) a lower exclusion.” 

The previous minimum was one week. That will still be an option, depending on how many times a person has been kicked out of the park. One previous exclusion would result in being prohibited from being in a city park for up to seven days. 

Two or more previous exclusions from city parks can get a person kicked out for up to 90 days. The maximum penalty is exclusion for a year. That could go into effect if the person had been excluded from a park at least twice or committed a felony or weapons violation, according to the revised ordinance. 

There is an appeal process, where violators can make their case before the city’s parks, recreation and cultural services director. 

Sands said MLPD thought the previous rules were too cumbersome, and used a person excluded from the park during SpringFest as an example. 

People who commit infractions and are caught during SpringFest automatically were excluded for seven days under the previous ordinance.  

“If you make a mistake and have a minor infraction at SpringFest and then we come across you in a park, and you have something that’s a little more significant, now it’s 90 days and you get to appeal it,” Sands said. 

Officers might be more inclined to issue exclusions if there’s an option that doesn’t automatically start the appeals process, Sands said.  

“We have a clearer path that is less cumbersome,” Sands said. 

The MLPD is working with the city’s parks department to add signs explaining the rule, Sands said.