(The Center Square) – Parents could face criminal charges in Richland for allowing their children to ride illegal electric bikes and e-motorcycles, under a proposal considered by the city council Tuesday night.
If approved, the ordinance would create a new misdemeanor offense for “failure to supervise a child.”
Police Chief Martin Pilcher proposed the ordinance in response to growing concerns among community members about repeated juvenile conduct creating quality-of-life issues, particularly involving e-bikes.
State law regulates e-bikes to an extent, but there’s some ambiguity around what an e-motorcycle is.
Lawmakers passed a bill in March, directing a work group to recommend new regulations for e-motos.
“This is a big problem,” Councilmember Jhoanna Jones said Tuesday. “I do hear it on a daily basis from my husband, who has to arrest these kids on the streets. They are not driving on the sidewalk; they’re driving on the streets, using these e-bikes and motorcycles that parents buy for them for Christmas.”
She cited an incident from last week where a teenager on an e-bike died in Pasco after hitting an SUV.
Pilcher told the dais that the misdemeanor offense is intended for situations involving repeat juvenile offenders and egregious incidents where additional accountability is warranted. He said officers would issue a warning at first, before charging the parents in any subsequent incidents involving their child.
The council voted 5-2 on Tuesday, setting the proposal up for final consideration in the coming weeks.
The law mirrors that of Kennewick and Pasco, the other two jurisdictions that make up the Tri-Cities.
Jones said the ordinance is meant to save taxpayer dollars that Richland would otherwise spend on sending officers to ticket children for riding e-motos or on calling an ambulance after an accident.
“We’re doing this to save money [for] the taxpayer, but in reality, we’re saving lives,” she explained.
While there was broad consensus on the need to address e-bikes and e-motos, not everyone agreed on a provision that would make it unlawful to leave children unsupervised for “unreasonable” periods of time.
Councilmember Kurt Maier supports holding parents accountable for “giving their kids illegal e-motos,” but said that not everyone has the same view of what constitutes an “unreasonable” amount of time.
“I think if you asked everyone in this room what an unreasonable period of time is, you’d get about 15 different answers, and I don’t think that’s an adherable standard,” Maier said. “I don’t want to put RPD in a situation where they’re not sure if they can do anything, because what does unreasonable mean?”
“I moved to Richland because it was a place my kids could be unsupervised,” Maier continued. “They got to have the experience I had back in Gen X, where I rode my bike with my friends all day, and came home when the street lights were on; lots of people today would consider that unreasonable.”
He argued that what constitutes an “unreasonable” amount of time depends on the child and parents.
Mayor Pro Tem Shayne VanDyke and Jones argued that leaving “unreasonable” as an undefined period would give officers more discretion to enforce the ordinance when they deem it appropriate. They both want to leave the ordinance as proposed, but Councilmember Ryan Whitten also expressed concerns.
Like the rest of the dais, Whitten wants to address children riding e-bikes and e-motos dangerously in Richland, but he said that, as written, the ordinance essentially says “trust me, bro” to city residents.
He and Maier voted against holding a second reading in the coming weeks because of that provision.
“I don’t think that we’re doing them a service by passing legislation or an ordinance that is that overly broad. I would like to see that one stricken completely,” Whitten said. “I really don’t think that we need to have that in place in order to accomplish the mission that we’re trying to achieve here.”
The dais will revisit the proposal for a second reading and a final vote sometime in the coming weeks.
