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--> --> Officials warn Dignity Village PORTLAND (AP) - It seems the behavior at Dignity Village has been anything but dignified this fall. Troubled by reports of drunkenness and domestic violence, Mayor Vera Katz and Commissioner Erik Sten are warning residents that the tent city near Portland International Airport will be closed unless order is restored. Police have received 18 calls related to the homeless village since Oct. 7. One of the five domestic violence calls involved a registered sex offender, according to a police summary, and two others involved Ibrahim Mubarak, the camp's frequent spokesman. Last Thursday, a former resident who was booted out of the camp called Sten's office and threatened to "shoot up" the village and his wife, who still lives there, the summary says. Early Sunday, Mubarak and his wife were arrested on suspicion of domestic violence, according to police reports. The district attorney's office did not press charges at the couple's arraignment Monday afternoon. "This is a lot of calls in a short period of time, and it takes a lot of our resources to go out there," said Derrick Foxworth, commander of the Northeast police precinct. "If we were having this number of problems at an apartment building, I'd be meeting with the landlord or the tenant association and possibly considering a chronic nuisance letter." The tent city, founded a year ago as Camp Dignity under a bridge downtown, now sits with City Council approval on seven acres of city-owned property near the airport. But Katz and Sten, in a letter to residents, warn that the council's "support for the Village is predicated on the assumption that the Village remain free of violence and alcohol. If these types of illegal activities continue, we will be forced to conclude that this experiment has not succeeded." Village supporters say some of the trouble has come from residents who were kicked out and returned intoxicated. "There was a handful of people that needed to be ejected from the village permanently, and that was tremendously traumatic for village residents," said John Hubbird, a community organizer working with the village. "I'm confident that we're through the worst of that, but it has been a very difficult last six weeks." Jack Tafari, a resident, said the village plans to develop a protocol for when police should be called and route calls through a security liaison. The police summary includes one call from two residents complaining that another resident had poisoned their sugar. But Foxworth, the police commander, said 9-1-1 calls shouldn't be restricted. "The No. 1 types of calls we've been responding to seem to be domestic violence and disturbance calls," he said. "These are serious calls, not nuisance calls." Email your... Technical questions & comments to: WebMaster Daily Tidings editorial comments & questions to: Editor Visit our other Oregon Newspapers... | Albany Democrat-Herald | Ashland Daily Tidings | Corvallis Gazette-Times | | Lebanon Express | Newport News-Times | Springfield News | Cottage Grove Sentinel | Ashland Daily Tidings 1661 Siskiyou Blvd. Ashland, OR 97520 Telephone 541-482-3456 © Copyright 2001 Lee Northwest Publishing