Congratulations to the town of Kilgore Texas! In your reactive zeal, coupled with your apparent inability to tell the difference between homelessness, vagrancy, criminal activity, parking, and camping, you have lumped a number of unrelated people and activities into one group, passed an ill-conceived reactive law against them, and lost (at least) thousands of dollars a year in tourists dollars. In the long term, the loss to the revenue stream will run into the millions Ironically, the rv parks, who were probably fanning the flames on this, won't see much, if any, increase in their revenues. Now rv'ers (an extremely lucrative lot) will simply pass on through and spend their massive collective dollars elsewhere. Good job, folks!

Preventing RV'ers to stay overnight (not camp) is a dumb idea. When we stay overnight, at places like Wal*Mart, we call ahead and ask for permission. We then usually shop in Wal*Mart and have dinner in town somewhere. If we like it and feel welcome we may stay a second day and shop some more. If we really like it the first night/day, we then find an RV park & stay there for a few days. However, if we call and find we cannot stay overnight, we simply avoid that town and go where we feel welcome. We are in our Class A motorhome about 6 - 8 months a year. We have just toured the upper part of the lower Michigan. We bought some great cheese and sausage in Traverse City. We should have bought more. I called the store and bought over $100 and had them ship the food to me. So.... welcome RV'ers. We have $$$ and we spend it. Ernie

As an RV owner and traveler in Texas (a very pro-RV state,) I will make it a point to not spend any time or money in your town. Your solution to vagrancy is also an affront to those of us who are responsible citizens. I will also let others in the RV community know of your ruling so that they may try to boycott your town as now being inconvienient and hostile to RV'ers. We are tired of being lumped in with the homeless, irresponsible, inconsiderate, and destitute. This is not the way to attract people from other places into your town to do business. If there is a wal-mart in your town then they now can not allow travelers and truckers a place to stop for rest. Count that as another loss of income for your community. From your story it sounds like the individual who complained about the man sleeping under the carport, has a lot of power in your town. Perhaps an RV park owner with other motives? Don't throw out the baby with the bath water! Good luck, Thomas Wince

As a Texas RVer, Ordinance No. 1466, which makes it illegal to "camp" inside the city limits of Kilgore except inside a designated RV Park or campground, appears as first glance to be a response to a vagrancy problem. However, the ordinance crafted in response to a vagrancy problem seems to be poorly researched and poorly worded, with extremely broad implications. For instance, we are full-time RVers and we definitely do not consider our 40' motor home to be a "temporary structure." We very rarely stop overnight outside of an RV park, but sdo ometimes find that to be our only reasonable choice. Being able to pull over late at night, or in bad weather, and sleep for a few hours in a large parking lot, normally with store manager's permission, can be a godsend. This ordinance appears to preclude our being able to do that in the Kilgore area. Knowing such a broad ordinance against overnight parking exists in Kilgore, we would be unlikely to stop in the area even for groceries or fuel. In too many cities with this kind of ordinance, RVers are harassed even when stopping briefly in the middle of the day to do some shopping. We are looking for a retirement home in East Texas, and in fact looked at one just south of Kilgore a few months ago. But we would not be likely to buy our retirement home in a community that is perceived to be "RV unfriendly." If Kilgore has a vagrancy problem, it is rather short-sighted to enact a "solution" that also threatens to kill a significant part of the tourism industry. We will follow this issue in Kilgore with great interest.

By the changing of the ordinance with a "blanket" ban on camping that includes RVs & Conversion Vans within the city limits, I will NO LONGER use Kilgore as my regular stop to and from Arkansas , Louisiana and Texas and then back home to Arkansas. I make approx. 6 trips a year and have always enjoyed Kilgore and filled up my gas tank, ate at the local restauarants and then parked my RV out of the way to leave the next morning to finish my trip home. I spent approx. $100-$150 in Kilgore on each trip. Now that you no longer welcome Me or the hundreds of other retired folks that travel in RVs and Conversion Vans, I will no longer spend almost $1000 a year in your town. Instead we will by pass you and stay in Longview or Henderson. There are hundreds like me that feel the same way. Your new ordinance has been posted for all RVers & Campers on national websites. We will only spend out money where we are welcome. Good luck. Kelly theoriginalkman

Banning tourists' RVs from parking overnight will not make Kilgore's crime rate go down. It will instead convince RVers to take their dollars elsewhere. I suggest you revisit this ordinance so that it accomplishes what you want it to do without impacting tourism. Jaimie Hall Bruzenak RV Lifestyle Ezine