Tim Burgess' City View

Demand-Based Parking Showing Promise

A few cities around the U.S., including Seattle and San Francisco, are trying new on-street parking management techniques to reduce cruising for open parking spaces and ensure one or two available spaces on each block. Today's New York Times has an article about how San Francisco's experiment is going. Just like here in Seattle where Councilmember Mike O'Brien and I led the effort to switch to demand-based parking management, San Francisco's effort shows promise.

Read my earlier posts on better on-street parking management strategies here.

Seattle City Light Strategic Plan

Seattle City Light, our city's electric utility created in 1902, is in the final stages of drafting its five-year strategic plan. This plan will affect the priorities of the utility and your electricity rates. There are many ways you can weigh in online or at public forums next week. More information is available at www.seattle.gov/light/strategic-plan.

Seattle Channel City Inside/Out

Councilmembers Bagshaw and Rasmussen and I joined host Brian Callanan for the March taping of City Inside/Out: Council Edition. You can watch our conversation below as we touch on issues related to education, public safety, transportation and a new sports arena.

Seattle Channel Video can be played in Flash Player 9 and up

Seattle is Leading on Education Reform

There has been lots of discussion lately about the best path forward on public school reform. There has even been a public airing of the frustration some Democrats feel over the slow pace of reform and their belief that teachers’ unions are dragging their feet and resisting substantive changes to the status quo.

While these debates continue, Seattle is purposefully moving forward with an initiative predicated on a fundamental tenet of education reform—that we measure student academic performance and adjust our strategies when performance lags.

Victory for Minors Exploited Through Prostitution

Washington was the first state to criminalize human trafficking and today our State Legislature took another giant step by making advertisers accountable for their role in the exploitation of children. 

The State House of Representatives unanimously passed ESSB 6251 this afternoon. The Senate passed the bill earlier without dissent. The legislation prohibits knowingly publishing advertisements for a commercial sex act involving a minor and requires that advertisers—including online advertisers like backpage.com—keep records of the identification they use to verify the age of the person depicted in the advertisement or else face prosecution.

The unanimous bipartisan support for this bill signals that local and state policymakers continue to be united in our efforts to stop the horrific violence against children through coercive prostitution.

Read earlier posts on this issue here.

New Street Parking Policies: Are They Working?

In the fall of 2010, the City Council adopted new on-street parking management policies.

These new policies were designed to (1) keep one or two spaces available on each block in our neighborhood business districts, (2) reduce congestion and environmental harm from cruising for an open space, (3) and shift from a revenue-based orientation to an outcome-based orientation. (I wrote extensively about these new policies when they were being developed.)

Now, there are new concerns that the parking policy changes made in 2010 are adversely impacting businesses, essentially driving customers away. There are specific concerns about the decision to extend pay periods from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. in certain neighborhoods. (As a clarification, the Mayor sets the times of day for paid parking; the City Council determines the days of the week.) However, collected occupancy data shows the new policies are working as they were intended.

In the Chinatown-International District, a study of occupancy this past fall by SDOT showed that

"Data collected in September 2011 showed that the new evening parking hours in Chinatown/International District are achieving the intended results.  The City Council approved policy calls for parking spaces to be occupied between 65% and 83% of the time. Parking occupancy at 7:00 PM was measured at 78%, right in the target range of one to two open spaces. Data from our pay stations also shows transactions per day have been consistent in Chinatown/International District since September.  This preliminary data is consistent with data we’ve seen in the other neighborhoods where parking was extended to 8 PM in 2011."

SDOT will soon complete another citywide assessment of parking occupancy and further divide neighborhood parking areas into smaller zones which will allow even more precision in setting meter rates and hours to achieve the desired outcomes. Later this year, we'll all be able to pay on-street parking meter fees by cell phone.

Ignite Seattle

We tried something different this week at the first meeting of the Council's Government Performance and Finance Committee and it worked. Ignite talks are being used around the country to communicate information quickly. At Ignite events, presenters share their personal and professional passions, using 20 slides that auto-advance every 15 seconds for a total of just five minutes.

Final Roosevelt Decision Upholds Neighborhood Values

The City Council voted 7-2 (Harrell and Godden in opposition) this afternoon to approve the Roosevelt rezone proposal.  The final legislation mandates landscaped setbacks at the ground level to achieve wider sidewalks and wider view corridors to the high school, further setbacks between 35 and 45 feet to create building modulation and an even wider view corridor, incentives for workforce housing, a requirement that any off-street parking that may be offered go underground, residential units only on Northeast 66th Street facing the high school except at the corners of the buildings and preservation of appropriate scaling to the east across 15th Avenue Northeast which has an existing 40 foot height limit.

Human Trafficking: The Evidence is Clear

I'm going to Olympia this afternoon to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee on a package of bills related to the growing problem of human trafficking.

Nicholas Kristof wrote an illuminating article yesterday in The New York Times that described how the Internet has become the primary marketing tool of those who "sell" young women for profit.  It's not a topic we will likely raise at dinner tonight, that's for sure.  But, the commercial sexual exploitation of our children demands moral clarity and a keen focus.

So what are the facts of sex trafficking in our region?

Yesterday, my office completed a compilation and review of criminal prosecutions in Seattle-King County over a 42-month period ending in August 2011.  We found that 67 offenders had been charged and prosecuted over the 42 months.  These 67 individuals had victimized more than 78 girls and women in King County.

We have gathered together key documents from these cases in one place so the public can gain a sense of the psychological abuse and violence committed against these women. As a warning, the documents contain graphic and disturbing information. Details on the cases and links to the case stories are available in this table.

The remarks I will be sharing with our legislators this afternoon follow the jump. 

Potpourri: Seattle Police Doing Good, New York's Almost Crime Free Central Park

Two important factoids this morning.

First, Judy Lightfoot, writing over at Crosscut.com, makes the case for SPD's Crisis Intervention Team and the hundreds of officers with advanced training for dealing with people with mental health challenges.  It's a good piece that showcases the exemplary work done every day by Seattle police officers.

Second, when you think of Central Park in New York City do you shudder and think of runaway crime and disorder?  Would you walk your dog or jog in Central Park after dark?

You may be surprised by what's happened in Central Park in recent years.  A couple of weeks ago, The New York Times reported on a nearly crime-free Central Park.  Smart policing can produce amazing results; it proves that urban crime is not something we must shrug our shoulders over and accept.

And here's another believe it or not factoid out of New York City.  The High Line, an elevated park extending over a mile and designed by James Corner—the same urban designer working on our central waterfront—has been crime free since it opened two-and-a-half years ago.  Crime free!  There hasn't been one reported major crime on the High Line. (Seattle will begin work later this year on our ground-level version of the High Line on Bell Street between Fifth Avenue and First Avenue in Belltown.)

Criminologist Franklin Zimring argues in his new book, The City That Became Safe, that the long-held belief that large urban cities will always have a minimum threshold level of crime is false. He says New York City's experience since 1991—they have eliminated 80% of major crime—proves that smart policing can produce amazing results, even in areas where crime has flourished for years. It will be difficult and require intense focus, but we can do the same here in Seattle.