Tim Burgess' City View

Facts on Seattle Social Services

There's been a lot of talk recently about how Seattle responds to homelessness and other social service challenges.  My open discussion about street disorder tied to aggressive panhandling has created quite a bit of response, including this thoughtful piece at Crosscut.com today.  Comments received by my office are running nearly 3:1 in favor of some limited restrictions on panhandling as a means of reducing street

Violent Crime Rate Increases Dramatically

We have experienced a surge in violent crime this year, according to police department crime stats through the end of July.  Total violent crime (homicide, rape, robbery, and aggravated assault) reported to the police increased 22% through the first seven months of the year compared to the same period last year.

The overall serious crime rate (Part One offenses, violent crimes plus burglary, theft, and vehicle theft) increased 6% through July.

The increase in violent crime is limited to two street-crime offenses--robbery and aggravated assault.  Robbery has increased 25% and aggravated assault (an assault involving a weapon and/or serious bodily injury) is up 22%.  Conversely, homicide is down 33% and rape is down 11%.

Vehicle theft continues to decline sharply, down 17% through July, continuing a drop that began several years ago when City Attorney Tom Carr launched a unique targeted prosecution effort aimed at the most frequent auto theft suspects. 

The crime rate increases we are seeing this year are an abrupt reversal of the multi-year decline we had been experiencing through last year.  In 2008, city reported crime dropped to levels last seen in the late 1960s. 

Big Vote On Downtown Park Boulevard

The Council voted 9-0 yesterday afternoon to create a four-block park boulevard on Bell Street between First and Fifth Avenues.  Read Seattle Times story here. 

This is a very big deal because this park boulevard will (1) improve pedestrian safety in this section of Belltown, one of the highest population density neighborhoods in the city, (2) improve public safety by bringing more people to the expanded sidewalks, and (3) increase our "green zone" in the center city. 

There is discussion underway about similar projects, including along Pike Street from the Market to the Convention Center, along Third Avenue, and perhaps in some outer neighborhoods.  All good ideas to further our goal of making Seattle the most walkable city in the country. 

Protecting Our Children

Mayor Nickels and I announced the assignment of specially-trained and hand-screened police officers to five Seattle middle schools today.  This is one element of the city's Youth Violence Prevention Initiative that will likely be approved by the full City Council before the end of April.  This news conference was held at Seattle Public Schools' headquarters.  I'll have more to say about this Initiative in the next few days.

City Budget Passes; More on Youth Violence

The Council voted this afternoon to adopt the 2009 City budget.  This document provides a summary of the various changes the Council made to the Mayor's proposed budget. 

Most significantly, the Council added funding for homeless services, domestic violence and sexual assault prevention, emergency food and nutrition services,library collections (e.g., books, tapes, videos, etc.), and youth violence prevention programs.

Stopping Youth Violence

Last January and February I spoke out about youth violence and gangs in our city.  Several of my colleagues on the Council have done the same.  Since then, I've written extensively on this topic on my blog (www.timburgess.com).  Unfortunately, this situation is spiraling downward.  There was extensive gun violence in the metro area this past weekend. 

The 2009 budget the Council passed today includes revisions to the Mayor's Youth Violence Initiative: adding police officers to select public schools, encouraging more police intervention efforts against gangs, increasing illegal gun interdiction efforts, and adding case management services for frequent offenders.  The budget also continues funding for additional police officers, part of a multi-year effort to increase the size of the police force.

Here are some immediate steps that can save lives and reduce violence in our city.

Guns are readily available to juveniles, and they are using them to kill! This problem of illegal guns must be addressed.   It is a regional problem that demands a regional and state solution.  More

Interesting Trivia

Here are a couple of tidbits to brighten your day.

Earlier today the city sold $205,080,000 in municipal bonds to finance water system capital projects and to convert some 1995 and 2002 bonds from variable to fixed rate.  This is the largest municipal bond sale in the country since the financial crisis began to unfold in September.  Five financial service companies participated in the competitive bidding process.  Merrill Lynch & Company won with an interest rate of 4.987%. This bond sale is significant because it is the largest in the past several months and because the interest rate is very competitive and very close to what the city would have achieved had the bonds been sold earlier in the year before the current economic downturn.  Kudos to the city's finance director, Dwight Dively, and his staff.

Working with local residents and business owners, the city will soon close several downtown alleys to anyone other than residents, property owners, or employees or customers of businesses adjacent to the alleyways.  Most of the alleys are in the Belltown and Pike-Pine corridor areas.  Once posted, these closures will allow police officers to question individuals in the alleyways, and in some circumstances make arrests for trespassing.  The alley closures are part of anti-crime efforts in the downtown section of the city aimed at suppressing open-air drug trafficking, public drinking and intoxication, prostitution, and other quality-of-life criminal behavior.  Kudos to police and traffic planners for an innovative solution. 

Stop Youth Violence

(Updated, Sunday, November 23, 2008) Tragically, another one of our children has been killed by gunfire.  He is Daiquan L. Jones, shot dead at a shopping mall just south of Seattle. Daiquan is the sixth young man this year to be gunned down this year. 

Here's the roster of Seattle children deaths this year—

Daiquan L. Jones, age 16, killed by gunfire on November 22, 2008 at Westfield Southcenter Shopping Mall. 

Quincy Coleman, age 15, killed by gunfire on October 31, 2008 near Garfield High School.

Pierre LaPoint, age 16, killed by gunfire on August 5, 2008 along Rainier Avenue South.

Perry Henderson, age 18, killed by gunfire on January 26, 2008 in the far south end of the city.

De’Che Morrison, age 14, killed by gunfire on January 11, 2008 on South Rose Street.

Allen Joplin, age 17, killed by gunfire on January 3, 2008 in Belltown.

We must stop this violence that rips at our city’s soul.  Fortunately, there are specific steps we can take to make a huge difference.  Other cities have done it and so can we.

Safer Streets Initiative Advances

The Council-generated 12-point Safer Streets Initiative (SSI) is moving along with passage this week by the King County Council's budget committee of funding recommendations for two special pilot projects we have proposed to address particularly urgent needs.  County Councilmember Bob Ferguson has been especially helpful with his support and guidance in navigating the County process. (Seattle's resolution to the   County Council supporting these projects is here.)

One project will create a joint police-mental health professional crisis intervention response team to respond to certain incidents where the combined power and expertise of the team is needed (SSI Step #1). Modeled on similar units in San Diego, Los Angeles, and Vancouver, B. C., this special unit would be created in partnership with King County and would be primarily available to respond in Seattle's West Precinct (downtown core) where approximately 125 to 130 incidents occur each week involving   individuals with mental health issues. This project would use $500,000 in county mental health and drug dependency funds over two years.       

The second project (SSI Step #2) would create safe housing and full, 24-7 specialized care services for children involved in street prostitution who want to escape that experience. The need for this type of housing and care services became clear when a city-funded study of child prostitution in Seattle/King County revealed that as many as 300-500 children may be involved. This project would use $960,000 in county funding. Read The Seattle Times' editorial this morning.

Mayor Nickels has announced that his 2009-2010 budget proposal will return police officers to some middle schools in the city's south end (SSI Step #8), a move strongly supported by the school district.       

The Mayor's budget is also expected to maintain the city's commitment to hire additional police officers through 2012 (SSI Step #5).

The SSI also calls for more "assertive" policing, especially focused on open-air drug markets, social disorder, and other quality-of-life street crime (SSI   Step #6). There is no doubt an expression of Council intent is needed on this issue, especially when many question whether or not the Council will provide the political and policy support police officers doing their jobs on the street will be watching for.   

Assertive policing is based on the premise that cops matter, that crime can be prevented and social disorder decreased when officers are present and engaged in proactive problem solving. Assertive policing has been successfully used in other U.S. cities.

If you doubt this approach to policing, read this article in The Seattle Times on how emphasis patrols (presence) and proactive policing has cleaned up the notorious Pike-Pine corridor downtown or this article on special police and prosecutor focus on high impact juvenile offenders.       

Read more about SSI here.