The Bee Garden. Thanks to Katie Myer at the West Seattle Blog.

Seattle has a new parade to add to the calendar of summer events. Yesterday the residents and gardeners of High Point and greater West Seattle welcomed bees to the new Neighborhood Matching Fund-supported hive enclosure at the High Point Commons Park P-Patch, the new West Seattle Bee Garden! Though I was not in costume, I was allowed to walk at the front of the parade followed by a swarm of kids, parents, the FC Sounders’ Sound Wave marching band, and the pickup truck transporting the four beautiful hand-crafted bee boxes (thanks to Shipwreck Honey), including one live hive.

Check out these short clips:

This was the first bee welcoming parade at High Point (and possibly in Seattle). The day started with face-painting and flower-making at West Seattle Elementary followed by the short but boisterous march down the hill and into the park. In the park people enjoyed music, checkout out food and craft vendors and generally swarmed around the new, plexi-glass enclosure waiting to see what would happen when the hive was opened. The trusty api-experts said the bees would be released later in the afternoon after settling down. They’d just bounced around a bit in a pick-up truck and ridden in the parade near the band. (Maybe they prefer classical?) They were likely angry for a while after being finally placed in the new hive enclosure.

This is such a great community building project and a great addition for a P-Patch. Thanks, High Point!

There were a lot of great bee and ladybug costumes. This one, because of the hat with bees buzzing around it on this wires, was my favorite:

“The keeping of bees is like the direction of sunbeams.” Henry David Thoreau

As chair of the City Council’s Committee on Economic Resiliency and Regional Relations I get to advocate for farmers markets across Seattle and the multiple benefits they bring – neighbor-to-neighbor social action in neighborhoods once a week, a sales outlet for farmers east and west of the mountains, opportunities for “value added” products like cheese, smoked fish, pasta and bread, spin-off activity in neighboring businesses and more.

Most people already know that Seattle’s farmers markets are a great source of fresh, regionally produced farm products and you know you get to run into friends and neighbors (hopefully the same people).  Recently we spoke at committee with farmers market operators about the not-so-evident impact when it comes to helping low-income residents to get more bang for their buck through “Fresh Bucks.” The program doubles the value of “food stamps” when food assistance dollars are spent at Seattle farmers markets. 

Last year almost one million shopper visits sent more than $13 million dollars into Seattle farmers markets. In honor of the seasonal farmers markets opening up, here’s a short list of my favorite things to buy at our markets:

5. Quesadillas at the Patty Pan Grill (University District, Ballard, Broadway).  These things are packed with fresh, seasonal vegetables and completely delicious.  They make them on the spot and, although the line is long, the service is fast.

4.  Greens  (Everywhere).  I do OK growing lettuce and dark leafy greens in my garden at home, but I end up with gaps because I don’t pay enough attention to re-seeding. More greens!

3.  Apple cider (hard and otherwise). Rockridge Orchards ends up being a great provider. Great flavors and they helped out when Councilmember Sally Bagshaw and I did “Cider with Sallys” at the West Seattle Market a couple of seasons ago.

2. Hazelnuts and berries (Pike Place Market Express). In the summer Pike Place Market opens up a satellite market on City Hall’s Fourth Ave. Plaza. Afternoon snacks and dinner provisions!

1.  Sour Cherry Pumpernickel from Tall Grass Bakery (many locations, check the link).  OK, I’m “generally” following the weird Primal/Paleo rules (except for the cake at the Fremont Neighborhood Council meeting last night – thanks), but if our pre-grain-cultivation selves had tasted the sour cherry pumpernickel from Tall Grass, there’d be a special allowance in the Paleo diet rules. Pick up a sharp cheese (I know, not Paleo) from a neighboring stand and you need nothing more to find the real bliss point.

We’re lucky to have the granddaddy of all markets, Pike Place Market, and to have both the U-District and West Seattle markets functioning year-round. Celebrate spring, support a local farmer, see your neighbors and do your diet good by visiting these markets and the array of markets about to open (Broadway fired up last weekend). Here’s a list of Seattle farmers market schedules. Happy shopping!

Ballard (Sundays, 10 a.m.-3 p.m., year round)

Broadway (Sundays, 11 a.m.-3 p.m. – opens April 21)

Columbia City (Wednesdays, 3 p.m.-7 p.m. opens May 1)

Fremont (Sundays, 10 a.m.-5 p.m., year round)

Lake City (Thursdays, 2:30 p.m.-7:30 p.m. – opens June 20)

Madrona (Fridays, 3 p.m.-7 pm, opens May 17)

Magnolia (Saturdays 10 a.m.-2 p.m. – opens June 1)

Phinney (Fridays, 3 p.m.-7 p.m. – opens June 7, 2013)

Pike Place Market (every day, year-round)

Queen Anne Farmer’s Market (Thursdays, 3 p.m.-7 p.m., opens June 6)

University District (Saturdays, 9 a.m.-2 p.m., year-round)

Wallingford (Wednesdays, 3:30 p.m.-7 p.m., opens May 29)  

West Seattle (Sundays, 10 a.m.-2 p.m., year-round)

Wedgwood on a Monday afternoon on a sunny day in front of a middle school. That’s where a man who blew a .22 blood alcohol level drove his car into a grandmother, grandfather, mother, and a 10-day-old infant. The grandparents were killed. Mother and child remain in Harborview in serious condition.

These details by themselves are a tragedy any way you slice it.  What makes this event even worse was that the driver of the car had had one DUI conviction and one pending charge in the months prior and had no valid license to drive.

Last week, City Councilmembers, the Mayor, and the City Attorney wrote a letter to Governor Inslee and the State Legislature asking them to take action before the end of session to strengthen sentencing, requirements for ignition interlock devices and making rules about prior DUI offenses stricter.

Governor Inslee, state reps and state senators have responded to the events of the last few weeks by putting together a set of changes to get much tougher on DUI offenders. There’s a great article in the Seattle Times about it here.

The package is comprehensive and builds on efforts earlier in the session to get smarter and tougher on repeat DUI offenders. Ideas include strengthening and lengthening drunk driving sentences, charging suspects more quickly, better follow-through on the installation of ignition interlock devices, and even banning third time offenders from buying alcohol for 10 years. These proposals have been brought cheers from some and concern from others due to the projected costs of incarceration and the decade long limit on buying alcohol.

I’d like to say I have compassion for people who struggle with alcohol addiction, but that’s not true every day. While alcohol abuse and addiction are public health problems, they are also public safety problems. Treatment on demand should be available any time, any place. In the meantime, we should do more to prevent ANY drinking and driving offenses.

The State Legislature has a week and a half to go before its slated close for 2013. That’s enough time to work through the good and the bad of the proposals rolled out yesterday.

Every year at the start of the commercial fishing season Ballard First Lutheran Church holds a ceremonial Blessing of the Fleet at Fisherman’s Terminal. This is a great opportunity to recognize the hard, often dangerous work of commercial fishing and to thank the people on and off the boats for being a part of our community and economy. Yesterday I joined with State Sen. Jeanne Kohl-Welles, Mayor Mike McGinn, Councilmembers Richard Conlin and Tom Rasmussen, a representative from Congressman Jim McDermott’s office, and others to wish the fleet well as Ballard First Lutheran Pastor Erik Wilson Weiberg presented a flag to the Lady Brenda’s captain to sail this season.

Here are a couple of photos and my speaking notes.

Thank you to Ballard First Lutheran.

I’ve always thought, especially given the economy of the past few years, that we could spread this effort of Blessing the Fleet to other sectors. Blessing of the car manufacturers, the home mortgage writers, the restaurant waiters.

 

I appreciate the opportunity to mark what the men and women of the fleet do, the basic act of pulling sustenance from the ocean and bringing it to land. Through sun, wind, storm.  That you make a living at this and that you do it here, in Seattle, is a gift to this city and to this region. The Fleet here at Fisherman’s Terminal in invaluable to us. It’s part of our heritage, our present economy and our future.

 

I’m Irish Catholic which means I’m guilty standing in a beautiful place on a sunny day. I’ll wrap with a short piece of a poem from a participant in Astoria’s Fisher Poet’s festival that just happened a couple of weeks ago. This is an annual gathering of fisher-artists.  I grew up in Portland and spent a lot of time at the coast and from time to time in Astoria where you still have a strong fishing community despite all the changes in rules and economies. This is about a greenhorn back home for the first time. I picked this because the fleet heads out now, but already families think of them coming home. It’s by a woman named Moe Bowstern who has worked boats for years. I have to assume it’s a pen name.

 

“And then, finally after it’s all over, and you are back home, wherever that may be, among those who love you, who praise you, who hug you and laugh at your jokes and always say good morning–then you will find that beyond all reason, you are homesick. A truck will belch diesel as it passes you and the stench will transport you to a moment in a quiet bay, fueling up at your favorite tender. Everything will be too fast and too loud, there will be too many people everywhere. You will develop an affinity for men with beards. You will learn how to spot a working fisherman, a fellow. You will miss the boat. You will miss the ocean. And that will be hard.”

 

Good luck, happy fishing and safe voyage.

I participated in the annual One Night Count of unsheltered people in King County in the early morning hours of Jan. 25. Hundreds of volunteers participate each year to count and witness. Each year I’ve done the Count I’ve been dispatched with other volunteers to city streets, green spaces, parks and under-passes.

Never had my team or any One Night Count team encountered a dead body. Until this year.

After checking under the south side of the Jose Rizal Bridge and moving behind the industrial buildings at Rainier and Dearborn, we walked south on Rainier. We were bundled up brandishing flashlights and clipboards, chatting bleary-eyed about the news of the day while quietly musing about whether lean-to’s, sleeping bags and camper vans were occupied or not. While walking the south green space encircled by the Rainier Ave. S. off-ramp from Interstate 90, members of my team found a body, partially clothed, that had been there a day or so. We had spread out to check that area and I was closer to Rainier. When the finders came over to join the rest of us none of us quite caught what they said the first time. “We found a body.” What? It’s 3:30 a.m., what did you say? None of us expected to find anyone in that area. It’s relatively open with a few fir trees, but no place to hunker down really.

The team leaders did a great job managing the next steps – calling the police, checking in with the rest of the team members, comforting the woman who first found the body. The team decided to continue on searching our assigned area because, as more than one person said, this is exactly why we count. One Night Count staff arranged to have trained counselors back at the Compass Center for anyone who wanted to talk about what happened.

A couple of days after the Count we learned more from the Medical Examiner. “The Body,” as we had called it, was a 60-year old woman named Kathryn Ann Blair and she died of hypothermia. In the cloverleaf petal of an interstate off-ramp. In February. In Seattle.

I’ve thought a lot about this experience over the past week and a half. I couldn’t help but wonder who Kathryn Ann Blair was and how she got to be where we found her. Everyone has a story. Sometimes the story helps us focus on our similarities and fragility. Sometimes the story helps us make a little bit of sense out of something seemingly senseless. Thanks to the Medical Examiner’s efforts to reach Kathryn Ann Blair’s relatives, members of my Count team received the following message yesterday. It will be shared at today’s Women in Black vigil, noon-1 p.m., on the west plaza of the Municipal Court building (Fifth and James). Women in Black stand Wednesdays to mark the death of homeless people in our area. They have to stand too often and too long.

Eulogy for Kathryn Ann Blair, 1952–2013 

Kathy Blair, a creative only child, spent most of her life in Akron, Ohio, living with her mother.  

While I do not have the skill to tell Kathy’s story as well as she could have, I want you to know that Kathryn Ann Blair had a beautiful face, thick, wavy hair, big brown eyes, lots of personality, many talents, and people who loved her.

Kathy was a talented writer and spent hours working on stories and making whimsical drawings of the characters.   She loved books and enjoyed spending time in libraries and bookstores. Kathy adored cats, keeping three or more at any one time. At age 10, Kathy was chosen for the role of Helen Keller at Akron’s Weathervane Playhouse.  She loved that role and lived to perform in local theatres. After high school, Kathy earned a bachelor’s degree in art history from Kent State University.  

Kathy was my closest childhood friend—we walked to school together and spent hours talking on the phone.  However, it was not until 2001 that she told me her father had sexually abused her throughout her childhood.  

Kathy began drinking heavily while still in high school and became dependent on alcohol well before reaching age 30.  Kathy was still a young woman when she began showing signs of mental illness and was eventually diagnosed as having schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.  These illnesses plagued Kathy for the rest of her life.

Kathy had no children.  She lived with her mother, Jean Blair, until Jean died several years ago.

After Jean’s death, Kathy continued living in the mobile home they had purchased in 1970.   She found living on her own to be difficult and lonely.   In 2010, Kathy decided to act on her dream of living on the West Coast.  She said goodbye to her friends and cats and traveled to San Francisco, where she briefly lived in her own apartment.  Feeling dissatisfied, Kathy moved to Seattle in 2011, hoping to find happiness and artistic friends.  Instead, she found herself alone and homeless.

Sexual abuse, alcoholism, mental illness and homelessness all contributed to Kathy’s horrible death from hypothermia.  

On January 14, I sent Kathy a final (unanswered) text, “I hope you are warm and safe. Love, Deb.”

My parents, Chet and Alice, my husband, Ken, our daughter, Rebecca, and I, thank each of you for bringing our friend in from the cold and remembering her in this special way.

–D. F. K.

Note: This post contains graphic language. Apologies in advance.

I spoke with an AP reporter last Friday about a subject from a few years ago working its way to completion – adapting state codes to use more gender neutral language. Former Councilmember Jan Drago and I came across the word “fireman” when looking at the 2006 City budget for fire pensions. That seemed like odd language given how many women serve now in the Seattle Fire Department. When we asked staff they said the wording came from state codes. State Sen. Jeanne Kohl-Welles took notice and the state has been working little by little every year to modernize words in state code.

The reporter called me to ask if I had any reaction to the project winding up in this legislative session. You can see the resulting story here. I was taken by surprise to get the reporter’s call. To be honest, I had forgotten about this project.

I had also forgotten about the few, but aggressive, people who had strongly negative things to say about this endeavor back in 2007. Apparently, the antipathy runs strong in some still. From my email inbox today:

“Please tell me if this is politically correct ?  I just saw a photo of you on Google and it’s pretty obvious to me that you are a very mad-frustrated and angry Lesbian that hates men. I truly hope that you contract extremely painful rectal cancer and slowly die while your family and two friends watch helplessly

ps, you can remove All refrences to the words Men or Man but you will Never be as good as one.”

The smiley face is a great touch on that one. Another:

“As a Woman I find it pathetic that women like you are so insecure that you feel the need to BAN words simply because the word “MEN” or “MAN” is part of the word. Really? Do you realize just how STUPID all of this nonsense is? What is it with you Liberal Feminists that you hate “MEN” so much that you feel the need to find insignificant reasons to be OFFENDED. YOU and others who think like you are OFFENSIVE. All of this POLITICALLY CORRECT CRAP is destroying our Constitutional Republic. Which is the GOAL of the Radical Left Wing Progressive Liberal Socialist Pinheads. 

We have a lot of issues that are far more important then all of this PETTY Liberal Progressive BULL*** .    As a woman who grew up on a DAIRY FARM the WORD DAIRYMAN or DAIRYMEN is the CORRECT word. I don’t find it offensive at all. Why? Because I am secure in my person of being a WOMAN. Oh why look at that. The word MAN is in the word WOMAN. What should we CHANGE that to? (((WOMEN)))<<<< Are you starting to open your mind up and realize just how stupid all of this is?”

And another:

“With the debt crisis as well as many other things that need tending to, I find it shameful that you people would waste time and money on something so trivial.

Folks like you and the other elected officials that wasted tax payer monies on this should be fired immediately!

Parents put there children in time out.  That doesn’t work.  People need to ‘get over it’ if their feelings are hurt.

Such a bad example you’re setting.”

To this last sender’s point about cost, staff in Olympia answered that concern by reminding enquiring lawmakers that much of the work is done by the find/replace commands in word processing software. In some cases they’ve left the original wording because there is yet no gender neutral substitute. So be it. My goal for this project was to have our government (the one that serves and is made up by all of us) better reflect all of us rather than just half of us. I think that’s important enough to give a little thought and effort.

I don’t get a lot of vitriolic email so these stand out. Even with all the high-profile, high-stakes issues we do deal with, it’s gender neutral code language that pushes these people to take the time to find my email address (admittedly not difficult), compose a high-octane message and hit send. These emails remind me our work is far from over.

Once in a while I come to think that a particular subject is the most complicated of the various issues that come before the Council. Land use is complicated, but it’s nothing compared to taxi regulations. And taxis are nothing compared to the towing industry. And just when you think there’s nothing more complicated than the towing industry, along come “residences in or on the water.”

How’s that for a complicated name. Why so complicated? Because not all the structures you see on Lake Union, on the Ship Canal or in Portage Bay fit neatly into a design or function based definition. Some are houseboats, always have been houseboats and always will be houseboats (though we won’t see more houseboat communities springing up due to state law). Some structures that look like floating homes call themselves vessels. And some structures that look almost exactly like the legal barge next door aren’t barges. And some structures that look like boats? Well, they might actually be boats.

Over the past half dozen years the City of Seattle along with cities all over the state has worked at updating a document called the Shoreline Master Program.  Since the early 1970s we, as a state, decided we wanted to be more intentional about how we manage shorelines. The idea is that there is a limited amount of shoreline, great desire to be ecologically better in how we live and work near the water, and some “uses” that are more water-dependent than others. So, a hierarchy of allowed users of our shorelines has come into being. Boat building? Very water-dependent. Boat sales? Less so. Car sales? Not at all.

Today, if all goes according to plan, Council will vote to forward the updated SMP for formal review by the State Department of Ecology. DOE has to approve the updated SMP or send us back to the drawing board. The updated SMP contains many changes to what you can do in the shoreline and how close you can do it to the water, and at what “cost” in terms of mitigation. Most of the enormous document deals with what we might consider the painful details of commercial zoning and use controls, as well as with the various forms of over- and on-water living. These new rules were worked out over the course of several years, many public meetings and multiple SMP drafts.

And even after we vote today, we have more work to do over the next several months.

Left without clear answers are a group of on-the-water-residents who don’t neatly fit into a category, but are part of the fabric of our water-resident community. Some in this group live on structures that look like old vessels adapted into homes. Some live on structures that look like house barges to me, though that’s of little solace since the State put an end to new house barges back in the early 90’s. Some live in what look to me to be large houses on float platforms, despite rules against new floating homes. They may be in violation of the current code, but that would be up to a judge to decide.  It’s important to note that the proposed changes to the Shoreline Master Program would not apply retroactively to the on-the-water residents that are now legally moored in Seattle.

Should these other people in the gray zone be considered legal? Illegal? Non-conforming? Can we find a local solution that meets our desire to treat the lakes, canals and bays with respect? At issue for most is certainty for their future. I’ve heard from people who have invested in a home like anyone else fully believing they were investing in a legal home. I’ve heard from people scared for their investment, who argue they’ve done nothing wrong except buy an unconventional home in an unconventional place and live a quintessential Seattle existence.   

Because we’re finished with everything else in the SMP, I anticipate the Full Council today will approve sending the SMP to DOE for review. Many people feel left out of those meetings, that they either didn’t know about the meetings or their ideas were ignored. Some would like us to hold the vote on the SMP until we solve the problem of the floating question marks. Holding onto the whole SMP longer makes no sense given that we’re past deadline already and the review will take months at DOE. Over the next three months, we will work with these residents, marina representatives, lake advocates, Department of Planning and Development staff, lawyers (of course) and others to attack the remaining issue of these floating question marks with the goal of either an amendment to the SMP that we send to DOE later or an entirely local solution.

That’s my commitment to the floating question marks.

My partner and I headed Downtown Sunday to march and rally for rational gun regulation. We joined with other councilmembers, the mayor, a few state legislators, at least one school board member, various clergy and a couple of thousand regular people who believe we are a better society than what we’ve seen on our televisions. Washington CeaseFire, local churches and others organized the event following the mass killing of children at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, CT.

Yesterday the Washington State Legislature opened its annual session and many of us are hoping the cumulative effects of Sandy Hook, Aurora, Tucson, Fort Hood and other tragic locales will spur action in our state (and in the nation overall) to put reasonable constraints on ownership of assault weapons and large-volume ammunition clips, as well as meaningful education and background check requirements. This march was about rational gun regulation, but I don’t think you’d find a person who doesn’t also believe we need a more rational approach to mental health treatment.

A few pictures from Sunday: 

Getting ready to march to Seattle Center. Lots of buttons and signs with the graphic above.

Dogs for rational gun regulation.

This was a relatively short march with a great number of people, but we’re just at the beginning. We need to be bigger, more diverse and louder. And we need to get into conversations with people who disagree with us. We need to listen, discuss, debate, listen some more and push. And we need to be open to learning as we go without losing sight of our goals. Changing gun laws and changing the culture of normalcy around guns and violence will take a lot.  

Allen Joplin. De’Che Morrison. Perry Henderson. Pierre LaPoint. Quincy Coleman.

All of these young men were victims of gun violence in 2008.  Their lost contributions to our community are why in 2009 we – the previous Mayor and Council together with community partners — launched the Seattle Youth Violence Prevention Initiative. The program has been helping young people at risk of carrying out violence or being a victim for three years now and in this budget review (under way until November 19) we’re having a deep and needed discussion about how to ensure we’re enrolling the young people most at risk and serving them with interventions that truly help. 

We created the Seattle Youth Violence Prevention Initiative (SYVPI) in 2009 to respond to and end the spate of violence between young people in Seattle. We needed markers to watch and chose two goals — reduce by 50 percent juvenile court referrals for crimes “against persons” committed by youth residing in one of the three “network areas” (Central, Southeast and Southwest Seattle) and to reduce by 50 percent suspensions and expulsions due to violence-related incidents at middle schools in the three areas. To many people these were audacious goals – and for many people not audacious enough. To affect changes with the kids referred into SYVPI we set up a variety of programs, including case management, aggression replacement training employment, and mentoring.

Because the need was and is so urgent, staff at SYVPI describe operating the Initiative as “building the plane as we’re flying it” – responding to immediate needs while choosing community service providers in the three network areas; contracting for programs that keep kids from perpetrating or becoming a victim of violence; making sure we have the right balance of services; and figuring out if we’re targeting the young people who can benefit most from the program.

I’m glad the plane is in the air, and I know that the staff, non-profit partners, and volunteers with SYVPI are working smart and hard along with youth to provide resources and services to our community.  I also think after three years it’s OK to undertake a more careful assessment of what’s working and what’s not with the Initiative. 

My first question – are the most at-risk kids in the program?  We originally planned for 800 young people to be part of SYVPI’s programs.   Over the past two years enrollment expanded to 1600 before being reduced and capped at the current 1050. I’m glad we’re serving so many young people, but I also wonder – are 1,600 youth really at imminent risk of committing violence or becoming a victim?  I don’t doubt that all of these young people (and more) can benefit tremendously from positive youth development services, and I am in favor of funding these services. We must if we’re to create healthy opportunities for all youth. 

My second question – do we have an effective mix of services to prevent youth violence?  I know all of the services the initiative provides – case management, aggression replacement training, mentoring and employment – have good data behind them that show a connection to a reduction in youth violence. Some of these programs are being implemented with modifications from best practices and some of the programs have changed as that flying plane gets built.  I think it’s smart to evaluate whether we’re moving the needle on our goals.

Speaking of goals (and my third question) – are we aiming for the right goals?   That 50 percent drop in referrals to court for juvenile crimes for crimes against persons committed by youth in one of the three networks and that 50 percent drop in suspensions and expulsions for violence related incidents were aspirational goals and remain the overall SYVPI goals.  Annual goals of a 10 percent reduction have been added to better match targets used by the United States Department of health and Human Services.

The latest statistics assembled by SYVPI staff show mixed results for our three years of effort.    Juvenile crimes are down 19% from 2008 to 2011 in SYVPI youth , but down almost as much (17%) for non-SYVPI kids.  Suspensions and expulsions are up 12% from  2008 – 2011 for SYVPI youth as opposed to up 3% for non-SYVPI youth.  So, is it working or not? 

So far in Budget review public hearings, emails and conversations we’ve heard from young people whose lives have been literally saved by SYVPI. Perhaps the best news for these young people is that the City remains strongly committed to making SYVPI a lifesaving set of programs. Councilmembers – those who helped establish SYVPI and the newer ones – uniformly support SYVPI’s work. The Mayor’s draft two-year budget arrived with increased funding for youth currently enrolled in SYVPI and includes money to expand the program to more youth in 2014. Better than trying to convince people to not cut the program, yes?

I hope that when we go through almost-final Budget votes next week we do four things:

1. Confirm ongoing funding for SYVPI programs (more than $3 million a year);
2. Fund the final development and testing of a “risk assessment screening tool” to help identify whether a youth should be in the SYVPI and what services and programs would they need;
3. Fund the staff needed to carry out the new risk assessment;
4. Fund a strong, meaty evaluation of SYVPI so we can know what moves the needle the right way (or maybe the wrong way) in terms of what we’re doing now to keep young people out of violence.

Once we have a risk assessment tool in use and once we have a roadmap for the evaluation, we should consider opening the doors wider than the 1,000-plus SYVPI enrollees we have now. I have no doubt that we can fill the slots with young people in need of mentoring and employment and overall support, but this particular program was built to serve the kids most at risk. I don’t want to lose them.

The deep and needed discussions in Budget review sessions have been about how to evaluate the SYVPI airplane pieced together in flight. We’re at the point where we need to check our assumptions and make sure we’re truly helping the young people in SYVPI. I know in my gut that we are, but we need more than a gut feeling if we’re to spend our dollars in the best way for the young lives at stake. It would be irresponsible to not ask if we can do better; keep young people safer; drive violence further out.

I am as committed now as I was four years ago to making sure that we don’t keep adding names to a list of young people’s lives lost or changed for the worse forever because of youth violence.

Councilmember Bagshaw, Deputy Mayor Lonergan, Mayor Strickland, Council President Clark, and Councilmember Woodards in Tacoma.

Pop quiz: Which Washington city is the City of Destiny?

If you said Tacoma, you are correct.

Tacoma was the destination for four of us last Friday as we dropped in for a quick chat on mutual priorities. The visit was part of the Council’s on-going Seattle For Washington effort to find more points of mutual interest with cities and lawmakers all over the state. And, frankly, it’s fun and educational to go see the world outside Seattle.

Councilmembers Sally Bagshaw, Tom Rasmussen and I were joined on I-5 by Marco Lowe, our chaperone and the director of Seattle’s Office of Intergovernmental Affairs. We met in one of the University of Washington-Tacoma’s great buildings with Tacoma Mayor Marilyn Strickland, Deputy Mayor Joe Lonergan, Councilmembers David Boe and Victoria Woodards, plus Alisa O’Hanlon, Tacoma’s Government Relations Coordinator (the second chaperone).

Do you ever visit a friend’s house and go away thinking, “Wow, they have their act together. Nice house. I really need to tidy up.” Well, Tacoma looks pretty good these days. The UW-T campus makes use of great old warehouses. As Mayor Strickland told us, “It didn’t seem right at the time, but we were lucky to be passed over for Urban Renewal money in the 70’s.” The reward for making it through the period of run-down vacancy is the great urban campus.

We spent two hours discussing the urban development challenges, transportation, governance structures, coordinated taxing efforts, schools, mutual interests in the upcoming state legislative session, Harbor Maintenance Tax frustration and more. 

Two hours not sound like enough time to solve the problems of the state’s first and third largest cities? Correct again. The good news is that Tacoma’s mayor and councilmembers will come north to sit down with us again in November or December as we continue to work together on making the Business & Occupation Tax easier for businesses to file; ensure that urban issues are well represented in the legislative session; and maximize the business of our ports.

I better tidy up.