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.

 So far the campaign has forwarded eight (as of this afternoon) See It, Send It submissions:

1 – Photos of what looks to be a panhandling scam — two people switching places in a wheelchair while panhandling on the Waterfont
2 – Photo of an alleged drug dealer and a list of his regular business spots coupled with frustration at no response from police.
3 – Letter from a visitor appalled at the sheer number of homeless people Downtown and aggressive panhandling.
4 – Frustration with garbage from food trucks strewn on the sidewalk long after the vendors are gone.
5 – Hotel evaluation comments from a visitor who didn’t feel safe walking down to the waterfront because of litter, the smell of urine and “begging crackheads.”
6 – Photos submitted of pitbulls, blankets, cardboard signs and other material next to a tour bus stop on the waterfront.
7 – Bank customer observed someone urinating onto the sidewalk in front of the bank entrance.
8 – Visitor intimidated by a barking pitbull at Westlake Park, so intimidated she broke off her shopping trek and asked her hotel to pick her up. 

 None of these are great to find Downtown whether you’re a cruise ship visitor or you live in town. On the good side, I’ve heard from Tom Norwalk, the director of the SCVB, that Seattle Police Department, Seattle Public Utilities and other city departments have jumped quickly to clean up and fix problems identified in these messages. (Yes, we should prevent some of the problems in the first place, but I appreciate the city staff’s response.)

 And then there are the more difficult scenarios to address, the ones involving people impaired in one way or another.

 I hesitated to include the “begging crackheads” language from number 5 above, but I chose to because I think the reaction I have to that language (and the assumptions I make about the user of that language) may explain why we wrestle so hard in Seattle with these questions. I don’t think anyone deserves to be called a “begging crackhead,” even crack addicts. See It, Send It shouldn’t be reduced to an open invitation to vent and it shouldn’t allow people to cavalierly paint everyone with the same brush. Unfortunately, some people see in the See It, Send It campaign an open invitation to sweep the streets indiscriminately. Another email in my box spurred by See It, Send It:

 “I am fed up and disgusted by the crime, filth, human waste, and aggressiveness that comes with a failed plan to deal with excessive vagrancy.  Activists… had a chance with their advocacy and plan.  It’s a failure.  Pouring more time and money into it is irresponsible and absurd.   It’s time for a new plan to aggressively deal the panhandlers, criminals and vagrants that taint our city.  Please take immediate action to curtail funding to 503c3′s perpetuating this problem and empower and embolden our police department to assertively deal with the vagrants.”  

 The language of See It, Send It #5 is dehumanizing and I’m not so hot on the language of the emailer above either.

 At the same time, rejecting See It, Send It’s focus on the overall impact of “street people” is untenable, it would be like putting our heads in the sand. We do have stretches of our streets and areas in our parks where crime, trash and behavior make a lot of people – including homeless people – feel less welcome and less safe. We’re not good at saying so. It makes us feel mean and less compassionate.

 But there’s nothing compassionate about allowing drug dealing to persist or allowing trash to pile up or allowing people in distress to wander without intervention. We do no great service by allowing compassion to create cover for destruction.

 I happen to agree with many supporters of the See It, Send It campaign that we’re not succeeding the way we’d like in our efforts to move people off the streets and into housing and services. We’ve made incredible strides when it comes to building new housing with the services needed to keep people living in their homes successfully.

 However, because of the recession, the toll of drug and alcohol addiction and the crush of untreated mental illness, we have as big a lift in front of us today as we did when we started the 10 Year Plan to End Homelessness. See It, Send It has the possibility to be more than venting. It can and should demand both enforcement and a way off the street for people.

 Just last week we opened the doors on the winter shelters to augment the “regular” number of beds and mats available. We have a Center City Initiative and a Third Avenue project. We just unified property management at Westlake Park and new play area is about to be installed there. We’re pumping up outreach at Westlake to move homeless young people into housing and services. Police are attempting a new treatment diversion approach for some in Belltown. Earlier this year we opened the new Crisis Solutions Center, an alternative to jail or Harborview for people on the street in mental health distress.

 We have good people and good efforts trying to change the facts of street disorder and homelessness. See It, Send It creates the pressure. We all need to stay engaged after hitting the “send” button in order to solve the puzzle.

Suddenly, we have less than half the year ahead of us. The good news is we’ve accomplished a great deal. The bad news is this is when I look at my wall calendar I realize we’re almost at the August hiatus which means we’re almost to the budget break which means we’re almost to the end of the year. Cripes!

My goals as Council President have been to 1) not screw up anything permanently (the general elected person’s version of the medical world’s “do no harm” oath); 2) keep the Council moving forward on our action priorities; and 3) do my part to keep the city focused on delivering service in a high quality way while we wrestle with the complex, knotty questions that invariably pop up despite the fact they aren’t listed anywhere on the action agenda. (Arenas, historic streetcars and profit-making ziplines, anyone?)

I may be biased (OK, quite biased), but I think the Council (and the city staff who help us) did pretty well by our priorities in the first half of the year. Among other accomplishments:

• The Third Avenue Initiative is underway coordinating city department work to clean up and better maintain Third Avenue through Downtown. Councilmember Rasmussen knows every inch of Third Ave. at this point.

• Construction of the First Hill Street Car is underway with the extension into Pioneer Square assured and the extension to Aloha Street under review. Councilmember Rasmussen has pushed this, as well, with Councilmember Conlin doing his part at the Sound Transit Board.

• We adopted an administration and finance plan for effectively using the Families & Education Levy funds approved by voters last fall. Councilmember Burgess spearheaded that work.

• The first Neighborhood Greenway opened through Wallingford this spring. Councilmember Bagshaw’s middle name is “Greenway.”

• We worked with allies in other cities and the state legislature to quell costly changes in Business and Occupation Tax collection and have launched work with allies on a better approach to simplification for businesses. This has been a big one for me.

• Squeaking in just at the start of July we adopted a Strategic Plan for Seattle City Light after thousands of hours of work by volunteers and staff. Councilmember O’Brien carried this over the line after multiple years of effort by Councilmember Harrell.

• Earlier this week we gave the final committee-level nod to asking voters to approve a bond sale for financing replacement of the central seawall. Councilmember Godden chairs this special committee.

We have a list of big items ahead of us before the December break – final decisions on new housing, zoning, parks and streets for the Yesler Terrace neighborhood (Councilmember Licata has the sharpest pencil reviewing this proposal); the SODO arena proposal; new zoning for South Lake Union; final rules on a rental housing licensing and inspection program; and more. We’ll receive the concept plan for the future Seattle waterfront later this month. We’ll spend October and November taking apart and reassembling the budget for 2013, including a probable shortfall of approximately $30 million.

We’ve also taken up brief conversations a few readers will think less important. I’m an optimist, though. I think we can review and act on something as detailed as the Seattle City Light Strategic Plan and have brain space available to consider a resolution on the potential impacts of coal trains chugging through Seattle.

I am disappointed to not have progress to report in one particular area – the City’s response to the United States Department of Justice’s December report on cases of excessive use of force by Seattle Police. While negotiations are currently the work of the Mayor and City Attorney, the crafting of new policies and the necessary staff and budget changes are of concern to all Councilmembers and rated as the Council’s highest priority for this year.

I believe the sooner the City reaches a fair agreement with the DOJ, the better for our police officers and the greater community. Ongoing pokes and disagreements about the validity of certain statistics cited in the DOJ findings do nothing to move us forward. Instead, the delays, intentional leaks to media, and resistance to change allow doubt and resentment to fester. 

It’s time for a reasonable negotiated agreement that puts Seattle on track to developing and living the policies and procedures, the training, the supervision and the accountability our officers and community deserve. 

There will be a price tag for making changes. We should calculate the real cost of reasonable, negotiated changes and then take responsibility for the difficult decisions we’ll need to make to pay for these changes.

We can do this. We can use this difficult opportunity to elevate Seattle to the top tier of urban policing. I hope to be able to blog soon that we have. We have less than half the year to go to get started.

There’s a great power in standing up to be seen. We should do it more often.

For many of the neighbors, it was the first ever extensive walk around the area. Most people, if they walk in the area at all, have their route to and from home. Mr. Vega was on his usual route when he was jumped in November.

The tragedy of Danny Vega’s death brought press coverage to what locals in South Seattle who rely on transit in the Light Rail Corridor already know – too many frightening attacks with serious consequences have also occurred.  More than 30 street robberies or attempted robberies have occurred in South Seattle since Sept. 1, Seattle police reports indicate.

One attack is too many. Thirty is way, way too many. My greater neighborhood is filled with hardworking people, many of whom have no practical alternative to walking to and from the bus or light rail. Nor should they have to worry about walking to and from the bus or light rail. It has to be safe to walk to and from the Othello Street station, and from the Mt. Baker, Columbia City, and Henderson Street stations.

During Sunday night’s walk, organized by the Southeast Seattle Crime Prevention Council and followed Monday night by a walk around the Columbia City station, we looked for dark spots or secluded, dangerous areas. We found a full half block with no street lights and no lights on adjacent property, and five burnt out pedestrian-scale lights just across from the station itself. We found some places very well lit with well-trimmed landscaping. We saw the mounted video camera that captured the images of two young men stashing a jacket into a dumpster near where Danny Vega was beaten. We saw mostly good sidewalks, but some cracked and heaved areas that make walking (or rolling in a wheelchair) difficult.

In the end, though, there isn’t much unique about the greater Othello area. I don’t mean that in a bad way. It’s a great neighborhood of small businesses, homes, a new apartment complex and the great Othello Park.  The attacks on people can and do happen just about anywhere.  They are thwarted by a combination of efforts and luck. More light, tidier landscaping, more eyes on the street from neighbors and other walkers.

While investigating the specific attack on Mr. Vega, SPD has also focused resources on preventing more attacks from occurring. Capt. Nolan of the South Precinct has responded to the attacks with emphasis patrols targeting the areas where these attacks have been occurring. Also, the precinct now deploys a two-officer special emphasis car that does nothing but cruise the corridor on the look out for transit predators. South Precinct Anti-Crime Teams and Gang Unit officers also work the problem. 

These are all good moves, though community members have reason to ask why the pattern of attacks wasn’t publicized sooner. I remain concerned that South Precinct doesn’t have the number of officers needed to cover the area with a consistent visible presence.  Not only are we not hiring to replace all our retiring or otherwise departing current officers, but events in other parts of the City (like Occupy) require shifting officers out of neighborhood patrol assignments and into special duties. The result is a patrol force stretched too thin.

For now – big thanks to Lieutenant Hayes and Detective Cookie for their company and assistance Sunday night.  The punch list from our Othello area walk-around includes replacing lights, adding new ones, trimming hedges, fixing sidewalks – and follow-through.

I had hoped the leadership of Seattle and dozens of other cities would prompt the federal government to recognize that state-by-state immigration policies are tearing apart families, communities and economies. Local authorities running immigration control puts whole communities at risk as families become afraid to call for police and fire when they need help and less likely to visit a clinic or hospital when they are sick, all for fear of being arrested rather than assisted.  While some pieces of SB1070 were blocked by the courts and some were reworked, other states, like Alabama, have pressed forward with even more strict and destructive laws — and on into the court system.

In September the National Council of La Raza called for an end to the Arizona boycott. The NCLR, the nation’s largest civil rights advocacy group for Hispanic people, said the boycott had fulfilled its purpose – other anti-immigrant proposals in Arizona were turned back and registration of Latino voters has surged. NCLR noted, also, that the boycott caused hardship for low-wage workers (many of whom are Latinos) in the hospitality industry due to the state’s lost convention and tourism business, with losses estimated by the Center for American Progress to be around $140 million over three years. Rational reform of immigration policies is still needed, but Arizona is no longer the single focus of debate and, arguably, no longer merits the focus of a boycott. The debate field has widened, though not improved.

So, what have I learned?

1.     Immigration law in the United States is still a patch-work mess. While Alabama, Utah, North Carolina and other states take matters into their own hands – and into expensive, protracted legal battles – we could instead have a national policy that builds a rational path to citizenship, a path that supports families and our workforce realities. We need Congress to step up.

2.     Starting a boycott is relatively easier than ending one when you don’t have an obvious victory. The NLC meeting this week has put a lot of city leaders on the spot. Looking at the NLC program, it’s a great chance to hear speakers, attend workshops on supporting struggling families in urban areas, and support progressive policy positions, including resolutions relating to immigration. While city councilmembers from Seattle and Tacoma will attend (my resolution had a clause stating that its implementation would be “to the extent practicable”), city councilmembers from Los Angeles are sticking by their boycott despite the NCLR action to drop the boycott.

3.     Boycotts are, frankly, difficult to maintain. Even though Los Angeles councilmembers will skip the NLC Congress of Cities in Phoenix, Los Angeles still purchases millions of dollars worth of goods and services from vendors in Arizona because they are the best vendor with the best deal. Seattle has faced the same challenges, although on a much smaller dollar scale. If you need to buy red light cameras and the leading vendor makes its headquarters in Arizona, do you buy the cameras or wait for a non-Arizona-based competitor to pop onto the scene? (If you hate red light cameras, I imagine the answer is “wait.”)

In this economy and political climate, cities have far more in common than in difference. All cities are struggling with the effects of unemployment, diminished dollars from the federal government, more “devolution” of responsibilities from other levels of government. We’re all looking for creative class jobs, money for infrastructure, and ways to grow the tax base in order to fund parks, libraries, police officers and fire fighters. Even when people aren’t struggling, boycotting another city or state is a big step. In this case, if I had the decision to make again I’d still side with the boycott (though, I’d give a heads-up to the Convention and Visitors Bureau – sorry about that). With NCLR calling off the boycott and the National League of Cities choosing Phoenix, it seems the boycott is over. Unfortunately our immigration problems are not.

1.     Intellectual sloppiness – The author calls social justice a “socialist scheme” and pines for the good old days when communism and socialism were considered bad. OK, totalitarianism of whatever stripe is bad. Single-party, de-facto dictatorship is bad. Blind zealotry to a leader or ideal is bad.  Socialism as an economic organizing principle, though? Degrees of socialism run a spectrum depending upon the amount of state involvement in the economy and in provision of social programs. North Korean socialism (coupled with dictatorship) is vastly different from Norwegian socialism (coupled with a constitutional monarchy and parliament). “Social justice = socialist scheme” might be alliterative and sound nice when said out loud, but it’s sloppy thinking. If you think the City’s Race & Social Justice Initiative is brainwashing propaganda, maybe just say that.

2.     At least implied insubordination – First from the newsletter article: “I’m not conflating Seattle’s quaint socialist cabal with the brutal tyrants of the last century.” Phew! Then: “I’ve given some thought to my own RSJI participation to date. The ‘Perspectives in Profiling’ class (or as one officer put it, one of our ‘de-policing classes’) served as a good way to learn what the enemy is up to (Yes, enemy. A liberal after my money in taxes maybe my opponent, but a socialist attacking the Constitution and my liberty is my enemy).” Language has been in the spotlight since the Tucson shootings and plenty of people on the Right and Left are guilty of using loaded language, but repeating a mistake doesn’t make things better. Dave Ross talked about this passage on his radio show this morning and argued that by extension this officer is calling his command staff, the Mayor and the City Council his enemies. And is “enemies” the word you really want to use? Words matter. Which takes us to…

3.     Compounded distrust – With all the current focus on how SPD officers engage with people of color in our city, could this article have been printed at a worse time?  I’m not using the officer’s name here because I don’t want to draw more attention to him while he’s on-duty. I have faith that every encounter he has is professional and that he gives 110 percent of himself to whoever needs help, no matter his take on the caller’s or victim’s political beliefs. However, this is the age of immediate information.  His article has been reproduced on blogs and talked about in the Stranger, in The Seattle Times and on KIRO. Do he and every male Seattle officer really need people checking their name plates and wondering, “Is this the guy who calls social justice advocates his enemies?”

As much as I’d like for Seattleites to recognize that police officers are individuals and that the extreme views of one officer don’t represent the views of even a fraction of his colleagues, people make generalizations. The irony is that a couple of weeks ago I attended a youth-initiated forum called Building Bridges. More than a dozen SPD officers took part talking with youth from different parts of the city, but mostly from the Central and South parts of Seattle where violence and silence have been too destructive.  While the kids expressed frustration at not being respected by the police, the police had the exact same frustration. Both sides felt stereotyped and never given a fair shake; never seen as an individual. They talked about race, they talked about poverty, they talked about violence and they walked out of the rooms knowing each other just a little bit better.

I hope the Guardian takes moment to recognize the hard work of these officers in an upcoming issue.