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.