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.

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.  

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.

 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.

A few photos from my visit to Sixth Ave. and Pine Street this morning

Everyone seems to be trying to make sense of yesterday’s action and determine if the City could have done more. Personally, I think SPD officers did a terrific job channeling, quelling, protecting, seizing and arresting where necessary. Some radio voices have called yesterday “WTO II,” but I have a feeling those might be people who weren’t here during WTO I.

A few photos from my visit to Sixth Ave. and Pine Street this morning

A lot of people are talking about what the message from the destruction is supposed to be. I’m “the establishment,” so I know I’m not supposed to understand the message. No one is for corporate greed, but I do like jobs in Downtown. I need a new pair of running pants and was thinking about going to Niketown soon (gasp). I don’t agree with everything in his post, but I did find Brendan Kiley’s post from early, early this morning, “Why All the Smashy-Smashy? A Beginner’s Guide to Targeted Property Destruction,” to be thought-provoking.

A few photos from my visit to Sixth Ave. and Pine Street this morning

I was on the UW campus in 1986 and recall the anti-aparthied actions. I recall the shantytown in Red Square and the crashing of Board of Regents meetings, but not the breaking of a window. It’s hard for me to see the Black Bloc as a meaningful, effective extension or adaptation of the track I personally value more – peaceful, focused civil demonstration and, when necessary, disobedience.

OK, I’ll ask and learn, but I’m not optimistic about warming to this idea. I know they aren’t the drones we hear about on the news in Iraq, but I still see it as a step further away from human interaction and decision-making. Even if I can be convinced that we – cities — need small, pilotless, helicopter-like vehicles for surveillance and searches, does every city have to have a drone or two? Couldn’t we have a regional holder of the drones? We could check them out as needed and share the cost maybe. And we could have a thoughtful conversation about whether we really need them and under what circumstances they should be checked out of the regional drone library.

Apparently we’re already under way since we’re training operators. How did that happen?

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.

When I wore the sweatshirt in January I had more than one person say to me, a little grimly, “Wow. Bold move with the sweatshirt.”

Friday night I did a ride-along in Southwest Seattle. Before heading out for a couple of hours with the great and under-stated Ofcr. Heric, I had a few minutes of tense conversation with a lieutenant who said he feels “kicked in the face” by the letter Councilmembers Tim Burgess, Sally Bagshaw and I sent Friday to Mayor Mike McGinn, SPD Chief John Diaz, Seattle Police Management Association head Eric Sano and Seattle Police Officers Guild head Rich O’Neill. The letter details a host of changes we’d like to see in the realm of oversight, officer hiring and training. We said in the letter that recent events have caused erosion in public trust and that steps are required to rebuild trust and construct it anew where it has been missing for too long. The events slime all officers with a sticky sheen of doubt in the eyes of too many, despite the facts of everyday every day — every minute of every day — service and sacrifice demonstrated by Seattle police officers.

We have a disconnect at this point in time between those who feel like there’s too much heat on the police department right now and those who feel like there’s not enough. Officers like the lieutenant who had a few things to tell me Saturday night feel like we’re tearing the department up over a few isolated incidents of wrong doing (incidents which he strongly said “embarrass us all”). SPD officers have literally hundreds of thousands of contacts with us over the course of a year.

Unless the incident is a headline grabber, and few are, the stories of those contacts are usually held just by the officer and the people who were victims, survivors or aggressors.

Advocates from communities of color and more than a few people I run into around town say they’re appalled by what they see on the TV news, the grainy video from patrol car dash cams and bystander cellphones.  Many of us know particular officers.  We know by name and appreciate the officers who visit our crime prevention councils, business groups and community clubs. We don’t recognize those officers and their actions. We realize our city has plenty of bad actors, but we still are repelled by the seeming abuses of power. The rash of incidents in the press causes wonder about department culture and self-awareness.  There’s enough wonder that we’ve attracted the notice of Department of Justice investigators.

Two seeming juxtapositions live simultaneously in many of us at this time: appreciation for service and sacrifice by the officers we know and revulsion at the sight of violent abuse of power by others, and conviction that the department is both excellent and marred by transgressions.

I think that’s what’s difficult for both sides to understand.

Officers hear support, thankfully, from people everyday who appreciate their intervention, but those same people may also hold concern about the department itself, about the internal procedures, customs and expectations.

Getting to a better place, where excellence in individual experiences matches up with excellence in overall department reputation, requires us to acknowledge these mismatches. Denying it does nothing but widen the gulf.

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.