Suggestions for moving forward...

I have been thinking about the best way for all of us who have been reading/lurking here since this website started to turn our concern into something positive. 

The recent shootings have caught the public's attention & now is the perfect time to engage.

Here are some thoughts. Bear in mind that I am a political professional so the old Seattle "well, we've tried that and it didn't work" isn't a line of reasoning that is going to sway me. Nothing, anywhere, is set in stone. Government is headed by people who are elected to office. In progressive cities like SF, Seattle, and Austin, municipal governments are ruled by small bands of special interests (I'm not saying that's a bad thing, although it can sometimes be bad for school boards, as we can see on the Seattle School Board right now). If you want to draw attention to your cause or interest, you have to be willing to play the game of progressive municipal city politics from the top down...that is, be the loudest and the most vocal and in the front row of the City Council meetings and in the offices all the time. It's a face time kind of deal...the more they see our faces, the more influence we have.

First, we form a public group. Doesn't matter if it is two people or two hundred. We have a name and a mission statement. We make a website and we are off and running. We need to meet with the Pioneer Square Community Association and get the drift of what they can and cannot do for us and what is currently in the works for park renovations. They do have their own public safety committee. Who pays the salary for this group? Does anyone know? I think Lisa reads this so maybe she can give us more background on what the Community Association is all about. I am a strong proponent of when you want to shake things up, you need a bold fresh start so I'm going to be a an advocate for a new group that works with but is independent of the Community Association.

We then canvass the neighborhood businesses and our buildings, passing out flyers and driving people to the website to register. We'll need someone computer savvy to manage this as we need to be able to send out action items to our list via email. 

After that, we launch a publicity blitz. PS Video and I can probably cover the online community but it would be really great if we could find a PR person based in the Square with contacts in the regular mainstream media. Our message? Pioneer Square undergoing a transformation and we are banding together to take back our neighborhood from the criminal elements. We'll lead the news if we message it right. Everyone loves the neighbors VS the drug dealer story. I'll get out there with the baby and PS Video gets out there as a guy just trying to run a small business and anyone else who wants to talk to the press & we'll stand in the Occidential park and look serious and we'll talk about the very real realities with the crime in the park. I'm not trying to sound cynical but it's a great story. We have to be not to make it sound like a war on the homeless, though. That's an important distinction.

Next, will be our first order of business with the Mayor and the City Council. We ask for a special Pioneer Square Crime Task Force, with the expressed goal of eliminating street crime from our neighborhood. Seattle PD, City Manager, the Mayor, and council representatives, plus federal involvement like DEA and the FBI. They don't like to work together but we should insist on it. DEA, in particular, should be involved. They have very sharp people and are based in lower Queen Anne. We should meet with these offices in separate meetings, too. This could take a while or it could move quickly, I don't know. In either case, we're getting face time with the people who matter and we just keep going back until we get what we need. If they try and use the argument that Pioneer Square has always been crime-ridden and it's some kind of historic predetermination, we get really stern and we just deliver the message; not any more. If they try and tell us that we have high crime because of the high concentration of social services in the square, we get stern and say: then that part of the city should have the highest and most alert community policing in the city. Period. We aren't abandoning part of the city to crime and that's that.

We will need to be true partners with the police and we start with a neighborhood crime watch. It's really easy. Just forming one sends a message, plus they will put up signs all over the park and the neighborhood for free, which helps get a message onto the street. We can launch the paperwork for that right after our first meeting.

By true partners, I mean that we have regular contact with the police and that we are their public relations partners. SPD has a public relations problem and we can be helpful to them. We have to given them public support. We start things off on the right foot by posting on our new webpage a message of appreciation for the police. It's small but a positive way to start. We'll let them tell us in meetings how we can be more helpful on a day to day basis.

We need someone willing to own the police blotter. I have been trying to find that Capitol Hill site with the guy who runs the police blotter..can anyone direct me? We need a point person to "own" the relationship with the police and be our regular point of contact. 

We also need to get involved with the police union. I don't know much about SPD, but in other cities, the Police Union is very powerful. We'll need to support them by buying a table at their fundraiser, etc. I'm not implying that we "buy" the help of the police, just that we be their true supporters and be public about appreciating the work that they do. It's gritty and difficult and, like any job, it feels good to be appreciated. We should be public about that appreciation. We start with a meeting with the president of the police union.

We need to have a meeting with the Chief of Police, with the Captain of our precinct in attendance. We state that we are establishing a community expectation that we will have no street crime and if they don't take us seriously and start shuffling us around, we stay completely serious and let them know we are resetting expectations for the neighborhood and will no longer tolerate being the city's dumping ground for street crime. No street crime. That's our message everywhere.

Also, we should probably have face-to-face meetings with Sen. Cantwell and Murry and also with some congressional folks from Washington State as there is some federal anti-drug money that could help us with improvements in the park. I understand that there is some association through the Pioneer Square Community Associaton that is overseeing potential renovations to the park. Thank god the bathroom is gone!

These are some of the first things that come to mind but I am sure there are many more things that would be helpful. I am sorry it isn't better organized here but I had to type it out fast before the baby wakes up.

I know this is a big chunk of ideas but they are all doable. I've done many of them in other cities. If we can get the neighborhood livable at night, then restaurants and shops and galleries and residents can start "living" at night, too. 

I can't wait for the first meeting! Thoughts?

Annie