Dominic,

You make a pretty sweeping claim here:

"...civility laws—which are feelgood measures that have little impact but appease downtown business interests..."

Is it your contention then that if Seattle did NOT have a sit/lie ordinance we would have LESS people blocking the path of pedestrians on sidewalks than we do today?

Also, as I think you are aware, there are diverse groups and individuals that are supporting Burgess on this, including Plymouth Housing, Rita Ryder, Farestart, SNMA, neighborhood groups, residents, etc. A bit misleading to broadly label them all as "downtown business interests."

All reporting about this has been so off base and crappy. Yes, you've (reporters in general) pointed out that the city already has a law against aggressive panhandling with very similar language but different penalties. The true story here is that there is very little support/will to file a criminal charge against an aggressive panhandler so the existing law is seldom enforced and no message is sent to/received by the problem panhandlers.

The burden of proof for an infraction (new law) is much lower than for a criminal charge and there is no right to a jury, public defender, etc. This new ordinance would weaken the penalty but make it easier to enforce/prove while costing the city a lot less money (booking someone into jail costs the city several hundred dollars). This is a compromise between full enforcement of existing evil civility law on the books and no enforcement of evil civility law on the books.

The other thing to remember is that we can take tolerance to a destructive level. In 2008 (or 09) the city hosted a convention for convention planners. Their immediate feedback was that they loved the city but the panhandlers (quantity and aggressiveness) were a major impairment to booking those budget plumping conventions and business visits. Seattle's response? The next week the council added protections for the homeless.

The retail core we spend 10-15 years re-kindling pays for a huge amount of our human services budget. Those retailers are suffering mightily and closing at a rapid rate. We cannot allow that to continue. At the same time we have more people who need human services than ever.

We don't have a huge amount of control over the impacts from the weak economy but if we allow the needy to make the atmosphere more toxic while siphoning off the tax base we will kill downtown again. (silly me, I thought we learned)

Before we had I. Magnin and Frederick & Nelson. Now we have The Gap, and Old Navy. To have quality tax collections we need quality retailers. If we show no regard to what they need to succeed they will abandon us and move to the burbs... they already have stores there.

Ignore your SCCC instructors, dispel your preconceived notions, and avoid jerking those knees just long enough to look into things a little deeper. Ask some folks who remember what a miserable retail core we had in the late 80's and early 90's. Open your minds to the idea that funding essential and human services cannot happen without a viable tax base and the idea that the two are complementary not competing. The difference is homelessness and panhandling will never be extinguished. Starving the economic engines of our region just guarantees more people in need.

and @ Zander - I think it's more like McGinn failed to rise above the level of a footnote

only you can change your mind - or can you?