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800 Maynard Ave S, Suite 200, Seattle, WA 98134
800 Maynard Ave S, Suite 200, Seattle, WA 98134
Mayor McGinn, let's do this right. Veto this bill.
I am going to keep asking if McGinn intends to do anything concrete, or just talk until the issue fades away until the next go around.
(I keed, I keed)
And the majority of the Council still voted for it?
Man, this city's politics are fucked up.
Heck, if you listened to the Council today, they all pretty much confirmed within the ranks of those opposed that they'd like everything BUT the citation/enforcement aspect and to stick with patrols, social services funding and more community outreach.
The recession has bottomed out and we're headed back upward steadily. Shouldn't be too hard to put forth the idea and begin funding it, especially with more folks moving into the downtown core to work and live.
By that measure, about 90 percent of Seattle supports the Chihuly museum.
They all cleared out after the vote.
The funding is problematical because the City has no money for more funding -- $50M down. That's what made Burgess's protestations about funding for social services/outreach so...untrue.
Unfortunately, homeless people can't/ won't pay their fines, which will lead to a pile of bench warrants for homeless people, who will now be defending themselves for failure to pay a fine instead of the original offense. (read: more costs for the same crime) This law is crap.
All panhandlers are homeless people who can't pay their fines because they don't have addresses and don't know how to read citations.
By that logic, we should never cite them or arrest them for anything.
Well, not exactly...
The city council seeks to solve problems on the streets by making new laws. The only way a law works is if it is written properly, is used by police correctly, and makes sense for society. This one fails in all three categories. That was my point, I wasn't endorsing homeless amnesty (which I would do, but that's another post)..... The "logic" you seek within the fact that homeless people have issues paying fines is headache inducing. Did you misunderstand me?
Do you think this issue is going away? After Burgess and Downtown made such a big deal out of how aggressive the panhandlers are?
McGinn concurred in his "I will veto" speech. He basically said "there is a problem but this is the wrong solution."
So the issue is his. As a mayor, you can't bad-mouth a neighborhood -- esp. downtown -- in order to kill a bill meant to help and then do nothing to help yourself.
I look forward to his solution. I will hold my breath until then.
Check the stats for back in the prior recessions. The problem is we have rich non-citizen millionaires living down there now, whereas before we didn't.
1) Aggressive panhandling is already illegal.
2) Seattle doesn't have any money, and hence doesn't have any cops to enforce the existing law or a new law.
3) Lots of people are out of work, hence more than the usual number of panhandlers.
4) People who are afraid of homeless people ought not live downtown.
I understand you may not have a problem with panhandling downtown. I take the downtown business people and the police at their word when they say people who are not you feel intimidated downtown and therefore shop / do business somewhere else.
Making a new law will do two things: Jack and Shit