The homeless have cell phones?

I've noticed that many homeless people in Seattle have old or refurbished laptops. Maybe cell phones too. A cell phone is inexpensive to run if you use pay-as-you-go. The Center House is indeed a very good place for people to hang out during the day, whether they are homeless or not. It is spacious and usually more than half empty.
If the homeless are discouraged from using Center House (now called "The Armory", they will need to go elsewhere during the day to rest and shelter from the weather. It seems only fair and right that decisions that impact the homeless in Seattle should be the result of a thoughtful, informed and transparent process.

I appreciate Howard Gale's work as a citizen watchdog and Cienna Madrid's article.

Thanks for posting this!

Seattle Center staff produced a handout last summer stating that at a June 14, 2012 meeting with "representatives" of the homeless "We explained at the time that outlets in other parts of the building were still available for their use." This was clearly not true and Center staff knew this. Seattle Center emails establish that by April 3, 2012, or possibly earlier, a decision was made to render all publicly accessible outlets at the Armory inaccessible. This kind of intentional misdirection by Center staff became well established by last summer. Center staff realized that a June 30 Seattle Times story ("Less power to the homeless? Seattle Center locks up public outlets") could result in people correctly construing Seattle Center's intentions. This resulted in the Center's use of euphemistic terms such as "outlet user community" to replace the terms homeless or transient populations, clumsily avoiding any appearance of targeting a vulnerable population (who cares about the "outlet user community?"). It also resulted in Seattle Center staff misinforming Council member Nick Licata that there were plenty of outlets available while Center staff were feverishly making sure all outlets were rendered unusable.

In the handwritten notes from the June 14 meeting with homeless "representatives," Seattle Center Director Robert Nellams is noted as saying that the Armory is "not a shelter... not obligated to provide electricity... we are a place but w/o resources. Want to help direct to resources." In that same meeting, other Center staff said "Why not go to the library? It's a mile away." The closest libraries to the Armory are 1.4 to 1.7 miles away and they do not provide the same services and opportunities that the Armory does. It's disconcerting to see one city department trying to pawn it's "problems" off on another city department, especially when one considers that large numbers of homeless people have a negligible effect on the underused space and services provided at Seattle Center, whereas their impact would be far more consequential at a city library.

An October 8, 2012 email from Seattle Center Director Robert Nellams states: "If someone wanted to plug in a computer at Seattle Center they can find numerous places to do so. The fact that we don’t provide a specific space inside the Armory atrium for plug-ins was a business decision made to help our new food and beverage operations get off the ground."

Where at Seattle Center one can find "numerous places" to gain AC access remained a mystery during most of 2012. My repeated queries at the Center House Information Office last fall were answered with "I don't know." As already noted above, a decision was made by April 3, 2012 to render all outlets in the Armory inoperable or inaccessible.

What about "a business decision made to help our new food and beverage operations get off the ground?" My observations of the Armory last fall indicate that 9-13% of the new seating area is being used, even at peak times. It is clear that the issue was not about making tables more accessible in this area, but rather about making the homeless feel less "welcome" in the Armory.

So what is really driving this "business decision?" Was it about space, or was it really about getting the homeless out of the Armory? What role did the newly contracted Levy Restaurants (part of the British multibillion-dollar multinational food service corporation Compass Group) play in this "business decision," and does this present a conflict of interests? Should a city department be making "business decisions" that might conflict with the public good and public access? Why were dozens of new outlets installed during the renovation only to be locked later at great cost? How is it a wise "business decision" to pay $1,836.79 for the initial purchase and installation of locking covers , and then incur thousands of dollars in continuing costs for upkeep? (An October 3, 2012 email from the electrical shop at Seattle Center reports that they are "repairing broken covers, but we do not have time to replace every missing lock... The electricians do not have the time to go over every other day replacing missing locks... We will have more than enough of broken covers to fix.")

While writing this article it came to my attention that sometime in January the AC outlets on the upper/mezzanine level of the Armory, in the seating area adjacent to the Center School, became accessible to users after school hours (earlier they were turned off after school hours and signs requested non-students not to use this area during school hours). There remain no accessible AC outlets on the main (food court) level.

Some additional info re: the City's response to PRA requests:

Over seven months after submitting a Public Records Act (PRA) request to Seattle Center a considerable number of documents have still not been released. Last December I initiated legal action to compel Seattle Center and the City of Seattle to comply with established state law.

Washington State's Public Record Act (PRA, aka RCW 42.56) was voted into existence over 40 years ago and states "The people of this state do not yield their sovereignty to the agencies that serve them. The people, in delegating authority, do not give their public servants the right to decide what is good for the people to know and what is not good for them to know. The people insist on remaining informed so that they may maintain control over the instruments that they have created." Last spring the Washington State Supreme Court reaffirmed the importance of the PRA when they said that without the PRA "government of the people, by the people, for the people, risks becoming government of the people, by the bureaucrats, for the special interests."

Almost four years ago the City of Seattle unanimously passed a law (SMC 3.104) stating that "the City is fully committed to a 'culture of compliance' where public records that can be provided to the public are provided in as timely, open, efficient and effective way as possible... the City has a policy and practice of assisting people with public records requests." Every aspect of the City's response to my PRA request, by both Seattle Center and the City Law Department, flagrantly contradicts that law.

Denise Wells is the person responsible for handling PRA requests at Seattle Center, someone with over 12 years experience handling over one thousand PRA requests for the City of Seattle. Wells has worked at Seattle Center for over five years and is also the Senior Executive Assistant to the Director of Seattle Center, Robert Nellams. Part of her responsibilities involve supervising administrative staff and functions.

For the past year Seattle Center has been attempting to "manage" the homeless population there through decisions made and carried out by the very staff that Wells supervises or who supervise her. My PRA request was absolutely clear and unambiguous, asking for documents relevant to "putting any changes into effect (policies, staff behavior, signage, etc.) that might restrict or control the access of any particular group of people to space or services (including access to AC outlets) at Seattle Center." In the weeks prior to this PRA request there were numerous conversations and contacts that I had with Director Nellams and the COO Wideman-Williams, concerning the reasons behind removing AC access at the Armory.

Despite Wells' PRA training, her knowledge concerning the issue at hand, and having received a very clear PRA request, Wells decided to search only for documents that might contain the word "outlet." There can be little doubt that Wells knew, or easily could have known, both the specific and broader intent behind the PRA request and the documents that would be responsive to it. Thus began a torturous game of hide-and-go-seek between myself and the City, in which the City, on at least four occasions, repeatedly claimed to have finally released all relevant documents only to admit more existed. Ultimately, Seattle Center Director Robert Nellams and the City of Seattle are responsible for the overt and egregious violations of the PRA that continue to this day.

In it's legal defense the City has pretended that my PRA request was somehow unclear or over broad, and that only esoteric and complex keyword searches might uncover the documents that they claim only exist in my imagination. It is an absurd claim that indicates there is more than gross incompetence at issue here. On November 19, 2012 Seattle Center engaged the advice and services of the Pete Holmes' City Law Department, who have managed, with the involvement of at least three staff attorneys and numerous other staff, to continue to fail to comply with the legal requirements of the PRA. The involvement of the City Law Department has exacerbated, not prevented, the violations that continue six months later.

Hence, the City Law Office appears to have established a policy to knowingly subvert well established Washington State law, to deny citizens access to public records, and to do so in a manner that will result in high costs to both plaintiffs and the City when someone seeks to hold the City accountable. This all makes Holmes' current slogan for reelection -- "Help Pete continue to promote Seattle's values, work for social justice and improve the Office of the City Attorney" -- seem a bit hollow.

On October 1, 2009, when Holmes was first running for City Attorney, the Seattle Times noted "Holmes said he's committed to open government: 'I have a record of standing up for this, even when it's tough to do so.' " Maybe it's just the easy stuff he can't figure out.

~ Howard Gale

A Gale is blowing the tall, bureaucratic "firs" of city government. Will they bend to the will of the righteous people? or will they crack under the weight of their own unscrupulous boughs?

A few months does not a pit bull make; most count their record-seeking battles by years; and it's overblown to compare this case to the Times' case which involved an issue of great public concern.(BTW, you don't sue in appeals court - your suit is filed at a lower level, where it's heard; it then advances when one or both parties disagree with the lower court findings.)