It seems pretty cut-and-dried. On April 1, the Seattle Human Rights Commission voted 9–1 to oppose the controversial aggressive-panhandling bill currently before the Seattle City Council. Which means the council won’t touch the measure, right?
Wrong. You’d think a nearly unanimous objection, coming from a city board that exists to advise lawmakers on policy, would cause the city council to toss the bill into the shredder, but gallingly, two members of the city council’s public safety committee are doing the opposite: digging in their heels to support it.
Council Member Sally Clark says she will “probably” vote for the bill, citing complaints of violence and intimidation lodged by downtown business owners and residents (complaints that Clark acknowledges would largely go unaddressed by the measure). Council Member Tim Burgess, the sponsor of the bill and the most conservative member of the council, is even more dismissive of the commission’s concerns. Referring to the worries about due process raised by the human-rights board, Burgess says the commission—a city-appointed panel comprising attorneys, doctors, and experts on public policy—”misunderstands the ordinance.”
Burgess’s bill would allow cops to issue $50 citations for aggressive solicitation without a citizen complaint, even though the city already has a criminal aggressive-panhandling ordinance on the books.
The commissioners, in the course of their debate, found the bill would be redundant, ineffective, and could skirt due process for suspects. A ticket requires a lower burden of proof than the existing criminal law, notes commission chair Roslyn Solomon, and people who don’t pay the ticket or miss a court date—a likely scenario for panhandlers—would automatically end up with a criminal conviction and then could be jailed or committed into treatment.
“I understand that some people may feel uncomfortable downtown,” says Solomon. “The question is how best to approach that and deal with that.” She says that the commission widely supports other provisions of a plan to address disorder downtown, such as increasing police foot patrols and police presence overall, and augmenting social services. But, she says, Burgess’s bill makes the mistake of criminalizing a civil infraction.
“We don’t think that this is the right way to do it, by creating due-process concerns, criminalizing people who don’t have representation of counsel, and ordering people against their will into services,” she says.
Burgess says he’s “mystified by the due-process concerns.”
But he shouldn’t be “mystified” much longer. Commissioners are planning to explain, one-on-one to each council member, the inherent human-rights flaws in the bill. The commission is also going to issue a report to the council members (it came out after The Stranger went to press).
Critics of the bill have some allies at City Hall. Council Member Bruce Harrell says the commission’s recommendation “should not be taken lightly, given their role in helping our city balance safety issues against our civil liberties.” Mayor Mike McGinn, too, says the commission “raises serious issues that the council should consider.” And Council Member Nick Licata notes that the board’s vote “must be taken seriously.” On April 5, he introduced two amendments that would delay implementation of Burgess’s measure until the city also allocates funding for more police patrols and social services to address problematic panhandling. 
Is Burgess willing to stake his entire career on this bill?
I propose a challenge: If this passes and anyone is found by any court to have had their rights violated, even if the protest does not advance beyond a lower court, Burgess will immediately resign all public office and pay court costs for both the accused and the city out of his own pocket.
I mean, Burgess believes that the concerns raised by a commission tasked with helping protect human rights policy in this city are negligible, regardless of the makeup of that commission. That should speak to his dedication and conviction regarding this bill.
I’m appalled that this piece of drek passed out of committee today. “Councilmembers Sally Bagshaw, Tim Burgess and Richard Conlin voted for the “aggressive solicitation” law championed by Burgess. Licata, who received no support for his amendments, cast the only vote against it.”
There you have it, your “progressive” City Council at work. Bagshaw is the new Drago, Conlin’s okay with fees on plastic bags but not human rights.
Burgess is a skank, a hack and a grandstander trying to score political points at the expense of the poor and disadvantaged. He obviously has neither shame nor common decency. It goes without saying, but I will anyway, that he has no common sense!
His legislation is unequivocally repugnant. It does nothing to change the behavior of anyone on our streets, it is unenforceable, it is costly, and it is reprehensible that a sitting elected official of this otherwise tolerant city would seek to turn those less fortunate into Jean Valjean!
I urged the remaining members of the City Council to soundly reject the Burgess-Javert Doctrine. Apparently, I have to address them in French.
Persecution of the weak for the sake of one’s ego and political ambitions, especially in the immediate days following Easter, puts Burgess and his addled, spiteful construct squarely in the role of a modern day Pontius Pilate. Guess what: It didn’t work 2000 years ago, either.
Welcome to the new Seattle, just like the old Sidran Seattle, where we let a lobotomized ex-cop roll a bucket of marbles down the hallway of the First Amendment, and a Council full of fools try to walk on them.
Is this place fucked or what?
I bet I could learn something from a guy named Tim Burgess. With his dick in my ass! Zing.
I feel like I can finally go downtown with my kids again
Since when is threatening, intimidating, thug-like and threatening behavior in need of protection? Why are we not willing to enforce a social contract of civil public behavior towards our neighbors?
Society as a whole (including the homeless) is ill served by permitting predators and thugs to run the streets of our city, which is arguably the case from Pioneer Square through Belltown today. Safer streets means safer streets for all, including the disadvantaged.
Witness one of the killers of Tuba Man Ed McMichael has already been released, and re-arrested for another unprovoked robbery and beating of a stranger. This sort of behavior is intolerably in a civilized society. Either get your asses in gear working on solutions (even partial solutions), or shut your pie holes while others do what you lack the integrity to do — which is stand up for the true victims here, those trying to get their groceries home, or eat at a restaurant, or visit a neighbor, and can’t do so safely due to the thugs you wish to protect.
This just in… Hippies oppose any responsibility on the part of piss soaked psychotic bums robbing your grandma at the ATM.
Ok, in a more serious tone, is anyone here surprised that the CRC would back the bums? I’m not talking about the homeless, but the bums. It might not be an issue to PBR drinking twentysomethings, but bums scaring off customers is a big deal to their employers at the restaurants and shops around town. This law isn’t fair in the grand scheme of life, but it is a necessary step to make this city liveable for the other 99% of us who have chosen a life that doesn’t involve addiction and sleeping in our own exrement.
The law is unnecessary, expensive, mean-spirited, unjustifiable and redundant (the city already has a criminal aggressive-panhandling ordinance on the books)
It will not address any of the issues used to justify its existence. (complaints that Clark acknowledges would largely go unaddressed by the measure.)
Burgess needs to be stopped before he gets more powerful. He’s quite simply, not a nice person and we should not fall victim to his scare tactics. This ordinance is high-profile and puts him in the spotlight. That’s its only value, and only to Councilman Burgess.
He’s the safety committee. He tries to make this sound like a safety issue but he falls short on that one too. The best he can say is that some people are sometimes afraid of some things.
if council wants to do something about trying to get more people downtown, this ain’t gonna help.
the big property owners are screwed right now with the bad economy and vacancies, and this is a feel good gesture to that mob.
SPD has all it needs to deal with aggressive panhandlers. oh, except for even more police officers and anything else it wants – courtesy of Burgess and a scared council…