There's no safety in these numbers

03/06/2007
By: Dan Pavlovic

(This is in response to Seattle City Councilmember Peter Steinbrueck's guest column "Do You Feel Safe in Your Neighborhood," which appeared Jan. 3.)

No, Mr. Steinbreuck, I do not feel safe in my neighborhood.

First, thank you for the council's hard work in dealing with our city's public-safety issues - it is recognized as difficult and necessary work, and deeply appreciated.

Since you asked in the North Seattle Herald[-Outlook] about neighborhood safety: No, I do not feel safe in my neighborhood. As the block-watch captain on [North] 89th Street in Greenwood, my wife and I heard "firecrackers" at the end of our block and learned hours later that an anti-crime team officer, Troy Swanson, was shot and another man lay dead. Again, more crime on Aurora Avenue [North], which, as a family with young children, makes us feel especially vulnerable.

Drugs and prostitution have traveled along Aurora Avenue for 20 years, 30 years - and more. Archived news accounts of prostitution stings go back to the mid-1980s; neighborhood accounts go back further.

After all this time, I would say that the crime problems on Aurora Avenue are not just a police problem but a city, county and state problem.

Aurora hasn't changed much, and its reputation is deserved, but the neighborhoods that border it are changing. Look at the blocks off of Aurora Avenue and see remodeled houses, new townhomes and neighborhood groups like the Greenwood Aurora Involved Neighbors (GAIN)who represent the families living in these neighborhoods.

The city's first-ever five-year plan to improve public safety has to include Aurora Avenue as a main topic. You cannot talk about crime in North Seattle and not talk about the Aurora Avenue corridor.

When I started asking people in 2005 what they might do to change Aurora Avenue all I saw as response was a shrug. No one person could offer ideas; instead, I heard people say "Aurora Avenue will always have prostitution" or "They will always come back."

In this time I have been collecting ideas, and I would like to offer them. Of course, I do not have the long view the city does, so these are offered as pieces to a solution.

NCI PROGRAM AND THE DOC

Officer Swanson was shot by a Department of Corrections (DOC) release, and as the [Seattle] P-I noted, [it was] the fourth incident by a DOC release in recent months. I would suggest expanding from one to three NCI (Neighborhood Corrections Initiative) units to Aurora Avenue. Three Seattle police officers, three DOC officers and three vans - they are targeted and economical. (Supporters include the Downtown Seattle Association Board of Trustees and the Metropolitan Improvement District Advisory Council).

You might also consider investigating any arrangements and voucher programs the DOC has with motels along Aurora Avenue, as well as the arrangement motels have regarding sex offenders. Newer state community protection laws state that the area around private and public schools is 880 feet (previously 220 feet - an area so small it only covered the opposite side of the street).

http://villagersvoice.blogspot.com/2007/03/theres-no-safety-in-these-numbers.html