Seattle: "Panhandling legislation vetoed"

Timothy Harris (Real Change):

Last week, as nearly everyone by now knows, Seattle’s newest panhandling legislation was vetoed by Mayor Mike McGinn. Few believe that Licata, Harrell, Rassmussen, or O’Brien can be flipped to make a veto-proof 6-3 council majority. The ordinance, one of five points of a public safety plan offered by Tim Burgess, appears dead.

Most media coverage has been hostile to the to the point of hysteria. The Seattle Times published a vindictive, near-libelous editorial about the council vote. KING5 dishonestly counter-posed the veto and the mayor’s refusal to commit to 20 new cops on the news anchor’s preferred timeline. On KCTS Connects, a news analysis panel — with Republican strategist Chris Vance, long-time Democratic party strategist Kathy Allen, Joni Balter from the Seattle Times, and the PI’s Joel Connelly editorial board — engaged in something akin to Orwell’s 5-Minute Hate. They said the mayor had just lost mainstream Seattle with his “out of touch” leftism. Balter predicted that women voters would abandon in droves those who opposed this ordinance. She called O’Brien a puppet and McGinn “the ventriloquist.”

When the downtown interests lose a round, ugly spectacle ensues. If ever the need for independent media voices has been apparent, it is now.

The best thing that could happen now is for everyone concerned about Seattle safety — and this includes the mayor, all the councilmembers, Real Change, the ACLU, the NAACP and homeless advocates — to work on the real problems with which we are faced: gang activity, open-air drug dealing and the violence that follows, rising youth violence in the South End. More effective deployment of police is part of the solution. Increased mental health services, expanded treatment options and increased human services outreach would help a lot as well. We all agree on this.

The worst thing that could happen is that we quickly find ourselves back in the same place, pouring our energy into a divisive fight that misidentifies the problem and punishes those who have the least for an economy they don’t control.

Either way, we’ll be there, organizing to win. Please support Real Change’s Spring Fund Drive. Our success this year, our capacity to organize, our quality weekly reporting, all depend upon your reader support. Visit our website at realchangenews.org, or send your gift to Real Change, 2129 Second Ave., Seattle, 98121. Thank you.