Mayor Mike McGinn Friday announced “a new emphasis on public safety in Cal Anderson Park” inspired by complaints from Capitol Hill resident Laura Stockwell that the park isn’t safe because of loitering and drug use. The mayor’s announcement confirmed our report from August about the plan to deploy more Park Rangers and increase the presence of East Precinct officers in the public green space and referenced the “hundreds of people” who commented on CHS about safety in the park.
When we talked to Seattle Parks about the plan a few weeks ago, a spokesperson told CHS the rangers “cannot routinely be at Cal Anderson Park.” The mayor’s announcement doesn’t specify what has changed about the situation. We’ll follow up with Parks to get more specifics about the increase.
The East Precinct, on the other hand, said it had already started to increase its presence in the park by requiring its officers to check the area more frequently and to enter the park instead of only driving by in a cruiser. No mention, by the way, in the mayor’s post of the East Precinct’s sprinkler suggestion.
As far as results go, the mayor’s office might have a factors in its favor beyond increased patrols to make Cal Anderson feel safer. For one, while the weather is forecasted to remain beautiful into at least next week, we’re bound to get back to typical Seattle wet soon. For another, all of the projects requiring fencing that had constricted pedestrian flow through the park are now completed. SPD said regular use of the park and the presence of other people is an important factor on cutting down on the number of people using the park for sleeping, drinking or doing drugs.
You’ll have the chance to tell the mayor your thoughts on Capitol Hill safety and more on September 13th as Mcginn comes to the Miller Park Community Center for a town hall:
Mayor’s Town Hall
Tuesday, 9/13, 5:30 – 8pm
Location: Miller Community Center, 330 19th Ave East
Stockwell, in the meantime, appears to be continuing her push for increased safety and better facilities for children on the Hill. She told KOMO that she plans to rally a group of parents for the September 13th town hall.
KOMO also reported details Stockwell told the TV station about an incident reported by an anonymous commenter on CHS. The comment left by Carl said a child was stuck with a discarded hypodermic needle at the park:
Yes, kids actually are in danger. Not from the sleeping homeless, but definitely the drug dealing and using that goes on in the park. My 5 year old nephew was just stuck by a needle at the Cal Anderson playground. He was walking around the perimeter of the playground and saw the needle at the edge of the bushes. Despite being warned about the dangers of that kind of thing, a kid being a kid, he picked up the needle and got stuck. This has nothing to do with snobbery or discrimination. I just don’t want my nephew or anyone else to live with (or die from) something picked up from some thoughtless idiot who thinks it is ok to use and dispose of needles at a playground.
We’re trying to talk with Carl to learn more about the incident.
Here’s the complete announcement from the mayor:
It started with a tweet. Local mom Laura Stockwell tweeted at us – “dear @mayormcginn please clean up cal anderson park. drunks are out of hand. not safe. can no longer go there w/ kids to play. where’s spd?”
We have staff constantly monitoring our twitter feed, so we responded right away that we’d look into it.
While we were coordinating with police and Seattle Parks and Recreation about the issue, Capitol Hill Blog heard about Laura’s efforts and published this story. Hundreds of people jumped in to comment. Some agreed with Laura that Cal Anderson wasn’t a safe place for kids. Others were concerned that unsheltered people seeking a place to spend the day would be unfairly targeted. But the issue clearly struck a chord in the community.
Today we’re announcing a new emphasis on public safety in Cal Anderson Park. We’ve asked Seattle Parks and Recreation to deploy more Park Rangers to Cal Anderson. Park Rangers are stewards of our downtown parks, making sure visitors know how to get where they’re going, that people respect the rules of park use, and that everyone feels safe and welcome in our parks. In addition, the nearby East Precinct will deploy additional foot and bicycle patrols to the park, and their mobile outreach team will reach out to unsheltered people in the park to connect them to human services programs. Now that we’ve identified a problem, we’ll be working to make sure that Cal Anderson is a safe and welcoming place for people from all walks of life.
So don’t hesitate to reach out to us – whether through our facebook page, our twitter feed, the mayor’s email address, or speaking to the mayor directly at one of our many public events.
So the homeless is now the unsheltered. Great, one more term that the uber liberals can use to tsk tsk and correct the rest of us.
And what a shining example of civics that comment thread was! You had so many Seattlites bitching about “political correctness” that I thought I was back in the South. You had claims that the poor somehow evade paying taxes – the radical Republican meme du jour. You had commenters actually calling other people “subhuman”.
That the mayor would take the garbage comments section of that post seriously is a goddamn shame.
I agree. There were some very small-minded people on that post. It diminishes my thoughts of many of my neighbors.
There are so many police officers at the east precinct that could use some exercise that the mayor should issue them pedometers and require them to get out of their patrol cars and walk around our neighborhoods and parks. Less weight on these guys (I have yet to see any overweight female officers) would also save on gas for their vehicles…
I hope the Mayor isn’t just blowing steam, as he is prone to do, and that there really will be an increased presence of SPD and Park Rangers. Even if there is, I wonder how long the effort will last. Over the winter months, this problem will temporarily go away, but it will resume next spring/summer if there is not a sustained effort to frequently look for illegal activity and take action when necessary.
I have never been bothered by the homeless at the park, only people with dogs. while walking thru the park one evening there was a group of folks in there late teens whom allowed there doberman pinscher to charge me from about 50 yards away and when that dog came within feet of me they called it back.
Or how about the guy with the two large(leashed) rottweiler’s whom allowed his dogs to come within in inches of me and when i asked him to please keep his dogs away from me he gave me the f.u..?
so i guess my question is will cal anderson park become another volunter park where the well to do are allowed to treat it like there own off leash dog park and will only those whom sleep at the park or just look poor be harrased by the cops?
The parties in power seem to be making a lot of hay from the type of racist invective aimed at immigrants in YouTube comment threads so it makes sense that anonymous postings about how traumatizing Cal Anderson would be a clue in to latching on to reactionary momentum in Seattle. It’s fear of the other; homeless, immigrant, “terrorists”, inebriated… there’s no difference. Fear sells.
Also, how the hell does one loiter in a park?
And this story will come full circle when her kids grow up to be homeless drug addicts living in Cal Anderson.
I play soccer a few days a week at bobby morris and frrequent cal Anderson to relax ever so often. During the day, I see no issues. Homeless/transient/unsheltered/etc generally keep to themselves. At night, the park is a different story. The lighting is next to obselete. We’ve had people robbed, stabbed, and whathaveyou, so why not increase a police presence. With the east precint just a block away, there’s no reason why their shouldn’t be a presence.
Time to start serving and protecting.
Capitol Hill is very dog friendly. That’s one of the reasons I like the neighborhood so much.
You need to clean up your grammer. As it is, the incorrect usage of “whom” and strange sentence constructions distract from the point of your post.
No. YOU can ignore a small and biased sample of commenters on a blog. Elected officials should not. It’s called representative government. YOU can ignore the forest for the trees (prejudiced comments vs. actual crime in the park), elected officials should not.
A sample size of one. Well, there you have it folks… No problems in the park. As you were.
Also, your misspelling of grammar as “grammer” totally distracts from your post about proper grammar. Yikes. Come on! Hey, but thanks for making me laugh! Now, was it there, their, or they’re???
I don’t think this is as simple as people being upset about loitering homeless. The last few times I have been in the park at night it has been downright scary and I’ve started to avoid it completely. Groups of junkies hang around the main paths and demand passers by “pay a toll” and when you refuse, incoherent yelling ensues. I could care less if someone wants to sleep under a tree, but getting harassed in this manner, by a group of 4 or 5 junkies, makes the park feel terribly unsafe.
That would be very interesting. I have not yet come across any junkies trying that.
You sure you aren’t just imagining that for a little online troll?
” I just don’t want my nephew or anyone else to live with (or die from) something picked up from some thoughtless idiot who thinks it is ok to use and dispose of needles at a playground.”
Needles and Cal Anderson park have been a problem for ever and a day. Note that needle problems were MUCH worse before the advent of needle exchanges.
Suggestions:
1) Advocate for a more visible needle exchange program, perhaps with better hours and a more public location. ( http://www.kingcounty.gov/healthservices/health/communicable )
2) Be certain that your children are up-to-date on their tetanus shots. There’s ~ no chance of getting AIDS from a discarded needle (” As of March 2008, no cases in which HIV was transmitted by needlestick injury outside a health care setting had been reported to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. ” http://www.unboundmedicine.com/redbook/ub/view/RedBook/18732) but a good chance of getting tetanus.
Hepatitis infections are also concerns: there’s a vaccine for hepatitis B: http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vpd-vac/hepb/default.htm
About 8 months ago I pointed out some needles on the sidewalk of Madison Ave to a passing SPD cruiser at about 9am on a weekday, he told me to call a medical waste disposal company and drove off.
@Your Grammer Is Confusing
It’s “grammar,” not “grammer.”
Didn’t the mayor and Obama get elected by a small biased sample?
That would be the East Precinct that is ONE BLOCK AWAY from the park, right?
Just checking.
Wow, attacking people’s kids. You sure are picking on the hard targets. Seems like you need a tougher challenge. Maybe there are some old people you can pick on next. That is if you’re up for a little more of a challenge.
People like Ms. Stockwell and the other hard core type, some of whom are now in Seattle – they fail to see themselves, ever, in any dire straits, and this is very smug and class related.
The “rabble” they crap and carp about are indeed just like them – only at the bottom point of lives, lived under horrible stress and strain.
By the way, it will get so bad, there will be a conformity code, older, not dressed well, seemingly aimless, just hanging, and other often racial based markers will get you rousted, or questioned with great determination as they run your ID.
I have had that problem, and I don’t drink or do drugs and have had a good job for many, many years, own a home.
Get ready. (by the way, tons of gay folks who might be eccentric, young and old, will be on the list as well, always happens)
Xavier
LOLOL! So instead of discouraging the use of drugs and needles in the park…you suggest “more visible needle exchange programs.” That’s rich. Are you going to pay for that?
Jesus christ some people in this city severely disappoint me.
Obviously they don’t literally “make” you pay a toll, but they will ask for change, and if you say no then they call you a liar, and curse at you trying to get a reaction. This shit happens all over the hill, not just in Cal Anderson. WTF do they care? They have nothing to lose, and are a-okay with that.
It kills me how so many people can be so interested in helping the homeless when they have no interest in helping themselves.
Ha Xavier if you’d like a soapbox so that you can broadcast your predictions of a new fascist world takeover based in Capitol Hill maybe CHB should do a story about you.
You’re primary function on these boards has seemed to be to cry discrimination and warn of the sky falling. There’s nothing fascist about saying that shooting up and dealing in the park isn’t alright.
Is shooting up in the bathrooms, or selling dope in the park alright Xavier? That’s a question. Is asking people to act civilly in public a sign of your prophesied “conformity code”? Because that’s all anybody is talking about.
I guess expecting the drug using population in the park to stop nodding off in the bathroom stalls after they fix-up, or not leave spent needles on the ground makes me a fascist. There’s nothing wrong with expecting civility from those in civil society, or perhaps you prefer Thomas Hobbes’ state of nature.
MMA
One of these days you will get rousted and then, maybe then, it be clearer.
Spend needles are a hazard and serious. That need to be addressed all over the city. Maybe the Mayor can get on that …
These crackdowns target people who seem to fit a profile, and the profile gets bigger and bigger and bigger.
I use Cal Anderson every day, never have had even the slightest problem in any direction. Interesting. And have never seen a stray needle. If I did, would carefully pick it up and dispose via a soda bottle at the needle exchange. I have medical training and have no fear of syringes. Diabetic and hormone therapy use millions of needles …. tens of millions.
More and more visible needle exchanges – great idea.
Thanks Andrew, many of us are not hysterical about good ideas. By the way, most needle exchanges have a very high traffic of very well to do, well dressed middle class folks. I worked at one years ago, many well dressed downtown type women, crisp and to the point, in and out in a minute, big purses.
Exchanges save lives, reduce health care costs and lead to recovery. Duh.
Certainly the park is a vast improvement over the drug den that existed when the park was a reservoir. Huge!! I use the park weekly. There used to be regular police presence in the park. I have noticed more vagrants and drug users lately, mostly on the green above the rest rooms. I think more police patrols may have become a need at this point. It takes vigilance to keep a park that beautiful and people friendly from becoming a haven for undesirables. I don’t want to see the many kids who use the park to vanish. It must remain a family friendly park.
I agree completely with MMA. The possibility is nil that a law-abiding person will be “rousted” from the park, so please take your paranoia elsewhere, Xavier.
There is a very high prevalence of Hepatitis C among injecting drug abusers, and this devastating virus can be transmitted by used needles/syringes, so this is a real hazard for other users of the park. The same cannot be said for needles/syringes used by people with medical conditions such as diabetes, and of course they are not usually injecting themselves in public anyway.
Where are the police? The corner of the park is 200 feet from the corner of the east precinct. Gimme a break. They can’t even walk their fat-asses across the street.
Xavier is right, it only takes one such situation where you are intimidated by thugs with badges for merely asserting your rights as a citizen to jolt you back to reality and start realizing that stripped of all formality and niceties, cops view everyone as the enemy. It’s a pathology that emanates from those that set their mandate and demand that their parks be cleansed of people napping under a trees who don’t fit the profile of a property owner from the area.
McGinn is quick to issue a conciliatory sound byte, but I doubt there will be much meaningful change. He wants to send more police to patrol the park, but he can’t even keep his election promises of hiring the 200 extra police officers to the force. Further, Seattle Parks is facing a deficit (despite the levy which is only slated for new construction); where in the budget are they going to find the money to hire/assign more park rangers. In any case, park rangers are no more than mall cops with no authority and training to arrest, detain, etc.
At the Molly Moon’s yesterday by a person that appeared to be homeless. An unfortunate loss of a beautiful old piece of glass. The neighborhood is overrun with junkies.
My kids and I go to Cal Anderson all the time and love it! We play a pick-up game of baseball, jump rope in the evening, play “Lava Monster” on the playground, go to the wading pool, play in the fountain. The bathrooms are filthy, I’ve found a marijuana pipe, I’ve seen one officer walk through the park on one day (the only action I saw was them lifting up someone’s sun shade to see if what was going on, only to move on seemingly without saying a word.). On July 3rd, there was a great community picnic with music and activities that had a decent, but still fairly low turn out of families considering the density of the neighborhood. Later, we attended “King Arthur and his Knights of the Playground”, again great fun with low attendance No matter how much we love Cal Anderson park, it has not fulfilled its family potential. I appreciate those few comments here that have shared what happens at night in the park and provided some other constructive solutions. I’ll probably go to McGinn’s community meeting, hoping to see you there. It will be very disappointing if all we hear there is “grammar” correction, complaints about overweight cops, snide comments about liberals and city dwellers, suggestions that Obama has anything to do with our neighborhood issues, and…enough said, you get the point. Cal Anderson remains a gem and it has a lot more potential. I want Laura Stockwell back at the park. It may not take much effort other than showing that there is an apparent level of prevention, security and responsiveness from the city. The park does feel like it is left to its own devices. I think the same can be said for most parks in the city. As much as my kids and I enjoy it, how does the community get support for issues it sees there without having to got to the point of a rally and new piece on KOMO? Constructive ideas welcome.
Not sure why, but the spongy playground surface is where the street kids and junkies sleep. It’s unusable until 8:30-9ish am. A few years ago the police pushed them all out of pioneer square, so they all just came up the the hill. It’s too bad – some of these kids have mental problems or are running from abuse, those are sad cases. The others are just a total waste of space, and I couldn’t care less what happens to them.
Hey, why don’t you answer the question Xavier?
Should people be allowed to conduct illegal activity? It a basic question, answer it.
I’d also like to know why you are trying to hush people who are asking for help, namely women and children? Should we revoke their right to free speech? And while we’re at it, how about revoking a woman’s right to vote. They should just stay shut up and stop making trouble, right?
Let me sum up: People conducting illegal activity in the park are good and should be protected. Women and children asking for help are pure evil and are going to take down society. Did I get that right? Wow, you are such a liberal, huh?
People gather around, Xavier has never been harassed in the park. Thank god, now everybody can feel safe again. You’re clearly a able bodied man, so it’s not “interesting” that you’ve never had any problems in the park. I’m a 250 pound man, and ironically nobody ever bothers me in the park either. Your normative conclusions based on only your own experiences doesn’t mean that other people don’t deal with harassment issues there, and it doesn’t make dope using/dealing in the park alright.
Traj and Xavier you keep making the argument that people like you are going to be discriminated against, or that the homeless population is being harassed. Both of you have failed to answer the simple question I posed previously, is shooting dope in the bathrooms, and dealing in the park alright? If this clearly illegal activity isn’t okay, then who has the responsibility to police the activity? Are you going to do it? Whether you like the police or not it’s SPD’s job to respond to these concerns.
Spray ’em with a firehose. Not only will they leave, they also won’t be so stinky.
I think Laura Stockwell must have never had a run in with a bum before, because her situation isn’t nearly close to what I deal with on a daily basis. The bike path along Melrose to Lakeview is full of bums who have tried on numerous occasions to get into my building. Last month there was a guy jacking off near the stairs to my building. I’ve stopped calling the cops who come out and have “cleaned up” my area but never make the effort to regularly patrol the path. I’m just moving at this point, the mayor is more focused on protecting the yuppies than the rest of the neighborhood.
That’s really unfortunate that you have to deal with that. It’s also unfortunate that you perceive others that want the neighborhood to be better as the enemy. Maybe you’ll reconsider.
No money for police, no money to house the homeless. Meanwhile, all that money printing the Fed does to prop up the financial companies benefits few and causes inflation. Rising prices at the stores hit the poor and the middle class hard. This will all get worse and worse. Yeah, sounds like doomsday but what’s not true?
I totally agree with you. I own a home in the area and in the last year I’ve had 2 different tweakers literally try to break down my door. I called the cops, hysterical, BECAUSE DUDES WERE TRYING TO GET IN MY HOUSE. And guess what? They never showed up. NEVER. In both cases, I got a call 45 minutes to an hour and a half later from SPD asking if I “still required assistance”. WTF. I’ve also had to call a quite a few times because of guys prowling around in my (fenced) yard. The SPD did show up once, and told me that it wasn’t illegal for someone to be in my yard or on my porch, looking in my window. Uh, isnt that trespassing?! Other friends of mine in Cap Hill, First Hill and Downtown all have similar stories. The problems that are happening in Cal Anderson are happening all over and I don’t see the City, the Mayor or SPD doing much of anything to remedy it. I guess because this isn’t Greenwood or Queen Anne we don’t matter.
Jess, sorry to hear you’re dealing with the same issue. Update: I was walking my dog along the bike path and spotted a cop cleaning up the area, throwing the garbage into her trunk. I stopped and spoke with her, she had been the officer who came out to clean up the area before. She told me this is her pet project right now, as she is the only one coming out to clean up the garbage and ticket people for trespassing. She said her issue is that she hasn’t found people at the times she’s come out, so if I were to see anything to call 911 immediately. That was a positive run in with an officer about this situation who also wants to see the area become a park.
Die yuppie scum…or just move to fucking Bellevue. Ugh. If you don’t know how to be safe in one of the safest cities in America, you’re not meant to be here. Pack up the dog and the kids and move to the ‘burbs. We won’t miss you.
Anouk:
If everyone that you disagreed with moved to Bellevue, Seattle would be a ghost town. If you’d read the comments you would have noticed that most of the women that don’t feel safe in the park are middle or working class people.
If railing against yuppies is what gets you off, perhaps you should head over to Bellevue so that you can find some. So, are middle and working class women that live on Capitol Hill the yuppie menace you’re referring to? Maybe they just want someplace in their own neighborhood where they can feel safe with their kids.
Anouk, please formulate a more original put-down (of yuppies) than “move to Bellevue.” It’s gotten to be a cliche, not to mention a very facile way to express your criticism.
Anouk,
I would move to Bellevue but I think people like you will end up in Renton or Lynwood because you can’t handle us yuppies. We will price you out of the neighborhood in no time.
Andrew, thanks for the response and info on needle risks/precautions. After my nephew got stuck, we did take him to Swedish and they gave us the same type of information as well. I’m quite relieved to know the risks of getting stuck are not quite as dreadful as I had imagined them to be.
Whoever left the needle there actually did put the safety cap back on the needle. What they may have been to blotto to notice was that they bent the needle when putting the cap back on which caused the tip to stick out of the side of the syringe. I spoke with a diabetic friend who mentioned this infrequently happens with his syringes as well.
I do and will support things like needle exchanges and services for the homeless, but I also expect that people should be able to take their kids to a park without feeling unsafe or getting a premature education on sex/drugs/violence.