The Seattle City Council is expected Tuesday to approve legislation expanding the city’s Real Time Crime Center with new cameras in Pike/Pine and the Central District plus expansion of the Seattle Police Department surveillance system to use select Seattle Department of Transportation traffic cameras in the program.
The council’s public safety committee including District 3 representative Joy Hollingsworth has signed off on the “surveillance technology implementation” plan. CHS reported here on final debate about data privacy and how the city says it will handle any potential legal wrangling with outside agencies like ICE.
UPDATE: The council approved the expansions 7-2 with Alexis Mercedes Rinck and Dan Strauss opposing the plan over privacy concerns and worries about federal encroachment. Public safety chair Bob Kettle, a former naval intelligence commander, said an amendment approved Tuesday is “aimed at avoiding any cooperation with federal civil immigration enforcement.”
The legislation will expand the SPD Real Time Crime Center surveillance camera system to include the Capitol Hill nightlife core around E Pike and Cal Anderson Park and a major swath of the Central District from E Cherry to Jackson police officials say is necessary to prevent gun violence near Garfield High School.
The proposed SPD camera expansion would also include adding the installations to the city’s Stadium District around Lumen Field and T-Mobile park.
The city already operates more than 350 traffic cameras across its streets.
SPD’s current three-location RTCC system includes 57 cameras, the city says.
The proposed Capitol Hill boundaries would cover the core of the Pike/Pine neighborhood along E Pike and E Pine between Broadway and 12th Ave with a mapped extension along Nagle Place and Broadway north of the core all the way to Denny/E Barbara Bailey Way and the southern edge of Capitol Hill Station and its Sound Transit security camera installations. The camera zone would stretch to the backside of Pike/Pine along E Union.
The Nagle extension would cover an area troubled by nighttime violence, camping, and street disorder and represents a de facto inclusion of Cal Anderson Park’s western edge including Bobby Morris Playfield and the skate area, dodgeball and tennis courts, and basketball court.
In the Central District, the Harrell administration and Hollingsworth pushed for the camera system to be centered around safety at Garfield High School but with boundaries running from a block north of the school along E Cherry all the way to S Jackson. The western edge would include 20th Ave and the eastern edge would extend along 26th Ave.
The zone would include Garfield’s 23rd Ave campus, the Garfield Super Block area including the Garfield Community Center and sports fields, and the troubled parking lot at 23rd and Jackson.
The Capitol Hill system will cost around $400,000 to install and $35,000 a year to operate.
The Central District installation has a budget of $425,000 and also an estimated $35,000 in “ongoing annual costs.”
UPDATE: Mayoral candidate Katie Wilson has called on the council to reject the proposed expansions.
“Turning on more cameras won’t magically make our neighborhoods safer. But it will certainly make our neighbors more vulnerable,” Wilson says in a statement sent to media. “As the Trump administration escalates its attacks on immigrants, trans people, and big cities in general, we need to prioritize safety, not surveillance.”
In her statement, Wilson says the proposal “to expand and centralize surveillance” will make it “all too easy for the federal government to target Seattleites.”
Mayor Bruce Harrell has supported and helped shape the proposed expansions.
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let’s roll out the red carpet for authoritarianism!
These people can’t be voted out of office soon enough.
Yes, because fascists want accountability and justice.
The council passed the surveillances package. Not a single person in 2+ hours of testimony was pro CCTV. They were all against…60+ comments.
This is someone who works for the CCTV company knowing a cop in the SPD and the cash is changing hands.
Wait! Now you work for a CCTV company? Your career is a mile wide….
I AM a TV! Don’t misidentify me.
Fully support these cameras being added around two well-known crime hot spots. One area is a drug market that has been tearing apart of the neighborhood for years, and the other area is where teens get shot and no one is brought to justice. The city has long-defined policies on surveillance technology, we all have constitutional rights that can be remedied, and there are no accusations that there have been any improper uses of the existing CCTV network
As long as it’s not you right? The city council meeting has 45 people and counting still, and zero people for it. There’s a two year study they are rushing now. It’s so corrupt. We live in authoritarian country now. And we want to rush surveillances? Mkay…Makes zero sense. The voter approved Medical Center is constantly on hold over “more letters” from the same exact people that want cops and surveillances.
Put it on the ballot. Kiosks as well. Nopers. There’s money changing hands. LOTS of money. Not safety. MONEY. Sorry not giving up my sense of privacy and security. People attack people on camera alllll the time. It stops NOTHING and is ALWAYS misused. ALWAYS. No exceptions.
The MAGA around here frightens everyone.
Don’t understand what you’re incoherent rant is getting at but the city council and mayor won elections and have the authority to pass laws.
It’s cool if it’s laws you agree with. Not if you disagree.
Gross violation of our privacy and a clear signal that ICE is welcome to terrorize anyone they wish in our city.
How bout the cops just get their FAT LARD ASSES out of their cars and do beat patrols. I fucking dare you cowards.
They want to sit and drink coffee at restaurants and talk to each other on the street from their car windows in parsing lots. Gang stalk their wives and enemies etc. If a cop snitches? Their life is over. Ovah! The harassment is relentless.
Beat patrols and CCTV are not mutually exclusive and the feds don’t have authority so you’re just speculating
Naw…Personal experiences and it’s a nightmare.
You’re doing a pretty awful job of pretending like you’ve been anywhere near Capitol Hill in the last 5 years, because the “Capitol Hill Nightlife District” is not 3rd and Pike, nor has it even remotely resembled it at any point in the time I’ve lived in this neighborhood.
The only thing tearing apart any part of Capitol Hill is the landlords squeezing tenants for more and more rent each year til shops and restaurants call it quits.
You’re lying about the existence of a drug market for ideological reasons
Where the hell are we getting this money? I thought we were hurting for money and cutting funds from projects.
It’s voter approved.
It would be good! Not that I am putting too much hope into that, but at least it’s something. I would definitely extend it to Broadway and Roy, but I don’t think it will happen.
Too much talking about privacy issues, when there is so much danger around. Safety is a priority.
Waste of money, a better idea would be to place the surveillance cameras around the open air drug market known as 12th and Jackson.
I recommend the Italian system. We post a nonna in every window. When she sees something wrong she calls her nephew who comes over and breaks some balls. Then all the neighbors are told who the punks are and what will happen. Corretto!