What do you think the Mayor should experience during the Rainier Valley Live Local Challenge?
Submit your ideas via the comment section below by tonight, at 11:59 pm, and you could win an RVP t-shirt and four free tickets to Columbia City Cinema (RVP sponsor)!
Current front runners include:
- Davis: 1 – Get Mr. Mayor to apply for jobs in 98118 – see how many are available with his skill set, qualifications; 2 – Attend a block watch meeting; 3 – Walk or bike the city “designated safe routes” to our elementary schools and then tell us how safe they are for students K-5; 4 – Drive a honda or toyota and park your car for shopping in 98118 and see how long it takes to get stolen
- luigia: He should check out the local attractions….. the Rainier Valley abandoned house tour, the Genesee Car Ranch…..
- Mark B: If he rides the # 7 he should be required to listen to an ipod while on the bus. He should also be required to walk home with an arm load of groceries after dark from Rainier and Henderson.
- really: I vote for the mayor to spend the night in the abandoned Angie’s space…then walk the “hoe stroll” on Rainier between Othello and Rose then on down to Henderson all while wearing a “stop snitching” tshirt, $175 air jordan sneakers, and an ipod.
- Mimi Torchia Boothby Watercolors: 1. call the police and see how long it takes for them to come; 2. find a sidewalk in most of our neighborhoods.
Find more entries here.
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{ 26 comments }
I get that there is justified desperation and outrage in the Rainier Valley today, but what adult would take such a glib “challenge” seriously? What mayor would? What is the purpose of this effort? Will you be satisfied after McGinn walks your “ho stroll” or “tells us how safe” the “designated safe routes” are? Do you really want the mayor to wear Jordans at Rainier and Henderson? To what end?
Yes….yes I would. Its easy to turn a blind eye when you are up in the balcony. Come on down to the main floor…see what really goes on. See how it feels to re-think what shoes you can wear or try to hide your white ipod headphones when you are just trying to get home from work.
Was I sarcastic? Absolutely. Did I mean every word of it?
Hit the button too fast..
ABSO-FRIGGIN-LUTELY
Be a cop for just one day.
“To what end?”
To hopefully find some genuine, do-something-about-it empathy for his constituents that are forced to tolerate in this community what others throughout the city are not.
What you call “glib” is the gallows humor that some of develop as a coping method.
We are screaming for help down here! Our city’s government has turned a blind eye to the problems that we have down here in the valley for tooooooo long. Maybe if Mr. Mayor were to come down here and see what we have to deal with on a daily basis he would maybe (and that is a big maybe) see what needs to be done. There I have said it and I still don’t feel good about it.
“Our city’s government has turned a blind eye to the problems”
So what do you propose, more cops? Will they face constant harassment from James Bible et all?
Sure, there’s some tongue-in-cheek happening in the comments section. The Live Local Challenge itself though, is very serious. The Mayor has no clue how “the other side” lives in this city. He is perfectly comfortable giving favorable treatment to certain neighborhoods at the expense of others. He and SPD say the residents of Seattle expect the city to respond appropriately to violent crime when and where it happens…but have failed to do so. He is dangerously out of touch, and everyone who lives outside of Belltown (his current favorite child) can see that, not just South Seattle. Since the Mayor has given that neighborhood it’s own private police force (and poop patrol) in the wake of 2 shootings, 1 stabbing and a few muggings, South Seattle has had no less than 15 shootings, fights, meles, stabbings, and armed home invasions. Where’s the emergency press conference? Where’s the special hotline? It’s dispoportionality and discrimination at its worst.
The mayor should live locally for 6 weeks. It’s about getting him to understand his job responsibilities across the whole city, not just a special section of it. It’s about getting him to understand how each action (or inaction) he takes impacts communities. His staff is always saying (quietly, but they say it) the mayor doesn’t “understand” why so. end residents are so displeased, doesn’t “understand” what the problem is, and neither do they. Shocking. Again, dangerously out of touch. Maybe if he lived in the neighborhood he’s supposed to work on behalf of, he wouldn’t be so ignorant to its needs and its voters.
This challenge would be made even more effective for hizonner if his entire family wedged themselves into a 3 bedroom at the apts. Let him take HIS kids to the local park. Let him take HIS kids on those south end buses. Let him walk down parts of Rainier with HIS kids. Let him not be able to sleep at night because HIS kids are in the next bedroom over while gunfire erupts outside on the regular. Perhaps then he’ll start to get the tiniest idea of what so. end residents face.
For the record, I lived in the Lake Wa. apts for many years. His should be on the Henderson side of the property. He’ll experience more of the authentic South End “nightlife” that way.
At the end of the day, it all comes down to one thing: It’s time for McGinn to BE the Mayor.
My final (yeah right) suggestion (yes, i know I can’t win this thing, but still)…
Living in RB can be really stressful. If the mayor feels he needs to get away for a few hours, maybe have a beer to calm his nerves, we should issue him a pass out of RB… to the Rose Petal on MLK. Now THAT is a water hole!
To what end? To raise awareness and put a realistic experience to a set of statistics. To help our government understand how urgent our needs really are.
This isn’t Ballard or Belltown where crime may happen but you can still feel relatively safe walking down the street while using common sense. We live in an area where frankly, I wouldn’t feel comfortable walking down certain streets within a block radius from where I live without at least a tazer gun and a large friend. Even the safest of precautions won’t account for the fact that 80% of the children shooting other thugs around here can’t shoot worth a darn and may end up hitting me in the leg.
Yet, city officials treat us as if we can “hang tight” and find some way not to get mugged or shot in the leg on our way to and from our cars and buses every morning and night. There’s also the underlying message that we can either expect to put up with it because most of us are poor or because it’s always been this way. Even worse, we have people who don’t live here telling us if we don’t like it then we can just move to a nicer area. The problem with this logic is that there are families who’ve lived here for generations. There is culture, beauty, and community in SE Seattle. This is where we live. Ignore our problems and crime will only get worse and spread to your part of the city.
We feel that if officials could see exactly how dangerous our area has become due to complete negligence, it might light a fire under their seat. We honestly feel that anyone who would witness our experiences first hand could not possibly do anything but act. So yes, I challenge our fine Mayor to “hang tight” down here with us for a week or two. It’s easy enough for us right?
Bottom line, we’re tired of the city treating SE Seattle crime with the same urgency as a pot hole report. We cannot accept “we’ll get to it, improvement is hard”.
Mayor McGinn: change is hard but that’s what you people are elected for and paid to do. I live and own in SE Seattle and I don’t pay taxes to make Belltown safer. Furthermore, I already have a job and it’s description doesn’t involve running the city, securing transportation, or tasking the police force. I expect city officials to take our safety seriously and do something about this matter or get a new day job come election time.
Drive down Rainier dodging the crackheads…spend a weekend night at the bus stop at Rainier and Henderson…interview families of people who died by being beaten, shot, run over, or set on fire. Then go back to Broadview and bitch about the sewage system.
I have lived in the valley for most of my life (I moved here when I was 15, went to Rainier Beach and am now 53). I have watched this part of Seattle go from bad to worse, but it is my home and I refuse to be chased out by a bunch of thugs. My son is afraid to walk down Rainier Avenue for fear of being shot by some so called ex-friends of his. Move? Not an option for a working single mother who has to count every penny. Mr. Mayor, you need to step up and take care of the whole city, not just your favorite parts of it.
@ Angeldove
We have seen the Mayor repeateldy ignore request from our community. We need to band together and have our voices heard.
Gentrification is the only thing that will help the south end so bring it on light rail!
I don’t fully understand the objective of the Challenge mentioned in the responses. What I do understand is that citizens of South Seattle need to hold the public officials accountable. We need to have a community forum with the Mayor and the City Council members, specifically those who live in this area (Bruce Harrell). If there are no measurable changes, they will not be re-elected. Funny that when running for office, our South End votes hold value and then they disappear. Our tax dollars have gone to fund extra police in Belltown, while the Community Serive Officers are (if not already) loosing their jobs.
The crime level is outrageous. When a 10 year old child has been the focus of continued police investigations and most recently involved in an attempted robbery, we should all be outraged. Where are the parents? What efforts have been initiated to redirect this troubled child. If he’s not helped, the next thing we’ll be reading about is the murder he was part of.
Enough is enough.
Perhaps we should start a campaign to secede from the city of Seattle. That would get us some attention. From the media at least. I would certainly donate time to gathering signatures.
“we should start a campaign to secede from the city of Seattle”
As a soon to be northsider I say go ahead, it’ll stop the flow of tax dollars southward.
Now is the time for all in SE Seattle and the CD to unite. We have several elected representatives from this area, Sharon Tomiko Santos, Eric Pettigrew, Adam Kline. Not one of them will take our concerns to the City. They all were elected by us. They are all too busy furthering their political Careers on the State Level to be our representatives. Are they elected to represent us with the city, no? But that does not mean they cannot aid us.
We have several City Council members who live in the CD and SE, Bruce Harrell, Sally Clark and maybe one other. None of these have done anything for us. Nor has the deputy Mayor Daryl Smith also from SE Seattle. Why is this so? They only listen to the big money donators from the North Seattle, Ballard, West Seattle etc. We just do not give enough money to be a threat to their future.
We are a very diverse community, so were the 13 colonies. It is time bring together all the various factions, ethnic, religion, neighborhood, district and form a council and elect representatives who care about us and our issues. Either the city listens to us or we march, picket, write letters and do everything in our power to be sure that not one of these people will ever be elected again. Throw the rascals out.
Unite or do not complain; organize or accept repression; demand equal rights or accept discrimination. Form a Community Congress, elect a governing body to form policy and a leader who will represent us. If we need to march on downtown, march. If we need to picket the Mayor, picket the Mayor. We will be heard only if we unite.
Does anyone really think that we get a fair share of tax dollars?
“Does anyone really think that we get a fair share of tax dollars?”
Go to the city website and SPS website. Seattle spends more per student and spending on the southside in EVERY CATEGORY. It’s the north end that should be complaining.
If you can, go to the following meeting, and tell a neighbor or relative or friend to go with you and speak out about the SILENCE from the Mayor on issues in the central & south end –
Mayor McGinn will be at the at EastPrecinctCrimePreventionCoalition meeting, this Thursday, 8/26 at 6:00 -7:30pm
Venue: Seattle Vocational Institute
2120 South Jackson Street
Seattle, WA 98144-2219
(206) 587-4950
I think the north end, Bell town, Ballard, West Seattle, etc. do not want below market rate high rise high density housing. They do not want every social service agency the city cannot find anyplace else to place. If all these services were spread through out the city no area would have the impact that South East Seattle and the CD gets.
Why are they all placed in SE? Because our land is less costly than any place else in the city. Our property is less costly because of the impact of having all facilities. It is easier to take property here for these projects. This in turn keeps property values low. It is a vicious cycle fueled by the Mayor and the City.
Get on a bus and ride through the other areas of the city, do they look different than SE Seattle, you bet they do.
Yes SE gets more city money, but it is not development money. It is money to concentrate all the social ills of the city in SE Seattle. Is it any wonder that there were shootings last week and almost every week in SE Seattle?
Where are our elected representatives? They are busy planning for even more social services.
Unite SE Seattle Unite!
Every city needs its Hamsterdam.
He needs to actually sit in someone’s home while they call the police rather than call himself. We live 3 blocks from the precinct and have not only waited days for a response to the problem, been told by the police that it was okay for the neighbors to ‘beat up’ the vandals that were plaguing our block.
So, my other comment inviting him to attend the Criminal Justice Teach-in got edited out…what’s up with that? This is a legitimate opportunity for him to come have a dialogue with community members about public safety and see first hand the results of the Rainier Beach community’s arrest diversion program. He’s already been invited. We need to put the pressure on him to attend. He was in the neighborhood to campaign…he needs to come back and be held accountable.
@Sheri: Nothing was “edited out”. That comment is here: http://www.rainiervalleypost.com/help-design-the-rainier-valley-live-local-challenge-for-mayor-mcginn/comment-page-1/#comment-27723
They already got a troll up north, Dave. You heard?
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