Seattle area businesses say they are done having their workers and customers threatened by crime, so 35 business leaders – including Nordstrom CEO Erik Nordstrom, Mariners CEO John Stanton and Microsoft Vice Chair and President Brad Smith – signed off on a letter to City Hall.
“Number one, we need a public safety plan, and we need it now,” said former Governor Chris Gregoire, who heads the executive alliance group Challenge Seattle. It’s one of the groups behind the letter to Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson, City Council President Joy Hollingsworth and Public Safety Chair Bob Kettle.
It’s based on the results of a survey of Seattle area residents, funded by Challenge Seattle, and it spells out what the business leaders want to see in that safety plan, including: more police patrols in high crime areas, quicker response to 9-1-1 calls, a crackdown on open-air drug markets and jail time for those who repeatedly refuse offers of drug treatment.
They want a ban on camping within 250 feet of schools, parks and playgrounds. And they want CCTV cameras – used by cops – turned back on in all high crime areas, including the Stadium District.
In an interview several weeks ago, Microsoft Vice Chair and President Brad Smith told KIRO 7, “Every day that those cameras in the stadium district are turned off is a day when our own citizens are left less safe than they should be.”
Smith pointed out that the CCTV surveillance cameras were turned off after the World Cup.
“Are we going to provide our own citizens with the same level of public safety support that we provided to visitors here from around the world? We showed what we could do. Seattle was safer; it was cleaner,” he said.
But gunfire has ripped through the city since then, including a deadly mass shooting at the bite of Seattle, and three separate fatal shootings in the city’s Belltown neighborhood over Labor Day weekend.
“We’re dependent on tourism. We’re depending on sports fans. We’re dependent on retail. If we’re going to be that dependent, we’ve got to have public safety,” Gregoire said.
When asked if Seattle is getting a bad rap, Gregoire stressed, “When you have employees who are afraid to work, when you have fans who are afraid to go to a game, when you have families who are afraid to go to the aquarium, then you know you’ve got a real problem that must be addressed.”
KIRO 7 reached out to Wilson, Hollingsworth, and Kettle for comment. The mayor has said previously that she plans to release a public safety plan next week.
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