This meeting's guest was Seattle City Councilmember Jim Compton.
Everybody wants hands-on management and accountability. Those are the big two.
45 applicants, one internal; firm cut it to 12; now down to "about half of that" but can't get more specific. Interviews next week. Some "great resumes" have resulted in committee meetings that stop just "short of fistfights."
Up to 20,000 documents at this point - 8,000 are on the internet so far.
Committee 1's job: What legal and financial requirements and responsibilities should be on the city in big meetings?
Committee 2: Planning process investigation committee. "Some of the stuff [we're finding] is kind of disturbing." Police are complaining about an old ordinance prohibiting the police from political intelligence-gathering on citizens and want the ordinance removed; but the committee has found out that everything the police wanted to know was already on the public record and therefore not affected, so the Intelligence Ordinance will almost certainly not be touched.
Committee 3: Operations/what happened on the street. "No way was given for demonstrators to demonstrate civil disobedience." E.g., misdemeanor charges for blockage and willing arrest.
A surprising question has been: What to do with those who feel that preventing meetings is protected speech? Big arguments coming over that one.
Capitol Hill is the biggest question - what went on up there? The charge that molotov cocktails were being prepared was bogus - the gas station where they were supposedly being made closed long before, and all the pumps had been turned off. Also, QFC had taken all the lighter fluid and similar flammables off the shelves.
Q: What about police staffing? North precinct in particular.
A: Police are finally restaffed, up to approx. 1200. But many aren't on the
streets; his committee is demanding that more police actually end up on
street duty. North Seattle most strongly feels that they're not getting
value for their dollar, at least not in number of police on street.
Lots of N. Precinct officers are loaned permanently to downtown and
other precincts, and the council is considering disallowing this sort of
slight-of-hand. (He seemed to feel that the loaning system had been badly
abused - transcriber's comment.)
- Compton will "educate himself" on University of Washington off-campus
police activity, and/or lack thereof.
- Extra headcount coming is most likely to end up on "salt water" - the
city currently has no salt-water patrols.
Q: Noise ordinance. We need one. Licata is not sympathetic to the
ability of people to sleep at night.
A: Currently assigned to the legislative committee, which he's not on.
He liked at least some of the features of the old one -
the residential section.
Q: Parking - with transit coming up, that'll make it much worse.
A: Enforcement pays for itself - it generates revenue. But the Council
gets lynched if enforcement is turned up too high, so it's a problem.
Q: But after light rail, it'll be a disaster. What then?
A: The city understands that the system will not survive if the
rail system doesn't get to Northgate. Downtown is saying that if they don't
get a bus reduction on downtown streets they will, quote, "lose their
appetite" for the process and it has been suggested by some that they
will work to shut it down - and that they have the capability to do so.
Ron Simms has been most energetic in trying to find a way to get it to
Northgate in Phase 1.
Q: Pagler is shouting down monorail extensions. Why?
A: It's not always clear that people know what they're voting for. But the
X-plan had some good features, but claims that there is "no appetite in the
private sector" for it. The impact upon landscaping is too big, as well.
The council has been forced to do something by the judge saying they couldn't
just ignore the ballot. The cost would be on the order of $2k/household
property tax hike or a doubling of the B&O tax, assuming no private
investment. [Transcriber's note: a variety of people in the journalism
field have disputed several of these comments.]
Compton wants to avoid killing it entirely, but nobody is stepping forward to take the lead on it. If somebody would, it would probably be okay.
- Picnic in July
- Judy Nicastro in August
- Sign Committee report
- Welcome Booklet third printing notice
A brief discussion of trying to get U.W. President McCormick to show up at a meeting sprung up - considered extremely unlikely, he simply doesn't want to come. Some talk about getting Steve Olsweng to show up, he's reportedly helpful; that could possibly happen.
Meeting adjourned.