On August 6, 2020, I wrote a blog that changed my life.
That blog: Seattle, A City in Fear Can Be Restored, described a city in decline.
- A city where violent mobs were looting stores, breaking windows, and taking over sections of the city.
- A city in which homelessness was expanding rapidly, much of it driven by mental illness, drugs, and a lack of enforcement of basic laws.
- A city in which political violence was okay and political leadership (such as the City Council) not only tolerated lawlessness but encouraged it.
- A city in which many, including municipal leaders, were calling for the defunding of the police and vilified those responsible for civil safety.
A typical Seattle street scene
I paid a serious price for that blog.
- Within hours I got a call from Joey Cohn, manager of Public Radio Station KNKX, terminating my weather segment on Fridays. A public radio station that does not believe in freedom of speech.
- Some students of the University of Washington associated with the auto workers union circulated a petition demanding that I be fired from my faculty position.
- The chair of my department (now replaced) called my blog “disgusting” to some local media.
The key message of my blog was that political violence is wrong. That undermining public safety hurts the least fortunate of the city and inevitably undermines the city’s viability. More importantly, I cared deeply about Seattle and feared what was happening.
What really got some folks angry at me (like Joey Cohn) was my comparison of what happened in Seattle to what occurred in Germany before WW2. But the more I read about that time, the more I think it is true. The brownshirts used violence as a political tool. Same as in Seattle. The political leadership was happy to let street brawlers use violence, without being directly involved. The same as Seattle. The violence was particularly directed at Jewish businesses (same in Seattle….Uncle Ikes and Samuel’s Jewelers for example, with anti-Israel graffiti in CHOP, the area taken over by Antifa). Recently, it became clear that several BLM chapters support the horrific, barbaric violence in Israel, as well as the end of the State of Israel. There is a reason that Jewish agencies, such as the AJC, supported me. Fascism is generally a creature of the left, not the right.
Unfortunately, much of what I worried about has come to pass.
Downtown Seattle has lost many of its businesses, many driven away by crime, shoplifting, and loss of clientele. Covid was not the main driver of the decline, something shown by the viability of other cities (such as Miami).
Homelessness has risen rapidly in much of the city, with hundreds dying on the streets each year. 2022 brought a record-breaking 310 deaths in King County (mainly Seattle), many associated with drug overdoses. A large proportion of the homeless are mentally ill.
Each day I bike to work along the Burke Gilman Trail, where I always see many homeless camped out on benches or in the woods. Needles are often apparent trailside (see below). Some are passed out, while others scream at the sky in madness. Last summer I saw a homeless man, without a shirt and missing part of his arm, start a fire at the entrance to the University of Washington.
The University of Washington is full of homeless folks, sleeping on exhaust grates, camping out in the parking garages, or holding up in libraries or buildings. The central parking garage is full of urine and feces, particularly in the stairwells, and passed-out folks are not a rare sight on campus (see below from a few weeks ago).
With deployable officer strength down to only 855 in Seattle, there is little personnel availability for traffic enforcement. Seattle’s streets are a free-for-all, with drivers often going 10-20 miles per hour above the speed limit. Pedestrian fatalities from motor vehicle collisions are up steeply, with 2023 deaths now the highest since 1990. Neighborhood crime is rampant. In my neighborhood, as in many others in Seattle, the mailboxes are regularly broken into by thieves, who steal all the mail. Lately, they don’t even have to break the boxes–they have master keys! They got these by holding up a mail carrier with a gun and breaking into the local post office, where they not only stole the master keys but the mail as well.
If Seattle sounds like some kind of dystopian Gotham City, you would not be wrong. A city that had so much to offer is now in profound decline….totally self-inflicted and unnecessary. And there is no Batman to save us.
A lot of the problem originated in a problematic city council that believed in defunding police, tolerating crime, and not taking the homeless situation (and associated drug use and mental illness) seriously. The election is coming up in a few days and Seattle residents can revamp the council by voting for candidates motivated to turn the situation around. Here are my recommendations, which amazingly are the same as the Seattle Times:
Rob Saka, District 1
Tanya Woo, District 2
Joy Hollingsworth, District 3
Maritza Rivera, District 4
Cathy Moore, District 5
Peter Hanning, District 6
Bob Kettle, District 7
If you are a Seattle resident, please vote. The future of Seattle depends on it.
Footnote: I still have my job at the UW, thanks to tenure. There is a reason that the UW has been rated as the worst public university in the U.S. for protecting freedom of speech. KNKX listenership has declined greatly, with listeners driven away by its shrill, politized fare.
