Seattle business leaders request ‘immediate action’ from the city to improve safety in downtown

Tents line a street in downtown Seattle. (GeekWire Photo / John Cook)

In a sharply worded letter to the Seattle and King County councils, members of the Downtown Seattle Association said the neighborhood is in crisis due to crime and homelessness and people should expect more businesses to move or close, if not soon Action to be taken.

The letter, signed by DSA CEO Jon Scholes along with representatives from Amazon, Vulcan, Weyerhaeuser, downtown law firms, the Seattle Kraken, and others, contains a laundry list of complaints, quotes from crime stories, and dismal statistics that the letter summarizes as ” Threat to recovery and the lives of people in need. “

Jon Scholes, CEO of the Downtown Seattle Association. (GeekWire Photo / Monica Nickelsburg)

“Since 2015, violent crime in downtown Seattle has increased significantly. The SPD, which is already understaffed for a city the size of Seattle, has lost almost 300 civil servants since the beginning of 2020, ”the letter reads, adding that companies have started to hire jobs – police officers on duty for protection.

“Real estate crime and shoplifting have a huge impact on many retailers, restaurants, and attractions in the city center. Retailers, arts and cultural institutions and other businesses are spending significant resources on private security to make up for the lack of police and other public health and safety measures, ”the letter continued.

The group of companies warns that pandemic-related business closings in the city center – already closed at 500 according to the DSA – will continue to increase, and urged the city and county to take the following measures:

• That the council and mayor accept proposed investments in public safety and housing in the proposed 2022 budget to increase police staff, build new housing and housing, expand the Health One program and increase the number of community service workers.
• That the Council and Mayor’s Office adopt High Barrier Work Group recommendations in 2019, which was jointly convened to target individuals with significant and repeated interactions with the criminal justice and emergency response systems.
• That the council and the mayor’s office help to compensate for new security-related expenses that small businesses, retailers, and art and cultural institutions incur due to the reduced staff of the SPD and increased response times.

Seattle city council members were unavailable for comment. GeekWire reached out to two mayoral candidates Lorena Gonzalez and Bruce Harrell for an answer.

The letter comes as questions about the future of downtown’s status as a business district where Amazon and other tech companies are based. The area was largely deserted when companies sent workers home at the start of the pandemic. Some companies are now trying to reduce their physical office needs by shifting to remote work.

According to a recent survey by Sea.Citi, the majority of tech workers in Seattle don’t expect to ever return to their offices.

Lou Bond, the general manager of Melbourne, a ten-story office building on 3rd Avenue and Pike Street, said downtown has always had its share of crime, but since 2019 “it has gotten a lot worse”.

Bond has served as the building’s general manager since 1987. Last year the crime situation got so out of hand that he organized the managers of eight nearby buildings to hire off-duty police between 11 a.m. and 8 p.m. at a cost of $ 35,000 a month.

He blames rampant drug addiction and untreated mental health problems, coupled with fewer police forces and a civic reluctance to prosecute some crimes, to be responsible for the neighborhood’s decline. For him, signing the letter was an easy decision.

However, he hopes the letter will grab the town’s attention and bring about a quick change. He referred to himself as the “glass is half full” type. One of the real problems is the city’s inaction in the face of significant problems. Civil inaction towards addicts and the mentally ill is not compassion, he said.

“We have to help them,” he said. “They are our brothers and sisters.”