Posts — Page 513

My friend and I can’t go anymore :( I have a weekend pass and also a single Friday and a single Saturday ticket so if you wanted to go but didn’t want to pay full price let me know!

This comment thread from my post from earlier concerning our serial arsonist is pretty revealing. The first comment in the screenshot says: “Oh thank God we pay these cops high salaries. I was getting worried they’d have to work.” The implication is pretty clear: the response problem is being blamed on cops themselves, implying that they're lazy or simply unwilling to do their jobs. I responded by pointing out that SPD has a very real staffing shortage. As of September 8, SPD had only 864 fully deployable patrol officers citywide. Seattle currently has about 823,400 residents, which works out to just 1.05 fully deployable patrol officers per 1,000 residents. And this isn't simply a matter of 864 being an arbitrary number that sounds low. Seattle's own comprehensive plan analysis uses 1.738 officers per 1,000 residents as SPD's historical average level of service from 2010 through 2022. At today's population, that historical rate would correspond to roughly 1,431 officers. The city's planning documents also note that SPD staffing had fallen to historically low levels. That puts today's 864 fully deployable patrol officers roughly 567 below the number that would correspond to Seattle's own historical staffing rate. And the decline didn't happen out of nowhere. In 2019, before the major 2020 drop, SPD had 1,281 deployable officers. By 2020, that number had fallen to 1,094. That's a loss of 187 deployable officers in a single year. By 2022, SPD's chief reported that the department had lost 402 deployable officers/detectives since 2019 and said it would take an estimated five to ten years to return to pre-2020 staffing levels. So we're not talking about a department that has always had 864 officers and suddenly decided not to answer calls. We're talking about a department that lost hundreds of deployable personnel and has been trying to rebuild that workforce ever since. And “864 officers” does not mean 864 officers sitting around waiting for calls. The September staffing data distinguishes the 864 fully deployable SPOG patrol officers from the larger number of sworn personnel on the department's books who aren't currently available for 911 response. My comment pointing out the staffing shortage: -19. Then another commenter said the “popular theory” is that SPD is purposefully neglecting its duties to punish residents for the “defund the police” movement and inflame right-wing news rhetoric against the area. That comment: +20. No evidence was offered for that claim. It's an unsupported theory that SPD officers are deliberately failing to do their jobs for political reasons. That's what stands out to me. An actual, documented staffing problem was presented as a straightforward explanation for poor response times and heavily downvoted. Meanwhile, a much more elaborate claim that officers are deliberately withholding service for political reasons was heavily upvoted without any evidence being provided. Obviously, one Reddit thread can't establish what an entire neighborhood believes. My hope is that this is not representative of Ballardites' reasoning abilities generally, i.e., conspiracy-type thinking that ignores evidence. But it does make me wonder whether people here are generally more inclined to blame SPD and individual officers for response problems than to acknowledge the scale of the staffing shortage. If you think the staffing shortage doesn't explain the response problems, what evidence supports the alternative explanation? And if the problem isn't primarily the shortage of deployable officers, what do you think the solution actually is?

SPD will receive an additional $68 million in total, growing their budget to $556 million. This money will fund the salaries of 1,250 police officers, which is 66 more officers than Harrell funded in his last budget. [...] Another example of a cut is a 50% reduction in the Collective Network Grant Program. Administered by the Seattle Office for Civil Rights, this program provides funding for community-led domestic violence response and prevention programs outside the criminal legal system. Of the 128 City positions being eliminated, 113 are not currently filled. ~ Discipline is the word being used for a budget that halves domestic violence prevention. There is a different word for the department that came out $68 million ahead.

I know Western Washington is mostly evergreen, but I’d love to find places where you get really vivid fall colors mixed in with the conifers. Fiery reds, oranges, and golds against dark green forest, especially around mountain passes, valleys, or alpine areas. I know the Seattle Japanese Garden and Kubota Garden are gorgeous later in October and early November, but I’m looking for something more wild and natural. Ideally somewhere accessible as a day trip or day hike. I was thinking about the North Cascades, Rainier, the Olympics, Snoqualmie Pass, or anywhere else in Western Washington with especially good vine maple, huckleberry, or other fall foliage. Since higher elevation areas start turning earlier, I figured now would be a good time to ask. Any favorite hikes, scenic drives, mountain passes, or other spots?

This is at Lake City Way and 95th, been here for over an hour and these guys seem to not know what to do. Can’t believe they haven’t got a tow truck down here. Must be backed up to freeway.

Has anyone been to the Elysian Great Pumpkin Beer Fest in recent years? Is it fun/worth the money? I've heard it's overcrowded, I'm wondering if it's like that all afternoon/evening or if it's pretty easy to get through lines if you go right at 4.

Somali home daycares in Seattle receive $5M in taxpayer funds in potential fraud: report

I really don’t want to buy a car and genuinely enjoy using public transit, but I’m starting a new job near downtown Redmond and am dreading how long the commute could take from Madrona. I’ve looked into vanpool and even considered getting an e-bike to ride to Judkins Park and take the Link across the lake, but I’m not sure how realistic that is once the rainy season hits. I’d really like to keep the commute sustainable, but I also don’t want to double my commute time just to avoid driving. 😅 Are there any non-obvious routes, transit combinations, carpools, etc. that people use to get from Seattle to the Eastside when you aren’t already close to the Link? Would love to hear what’s actually worked for other people!

I've been writing a fantasy novel for the last 4 years and am finally publishing it (it got some great reviews and I got to work with some amazing artists, you can check it out on edensrise.com). I'm working with the owners of the Parallel Universe Bookstore in Hingetown for a launch event on 10/24 which is really soon. However, I moved to Cleveland only a few years ago and don't really know a lot of people here. Any suggestions on some creative ways to raise some awareness for the event? We plan on it being super fun. It's for kids (12+) and adults with giveaways, some games, etc. I'll be posting fliers in every coffee shop I can find but am unsure what else to do. It's a bit late (and expensive) to get ads into Cleveland magazine etc (and not sure if anyone will even take note of them there). I poured a lot of work into the novel and the event, and it'd be a bummer if no-one came. Would love to hear any and all ideas around this. (I also posted this in /Cleveland but since I live in Lakewood and just found this subreddit, I'm cross-posting here too, especially since a lot of the book was written in that beautiful Lakewood library!)

Anyone else having an outage right now? They finally acknowledge it and said it won't be fixed until tomorrow at 11:39 AM, which is insane :/