Mayor Mike McGinn made an up close and personal campaign stop in West Seattle on Saturday Aug. 4 when he visited C & P Coffee to answer questions. He talked about issues of concern to people in West Seattle including transit, development, public safety, Nickelsville and what he thinks he's accomplished so far.

Transit
"I've stood up on transit and I don't like to criticize the County Executive or Metro. I try to support them. So, what I've done on transit are a number of things. Not this (legislative) session but the session before it, Metro wanted more authority and they got the $20 Congestion Reduction Charge which was through the license fee and the suburban city of Seattle and County did not agree on the same approach two sessions ago so at that time I started working and hired a facilitator and started inviting mayors from around the state, and ended up getting 47 mayors and Dow Constantine to all agree on what the funding package should look like for Metro. That was the local funding options package that went through the state House. It didn't go through the state Senate because the Democrats lost control of the Senate. I spent multiple meetings and a lot of time building a state coalition. My theory was, the legislature doesn't necessarily listen to the Mayor of Seattle, but I thought if we could get Mayors from districts throughout the state saying we need a government funding option, then Republican legislators from other places would be likely to be more responsive. So I've been a big advocate for Metro and a big advocate for Sound Transit and Sound Transit 3 on the ballot by 2016. We got Sound Transit to agree to advance all of their planning so it could be done in time for 2016. One of the corridors they are looking at is downtown to West Seattle. And downtown to Ballard, downtown to the U-District and across 520.

We've worked to make it easier for buses to get through town. There's some controversy about that because sometimes buses stop in lane and drivers are upset about that but that's so buses don't get stuck in traffic and we can change how we run our streets. We've done that on Dexter Avenue. We've done that on U-District to Ballard (…) We've done that here (on Morgan Street) and maybe it wasn't perfectly done but the concept of giving buses priority in traffic. If the buses can move faster that's like giving more service hours to Metro because the bus can run another route. Finally with a little bit of leftover money from Bridging the Gap we budgeted money to buy bus service and we were able to buy all the bus service we wanted to buy with $1.9 million extra and we brought more bus service on to high frequency routes."

McGinn was asked about the development boom and what concessions the city can get to benefit either those who take transit or those in low income status. The Amazon project in South Lake Union that involves that company's offer to buy a rail car and provide added trips was discussed as an example.

"We debate how much can you get out of new development and towards what? There are a lot of people who advocate it should be toward affordable housing. Part of it is you want good streetscapes, part of it is you want green buildings, part of it is you want affordable housing. I think absolutely you could include transit in that mix. But there may be a trade off because there are other advocates, particularly housing advocates who think that should be the highest priority."

"We have a stakeholder group that i've appointed along with Councilmember Conlin (Land Use Chair) that is going to be looking at, 'What is the public benefits package that we get from new development?' (…) One of the questions asked is, 'Should new development have to provide affordable housing on site instead of paying into a fund to buy it?"

McGinn was pressed on concerns voiced by many in West Seattle online, and in public forums about the number of apartments now under construction in West Seattle and the capacity of the transit system to serve them.

"There is no way we are going to continue to grow jobs as a city without really expanding transit. That's why I push this issue and built a statewide coalition around money for local. I've been for transit for a long and made it a priority for this administration. It's not even ideology like cars vs. bikes vs. transit. It's like geometry. We're not going to build that many more roadways so we have to figure out how to use our roadways more efficiently."

Bridging the Gap is up for renewal in two years in 2015. The question will be at what point do we ask the voters of Seattle to support transit and not let the County voters or State legislature dictate how much transit we can have? That's probably one I'll be pushing on as we get to that renewal point. Should we start thinking about having a dedicated levy in Seattle for transit expansion so we are not held hostage by the state anymore?

He noted that developers right now pay nothing toward transit support or expansion, "but when you look at the amount of dollars needed the developers profits are just not enough. We're talking serious dollars. We're not going to get there on developer's dollars. It's not an option."

A dedicated transit levy for the City of Seattle has been part of the Mayor's thought process for some time. "We have a maintenance backlog but were also waiting on transit. What we did with the last levy was that it was a mix of maintenance, bike and pedestrian improvements and a portion was for hours of service from Metro. A portion was for transit improvements on the right of way. We're already part way there."

He noted that he's not taking a position on how a levy might work because much of it depends on what the State does, hence his preference for just introducing the questions and then letting, "the conversation develop."

Top Three Accomplishments
Mcginn said that he is proudest of the Family and Education levy because,"It will have a lasting impact on a lot of our youth. We've expanded the Youth Violence Prevention Initiative as part of that. It's doing more for our youth and not holding it at arm's length but having the Mayor take a leadership role, in partnership with the school district.

Second he said, "I think the DOJ settlement in particular the community police commission that came out of that was really significant because these issues had been kind of pushed under the radar. People don't really want to talk about the concerns for communities of color and being dealt with properly by the police. This is something I got into that agreement and isn't something the DOJ initially wanted. I had to fight for it, which is to bring our leaders from communities of color and make them part of the reform process by being on the commission with the police force. Now they are really talking about it. The police are there too. The union is grudgingly at the table but they are there. We have a lot of work to do but we've got the issues out in the open and we're talking together. That could be really lasting I hope in changing the culture."

Third he listed, "Broadband and fiber optic to the home. We were looking at a municipal broadband utility. Fiber optic is the next big thing. I met with the mayor of Kansas City and Google built them broadband and they've got kids moving in there to have gigabit upload and download speeds and inexpensively in Kansas City. This is Seattle man and we should be the place to do the great new things. The way it works right now is we are trying to run the internet over copper wire and things that were built for TV or telephones. What we need is a big fat pipe in which TV, phones and everything would be apps on that pipeline. We've looked at a municipal utility and before we went there, which would be very expensive, we said is there anyone in the private sector who would like to lease our excess dark fiber. We own a fiber optic network that connects all our city buildings. We have a lot of unused capacity. Gigabit Squared said they can start rolling out next year in fourteen neighborhoods fiber optic to the home or business for $80 a month, gigabit upload and download speeds. That would be transformative."

He also pointed to balancing the budget in spite of the recession and not touching the city's "rainy day fund."

Nickelsville
"I think the City Council's concept was that by setting a deadline and providing services the numbers would dwindle. What we're seeing in reality is that the numbers are expanding. We are going to keep pushing ahead with providing services and hope that we can see numbers dwindle and measure as we go."

Public Safety
McGinn said that crime overall is down, in fact lower this year so far than last year which was at a 30 year low. He said they are hiring more officers, hiring 8 more last week and expect by next summer to have 30 more. "We did go down some with the recession and through attritition."

"I know Captain Dermody (in charge of the West Precinct) would tell you that if you look at where the officers are we have more officers on foot, on bike in certain areas that we did before." He's referring to the area around 3rd and Pike downtown and said, "We've made more than 700 narcotics arrests in the past year in that area, in the West Precinct so the question is what happens after someone's arrested? One is the drug arrest but there are issues over on the prosecution side that we have to look at. Captain Dermody has worked with the prosecutor and we're going to start to see "Stay out of drug area" orders somebody can't just come out and return to the same place." In terms of violent crime he said, "Aggravated assaults are down 5% from last year, violent crimes are down 7% and overall crime is down in the West Precinct by double digits."

The Mayor acknowledged that due to the DOJ and other incidents where SPD has been seen in a negative way, "there's a spotlight on them right now." He noted that officers are concerned about low level interactions escalating and then the officers being held responsible should something go awry.
"We've brought together service providers, businesses, the police and the human services division to talk about how we deal with the most problematic individuals. Basically one path is services and we've done that, we're expanding law enforcement assisted diversion but the other side of the equation is how do you handle people who are not interested in services or who are not interested in following the rules? We're trying to bring people together so we have unanimity around that.

The mayor said that the "directed patrols", a system of predictive policing that puts enforcement where crimes are most likely to occur put into action this year was working well. "That's one of the reasons we think we've seen that reduction in crime. We're seeing a reduction in crime and 911 calls because officers are more likely to be in the places where 911 calls are coming from. It's striking, the reduction in numbers." He urged people to check out the West Precinct "Captain's Log" http://www.seattle.gov/police/precincts/west/captainlog.htm

In West Seattle proper McGinn said that there was an uptick in property crimes earlier in the year but after some arrests were made there's been a reduction recently and hope that the two are related. "You don't necessarily know when you capture a burglar or car thief what all of their crimes were but we do know that people don't break into a home or steal a car just once."

I think that the police, despite all the turmoil around them are doing a great job and making a difference. They are justifiably concerned about being caught in the spotlight of public scrutiny."

What he couldn't get done
McGinn said the main thing he was unable to accomplish in his term as Mayor was, "the funding around transit and street improvements. We did put a vehicle license fee measure on the ballot and it met a lot of resistance. Other cities have tried to pass a license fee and they've all failed. I think that the flat tax, so to speak on vehicles, people think it's unfair. I don't want to go back to the vehicle license idea because of the resistance. What we've seen is that a sales tax did well. I don't know if it would do well in Seattle but Snohomish did a sales tax and North Bend did a sales tax and they sold it as 'make the visitors to our city pay for the improvements' but we're more sensitive to that kind of tax. "
"We're doing our planning as fast as we can to qualify for federal dollars under Sound Transit 3. On the planning side we've managed to fund it but have to obtain more. I think a main priority for a second term has be about funding for transit."