Pub. Note: For those just coming aboard or who may have missed an installment in our fantastical approach to addressing the problems posed in the Seattle Is Dying documentary, here are links to: Mayor Durkan’s Fate of the City Address; Homeless Central, a First Step; background on Action (nee Homeless) Central Director John Shannon; and a first interview with Shannon, where he drew the important distinction between Homelessness and Lawlessness. And the fantasy continues…
True to his word, John Shannon found a half-hour in his jam-packed schedule to bring marketingnw.com up to date on his progress.
“Before we begin, I wanna let you in on the nickname I picked up in college” John said. “One of my Theta Chi fraternity brothers began calling me ‘Action Jack,’ or ‘AJ’ for short. He said it was because I always was the one to organize a flag-football game on the front lawn, or a kegger or a poker game. I guess it sorta fits what I’m doing now—because this project is all about action. The status quo is simply unacceptable.” We agreed.
Our first question was what he tells people when they ask why we need the proposed Action Central facility anyway. Without a second’s lapse, he replied, “I tell ’em there are three good reasons:
“One, because we can, as the digital capital of the country with Microsoft, Amazon and Google in our backyard;
“Two, because we should, in order to provide a centralized and coordinated capability to combat the complex problems spelled out in the Seattle Is Dying documentary, and;
“Three, because we must, in order to take back our streets, so that our citizens, tourists and other visitors can feel safe walking the streets—day or night—as they once did.”
Hard to argue with those reasons. So, how will this facility be staffed?
“Let me first explain that the ‘facility’ we’re talking about is a huge room, with a state-of-the-art video wall unlike any other in existence, that will depict homeless encampments, criminal activity and other emergencies in real time, enabling all the stakeholders to act in concert—day-in-and-day-out. This always will be a work-in-progress, but at this point we envision three main groups—the A Team, the B Team and the S Team.
“The A Team—which appropriately enough—stands for Action Team, will be representatives of the front-line departments, which include police, fire and transportation. As the name implies, members of the A Team will have the authority to respond immediately to any situation.
“The B Team comprises members of the Backup services, like housing, the courts and healthcare—especially mental health.
“And the S Team is the myriad of support elements with a stake in the situation—beginning with the Seattle and King County Councils.
“We see the A and B Team members staffing the center 24/7/365—or in the case of next year—366. Being a Leap Year baby myself, I had to mention that,” Shannon quipped. “The S Team will be visually represented on the video wall but its representatives will be connected electronically—with a requirement to respond immediately, when necessary.
“Now here’s the critical point that I can’t convey strongly enough: All of these activities are being performed now, but what’s missing is visibility of the overall picture on a constant basis with continuous coordinated action. That’s the essential element that Action Central will provide.
“There will be the usual day, night and swing shifts. The most important time will be the end of the day shift, when I—or my deputy—will oversee preparation of the Daily Summary & Action Plan. That will summarize activities for the past 24 hours and set priorities for the next 24.
“And speaking of deputies—we won’t be hiring new folks there. The deputies all will come from members of the A Team, who will wear two hats, as deputy director and regular team member, when I’m not on duty.”
How about any other hiring?
“As I said when we last talked, we hope that virtually all of the staffing can be achieved by reassigning existing staff from all of the departments involved. In some cases, we may even be able to negate the need for a particular position here and there, but I want to emphasize that we won’t see the wholesale replacement of any particular function because of the need for backup to the central facility.”
Having extended well beyond our allotted half-hour, we thanked ‘AJ’ for his time and agreed that next week we’d talk about a location for the facility and how it might be funded.
Now, back to reality… And after you vote below, if you haven’t already, please read the related piece titled ‘What’s Past Is Prologue” that follows the Ballot.
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‘What’s Past Is Prologue’?
The recent PBS documentary on Joseph Pulitzer was excellent in its own right, especially to a journalist, but it also triggered some comparisons between the New York City of his day and the Seattle of the present day.
Much of the documentary dealt with the rise of The World as the world’s dominant daily newspaper in what Mark Twain called The Gilded Age of the early 1900s. Wikipedia describes it this way.
“The Gilded Age was an era of rapid economic growth, especially in the North and West. The period saw an influx of millions of European immigrants. The rapid expansion of industrialization led to real wage growth of 60% between 1860 and 1890, spread across the ever-increasing labor force. However, the Gilded Age also was an era of abject poverty and inequality, as millions of immigrants—many from impoverished regions—poured into the United States, and the high concentration of wealth became more visible and contentious.”
The Pulitzer piece showed old photos of the industrial barons riding about the heart of the city in their fancy horse-drawn carriages, the narrator noting that they seldom came into contact with the poor. That’s because, rather than homeless encampments throughout the city, there were squalid tenements on the outskirts, occupied by separate enclaves of poor Jewish, Irish, German, Polish and other immigrants.
The documentary also triggered memories of William Shakespeare’s famous line from The Tempest: “What’s past is prologue.” The phrase conveys the idea that history sets the context for the present.
Now, a century later, it’s not a big leap to compare the New York City of the booming Industrial Age with the Seattle of the equally explosive Digital Age. Each was/is the urban center of those respective Ages.
In today’s Seattle, the fancy carriages of the well-to-do are limos and the elevators that transport them to and from their opulent living quarters in the growing number of high-rise condominiums and apartment buildings that continue to transform the city skyline. And aside from literally being above all the squalor on the streets, the rich are insulated from it by the amenities that allow them to live a virtually self-contained existence in these new structures.
And there’s more to come. In addition to having the third highest per capita income of any city in the U.S., Seattle is a major magnet for millennials seeking to share in the digital-driven wealth. As in New York City during the Gilded Age, the high concentration of wealth is becoming “more visible and contentious” in Seattle.
Since we seem to have learned nothing from history so far, looking at how New York City dealt with the problems of the Gilded Age a century ago might be a good idea.
—Larry Coffman