Urgent Update! Check out local historian Knute (Mr. Mossback) Berger’s chilling, must-read column on the challenging state of affairs in his beloved Seattle on the Crosscut website.
This collage reflects the “nightmayorish” and situation that faces the City of Seattle—from the “CHOP” zone to the recovery from the downtown rioting to the closed West Seattle Bridge to the Boeing cutbacks to the fanless baseball and football stadiums to the suspended cruise-ship business to the homeless situation to COVID-19. This surreal situation is arguably the worst in the city’s 151-year history in terms of its complexity and totality.
By Larry Coffman
Pub.Note: The CHOP zone finally has been cleared—after 23 days—and police have taken back the East Precinct. Meanwhile, residents and business owners in the area have filed a pair of lawsuits claiming the city is negligent in allowing the CHOP to exist and asking unspecified damages. It’s unclear whether they will continue to be pursued. In the now three-week siege, there were four shootings resulting in two deaths in the CHOP.
Here is a sample of comments we received from visitors to the site:
“Why should this shutdown be any different that the removal and razing of homeless camps throughout the city? Time to make a move if no one wants to talk about substantive issues. The people occupying city properties, stunting private businesses and spraying graffiti everywhere are doing so illegally. I understand the rage, I understand and am fully behind Black Lives Matter, but this situation on Capitol Hill has gone far enough. The point has been made. Anarchy is not what we need right now. Oh, and then there’s the whole COVID-19 thing. No risk for that in the CHOP zone.”
“Eliminate CHOP and given back to all the people of the area. It still can be left as a place for peaceful protesting, but the drugs, lawlessness and anarchy and vandalism of property has got to end. I’m all for the arts and graphics, but the graffiti is killing the beauty of the area… BLM needs to continue. All people need to be treated equally. That includes treating the police with respect. The mayor made not just a misstep but a big mistake. Not everyone agrees with what is going on up at the CHOP. All the business leaders I have spoken with are in agreement that the CHOP needs to end.”
“The CHOP zone should never have happened in the first place. It’s a perfect example of a failure of leadership. Ever since Jenny Durkan led the DOJ, she’s been on a mission to undercut the SPD at every turn. Durkan has her thumb on Carmen Best, her leadership has resulted in squat-toilet sidewalks and her “Summer of love” as led to four shootings and one death so far. What’s wrong with this city? Is that the best we can elect?”
With increasing pressure on Seattle Mayor Jennie Durkan to deal with the “CHOP” zone—amid shootings and growing concerns from both businesses and residents of the six-block area on Capitol Hill—the key question is: What to do?
The June 22 press conference revealed a disconnect among the mayor/police chief, City Council, Police Guild, concerned residents and the leaderless CHOP assemblage. The one tangible action item was a promise to reclaim the East Precinct from the protesters—at an unspecified time.
President Trump made it a point to cite the CHOP situation in his Tulsa address and to offer the mayor and Governor Jay Inslee help in ending the standoff, which he said, “would take less than an hour.”
Recent polls on KOMO-TV show a strong preference for action, including following the step that Portland took to simply have police move in and clear out the tents and all other vestiges of the protest, which happened without incident. The fact that a key police precinct is involved in Seattle adds urgency—and complexity—to the matter.
Please give us your opinion and suggestion on the situation:
Surrealism In Seattle!
I know Jenny Durkan would like to wake up from her figurative Seattle “nightmayor”—but she can’t. It’s real. And—in its complexity and totality—worse than the Great Fire of 1889, worse than the “Hooverville” days of the Great Depression, worse than the internment of Asian-Americans in the early ’40s, worse than the biggest-ever Boeing Bust in the late ’60s, worse than the serious recessions of the late ’90s and 2008. Consider…
• Six blocks taken over by protesters in the CHOP (nee CHAZ), isolating the SPD’s East Precinct, which has gained national notoriety and brought a threat from President Trump to call in federal forces. [Kudos to Mayor Durkan for telling Trump to “go back into his bunker” and promising the populace that there will be no attack from outside. Meanwhile, there are rumors of a rift between her and the police chief.]
• A call for Durkan’s resignation and/or impeachment by the same councilmember who let protesters in to occupy City Hall for a time.
• A downtown in recovery after being ravaged by rioters, who set five cop cars afire.
• A downtown devoid of shoppers, made worse by the departure of the Macy’s anchor store and the steady decline of the absolute anchor—Nordstrom—now desperate enough to send at least a half-dozen online sales pitches a day.
• Closure for at least a year of the West Seattle Bridge, link to nearly 30,000 residents in a key sector of the city.
• A prime employer, Boeing, rocked by both the the 737 MAX debacle and the dramatic drop in airline travel, leading to the planned layoff of 10,000 employees locally.
• Loss of revenues from two multi-million-dollar sports stadiums that will sit empty for at least a year.
• Loss of the lucrative cruise-line business for at least a year.
• Relegation of the rampant homelessness problem to a low priority.
• And then there’s that pandemic thing, too.
There are no judgments, no accusations and no assignments of blame here. This is simply a surreal summation of a literal nightmare for anyone who cares one scintilla about the City of Seattle.
P.S. Be sure to read Wendy Quisenberry’s adjoining post about Life Inside the CHOP.
