1. Remember the uproar over the surveillance cameras when former Mayor Greg Nickels proposed installing them in four Seattle parks?
Update: City council staff say the cameras—which cost the city just over $400,000 to install—have actually been inactive, the result of budget shortfalls that caused the council to allocate camera funding to other programs.
In theory, police staff in the West Precinct could still use the cameras in Cal Anderson Park on Capitol Hill (the rest are inoperational), but no one has watched or monitored the cameras for over a year and a half, sources say.

2. During a public forum at Seattle University last night, proponents and opponents of City Council member Tim Burgess’ proposal to crack down on aggressive panhandling made the case for and against the measure. (The legislation—which the Defend Association Racial Disparity Project, says doesn’t address the most common complaints people have made about aggressive panhandlers, and that most of the complaints would be addressed by existing law—would prohibit soliciting from people using ATMs and parking meters; using abusive language while asking for money; pursuing a person who has refused to give money; and offering or providing unsolicited services without consent.)
Jon Scholes, policy director at the Downtown Seattle Association, and Burgess argued that the legislation is needed to make downtown feel safe again for residents and visitors. “Our members and residents have had encounters with people who will follow them, people who will get in their face … people who are soliciting for organizations as well as people who are soliciting for their own benefit. So it’s a wide area of concern,” Scholes said.
Tim Harris, executive director of the homeless newspaper Real Change, argued that the people Scholes and Burgess wanted to protect were primarily rich condo owners. “These [panhandlers] are people who are interfering visibly with our cathedral of consumption downtown,” Harris said. “This isn’t about balancing order versus liberty. This is about [protecting] the comfort zones of the affluent up against the dirt poor in a time of radical inequality. … If you’re rich living downtown, no matter how many moats you have, [being asked for money] is going to be unsettling.”
Read more…