(Image: @cmjoyhollings)
District 3 representative Joy Hollingsworth is addressing Capitol Hill neighborhood safety concerns in the wake of last weekend’s deadly shooting and gun violence amid Pike/Pine nightlife crowds.
In a message to constituents, Hollingsworth said the Capitol Hill area faces multiple challenges.
“We have experienced gun violence, fentanyl use in public spaces, people facing mental health challenges, vandalism, access to public restrooms, walkway lighting and overall cleanliness of the neighborhood,” the Seattle City Council member representing Capitol Hill and the Central District writes. “I hear you loud and I see you clear that changes need to be made.”
Hollingsworth says her office is “formulating an action item plan on investments and projects” including a roster of seven focus areas:
- Overall cleanliness needs improvement and maintenance from our streets, sidewalks, bike lanes, bus stops and shelters, trash cans, and green spaces.
- Access to public restrooms needs to be open from our parks and other city bathrooms.
- Brighter lighting on pathways and side streets for pedestrian safety
- First Responder presence from our CARE Team and Mental Health Providers to the Seattle Police Department.
- Fentanyl use mitigation to deter usage in public spaces, walkways, entryways, transit areas, and next to schools and daycares.
- Parking enforcement for blocked driveways, bike lanes, center lanes, double parking and blocked sidewalks.
- Capitol Hill Murals for beautifying the neighborhood with color, connection and art.
“We have our list to start and will continue to convene a work plan and action items to help execute what we have heard from our community regarding things they would like to see improvement on,” Hollingsworth said.
CHS reported here on the early Saturday, October 19th shooting that left 25-year-old Breanna Simmons dead.
Police say an 11th Ave memorial for the victim early Sunday morning was targeted in another shooting that sent a man and a woman to the hospital.
In her message, Hollingsworth did not directly address changes for the area under the legislation she supported to create new exclusion laws hoped to throttle drug and prostitution-related crimes in new zones across the city including a new Capitol Hill “Stay out of Drug Area” stretching from E Thomas to E Union between 11th Ave and Harvard.
The first-year council member also did not include an update on plans championed by her office earlier this year to bring a street ambassador program to Capitol Hill to help address street disorder around the Pike and Broadway core. Over the summer, Hollingsworth said her office was starting discussions around extending a similar program to the $15 million-a-year Downtown Seattle Association’s ambassador program up into Pike/Pine that would put workers onto streets to help keep sidewalks and alleys clean and deal with low level public safety issues. That program could be paid for by fees levied on nearby businesses and properties.
Meanwhile, there are early efforts underway to organize a campaign to create a new Pike/Pine Business Improvement Area to fund street clean-up efforts for the neighborhood, according to the GSBA business chamber.
Hollingsworth’s announcement of District 3 public safety priorities come as council members are preparing to unveil their amendments next week to the city’s 2025 budget package.
HELP KEEP CHS PAYWALL-FREE
Subscribe to CHS to help us hire writers and photographers to cover the neighborhood. CHS is a pay what you can community news site with no required sign-in or paywall. To stay that way, we need you.
Become a subscriber to help us cover the neighborhood for as little as $5 a month.
Most of the ambassadors just mill around on their phone’s texting.
Its drugs baby. Thats all. Find the gangs and lock them up.
Just don’t discriminate on what a gang is when you find them and lock them up. Drugs are a huge problem in the bars. It’s not a street issue alone.
lol. The partiers snorting coke in bars are not the ones passed out on the sidewalk, rifling through trash cans, and setting up cardboard forts on Broadway.
Are you kidding me?!? The shootings and other wild behaviors at bar close are likely driven in part by turf wars over this type of drug dealing, and it’s been pretty apparent that drug dealers are preying on people experiencing homelessness as another source of revenue as well as acomplices in their crimes. This notion that “high-end” party drugs are fine and street drugs are the problem is just nonsense, it’s generally the same folks pushing those drugs at the end of the day.
Yet same shitty behavior
They literally invite the gang members who sale drugs with their addictions. Every drug dealer knows where to sale drugs easily and fast on a Friday and Saturday.
Have you walked downtown or around Pike Pine lately? Drug use on the street is huge!
I drove by the 12th & Jackson area recently, and was shocked by the numbers of drug users/dealers (in the hundreds) in the blocks around that intersection. It has been a problem area for some time, but it’s MUCH worse now. The police now have the authority to arrest (and divert the majority to the various treatment alternatives), so why aren’t they doing that? As it is, it’s a hellscape.
Well, Council gave the police authority to arrest a lot of people, but they did not fund the “various treatment alternatives” that you mentioned. The treatment alternatives that do exist are already at capacity.
Treatment facilities are not continuously at capacity. I work with homeless folks and get emails every day regarding treatment locations that have open beds.
The legislation was written in such a way that they cannot arrest most. Diversion? Here’s a flyer please participate in voluntary interaction with LEAD or its ilk, failure to do so holds no consequences. That simply does not work.
Every drug dealer knows, if they are about their money, to tap the GBTA party community first, for some easy sales. I don’t know much about lesbians drug habits.
There is an open air drug market in the parking lot nest to Mud Bay. The police won’t even drive down this block. Brighter lights are helpful when it means it is easier to enforce the law. It will make no difference. It will mean the drug dealers can read the scales. more easily.
But Joy can sell the same drugs those gang members fight for as long as she pays…oh wait she isn’t paying her fair share in taxes at all. Wake up people.
What a maroon!
There are plenty of reasons to criticize any politician. When you start making accusations like this you do nothing for your cause. It pushes people away. You’ve only told people you don’t like her and will stop at nothing to make up lies. And you only cause some of her supporters to be just as irrational as you. You are helping her more than hurting her.
For #3, I seriously hope we don’t just get ultra bright car-oriented street lights everywhere. They’re literally only designed to light the roadway, while barely doing anything on sidewalks or pedestrian paths, and when they’re super bright, they create extreme amounts of light pollution, especially for apartments.
We really do not need brighter lit streets.
Thank you, Joy, for specifying certain problems that need to be addressed. You seem to be very attuned to D3 needs (unlike your predecessor). Now, we will be watching to see that you follow through on an action plan, especially regarding cleanliness on Broadway, and the drug scene around the Broadway Market QFC. I believe that the “broken windows” theory applies to many areas on Capitol Hill.
Have you ever thought of a more direct route of communicating with your CM than…this?
Attuned to the business class. Not the working masses of D3. She won in Sawant hate, she’s awful and we elected a Harrell puppet. Just like the rest of this crap council.
I know what you mean. The working class loves filthy streets and sidewalks and it’s wonderful sitting in all the garbage while waiting for your bus. And let’s face it the working class doesn’t mind going to the bathroom in the street and it’s easier when the street is dark and no one can see you. We love the fact that people are using their drugs next to the schools our kids attend and find it joyful to see people nodding out in doorways and my favorite is my lane being blocked by cars when riding my bike. The worst is that someone might even help the people suffering from mental or drug issues. Come on Derek, whether you run a business or work on the hill we all want a better neighborhood.
lol at this bad faith nonsense.
Lol good one.
It’s so insulting that some people here constantly suggest working class residents should be ok with drug zombies, ugly graffiti, and thieves running amok.
I don’t get the self-hating.
Joy does NOT fight for me. I am not a wealthy person with a house.
That is no excuse for stupidity.
Remember. 50% of the American Public has an IQ lower than average.
Um, what?
She actually works for everyone, including you. You also need to realize D3 isn’t just Cap Hill residents.
Well, broken windows theory has not stood up to any scrutiny. Almost every study of it has concluded that improvements in crime rates had more to do with economic, environmental or demographic patterns rather than broken windows policy. Broken window theory also led to very racist policing, incarceration, and alienation of communities of color. So let’s try to avoid repeating the mistakes of the past, and try doing the things actually proven to work.
My god she’s awful. Must protect business owners and not people!!!! God, I cannot wait to elect someone else next election..
Are you are saying business owners don’t have the right to have a successful business on the hill or the CD? Do you agree with businesses getting broken into daily, employees harassed? Are you ok with my young kids getting harassed daily on their way to school!!
Yeah, because only business owners want cleaner, better lit sidewalks and streets and fewer fentanyl users sprawled everywhere… The people who live here enjoy the experience of stepping around nodded out people who’ve pissed themselves.
Cities run on business, which support people to actually live there. But I’m supposing you grow all your own food, make your own pharmaceuticals and hygiene products, build all of your office and construction supplies, and on and on. If businesses are failing due to crime and vagrancy, then the city fails. You can be critical of the policies that implement that, but the anti-business screed is played out. Find a new playbook.
Well your optimism is much appreciated. By optimism I mean, your faith in that idea that we will vote again in 2025 or when ever. Your critique of SCC is accurate tho. Also I don’t trust her either, as a fellow black parson. I feel she was tokenized in to office to make D3 look like it had representation. Tbh…. She should have ran in the south end, but what does my black Seattle born behind know?
For Seattle City Council, unless you are running for one of the two city wide seats, you need to live in the district you are running in….. She couldn’t have run to represent South Seattle, she lives here in D3…
Well clearly. But the point I am making still stands. She does not represent D3. Nor does Bruce Harold represent Seattle. Don’t get me wrong, if they are the optimal choice to help us understand and implement plans to grow Seattles prosperity, then fine! they are the right choice.
But Seattle is so darn caught up on looking like the leaders of the Progressives that we won’t even acknowledge the increasing disparity in our makeup to even give us a sentence comfortable enough to say that says who we truly are. A bunch a white folks, primarily democrats, some queer, some conservative and others.
Gentrification, most recently, has done so much damage to us Seattleites
that are actions are nothing
more than for The Gram.
Anyways Seattle needs to stop acting short sighted and get back to business. D3 has a lot of money floating around in it, more than Seattle’s history has ever seen (post colonialism and deforestation. This land was once abundant in all that nature has to offer, but change is natural…) . I just think we need serious people who understand urban development and equity. Not optics!
She’s Black and has lived in the historically Black neighborhood, which she also represents. She’s fighting for equity as well as ensuring that we still have Black residents, whether those are renters or homeowners, among those being the elderly who want to live out the rest of their days in the homes that they were fortunate to buy decades ago.
D3 isn’t just Cap Hill. All of D3 is Capitol Hill, Portage Bay, Eastlake, First Hill, Central District, Madison Park, Washington Park, Madrona, Leschi, Broadmoor, Denny-Blaine, Madison Valley, and Montlake.
Also I’ve attached a table from https://www.capitolhillseattle.com/2022/11/district-3s-new-borders-set-in-seattle-redistricting-commissions-final-map/ that shows the voter demographics for D3.
Am I misunderstanding you, or are you suggesting she cannot represent people who aren’t her race….. I vote for the candidate that I think best matches the direction I’d like to see the neighborhood and city go in, not for skin color…
Yeah, huge disappointment. She’ll be gone.
Which people is she not protecting?
Well at least 4 MAJOR businesses have shut down at Pike & Broadway in the past six months. One could blame her, but these were planned before the election
I’m open to being convinced, but give facts and use logic. All you are doing is making accusations. Tell us how you got to that opinion.
This all sounds pretty nice, but it’s going to cost money, how is it going to be executed in the midst of a major budget shortfall? The two mentions of actual programs (DSA for Capitol Hill, and a Pike/Pine BIA) will raise fees on the businesses in the area (most of which are small local businesses) to solve issues were seeing all over the city, that seems like a recipe to drive out small businesses and attract more chains that can afford that…
my god, these sound like Republican talking points!
lol no they sound like demographic talking points. I’m a Democratic resident of D3. I don’t want fentanyl being used in public. I’m sick of it. yet when I voice my concerns some granola white guy is telling this black guy that I’m being inconsiderate. How ironic is that? A white guy dismissing the safety concerns of black residents.
Add more quickly sweeping the drug encampments to the list. They can fester for months before the city does anything. If the unhousable occupants refuse assistance, then mandatory treatment, a bus ticket back to Florida, or prison should be the only options.
The encampment on our doorstep has been here nearly four months. Every couple weeks a few neighbors file a Find It, Fix It report and get emailed the same piece of boilerplate that the city is “monitoring” the site. Meanwhile, the residents just keep picking up the trash and shoveling the human waste out of the landscaping. It gets old.
Make no mistake. EVERYTHING is geared towards businesses.
Some spills over to the average voter. But it’s 100% business focussed as has ever other proposal out of her mouth.
Have we learned yet that CM Hollingsworth is just a hand selected proxy for Harrell and regurgitates his pointless public safety talking points? Seems like it is time to hold council members accountable; we need action, not empty promises & failed policies.
Doctor? Proctology, I assume.
Wrong again, Zippy. But at least proctologists do something useful, unlike yourself.
Wait, I thought the question was about deterring gun violence. Which of those 7 points is supposed to do that?
I’m all for cleaner streets and public restrooms, and wish the council had actually made the CARE program useful instead of letting it be hobbled by the SPOG contract… but even Sawant’s speed bump proposal did more to actually address gun violence than anything Hollingsworth is proposing.
Yeah, speed bumps, that should really stop the drive-bys, because you know those gang bangers, despite trying to kill people with bump stocked Glocks, all bow down to the 20mph hour and under Safe Streets code. Groan….
I didn’t say speed bumps would work – I said that that idea did MORE to address gun violence (very very little) than anything Hollingsworth shared here (absolutely nothing). It’s such a low bar yet Hollingsworth still couldn’t reach it.
What are your thoughts on the new system to listen foor an d pinpoint gun shots? I have’t had enough into yet
You’re not supposed to realize that none of the proposals will actually solve anything. We’ll study it, propose solutions, then study some more and propose more solutions. No one is accountable.
My partner worked at in “big tech” for years. One of the most important concepts was: “who is the BOL for this”. BOL == Butt On the Line. We need BOL-like leadership to solve these problems.
Gun violence is the first thing mentioned and nothing in the plan addresses guns.
The city of Seattle helped bring Pride Place from a dream to reality–a place of safety for GLBTQI seniors. The spot. next to Neighbors has the 5th highest rate of ODs in the city.
In the parking lot next to Mud Bay, there is an open air Drug Mart. with constant streams of customers, and groups of armed protectors so they can do their business. Twelve unlicensed food stands are all over Pike, getting atttention with bigger and bigger speaklers blasting at 150 x the legal limit (not to mention speakers are not allowed after 10. A vehicle packed with 5 foot tall speakers parks in the Pike turning lane. It produces sounds at 150 db. as loud as the deck of an aircraft carrier. This goes on continuously from 10pm until 5am. This level of noise can be measured days later with higher cortisol and blood sugar levels, higher blood pressures and faster heartbeats. People here have become nauseated from the noise. One person had a seizure. At least 3 ambulances arrived during these levels of sound.
This level is not a nuisance. It is assault. The devices are advertised as as promising to cause pain. You can read the social media posts where people laugh about old fags dying. People have moved here to escape harassment and violence from across the country. It almost feels like this is the kind of sanctioned violence that governments in 3rd world countries designed to get rid of people. Earplugs make no difference. This travels through the bones.
People dance around and close off Pike Street. We all know of the Belltown Hellcat. He was one of a dozen hellcats. The others park here, race, and blast sound. Hundreds of police hours spent on one driver in Belltown. The other dozen get a free pass on Broadway.
I live on the 8th floor. My floors and walls vibrate. Glasses fall out of the cabinet and paintings off the all. I get chestpains as this vibrates my body. I am unable to sleep sometmes 3 nights in a row. Even for those who sleep, they get no REM sleep. The EPA, Harvard Medical, Public Health Officials and the CDC say this is a serious health emergency. Among other things, it increases heart attacks, diabetes, metabolic diseases, triggers mental health problems, ,makes sleep inneffective, creates cognitive loss, and even lowers birthrates. It cuts our lives short.
Hundreds of calls to 911 have had no response. The police will not even drive down broadway. Police park on Pike aand say the only thing they are allowed to do is keep the turning lane free. Pleas from elderly lgbyqi people just trying to live are ignored. They even fail to respond to assaults against the lgbtqi seniors and intruders
Police have insinuated that they will do nothing when there are calls from our building. All of the 911 calls are combined into one to make the incidents appear to be the problem of one or two. And even when sound reaches levels that residents become ill and feel pain, they are recorded as a nuisance calls. When I see 40 police outside of the Chapel Roan concert standing in a small circle and chatting, or 15 leaning against their cars to prevent someone from parking in the turn lane, it makes me wonder just how bad the police shortage really is. When police say they are not allowed to move to respond to assaults 10 yards away, or stop open drug sales, it makes me wonder about homophobia, or kickbacks. Chappel Roan was a half block away and QUIETER than this.
I was happy when Joy Holllingsworth initially talked with us, listened to ideas and shared plans. But she no longer returns phone calls, and we’ve seen nothing change.
The sound levels here are illegal to use in war, and are considered torture by the UN.
Many people have cats and dogs. Have you ever watched animals during fireworks. They cry, run back and forth, and shiver in corners during this. People talk about cruelty to animals but not cruelty to people.
I started fighting for gay rights in 1972 up through the AIDS crisis. I’m tired now. Chemo and radiation take a lot out of me. And I realize that the lives of those who fought for the rights everyone has today, and took care of the sick when hospitals turned them away mean nothing. People say that they are kicked out of other neighborhoods. but they “own” this area.
I know this sounds insane. It seems impossible that this could occur. The noise is louder outside the clubs than inside. Police won’t respond to disturbances, assaults, or hate crimes. No one really cares if we live or die. We fought for you.
The UN has it right. This is torture. But who cares about old faggots and dykes.