Connelly: Message to political extremes left and right – Don’t mess with Seattle – Seattle PI

Amidst all the noise and posturing over the CHOP occupation, the Rev. Harriett Walden, co-chair of the Community Police Commission, recently reminded us of a key fact about the SPD’s East Precinct.

Our city’s first African American councilman, Sam Smith,  campaigned for the police station, as a way of providing faster service to folks living in the Central Area. “The idea is to increase service. The people in the Central community pay the tax that supports the north and south precinct …” Smith told a 1977 Council meeting.

History is not the strong suit of Seattle’s demonstrator class. It looks to seize and indulge in the moment. So does militant Marxist Seattle City Council member Kshama Sawant, who has tried to hijack the Capitol Hill occupation zone and turn it into an ideological vehicle for her tax-Amazon crusade. She has demanded the resignation of Mayor Jenny Durkan.

We are a city where direct action has had a constructive purpose. The occupation of an old Beacon Hill school gave us El Centro de la Raza. An occupation at Fort Lawton led to construction of the Daybreak Star center, the first facility in the city for Native Americans. The Central Seattle Community Council went to bat against redlining by banks.

The “demands” of the Capitol Hill occupation are less specific, more jingoistic. “Defund the Police!” is a great slogan, but what is to replace the SPD? Do we throw away years of work under the Justice Department consent decree, designed to reform SPD tactics on use of force and better defuse situations?

Yes, says the demonstrator class. Not-so-democratic “Democratic Socialists” have also demanded Mayor Durkan resign, as if we don’t have elections where we can pick our leaders and throw them out. Nor do these resolution-passing activists, largely white, stop and think about immediate consequences of disorder.

Rev. Walden put it well not long ago, saying of CHOP:  “The people have a right to protest that’s what this is about — but there’s a difference between protesting and occupying. Accountability is for everybody, and now we need some accountability for the other residents in Capitol Hill and other (area) residents.”

Seattle is a beautiful, exciting city. I’m constantly reminded of the former by old friends who come visiting, and mindful of the latter for working in journalism nearly 47 years.

Ideologues on the far right hate the place, and are forever predicting businesses will flee. Huh? The city has gained more than 100,000 residents in the last decade. It is such a driving place that newcomers have driven up the cost of living here.

The city’s fathers — and mothers — have doggedly sought to build a model progressive place. Our housing and families and education levies have been to that end. So, too, the Fort Lawton agreement with its plan for affordable housing. And city sale of the Mercer property.

The result, demonization both right and left.  In shouting, sarcastic voice, Fox News host Tucker Carlson delights in showing pictures of homeless encampments, using talk show hosts to depict rampant lawlessness and looting. No competing view is permitted on the program. President Trump has tweeted a cascade of lies with demands that protests be crushed. No allowance made for peaceful demonstrations, one of which drew more than 60,000 people.

So relentless are Trump’s denunciations of Mayor Durkan that the left’s narrative has been thrown off. “Is Trump doing Seattle’s mayor a favor with these attacks? Durkan had cops gas and beat innocent people, escalating violence so much that police had to retreat, so now Trump is giving her political cover to make it look like she’s on the side of protesters,” said opined former Stranger news editor Dominic Holden, who now lives in New York.

The abuse of Durkan from both extremes goes with the job, but is both malicious and woefully ignorant. She was a tough, influential U.S. Attorney who helped start the Justice Department on its path to oversee the SPD. She comes from a family whose commitment to social justice I first witnessed a half-century ago with patriarch Martin Durkan.

The wider point, to steal from Yeats, the center needs to hold. Racism is pernicious, and must be treated with programs from early learning to city-wide kindergarten to community policing. We need to devote resources so that police officers and classroom teachers don’t have to serve as social workers.  Yes, some of those dollars ought to come out of the police budget.

Overall, the city needs to return to what we used to call the “Seattle way.” It was best defined by a long-departed dean of St. Mark’s Cathedral, frustrated with opposition to building plans, who lamented: “This is a city where everybody needs to be consulted about everything.”

The city ought not yield to shouters, but negotiate and craft the tools that carry us on the next steps against racism. Durkan needs to become a better listener, and Seattle City Council members should quit posturing and adapt to adult responsibilities.

The citizens of this successful city should forcefully reject the extremist exploiters opined — from Kshama Sawant to Tucker Carlson — who rip at our city for  political and ideological ends.

Don’t mess with Seattle.

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