Connelly: Seattle is not perfect, but Seattle is not dying

Scenes from the 30th annual Fremont Solstice Festival, June 16, 2018. Scenes from the 30th annual Fremont Solstice Festival, June 16, 2018. Photo: GENNA MARTIN, SEATTLEPI.COM Photo: GENNA MARTIN, SEATTLEPI.COM Image 1 of / 42 Caption Close Connelly: Seattle is not perfect, but Seattle is not dying 1 / 42 Back to Gallery

Seattle was full of civic pride in how well we functioned and cooperated during the February "snowpocalypse," only a month later to be hit with KOMO-TV's report on homelessness entitled "Seattle is Dying."

Well, my city's not dying. Sorry about yours.

Tent encampments are not feasts for the eyes. Viewers tuned in to tales of "filth and degradation," people "living like animals" as well as "wretched souls."

The program has been picked up by a particularly wretched soul, racist Fox News pundit Tucker Carlson, famous for his claim that immigrants make America "dirtier." The KOMO report has become an instrument for demonizing West Coast cities and their politics.

The propagation of fear, especially among older folk uncomfortable with change, drives ratings of America's right-wing media. It pours more salt into social wounds than we used on sidewalks and streets in February.

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West Coast cities are demonized because Fox, Sinclair Broadcasting, and radio talkers are out to obscure inconvenient truth.

The "Left Coast", as the Wall Street Journal editorial page calls us, is driving America's knowledge/technology economy. With the demise of the Soviet Union, the Puget Sound region is home to the three remaining empires bent on world dominion -- Microsoft, Starbucks and Amazon.com.

Why would 108,000 people or so have moved here this decade were Seattle a dying city? We are a magnet. Hell, I remember sitting (with then-PI photographer Gilbert Arias) a few years back at Joe Cool's Bar in London, Ontario, lifting cups with a guy heading west to Seattle in two weeks to take a job.

Can you think of any way to accommodate 108,000 new neighbors without stress? A friend of mine, in his late 20's, saw his salary double when he moved here from the coast. But he is struggling with finding an affordable place to live.

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He enjoys this town. Just look at the families out savoring our parks during the recent 70-degree heat wave. I found myself in a long line when I stopped one evening at a (very good) hamburger place in the Central Area. Nobody was wretched, nobody was degraded, everybody was happy.

Homelessness has long been a trenchant problem in Seattle. Crack open a history book and you'll see pictures of Hoovervilles from the Great Depression, famous symbols of how supply side economics does not work.

The city had in the 1980's a summer influx of tough young transients. City Hall mutton heads christened them "Urban Nomads," and were impervious to the hassling of businesses along First Avenue, and beatings administered to the city's resident homeless.

Yes, we are struggling with it now, as are cities the length and breadth of this country. Inducing fear may boost ratings of Fox or Sinclair Broadcasting (which owns KOMO). But left off the screen, and away from the microphone, are persons of good will who are trying to work solutions.

"Seattle Is Dying" might have talked to ex-acting Seattle Police Chief Jim Pugel about the city's successful Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion Program, which has given low-level drug dealers a choice of going straight or doing time.

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The program could have visited St. James Cathedral -- great backdrops -- and heard from Fr. Ryan about the Hunthausen Fund, which has provided first month's rent and damage deposits to put hundreds of families into housing.

The cameras could have trailed the city's Navigation Teams during the bitter cold and snow, as they made contact with hardcore homeless on the streets and coaxed them into shelter.

Or we could have heard about a welcome, sensible (albeit rare) City Council action, in up-zoning 27 neighborhoods and requiring contractors to build affordable housing or kick in to the city's affordable housing program.

Provoking fear, and fanning discord, creates obstacles to constructive action.

Demagogues on the extremes make noise. Kshama Sawant tries to browbeat colleagues by packing Council meetings with rude, shouting supporters. They drive reasonable people away from the Seattle City Council.

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Similarly, Safe Seattle broadsides -- thoughtfully posted on Facebook by talk show host and former Republican State Chairman Kirby Wilbur -- relentlessly talk of needles, drug dealings, feces and city indifference.

What good is done by demonizing and stigmatizing?

Want to get City Hall's attention? We have four City Council seats in which the incumbent is not seeking reelection. If a Seattle voter, you'll get $100 in democracy vouchers to invest in the candidate(s) of your choice.

And do something. Give to the Hunthausen Fund. My neighborhood in Madrona has hosted a tent city, broken bread with its residents. A favorite local official, City Attorney Pete Holmes, spends an occasional night hosting a group of homeless that bunks in a church.

I've seen, in weekends on Whidbey Island, successes of the fear spreaders, people telling me, "I'm just afraid to go into Seattle anymore."

Bullpucky. Come, enjoy a vibrant, diverse, culturally exciting city. Find a concert. Ride the Burke-Gilman Parade. Watch the Fremont Solstice Parade and witness people in their birthday suits. See the Pride Parade. Catch a gorgeous Seattle sunset from Harbor Steps.

Oh yes, learn to cuss the traffic like a local.

We're flawed, but Seattle is a city full of life. The reports of our impending death are deliberately misleading.