Jail-sites fight: City adds info online; 34th DDs this week

Two notes on the fight over whether the city will build a new misdemeanor-offenders jail on one of 2 sites in southeast West Seattle, a site elsewhere in the city, or not at all: First, the mailing list for project info got an update today, noting that the city’s Municipal Jail web section has several new links. We’ve already told you about two of them — a summary of interviews with community leaders before the four “finalist” sites were chosen, and the announcement of upcoming public meetings. The others include: Collections of comments the city already has received online (broken out by day); questions city reps have been asked at meetings including May 20 in Highland Park (no answers yet, those are promised later; here’s the WSB coverage of that meeting); an aerial photo of the King County Regional Justice Center in Kent which the city calls “an example of how a jail can be a good neighbor”; a federal study of crime rates in neighborhoods with jails. Meantime, the next West Seattle meeting to take up the jail issue will be the 34th District Democrats‘ monthly meeting this Wednesday night, 7 pm, The Hall @ Fauntleroy.

Kat June 9, 2008 (10:05 am)

I looked at the list of concerns from community leaders and it confirms what we in Highland Park have been sayingâ€¦ The sites chosen, all of them, do not meet the criteria set forth by the community. They are all too close to residences, schools, and playgrounds. Use of this criteria would not have led them to the 4 they chose. There are plenty of other sites listed that are further away from homes and closer to downtown and needed social services.
There is another agenda hereâ€¦ Unfortunately, the health and prosperity of our neighborhoods does not appear to be part of it.

Roger June 9, 2008 (1:13 pm)

Okay, I’ll ask the obvious question:

How do we organize our efforts to oppose the West Seattle options for the site selection, then?

I’m sure that most, if not all, WS business and community organizations would be in opposition?

WSB June 9, 2008 (1:27 pm)

Highland Park Action Committee has been leading the way at this point. They’re meeting again later this month, and the 34th Dems’ meeting is also a focal point for the community — get the latest on the Highland Park efforts at:
http://highlandpk.net

(they have a page set aside for this issue) – TR

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