Last time the Junction Neighborhood Organization met, two months ago, the group got a wide-ranging and candid briefing from a Seattle Police officer whose focus is on The Junction. He had harsh words for Real Change and its vendors (part of this WSB story on that meeting). The organization took exception to the characterization. So last night, when JuNO met again, Real Change staffers took their turn to address community concerns about people selling the paper (who may or may not be actual vendors). Read on:
Real Change staffers Neal Lampi and Tara Moss outlined the organization’s history and one key bit of advice (they were joined by West Seattleite Adam Hyla, editor of the award-winning paper): Don’t buy from a vendor without a badge.
Badged vendors buy the paper for 35 cents and sell it for a dollar. Right now they have 350 badged vendors. If they sell at least 300 papers a month, they have the right to a share of certain “turf”; if they get to double that, they have exclusive rights to their chosen turf, and if they show up to find somebody else selling there, they can show their badge and tell the other to get lost. Moss and Lampi stressed that the RC code of conduct does not allow harassment and following people; if a vendor is doing that, they want to hear about it, and they will take disciplinary action. But if it’s someone who no longer has – or never had – a contract to sell Real Change – they estimate maybe 20 people are selling without authorization – they can’t do anything about it.
They do their best to get badges back when someone’s contract is canceled – and they also warn badged vendors not to resell papers to someone else – which is grounds for termination. However, they acknowledge “vulnerable” vendors may be getting bullied into it. “What you can do, if you support the paper – and it’s OK if you don’t, always ask a vendor for a badge, even if you’ve seen them forever – let us know if you see a vendor giving a stack of papers to someone else – call the police if someone is threatening or (aggressively) harassing you, since that’s illegal, we support that.”
And Moss said she’s playing phone tag with police currently, working to establish the rapport the officer speaking at the last JuNO meeting said they didn’t have. “I really WANT communication,” she reiterated.
They also noted that their vendors can become important parts of the community, as was the case of one whose location move became the subject of a heated discussion in the WSB Forums more than a year ago.
(Despite the similarly spirited tone of other previous online discussions regarding Real Change, there were no heated challenges at last night’s meeting, which was lightly attended.)
This was one of two topics at last night’s JuNO meeting – we’re writing about the other one, a Triangle planning update, separately.
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