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June 16, 2013 at 6:39 pm #607924
cjboffoliParticipantI’m just back from a Farmer’s Market and Bakery Nouveau run and I have to say that I’m really appalled at the condition of the sidewalks in the Junction’s central business district. Not only are the sidewalks strewn with garbage and cigarette butts, but the sidewalks themselves are all grimy and stained, probably because they’ve been there for decades without any significant cleaning or replacement.
I’m constantly hearing people say how beautiful West Seattle is. But the longer I live here the more I think West Seattle is most beautiful when you’re standing on a hilltop or a shoreline looking AWAY from it.
June 16, 2013 at 6:46 pm #791884
kgdlgParticipantChristopher does the junction business group pay for any clean up here? I cannot remember if west seattle has a business improvement district (self taxing) or not? Not that this should exempt people from being lazy and littering but just curious…
June 16, 2013 at 6:50 pm #791885
cjboffoliParticipantkgdlg: I don’t know, but I’m wondering the same thing. I see a lot of failures here: citizens carelessly littering, the City failing at maintaining a basic level of sanitation, and business owners not caring enough maintain the right of way in front of their stores.
June 16, 2013 at 7:16 pm #791886
mrhinehMemberC’mon, West Seattle is vibrant and growing, expanding and building every day. We can’t be THAT choosey about all the new folks we want living here now can we? These are going to be the growing pains we will continue to see as we encourage growth here. Take the bad with the good.
Note: I do encourage litter pick up by the dropees. But good luck with that one too.
June 16, 2013 at 8:06 pm #791887
melissaParticipantI am not a business owner in the Junction. However, I do see the effort that many of the business owners put into the Junction and would ask people not to be hasty (and wrong!) in accusing the business owners of neglect. Many of the owners clean sidewalks, contribute to the gorgeous flowers (and maintenance thereof), and pickup garbage.
That being said, they have businesses to run and should not be expected to pick up cigarette butts and garbage that careless, rude folks throw onto the sidewalks and around trees. That’s on the litterers. There are garbage cans and butt cans and many people are too idiotic to use them. I’d like to see ALL of the bars have butt containers and notes on the windows reminding customers to use them.
I think it’s rotten to blame people who are busting it to keep their businesses going, many of whom contribute tremendously to the community instead of those who are truly responsible.
June 16, 2013 at 8:13 pm #791888
cjboffoliParticipantmelissa: I keep the alley, parking strip and other public areas around my private property clean. And I’m very busy too. But I make the time to do it because it is my civic responsibility. I think if you look at those pictures is is clear that the areas in the picture are not the cases of the business owners who have taken the time to clean and plant the areas in front of their businesses. So obviously my criticism is not directed at them. And I think it is neither hasty nor wrong to ask the question about why citizens, government and business owners are ignoring a significant problem. What our community needs is a little less in the way of the kind of excuses you seem to offer and more in the way of taking responsibility.
June 16, 2013 at 8:18 pm #791889
anonymeParticipantI agree with CJ. The blame must be shared. The City no longer does any street or sidewalk maintenance (cleaning) far as I can tell. Good luck getting a cop to respond to a litter complaint; the litter hotline was shut down a few years ago, so not even blatant violations can be reported. Most people these days view any piece of ground – no matter how well-maintained or beautifully planted – as an ashtray, trash can, or toilet (dog or otherwise). It does seem to be getting worse in the Junction, which has looked really seedy the last few times I’ve been there recently. Isn’t there a West Seattle Junction Association? Seems like they should exercise some concern.
June 16, 2013 at 8:20 pm #791890
melissaParticipantWhat our community needs is a more nuanced view of what the problem is and where the blame truly lies (see post above the post above) and less of the sort of blanket blame and self-righteousness in the post directly above.
Fin.
June 16, 2013 at 8:25 pm #791891
cjboffoliParticipantIn my view we waste too much time looking for the “nuanced” reasons for things and don’t spend enough time coming up with practical, workable solutions. Maybe if we did we wouldn’t have the same car prowlers, burglars and drunk drivers back on the street re-offending within days or weeks of being caught. I’m weary of endlessly analyzing the root causes of how someone’s unfortunate childhood leads him to litter.
As a citizen and taxpayer I have every right to point out a problem and ask the question why no one is addressing this, at a time when our City Council seems to have no problem spending $750,000 on a spray park and proposing to throw $500,000 at Nicklesville.
I’m sorry to have challenged your complacency but if this isn’t a problem that bothers you perhaps you could move along to another Forums topic instead of trolling this one.
June 16, 2013 at 8:30 pm #791892
anonymeParticipantMelissa, please DO enlighten us with your superior and nuanced (but not self-righteous – oh heaven’s NO) view, and DO include your plan for getting the “idiots” to cease littering. I suggest you run out right this minute and start gluing up your little signs on bar windows; I’m sure the unwashed masses will immediately step into line under your guidance.
June 16, 2013 at 8:42 pm #791893
melissaParticipantWell, golly. So I was going to leave this, but I feel (go figure) the need to defend myself. I said 1) people should take responsibility for their garbage, 2) bars should make sure that they have butt buckets for the smokers who step outside, and 3) that posters shouldn’t be self-righteous when blaming others. In return, I was accused of complacency and snobbery. Not sure how they got there, but okay. I fail to see how saying that people should clean up after themselves and how regularly cleaning up trash in public places myself (I do so at parks not infrequently with my spouse and kids) makes me complacent, but apparently that’s part of my general ignorance. Oh, and apparently challenging others = trolling. Who knew?
June 16, 2013 at 9:15 pm #791894
kgdlgParticipantBroadway Biz District has a BID (biz improvement district) in which business owners are levied a tax for weekly clean-up, graffiti removal, sign maintenance (pride, etc.) Because when it comes down to it, the type of solution Christopher is talking about cannot be ad hoc (i.e. some business owners and patrons and not others). People are **sholes sometimes and we are never going to change this. But if the Junction had some money to hire regular clean-up it might happen regularly.
June 16, 2013 at 9:54 pm #791895
jissyParticipantCJ- Took the words right out of my mouth as I was thinking the same thing the last couple of times I walked through the Junction… I can’t believe some of the businesses don’t just pull a few weeds and pick up some trash, their storefront’s aren’t that wide. If I were a business owner in the Junction, I would be tending to the dirt around the 1 or 2 street trees that might be in front of my business.
I was a business owner on California Avenue for many years and even though the NNN I paid on my lease provided for some landscape upkeep and clean-up, they didn’t plant flowers or pretty it up around my office building, so I did it myself in my early years of business and paid to have it done later on when yeah, I was “busting it” to keep my business running all while contributing “tremendously to the community”, I think people can do both. I actually see that as part of contributing to our commmunity!!
It was important to me to have a pleasant entrance to reflect on my place of business. I did maintenance/upkeep way beyond what my NNN covered due to pride of ownership. Interestingly enough, the businesses around me took note and had theirs professionally done, too shortly after mine — I was glad it caught on.
June 16, 2013 at 9:55 pm #791896
WSratsinacageMemberThanks cjb. And as people have probably already noticed, both sides of California are trashy in the parking strip areas north and south of the junction. . I too am busy working full time, raising a family, volunteering, etc but I still find time, like cjb, to keep my property clean. I spend many hours each week cleaning up trash and poop that is not mine, in addition to house and yard maint. I wish people cared more and didn’t litter/took care of their property.
June 16, 2013 at 10:17 pm #791897
WSBKeymaster(A) The fault lies squarely with the litterers. Period.
(B) I don’t know if what Junction business owners pay to the BIA includes cleanup but it includes more than you’d realize. Including free parking. Have you thanked your local businessperson lately? (Watch for a story about two of them which I’m working on right now.) Have you actually done business with them? Do you know that some business owners have days when NOTHING comes into the cash register, in part because of the current practice of “showrooming” – where people go in, have a look at some merchandise, find out they can get it a couple bucks cheaper online, then saunter out and place that order online? They are busting their asses to try to stay afloat . If you want them all to be cleanup patrol too … maybe a little offer of help?
And yes, I have a stake in it, because not only do I want to live in a community with small local independent businesses – regardless of whether the buildings surrounding them are one story or eight stories – but I would like to continue running this service, covering news about our community and providing a place for discussion. Local independent businesses advertise. Chain businesses do not. Even if they’re local franchisees. A food chain on which we recently reported because it’s coming to Alki buys big billboards which are owned by national companies. Not local advertising. As often discussed in different contexts, our area has a multitude of grocery stores. You know who advertises here? The three that are locally owned. Not the chains. Etc. etc. etc. If we lose our local businesses and services, you lose us too. (If you don’t care, that’s cool, but I thought I’d mention it.)
But I digress. I received this recently from a new resident who wanted us to publish it in hopes of encouraging other folks to help. This seems to be the right place for it, rather than a standalone story – for now.
“I recently moved to West Seattle from another Seattle neighborhood, and I am pretty disappointed in the constant garbage everywhere in the streets and on the sidewalks on California Ave. I am not sure why it’s such a bad problem in West Seattle, especially because West Seattleites seem to have so much pride in their community, but I have started regularly picking up garbage, and I would hope that you could post something encouraging people to do the same (and not to litter in the first place). West Seattle is fantastic, and it could be even better if people would use the garbage and recycling cans. “
(From Cassandra, who also shared photos, but they’re not much different from what was posted earlier. )
Please be part of the solution. Including, as Cassandra – a new arrival – writes, encouraging others to help.
P.S. There also are organized community cleanups, though not in The Junction since JuNO went dormant … for lack of participation (I am sure they would be MORE than thrilled to have somebody organize one). The cleanups seldom have more than a handful of people – we know because we stop by to take photos when we can. We publicize them. Feel free to join in them.
-Tracy
June 16, 2013 at 10:35 pm #791898
kgdlgParticipantI guess my point is that all the finger pointing can end if the BIA is supposed to be doing this, and businesses are paying for it, and for some reason it isn’t happening. The business district is large enough to have a function like this, especially with new buildings being built.
June 16, 2013 at 10:39 pm #791899
WSBKeymasterP.S. And if you missed our original story:
Since government doesn’t adequately fund education any more, PTAs have to have auctions every year to pay for things that in some cases are as basic as desks. Small local independent businesses donate to those auctions – giving away merchandise and services for free, so the schools can get a few hundred (or more) more bucks. (We don’t have merchandise to offer, so we sponsor nonprofit events – cash and in-kind advertising.) And this same funding model is employed by many nonprofits that make this community a better place, in countless ways.
If you are on the other side of the equation, the people bidding on and buying the auction items, or also making donations, by the way, THANK YOU.
Anyway, forgive me the passion but if you are not a business owner, you need to understand what they already give. Maybe they are just too tired to also put in an hour on the sidewalk picking up after slobs. The two ladies about whom I’m writing are also the primary staffers of their shops, in addition to doing all the behind-the-scenes stuff it takes to run a business. I know I’m too tired some days to do some extra things I SHOULD and COULD do but just can’t, beyond my scope of accountability, and I bet the same goes for you.
-TR
June 16, 2013 at 10:51 pm #791900
cjboffoliParticipantWell there’s no question that litter is the fault of the people who litter. But with that tautology aside, the question for me is: “Does the City of Seattle do anything at all to clean streets and sidewalks?” Or was a decision made at some point that we just don’t have the tax revenue to do that or that it’s not a priority? I’ve always thought Junction sidewalks look a bit grotty anyway. But I’ve never seen them as overlooked as they appeared this morning.
It was my impression that business owners are responsible for maintaining (removing garbage, ice, snow, etc. from) the sidewalks in front of their businesses in a similar way to how homeowners are expected to maintain sidewalks and planting strips in front of their houses. Am I incorrect in that assumption? I didn’t even want to get into the geometry of whether they have enough of a challenge as small businesses or whether their responsibility ought to be questioned in light of their patronage of the West Seattle Blog. Seems to me that local businesses thrive in business districts that are clean and free of garbage and that reflect pride in the community in which they do business.
I had lunch this past week up on Phinney Ridge and afterwards walked along several blocks of their main retail corridor. Most of the businesses along there are small, locally owned shops. But their sidewalks and planting areas looked nothing like what I saw in the Junction this morning. Some of the people I spoke with while standing in line at the bakery this morning were visiting from out of town. I wonder what their impression of West Seattle is after navigating our trash strewn sidewalks this morning.
June 16, 2013 at 11:00 pm #791901
WSBKeymasterKG – I don’t have access to BIA current info but it was formed for the parking issue – fascinating (to research geeks like me) document in city archives:
http://clerk.ci.seattle.wa.us/~archives/Ordinances/Ord_113326.pdf
Also, the BIA aka WSJA was instrumental in fighting for, and raising money for, Junction Plaza Park – to try to keep one little green-stamp of open space before redevelopment hits full swing. And had a whale of a fight to get the property owners across the street (the ones preceding the current ones who have yet to break ground on the site of 3 block-fronts of empty businesses) to make a token contribution to park upkeep as part of their “public benefit” for an alley vacation – park upkeep being something the city doesn’t fund, so it has to come from private sources. Just another datapoint.
… TR
June 16, 2013 at 11:20 pm #791902
JiggersMemberYou finally opened your eyes up? I bitched about same problem over a year ago about the Junction being strewened with cigarette butts and rubbish. Here, read what I had to say about it. Its amazing how long it takes before someone else gets tired of it.There should be a thousand dollar fine for cigarette but littering. Really. Smokers don’t give a sht and what’s worse is they don’t even realize what damage they are doing to our own eco-system. The suing of big tobacco companies didn’t change a thing. So, fine the consumer too.
June 16, 2013 at 11:55 pm #791903
JanSParticipantChristopher….I get your point, sort of. But TR hit it on the head…many many business owners are small, work very long, long hours, and even if they clean up on Friday, the local trash uses the streets for their trash over the weekend. I’m sure that if they had 36 hour days more would get done.
Not a business, but I live in a “no smoking” apartment bldg. If someone smokes, they are required to go outside away from the building. We had a new person move in with his grandma, and he would sit in his window by the parking lot, and blow the smoke out (save him a few steps he thought). And then…and then…he would toss his butts out the window into our parking lot, next to my car. And the smoke would waft up into my apt., through my open window, where I see massage clients. So, I wrote a nice note. And he started going out front..where the smoke wafts in the open deck door, and he still tosses his butts on the walkway up to the building.
Sometime people just don’t get it. Can we ever educate them? I doubt it. We could point out their failings every day, and things would still not change. And the “uneducation” starts early. I rejoice when school is out for summer, so there are no longer food wrappers up and down my street where the kids simply drop them after going to lunch at Met Mkt, Jack in the Box, or Safeway.They simply don’t give a damn.
I agree, it all starts with the litterer. No litter? No problem, and this thread would not exist.
June 17, 2013 at 1:21 am #791904
cjboffoliParticipantJan: That’s really a specious argument at best. There are a lot of busy small business owners who don’t seem to have any problem keeping 150 square feet of sidewalk in front of their stores clean. The Junction looks horrible covered with filth and as long as people are willing to make excuses and to list the reasons why they think people don’t have to be responsible for their civic responsibility (as business owners and citizens) then I guess it is going to stay that way.
June 17, 2013 at 1:37 am #791905
JoBParticipantfunny.. when i hosted visitors from St Paul Minnesota recently.. all they could talk about was how clean our city is..
i guess it’s all relative.
June 17, 2013 at 1:40 am #791906
JanSParticipantspecious? really? it’s an opinion…no worse than yours…please !
Yes, there are a lot of business owners who keep their area clean….if you see one who isn’t, maybe walk in and see why they aren’t….an ongoing convo on here gets you nowhere :-
June 17, 2013 at 1:42 am #791907
Genesee HillParticipantI, Genesee Hill, this morning, decided to turn over a new leaf.
A positive one.
West Seattle is gorgeous.
I agree with CJ that small business owners can clean the sidewalk in front of their businesses. My dad, who owned a failing corner drug store, in the fifties taught me that.
He was irate if I DID NOT keep that sidewalk, in front of his failing store, clean. He showed me how to sweep that hot, Yakima sidewalk.
Like I said. A new leaf here. No criticism if a business owner prefers to keep the “face” of their business looking like Bette Davis in her nineties…
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