Public Safety Community Meeting Recap

On August 26th over 100 neighbors came together to listen and discuss the issues facing public safety in Mount Baker. The community stood together on some strong points: the need for more police presence patrolling the neighborhood at all times, and more specifically, the disruptive behavior happening in the parks at night.

We heard from Tanya Woo, our citywide Council Member, who talked about a pilot program for installing cameras in hot spots and encouraged everyone to continue reporting incidents, big or small, so that every incident in Mount Baker is counted. Mark Solomon, Crime Prevention Coordinator Seattle PD, South Precinct, talked about ways to protect your home and provided materials that can be found at seattle.gov/crime-prevention. He also offered to schedule a time when he could come to your home and make recommendations on how you can improve your home security system. You can email him at mark.solomon@seattle.gov.

Natalie Walton-Anderson, Director of Public Safety was also able to join us, and is working with her team at the Mayor's Office to address the following questions that came up at this meeting:

• Park Rangers – can they vary their hours at parks where the complaints are generated most often? 

• Can we systematically close the parks and more importantly the parking lots, earlier during the summer?

• Can SPD/PEO close the parking lots and impound the cars that are still within the parking lots past closing time?

• Can the community adopt a park and hire private security?

• What is the ability of SPD to have mounted patrol in the parks?

• Can Parks make more environmental changes – examples include: locks that can’t be cut, cement barriers, chains, etc.?

• Do we need legislation to change the hours that the boat ramps can be open?

Thank you all for caring about your neighborhood and making your voices heard!