Neary-Sighted

Today's posting begins with links related to journalism, but if that subject does not interest you, I would encourage you to skip to the end where there are some very Lakewood-centric links that ought to inspire lively discussion.

Working in PR, you often hear people complain about how they are treated in the media. Sometimes it is justified, and sometimes it is wishful thinking. There's a fascinating take on this in a recent radio segment - the transcript of which is here - about a guy who will only be quoted via email. I don't agree with that at all, but it reminds me of the important ideas discussed in the book The Vanishing Newspaper. (My regular readers, both of you, will recall that I've said no one can understand the media these days unless they have read this book). Among other things, the author says readers are increasingly showing impatience with papers because readers are increasingly aware that owners are providing for profits, not quality journalism. Readers, who for many decades were inclined to extend goodwill toward the media, are increasingly impatient with poor reporting because newspaper owners have been giving them increasingly understaffed newsrooms for all those decades.

So perhaps this latest idea is yet another symptom of how the public is turning on papers. There is further discussion about the quoting subject on the gentleman's own blog.

One newspaper story that reminds us of the 'good old days' of newspapers was the thorough treatment of safety issues at Western State Hospital by The News Tribune this past weekend. In general, newspapers look to mark someone as a clear good guy, or a clear bad guy. This series of stories was far more subtle, and far more in-depth than the usual investigative journalism. This was a great report.

Western State is a major employer in Lakewood, and a huge part of our community's history. So we should all support efforts to make it a safer place for both staff and patients. The paper has an interesting followup on its blog, suggesting that some of the criminally insane may be diverted from Lakewood to Seattle under a new program. It turns out that people involved in the courts system in King County would like to see evaluations done closer to home, where transportation does not cause a delay. This seems like a good deal for Lakewood and Western State, unless I am missing something.

Speaking of trying to pin someone as a bad guy - if you are still interested in the media at this point, you might check out this column from the soon-to-be-downsized San Francisco Chronicle. This writer seems to pin an awful lot of blame on Google. But his overall concerns seem chillingly real.

And finally, here are some links very pertinent to Lakewood. One of our citizens, Malcolm Russell, has built a series of Web pages about issues of interest. It seems to me that whether you agree with it all or not, his Web approach helps people think about and visualize an issue before it all comes to a head on a Monday night ... or worse yet, never gets addressed at all. The wording and opinions are his:

LAKE ACCESS
http://www.re-developmentgroup.com/lakewood/lakeaccess/
Summary: This proposal seeks to promote lake access for all Lakewood citizens and especially the many residents of homes bordering the southeast side of Lake Steilacoom. The proposed public access point is located on at the western terminus of 100th Street SW

(Walter's note - in case you are wondering what is going on with this topic, the city's parks and recreation advisory board is planning a series of neighborhood meeting to talk about lake access)

MEADOW ROAD
http://www.re-developmentgroup.com/lakewood/meadowroad/
Summary: This proposal seeks to change the lane pattern at the intersections of Meadow & DeKoven. The proposal seeks to add green space, beautify the area and improve safety both for vehicles, pedestrians and neighborhood's children.

CHEVRON
http://www.re-developmentgroup.com/lakewood/chevron/
Summary: Chevron owns a corner at Gravelly Lake and Alfaretta Street. The area is highly visible from Gravelly Lake Drive. It's a bit of an eyesore. Yes it's private property, but surely there is something that can be done, suggested, or inspired in order to help motivate an improvement of the conditions at this location. Got Any Ideas? How about a new office building or business?

Forward this post

Hey, I'm looking for ideas. This is the first year I will have a campaign booth at SummerFEST, Lakewood's annual festival, held this year on Saturday, June 23. I am looking forward to meeting a lot of people who I might miss while knocking on doors. I am looking for ideas about what to have at the booth besides campaign signs, my happy self, chairs and a notepad to write down concerns or thoughts.

• Live music
• Partners for Parks Car Show (over 150 cars)
• Kidz Zone inflatable activity area ($5)
• Over 100 food, public market and non-profit vendors (that list of over 100 would presumably include my booth ... and my wife, who pays the bills, can assure you I am very much a non-profit venture)
• Comcast Outdoor Cinema
• Baseball Tournament
• Fun Run
• Pony Rides ($3)
• Dog Agility Demonstrations

It should be fun. I will see you there!

Forward this post

• Reducing the number of prisoners who will commit crimes after they are released
• Reducing the number of offenders being piped into Pierce County from other communities.

Forward this post

I don't usually pass along jokes or pictures or videos through email, if only because so many people are already sending them. But this video, from a Tacoma film festival, is worth seeing if you have ever tried to convince friends, relatives or co-workers to visit our area. If the link above does not work, try pasting http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_G6xBwswjgs into your browser.

(Quick caveat - The Web site where this video is hosted, YouTube, is a bit of the Wild West, so I can't vouch for the tastefulness of whatever other videos the site may try to show you)
Forward this post

There's some interesting dialogue going back and forth about the latest crime statistics. I wanted to share some of the emails to get your thoughts, and keep you up to date.

You'll find the dialogue in the emails below. Even below those, in different postings, you'll find postings that quote news accounts and police numbers.

The earlier blog postings sort of frame what follows; this is what gadfly /watchdog Dennis Haugen had to say on his email list:

----Original Message Follows----
From: "Dennis Haugen"
Subject: Of course, crime is down if police don't take the reports
Date: Sat, 12 May 2007 16:40:36 -0700

Walter

As a Council person you have obviously ignored claims that police might not be taking some crime reports
It is easy to reduce crime if police take fewer reports. Before you start bragging about lower crime in Lakewood, it would be wise to have the police crime reporting system independently investigated. There are a lot of voters who think crime is increasing in Lakewood.

Dennis Haugen

We all have our issues, and with Dennis, you have to look past the claims of grand conspiracy and identify the real question: namely, is Lakewood taking proper police reports? I was concerned to hear from one local businessperson who thinks not. More on that in a sec. This is what I wrote back to Dennis:

Thanks for your feedback, Dennis. We all talk to people who tell us different and contradictory things; that's where numbers help. I don't agree with an independent investigation at this point; you and I both know that if the investigation said the police had done a good job, you would accuse the auditors of having been co-opted or corrupted. That's your role as a watchdog, and I am glad you are there to keep people on edge, but it doesn't necessarily help move things along. I'd argue that we are first at the point where we need statistics.

This is how it is supposed to work when it comes to an allegation like yours...: If you know of someone who says a report should have been taken, but was not, then either you or they should fill out the online complaint form via the city web page or the link below in my email. Or have the person contact me. I don't have direct information that police are ignoring crime, but I am always willing to listen. If I hear of one or two incidents, it sounds like one or two mistakes; if a bunch of incidents are reported, then it sounds like a trend. Either way, action is appropriate. We need specifics, and the value of the online complain monitoring system is that it will generate both specifics and trends.

Now, this is what I heard from the Lakewood businessperson, who wishes to be anonymous. I removed identifying details, and anything in parenthesis is a summary:

I've lived in Pierce County for (a lot of) years and Lakewood for (a lot of)years. In the past (several) months our house has been burglarized (several times) times. (I initially blamed myself for not keeping the house more secure, but finally called police) The officer said if I wasn't going to report it to my insurance company, she wasn't going to take a report ... Anyway, she was quite indifferent and obviously wasn't interested wasting her time taking my report. (and then there were comments about the personal impacts of crime)

I don't think that this police department is going to announce or admit that
they don't take reports for crimes that folks like me want reported. ...
The police should at least ask to take a report. Let me decide how important
it is. My experience leads me to believe that the police department must
"pick and choose" which crimes they keep track of and which ones they don't
report so they can say that crime is down.

The author wants to be anonymous, and I respect that, but of course you can see that I can't really chase down what seems to have gone wrong in his case. Here's part of what I wrote back, with identifying details removed ...

My problem with Dennis' central thesis is that cops are not always trying to prove crime is down. In fact, if you can prove crime is up, you can ask for more resources. It's funny, but since I am running (for re-election) on a platform of 'more police officers,' it would 'help' me (speaking strictly from political perspective since obviously we don't want crime) if crime was up. I am going to make a lot out of the fact that gang violence means violent crime is a growing problem. Again, strictly from a political perspective, a campaign does not care whether crime is up or not - you just react to what you hope are the right statistics, which is of course now the issue.

I had a funny experience back in Salinas that may or may not shed light on where people come from. When I worked at the daily paper there, a lot of the Latino leaders started demanding our newspaper stop saying there were a lot of crimes in East Salinas (where a lot of Latinos lived). They claimed that constant references to crime and East Salinas were giving the community a bad name. We went back and forth. Then, there was a vote whether to put a police substation in East Salinas, which the leaders wanted, and it lost. So then the leaders came to us and asked us the paper to make a special point to print when crimes happened in East Salinas! They changed positions, made a lot of noise about how much crime there was, and got their substation.

Anyway, it sounds like you had a horrible customer service experience. I'm sorry for that, and it would bug the heck out of me if it had happened to me. My mother-in-law on Wildaire has neighbors who had a home burglary, and it really changed them. It's one reason I make a fuss about property crime, because you are right, property crime is also person crime.

The reason I have been printing the online link to City Hall in my last couple newsletters is that there now is a way to report a problem. When you report the problem, it creates a monitoring number so you can check on the status of your query. This tool, which Tacoma also recently started, should if it works right revolutionize our ability to 'de-bug' city hall.

I really wish I could ask about your situation, because it is certainly possible Dennis is right and there is some odd policy or some messed-up person that is changing how they take reports. But I respect and appreciate your right to be anonymous! You can understand, though, that it means Dennis will use your example loudly and that police will not be able to check on what happened so people disinclined to listen to Dennis will not be moved. Again, it's totally your right, but that is the likely outcome. Anyway, I take your comments to heart -

OK - What do you think? Let me know.
Forward this post

Your ideas are needed. Here's a fun little contest that you can help me with. The topic comes up at Monday night's City Council meeting, so let's brainstorm quickly.

We're all happy, I hope, that the Boys and Girls Clubs of South Puget Sound are building a state-of-the-art center for our local kids in Lakewood. You can see construction progress here and learn more about the center here.

The city of Lakewood agreed to contribute federal block grant funding in return for the programs that the Boys and Girls Clubs will offer local kids, and to help them build the building. In return, we may have what the rich people call a 'naming opportunity.' Normally, you only get to name something when you donated a lot of money (so, for example, Paul Allen donated money to UW and named a library building after his dad)

In Lakewood's case, we get to name a conference room. OK, it's not a building, but it is still nice to say that it's the conference room that Lakewood helped pay for. Here's the question - what do we name the room?

The most obvious choice is 'City of Lakewood' room. Or I've suggested we honor Bill and Jo Harrison by naming the room after them. Whatever you say about Mayor Harrison's politics, he was the first mayor in lakewood for many years. And Jo contributed to the community for many years as well.

However, it would be nice to have a lot of ideas to pick from. If you have a suggestion for what we should call the room - who or what we should memorialize - then send me a note. It's best to send the note by Monday afternoon as this will come up at the Monday evening council meeting.

(Update posted in June: if you want to see how this turned out, visit this story in The News Tribune)
Forward this post

OK, so here's one sampling:

Number of Macintosh computers in the Neary experience that have crashed, destroying all records and data: 0
Number of Macintosh computers that Neary has owned or used at work or home in his lifetime: 4

Number of PCs that Neary has used that have crashed, destroying all records and data: 1, as of yesterday.
Number of PCs that Neary has owned or used in his lifetime: 2

OK, those of you who are good at math, can you help me with the percentages here? What kind of computer should I use next?
Forward this post

A couple days ago I posted the link for a news story about crime in Lakewood. Today, we've got some of the actual data to share. I made these images from a presentation the chief gave a couple weeks ago.

Something I heard frequently from voters in 2003 is that they thought the city was not paying enough attention to property crime. Sure enough, the voters as a group were picking up a trend, as you can see from the following chart. One reason you will see me knock on a lot of doors during this campaign is to learn what other trends are out there. Meanwhile, the police department began a variety of programs designed to address property crime, and certainly it's working to an extent. Still, any crime is too much crime.

Oddly, lately, in keeping with a proud Lakewood history of rehashing things years after they happen, we still seem to be fighting the battle of whether to start our own police department. One would hope that improved public safety would be enough to settle the argument. One of the little factoids that's quite interesting is that for many months, thanks in large part to its motivated and organized citizens, Tillicum has been one of the safest parts of town.



Certainly one of the most controversial things the city has done has been to allow police to enforce speed limits in school and other zones. Compare the black line indicating accidents per month in 2005 vs. the blue line indicating numbers in the same months of 2006. The blue line here shows that in general, accidents have been down from year to year; but honestly, it's very difficult within this limited time period to assign credit. Still, whatever the reason, any reduction in accidents is a good reduction.

Forward this post

You're aware that Steve Dunkelberger and I worked on a photo history of Lakewood. It's a pleasure to say that a similar book about South Tacoma is expected to come out later this year from the same publisher, Arcadia.

That's of great interest because South Tacoma and Lakewood obviously share a lot of history; both were largely "in the middle of nowhere" when Tacoma began to develop. For example, South Tacoma was the original, rural location of the Tacoma Country and Golf Club.

The photo on the cover, at right, came from the Tacoma School District. It's 1903. The principal of Edison Elementary is taking the staff and others for a sleigh ride.

Says author Darlyne Reiter: "An interesting tidbit I've found while researching images for this book is the number of photos that have snow in them. I can only attribute that to the fact that we don't have snow often, so lots of people take outdoor pictures when it happens."

She makes a good point about old photos. You will note that the aerial photo of Lakeview in the Lakewood history book is of the region covered in snow.

Anyway, we are all grateful to Darlyne for her work to preserve local history. These books are also part of a larger trend made possible by the publisher. If you have been in a bookstore lately, you will notice that Arcadia's sepia-tone covers are begining to cover more and more parts of the state; there's even a book about "Irish Seattle." Arcadia is great to work with as they cover all the up-front costs, which is unusual for a publication involving local history. You can see a listing of their books from Washington at the Arcadia Web site.
Forward this post

Despite the best efforts of the State Supreme Court, Lakewood is on the move against crime. There's a good review in today's News Tribune. It's worth reading. It's going to be interesting to see how the people who always want to find something bad in Lakewood are going to try to reinforce their beliefs through what is both an accurate and positive account.

That said, we can continue to learn an important lesson:

Community policing in northeast Lakewood began about five years ago, but budget cuts over the years damaged the effort. Neighborhood patrol officers there must cover twice as much territory in a shift as they once did.
“You start losing your community when you take our officers away,” said Terry Love, president of the Northeast Neighborhood Association.

This topic has come up before when I've written before about the city budget. The council's lack of desire to budget for enough neighborhood police was a major reason why I voted no on this year's budget.

Let's hope we have the collective vision to budget at least one neighborhood officer per neighborhood this year.
Forward this post

I've had a lot of good natured kidding over today's column by Peter Callaghan about good news for historic preservation. I'm pleased to say that those of you concerned about my promise should know that a lady member of the fort association said she already kissed Senator Carrell in my stead at the public meeting about the Ward building. Whew! Whatever the method, we all owe him many thanks.

To close a loop, you will recall that I promised you the link to the city survey about the Ward building. It turns out the survey is not Web-based; you need to download a document and physically mail it in. The city web address is pretty lengthy, so I just put the documents on my web site: you can download ...

A PDF version
(You would need PDF software, which most computers have, to open this one. You will probably have to write in your answers by hand)

A Microsoft Word version
(If you have Microsoft Word on your computer, you can open this document and actually type within the document before printing it out and mailing it to City Hall)
Forward this post

Those of you interested in the future of the Ward building, but unable to attend the recent public meeting at Pierce College, have a new way to provide your thoughts on what to do with the site. You can download a survey form from my web site if you have Microsoft Word on your computer. We're told the survey will also be posted on the city web site; I'll provide the link then. The deadline for comments is May 18.
Forward this post