22 Dec Passionate about Pioneer Square: the debate rages on

There has been a lot of press about Pioneer Square every since Elliott Bay Book Co’s announcement that they’re leaving the square. Just scroll through this blog and you’ll find links to articles like “Can Pioneer Square be saved?” and “New boutiques buck recession with ‘Fashion Row’ in Pioneer Square,” among others.

The fun thing about reading all of the different articles and blogs about the neighborhood is reading all of the comments. There are so many opinions out there about what our neighborhood needs, what the city is (or isn’t) doing, if homelessness is good for the neighborhood, if the stadium is even part of Pioneer Square, and on and on.

For those of you who read the blog, you should remember back to the beginning of the month, when I first posted about McGinn’s Ideas for Seattle site. In 3 weeks, “Revitalize Pioneer Square” has gone from 7 votes to #3 with 454 votes. The site has its own conversation happening for what P2 needs.

Here’s one comment:

note: “that being said” refers to a suggestion to increase policing to create a feeling of safety.

I’d like to point out, however, that this commenter only gave 1 vote to Revitalize Pioneer Square, while the rest of us who gave 3 votes obviously care more about it (she also voted for legalizing Marijuana, our arch-nemesis).

Here’s another comment:

But his opinion doesn’t matter that much, also with only 1 vote. Besides, he was promptly reprimanded by another commenter:

I have a coworker who absolutely loves this person’s comment on the “Can Pioneer Square be saved” post. It’s long, so I’m not posting it in its entirety — go to the article if you want it to read it and the 50-odd other comments there. But here’s the piece that I find fantastically written (and totally controversial):

This seems to be an opinion that people keep coming back to this week. If you listened to the discussion of Pioneer Square on KUOW on Monday, you heard it there, too. One of our new, prominent residents (also on the Revitalization Committee) made the comment that “those social services shouldn’t go anywhere. We want them. The community wants them in Pioneer Square.” Basically that the neighborhood is protective the homeless community, and that we should work on attracting more residents that share that same values.

On the “Seven Steps for ‘saving’ Pioneer Square,” Knute Berger wrote the following:

I have to say, if that’s the case, the husband and I are no longer welcome in this neighborhood. Please don’t get me wrong — if you read through previous posts, I have nothing against the homeless in this neighborhood, have tried to make friends with them, and did a short series on what it’s like and why they’re homeless. It’s just a fact that there is such a high concentration in this neighborhood, and not a high enough concentration of residents to outnumber the homeless. I really don’t think that “urban appeal” = “lots of homeless on the street.”

This is the first time I have heard “let’s just embrace this and make it work,” instead of the more common “feed them in your own neighborhood,” and “kick out the services who refuse to follow the rules.” I’d like to put a question out to those who share the above opinions: how can we get more residents if this is known as a homeless and drug district? We came down here because we found a huge loft apartment for cheaper than where we lived downtown, and that made it worth it, even with the homeless and drug problem. To me, it seems a lot easier (all relative) to get the city to withdraw funding for services (like the Lazarus Day Center) who break the rules and bring more drug business down to the square.

Danny Mitchell, the owner of Mitchelli’s (soon to close its doors), said it well when he said that “everyone has their heart in the same place in terms of the mixed population of the square, but the balance needs to be in place, and right now it seems to be a bit out of balance.” He continued to say that “some of the facilities are past their point of being able to serve the population properly.” According to Mitchell (oh.. I just got the Mitchelli’s name. ha), they are closing for many reasons, but within the neighborhood, because of “the perception that it is not a safe place to go.”

If you also see on the KUOW webpage, I was supposed to go on, but instead sat on hold for 40 minutes. I was so ready to share in the controversial discussions! Oh well.. I guess I’ll just have to start a blog where I can share my opinions unfettered.

To sum up the homeless question and the fact that it’s just karma, I’ll share this comment that I happen to agree with:

The KUOW call came to an end with Steve Sher taking a call from Art Skolnik, architect and Pioneer Square historic manager from ’71 – ’75, who said “this is all very good, but this show has pretty much been a waste of time, because when it’s over, nothing will be done.” Sher interrupted to tell him he didn’t know that he was supposed to be solving Pioneer Square’s problems on the show, but please continue. Skolnik proceeded to let us know who our enemies are (which is always a good thing). They include: the City of Seattle and government in general (surprise, surprise). It’s a good thing he came on, because with his suggestions, fixing our neighborhood will be easy.

Let’s be real: change isn’t easy! If it were, it would have already happened. And although I make fun of other people’s comments and opinions, I think it’s fabulous that our neighborhood is being talked about and that people are passionate about their opinions. Please, share them, get involved, write the city council, protest (non-violently), come to safety meetings, help run an initiative, do something. Don’t just write random comments and feel like you’ve done your job. Oh yeah, go vote for Revitalize Pioneer Square (someday, just someday, we’ll beat Marijuana… it’s sold down here, they should go hand in hand anyways, right?).

So to sum up this discussion, here are the 7 steps from Berger’s article (with some specialized commentary):

1. Stop whining (seriously)
2. Hire a czar, or maybe a CEO
3. A loft of one’s own (we love our loft — please, more of these, not affordable housing.. we have enough!)
4. Settling the civil (or uncivil) war
5. What would leavenworth do?
6. Get our heritage act together
7. Forget Elliott Bay Book company (I would say, forgive, but not forget, right? Still shop there, because it’s great to support local business, but let’s stop talking about it and get to solving P2’s problems)

And… when you read those by themselves, they don’t mean much. Go read the article, it’ll warm you up for when we start discussions here with some video clips from Rykpema’s recommendations.