Real Change Blog
Burgess Lied. The Anti-Panhandler Safety Bubble Lives.
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At last Tuesday’s Seattle Office of Human Rights forum to discuss Seattle’s new panhandling ordinance, I challenged Councilmember Tim Burgess to meaningfully back up his claim that there is no 15’ “safety bubble” that follows anyone engaged in a parking or ATM transaction, thus turning pretty much any commercial district into a dynamic no-go zone for solicitors of any sort, including Real Change vendors.
Burgess replied unequivocally. The ordinance language, he said, was revisited last week and changed. “There is no safety bubble,” he stoutly declared.
I checked. The safety bubble lives. I see it. Our lawyer friends see it. And yet, Burgess denies its existence. The law, he says, and the 15’ bubble, applies only to transactions immediately conducted at a parking station or an ATM, and does not travel with the person. He’s lying.
Here’s the most current version of the relevant section of the ordinance.
4. “Aggressive solicitation” means the act of engaging in intimidating conduct towards another person in a public place when such conduct is accompanied by an act of solicitation. The mere act of solicitation without intimidation is not aggressive solicitation. Aggressive solicitation includes but is not limited to:
a. intentionally blocking or interfering with a person by any means while making a solicitation, including unreasonably causing the person to take evasive action to avoid physical contact;
b. intentionally using physical gestures or profane or abusive language that would cause fear or alarm to a reasonable person while making a solicitation;
c. repeatedly soliciting a person who has given a negative response to a solicitation while remaining within 15 feet of the person;
d. following a person who has given a negative response to a solicitation while repeatedly soliciting the person;
e. providing or delivering, or attempting to provide or deliver, unrequested or unsolicited services prior to or without the consent of the person to whom the service is provided; or
f. soliciting from within 15 feet any person who is using an automated teller machine (ATM) or a public or private parking pay station. For purposes of this paragraph, a person is using an ATM or parking pay station if the person:
i. is waiting in line for an ATM or parking pay station; or
ii. is conducting a transaction on an ATM or at a parking pay station; or
iii. immediately before or after conducting a transaction at an ATM or parking pay station, is handling in plain view any money, bank card, receipt, check or other document related to the transaction.
Real Change reporter Cyd Gillis had an email exchange on this with Nate Dozier, Burgess’ legislative assistant, last week. When she pressed him on the issue of whether the safety zone extends from the person or the machine, here’s what he said.
“Well my understanding of the way it’s now written is the 15 foot reference point is the person, not the machine. I think you could still not solicit from someone who is handling money or a parking sticker “immediately before or after” her or his transaction as that is part of the definition of “using.” I think your question might get into the definition of “immediately,” which I think leaves a pretty narrow window.”
This strikes me as a calculated misdirect. The safety bubble does not depend, as he says, upon some lawyerly distinction regarding the word “immediately.” The safety bubble exists in subparagraph f.iii as a whole, which says that so long as any document related to the transaction remains in one’s hand, that person constitutes a mobile no solicitation zone.
As to the word “immediately,” it obviously means more than 15’ after the center of the safety bubble leaves the parking meter or ATM, or there would be no reason for this clause at all.
To illustrate, say someone uses the Bank of America ATM at Westlake Center, exits right and walks, cash in hand, past the street kids that hang out near the sculpture on the way to the Starbucks across the street.. A kid asks for money. Does s/he get a ticket? Probably depends. That’s a bad law.
So, why the attachment to the safety bubble? Is it really worth all the obfuscation and legal vulnerability to the ordinance?
You’ll have to ask Councilmember Burgess, but here’s my best guess. The safety bubble makes the possible application of the ordinance nearly universal. Each of the 25 known panhandlers on the Downtown Seattle Association’s hit list, and anyone else that law enforcement cares to target, could easily be found in violation and ticketed. Repeatedly. Those tickets would default to misdemeanor warrants. There would be arrests, court appearances, and choices to be made.
The bubble creates options.
Just four of the panhandlers on the DSA list were identified by DSA’s own ambassadors as “aggressive.” With this new “tool,” that won’t matter. Any act of solicitation, when crossed with the safety bubble, becomes a civil infraction.
The ACLU and others are clear that this legislation creates intolerably broad restrictions upon free speech that will not withstand constitutional challenge. Burgess says the ordinance is extremely narrow and targets very specific uncivil behaviors.
My money’s on the ACLU.
Our tax dollars, however, rest with the city, which is too bad. Burgess’ response in a meeting last week to the question of whether litigation to defend bad law is a good use of city money was to say that the city already has a legal fund set aside for these exigencies, so, no problem.
It’s the classic bureaucrat’s dodge. “The money I want to spend on a stupid thing, being in that pile rather than this one, doesn’t really count.” It does. City dollars are city dollars.
This is bad law that will not, as written, withstand constitutional challenge. Burgess’ lawyers from the city think it will. The team of legal support and those who analyze laws like this regularly say they’re wrong.
There will be a legal challenge to this law whether the moving safety bubble lives on or not, but Tim Burgess should make good on his word. If, as he said in a televised public forum, the bubble does not exist as a matter of legislative intent, he needs to make it go away. Immediately.
“Panhandling” panel to talk Tuesday night, March 9
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By now, you probably already know: Seattle is considering a new law that will make “aggressive solicitation” — which includes yelling, following someone or asking for money within 15 feet of a parking meter or ATM — an illegal act, one that carries a $50 fine. Councilmember Tim Burgess proposed the ordinance in late February, basing it, he said, on a similar ordinance in Tacoma. Some people have praised the ordinance; others have denounced; still others are on the fence. But it’s hard to have a fully formed opinion if you don’t know the particulars.
So what does the ordinance actually say? And what does the ordinance really mean, not just for the panhandlers, but for the buskers, the Real Change vendors, the GreenPeace-niks and Girl Scouts? On Tues., March 9, from 7 – 8:30 p.m. you’ll have a chance to figure out.
That’s when the Human Rights Commission’s Public Safety Task Force will host a panel at Seattle University School of Law, Sullivan Hall, Room C5, 901 12th Ave. that will examine the proposals’ ins and outs. On board to speak will be Burgess; Jon Scholes, Policy Director of the Downtown Seattle Association; Anita Khandelwal, lawyer for the Defender Association’s Racial Disparity Project; and Real Change Exec. Dir. Timothy Harris.
It’s always impossible to predict what will happen at any panel, but here’s a safe bet: Burgess and Scholes will support the ordinance, Khandelwal and Harris will express grave doubts. And then there will be you, concerned citizen, who, after attending, will be able to put the whole situation into greater context.
Hundreds turn out to protest UW budget cuts
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Jessica Boone, UW student. Photo by Jane Austin
Coming around the corner from Red Square to the Quad, I was doubtful. Last year, in the midst of protests against budget cuts at the University of Washington, students and staff had turned out strong numbers in their protests, but, since last fall, continuing events aimed at calling attention to budget cuts have been a bit, well, anemic.
I was stunned, however, to see how many students had come out—perhaps 500 altogether—holding signs stating “No Layoffs,” “Tax the Rich,” and “R.I.P. Our Future.” After a few statements from the organizers, they marched around the lawned courtyard of the Quad, then into Kane Hall, across Red Square and on up University Way, chanting various slogans like “Who’s university? Our university!” and for a brief moment that WTO refrain, “This is what democracy looks like!”
The event was part of a National Day of Action to Defend Education that took place today on dozens of campuses across the nation, including Seattle Central Community College, Evergreen State College and Western Washington University. While the protesters didn’t shut down the campus the way students did today at UC Santa Cruz, it made this old alum very proud when, around 1:30 p.m., students in the top floors of the Art Building (of course!) unfurled a gigantic banner addressed to the university’s president. It read: “Emmert, Another Budget is Possible.”
Last year, in the wake of the Great Recession and state revenue shortfalls, the University of Washington’s budget was cut $73 million, leading the school to lay off 700 workers and increase tuition 14 percent. With tuition slated to go up another 14 percent this fall and more cuts expected, the protesters say the university has lost sight of its public mission—providing an affordable education.
Instead of raising tuition and cutting jobs, the school could start, say members of the UW Student Worker Coalition, which organized the event, by trimming the salaries of administrators who make more than $150,000 a year, with many participants calling UW President Mark Emmert’s $906,000 salary excessive. The coalition is also calling on the university to freeze tuition, halt the work speed-up that it says is affecting custodians (who had 39 positions cut last year, 17 of them direct layoffs), and provide real financial aid instead of loans that bury students in debt.
Jessica Boone, 20, said she is the first in her family to go to college and currently works two jobs to pay for her schooling, but is having a hard time keeping up. She wants to get a degree in sociology and go on to the UW School of Nursing, she said, but is considering enlisting in the Navy as a way to get her nursing degree.
“Mark Emmert makes over $900,000 a year,” she said. “I don’t think I’ll make that in my lifetime.”
Kayla Huddleston, 21, said she’s worried that further cuts to the university’s Office of Minority Affairs, which funds retention and mentorship programs, will deprive more people of color of a chance to get a college education. “If tuition goes up any further, it will be less affordable for those without scholarships,” she said.
“It’s ridiculous we’re balancing the budgets on the backs of students, workers and people of color,” said Steve Hoffman, an electrician at North Seattle Community College and member of the Washington Federation of State Employees, the union of the UW’s trade workers. “There’s a better solution, which is taxing the wealthy and corporate profits.”
News from the Poorhouse
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The New York Times reported recently that the Federal Government is overhauling the way it evaluates poverty. The standard formula, which measures only the income of a family, is being supplemented with other factors like the use of food-stamps and the existence of a mortgage. Poverty advocates have argued for years that the nearly 50 year-old poverty formula needed to be changed to more accurately reflect the true poverty numbers in the U.S.
A new study looking at the health of every county in the U.S. was recently released. The most unhealthy county in the nation turned out to be Orangeburg, South Carolina. It was found that the most key factors in determining a person’s lack of health, later on in life, were: Obesity, unemployment and childhood poverty. 22 percent of all Orangeburg residents were assessed as being in poor health 32 percent of all children were assessed as living in poverty.
John McClosky, a geologist at the University of Ulster, said recently that “…earthquakes aren’t killing people, poverty is.” He says this because, as is explained in the article written by The Daily Mail, the lack of earthquake-safe buildings and absent medical care are the cause of far more deaths than the actual events. The recent earthquake in Chili was nearly 1,000 times more powerful than the one which hit Haiti, however, it killed far fewer people because of the country’s more stable economy and infrastructure.
The rate of homeless youths attending public schools has risen in conjunction with the crash of the economy. In New York the situation is extreme with (as of February 26th) 15,495 families with children were living in shelters. The report, released by the NYC Department of Homeless Services, is a sharp reminder that often the people most vulnerable to poverty and homelessness are children.
The proposed “anti-panhandling law”
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Today Seattle City Council Member Tim Burgess proposed a law re aggressive solicitation. It will be a new section of the Seattle Municipal Code, 15.48.050. The law is available on his website as a pdf: http://www.seattle.gov/council/burgess/attachments/2010st_disorder_leg_aggressive_solicit.pdf
I’m glad that the law doesn’t call for any new licensing. Most of the provisions look reasonable to me, although I wonder why it is necessary to write a law specifically prohibiting solicitors from engaging in the activities covered. Why can’t these prohibitions also apply to non-solicitors? Why should it be OK for a non-solicitor to block my progress along a sidewalk?
But, never mind, for now. I’ll content myself to just complain about a couple of the provisions that bother me.
Part A. 4. of the proposed law defines some forms of aggressive solicitation. The introductory paragraph says it includes but is not limited to a number of activities that are then listed, 6 in all, a. through f.
The two that concern me are b. “intentionally using physical gestures or profane or abusive language that would cause fear or alarm to a reasonable person while making a solicitation;” and f. which deals with soliciting within 15 feet of an ATM, pay station etc. The problem with b is that it isn’t specific enough and it’s open to abuses. It is a wide open invitation to class discrimination. The very sight of homeless people alarms some otherwise reasonable people. So?
The problem with f is that selling, say, a newspaper, within 15 feet of an ATM, could get you a fine, even if you aren’t even addressing your pitch to the person using the ATM. You could even be facing the other way! It’s too broad.
The IWW’s Revolutionary Culture
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I’m newly in love with the IWW after reading Break their Haughty Power: Joe Murphy in the Heyday of the Wobblies”. At 13, Joe Murphy was forced to flee his home and became part of the wandering army of casual laborers who built America’s roads, rails, and dams, cut her lumber, and harvested her crops in the early part of the last century. He was 16 when he witnessed the brutality of the 1919 Centralia Strike here in Washington State. By the time of the Colorado Miners strike, he was a statesmanlike 24. By 30, he had seen the rise and fall of the most radical labor movement in US history.
This remarkable biography, lovingly written by labor activist Eugene Nelson from notes and taped conversations with Murphy as an old man, reconstructs one of the most vicious and yet hopeful and revolutionary periods of US labor. With so much of the rich IWW history taking place in and around Seattle, local history buffs will also appreciate the nicely drawn scenes from our city’s deeply working class past.
In the light of what often feels like the rather anemic political convictions and actions of the current “left,” the depth of the typical Wob’s commitment to his fellow workers and to a revolutionary fight for a better world seems like something of another world. This was a time in the US when workers were treated as little more than animals, and their revolt was considered a criminal affront to be ruthlessly crushed. Vicious beatings. Lynchings. Machine guns emptied into crowds. Long jail sentences under horrible conditions. Political executions. These were the understood consequences of fighting back. Yet, they did it anyway. For more than 25 years the IWW, the self-described “shock troops of the labor movement” organized like hell to gain some dignity, safer conditions, and a slightly higher wage. And the guys with money fought them with everything they had.
Since this book was written by an organizer about an organizer, the inner mechanics of grassroots revolution under extremely repressive conditions are on display. How did they keep going? A few themes emerge that remain relevant and deserve renewed consideration during these volatile times.
Organizing is about relationships. People got to know and respect each other under fire. Strangers were addressed as “fellow worker” and it was sincere. Solidarity meant that if people were being beaten, jailed, and killed, your obligation was to risk all of that yourself if it could bring about some justice. Over the years, people from various struggles would reappear in your life, and you knew what they were made of.
Know which side you’re on. Face it. Power unchecked will eventually seek to crush you. Wobblies knew who their enemies were and what to expect from them. They embraced conflict as a struggle of strategy and force. They claimed moral high ground and shamed their opponents into action, and they understood the power of ridicule. They used sabotage and other property destruction if it would help.
Nonviolence was a tactic, not a fetish. Wobblies understood that the owners and their hired guns — which often included the state — had the clear monopoly on armed force. More simply put, shoot back and you’re really dead.
Respect Yourself. To be a Wob was to demand and to be worthy of respect. They worked hard, fought hard, and didn’t take any shit, unless, of course, to do so was strategic in the short term. Their answer to being treated like animals was to fight back and to be there for one another. In commitment was meaning.
Don’t give up. What appears as loss may, in the span of history, be a gain. You have to fight anyway. Colorado Miners Strike was as vicious as could be. Troops fired upon strikers and their families with machine guns. People died. Lots of them. And yet, the violence turned public opinion. The deaths were not, in the end, meaningless.
Sing. Without music and shared songs, there could have been no IWW. The power of shared culture to build belonging, create values, and offer protest is enormous, and a movement for change that lacks this will suffer for it.
Have fun. Even when the stakes were deadly high, the IWW used tactics that kept their spirits up to defeat their target. They were creative, strategic, and knew how to use the element of outrageous surprise.
Think big. They understood that the object was revolution, and that the small skirmishes of the day to day need to build toward something that turns the injustice of the world upside-down. Otherwise, all you have is the little stuff. This is why a collection of, at their height, 30,000 dirt poor workers, could strike terror into the heart of the owners and their allies.
Nuclear Power - Clean Energy?
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The first new nuclear reactors since 1974 are slated to be built in Atlanta, Georgia:
“The largest investment in clean energy history” promises thousands of jobs, reduced dependence on foreign oil, and an energy production process with zero carbon emissions. Sounds dreamy, doesn’t it? But how “clean” is nuclear power?
A byproduct of nuclear power production is harmful radioactive waste that we currently have no effective means of storing.
Breakdowns in the power production process can expose workers, communities, and surrounding ecosystems to this radiation. While plant safety has improved since Chernobyl, accidents continue to occur.
Nuclear power is generated from uranium, a non-renewable, fossil fuel which is obtained through uranium mining. Uranium is obtained through open-pit and underground mining, often on land previously occupied by indigenous peoples, and produces radioactive waste. This process, too, poses risks, as one New Mexico community experienced “when an earthen dam, operated by the United Nuclear Corp., failed and let loose 94 million gallons of toxic wastewater into the north fork of the Rio Puerco on Navajo Nation lands.”
Uranium is enriched to be used as fuel for nuclear power. However, this capability can be a step toward the highly enriched uranium used in nuclear weapons. Remember the debate around Iran? Our choice to approve nuclear power sends a message to other nations that constructing reactors is desirable, and in fact, the “technology of tomorrow.”
The technology of tomorrow will be paid for in taxpayer dollars, but what is the cost to our health and to the earth?
Black History Month, updated, in pix and vocals
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Well, it’s February, and you know what that means, don’t you? Some might claim it heralds the arrival of Punxsutawney Phil and his forecast (it was for six more weeks of winter, as the East Coast, victims of Snowpocalypse, will wearily verify). And that wouldn’t be wrong.
But it’s also Black History Month, that four-week period where elementary schools are rife with reports on people like Rosa Parks or (one of my personal favs) George Washington Carver. And even though there are some cracks to be made about how this country’s celebration of black history occurs in the calendar’s shortest month, some solid education and thoughtful reflection of how things of have changed — and haven’t — can still be found in these 28 days.
Take, for example, this photo essay from The New Yorker. In some 19 portraits, more than 30 people who played pivotal roles in the Civil Rights Movement — or who had relatives who did — are pictured. Charlayne Hunter-Gualt, the first black woman to attend the University of Georgia (and currently a journalist for PBS and NPR), the daughters of Malcolm X and Betty Shabazz, and Muhammad Ali are included. The list goes on. It’s an amazing photo spread. And better still, there’s audio with the pix. The whole spread is complemented nicely by an essay by editor David Remnick.
It’s a great testament to the strength and courage of those who stood up to fight when fighting could’ve meant you’d lose your life. And it’s enough to make you wish it was Black History Month every month. And Latino History Month. And Women’s History Month. And Queer History Month. And Native American History Month. And…
Extra, extra: Different ways to see — and hear — the Olympics
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Can you see it? There, off in the distance, the Olympic Torch wending its way to Vancouver, for the start of the 2010 Games on Feb. 12. Isn’t it just exciting? Well, maybe if you’re NBC, which has a lock on TV coverage in the U.S., allowing only live online coverage of hockey and curling. Ain’t that sweet?
Still, there are a few other ways to get your coverage of the Games, as they’re called: If you’re going to be in Vancouver, you pick up a copy of one of our sister publications, Megaphone, the city’s street paper. It’s a special double issue, focused on the Downtown Eastside, the much-maligned section of Vancouver that provides a stark contrast to all the glitz, glamour and gold the Games offer. Copies go for $5, and will be on sale throughout the Olympics and the Paralympics, which run from March 12-21.
Or, if you find yourself in Canada and think it’s time to brush on your Objibway or Inuktitut, you have another option: You can watch the Olympics via the country’s Olympic Broadcast Media Consortium, a partnership of several networks that will offer the Games in 22 languages, from Native tongues to the languages of immigrant populations. (The Opening and Closing ceremonies will only be featured in 13 languages.) And while you may not be able to understand Gujarati or Mechif, isn’t it good to know that when U.S. figure skater Johnny Weir competes, many of Canada’s residents will be able to hear about his outré outfits in their own tongue?
More from Jaron Lanier
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Rob Alford’s interview with Jaron Lanier in the current issue was about the limitations of technology, from social media platforms to the determinative force of free-for-all content. As always, we had to cut a fascinating conversation down to fit in 1.75 pages of newsprint. Here’s the unabridged transcript of the interview, with Lanier discussing his book’s surprising reception in the computing world.
Lanier, by the way, had just appeared on KUOW’s Weekday program before his conversation with us. Thanks to the KUOW staff for kindly lending us a quiet room in which to record.
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Burgess Lied. The Anti-Panhandler Safety Bubble Lives.
Friday, March 12 at 1:52am
“Panhandling” panel to talk Tuesday night, March 9
Tuesday, March 9 at 11:36am
Hundreds turn out to protest UW budget cuts
Thursday, March 4 at 6:09pm
News from the Poorhouse
Tuesday, March 2 at 3:03pm
The proposed “anti-panhandling law”
Thursday, February 25 at 7:05pm
The IWW’s Revolutionary Culture
Monday, February 22 at 10:29pm
Nuclear Power - Clean Energy?
Thursday, February 18 at 11:43am
Black History Month, updated, in pix and vocals
Monday, February 15 at 1:14pm
Extra, extra: Different ways to see — and hear — the Olympics
Tuesday, February 9 at 11:04am
More from Jaron Lanier
Monday, February 8 at 7:39am
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