Emails to the Council on the pedestrian ordinance: November and August

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Emails to the Council on the pedestrian ordinance: November and August

Submitted by Rick on Thu, 12/07/2006 - 8:40pm.

I requested and received emails sent and received by the members of the Olympia City Council for the past six months. After sorting with respect to certain issues, I'm able to report some preliminary findings.

I chose to start by looking at two months: August and November. I reasoned that August would be a time when the population of homeless people would most visible, and would be a good comparison for November, when that population would be least visible.

The Council sends and receives a lot of email, about 1,600 in November alone (including a lot of spam -- they need better filters). I began by sorting out the messages that council members sent, allowing me to focus on the messages they received (interestingly, I noticed that some members do not seem to use email as much as the others). Then I searched on the following keywords: pedestrian, ordinance, amendment, sidewalk, downtown, homeless, street, and interference. This resulted in roughly 140 unique emails, of which approximately 80 were in favor of the amendment, and 60 against. (I've attached redacted versions of the emails in support of the ordinance that were received in November).

Now, some observations:

First, 4 pro to 3 con is nothing like the 10 to 1 ratio that I've heard attributed to some Council members, and when considered in the context of the public meetings, it would seem that the anti-ordinance crowd has a majority. This is disappointing because it really erodes trust when public officials skew the data that they're getting on an issue. (To be fair, the report I heard was said to include personal conversations in addition to email, but that would require a lot of conversation to make up the difference.)
Second, the comparison with August, a month in which the Council received a similar number of emails overall, and when you might expect people to be seeing more folks on the street. I could find only two that directly related to this issue (both complaints about the homeless). Not exactly a deluge.

I'm not sure if I'll have time to sift through the other four months of emails that I have, but if anyone is really interested, they are welcome to do so. I'll bring it on Monday to the Broho in case anyone does.

Rick's blog
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Thanks for going through

Submitted by Norm on Thu, 12/07/2006 - 9:39pm.

Thanks for going through those and reporting back to us. It's appreciated.

Lets not forget..

Submitted by bubbaz (not verified) on Thu, 12/07/2006 - 10:06pm.

Lets not forget..

The Olympian was there, drumming this whole thing up..

Week after week, day after day,

the same thing: (downtown Olympia is "not safe" / "Lacey is great")

yada yada...

Every day the same crap from that crappy newspaper

Im surprized it isnt even more skewed..

3 to 4 aint bad considering..

Like Crenshaw said..

This whole situation is so much like the Iraq scam it isnt even funny..

I've said it before, I'll say it again.

Submitted by Crenshaw Sepulveda on Thu, 12/07/2006 - 10:18pm.

When they keep saying they are going to be fair you can count on them not being fair. The more they want to commit an unpopular act, the more they will proclaim they are going to be fair. I've never seen the word fair used so much in regards an ordinance then with the pedestrian interference ordinance. This was a done deal long before they took a vote.

The more they say it is not about the homeless the more it is about the homeless. Again, the city attorney said that they templated the ordinance based on the Seattle ordinance. The Seattle ordinance already had the time frame where people could use the sidewalks close to the buildings, the same with busking. Why did the city council and city attorney omit this to be included later as a "friendly amendment" by Laura Ware?

I'll tell you why, they were trying to look fair and they wanted us to believe it was not about the homeless. But clearly they realized it was about the homeless because the amendments specifically impact the homeless and the council was well aware this was a component of the Seattle ordinance. Had they included the amendments in the orginal ordinance it would have been clear to anyone this WAS about the homeless as provisions for the homeless were being made in the ordinance. This ordinance was the product of a very carefully crafted deception. My only question is why did the council go to such extremes to make certain the ordinance was passed and who are they really serving. I suspect the full impact and horror of this ordinance will become apparent in the very near future as those profiting by the passage of the ordinance will descend upon our downtown.

"I would make it impossible for the covetous and avaricious to utterly impoverish the poor. The rich can take care of themselves."
^@^

who said 10 to 1?

Submitted by emmettoconnell on Fri, 12/08/2006 - 6:36am.

I don't remember that.

Public records requests a valuable tool

Submitted by Paul on Fri, 12/08/2006 - 10:25am.

Good job Rick!

A you no doubt learned, digging through public records of this type is time consuming hard work. If the lazy reporters at The Olympian ever got around to using this vital journalist's tool we might just be amazed at the results. The sad fact is that what passes for professional journalism these days is nothing more than stenography for the powers. It's a cliche anymore, but one can easily imagine Richard Nixon completing his second term in the White House unscathed had it not been for a pair of energetic reporters digging, digging, digging....

I posted on the subject just as the issue came to a head. I regret it came a little late and I confess I've not had the time and energy to follow through on the records request. You may have just inspired me to try. We could even organize a community watchdog group to spread the work load. Take a look and review http://olyblog.net/make-them-prove-it

As you probably learned it's one thing to request the information and it's quite another thing to sift through it all to find meaningful information that sheds light on all that went down.

Once again, if anyone is wanting to learn more about how to compose useful records requests a community workshop can be easily organized. Let us know.

When I feed the poor, they call me a saint.

When I ask why the poor have no food, they call me a communist.

Dom Helder Camara, Archbishop of Recife, Brazil

Aside from Watergate, do you

Submitted by The Fire Inside on Fri, 12/08/2006 - 10:33am.

Aside from Watergate, do you really think Nixon was a bad president?

Yes and no

Submitted by Paul on Fri, 12/08/2006 - 5:08pm.

I guess that would be a discussion for another time and date. More to the point of this thread, a well informed electorate (unwashed masses?) takes a lot of heavy lifting. The infomation's there, it's just work to get it and use it wisely. Too bad we can't rely on corporate media to do this any more. On the up side we have this kind of community where we can look out for each other.

When I feed the poor, they call me a saint.

When I ask why the poor have no food, they call me a communist.

Dom Helder Camara, Archbishop of Recife, Brazil

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