News
Change Would Allow Parks Exclusion Enforcement at Westlake
The city council's transportation committee approved legislation today that would effectively hand a large slice of Westlake Plaza downtown from the Seattle Department of Transportation to the city's Parks Department, giving Parks jurisdiction over the entire park, much of which is technically SDOT-controlled street right-of-way (the red-outlined portion in the image below).
The handover would allow the parks department to hand out citations to people---public drinkers, homeless individuals, or just rowdy kids---who violate park rules, something Parks currently lacks the authority to do at Westlake.
Among other reasons for the move, the change will allow Parks to host more events in the plaza; will preserve the space permanently as a park (street rights-of-way, unlike parks, can be sold); and will give Parks "an additional tool to help manage and limit undesirable activity" in the park, according to a memo from SDOT director Peter Hahn.
What kind of undesirable activity? According to the memo, "Groups of youth have regularly dominated the space, exhibiting rough behavior, possible illegal drug activity, leaving excessive amounts of litter and creating an atmosphere where others feel unwelcome and unsafe. Rather than an asset, Westlake Park has sometimes been seen as a deterrent to a vibrant downtown." The Parks Exclusion Ordinance, the memo continues, will give the department "an additional tool to limit undesirable activity in the Park."
The Mark Sidran-era parks exclusion law allows the parks department to bar offenders from a particular park for up to a year for all kind of reasons, including public drinking, skating too fast, having an unleashed dog, littering or being in a park after closing time. In the first five months the ordinance was in effect, the ACLU found that 44 percent of the 782 people excluded from parks were minorities, and that 97 percent of the exclusions were for drinking, using drugs, or trespassing.
The parks department is putting together a list of parks exclusion notices and violations in the last year, and PubliCola hopes to have a copy in the next few days.
The handover would allow the parks department to hand out citations to people---public drinkers, homeless individuals, or just rowdy kids---who violate park rules, something Parks currently lacks the authority to do at Westlake.
Among other reasons for the move, the change will allow Parks to host more events in the plaza; will preserve the space permanently as a park (street rights-of-way, unlike parks, can be sold); and will give Parks "an additional tool to help manage and limit undesirable activity" in the park, according to a memo from SDOT director Peter Hahn.
What kind of undesirable activity? According to the memo, "Groups of youth have regularly dominated the space, exhibiting rough behavior, possible illegal drug activity, leaving excessive amounts of litter and creating an atmosphere where others feel unwelcome and unsafe. Rather than an asset, Westlake Park has sometimes been seen as a deterrent to a vibrant downtown." The Parks Exclusion Ordinance, the memo continues, will give the department "an additional tool to limit undesirable activity in the Park."
The Mark Sidran-era parks exclusion law allows the parks department to bar offenders from a particular park for up to a year for all kind of reasons, including public drinking, skating too fast, having an unleashed dog, littering or being in a park after closing time. In the first five months the ordinance was in effect, the ACLU found that 44 percent of the 782 people excluded from parks were minorities, and that 97 percent of the exclusions were for drinking, using drugs, or trespassing.
The parks department is putting together a list of parks exclusion notices and violations in the last year, and PubliCola hopes to have a copy in the next few days.
