After a week of sniping, Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn and state Sen. Ed Murray took a break in a debate at the Belltown Community Council Thursday night, where they stuck mostly to their own talking points, muted their attacks and ended with what may have been the first cordial handshake of the campaign.
Moderators Jeanne Kohl-Welles, the state senator whose district includes Belltown, and Belltown Community Council President Elizabeth Campbell (not to be confused with the anti-tunnel activist of the same name), said no progress is made on formulating policy for the city’s future if the candidates just point fingers at each other. In that spirit, the moderators allowed many two-minute answers that gave McGinn and Murray more time to formulate thoughtful responses.
Crime and public safety were again central themes of the debate. Campbell asked McGinn to commit to hiring 100 new police officers and guarantee they would be on the street next year. McGinn said the city didn’t have money for that many, but said that with improving city revenues, his budget would fund 30 new cops who likely would be on patrol. He also spoke in favor of his Center City Initiative, which tries to identify bad actors downtown and determine if they are amenable to treatment or other social services or whether they should be arrested and charged with a crime.
“When are services appropriate and when are consequences appropriate? You can’t have one without the other. We all know we need to enforce against violent activities,” McGinn said.
Murray said that Seattle lost officers overall during budget cuts the past few years and needs to consistently add more police. “If people are breaking the law, they need to be arrested,” he said. In one mild attack on McGinn, Murray said, “Officers don’t have a clear message about what to do [about downtown crime]. That’s a problem of leadership.” But Murray avoided being painted into the law-and-order corner — often a loser for mayoral candidates in Seattle (i.e., Mark Sidran) — by reiterating that no officers should be hired unless they are trained in urban policing, anti-bias and use of force.
Murray also outlined his criteria for a new police chief and how he would conduct the selection process. He served on the search committee that ultimately chose Chief Gil Kerlikowske, and said he thinks the current process scares off good candidates.
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