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In downtown Seattle, progress is being made to improve public safety, says Jon Scholes, the president of the .

‘I see progress’: Gyro shop owner lauds safety improvements in Seattle

Last week, there was a large meeting with hundreds of business and community leaders, including the city attorney, the head of the King County Regional Homelessness Authority, and city councilmembers, after which Scholes says efforts to improve the downtown core are moving in the right direction. But, as he emphasized, the city needs to “stay the course.”

“I think we’re certainly headed in the right direction. We can see progress on the streets over the last couple of weeks, but we know we’ve got a long way to go,” he told ³ÉÈËXÕ¾ Newsradio’s Dave Ross.

“But I think what was really refreshing, at our event last Thursday, is to see the public sector and private sector talking together about these challenges, committing to work together,” he continued. “That’s the only way we make headway on these issues and getting downtown going again, and it’s really not been how our city has faced these crises over the last couple of years — too much bickering and dysfunction between the mayor and council and others. So it was really refreshing to see folks at the same proverbial table at our event committing to action and progress.”

Moving forward, Scholes says police will have to continue to be present in the hot spots where illegal activity is occurring, and has for many years. He also believes people who are hurting others, especially those responsible for a large number of crimes, need to be held accountable for their actions.

Additionally, Scholes says there needs to be more work to connect people with housing, and with mental health and substance use treatment.

“This is the recipe that we need to follow, it’s what will work, and we need to sustain those efforts,” he said. “It can’t be a two or three week operation, this needs to be how we do business in Seattle going forward.”

To the people who want to come downtown but may still have concerns, Scholes says he gets it.

“Safety is a very personal issue, and we spent the last two years in battling this pandemic of making personal decisions about our own sense of risk and safety, so I respect that,” he said. “But I’d invite folks, in ways that feel comfortable to them, to come on down and support those small businesses, the arts organizations, the market, the vendors.”

“There are tons of safe experiences that you can have in downtown right now,” he noted.

That said, he also admitted that there is still work to be done, pointing specifically to Third Avenue.

“First and foremost, job number one, is make it safe,” he said. “But we’ve been here before, and we’ve seen these three-week efforts of lots of cops, and then the effort sort of dissipates and the bad behavior returns. That can’t occur in this situation.”

“If we can make it safe, we can get businesses reopened and we can repopulate and re-tenant those storefronts that have gone vacant during this pandemic,” he added.

Listen to the full interview:

Listen to Seattle’s Morning News with Dave Ross and Colleen O’Brien weekday mornings from 5 – 9 a.m. on ³ÉÈËXÕ¾ Newsradio, 97.3 FM. Subscribe to the podcast here.