Homelessness continues to be a big problem for Seattle. The City Council made big strides, by allowing homeless encampments like Tent City 3 to be legal, but the 10-Year Plan to End Homelessness has proven to be woefully inadequate and overly ambitious. Homelessness is an inherently complex and multifaceted issue, but we should strive to continue to help those both on the streets and in the shelters next year.
This year seemed to be the year of transportation woes and foes. Our city’s No. 1 foe is probably Bertha, or the ground that stopped her. While Bertha sits stuck, with a new completion date of 2017, the Alaskan Way Viaduct continues to crumble and become less safe. If Bertha continues to be delayed, city officials will need to come up with a backup plan. We’ve seen how quickly things can come to a standstill when roads shut down or there’s a big accident. We’ll see this continue to get worse if we aren’t strategic.
In one good transportation move, voters did approve Metro bus funding within the city, which will help keep more drivers off the road and continue mass transit in Seattle.
The Seattle Police Department (SPD) had a tough year. SPD officers continued to fight back against the Department of Justice decree against its aggressive policing. New SPD Chief Katherine O’Toole took over this year, and despite continued struggles, she has been a voice of compromise and community. Hopefully in the next year, the police force can fall in line behind its leader.
One big boost for public opinion and officer safety would be body cameras for all officers: They’re being tested on a select few officers now, but we hope to see them across the city in 2015.
Seattle Public Schools (SPS) had its own unique challenges this year, with a superintendent leaving and a new one coming in. Interim Superintendent Larry Nyland impressed the school board so much, it just offered him the full-time job without conducting the usual nationwide search. We hope SPS finds stable leadership in Nyland in 2015 to guide the district through big changes and big growth.
Our area also saw a lot of tragedy. In June, a gunman shot three students, killing one, on the Seattle Pacific University campus, and just a few months ago, four high school students in Marysville, Wash., died at the hands of a 15-year-old shooter. Gun violence and gun control continue to be hot topics. Perhaps as a reflection of that, voters passed more stringent gun-control rules this November. Only time will tell if this will cut down on violence, but we certainly hope so, for everyone’s sake.
It will be interesting to see how decisions made in 2014 will play out in 2015. Technology is a big motivator of change for our city, and we need to prepare for the businesses, density, gentrification and wage gaps it brings. We need to be vigilant to make sure we still like what we become in the future.