Spring 2008 Issue
Seattle Report
Seattle First
Posted: September 15, 2008
Clean Up with Seattle First Car campers, homeless people, and independent truckers looking for overnight parking places. All were welcomed by a “live and let live” philosophy until things got out of hand in a small industrial neighborhood tucked away beside the First Avenue South Bridge in Seattle’s Georgetown area.
That’s when eight business owners teamed up with volunteers from Seattle First to address problems involving vandalism, theft, litter, and trespassing. After three months, the neighborhood was cleaned up and it remains so today.
“It’s amazing how some little bits of change can add up to make such a big difference,” said one of the business owners.
From its unique politics to its various urban peculiarities, Seattle offers challenges that industrial business owners won’t find in most parts of the Evergreen State. On the other hand the city also offers a unique program that summons public and private resources to help industrial businesses solve the day-to-day problems that are sometimes part of life in the Emerald City.
Call Seattle First, the program provides a team of city staff members and private consultants who can help businesses solve problems involving public agencies, access to support services, or relocation issues. Over the past three years, the Seattle First team has been called in to help 160 businesses, and it was able to find solutions for 60 of them.
In one case, Seattle First brought in representatives from five public agencies to deal with multiple problems that arose from an influx of homeless people, car campers, and independent truckers who began settling into a small business neighborhood near the First Avenue South Bridge along the Duwamish River.
The independent truckers wanted overnight parking spaces, the homeless people and the car campers wanted places to sleep and live, and this convergence of desires soon resulted in blocked driveways, theft from buildings and vehicles, vandalism, litter, piles of debris – and piles of even-worse-than-debris.
The solutions required police services, legal services, drainage services, brush clearing, and fence building, and by the time the interventions were completed the neighborhood was in better shape than it was when the newcomers first started arriving.
“We found the right people to work with when we found Seattle First,” said Kevin Sutherland, owner of Commercial Floor Distributors. “We were totally ineffective dealing on our own with the city. Seattle First took the time to understand our issues and brought the right people from the city to deal with the police, sewer, water, and drainage issues.”
The intake window is always open at Seattle First. For general information, call the Manufacturing Industrial Council of Seattle at 206-762-2470 or website www.seattleindustry.org/seattlefirst.php
