Seattle's mayoral candidates need to beef up public-safety plans

WITH crime on the rise in Seattle, both candidates for mayor must become better versed and more creative about public safety and street civility.

Mike McGinn's public-safety platform released this week reads like a first draft. Joe Mallahan's Web paper on the topic is not much better.

McGinn rounds up certain steps taken by Mayor Greg Nickels and King County Prosecutor Dan Satterberg and mentions those he agrees with. Mallahan writes about things Nickels has done wrong.

Having a serious, effective policy requires more thought.

McGinn says the gang unit needs to be restored to full force. Mallahan also worries about the strength of the gang unit. That is pretty obvious.

McGinn supports Nickels' effort to ban firearms in parks and public places — a tougher call but the right one.

But that is Nickels' policy. What are McGinn's or Mallahan's brightest ideas? Violent crime surged 22 percent in the first seven months of 2009 over the same period last year; major crime increased 6 percent.

McGinn has no position on one of the better proposals to come along in a while: Seattle City Councilmember Tim Burgess' plan to regulate aggressive panhandling downtown and in neighborhoods. Mallahan understands Burgess' goals but thinks a ban on panhandling after dark and at street intersections and roadway entrances goes too far.

He is wrong. Effective policing requires emphasis on the big and little steps of street order.

Throughout McGinn's paper, one gets the sense of a candidate who rustled up everything he knew about public safety, then rushed it into print just to say he has a program.

Mallahan's writing is shorter yet more specific in a few areas. He describes public safety as a core government function. He speaks of public-health interventions with at-risk new moms, school readiness, after-school programs for children.

Both candidates speak about prevention and intervention, which is good. But neither candidate has given public safety sufficient thought. You cannot just say add more police officers, and be done.

The successful candidate must explain how the city would pay for more officers. Our citizens know both candidates are newcomers with little public-sector experience. One good way to persuade people either candidate is ready to lead the city is to offer more-detailed and more-thoughtful plans to keep our residents safe.