Seattle Forward

Learning by Doing

I want to tell you about a young kid in Seattle.

 

His family was poor. Conflict in his home occasionally turned violent. There was sexual assault by an outsider to his family. He didn’t do very well in school because of his at the time undiagnosed dyslexia and attention deficit disorder.

 

As a student in Seattle Public Schools, this young man was labeled “not college bound.” In his senior year of high school, he was rejected for admission to the University of Washington.

 

Then something very special happened. His high school journalism teacher in his senior year pulled him aside and said,

Should Seattle's City Council Cut Police Services Even More?

Seattle’s City Council will tomorrow morning consider cutting more funding — approximately $5.4 million — from police services; it's part of their plan to shrink the size of the police department. This new reduction would come on the heels of the approximate 20% cut the Council imposed last fall through direct budget cuts and by moving some functions, such as parking enforcement and 911 services, elsewhere in the city budget.

 

See below for how you can share your opinion on this important subject directly with the City Council.

 

If adopted, these additional cuts would have significant negative consequences, including degradation of response times to 911 calls for help. If you think this is just some overdue belt tightening or a direct response to the crucial racial reckoning underway in our country, please read on.