Tag: Javier Valdez

State Could Eliminate Jaywalking Law; Right-Wing Group Attacks Seattle Council for Addiction Program They Had Nothing to Do With

1. If you’ve ever lived outside the Pacific Northwest, or spent time in virtually any big city elsewhere, you may wonder why the state of Washington still has, and enforces, laws against “jaywalking”—the practice of crossing the street midblock or while the light is green but the road is clear. (“Jay-walking” is an antique slur for a rube who doesn’t know enough to keep out of the road). Crossing the street in an area other than an intersection or against a signal can set you back $68, and you’re far more likely to be targeted if you’re Black; according to a 2017 analysis, more than a quarter of jaywalking tickets issued between 2010 and 2016 went to Black pedestrians, even though just 7 percent of Seattle residents are Black.

This year, legislators plan to propose a bill that would eliminate the specific law against jaywalking—or “crossing not at a crosswalk,” as the state’s 57-year-old jaywalking law describes it—which would make it legal to cross the street as long as it’s safe to do so. During a recent Transportation Choices Coalition-sponsored forum, state Sens. Javier Valdez (D-46) and Marko Liias (D-21), the head of the Senate Transportation Committee, noted that legislators laid the groundwork for getting rid of the jaywalking ban by specifying that pedestrians, like drivers, must exercise “due care” when using roads and sidewalks.

Now, Liias said,  “I don’t think we need a specific violation for jaywalking, because if law enforcement sees someone that’s violating that duty of care, just like if they see any other user [doing so], they already have tools to hold that person accountable. When you look at the history of how these laws were used, it’s clear that there’s been disproportionate enforcement against low-income and BIPOC communities.” Basically, Valdez added, the change would give people the ability to use common sense when crossing the street without risking an automatic penalty. In areas where stoplights are far apart, the rational choice is often to cross midblock rather than walking a quarter-mile or more each way just to get to the other side of the road.

TCC, along with Commute Seattle, the King County Department of Public Defense, and other groups have started a coalition called Free to Walk Washington to support the elimination of jaywalking laws, which would follow similar changes in California, Virginia, Nevada, and Kansas City, MO.

2. Change Washington, a “strategic communications organization” funded by the right-wing organization Project 42, often makes and promotes some pretty outrageous claims about the city of Seattle on its website, which includes cross-posts from Project 42-funded ventures like the podcast of a well-known former local FOX reporter. Last week, though, they got the attention of a Seattle City Council member with a post that not only mischaracterized a well-established addiction management technique called contingency management, but accused the whole city council of proposing a “giveaway to drug addicts”—a claim without even a passing connection to reality. (The post uses the sneering slur “addict” no fewer than seven times.)

Contingency management is a method of helping a person reduce their drug consumption by offering them small rewards, such as money, a gift card, or a small prize, for a negative drug test. In numerous studies, contingency management has been found to be one of the most effective methods for reducing or eliminating drug use, particularly among people whose main drug of choice is stimulants, for which there are no broadly effective medications. There is longstanding, research-backed scientific consensus that contingency management works. Even so, the city council has never proposed funding it.

“The budget that City Council passed last month does not include funding for a contingency management program,” Herbold wrote Change Washington in an email. “I am unaware of any City Councilmember that has a proposal for a contingency management program,” she added, since the city doesn’t fund public health care programs—the county does. King County’s DCHS Behavioral Health and Recovery Division got approval last year to fund a contingency management pilot project.

After mischaracterizing contingency management as a frivolous “giveaway to addicts” that will just give them money to buy drugs and mocking its proponents for supposedly thinking “gift cards cure mental illness,” the conservative group also trashed needle exchanges, which prevent the spread of diseases like HIV and hepatitis, and said a better solution would be to force addicted people into (presumably locked) mental health facilities where they could be “monitored” to make sure they changed their ways. The post ends with a warning to council members about next year’s elections. But it looks like the election disinformation has already started.

Afternoon Crank: Farrell Out of Legislature; Valdez In?

Image result1. State Rep. Jessyn Farrell (D-46) will announce tomorrow that she’s stepping down from her legislative position to run for mayor full-time—a move that will allow her to raise money for her campaign, which she has been barred from doing under a voter-approved initiative that prohibits lawmakers from fundraising while the legislature is in session. Last week, Farrell hinted in an interview that she would step down, since the legislature appears to be headed toward a third special session. “I take my duties as a legislator very seriously, but in getting in to this race, I want to win. It’s important to put skin in the game and put something on the line, and I’m willing …to walk away from a job I really love to do what it takes to win this race,” she said.

“I got in this race to win. … I have to be able to get my message out.”

Crank also hears that state Democratic Party executive board member Javier Valdez, who currently works as an advisory on women- and minority-owned businesses to Mayor Ed Murray, will seek appointment to Farrell’s House seat. Valdez is active in the 46th District Democrats and, in 2011, sought appointment to the 46th District state senate seat left vacant after the sudden death of state Sen. Scott White; that seat was filled by then-state Rep. David Frockt.

Last week, state Sen. Bob Hasegawa, who is also running for mayor, told me he does not plan to step down. “When I ran for the senate seat in 2012, I did it with no money, so to me it’s the opportunity to show that people united can defeat money in politics,” Hasegawa said. “Having this bar against fundraising really provided a way to put an exclamation point behind that concept.”

I have a call out to Valdez.

Image via Washington Bike Law on Facebook.

2. Is the Seattle Times just straight-up trolling us now? That’s the conclusion some on Twitter reached after the paper juxtaposed two stories on its front page yesterday: One about drivers who complain that “pedestrians” wear dark colors in Seattle, making it hard to avoid hitting them, and one about new gadgets that make it easier for people to use their cell phones behind the wheel.

Distracted driving is a real problem in Seattle; according to the Seattle Department of Transportation’s latest Vision Zero progress report, the city has seen a 300 percent increase in distracted driving over the past three years, contributing to 3,000 crashes a year, or about a third of all crashes in the city. The notion that pedestrians—which is to say, anyone who ever sets their feet or wheels on a sidewalk—should “prevent” distracted driving by wearing neon outfits or pinning lights to their clothes is proof of the Times’ fundamentally suburban mindset. In suburbs, people must make way for cars; in cities, cars should respect the primacy of people. The law itself respects this fact, by requiring not a dress code for pedestrians, but a traffic code for drivers.