News: Community speaks with City of Seattle officials at public safety meeting

by ocaseattle · Published November 21, 2022 · Updated November 21, 2022

Community members at the Nov. 10 public safety meeting in the CID. (Courtesy: Chong Wa)

The Northwest Asian Weekly reported on a Nov. 10 meeting on public safety between community members and City of Seattle officials.

The meeting was attended by Senior Deputy Mayor Monisha Harrell and Deputy Mayor Greg Wong, who invited about 40 community “stakeholders,” although it was not entirely clear how the list was compiled, Northwest Asian Weekly reported.

The purpose of the meeting, according to Wong, was to continue to engage in a conversation with the community about issues its advocates had raised as they fought to halt the expansion of a nearby homeless shelter, when there are already 18 shelters within a one-mile radius of the district.

It was also to provide “updates on programs the City had launched that immediately address some of [these] issues,” said Wong in an email.

To read the entire article, click here.

OCA Greater Seattle president Connie So commented on the community’s call for more diversity on the police force and community engagement.

“You’ve got to give people the benefit of the doubt, otherwise you’re not going to work together,” said So, president of OCA Asian Pacific Advocates of Greater Seattle and a teaching professor in American Ethnic Studies at the University of Washington. “But you also have to call them out and people don’t always do that.”