I know Bruce is feeling the pressure because he finally paid some attention to Kroger creating food- and pharmacy deserts. He’s apparently coming up to chat with folks in Lake City on Sunday. Unfortunately he’s just proposing some weak-ass Moar Farmers Markets With a Side of Extra Cops instead of more effective solutions that are known to work, and he’s parroting Kroger’s BS line that “crime” was behind their decision to close the best stores in the area as a reason to funnel more money to the (already shiftless) SPD. His chief criticism of Wilson’s proposals is that they will take “years to implement”, like his own “proposed”, “planned”, or “dedicated” improvements have any more of a chance of seeing fruition…

Hey, I was there! I stared down Bruce Harrel lol

Hi, yes, Bruce, you keep saying you’re for the people, but we have seen increased police, AI cameras from the police placed everywhere, token transit improvements, and overall car-centric ideas. Also more businesses have closed under your leadership downtown. Why in the everloving hell should we keep you in?

Some things that I mentioned in the chat (that are now probably lost to the ages):

• What I really want to hear is each candidate’s plan for when the federal government decides to deploy their storm troopers on our streets, yanking people off the streets and ransacking apartment buildings without warrants (like they did yesterday in Chicago). It’s going to happen, and it’ll be on the next mayor’s watch. Which candidate will approach that problem with the most vulnerable residents in mind, and which candidate will fall over themselves to sell out anyone they can to protect their richest constituents?
• Our “homelessness” problem is really a drug abuse and mental health problem. Nobody would care if there were homeless people living in tents that cleaned up their trash, didn’t shit on the ground and weren’t wandering around high as fuck. It’s those specific behaviors that people hate to see. You don’t address those behaviors by just housing people. The DESC’s model is a good one: zero barrier supportive housing with on-site medical and psychiatric care to help these folks get their shit together. It’s great and it works! Unfortunately, everywhere the DESC sets up shop sees a spike in social problems: crime, drug use, shady characters loitering (ie: selling drugs to people in recovery), traffic accidents and fatalities from people wandering in the streets, etc. And that sucks because it makes residents not want DESC facilities around. I’d like to see that issue talked about in detail rather than platitudes about homelessness and drug use making people sad.
• Office vacancies are high because property owners refuse to lower rents. They’d rather leave buildings empty. The city decays as it’s starved of people and tax revenue. The answer isn’t to squeeze remaining employers with taxes, but to disincentivize stingy property owners from hanging onto vacant properties. Rent it, sell it or get fined. What’s wrong with that strategy?
• Harrell claims to know how to run a police department and that Wilson doesn’t. If he’s running it so well, why is there a staffing shortage? Why did Find It Fix decide to stop accepting parking reports? (spoiler: it was too much police work that they didn’t feel like doing.) Let Wilson give it a spin. I wonder if she’s got the fight in her to call out SPOG for being the whiny babies that they are.