Locals work to make area more neighborly

Originally published Saturday, March 29, 1997

By MARK HIGGINS
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER

On a recent walking tour of the downtown core, neighborhood planning manager Dotty DeCoster admits that Lake City Way and its side streets are "pretty daunting" for pedestrians.

As a first step, the neighborhood is working with the city to design new sidewalks from Lake City Way to the "Little City Hall" on 30th Avenue Northeast.

By knitting the neighborhood together with sidewalks, the service center, nearby post office, branch library and community center will become even more of a focal point for Lake City.

The new sidewalks also will demonstrate the value of neighborhood planning, says DeCoster. "If we do this right, we will have a beginning of a rational plan that makes it safe for pedestrians."

Lake City residents seem determined not to let the quality of their community erode further.

Russell Cranny, who moved with his family to Lake City from Ballard 4-1/2 years ago, says, "Lake City is typical of any community in America.

"If you can get people talking and praying and sharing hope, we have a tremendous potential. Do I think the community is going to turn itself around? It might or might not. My responsibility goes as far as hoping and working in that direction."

Cranny and his wife, Mary, are active on the Lake City Task Force, a multipronged campaign to beautify the community and rid it of crime, graffiti, gangs, prostitutes and sex shops.

Last summer during Seafair, the Crannys helped organize an old-fashioned, family-oriented "picnic in the park." It will be even better this year, they promise.

In the meantime, Russell Cranny has led several prayer vigils outside the Lake City Way porno shop, Love Boutique, and a nearby topless club, known as Rick's. They passed out religious brochures, spoke to employees at both businesses and prayed, Cranny says.

A Seattle vice detective familiar with the Love Boutique says the community's concerns are not without merit. Holes have been cut between the walls of the shop's video booths that allow men to engage in "casual, unacquainted sex."

The Seattle Police Department, Lake City residents and City Councilwoman Jane Noland, who chairs a Public Safety Committee, are working with the city's Law Department to come up with a new law to outlaw any type of opening between sex-shop booths.

Another effort to improve the area is a citizen patrol, with about 40 volunteers spending an evening or two patrolling the community. All have received training and are taught to report suspicious activity to a community hot line or, if need be, the police.

Suzy Smith, who owns Lake City Travel & Cruises, says the citizen patrols operate four nights a week, while off-duty Seattle police officers are paid by the community to patrol the other three nights. The off-duty police supplement the regular police staffing.

Funding comes from monthly merchant donations ranging from $25 to $50. Bill Pierre Ford, one of Lake City's oldest and largest auto dealerships, donates a car and a local Chevron station donates the gas. About $30,000 to $35,000 is raised yearly.

"You naturally would wish your tax dollars would take care of this but we are in a forced situation," says Smith. And the results, she says, have been "worth every dollar."

"We have seen a huge change, a huge turnaround. We have a peaceful community," says Smith. "Everyone is so networked here that people have picked on the message that you don't want to mess with this community."

The task force is also working with apartment managers to ensure adequate screening of prospective tenants -- and to hold them accountable, Smith says.

Theresa Judge, who manages the Clock Tower Apartments, says too many Lake City apartment owners don't take the time to adequately screen out bad tenants. Judge says she checks credit and criminal records, employment and job references and even looks over a person's salary-to-debt ratio to ensure they can afford an apartment.

Judge is working with Smith and others to start a Lake City apartment managers association to try to clean up the area's problem apartment buildings.