Calls to police are up 38%. Mental health incidents are up 27%. “Simmer on that for a second,” City Manager John Mauro told City Council at its April 5, 2021, business meeting.
But not a question was raised, not a word of concern was uttered from any of the Councilors. Here’s the link to the video of his report (click on “City Manager Report” on the agenda to get there straightaway.)
There are rarely any questions for the City Manager when he includes in his reports to City Council the number of calls for police. At the April 5 meeting he belittled the attitude that Port Townsend places few demands on its police services. We don’t have crime here, seems to be the fantasy held by a good segment of the community. That’s the fantasy reflected in the naive Nhatt Nichols cartoons on the editorial page of The Leader. The reality is, as Mauro stated, there are about 158 calls to police between his reports to Council.
In its report to the City Council, entitled “21st Century Policing” the Port Townsend Police Department tallied an average of 6,411 calls for service for each of the years from 2017 to 2020. A 38% increase equates to an additional 2,436 calls annually for a police force already short on staff, with sometimes one officer responsible for the entire city. The “21st Century Policing” report was submitted at a time when City Council was examining cutting resources to the police department, even perhaps disarming officers, eliminating the school resource officer position and subjecting officers to other restrictions in their ability to protect and serve. (See our coverage here, here and here.) Council, fortunately for the citizens of Port Townsend, backed off. Good thing, as Port Townsend’s police are now needed more than ever in recent history. One may have to go back to the days of “Bloody Townsend” to find comparable levels of crime, substance abuse, addiction and severe social ills in this little town.
The Leader’s police log reporting, which usually selects only quaint incidents, shows a steady uptick of serious crimes, confrontations with transients and mental health crises. Many of the problems are concentrated in neighborhoods around the Fairgrounds where crime has increased tremendously. As reported here in a review of police reports for 2020 to the end of October, all sorts of crimes are being committed in the homeless/transit camp of the Fairgrounds, ranging from assaults to thefts to drug dealing. After our article was published a 20-year old woman was found by the campground manager face down, dead, cold as ice. In addition to the crimes there are the calls every week for one mental health or substance abuse crisis after another.
The latest information from sources in the campgrounds is that four drug dealers are now operating there. Our past information on the drug dealing was accurate. The name we had for the most active dealer turned out to be a friend of the dead woman. Other information passed on to one of the groups attempting to oversee the Fairgrounds included the name of one of the men later arrested for kidnapping and blinding another man against a backdrop of meth usage and dealing.
The Fairgrounds encampment is becoming a permanent feature of Port Townsend’s landscape.
The problems are not restricted to the Fairgrounds and nearby neighborhoods. Crime is up across the community. Even The Leader has been paying attention with front page coverage of incidents like the kidnapping and torture of a Port Townsend man and the invasion of our county by criminals from elsewhere. We are seeing more burglaries. There are more assaults. Mailboxes are no longer safe from theft (one man pilfered the contents of 50 mailboxes before he was caught). There is a growing perception that Port Townsend today is much less safe than it was a year ago.
Meth use is increasing. With the State Supreme Court’s legalization of possession, a tool police once had for getting addicts into some type of care is gone. Problems related to addiction are on the steady rise.
The famous “Port Townsend Vibe” is experiencing cancelling waves of fear, anxiety, anger and helplessness.
City Council is doing nothing. The City’s growing social ills are never on its agenda.
Port Townsend could barely handle its problems before. We have always lacked the resources and commitment from elected officials to address addiction, substance abuse, crime and mental illness. The problems have been dumped on police and ignored. We don’t have crime here. Port Townsend is not Port Angeles. We’re different. We’re better.
Calls to police are up 38% over last year; mental health incidents are up 27%. Simmer on that for a second.
Related: The Real Epidemic in Port Townsend: Addiction
The Violence that Cost Port Townsend a Man Who Saves Lives
Jim Scarantino was the editor and founder of Port Townsend Free Press. He is happy in his new role as just a contributor writing on topics of concern to him. He spent the first 25 years of his professional life as a trial attorney, then launched an online investigative news website that broke several national stories. He is also the author of three crime novels. He resides in Jefferson County. See our “About” page for more information.
Jim, thank you for tracking this data. Do you know if there is a similar increase county-wide in crime, mental health incidents and calls to the sheriff’s office?
I have read reports of soaring homicide rates in some of the most locked-down cities, but I don’t know that I’ve seen reports on areas that did not experience rioting and police pull-backs.
This will not help sell real estate. Elections coming for 3 Council seats, Faber will be next appointed mayor. You heard it here first. Sure would be nice to see voting records. Rock the boat, don’t rock the boat baby. Hughes Corporation 1973 and the mantra in PT
But, but, but….. my latest utility-bill shakedown from City Hall has a “Note from Council Member Ariel Speser” wherein she lays out that “We are finally having the long overdue conversation to deconstruct the common meaning of ‘public safety’ so as to ask the question: safe for whom?”
Not taxpaying residents, apparently. “Deconstructing” crime prevention and prosecution simply means rising crime rates. I must assume Ariel was one of the silent rulers listening to reality and not concerned in the least about anything but (as she puts it in her Note) “strong values of social and environmental justice.” Get Woke, Be a Dope. I wonder which Council balloonhead cooked up the idea of unarmed police?
Just the usual ignorant leftist woke bullsqueeze as the town deteriorates and people are harmed. As long as none of the crimes affect any of the realtors’ escrow schedules, why should the City Council care? Commissions are still made on the housing bubble and the overstuffed City Hall budget benefits as well.
But but but but…. Deconstructing is the best way to arrive at root causes. Lets deconstruct the No Term Limit Council at election time.
Transparency would give an answer to why the City Manager review has been shelved. I ask regularly. No answer.
Transparency would give an answer to the years long question of why are municipal codes ignored to allow no parking plan, enforcement, or education? Where are the limits to ignoring laws and codes? Not the Cherry Street project which is built over a water main. Try that yourself citizen.
We will have a chief of police sworn to uphold all laws and codes that is expected not to deal at all with posted parking limits that discriminate against the unknowing and give free all day parking to those in the know, and allows development and sale of expensive real estate without parking consideration.. That damages and ham strings “recovery’. And the Chief’s validity.
Deconstruct the reason for that and arrive back at special interest 20 year council member and 3 time Appointed Mayor you know who.
Someone that directly asked the current temp police chief why parking was not enforced recently got the answer that he is directed not to deal with it. Who disrespects police? “The City” in so many ways. Transparent that, deconstruct that as the new chief with FBI training is expected to follow suit. Maybe its a sting operation and the new top cop will arrest less than transparent players he works for. Or not. Probably not.
But,.,.. Hats off to Commissioner Greg Brotherton who did answer me regarding confusion about the Commissioners approving funds for the “parklet” at Water and Adams, (they didn’t) as “eatlets” take parking along with pick up zones into summer. When does that end? No enforcement on top of that eliminates much business access. Even for eateries. Yes customers have to park. Transparency would give an answer to what process allows the end of Adams at Water Street to be converted from parking to a “parklet”, gradually so no one notices. I just want transparency, why a “parklet” as parking is squeezed more and more. I don’t feel the love. I feel a disconnect.
The entire City Council, City Attorney and Appointed Mayor do not answer regarding the “parklet” replacing historic parking. It has been a month. But its ok. Council member Amy Howard has a certificate that certifies she handles resources well and more. Check her voting record.
Please see my comments on this story regarding Speser moving up and out after rubber stamping many bad Council moves. Check her voting record. https://www.ptleader.com/stories/pt-city-councils-speser-not-seeking-re-election,74600.
My comment references the Pike Place PDA and Attorney General that Speser is going to work for. The FWPDA is also absolutely not transparent, but after all, its now overseen by past City Manager Timmons, who did nothing as audits came in with major problems, helped create parking anarchy, ran the budget into 17 million in debt etc etc. Is he the best choice for all of the people of the State that own Fort Worden? Sorry I go on so long, But but but there’s just so much to deconstruct. So many dots to connect.
Elections coming. Who will run? Who is already set to replace Sandoval and 2 others?
The Ancient Greek word krima (κρίμα), is a root word for word “crime”, typically referred to an intellectual mistake or an offense against the community, rather than a private or moral wrong. The question then becomes, from Jim’s article, what are some of the circumstances, problems and community situations that lead so many to make these offenses against our community? To look at these offenses as the excuse to add more police or increase prosecutions would be a mistake. The City Council has a community obligation to investigate what has caused this increase. Has the atmosphere of fear over a virus plus community lock downs contributed? The lack of jobs would also be something that could contribute as well as adequate housing and affordable rentals. Port Townsend has a huge gulf between the haves and the have-nots and any sociologist can tell you when that happens crime increases. Folks commit these “mistakes or offenses against our community for reasons other than they just don’t know better, they usually do it because they just don’t seem to have better choices. This is a community problem not just a private or moral wrong. To make it just a private wrong releases the community from it’s responsibility.
Transients lying in garbage-strewn squalor on public property injecting dangerous drugs certainly have better choices. They only do this where and when a community not only tolerates such behavior, but subsidizes it with free food and medical care. A community does no favors for the indigents or the public at large by allowing such a situation to grow and fester. Other communities have found creative solutions to the “homeless” problem. Only regressive, backward governments allow such behavior to proliferate.
Are you sure that transients are accounting for the 38% increase in crime? Many of the homeless folks that I have met have lost their jobs here in PT and are now broke and homeless. Why shouldn’t they be taken care just as we take care of any other citizen?
There are homeless and there are homeless. Honest citizens in need know they can get help from social service agencies and their neighbors, and that is what they do. Most drug criminals, conversely, do not seek nor want help overcoming their addictions. They only want to continue to inject drugs and take from the public whatever they find necessary to continue their hopeless spiral to the inevitable end.of their days. Society does them no good when we fail to confront them and demand they live as responsible, law-abiding adults or be incarcerated.
Is it possible Saltherring, that you’ve been under lock-down to long and need a group to blame for your loss of caring and compassion? As the song goes, Try A Little Tenderness.
Good point. Mr. Montabano should read the Leader want ads where buisnesses are crying for help. Perhaps he should take in some of these people and get a dose of reality. Oh yes, talk is cheap as long as long as you’re talking about someone else and don’t have to get involved.
I just wonder how long the people that live next to the Fair Grounds will to continue to take it before they decide to clear up the mess themselves. You can only push people so far before you get a reaction. Then what will the City Council do?
Nice to see the elite over educated white community of Port Townsend are beginning to face reality. I’m excited to see their utopian world fall a part. Your reap liberalism you will soon sow liberalism. Welcome to the real world.