Monson: The Seattle protesters have won

It’s becoming a new annual tradition for my family: Not going to downtown Seattle to watch the Christmas tree lighting. It didn’t used to be that way.

Every year when my daughters were little, we loved our annual trip to Westlake Park. We would make an evening of it. We would always do the same thing: Go to Seattle Center, ride the monorail to Westlake, watch the tree lighting and wait in a long line for the girls to ride the carousel. It was festive and everyone was happy. Then we’d walk down to the Olympic Four Seasons and go to the Teddy Bear Suite. We would eat dinner downtown as a family.

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Of course, the last two years downtown has been taken over by protesters for the Christmas ceremony. Why? Because our city council and mayor have decided to turn the city over to them, to rip it from the families, for whom the council and mayor have such contempt because they don’t think the way the politicians think they should.

They’ve tried to attract people who are radicalized, who demand that the money is given to the rabble-rousers. In attracting those people to the city, they are trashing it in a very literal sense. Garbage, heroin needles, people sleeping everywhere. On Friday, the Downtown Seattle Association announced it was downsizing the production elements of this year’s tree lighting ceremony, which takes place Nov. 25. It’s scaling it way back because the protesters have won. The protesters have taken over downtown. The Downtown Association is trying to put a spin on it by saying it’s taken the resources from the one production and spaced it out. That’s nonsense. They are doing it because when they had the one big production element last year, the protesters came and terrorized families. I spoke with parents of little kids who were terrified at what happened. The kids were traumatized because of how vile the protesters were last year.

I got an email from a listener named Guy, from Mukilteo, who says it is very real that families don’t want to go downtown anymore. He had been going on a family outing to Westlake for the past six years since his son was born. He describes being threatened by pot smokers after he complained to the cops, who did nothing to help.

I still get together for an evening with my family around Christmas time. The last several years we have gone to Snowflake Lane in Bellevue because it’s still a family atmosphere, it’s festive. Because they haven’t turned over the streets of Bellevue to people who just want to lash out because they’re so frustrated with what they have made of their own lives.

When I was a little kid and had a super dysfunctional family, I dreamt of the day when I would be a husband and father and be able to take my kids to downtown Seattle at Christmas time. If you’d asked me back then if I’d go to Bellevue instead, I’d have called you insane. There is no way I’d have gone elsewhere. Now, there is no chance I would go to downtown Seattle.

I feel heartbroken for the business people downtown — who have put their life savings and sweat equity into their businesses and depend on the Christmas season, and instead get their shop windows broken when protests randomly erupt downtown.

So, congratulations to Mayor Ed Murray and the Seattle City Council. You have taken another huge step toward taking away the city from the families that grew up here. People like me and Guy.

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