DORI MONSON

Dori: We are beginning to take back the Seattle region

May 3, 2018, 6:12 PM

town hall...

Ballard residents hold signs that read "Listen to us!" during a town hall meeting April 2. (Hanna Scott/KIRO Radio)

(Hanna Scott/KIRO Radio)

The revolution has begun. The pendulum is swinging back.

RELATED: Seattle head tax will fund labor unions, drug addicts

The further left we got, the more out-of-control this region got. And it’s a natural extension of things, because eventually you run out of money. And when you seek money for the sake of expanding government instead of for the sake of helping human lives, you run into the problems we have in this region — you have the sad plight of homeless people everywhere who do not want help.

You try to offer them all the services you can, but all you get in return is car prowls, home invasions, and addicts shooting up on the street. And it all came to a head last night at a Ballard town hall meeting.

This was quite the scene. People turned out en masse, including many of our listeners. I don’t know that I have seen a more out-of-touch politician than Councilmember Mike O’Brien in my life;  there is a strong movement to recall him. He was smarmy, he was full of lies, and he was actually laughing at people when they were presenting legitimate problems and complaints. Mike O’Brien arrogantly stood in front of the crowd and said to “call 911” if we witness a crime. But we all know what happens if we call 911 — absolutely nothing. Because this is the city’s response to crime.

The reason this is an epidemic is not a lack of your tax dollars. It is because we have extreme leftists who have decided they want Puget Sound to be the drug capital of the United States. They have decriminalized drug use and, of course, the result is that we are attracting heroin addicts from all around the country. And sadly, when we do the homeless sweeps, the addicts don’t want to go into treatment.  So, what do we do? We tell them, “We’ll give you a roof over your head anyway, and we will let you smoke crack in taxpayer-funded little houses.”

This is not a solvable problem as long as we have politicians like Mike O’Brien, Kshama Sawant, Debora Juarez, Rob Johnson. And Jenny Durkan, who remains MIA on all of this and won’t answer anything.

Something has happened in the last 24 hours. It is normal people who are taking the lead on this. My heart is bursting out of my chest. I can’t remember the last time I felt so proud in a 24-hour period.

Ballard resident tells what happened at town hall

Ballard resident Erika Nagy, who has previously spoken to our show about her efforts to hold Mike O’Brien accountable, told us that last night’s meeting was “a turning point.”

“People have been afraid to speak their minds because immediately you’re called a NIMBY, you’re called racist … a lot of folks are afraid to have different opinions because, literally, you’re dealing with insanity,” Nagy said.

These accusations of name-calling have been backed up by other Seattle residents; Seattle Times contributor Alex Berezow told us on Monday that he was compared to the Nazis by Councilmember Debora Juarez for suggesting that drug addicts be forced into treatment facilities. One person at Wednesday night’s town hall even called Amazon ISIS.

Although yesterday’s meeting was originally planned as a town hall, shortly before the scheduled date, attendees were told that O’Brien would be giving a talk without open dialogue instead.

“Frankly, he wanted it to be a PowerPoint presentation about all these lovely things that they’re doing — which, in fact, are not happening,” Nagy said.

Shortly into the meeting, however, the crowd became so vocal that O’Brien was forced to engage with constituents, according to Nagy.

The additional $75 million that the city is asking for in its business head tax to fight homelessness is “a complete sham,” Nagy said. She pointed out that no one from the city has been clear about who will receive the funds, or what has been done with money already collected. As we know, Seattle currently spends more money per homeless person than any other American city.

“The resources are not going to the people who actually need it,” Nagy said. “The resources are going to fund the poverty pimps like SHARE (Seattle Housing and Resource Effort) and all those other outfits that are lining their pockets.”

Nagy compared O’Brien to a CEO reporting at a board meeting that his company is bringing in no money, but asking for more chances.

“None of this works in real life, but somehow, we as taxpayers are supposed to think this is normal,” she said.

Still, the strength of the crowd at last night’s groundbreaking town hall has Nagy feeling positive about the coming days.

“People are waking up … and we are not going to tolerate it,” she said.

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