‘I think you’re the next mayor’: Curley tells Bob Kettle after council member rips city’s handling of crime

Seattle City Councilmember and Chair of the Public Safety Committee Bob Kettle was among those marching for an end to violence on Aurora Avenue earlier this month.

Kettle told “The John Curley Show” on KIRO Newsradio that Seattle has massive issues when it comes to the way it handles public safety.

“For Seattle, the issue that we have is that we’re of two minds,” he said. “We can’t decide and then act, and that’s the great frustration. We have a strategic framework plan for a safer Seattle. We passed a bunch of bills related to public safety, making a big change for SPD staffing. We’re giving them the tools, after-hours establishments, chronic nuisance properties, and so forth. And then to the technology pieces, the real-time crime center, CCTV, and ALPR. OK, let’s put it into action.”

“Then what happens is, ‘Oh no, we can’t do it. We have some budget issues, or we have this issue, or that issue. We can’t put in place SOAP and SODA. Oh, there’s some challenges there.’ So basically, we cancel each other out, and we don’t make progress, and that’s the issue, because we just go around in circles, and it’s a great frustration,” he continued.

As for the violence on Aurora, Kettle said the Seattle Department of Transportation placed some barriers, but those won’t hold.

“There’s going to be a change in patterns, and so what you have to do in these instances is you have to attack,” he explained. “And this is where we need to have a surge of police, King County Sheriff, and so forth, state police to really put pressure on, but then we also need to put pressure on the service provider side too, in terms of flooding the zone with people who can help the women.”

Bob Kettle says he has ‘very little confidence’ Seattle will turn things around in a year

KIRO host John Curley asked Kettle if he thought Seattle would start to see some real differences in hot spots like Aurora Avenue and Little Saigon a year from now, but Kettle’s response was not encouraging.

“At the press conference, I said I had very little confidence, not much confidence, and it hasn’t changed,” Kettle said.

“I think you’re gonna run for mayor,” Curley said. “I think you’re the next mayor. I think Bob Kettle is gonna be mayor.”

“I ran to create a safe base for my daughter, for all the kids and the families of this city,” Kettle responded. “I do bring my experience in my previous career in the Navy, but also I’ve been working in public safety in the city since January of 2015, with the Queen Anne Community Council, and now two and a half years here. So I bring all these pieces together, and it’s just a matter of clarity and being forthright and impressing it, and not getting sidetracked, and that’s the issue.”

Watch the full discussion in the video above.

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