‘Robberies have dropped 71%’: Federal Way mayor talks policing wins, data centers, but dodges governor question

Crime in Federal Way has significantly declined, with car thefts down 80%, robberies down 71%, and burglaries down 60%.

Federal Way Mayor Jim Ferrell joined “The John Curley Show” on KIRO Newsradio to break down what’s driven the turnaround, from adding 30 police officers to banning homeless encampments to covering every piece of graffiti in the city within 24 hours.

“When I first became mayor, we had about 124 officers, and now we’re at about 154,” Ferrell said. “We’ve added just about 30 police officers, extra patrols. Really making sure we cover up graffiti within 24 hours anywhere in the city. We don’t allow homeless encampments. They’re not legal, either on sidewalks or parks. So if you’re on private property, you’re trespassing. If you’re on public property, you’re not supposed to be there. And then we’ve actually put extra patrols on top of regular patrols, what we call SOU, Special Operations Unit, and we’ve been really working crime down for quite some time.”

KIRO host John Curley asked if Ferrell had gotten any flak for his approach to homelessness.

“None,” Ferrell responded. “In fact, when we cleaned up, I’d say it took us a few years, we got to 300-plus homeless encampments, and we heard not one pushback. People were very appreciative of it.”

Federal Way mayor on keeping streets clean: ‘If anybody can find graffiti, I’ll buy them lunch’

Curley compared Ferrell’s crime tactics to those of Rudy Giuliani in early 1990s New York City, where subway cars were pulled off the line and cleaned immediately if graffiti appeared, and police concentrated patrols in the areas where crime was most prevalent. Ferrell agreed that his approach was precisely the same, with Federal Way putting extra patrols on Pacific Highway.

“We made sure the motels that were being used for all kinds of illicit purposes, we crack down on those, shut them down when necessary,” Ferrell explained. “And also one of the things I do is every Monday morning, I get a picture of any graffiti that we have found throughout the city, and by the time I see it, that graffiti is gone. There is no graffiti in Federal Way.”

“I was knocking on someone’s door a year ago, and the guy was talking about graffiti, and I said, ‘If you could show me anywhere in the city of Federal Way where there’s graffiti, I’ll buy you lunch.’ And he never called,” he continued. “So yeah, we cover it up. I’ll put out the challenge. If anybody can find graffiti in Federal Way, I’ll buy them lunch, and we’ll cover it.”

Meanwhile, Ferrell attributed the decline in car thefts and burglaries over the last three years to the reinstatement of the police pursuit law.

“One of the things that was happening with this anti-pursuit law is robberies shot through the ceiling as well. And over the course of three years, robberies in Federal Way have dropped 71%, and burglaries, if you combine residential and commercial, have dropped 60% in three years,” he said.

Federal Way pumps the brakes on data centers amid Wild Waves closure

Curley then turned to the city council’s unanimous vote to impose a 12-month moratorium on data centers, which Ferrell said was driven in large part by widespread concern that the beloved Wild Waves theme park property could be replaced by a data center.

“We’re all very concerned about the closure of the historic Wild Waves property, and everybody loves Wild Waves, and we raised our family going there. I think we’ve heard nearly unanimously negative things about data centers,” Ferrell said. “The thing about data centers, number one, is I think it’s a jump ball whether the local infrastructure would even support one, and whether there’s actually some ambiguity in our code whether it would be allowed.”

“But we, as city leaders, we can’t be living in a land of ambiguity. We need to make have we’ve got to have surety,” he continued. “The word data center doesn’t appear in our city code. So if we’re ever going to have allowed uses, we need to make sure that we fully understand what are the consequences of having it here? And what are the trade-offs?”

Curley pressed Ferrell on whether a gubernatorial run is in the cards, but Ferrell laughed off the question.

Watch the full discussion in the video above.

Listen to John Curley weekday afternoons from 3 – 7 p.m. on KIRO Newsradio, 97.3 FM. Subscribe to the podcast here.

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