Jake: Seattle City Council needs to quit wasting time on data centers, ban the Aurora pimp wars

I’m not a politician, so maybe someone needs to explain this to me in very simple terms. Why would the Seattle City Council unanimously vote to ban data centers while refusing to do anything about the pimp wars on Aurora Avenue?

We had a guy on the show yesterday named Peter Orr. Never met him before. Don’t know much about what he does for a living or how he votes. And I don’t care. I liked Peter instantly because I can relate to him as a father of young kids. Peter and I both have 11-year-olds. But Peter has something I’ve never had to deal with: Figuring out how to explain to his child all of the craziness happening on Aurora Avenue.

Peter shared a heartbreaking story. Just two days ago, his 11-year-old found a bullet casing on the way to school. I asked him how to explain something like that to a kid. He talked about how hard it is to explain why the women on the corner are wearing such revealing outfits. His answer? He tells his kids they must be heading to the local swimming pool.

Sit with that for a second. Your child looks out the window, sees someone who is likely being sex trafficked, wearing almost nothing, and the only way to protect what’s left of their innocence is to convince them it’s a bathing suit and those girls are just on their way to a swim.

Aurora residents had to act because the city wouldn’t

Now imagine that’s your life, day in and day out, for years. You call the mayor’s office, but no solutions are made. If someone does pick up, it’s a low-level staffer who promises to get back to you. So you and your neighbors pool your money, buy giant metal planters, and drag them into the middle of the street yourselves — a do-it-yourself attempt to stop the pimps from cruising through and firing bullets at each other out of car windows.

Then the city finally responds. Not to stop the pimps or rescue the teenage girls from forced prostitution. They show up to remove your planters.

It’s enough to drive you crazy. My heart breaks for the people living in what feels like a completely forgotten part of this city.

So you can imagine the frustration when you pick up the paper and read that the city council is burning hours drafting ordinances to ban data centers. I’d be genuinely surprised if most of them did serious homework before signing onto what has become the zeitgeist cause célèbre of the moment.

We can debate data centers another day, and we should. But right now, the council’s focus should be entirely on protecting the people who are scared in their own homes along Aurora. It’s disgraceful they’ve let this go on this long.

To the handful of council members who showed up at the recent March for Peace — pat on the back, but not much more. Showing up is the floor, not the ceiling. Now do something!

If this mayor and this city council can’t stop the bullets flying in the streets, they need to be voted out and replaced with people who are serious about what the job actually is.

On the Seattle City Council’s priority list, pimp wars should be way above data centers. If they don’t know that, politics isn’t the job for them.

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