Don O’Neill calls for the resignation of Seattle Mayor Ed Murray

KIRO Radio’s Ron and Don are having trouble keeping up with Seattle Mayor Ed Murray going back-and-forth on the “Jungle.”

Now, Don O’Neill is calling for the mayor’s resignation.

“I think he is horrible at his job. I think he should resign immediately,” Don said.”The mayor needs to resign. He does not know what he’s doing. This is the fourteenth largest metro in the country. There are 3.6 million people living here — the wheels have come off for him. This has turned into coo coo for cocoa puffs. There is something wrong here.”

Related: As the Jungle spreads along I-5, where is Washington’s Gov. Jay Inslee?

But Don isn’t just throwing around harsh words. The call comes after months and months of back-and-forth over what to do with the Jungle — Seattle’s infamous homeless encampment along I-5. The area has been mired with crime, drug abuse, human trafficking, and even murder. Washington State Department crews report homeless campers are trashing the area with used syringes and digging underneath the freeway, compromising the structure. Human waste and garbage are also a problem.

The way Ron and Don see it, Murray issued a deadline on clearing out the Jungle. Campers had two weeks to accept services before the city cleared all camps from the area. Then the mayor rescinded it. Many campers who left the Jungle under the deadline returned after it went away. Murray then visited the Jungle himself. He came out insisting that the city needed to move people out of the encampment and into a safe place — because the Jungle is too dangerous with drug use and human trafficking.

The most recent statements from the mayor come via The Seattle Times, which reports that Murray now won’t evict people from the Jungle.

“Now, 27 days later, the mayor has flip-flopped again and said that we’re never going to get everyone out of that situation, so everyone gets to stay,” Ron said. “They just can’t be in the way when we are doing a cleanup.”

“They just hired consultants that said this is a bad idea,” he said. “Now they don’t listen to the experts that they brought in.”

Don has had enough.

“I think when he was representing a neighborhood, down in Olympia (as a state representative), he did that pretty well,” Don said. “But now you are representing one of the biggest cities on the West Coast, with one of the biggest economies in the country.”

Don notes that 27 days ago Murray said that the Jungle was not a safe place and no one should be living there.

“I agreed with him on that. Now you’re going to quit. You’re a quitter?” Don said. “This is your job to take care of this situation. These are human beings living in the Jungle and have spread their campground all the way up the I-5 corridor. It is not humane to come out today and say you are going to leave it.”

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