Compassion or the public good

Seems the City of Olympia is serious about cleaning up downtown.   A number of recent actions lead us to that conclusion.

The city has increased its walking patrol and undergone a program to spruce up and light the city’s alleyways.  Olympia has spent a good amount of money to re-build the artesian well site into family-friendly place complete with running water and food vans.  They’ve also approved a number of parking stall parks – – eliminating some parking spaces and allowing adjacent business owners to put in benches, seats and tables.

And, downtown business owners have two full crews of clean-up workers devoting their time and effort into sprucing up and keeping the city sidewalks free from litter and used drug needles.

Those are some of the activities undertaken to make the downtown safer and more welcoming for shoppers and visitors.

However – – a couple of things are missing.  First, the streets still have a large number of wayward youths, who with their dogs, make the city streets seem unsafe.

Then, homeless people, with their back packs and plastic shopping bags, still roam downtown looking for warm places to sit and sleep when the library isn’t open.

And, drugs are still sold openly on city street corners and alleys.

These are problems that all urban cities have, but Olympia seems to have them in greater number than the size of the city would suggest.

It’s good to have compassion for your fellow man.   It’s good to help out those who need a hand up once in a while.   It’s good to see the positive in people.

But, sometime, the City of Olympia is going to have to take a hard stand on those who seem to make downtown unsafe and dangerous.

Picking up used needles, lighting the alley ways and putting in urban parks – – can’t make up for city policy which puts compassion over the public good.

Lets hope city mothers and fathers figure this out before it’s too late.