Last week I spent the day filming for an upcoming Seattle Channel story about more scientific approaches to community policing. The idea involves using very specific data analysis to more effectively appropriate limited resources toward reducing crime. City Council member Tim Burgess’ office was hosting a group of academics from the George Mason University who’ve been analyzing Seattle crime data over a period of time and were in town to present to the city council based on their findings. The morning shoot involved a short round table discussion at the Casey Family Foundation offices at the corner of 23rd and Union, a former Central District ‘hot spot’ that has recently successfully brought down the local crime problem. The round table was followed by a neighborhood tour to 4 local businesses, where the owners spoke briefly to the group about their own individual relationship with the community, and the police, and told their story of how things had progressed and changed over the past few years, from recent implementation of the ‘Drug Market Initiative’ to gentrification’s impact on the neighborhood, and a hand full of other themes. The businesses included a coffee shop, a restaurant, a neighborhood cinema, and another multipurpose business. The best part of the day was the ride along with Lieutenant Joel Guay. Together with my producer, we cruised the East Precinct, which includes in his words “everything from billionaires who live in Madison Park to indigent crack smokers who live in the area known as the jungle.” The East precinct stretches from St Mark’s Cathedral in N. Capitol Hill to Dearborn Ave. in the south, Lake Washington to the East, i5 to the west, and everything in between. It was a pretty amazing tour, as I sat contorted in the front passenger seat between the dashboard mounted laptop and the window, attempting to get a good profile angle of him as he drove, with the streetscape passing behind him through the window, the outdoor exposure constantly shifting as we cruised and I tried to maintain a solid shot. That was followed by interviews in the City Council chambers with councilmember Burgess who’s a former police officer, and a former detective and special victim’s unit officer from the Baltimore police who is now a PhD candidate at George Mason involved in doing the research. A great way to spend a day learning about our city from a completely different perspective. Air date is June 2nd on Chanel 21 in Seattle.
Via my work with The Seattle Channel, I’ve just learned that we won a NATOA Award, commonly referred to as the Emmys of government television. The Government Programming Awards (GPAs) are annual awards that recognize excellence in broadcast, cable, multimedia and electronic programming produced by local government agencies, in this case The City of Seattle. The piece was the story about Rob Rose and his organization The Rose International Fund for Children and their work on behalf of young people with disabilities in Nepal, and the movement to battle the stigma of disability in Nepal and South Asia. We won’t know until September whether we won the category or not, but the nomination itself is an award as all nominations are given recognition for their work. There will be an awards banquet in Washington D.C. in early October. Very cool.
I got a call late one afternoon recently from my client Cedar Grove Composting to ask me to come film some footage of a special project they were working on. Together with the Seattle Department of Transportation and Seattle Public Utilities, Cedar Grove Composting was involved in trying to save a very special tree. The giant Sequoia tree is in the heart of downtown Seattle at the corner of 4th and Stewart, that was originally planted on Aurora Avenue, but was relocated in 1972. The tree is also the official Christmas Tree downtown every year. Over the years, the tree continued to grow but recently, birds had infested it and their droppings were both damaging the soil below as well as the canopy was slowly becoming covering with their acidic poop. Not sure about how to save the tree, SDOT approached international tree specialist James Urban, author of the book Up By Roots who had been in Seattle recently and paid the tree a house call, diagnosing the problem and prescribing the solution that this group eventually implemented.
So using an air spade to blow out vertical holes and a giant sucker truck to take the dirt away, a number of 4 ft deep vertical columns were dug around the base of the tree, and filled with fresh compost donated by Cedar Grove. Better irrigation and gas flow to the roots was the goal to supplement the pruning they’d already done.
Here is the video I produced about the work.
From Aurora Ave N. to Downtown
Sequoia on Aurora before being transplanted, 1972
Placing the tree downtown at 4th and Stewart, Seattle
