Neary-Sighted

Any crime is bad, of course, but the numbers for July remain pretty encouraging when you compare year to year: Violent crime is down 11 percent, and property crime down 9 percent.

Other numbers seem in line with what we've been seeing during the year. The one thing that's puzzling to me is the number of traffic accidents: 111, the most we've had in a month since December 2008. Lakewood has grown from roughly 2.5 reported accidents a day, if you look at May and June, to about 3.5 in July - an average of one extra accident a day. I've asked the police for more info.

You can see the accident stats on the last slide of this report. Other high-level data is in here as well.


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Tonight's City Council study session, 7 p.m. at City Hall, will focus on a federally-sponsored study to look at the traffic and other effects of Joint Base Lewis McChord. What the city was tasked to do, paid by federal dollars, was to help come up with a Joint Base Lewis McChord Growth Coordination Plan. This has been a huge example of collaboration in looking for ways to help quality of life for everyone in and around the base: collaborating not only with the base but all sorts of surrounding entities such as the cities of Tacoma, Steilacoom and Lacey; the Clover Park School District; and even the U.S. Postal Service and Pierce Transit.

This becomes all the more real as we happily welcome back 15,000 military personnel from Iraq and Afghanistan. JBLM supports 125,000 military personnel, civilian employees (including Mrs. Neary) and family members. JBLM is the largest military installation on the West Coast in terms of square miles: the third largest employer in the state and, as a staff report puts it, "the largest single point source of traffic in the state."

You're welcome at the session; I hadn't even realized until I wrote this post that there's a website up about the growth coordination plan, so that's another source for more information. It wouldn't surprise me if public interest was muted until the federal government identified how to pay for some of what the study will call for. There need to be some major traffic solutions in this area: if you add in Amtrak's plans, and Camp Murray's apparent plans, the issues just grow more and more complex. The Department of Defense, Office of Economic Adjustment (OEA) is to be commended for, as the website says, the effort to "proactively address the effects of existing and anticipated growth on communities surrounding the base through the development of a JBLM Growth Coordination Plan."

Link to a News Tribune story earlier this summer
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Quite awhile ago I asked readers if you wanted me to respond to the volumes and volumes of emails from a couple sources that are clearly out to find fault with Lakewood city government no matter what it does. Opinion was divided. In general, I've decided to focus on my time on being proactive, but the confusion over the Camp Murray matter just feels to me like it's getting a bit extreme.

Some of the confusion has very real roots. I nearly spit up my coffee when I read in the paper that Camp Murray apparently told someone at the paper that the city would do public outreach for their proposal: that's like saying you thought President Obama was going to do public outreach for Sarah Palin. Two different people. Two different governments. (Otherwise, by the way, I'd commend you to that News Tribune story for more information about the topic) If that's the quality of information Camp Murray is providing to citizens, then suspicion is appropriate.

That said, I think everyone without a political agenda to constantly criticize city hall knows you can trust Lakewood to advocate for its citizens just like we did with Amtrak and state and federal transportation officials over the railroad. But in case it's unclear, nobody is changing the Camp Murray gate without considerable discussion, if it changes at all. The real issue are the freeway interchanges in Tillicum. Those freeway interchanges were designed for 1950, not 2010 and certainly not 2020 - they're preposterous and need fixing. One cannot blame Camp Murray for proposing a cheaper fix, but bear in mind, Camp Murray not yet filed an official proposal to change anything. Assuming they do, the city will react on behalf of its citizens.

So no changes are happening around Camp Murray anytime soon, but I did respond to one email; you can read my comment here. Again, if you find this subject confusing or have a question, please, get in touch. I'm here.
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More than three dozen block parties celebrated National Night Out this week in Lakewood. I was honored to see several of these neighborhood gatherings firsthand. It's traditional for a circuit of elected officials, police, firefighters, and others to make the rounds and try to visit as many as we can. It's so exhilarating to see such community spirit. Many, many hamburgers, hot dogs and condiments were sacrificed in the name of community!
For those of you are who car buffs, there's a better photo below of the van and the assistant chief too. The museum wishes it had better records about the van; it was apparently used for awhile, and then became a movie prop.

Yep. There were a lot of sights and sounds that day...

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There's a good summary of what's going on in Lakewood that just went online, the summer edition of Connections. Check out the link on my Facebook page or download it here. Lots of interesting faces and stories and subjects ranging from the 4-2 Stryker brigade to the great young man who got the fence around the old cemetery. Check it out.
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The latest crime stats continue telling a good story, with reports of crime down in most categories.



Any crime is bad, of course, but it's nice when trends go in the right direction. Both violent crimes and property crimes are down a little more than 11 percent, year to year.

My questions from the post below remain.
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