Priorities, Lynnwood Style

I tell you, this town is going to hell in a handbasket. A 23-year-old gal was hit in a freaking shootout in the North end of Lynnwood. I have a friend with two very young kids who live just blocks from there, in a good, solid, nice middle class neighborhood of single-family homes.What the hell is this place coming to?

But what really, really gets me is this: despite life-threatening shit like this going down on a fairly regular basis here in Lynnwood, the powers that be are threatening us with cuts to law enforcement due to the ongoing budget crisis. This city is about $5 million in the hole due to shockingly incompetent budgeting and this is being used as an excuse to cut police presence.

At the very same time, the powers that be are continuing renovations on the public swimming pool costing us about $27 million...

And they are continuing to fund an obviously worthless department called "Lynnwood University," which so far as I can tell consists of a couple of people who put on little educational shows to inform Lynnwoodians about how chicken farms and timber shaped our destiny or whatever...

And they have collected record levels of revenue from red-light cameras placed throughout Lynnwood...

And they have just imposed a raft of brand new taxes on our utilities...

So basically, they have tons of money coming in from red-light cameras and new taxes, and they can fund luxuries like a swimming pool and dog-and-pony shows, but there's not enough money to pay for law enforcement in an environment where Lynnwood residents are being shot down on a fairly regular basis.

So really, I have to ask our city government: what, exactly, will it take, short of a 1930's style depression, to get you to do what you were elected to do, prioritize sanely, and trim the damn fat from your spending program? This is not a rhetorical question, I'd honestly like an answer.

Violence

There are days I just want to throw in the towel and move to a cabin in Skykomish. Today would be one of those days. Today, not far at all from my home here in Lynnwood, two guys are walking down the street when a car pulls up somebody in it shoots one of them. In a separate event, a student at the local middle school got expelled for bringing a freaking gun to school.

I really don't know what to say, other than "WTF," for the bazillionth time, it seems. The frequency and magnitude of violent events in Snohomish county generally has been noteworthy for some time and seems only to be getting worse. Regrettably, I can't imagine what can be done about it.