I have to share this story. On a beautiful fall morning last week, a young out-of-town couple with a baby was walking our block on foot, talking with people in the Port Gardner neighborhood outside doing their yard work, pulling weeds, etc. They were scouting Everett neighborhoods to see if they liked the “feel” enough to move here. Because my family lives on a block with problems (commuting speed demons, break-ins, beer cans, very few police patrols) we bit our tongue as we described our happy little neighborhood of historic homes, nice people and families. We all wish more young couples would move in and stay, building a caring, safe, fear-free, honest community, right?
I wished we could have told them the truth, but that might have scared them off. I wished we could have told them that we feared for our children’s lives because of unenforced speed limits on our residential street illegally used as a commuting arterial. I wished we could have told them that break-ins are common and that occasionally during the daytime, delinquent teenagers walk door to door looking for one that’s unlocked. Hey, you might even be there to greet them!
But you know what? We didn’t have to say a thing. It turns out that just before walking down our block, they talked with an Everett Police officer who said, essentially, “Knowing what I know, I would never recommend that a young family move to Everett.” This couple told us this, so we then had to honestly open up, too. It appears that even our “city’s finest” really don’t find it all that law-abiding and safe either. I feel safe knowing that our community can pride itself with such honest representation.
Mark Amend
Everett
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