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The next Wallingford Community Council General Meeting is scheduled for Wednesday, October 7th, 7–8:30 pm at the Good Shepherd Center, 4649 Sunnyside Avenue N, Room 223.

Each month, the community council discusses important issues in our neighborhood. The topic for the October meeting is the City’s planning and design study for redesigning the Aurora Avenue corridor. SDOT’s project team is invited to present and take questions.

We’re asking neighbors to send questions in advance regarding the Aurora redesign to the council, so we can pass them along to our guest speaker, Christa Dumpys, Project Manager, Planning and Design.

Highlights from September 16th General Meeting

The following summary from the September 16th Community Council meeting was submitted by Matt Hallet, secretary of the WCC.

Captain George Davisson of the Seattle Police Department’s North Precinct came without a slide deck and spent the whole hour answering questions. It was one of the most useful conversations we’ve had. Here’s what we took away:

Wallingford, By the Numbers

Captain Davisson was candid that statistics only capture what gets reported. With that caveat, here is our neighborhood so far this year compared with the same stretch from 2025, from the City’s public crime data:

Jan 1 – Sep 16	2025	2026
Burglary	94	116
Larceny/theft	283	281
Motor vehicle theft	79	61
Robbery	10	16
Aggravated assault	19	15
Homicide	1	0

In plain terms: property crime overall is flat, car theft is down, and burglary is up, with a concentration along N 45th Street. Robbery went from ten incidents to sixteen, an increase the captain attributed largely to shoplifting that escalates when someone resists, which reclassifies the case. These are small numbers, and one active offender can move them a lot.

What Actually Helps

• Report everything, every time. This was his strongest ask. SPD’s analysts map every report down to the address, and that map is what decides where officers get assigned. Five thefts from one store that nobody reports simply don’t exist as far as deployment is concerned. “If you don’t call, we can’t get a report. We don’t know it’s a problem.”
• Don’t confront anyone. He described a call that began as a car prowl and ended with shots fired at the responding officer. Be a good witness from somewhere safe, and call it in.
• Monitored alarms and cameras get a fast response. When a monitoring service reports someone actually visible inside a home, that’s a verified burglary and officers come immediately if they’re free. He described a recent arrest where the homeowner watched on camera while officers surrounded the house.
• Small deterrents work better than you’d think. Burglars interviewed by detectives said they pick houses the same way: no dog, no alarm decal, an easy door. Car prowlers check door handles rather than break windows, because breaking glass draws attention. You can’t change whether someone is out looking, but you can make your house the one they skip.

The Staffing Math

Several neighbors asked why they don’t see more officers. The answer was arithmetic, not indifference.

A brand-new officer takes about two years from application to working solo: the state academy, then several weeks of Seattle-specific training, about four months of field training, then probation. An experienced officer hired from another department still takes over a year. The $50,000 lateral hiring incentive was recently discontinued, and the Chief is trying to get it restored. Roughly 100 officers were hired this year citywide, but retirements offset much of that.

The citywide motorcycle unit went from around 40 officers to about five. The traffic unit is being rebuilt, and any large event pulls those officers away from enforcement.

One arrest also takes an officer off the street for three to four hours, with paperwork, evidence, and a jail run from the precinct furthest from the jail. A single business burglary can occupy four or five officers.

Big Events at Gas Works—Who Controls What

This one surprised folks. SPD has no role in approving event permits. The City issues permits, and only then is SPD asked for staffing. Traffic plans, private security, and parking enforcement are conditions written into the permit, scaled to the size of the event. Sound limits during an event are not an SPD function at all.

So, if the scale of amplified events at Gas Works is your concern, the captain’s advice was to take it to the city—the permitting process and your councilmember. WCC’s Gas Works oversight committee has been doing exactly that for three years and will publish a full season report this fall.

One bright spot: after repeated after-hours problems at Golden Gardens and Magnuson, SPD asked Parks to try private security during closed hours. Calls for service dropped to nearly zero, and SPD has asked Parks to repeat it next summer and add a roaming patrol.

Encampments

Officers can no longer ask someone camping to move along the way they once could. A single tent meets the definition of an encampment, and removals run through the City’s Unified Care Team: notice, offers of services, then a scheduled clearing with city crews. Jurisdiction complicates it further, since several local sites sit on state rather than city land. For problems that span agencies—wrong-way drivers, racing on I-5, fireworks, dumping—start with your councilmember’s office. The Captain will step in on escalations that need SPD pushing between city departments.

Sparkling Wallingford Wants You

Janet Friday spoke about the Sparkling Wallingford Society, our neighborhood’s Adopt-A-Street group. About 50 volunteers do monthly cleanups focused on N 45th Street, with roughly a ton of trash collected so far. They have been shifting toward longer-term beautification, like the new planting bed in front of Harold’s Lighting. This fall, they’re tackling the foxtail in the tree wells along 45th Street, which is a genuine hazard for dogs. Fill out their volunteer form if you’d like to help.