Downtown Ambassadors Praised Speaker Cites Efforts In Spokane, Portland To Prevent Core-Area Crime

Downtown Spokane residents and members of the self-taxing district met last week to hear an expert’s suggestions on how to make downtown streets safer.

The Thursday meeting was part of a series of discussions held by the Downtown Spokane Partnership, manager of the business improvement district.

The group heard from the president of a successful Portland, Ore., private security service whose work is paid for through that city’s business improvement district.

“How a downtown area goes, a city goes,” said Ed May, a former police officer and president of Portland Patrol Inc. “If you have a dying downtown area, the city doesn’t thrive either.”

He said he started the Portland patrol to quash deterioration in Portland’s downtown core.

May applauded Spokane’s security ambassador program, which began in 1996. Six ambassadors patrol downtown streets six days a week.

They’re provided by a security company and paid for with a $200,000 city grant. The business improvement district pays administrative costs.

The ambassadors assist tourists and monitor car prowling and other crimes.

The Portland program patrols 211 square blocks in the downtown core. It deals with crime “at the lowest level of maintenance - panhandling, public urination, drinking on the streets, car prowls - things the Portland PD can’t get to.”

Portland Patrol makes between 150 and 180 arrests a month, he said.

Among his company’s biggest successes: convincing downtown stores not to sell fortified wine or 32-and 40-ounce malt liquors. It also has assisted in outreach to homeless youths and keeping a list of downtown Portland’s worst chronic offenders.

A graffiti crackdown cut spring-break vandalism by 75 percent, he said. Patrollers mapped out the biggest graffiti areas and stepped up patrolling in those places.

They also got the word out to street kids they would be doing a graffiti mission.

May said Spokane could benefit from similar measures.

Terry Lawhead, Downtown Spokane Partnership’s operations director, said the ambassadors have made a dent in downtown crime.

“They’re outstanding,” he said. “Security ambassadors walk into a parking lot, and potential prowlers just vanish like rabbits.”

Lawhead said last Thursday’s meeting opened the door for safety discussions between downtown business owners and residents.

“We need to think about safety issues,” he said. “The more we can communicate, the more we can accomplish.”

City Council members unanimously voted to form Spokane’s business improvement district in 1995.

In addition to offering security, the money raised through taxing downtown businesses is used for marketing downtown and clean-up efforts.