Council presses city on Kensington pilot, wellness court outcomes and nuisance-business enforcement

Councilmembers spent significant time pressing PPD and the Office of Public Safety on targeted interventions in Kensington, the neighborhood wellness court and nuisance-business enforcement.

PPD and OPS officials described a Weymouth Street drug-market intervention pilot that followed a large intergovernmental enforcement action (about 30 arrests). City officials said the follow-up is focused on bringing services to residents'door-to-door outreach, housing and benefit navigation and rodent/vector control'and on stabilizing the neighborhood through sustained policing presence and wellness services.

The wellness court and the Riverview Wellness Support Center were highlighted as site-based responses. Officials provided operational data: same-day behavioral-health assessments, housing assessments and bench-warrant clearances; OPS cited that of 281 people who interacted with wellness-court operations, 96 (34%) subsequently engaged with a Merakey program. The first judicial district reported 20 formal program completions under the court's definition.

Councilmembers repeatedly raised nuisance-business problems (corner stores with repeat violations) and urged faster, escalated abatement and interagency action, including use of L&I and legal remedies where compliance is not achieved. Officials said a nuisance-business task force exists, that intergovernmental sweeps and letters have been issued, and that several abatement plans and seizures are pending.

Members requested written follow-up on the number of nuisance citations, abatement plans and the wellness-court outcome metrics; officials agreed to provide additional data and to expand outreach/door-knocking materials in Kensington.