Back in the mid-1970s, travel was quite different than today and it often involved a Greyhound bus. Even back then, bus and train stations were magnets for some unsavory types and behaviors.
Doesn’t look like that’s any better today.
I’ve traveled by Amtrak on occasion and walked through the panhandlers blocking the sidewalk and just hanging around the Centralia Train Depot. I’ve been subjected to the aggressive panhandling more than once and wouldn’t feel comfortable letting my wife go there by herself.
At a recent Centralia City Council meeting, local residents and the Amtrak station agent came to complain about not only panhandling (which by the way has been determined by courts to be free speech), but drug and alcohol use and prostitution. Some of the drug users are going so far as to remove bricks from the building to create spaces to hide their drugs.
Even the smokers there are creating problems with litter.
It would seem if the kind of activity described is going on in such a small area, it wouldn’t be too difficult to address, except hanging around on sidewalks, panhandling and generally being a nuisance has become a right.
Shoot, in some cities rioting, looting, and arson have nearly become a right, at least politically. But it has a direct impact on nearby businesses when people who might want to get off the train and shop won’t due to this problem. The police chief rightly points out the challenges of policing a problem like this. Clearing out the problem at the train station, or moving the bus stop as was suggested, may help some, or it may just move the problem up the street.
I suppose some will say this is really our fault. These people need us to do more for them, and try to understand them.
I’m not in that camp.
I think the facts are we make it too easy for some deadbeats to do nothing for themselves. Some say the war on drugs has been a colossal failure; expensive and unsuccessful and we have more drug use now than ever.
I’d argue the war on poverty has been even worse; a colossal failure that’s been both expensive and unsuccessful and we have more now than ever.
Something needs to change.
I’m willing to help people who want to help themselves. But I’m pretty tired of working to support those who don’t.
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Besides the train station problem, the chief also has had to deal with what appears to be a serious disciplinary problem. According to a recent story in The Chronicle, Dave Ross was demoted for claiming overtime he didn’t actually work. Instead, according to the results of the investigation, and his own statement, he was at home for several of the hours he claimed overtime for.
“The expectation the community has … is that everybody here, particularly the supervisors, are ethical,” Centralia Police Chief Carl Nielsen told The Chronicle. “If not, we have to deal with it.”
I only know what’s been printed, and Ross has filed a grievance with the union, but being found untruthful is a serious matter.
If in fact he admitted to misrepresenting his hours worked, then writes in an email to The Chronicle “the only comment I can make is I strongly deny any wrongdoing,” only one of those statements can be true.
Stealing hours is wrongdoing.
What makes matters worse is what happens now. Because there was a finding of dishonesty, the chief was obligated to let the prosecutor know, and Jonathan Meyer is obligated to let attorneys with cases involving Ross know.
That information can be used in current and future cases to cast a shadow on his testimony almost every time he takes the stand. And that’s not going to be good for anyone.
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John McCroskey was Lewis County sheriff from 1995 to 2005. He lives outside Chehalis, and can be contacted at musingsonthemiddlefork@yahoo.com.
