HIGH-TECH PUBLIC TOILETS GOING TO WASTE, CITY TOLD

Fancy Facilities Are Used For Drugs, Prostitution

Jack Gray and the other homeless men who sat in Pioneer Square's
Occidental Park say they go to the mission when nature calls. Or to
the Starbucks.

Anywhere, they say, besides one of the city's fancy automated public
toilets -- two years old and just on the other side of the park.

"The crack heads are always in there," Gray said.

The decadelong debate over giving people public toilets downtown
appeared to be over when the Seattle City Council decided in 2004 to
spend nearly $700,000 a year to maintain five high-tech toilets
downtown and on Broadway in Capitol Hill.

But these days, local businesses say the toilets have only made
things worse. Not only have they become a haven for drug dealers and
prostitutes, but the streets are filled with more urine and feces
than before, according to Seattle merchants and members of the
Metropolitan Improvement District.

The organization, funded by downtown businesses to clean and patrol
streets, wants Seattle to flush the state-of-the art toilets -- even
if the city has to eat roughly $820,000 to dispose of them and break
its maintenance contract.

But representatives of Seattle Public Utilities, the agency
responsible for overseeing the toilets, said they're doing some good
and will improve next month.

A camera will go up outside one of the toilets to deter criminals,
though the utility hasn't selected one yet, said Sandy Kraus, the
project manager.

It also plans to pass a rule barring more than one person from being
inside a toilet at the same time, unless helping a child or a
handicapped person, she said.

City Attorney Tom Carr, who said earlier this week that the city
should "just cut its losses" and get rid of the toilets, reneged
Wednesday and said through a spokeswoman that the utility's plan is
worth a try.

But City Councilman Tom Rasmussen wants the utility company to plan
for what to do if the city ditches the toilets.

"They've become dens of illegal behavior," he said.

In addition to the Capitol Hill and Occidental Park toilets, there
are some in Hing Hay Park, Victor Steinbrueck Park and on the
waterfront next to the Seattle Aquarium.

City Councilman Richard Conlin, who voted in favor of acquiring the
toilets in 2001, agreed.

"They haven't worked out the way we'd hoped. ... We're going to have
to go back to the drawing board," he said.

Certainly council members hadn't envisioned the scene Wednesday on
First Avenue, between Pike and Pine streets, outside the Eco-Elements store.

Inside, there were environmentally friendly lotions.

In the doorway, there was a large piece of human feces.

Reggie Smith, the improvement district's field supervisor, pulled up
in a truck with a shovel and collected the waste in a black garbage
bag, before spraying the doorway with water and a sanitizer.

"It's human," said Smith, who installed phone lines for Qwest before
being laid off then hired by the district.

He'd gotten 21 total calls from district ambassadors Tuesday and
Wednesday about garbage, urine, feces and vomit. The ambassadors
patrol downtown streets daily.

Smith said the automated toilets he sees always seem to have drug
dealers in front, forcing people to find somewhere else to go. "And I
guess when you have to go, you have to go."

Peggy Dreisinger, the improvement district's field operations
director, said that since the automatic toilets were installed two
years ago, 7,418 occurrences of human waste have been reported and cleaned up.

"In the two years prior to the installation, the number is just over
2,400," she said.

The automated flushing toilets are enclosed with a locking door that
automatically opens after 10 minutes. A minute earlier, a voice warns
that time is nearly up. Once vacant, fluid is sprayed to clean the
roomy chamber, avoiding the toilet paper, for the next patron.

In 2001, the City Council authorized bringing automated toilets to
Seattle's streets. Then-Mayor Paul Schell, however, vetoed the
measure as too expensive. But council members overrode Schell's veto,
and in 2004, the city entered into the contract with Northwest
Cascade to maintain the toilets.

The city's contract with Northwest Cascade runs until March 2014, but
Kraus said the city can cancel the agreement in March 2008 for about $820,000.

In 2005, an MID task force examined the cost of canceling early,
possibly immediately, and said the city would save money in the long
run by not paying roughly $656,000 annually until 2014.

The task force, though, recommended first trying to change the city's
sign ordinance to allow ad kiosks, then using the revenue from the
advertising to hire attendants at the toilets.

But Kraus said changing the sign ordinance seems unrealistic.

Meanwhile, some merchants have lost patience.

At the Fuel sports bar, down the street from Occidental Park, owner
Mike Morris said Tuesday that the toilets are no longer viable.

"It's a joke. There's drug use going on in there, prostitution. ...
How do I know? You see two people going in there. What do you think
they're doing?"

But not everyone is ready to trash the idea.

At the Grand Central Bakery adjacent to Occidental Park, store
manager Carolyn Padineau said Tuesday, "I love the toilets." Since
the toilets went in, she said, there have been fewer incidents of
drug use in her bathroom. Apparently, she said, that's because the
drug users have moved to the automated toilets.

Mayor Greg Nickels' proposal Wednesday to create a squad of unarmed
rangers to patrol downtown parks could help deter criminal activity
in and around the toilets, but, Kraus said, "I don't think toilets
are the deciding factor of whether we have drug activity or no drug activity."

And she is not sure simply getting rid of the toilets is the answer.

"They capture a lot of raw sewage that would go somewhere else, and
some of it would go on the street," said Kraus. "We'd just be right
back to where we started."