Two East Hill residents used the council’s public comment period on Sept. 2 to press the council for stronger responses to crime and to criticize local shelter siting and homelessness policy.

Pauline Harry, who identified herself as a 37-year Kent resident, argued that government funding has enabled chronic drug addiction and called for compulsory choices for people she described as enabling neighborhood crime. “I'm advocating evaluation for these people and that people be given 2 choices, either enter treatment or go to jail,” she told the council, and urged the city to consider an article she said would “end the homeless industrial complex.”

Tejpreet (Tajpreet) Samra, speaking with two siblings, said East Hill families face growing danger and economic decline. “In just the past 3 months, over 7 major businesses have closed on just 1 major street, 108 Avenue, Rite Aid, Dollar Tree, Fred Meyer, Nature's Market, Walgreens, Joann Fabrics, Valley Medical Center, Kent Primary Care Clinic, and Big 5 Sporting Goods,” Samra said, and linked those closures to theft and security problems. He said residents have experienced fireworks or projectiles near houses, prowlers and gunfire and cited two gun-related incidents at Kent Ridge High School the prior year.

Samra criticized siting homeless shelters inside the city and called instead for “county level solutions, where land is more affordable and the state can build rehab centers that provide treatment, stability, and long term support and care.” He asked the council to “restore visible police presence, reinforce school safety, support businesses before more vanish, and replace shelters with county level rehab centers that heal people without destabilizing the city.”

Council members did not take action on the matters during the meeting; the speakers were using the allotted public-comment time to ask the council to change policy. The remarks contained claims and statistics that the speakers attributed to outside sources (for example, Pauline cited an AI estimate for county homelessness figures). Council members did not respond with new policy commitments during public comment, though Mayor Dana Ralph later said the council would remain engaged with community safety and with the multi-department campus project under discussion.

These public comments reflect recurring community concerns about public safety, downtown business conditions and shelter placement; they will likely be referenced in future council engagements and public-safety policy discussions.