Just a little update from an earlier MetroBlogging post on the high tech public toilets set to be installed next month. The new facilities will hopefully help us prevent a public health crisis and keep our city spring fresh all year round.

While exploring the other MetroBlogging sites, I noticed a new post in the MetroBlogging Seattle site dealing with this exact same issue. Two years after installing five of these machines, local businesses want them closed down - at a cost of nearly a million bucks to Seattle for cancelling their contract with the high tech port-a-potty company early. They’ve become such a constant hangout for criminals that even the homeless won’t go near them.

According to the article linked to by the MetroBlogging site, the city is probably going to install cameras outside the facilities to deter crime. Sounds like a good idea. Hopefully, our guys have already thought about that before they put these things in. If not, it’s not too late.

Related posts:

1. 20,800 flushes can’t be wrong
2. First post and swimming against the tide
3. Seattle prepares for 2010
4. The weather is always worse somewhere else
5. Open for Business