missing title

All right, good afternoon everyone.

Today is December 8th, 2025. The Seattle City Council briefing meeting will come to order and the time is 2.03.

Will the clerk please call the roll.

Council Member Kettle.

Here.

Council Member Lynn?

Here.

Council Member Rink?

Present.

Council Member Rivera?

Present.

Council Member Saka?

Here.

Council Member Strauss?

Here.

Council Member Hollingsworth?

Here.

Council Member Juarez?

Here.

And Council President Nelson?

Present.

Aye and present.

Thank you very much.

If there's no objection, the minutes of December 1st, 2025 will be adopted.

Hearing none, the minutes are adopted.

All right, let's see, president's report.

We've got two presentations today from central staff, one on amendments to the state legislative agenda and the other on the SPMA and SPOG contracts, all of which will be before us at city council tomorrow.

On tomorrow's City Council meeting agenda, there are 59 items on the IRC, Introduction and Referral Calendar.

I'll read the pieces of legislation and that is in addition to 26, yeah, anyway, here are the items on the IRC.

Council Bill 127156, an ordinance which makes appropriations from the General Fund for Food Programs and Reserves.

Council Bill 121136, payment of the bills.

Resolution 32187, which establishes the city's legislative agenda.

Council Bill 121141, an ordinance regarding employment in the civil service system.

CB 121142, an ordinance establishing the Deferred Compensation Analyst Classification Title Series.

Council Bill 121143, an ordinance extending the floodplains interim regulations for another six months.

Council Bill 121139 and 140, both ordinance relating to historic preservation, imposing landmark designation controls.

Council Bill 121137, an ordinance amending the amended landscape conservation and infrastructure program funding plan for South Lake Union in downtown.

and Council Bill 121138, an ordinance allowing SPU's general manager to acquire a parcel of land in Seattle.

There we have it.

Let's see, otherwise there are 49 appointments to various boards and commissions.

And then on tomorrow's consent calendar, there are 26 items, all of which are appointments.

Okay, so now we will move on to our first presentation on the proposed amendments to the state legislative agenda.

Why don't you come on up to the table, please, and introduce yourselves.

I would like to note that as you listen to this As you listen to the to central staff analyst Karina Bull's presentation Please remember the groundbreaking improvement that OIR in in partnership with the The mayor's office and council was able to make last year for the 2025 legislative agenda Which was to render what had been a multi-page document, which was a list of all these wonderful things, some of which changed year to year, others that didn't, into a two-page document.

And I am, I continue to hammer on this because when you put yourself in the place of a legislator or a staffer in Olympia, think about your attention span.

Those minutes, those meetings are scheduled in 15 minute increments and it serves us well.

to present our priorities in a way that can be digested easily and remembered and accessed.

So here is this year's draft legislative agenda.

Please excuse the highlights that are my notes and highlights.

And here's the legislative agenda for 2023. Let's see, it's got, I think it had 15 pages.

and it's all single spaced.

So the same thing for 2024. And so I abstain because I agreed with much of our legislative agenda and not all of it.

And so therefore I abstain.

So let's, I think there's some agreement that this is a goal that we want to maintain our legislative agenda in a format that is usable.

So think about that as we're listening.

Okay, please introduce yourself and begin.

Good afternoon, council members.

Karina Bull with council central staff.

And as the council president teed up for all of you, tomorrow at the council meeting, there will be an amendment to adopt the city's state legislative agenda.

And attached to that legislative agenda is the actual document that lists all of the city's priorities.

There's about 26 of them in the document that the Office of Intergovernmental relations drafted, and here today I'm going to provide technical overviews of the amendments to that document, which would effectively double the size of the agenda.

The first one is Amendment A. There's a table of contents that you see in front of you.

The first one is Amendment A, which is sponsored by Councilmember Lin.

It would make a total of seven changes to the agenda, six new items, and one revision to an existing item.

And here is a brief summary of them.

Under the heading of Federal Response, the amendment would support protections for LGB2IA plus youth, adults, and communities, and opposition to anti-transgender legislative efforts.

Under affordability, it would add three new priorities to support progressive revenue options, expand tax relief to lower income families and seniors, and support a guaranteed basic income pilot, and also support efforts to simplify and create a universal application for income-qualified benefits and relief.

Under the Housing and Homelessness section, the amendment would support compliance with Growth Management Act housing requirements and strengthen anti-displacement tools.

And then last, under the Public Safety heading, it would support criminal justice reform.

And then Councilmember Lin, if he has anything else to say.

Yeah, you are recognized.

Thank you, President Elson.

Yes, I would like to make one change, which would be to strike under Housing and Homeless, the Growth Management Act addition there.

It's basically largely been addressed by a bill that was passed last year by Senator Bateman.

So I don't think that's necessary, just to reduce the number of amendments in line with your comment, President Nelson.

So I'd like to strike that from the amendment.

And then should I say a few words in general about the proposal?

The floor is yours.

Thank you so much.

I just want to touch quickly on the affordability portion, supporting progressive revenues.

I think we all know that there's a large deficit at the state level.

The largest number one issue I heard over the past 10 months was the need to fix our upside down tax code to tax the wealthiest in our community to pay for our essential needs and corollary is to reduce the tax burden on our fixed income seniors, on our working families.

and so these additions about supporting progressive revenue options, the idea would be to support new tax revenues that tax the wealthiest in our community and then the corollary again is to expand tax relief to working families through things like the senior property tax exemption or guaranteed basic income.

So I would love your support.

Thank you.

I have a question about that.

the break for seniors.

Do you know what the income level or the fixed income level is right now?

There's different levels.

So at the lowest income level you can get a bigger exemption, so I don't have the exact levels.

I do know just, and thankfully we have been in more recent levies exempting people who qualify from the additional increase from levies.

I think we've all heard concerns about when we're going to upzone that potential concerns there around highest and best use and would love to explore the possibility of potentially having some flexibility there to address the concerns for legacy homeowners who might be impacted by upzone.

So that was the thrust of that.

I really appreciate you being sensitive to that because that's something that I complain about every time we approve a new levy lid lift, and I do see the value of that.

And it's only for seniors, but not for everybody on a fixed income, right?

Yes, low-income seniors, vets, and folks with disabilities.

Okay.

Thank you.

I have a question.

So we spoke, I think it was Council Member Rivera who brought up the fact that it's a short session and I don't know if it's a policy goal of our OIR staff to really focus on bills that had been brought forward last year or this year's session.

As you're going through these, if you happen to know off the top of your head, and I should have told you that I'd wanna know this before, but if you know that some of these amendments do bring back legislation that didn't proceed to a certain level or whatever, that would be helpful for me to know.

Okay.

I actually did compile that list, but I didn't bring it with me to the table, so I can follow up with you after the meeting and let you know.

And I can add that to you, Council Member Rivera, as well.

Ready for the next amendment?

It is Amendment B. It is sponsored.

I'm sorry.

Council Member Kettle.

Thank you, Chair.

I just had a question, not so much specifically about the first amendment idea, but of the issue of, like, I have two amendments.

One is a basically a public safety one, a little bit of reordering and a couple bullets, and then separately I had a social housing and a separate one.

But we have a number of amendments which are a combination.

And so there's three related to revenue.

Like if I support one, and they're kind of potentially in conflict with each other, if I support one, then I want to vote no against the other two.

Well, if I'm voting against the other two revenue pieces, then I'm taking out the entire piece to include maybe public safety.

And I was just curious about having a multi-topic amendment versus having those by subject area.

I use that as an example in terms of where that could be problematic.

Yeah, so it's council members prerogative whether or not to have multiple subjects in their amendment or to pull them out into each amendment on their own or just amendments under certain group headings.

So there are some of these that have multiple changes under multiple subject headings.

My read is that none of the amendments conflict with each other or are competing.

There are some that are redundant.

They may frame an issue in a different way, but they are not duplicative to the extent that it would be either one or the other.

I think to your last point, if there is an amendment that tries to accomplish many different things, and if there's one piece that might make a council member not want to vote for the whole package that could be pulled out and I could revise the amendment or it could be before the meeting tomorrow or it could be the council member's prerogative that could inform their decision on whether to vote for it or not.

Council member Rivera.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Karina.

I'm wondering, so this is a really short legislative session, and I know that the legislature, like we do sometimes during a biennium, this would have been part of our second year of the biennium, we don't typically take on new or bigger things, because it's less than on the years that we're really going into the first year of the biennium, for instance.

similarly in Olympia because it's such a short cycle.

I don't know how much new things are gonna take or really if there were things left over from last year that I imagine they're gonna prioritize for this year.

So I guess my question to you is do you know if some of these things that they're considering this year are really gonna be very, very focused on some of the things they were not able to do last year or how many of these things that we're putting in this legislative document are really going to be able to get taken up this year?

Do we have a sense of whether some of these items have been brought up already?

Which I know you have your document you said, so maybe some of that is contained in there.

But in general, given it's a shorter session, do you have a sense of how many things new they're going to entertain, for instance.

I don't have that sense, but that is something that I can follow up with OIR on.

Great.

Thank you.

Thank you, CP.

And just before we move on, Council Member Kettle, I did have this conversation with the sponsor because it has come up in the past, not just on the legislative agenda, that one amendment has two parts or two items and people like one and not the other and so therefore what happens?

And so I did explain that that is a potential to have happen.

We all have to make the decision if we want to sign on to the whole thing or what, but now I don't mean to make more work for you, but I assume that now would be the time as you all listen to this, if you really love 90% of an amendment but just can't support it because of this other part of it, I suppose you should talk to the sponsor and entertain possibility of breaking it up.

I would say that's probably the best option right now.

Okay, go ahead, please.

And there still is time to do that.

Not much, but there is some time.

I would need to hear about everything by the end of the day today.

I do have an obligation in the morning tomorrow, so I'd like to get it wrapped up today, if that's possible.

The next amendment is Amendment B, and this is sponsored by Councilmember Rink.

It would add 10 new priorities to the legislative agenda.

Under federal response, it would state support for establishing additional local progressive revenue options to address federal funding cuts to state and local governments.

That's why it's in the federal response section and not in the affordability section.

The Affordability section would expand the heading to include reference to the workforce, and it would add three new priorities, explore a revenue neutral swap for sales tax, allow collective bargaining over matters related to the impacts of workplace artificial intelligence on employee wages and performance evaluations, and furthering investments in workforce development in the maritime industry.

Under housing and homelessness, it would add two priorities to support reducing a liability requirements to encourage the development of condominiums and changing city and county elevator standards to match global or North American standards.

Under public safety, it would add a priority to include support for updating police accountability, arbitration rules and procedures.

And then under transportation, it would include three new priorities to support increasing the availability of passenger-only ferries, reducing emissions for most polluting vessels from visiting Washington's ports, and prioritizing Climate Commitment Act spending for mass public transportation capital projects.

Councilmember Rivera, is that a new hand?

Oh, no.

Sorry.

I have a question.

For some...

Oh, go ahead.

You have the floor to talk about your amendment.

Sorry.

Thank you, Council President.

Colleagues, I'll speak more in depth on these tomorrow, but at this juncture I wanted to reaffirm, since it's been part of the discussion so far, a number of these priorities were actually reflected in a number of bills as a part of last session.

We know there were a number of progressive revenue bills last session.

I imagine we'll see those come forward again.

But the AI bargaining bill in particular was one bill that went through, didn't quite go through on last session, but was up for discussion.

We also have on here, in terms of furthering our investments into workforce development in the maritime industry, we've seen historically, we have a maritime caucus within the state legislature, and we've seen the Transportation Committee take up matters related to investments in maritime.

Condo reform continues to be a matter and there's bills that go through.

But I also wanted to highlight the small elevators bill.

This was something that Senator Solomon had last year put forward.

And this one, it maps really well to what we've been trying to do with the comprehensive plan when we're talking about a stacked flat strategy.

Really empowering and making sure that we are able to have more middle housing that allows for aging in place by making it easier to have more elevators go into middle housing options.

so I think that blends itself well.

And then just to touch on three other points, we've seen bills in Olympia last year related to police accountability, this is reflective of that.

And then the mosquito fleet bill that I testified on last year, I am hoping will make a return as well when we're looking at our partnerships in Kitsap County.

And then lastly, wanted to touch on the point here related to under the transportation section for supporting reduced emissions from most polluting vessels visiting Washington's ports.

This is in reference to the shore power bill which has gotten support from not just 350 Seattle but also our and IBEW 46, our electrician's union.

So just wanted to highlight some of those points and connect the dots.

These are not necessarily new ideas to the legislature, but rather these largely reflect a number of bills that Olympia saw last year.

Thank you.

Thank you for explaining those, because I had a question about a bunch of those.

So for example, in my notes I say, with the support reduced emissions from most polluting vessels, I say, I wonder how?

And so is there value to saying shore power?

Do you think people down there know what this would refer to?

Or are there other things that this could also empower that it's best to be more broad or less explicit?

That's a good question.

I think we, the overarching goal and I'd look to, I want to respect Karina who took time to draft this in a way that allows for a higher level amount of advocacy.

I think the underlying goal of the shore power bill is again to work towards port electrification and reducing emissions.

So bills in Olympia that have that aim are I would imagine things that the city would want to support.

There is of course the, if we can recall from last year, a direct bill that addressed this.

Yeah, so OIR uses this agenda as a launching point.

And so it can be broad and OIR can go narrow, it can be narrow and OIR can go broad.

So it really depends on the message that council member would like to have on the printed piece of paper.

Got it, okay.

And then one last question.

Accountability arbitration rules.

You said similar to the one last year.

Do you know, what was that last year?

I can pull the bill number for tomorrow's discussion when we're taking this up in discussion.

Happy to.

Thank you.

Okay.

Councilmember Kettle.

Thank you, Chair.

I just wanted to note, since it came up and we were just discussing it, electrification of the ports is really important.

It makes us really attractive, particularly with, like, the cruise ships.

In addition to the natural beauty of our city and port combination and coming down the straight, Having those kinds of infrastructure pieces for our maritime world is very important.

And since you also highlighted, Chair, the police accountability, this leads into the next thing, because a lot of people make arguments against our SPOC TA, but they don't really understand state and labor law.

And this actually goes to that piece, so thank you.

And I actually do have a note on my document that the update police accountability arbitration rules refers to last year's House Bill 1816. Go ahead.

All right.

The next amendment, Amendment C, is sponsored by Councilmember Strauss.

I'll scroll there.

It would add three priorities to the legislative agenda.

Under the affordability section, it would state support for providing local municipalities with more revenue options.

Under the public safety heading, it would add support for strengthening metal recycling regulations.

And then it would add a new section entitled climate and environment and it would state support for policies and investments to fight climate change, assist climate adaptation, and assist local governments' removal of fish passage barriers.

Go ahead, please.

Thank you and Karina appreciate your work on this in the category of are we being specific or broad.

I am choosing to be broad with my language so that we can be more specific when we come to the legislative session.

Item number one, provide local municipalities with more revenue options.

This is broad.

It really comes back to the conversation that we've had about the levy lid lift in Olympia.

Last year they provided us one revenue option and that was the public safety sales tax.

which is regressive in nature and the worst of all options that they looked at.

So this is me putting on paper that we need Olympia to work and not give us regressive options.

Second, strengthen metal recycling regulations to prevent the sale of stolen public and private property.

This comes most recently.

We had the Sadako statue in our budget.

We had in the budget before that.

some plaques at Bergen Place and at the Ballard Bell Tower.

What we know is that recycling regulations need to be strengthened.

Right now folks can chop up pieces of metal so that they are below a certain threshold and be paid in cash so that it's not able to be tracked.

These things need to be strengthened.

Third and finally, this is the exact same language that I brought last year, which is regarding investments to fight climate change, assist in the climate adaption, and assist local governments' removal of fish passage barriers.

We have a situation in West Seattle right now regarding a fish passage barrier.

I believe it'll even come back again in Parks Committee later this week.

we need the state's assistance in these matters and we're not the only municipality.

So I would love to earn everyone's support and feel free to ask me any questions.

I have a question about the provide local municipalities with more revenue options.

So I'm just assuming that everything that we're putting on, municipalities are not already allowed to do.

and so it requires a legislative change.

And so you just said one of them, but you said that you identified property tax from one to 3% was what they tried to do last year.

I suppose it's from my position, I think I would have to think for myself Governor Bob Ferguson just came out last week and says, I will veto a property tax increase or a sales tax increase.

And so that is in the back of my mind, but I suppose that this language could apply to other revenue options that we don't already have the ability to implement ourselves without the legislature giving us authority, right?

Yes, so these would be areas of revenue that we need state approval, much like the levy lid lift.

At the end of the last session, the governor made a decision that I very much disagree with, which was to say that he would veto a levy lid lift and instead gave us a regressive option.

He can have whatever press conferences he wants to have.

Municipalities have been We have been regulated by the state that allows us to grow our property tax by 1%, which is less than inflation.

That means for the decades that this policy has been put in place, we have been asked to provide the same or higher level of service with dollars stretching less far than they have been able to in the past.

So again, anyone can have whatever press conference they want.

as your budget chair and sitting on AWC, the Association of Washington Cities, I can tell you that it's not just our municipality.

It's municipalities all across the state that are stuck in the same position of not being allowed to collect the revenue just to keep up with inflation.

And so personally, yes, I would be more specific to say not regressive options or you could put progressive options, In the seat that I'm sitting today, I think being broad is better than being specific.

Thank you for explaining that.

I was wondering how what you're wanting here is different from the bullet point above, which is support revenue options that help safeguard access to essential services.

Is that a question to me?

Very directly, the state could fund food?

The state could fund shelter?

The state could fund housing?

and those provide access to essential services, that does not help us with the fact that we have been asked to provide the same level of service with our dollars going less far than they have the year before by state law.

Right.

I understand the need.

I was just wanting to make sure I was understanding the difference because, again, I'm thinking about real estate.

That's why I'm asking these questions.

Thank you.

The next amendment is Amendment D. It is sponsored by Councilmember Saka.

I think it's helpful to consider Amendment D in tandem with Amendment E because they both do mention universal free school meals from different perspectives.

Amendment D by Councilmember Saka They're both under affordability, but it frames it from the perspective of supporting students and their families through investments that fully fund universal free school meals.

Amendment E, sponsored by Council Member Lynn, frames it more broadly to include increasing healthy food access through support for food banks, universal free school meals, and other ways to address food deserts.

Councilmember Saka's amendment is precisely narrowly focused on universal free school meals and then amendment E is focused more broadly on healthy food access with universal school meals as one way to achieve that goal.

I will let both of you speak to yours so Councilmember Saka go ahead.

Thank you, Madam Council President.

And I want to thank Council Member Lynn.

Great minds think alike here, very clearly.

And so colleagues, you'll recall sort of the track and the chronology of, in the history of what happened here and how we got to this point.

So a couple years ago when the majority of us started on Council, I think two or three sessions ago now.

There was a lot of interest to get this passed and added to our agenda.

Unfortunately, by the time we all took office, it was too late to do that.

I led an effort, wrote a letter and led an effort to have an official letter signed by all of you to get it, to send it to Olympia.

Unfortunately, I think the session ended or the bill was killed in Olympia right before, so kind of rendering those things, those efforts moot.

Good news is last year we were able to get it added on the agenda and in fact, I borrowed, copy-pasted, I'm pretty sure the same exact legislative text on that policy priority list from last year.

And that is now the basis of this.

States across the country, a few, have had the courage and leadership to pass this, including probably the most prominent recent example is Minnesota Governor Tim Walz got this done in Minnesota a few years back.

Why not us?

I think when children are sent to school, they should be sent to school to learn and empowered to learn and can face many barriers in learning.

I don't want one of them to be hunger.

And so that is the purpose, goal, justification for this.

I strongly, support Councilmember Lin's amendment as well.

And I'll be supporting it tomorrow.

The intentional to address Karina's kind of distinctions there, how mine is narrowly focused versus more broad.

I think there's trade-offs of either approach depending on the context.

Here, it's intentional for two reasons.

One, it's a copy-paste exercise from last year's language.

But two, I'm just trying to...

This would be a huge deal.

This would be a big deal if the state legislature were to even get this done.

And I hope they have the political will and appetite to tackle this.

On the other hand, if we expand to food banks and other things and make it more broad, it could potentially risk jeopardizing a more specific, precise thing where there's a clear model already in place.

In any event, I support all of the above.

Thank you.

Thank you Councilmember Saka, President Nelson.

Obviously support yours and understand the need for focus and it would be a huge deal and I would love to follow in the steps of some of the other states that have been able to achieve it.

There's no reason why we should not be able to achieve it as well here in Washington State.

And some of the other ones, just given potential cuts to SNAP, thank you all for stepping up last month when there was the risk of cuts there.

And then again, like food deserts, we've heard about grocery stores closing, Fred Meyer up in Lake City.

and you know again thank you all for stepping up with legislation around restrictive zoning and just so want to be supportive at the state level as well if there are any sort of similar efforts to legislate around food deserts.

So that was the intention behind it.

Could you question for either of you.

I believe you said that there was an effort at Universal Free Lunches last year.

Do you remember what the price tag was on it?

I don't remember offhand.

My understanding is that there was a bill on it as well, just didn't pass.

Okay, thank you.

The next amendment is Amendment F. It is sponsored by Councilmember Kettle and this would add a priority under the housing and homelessness section to support updates to state law so that social housing developers have access to the same benefits as housing authorities and non-profit affordable housing developers.

And I do understand that this relates to last year's attempt to pass House Bill 1687.

Councilmember Kettle.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Ms. Boll.

Yes, colleagues, this is about not funding.

Obviously, this is different from other types of housing and the processes, but related to costs and procurement for development.

And basically, it's another example of how can we set up social housing for success because we have to have every piece in there, as we talked about during budget, not just the affordable housing pieces that we have through OH, but also permanent supportive housing, and in addition to social housing, and how can we get these all to be successful and work collaboratively and work together.

That goes to the strategy piece from our discussions in budget.

And that's really what is behind this amendment, and it does tie to Representative Reid's housing cooperation laws.

that's basically looking to encourage these different housing production and to, in this case, add social housing to it.

I will be meeting with Representative Reid and Representative Berry later this week, and I will be talking about this with her.

Actually, I'll bring the whole list, whether it's two pages or five, I'll bring it with me when I meet with them later in the week.

So anyways, that's the basic background here.

Thank you.

Council Member Rivera.

Thank you, Council President.

Karina, can you repeat the House Bill number?

House Bill 1687. Thank you.

And Council Member Kettle, can you tell me, I guess not knowing what this Council Bill says, I'm just wondering when it says have access to the same benefits, what does that mean?

I know that the social housing has a dedicated fund source.

the other non-for-profit housing developers compete through an RFP process or maybe it's called something else but it's similar to an RFP so I'm wondering what are the things that you know that are intended by the same benefits and sorry maybe it says it in the House bill but I just don't know that House bill.

Yes, thank you.

Council Member Rivera.

Yes, it relates to, you know, the state confers, you know, different powers and the like to local governments to, you know, to waive regulation pieces to promote housing.

And so these pieces are there.

And this goes to my point about costs and procurement.

And this is basically, in some ways, a gentle reminder to add social housing to the types that they're considering in terms of local governments are then allowed to waive or, you know, some type of inhibiting, you know, piece that, you know, that inhibits development.

And so it gives, basically it opens up local governments to do that.

And that's basically the, you know, what the law is doing.

Now I'm going to be talking to Representative Reid about this because one question about the law that I have relates to the executive versus legislative priorities or equities, I should say.

So there's still things that are out there with this law in terms of her looking to update it.

But generally though, giving the option to local governments to look to waive anything related to procurement costs or administrative costs and the like, that's the basic driver here for this amendment.

Thank you for that explanation.

Councilmember Kettle.

Councilmember Lynn.

You have a question about this one, right?

Yes.

Thank you, Council Member Kettle, for bringing this forward.

I fully support your statement that we need to do what we can to make sure that they're successful.

And I just want to clarify that this is about giving us additional authority to enter into agreements with the social housing developer or to waive certain perhaps building code requirements.

It doesn't require us to do anything.

It's just additional flexibility.

Is that correct?

Flexibility is a good word.

I should have used it with Council Member Rivera.

Okay, thank you.

So when you're talking about some of the benefits we provide affordable housing providers, for example, we exempt them from design review.

So is that the sort of thing?

I mean, I should just Google this 1687, but is that the sort of thing that you're talking about?

The reason, and Councilmember Rivera put it in the right way, I would say, maybe the thought bubble of a lot of our affordable housing providers are, well, we would actually love to have the benefit that the PDA has, which is that they don't have to fill out the NOFA and maybe and maybe not get the money.

That's why I was, so I am also interested in that and I'll look at that, but I'm, you and I can talk offline about the sorts of things that we, some of the benefits that we're precluded from being able to provide right now.

We don't have the authority to provide that the state can give us the authority to provide.

Yes, and to my initial point, Chair, that was about the funding, because you make a very good point.

There's the NOFO versus, you know, obviously the PDA has its funding pieces, which we went through last year, and as people know, I was in favor of the other option.

But now that we have this, and this goes back to my point, the underlying thing is how do we set up organizations for success?

And that's kind of the way, that's from where I'm coming with this amendment.

But yes, it's about giving local governments the ability to take action in support of social housing as they go through their checklist.

the flexibility, as Council Member Lynn said.

So this doesn't really drive things.

I do, again, I'll talk to Representative Reed about and Barry about where things land equity-wise, legislative executive, because that's of interest.

is a general interest of mine.

It's gonna be coming up more and more, I think, over the next number of months, and I think that's something to discuss.

But again, that's the general piece.

I'm gonna start using Council Member Lynn's description.

Give the flexibility to allow the ability to support social housing if you want to do it.

Got it.

Thank you.

Thanks.

The next amendment is Amendment G. It is also sponsored by Council Member Kettle.

It is entirely focused on the public safety section.

It would reorder some of the priorities in that section to begin with address the State Patrol's toxicology lab for the first bullet.

and then the champion legislation would move down closer to the end.

It would also add three priorities to support lowering the threshold for early intervention for minors who unlawfully possess guns.

That would be added to an existing priority.

I want to make sure that you see it.

The existing priority is allowed local jurisdictions to restrict firearms in city buildings.

That's being moved to the third bullet and then the lower threshold language is added to the end of that item.

The second priority that would be added is advocating for the addition of a public safety element and the comprehensive plans for all jurisdictions.

And then third, it would ensure funding for maintenance and activation of WSDOT rights of way.

Okay.

Go ahead, please.

Again, thank you for the rundown.

Colleagues, the reordering was to really focus on the specific points here, like the toxicality lab.

That is so important.

in terms of public safety.

It's important for a functional criminal justice system.

The reordering was get to those points that they can take action on, as opposed to the more general bullets, lowering them down.

We wanted to hit the toxicology lab.

The help with the helping local governments in terms of the basic law enforcement academy.

in those pieces.

And separately, there are some pieces.

Speaking of Representative Barry, I'll stick with my local state reps. She's doing a lot of very important work related to firearms, particularly like safety, storage, all the different pieces that are there.

But there's also this one piece related to young adults who have multiple instances of firearm and it's the number of offenses that is the challenge here.

And so that's what that goes to.

And then separately, and added a new one related to WSDOT, and this ties into the public safety element too.

We have to build our capacity as it relates to public safety, as it goes to development, the comprehensive plan as we grow.

because we have to have that capacity grow with the growth of our cities and then we also have to take care of what we have.

This WSDOT one is I've talked to Chief Scoggins and these all come from our committee meetings and conversations and public safety highlighting things such as like for D2, there was a fire last year and if that fire was a little bit further down I-5, the ability for the fire department to address that fire would have been severely compromised because the infrastructure as it relates to I-5 and WSDOT and water wasn't there.

And I mentioned this last week, this is really important.

So this is like very specific.

Instead of having a more general bullet, you know, basically raise the awareness and say, hey, this is important.

Now tying into the public safety element piece, as we've seen during the course of our committee meetings and then the votes and then the comprehensive plan as well is Like take LA, LA County.

It grew massively over the decades.

Did the capacity grow with it?

Well, if it did, they would have been able to deal with the LA wildfires better.

And so we have to look at the same things because we have our own risks.

This is more of an emergency management fire piece.

You know, do we need a station on South Lake Union?

Do we need greater capabilities related to our water side of our city?

and does our fire department have what it's needed.

And oh, by the way, we could design these pieces to also assist our alternative response capabilities primarily through care.

And so encouraging other jurisdictions to do this as well will help the community because what happens on the other side of the lake to the north or south or east of us really impacts us as well.

And I just think it's a matter of good governance and so as it says here, champion legislation.

I'd like to champion, I was gonna say what we did, but what we did in select committee, we haven't actually voted on the final comprehensive plan, but to push that forward.

And so colleagues, that's kind of the backdrop between this kind of combination of changes to this public safety piece of the OIR letter.

Thank you.

Go ahead.

The next amendment is Amendment H. It is sponsored by Councilmember Sacca.

And this amendment would add language to the agenda to state the city's commitment to clarifying exceptions to statutory requirements for law enforcement to provide a juvenile with access to an attorney.

This is geared towards clarifying the exceptions to existing law where law enforcement must provide a juvenile with access to attorney before the juvenile may weigh any constitutional rights.

If a law enforcement officer does one of three things, questions the youth during custodial interrogation, detains the youth based on a probable cause of involvement in criminal activity, or third, request that a youth provide consent to a search.

Go ahead.

Thank you, Madam Council President and colleagues.

You've heard me talk about this over and over multiple times over the last two years.

Many of you have, and so I appreciate your patience and grace might sound a bit like a broken record sometimes, but this issue is of the utmost importance.

How this one sort of came about was in January 2024, 15-year-old Mubarak Adam, a Chief Self International High School student, was tragically killed in the Southwest Youth Teen Life Center in West Seattle, which is directly across the street from Chief Self.

He was killed by gunfire in a restroom with three, I think, other teenagers.

Circumstances of his death beyond that remain unclear.

I had the honor of visiting his home, sitting down with his family, watching them mourn and hearing them demand answers from the city on what happened to their son.

Agreed families just want answers, that's it.

Not too simple, not too complicated, that makes sense.

But unfortunately, because of the state law, lack of clarity with respect to enforcement of the state law, the families don't have the answers they need.

And tragically, likely won't ever.

And so we can't prevent what happened.

And by the way, Mubarak's death was the first homicide of 2024. Can't bring him back.

Can't prevent...

Well, we can't bring him back.

but we can bring more families closure and more families justice in similar tragic circumstances.

That law was modeled after, and part of my, like, a lot going on, but, and I studied this very extensively, personally, especially in 2024, and I'm pretty sure that state law was modeled after a Seattle law, Seattle City ordinance, and a King County Ordinance, which was itself modeled after the Seattle Ordinance.

The problem was the language was not the same, and so it left more to be desired on the interpretation side.

So what we're seeing is, and it's not just in Seattle, we're seeing it across the state, talk to agencies and communities across the state, similarly confused and seeing disparate interpretation of this law.

So this is a revival of a bill last year, thanks to the leadership of State Senator Jesse Solomon, brought forth a bill to address, to provide the needed clarity, offered the clarification language, and did not pass.

But we're hoping to actually get it done this year.

The family of Mubarak, specifically his sister Layla came and delivered some very powerful testimony and passionate testimony on why we need this and why we need this now.

And I couldn't agree more.

So bringing it back, ask for your support.

Thank you.

Looking further, I have to say I am grateful for you for never forgetting Amar.

You always, you know, many times I remember the first time you spoke about this was one of your first times at the dais talking about the pain and injustice of that instance and here we are many, many, well, two years later, same thing.

So thank you for your commitment to the cause.

The next amendment is amendment I.

It is also sponsored by council member Saka and it would also add another priority to the public safety section of the legislative agenda.

It would add language to state the city's commitment to expanding state authorization for deployment of automated noise enforcement cameras.

Go ahead.

Thank you, Madam Council President and colleagues.

This one is another revival of past efforts.

You'll recall last year, I led an effort to a signature gathering effort on this floor and upstairs, the mayor signed it as well.

We unanimously signed a letter of support of a change to the state law that would authorize automated noise enforcement camera technology and to allow us to address problem noise activity and behavior that occurs across our city and my district in places like Elkai and Harbor Avenue, but the same thing happens in Belltown and Magnuson Park and Golden Gardens and insert every last council district is impacted.

and so this would give us another tool to use and I think it builds upon some of the work that we recently did during budget when we passed the slide calling for a more comprehensive study, focus on car vehicle noise in our rights-of-way.

It would address that piece because the slide also asked for a study on amplified noise in like stadiums, for example.

This is another tool.

We're close last year and hoping to get it done this year.

I ask for your support.

Thank you.

Excuse my ignorance, but I was really trying to figure out how do these things work?

I mean, they sense a noise and then they send out an alarm that makes more noise, or does it show up on a screen someplace?

It's a great question.

So what this would do, and my office has even met with some vendors that provide this technology.

I don't know why.

Probably not a good use of our time.

But this is a technology that would operate, if authorized by state law, it would operate very similar to speed cameras.

going too fast down a street, the camera has an automated speedometer or whatever that thing is called, and then it takes an image of your license plate, sends you a picture in the mail.

This technology is a little more nascent, not necessarily as advanced as automated speed enforcement technology, but in any event, that's the basic idea.

Your car exceeds a certain decibel, the decibels are already enshrined in our city ordinance.

Exceeds whatever decibel, you receive a ticket in the mail.

Thanks for that clarification.

Amendment J is also sponsored by Councilmember Saka.

This amendment would add language under the capital budget section of the legislative agenda to state the city's support for funding for the rebuilding of the historic Camp Long Lodge that closed in November 2024 due to significant fire damage.

Go ahead.

Thank you, Madam Council President.

So colleagues, you've also, I appreciate your grace and patience as well.

You've heard me squawking about this one for the past year as well.

And it also builds upon a slide that we did calling for a funding path after our insurance proceeds run out in the next couple of years.

But we also want sponsorship and support from our state partners as well, because this is a historic building, Camp Lodge, or excuse me, Camp Long burned down in West Seattle in November 2024, had the pleasure of visiting it, the current state of things actually.

Last summer, did a tour with our Parks Department, We need to rebuild it and build it back better.

This is not only a treasure for our community in the city's West Seattle neighborhood.

People from all neighborhoods and people come on field trips even from other parts of the city to visit the historic camp-long site in the historic lodge.

so we're asking for state support for this.

Separately, I should note that my office is currently working with the 34th Legislative District delegation to coordinate a tour that Parks is gonna lead with our 34th delegation and myself of Camp Lodge.

In any event, we're just seeking some state support.

Thank you.

And the last amendment is not part of the packet, but it is sponsored by Councilmember Rares and her office sent notice of it to all of the council members this afternoon.

It would add six new priorities and a new section entitled Native Communities and Tribal Governments.

And the six priorities that it would add would address ensuring tribal representation in regional transportation planning, strengthening implementations of the since time immemorial tribal history curriculum in K through 12 schools.

Let me pull it up here for you.

retroactively excluding certain juvenile convictions from offender scores, exempting sensitive tribal-related data from public disclosure laws, creating a process for automatic voter registration for tribal members, and then supporting the development of federally approved apprenticeship programs operated by tribal governments.

All of these items were laws that were proposed last year that did not pass.

They are included in the Senate Democratic Caucus' Tribal Legislative Impacts Report, which is available online.

And I'm able to, I think you all received a link to it.

I'm happy to provide one as well.

And they listed their wins for the session and then the items that didn't pass, and that reflects all of these six priorities.

Council Member Juarez, you're welcome to speak to your amendments.

Thank you, I'll be brief.

Thank you, Karina.

I know it was short and I got it to you late.

I'm normally not late.

Briefly, some of the items that we've teed up.

First of all, this is the first time we've ever had a section dedicated to native communities and tribal governments.

So thank you for that.

For the leadership also from Council Member Strauss who has these items in his committee.

As Katrina, I was gonna say Katrina.

Karina shared with us.

Senator Kaufman sends this out, but this was very important.

Her annual report, because she and the Senator on the caucus on the Senate side, she's the liaison to tribal governments across our state.

This is the report that they put out.

I sent you all a copy of the report and the article from Investigative West regarding most children charged as adults in Washington are youth of color.

More than 80% of children charged as adults in state courts are non-white.

So what we want to get at on some of these issues, there are six of them, is the prosecutorial discretion in charging and sentencing.

It's important to have a section here, and as I was listening to all my colleagues speak, I think it's important to note that you don't have to agree with all six things, but they're open for discussion.

so you may individually agree with some of them and some of them you may go down to Olympia and speak to them and some of them you just may not.

So you don't have to agree on everything, you just have to agree that there needs to be a section, these are the issues, as long as we're transparent and everybody has the information in front of them, they can certainly reach out to their own district representatives in Olympia, as I have done with Senator Kaufman, Representative Christopher Stearns, Deb Leganoff and a bunch of other folks down south that I've been working with on all these issues, not just criminal and sentencing and prosecutorial discretion, but also gun violence, climate change, you name it.

So I'm actually very happy to see a new section here and again, like the federal government and the state government, what we're doing is, and we've been doing this since we did the government-to-government Centennial Accord in the last 30 years, doing what we already do under federal law and state law and as I shared, it's another step towards honoring the government-to-government working relationship with tribes You'll see a lot of the issues, and I've only teed up six.

Any issue that you see in Indian Country, you certainly see outside of.

They're the same issues.

Housing, addiction, homelessness, public safety, race and social justice, all that stuff.

It's all governmental stuff.

They all dovetail with state, local, and regional governments.

And as long as we keep the door open and continue to work on a government-to-government basis, we hope to tackle these challenging issues.

Thank you.

Thank you for bringing that forward.

Any questions, comments?

All right.

Nobody has anything else to say?

Thank you very, very, very much for this presentation and for all the background work you put in to bring these forward.

I mean, I recognize there was a lot of research involved in the finished product, so thanks.

Thank you very much.

Okay, next we'll move on to a presentation of Council Bills 121-132 and 121-133 relating to collective bargaining agreements with the Seattle Police Management Association and Seattle Police Officers Guild.

You're welcome to introduce yourselves and begin your presentation.

Hi, Greg Doss, your Council Central Staff.

The Noble Central Staff Director.

but I think it would help that.

Okay, ready to go, Council President, when you are.

Sorry for the delay.

Please proceed.

All right, thanks.

This is a fairly easy contract, should be fairly quick, probably five minutes or so.

No, that's going to take...

Just want to let you all know that this is...

I'm going to try to do this as simply and quickly as I can, but it is going to be a fairly long presentation.

So with that, I will get started.

The Seattle Police Officers Guild contract between the city and SPOG is effective from January 1, 2024 to December 31, 2027. Also included in the legislation that would adopt this contract, which is Council Bill 121-133, is a memorandum of understanding that would allow SPD to civilianize certain backgrounding and recruiting efforts and services that would otherwise be performed by sworn officers.

And so what I'm going to do today is discuss the financial impacts, the police accountability impacts, and the operational benefits of the agreements.

Copies of both the proposed CBA and MOU are attached to my staff memo.

Before I get started with the contract though, I want to go into some background for how we got to this point.

Background on the negotiation process is important and colors how the city got to this agreement, so I want to make sure that it is fully covered.

And so I'll start by saying that The City's Labor Relations Committee, or LRPC, began the development of contract parameters consistent with the Seattle Municipal Code that outlines direction on how contracts are to be negotiated.

The LRPC has to hold a joint meeting with the Public Safety Committee to receive input from the City's accountability agencies and from the public on the effectiveness of Seattle's police accountability system.

That meeting was held way back in December of 2019. In February of 2020, the Public Safety Committee heard and passed Resolution 31930, which memorialized all of the input that was provided at that first public meeting.

The Council attached to that resolution letters from the three accountability agencies that prioritized and identified all of the accountability reforms that they sought, many of which are identified in the City's 2017 Accountability Ordinance, Ordinance 125315. Others were just priorities for the agencies and directors themselves.

The next step occurred when the LRPC adopted parameters.

Parameters were adopted under a new process that was instituted by then-Council President Lorena Gonzalez and were created with the assistance of the accountability agencies who were involved with the LRPC on setting those parameters.

The process resulted in the creation of literally dozens of parameters that would be raised as part of the contract negotiations.

The council's new process also involved the appointment of central staff member to the negotiation team.

The central staff member ensures that accountability parameters are raised in the negotiation and serves as a liaison to the council.

Didn't mean to interrupt, but this has been on the title page, so...

Yeah, I'm actually not even to the contract.

Okay, this is all introductory remarks.

I apologize, I'm just giving you lots of background.

Gotcha.

Just wanted to make sure that we didn't have a technical difficulty.

Thanks.

Sorry to interrupt.

So, the city in Spog...

entered negotiations in 2020 and continued negotiations for several years.

A new council, as you know, this council majority came in in 2024, and the public safety chair and LRPC members sought to revisit the accountability parameters.

And there was a meeting that was called forth by the public safety chair in February of 2024, where accountability agencies were asked to identify and prioritize their top accountability parameters and changes that they would like to see in the contract.

So just to recap, originally in 2020, dozens of reforms that were identified by the accountability agencies all are in letters attached to a resolution and accessible to the public and council members and reflected in my staff report.

There's a link there.

so many that it became necessary for the public safety chair to bring accountability agencies before the council in 2024 and say, hey, out of all these parameters, what are your most important things?

And from that meeting, the accountability agencies, the OPA, the CPC, and the OIG all came up with five priorities that we're gonna go to in just a moment.

The final piece of history was that there was an interim agreement, as you know, that you all passed last year that raised wages between 2020 and 2023, specifically for the purpose of increasing hiring at the police department.

As you know, that has gone fairly well.

but it was an interim agreement because parties agreed to keep negotiating on a forward-looking basis based on the accountability parameters that were originally identified and then highlighted as part of that meeting in 2024. While the interim agreement did increased the wages.

It also made some improvements to police accountability.

Those improvements are also covered in the staff report on the interim agreement, which is on Council Bill 1203783. I know this is a lot of background, so I'll stop and ask now if there are questions before I proceed into the contract overview.

Yes, Councilmember Kettle.

Colleagues, any questions?

I'm not vice chair of the council briefing, but given the topic, the council president asked that I step in.

Anything at this point, or should we press forward?

Okay.

Check, check, check.

Press forward, please.

Okay, so I'm going to start out by talking about key accountability reforms that were, as I say, identified and prioritized by the accountability agencies themselves.

I'm going to start with the first one on frontline investigations, which is really just a supervisor review of minor misconduct.

By way of background, if there's a complaint from the public, it's generally made directly with OPA.

If a supervisor sergeant becomes aware of a potential policy violation, then they have the authority to submit it to OPA.

And under this new contract, they would also have authority to investigate it themselves.

It has been the case in the past that supervisors could investigate misconduct themselves, but unfortunately the contract was such that it contained a number of restrictions that made these line-level, frontline investigations unworkable, and so essentially supervisors and sergeants started sending everything to OPA.

This change would allow, as you see here, frontline investigations to be conducted and it streamlined the process and the contract so that they can be conducted without OPA.

This is important because the accountability ordinance envisions a system and mentions that the most senior misconduct should be handled by OPA and minor misconduct should be handled by the supervisor chain of command to ensure that OPA has the appropriate amount of resources to dedicate on the more serious instances of misconduct.

I'm going to stop and ask if there's any questions.

Okay, so moving on to the second issue, which is the 180-day investigative timeline.

The current contract restricts OPA misconduct investigations to 180 days.

After that period, the city may no longer impose discipline for violations of policy unless an exemption applies.

The contract identified a number of situations that could trigger the 180-day period.

SPD and OPA found that that contract language is difficult to navigate and often were unable to determine when the 180 days kicked off.

It was for that reason that all three agencies, accountability agencies, identified this as a top priority.

The accountability ordinance says that the the 180 days should start at the moment that OPA receives a complaint.

This contract would more or less line it up with the accountability ordinance that the period would begin when OPA initiates or receives a complaint.

It also specifies that for minor acts of misconduct that it would begin when a frontline supervisor documents the complaint as part of that frontline process we talked about.

that would only be for less than serious or minor misconduct.

And then finally, the 180-day period would begin when OPA personnel are at a potential crime scene, use of force incident.

Obviously, they would be aware of the incident if they are there from the outset.

Stop and ask if there's any questions on that.

Okay.

Moving along, the third priority for accountability agencies was flexible use of civilian staff and OPA.

The current contract prohibits civilians from working on any case that could potentially lead to termination.

This limitation is at odds with the accountability ordinance which would allow the OPA director to staff the office with a mix of civilian and sworn in whatever configuration best supports public trust and complaint handling.

It is the case that the new CBA would allow civilians to work on serious misconduct cases provided that a sworn investigator is working alongside a civilian and is either the lead or co-lead for the investigation.

So it was the case that under the current contract civilians couldn't be involved in the most serious misconduct investigations.

Now, under this contract, they will be allowed to be involved in those misconduct evaluations, but they have to lead or co-lead with this warrant.

Move on to the discipline appeals process.

State law and the current contract requires that SPOG members appeal discipline decisions through the state's Public Employment Relations Commission, or PERC.

Persistent to the terms of the contract, a PERC arbitrator will hold what's known as a de novo hearing, where existing evidence can be re-examined, new evidence can be introduced, witnesses can be called, and the arbiter can reverse some or all of the chief's disciplinary decision.

The contract requires that arbiters apply an elevated standard of review if it's a potential that a finding of misconduct occurred and might make it difficult for an officer to get employment with another law enforcement agency.

And so as you see in number four on the slide, the accountability ordinance would make many revisions to this discipline appeals process, everything from the availability of new witnesses, new information, de novo-like review, and also would change the standard of a review so that it was not a higher level standard, but it was a preponderance of the evidence standard.

All of those things are matters that cannot be changed without negotiation with the SPOG and these are things that the city will not accept anything less.

will not back off of and so it is the case that these are going likely to go to be an impasse and go to arbitration where an arbiter will have to hear from both sides and make a determination as to whether or not the discipline system in the contract should be changed.

Any questions on that?

Okay, and the last one is subpoena authority.

The current contract prohibits the use of subpoenas to obtain personal information or personal records from bargaining unit members, their families, and third parties such as financial institutions or social media companies.

The accountability ordinance would allow OPA and OIG to issue subpoenas when necessary to compel officers to provide evidence or testimony that is key to an investigation.

As you can see on the slide, the City and SPOG have agreed to table that negotiation for this round of negotiations and it will not be addressed in arbitration as the discipline appeal process above will be.

So these, as I've mentioned, are the five priorities.

It's not a complete list of all the things that are in the accountability ordinance.

As I mentioned from the outset, it's a long list of things that are in the accountability ordinance, If you go back and you review the letters from the accountability agencies, these five things are certainly the very top priorities, especially the discipline appeals process.

That's made up of a number of different things, everything from the actual arbitration itself to the standard of review.

These are all the top things on the letters for the accountability agencies.

So, next I'm going to go into changes that were made relative to alternative response.

I'm not going to go too much into background on CARE or the community crisis responders.

The committee or the council is well aware of the city's effort to expand in that area.

As you also know, the RCW requires the city to bargain in good faith with SPOG before they can civilianize any duties that have historically been done by SPOG members, including the response to 911 calls.

As you are aware, the negotiating team had been working toward an agreement that will allow for sole dispatch of community crisis responders.

Currently, care department crisis responders can only accompany 911 or police officers on 911 calls, and specifically only to persons down and wellness checks as authorized by an MOU that the council passed in December of 2023. This proposed CBA would remove the cap on the number of care crisis responders that could be hired by care and deployed in the community.

It would also allow for sole dispatch of crisis responders in a number of situations, those situations that you see up top.

As I mentioned, under the dual dispatch system, the system that we currently have, there's two call types, persons down and wellness check.

What this new contract does is it moves away from call types and moves into the situation of a call, a report of a person in behavioral health crisis, a request for shelter, resources, food or transportation, or a person who appears to be in a physical state that needs to be checked for their own safety.

And then lastly, if a care responder is out in the field and sees any of these conditions, then they are able to self-deploy, call the 911 dispatch and say that they are on a call to handle these things.

It's noticeable that mutual dispatch will still be required for calls where there is either criminal activity, potential of danger to the crisis care responder, or if a call is coming from inside a non-public building or private residence.

In those case, the care person would have to be mutually dispatched again with the police officer.

The proposed CBA would also make permanent a couple other changes in the MOU that the Council passed in 2023. One of them would be to retain flexibility to use parking enforcement officers for special events, for assignments that might otherwise have been filled by SPOG members.

And then lastly, SPOG members would continue to be eligible for a stipend when they volunteer for special events.

That stipend would go from $225 to $250.

and in a moment I will go into the fiscal impacts of this legislation and we'll go over all these things including the stipend.

The next thing I want to talk about is other changes, one of which is increased civilianization of sworn functions.

The proposed contract would allow the city to assign civilians to augment the work of SPOG members that are in recruiting and also in backgrounding.

So I use the word augment.

It's not to supplant or replace, but those who are currently doing those functions, specifically in backgrounding, where there's a great demand right now, would be augmented by civilians.

And so that will provide some flexibility there.

The other change is that the CBA would establish a retiree medical trust.

Initially, that would be populated with $1,000 from the city.

and then on a monthly basis, the city would deposit $100 into each member's account.

And the last big change is the one that's up here, the language and education premiums.

Officers would receive a 1.5% premium if they are fluent in another language or they have an associate's degree in criminal justice, criminology, law enforcement, forensic science or related field.

they could receive a 4% premium if they hold a bachelor's degree from an accredited institution and there's no field of study restrictions there.

So move on to the financial impacts.

First, the annual wage increases, as you can see on this slide, 6% in 2024, 4.1% in 2025, 2.7% in 2026, all of those figures known.

The one that's not known is 2027, and based on the CPI, that one will fall somewhere between a floor of 3% and a ceiling of 4%.

The other notable costs I have gone over so far, the increase from $225 to $250 for the special events premium that officers receive to volunteer, this is actually not the increase, this is the total cost, about $4.5 million a year.

So that's what we pay officers an additional voucher, if you will, for volunteering for special events.

Of course, as I just mentioned, the retiree medical trust, that will come to a total of $1.1 million in 2026. The monthly contribution, $1.3 million in 2026 and $1.4 million in 2027. The language premium, $476,000 to $495,000, and the education incentive is $3.9 million in 2026 and $4.1 million in 2027. When developing these costs, labor relations assumed that we would see about a 12% participation with the language premium and a 20% with folks who have an associate's degree and 30% of folks who have a bachelor's degree.

So when it comes to the high level, the wages overall will be...

Sorry, the slide got a little bit...

we're looking at an incremental hit of 12 or an incremental increase of 12 million in 2024, 22 million in 2025, 42 million in 26 and 53 million in 2027. It is the case that the city budget office anticipated this growth and has withheld reserves to be able to meet these numbers.

It is also the case that they don't capture any growth in 2027. So we've talked about the officers that are coming on board in 2026 at a very high rate.

We expect that we might see 100 of them between now and the end of next year.

Those all covered in the numbers above and covered within the finance reserves.

2027, any growth there would not be covered.

So in terms of next step, This CBA has already been approved by the membership of SPOG.

Under Washington state labor law, the council must either approve or reject this CBA.

Approval of the CBA comes if a simple majority of the council accept it or vote for it.

The council has no authority to change it because it was bargained at the table and ratified by the union members and the LRBC participation with the parameters.

So if this bill is voted out by the council, the mayor would have authority to immediately implement it with SPOG.

However, the funding required to pay for both the back pay of 2024 through 2025 and the forward-looking pay of 2026 would come as part of an appropriations bill next year, most likely mid-year supplemental.

and then the costs for 2027, specifically those costs that I've said would relate to new SPD officers would have to be handled as part of the 2027-2028 budget process.

And that includes my presentation, faster than I thought, but open for questions.

I'm looking, yes, Council Member Kettle.

Thank you, Chair.

First, thank you, Mr. Doss.

One reason why the questions were left to the end was partly because of the great central staff memo that we have that runs down through all this.

and the majority of us have lived this too, so there's that aspect of it as well.

And so I just wanted to note, thank you for this rundown and also thank you for your service during the course of this labor negotiations process that we went through.

Colleagues, I ask for your support of this, and partly because, yes, there's the cost considerations, but this is a major step forward in so many different ways.

And I know there's those that are critiquing this agreement, but part of that is, unlike the majority of us who live and work in this labor world, the state labor law has a lot of restrictions.

and so then there's also the arbitration process.

These are considerations that I don't think are fully understood, particularly in the realm of our accountability.

If you want to move forward, then we have to change state labor law.

and so this goes to what we were talking about earlier with the OIR letter.

This is a major consideration and something that needs to be understood by everybody.

And then there's the labor relations process.

We can talk about unfair labor practices so there's a lot of things in the interim but also with PERC, the Public Employment Relations Commission, there's a lot of pieces that go to that in terms of when you think it's simple.

A lot of people comment on this like it's simple, but it's not.

And that system, by the way, is really geared towards dollars and cents.

It's not geared to accountability parameters and provisions and a labor agreement.

And so I just wanted to say that in terms of basic understanding as a setup.

And I often hear people say, it's rushed.

Well, I have former Councilmember Kathy Moore's voice in my ear saying, because we have been clamoring for this for two years.

So this idea that this agreement is rushed is made by those that do not understand the process of which we, the Select Labor Committee of the LRPC, the legislative side, the council side, have been working through this.

and I say that too because I think people make various comments about this agreement not truly understanding the various pieces that we work through in order to get to where we are now.

The idea that this is rushed is, at least from the legislative side, the SLC side, totally not true.

Moving forward on the accountability pieces, I think really important is to look at OPA.

There's a number of pieces that really, I mentioned earlier about social housing.

This agreement helps set up OPA for success.

You have the 180-day timeline, clearing that up.

That was creating so many challenges.

The civilization piece is very important.

By the way, we predated this with our chief of police legislation from earlier this year, again, which was helping OPA be set up for success.

And we keep doing these pieces.

And here's the next piece that comes to this.

Frontline investigations.

by having major issues go to OPA, that allows them to work on the major issues.

They're not getting clogged down with every little piece that got sent from SPD.

And here's the important part.

I started working on this subject even before I realized, because I initially read the accountability ordinance right at the very beginning of starting in 24 and working through those, but I really realized that if we're trying to develop leaders in the Seattle Police Department, if everything goes to OPA, then we're not developing leaders.

You know, we're not gonna have that good sergeants.

And if you don't have good sergeants, guess what?

In the future, you're not gonna have good lieutenants and captains.

So people talk about like the senior leadership of SPD and they have these different pieces.

Well, you're not helping that if we're not growing leaders starting from the earliest days.

And that sergeant and the sworn officer, that piece is so important.

So important.

and I recognize that I'm pushing this and I'm speaking to this as a retired naval officer, but it is so important in this area in terms of the sworn officers and our uniform personnel in Seattle Police Department.

And it's gonna pay dividends in the future in terms of developing tomorrow's future leaders.

I also note the one thing in terms that, as Mr. Doss noted, subpoenas being pulled out.

And for future negotiation, yes, particularly as related to personal information and records and the like.

But remember, when your OPA is internal to SPD, so there's other pieces here where you don't necessarily need a subpoena because you're on the inside, you're working with.

And by the way, we have our responsibilities here with city council and oversight that we can also work in terms of getting information if needed.

Another piece, and it's in the accountability ordinance, but it's been furthered as going over the years, is our accountability system.

No city in the United States has what we have.

The combination of OIG, Officer Inspector General, the Office of Police Accountability, and the Community Police Commission That is so important.

And that is going to be reinforced.

That is something that I have been supporting and championing.

And it's so important as we move from consent decree, you know, federal oversight to local oversight.

No other city has the accountability partners oversight that we do.

And I would argue that we have a strong City Council Public Safety Committee oversight as well.

and this goes to ensuring that we continue to move forward on reform, to continue that we have constitutional policing, community policing, and all that these pieces move forward.

And I've been making these commitments again and again.

I made it yesterday with an interview speaking to these kinds of topics with Converge Media because that's really important.

So working with our community across the board in the city but also those communities that have been impacted so strongly over the years and you know my commitment at least in terms of chair of the Public Safety Committee is to continue that.

So at the end of the day I recognize the costs are difficult but at the end of the day this is a great deal and this deal has not been seen before and I think Mr. Doss with his being involved with this over the years can speak to that in terms of what this brings us.

And I haven't even spoken to alternative response.

And so, colleagues, that's just a quick introduction, and I really believe that this is a major step forward, and we will continue to make these steps forward as we move forward, both in the labor process, but also outside of the labor process as we work in council.

Thank you, Chair.

Okay, I saw that Councilmember Saka had his hand up next, and then I don't know who was first, Councilmember Rink or Lynn, and then I also see Councilmember Juarez also has your hand up.

So go ahead, Councilmember Saka.

Thank you Madam Council President and thank you Mr. Doss for your very thoughtful presentation here and also want to thank you for your robust participation and engagement with me directly in my office over the last few weeks, few months frankly, on this as soon as the deals were announced.

sit on the Labor Relations Policy Committee that sets the parameters for any of these agreements or approves from, initially approves the agreements before they get to this stage, but very keenly interested in these deals.

And so I just want to thank you for your guidance and kind of empower me with some important information, and your patience as well, because I know I have a lot of pesky questions sometimes.

But very insightful.

Can I ask, can you just clarify related to the thing we're kind of, I guess, most recently iterating about?

Friday or Saturday, but related to the fiscal impacts of the proposed deal.

So Seattle police officers are today the highest paid officers in the state.

And the contract that we approve last year did that.

We were hemorrhaging officers.

We were, at that point, number 12 or 13 in the list of highest paid jurisdictions, if I recall correctly, something there about.

And so we absolutely, mission critical, we get that done.

And I think that's a good deal.

Now we're up for this proposed renew or more permanent deal.

That was a tentative deal.

Seattle police officers still the highest paid law enforcement officers in the state as far as we know today.

I certainly understand that there's probably parallel negotiations going on and that could change with the announcement of any new pending deal.

But based off what we know, and we could probably, as a lawyer, I could probably insert all the qualifiers and hypotheticals, but based off what we know today, within reasonable efforts, are they still the highest paid today?

Yes, Councilmember Saka.

If the contract was not adopted, Seattle would continue to be the highest paid through the rest of this year, a few more weeks.

What we know today is that one city in the Puget Sound region would pass us immediately in 2026. We know for sure that another city would pass us in 2028. There are a number of contracts in the police agencies around the Puget Sound that are being negotiated right now for 2026, so it's difficult to say if anyone would pass us.

We are right now paying 2023 wages.

As I say, as of today, still the highest, but the world is moving, and we expect several contracts are going to be passed in the next few months.

So we know for sure one, and there may be some others.

Got it, and can you just clarify for everyone the reason why that would happen in terms of the one that we know about, would that be the CPI, agree to CPI increases in that one jurisdiction and potentially others?

I think it would be beyond CPI that that jurisdiction is negotiating for police wages based on CPI.

It's also based on market adjustments, what other agencies in the Puget Sound region are getting.

Got it.

Thank you.

No further questions, Council President.

Councilmember Lin or Rink?

Yeah, like I said, I didn't see who got their hand up first.

Go ahead, please.

Thank you, Council President, and thank you, Greg, for being at the table today for your presentation and for your detailed memos, as always.

I had a couple of questions for the sake of clarification for the viewing public to clarify just what this collective bargaining agreement does.

So taking a look through the track changes from the previous contract to this contract, I'm seeing that a few of the qualifications to begin the 180-day investigative timeline were removed.

It is my understanding that this was done in order to remove any accidental triggers of the beginning of the 180-day period.

Am I correct in that assessment that this was removed in order to give the Office of Police accountability more time and clarity as to when their investigative period begins?

I believe that's the case.

It is enormously convoluted and confusing if you look at page 10 of the track changes, which you're probably looking at now.

There's about three or four different ways that that 180 days can start, and in cases where where the investigation goes along and is bumping up against 180 days, it would be really hard to figure out when that clock started ticking.

And so this makes it very clear, very easy for OPA.

They can time their investigations accordingly, and if it looks like they're going to be going beyond that 180 days, they can work with the union on potential extensions.

Thank you for clarifying that.

Now moving to issue number three, you identified within the SPOG CBA.

The proposed CBA allows civilians to work on serious misconduct cases provided a sworn investigator will also be assigned to the case as the lead or co-lead for the investigation.

Am I correct in understanding that this issue area, as negotiated by SPOG, works under the assumption that they do not want solo OPA civilian investigators handling serious misconduct cases?

And would you say that having a sworn officer as a lead or co-lead of the investigation would also provide OPA with a point of view that may contrast with an OPA civilian investigator?

Thank you, Councilmember.

That's a difficult question to answer.

My role in these negotiations, it's more than to be an observer.

I do participate on the negotiating team and work with the city to advance accountability parameters.

But it is also difficult for me to say what the other side, what Spog's thoughts are when they're negotiating these.

The collective bargaining laws, 4156, allow them to specify what parts of their body of work including investigations are to be potentially civilianized.

And so I think it's a fair assumption that SPOG is concerned about making sure that the investigations are done with persons who are knowledgeable in police procedure and have on the ground experience.

I think that's a fair assumption.

It also is the case that this is a a situation where they have the ability to bargain this, and so they are.

I hope that helps.

That does.

Thank you, Greg, and thank you, as always, for taking on my tough questions.

Colleagues, just to provide a brief comment before moving on to my next question, it appears to me that the requirement of having a sworn officer as a lead or co-lead of investigation of misconduct within a department is at odds with the accountability ordinance.

as it may not be a configuration that best supports public trust in the complaint handling process.

But moving along in my questions for today, just taking a look at the discipline and appeals process, as you stated in your memo, state law and current contract, the current contract allows for SPOG members to appeal disciplinary decisions through the state's Public Employment Relations Commission and the arbitrator will apply an elevated standard of review.

Could you confirm that as a city we're unable to move to next steps such as going down to Olympia until we move to pass the formally designated impasse stage?

Yes, I'll get to that in just a second.

I also want to go back and highlight what you just said a moment ago, in that it is very true that the accountability ordinance has a different vision of civilianization, including for investigative purposes of misconduct.

And I want to emphasize that the accountability ordinance does say that the OPA director should be able to utilize civilian and sworn resources in any way that they see fit for the public trust.

I want to make sure that balanced in my comments there.

As to the potential arbitration for issues related to discipline, it is the case that The collective bargaining laws require that these be negotiated as part of working conditions.

When I say these, I mean discipline conditions.

Everything from the de novo hearing that might be used by an officer to appeal their discipline to the witnesses and even to the standard of review that is required in that hearing.

All of those things have to be bargained with the union.

All those things are things that the city is not willing to let go of and that we expect that the city will be moving forward in arbitration to address those things.

It is the case that arbitration is, arbiters in the state of Washington are generally guided by the RCW, which places more of an emphasis on settling wage disputes.

So when they receive a dispute on discipline and working conditions, that may be something that might be challenging for them to resolve.

If it's something that they can't resolve, then yeah, I think the next step for the city would be to seek changes at the legislative level to say, we went through the PERC process, we went through the collect- we abided by collective bargaining laws, we went to arbitration, we weren't able to find the kind of reforms that we were looking for there, and so we as a city are looking for potential changes to collective bargaining laws.

Thank you, Greg, and colleagues.

This, of course, connects to the earlier discussion we had related to the state legislative agenda, particularly my amendment.

The need to update police accountability arbitration rules and procedures to ensure discipline for misconduct is fair and consistent is a part of this work.

and as was stated during the presentation, subpoena authority as an issue area has had no changes in this proposed contract.

And moving along to the care department, the parameters in which they can be deployed to as a solo dispatch call.

Is it the case that SPOG members may believe that situations such as homelessness encampments or private businesses are too dangerous for a solo dispatch?

I think that's, again, a good assumption.

It's the case that the members of SPOG have been outspoken about potential dangers to civilian staff who might respond to someone who is armed or might otherwise present a danger.

So I think that's probably fair.

It is backing up to my prior statement.

I also have to say that it's also just entirely possible that SPOG is seeking to control how this is implemented because they are allowed that authority under the collective bargaining laws.

It is their current body of work.

Thank you for daylighting that, Greg, and I think, colleagues, I wanted to lift this up just given, I know from my conversations in community, minimizing armed officer responses to individuals experiencing mental health crises will reduce negative outcomes.

We know from the National Alliance on Mental Illness and other partners that when individuals are experiencing crisis, seeing an armed officer can actually escalate a situation in a number of cases.

And simply wanted to reflect some of the conversation I've had in a number of neighborhoods, particularly CID.

Private businesses are looking for clarification on this matter.

and the importance of having a deescalatory response such as the care team is essential for a diversified response system that serves our community.

And lastly, just touching on, I know Council Member Saka touched on some of my questions I had about wages, but just wanted to note for the record as officers have received close to a 42% increase over the past five years with a specific note of a 13% increase from the current starting salary of $104,000 and $118,000 before now bumping up to $126,000.

But I have no further questions for today and I want to thank you again Greg for answering all of my tough questions.

Yeah, thank you and Just want to underscore that is the case.

It's 104 currently.

It'll raise to 118, and that is for officers who, as a basic wage, it is the case that an officer, and just starting, it is the case that an officer that has been on payroll, as you can see in the contract, for 54 months is about four and a half years.

The base pay would move up to 151. That does not include any of the special premiums, longevity, any kind of other premium that they might be awarded through the contract.

So those are base wages and they are in the contract that you have in track changes.

Thank you.

Council Member Lin.

Thank you, Council President.

First, I just want to start off with a couple of comments.

Representation is so critically important in all forms of public service, but especially within Seattle Police Department, and particularly for District 2, one of the most diverse districts in our city.

So I am supportive of bonuses for language premiums that will help to diversify the police force.

And I know we've talked about it before, but just want to clarify again, I think so many members of the public would be confused by the idea that accountability is something that we have to bargain.

This is an area of policy that typically city council here sits in a policy making role, but we do not get to just dictate that under the state law we have to bargain accountability.

I just want to state for the record that I don't believe that accountability should be up for negotiation.

I don't believe that residents of District 2 believe it should be up for negotiation.

I do want to just say, because this is such a unique area where we either vote for or against the contract.

It's either up or down.

There's no tweak here or there.

It's been bargained already.

And I heard my colleague, Councilmember Kettle, talk about that this has been a negotiation and so it hasn't been a rush process but I also want to comment that I think for the members of the public it might still feel a bit rushed because and I would love to hear about what are the opportunities in bargaining for the public to provide input because I think a lot of the bargaining happens behind closed doors.

And so at least from the public perception, it might feel rushed.

And I would just love for you to talk about where there's opportunities for public input.

Maybe not right now.

I mean, we will take public comment tomorrow on the up or down vote.

But in general, as part of the bargaining process, when will bargaining again, assuming we do pass this or that it is adopted, when would bargaining begin again?

And when would the public get to provide input?

into bargaining priorities or have insight into the bargaining process.

Thank you, Councilmember.

In this case, of course, the contract goes through 2027, so I imagine it would probably be during 2027 or I believe it's 180 days before the bargaining can start.

As I mentioned at the start of the presentation, it's required by the SMC that the public safety have committee and it's a joint public safety committee and LRPC committee, select labor committee that come together and hold a public hearing so that the public can come and talk about police accountability and can say the things that they are interested in achieving in the next contract.

during that same process the accountability agencies will come forward and they will identify their priorities.

If you all do it like you did last time they'll identify them in writing and the central staff can author on your behalf a resolution that captures all of those reforms that would be made in the next cycle and it can be memorialized in that way or it could even be memorialized in a more in a statutory way, that's something that we can talk to you about next year or as we're getting closer to 2027. All of the same processes or all of the processes that were used this time around during the formation of parameters involving the accountability agencies, bringing them in to work with the LRPC, that's not something that's required in the accountability ordinance or required by statute.

That's something that council decided to do themselves to ensure that accountability agencies were at the table when parameters were being developed.

That's another area that the council could choose to follow in 2027 and could implement either informally again or as part of a formal change to the SMC.

I hope I'm getting at your questions.

I think so.

Are there ever interim updates that the public gets to learn about, or does the public just find out once an agreement is reached?

Yeah, unfortunately there's no updates during the process.

If you're an LRPC member that you're provided with updates, but state law requires that negotiations are confidential and that all members of the LRPC have to maintain confidence on the updates that they get fairly regularly, but unfortunately the public does not.

And I have heard of there might be ways to do things more like open bargaining, but you have to negotiate that between the parties.

If there were ways to provide updates to the public, I think that would help to build trust, because having this negotiation happen and then all of a sudden it gets released, I think can be a little bit jarring just because all of a sudden it's presented as this up or down package and there's no interim information that is shared.

A couple other things.

You mentioned some priorities that went into this in terms of the parameters.

Can you talk about things that were not in those parameters?

I think we talked about things like outside employment, getting more information or guardrails around outside employment.

That was not part of the parameters and wasn't included here.

Is that correct?

Yeah, that was one of the many operational and accountability priorities that were identified in the letters from the accountability agencies and attached to that original resolution that I mentioned.

There are several others.

I would say that The highest priorities in those letters is represented in the top five, but things like you mentioned, operational issues like requiring officers to log the overtime that they have as part of a system with SPD so that SPD can monitor the hours that are being spent, worked on overtime outside of city employment, that certainly is one of them.

There are other parameters that had been identified around suspension or indefinite suspensions, just by way of example, not to prioritize one over the other.

As we're going to hear about in the SPMA contract, there are some about the OPA director being able to direct an investigation outside of SPD, outside of the criminal section of SPD, if it's a criminal investigation.

So there are examples of other things that didn't make the top five.

But again, the highest issues in those letters from the accountability agencies relate to discipline, standard of review, appeal, arbitration, subpoena authority, et cetera.

Thank you.

And just one or two more.

So nothing in here adjusts our goals around 30 by 30. Is that correct?

That's correct.

I think it's the case that most of the changes that would be made in the 30 by 30 program, the things that the department and nationwide experts have identified as potential policies and services that could be added to the department, things like mentorship programs, career tracks for women, various kinds of recruitment efforts.

All of those things are within management rights.

They're not things that Seattle has to negotiate with the union.

Thank you.

And final question.

If we do vote down the contract, we return to the bargaining table?

Would that be correct?

On that one, I probably would have to get the lawyers to talk about it.

OK, fair enough.

Thank you so much.

Council Member Juarez, did you have your hand up?

I did, thank you.

Please go ahead.

I'll be brief.

Some of the issues I was going to raise, my colleagues did.

I just want to also thank the Seattle Police Commission.

I know we have a representative here who submitted a memo to us, an eight-page memo dated December 2nd.

So I want to thank Taryn.

I recognize your handwriting.

I want to thank you for that because that was really clarifying.

And I should advise my colleagues that you should read these items three and four the SPMA and the SPOG in conjunction with the accountability ordinance that was passed in May of 2017 and unfortunately yours truly has been here since 2015 and was spent three terms on the LRPC so from 2017 to 2025 that's eight years so this wasn't just sprung on the community and from that we've had some wins and we've had some losses, but as you know, collective bargaining and negotiations are kept confidential on both sides, not just for the city side or not just for SPOG and SPMA, but also on the city side and what our perimeters are.

in how we want to negotiate.

So we're not actually negotiating, i.e., accountability as normally you would use that statement.

What we have to do is stay within the four corners of a collective bargaining agreement under state law on what issues that we can actually negotiate and which ones we don't.

So I can say, and I'm sure there can be a lot more, particularly after the removal or the ending of the consent decree, is we've had some successful outcomes in the last eight years.

We created the care department, and I believe in this budget we've doubled their staff and also positions.

I think, and I'm sure I'll get a text if I'm wrong, when we created the lead program, the co-lead program, we tripled their budget since 2017. We created the Office of Inspector General, which we didn't have before, the OIG.

we strengthened and made better the OPA and I just can say from a long-standing perspective of again serving three terms on the LRPC, the negotiations with SPOG, SPMA, no they haven't always been pleasant but they're needed and the way that the community understands a lot of these issues is through the Community Police Commission and also through the Public Safety Committee So these aren't all brand new.

Am I happy with all of it?

No.

Could we do better?

Absolutely.

Will we continue to do better?

You bet.

That's why the LRPC was created, to have an elected body, that is five council members here, that serve on the LRPC, that go through these very difficult meetings.

And thank you, Mr. Doss, because we've been looking at each other for five or six years now, as well as our Labor Council.

going through all these issues about what we can and cannot do, what we're allowed to do, whether or not it's arbitration, whether it's the 180, whether you can have subpoenas, who can have subpoena power, all those things are vetted and we're doing what we can within the confines of the law and our responsibilities.

and I hope the public can appreciate that and this isn't a political ideology.

When we are elected, we are sworn in and part of the charter is public safety and we have our opinions about that and I was here when Charlene Lowes was killed And we had our ideas about, obviously, constitutional policing, the consent decree, 2020, all of that stuff.

So this isn't done in a vacuum.

It's done with community.

It's done with the Community Police Commission.

It's done through the Public Safety Committee.

And it's also done through the LRPC.

And as I said, having Greg and our lawyers that represent the city of Seattle with the SPOG and their labor lawyers, I mean, it's not easy.

And I'm hoping that when I'm gone, that some of you will step up and serve on the LRPC and public safety.

And needless to say, there's a lot more to do.

And the reason why it's a yes or no vote is because that's what the law requires.

If it were up to some of us, we would have an open labor negotiations on TV.

But that's not how the law works.

And you wouldn't want it to work that way for collective bargaining, because that's not how labor law works.

So that's the law that we are following.

So with that, I again just want to thank the Community Police Commission because they have been obviously a solid supporter and accountability since 2015 up until today's date and I've been hoping that our colleagues would look at the successes and the phenomenal successful byproducts of what happened in 2015 and 2016 and post 2020 and I'm really proud that this council doubled the budget and the staff of the care team and we negotiated and discussed and a lot of stuff I can't share because they're confidential but whether or not it's dual dispatch, whether or not it's single and what is the confidence in a care team and what is the model that we looked at and how do we make it so that it is Seattle reflecting.

So it looks like the kind of policing we want in the city of Seattle.

Not San Francisco, not Minneapolis, not LA, Seattle.

And I'm proud of that.

And is it the best work?

No.

Do we have more to do?

Absolutely.

So thank you, Madam Chair, or Madam President.

Okay, Councilmember Rivera, go ahead.

Thank you Council President and thank you Council Member Juarez for all of your thoughtful comments and I will say that as someone who participated on the LRPC it is made up of a majority of this council, so we get five folks, the mayor's office is there, of course they get five folks as well.

I will attest to the robust conversations and the hard work that went into that and the fact that by state law, it is confidential, as you were saying, Council Member Juarez, so I appreciate you underscoring.

I will further underscore there are legal ramifications for our violation of that confidentiality, which, Greg, you also stated, and I'm just underscoring because it is it is a serious thing to violate that in the course of these negotiations.

And I will also say that the LRPC met with the accountability partners as an LRPC and that is important too because it just goes to how important it was to all of us to meet with the accountability partners.

we care very much about the accountability partners as a council and that is true for those of us that participated on the LRPC.

So I really, you know, I take the weight of this very seriously and I just want to make sure that folks understand from the public and our colleagues here and especially colleagues who haven't been here because I appreciate that you all care deeply about this as well and I really appreciate all your comments and just really to underscore how much work that went into this into the two years that I've been sitting here and participating in this process.

And Greg's been here a lot longer than I have in terms of participating in the process.

I can tell you I am very grateful to you, Greg, and to you, Director Nelson, who have also been here for a while working on these issues, because you hold yourself to the highest standards, and I know that, and so I feel like I'm in great hands with you, Greg, and with you, Director Noble.

I really wanted to underscore that and appreciate also the comments of my colleague, Councilmember Juarez, who's also been here working with these issues for some time.

So, you know, the public needs to know that this council really does care and we take our roles seriously.

and we do care about the accountability partner and the accountability pieces.

And I think that just, I just wanted to restate that because I understand the public feels if they're not able to listen in or have insight to a conversation, I know how that feels.

I know how that feels for me when I'm not part of a conversation.

So I certainly can understand that.

And it is really important to me that the public at large understand how seriously we take these processes as council members, as elected leaders who took oaths of office, and how much this particular council, I can't speak to other councils across the country, but how much this particular council cares about the accountability partners as we're engaged in these conversations and how much, you know, how great and how lucky we are to have staff like Greg participating in these conversations.

So thank you, Council President.

Council Member Kettle, I'll give you the last word.

I'll just say my piece, then you can finish up.

Also, I'll go and then you go.

I will just quickly say I appreciate the comments from everybody and particularly Council Member Juarez because of the insight from that earlier period and just to highlight the point and thank you for the question, Council Member Rink, the whole point about state law.

I mean accountability of the ordinance is one thing, but state law is something very different.

and we have to operate within that.

And if you don't, then that's the ULP, and that's when we have our trouble.

But I will say, in terms of my point about accountability partners, that we do provide these opportunities.

Are you saying your words now, or are you gonna say some afterwards?

No, I'm done.

Oh, okay, gotcha.

So you've got the last word, Mr. Chair.

Go ahead.

So, you know, the Public Safety Committee will continue.

In fact, we'll look to the accountability partners in the beginning of the next year.

to come back and to speak.

And that's the public comment piece, the engagement piece, not just from the organizations when they do their outreach, but also between the three accountability partners and the Public Safety Committee.

And that opportunity for public comment will be there, however indirect.

Thank you.

I want to comment on the public allegation that this is rushed.

I guess it just depends on your perspective.

Let me walk back some timing.

The rank and file approved the TA, the tentative agreement, on October 19th.

and on October 22nd, this is 2025, so that would be a month and a half, maybe almost two months ago, the mayor held a presser upstairs and many of us spoke at that press conference.

All the details of the contract were made available.

And then between that date and now, there was a lot of drafting of legislation, a lot of writing of memos, a lot of crossing of I's and T's, et cetera, et cetera.

This information, the terms of the contract have been public for quite some time.

The last contract that was approved, the last SPOG contract that was approved was approved by council in 2024. I believe it was April or May, somewhere around there.

That was three years late or two years late because it was retroactive.

It was passed in 2024, but it was for and other things in 2021 and 2022, and I believe 23, if I'm not mistaken.

Okay, so that took a really long time.

And so I would say that when we're dealing with something as sensitive as public safety, yes, it takes a while, but this was, I as chair of the LRPC do not feel that it was rushed.

In fact, I was wanting it to, I was wanting to come to conclusions sooner because There were some accountability measures that I wanted to see through and either they're going to be agreed upon or not, they're going to go to arbitration or not, but let's just go forward here.

So anyway, like I said, it's all in your perspective.

I think that we are forgetting the real prize here, at least from my perspective.

This contract allows for solo dispatching of care team members that no longer have a cap on their number.

This enables the thing that so many people in the public, in SPD, across the board have been wanting for so long, which is a non-uniformed emergency response, the care team.

It was never going to work or fulfill its potential until they are able to go out on their own without the mandatory dual dispatch.

One of the goals of the care team was to provide a more appropriate response.

People that are trained in social work who understand what people in crisis on our streets are going through.

That was part of the goal.

Another part of the goal was to free up time for our already staff-strapped police department so that they could respond to other emergency calls that obviously require a badge and a gun sometimes, unfortunately.

The point is, that is the big win here.

We will finally see what CARE can really do All right, we'll see it fulfill its potential.

We tripled the number of care dispatchers, or not care dispatchers, but I believe that the team started with seven or maybe four or five.

Anyway, I'm looking at central staff here.

Started with a handful and then we doubled that number in the budget last year during budget deliberations.

and then we just added for 2026, we put in 20 more.

So I think that we've tripled or quadrupled the number of care responders.

We have expanded, I think across the city, every district in the city will now have a care response, whereas before it was downtown.

That is all possible because of this contract.

And so this is what has taken some time.

And without those terms in this contract, that priority, that policy priority would not be able to be fulfilled.

So I just wanted to remind people that that is really a, you know, what this means.

And go on.

I was just going to clarify the numbers you were looking for.

Currently, 24 care responders moving to 48 care responders.

It is the case that 48 care responders, to utilize a force of that size, you're going to want to expand the calls that and it's the case that CARE has said that under this new contract they could respond to as many as 48,000 more calls with this criteria.

So in terms of expanding, yes.

Yeah.

Quite a bit.

And as you said, Greg, you said that was police body of work or what, I can't remember the term of art.

That is sworn officers' body of work that is now not their body of work.

We also civilianized a lot of the duties when we approved the contract in 2024. so that they could do a lot of other things, backgrounding, et cetera, et cetera.

And so I'm just kind of wanting people to make sure that there has been some give and take, but again, the reason why it took so long was in part so that we could get all the pieces together so that we could have a non-uniformed response to people in crisis.

That's all I have to say.

Any other comments?

Okay.

Would you like to have any closing words?

Okay.

I do then.

One thing I would like to say.

We also have, now it really is time for the care team to show what it has to offer.

And I just wanted to say, since I won't have that many opportunities to say it from the dais, that there are now new resources in 2026 that the care responders can use to help the people in crisis on our streets.

And I'm talking about a lot of the treatment options that, you know, there's on-demand inpatient treatment, medication for opioid use disorder.

There are a lot more resources, and I will hope that There's coordination amongst our first responders and our caseworkers and our human service providers that we make sure that the people that are being responded to actually get the care that they need.

All right.

Thank you very, very, very much for all the work going forward.

I mean, you've been pedal to the metal and shoulder to the grindstone, all those cliches.

to see you tomorrow, or not see you tomorrow, but we will take this up tomorrow in full council.

All right, thank you.

Thank you.

I hate to mention this.

It's PMA.

It's PMA.

Oh.

Another contract.

All right, moving right along.

This one I think will be- Fewer slides in a simpler story, but an important one.

Thank you, Ben.

Yes.

All right, so this is the Seattle Police Management Association.

When we were talking about SPOG, we were talking about officers and sergeants.

This group is about 80 individuals in SPD that represents the lieutenants and the captains.

It's the case that this Council Bill 121-132 also would authorize a collective bargaining agreement of basically the same period from January 1, 24 to December 31, 27. Again, as we've been talking about, there's a process leading up to parameters for SPOG.

That same process led up to the parameters for SPMA.

Council held a public hearing.

At that time, the accountability agencies attended the hearing.

They identified all their parameters or their priorities for SPMA.

Again, those parameters were incorporated into letters that were attached to a resolution and guided the development of the parameters for the SPMA contract.

So essentially the exact same process, slightly different dates on when the public was able to weigh in.

It is resolution 32112 that you can find the parameters that were used, or not the parameters, the accountability issues that were identified by the accountability agencies for this contract.

So with that, I'm gonna go ahead and jump into the accountability section of this contract.

We talked a little bit about the 180 days.

I'm not gonna go too much more into that, but the 180 days affects captains, lieutenants, as well as officers and sergeants.

One thing to note about the 180 days is that it runs concurrently with any internal investigations that are done by SPD's Force Review Board.

When there's a Type 3, when a member of the public is involved in a potential use of force that is of the strongest kind up to the death of the member, then the SPD Force Review Board will review those incidents and make sure that sort of an initial look at whether or not those uses of force were consistent with policy.

For the sake of thoroughness, OPA does not start its misconduct investigation at the same time as the Force Review Board is doing their work.

So it is the case that OPA's investigation is often delayed by the amount of time that it takes the FRB to do its work.

The accountability ordinance would require that any SPD board or unit, including the force review board, ensure timely referral to OPA of incidents that might involve misconduct or serious uses of force.

So I think it's obvious that the provision is intended to ensure that OPA has sufficient time to to look at use of force.

One benefit of this contract is in cases where the force review board was involved and OPA had to delay their investigation to accommodate the force review board, this contract would ensure that 180 days the clock is adjusted in a way that OPA always would have at least 60 days to conclude its investigation.

an important improvement.

Not all of these improvements or reforms, I should say, are in the accountability ordinance.

One of them not in the accountability ordinance is around past practice.

There is a police officer's bill of rights in the current contract that says that around the minimum rights of an officer, where the language of a contract or past practices of the department grant the officer greater rights, those rights shall pertain.

And so it has been in the past interpreted this section that if it's a current practice, it's incorporated in the contract via reference and what this contract, this proposed CBA would do is it would essentially eliminate that.

It would eliminate an officer's ability to claim that something that isn't part of the contract exists as a right under the contract.

The third thing, the CBA purpose statement.

It's the case that the accountability agencies have long asked for a commitment in the purpose statement in the contract to accountability.

This contract would add such a purpose statement.

Both parties support a strong police accountability system that's fair and partial and provides for procedural justice for community and officers.

The next one deals with overtime use during or preceding a suspension.

The proposed CBA would prohibit SPMA members, lieutenants specifically, from working overtime between the time a suspension is imposed and the time it has been fully served.

There's been a concern in the past that a requirement to allow officers to work overtime before their suspension is implemented would potentially provide the officers to work enough overtime to mitigate the financial cost of the suspension, this would prohibit that.

State overtime use, actually the next one is statute of limitations for concealing misconduct.

It has been the case under the contract that there's a five-year statute of limitation on SPD's ability to impose discipline or a loss of pay.

The contract also has exceptions to that process, specifically when an employee has been dishonest under an investigation or concealed acts of misconduct.

What this would do is it would add to that exception not just the employee adding or concealing misconduct, but potentially any employee, other officers also concealing misconduct would allow the statute of limitations to be suspended.

Another number six is implementing indefinite suspension.

The contracts has been interpreted in the past to mean that before an indefinite suspension can be implemented, the union must first be notified what this CBA would do is to clarify that the unions do not have to be notified before an indefinite suspension can be issued.

Referring, and some of these actually, I'll pause real quick, and some of these, Council Member Lynn asked about accountability parameters that were not in those top five.

Some of these that I'm mentioning are accountability parameters that have been identified either as part of the accountability ordinance or by the accountability agencies that didn't make that.

And another one is referring criminal investigations to outside investigators.

It is the case that under the current contract, the chief has the right to make that determination.

If a criminal, if an officer is accused of a criminal action, the chief can determine whether, in the city of Seattle, the chief can determine whether that person is investigated by the Seattle Police Department or an outside investigative agency, such as the state patrol, under this new contract.

If the chief and the OPA director disagreed on whether that matter should be investigated internally or externally, then it would automatically go to an outside agency for investigation.

Just to highlight something Greg mentioned in reference to a question from Councilmember Lin.

At a high level, to date, we've been a little bit more successful on the accountability front with SPMA.

So what you're seeing here, and I was going to make this point earlier as well, For good or for bad, and perhaps to some level of frustration, it's the nature of bargaining that you're making incremental progress, or you're hoping to make incremental progress with each bargain.

So with this argument with SPMA, we are continuing to make incremental progress down this path.

This is not to endorse disagreement or the previous one, just to explain the nature of what you're seeing here.

So what you're seeing here is success, sort of the next round of things, if you will, that one might want to pursue.

and that it's not to say that we got everything we wanted, that the city was interested in either, but just to understand why this is different and how it sort of speaks to the overall bargaining process in total.

Thank you for adding that, Ben.

That's something I neglected to mention up front.

The reason we're getting down, as Ben said, to later in the list is because SPDMA has already addressed many of those top five that we talked about.

Their subpoena authority, is already something that's allowed for SPMA members.

Many of the discipline issues that we've discussed, whether it's the standard of review or bringing in new witnesses or new evidence in arbitration, those things were addressed through a process that SPMA put into their contract.

It is now the case that they have a preponderance of the evidence standard for appeals of discipline.

and many of the other issues that we've discussed today have already been addressed, and that's why we're sort of getting to these next ones on the list.

There were a couple...

Just a further comment on that as well, just to understand why could this be the case.

SPMA members and SPOG members potentially experience the disciplinary system differentially, and that potentially has led...

I can't read their minds as to what's motivating them, but again, as background in understanding why we are where we are.

So a couple things that were parameters or not parameters, I should say these were shared goals of the accountability agencies and they were specified in the letters to the council before the process began.

Implementing all the provisions of the accountability ordinance was one of them.

That was something that's not in this contract.

It is the case that Seattle's accountability agencies have wanted full unfettered implementation of the accountability ordinance It's the case that the SPMA contract actually says that the accountability ordinance can be fully implemented within the SPMA contract.

However, to the effect that impacts are created by that, those impacts are still bargainable and SPMA would still want to bargain those.

And then finally the subordination clause.

It's the case that accountability agencies have sought for the contract to say that it does not override city ordinances.

That is something that is not possible under current state collective bargaining law.

so that's not something that was incorporated.

Nonetheless, it still remains a goal of the city and I think both the city and accountability agencies that ultimately someday the provisions in the accountability ordinance are not subject to the collective bargaining laws of the state and we've discussed that.

Anything else?

So moving along.

Couple other changes in here.

Civilianization of captain functions.

This is actually a fairly significant change.

This would allow SPD to civilianize any sworn leadership service or area that is not currently staffed by a captain.

And in some instances where it is staffed by a captain, those units can be transferred under direction of a civilian, speaking specifically about, say, technology.

or training units.

As long as the number of captains remains the same in the contract, there is increased flexibility for SPD to civilianize.

I see a hand.

Should I stop, Council President, or keep going?

I believe that's an old hand.

Oh, okay.

Is that an old hand, Councilmember Kittle?

Yep.

There are a couple changes to the way compensation is happening.

These are somewhat technical in the sense that captains don't receive overtime in the same way that lieutenants and officers do.

They receive other kinds of compensation.

They get flex time, compensatory time, and executive leave.

And this changes some of the ways, this contract will change some of the ways that they can use flex time and executive leave cash out.

I'm not gonna go into Too many details, my staff report goes into those details.

If you have any questions, let me know.

I'm going to go to the financials.

As you can see, 13.8 in 24, then increases of between 3 and 4 percent in the next three years.

The flex time conversion has a rather small cost of 83,000 to 89,000 in the next few years.

And the executive leave cash out, 132 to 141,000.

and then finally the overall cost of the contract varies between two and five, six million over the next four years for a total cost of 17.8 million over the length of the contract.

Again, the city budget office held in reserves an amount that is sufficient to cover costs through 2026. The costs in 2027 will have to be bargained through the proposed budget process.

There are also reserves that are held in 2027, so this isn't going to be entirely new money in the sense that it's not going to be added to the deficit that the city has.

Some consideration was already brought for that.

And just to say, Greg already mentioned this, but the legislation will be brought forward next year to make these allocations.

And just recognize that there will be considerable sums of money involved between this and SPOG, principally because these are retroactive contracts.

So it will be payments at one time made for 25, excuse me, for 24, 25, and then part of 26, depending on when the legislation is brought forth.

So you won't be surprised to see that legislation sometime, I would guess, the first quarter of next year.

Council Member Juarez.

I will be real brief, I promise.

Can you flip back to page five real fast?

So if my understanding is correct, just so we can put this in context, the annual wage increases because it kept getting higher because we kept deferring the contract and we had to do it retroactively and as we were doing that the cost of living kept going up.

Are these the numbers that, were these in conjunction with cost of living that we negotiated with Protech 17, all the other city employees?

Because I think the public would like to put that in context, that the cost of living or the wage increases, that we were giving these across the board because ProTech had their lawyers in the room for their labor unions for cost of living.

If I'm saying that wrong, please correct me.

General comment.

The negotiations that the city has really with most of its unions and the agreements we have reached implement annual wage increases that are Tied to measures of CPI of inflation, sometimes there's an increment above to reflect either change in duties or changing in market conditions or the like.

So increases of 3 or 4 percent are either consistent with inflation or just above inflation.

and that, yes, ProTech in the same time period has comparable rates.

The base level increase, not necessarily, I mean, so the 13, almost 14 percent, that is obviously not reflective of CPI alone, but also of other changes in working conditions and the like, and also market conditions with respect to recruiting public safety officers in general.

So there was just from a pure labor perspective, economics, a city employee, whether it's someone at Seattle City Light or a Seattle police officer, I just want to disabuse people of the notion that somehow the city council is rewarding SPOG for bad or good conduct.

We were just going by the numbers for cost of living and what was the other index we used?

Consumer Price Index is a measure of inflation.

Consumer Price Index, so it isn't like, I think, I got to be careful how I share this, but I just want the public to know that so they understand how these numbers got here.

Yeah, I would say again, a number in the 3% to 4% range is currently something that's reflective of inflation and related.

Beyond that is purposeful, or rather negotiated, but purposeful to represent a change in working conditions that justify and or change in market conditions.

So we're having issues with recruiting that justify an increase above that.

So both things are true, that's all.

Thank you, Madam President.

The one thing I might add is that As you notice, these contracts are coming at the same time for the same period.

So it's the case that when SPMA is negotiating, they have an eye on what's happening with SPOG and wages are adjusted to ensure that our captains and lieutenants are paid appropriately when you compare them with the officers and sergeants.

So part of the market adjustment that Director Noble mentioned.

Okay, are there any other questions, comments, et cetera?

All right, seeing none.

I know I'm a little bit nervous about it.

Anyway, I believe that we are finished with your presentation.

Thank you very, very much for all of the hard work.

Colleagues, it is 437. We have three executive sessions.

I would like to propose that we postpone or not do our weekly round robin, is that okay?

Unless anybody, okay, getting thumbs up and smiles.

All right, let me then, hold please while I pull up that part of the, I need to pull up the script that will then wrap us up and make sure that we can get into the, where we're supposed to be, just a second.

All right, we are now moving on.

We're not going to go into item six.

So that has been taken off the agenda now.

Now, if there is no further business, we will move into executive session.

Hearing no further business, we will now move into executive session.

As presiding officer, I'm announcing that the Seattle City Council will now convene into executive session.

That always sounds so redundant, but anyway, I'm sure it's legal.

The purpose of the executive session is to discuss pending potential and actual litigation.

It's an opportunity for us to discuss confidential legal matters with the city attorneys as authorized by law.

I expect the time of the executive session to end by 7.25, which is an estimated 2.75 hours.

If it goes longer than that, I will come on the TV and say that it's going to be longer than that and if it is and this meeting will end automatically when we are finished with the executive session.

So with that, I am now announcing that the executive session is in, we're on our way there, please do tune in and we will have full council meeting tomorrow at two o'clock.

Okay, that's it.

Thank you very much everybody.