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Good morning.

The Public Safety Committee meeting will come to order.

It's 9.33 a.m.

February 24, 2026. I'm Robert Kettle, Chair of the Public Safety Committee.

Will the committee clerk please call the roll?

Council Member Juarez.

Councilmember Lin.

Here.

Councilmember Rivera.

Present.

Councilmember Sacco.

Here.

Chair Kettle.

Here.

Chair there are five members present.

Good morning.

Before I go to the approval of the agenda, I just need to note because of a change, we have to reverse the order of the first two items.

So that's going to be, you know, the staging bill will come first and then the performance professionalism standards bill will come second.

Okay, with that noted, if there's no objection, the agenda will be adopted.

Hearing and seeing no objection, the agenda is adopted.

Good morning.

This morning for chair comment, I'm going to speak to an issue that's been in the news quite a bit lately and it's got four parts.

The first point that and it's related to technology, it's related to surveillance.

The first point is public safety is an area where public discourse is very important, crucially important, in fact.

This discourse cannot be marked by disinformation or misinformation.

And sadly, the public discourse on public safety in the area of technology, ALPR, automatic license plate reader, CCTV, closed circuit TV, and the Real Time Crime Center or RTCC, has been impacted by points missing key facts.

You know, just recently I heard on the radio, you know, somebody talking about the insider threat.

You know, basically, hey, an officer could take this information and then give it to ICE or give it to federal law enforcement more generally.

But there was no mention that there's only one sworn officer at the real-time crime center.

Our CCTV system is set up where the officers don't see it at all.

It goes to the real-time crime center.

There's one.

and that is the head of it and they're civilians and they're very well vetted.

And there's no mention of the computer audit protocols.

Everything is tracked, but that was not mentioned.

It was just that one off point like, hey, any officer can do this.

that doesn't inform public discourse.

Newspaper articles related to ALPR, all the focus on FLOC, FLOC, FLOC, FLOC.

And it was done in a way by Seattle organizations that you would think that we had the FLOC ALPR system.

But we don't, and there's no mention of that.

You know, the fact that we have a different approach and that with our ALPR, we have put in Seattle values.

You know, we put in specific contract requirement pieces designed to protect the vulnerable communities in all of Seattle.

There was many articles and some I've been given to me on this that were not published by the Seattle Times, letters to the editor, one on CCTV I have in my hands and another one related to ALPR written by a man who lost his brother.

And he was advocating using ALPR to find missing persons, particularly those young people that had been abducted.

It's sad, his brother was killed.

So he was on this and he understands.

and that's what I have in my hand right now.

And separately, there was a good article yesterday talking about ALPR and it starts off, fierce opposition to automated license plate reading cameras is threatening to reshape how devices are used, including in Washington state.

It's not just fierce opposition.

I'm a supporter of ALPR and I believe that we need to have this reshaping.

I'm a supporter of ALPR cameras and the system reshaping how the devices are used and can be a model our system can be a model for the state.

So yes, I believe that we need to have a reshaping of the system because the system has been failing across the various jurisdictions in our state, particularly in the Puget Sound region.

So it needs to be reshaped and I welcome it because our system is being brought down with the mistakes and the missteps of other jurisdictions.

The second point I wanted to make is that the Public Safety Technology Program is vitally important to creating a safe base in our city.

It is a capability that allows to affect our strategic framework plan for a safer Seattle, especially in the following pillars.

We're so short on SBD staffing.

CCTV, for example, makes a difference.

Second pillar, functional criminal justice system.

This is allowing us to solve a crime.

It allows for better prosecution.

And it also helps from that person committing a crime right after the fact.

Gun violence.

That's another area.

But I see that we can have, in terms of pillar six, state collaboration on this.

You know, one example that I want to give here, and I have many examples where the real-time crime center has come through.

You know, there was a homicide in June of 2025 regarding a woman at 2nd and James.

She was shot in the back of the head.

It went out.

Realtime Crime Center staff was working overtime, and they put the cameras on because that's how they do it.

They're triggered to do it.

They don't sit around watching these cameras.

They're triggered by an event, a 911 call, a woman shot in the back of the head.

and then they found the person at 3rd and James.

It was the only camera that caught the murder and it was uploaded and then passed.

The homicide detectives were able to view that video before they interviewed the suspect because they were able to capture the suspect.

which made that interview much better.

But here's the other thing.

When responding, because of that video, they knew who they were looking for.

It wasn't like, hey, there was somebody of which maybe 10 men who was a man could be part of this.

So you know the issues with policing in terms of indiscriminate and all that?

That is addressing that problem.

and so here we have an example where they were able to interview the subject and if somebody is so callous to shoot a woman behind the head, in the back of the head, five minutes later they could do the same thing.

It's the same thing, the 75 year old woman was hit by a bat just right here, a block from where I'm seated, that was found within five minutes of the action.

If he can do that, it's quite possible he can strike another woman, 75 year old, seven minutes later.

These are very important pieces, and there's a lot of examples from the real-time crime center, but here's the thing.

We don't really see about this.

We don't really hear about this.

The incident with the woman that was struck by the bat here at Third and James, that was in the paper, but all these other examples that we have where this system is making a difference and supporting our strategic framework plan is not really being heard, and it's not being part of the public discourse, and that's really unfortunate.

The third point I wanted to make is that Olympia, as I noted in the first point, they have a bill 60-02 and it's important with respect to ALPR because of the varied examples of its use in jurisdictions across the region.

Like I said, it has been flock system, these other jurisdictions have been using ALPR wrong and it needs to be fixed and the state does need to take action.

I support taking action.

Key in what they're doing in Olympia is the 21-day window, the retention window, and also the PDR exemption, the public disclosure request exemption.

That is the most important thing.

because that addresses a lot of the issues that people have.

We've been working these issues in terms of protecting vulnerable communities, in terms of contract pieces, in terms of the audit protocols, all these different pieces that we put into place.

But you know what?

With a PDR exemption, that is a game changer.

That makes a difference.

That is what I call squaring the circle to keep Seattle safe, but also even further protect the vulnerable communities in our midst.

So I'd like to invite the bill sponsors in Olympia to Seattle.

I would like to meet them in my office here at City Hall and then escort them to the real-time crime center so they can see in person what is happening with this system.

In fact, I'd like to invite the entire Seattle delegation because we need the Seattle delegation to stand up for Seattle, with respect to public safety, stand up for a proven system.

ALPR has been around since November 24 and it picked up steam in 25. We've had no subpoenas.

We have all these legal protections in there, too.

All these different pieces have not happened.

Of course, now I want to knock wood, touch wood, not to jinx myself.

But that is the basic fact.

These systems have been working for us.

And so we need the Seattle delegation to stand up for Seattle.

And I need them to come here to go to the real-time crime center.

It's called due diligence.

It's called due diligence.

I have a letter from MLK Labor in my hand.

and it says, hey, we want this system to be shut down.

And at the end it says, the labor community looks forward to being a partner on this important issue.

I want to partner with the labor community.

I want to partner with them by inviting them, like I said earlier, to my office, the Executive Secretary Treasurer of MLK Labor, to my office, and I'll walk with her across the street and go to the real-time crime center.

You know, I've spoken to the points in their letter and all these pieces are out there, but they're not known because the public discourse on this topic is not good.

It's been failing in a lot of ways in all types of media, news media.

And it's unfortunate because if we walk through these pieces, if we go to the real time crime center, I recognize not everybody can go, but MLK labor executive secretary treasurer, I think that's an important person to go, particularly because of this letter that they've written.

and I will escort them there.

I think it's really important.

and the same thing for the Seattle delegation for down Olympia, and it's particularly the sponsors of the bills.

But the last piece that I wanted to say, and this is really important and to close, is that I wish to say that with respect to technology assisted crime prevention pilot project, that's like the technical term, that's the term that we use in terms of our proviso in last year's budget, ALPR, CCTV, and real-time crime center, it is important to work with the mayor and her team And I've had discussions with the mayor.

I want to work with the mayor.

I'm looking for win-wins with the mayor on this topic so that we can protect Seattle, that we can protect our vulnerable communities and everybody actually.

And I think that we can do that.

I'm not afraid of looking at ordinances.

We fixed the chief of police investigation ordinance.

We've updated and fixed the chronic nuisance property ordinance.

We're about to do the same thing with the public drug use and possession bill.

Talk about safeguards.

I already mentioned audit protocols.

I don't know.

Maybe there's more that we can do that area.

I'm happy to have that discussion with the mayor.

Oversight.

I think we have great oversight.

This is part of the oversight.

We have accountability partners here, you know, in this audience.

I look to them to be part of this oversight and it's really important.

OIG, for example, but also OPA if needed.

I don't think that will happen, but also the Community Police Commission.

These are important.

and so I wanted to raise this issue today because there's been so much talk, there's been so many articles, there have been so many different things that have been misleading where the public discourse on public safety has not been served.

And so I wanted to make this point as my chair report today and thank you for your consideration of it.

Okay, now the other side, public comments.

We'll now open the hybrid public comment period.

Public comments should relate to items on today's agenda or within the purview of the committee.

Clerk, how many speakers are signed up for today?

One in person and one remote.

Okay.

Under our new rules, each speaker will have two minutes and we'll start with the in-person speakers.

Can you please read the public comment instructions?

The public comment period will be moderated in the following manner.

The public comment period is up to 60 minutes.

Speakers will be called in the order in which they registered.

Speakers will alternate, sorry, speakers will hear a chime when 10 seconds are left of their time.

Speakers' mics will be muted if they do not end their comments within the allotted time to allow us to call on the next speaker.

The public comment is now open and we will begin with the first speaker on the list, Kim Pasciutto.

And give me a second.

Thank you.

I'm Kim Pesciutto.

I'm here speaking for Proactive Persistent People for Progress.

We're community members dedicated to improving Seattle's public safety systems and have been participating in that regard for the last seven years.

One thing we can all agree upon is that when a crisis arises, Seattleites deserve the best and most appropriate first response.

We can also agree that CARE, a co-equal branch of our public safety system, is not only the best trained and suited to respond to behavioral and mental health crises, but that by far it is the most economical.

and yet there are myriad of ways care is impeded from doing its job.

Here are three examples.

The 2005 SPOG contract limits where care may respond.

If you have a mental health crisis on the sidewalk, they can respond.

If it occurs in a safe way, they're prohibited.

They may not respond if there's drug paraphernalia present or if the person in crisis is sitting in a car.

While CARE is responsible for the 911 call center and dispatching the right responder to the situation presented, SPOG is allowed and, with increasing frequency, actually overrides the dispatch of CARE responders.

Research on best practices and national models chronicled in Matt Ferner's Safer Cities newsletter, which is cited in our letter to you, shows that single dispatch is the gold standard for CARE organizations, organizations like CARE.

Our system clings to dual dispatch contrary to those best practices and contrary to fiscal prudence.

We ask that you reopen the recent SPOG contract to eliminate these impediments.

If you cannot or will not reopen the contract, we ask that you begin negotiations on the new contract immediately, not only because negotiating an expired contract puts the city at a bargaining disadvantage, but because these impediments need to be urgently addressed.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

And our first remote speaker is Howard Gale.

Please press star six.

Good morning, Howard Gale.

Chair Kettle, I spoke with you six months ago about the actions that Seattle can reasonably and legally require our police to do in order to protect Seattleites from the federal violence, the killings, the fear, and the tearing apart of families we have witnessed in other cities.

These proposed actions became part of the 36 District Democrats' resolution shortly after speaking with you.

Yet six months after you indicated your support for these actions, you refused to propose or even publicly discuss the most significant of these items.

Only two of the 36 suggested actions are now being proposed in a rather incomplete and half-hearted fashion in today's Council Bill 32193. Ignored for six months of the important proposals for SBD officers to establish and document making the resulting video public the basis for any federal detention or arrest, for SBD officers to intervene when proper law enforcement credentials are not provided, for SBD officers to aid private property owners in preventing warrantless access, and for SBD officers to prioritize protecting people from Fourth Amendment violations over the protection of property or violently suppressing demonstrators trying to protect other people's constitutional rights.

Other cities have placed some version of these measures, with Boston Mayor Michelle Wu recently stating that, quote, calling 911 is an appropriate response to warrantless entry of private homes and businesses and that the Boston Police Department shall employ de-escalation tactics in response, unquote, and that Boston will deny access to city buildings and property for purposes other than those intended.

Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O'Hara has warned rank-and-file officers that if they witness federal agencies excessive force on civilians and fail to intervene, they could be fired.

So why the failure for six crucial months to publicly engage with measures that could protect Seattleites from the severe deportations suffered by those in Minneapolis?

Why only focus on legislation and actions which, if they had been in effect in Minnesota, would have done nothing to prevent any of those horrors from happening?

Thank you, Mr. Gale.

It's a good opportunity.

I've said this, I had a meeting yesterday with City Attorney Evans and I told City Attorney Evans, and I'm going to say it again here, that I take my legal advice from two people, City Attorney Evans and her team, and also our in-house counsel here in the Legislative Department.

I think it's very important to do so.

Today's federal law enforcement related bills are two and three of at least a half dozen that were, you know, they're in the pipeline.

So there's a lot of things that are in play.

So thank you.

So actually we can go with our regular order because our briefer is here.

So we'll move on to our first item of business.

Will the clerk please read item one into the record.

Resolution 32193, a resolution relating to law enforcement officer professionalism and standards reaffirming Seattle values related to professional law enforcement conduct condemning recent actions of federal law enforcement agents articulating expectations for law enforcement conduct within Seattle and directing Seattle Police Department officers to document and report violations of law enforcement professionalism standards.

Thank you, Clerk.

Mr. Johnson, please introduce yourself officially for the record and then begin your points.

Good morning, Chair Kettle, members of the Committee for the Record, Tommaso Johnson from your Council Central Staff.

I'm talking today about the Law Enforcement Professionals and the Standards Resolution.

I'm going to just provide a brief summary.

The resolution is relatively straightforward, so I'm going to not read it out in total, but just rather provide a summary.

This resolution articulates the desire of the city to have any non-city law enforcement activities occurring within Seattle adhere to legal and professional standards in line with city values and policies that govern the Seattle Police Department.

Specific law enforcement standards mentioned in the resolution include the use of face coverings, visible identification, rendering medical aid, and procedures and standards for stops and detentions.

The resolution further affirms existing SPD policies and directives on how Seattle Police Department officers should handle situations related to immigration enforcement, purported federal agents and foreign nationals.

The resolution also denounces recent federal immigration enforcement activities in Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota, and the resultant loss of life.

I'm happy to answer any questions.

Thank you Mr. Johnson and I am the sponsor of this bill.

This bill is a combination of a number of pieces and I know there's a companion bill that's going through the Senate and going through Olympia right now that takes a different tact.

This bill is a resolution It is based on conversations again with our legal counsel in terms of legal risk and the like.

But what this bill really is, it's about showing leadership.

It's about showing that we have standards here in Seattle.

Seattle Police Department has standards to include with mask, masking, to include with identification and to do those pieces, to engage and to confirm and to document what is happening related to federal law enforcement.

and basically, and this is something that's been brought up in community before, it's about setting the standard, setting the expectations and this is leadership.

This is Seattle showing leadership by setting that bar and the expectation is that all federal law enforcement, not just federal, but also state, county and other local jurisdictions.

That is the introduction to this and I would note that there's pieces that are in this bill that come from many different locations to include the 36th legislative district as well.

Colleagues, is there any Comments on this.

I know this is something that's been brought up in committee before in different ways.

And this is the, you know, the desire today is to, you know, basically set this leadership example forward and to be a companion with the other bills that we're talking about.

Vice Chair, any questions?

Okay, none.

Colleagues, okay.

in the interest of time, because we do have a very full agenda to include with the alternative response.

I move that the committee recommend adoption of Resolution 32193. Is there a second?

Second.

Second.

Okay.

Thank you, Council Member Juarez.

It is moved and seconded to recommend adoption of the resolution.

Are there any final comments on the resolution before a vote?

Again, I invite the public to read this resolution and to walk through the different pieces and to see what we're doing and also see it as part of a broader effort with bills coming from Council Member Rivera.

We have two today.

There's others that are being worked by, for example, our colleague, Council Member Rink, related to detention centers.

There's a number of different bills that are coming through.

And so with that, will the clerk please call the roll on the committee recommendation?

Okay, sorry.

I have a handout.

And I'm not even there and I see her, so okay.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Councilmember Juarez.

I see you.

As well, you see me.

Really just, Chair, wanted to thank you for your leadership in putting this resolution together.

There are many things here, and I really wanna call out the documentation piece because that is really critical and important as well.

So I know that we've all been in conversations Let me just take a step back and say we've all been grappling, very concerned with the actions of the federal government across this country.

And we're all doing what we can from a legal standpoint to try to lend our support to our communities, our residents, our immigrant communities and residents in the city.

And so I see this as one of many other things that we've done.

as a body to provide support to our residents.

So I really want to thank you for your leadership on this particular bill.

I was happy to see my bill passed last week, and I know that there are others because we all care so deeply.

So thank you, Chair, and I'm looking forward to passing this out of committee today.

Thank you, Councilmember Rivera, as I'm shuffling through all my papers here.

So I'm glad to have been notified about your hand up.

Okay, any others?

Council Member Juarez?

No, I'm good, buddy.

Let's go.

Let's do it.

All right.

Will the clerk please call the roll on the committee recommendation to adopt resolution 3-2-1-9-3.

Council Member Juarez?

Aye.

Council Member Lennon?

Yes.

Council Member Rivera?

Aye.

Council Member Saka?

Aye.

Chair Kettle?

Aye.

There are five in favor.

None opposed.

Thank you, the motion carries and the committee recommendation that the resolution be adopted will be sent to the March 3rd City Council meeting.

Okay, we'll now move to our second item of business.

Will the clerk please read item two into the record?

Council Bill 121.164, an ordinance relating to civil immigration enforcement prohibiting civil immigration enforcement staging on all real property that is city owned and controlled and adding a new chapter 14.125 to the Seattle Municipal Code.

Okay I was going to say Mr. Doss please join us at the table but you're here so but still introduce yourself for the record.

Thank you.

Thank you Mr. Chair.

Greg Doss, Council Central Staff.

Okay I'll tell you what let's start with your introduction and then we have a technical fix and then we'll do that and then we'll come back okay.

Greg Doss, Council Central Staff, here to discuss Council Bill 121-164, which concerns civil immigration staging.

I'll note that a staff report has been distributed to members and is available on Legistar.

This legislation would prohibit the use of city-owned and controlled properties for civil, enforcement purposes, civil immigration enforcement purposes.

Actions including assembling, mobilizing, deploying personnel vehicles or equipment for civil immigration enforcement operations or for civilian surveillance or logistical coordination for those operations.

There is, as the chair mentioned, an amendment that is a technical amendment that would clarify the bill and align it with the sponsor's intent.

Happy to explain that now.

Okay.

In order to bring forward the amendment, I do need to move.

So I will move to recommend passage of Council Bill 121-164.

Is there a second?

Second.

Second.

Oh, we're just having a little war here.

It is moved and seconded twice here today.

And with that move and seconded, I will now move to amend Council Bill 121-164 as presented on Amendment 1. Can you restate the amendment again, please?

Yeah, thank you.

Amendment 1 would restrict the prohibition of civil enforcement, civil immigration enforcement to staging activities only.

The bill is clear that it is targeted at staging activities with the headers and the chapter section titles.

Just left out, staff left out the word staging in one place.

I want to make sure that it's there.

Thank you.

Again, this is a technical fix.

It is moved and seconded to amend the bill as presented on the- Point of order, Mr. Chair.

I think it has been moved and has not yet been seconded, and therefore I do second it.

There was a pending motion.

Okay.

Yeah, now it is seconded.

Thank you.

I was drafting in Council Member Juarez, I think.

I was just going to hold back.

So, and thank you, Vice Chair, keeping us on the right side with our clerks.

The amendment is moved and seconded to, again, to amend the bill as presented in Amendment 1. Central staff has already been spoken to.

Any questions or comments on Amendment 1?

Hearing, seeing none.

Will the clerk please call the roll on adoption of Amendment 1?

Council Member Juarez.

Aye.

Council member Lin.

Yes.

Council member Rivera.

Aye.

Council member Saka.

Aye.

Chair Kettle.

Aye.

There are five in favor and none opposed.

Okay.

Amendment one is adopted.

Okay.

Now, so we have a clean bill, um, staging bill.

And so with that, I ask, um, my colleagues, um, vice chair, of course the, you know, courtesy goes to you always first, um, anything you would like to speak to related to our, uh, staging bill.

No, I think it's a terrific bill, needed now more than ever, and I thank the sponsor for tremendous leadership in bringing this forward, and let's go.

Councilmember Rivera.

Thank you, Chair.

A plus one to my colleague, Vice Chair Saka.

This is, again, like the resolution, this ordinance is another thing that we can do to really safeguard our residents in the city, and I look forward to its passage.

Thank you for your leadership in bringing this staging bill forward.

Thank you, Council Member Rivera.

Council Member Foster.

Thank you so much, Chair.

And as you know, I don't sit on this committee and I continue to appreciate you welcoming me.

So thanks for that.

And I'm really excited about this ordinance.

I want to ask a couple of quick clarifying questions, if I may.

So as I read the ordinance and we talk about city owned or controlled, I want to ask what happens to a property if the city owns the property, but the property is leased?

Would that be covered under the language?

Oh, yeah, thank you.

Happy to take your question.

So the term city-owned and controlled is the standard that will define which properties are considered by this legislation and where the city attorney might exercise enforcement.

and that term, as it implies, the city would own a property and must also control that property.

The term control is not a term in the bill that is defined and so it would be important for council members to work with the city law department through central staff to ensure that any property they were curious about whether or not it would be covered could be identified as covered or not by the law department.

And also if the council has interest in ensuring that some properties that are not covered are, it may be possible to add some language to the bill that would further define the term control.

and so here I'm thinking about properties where the city owns the property but leases it to maybe a non-profit service provider that serves to advance the interests of the city, say housing or healthcare.

If such a property is not controlled, in a way in the contract that prohibits the city from signing.

That may be an area where further defining control might allow the city to sign.

That's something that we could work on with the law department.

The only thing that would be prohibited for sure is situations where the property is leased by the city, but the owner is a third party.

in that case, it could not meet the standard.

It would have to, there would have to be a new standard beyond city owned and city control.

Thank you.

And a follow up on that.

So, you know, cause the city, excuse me, does have several long-term leases in play in locations that the public may not differentiate or the public may experience as being part of city property.

And so is it correct that as written that those, those properties would not be covered under this ordinance?

That is correct.

So, FAS has done an inventory of properties where the city leases space but is not the owner, and there are about 47 such properties.

Some of the examples of city services that are provided there, the southeast or central area customer service centers are both leased spaces that are not city owned.

The services that the community can get there range from paying bills to seeking relief from utility bills or even legal assistance.

So a wide variety of municipal services are offered at those sites, but because they are leased by the city and the city doesn't own the property, those particular sites would not be covered by this bill.

Thank you.

And if my understanding again is the language in this bill is owned and controlled.

So if we were to move from owned to or would that cover this challenge or would we need to specify leasing?

I think if the city moved from owned and controlled to owned or controlled, It might capture those places where the city is a landlord and can, some way or another, if not ceded the contractual right to the property, assert control.

I'm not sure that that would capture properties that the city leases from third parties.

Got it.

So I'm hearing a need to specify that in the instance where we are a leasee.

And I'm also hearing that if we were to switch from and to or, that that would allow a clearer or perhaps a more broader interpretation of the intent behind the language.

Is that correct?

Perhaps.

And it would also be advisable to have Central Stack work with the law department to see how that term control might be clarified to make sure that it captures municipal services that are on city property but provided by a third party.

Thank you, and a quick comment about this.

I really appreciate your responses.

I think this is important, especially given that the public just does not differentiate whether they are on a city-owned or a city-leased property when they are coming to access services.

And I also think there are a number of sites that I can think of that are locations where vulnerable residents frequent or will visit to access city services that, as written, we may be leaving out unintentionally.

So I appreciate your responses to those questions.

Thank you.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Councilmember Foster.

Yes, always welcome.

And the questions are important and actually go to the reason why, you know, the previous bill was simple.

We've already talked to it.

There's a lot of different pieces to this bill that we need to walk through.

So I welcome your questions and this discourse and then, you know, we'll have our follow-up meeting in two weeks.

So great.

Councilmember Lin.

Thank you, Chair.

Just to follow up on Councilmember Foster's questions, and perhaps this is just more of a statement that I agree that properties that we are using for some important city service, such as a community center or even if we don't control it, I believe that we need to protect that use and I'm concerned that even under a lease you know oftentimes leases have permitted uses whether we are the landlord or the lessee and I'm not pretty sure that immigration staging is probably not one of those spelled out permitted uses so even allowing it could be a lease violation whether we are the landlord or the lessee and so I would hate to run afoul of some lease because we weren't as inclusive of or as explicit as we could be to prohibit this staging.

But just wanna thank you, Chair, for bringing this forward, not only because of the concern about immigration staging, but also, again, the need to protect spaces that are being used for essential services for those uses and not have impacts due to the the awful federal staging that we've seen throughout the country.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Lynn.

All right.

Council Member Juarez, any other comments?

No, I'm good.

Let's go, buddy.

Okay.

Well, we're going to hold Council Member Juarez, but I do want to note as chair that I think this bill is very important.

I also think it's really important to show that we're working together as a team.

There's been a lot of conversations with the mayor's team, the mayor and her team, and also, as I mentioned earlier, our city attorney, Evans.

And I think walking through these different pieces and to raise important questions is good.

And it also should be noted that we're talking about city-owned and controlled right now, but this also does not include, I think you may have said this, but just to reiterate, public right-of-ways which are used for pedestrian and vehicle traffic.

I think that's important for the public to know that, and I recognize Others like public commenters will say, federal law enforcement can work throughout our federal country.

And so the streets and the sidewalks and the like, they can do that.

That's supremacy.

There's a lot of different legal pieces that go to that.

But we do need to stand up.

for our city interests and we have the means to do this and this bill is one way to do that and the injective relief through the city attorney's action is a way to do that.

But we should do our homework, we should do the due diligence, look at these questions and I think also we should look at federal law enforcement operations and how they're conducted in terms of risk it's like what property is really possibly going to be used for federal law enforcement operation, particularly when we have JBLM, we have bases on Kipset Peninsula, we have Everett Naval Base, we have all these different pieces.

That's got to be part of the discussion too in terms of that legal risk trade-off.

but we do need to send a point, a message regarding our vulnerable communities and saying, hey, we are looking out for your interests and we're doing these pieces even when our constitution gives the federal government a certain ability to act.

But that said, we should not just to follow that, this kind of goes to Mr. Gale's point, that we should look to put these pieces in place.

So I do think this bill is very important, and I'm happy to work with Mayor Wilson and her team, and then City Attorney Evans and her team as well, and particularly City Attorney Evans, because the legal risk points are going to be very important.

Mr. Dawes.

I'm sorry, Mr. Chair.

I'm sorry, Mr. Chair.

I should have had my hand up.

I apologize.

May I say something quickly?

Yes, Council Member Juarez, over to you.

Thank you.

Thank you, sir.

I'm sorry.

I'll be very quick.

Just for the viewing public, the policy discussions that we have on camera, obviously we are transparent, but the viewing public, particularly with your director's report about cameras and that we don't use FLOC and getting the right information out there.

But second of all, this is a progressive march with other pieces of legislation we're considering to keep ICE out.

So this isn't the end of it and of course we would like to do more and we've been watching the national trends and what the states are doing, what particular cities are doing.

And I just want to commend you, Chair, because this is just one piece in a progressive march forward about how we protect everybody from this administration and the actual hunting of people based on skin color.

It's not getting biased.

It's so, sometimes when we get screamed at at public comment, people think we don't care or we don't know or we don't read the news.

We do.

but we also have to act within the confines of the united states constitution federal law state law supremacy clause the 10th amendment and all of those things that go into it so again thank you chair kettle for walking us through this and again I just want to commend you because again this is a progressive march forward we're going to continue to do these things and thank you all right thank you council member Juarez council member Rivera

Thank you, Chair, and I was gonna raise my hand as well.

Council Member Juarez, you and I are, well, you're a friend and I super always appreciate your comments and I agree.

And I was gonna say a similar thing related to the law.

You know, folks don't know that when we as legislators are contemplating a law, there's a lot of legal conversation that is not privy to the public but that it is important as we craft these things and sometimes while the public would want us to craft it differently, and I understand why and I agree in many instances actually, we also are bound by the law, the Constitution, the Supremacy Clause and also case law because we've been and I readily support bringing causes of action as we have done against what I find and what I'm going to call me personally, what I think to be unconstitutional actions of this administration.

but what I think is in true law and we have case law that also guides what we're able to do or not because as the case law is going through the courts, we get more information about what we're going to be successful with or not if we take certain actions.

So I think it's important for the public to know that because of the very thing that you just spoke about, Councilmember Juarez, which is we want folks to know that we do care very much and when I say we're grappling with these things, I mean that because we want to do everything that we possibly can to be supportive and we have these challenges based on what is the law in this country and including that case law, especially more recently as we're suing the federal government or they're suing us based on the actions that we're taking in response to these egregious actions by the federal government.

So it bears mentioning again that that is how we are weighing how we bring policy items forward and also what is contained therein that sometimes we might want to go broader than is what can what is contained therein and we're weighing are we going to get challenged and where will that land and are we able to defend those things so all of that is true and folks should very much know as you said again Councilmember Juarez that we all care and in that we're all aligned.

And I've said this many times, dating back to January of 2025, we all care very much.

We may have differences of opinion in many other areas, but we all care very deeply about what is happening.

And I, for one, feel very proud to live in a city that cares about its residents.

All of this is residents, not just some of them.

So thank you.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Councilmember Rivera.

Okay, thank you.

I just want to make one...

Mr. Doss.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I just want to make one comment to support what you were saying earlier about working in conjunction with the executive.

One thing I think that's important for the public to know is that on January 29th, Mayor Cady Wilson issued a directive that prohibits the use of city-owned and controlled properties for city immigration and enforcement purposes.

and since that time, the city attorney and the departments of finance and administrative services have been working to identify properties that could receive signage.

They have prioritized properties that are most likely candidates for staging properties like vacant lots and parking lots, and are expected this week to start signing those properties.

They believe that they will sign about 656 properties with metal and plastic signs, which you could think about as a phase one, the most obvious properties that would be both city owned and controlled and also potentials for staging.

And then as this legislation moves through the council review process as the standard is examined and the type of properties may be expanded, the mayor could work to start signing other properties.

But I just want to make clear to the public and to you all that there is already an effort underway to start signing those properties that are the most likely candidates for staging.

And the mayor's office is on top of that with FAS.

Thank you, Mr. Doss.

Councilmember Lin.

I just want to say, I did see one of those signs last night at Jefferson Park, so I was glad to see it.

Yes, we are stepping out.

And thank you for bringing that up, Mr. Doss.

I was not thinking of bringing that up, but it's important to do so.

It really highlights the, you know, the work that's going on between all branches of city government.

And I just wanted to note, as we, about the transition, you know, today's the fourth anniversary of Russia invading Ukraine, and somebody who's lived in Russia, who's lived in in a government that takes action against its own citizens, much like in different cities and around our country, it's important to see those parallels and understand those parallels and to take action and to stand up for our constitution, stand up for our country, the respect to those actions that are not in keeping with our democratic traditions.

And so I was thinking about that as this discussion was ongoing.

So with that, and to bring our next guest up.

If there's no objection, Council Bill 121164 will be postponed to the March 10th Public Safety Committee meeting.

Hearing, seeing no objection, the bill is postponed to the March 10th meeting.

Okay.

All right, now we're to item three.

We'll now move to our third item of business.

Will the clerk please read item three into the record?

Alternative response overview in Seattle's Public Safety Departments.

Thank you.

Please everyone come to include.

We have our Executive Operations Manager for Public Safety, Ms. Allison Holcomb.

Welcome.

This is your first time to a committee in this role.

I will be turning this over to you.

You'll have with the three departments being represented.

For the public, each of the previous years we've had briefings from our three chiefs.

You know, we would have the chiefs come and present on the police department generally or the fire department generally or or the care department.

This year, to change things up, to give it focus, we wanted the three departments and the chiefs to speak to alternative response.

Alternative response is very important for the points raised in public comment, but also in terms of what we're seeing on our streets.

and one of the things that I mentioned earlier about like a functional criminal justice system, we also need a functional public safety system.

So it's important to have the three departments represented and speak to where they kind of work together in the area of alternative response and to learn what lessons need to be learned and then to see what action that we can take with the executive to further what we're trying to do with alternative response.

Okay, with that, a little introduction to allow everybody to get seated.

Ms. Holcomb, over to you.

Please introduce yourself with a record and then the team and then it's over to you.

Chair Kettle, Vice Chair Saka, and fellow committee members Juarez, Lynn, and Rivera, and Council Member Foster.

My name is Allison Holcomb, and I am the Executive Operations Manager for Public Safety in the office of Seattle Mayor Katie B. Wilson.

On behalf of Seattle's three primary public safety responders, thank you for this opportunity to brief you on the department's alternative response teams and how they work together.

Mayor Wilson shares your vision that people who call 911 in Seattle will receive a response from the team with the right training and proficiencies to match the need as efficiently and effectively as possible.

You will hear from the departments in the following order, Seattle Fire Department, the Community Assisted Response and Engagement or CARE Department, and the Seattle Police Department.

With that, I'll turn it over to Chief Harold Scoggins.

Good morning.

Hopefully you can hear me okay.

Harold Scoggins, Fire Chief, Seattle Fire Department.

My goal here today is to just kick this off, and I'm gonna turn it over to John, who's the architect of our program, but I would be remiss if I didn't spend a couple of minutes just talking about the amazing work that our folks do in this program.

The mission of the Seattle Fire Department is to save lives and protect property and the environment.

But the second sentence of our mission statement is really what's important.

It's to respond immediately when the community needs us.

And that's what this program allows us to do.

Our mobile integrated health program has been evolving over the last 15 years, as you'll hear about, but it really kicked off in 2019 with our first deployment of our HealthONE program in November of 2019. We've learned a lot, we've grown a lot over the last six or seven years, and we really have improved.

but we've learned from our peers around the country.

And some of you may have heard me tell the story before, but it was in 2017 or 18, it was a cold February day, and we invited about 30 fire departments from around the country to come to Seattle so we can learn what they were doing with alternative response.

And in that one-day conference, and departments showed up from Canada to Texas to California, all to share what they were doing in this space.

This is what we built our program from.

So I'm gonna turn it over to John so you can hear a little bit about our mobile integrated health program.

And then when John wraps up, I'll make a couple of closing comments on what we're doing in our program.

So John, you got it.

Thank you, Chief.

Thank you, Chair Kettle and members of the committee, and thank you to Allison as well for introducing us.

I'm going to talk briefly at a fairly high level about the mobile integrated health program with FHIR, and I'm hoping that what I'm going to do, and I'm sure my colleagues in the other two departments are going to do, are talk about areas of commonality, clients and responses that, you know, any of our departments could do, but also areas of uniqueness and differentiation, skill sets and areas where one particular team or program may have a unique skill set.

So our mission is up here on the screen and we have actually a dual mandate.

So our first mission is to serve the Seattle Fire Department to really take the load off and alleviate the burden on SFD operations.

And then our second mandate is to help the clients that we serve, the people of the city of Seattle, in a very broad fashion.

And these two mandates usually, but not always, run together.

So at the high level, you know, I always have to start by describing our program as a partnership.

And our primary, our lead partner is the Seattle Human Services Department.

and our partnership with them goes back quite a ways, all the way back before the existence of this program when we started doing training to our members on reporting adults to Adult Protective Services in the state of Washington.

So HSD really is our core, our main program.

We really could not exist in our current form without them.

As Chief Scoggins mentioned, really kind of the genesis of the current program starts in 2019 when we launched the first HealthONE program.

And I think this timeline shows sort of a a gradual and steady expansion over the years, both in terms of the units that we're serving, deploying out into the community, but also the capabilities and the skill sets that we have.

The Chief asked me to show as well just at the high level kind of where MIH sits in the Seattle Fire Department, and this is sort of a very condensed high level organization chart.

But basically when MIH was started, it was apparent that we did not fit cleanly into any of our existing lines of service.

You know, we're not fire suppression or EMS.

We're not fire prevention or resource management.

So MIH still sits within the Office of the Fire Chief, but we span and touch pretty much all the other lines of service in the Fire Department.

The way MIH specifically is organized is, you know, as I mentioned, this partnership with HSD.

And then, you know, we sort of have dual leadership between FHIR and HSD.

And then broadly, we divide our service kind of into two very broad arms.

One is response, and those are the red trucks you see out in the field in the community doing general health one response, doing overdose response.

And then the other side of it is our client services, and that is APS reporting to the state, our case management service, our advanced practice provider service, all under the MIH umbrella.

At the high level in terms of kind of our operations and deployment, right now we have about 11 HSD case managers, and that is growing.

We're in the hiring process right now.

And we have got a pool of about 32 trained firefighters, which will expand to almost 50 by next year.

And I particularly want to note this.

Our daily staffing is about 7 firefighters and 4 case managers.

But because we have that many trained firefighters, what that means is that the knowledge and the skills and the training that we've provided them to work on the HealthONE units sort of travels via osmosis throughout the rest of the fire department.

So those firefighters, when they're not staffing HealthONE units, are staffing engines and ladder trucks and aid cars and bringing those skills back out to the community, especially at times when HealthONE is not in service.

Typical deployment for us is two firefighters and a case manager.

We can drop down to one if need be.

And right now, our rigs are primarily centrally located, Pioneer Square, Belltown, and then also Station 10, which is in Pioneer Square.

Later this year, we're gonna further expand service.

We have a location down in the Soto neighborhood, and then in the second quarter of this year, when Fire Station 31 opens in the Northgate neighborhood, we'll be putting a unit there part-time as well.

We go all over the city.

We will go to any location in the city of Seattle that is safe and appropriate for us to go to.

We have essentially no restrictions.

We're very, very low barrier in that respect.

You know, roads, alleys, apartments, homes.

We will go pretty much anywhere that the fire department goes.

As of about a month ago, we now operate seven days a week until approximately 7pm at night.

And we're going out code yellow, which is our parlance for no lights and sirens, with the exception of our overdose unit, which can go lights and sirens if need be.

We do, like our colleagues in the care department, have an ADA accessible wheelchair van, which gets pretty broad use for clients out in the community who have mobility impairments.

and all of our units have EMS equipment on them.

We essentially have three ways that we deploy our units.

The first is direct 911 dispatch.

So we have a set of protocols at our 911 center, at the fire alarm center, that can send out Health One just by itself for behavioral health crisis and suicidality.

That's not the main way that we go out, though.

We have found over time that the absolute gold standard for us is having eyes on, having a firefighter look at the client and the patient and say, this is a good match for Health 1. And so as a result, most of our runs come from either live operations requests, and perfect example this morning, Ladder 4 gets on the radio and says, hey, young woman here looking for assistance with shelter, this is outside of our purview, can you come help?

That was about an hour ago.

And Health 1 gets on the radio and says, yep, we're on the way, we're coming.

Or they can self-dispatch, which is gonna be either to an overdose or to the approximately 3,500 firefighter referrals we get electronically every year.

One of the main tools that we have in our toolbox, and again, I think this is really shared with CSOs, with care, with crisis response, is we have time.

If you're on an SFD aid car, you're constantly looking at you're watching, you're looking at the clock because you have to clear that scene as fast as possible because the next run is coming and you're doing 20, 24 runs in a shift.

HealthOne can hit the brakes and say, we're going to take our time, we're going to pause.

Last week we got a referral from our partners in care for a pretty acutely suicidal and they spend about four hours with him.

So an engine can't do that, a truck can't do that.

They can't keep themselves out of service for that long.

We can do that and we use that all the time.

So that's your 42 minute average on scene time.

We are capacitated by our leadership and by our medical director to do any alternative transport that we deem appropriate.

We can take you to the grocery store, to a pharmacy, to a shelter, to a crisis center, to a hospital, anywhere that we think is clinically appropriate.

And you can see here last year we did more of those alternative transports than we did hospital ED transport.

So we have a very strong emphasis on both ED diversion and on warm handoffs on the scene.

So very briefly at the high level, this is just kind of, you know, there's no such thing as a typical health one run.

They're all different, but I think this is a good example.

We get a call from operations, adult male found down in the park in Cal Anderson, wet cold looking for shelter, endorsed some need for substance use services.

Very common.

This is about a year ago.

So a health one goes out, give him some snacks, Narcan kits, some dry clothes.

He wanted to go to the DSHS office.

We're allowed to do that, so we put him in the rake, take him there.

Well, we start an ongoing care relationship with him, start trying to find him, identify a number of serious medical issues that he had, and then over the next six months or so, we were repeatedly trying to find him in the CID in Little Saigon, He's having multiple overdoses.

We're trying to find him after those overdoses.

Finally, we work with Lehigh to find a location for him.

At this point, he is picked up by the police and detained in SCORE jail in South County.

And through very, very intense work of our case managers, they're able to negotiate a release from SCORE jail directly to Harborview.

He had the medical operation that he needed to have and then was discharged from Harborview directly to a Lehigh tiny home village.

A couple more months of work and he's discharged from there, or I should say, moves out of his tiny home in Lehigh into a DESC Permanent Supportive Housing building.

They don't all go this well, but this was obviously a success story, and I put the dates on here to indicate just kind of how long this engagement takes on average.

Very quickly, as a new capability, We can do severe weather response.

This has obviously been a pretty mild winter so far.

We haven't really needed to pull this lever more than about once, but we can.

Because our units are staffed with firefighters, we can flip the switch and move into 24-7 operations, which is very easy for us to do.

Everything is built up.

We have the whole architecture for that system.

So we get a snowstorm, we get a severe heat wave, and we can move into doing severe weather response, which primarily focuses on the unsheltered population, doing welfare checks, safety checks on them, and getting them to severe weather shelters.

We also have access to SFD's mobile ambulance bus for mass sheltering, which we have used in the past with great effect.

I mentioned our ongoing relationship with HSD that really kind of is the core of what we do you know we are a case management service beyond just a response service so we have this longitudinal relationship with our clients and we you know everyone that we see we have the assumption that we're going to enroll them in some level of case management As of last year, we now do what we call complex case management, which is the really, really intractable cases.

And it works.

I mean, the clients that we see, they're very complicated.

One of the unofficial mantras of our program is, if it were easy, it would have been done So when we see people out in the community, we assume that there are very, very complex cases with multiple overlapping social, behavioral, and medical needs that take multiple responses and multiple engagements to see.

And again, we see a substantial reduction in 911 call volume of folks who are in our enrollment program before measured as against the after in terms of 911 utilization.

you know we have a particular focus in our program and very deliberately on sort of underserved under resourced and vulnerable populations you know because of the the nature of the program and sort of the really wide purview that the fire chief has given us we can selectively choose sort of the most vulnerable populations out there and I particularly want to note here we see a lot of what I would call unseen clients I think folks are pretty accustomed to talking about, you know, the clientele that you might see in the Little Saigon area or the Third Avenue area, but we see a huge number of clients who are in extremely dire circumstances who are invisible.

They're inside, but, you know, they're older adults, they're experiencing multiple falls, chronic disease, they are appropriate for referral to Washington Adult Protective Services, and often EMS is the only one who is seeing these clients.

And so we really want to focus on them in addition to the folks who are out on the street outside.

This is just kind of an example.

This is at the high end of the spectrum, a client we've been working with for about a year or two now, a 34-year-old female living in supportive housing down in District 2, and she very sadly has end-stage renal disease but doesn't engage with hemodialysis, and that's because of her ongoing behavioral issues and meth use disorder.

We, the fire department, EMS, have seen her well over 200 times in the last couple of years.

and AMR has been called for her in the fourth quarter of 2025 about 150 times.

So extremely complex, extremely challenging and well served.

A lot of services wrapping around her and we are there to try to help coordinate and sort of manage that service outreach.

Um, very briefly in, in 2023 at the, um, uh, due to the, uh, Mayor Harrell's executive order, we started up an overdose response unit.

Um, that's been running now for, we're coming up on three years now.

Um, and we have two arms.

We do, uh, overdose response and overdose follow-up.

Um, overdose response is also citywide, but with a particular focus on the highest areas of overdose, which are primarily in the downtown area, um, and in adjacent areas.

In the end of 2024, we started the first in the nation EMT buprenorphine program.

It's been very successful.

We've given it now.

This slide is already out of date from last week when I put it together, 140-something buprenorphine administrations with no ill effects.

And this is obviously very closely monitored by our Medic One program.

And almost the majority, or almost all of these clients were like, 80 or so percent, we are keeping them out of the ED.

We are taking them now to more appropriate and therapeutic locations after their overdose event than a hospital ED.

Health99 rolled on almost 1,000 fentanyl overdoses last year.

The other side of that is Health98.

That's our overdose follow-up unit.

And we are now doing a lot of kind of proactive, ongoing case management for these folks.

It's like, well, all right, So after the overdose, maybe after we gave you buprenorphine, we're going to go out and try to get you engaged in services.

And we've really developed what I'm calling sort of an ecosystem of care, and particularly right now with our colleagues at DESC, thanks to the new ORCA Center, we now have a daily coordination call with them.

We have a really, really close relationship.

We're doing a lot of on-the-fly client coordination there.

and seeing really good effects.

And we've studied this now with some of our academic partners and the folks who see EMS in the field for an overdose and get our treatment have a statistically much, much higher level of engagement than folks who don't.

You know, very briefly, we did a pop-up in Hwa Mai Park in Little Saigon.

Individual comes up to our team, engages with them, expresses interest in getting them onto medication.

We transport him to the Orca Center.

He gets a three-day long-acting injectable buprenorphine, which now is really emerging as the gold standard nationally for this treatment.

We then subsequently referred him over to Ryther, which deals with youth and young adults who have substance use disorders.

They accept him as a client.

We work with him jointly.

And then we heard, this was about six months ago, the update is he's now gotten six consecutive months of sublocade, which is a long-acting injectable buprenorphine.

He is housed and he's employed and living with a partner and doing really well.

So again, it's a bit of a cherry-picked anecdote, but I think it's an indication that this intensive hands-on outreach really works.

Just to wrap up, I want to quickly talk about our advanced practice provider program.

This is in partnership with Harborview.

We have right now one full-time nurse practitioner, and she supports our core HealthONE team and our overdose response unit.

And she can do all sorts of amazing things that we at the EMT level and the fire department can't do.

Let's say we go to someone's house, and this is a real example, and they say, I'm out of my albuterol for my asthma.

I can't afford anymore.

I haven't been able to get in to see a doctor.

Jess can write them a prescription right there in their home, fill the prescription immediately.

Our firefighters can go out and pick the medication up right then and there.

She can do wound care.

We see a lot of really very complex, difficult wounds in the unsheltered community.

She can make referrals.

It's been a really, really successful integration, and we are thrilled to have her.

um so yeah lastly just to wrap it up you know we're going to continue expanding this year um our core health one program our complex case management our overdose team um you know we always have to kind of end with you know what do we need um we need more shelter i'm uh you know appreciate the work that the uh mayor has put into the new inter interdepartmental team on that um we need more shelter for the general population we need more shelter for the high needs population um children families with children people with complex medical needs, people with complex behavioral needs, and really just post-overdose or post-crisis stabilization is a pretty persistent gap for us.

So with that, I will turn it back to Chief Scoggins.

Sure, just to close out a couple of points.

First, I want to thank Director Tanya Kim for her partnership with her team.

All the case managers are with the Human Services Department, so it is a true partnership between the Fire Department and the Human Services Department to come together and provide this service for the city.

You know, as we started thinking about setting up this program a number of years ago, what we were watching in the city of Seattle is we were watching our calls rise at a rapid rate that we could not keep up with.

And just to give you an example, in 2021, we ran 93,000 calls for service.

Those are dispatches with multiple fire units going out the door.

As we close out 2025, we ran 108,000 calls.

And that's with these programs in place.

So we saw what was happening.

Well, why is this important?

We knew there was a segment of the population that needed something different from the fire and EMS response.

So in 2025, we ran 64,000 BLS calls.

So that's basic life support.

There was a medical emergency that happened and we needed to go and check it out.

AMR transported 45,000 of that 64,000 calls, which means there's a Delta right there that we left on scene.

Now our medics, they ran over 16,000 calls and they transported just under 6,000 calls.

So there's another Delta in the population that needed to call 911, but they needed something just a little bit different.

So when I think about our referral program, and as John mentioned, the firefighters work all over the city who are trained with HealthONE, they're transitioning that information to other firefighters.

In 2025, we had over 3,000 referrals with people who needed additional help that came from our fire stations to our mobile integrated health program.

And one thing John didn't hit the nail as hard as I wanted him to hit it with the hammer was, over 70% of those referrals who are high utilizers, when they connect up with our MIH program, we pretty much take 70% of them out of our high utilizer population, which means they're calling 911 less.

That's really important to note.

So we see all of these programs continuing to grow because it's a continuous need that we have here in the city.

So I want to thank Chair Kettle and members of the Council for allowing us just a few minutes to share what we're doing in this program and we will pass it on to the next presenter.

Well, before that, two things.

Yes, thank you, John, for going fairly quick because there's a large number of slides.

We do have a short time.

So my ask for my colleagues is that if you have any questions, let's have them be 1212. so we can get to CARE and police.

So let's always start with Vice Chair.

No, thank you, Chair.

I do want to echo that.

I do note that there are two more substantive presentations, each from CARE and police.

And in the interest of time, I'm going to table any questions or comments that I might have until after we get through the other substantive presentations.

And I encourage my colleagues to do the same unless it's very urgent.

Thank you.

Committee colleagues first.

Wise words from my vice chair, but Councilmember Foster.

Chair, do you prefer questions at the end of all three presentations?

You know what, it might be better to do that, because I can already see how these things are lining up.

I'll hold my questions.

And the questions may be better when you have side-by-sides with the three.

So, okay, we're going to press all the way through.

Let's, again, keep the pace up to allow for those questions.

Thank you.

You know I can talk fast.

Chair Kettle, council members, thank you.

It's good to be here.

It's so fun to present after John Ehrenfeld and Chief Scoggins.

They are two of our most treasured collaborators, my original educators in the space, and we are building on the progress, the foundation that they set.

Next slide.

So you were all instrumental in developing this program.

You know a lot about it, so I'm going to go quickly through the history.

The Care Responder pilot was launched in October 2023. It was a pilot team of six responders working only downtown, expanded to 24 responders citywide last year.

And thanks to you all, we will grow to 48 responders and nine supervisors this year.

We should be sending the correct configuration of response to a 911 call.

and I've said from the beginning that sometimes that would involve also sending a peer with very specific lived experience and knowledge.

It's often a peer that can get to the consent-based yes to the solution the most effectively.

Now, we have not yet designed any kind of follow-up or case management to calls like John described for HealthOne, but we know that we need that for some people.

I continue to like Durham's model.

They have a care navigation team that can follow up for about 30 days as appropriate.

Next slide, thank you.

So we do look forward to doubling the care responder unit this year.

However, we're still very constrained by the lack of care staff to fulfill administrative functions in areas like HR and training, and also by city process.

The new crisis responder pockets were just approved last week by Class Comp.

We are prioritizing the hiring of the supervisors first.

The supervisor positions should be functionally similar to sergeants.

They need to be available in the field for triage and support.

We have three care responder zones, north, central, and south, with two offices in each zone.

Appropriate coverage would mean having a supervisor available in each office each day, and so that would currently mean 12 supervisors instead of three.

Next.

Under the constraints of the current SPA contract, care responders are permitted to respond to persons in public space with no evidence of substance use nor encampment.

Now, we had interpreted the contract to mean that so long as a person is not inside a place where they could be trespassed, care responders could help them.

However, last week we were advised that we were not permitted to be dispatched to any private property where someone could be trespassed, including outdoor parking lots.

What this means, and this actually happened last night, is that someone can be in a QFC parking lot, clearly struggling mentally or emotionally, and when that QFC employee calls 911 and asks if we can send someone to provide resources, our only option is to send an officer.

We are not even permitted to send an officer and dual dispatch the care responders at the same time.

Now in 2024, we scrutinized call types that never or extremely rarely resulted in any kind of law enforcement action and recommended that this data inform contract negotiation.

The call types we studied represented more than 47,000 calls annually.

We were led to believe that what we were recommending was being endorsed and advocated for and that negotiations were going very well.

And so as such, my teammates went to work drafting new trainings and 911 protocols, and the department waited with anticipation for the day that we could start sending the best first response to so many neighbors in distress in pursuit of breaking destructive cycles.

We were also very excited to free law enforcement up to get them to the calls that only they could go to.

Because of the current exclusions, although about 2,400 calls come into 911 every day, we estimate that perhaps 10 to 20 would qualify for CARES solo dispatch.

Again, it would have to be a person on public property, meaning government owned, without a minor present, without evidence of substance use, and without tents.

Next.

To date, CARE has logged on to about 10,000 CAT events.

However, fewer than half of those have led to a report in our Mark 43 RMS, which means several things.

It means that we either logged ourselves on to an area proactively where we think we might be needed, or we arrived and could not locate the neighbor in need of support, or we have been canceled en route to the call or waved off.

And so what that means is that this clinical, highly skilled, highly trained care responder teams, too often they don't even get a chance to engage.

They don't even get a chance to try to connect people into services.

Now, this chart, at a glance, it looks like we're trending in the right direction with regard to utility, but it doesn't reflect staffing.

The team grew 400% from mid-2024 to mid-2025, and so we should have seen at least a 400% increase in calls handled.

In 2024, you can see that uptick in on views, that light blue area, and that was me stressing that they must go out and engage proactively in between calls.

They were being underutilized.

You can also see last year when there were more dual dispatches, that was as 911 got comfortable and acclimated to the idea, and also as managers started doing more after-action reviews, ensuring that we were tightly complying with the protocols to send care.

Today we estimate that the 24 responders are on average fulfilling only 28% of their capacity due to the constraints described, and so we must innovate.

It is unacceptable to not fully maximize this important team, and it's also unacceptable to waste even a dollar in such a challenging budget environment.

Next.

To date, welfare check and assist the public have been the two most common call types we responded to, followed by person down in crisis.

There is tremendous overlap and subjectivity in call types.

Missing child is an all hands on deck call type.

We're not handling those alone, but rather we're assisting.

And for domestic disturbance, we're generally called upon to help with resource navigation.

At times, we connect folks after hours to the Victim Support Team Safety End Program, which provides short-term emergency housing.

Kaylee DiMaggio, an HSD, has been one of our most valued collaborators.

John's nodding to.

And she also trains our team around domestic violence resources and responses.

and so I'd remind you all that call types in 911 originated in policing and they're fundamentally quite antiquated.

Nationally, we want to move toward criteria-based dispatch.

911 dispatch should be objective, independent, intelligent, and designed to not default to a law enforcement response.

Next.

Care responders should be the connective tissue between the public safety system and community resources.

We have spent a tremendous amount of time mapping the system and identifying who serves which population best and what exclusionary criteria exist for different resources.

Our treasured PDA colleague, Simone Walcott, once said in front of me, people are not service resistant.

The services are people resistant.

And I have quoted her ever since.

For example, someone may be a perfect fit for a shelter, but they are precluded from admittance because they've soiled themselves or because their dog doesn't have a leash or they're partially clothed and barefoot.

Our responders can resolve these minor issues and ensure that the person is admitted.

This past Sunday, a call came in from an older man, a veteran, whose heat had been shut off for days and he was freezing.

Our responders took him a space heater and then talked him through how to regain his power the next day.

So some issues like that can be very quickly resolved.

Next.

Several trends have remained steady since the inception of the program.

We give rides on about 30% of the calls.

People come into services about 40% of the time.

The responders record not only the CAD data, things like how they were dispatched, response time, whether police stayed, call type, but also their assessment of whether they left someone better equipped in some way.

The perception of increased willingness to accept services is one of the most interesting metrics we track.

Now the data point here about SPD staying for the duration of more than a third of the calls should not be misconstrued to imply there was a safety concern.

This is nearly never the case.

This happens when there is concurrent work being done by SPD while CARE is providing support, or sometimes a call is quickly resolved upon arrival and both weeks depart.

The care responders do document when they felt the situation was unsafe for them alone.

We track this closely.

And so I'm quite surprised and delighted by the statistic that still to date, we have only requested police to come assist 16 times since 2023 and never for a grave safety concern.

Some examples of why we called SPD back include an adolescent who felt unsafe at home and we had an officer on standby while they collected their belongings.

Another time there was a client with a weapon that they wanted to surrender and they needed to get into the Crisis Solutions Center and so SPD needed to come collect that weapon.

Another time somebody was a little too erratic for care to feel confident providing the ride.

Next.

In 2025, 3,085 reports were written.

Two populations I have spoken consistently about serving major system gap areas are those who are unsheltered and those who are using substances.

You will note here that we serve all types of people.

We were surprised by the gender disparity trend between men and women and are concerned that perhaps we are not serving women as often as we should because they have children with them.

Next.

So 911 was removed from SPD in 2021 with the intention of creating a new civilian chain of command responsible to design and dispatch the best first response to a 911 call or divert the call to another proper resource.

By ordinance 126954, the Seattle Care Department is responsible to quote, identify, triage, dispatch public safety service requests to first responders and other community resources most appropriate to quickly and safely respond and resolve the requested need.

And we're also required by that ordinance to provide diversified community-focused responses to 911 calls identified as behavioral health.

Next.

So this response protocol represents workflow, although this is somewhat aspirational.

In truth, Seattle 911 either routes a call to the fire department for triage and dispatch, or we default to police, with the exception of the handful of calls that fall within that narrow care responder parameters, those set today.

We do not currently dispatch the CSOs, but I have been advised that we will.

Next.

This is the current acuity map of where things sit.

We've got police and fire co-response teams.

They go out to high acuity calls where we think there could be an arrest on the SPD, CRT side, or someone could be taken to Harborview.

So that's the real distinction with HealthOne.

We think there is a more acute medical aspect to the call.

Care should go to clinical calls that don't fall in either category, and there are tens of thousands of those calls every year.

Beyond the other two public safety departments presenting here, we work very closely with King County Behavioral Health, Public Health, the prosecutor and city attorney offices, the King County Jail, the crisis care centers, and many nonprofits.

I've illuminated some of the restrictions, perceived restrictions, on the care responders today.

but I can share that we have recommended a number of strategies to be able to get this team to thousands of calls.

We're currently working in tight coordination with King County Jail to ensure that rather than releasing neighbors daily into crisis and homelessness, deputies can now call us directly to provide resource navigation or a ride.

About half of the folks exiting King County Jail every day exit into homelessness, and so it's predictable that things will go from bad to worse.

I propose we do something similar with Harborview.

Let's get out ahead of that predictable 911 call.

I've recommended for two years that we also integrate the care responders into the 988 system, and the Crisis Connections leaders have been fabulous and very willing collaborators.

They already dispatch a team to behavioral health calls around the county and would love to have another resource for Seattle.

We have recommended establishing a clinical care navigation line specifically for providers and businesses who frequently interact with persons chronically in crisis.

And I was told last year by our labor negotiator that this is perfectly fine if the calls are clinical in nature.

Now last week, I had a conversation with one of my favorite people in town, Amari Salisbury.

He reminded me, as so many often do, that the work of the care responders represents one of the only promises made and kept to his community since 2020. And so we must not break that promise after so much progress has been made.

And when there is so much local and national consensus that highly trained, professional, clinical first responder teams are absolutely crucial to breaking cycles of crime and crisis.

I am unwavering in my support of law enforcement, which support was never contingent on their support of me.

Police officers and care responders are trained differently, they analyze behavior through very different lenses, and they have very different and distinct crucial roles to play in advancing public safety.

And so I will continue to stress that we must design and grow first responder teams relative to the data.

which is why I continually stress the need to grow both the HealthONE team and the police co-responder team, both highly specialized and desperately needed.

And I do want you all to know that I am undaunted.

I am not troubled when I am mocked, I'm not troubled when I'm vilified, but I do lose sleep most nights thinking about the many neighbors we collectively failed that day.

I think about the calls that took hours to respond to or got no response at all because of territorialism, process, bureaucracy, and I am deeply troubled by the clearly avoidable and preventable deaths that we observe every day and the way that we have all become sort of desensitized to the suffering.

My colleagues are behind me.

We know who we are working for.

I know who I'm working for and I know to whom I'm accountable.

It's our neighbors languishing on the streets and their family members who are really scared to answer the phone in case it's that call that they've been dreading.

I work for my neighbor in Lake City who has been assaulted multiple times but has a son who is autistic and doesn't want to displace him from the services he receives.

I work for all the people in the city who are in recovery, who have worked through the darkest hours of their life, who have suffered and struggled and transcended, and then all the nonprofit colleagues who are the guardians of their hope, and too often the surrogates for their family and for love.

Most of those nonprofit workers are overworked and underpaid and very fatigued, but they can't help themselves because for people like that, there's nothing better.

There's no deeper joy or satisfaction than running into a former client who is unrecognizable because they are so happy and they are so healthy.

On Friday, I spoke to someone who had been serving a 40-year sentence in a high-security state prison, just got out a few years ago, and I asked him, if you think about all the people you interacted with during those years, how many do you think held no possibility of ever being safe in community again?

How many do you think really could not change?

even with the best resources and peer-led support.

And he said, none.

And then he said, I don't know, maybe there's a few, but generally, no.

Nobody's like that.

And so I want to remind all of us that we can break these cycles, even the profound cycles of crime and crisis, but we must invest first in prevention and intervention and diversion.

And I sincerely thank you all for the support of the last three years and everything that we've done to advance progress.

Thank you, Chief Barden.

Thank you very much.

All right.

Clerk, if you can swap out the briefing and now we'll move to our third briefing.

Chief Barnes.

Good morning, everyone.

With protocol having already been established by my colleagues, Chief Scoggins and Chief Barden, allow me to simply say good afternoon or good morning to everyone.

I have with me Assistant Chief Tyrone Davis who commands our Special Operations divisions where many of our diversified responses are housed.

So we will begin with our brief and look forward to your questions.

Okay, thank you.

We'll have an overview of our team, excuse me, our CSOs and our CRT teams, as well as our POET teams.

Go ahead.

Good morning.

Oh, I'm sorry.

So I want to begin by talking about our mission and, of course, our priorities, which is very important.

I'm just going to lay the groundwork and then I will turn it over.

But the mission of the Seattle Police Department, number one, is the prevention of crime.

We also have a vision that we crafted that we want to create a police department that our community is proud of.

And in order to do that, we have to partner with other agencies.

We have to think about how we respond to crime, and we must think about what is the best possible outcome for our community.

Additionally, we want to create a police department that will be a national model for exceptional policing.

And we believe that the following priorities will get us there.

crime prevention, community engagement, retention and recruitment of a qualified workforce, employee safety and wellness, and of course, continuous improvement.

No police department that I've ever been a part of, been in and or studied is perfect.

There's always room for improvement.

And just because we're not perfect, it doesn't mean that we're not going to look for ways to improve in every category, including the one for which we're here today.

This is just an overview of how we're laid out in our department.

We have two deputy chiefs now, and under Deputy Chief Underwood, we have Assistant Chief Davis, who commands our Special Operations Division.

Go ahead.

Go ahead.

I'll turn it over now to Assistant Chief Davis, who will walk you through our CSOs and our co-responder crisis response team, as well as our POET team.

Good morning, City Council.

Thanks for allowing me to share with you some of the diversified response teams that are throughout the Seattle Police Department.

I'll start with our community service officers.

They are a vital bridge to the community members and businesses within the area.

They are non-commissioned and unarmed, yet powerfully equipped with empathy and resources to help mend the gaps in our social fabric.

Whether it's guiding an elder through crisis or providing the basic dignity of food, clothing, and shelter, these CSOs are valuable resources to many of our community members.

Next slide.

So how do we utilize the CSOs?

Well, first, if you meet a CSO, they'll tell you that their first priority is supporting the police officers with resources and connections to the community.

Our police cars, they are equipped in the back with a hard seat and a cage.

prior to bringing the CSOs back in 2019, we would have to respond to a domestic violence call with a mother and two children and place them or transport them in the back seat of that vehicle.

Now with the CSOs being able to respond, they're able to respond with a regular car, no partition or cage, they have blankets, they have toys, they have all the things necessary to try to bring some comfort to those that are suffering from being exposed to domestic violence.

We want to be able to provide that dignity towards them, and the CSOs do that.

I'd like to share with you a story or an example of what the CSOs will do when they respond to a call for service.

There was a situation where there was an elderly person that was a victim of financial exploitation.

The suspect had access to additional funds, and the victim was challenged by technology.

CSO Jane, one of our wonderful CSOs, worked with that victim to lock down her debit card and credit cards, preventing the suspect from getting access to $34,000 of funds.

She continued to work with the victim and was able to provide her with support and get her connected with her local bank.

Many of you are familiar with the tragic incident that occurred recently where we lost two students at Rainer Beach High School.

As officers and detectives responded to the scene, we had CSOs that were in the crowd.

There were dozens of students, local people, community members that were outside of the yellow tape.

Our CSOs were available in that crowd to offer resources and someone to talk to and condolences based on a lot of the work that they've done to build bridges with those community members and with those neighboring students at Rainier Beach High School.

They continued that support in the following week by being visible and continuing to connect with students as they return to school.

They also supported Chief Barnes and I when we went and met with the families that week.

One CSO in particular, CSO Clyde, knew one of the victims.

This victim was actually one of the participants in one of his basketball combines, which I'll talk about in a little bit, and was able to share his experience with their loved one.

It really had an impact on the family, and they appreciated the fact that there was somebody who knew their loved one and even shared a joke that brought laughter to what is clearly a sad and tragic situation.

Next slide.

So one of the other ways that our CSOs will connect is through community.

Those CSOs are often tasked with conducting business checks, meeting with owners and connecting them with resources.

they are often working with them that are frustrated.

So whether it's a business owner in our vibrant international district where they're dealing with unhoused and the issues related to that problem, or to some of the business owners who have to deal with the results of human trafficking that plagued the Aurora Corridor, They are another valuable asset in terms of connecting people with those resources that'll help to keep their neighborhoods safe.

They work with city departments.

They work in community centers with the Seattle Parks Department.

They work with other local organizations and community groups within their respective areas.

Next slide.

So how do we accomplish this, right?

So we have 20 CSOs and four supervisors.

We just shifted from a centralized deployment model and September 2024, we pushed them out to the precincts.

and I think this is important because it helped for the CSOs to get further integrated within the department and support those officers in their respective precincts.

The teams are divided up by precincts.

So we have four teams with one team sharing the south and southwest precincts.

And I think it reflects in our stats and our data.

In 2025, CSOs responded to what we call computer-aided dispatch.

They spread it to over 8,900 calls for service, which is a 100% increase from the amount of responses that we had in 2024. That is significant.

We also had a 35% increase in the amount of times in which those police officers call for the assistance of CSOs.

I think that's significant.

I think that is just showing that we are integrating community service officers and finding the value of the work that they do.

And I think that'll only expand as we work, and we're working collaboratively right now with the care department, to do some training and finalize priority response to certain types of calls for service.

So some of them will be like a response to lost, missing, or found property calls, property damage for incidents where there is under $750 of damage.

and missing juvenile and runaway reports.

So again, these are reports that were traditionally handled by police officers that will now be handled in a primary response role with some guidelines for safety, of course, for our community service officers.

Next slide.

So I've showed you one end of the spectrum, right?

That community engagement role that the community service offices provide, but how do we deal with many of our community members who are suffering from acute mental health crisis, behavioral crisis, whether it's due to mental health or substance use disorders?

That's where our crisis response team comes in.

Our crisis response team supports community members that suffer from acute behavioral crisis due to diminished mental health and substance use disorders.

We pair them with a specially trained police officer, one who is experienced and has extra training in crisis intervention, and also often serve as our leads for training the rest of the department, actually the rest of the region, as the 40-hour crisis intervention program is a regional training program that is completed, rather, at the Regional Justice Center in Burien.

I want to share with you a story of how we deal with gun violence in our area, and that we have a holistic approach in how we deal with many of the people in crisis.

And this involves an older gentleman who had developed, rather, some memory issues and called 911 repeatedly thinking that someone was breaking into his home.

He went as far as going into his front yard with a firearm, which obviously scared the neighbors.

An officer joined by an MHP, intervened, and managed to secure his firearm using an ERPO.

That is an extreme risk protection order.

The crisis sponsor team connected with the family and worked with this gentleman to connect him with services.

He called the CRT unit and they continued to try to support him.

He now calls the crisis response team.

This is just an example of the work that that unit will do.

They work to handle ERPOs and also deny firearms transaction programs.

Next slide.

And that data shows.

So how do we cover this?

Well, we have four MHPs, and we want to take a minute to just thank the council for allowing or expanding our budget to add two more MHPs in 2026. So this will just help to further serve many of the people who are suffering from behavioral or acute behavioral crisis.

As a result of that work, they have recovered 71 firearms in 2025 through use of ERPO and our different firearm transaction programs.

Next slide.

I want to talk about other types of response.

We have the police outreach engagement team, which I'll highlight here in a bit.

I also want to talk about the work of our crime prevention coordinators.

Many of you know former council member Mark Solomon, who currently serves as our crime prevention coordinator at the South Precinct.

These crime prevention coordinators are instrumental in developing strategic plans on how to address issues within their respective precincts.

This will include connecting with businesses about crime prevention through environmental designs, improved lighting, working with the Seattle Department of Transportation, or working with King County Metro about moving bus shelters.

These are some of the things that they do to help make those areas safe.

They also look at strategic plans and how to apply for grants for example, so we can give back steering wheel locks to an area that's highly affected by stolen vehicles.

Our parking enforcement officers are essential.

They assist us with traffic control plans, whether it's a baseball game where they're fist bumping kids as they cross the street and keep everybody safe, or by just supporting all the efforts from our unified care team as we deal with RV mitigation for our unhoused.

Our internet and telephone reporting unit is a huge support.

These are officers who take reports for non-emergency calls for service where a police officer does not need to respond to that scene.

They've handled over 30% of the calls for service in 2025. So nearly 9,000 police reports were written by that unit.

Also, thankfully, because we've hired so many officers over the last year, some of our students as they return from the academy will work in that unit for a while and get immediate practice in writing police reports to prepare them before they go out to the street for field training.

Next slide.

So I talked about our POA team briefly.

This is a group that was formed based on what we learned through a Sentinel event review process following the 2020 demonstrations and riots.

These are what we call dialogue police officers.

That's a concept that we stole from different agencies in Europe.

We borrowed.

We borrowed.

We borrowed.

Thank you, Chief, for that clarification.

We still work with, yeah, and we still work with Dr. Stott, who is the one who kind of helped us to develop this program today.

So, yeah, I think Dr. Stott will appreciate that correction.

But these officers, we often say it with our incident commanders, they lead with POET.

What that means is that they will work with local organizers for demonstrations, whether they're planned or unpermitted, and work to find out exactly what it is that they want from a police report.

They're very crucial in giving the incident commanders real-time data On terms of the tone and tenor of the crowd and how we can best respond As they continue to work with many of those organizers they've developed relationships and so now we're actually able to Call them sometimes days ahead of the event and start to work out some of the details that will lead to them having a straight a safe opportunity to exercise their First Amendment rights Next slide.

So how do we do this?

Well, first it starts with officers who have that sort of work in their heart.

The POET unit is not a permanent unit.

All the officers and sergeants that support the unit have different jobs, but when there's a special event, we often count on them to do the work that I've just described, and it's been a very, very successful program in that way.

The biggest thing is, you know, we have events, we had a number of them in 2025, some of them crowds as high as 75,000 people.

And a lot of those events are handled with the police policefully, simply just with a handshake.

And I think that's a testament to how we've evolved as an agency and how we deal with special events and demonstration management.

and I think with that, for the sake of time, I'd like to end with my presentation.

Thank you so much, and I appreciate the briefing from the Police Department, Chief Barnes, CARE, Chief Barton, and Chief Scottkin starting us off with fire.

as noted by my colleagues, a lot of great information, a lot of issues, a lot of things to digest and so I'd like to open up questions for my colleagues.

Probably given the, we can go over and hopefully a little bit, but direct to the questions and over to you Vice Chair.

Thank you, Chair, and thank you, Ms. Allison Holcomb from the Mayor's Office, Chiefs Scoggins, Barden, and Barnes, and your respective teams, some of which are represented here in the audience.

Really appreciate all the terrific work you all do every day to keep us safe in so many meaningful and impactful and truly profound ways.

And really also appreciate the collaboration amongst you all, working together towards a shared goal of keeping us safe.

And on the FHIR side, first I'll note Health One, Health 99, mission critical, health-related alternative responses for our community.

I received so much praise and kudos towards the fire department for the work that HealthONE and Health99 respectively do every day.

care department, such a terrific visible presence, and I'm so honored to have been able to help provide funding to help expand the organization to make sure it's almost kind of 24-7, 365, but definitely Citywide, that's the longer term goal, but bottom line is now you are able to do more and I know my 116,000 plus constituents in District 1 really appreciate your presence, the presence of the care department responders in District 1 and I know that is shared that sentiment is shared across the city as well.

SPD, always appreciate all your partnership and the terrific overall work you guys do.

I'll note that the CSOs in particular, special shout out to the CSOs.

Council Member Lynn invited all of us a few weeks back after the tragic murders of those two young men in Rainier Beach to stop by after school and show him support.

And I took him up on his generous offer to visit his district and show support and solidarity for the students, teachers, families, and at that time, I think I did it on Tuesday or Wednesday of the following week after it happened, it happened on Friday, I was heartened to see so many and engage with so many community members, service providers, students, and including CSOs, they were there on the scene and I'll say the CSOs on the scene, they were much welcomed by everyone present.

So I've seen this, I've seen their appreciation from the community firsthand and all I have to say really appreciate everything you all do and just wanted to call out a few specific examples.

That said, a couple questions around our care department.

Chief Barden, you noted there are, towards the opening of your presentation, you noted a few, quote unquote, current exclusions.

you know, purportedly kind of prohibiting you all from doing more and being more effective in your work.

I was a bit concerned to hear the private parking lot restriction that prevents you from merely even responding.

And I do understand compelling arguments from both sides or on all sides rather for you know, measured response, sole response from care in private property.

In certain private property situations, some can potentially seem to have the risks to pose more harm and danger than others.

But when we're talking about a private parking lot, especially one that, at least on its face, appears to be open, not a parking lot structure, which bad things happen in the confines of structures, so I'll put that one aside.

But an open parking lot that is effectively an extension of the public right-of-way, but it's just privately owned, that seems to be a glaring example of mission-critical interventions needed today.

And so, and this kind of touches the recently negotiated collective bargaining agreement with SPOG.

I note that your department under that agreement is able to do a significant amount more, but entering private property is still a restriction would it need, maybe I'll ask this to the mayor's office, would we need further negotiation under current state law to lift the prohibition against entering a private parking lot that is open, uncovered, no structure?

Would that aspect need to be specifically negotiated under any collective bargaining process under state law?

Thank you, Vice Chair Saka.

What I can share today is that the mayor's office is actively consulting with the city attorney's office on the proper interpretation of the collective bargaining agreement and this particular addendum referred to as the CARE MOU.

And we hope to have an answer about what potential next steps could look like in the near future.

Thank you.

Okay.

Well, again, you know, some of the response scenarios on the face pose more risk than others, and others, like, that one just doesn't pass a straight face test.

So I'm hoping we can, like, common sense can prevail in the absence of any like changes to state law that I've long advocated for and will continue to advocate for, because that is what we've seen and what we're seeing, what we will likely see again in the next couple years, absence of change, is the system functioning exactly as design, not a design flaw or a bug in the system, is design feature.

So we need to change system, need reform at the state level in any event.

Let's let common sense prevail here as well.

Chief Barton, so noting that scenario, and on the other hand, the contract, it did allow for more proactive engagement and interventions, which I think is overall a huge community win.

and I've, in the summer of 24, did a ride along or walk along with you all and I'll, under the then current rules of engagement in place and I'll never forget walking along Third Avenue near the McDonald's in downtown and seeing a, and your trained social workers have a, they carry a variety of you know, tools and instruments and supports with them, including socks and snacks and chips and the like.

And I'll never forget seeing a gentleman who was sprawled out on the street near that location in clear and compelling crisis situation, needed an intervention of some sort, cheeks all out, very clear, visible, needed help, and under the then-current rules of engagement, couldn't proactively, in the absence of SPD dual dispatch, couldn't even offer, if anyone in the world at the time needed some socks and a snack, at a bare minimum, it was that gentleman.

The good news with this collective bargaining agreement is that it did unlock the ability for proactive sole dispatch engagement in those kind of scenarios, and that was on a public sidewalk, by the way.

All this to say, Chief Barden, and I know it's fairly new.

I think January 1, my understanding, is the effective date of that.

So we're a month and a half plus in to truly unlocking more potential for you and your organization.

but you framed, you opened up the conversation by framing things as current exclusions which I totally understand and we've seen some of those and I agree from some of the things that I'm aware of.

Let's also talk about the current expansion opportunities and what was just unlocked.

We'd love to learn more from your perspective.

What has CARE been able to see and accomplish so far in this early implementation of the newly unlocked power and ability to engage proactively with our community that needs it?

Yeah, thank you.

I'd first like to just comment on the parking lot sidewalk exclusion.

That exemption does not apply to the community service officers, to HealthONE, to any other civilian team in town.

A reminder that Chief Scoggins' department is entirely unarmed and civilian, and so generally when we're designing, we have the same safety protocols that HealthONE does or any other civilian team.

and caution is very important.

We actually have an incredible success record and that only calling SPD 16 times since 2023, that's unprecedented.

It means our safety protocols are excellent.

And I really thank Alison Holcomb for the support.

I know that this is a priority for the mayor's office and she has been at the ready and highly, highly responsive.

And so I'm very confident it will get resolved.

I want to remind you all that the SPA contract relates to calls that would come into 911 that historically would have been handled by law enforcement.

That is a portion of the emergencies in the city.

It was never 100% of the calls.

There's 130 programs around the country.

Some are far more significant, actually, in magnitude than ours.

Last year, Portland Street response went to more than 15,000 calls.

And it's not because they have a different labor environment.

It's because they have consensus and leadership across the council, the mayor, and chief day.

And so it is the expectation that these calls quickly get turned over.

The bright spot for me in January, the really good part of the contract, two things, it makes care permanent.

And I thank you all for that.

It releases that headcount restriction and says, this is a permanent part of the ecosystem.

That is hugely significant.

The second thing I was really happy about is the language is criteria-based.

What I expected, again, was, OK, here's your seven call types now that you can go to.

On the contrary, it says, in these types of crisis situations, without these things, you can go.

And that is a good step in the right direction.

I thought that my folks in 911 were going to be very concerned because the language is subjective.

On the contrary, they were more thrilled and ready than I ever could have imagined.

It's hard to be in 911 watching a call hold for three hours, watching somebody get worse to have nobody to send.

and so I thought it was going to take several months to roll out the new protocols.

It didn't.

In a week, everybody was already ready to go and they're ready to dispatch.

We're getting much more tightly coordinated in the behavioral health system and again, embedded in the jails.

We're trying to do what John described.

When he had those different scenarios where it was in the space of about 24, 28 days, you start to see someone actually stabilize.

We want to fulfill the same role.

We often hand off to Health One.

Health One often hands off to us.

but we know we need to see how that person's doing in the system.

So if they're actually worse in four or five or six weeks, we can try something different.

The other best thing happening currently, the last six weeks, is we have the lead contracts and the co-lead contracts.

And so we're starting to see, oh, this is where the emergency housing availability is today.

we've gotten much more specific about who would benefit from LEAD, right?

That it's not a one size fits all, that there are better criteria, more accurate criteria citywide for that type of really important intensive outpatient case management.

So I think the next, you know, in the next six months we're gonna see some really good things.

I just need to be able to deploy the team in different ways, right?

I can't rely on 911 alone or they're going to remain...

28% utility.

Yeah, I'm sorry.

Can I weigh in on that?

I want to be clear.

Yes, there are many programs of care throughout the country.

I left a police department before I came here that fully implemented care with no restrictions.

Chief is right.

The consistency, leadership, and counsel, the mayor's office, and the chief of police, which is the same thing here.

So I want to be clear.

I support the CARE team.

I support the work that they do.

Earlier we talked about lived experience.

I have lived experience.

And the next time we have our one-on-one, I'll share with you the story of my cousin that was shot and killed by the police while experiencing a mental health crisis.

So I have skin in the game.

So I want to be clear that our department respects care.

Our officers will be abiding by the MOU.

If we want to change that, that's fine.

But there is broad support for this type of work.

And as I always say, there's enough work to go around for everyone.

Thank you, Vice Chair.

Thank you to Chiefs for that.

Thank you.

Yeah, thank you.

Councilmember Lin.

Thank you, Chair.

I believe Councilmember Foster had her hand up.

I'm not sure if we're going in order.

Traditionally, we go committee members first, but we can.

How about you just go?

Okay.

Thank you so much.

Thank you all for being here.

And I just want to chime in on that last point.

There's enough work to go around.

I fully agree, Chief.

And if we had more time, I would love to hear sort of how that need has probably grown over time, at least.

my lifetime, it seems like it has grown.

And I think of you as our crisis responders.

And unfortunately, we see so much of our community in crisis because of the failures of our many systems, our housing system, our mental health system, our behavioral health systems.

And we call upon you to help our community when they're in greatest need and crisis.

And I thank you for the roles you play there.

I do just want to...

I think it is often confusing for the public to understand the different roles and we are building something new here and that takes time and effort and collaboration.

And so I thank you for the hard work of creating something new here.

And I believe the community wants to see improved response and they wanna see us all working together, electeds, our departments, and so I wanna commit to doing anything I can to help in that regard.

Just one question on the bargaining.

I've heard that we didn't need to do sort of bargaining in the same way to create the health or Health 9-9 systems.

And so I'm just wondering what the difference is for bargaining and, you know, if we need, you know, maybe this is beyond the scope of what we can talk about outside of exact succession.

But if there is anything you can share just in terms of, you know, why we were able to do so much and expand Health 9-1 or create that without having to do the extensive bargaining.

and I guess I'll just say one last point.

To the extent that we need to go for legislative relief at the state with our state legislative committees, please work closely with them.

And again, I would love to work with you all to make sure that if we need amendments to our state code to allow this, we should be prioritizing that.

Ms. Holcomb, probably start with you.

If you don't mind, Chief, I would just like to make sure.

First, Council Member Lynn, thank you so much for the invitation to discuss these issues.

I do think that questions about what we can do under labor law and with this contract in particular are better left to executive session, so thank you.

Just real quick, Councilmember Lin.

In the fire department, we did bargain with our labor groups when we launched Health 1, as we expanded Health 1, as we added Health 99, as we added Health 98, and we also bargained with the case managers and their labor groups.

So we did do all the bargaining on the work that is being provided in the fire department.

And I will just simply add that it is confusing to community members because there's a lot of misinformation out there.

One of those misinformation is that the chief of police is involved in bargaining or that I am a member of the police union.

Neither are correct.

But I did take the opportunity to speak to the new incoming SPOG member just yesterday.

and he informed me and he said, I could say this publicly, that they support care, but they want to abide by the MOU or the agreement.

That's it.

And if the agreement or the MOU is changed by whatever process that may be, then our officers will abide by that.

That's his statement to me.

And I said, do you mind if I share that?

And he says, you know, fine.

So I did take it upon myself to speak with him because I had concerns myself that there was not support.

And when he told me that there was support, you know, I have no other choice but to listen.

Thank you.

Always important to address misinformation at the beginning of this, at the end of it.

Council Member Rivera.

Thank you, Chair, and thank you all for being here.

And in the interest of time, I'm just going to, I'll follow up separately with questions, but I'll just say publicly that, you know, I have the pleasure of working with each of these departments.

I've had the pleasure of working with Chief Scoggins for nine years now in my prior roles and I am so honored to work with Chief Scoggins and his entire team at SFD.

the work that you all do in general and then with Health 99 and then your Health 98 are invaluable.

And I see, and we meet regularly, I see the value that you add.

So I just wanna thank you and underscore that.

Care, there's some folks in the audience that I've had the pleasure of working with like Jacob and Kat and Devonte and I really thank you, especially once care was expanded into the neighborhoods.

We have care in the university district and they've been a really great resource in the U district.

I look forward to working more closely with the team.

I thank them for, I've had walks, community walks, public safety walks that they've joined and I'm very appreciative of that.

and I'm looking forward to figuring out ways that we can expand care outreach throughout the district because I hear a lot from constituents that need help where I think I see that care could be helpful even now, even with the current MOU in place.

So Chief Barden, you know, you and I have discussed that and I still look forward to learning more about ways that we can help the district that way.

I will say, Chief Barden, your comment about we've become desensitized, maybe some people have, I have not, and I don't think anyone on the council has.

So that's important to recognize.

So that is perhaps you have come into contact with folks that are desensitized, I will tell you folks in my district are not and I am not.

So that is important and I just caution us to make broad statements like that because then we exclude other people.

We are all grappling with how to best help everybody in our community and when my constituents reach out to Find It Fixed or 911, they're equally caring about what that individual needs and when I talk to constituents one-on-one.

They're always asking me about what can we provide by way of help to these individuals that are either experiencing mental health issues or drug addiction, which we're not doing enough on the treatment side in the city.

And I know that our colleague, former council member, Sarah Nelson put treatment dollars in, but that is not something that has traditionally been done at the city.

And that's something that obviously we need as a part of all this.

And then lastly, Chief Barnes, you and I meet regularly.

I am so appreciative.

I will say that, and colleagues, you've heard me say, but in the vein of Chief, I appreciate your stating your lived experience.

And in that vein, I just am so grateful to SPD as a mom at Ingram.

whose kids were at Ingram during a school shooting there and how quickly SPD and North Precinct responded to that.

I will forever, as a parent, not only as a council member who represents the district that is serviced by North Precinct, but as a parent at Ingram High School, I did not know if my kids were alive or not.

I can tell you I am so grateful for the fast action that North Precinct took.

and for the fact that sadly there was one killing of a student there, of a child, somebody's child.

I cannot impress upon you the burden of carrying both the relief that my kids were walked out of there alive and then the fact that that a child did not, and then another child is now in the criminal justice system because of it.

That is, and as a woman of color, as a Latina woman who grew up in the inner city, in New York City, in the Bronx, where there are movies about my neighborhood in the Bronx, and just the borough, I should say, in the Bronx, everyone knows how unsafe it is to come all the way to Seattle and experience that is heartbreaking for me.

So I want to thank SPD for the service that you provide.

I agree there's plenty of work to go around and we need to work together.

And so what I would like to see is working together, less accusatory language and how can you be, you know, a person of change to really work together to make things happen.

So rather than constantly pointing out maybe the negative and what is not going well, let's hear about what is going well and how you can help make things better.

Because I think it's really hard to constantly hear the, this isn't going well, this isn't going, this isn't going well, we know it's not going well, how can we do better?

And so with all of you, because you are part of the solution to our public safety problems.

I want to see, you know, how can we do even better than we're doing?

Because I think each of your departments is providing a huge service to the city and it is helping.

We see crime down across the city.

We see our unhoused neighbors getting more help.

so how can we do even better is in the space I constantly want to be in because I think that is positive space and is a space that's really going to help our constituents in the city.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Council Member Rivera.

Okay, Council Member Foster.

Thank you so much, Chair.

I have a couple of questions for different folks in the panel, but first I want to say thank you to each of you, Chiefs, for the time that you spent with us today and for the briefing on the various types of unarmed response that we have in the city.

I want to start, Chief Scoggins, I'm really excited to hear about the updates from Health 99 and particularly with having the ORCA Center online and hearing how that's already making an impact.

So I just want to commend you and your department on that first.

And then I want to ask just for clarity.

Is it correct that there are no restrictions on where Health 99 can respond in the city?

Yes, that is correct.

And is it correct that Health 99 is an unarmed civilian response?

Not exactly.

It's firefighters and case managers.

So one civilian and firefighters are on that unit.

Okay.

Thank you for that clarification.

I appreciate that.

I know I heard that earlier in the panel and that was a point of confusion for me.

But they are unarmed.

That is correct.

We don't carry firearms in the fire department.

Correct, okay.

And the reason I ask that, and I think it's important because we're having this discussion around the care team and the locations that the care team can go, and no matter what we think about whether any of the presenters are being positive or being negative in their responses, I do want to be clear that my understanding of the MOU is that CRs from the care team cannot be dispatched in areas that are a known hazard, that they cannot be dispatched in areas where there is visible narcotic paraphernalia, that they cannot be dispatched in places that have been the subject of a call that is located in an open public location, or excuse me, it has to be an open public location.

So those are restrictions that we have placed on one form of our unarmed civilian response that we have not placed on other forms of our unarmed civilian response.

Is that correct?

You can, any panelist can answer this just for clarification.

Sorry, Chief Scott.

Yeah, and I should provide a little clarity here.

So we can go anywhere in the city, but we have protocols established when things go sideways, when we call for help.

So we have three different levels.

We have an expedite protocol and we will call CARE and they will dispatch SPD to the scene.

And that's generally a single officer.

we have a fast backup protocol response when we're on scene it could be a medical call it could be health one it could be any call we will get more support from SPD and then we have a third protocol called help the firefighter that means that things have gone sideways and there's probably a physical altercation taking place and the firefighters are trying to get to a safe place of refuge every month we have multiple expedite and fast backup responses throughout the city less frequent are the help to firefighters firefighters work hard to de-escalate we have a sense of trust with the community so there will be those situations where you do need spd to help so i don't want anyone to leave thinking that we don't run into challenges out there.

I mean, a couple of years ago, you may remember you passed the ordinance to help us on scene because firefighters were facing a lot of challenges and now it's a misdemeanor to impact the firefighter when they're trying to provide EMS care or just to put fire out.

And so now we have a tool that can help with that.

And that's important.

Thank you, Chief Scoggins.

And let me just clarify, I didn't mean to imply that firefighters don't need the support, but I did want to get a chance to hear those protocols that you've been able to establish, and I think that's really important for us to hear, to sort of understand those mechanisms that we've already learned about to have different kinds of expedited response.

So I wanted to clarify that, and thank you for that.

Chief Barden, did you want to respond?

Yeah, that is the elegance of the design, is that care responders are integrated in the CAD and the RMS, the same as police and fire.

And I've become a loud national advocate for that design for precisely the reasons Chief just explained.

The care responders, should they proceed and understand that the scene is not as secure as they thought, they can radio same protocols, help the care responder, and get precisely the same result.

And so I think that's really, really vital to good design.

What's more common around the country is that you outsource the 911 call to a nonprofit, and then you lose that provision and that integration.

Thank you.

The other thing I wanted to hear more about, just following up on that, and thank you, Chief Barden, is more about the criteria-based dispatch, and that seems like what you're getting at right now, but if you can just explain a bit more.

Yeah, the simple future state will be, do we need a gun and a badge?

Is there a scientific, evidence-based reason to believe that we need that, and if so, we send that?

Do we think that this might end up at the fire department, or at the emergency department, or that there might be a fire?

We would send that unit.

If neither, you would send a civilian unit.

So that's, I always say, wide lanes, high walls.

We're starting to work new technology into call centers all around the country.

We have one of the experts internationally, actually, in risk-managed demand in the Seattle Police Department who talks about that.

How do we use everything that could be known about a call or a location to better predict what is needed?

and then I often teach that this is all fundamentally subjective.

A 911 call is premised in what somebody thinks they are seeing or they think they're observing in a given moment of time that is just fundamentally imperfect.

And so that's why the call types are problematic.

We often will assign something, oh, it's a trespass.

Well, no, it wasn't a trespass.

It was a man with dementia who didn't remember where his house was, right?

So it kind of misconstrues that reality.

So that's what I'm talking about, getting more simple about what is a mental health call This year, I think in about 90 days, you will call Seattle 911 and you will get the options, police, fire, medic, or mental health.

And then if you say mental health, then we're going to start there.

And then we will back into perhaps there's also a need for law enforcement.

Thank you, Chief Burton.

Yeah, I will also agree with that, with just the caveat that many of the calls are actually changed.

And I'm sure we can get you data on how many calls turn out to be one thing, but they turn to something else.

And it's not always downgraded.

Some calls are upgraded.

And so I've been to calls before where it was dementia, but when I got there, there was a gun stuck in my stomach because the person thought that someone was in their home.

and you have to disarm them and kind of calm them down and try to figure out where family members are and things of that nature.

So it is unpredictable.

And so the issue with the criteria is let's hope that we're right and that we don't need a badge and gun.

But I've also always heard that from time to time about a badge and gun.

So I'm going to talk a little bit about the police experience.

Most police officers that I have learned from and work with they want to serve their community too.

And simply having a badge and gun doesn't mean that we don't care, doesn't mean that we don't have children with autism, doesn't mean we don't have parents that are suffering from dementia, and we want to serve our community just like everyone else.

Just because we have a badge and a gun doesn't mean that we should be relegated to certain types of calls.

No one that I've worked with or that I have learned from, got into this job to use handcuffs and a gun on work.

We hope that we never have to do that.

But there is a sense of just fulfillment from helping people and serving the community, and I hope that's never taken away from us.

I appreciate that.

Thank you so much.

And I want to clarify, you know, my intent in asking these questions is really around making sure that we have the right response to the right call, and I know that we all share that desire.

It is certainly not about implying anything about the desire, the heart, and the service that come from our officers at SPD.

So I really appreciate that, Chief, and I want to clarify my intent there.

And with that, actually, I'll turn to my question for you, and I appreciate you, Chair, for the flexibility here.

But Chief, can you speak a little bit to the training that the CSOs get?

I was hearing a bit around sort of the mental health training in some of the other places, and I'm not sure I caught that in regard to the CSOs.

Sure, council members, so the CSOs, when they first apply, they actually go through a field training program where they actually learn how to deal with community members.

They also get some training in the form of crisis intervention training, because they often encounter people who are suffering from mental health, problems.

And so there's a number of things that we train them on.

I don't have the entire list, but I can definitely share that with Council at another time.

And that includes, like I said, a written field training program that's several weeks and goes through many of the things that a CSO will face on a daily basis.

Thank you.

And I'll just say, it'd be great to hear that as a follow-up to better understand the different kinds of crisis training that SPD does, that CARE does, that FIRE does, so that we can really understand what that training looks like throughout the system.

I have more questions, but I'll send them in a follow-up email, because I know I'm looking at the chair.

So thank you so much for your time.

Thank you, Council Member Foster.

I thought I was going to go, but Council Member Juarez wanted to- I can wrap this up fast, Chair, I promise.

Okay, wrap and then I'll wrap and we're done.

Okay, time.

Yes, I'll be very quick.

I want to make a few points here.

I just want to point out very quickly that we moved to a district system in 2015 because we recognize citywide that districts in certain parts of the city needed to be represented.

So I believe for a district representative that we do honor the needs of our district, but we serve the city and the people of Seattle.

in that my vote as a D5 representative weighs just as much as a council member Alexis Mercedes Rink and council member Dion Foster who were elected at large.

And it's important to note that.

But I do want to thank Alison Holcomb for being here.

I recognize her from her leadership from the ACLU, Chief Barton, Chief Skovenson, we brought her on.

Of course, Chief Skoven been working with him for a decade.

And Chief Barnes, the work that we've done together since you've gotten here.

There's a few points I want to make.

First of all, I really want to point out, and thank you, Chief Barden, for pointing out that 911 calls did originate in policing.

And we have recognized that.

And I think when we moved 911 in 2021 out of SPD, that that was some step in that recognition.

that in 2020 we wanted to make those changes.

Is it perfect?

No.

Do we have more work to do?

Absolutely.

And I think that's what we're trying to get at.

I think that people also forget that knowing the history of police departments, I understand the origin of police departments from the 1860s.

I get it.

But you know what?

That's 250 years ago.

We are trying to make it right.

We are trying to do the right thing.

We don't always get it right, but the fact that we have you here, Chief Varden, um and we we now have this this team this holistic team that policing has changed 2020 the consent decree all of that in the last decade that I've been around I mean and this is the historical perspective we've come a long way but we do need to go further and I want to make sure that you know that I heard you loud and clear and acknowledge that um a labor agreement can be and has been restrictive, that the message has been received.

And that's probably all I can say because as you know, those are collective bargaining agreements and those are done with attorney-client privilege.

And I've done them with chiefs, with the fire department and police department and the other unions that belong to the city.

So I wanna thank you for your good work and I'm here to help all of you make our city safer.

take care of our relatives and our neighbors everywhere and just echo some of the sentiment that my colleagues have shared with you today and just also just say this on a personal note you know I've been around a long time as a former public defender and judge I have two nephews that are police officers I was around for defund the police and yeah I get it But at the end of the day, we have a charter and we have city and public safety is important.

And you're right.

Just because someone has a gun and a badge doesn't mean that they're going to use it.

It doesn't mean that they don't have compassion.

And sometimes they do.

They don't, I mean.

Trust me.

I've been a public defender.

I'm just going to say this, Chief.

You probably know this too, but I'm going to close out here.

Witnesses lie.

Pops lie.

I cross-examine them.

I get it.

but a lot of people do.

Nobody's perfect.

I don't expect that.

But what I do expect is integrity, humility, safety, and a willingness to change police into actual community policing to protecting and serving.

Because I think that should be first and foremost.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Council Member Juarez.

I just wanna thank Ms. Holcomb, Assistant Operations Manager for Public Safety, Chief Scoggins, Chief Barden, Chief Barnes, Assistant Chief Davis.

The reason why we scheduled this meeting this way is I think now very abundantly clear.

Again, not by accident.

And I've always said, I said this in 24, right, Chief Barden, I said it in 25, there's always gonna be adjustments that are gonna be made.

And I don't look at this negatively, because I've been through this before where you have to go through these big changes.

changes need to be made, but we need to have a lessons learned mentality where we look at, okay, we need to fix, we need to adjust, we need to do this.

And this is what we've been doing in public safety, looking at that onion, pulling back and finding, oh, here's the next thing that needs to be worked.

And our strategic framework plan gives, you know, a plan for this.

And my intention, again, not by accident, My intention is to work with Mayor Wilson.

I think there's win-wins here.

I think we can work these pieces.

Chief Barnes, I really appreciate your points that you've made.

Very important to be made.

And so we need to address the seam between public safety and public health and housing and human services.

We need to work these pieces.

We have to have a function of criminal justice system.

All these little pieces, KCJ, King County Jail.

And we need to work these things.

And in that world too, fixing ordinances.

I mentioned early on, hey, we need to fix ordinances.

We did it with chief of police investigations, not related to a current chief.

We, you know, chronic nuisance properties and these.

And I said this, we had an OIG here.

We need to work on public drug use and possession bill.

So much has changed.

We have care department now.

We have all these different pieces.

We have PDA that's now under care department.

We deliver care.

So we need to work these pieces.

We need to do it collaboratively.

And I think we'll get there.

And I wanna thank, by the way, to close, everyone behind you, the folks from care, from the various departments, You know, the PDA side as well.

We deliver care.

Everybody that's here, public commenters, because we need to work through these pieces.

These are major pieces and I think we can do it.

We will do it because we don't have a choice.

And so that closes me out.

So we've reached the end of today's agenda.

Is there any further business?

I think not.

Now that I'm down to three.

So we are adjourned.

Thank you.