Select Budget Committee October 13, 2023 Session I

Good morning, everyone.

Thank you very much for joining the Seattle City Council Select Budget Committee.

Today is Friday, October 13th, 2023. I'm Teresa Mosqueda.

I'm Chair of the Budget Committee.

Madam Clerk, will you please call the roll?

Council Member Herbold.

Council Member Juarez.

Here.

Council Member Lewis.

Present.

Councilmember Morales.

Here.

Councilmember Nelson.

Present.

Councilmember Peterson.

Present.

Councilmember Sawant.

Present.

Councilmember Strauss.

Present.

Chair Mosqueda.

Present.

Councilmember Herbold.

Thank you.

Nine present.

Thank you so much.

Wonderful to see you all again.

Thank you for joining day 3 of 3, where we are meeting with members of the central staff committee to walk through the issue identification papers that they have put together for us.

We're pleased to be joined again by the city budgets office director, Julie Dingley and members of the executives team throughout the day folks from the mayor's office as well as the department directors are here to provide technical support and feedback.

For specific questions that council members may have and to provide additional detail if council central staff does not have those details on hand.

We're excited about the full agenda in front of us, which will start with Seattle Department of transportation.

Presenters include Calvin Chow and Ali from central staff, along with director Greg spots and Chris Castleman from Seattle Department of transportation, along with the city budget director, Julie Dingley.

The 2nd, item on the agenda will be the community safety communication center slash community assisted response and engagement care engagement other otherwise known as the care department.

This item will be presented by and Borman and Greg Doss along with Allie from council central staff.

With us from the executives team will be Amy Smith as Deputy Director and Tom Rowland from Seattle Police Department along with Director Julie Dingley from the Seattle Department of excuse me from the Seattle City Budget Office and Deputy Mayor Tim Burgess.

The last item on our agenda will include the Seattle Police Department.

We will most likely come to this item after our recess and reconvene at 2 p.m.

Well, we will cover the Seattle Police Department.

The presenters there include Greg Doss and Ali Panucci leading the central staff presentation on this topic.

And we will also be joined by Chief Adrian Diaz and Angela Sochi from SPD.

Along with us will be the director of the city budget office, Julie Dingley and Deputy Mayor Tim Burgess.

Again, colleagues, this will be the last of 3 of our department issue identification.

Discussions if there is a department that you have been tracking and you have some interest in flagging for central staff or the general public.

I would encourage you to share some of those comments after we come back from the recess just before jumping into just so that we can get those items out there as well.

But there's no obligation to flag anything at that point.

Just if you were tracking something in the budget that hadn't been flagged in the last 3 days, we want to also get that aired.

And then again, on Monday, we will convene at 10 am to do a short meeting, just the morning session on Monday to walk through some of the initial outcomes from previous investments.

We've talked a lot this week and actually, over the course of all of our terms about how we want to increase transparency and accountability and improve tracking of our good public dollars being put to good public use on Monday.

That meeting again, we'll start at 10 am.

If there's no objection, today's agenda will be adopted.

Hearing no objection, today's agenda is adopted.

We took public comment on Wednesday morning.

That was public comment that served for over an hour and 15 minutes, and that provided the public comment for this three-day span of a extended agenda over that time period.

We do not have public comment this morning.

We can go ahead and move right on into items of business.

As a reminder for the viewing public, if you are interested in providing additional public comment, we will take public comment on Monday at 10 AM as well.

Madam Clerk, could you please read item number one into the record?

Agenda item one, Seattle Department of Transportation for briefing and discussion.

Wonderful and before I turn it over to our presenters from central staff, I want to give.

Council member Alex Peterson, a chance, excuse me, we have Seattle police department showing on the screen.

Thank you so much.

If we could switch that back over to us.

Thank you.

Perfect.

I want to give council member Peterson a chance to welcome us to this topic, given that.

Department of transportation is in his purview and his committee Councilmember Peterson.

Would you like to add anything this morning as we open up the issue identification briefing?

Thank you, Chair Mosqueda.

I appreciate the opportunity to provide some opening remarks as the Transportation Chair.

I want to start by saying I look forward to working with each council member, especially district council members, to make sure they're getting the transportation projects they need for their constituents.

As we know, each district council member represents more than 100,000 constituents in their districts, We each know our districts better than any person or any department in government.

For example, if you as a district council member have identified a need from your constituents, you need a crosswalk, you need a sidewalk, I think you should get the crosswalk, you should get the sidewalk, rather than having to send dozens of emails over several months pleading for these transportation basics.

I believe the City Council shares a top priority with our Seattle Department of Transportation, and that's safety.

And I believe we all agree we need to do more to achieve better results for safer streets.

That's why we all want to see our Vision Zero traffic safety programs achieve better results.

I want to thank SDOT Director Greg Spatz for prioritizing safety.

For example, by having the traffic engineer serve as also as the chief safety officer.

And for their top to bottom review of the Vision Zero safety programs.

Of the traffic-related fatalities, we know that pedestrians in South Seattle represent the largest percentage, so we want to make sure the budget prioritizes them, and I look forward to collaborating with Councilmember Tammy Morales to achieve this overdue equity.

We also need to see sidewalks in areas we don't have them today, especially in and around Lake City and similar areas in North Seattle.

We've also seen a spike in the number of unhoused people being killed by vehicles, which is yet another reason why we need to address encampments, especially those near arterials.

Speaking of Vision Zero, one of the parts of that solution is the traffic camera safety and the enforcement through those cameras.

And those not only discourage speeding, But they provide funding for projects.

And this city council approved the plan to double the school zone traffic cameras, which keep children safe and deter reckless driving.

But the updated budget proposal we received kicks that can down the road rather than following through with what we approved.

What we approved would have generated additional funds for traffic safety projects that speed cameras in school zones can produce.

Another aspect of safety is bridges, keeping our bridges safe, as we became painfully aware of during the closure of the West Seattle Bridge and the audit of our city-owned bridges in 2020. These structures that connect our communities are old.

They need repair.

We know this already.

We've known this for years.

All modes of transportation rely on our aging bridge network to keep our economy moving, especially for our bus network, which carries the most people in the most efficient way.

I'm grateful to my legislative colleagues for stepping up each year to prioritize Seattle's bridges.

But once again, it appears that the executive's budget falls short on bridge safety, leaving it up to the legislative branch again to see what can be done.

I know we're going to talk about public mass transit, another priority, a shared priority, so we can move the most people in an environmentally friendly and affordable way.

For months we've been asking for details on SDOT's proposed spending plan for the Seattle Transportation Benefit District because the details matter for that $50 million approximately per year program.

We did receive the details this week.

A key question we want to drill into, and I think central staff will raise this, is making sure we're not spending money on vague categories like emerging needs when those were set up for COVID pandemic.

related issues and the issues related to the closure of the West Seattle Bridge.

We have instead capital project needs that we should be addressing.

I look forward to hearing from the Transit Advisory Board, which has an official oversight role to implement those voter approved funds.

So in conclusion, we also have the issue of funding.

As we seek tax reform in our city, I believe we need to have those who profit from new construction share in the impact of that new construction by chipping in with everyone else who's paying for our transportation budget with their sales taxes and their property taxes, and I'll address that more when we get to the Move Seattle item on this presentation.

I want to thank central staff for their quick analysis of SDOT's updated budget, and I look forward to this morning's discussion.

Thank you.

Excellent, thank you very much.

Council member Peterson is chair of the transportation committee.

We appreciate those opening comments again.

I want to thank members of the central staff committee who put together this presentation.

We have Calvin chow in front of us today and as council members have questions, or if there's technical issues that need to be raised, thanks again to the executive team for being on the line here.

Good morning Calvin welcome to the budget committee.

Good morning, Councilmembers.

Thank you for having me.

My presentation will follow the central staff memo that's attached to the agenda, so please feel free to refer to that document if it helps in the conversation.

Patty, could you go to the first slide, please?

So I'd like to start with a summary table of the proposed changes in the 2024 budget.

This slide shows the changes in spending appropriations from 2023 to 2024 endorsed and then 2024 proposed.

I just wanted to highlight there is an error on this slide.

The very last cell of the table shows capital spending increasing by 26.1%.

This number should actually be 61.9%.

The 26.1% is actually the change in the total SDOT budget, so it was just a typo.

All of this is shown correctly in the memo.

So just to highlight here, capital appropriations are the biggest change from the twenty twenty four doors to the twenty twenty four proposed.

These are increasing by one hundred and forty two million from the endorsed budget.

But I should state that this is a little bit misleading because it reflects about eighty three million dollars that is shifting from twenty twenty three.

Proposed to be abandoned in the year end supplemental and then reappropriated in 2024. and this is part of a ongoing sort of project delivery review exercise that SDOT has been engaging in the last several years to be more transparent in the budget about how they're completing their projects and then appropriating dollars in the years that they're actually using them.

So it is a useful project delivery exercise, but it does lead to a slightly jarring number on the summary here.

The operating expenses are increasing about 1.5% from the 2024 endorsed budget.

Next slide, please.

Portion of this table shows the revenues by fund source and I just know that these are not strictly speaking the actual revenues generated, but the, the revenue funds that are providing the resources for spending.

So, this, these numbers here can include use of fund balance.

On the second line, you'll also see SDOT's FTE count, and this table shows a 6.7% increase from the endorsed 2024 budget to the proposed.

This is also slightly misleading as about 57 positions were previously approved by council in the mid-year supplemental, and so the actual proposal in front of you is for 12.5 new positions, which would be a 1.1% staffing increase over currently authorized positions.

Before I move into the issue identification, are there any questions about the budget summary?

Okay.

I will move ahead.

The first issue I'd like to raise is the school zone camera expansion.

So this program uses cameras in school zones to detect speed violations, which are then reviewed by police officers, and tickets are mailed to the registered owners of the vehicles.

Last year, during the budget, the council proposed doubling of the school zone cameras and requested an implementation plan from the executive through a statement of legislative intent.

In the 2023 adopted budget and the subsequent mid-year supplemental, council provided 1.2 million to the police department and 500,000 to SDOT for this effort.

In the response to the statement of legislative intent, the executive identified SPD staffing limitations as the barrier to expanding this program.

It's unclear currently if any of the 2023 spending was used and the 2024 proposed budget does not include funding for camera expansion.

So as a result, or as options for your consideration, Council could consider reprioritizing funding for camera expansion, although the proposed budget signals the executive seems unlikely to spend the funds.

Council could consider spending provisors related to school zone cameras or no change.

And I'll pause if there's any discussion.

Thank you so much.

Council Member Peterson, please go ahead.

Thank you, Chair Mosqueda.

And again, I want to thank my city council colleagues for approving last year the doubling of the school zone cameras, which is an important component of Vision Zero.

And I wanted to, rather than expressing obvious disappointment that I have about this, I wanted to read a letter that we got yesterday from the Seattle Pedestrian Advisory Board.

They sent us a letter just yesterday on this.

I really want to thank them for quickly looking at the budget and getting this letter into us.

So they wrote, esteemed council members, the Seattle Pedestrian Advisory Board asks the council not to discontinue or pause the planned expansion of the automated enforcement camera programs, such as school zone speed enforcement.

um red light running enforcement and the don't block the box and transit lane pilot programs these programs offer an equitable non-invasive way to provide quick wins for the safety and efficiency of the transportation system especially for pedestrians to discontinue these programs at a time when the city is trying to redouble its efforts to improve pedestrian safety is self-defeating we also ask the council to consider any cuts to pedestrian or to reconsider any cuts to pedestrian and school safety projects related to the reduced revenue from SPD not issuing tickets from these automated enforcement programs.

So that's just the first part of the letter.

And we can make that available online as well.

So just, you know, I think we need to figure out, I'm hoping we can figure out a way to get the executive to do this more in 2024. I know that it's a challenge when you're dealing with two different departments.

You've got SDOT on the one hand, you've got SPD on the other.

So we'll look forward to figuring out a way to make this work.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

Are there additional comments on this item?

I will also echo my colleagues' comments.

We want to make sure to the viewing public that the interest here is in public safety and community safety, and using any public policy tools that we can to slow down traffic and improve public safety is the goal.

This is not about revenue generation.

This is about installing traffic cameras as a calming measure, especially to protect our kiddos.

So, I agree with the concerns around this, and, of course, look forward to hearing more about the placement and activation of of the school zone cameras and would support a reprioritization.

I see council member and then council member herbal.

Thank you chair, I'm sorry I was a little slow on the hand, raise the hand thing there.

I just want to reiterate the chair and and council member Peterson transportation chairs priority around this.

You know, we all know that even a small investment like this can have a dramatic impact on safety of our neighbors and our neighborhoods.

And as I have been saying for many years now, as the person representing the part of the city where most of our traffic fatalities happen, this is a priority.

So.

I would like to have conversations and got some questions as we move through this process around.

Whether funding from other programs or capital projects is used to cover this kind of investment in accessibility and safety for people with disabilities, for kids, for elders, for anybody who relies on mobility that is not a personal automobile.

And also want to understand how the department is filling this small gap with other resources if this is something that we are not going to be, you know, if we're not going to be generating the revenue for this.

So I look forward to those conversations and really want to stress that this is critical infrastructure for the safety of our littlest Seattleites and for our neighbors.

And we can't not do this.

Thank you.

Thank you colleagues, I think I'll take all of the hands and and then see if, of course, anybody has additional comments on that, or if the, if the team from the exact feels like there's a response necessary at this moment, but I think mostly underscoring the values around wanting to see this advance Calvin before I go to the next council member.

Is there a comment that you'd like to add for clarification?

Yes, please council members.

I appreciate all the comments.

I did want to just.

Just put out there that the effectiveness of cameras is dependent on actually the enforcement as well.

And so it's not just getting ready to get the cameras out there and be ready to expand and have the violations recorded.

The staffing issue of getting these incidents reviewed and ticketed appropriately and sent through the courts is also very important.

So it is The issue is more than just an SDOT issue is just what I want to reiterate for folks.

Thank you.

Good segue, thank you.

Let's go to Public Safety Chair Councilmember Herbold.

Good segue indeed.

Just want to flag the ongoing interests that I've heard from my colleagues, interests that I have myself conveyed to executive staff as well as our Office of Intergovernmental Relations to explore whether or not state law needs to be changed.

to expand the definition of who can review the tickets.

We know that the police chief has the power to give special commissions to non-sworn staff.

There is some lack of clarity whether or not those special commissions that can be given to civilians includes the review of traffic zone camera or other types of camera enforcement tickets.

If it does not, then it is very apparent to me that we need to make a change in state law to give the authorization to civilians to review these tickets.

Because indeed, the deterrent usefulness of these cameras is really bound to the ability of their enforcement.

Thank you so much.

I think Council Member Morales, that's an old hand.

And Calvin or anybody else, would you like to provide any additional context or feedback at this juncture?

I think I don't think anything's, no Council Member.

Okay.

All right, well, thank you for identifying the cross department issues that we need to address as we stand this up and move forward.

Hopefully.

Okay, let's go ahead.

Excited, please.

So, the how do you please get the next slide please.

Thank you.

The next item is somewhat related.

It's actually schools on camera revenue and then the impact of that on capital spending.

The proposed budget does anticipated reduced revenues from the schools on camera program.

You may have seen on Tuesday's Seattle Times an article reporting that since 2021, there have been potentially 100,000 violations that were not reviewed in time to be processed.

I'm exploring this issue further with the executive, but I don't have any additional information at this time.

With the reduced camera revenue, the proposed budget reduces spending for the Road Safety Initiative Program, the Curb Ramps Project, and the Greenways Project.

Despite these reductions in the Curb Ramp Program, this would still meet its settlement obligations under the ADA Curb Ramp Settlement.

SDOT also proposes to fund the impacted Greenways Project using Vision Zero funding.

I would like to make a motion to approve this.

I would like to make a motion to approve this.

I would like to make a motion to approve this.

obligations under the the settlement and and therefore my attention's going toward these other two projects that would be cut the $350,000 for road safety initiative and the $500,000 for the bike master plan greenways project.

So just want to signal my interest in trying to restore those in in some way.

Thank you.

Thank you so much for flagging that early.

I have a quick 1, I'm sorry, I didn't use a little hand.

I got you council president when you get old and you use paper.

Just just a quick question because I know we keep on the on the cuts.

So, when we say, despite the reduction in curb ramps still delivered in 2024, the city would meet its obligations under the 2017 settlement of the federal curb ramp lawsuit.

Then I'm looking at the attachment.

Is there is there a number attached to that?

It is something I would have to get back to you on.

The settlement requires a comprehensive provision of curb ramps, so it involves not just our direct delivery of curb ramps, but also private activity, and there's a number of other ways that that gets impacted.

And it looks like Director Spatz has some comments on this as well.

Good morning, everyone.

I wanted to mention two things.

This was the most difficult decision I've had to make so far in my year as SDOT director.

Everything that's funded by this particular source is important, and important to safety and to pedestrians and to meeting our ADA goals.

And the rationale for cutting the ramps is that we were funded to produce significantly more ramps than were needed to meet the settlement, partly because of the extensive amount of private development that has produced ramps over the last few years.

The settlement also allows us to bank up to 600 ramps, and we're at over 500 of excess ramps in the bank.

So it was the least bad of the various cuts that might need to be made.

But I just wanted to emphasize that The reduced revenue projection here caused very difficult choices for us to have to make.

Well, let me refund my question.

Mr spots.

Is there a price tag to this bullet point?

Because there's obviously a price tag to the.

Um, road safety initiative program, and you have it to the other ones and we can certainly talk about revenues and lost revenues and public safety and SPD and being down 600 officers and not being able to review cameras and losing money.

That on that 1, but is there a price tag to meeting the obligations is is it when you say we're meeting the obligations is that to the tune of.

X amount of dollars, or is there just no number?

That's what I'm getting at.

I apologize for not articulating that.

I'm not done with that first cup of coffee.

It's a little more complex because we get credit for ramps produced by private development as well.

Not all of the ramps are funded by city activities.

Chris, would you like to add something?

Good morning.

I was going to add, I think if I'm understanding you correctly, Council Member Juarez, The answer is we are required to produce 1,250 compliance ramps a year.

That's the number.

The actual cost of doing that really can vary on a site basis, as you might imagine.

As Director Spatz noted, the curb ramps often come into that number a variety of ways.

Those that we actually construct ourselves through our capital programs, either those that are done by contractor or by crew.

Those that we do in partnership with private utilities and public utilities that are working in the right way.

So, for example, when City Light is replacing poles along a block base, that often triggers a program redo.

And then as Greg, as Dr. Schlatz noted, We also, of course, regulate what happens in the right of way through public, through private construction.

So, when big developments are affecting the sidewalk block, that will also trigger programs.

And then we have requirements for those, we inspect them, and they come into our inventory as well, because they are invited.

Let me just ask, let me just, and we can, we can, I don't want to belabor the point, but maybe you can give me a number offline just because I'm curious.

If I were to ask you last year how much SDOT spent in meeting its 2017 settlement curb ramp lawsuit, could you give me a number?

Eventually, because often the curb ramps are part of a larger capital program.

So, for example, a multi-mobile corridor such as Madison Project Involves programs and and sometimes.

Large capital project budgets, you know, you have to really kind of.

Dig in deep to see all of the individual component parts, just 1 hundreds of component parts for a large project such as that.

But you must have to report to somebody that you are meeting the settlement needs and give them a number and that you're trying to meet the 1250 curves.

I mean, you must give a number, right?

Programs.

The settlement is outcomes focused.

It's on the delivery of the curb ramps themselves.

It doesn't really, I mean, it recognizes that there are multiple paths to delivering those, but the thing that we're on the hook for is the actual number delivered of curb ramps in the field.

Okay, that explains it.

Yeah, it's not the spend.

It's not the spend, as Kalja said.

It's the output of curb ramps.

Thank you so much and thanks to director spots and to Chris for your answers comes president.

I appreciate your questioning as well.

It's similar to the questioning that I had an account and I apologize.

I just read skim through your memo, but do we have a map of where the.

The curb ramps have been installed, right?

If we're relying on private development in part to meet our goals for the necessary number of ramps, I can imagine that development is occurring in certain pockets of the of the city and not others.

So do we have an equity issue that is being exacerbated if we're reducing the funding by, um.

by the efforts in this budget if we're not providing that public investment where the private market is not creating ramps.

Uh, this, this is a long term settlement and so I think this is something that I could work with Chris to help get a more comprehensive response on.

I think any 1 year sort of does lose the perspective of of the whole how the whole program is being developed or being delivered.

So, perhaps I can spend some time with Chris to help formulate some better information for the council.

Okay, great.

And I would love to see that sort of map applied to where the bike master plan greenways project funding would have to be reduced if it were reduced by half a 1Million dollars.

Right?

Because we spent a lot of time focusing those dollars and underserved and.

Uninvested in areas of our city in the last few budgets, so just would love to see where we think that impact would be felt most across the city.

Thank you.

I see director spots nodding.

On the greenways project, I know that has identified vision 0 as a potential stand in to help support those projects.

So I'm not sure that we would necessarily.

Those greenway projects may be delivered using other funds, but that does.

Obviously, reduce the available funds for other vision 0 projects elsewhere in the, in the city.

So there could be a knock on effect there.

Councilmember Peterson did I understand correctly from an earlier conversation?

We had that there was some concern around vision zero being reduced Well, I think that we want to try to Restore these potential cuts that we're seeing here on this slide that 500,000 for greenways 350,000 for road safety initiative in terms of other vision zero projects, I mean we the more that we spend, the better on Vision Zero.

So I guess I appreciate that there would be an ability to sort of try to stitch together funding, but I don't think this is where we want to go cheap.

Okay.

Thank you for those follow-up questions and any additional materials that we can have to round out that discussion.

I think we are good to move to the next slide.

The third issue is the culture connector.

This was previously known as the Center City Streetcar.

The project has been in the CIP since 2014, and the project was underway when it was paused in 2018 due to cost overruns and vehicle procurement issues.

The mayor has framed this project as part of his downtown activation plan, and he requested additional funding in the 2023 mid-year supplemental budget to reassess the project delivery.

The council did not approve this funding, and the executive chose to move forward with this work using the existing budget.

The results of that project assessment are expected by the end of the year, and they could provide the basis for an updated project proposal in next year's budget.

But the 2024 proposed budget has not updated any of the figures.

It is still essentially the project as it was understood in 2018. Currently, we do not have a funding plan for either construction or for long-term operations of the Culture Connector.

As options, you could consider spending, putting a proviso on spending related to the Culture Connector.

You could end the project and remove it from the CIP or no change.

Okay, great.

Any comments on this?

I'm not seeing any.

Council Member Herbold, I think I see your real hand.

Okay, there we go.

All right, I was having a hard time.

It seems to move.

The raise hand button, so I was having a hard time finding it.

Me too.

Yeah, so I do have a couple questions, as people might be anticipating.

We know that The council in the mid-year budget discussions declined to fund, I think, to the tune of about a million dollars, a study that SDOT was working on to help sort of decide whether or not the pause would fit.

And I understand that even though I believe it was S.

Dot's budget to I am curious, despite that vote, I am curious as to the timing of that report.

I think the document says sometime later this year.

I'm just wondering if you could talk a little bit more about when we can expect to receive that.

I appreciate, Calvin, in your options, you identify an option of, even though there's no, there is no funding in the 2024 budget related to streetcar costs, or I should say related to the culture connector costs.

I'm wondering if you can talk about what you mean by the option of isoing fund in 2024 until the council and the mayor have the opportunity to discuss whether or not to sort of end the pause.

Um, yes, so I, I did put a list of provides to cover of a variety of council interest that you might have.

So 1 idea 1 issue could be if if there is an interest in.

I guess I should just state that the project was an approved CIP project and has been in the CIP for a long time.

So there has been a longstanding sort of council broad city support for the project.

The issue is that the conditions of that project have changed fundamentally for the last several years and we don't have a strong answer.

So I think it is not correct to say that it is an approved project at this point.

It has to be, we don't have information on it.

It has to be reconsidered to be moved forward.

So, you could put a proviso restricting any construction until that is.

Until that is.

Approved by future council action, for instance, is 1 possible option.

And while that doesn't necessarily have a strong impact on the 2024 proposed budget, it is essentially a marker that could be replicated in future years to just.

Establish that level of of.

Council interest in the project as 1 example.

Provisos could address some issues that came up this year, for instance, as the fact that the council found other available resources to spend on proposed funding that the council declined to provide.

So, a proviso could have stopped that type of thing from happening in the past.

So just a couple of other thoughts.

As background, the 2023 adopted budget did not list funding for streetcar operations from the Seattle transit measure approved by Seattle voters as shown in the budget under the streetcar operations fund.

The funding source, I think, has not been used for existing streetcar operations, and the proposed budget shows $5 billion from the transit measure for 2023 for streetcar operations, and that's talking now about the existing streetcar.

think one of the questions that we sent to the budget office was asking when the decision was made to spend Seattle Transit Measure funding on the existing street operations and what was the rationale for this expenditure and how was the decision communicated to the council would be interested to understand more what The answer that we received means the answer was the decision to fund existing streetcar operations with STM was made during the development of the 2023-2024 proposed mid-biennial budget adjustments.

I don't recall that being a conversation that we had.

Again, this is more about the existing streetcar, not the newly planned cultural.

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I don't the thinking of using these funds to operate the existing streetcar and how that might impact the availability of these resources in the future to also operate Ultra Connector and eventually the access to these funds for other transit measures.

Councilmember, if I could beg your indulgence to get to that issue is I've got a whole slide dedicated to the existing operations.

I think the key point that you're raising is that it highlights the ongoing city subsidy that's required to operate the streetcar network and the issue with the culture connector.

We don't know how we would address additional operation needs that come out of it.

That would have to be part of a financial plan that would support how we intend to run that system.

I'd note that While the Culture Connector would connect South Lake Union and the First Coast Streetcars and may do a lot for improving the transit network and improving ridership, if that ridership is primarily transfers, then that doesn't necessarily lead to a similar increase in revenues because you have to share the transfer revenues with all the other transit agencies that are providing that service.

you may have more use, you may have a better connectivity and a better experience, but that doesn't necessarily address what it takes to pay for that project.

So I think there is that question of what is going to be the financial plan for both construction and for operations when this project comes back to Council for the necessary budget.

Madam Chair, if I just, one more.

Going maybe more squarely back to the culture connector.

Sorry, I was giving the thumbs up.

Yes, please go ahead.

I was looking at my other screen.

So moving more squarely into the questions around the culture connector, the CIP As you mentioned, there is a CIP six-year identification of a program for the development of this program, this project, even though there is no money associated with it in 2024. There is a The transportation fund financial plan refers to the CPT, the Commercial Parking Tax Debt Service, Future Needs, Center City Connector.

And the Culture Connector is listed as $20 million in 2025 and $25 million in 2026. This is referenced in the Transportation Fund Financial Plan.

here to be listed those corresponding years in the CIP.

Is there anything that you can share about what appears to be an inconsistency, but maybe I'm just missing something about the executive thinking there?

There is an inconsistency there that is not shown in any of the projects spending in the CIP.

The financial plan is a planning document look ahead.

It doesn't have any legal authority.

It's just documenting the executive's projections of considerations into the future.

They have had that planning reserve identified essentially since the streetcar connector was first put in the budget, so it was always a placeholder.

I see.

Commercial parking tax and debt service is something they do have to keep a track of to see how much debt are we actually relying on for that source.

So this reflects essentially that same assumption.

It hasn't changed.

It's not sufficient to fully meet the unsecured funding on the project.

So I think there's, I view it as an artifact essentially.

I think you asked earlier when the results of the of the project assessment would be and I think perhaps director spots might be able to speak to that directly.

Perfect.

Thank you.

Anything you'd like to add for your team.

Sure, thank you for the questions and I just wanted to add that the purpose of the delivery assessment is to have updated projections on costs and schedule so that current or future policymakers have actionable information with which to consider the project.

I think the question was specifically if you have more information about the timing for the delivery of that product.

We still intend to deliver it, you know, late this year, like what was stated.

Okay.

All right.

Thank you.

Thanks.

Okay.

Any additional comments?

Seeing none, thank you for teeing this up.

Paul Venn, is there any, let's go to the next slide.

Next issue is the Seattle transit measure and specifically the spending on emerging needs.

The table on the screen here shows the total Seattle transit measure spending from 2022 to 2024. It was authorized by the spending category.

The ballot measure does allow for up to 9 million annually to go to emerging needs, which was specifically for things like COVID response, closure of the West Seattle Bridge.

some of the West Seattle Transportation Demand Management Programs and Supplemental Transit Service were provided under this category in the past.

In the submittal of the 2024 proposed budget, SDOT identified $8.8 million of spending in this category, which is shown here.

In response to budget questions, SDOT provided sort of a more detailed spending plan of how they intend to use all these funding and the emerging needs spending identified 3.5 million of planned spending.

The specific spending for the remaining appropriations has not been identified.

It doesn't mean that they wouldn't be able to find additional programs, but they have not been able to specify what that spending would be at this point.

Next slide, please.

So as options, you could consider reducing the appropriations to match the planned spending.

You could reprioritize those funds as well for other Seattle Transit measure purposes.

You could provide those spending until those actions are approved by council or no change.

And Patty, maybe go back to the previous slide just for discussion.

Thank you.

Chair Mosqueda?

Please go ahead.

Thank you, Chair Mosqueda.

I had mentioned this a little bit in my opening remarks.

So we're really blessed that voters approved this measure back in November 2020 at the height of the pandemic.

And it's, as we know, a sales tax that goes to boost transit service and transit related projects.

And As mentioned earlier, there was a category in there when the West Seattle Bridge was cracked and closed.

We did not know how long we would have to deal with that, how much it would cost.

We also were in the middle of the, like I said, the COVID pandemic.

And so this emerging needs category was identified to address those priorities at that time.

So now that we have emerged from the height of the COVID pandemic, the West Seattle Bridge has reopened, I think it warrants focusing, redirecting those emerging needs dollars to other programs that we have here that are just as important, transit service, the capital programs, which are called here transportation or transit infrastructure and maintenance and then and the transit access programs which subsidize transit service for low-income riders, for example.

So this is something that sort of flies under the radar, these details of the Seattle Transit Measure, but it is a large sum of money.

We're really fortunate at the Transit Advisory Board has Having an official oversight role as well.

So really want to hear from from them but but I do like the option that central staff identified to reduce appropriations to match plan spending because that would bring us a That would sort of right size that emerging needs number To a lower number than what we're seeing here on this table Is that correct Cal that it would?

Reduce that eight million dollars

It would.

There is a little bit of a accounting issue in terms of how council appropriates the funding.

So I will have to do some research into just exactly how all the budget service levels, the specific line items, that has been historically part of the difficulty for some of this because some of the spending does get sort of commingled.

But we will find a way to make sure that we have an option to do that.

Thank you.

And a follow-up question.

So Seattle Transit Measure is sort of the rebranded largest subset of the Seattle Transportation Benefit District, which is a citywide district that enables us to fund transportation projects.

And so we're hearing that there was an issue with a $10 vehicle license fee increase that the council had approved last year, an administrative a problem where there was a delay in getting that information to the state to then collect the fee?

Was it a six-month delay?

Can you discuss that, what we know about that?

I think there was some information that came through when we were asking questions, when central staff was asking questions of SDOT when the budget came through.

Yes, Councilmember.

So as you recall, separate from this 0.15% sales tax, which was voter approved, there is also a vehicle license fee that Council has imposed using the Councilmanic authority.

And in last year's budget, council increased the vehicle license fee by an additional $10.

We had anticipated that it would take six months for the Department of Licensing to stand up and start collecting those fees, so we allowed for a six-month delay in those collections.

My understanding is that after the ordinance was approved.

At city hall, we did not, we were not able, we did not.

Convey that ordinance to the department licensing.

And so it was identified over the course of the year when when city staff.

realized that they were not being charged and made the connections with Department of Licensing.

And so the additional $10 VLF fee will start to be charged in December.

So for the purposes of 2023 adopted budget, it means about a five month delay in some revenues, vehicle license revenues that are essentially foregone.

OK, thank you.

I think we'll want to learn more about that and communicate more about that to the public, and especially what happened and what will be done to prevent that from happening again.

In terms of the funding that's here in front of us, though, I appreciate these options.

And I know that there are a lot of capital needs that we have in our districts.

So one thought is the emerging needs funding You know, we could make sure that we're spending more in the transit infrastructure and maintenance element.

I think we're maxing out on what we're able to do for transit service.

So, look forward to, you know, as we gather the needs from council members in their districts about what they have for capital needs, this might be a potential source.

As long as it's transit, there's a direct nexus to transit.

Okay.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member.

Chris, please go ahead.

Thank you.

I just wanted to note that actually our spend plan for the emerging needs category actually does spend full 8.826.

Information that might have been sent over previously in response to a budget question must have been incorrect, or there must have been some error.

So we will make sure to follow up with Cal to walk them through the spend plan for the emerging needs category.

And not only do we have the specific examples of how we would spend the full 8.8 million, but we can demonstrate that we do intend, in fact, to spend the full 8.8, so there's not a delta of 5.3.

Before I go to Councilmember Peterson, Cal, did you have anything you wanted to add on that?

I will wait to have that conversation before I opine.

Okie dokie.

Sounds good.

Councilmember Peterson.

Thank you.

And I had alluded to this a little bit in opening remarks.

We have been asking for the Seattle Transit Measure details for months from SDOT and asking for it in various different formats, but really it was just we need the details and we need the details so that We can make decisions as a council on how to appropriately allocate these rather than SDOT making them behind closed doors and then springing them on the public and on us.

So what I hear you saying is that the information that we got 48 hours ago is wrong or needs to be updated or

What I am saying, Council Member Peterson, is that, and I apologize, I have to go back and look to see what was transmitted in response to the council budget question.

It seems like a week ago, not just two days, it's been such a busy week.

But we do have a specific line-by-line spend plan for the full 826 for the emerging category.

We can definitely get together with how the students' budget hearing has ended to walk him through it.

And so it may be that there is additional detail there.

In the past, a lot of the items that I've seen have simply said new initiatives to be identified later.

It doesn't mean that the executive doesn't have plans to spend it, but I don't view that as a spending plan communicated to council.

So there may be more information there that I need to understand, but we're not going to be able to address that here at this moment.

Thank you, Calvin.

Council Member Peterson, anything else before?

No, we just look forward to getting the accurate information that we've been requesting so we can make a decision.

Thank you.

Absolutely.

Director Spatz, something from you?

Yes, I just wanted to make sure everyone understands that transparency is very important to me and to our department, and we don't have any intent to program funds quietly behind closed doors.

And in fact, our history is a really close collaboration with not just the council, but the Transit Advisory Board, who are sort of the public's voice on the use of these funds.

And we will make sure that in multiple public forums, The right information to share it on the right public input is gathering.

Okay, well, I want to thank I want to thank the chair of transportation for making the ongoing request for Calvin for the analysis here.

I mentioned before at the start of our meeting that we kind of have a hybrid approach here, where we're including both chambers of government, the executive and the legislative branch, with the intent to try to ask some hard questions and identify where there's gaps in information so we can move quickly, given the timeframe that we have to analyze the budget and to finalize the budget in a short six- to nine-week process.

Right now, we have about six weeks left with the goal of having an initial package compiled by next Friday.

So the information that's being requested is very urgent.

Appreciate all the work that's already happened, but to the extent that we can get that information as soon as possible, that would be ideal.

I think on this item, we are good to move to the next one.

The next item is the downtown activation plan proposed budget includes 1Million of jumpstarts funds for activities that support the downtown activation plan.

So this would include activities right away management activities or activation efforts that is above space budget programs.

And so, again, similarly, I think, well, while the funding has been identified in terms of its intended purpose, I do not believe there is a specific spending plan for these funds in terms of exactly what they would be used for, except for the kinds of things that it would be used for.

So as options, you could reprioritize some of this funding for other jumpstart uses.

You could proviso it for specific right-of-way activities, or you could proviso it until a spending plan is approved by Council in the future.

Wonderful.

Comments on that?

Okay, I see Council Member Morales.

Please go ahead.

Thank you.

Over my hand, thank you for for summarizing this cow.

As I mentioned yesterday, I'm glad to see that we're continuing the long tradition of investing downtown, but I do hope that we're able to capture some of the momentum that we gained over the last couple of years, 2020, 2021 for improving our neighborhoods and their commercial cores across the city.

We keep hearing if that downtown is the heart of the city.

If that's true, then our neighborhoods are the lungs and circulatory system.

And I do fear that the windows closing.

For keeping that momentum going, you know, I do see.

great potential for improving the daily lives of our constituents where they live and increasingly where they work and play.

So I just want to make sure that we are keeping that in mind as we are contemplating where to invest.

Yesterday, Chair Mosqueda asked OED about their work with SDOT on the potential for pedestrianizing the Pine area of Capitol Hill.

Um, it sounds like something worth exploring.

I would love to see a pedestrianized core commercial core in every neighborhood in the city.

And so I think for me, part of the question I have about how these funds get allocated is.

You know, when.

the department plans to invest in activating other commercial areas that have really kind of struggled because of the pandemic, but where our constituents are trying to, you know, have their daily needs met and where there's really no amenities for people to safely and comfortably walk or bike or roll to get access to their kind of potential goods and services.

So, I don't know if there's a question that you can answer right now, but that is something that I think a lot of us are probably thinking about as we contemplate how we make our neighborhoods safer for people to get around.

Excellent.

Yeah, I love this item because I feel like it intersects with many of the different departments and it shows the intersectional approach to how to create a healthier community and a more vibrant local economy and investing in the arts and culture and street activation and pedestrianization all tied directly into that built environment that can help create a sense of safety, improved outcomes for safety and health and increase you know, the ability to patron local businesses as well.

So really excited about this.

And I also want to underscore what Council Member Morales just flagged as well, to the extent that we can continue to think about how we invest in economic hubs around our city.

I think that will be equally important as investing in the downtown activation plan.

As I noted yesterday, it does seem that there's about near $5 million out of the just over $9 million for the downtown activation plan that we are seeing going to downtown.

We know that that's the backbone of our economy.

I think that the ideal would be to do both that and investment in economic hubs around our city.

So that's something Morales noted yesterday.

Interested in seeing how that type of approach to pedestrianization could be applied in Capitol Hill.

Love the concept of having it in all neighborhoods or various neighborhoods around our city so that we can have proof of concept.

And we know from other cities, other large cities around the globe, that when we do this, it actually improves patroning and spending in local small businesses as well.

So it's a both and approach.

And I think that the thing that I'll be looking at is ensuring that the funding that's going in especially from Gunstar continues to align with that economic revitalization plan that we discussed yesterday which it sounds like it largely is.

And then to the degree that we can weave funds from other departments including arts and culture and ESSA into this concept I think will be really exciting.

So overall just I wanted to lift up the support for the concept and underscore the comments around parity and equity as we look at other economic hubs as well.

I was going to say council.

Director Scott, something to add?

I just wanted to express my strong support and passion for everything that's been said.

I agree with the yes and idea.

Downtown is the heart economically and culturally of our city and even our region.

And people are spending more time in their local urban villages and some of us dots programs are doing a lot to support that.

If you visit Ballard Avenue, or sort of the main part of Columbia city, and then along here, that's probably the most walkable and retail friendly part of all over near with some really nice transportation adjustments there.

So.

One thing that you'll find in the new Seattle transportation plan draft is a whole section on people's streets.

And previously we had four modal plans, a plan for bikes, a plan for pets, a plan for freight and a plan for transit.

Now we're putting forth an integrated plan and there's a whole new chapter on this type of activation of our public right of way to support commerce and culture in our neighborhoods.

And I have a lot of really terrific and passionate staff working on these things.

I thank you so much, and I would be remiss if I didn't talk about how this also interacts with the green new deal components of jumpstart and the ideal.

Um, of having carbon for your carbon neutral zones around our city, appreciate the office of sustainability and the environment for the work there too.

So, continuing to look at that cross section of departmental interest in the way that we can leave funding, especially for.

Neighborhoods that have had divestment or lack of infrastructure investment and and how we have a targeted approach to looking through the equity lens as we think about breaking some of these funding sources.

But they're very appreciative of the work that's gone into advancing some of these concepts, a lot of which were included in the jumpstart.

economic revitalization conversation yesterday and would not be possible without investments in infrastructure, especially in transportation infrastructure that helps slow traffic and make it safer for pedestrians to access the amenities around our city.

So again, we will look forward to talking with you more about how that is geographically dispersed while also having a focus in downtown, understand the importance there.

You know that, and I see our good Deputy Mayor Burgess as well.

We all know the importance of the downtown activation efforts, but as you noted, more people are using their, what did you say, George, was that their local?

Neighborhood villages, maybe?

Neighborhood villages, yes, that's a throwback, love it.

Okay, so we will talk with you more about that analysis and just ensure we all have

Okay, exciting.

Oh, please go ahead.

Oh, no, I'm sorry.

I thought we were moving to the next item.

So, I have a few contextual budget issues that I just wanted to make sure that are in.

have a chance to talk about as part of your deliberations.

The first is that the move Seattle levy will be expiring at the end of 2024. So the levy does represent the largest source of transportation revenue and so future decisions about a potential levy renewal will be be the major factor that determines SDOT spending for the next many, many years.

So as Director Spatz mentioned, SDOT is completing work on a Seattle transportation plan.

So that's a 20-year transportation plan that compiles existing modal plans, provides a framework for evaluating the transportation system, and there will be legislation to adopt that plan before Council early next year.

And with that transportation plan as that will also be developing a transportation funding plan, which would be a much more targeted essentially the bones of a executive proposal for a levy renewal.

And so, in order for us to get on the November ballot legislation to approve.

a ballot measure would have to be passed before the county's August 6th deadline.

I just wanted to make sure that everyone was aware that next year is going to be a critical time for the council and for the executive in determining transportation funding for the future.

Council Member Peterson.

Thank you very much for raising this issue.

Yes, colleagues, we know the Move Seattle property tax funds a substantial part of SDOT's budget, and so glad to see the work progressing on the Seattle Transportation Plan, which tries to synthesize all the different modal plans.

I just want to I will highlight that in addition to the Seattle transportation plan, there will be two asset management plans coming out in the next couple of months.

The bridge asset management plan, which was a recommendation by the city auditor back in 2020. and other structures asset management plan and so I think those three plans put together would would really form the basis because we have to take care of the basics have that repair of maintenance happening while we are envisioning the city of the future and and and getting excited about new projects as well and Really appreciate the my colleagues patience as we debate controversial funding source issues.

And we just had a vote earlier this week, which was related to that, and to try to put more options, make more options available.

Because as this timeline shows, as we learn from all the great work that went in the housing levy preparation, how long it takes.

It starts, you know, a year before something's put to the ballot.

So, here we're actually starting to run out of time to put together a funding plan, a funding options.

So, we'll look forward to further discussions on that later in November.

Thank you.

Oh, excuse me, Director Scott.

Yes, I just wanted to thank Councilmember Peterson for mentioning those two asset management plans because I'm really excited that there'll be more analytics to support smart decisions about a future funding plan than we've ever had before.

We'll have this integrated multimodal transportation plan.

We'll have lifecycle assessments of all of our bridges and assessment of what type of performance from our bridge assets we could expect from various levels of investment.

We'll have those same type of investment scenarios for the non-asset bridges.

So I think that policymakers will have a much richer set of information to inform a possible next levy proposal than they've ever had before.

And I'm very proud of the folks at SDOT have been working on all those tools.

Any additional comments on this?

Okay, let's keep going.

Next item is the operational subsidy for the existing streetcar lines and the use of the Seattle Transit Measure funding to support that.

So next year, the city subsidy to operate the streetcar will rise from $5.5 million this year to $10.2 million next year.

And this largely reflects the end of Sound Transit's operating contributions.

The Sound Transit 2 funding measure provided $5 million of operation support for about 10 years, and it ends this year.

In 2025, the required subsidy will actually rise to $12 million, which represents a reduction in King County's operation contributions that were spelled out in interlocal operating agreement with the county.

The county's contributions are set to expire completely at the end of 2027. So as we mentioned before, the ongoing cost of operations will be an important consideration when we evaluate the culture connector proposal.

These costs are trending up, and we will want to understand how the culture connector affects that long-term cost.

Historically, SDOT has used the commercial parking tax to support streetcar operations.

However, for this year and for 2024, SDOT used the funding from the Seattle Transit Measure.

This use is allowable under the Seattle Transit Measure, which lets us spend for transit service that is provided by King County Metro and King County does operate our streetcar system.

The funding is available in part because King County has experienced limitations on its ability to increase bus service post-pandemic in terms of how quickly they can take advantage of additional spending.

So our sales tax collections have been higher than what we've been able to spend on bus service.

So I raise this not so much for specific options, but just to raise it for your consideration.

Again, this is 5 million in 2023 and 10 million in 2024. That decision to use the Seattle transit measure was really only conveyed to the council with the transmittal of this budget.

And I understand that Estrada is in the process of discussing this with the Transit Advisory Board as well.

Any comments or concerns on this item?

Council Member Nelson.

Just a couple questions.

This is, I'm not well versed in the operations needs of the streetcar.

So what percentage of the subsidies, these subsidies that are going away, you can take them separately or together, what percentage of the total operating costs are we talking about here when Sound Transit and King County subsidy ends?

Perhaps that's something I could get back to you on because I'm wary of giving you the wrong information quickly on the fly here.

Transit service in general is usually requires additional funding beyond just FAERS to be able to be supported.

And for both of these projects, they had in their history of how they came together, other agencies committed to providing funds for some duration and we're just coming to the end of those terms.

But I'll be happy to follow up with you.

We are waiting for the annual streetcar update, which does provide a lot more data on The ridership and the month by month operation costs as well.

So there may be a more up to date document available, making its way through the executive as well.

Okay, so this is more of a.

A process question, but if the King County subsidy goes away, that means does that then mean that we, once once the King County subsidy goes away, then we cannot use the transit measure.

Dollars for subsidy.

No, it's they are separate issues.

So, so we have an interlocal agreement with the county to provide service.

And because of that, because of how that's, that's how the ballot measure was written.

It clearly allows for us to spend it on transit service that's provided by King County.

And so that's an allowable use of Seattle Transit Measure spending.

Historically, we have not used the Seattle Transit Measure and the Seattle Transit Measure will expire in another few years.

So in terms of the long-term future of how we meet our obligations to keep the streetcar operations running, We don't have a financial plan currently for how we would do that.

Historically, we have used commercial parking tax.

There's a lot of demand for commercial parking tax.

It is also what we use to help support our debt issuance when we want to spend money on larger capital projects.

Um, so this is all going to have to be part of a conversation.

Frankly, as we think about the levy as well, because they all our revenue sources need to be sort of.

Understood together and how they fit together and this is just 1 outstanding need that could change significantly when if a culture connector proposal comes forward.

Okay, 1 last thing can you explain what you mean by limitations on increasing bus service during the cobit 19 recovery means and is that is that a temporary problem or limitation?

Well, it's been temporary for several years.

The King County has had some issues with getting enough bus drivers and getting its fleet available to add more service.

There's the.

related issue of is transit demand getting back to the same levels as it was before.

So for any number of those combination of those issues, we have had more money available to buy transit service than King County has been able to take on as a weight.

And so that has led to us building up some additional, essentially surplus in this fund that could be used to be spent this way.

Thank you.

Council Member Herbold.

So going back to my earlier question, I understand that there was a decision made this year to fund existing streetcar operations with Seattle Transit Measure funds.

A question was asked through the budget process of how that decision was made with the communicated council with the budget adjustments.

So this is a proposal that the transit advisory board consulted, and the response we received is it was made during the development of 2023-2024 proposed mid-biennial budget adjustments.

So it sounds like the decision was made while we were developing, Uh, budget announcement was the sort of the 1st communication, um, on on this decision, but this is a decision.

to spend these funds for 2023 as well as 2024 moving forward.

So it sounds like they've already used $5 million from the Seattle transit measure for 2023, and they're proposing to do so as well in 2024. I appreciate knowing that I'm going to be reaching out to the transit advisory board ideally, this would be conversations that would be made.

or conversations that would be had before decisions were made for 2023 and as well as for 2024. And again, I understand we have a streetcar system stood up and we have to figure out a way to maintain operation for it.

I'm more sort of, highlighting this issue as it relates to this additional three-car connector, the culture connector, and whether or not it is going to – operations are going to continue to deplete finite revenue sources are sort of – I appreciate, Calvin, you're going to get back with the real answer, but Our back of the envelope goes for 2024, 70% of the total operations budget is funded by the Seattle Transit Measure, and then that represents 24% of the Transit Measure funds being dedicated to streetcar operations.

I understand, and we can't Change the budget.

These are these are funds that we have to spend on maintaining our current infrastructure.

But if we have limit resources, I'm.

Again, raising the question of whether or not it makes sense to continue to invest in the.

per connector because that will create yet another gap with not any revenue identified for addressing it.

And, you know, the issue is if you build it, it will gobble up funding resources for other transit measures, other infrastructure investments, maintaining I think we should figure out a way to get a handle on these issues before we invest in other I think, as I said before, I'm concerned about how this will affect our ability to move into discussions on the 2024 move levy with a future Seattle City Council.

So if anything I've said here was incorrect, please do correct the record.

I think this was just more of a statement of my concern of relying on this revenue source for the current streetcar operations and the potential future impact on a future streetcar.

Thank you, Council Member.

Let's go to Council Member Lewis.

Thank you.

Thank you so much, Madam Chair.

And Cal, these are more questions about the Transportation Benefit District.

So if that would be better done later in today's presentation, let me know before I get into it, since this is more about the streetcar, but we've been touching a little bit on Transportation Benefit District.

So just let me know at the top here.

This is the last item I have that touches the Seattle Transportation Measure, so now would be fine.

Okay, great.

So, I want to ask, because you alluded a little earlier that we do have.

We have potentially had a little bit of of room on the transportation benefit district over the last couple of years as we partner with Metro to try to get back to Pre cobit levels of service and of course, work with them and be a good partner with that tool to be part of the solution.

But to the extent that there are extra resources in the transportation benefit district, and I've discussed this with you before offline, I'm very interested in figuring out how that resource might be utilized and what kind of policy changes we would need to pursue to see if we can bring some of it to bear in 2 different respects that could enhance transportation services.

And the 1st, 1 would be safety and welfare on buses.

I know that King County has been leading on enhancing security on buses.

But one thing that I'd be really curious to see is a way that we might be able to partner with a service like the We Deliver Care work that we've been doing as part of the 3rd Avenue project that provides de-escalation services.

A lot of the incidents that we designed the 3rd Avenue project to respond to on 3rd Avenue are also occurring on buses.

you know, which makes sense given that Third Avenue is one of the premier transit hubs in the city.

And I wonder what it might look like if we had some kind of system where a bus operator, transit operator, could summon the de-escalation services of a team like We Deliver Care that could intervene with a community member in crisis, maybe escort them off a bus and give them case management management system navigation or other kinds of low acuity assistance to deescalate that situation and allow the buses to keep moving and connect people with that care.

I note that in the RCW language, it looks like it is possible, given the definition of a transportation improvement, which includes the operation, preservation, and maintenance Of facilities or programs associated to transit now, we might have to reflect our intent in some of our levers with how we have structured our transportation benefit district to do programs like that.

And I'd be interested in a touch back from central staff.

About that possibility, the only other thing that I would raise is there is a bonding authority in the transportation benefit district.

And I know that this council has passed measures that I've prime sponsored around 3rd Avenue vision and some other things that we would like to do.

In the city core that have implications for Metro throughput and transportation services, and that would involve capital costs.

And I do wonder if there might be opportunities for some bonds supported by the transportation benefit district.

To pay for projects like that, as part of a broader portfolio of funding sources.

So, with that, I just want to throw those things out there, given the opportunity and issue ID, and just kind of put my interest to look at creative ways that we can expand the utility of our transportation benefit district.

Councilmember, very happy to work with your office on those ideas.

A couple of just immediate thoughts.

The Seattle Transit Measure did pledge to voters that half of the spending in any year would be go to transportation services.

So that might be one sort of limitation that we'd have to consider.

Working with the Transit Advisory Board would probably be useful as sort of the advisory, you know, the designated group to kind of look at that and sort of how Improving the quality of transit service fits into that mission, I think would be a useful discussion.

And then that could lead to potentially legislative changes to the spending that might that might allow it.

So, but I think there would be useful to have.

Again, that public conversation about about your vision for that as well.

The last piece I wanted to just raise is that while the Seattle Transportation Benefits District does have bonding authority itself, the ability to issue bonds isn't really the controlling factor for us.

It's our ability to pay back those bonds.

And so for the Seattle Transportation Benefit District, if you're looking at the Seattle transit measure, That measure expires in 3 years, so we would only have 3 years of known revenue with which to satisfy debt service.

The issue is how do you support that over 20 years?

And so while there is.

It's the same issue we have with our existing.

All of our existing bond authority, which we're not near maxing out anyway.

So I think the issue isn't so much our ability to issue the bonds legally.

It's our ability to service the debt.

Right, well, I want to say, unless you want to jump in on any additional process.

No, that follow up is great.

And I'll talk to you Cal about ways we might queue up those discussions.

I mean, I do just want to make it really clear at the top, right?

Like, I have no interest in doing anything that would revise the mandate that at least 50% of the transit benefit district go to supporting the operation and service like that.

That is that has to be sacrificing.

But I do think that as we look at, if there is a little bit more capacity in a given year, are there programmatic things we can do that enhance.

You know, people's sense of safety on public transit, or help us expand infrastructure conducive to transit.

I think we should take a look at that too, but we have to make sure obviously that we were doing nothing to limit.

um, the core purpose of this, which is, uh, to, um, help expand, um, transit service.

Great.

Well, I want to say thank you.

Thanks for creative thinking about revenue.

Always appreciate that.

Um, and look forward to hearing more as the conversation evolves.

Any additional items on this?

Okay, let's keep going.

The next item is related to bridge spending, which has been a focus of Council deliberations in the past and the transportation share.

In 2020, the City Auditor issued a report which identified the need for ongoing bridge maintenance based on an engineering estimate that SDOT should be spending 1% of the total replacement cost of bridge assets that are over 60 years old.

The table on the screen shows the bridge-related spending that I've identified in the 2024 proposed budget.

The top half is bridge maintenance programs that are consistent with the auditor's report.

It does show 36 million in 2024, but I would note that about 10 million of this is shifted appropriations from 2023 in the bridge painting and the structures major maintenance lines.

Similarly, there is a $20 million shift in the bridge sizing program, so that change is really a reduction in the 2023 adopted moving to the 2024. And I leave this for your discussion.

Proactively call.

There he is.

He's going to proactively call on our Chair of Transportation Councilor Peterson.

Thank you, Chair Mosqueda, and thank you, Calvin, for highlighting this issue.

And I know there's so many different ways to look at.

or to answer the question, how much money do we invest in our bridges?

And this, what I typically do is I'm looking for the maintenance items, the operating and capital related items.

I'm looking at what the city auditor provided, the line items the city auditor provided, where the city auditor said we should be spending between 34 million and 102 million each year on repair and maintenance, and that does not include seismic.

And also, I guess what I'm looking at in this chart, where you say the 36 million, thank you for identifying that some of that is carrying over from 2023, which is why the number looks bigger.

Also, I wanted to highlight Item G, which is West Seattle Bridge immediate response.

I guess since that was not an item in the city auditor's report, the 4.6 million, I would, the way I would be analyzing it personally is I'm subtracting that out.

So I'm getting only 31.5 million.

And then that's then short of the 34 million minimum amount that the city auditor had expected us to invest in our bridges for the repair and maintenance items.

But I appreciate you making this table available.

So I guess that's a signal of once again wanting the executive to invest more.

And we as a legislative branch may need to address this in the next few weeks to so we at least can tell the general public that we are investing the bare minimum of what the city auditor had thought we should.

Thank you.

Thank you Council Member Peterson and appreciate your continued focus on this.

Director Spodz anything to add in terms of focus and the reprioritization here.

Yes, I just wanted to share that, you know, throughout my 1st, 13 months in the job, strengthening our approach to the bridges across all the different elements has been a top priority for me and for the department.

And I can report that, you know, by the end of this year, we're going to complete all of the audit recommendations.

A year ago, we'd only completed 2, so I'm very happy with that.

1 of those recommendations is to focus our own in house crews that are in roadway structures on making doing maintenance on.

Owned and controlled structures.

And we've done that.

I issued internal direction to do that at the start of 2023. And we've been provided with the full salaries for those folks so they don't have to go out and seek outside reimbursable work.

So we have more capacity that we're applying to these assets.

I'm also very happy that the BSAMP, the Bridge Strategic Asset Management Plan, is nearing completion and will be available for review later this year or early next year.

And also, we're in the middle of a major program to nearly overhauled the hydraulics of the Spokane street bridge and we had a very successful reinstallation of the first of the rehabilitated cylinders that rotate that bridge.

There are four such cylinders and the first one came back from rehab and was installed last weekend and the bridge is operating well with that cylinder and we're working through rehabilitating the remaining three.

So there's been quite a bit of progress on this and there's still more progress to go.

You saw Councilmember Herbold and I pop in when you said Spokane Bridge.

Thank you.

Good to know.

Cal, anything else to add there?

No, I don't think so.

Councilmember Peterson?

No, thank you.

Okay, more to come on this.

I think we keep going.

The last contextual issue I wanted to raise is just to flag a significant cost increase in the Alaskan Way main corridor related to the concrete delivery strike.

As a result of that strike, the project costs increased by $25 million and the proposed budget proposes to fund that through the issuance of additional debt that would be backed by commercial parking tax.

The debt service for that is $1.4 million in the first year and $2.2 million thereafter.

This is one of the larger changes in the capital program.

I'm going to jump in here real quick because I think the framing on this is really important.

And if you talk to any of the members who were on the strike line with Teamsters, During that strike, this was their number one concern, that there is no leverage over the companies who currently are providing concrete to public projects.

And the number one issue that they were raising is that often when you go on strike and you withhold your labor, that equals additional costs for the employer later and that helps to improve the chances that they will come to the table and bargain in good faith.

And what the workers were raising throughout the year last year was that their concern was that they weren't coming to the table and they weren't coming to the table in good faith because they would just plan to pass the cost on to public employers and public entities later, whether that was the city or the county or the state.

And this is proof of that strategy.

I have a big concern with these corporations who are then passing on the cost that they should be absorbing for not coming to the table in a timely manner onto the public.

This is a strategy that was known and is now playing out here.

I don't have an alternative that I'm offering up at this point, but I want to explicitly condemn the strategy that these companies are using to not bargain in good faith, not bargain timely, and to pass on a known quantity of costs onto the public taxpayer when they should have come and sat at the table and bargained much faster.

I want to thank the members of Teamsters, and I want to thank the workers who, for a very long time, were withholding their labor in an effort to try to ensure that additional benefits were reached.

And they voluntarily came back because they knew that the impact was going to be great for our local infrastructure and our economy.

They did that.

They should not be now, you know, Analyze and I am not saying Calvin that you did this in any means by any means in your analysis, but I think collectively as a city, we should recognize that this was the strategy of the companies to ensure that the public taxpayer had to absorb this cost versus the companies and the highest paid CEOs there.

So, I look forward to continuing to have conversations, perhaps with our analyst team with with the Department of transportation at the state.

level along with SDOT here to see how we can better hold these corporations accountable because it's unacceptable that they just sit on their hands and not bargain in good faith and then come and pass on the taxpayer dollar to us or the tax the cost of the taxpayer.

Look forward to continuing to support the workers as well because the final issues that they were trying to resolve are still really important both in terms of adequate compensation and safety in the workplace and I think is important to call out this type of behavior and strategy and their approach to last year's strike.

Council Member Peterson.

Thank you, Chair Mosqueda, and thank you for framing that up.

That's really important, and I concur with what you say.

And my thought is to, my questions is really to ask, how can we get somebody else to pay for this?

Why or do the contracts that we had with the contractors not enable us to pass the costs on?

Was there no form of insurance that builders risk insurance that would have covered this?

Are we paying, are the city taxpayers paying 100% of the overage, or are we sharing that with any other source?

And then, are bonds really the best way to do this?

Certainly, I supported the issuing of bonds a couple years ago when rates were low.

But now the rates are high, so to point out some of the arguments used about bonds when rates were low, now those arguments are even stronger with rates being high with $2.2 million.

over for each 20 years.

That's just in the interest.

So I believe that's about $44 million.

Of course, the first year is just a partial year.

So I think it's about $43 million in interest.

And then, of course, you have to pay back the principal.

So you're talking about $68 million.

over those 20 years, and so is there a more economical way, or is there something in the project design that could change so that it could be phased in over time, some value engineering on the project to, instead of just paying 100% of the overage ourselves and assuming we have to go with 100% of the original design, it just seems like there should be other ways to handle this.

I don't know if, Calvin or Estat or the executive want to respond?

So I'd be happy to follow up.

I think it is a much more complicated issue in terms of where we are in the project and the contracts that have been established and us abiding by the terms of those contracts.

Typically there is a dispute resolution claims process and we can explore What those processes mean in terms of these types of raised expenses.

A couple of things I just wanted to note, I believe all the cities that service does include repayment of principle as part of that debt service payment.

So, so it should be included in that.

And as well, the, the.

sort of the, the cost of these scheduled delay is is a hard cost to quantify ahead of time, because it really depends on what you've had to reshuffle through your, your your entire project schedule to identify what that impact is.

So, I think it's 1 of those things where it's easier to see after the fact, once there's a plan to how you get back on to schedule and identify what the costs are necessary to deliver the project.

I believe that's what this 25M is trying to represent, but I'll be happy to do some additional follow up with Eston and the Waterfront team to help understand that better.

Okay, we'll look forward to additional info.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Peterson.

Look forward to following up with you on that too.

And thank you for your frame on that.

I'm sure this is another issue that other jurisdictions might be dealing with as well, Cal.

So if you don't mind, Calvin, if we can check in with King County.

Yeah, at least that would be helpful.

And I want to applaud Executive Constance Eames.

comments and interest in identifying ways that we can invest more into public sector production especially knowing how critical cement delivery is for keeping projects on time.

I think that he had some innovative ideas during that time period and I look forward to hearing more about those as we move forward so that we're not in the situation that we currently are in.

Thank you to the Chair of Transportation as well for expressing interest in fleshing out additional ideas around this.

And that is a much bigger issue of all the capital, the public projects that we have going on.

So I think that is something that many of the regional large capital development corporations are keenly aware of.

So that may be a conversation that lives outside of budget.

Yeah, it's a big one.

Thank you lastly, the last item that I have for you today is just a piece of related budget legislation.

How do you please change the slide?

There is a proposal to revise the parking rates, just as a reminder, council established parking rate policies in the code.

To use parking rates to manage parking availability, and then delegates the authority to set the specific rates to within a prescribed range.

So, the proposed legislation would increase the minimum rate from 50 cents to 1 dollar per hour.

and the maximum rate from $5 to $8.

The parking revenue does go to the general fund and is expected to raise 2.4 million in 2024 and 3.8 million thereafter.

I'm not seeing any hands yet on this one.

I fired up on the last one, so thank you.

Nothing to add here on this one.

Council members, any additional comments on these?

No, I just, Madam Chair, I just might have to talk to Council Member Peterson offline what value engineering is, because it just spells lawsuit, but okay.

Can't wait.

Well I appreciate all of the presentation today.

Thank you very much Calvin and thanks to our partners at the Seattle Department of Transportation for helping to field some of those questions as well.

Looks like we have more discussion to come when we receive some more information that's been commented on throughout the presentation and we look forward to that discussion here soon.

Again we're hoping to have that information ASAP because we're trying to do some final decisions on this early initial package.

by early next week.

All right, thank you all.

Great to see you.

And let's go ahead and move on into item number two on the agenda.

Colleagues, my goal here is to get us up to 1 p.m., so we're gonna take the next hour and 10 minutes.

Yesterday and the day before, I gave us a little extra break, but given this is our last day, please do plan to stay till 1 p.m.

and we'll take a break from 1 to 2 p.m.

Madam Clerk, could you please read item number two into the record?

Agenda Item 2, Community Safety and Communication Center, as well as Community Assisted Response and Engagement for briefing and discussion.

All right, great.

Well, part of this presentation will be to help us get away from Alphabet Soup.

Excited to hear more about the proposals in the In the proposed budget thank you to Anne Gorman, Greg Doss and Allie Panucci of Central Staff for being here with us.

I of course see Director of Central Staff as well Esther Handy on the line.

And we continue to have with us from the Seattle Department of excuse me Seattle Police Department Deputy Director Amy Smith and Tommy Roland.

Our City Budget Office Director Julie Dingley is with us, and we continue to have with us Deputy Mayor Sam Burgess.

So thank you all for being here.

And Central Staff, we are going to turn it over to you to walk us through this presentation in a moment.

I wanted to offer Council Member Herbold the opportunity to comment on anything public safety related.

Obviously, we'll have the police department later this afternoon, but given this is a evolving area of the committee's purview, any additional information you'd like to share with us to contextualize the budget that we've received and what you're going to be.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Just a few words I wanted to say just to put the conversation that we're about to have within some historical context.

In 2020, Mayor Durkan's proposed budget package included Council Bill 119935, creating what he called a Seattle Emergency Communication Center.

The primary function was to be to operate Seattle's 911 call center and transfer those functions outside of the police department.

But the city council had a broader version, and we amended that bill to reflect that vision beyond just a call center into a community safety and communication center.

In each the summer of 2020 budget adjustments and the deliberations for each 2021 and 2022, the council pushed forward that vision with budget actions, resolutions, and statements of legislative intent.

This department has been long envisioned to provide civilian and community-based services and solutions to community safety challenges.

When Mayor Harrell took office, he immediately embraced that vision.

And I'm so pleased, despite the name change, that his vision of a third community safety department largely mirrors the council's vision.

not only a place to house our new community responder program that will provide additional behavioral health professionals available to respond to people experiencing non-violent behavioral health crises, but also in the future to consolidate some of the city's other non-police and community-based services and solutions to community safety challenges.

I want to state that I'm, again, very encouraged this new direction.

I do want to state that I am still concerned about staffing shortages of our 911 responders.

average over 800,000 calls per year.

Center employs 153 employees who work 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.

Efficient staffing relies on mandatory overtime for call takers and dispatchers.

As Anne Gorman's presentation will cover in some of the contextual issues, a 2016 consultant study concluded that the call center, then a unit of the Seattle Police Department, was understaffed.

Council tried to take steps towards addressing this with funding for additional positions.

This is funding that wasn't used in 2022, and much needed positions were abrogated last year.

slide that the Council requested confirms the 2016 study findings with a refreshed recommendation, 30 percent FTE increase in dispatch and call takers.

I've met monthly with the CSCC director, several of those directors as we've been moving forward, several interim directors, and I've convened a monthly interdepartmental working team to help build a dual-dispatch community responder pilot.

We're moving towards an October 19 launch, less than one week away.

In closing, I just want to clarify, we're calling this a pilot.

It's a new program.

It's one that the council, the mayor's office, and all involved departments, I believe, can agree is a necessary and ongoing function of the new care department.

It's not a pilot in that it's a short-term run.

It's a pilot in that it will be the subject of research and study and applicable to the needs of the city.

And as so, it does require ongoing funds for permanent staff.

we're going to learn more about how to set up this pilot for success, as well as how to support the care department in fully realizing the shared vision that the council and the executive have as the third community safety department for the city.

Thank you.

Are council members ready?

Yes.

Go ahead, Anne.

Good morning, Madam chair and committee members and Gorman from council central staff here to present the executives proposed budget adjustments for the community safety and communication center.

There's a lot to share today.

I will jump right in next slide.

Please.

The department's proposed 2024 budget is 4.9Million dollars higher than the 2024 endorsed for a total of 26.6Million dollars.

The increase is supported by new ongoing use of 9-1-1 excise tax revenues in the amount of $4 million and a one-time use of $900,000 in account balance from the same funding source.

And I will go into detail about those items a little later in this presentation.

The department's FTE level would increase from 150 to 163. Uh, this includes a new team of community responders positions to build out the department's administrative structure and three new at the call center.

for the reduction in FTE from the 2023 adopted budget to the 2024 endorsed budget.

Just a reminder that this includes the executive's abrogation of 26 FTE that council added in the 2022 adopted budget and that were never filled.

And finally, I'd like to point out that this table reflects the department's intended new budget summary level or BSL structure.

Since Council created the CSCC in 2021, it has had only one BSL called Community Safety and Communication Center.

The department's proposal would retire that name, rename that BSL to 911 Call Response, and establish a new BSL called Community Assisted Response and Engagement.

The acronym for this new BSL is CARE.

Any questions?

Next slide, please.

As Council members know, we typically address budget legislation at the end of these presentations, but we've moved it up here because this proposed legislation is really fundamental to the department's future operations, and it may be a preview of its growth and scope expansion in years to come.

In that sense, it is the main event today.

The Care Department Ordinance, which is its name, would make several amendments to the City Charter.

First, it would rename the CSCC to the Care Department.

Second, it would establish a new and ambitious mission for the department.

And I will read this for the record, and I think Patty is also going to be able to put it up on screen.

I think that's going to happen.

Yay.

All right.

New mission for the Care Department is to improve public health and safety services by unifying and aligning the city's community-focused non-police public safety investments and services to address behavioral abuse, substance abuse, and non-emergent low-risk calls for service through diversified programs that are equitable, innovative, evidence-based, compassionate, and effective.

Can we go back to slide three, Patty?

Thank you so much.

The legislation would also add three new bodies of work under this overarching mission.

Those bodies of work are direct response to behavioral health calls, a new initiative to integrate the CCC's violence intervention programs, including gun violence, and the unification and alignment of community focused non-police public safety investments.

And finally, it would change the title of the department head from director to chief.

I know council members are going to have questions, but there are a couple of points I'd like to make just to frame that discussion.

First of all, we have been talking with council members a lot this year about the dual dispatch behavioral health response.

And the way this legislation is hierarchically organized, as Council Member Herbold described, That response is just a second level project.

The concept for the department is much broader.

It's that to improve public health and safety services language.

And also this scope expansion is happening very quickly.

In 2021, the CSCC was the call center, period.

And in 2024, the new care department is proposed to house the call center and two new high profile bodies of work, including taking on a public health role.

Uh, thank you so much.

Is this a good time for questions and, or do you have a few more slides?

You want to get through?

I'm I'm done.

I'm done with with my summary.

Happy happy to entertain questions.

Some of them might be more appropriate for executive staff to answer.

Okay, great.

I'll just jump in mostly at the front.

I just want to.

Similarly, offer deep gratitude along the lines of chair for the really close collaboration.

Of the executive team on standing up these really, really critical and important services and this really innovative.

Co, equal public safety department that we are building.

You want to lift up the leadership of of soon to be designated with the title of interim chief, I guess, by the legislation, Amy Smith for her work on putting this together and obviously you and and Greg Dawson council central staff for for your dedicated work in this process.

I just want to say at the top.

I want to respond to some of the concerns that we've heard in the community around the.

The vitality of our 9, 1, 1 alternative response.

I think that the.

Characterizations that we've heard in some quarters.

and this might be an opportunity for clarification from executive or central staff, are fundamentally based on a misunderstanding of conflating dual dispatch with co-response.

A lot of the commentary that I've seen in the press, in some quarters, inaccurately puts the service within the command and control of police or implies that it is a service that is somehow Purely gate kept or controlled by the police.

That is not the case.

You know, this is a dual dispatch model.

This sends behavioral mental health clinicians to calls that the police do not need to go to.

And, of course, it does involve coordination and consultation with law enforcement as it should.

These response models and other cities are not antagonistic.

To the police, you know, cahoots indeed the wellspring program of these response programs got its moniker boots community assisting, helping out in the streets because they were in cahoots with the police as kind of a playful play on it.

There's collegial relationships between these alternative responses and law enforcement.

There has to be for for this to work effectively.

So I do just want to do that level setting that this is a big step forward.

This goes beyond the co responder programs that we have had in the past, like crisis intervention team to build something that is new.

That is critical and something that we need and really wanted to give an opportunity for folks to make that clarification here.

Because I hear it a lot.

when I'm out in the community that this is somehow not a step forward or that this is somehow going to have limited utility.

And that is just not a reflection of the work that we've done.

And I just want to make sure that that is made clear and thank everyone for their involvement because this is a big deal.

So, thank you.

If I could respond, I know that CSC staff have been both benefiting from the guidance of the Seattle Police Department in setting up the new program and taking very deliberate steps to ensure that the public is aware that the response that will be provided is not a police response.

I think that this might be a good time for CSE staff to talk a little bit about that ongoing partnership, but also what is very clearly going to be an independence department.

It looks like maybe I should be in here.

I'm sorry.

Go ahead.

Well, I just thank you and yes, just 1 2nd, if we could, it looks like there might be.

There was a question directed to the executive, so I think maybe deputy mayor Burgess might be.

Yeah, so that would be helpful.

If you remember just anything that you'd like to add on that.

and welcome.

Sure.

Yeah, thank you.

Um, I just want to clarify a little bit here that this new department is not going to assume responsibility for any public health department programs.

We are not suggesting that this department is going to take over the city's relationship with King County, for example, or anything of that nature.

When we refer to public health and public safety, that is reflecting Mayor Harrell's view that true public safety is much broader than just the police involvement that we see.

And it involves the community.

It involves considering health factors like behavioral health and substance abuse, et cetera.

don't think that this is an attempt to move public health department programs into the care department.

In terms of the collaboration with police and such, I think Chief Smith would be best to respond to that because she's been the one who's been organizing and directing and facilitating that.

Thank you, Deputy Mayor, and thank you all for your comments.

very meaningful actually to sit here and feel this moment, the significance of it and all the work that has predated me.

On the collaboration, what I would say is that I'm probably far more scientific and practical than what is often found in government.

So I came in from the outside and I'm just saying, you know, we've got a body of work over here on health one, and then we've got a body of work over here, co-response and police.

I'm in the call center, I'm looking at the data, 900,000 calls a year, about half don't necessarily benefit from either team.

And so I'm looking at what's in place, how that system is operating, and then what the resources are at the county and city level, and just sort of stitching in.

Most of this work has been managed by police, not because they chose to manage it, but because we've had police to send 911 calls.

So I think it's very logical to start there, to start with Chief Dan Nelson now, who was the first co-responder.

He started to go down this path in 2010, and with Justin, and it was a wild idea at the time.

You know, that wasn't very long ago, but it was a really interesting idea that you would have an officer go out with a mental health professional.

And again, Dan, I find to be deeply practical the way that he thinks about it.

This is what he's observing, that there's a lot of mental health crisis, behavioral health crisis in need, and that no matter how upskilled he is, that that is not his profession and his core discipline, and that he would benefit from somebody else.

And so that's where it started.

So once I, you know, realized the genesis in our city that it had been going well, but that that it hadn't necessarily scaled the way it might have.

That was, that was why the collaboration, I believe that collaboration saves us a lot of money and makes us really smart.

And so I'm, you know, there's actually about 12 departments that I'm working pretty closely with right now.

I mean, we just heard transportation reflect, you know, we've got this concern on the bus.

We see mental health provision in the libraries here.

We are all involved in this work together, and we will save a lot of money and a lot of time, and I think just benefit from camaraderie as we work together.

So I'm very grateful of my work with police, of my work with fire, and we'll continue to go down that path the same way I am right now.

Council Member Hurdle?

Thanks so much.

Deputy Mayor Burgess, you anticipated my question related to the public health in the ordinance establishing the Care Department.

I think you are well aware, as aware as anybody, that the City of Seattle and King County Public Health our parties to an interlocal agreement, which sets forth the roles and responsibilities around how the city supports existing programs in public health, whether or not it's safety programs or substance use disorder programs or community health programs.

There's a wide swath of services that we buy from King County, but that King County Public Health is the primary provider of those services or the primary contractor in the case that they're contracted services.

So I'm just wondering, and I understand that in developing the legislation for the new care department that public health has not been consulted.

And from what you're saying, Deputy Mayor Burgess, they weren't consulted because you weren't seeing this as taking on a health care role.

And so maybe didn't see the need.

But I guess my question is really, how are we going to internally for ourselves in the city sort of make that delineation, create that bright line so that we can ensure that we're not duplicating the work of King County Public Health and what's your vision for that?

I think the legislation as it's currently drafted doesn't make that clear.

Yeah, thank you.

And listening to this discussion, maybe we would have should have kept the word public out of public health and just referred to health and safety, because I think we would all agree that there is a very strong relationship between health and safety issues.

In terms of the collaboration and consulting, maybe Chief Smith, you would want to respond to that.

Yes, I would say I am collaborating with behavioral health on the county level and housing.

So I know Michael Redding really well.

I know Frank Couch really well.

We talk a lot about the gaps and the overlaps.

And I think Seattle is so unique in the context of King County.

When we think about mobile crisis response, you know, they've got a King County wide mobile crisis team that's been going out trying to cover the whole county.

And that is just not a viable model at all.

So the coordination is happening and the conversation, so it's I would never leave out the county.

I think philosophically.

That wasn't what I didn't mean that there's not collaboration going on the program development.

I'm talking about the development of the legislation for the you're talking about the program development piece.

I'm talking about the legislation and the vision for the department.

I don't feel like we run a risk of not co-creating policy recommendations with the county.

I would just like to talk more about how we can, within the ordinance, make this more clear.

Deputy Mayor Burgess, perhaps striking, the word public might do the trick, or maybe making reference to the interlocal agreement as the mechanism.

I know King County is considering as part of their strategic planning process at public health, opening up that agreement.

So maybe referring to that as being sort of the place where we have those discussions might be a good way to address that concern.

we would be very happy to work with you on that, Councilmember.

Okay, thank you.

And again, I just really wanted to be very clear.

I was not at all saying that you aren't doing collaboration with all other interested stakeholders as it related to the program development.

I know for a fact that you're doing so.

Thank you.

Councilmember Nelson.

Thank you very much.

I'm just responding to Councilmember Lewis's comments about how this is being characterized in the media, dual dispatch versus co-dispatch.

I don't understand the politics behind those words or anything, but I would like a better understanding about how it'll actually work when a crisis call comes in.

So does this mean that if somebody comes into a cafe and is yelling and acting erratically, no weapon, they call 911 and then what happens?

So officers, just how would it work?

Because it used to be called dual dispatch or last year I was picturing that it was said that officers and mental health professionals would go out together and then if the officer wasn't needed, they would just go away and then it would be handled.

So can you just explain that?

Yes, I love explaining this.

So the reality is when you look at the data, and priority levels.

So you've got one, two, three, four, and those relate to acuity on the health side for fire and then violence, potential violence.

It's interesting how much things have changed probably even since the initial term sheet.

Fentanyl use and fentanyl and meth sometimes co-occurring with mental health does create more violence than what we've seen in the past.

And so if I were to have joined 10 years ago, I would probably be making different recommendations about how we operationalize this initially.

Right now, I know well, those low acuity mental health calls I'm talking about, there are very few person down calls, that's what we call them.

You know, when there's person down and then welfare tech, that's what we're looking at first.

Person down, it's fewer than 5% of the calls right now are priority three.

And that is because of fentanyl primarily.

That is what I am being told and that's what it looks like in the data.

if you walk around downtown, it is demonstrably more, I don't know if I want to use the term violent, but it's erratic and more manic behavior than what we would have seen 10 years ago.

And so that is why I do recommend right now dual dispatch, meaning police can arrive at the same time and at least give the all clear, you know, and we are co-creating that, that policy trying to be very specific about operations so that we don't create any threat of harm to these mental health professionals.

You can imagine how protective I feel right now of this program and of the professionals involved, because I know if something goes wrong initially, it could derail, you know, what has been in the works, a dream deferred for many for years and years and years.

And the reality is, nationally, things are not going wrong, really.

I mean, as long as we've got really good protocols on the front end, you know, back to the original question, somebody calls 911, we're rolling out something called QWERTY, some new sort of content analysis tools that are already used, actually, at Seattle Fire, so that we can better predict when this dual dispatch team is appropriate.

And then they will both be dispatched.

We're using police channels.

Our team of two will go out in a civilian vehicle.

Patrol will go out.

And what I imagine will happen is that quickly they will give the all clear and be able to leave.

I'm recommending, though, that they do go initially, and it's because I am anchored in crime data.

And I feel like that is the responsible thing to recommend.

Now, it may be that that's short-lived, and after 30 days, 60 days, police make the recommendation, we do not need to be there.

We don't need to be there.

We're not adding any value.

There's no risk.

911 has got this right.

At the point of first contact, they are making the appropriate recommendation.

I can imagine that may happen, but I will not make that decision until I have data to indicate it's responsible.

Thank you.

So, it's kind of on a case by case basis, whether or not a uniformed response accompanies the mental health professionals, or is that, and that's what I'm understanding you say, and correct me if I'm wrong.

So then, and the person down, or it sounds like you're describing an overdose.

So, are the people that are going to be going out, do they have medical degrees or, I mean, sometimes those people that are called are the paramedics or an ambulance or something.

Right.

No, we're, we're not going near the body of work that HealthONE is covering right now.

So that's, you know, I spend a lot of time on the floor in 911, just listening and observing.

And it's, we have very clear protocols.

When it appears to be medical, that goes to the fire alarm center immediately.

What I'm trying to figure out on the backend is, how can these teams sort of invoke one another?

Because that's what I observed in Albuquerque.

It's not nearly as linear as we describe it.

You know, where one team goes out and then backups called often, it's almost like figure eights.

You know, they've got several different response teams and something new is learned and then they can just call the other team.

So back to the question about why the strong collaboration, that is why.

Because no matter what, these teams are all going to be in the field working together.

They need to know one another, they need to respect one another, and work in tight coordination to better serve folks.

I have no problem with tight coordination.

I mean, because one never knows what is going to happen until one gets to a scene also.

I mean, that's right.

So the nature of the call, who knows what they're going to encounter.

One last question about the operations.

Can you tell me how 11 to 11, 11 a.m.

to 11 p.m.

was chosen?

Yes, because I'll just say why because.

In the mornings, when when people are commuting to work, getting off the bus, walking around when shops are opening up that hour seems to be key or from, like.

Before 11, it seems like there could also be a need for this kind of response.

So I'm just wondering what the.

you know, what you've discovered in, in your research and experience, why those hours were chosen.

Yes.

So again, those are not the hours that I inherited, but once I was pulled into the data at SPD, they call it the crew data.

So again, incredibly generous that their analytics team has been supporting me in this.

It drove a lot of efficiency early on.

So I'm watching this crisis data and then not, not just how we dispatch, but how, how these calls are cleared, basically, how does it get resolved?

What did we determine it actually was?

And the reality is it kind of escalates throughout the day and then peaks at about 11 p.m.

And then the working theory is it's because people go back into shelter, they fall asleep.

The reason I recommended shifting later is because it didn't seem logical to duplicate the hours of HealthONE and police CRT team.

It looked like I was standing up a third team to cover what I termed banker hours.

And I know that they did that because that's when more resources are open.

So if you need to transport someone, remand someone or refer to some kind of treatment, you've just got more available.

But again, the objective here is to cover more hours, more calls.

And so it just didn't make sense to me that we wouldn't, if we knew that the crisis data indicates that 9, 10, 11 p.m.

are when it's getting pretty frenetic out there, it seemed like I should try to cover that first.

And we may amend it, too.

I mean, there's a lot of latitude right now because we're not organized with labor yet.

This initial team was selected because I consider these very thinking people, innovative people who will be scientific and make recommendations quickly.

Okay, thanks.

I do have Council President Juarez next, Council Member Morales, and then I'll come to you.

Okay, thanks so much, Council President.

And I apologize because I'm not trying to jump the line, but my little hand thing is broken here.

It's actually not working.

So, 1st of all, thank you.

Chief Amy Smith for the information.

I have a few follow up questions just so I can clarify.

So, number 1, thank you for saying about what other departments you're working with besides our city departments.

You said 12. are you also working with sound transit?

Because, as, you know, in sound transit, we've had just, exponential spike in overdoses, assaults, violence, mental health issues.

Is that on your radar as well?

Yes.

Yeah.

Happily, it was just coincidental, but I just presented immediately after Sound Transit at a community meeting in West Seattle.

And so it's interesting because every day something like that occurs to me that this is a source of great information.

Because John Ehrenfeld has been one of the closest collaborators, he's the thinker behind HealthONE, Health99, I'm sure you all know John.

And he's been very, very helpful and strategic in bringing me into coordinating meetings that have already existed in that space.

So, yes.

I need more of me.

I need more hours in the day because, yes, I agree, it's urgent to coordinate.

Yes, and hopefully, I'm guessing you've been I mean, Julie, Tim is amazing, I think, as a CEO now, and that's been a number one priority in our rider experience and operations, the committee that I sit on and the representative with the mayor on Sound Transit.

And that is not going away.

It's gotten worse to the point in the last two years that we are having the highest number of deaths actually at Northgate and more assaults down South.

But that's another story.

But just on that transit spine.

So all of us all know it isn't just the city of Seattle.

And when you say other city departments, we're also talking about other modes of Places where people are experiencing mental health, addiction, violence, and all these things that come from that and what our response is to that.

Sometimes it's King County, the sheriff or SPD.

So, my follow up then is.

When you were talking about the crisis data and dispatch, and I know there's been a focus because council member.

Lewis and council member.

Her boat who chair public safety and of course, customer was getting has been involved and all of us actually, but there's been a focus obviously on 3rd Avenue and downtown.

So, obviously, I represent all of the city of Seattle, but my, my statement always is, I try to honor the needs of my district.

So, we have seen again, the spike in the calls on Aurora.

And Lake City.

Just off the charts shootings now where we never had them before and I'm not trying to criminalize addiction or homelessness.

That's not my point.

I really appreciate that.

You come from this as a perspective of looking at the data and what you're saying, and then also how we see the city wide.

So, is there going to be and I, I don't, I was look, I just was going through the legislation this morning about what the, what the initiative would focus on and the gun violence, community based intervention and all those other things.

Is there going to be something more from.

You folks on what the data looks like that we've never had before city wide, because this is going to come up this afternoon to, and some of the technology in pilot projects that the mayor's office is proposing where I'm supportive of, but I am also wanting to know location and I don't want to go back to the same historically critical neighborhoods that people always just focused on.

Because the fact is, it isn't just I'll just say it, because I'm going to be honest, it is black and brown people that are being hurt by this when you're down all these officers, and we're not getting the 911 response.

And I'm, I, and I've been around in this city, many, many decades and seen a lot, and I've never seen it this bad.

So, I guess what I'm asking is, if you're a data kind of getting us the crisis data and all the other information.

Are we going to also see some more information coming out from different districts and neighborhoods?

Yes.

Yeah, you absolutely will.

So this, the public facing data component is so critical to this.

As we set up the dashboard for crisis data, I'm insisting it has to include the fire data and police data as well so that you can really look holistically at what's happening.

And so the public can see quickly what interventions look like they're working and what we should scale.

you know, rather than just trying new things all the time, there are a few things that we know work.

Sometimes I describe it like a slingshot.

Sometimes it takes a little bit more time, a little bit more investment on the front end, but then you're off and you can just continue to scale and refine and iterate.

And we're not doing that yet.

So I am, again, my closest colleagues really are the data folks and the research folks over at PD, because we're all talking about the same issues.

And they have a meeting called C-STAT that is really smart.

Again, bringing in county folks, legal minds, there's a reason I'm there, you know, people, everybody who's sort of adjacent to the work of bolstering public safety.

And we're looking at the same data, which is really important, single source of truth, and then talking about what is consistent across these different precincts and areas.

It's a fascinating time in America because it's hard to distinguish by the data, even what's rural and what's urban.

I just came from the Midwest, you know, Appalachia, same issues.

And so, yes, yes, to all the data and yes, it will be co presented and it needs to be distilled for the public.

So they understand what actually is happening.

Madam chair, my ask 1 follow up.

Thank you.

So there was a time where we saw mainly retail theft in the core downtown.

And now we're seeing the crash and grabs and retail theft on our cannabis stores, our home depots, our Walgreens, our targets.

So, I'm hoping in the future that we can see what type of crimes are being committed in the city.

And there's just the crime piece in our response.

but then also the ones that stem from true addiction, mental health, where people need help.

And so you're right, you can look at data and data points, but all those data are people and all those people are actions.

And so I'm hoping that we can flesh that out more.

And I'm sure we will with our conversations, but I want to thank you.

And I'm hoping that we see more of that kind of data.

So thank you.

And thank you, Madam Chair.

Sorry about the broken hand.

Council Member, that was very quotable.

I'm going to lift a few of those lines.

Thank you.

Anytime.

I got you girl.

Thank you.

Good afternoon director chief Smith.

Thank you for kind of walking through the operations of what is being contemplated here and some of the work that you're doing.

It's really important to hear.

this level of detail about the kind of things that have been happening.

So I really appreciate that.

One of the things that you talked about when you were discussing dispatch is that two folks will go out in a civilian vehicle.

And it sounds like what you're saying is there will be officers in a presumably a patrol car who also go out kind of on background.

So can you talk a little bit about, and then you said, We, you know, the idea is to continue in this fashion until we have a better understanding of what's happening and and there will be a point at which.

Somebody may decide that we don't actually need officers to go out anymore because the initial information.

Is being collected and dispatches is understood well enough now.

That we can differentiate when an officer needs to go out and when they don't and so there may come a time when.

The decision is made officers don't need to go out anymore.

First, let me make sure I'm understanding that piece.

Is that what I heard you say?

Yes.

The only thing I would clarify is it's not officers necessarily.

It's not that.

It's patrol clearing the scene.

And one of the things that's being worked out on the police side right now, there's a coordinating committee.

Again, it's the CIT coordinator.

Um, several sergeants are involved and then, you know, it's basically chief Nelson on down to that team and they're making the recommendations for how the officers behave.

They do not I have not heard that there is a desire to go to more person down low acuity calls for police.

They feel pressure and urgency to get to high acuity calls.

So it is a false narrative that.

that police have been antagonistic toward this program, I have not seen it.

So, if it happened, it was prior to my arrival.

I have never experienced that, not at all.

I have gotten a lot of gratitude.

We cannot get to these calls.

The public is already frustrated.

We want to rebuild and rebolster public trust and confidence.

And this will be useful, as fast as we can figure out what call types are appropriate, as fast as you can scale up.

I actually think there's more energy for the growth of this department and team in law enforcement than any other department.

So again, I'm very curious to see how quickly the trend emerges that we have a leading indicator that we're getting it right.

And as fast as it becomes clear, and it could be within weeks, it could be that we look very much like Albuquerque, where it was very clear where their responders should go and where they shouldn't.

So, I will keep you posted for sure.

Yes.

Yeah, that's really helpful.

And I, I agree.

I think we've all heard loud and clear from the department before that.

There are calls that they just don't feel like they are trained or equipped or are necessary to be at.

And so I think that is part of the whole point of this program and appreciate that.

I think what I'm trying to understand is, and maybe you just don't know this yet, but.

What do those metrics look like and who decides when it's.

Okay, to to say, you know, we don't we don't need we can just send out the 2 folks in the civilian.

Automobile and we don't need this other component.

Yeah, I can, I will derail the whole day.

If I really tell you all the methodology, because I get very excited about it, but the simple way to say it is that there's just qualitative data and then the way that the call was cleared.

After so did the mental health professionals.

After that call, did they feel safe?

Basically, did they feel like we got it right?

And the same thing on the officer's side.

Did we have to call for backup?

That's going to be a key indicator.

If we never have to call for backup, if police move on to the new thing and the MHPs feel like they cover it well, they refer someone to services, the call is cleared.

If we always get it right, then we're going to know that officer was unnecessary.

So I'm designing qualitative data tools on both the MHP side, but then also on the patrol side.

That's very helpful.

Thank you.

You're welcome.

Thank you, Council Member Morales.

And before we go to Council Member Herbold, Deputy Mayor Burgess, did you have additional comments you'd like to add for contact?

Yeah, I'd like to respond to Council Member Morales' question, which was a very good one.

Ultimately, Council Member Eventually, and I don't know if that's 6 months or 12 months or 18 months or whatever.

The 911 center will have 3 options.

1, they dispatch just police.

2, they dispatch both police and 1 of.

Amy's community response teams or 3, they just send the community response team and that will.

is a lesson and a process that we will learn as we go along and as we watch other cities.

Amy's been very good at traveling around the country and watching what other cities have done.

And what's really interesting is the police are the ones who are usually advocating for greater response options because they love these programs.

We saw that in Kirkland.

Where there was when they first started, there was a little bit of resistance from police officers, but very quickly they realized this is really great.

This helps us do our job better as well.

So, yes, ultimately, we get to the point where we have all those options.

Thank you and I just want to harken back to when the police department was in more of the driver's seat a couple of years ago in developing this program, their own description of what it means to dual dispatch.

Dispatch means to send.

It doesn't necessarily mean that police officers are going to end up at location for every call.

It means that there is a continuum.

Everything from being situationally aware that a call is happening, to staging nearby, to going to the location.

And so under a dual dispatch program, the department has the awareness of the call, of the fact that the co-responders are being sent and they can make that decision.

That has been integral to the police department's understanding of what dual dispatch means since the very, very early days of these discussions.

So just wanted to lift that up as well.

A question I have, shifting to maybe a more mundane topic that's still one that I think just harkens back to the original vision of creating a third community safety department, which is A third community safety department that the general public understands to be a civilianized effort.

And I know.

that there's been a lot of focus on sort of the branding of the department.

And I'm just concerned that the title of chief does not lead to the messaging about the department that I think we were originally envisioning.

I know that everybody over on the executive side is well familiar with the directory of over 60 alternative crisis response models in 60 jurisdictions across the country that I often point to when talking about the progress of our effort.

And I have not done an exhaustive review of all 60, but hopefully somebody on the executive side has.

And I'm just wondering, how many programs like this are headed by chiefs instead of directors?

I'm really glad you asked about this because it represents a time I really changed my mind.

So it was comical that I advocated for community versus civilian in that seat.

That was the first recommendation I made to the mayor's office for the reasons that you're describing.

And so it was kind of entertaining in the 11th hour to realize that the mayor felt strongly that if you wanted to establish co-equal departments in public safety, that you want to have three chiefs, that there is something diminutive about chief, director, chief.

And so I didn't, again, I respect deputy mayor a lot.

I really respect this mayor.

I was happy that I got my community and I didn't push back against it.

What I have realized now, as again, I'm down at a major chiefs conference right now, and it was brilliant that he did that.

It's actually, quite significant nationally.

People are paying attention to that because language matters.

It matters a lot.

With responder, I learned really quickly I needed to use that term.

I'm trying to get dispatch acknowledged always.

These 911 operators are first responders.

And that legislation needs to happen nationally.

The community responders, they will be first on the scene, as Deputy Mayor just described.

And so the language sort of level setting across public safety to say these are of equal importance significant.

Now the jokes come because I am probably the most uncomfortable with titles a human has ever been ever.

I didn't care to be called director either.

I just like to be called Amy.

So but I do think that it's right.

And I will say also there are a number of things that Seattle is doing that are truly innovative.

We have been asked.

by University of Chicago Health Lab, if we might consider being an implementation study for them.

Spinning this up out of 911, the way that we are is very unique.

And the vision that's being cast right now for the third department is unprecedented in this country, the way that we're doing it.

So I would caution anyone from really looking at what has existed.

It's great.

Again, I love the research.

It's interesting to compare and contrast.

But several things we're doing now are already demonstrating greater effectiveness in community and community understanding of what needs to happen.

I understand your response is that we're innovating in this area, but I'm still interested to know whether or not other civilianized community safety departments use the term chief.

Not to my knowledge, but I think now they will.

I do, I do.

Because again, that language is so significant for the same reason first responder is so significant.

We're trying to level set pay and significance.

And the other thing that occurred to me one night is I've been COO, I've been CDO, I've been chief for a long time.

I'm just not used to that being in the descriptor.

It's just a normal, it is a normalized term.

But I do think that the mayor was right.

And for the record, I changed my mind.

Thank you.

I do know that there has been a bill in the state legislature for the last couple sessions that would identify 911 call takers as first responders.

And that's regardless of what the title is of the lead of the department.

Just wanted to check, I know I had had a conversation with central staff and Gorman about this particular topic.

She suggested I might ask her if she has anything to add.

She may have just been planning to convey the information that you provided, Chief Smith, but just wanted to give Amy an opportunity to fill in here if there was anything more to say.

Thank you, Council Member Herbold.

I had intended to do a broader survey of this title issue in time for this presentation and just did not have time.

The only data point that I know of personally is that of the Kirkland Regional Crisis Response Agency, the RACER Agency, and the head of that agency, Brooke Bittner, is the executive director.

That's all I got.

Yeah, Brooke is a really good friend and we actually met this week.

This is another person that said that is a brilliant move to drive public awareness.

So I wish it had been my unique idea and my contribution, but it wasn't.

So what I'm gathering right now is just feedback about that significance.

It had not occurred to me.

The public needs is, I think council will remember when I presented at the first time, I didn't use the term alternative because I had already realized that that That term implies less than ideal, right?

It implies we didn't have the first response we wanted, so we came up with an alternative.

So I'm not using it because that is the wrong message.

We want the best first response.

We need different types of first responders.

We do need a third co-equal public safety department in order to advance the goals and aspirations we have for community.

Okay, thank you.

We have spent a significant amount of time on this and I think it is important though, if this is legislation that the council's anticipating needing to take up as part of our budgetary process.

I wanted to allow for folks to ask some of these important questions.

I'm going to jump in on a few of the comments that have been made with some questions of my own on this topic.

And I've tried to sit back and listen to a number of the discussion points that we've had today.

So thank you, colleagues, for helping to inform some of this discussion and some of these questions so far.

But I have a number of questions.

And if we use the remainder of our hour on this, that's okay.

We will pick up and where we have left off because there are a number of pieces within this second item on the agenda that we can come back to after recess.

Just continuing on the question around the title of chief, I think one thing to keep in mind, and this is something I've heard directly from first responders, is that firefighters and police officers take an oath.

They're required to respond, they have resolved the situation, and even if it involves great personal risk, that is the job that they sign up to.

So, their obligations as I know, you all know, are very different from other city employees.

And I think it makes it an important distinction to continue to have chief in that structure, because it makes the distinction between.

type of oath that they are taking versus a civilian organization.

So I do worry about the use of the word chief confusing the general public as well.

I think our good public safety chair noted this.

And in addition to what she commented on, given the fact that I'm hearing from first line responders that chief is a civilian a chief within a civilian department could diminish the risk accepted by police and fire officers.

I think it is important for us to continue to have this discussion and look forward to the central staff analysis on this, given the chain of command that they have and the fact that that title is really significant for those first responders.

I would encourage council to ask police command this afternoon opinion because again, I'm surrounded by police chiefs right now at this conference.

And I hear all of that.

And I, again, historically, am more of that mind, you know, that I want to decivilianize.

But I am trying to design for a future state.

I'm trying to imagine 20 years from now.

I've just set up this little academy for the first responders.

It looks very much like the police academy in a number of ways.

It is rigorous.

And this type of first response is just as hard.

It really is.

It is going to be approximately similar when you think about the folks in San Francisco, some of their teams, what they go through.

So that's all I would say.

I love that you're having the conversation, but let's think about a future state that we are building a rock upon which future generations of first responders need to be able to stand.

And I think that this entire conversation is built on an alternative model and a future world in which Alternative responses are the first response.

But I also would encourage us to have conversations directly with the firefighter personnel.

Firefighters who have been on the front line, arguably with co-response, alternative response models that have been nationally recognized, especially health one.

So we'd want to make sure that our firefighter personnel are also part of this conversation as we think about structure and the language.

Council member, it looks like you had a comment on this and I have two more other items as well.

Yes, thank you so much.

I mean, just to to maybe put a, you know, put my 2 cents in about the chief discussion and and I don't want to maybe unduly prolong this, but this is just in the, in the interest of surfacing opinion in this, like, issue identification phase.

I mean, I just want to state my strong support for the reasons that interim chief Smith just.

Just articulated, so I won't really repeat her arguments, but I, you know, I was, I was prepared to make them if needed that.

I think that this.

Uh, the co equal status that is conferred by that designation.

is something that's important and something that really elevates this work in the way that the interim chief Smith just made the compelling argument.

I would be inclined in this area to give deference to the administration and deference to the department on that designation of chief as the title.

I just wanted to go on the record stating from my perspective that preference.

Thank you.

The second item that I wanted to bring up, and this, I think, comes back to some of the questions that you answered in relation to the questions around when an officer is being deployed with the alternative response or the co-response system.

And I believe Council Member Herbold, you noted that it's not always going to be the case that an officer is going out based on the call, it will depend on what the dispatch personnel decide to do in terms of who they decide to send.

Given that we don't have a policy committee dedicated to just this discussion during budget, which we can maybe pull given there's a number of other legislative items that are going to be in front of us, I do think it's important to have a better understanding of the specific types of calls.

So if we look at the five SPD calls that are the Highest call volume in our most recent data is traffic calls, suspicious circumstances, disturbance, public assistance and premise check.

It's noted in the report that many of these calls are not actually.

like criminal in nature and don't require an officer with a gun.

So do we have a sense of the top five calls yielding a dispatch that will not include an officer?

Or what is our commitment to try to decouple officers from those types of calls that I just noted?

Yes, I mean, we have all the data.

I get weekly reports about the call types.

And so again, in 911, I'm looking at how we dispatched, how the call came in.

We're really going to focus next year on not just quality assurance, but quality improvement.

How then do we take what we're learning, what the data reflects, and inform practice in staffing, all different ways.

On the police side, I'm really interested in how things got resolved and whether or not police felt like they were required, that they were the best first response.

The reality is right now I have six folks.

I've got three teams of two.

And so I'm not dedicating a lot of mental energy to how this program will expand with regard to call type.

I'm thinking a lot about how do we expand those shift hours and how do we grow this team?

Because we need more folks just for person down and welfare check.

I've heard from patrol in all different precincts, and certainly from command as well, that these person down calls, they just take a ton of time.

Because often, we're just checking on someone.

sweet and sad in the summer to realize how many folks will come in, come into Seattle from out of town, call 911 and say, he doesn't look okay, you know, which is just so lovely and compassionate.

But those of us who live and work downtown, you know, we know, but we still have to send officers to check on things.

And, you know, often they're getting scolded for waking somebody up from a nap.

I've heard there are things like that.

So I think it's going to be a minute before we're staffed adequately to be able to expand the way that Albuquerque did to, you know, a dozen call types.

But there are many, and I'm happy to send you some of the best sources of research on those many, many, many different call types that could be effectively handled by another type of person.

And perhaps this is a question for the chair of central staff who've been more involved in the creation of the department policies, maybe in conjunction with the executive team.

When do we get to have that analysis?

Because right now we're in the middle of talking about budget.

And I appreciate that we're doing this sidebar conversation around what the policy will look like to drive the new department.

And as the council member noted at the beginning of our discussion, the creation of CARES department is something that the council was spearheading and very supportive of.

So I think what's in question is really what are we funding and how fast will we set up and how will some of these questions be answered?

It's a dual response versus an alternate response.

Yes.

Well, there is public facing data.

So what I'm talking about generally, the only thing I have access to that the public doesn't have access to daily are the association of actual individuals, identifiers, because I can see more things.

But you can see the call data, the police data is publicly facing.

You can download it and sort it, and I know that this group knows that.

I don't have anything really unique outside of that.

I could make recommendations to council about how this program is likely to scale and what would be required in order to drive meaningful impact, relieve a burden of police, meaningful economic impact.

Obviously, teams of different responders, it's just a much more economically viable approach.

Lights and sirens are really expensive.

And it's interesting, Albuquerque did analysis about, you know, on average, what this response costs versus what this response costs.

And so I like making the business case for it as well, because I know that public safety is such a significant portion of the city budget.

So I think it will really free up some funds to do more meaningful things.

But I'm happy to send an email and just give you my points of reference and forecast transparently what I can imagine happening.

I feel urgency around 24-7 coverage.

I imagine that that is going to be the first recommendation I make to do that.

Obviously, I'd have to have twice as many folks.

We'd have to go from six to 12. It's just math.

Madam Chair, you can go and then I'm going to call on Deputy, excuse me,

Sure thing.

I just wanted to clarify that the decision to focus first with these first six responders and two supervisors, the decision to focus first on person down and wellness check calls is a decision that the council and the executive has made together, we at the council has in several budget actions leading up to this year, identified those as the two call types to start.

With the understanding that there is interest in expanding, you know, we passed resolutions and slides and all kinds of budget actions that call out, called out specifically those two call types.

I know that there's a lot of interest in expanding to other call types.

We know that the police department's own data supports the original Nick Jr. report, that 12% of calls could conceivably be diverted to alternative response.

And I've, you know, at the, when we stood together with Acting Chief Smith, the mayor, and the new staff who are the new responders that have been hired.

Chief Diaz was there and he spoke in that press announcement of having an interest in an alternate response evolving to include paper calls, right?

Taking reports after An incident has happened when there doesn't need to be a police officer because the thing has already happened, whether or not that's an accident or a burglary.

So even the department has, and the leadership of the department has expressed interest in expansion to other kinds of calls.

But again, we have six people right now with two supervisors and We had to start somewhere, and this seemed to be, I think, historically, the focus that the council was most interested in because we wanted to reduce that harm associated.

Okay.

I got him.

Oh, Council Member, you just went on mute, I think, by accident.

That's okay.

You got my point.

Okay.

Thank you.

And Esther, some comments, and then I want to close this out.

And I hope that our team from Central Staff and the executive team, if you're able to stay with us for 2 p.m.

Amy, I know you're a conference, but if there's other aspects that you'd like to add after 2 p.m., that'd be great.

Go ahead, Esther.

Yeah, great.

Just very briefly, I wanted to echo a bit of what Council Member Herbold was saying, that a lot of these choices were really driven by the Council, both through your budget ads, through our initial term sheet, our partnership, the working group that Council Member Herbold has chaired on a monthly basis.

And so it may be as we think about the adoption of this budget, whether the council also wants to set out some metrics or ways that we are gonna work together in the absence of Council Member Herbold's leadership to sort of what are the checkpoints at which a committee is more formally gonna look at that data and how are we gonna collaborate into the new year.

to make these decisions because council has been so integrally involved in setting out the resources and terms for which this was possible.

I think that's a good point to just note that we're not arguing about the merits of a department.

We're not trying to convince the council of why this should be included.

That's already something the council has opined on a number of times.

I think that the question for me was what exactly are we funding and how fast are we standing things up so that we can expand to more of the broad definitions of all types that we know are not necessary for an officer.

And whether or not the budget allows for that expansion is something that I'm still very interested in.

Two very quick questions.

One is is our Health 1 scheme that I've been very supportive of expanding over the years is that going to remain in the Seattle Fire Department.

Yes, unless the Deputy Mayor knows something, I don't.

I love that team.

I fully support them.

I think we need more of that team.

And that array of response, again, by the data, the nexus of health, crisis right now, overdose is astronomical.

So, yes.

Award winning.

Absolutely stays in the fire department.

Thank you.

Okay well thank you for this overview and to Anne for teeing up these comments.

I know we spent a little bit of time talking about option C and look forward to hearing more about the functions as you noted in your response.

Ms. Smith, if you have additional information to send, of course, please feel free to send that over.

That might flesh out option B there a little bit more.

And I know that central staff has done some good thinking on it as well.

I'll just conclude this section with a piece that comes from National Public Radio released in August of this year.

The headline is, How Some Police Departments Are Rethinking 911 Call Responses.

NPR reports, quote, some mental health providers say police should not be involved at all in most behavioral health calls.

Gerwitz, who is the head of Massachusetts Chamber of the National Association of Social Workers, cites from civilian-only response schemes showing that those alternative response lower costs and reduce the number of tragic outcomes.

She says, quote, too much of our attention is focused on a co-response model.

I think we should be thinking about how we can promote, support, and fund alternative responses where people are in a mental health crisis and get the health response needed.

There's a lot more in that intensive discussion that was held again August 14th, 2023 from the NPR partner at WDUR.

And I look forward to having that firm alternative be seen as equally important to the response model that we are setting up because I think you're right.

It does save money and it saves lives and it saves time.

in terms of who is responding and then how quickly people can get access to care.

We're gonna go ahead and adjourn and we'll come back at 2 p.m.

I'll have first up in the queue Council Member Nelson and we'll go into recess and we will reconvene at 2 p.m.

for those who can join us.

Hearing no objections, our meeting is in recess.

Thank you.

you