Public Safety Committee Agenda 2132024

Here we go.

It's 930, February 13th, 2024. I'm Robert Kettle, Chair of the Public Safety Committee.

Will the Committee Clerk please call the roll?

Council Member Hollingsworth.

Present.

Council Member Moore.

Present.

Council President Nelson.

Present.

Council Member Saka.

Here.

Chair Kettle.

Here.

Chair, there are five members present.

I would like to note that due to a schedule issue, the public comment period will begin after agenda item one.

If there is no objection, the agenda will be adopted.

Hearing no objection, the agenda is adopted.

Thank you for being here, everyone.

This is an important day.

Each of us campaigned with public safety being our number one priority.

Today, together, this new council is taking our first step towards a safer Seattle.

I could not ask for a better group of people to do this work with.

We know the challenge ahead of us is great.

Last year, Seattle had the most homicides on record.

We're down more than 300 officers since 2020 and struggling to meet our recruiting goals.

And we know we need to do stronger police accountability in place in order so that our officers can do their jobs with the full faith of our community.

However, I know that this group is up to the challenges.

We can create a future where families feel safe sending their child to school on the bus, businesses can operate without paying for private security, and city can respond to public safety crisis in a timely way so that those who are suffering can find the care that they need.

Together in this committee and throughout each of our individual communities, we can make real impact.

Council Member Sacca, you are the Vice Chair of this committee, but also the Chair of the Transportation Committee.

We know that a lot of public safety is about creating safe streets through addressing traffic and pedestrian safety, and may I add bike safety, with our communities working together in collaboration.

Council Member Hollingsworth, Chair of our Parks Committee, You have been an outspoken advocate for Seattle's youth, and we both understand that our city's parks and after-school programs are key to interrupting crime and violence before it begins.

Further, our committees can work together for park safety, and can I add here, green belts too, Councilmember Moore, you are the Chair of the Housing and Human Services Committee.

Our committees can work together to address the nexus of public safety and public health, specifically homeless emergency and the fentanyl epidemic.

And Council President Nelson, you have used your position as Chair of Economic Development to be the voice for our business community and address the impacts crime has had on our economy.

Also, governance and accountability is so central in our efforts.

UNITED, THIS TEAM, IS READY TO BRING A FRESH APPROACH TO ADDRESSING PUBLIC SAFETY.

ALREADY, COUNCILMEMBER HOLLINGSWORTH AND I HAVE TEAMED UP TO VISIT OUR POLICE OFFICERS IN THE EAST PRECINCT ROLL CALL.

AND COUNCILMEMBER SACA, I KNOW THAT YOU'VE JUST VISITED AND DID THE SAME WITH THE SOUTHWEST PRECINCT.

THESE ARE JUST THE FIRST MANY TIMES THAT THIS COMMITTEE WILL TAKE A DIFFERENT APPROACH, A MORE COLLABORATIVE APPROACH, ONE THAT GETS US OFF THIS DIAS AND INTO OUR COMMUNITIES.

And so today for our first meeting, we are joined by the chiefs of our three public safety departments, Seattle Police Diaz, Seattle Fire Chief Scoggins, and acting chief of our new care department, Amy Smith.

We will now move on to our first item of business.

Will the clerk please read item one into the record?

Community Assisted Response and Engagement Department briefing and discussion with Chief Amy Smith.

And I'd like to extend a warm welcome to Chief Smith, and thank you for joining us this morning.

Good morning.

So I am Amy Smith.

I am acting chief of the Seattle Care Department, which is Seattle's third public safety department.

And it is truly a pleasure to be here with you today.

I already know all of you and you know me.

And that's because you have been on the front lines already, a first response.

And I want to really commend that behavior.

There is no substitute for showing up with a sincere desire to understand the work.

And because I've already spent time with you, I'm going to keep my remarks today focused on a few ideas.

And then I'll be happy to answer any specific questions.

So the first time I presented in this room, the very first thing I said was to acknowledge Seattle Fire Department, Seattle Police Department, and the excellence that I observed.

Now, whatever I felt last spring when I talked about that has only been magnified in the months since.

Around the clock, I'm out with these folks in the field, or else I'm in 911. I'm observing their response.

I've joked that the dispatch radio has become a soundtrack for my life.

I am listening all the time, but I'm doing that intentionally because I really want to understand the experiences of our first responders and I want to understand what it's like to be in our communities.

I know that you cannot design for what you don't understand.

I feel like a member of these two other departments.

When you go to the intersections in our city, which represent the most profound crisis, if you hang out for a little while, you are likely to see all three teams represented.

The first point I want to make that's very important is that we need to approach public safety as one team.

And the only good investment strategy is to invest in all three departments.

This is clear by the data.

We will rise and we will fall together.

I want you to hold on to that point this year.

I commend Mayor Harrell for casting a really grand vision for the care department, which represents an alignment of public safety investments in the city.

This work needs to be simplified and it needs to be organized.

Departmental silos are always a bad idea, but when it comes to public safety, it's a really bad idea, really, really harmful to effectiveness in the work.

I talk a lot about our first responders, but I also want to take a minute and acknowledge the secondary response teams, the incredible outreach teams, the folks that we see around the neighborhoods.

Our service providers are also a vital part of this system, and so we have to coordinate all of our efforts.

We need to know one another.

In this mission language, I would draw your attention to the reference to being evidence-based.

You know, we say data-driven in the city all the time, but I think generally what that seems to me is we're looking at the numbers, but are the numbers informing our practice?

Are we iterating?

Are we updating our systems to reflect trend data?

In 2013 in King County, we had six fentanyl-involved deaths.

In 2020, we had 168. Last year, we had nearly 1,100.

When I arrived at 911, I naturally conceptualized it as the city's public data hub.

The professionals who have made this their career uniquely understand trends in public safety, community concerns, the profound subjectivity around what connotes an emergency, and they can see where the system is failing.

I am a loud advocate for the local and national movements to fully acknowledge 911 professionals as first responders.

This work can be grueling.

It can be devastating.

It is largely thankless.

But if we can get it right in 911, if we can get it right at that point of first contact, things downstream will go better.

The opportunity to dispatch different kinds of teams to 911 calls represents a significant step forward in financial efficiency and operational efficiency and flexibility and in compassion.

I've said before, if I know what you need, why can't I send what you need?

As you're aware, the Care Crisis Response Team launched last fall.

They are doing great work.

They've forged strong partnerships with other first responders and with providers.

Now, they're mostly downtown and in the CID, but over a third of the time, we're providing transportation for someone, and so we haven't been rigid about the geographic boundaries.

Now, notably, when I was designing the job, I insisted that the care responders be classified and compensated commensurate with other first responder teams to level set.

so that I could acknowledge what this work really is and attract great professionals who are prepared to do it and who will stay and be great at it.

I recently testified in Olympia on the importance of extending liability protections to these types of responders.

We have joined in and become leaders in a national movement that expands the notion of who can and who should respond to 911 calls.

I am an active member of Washington's Co-Responder Outreach Alliance, or CROA, and strongly support the need for co-response coordination and standardization across Washington state.

Now, as of last Friday, the care responders have handled 262 calls.

Some of them are quick, some of them require hours of service.

Consider the scarcity of officers and how many hours have already been given back to police to address higher acuity calls.

Most of these calls take more than 30 minutes, many take an hour, and some have taken three or four hours.

We operate in three teams of two.

Teams fill three 12-hour shifts in the field and then one four-hour administrative shift every week, which is largely focused on evaluation, analyzing how we're doing, looking at inventory needs, forecasting what we'll need next.

I've been really specific that when the care team is in between calls, they are in community.

They do not sit in an office.

They are out in between calls.

So we have many goals and objectives in the department this year, but these are the five priority areas which will dramatically improve efficiency and outcomes when achieved.

On the first point, we have to train folks on the front lines to be actively engaged in transforming the system.

We have to flag signs of trouble, flag areas for improvement, debate.

We should never leave a conversation without understanding the dissent opinion.

The work of responding to human emergencies is really complex, and it is nuanced, and so we need thinkers and we need creatives in the work.

Chief Scoggins and Chief Diaz and I understand well the significant portion of the budget that goes to public safety, and so we're working together to analyze where there is duplication.

Where can we share resources?

Where can we centralize functions?

For example, if we're all doing the same trauma-informed response training, why not do it together?

Care is a new department, and so we are working swiftly to articulate policy so our teammates have clarity about what is expected of them.

Now, the last point I want to make, and probably the most vital point, is philosophical.

I know that the system is designed to get the results that it gets.

And I don't believe in people problems.

I don't believe in assigning blame.

I believe in systems problems and structural problems.

And I always assume that there are reasons for things, even the things that feel illogical.

And so daily in this work, I wonder about how we find ourselves so ill-equipped to meet basic needs, which were predictable and which are knowable.

I referenced the escalating fentanyl crisis earlier.

I can run a regression model and predict what that overdose count will be a year from now.

And those 1,100 deaths don't just represent the loss of individual lives.

That represents 1,100 devastated families.

The 5,700 spent casings that Seattle police recovered last year, it doesn't just tell the story of gun violence.

It reminds us that kids are growing up to that soundtrack.

And what I've realized is that I think we tend to be in search of perfect solutions, in search of a philosophical ideal, and we will not find it.

I recall a time I was doing policy work in Kentucky, and I was trying to understand how I should feel about public charter schools, which were coming online.

So I talked to all these people about it, and then finally I thought about the smartest person on the issue.

It was a man who had been a teacher and a principal in Kentucky.

He got a doctorate of education, I think from Harvard.

thought leader in education policy at every level of the system.

And so I asked him where he stood on this issue.

And I will always remember how he responded.

He said, Amy, anyone who has a strong opinion on this issue does not understand this issue.

And then he went on to describe that some are wildly successful and some are not, and we can't quite correlate the factors that ensure success.

And I think about this all the time.

The closer you get to these issues, the more you realize that two things can be true, and we have to accept that.

It is true that self-determination is a crucial factor in recovery, and it is also true that fentanyl use can ravage the brain, and it represents a medical emergency.

It is true that community-based treatment in the context of a supportive environment is thought to be ideal.

And it is also true that some folks do not have that and need 24-7 support to be properly diagnosed and supported into recovery.

I went through a little exercise last week reaching out to leaders and great thinkers on the front lines of service in this community at the city level, at the county level, first responders, community-based providers, medical doctors, clinicians, REACH, LEAD, 988, We Deliver Care, DESC, the DSA mid-ambassadors, community leaders.

And I asked them individually one question.

What do you wish elected officials really understood?

and response after response after response came back.

I'm out of academia, but I still love qualitative research.

And it was really interesting, a couple themes emerged across disciplines, and so I'm gonna share some of these highlights.

To address the disorder on our streets, we need to recognize its complexity.

Many pathways lead people to live on the streets, and we need just as many routes to provide aid to them.

For too long, we have sought to simplify this diverse set of social issues and label it as a result of a singular cause.

Solutions need to be as diverse as the issues themselves.

A nuanced approach is required for true effectiveness.

Approaching the unhoused and fentanyl crises urgently and compassionately is synonymous with addressing public safety.

We need creative and flexible solutions that are inclusive for clients who need the most.

We need support for staff to continue to do the good work they are desperately martyring themselves for.

I'm gonna end with this one.

We are not discussing the right or the wrong way to do things, but a spectrum of choices that have implications across a diverse city.

Civil discourse with objective reasoning must return for the best future for Seattle.

And so what I've learned is that when you are outside of City Hall and government offices, when you're with providers and subject matter experts in these disciplines, there is strong support for one another and there is strong consensus.

That's what my optimism is anchored in.

Smart, capable, tireless people trying to make things better for community.

And so I feel like my role is to support that effort, to dwell with them in the complexity, and to try to do interventions that work, that help people.

So I thank you for being with me.

I'm learning about the challenges of being in the public eye and doing this day over day, and I really commend you.

And with that, I'm happy to answer any questions.

Thank you, Chief Smith.

Thank you so much.

And Chief Diaz, if you'd like, you can join your fellow chiefs so the three chiefs can be together.

Just a few quick questions, and for everyone in the dais, Chief Smith does need to leave at 9.55, so just a few quick questions.

I'll start.

If you can go back to the dual dispatch overview, you know, there at the end, you talked about emphasis projects.

Can you add more on that?

Is there anything specific regarding desired outcomes, or what kind of metrics are you looking for that?

Yes, those projects are actually in partnership with several different departments, specifically with crime prevention coordinators at Seattle Police Department.

And we've recently requested a few grants for it.

So this is a place-based strategy that is holistic.

There was a project like this in 2012, I believe, in Rainier Beach that had really good results.

When you look at the built environment, you audit assets and community.

what is lacking, what is needed, actually, and allow the community to drive the design forward.

When you look at the hotspots in 911, which I do every week, the top 10 hotspots, a majority, actually, are supportive housing communities.

And what's interesting is I can see when the calls are going to come in.

I can predict it.

We get so many crisis calls.

Last year at the Morrison, I dispatched police 185 times to that location.

Fire would, you know...

perhaps at least 50% more calls as well, Health One and Health 99. And of the police calls, 25% turned out to be crisis calls, purely crisis calls, nothing else.

When you drill down, when I start to ask these teams, what happened actually?

Because the call types, it's vague.

If you say welfare check, what does that mean?

Person down, what does that mean?

You have to actually look at the narrative and what happened.

And what's happening is that when case managers leave, crisis starts to escalate.

My question was, okay, if we're getting calls at 5 p.m., can I send the care team out at 4 p.m.?

Can they form strong relationships or can they help train the staff to know what they're identifying?

So that is an area of significant emphasis.

And Little Saigon as well, same thing.

We need to support this community and build it up.

and actually form strong relationships with people so that we can better understand the experience of businesses, the experience of community members.

These are very evidence-based, data-driven approaches.

And when we learn things at work, then we will circulate to other locations.

What else?

Well, thank you for that.

You know, it gets to the idea of a battle rhythm, which actually goes to the next slide where, you know, we had the number of responses and so forth.

And can you speak to that a little bit more in terms of, like, when are you seeing these?

Yeah.

How many per day?

You know, what is the kind of the rhythm that you're seeing?

And to your point from previous slide is anticipating that and pre-deploying seems to make a lot of sense.

Yeah, it was interesting to watch calls come in, requests from police right away, because the team got stood up, sort of branded and sent out so quickly.

There wasn't time to do a really good awareness campaign or anything like that.

So it was interesting, I think, because we've been downtown, other first response teams identified that bright blue polo quickly.

You know, the joke has been like, care team.

We need you because it looks like the logo.

So they've done a lot of secondary response where police show up and they realize this is not for us.

This is the care team.

And I will hear those requests on the radio start to come in at 7 or 8 in the morning.

We don't come online until 11. We stay in the field until 2300. And I designed that way because I know that more crisis calls are coming in as the evening grows later.

And then Health One, Health 99, the CSOs, other people tend to be offline.

So my desire, I was asked yesterday about expansion.

I would like to get later, because I know that there's incredible pressure on police from 2300, 11 PM until 2 AM.

And so I would like folks to be out, able to cover crisis calls during that time.

The data is pretty consistent.

I check it every week.

Lots of transportation needs to all different places, sometimes back to housing, sometimes to food, to services, to Harborview.

And there are many teams that need to require transportation.

So I've been trying to organize, do we have enough wheelchair lifts?

What types of transportation can we provide?

But it really, when you look call by call by call, they're all so different.

So again, back to the quotes about the complexity and nuance, all different things.

OK.

I can ask questions all day.

Any questions from Council President, fellow committee members?

Yeah.

Go ahead.

So, I was going to ask, To what extent do you look at the Board of Health and public health in general work plan?

I'm now on the board and you focus, your last comments were focused almost exclusively on our drug crisis and the impacts of that and I'm really looking forward to understanding more how you personally and your team is interacting with other agencies.

to be continued on that.

But then I was struck by what you just said about what you're learning around patterns.

And you mentioned deploying the care team at four o'clock instead of five o'clock because the case manager leaves.

it's our responsibility as the contractors of these providers to ensure that the, at least in permanent supportive housing, that there are the supports necessary so that, you know, round the clock so that you don't have to do that.

And this is a complaint that I've heard from residents in neighborhoods across the city.

So, That is just one.

So first of all, thank you very much for mentioning that.

I'll follow up with you on that.

But I am just now seeing that your work will help us across the board in some of our committee work, human services, my work in accountability.

So thank you very much.

And I look forward to working with you further.

Yeah, if I could just respond, I think it's so healthy and useful to acknowledge that this is one conversation.

I was glad to see Councilmember Moore on this committee as well, because again, housing, you really can't disaggregate, you know, any aspect of this conversation.

And I think that's what has precluded our progress sometimes that we don't we're not really looking holistically at what is happening.

And we say place based strategy, but really person based strategy.

We do best if we have a point of contact, a trusted person who is helping us.

Any last questions?

We got about two minutes before Chief Smith is...

Well, there's not like a trap door.

It's okay.

Chair Kittle, I had a question.

Thank you.

Thank you, Chief Smith.

Quick question.

Are there...

What barriers are you seeing after you go in and you triage the situation and then trying to connect people to resources?

Is there a gap where you're saying, hey, we are not being able to find resources for this type of situation or, you know, the resource gap?

Yeah, I would have planted that question.

Thank you for it.

We all talk about this.

There's no place to take people.

I cannot stress that enough.

I started this role, the first couple of months I had learned from think tanks and academic institutions to say, I need a place to take people other than the emergency department and jail.

And then the more I spent in the system, I realized I don't have places there either.

There is no place to take people.

I was at Evergreen Treatment Services last week at the Belltown location, the Markham, and I noticed that someone was standing by the door and I wondered if it was a security concern and asked.

No, it's just crowd control.

It's a very small space and people will come to the Markham during the day because they don't have a bathroom.

or they need to get warm, in addition to people who are there for services.

And so that is the urgent critical need.

We need low barrier places to take people during the day, at night.

We talk a lot about shelter beds, but it's actually sometimes more simple than that.

Thank you.

I think Councilmember Moore was first.

Thank you very much, Chief Smith.

This presentation was very informative, and I am looking forward to working with you on this committee and also through the Human Services Committee.

I'm looking at your department goals, and the second one is to improve 911 staffing, recruitment, and retention, critically important.

Can you give us sort of a high view about how you would go about doing that and sort of what staffing numbers you were looking at, particularly with the ability to expand that the MOU provided you.

Yeah, good question.

So Charlotte Joseph is the deputy chief who has ownership of this goal, and we've already got strategies and metrics involved with it.

But the way that I think about it is that we need to reconceptualize who would be attracted to this work, and we've got to reframe it.

The days are over of trying to recruit someone to dispatch where they work for 30 years and then retire with a pension.

That's not a thing anymore.

We need to let go of it.

And I think as an industry, we need to let go of it.

One of the thoughts I have, because I am fascinated by 911, it attracts people like me.

It's a data hub.

It's a space desperately in need of reform and innovation.

It's a place where technology should live and develop.

And I think it's a great way into public safety or into government.

If you're not quite sure where you fit, but you like public service or you like data, come.

Come join us.

Work for three to five years.

I think of it sort of like public accounting used to message when there were big six.

Come skill up.

After five years, you can be a manager.

Or you'll probably go work for one of our clients.

There are different ways to frame this.

A lot of this too is just about acknowledgement.

I am so pleased at the focus and emphasis of council and the mayor's office on 911. I'm pleased that people are coming.

You know, the mayor came a first time after a press conference, but then he asked to come another time to listen to calls.

And I wasn't sure what his objective was.

And he said, when is it really busy?

And I said, Saturday night, sir.

So he came out with his wife from maybe 9 to 11. Deputy Mayor Burgess was there, too.

No photo op, just sitting there trying to understand how the system was working.

That means the world to people.

This has been invisible work, and it is hard.

And there are days where I'm adjacent to it.

I'm not in it.

And I'm fighting back tears at the end of the day because you really do get such a snapshot of the pain.

And so then we comfort ourselves and the heroism that we get to see in community as well.

Okay, Council Member Saka, you have the last question.

All right.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

And thank you, Chief Smith.

I suppose the benefit of going last, you know, like I had one question which was already asked.

So thank you, Council Member Hollingsworth.

So this is just a comment.

Chief Smith, thank you again for this rather insightful presentation and the work you and your team do every single day.

I think our community is better served by your presence, and I'm looking forward to working closely with you, the three chiefs here, my fellow council member colleagues to help grow and scale your organization to make sure we meet the need.

But just to comment on something, some of the things you last said in that discussion item slide just really resonated with me and I just, as someone, like yourself, who is the true subject matter expert in this co-response model space, I just want to say thank you.

Specifically, you talked about how sometimes we get bogged down in the endless pursuit towards perfect solutions and philosophical ideals, which unfortunately don't always exist.

And we keep...

again, getting bogged down in these, in the quest for perfect solutions, and we're likely to find them as soon as, or probably around the same time, we're likely to find Yeti, and the Abominable Snowman, and all these, and the Loch Ness Monster, and all these mythical creatures.

But I want you to know and I want the public to understand that I am personally committed to growth, I am personally committed to making real progress on these challenges, these shared challenges, and I am personally committed to results.

And again, just thank you for all you do and really looking forward to working with you.

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Chief Smith, and thank you for creating a learning organization.

I appreciate that.

All right, thank you.

Thank you.

Take care.

Okay, Mr. Clerk.

Are we set?

Colleagues, at this time, we will open the hybrid public comment period.

Public comment should relate to items on today's agenda or within the purview of the Public Safety Committee.

Clerk, how many speakers are signed up today?

We have one remote speaker and two in person.

Okay, well, in that case, we'll do the two minutes as per standard.

We'll start with the in-person chamber speakers first, please.

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

I will call on each speaker by name and in the order which they registered on the council's website or on the sign-on sheet available up here in chambers.

If you have not registered yet, but would like to, you can sign up before the end of the public comment period by going to the website or by signing up on the comment sheet by the sign up sheet near the public comment microphone.

Please begin by stating your name and the item that you are addressing.

As a reminder, public comment should relate to an item on today's agenda or within the purview of the Public Safety Committee.

Speakers will hear a chime when 10 seconds are left of allotted time.

Once you hear the chime, we ask that you begin to wrap up your public comment.

If speakers do not end their comment at the end of the allotted time provided, the speaker's microphone will be muted to allow us to call on the next speaker.

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

Eugene Wasserman is the first one to speak.

Good morning.

I'm Eugene Wasserman.

I'm here as president of the North Seattle Industrial Association.

I'm here to talk about public safety and more of the crime part of it.

I want to just echo the comments that Council Member Kettle said.

We look forward to working with a new council on this issue, and we'd like to continue our working relationships with the mayor's office and the two chiefs that we've worked with.

In fact, we've just renewed some relationships with the fire department in the last month.

But besides all this, there's a ticking time bomb here.

It's been three years since my members in the business have been assaulted by criminals, drug dealing, all those things, fires.

And frankly, they're tired of it.

They're tired of having police not respond to calls.

They're tired of seeing open drug dealing out of RVs and kids going into those RVs.

Um, they're sick, like sometimes the police show up, sometimes they don't, but no one ever seems to get arrested.

And, uh, campgrounds where there are thieves in them eventually get moved, but months after we were promised that they're doing it.

So there's a ticking clock going on.

Some of these businesses, and I won't say all, are thinking about moving out of the city.

And if they don't see a change this year, some of them will.

And once they start, other people will also.

There are already holes in our industrial area, not from the crime issue, but before.

But as those holes multiply, and you can see in retail areas, which I'm not speaking for, there are those holes.

And this situation has bottomed at a really horrible level of crime.

And I'm not litigating the past.

I'm telling you what you have to look forward to and the jobs that you will sort to get.

But there is this clock going and if things are going soon, there'll be businesses leaving.

And so that's my message for today.

In spite of everyone's good attentions, we need results soon.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next up, we have John Chaney.

Good morning.

My name is John Chaney and I have been I am just a small, old gay man.

I have been in this city for over five decades, and I've been dancing with my friends and meeting my friends in safe spaces for me, which started at Shelly's leg and goes all the way to the cuff and to the eagle.

So I'm here to talk about the interaction of the public safety issue And the joint and the use of resources.

I'm very concerned that the joint on your watch as a council.

Then on January the 26th, there was a strong perception in my community.

That there was a raid on places that are safe for my community.

And there's been lots of response about it.

I've been very pleased with where the city has been discussing this.

Council Member Burgess, Council Member, my old days, Deputy Mayor Burgess indicated to me that the inclusion of the Seattle Police Department in the JET joint enforcement team was really to just stand by and provide security.

Well, I guess I think there are lots of other things and places that the police department needs to provide security other than going to look for lewd conduct in safe places for me.

The mayor has indicated and Deputy Mayor Burgess has indicated to me that the jet will be reviewed.

I'm looking forward to a public transparent discussion of what this use of city resources is and the outcome from it.

Thank you.

Next, we're moving to remote speakers.

Remote speakers, please remember to press star six after you hear the prompt of you have been unmuted.

Hi, my name is David Haynes.

We only legalized proper grown marijuana Yet previous council and mayors acted like we legalized crack, meth, heroin, fentanyl under 3.5 grams, calling them nonviolent, low-level misdemeanors, destroying lives daily and imploding society.

While they further sabotaged police reform, hiring a police chief who broke up every crime-fighting unit as the interim chief and prioritized overtime at law-abiding events, while going around politicking a blame game on innocent homeless, creating a war on the poor, misleading the business community, creating an easier payday for cops, while shifting the paradigm of policing away from combating the scourge of illicit drugs that created all these junkie thieves ruining the pursuits of happiness for the community at large to a war on the homeless.

We need city and metro police to begin trespassing drug addicts and questioning them to find out where they keep getting the drugs and go shut it down.

Instead, we have a sabotaged response where evil repeat offenders are run interference for getting first priority on housing and services, courtesy Lisa Dugard of LEAD, PDA, a.k.a. Just Care, while innocent homeless are forsaken, discriminated, hated, and victimized.

The present police chief is on record as saying he's making it up to the black and brown community for past wrongs.

resulting in not policing the community properly, allowing criminals to terrorize the community.

We need a new trustworthy police chief who doesn't run interference for criminals while blaming the homeless, creating a race war on the innocent poor while allowing a shifting of the paradigm of police reform, exempting evil drug pushers and thieves from jail.

I think sympathy for the devil is the gist of progressive bottom-of-the-barrel policies.

Thank you.

That is all of our public commenters.

Thank you.

We will now move on to our second item of business.

Will the clerk read item two into the record?

Public Safety Committee Approach Briefing and Remarks by Chair Kettle.

Thank you everyone for coming.

Again, thank you for the Chiefs and your teams for appearing today.

Really appreciate it very much.

To start off for our committee, the mission of the Public Safety Committee is to provide a safe base for Seattle through community engagement, policy direction, and oversight.

We envision a future where families feel safe sending their kid on the bus to school, businesses can operate without paying for private security, and the city can respond in a timely and appropriate manner to people experiencing acute crises.

Our committee's primary mission areas are crime and security, fire rescue and alternative response, and emergency preparedness.

Our committee's secondary mission areas are traffic safety and pedestrian safety, again, with bike safety, in collaboration with the Transportation Committee, park safety and technology in collaboration with the Parks, Public Utilities, and Technology Committee, and youth and young adult violence in cooperation with the Housing and Human Services Committee.

Foundationally, we look at the law and its enforcement with the City Attorney's Office and the Seattle Municipal Court, and importantly, overall, carry out our oversight responsibilities.

Accountability and transparency are a core function of the committee, as seen also with the CPC, the Community Police Commission, the Office of Police Accountability, and the Office of Inspector Generals and their role in oversight.

These functions will be done in collaboration with the Governance, Accountability, and Economic Development Committee.

In the end, we oversee the Seattle Police Department, the Seattle Fire Department, the Seattle Care Department, the Office of Emergency Management, along with the Community Police Commission, the Office of Police Accountability, and the Office of the Inspector General.

In addition, we have the City Attorney's Office and the Seattle Municipal Court under our community's jurisdiction.

You know, it's right to note that in the area of public safety, we as a city must acknowledge and affirm that people of different races and social economic backgrounds experience public safety very differently.

And these experiences, sometimes traumatic, need to be heard and be central in discussion of today's city's approach to public safety.

Public safety does not exist in the vacuum.

So many factors impact our public safety.

For example, we cannot succeed in public safety if we do not also succeed in public health.

Public safety and public health are indeed two sides of the same coin.

We must build on our new care department, elements of police and fire, along with the Human Services Department to address these co-occurring issues.

We must better tackle our behavioral health and addiction challenges because those suffering from those challenges are impacting and being impacted by what we're seeing in public safety.

Specifically, to the complex and intersectional issues around crime, we approach public safety with compassion and wisdom.

Yes, compassion, compassion with empathy, but also wisdom, knowing that we have a responsibility to the broader community.

We want to create a city that operates better for the whole within the social contract that makes up our laws, and we want to be sure to recognize everyone's humanity.

We have allowed a permissive environment to take root in our city.

It enables the criminal set, but also the random acts of violence and the lawlessness that we too often have seen in our city.

The impact of the permissive environment has harmed communities across Seattle.

Our mandate is public safety to address public safety challenges and improve our public safety posture.

The permissive environment is underlining factor behind crime and is reflecting the inability to address our pressing public safety needs.

There are six pillars that we will prioritize in addressing the permissive environment.

We recognize a number of these pillars do not squarely fit within the Public Safety Committee, but are part of the holistic view of public safety and the permissive environment that allows crime to flourish.

Our strategic framework to address the permissive environment is created with an intention to seeking to restrict that environment.

And as Chief Smith noted, not go for the perfect, but get that what is accomplishable.

It focuses on SBD staffing, first and foremost, legal tools, ordinances, and the like.

Third pillar is unsecured vacant buildings and lots.

Fourth is graffiti.

Fifth is public health, as mentioned, its importance to public safety.

And finally, a One Seattle engagement with the county and state.

This strategic framework will be the basis of our 2024 work plan, along reviewing the nine departments, office, and commission ahead of the budget process.

To close, our approach to policymaking starts with the three Cs, communication, coordination, and collaboration.

It is essential for our committee to communicate well with our constituents, our stakeholders, other committees, as represented here on the dais, departments, and the mayor's office to accomplish our goal of creating that safe base for our families, our businesses, our arts and culture, and our neighborhoods.

Yes, that safe base for our city.

However, it's going to take a citywide, all-hands-on-deck effort in order to dismantle the permissive environment that threatens to be perennial and undermining to Seattle's next generation.

From our nonprofit service providers to our community groups, our city council to our neighborhood community councils, our public safety departments and indeed to each of us individually.

We all have a job to do to create a better, safer and healthier Seattle.

Yes, a vibrant, thriving Seattle.

Thank you.

Now I'd like to turn over to our vice chair for any comments you may have in terms of our committee.

All right, well, thank you, Mr. Chair.

I appreciate the opportunity to speak and I also appreciate all of your comments.

I just wanna use this moment to quickly underlie a few points from my perspective.

So I'm just a dad from Delridge and I saw some real challenges in my community in West Seattle and related to public safety and that's why I ended up running and now I'm privileged to serve alongside you all and for the public.

And public safety is really important to me personally.

And I think we need to use our time on this committee to heal the community's relationship with public safety and to create a venue for dialogue about what public safety means at this time and in this place.

For me, for example, I think about public safety holistically in a PIE framework, prevention, intervention, and enforcement.

Make no mistake, today, enforcement and policing still plays a role in our broader public safety challenges and addressing meaningfully our broader public safety challenges.

But I also believe that healing will help foster a better environment for recruiting police officers and firefighters and will help us retain our current officers, ultimately help us bring our staffing back to full staffing and force levels.

Why?

So we all have better response times.

We need to build trust between our public safety department and community through meaningful accountability that creates learning rather than punishes for the sake of punishment.

I have very high standards of professionalism and excellence for our public safety officials.

And I intend to work collaboratively to swiftly hold people accountable and organizations accountable for results.

I am looking forward to expanding our care department to build on our behavioral health or behavioral crises capabilities and watching our community grow and strengthen our non-sworn response capabilities as well.

I'm also looking forward to working closely with the city attorney's office and the municipal court to reinforce the fibers that hold our justice system together.

We can only do so much.

Working collaboratively with the executive branch, we can only do so much.

It's gonna take all of us, including the city attorney's office, the municipal courts to make sure we have the best public safety system that is coordinated, aligned, and informed.

But I also want the public to know that I, and I think we all are, committed to doing the work to make sure that everyone in Seattle feels not only protected, but respected.

Thank you.

Thank you, Vice Chair Saka.

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

Will the clerk please read item three into the record.

Seattle Police Department briefing and discussion with Chief Adrian Diaz and Deputy Mayor Burgess.

Well, welcome Chief Diaz and via Zoom Deputy Mayor Burgess and thanks for joining us this morning.

I understand that Deputy Mayor Burgess would like to begin with an introduction.

Thank you, Chair Kettle, very much for allowing us to appear at your first meeting of the year.

Congratulations to all of you for being on one of the most important committees that the City Council has.

Chief Smith was with you earlier today, but I'm very proud to be here with Chief Diaz and Chief Scoggins.

I think as you know, Mayor Harrell's vision for public safety is that every person will be safe in the city and able to assess our emergency services as needed.

He also wants our public safety services to be delivered with the highest professional standards and everyone to be treated fairly and respectfully.

And I know each of the three chiefs are committed as well.

So I believe that Chief Diaz will be next.

Thank you, Chief Diaz.

And would you like your questions at the end or at different points?

End point.

Okay.

Can you hear me?

No.

Okay.

Perfect.

Thank you, City Council, Council President, for tackling some tough issues.

This year has started off.

I've already had interactions with several during this time.

We've had an unfortunate young man that was killed in West Seattle.

We've had some challenges up on the I-5 corridor and you know, a variety of different other crime issues that have occurred throughout the city of Seattle.

And so thank you for your commitment to addressing public safety.

As Deputy Mayor mentioned, we are committed.

You know, for us, it's our pursuit of excellence, and we're committed to service and helping others and helping those in need.

And we want to do it in a compassionate and empathetic approach.

And that is what every single day our officers are trying to do to making sure that our people feel valued and respected in the community, but also making sure that for me, that we value and respect the officers that go out and do the hard work every single day.

We're going to start off with our year end review.

This last year, we actually saw a 9% reduction in overall crime, but I'm very cautious with those details because when you look at the overall crime reduction, it was actually a 10% reduction in property crime.

However, we know that many businesses sometimes go unreported, and so it's not always an accurate reflection of our overall crime.

What we've actually worked towards is actually building a new online reporting system that allows people to actually be able to report things in a much more efficient manner that we hope to have up online within the next Q1 of this year.

That also has options in that system to be able to have language additions and allow us to be able to communicate differently with our public than we've ever done before.

So we're excited for that new potential onboarding.

but we're hoping that this will hopefully reflect a little bit better, more of our property crime than we have had in the past.

When it comes to violent crime, we've seen a reduction in violent crime by 6%.

And that 6% isn't a reduction when it comes to shootings.

When it comes to shootings, we had a 1% reduction, but we had about a 3% increase in people being injured in those shootings.

And when it comes to the homicides, we saw a massive increase in the amount of homicides last year.

In fact, we surpassed our record that we've had in our history of the department by having 73 homicides.

Now, that number is kind of a strange number because some of those are delayed deaths and those incidents might not have occurred last year.

However, because of the incident that occurred and the injury sustained, that it ended up having somebody pass away this year.

are that year at the time, and that's the reason why that contributed up to a high number.

But we are committed to making that reduction.

And already in the first month, we've also seen a massive reduction compared to the first several months of the last four years.

And it is unfortunate that we've had right now, so far to date, five homicides, but that is actually a big reduction from what we've seen over the last several years.

So when we actually look at one of the other things that we are talking about is our total count of officers.

Last year, we actually saw a reduction in overall count of officers.

We're down roughly to about 1047. That includes our recruits.

That includes people that are in the FTO phase of our department, as well as people that are on long-term leave and our deployable workforce.

However, we actually saw more hires and a reduction in people leaving, so we're actually keeping people here in the department compared to the last four or five years if you look at it historically.

This is our shots fired.

Last year, as I mentioned, we had a 1% reduction.

In 2022, it was our highest level of shots fired since we started keeping track and really identifying the amount of shots fired that are happening in the city.

We had 738 in 2022, and last year we had 730. So while it is a small reduction, it is not really a significant reduction in what we're seeing.

But really when you look at these numbers is one of the biggest hardships that we're actually seeing is the amount of rounds that are being fired in the city.

If you look at a four-year historical trend, four years ago we had 2,500 rounds fired.

Last year we had over 5,700 rounds fired.

not just double, more than doubled.

And when what we're experiencing on the streets or what our officers are experiencing on the streets is they're recovering what they call Glock switches, which takes guns and makes them automatic.

And when they see the high capacity magazines, they're not just like a standard clip of a high capacity magazines, which has more than 10 rounds.

They're starting to see what we call 50 round drum magazines.

It looks like a Tommy gun.

and it's around a thing that's added to the gun and it allows somebody to switch that gun to automatic and fire 50 rounds in just a matter of seconds and that actually creates a lot of injury for those the reason why we've seen some of the mass shootings that we've had in the city last year alone in a three-week period we had three different mass shootings we had the one uh that happened at capitol hill block party Shortly thereafter, we had the one down in Rainier Beach that it was actually a part of our community, our violence and eruption work.

And then the third one was affecting our hookah lounge that ended up having nine people hurt, three of them dead.

And so this is that growing trend that other cities are experiencing as well.

But it is something that we are working and committed to making sure that we address.

We've seen just in that four year increase, we were averaging about one shooting, just a little over one shooting a day or shots fired a day.

And now in 2023, we're averaging about two shots fired a day.

And so we actually in this slide, it breaks down each month what we experience, which, as you can see, during the summer months of that July.

we end up seeing that increase in the amount of shots fired because more people are out and active and they're out doing stuff.

And so that's when we typically see a higher level of violence.

This last year, during that time, I actually instituted a crime violence reduction task force.

to try and be able to address that issue after two homicides.

And immediately we saw actual reduction in some of the shootings and shots fired.

For us, just on those specific areas that we targeted, we saw a 9% overall reduction in those four areas, which was in right now, as we actually are planning for the summer, we were already kind of setting up for that same process.

So that way we actually get ahead of these situations for the summer.

So we're not behind or trying to address things on the fly.

As I mentioned before, there was a 1% decrease in gun violence incidents of having 730 verified shootings or shots fired.

But one of the things that we have been able to do is we recovered 1,532 guns, which is the most guns we've ever recovered.

If you look over the last seven years, we've had over 1,000 guns recovered each and every year, and it continues to go up.

When you have 1,532 guns and 375 less officers on the street, you have a gun problem.

And it is the great work that our officers are doing.

to making sure that they take guns off the streets, but they're doing it with less staffing.

And that is a huge, huge challenge.

But if you can imagine, if you think about all the rounds that are being fired and the guns being recovered, imagine what it would have been if we hadn't been recovering the guns that we have.

We would see a whole lot more violence.

Many of these guns that we're recovering are not being used in just one case.

They're being used in two cases, in three cases, in four cases, four plus.

Some of the guns we've recovered has been up to 16 cases.

So that is some of the serious concerns that we all have to figure out how we address.

We have to work with our court systems.

We have to work with our legislators on sentencing to make sure that people aren't in violation of that and that they're being held.

And so this is that continued work.

This slide is a reflection of those gun recoveries.

As I mentioned, seven years, we've recovered over 1,000 guns each year.

Prior to that, 2010 to 2016, we were recovering under 1,000 guns, and we had better staffing.

But we hadn't seen as much of the violence that we are actually overseeing the last couple years.

And so, again, every year we continue to see a rise in the amount of guns recovered.

But it is our commitment, because we're doing a lot more operations, a lot more focused efforts on making sure that we get guns removed.

But guns are becoming a part of everyday things, such as auto theft.

When I was in patrol, you would do an auto theft.

Typically, you wouldn't see a gun being recovered.

But now it's becoming a regular effort in that work.

And so things that are much smaller events are actually becoming much bigger events.

As I mentioned, over the last seven years, you can see from this slide that we started off with about 1,424 officers.

It was the highest level amount of officers that we had.

Every year we continue to see that reduction.

Even in 2018 and 2019, prior to George Floyd, we saw a reduction.

And then we saw a bigger reduction hitting George Floyd in the year of 2020. If you think about over the last five years, we've lost 715 personnel.

Five years we've lost 715 personnel.

And what that means is that's over half the department that was just in 2017. Now we've hired quite a bit of people.

And we're roughly down about 375 officers.

But really what you're trying to do is having to make adjustments.

We've had to, you know, put people back into patrol.

We've had to, you know, aggregate different positions or units and really streamline our work to making sure that we have enough people answering 911 calls.

Tough decisions, but have to have been done.

If not, we wouldn't be able to respond to the violent crime that we've had.

And we're actually still responding in a timely manner.

Our goal is to be under seven minutes to be able to address violent crime, our priority one call status.

And we're just slightly over that.

We're about seven and a half minutes as of last year.

But every second counts.

Every second counts when it comes to saving lives.

And so it's important not only that we raise the amount of officers that we have, that we get back up to full staffing of 1,424 officers, but that we're also committed to making sure that we take some of that work that we've done in the past and we utilize the care system to be able to address some of those issues that they have the skill sets to be able to do.

It's not about reducing officers because we also need to make sure that we have officers that are healthy and they have the ability to take time off and that they have the ability to kind of rest and relax and not be constantly going and going and going.

But right now, our patrol officers spend almost 85% of their time on a call.

This is a reflection of our sworn hire and separation.

This last year, we lost 36 more than we hired.

But as you can see, it was a much better situation than the previous years where we lost 101, 90, 135. We've only had two years in the last seven years that we've actually hired more people than we've lost.

And that was three years before George Floyd.

So there's already, you know, prior to George Floyd, there was already a very struggle in trying to make sure that you hit your attrition.

increases now after several years from George Floyd, we're actually seeing more people starting to spark that interest and hopefully being able to start coming back into seeing policing as an actual job of service.

And when you ask people, young people, just a couple years ago, they didn't see policing as a service job.

And now the discussion is seeing it much more as a service.

And a part of that is that we're also seeing other professions downsize.

You look at technology and you look at other different fields that are actually downsizing, and then people start to realize, okay, what do I really want to do?

And then they start to figure out policing is a level of service, and people want to be a part of that.

So we're hoping in the next several years that we continue to see an increase in the amount of applicants as well as potential hires.

The consent decree.

So we have been in this consent decree for almost about a 12-year period of time.

This last year, our judge, Honorable Judge Robart, ruled that we were able to eliminate many paragraphs of this consent decree.

There was 99 paragraphs of the consent decree that anything from crisis intervention, that we talked about use of force, community engagement, many of those paragraphs were eliminated.

But we still have a couple left that the judge still wants to make sure that we're adhering to.

One was in conjunction with our crowd management context, data analytics, and also on our cities, taking a city and actually putting accountability, which is gonna be mainly on the contract.

which is going to be an important issue for all the city council to be able to address because our officers have gone many years without a contract.

And we want to make sure that they're valued and respected and that they have a pay structure that allows them to be at the top of the game.

We're working hard with the monitoring team and the Department of Justice to hopefully close out our obligations in 2024 for the consent decree.

We would be one of the first agencies that was in a full consent decree to actually get through that.

And that is our commitment.

One of the last things that this almost slide was probably put up, should have been around the shootings and shots fired.

But what we find ourselves is that because we're responding to a high level of priority one calls for service, in conjunction with shootings and shots fired and aggravated assaults and robberies.

Our officers, you know, are having to secure scenes.

And sometimes prior to the fire department being able to safely be secured in, we're having to also treat some of the injuries.

And we have, you know, put on chest, we've done 56 chest compressions last year alone.

We did 117 cases of naloxone.

We've done 92 cases of chest seal, 90 cases of tourniquets.

These are all life-saving measures that because of the amount of sometimes shootings that we've had, that these are ways that we actually help be able to get people into a good preserved state before the fire department is able to take care of them and treat them and then also get them up to Harborview so we can save lives.

It is important that our officers have that ability to do that.

Because sometimes, and you look at some of these scenes, they're very complex scenes.

And we had, last year at one of the mass shootings, we had five people shot.

And one of our officers is literally, we have it on body camera, literally going from patient to patient to patient, while officers try to make sure that the scene is secured as much for fire department to come in.

Those are difficult situations.

So, again, we're all trying to make sure that we have that one value, and that is making sure that people feel safe and they're being treated fairly.

And that is what our commitment is.

So I'll open it up to any questions for the council.

Thank you very much, Chief Diaz.

Really appreciate your run-through on all these different points.

I just wanted to ask...

Because SPD staffing is our first pillar in terms of addressing the permissive environment, ask a question specifically about that in terms of the challenges that you're seeing on the recruitment, but then also the retention side in how you see differences between those two sides.

And I also wanted to say at this point with that question, something that I've said before, I did it at the East Precinct, for example, and that is to ask the men and women of the Seattle Police Department to give this committee, this council, and the One Seattle team, with the mayor's team, one year if they're looking to retire or transfer to another jurisdiction.

I THINK, YOU KNOW, DURING THE COURSE OF 2024, WE CAN, YOU KNOW, MAKE CHANGES AND REALLY CHANGE THE DYNAMICS AS IT RELATES TO RECRUITMENT AND RETENTION.

SO I WILL ASK THAT QUESTION OR MAKE THAT ASK PUBLICLY HERE AS PART OF THE COMMITTEE TO DO SO.

AND WITH THAT LEAD IN, RECRUITMENT AND RETENTION, ANYTHING THAT YOU'RE SEEING DIFFERENTLY?

WHAT'S THE SPECIFIC CHALLENGES?

CAN ONE PLAY OFF THE OTHER?

YOU KNOW, WHAT ARE YOU SEEING?

Well, the first five months is always the most challenging time for the department in regards to retirements.

Many people retire prior to July or June 1st because people can get COLA raises as part of the retirement prior to June 1st.

And so we usually see a larger increase of people retiring in the first five months.

This is the first time in the last four years that we've actually are breaking even with our hiring to people leaving within the first month.

So that is a good place.

That is finally a good avenue to be at just in the first month.

But we need to retain our officers.

And retain our officers, first and foremost, is being able to get a contract for the officers.

When they've gone three years or almost four years without a contract, without a pay raise, that has been a huge challenge for them.

And while other departments across the region, they have seen those raises.

They have seen different things and different incentives that have put people to want to even lateral to other agencies.

And we're looking at what incentives we can also provide We are looking at, you know, being able to make sure that they have the right tools and equipment, that we are looking at a quartermaster system.

We're also trying to unveil some different other options that potentially could be part of a contract negotiation.

So those things are still forthcoming, but we want to make sure that our officers have what they need to be able to do this job.

And it is, and that's also one of the things that you have to do is the last four years have really traumatized this department.

And what I mean by that is, yes, there was trauma that also occurred within the community, but officers that are literally responding to 911 calls that are going to...

You know, life safety situations, 85% of their time is going up and down on calls.

Their adrenaline's rushing.

They're trying to have a little bit of calmness after a call and unwind.

They don't have that opportunity.

We can't take them out of service and be able to say, you need to relax a little bit.

No, they're going on to the next call.

And that has a component in wellness.

And we've got to make sure that we take care of our officers and focus on their wellness.

And so this has been a commitment.

We are, in this last several months, we've been pushing for an executive director of wellness, which we're hoping to hire soon in the next couple of months.

But having an actual, we've already developed some good plans, but we need a really comprehensive plan to making sure that we're taking care of our officers and dealing with the trauma that our officers face every single day.

Okay, thank you.

Yes, op tempo is so critical.

Vice Chair Saka.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Chief Diaz, for your presentation today, your very helpful kind of overview and survey of the landscape, what's going on.

Also, thank you for your partnership and collaboration with respect to, you alluded to it in your earlier comments, but you and I have had the tragic opportunity to work together a little earlier than I think both of us originally anticipated and responding to the tragic killing and death of 15-year-old Mubarak Adam from Chief Self High School.

But I just want to applaud you and thank you and the mayor and the mayor's office for your partnership.

And I look forward to continuing to work together to make sure that We deliver, we fulfill, we fully fulfill our investigative functions to make sure that the family of Mubarak Adam has the answers that they so rightfully deserve.

So thank you, thank you for that.

I have a question about Officer Morrell.

And, you know, there are certain specific policies ideas and solutions that we can help engineer and bring about, and we will, and working collaboratively with the mayor's office to do this, including getting a new collective bargaining agreement in place.

I think that is the number one factor that can help drive and improve officer morale and also engender trust and confidence from various people at different agencies who might be thinking about continuing to grow and expand their career in Seattle.

And so I think we're all thinking about that and working on that.

And there's other incentive structures and things that have been tried in the past and that we all have an opportunity to continue to iterate upon and improve.

Bottom line is we can get a new collective bargaining agreement in place and we will, and we can continue to improve all these great incentives and any number of other potential policy options to help drive recruitment.

But if people, if officer morale is low and remains low, it's all for nothing.

So I think broadly, A challenge or opportunity to improve officer morale is a shared one.

No one person bears sole responsibility for that.

That's why I think a lot of us have been going down to roll calls and more coming.

But you are the chief.

And so we'd just be curious to hear how you are thinking about improving officer morale and, yeah, from your perspective.

Yeah, actually, you've already brought up several different good things.

Number one, contract.

Number two, having city council members attend roll call.

Some in the past had, but not right off the bat in really engaging the officers and having difficult conversations, listening to the officers.

It's important for that.

It's important because there's a lot of level of mistrust.

And so that is a huge thing.

So I want to thank you to all the people that have done those roll calls initially.

And I know that people are going to do more of those.

So really, thank you for that.

We're sending our staff like throughout the department.

I have Chief Operating Officer Maxie, Brian Maxie here, and our legal advisor, Executive Director of Legal Advisor, Rebecca Brobite, just did a roll calls all in the South Precinct.

I have one of our chiefs that's actually right now working out of the West Precinct.

Part of that is making sure that all of our executive command staff is engaging all of our officers.

They need to be hearing from it.

I need to be hearing from it.

I've actually responded out to all the different scenes.

I spent my New Year's Eve answering 911 calls.

And I know that that's still not enough.

I mean, it's surely not enough when, you know, the officers still feel that lack of trust and mistrust with just sometimes that city department, command staff.

And so we have to make sure that we're present every single time, just like being in the community.

We have to be present all the time.

And that will hopefully be able to gain that trust and also be able to gain the support of our officers and build morale.

I can tell you in my career, and it's not an easy job, but I can tell you I don't think I remember a year where I didn't say morale wasn't low.

And it's the nature of the job.

you are experiencing trauma every single day.

But I think what we really need to be doing is recognizing our officers, and that's what the department's committed to, making sure that we get them the equipment and needs that are being met, and also just be able to say thank you to the officers.

And I think overall, that will start to come about, being able to deal with a comprehensive wellness program that also helps deal with some of the stuff that our officers are experiencing on a daily basis.

That is what's going to help us and help our officers be able to get through some of the different challenges.

And then we also are building a program, as I've mentioned in the past, and I think now that I have a whole new city council, but we are also building a program called SBU for the badge.

And that program is really about kind of developing the resiliency in our brand new recruits.

We've had over 100 officers or 100 recruits attend that, and we actually put everybody through it, whether it's lateral or basic law enforcement, through that program.

We are focusing on brain development and social-emotional learning.

We're having different discussions with people that are formerly incarcerated, African-American community, LGBT, because I want them to experience what it's like to have good conversation in the community when it's not in an enforcement situation.

And the more that they build those relationships early on, then when they go out in the streets, they already have those connections and they're going to feel good about the work that they do.

So this is an ongoing plan that we end up still needing to be carried out.

And there are going to be more items that are going to be added to that plan.

Thank you, Chief Diaz, and thank you for that shout-out for the Before the Badge program.

That is something that all Seattle needs to understand, and I think it's a fantastic program as we look to develop our new Seattle Police Department.

Next up, Council President Nelson.

Thank you very much for setting us up with your priorities, Chair Kettle.

And doesn't this feel different?

So thank you all for being here.

Everything, I'm going to go with your first pillar.

Everything, in my mind, depends on bringing SPD staffing levels back up.

We've been talking about this for two years since I've been in office.

And while it's good to know that we ended last year in net positive territory, it's still not.

happening fast enough.

And I have a personal stake in this because I led the legislative initiative to reestablish hiring bonuses, and that was made possible by the mayor's legislation that lifted the proviso to allow for that, and then he had a whole plan on recruitment and retention.

And so when we see these numbers, there's a tendency to say, well, it's just not working.

And I don't like hearing that.

And then people pivot to, well, every city is having a hard time hiring officers.

And look at the West Coast, et cetera, et cetera.

Well, I don't really care what's happening in other cities because I represent Seattle.

And so I have a responsibility for looking at the details and finding out or trying to establish why we're having such a hard time with...

recruitment and staffing levels back up.

Because I want to remind the public that when we're talking about the big problems like gun violence and the fentanyl crisis, We need our investigators back.

You know, I remember when I first started, you had moved 100 investigators into patrol.

And so if you don't have the people that are trying to figure out who's doing...

So it's really serious.

And also, those positions allow for upward mobility, and that also improves morale, and if that's not happening...

I would like to know, you know, we've heard, Bob and I, that there are some improvements that can be made.

So what is SPD doing on this?

How are you working with the mayor's office or HR to really dig into how improvements can be made in recruitment and in hiring practices?

Yeah, so we've already, you know, created much more efficiencies in our hiring process.

We've, you know, even when somebody, you know, could fail a physical, sometimes, you know, people just aren't feeling that well that day and then we're actually allowing them to cycle through very, very quickly within the next, you know, session of testing.

Before, that was six months before that they would test, and they would be gobbled up by another agency, because if I'm gonna wait six months, I might as well test for another agency.

We're actually looking at, you know, who we test with.

So we have a national testing network.

We are looking at switching companies, and then we're working...

with our Public Civil Service Commission to be able to do that because it opens up the door for a lot.

When you apply, it opens up for a lot more agencies to be able to have access to in the application process.

We're actually seeing more increase in applications now, and that's a good thing.

We're actually seeing, I think the last numbers that I looked at was over 60 people from laterals that were applying, which is good.

I mean, to see our increase in the amount of people that are starting to throw interest, our recruiting.

So our contract with Copasina is really pushing out a lot of ads, and I've actually just met with them this last week and looking at it.

We are actually doing...

a variety of different series just to be able to target certain populations in the community.

So whether we have a women in leadership series, we have a military and policing series.

So we're truly trying to focus that way people can be able to see like, hey, I can send this off to maybe a military base and be able to see like, hey, I'm listening to an officer and their experience as they transition back into the civilian world, actually, maybe Seattle might be a good agency.

I know that Portland has actually done a lot of recruiting in the military bases, and they've actually been able to get closer up to the numbers that they are hoping to have.

So we do look at some of the other agencies because it's important to see what they're doing to see if they're finding successes.

Portland and us have also experienced very similar trauma over the last four years.

So we talk pretty regularly.

Actually, with the West Coast cities, I do talk pretty regularly to San Francisco, Oakland, and Portland because some of the same challenges that they're experiencing are stuff that we are gonna either experience or vice versa.

Like we might experience something before they do and it helps us to be able to bounce those ideas off of.

So we actually feel like our recruiting and hiring plan is starting to pick up and gain momentum.

But we still have, you know, at the end of the day, we're all vying for the same applicants.

And so I really need to make sure that we have different incentives that allow us to be at the number one part when it comes to the pay structure.

Right now, we're about number 14, I think, or 15 on the pay structure.

And when you're looking at other agencies and, you know, people are paying a little bit better and have less issues of...

or less challenges, that is a huge issue.

And so that's the reason why I think to Councilmember Kettle, we actually pushed out what you said throughout the department to say, hey, please stay an extra year, that this is coming from your council member.

This is important for officers to hear that because right now we wanna be able to retain our officers And then we've got to hire new and we've got to make it a place where people feel like, okay, we are going to be valued and respected.

So every aspect is on the table.

In fact, I might be calling you to be part of some of our videos or part of the recruiting because people do need, I can tell you 27 years ago, I don't know who was on our city council when I got hired on, but I can tell you that now every member that's coming into this academy or coming into this department, know exactly what you stand for and all the different things you ran on, what the platform you ran on.

And that is a huge difference because they're paying attention, because they want to make sure that when they come into the city, that the city is the right city for them.

And so I think all of this holistically has to be part of that recruiting effort.

And I want to amend what I said a little bit.

I said everything depends on hiring.

Let me amend that and say...

And keeping, or first of all, we have to keep the officers that we have that aren't ready for retirement.

And so back to that contract issue, and I'm on it.

So thank you very much.

I appreciate those comments.

Chief, I appreciate the military reference, but remember, it's not just JBLM.

We have Banger, we have Bremerton, we have Whidbey, we have Everett.

Don't forget the Navy side of things.

Okay, with that point, Council Member Hollingsworth.

I'll be quick.

Thank you, Chair Kettle.

Thank you, Chief Diaz.

One of the things I've been very alarmed and concerned about, and I talked to a bunch of like principals, teachers, educators, are the youth that are involved with some of the criminal behavior in our city.

And they're alarmed too as well.

And I don't think we have bad kids.

That is not...

I just believe that they know what right and wrong is.

They just know that there's this accountability piece or they're not gonna get caught in certain things.

And I think we've done a great job of investing in a lot of the intervention pieces.

I can go off the dome of all the violence intervention organizations that we have in our city, but I think one of the things that we're missing is the prevention piece, is the engagement where youth have positive activities, exposure, you know, to veer them off the path so they don't even get into the intervention piece and that, get them off social media, right?

Has there been something that you've seen that's been alarming with our kids, like the youth, the young age of engagement with our kids that you're like, hey, this is something that we need to pay attention to?

Yes, and I'm glad you brought that up.

Right now, carjackings is what we're seeing a huge increase of.

I give that context because I'm the PERF president, which is the Police Executive Research Forum.

We had a big conference in D.C.

to talk about other agencies and what they're experiencing, and carjacking has like one of the number one topics.

And juveniles participating in carjackings is the one that tops that same issue.

And so DC, who is a smaller city than us, actually had 954. So when I presented our, for us, we saw an increase.

I explained 110 and people were like 110. I'm like, yeah, but for our city, one is too much, and this is the issue.

And right now, when you look at the people that we've made arrests on, 25% have been juveniles.

And if you look at anything under the age of 25, it comes up to almost close to 60% that are under the age of 25. And that is a huge, huge challenge.

And I think that we're working with our prosecutor's office to making sure that some of the people that are committing the carjackings and they're not just small carjackings.

They're usually armed carjack.

They're not, I'm threatening, you know, to take your car.

Sometimes they're bumping people, getting them out of the car and then, um, actually using handguns to threaten them and sometimes pistol whipping people.

And we really have to make sure that we know that's wrong.

They need, people need a timeout.

They need to make sure that sometimes they end up seeing, you know, that level of enforcement because that will end up helping save their life.

And if we don't intervene, sometimes that jail is going to end up intervening.

And if not, they're going to be dead.

And, you know, when I looked at the work that I did in the past, you know, with, you know, I helped create the Seattle Youth Violence Prevention Initiative, the South Park Action Agenda, And you looked at the victims of violence.

They all started out as missing person, runaway, burglary, theft, to then starting to get into violent crime.

And these are the victims of that.

And so we know some of the precursors that we can intervene to helping families be able to do that prevention work so they don't find themselves engaged in sometimes the activity of that.

And so we've got to be able to be, as a city and as a county, more responsive into this area of being able to address youth's needs early on.

And I think those investments are huge.

And in fact, I've been an advocate for the violence interruption work.

But I also would say we need to make sure that we work with our court systems and we work with our prosecutor's office that when we actually are experiencing people that are not just committing just one or two crimes, I mean, there are people, some of our juveniles that are in the 16 to 20 realm and we need to make sure that they're held because if not, they are going to be dead.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Council Member Moore.

Thank you very much, Chair.

Thank you, Chief Diaz, for a very informative presentation.

I just wanted to let you know that I did go on a ride-along during my campaign, and it was very, very informative.

It gave me a much greater appreciation of the work that we are asking our officers to engage in, and to your point, they are running from priority one call to priority one call, and it's highly traumatic, emotionally draining work.

So I very much appreciate the request that we're making and the need to be mindful of that and to expand our police force so that we are not burning people out.

But I did also want to talk about the idea of police morale.

I think that there are a number of pieces that come into play from my perspective, and it seems like one of the, there are several important pieces.

One is both the sense of having support from the elected officials and the council, And to that, I think we need to be clear that we are going to allow police to police.

I think we've had a lot of micromanaging in the prior councils, and some of that has come about because of the consent decree, which was very important.

And I want to commend the SPD for complying, you know, very well with the consent decree.

But I think there is a sense among rank and file that we are constantly micromanaging and that we've taken their power away to police.

And so I want to commit to you that, at least from my perspective, I'm going to be mindful of that in legislation that comes forward.

I also think it's important that we work with, as Chair Kettle has mentioned, there's no jail space.

It's not being utilized.

We're paying for it.

I think we pay for 190 beds a night, and you're getting, what, 40 maybe?

And that's an issue that needs to be dealt with at the executive levels.

And we at the council need to be supporting that, and perhaps looking at going elsewhere, or we need to have that hard conversation about the jail space, because we do need to be able to send the message that people are going to be held accountable.

That doesn't mean that we're going to run them through the system and create long records for them, but you need a place to go.

Police need to feel like the work that they're doing matters, otherwise they're not going, they're going to de-police.

That said, I also heard a lot of comments about the need to get a contract and to, that that is going to be important for pay and for the sense that officers are valued in our community.

And I would say to that, I absolutely agree.

But that's also a two-way street.

And the one thing that Judge Robart has consistently talked about is the need for accountability and discipline.

And that is the second prong of what's still remaining to be completed.

And so, while the council can make sure that we don't micromanage, we also need to make sure that we have structures in place that allow you, as chief, to hold officers robustly accountable for when they do not engage in constitutional or professional policing.

Taking the lead from the federal judge, who's been managing this a very long time, I just want to be clear that that's also a piece of this relationship that is important to me and the council, at least.

So, thank you.

I appreciate that.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Moore.

I note the various pieces, your point about the King County Jail.

Obviously, that's pillar six in terms of our strategic framework.

I note your micromanagement.

You know, one of the things, at least in a naval career, you know, when you're a junior officer, mid-grade, senior grade, you get these leadership points.

and training and the like, and you can't do that if a sergeant can't be a sergeant.

But underlying it all, as Councilmember Moore said, it's accountability and transparency.

And with that, I would just add, regarding your consent decree status slide, our next meeting will have the three-legged stool.

The CPC, the OPA, and the OIG will be us two weeks from today.

And so I will look to get an update on this consent decree status slide before that meeting.

So with that said, thank you so much and mindful of the time and the fact that we have Chief Scoggins here.

Thank you so much, Chief Diaz and Chief Operating Officer Maxey for joining us this morning.

Really appreciate it.

And now to the fire department.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

So we will now move on to our last item of business.

Will the clerk please read item four into the record.

Seattle Fire Department briefing and discussion with Chief Harold Scoggins.

Welcome Chief Scoggins and thank you for joining us this morning.

I really appreciate it.

And once you're set, we'll start.

Okay.

Again, welcome, Chief Scoggins.

All right, good morning, and thank you for inviting the fire department in this morning to give you an overview of the Seattle Fire Department.

So, Chair Kettle, it was great meeting with you a couple of weeks ago.

Really appreciate it, my team and I, and Council President, it's good to see you and members of the council.

And I think I would be remiss if I didn't lead with a thank you to all the men and women of the Seattle Fire Department for the amazing work that they do every day in going out the door to serve community.

That's really important work, and oftentimes, the community doesn't see it, but we know what's going on behind the scenes.

So we put together a few slides on things we're gonna talk about this morning.

And it's my goal to give you an overview on response and fire prevention this morning.

But I think the way we look at this is mitigation, prevention, and education.

You know, the mitigation is what you see every day when you see the firefighters going out the door to solve problems with lights and sirens, but there's a lot that goes into mitigation.

It's having great equipment, it's having, you know, the needed tools and the fire engines, and ladder trucks and the aid car.

It's the training that we really work hard to stay in compliance with, whether it's the Washington Administrative Code 296305, or the National Fire Protection Association's recommended training standards, or the Washington Survey and Ratings Bureau.

So there's a lot that goes into mitigation, but what...

the community sees is the rigs going out the door, firefighters jumping off the rigs to solve problems, and all the rigorous EMS standards that our paramedics and our EMTs adhere to.

And then, the second piece of that is prevention, and our Fire Prevention Bureau, and all the work that we do in working hard to make Seattle safe for those who live here, work here, and visit here.

And there's a lot that goes into that.

And then, the third piece that we focus on in the Fire Department is education.

getting out the door, getting into the different places around the community, and trying to educate the community on fire and life safety.

So this morning, we're gonna talk about mitigation and prevention, and we're gonna go over our staffing, and we're gonna have an update on our mobile integrated health program, and then we'll have some questions at the end if I wasn't thorough enough in my comments.

So, the Seattle Fire Department, we're broken up into basically four arms, and we're fortunate this morning to have three of my executive team members here in the room with us this morning, so I'd like to take a minute to introduce them.

Our Fire Marshal is Assistant Chief Tim Munness, sitting right here to my right, so if you have any fire prevention questions, Tim Munness, he's the right person for that.

Our Operations Chief is Assistant Chief Brian Hastings, And he's right there in the crowd, and he has a big responsibility for operations.

And our administrative executive director is Helen Fitzpatrick, and she oversees our HR, our finance, our IT, our public affairs for all of the Seattle Fire Department.

And one member who's missing today is Assistant Chief Chris Lombard.

He got on a plane yesterday afternoon.

He had a meeting in D.C.

today.

He sits on the National FirstNet Committee.

So they had a committee meeting today, and he'll be flying back tonight.

I said, well, that's 11 hours of flying for a half-day meeting.

But that's a commitment to the fire service.

And so on the slide, you can see all the different pieces that are associated with operations or...

resource management or fire prevention or admin.

So I won't spend a lot of time there because you have the information.

But the way the city is broken up is always really important for you to understand.

You can see the different colors on the maps, and those are different battalions and how we have the city broken up.

So we have 33 fire stations spaced out in neighborhoods all over the city.

Battalions 4 and 6 are to the north, Battalion 2 is the orange in the middle, and Battalion 7 and 5 is West Seattle, and then the south end of the city.

And each of those battalions has a different chief in charge, and we have one on-duty deputy chief each and every day.

And some of the units that aren't listed on the slides I think is important that you understand.

We have a world-class technical rescue team, and they're stationed out of Fire Station 14 in Soto.

Our divers, our technical rescue experts, they're out of there.

Our marine response teams, they're out of Fire Station 36. So if you're going across the West Seattle Bridge, you see the station.

Right to the left there, if you're going west, that's Fire Station 36. So they have a big responsibility in making sure the department's well-trained for our vessel responses and our marine responses.

Our HAZMAT team is out of Fire Station 10 at 4th and Washington, And our DECON team is out of Station 27 in Georgetown.

And our newest technical rescue team is out of Fire Station 25 on Capitol Hill, our energy response team.

And some of the other units that you may see from time to time, you may see firefighters during the summer months or winter months jumping off a fire engine in a wetsuit, jumping in the water.

We have rescue swimmers all over the city at a variety of different stations.

So we're going to all of those different responses.

So that's a brief lay of the land of the Seattle Fire Department.

Our staffing is something we've been paying attention to.

And as I've heard the two previous conversations, staffing is really important.

The landscape has changed over the last 10 years or so in the Seattle Fire Department.

In the last 10 years, we've hired half the department.

So, I mean, half of our firefighters have 10 years or less.

We're going through a generational transition, and COVID and all the other things didn't help with that, or the retirement enhancement that happened in the legislature.

All of those things played a part in that.

So we would be fully staffed at 1,198 positions.

Currently, we have, and that's 1,111 sworn uniform positions and 87 professional staff members.

So currently in the department, we have approximately 125 vacancies, and 120 of those are in the operations side, and that's the firefighter side, and then five of those are on the administrative side.

You know, fortunate enough, we have a new academy starting tomorrow, so Valentine's Day, 45 or so new Seattle Fire recruits will show up at our Joint Training Center at 9401 Myers Way, and they'll be there for the next 15 and a half weeks.

And you can see by some of the numbers on the page there, recruitment isn't Seattle Fire Department's problem.

Our problem and challenge is we have a pretty rigorous training academy.

We generally lose about a third.

In 2023, we lost a little bit more than a third of the recruits that enter into our training program.

So we always have a lot of applications.

We always have a lot of folks signing up.

But oftentimes, when individuals have to put on 50, 60, 70 pounds worth of gear and put a breather on, a self-contained breathing apparatus, and then start work once you get all your gear on, a lot of folks really don't understand the nature of the work that we do.

And so, that's why there's some challenges there.

And we've put a number of programs in play to try to help create awareness, help individuals become better trained, and all of those things.

But it's an ongoing challenge that we face.

Our second class of the year will start in August of this year.

So generally, we have two recruit training classes a year.

And we do our training ourselves, so we make those classes the size they need to be or the number that's allocated in the budget.

But our goal is working towards reducing that vacancy count.

That's a big deal for us.

We were fortunate this year, January 1 of this year, 26 new FTEs went into the position count of the Seattle Fire Department for Ladder 13 in West Seattle and Medic 26 in South Park.

December 31, our position count would've looked a little bit different than it did on January 1, because those positions actually went into the count.

Later this year, in October, we're gonna be opening up our applications, so we're really excited about that.

Our Public Affairs team and our Workforce Development Coordinator are putting together a recruitment strategy for us and marketing plan.

So we're going to be kicking that off, and we're really excited about that.

It'll be open for approximately eight weeks.

To give you perspective, in March of 2022 to April 19th of 2022, just about seven weeks, we received about 3,000 applications in seven weeks.

So we'll see what we get.

We're going to be open a little bit longer than that.

So we're excited about that.

But we are going through a transition in the organization.

So when you look at our calls, these are our calls coming into our fire alarm center.

That's our dispatch center.

So when they come into the 911 center and Chief Smith's shop, if they say it's a fire or medical emergency, that call is immediately transferred to the Seattle Fire Department.

And our dispatchers do an amazing job in triaging that information and getting the dispatches out the door.

And what you can see is an upward trend.

And we shouldn't be surprised at that.

If you look at the Office of Planning's website and you look at their quick facts, since 2010, the city of Seattle has grown by 170,000 people.

Over 92,000 new residential units have been built in the city.

So we're becoming a more populated city, and what we know from that is the more people you have in the city, the more calls you're gonna go on.

Now, our dispatchers, they do an amazing job.

Our goal is to answer the phone in 15 seconds or less, 90% of the time.

Our dispatchers are doing a great job there, and they're well above 90% in getting the phone answered.

And then for high-hazard EMS and high-hazard fire calls, and that's after we go through our emergency medical dispatching protocols, our goal is to try to get those calls dispatched in 60 seconds or less.

And as you can imagine, the more calls are coming in, this is becoming more and more challenging.

So that's one of the challenges that we continue to face, and I'm sure it's the same in Chief Smith's shop with the 911 center also.

But if you take out 2020 from the chart, you'll see a steady upward climb, and that's what's happening.

More people are using the system.

All those calls do not result in a 911 dispatch for a variety of reasons.

But what I have on the screen right now is a number of the incidents that are dispatched.

So last year, we were at 111,000 incidents.

That's the most in our history.

and each year, it seems like we continue to climb.

And these are units going out the door on responses.

Now, some responses has a single unit, some responses has two units, some responses have four or five, depending on how big the event is.

So one phone call may not equal one incident.

One phone call could equal five to 15 units going out the door, depending on how big the incident is.

But what we're seeing is the city is getting busier.

And I'm going to highlight for you some of the areas that really stand out for us where the city is getting busier.

So what this graph shows is our advanced life support is ALS.

So those are those critical medical emergencies.

If you just look year after year after year, they're going up.

So the addition of Medic 26 was needed because that's what our paramedics were riding on, and those are the calls that they go on, advanced life support calls.

But the big bar in the middle is basic life support.

Those are those lower acuity emergency calls.

You need to be seen.

You need to be checked out.

You may not know what to do.

So we go out the door a lot on those calls, too.

And then there's a lot of fires that still happen in the city.

But that number is fires, it's extrications, it's all those other things where you'll have a large response.

But the visual here is everything is going up.

That's the impact that we're seeing out there each and every day.

So some of the topics you may have touched on this morning, I think this is a pretty big one because this is something that we track and pay attention to is our homeless responses.

And that's important for us.

We spend a lot of time in and around encampments and this number is more than 10% of our resources.

If you look at for 2023, 1300 fire related homeless responses and 11,700 EMS-related homeless responses.

So that's 10% of our call load right there.

And I guess the good news on this slide is from 2022 to 2023, it actually decreased.

And I do believe that's because of the work that's been going on with the unified care team and all the efforts that's been going on.

And we can actually see it in our data and analytics.

But it's still a pretty significant portion of our work.

And what the community doesn't see a lot of times is, you know, this is 2 o'clock in the morning to 2 o'clock in the afternoon to 4 o'clock in the morning.

We're going in the places on a regular basis that people don't really know or understand how difficult or dangerous these locations can be.

But this gives you an idea of how often our firefighters are entering into these spaces.

And then overdose emergencies, as was talked about earlier, in 2023, we went on over 5,000 overdoses of all kinds.

And you can see the significant increase from 2022 and then from 2021. But so much so, we broke out the opioid-only overdoses, over 3,800 opioid-only overdoses.

This has a real significant impact.

And a lot of it, you probably hear our sirens up and down the streets, in and around the city on a regular basis.

But this is a pretty significant portion of our calls.

Probably 4% are tied to overdoses.

So that has a significant impact on our responses each and every day.

And some are in and around encampments and different things like that.

So this is one of the areas where we're challenged that in the city, as you all know.

And there's a direct relationship to the number of out-of-hospital cardiac arrests.

That's what the acronym is on the screen there.

You know, if you look four or five years ago, we were hovering around 450 or so out of hospital cardiac arrest.

But in 2023, we ended the year with 666. And I talked to our medical director about this, Dr. Michael Sayre.

And he acknowledges there's a direct relationship to the number of cardiac arrests from drug overdoses on the street that are impacting this number and going up, and people are passing away from cardiac arrests.

And we can see it.

We track every single one of them.

Our EMS team, under the direction of Dr. Michael Sayre, they do a review on every single one of them, so we have clarity on what is happening.

So the impacts are real.

and your firefighters are responding to these type of events on a regular basis.

And as Chief Diaz mentioned, the violence, you know, it's an uptick.

If you look four or five years ago, and we have a few categories on the screen here, scenes of violence, that's when we're called to a scene of violence because there's been a stabbing, a shooting, or an assault of some kind.

If you look just several years ago, we were, you know, two to 300. Right now, 494. And there's a couple of other significant lines on here.

The 151 number in the green, that's an expedite.

So our firefighters have gotten on scene.

PD wasn't called to the scene with us, but because of what's going on on scene, we have had to call the Seattle Police Department to assist.

And then the second one is fast backups.

That means the incident has escalated even more and we need even more officers.

So I want to give thanks to the council member for passing the obstruction legislation in May of 2023. And it went into play in June of 2023 because these numbers right here are what we look at.

And I look at our assault and threatening behavior reports that our firefighters submit.

So I try to get an understanding of what's happening out there on the street.

But we are seeing more violence on the street that we are responding to.

And I don't wanna leave you with that fires aren't happening, and the ones you probably see on the news most of the time are vacant building fires, but last year, we had over 300 structure fires in the city.

And, you know, because we're becoming such a young department so fast, about one-third of that 300 We did a significant incident report, and that's a process where the on-scene units do a review and they create a training session so we can then share with all of our folks in operations, and it's a way of speeding up the learning because we're becoming younger so fast.

Five or six years ago, the average age in the department was about 47 years of age.

Now we're down to 43. And every time we hire a new class, it's going to keep ticking down, going lower and lower.

So we have to create these type of training programs to make sure our folks are as trained as they can be going out the door.

And on the bottom right, you can see, you know, how many fires, structure fires we're having annually.

And you can even see that that's ticking up from where it was a few years ago.

And derelict building fires, that's one of the pillars from this morning on the slide, and thank you for taking that on even this morning.

We had another derelict building fire, a vacant building fire.

You know, we're at February 13th in 2024, and we have already had 22 of those this year.

So fires where people have gotten in, compromised the structure, and a significant fire response had to be deployed to put the fire out.

But as you can see, in 2023 was a very high year for us for derelict building fires, 131. And it should be noted in 2023, we actually had three fire fatalities in these, Derelict, vacant buildings.

So that's a significant situation for us because the floors may have been compromised, the walls, the ceilings, the roofs.

All of this changes the fire dynamics and the fire behavior in a structure.

We're fortunate to have such an amazing fire prevention team and Seattle Department of Construction and Inspection to make sure buildings are built right.

And there's a reason that we want that, so we can control the fire and keep it to the room of origin.

But when the walls are compromised, the floors are compromised, and the ceilings compromise, it changes all of the fire dynamics.

Some of the big ones that you may have seen are 823 Madison, New Year's morning, where we were out there on New Year's morning, or the large vacant building fire on Genesee.

And rain here in December.

And the list just goes on and on and on.

And generally, these are not small fires.

So these are big things that we're trying to work through.

Now, fire prevention stays pretty busy here in the city of Seattle.

In 2023, we investigated 293 fires, so that team is out the door working and putting in the hard efforts to try to figure this out.

They identified about 127 of those fires that we had in 2023 as arson.

Our Special Hazards Unit, you know, they stay busy over 5,500 hazmat permits issued in and around the city.

New construction, we can look out the window and see the building and the growth and the transition that's taking place here in the city.

Over 2,900 plans reviewed and over 4,000 new construction inspections.

That team stays really busy and in compliance.

When we get the complaints for the derelict or dangerous buildings or unsafe situations, we have a team in our Fire Prevention Bureau that roots all that out and tries to create a safe space for community members to be in.

And then our special events unit, something we probably take for granted, but we don't.

Anytime there's a sporting event, there's a concert, there's a parade, there's a community event, over 2,000 times in 2023, our special events unit reviewed the permits and identified that we need folks on site or not.

Most of the time for the big events, you can imagine we have quite a team of people.

I think Seahawks Sundays, we probably have 40 or 50 firefighters in different places all around the stadium.

That's just an example.

Our goal is to make sure the community is safe.

Over 500 high-rise buildings in the city, we work hard to get inside of those buildings each and every year, and we completed inspections on those to make sure those are living above ground.

It's important to make sure that those buildings are safe, and our system testing.

You know, several years ago, we deployed a system called Brycer, and that allowed us the ability to really track these fire and life safety systems throughout the city.

Over 27,000 systems in the city in 15,000 buildings.

And our Fire Prevention Bureau, they do an amazing job bringing those systems in compliance when they get out of balance.

That becomes very important for us.

So something you'll be seeing in Q2.

The fire code is generally lagging about three years behind in the code cycle, and that's pretty important.

But we're gonna be bringing the 2021 fire code updates to you.

It will come to the Public Safety Committee for review, for comment, and all of those things.

You know, our team has done an amazing job, leaders in the region and leaders in the state, on really trying to address the new emerging issue with lithium ion batteries.

And that, you know, our energy response teams, but, you know, we're seeing more and more fires in scooters, in bikes, in battery storage systems.

And as systems continue to be deployed, we expect this to continue to go up.

So we're really working hard there.

And so, those inspections were our Fire Prevention Bureau.

but all of our fire companies and all of our fire stations have inspections to do annually also.

And it's important to note, because once that building is finalized and it's signed off and everything's done with it, the fire department's the only department in the city that actually touches it on a regular basis.

So last year, our Seattle firefighters got in 91% of all of our assigned inspections, and sometimes it's difficult for a variety of reasons.

to get in all of them.

And that's over 14,297 buildings, but it required over 16,500 touches to try to get into all of those different locations.

And then all around the city, you see the hydrants.

Well, we go and test those annually too, to make sure those are working okay.

That's our You know, our bread and butter, when we go on a big incident, we want to make sure they're working.

So that's important for us, too.

Now, a little bit about our HealthONE team.

You heard from Chief Smith, and our team partners with the CARA team on a regular basis, and they're out and really working hard to serve the community.

But some of the things that should be noted with our HealthONE team and our mobile integrated health team Last year, they went on over 1,100 direct dispatches.

So that came directly from our dispatch center, and they followed up on over 2,900 referrals.

So firefighters all over the city, they go into a situation, and they say, hey, you know what?

This needs to be followed up with HealthONE and one of our case managers.

over 2,900 times.

So when you think about the 1,100 and the 2,900 and the additional 6,000 times calls go directly to our nurse navigator phone line from our dispatch center, that's another 10,000 responses that our firefighters probably would have been on.

And it's probably higher than that because if we have a high utilizer in our system, that means that someone who's called 911 more than three times in a three-month period they may get referred to our HealthONE team for a follow-up.

They could be a vulnerable adult, they could be someone that's in need of care, they could be having some behavioral health or addiction issues.

All those items, all those are reasons for our team to follow up on.

And our team does a really amazing job in doing that.

and really trying to get people what they need.

Sometimes it's getting them a doctor's appointment that may not be an emergency.

Sometimes it's following up on calling the doctor while they're there and getting the appointment and then giving them a Lyft voucher so they can get there and back.

All that becomes important.

They spend about an hour on scene every time they go out the door, and they do a really amazing job there.

And in 2023 of June, and I've talked about the overdose information, we launched, we transitioned one of our Health One units into Health 99. And that became our overdose response unit in the downtown core of the city.

Now, that launched in June.

So between June and the end of December, they went on over 260 overdoses.

And their goal when they got there was to deploy Narcan or whatever measures they needed.

But the number one goal was once that person was revived and if that person did not want to go to the hospital is we would clear all the units on scene and our case managers and our firefighters would then spend the time needed to try to convince that person to go and to get some help.

That's the number one reason that they're there.

And they actually had quite a few success stories in 2023, and we'll be presenting to the mayor's office our six-month report coming out of that, but that's such critical work when you see we had over 5,000 overdoses in 2023, and over 3,800 of those were opioid-based, And it's presenting some new ideas and things that we should be doing and we're gonna try to transition into to continue to help people that are in need.

And I think the last slide is just information, but just to give you an idea of some of the other things that go on.

So I have Washington Task Force One deployments.

And, you know, our team went to Maui last year to help with the search in Maui, but our team generally goes out all over the country.

and it could be our Task Force One team, or it could be our wildland firefighters that are going out to help around the state, or going around to help our neighboring states.

Last year, we were fortunate to be able to deploy a lot of needed training for our behavioral health training, suicide intervention training, our therapy dog teams have been out and about, and our resiliency coaching.

All that is possible, because a couple of years back, we were able to hire a behavioral health coordinator.

And I heard Chief Diaz said one of his goals is to hire an executive director of wellness.

You know, these are the type of positions that are really important when your folks are seeing trauma on a daily basis to help provide them with some tools and skills to help cope.

I mean, if you're seeing cardiac arrest every day, if you're seeing shootings every day, if you're seeing overdoses every day, This starts to wear on an individual, and that becomes very important.

We had an IT success.

We launched a new learning management system, and then we have two big ones in flight, our fire department incident reporting system and then our new staffing system.

But the last line I have on there is something that I and we are really proud of, We met the mark, and we have been identified as a class one fire department in the state of Washington.

We are the only one in the state of Washington.

Only 1% of fire departments nationally, 32,000 fire departments are in the United States approximately.

Only 1% meet this rating.

What that means is we're staffed appropriately, we have the proper equipment, We meet the training standards, our water system does an amazing job, and our dispatch center is highly functioning.

All those are components that are rated.

Our next rating, and it's done every five years.

So in 2026, we expect Washington Survey and Ratings Bureau to come back into the department and say, give me all your records, and we're gonna be proud to show them what we got.

So I'll pause there and see if there's questions.

Thank you so much, Chief Scoggins.

And that last slide, I really appreciated the opportunity to be at the Fire Station 31 groundbreaking.

I really appreciated your briefing, partly because highlighting the obstruction ordinance, that goes to pillar two.

These are the kinds of things that we need to do moving forward as well.

and obviously pillar three, the vacant building.

You know, one thing I noted earlier, the fact that we're, you know, working across committees on the various issues, not mentioned is the fact that I've had conversations with council member Morales is that we also need to work with the land use committee because on pillar three, in terms of vacant buildings and lots, this is a major issue.

So we need to work as a council with the mayor's team and then SDCI to get moving on this because we need quicker movement to address these issues before it becomes a fire, in the life-threatening, you know, potentially situation.

So we need to get ahead of the curve, and that's where Pillar 3 comes up.

And by the way, if we address these vacant buildings, that goes to, you know, ameliorating the permissive environment challenge that we have.

And I am also mindful of Pillar 5, the public health and the role that you play.

And so quickly, just my question, though, is not really understood, I don't think, is the fact that, because of this permissive environment, that our fire engines, the ladder trucks, the personnel, they've been attacked at times.

And what is the impact?

And that, along with the op tempo, in terms of kind of going back to the question earlier about the morale of the fire department, how is that playing in, in terms of the fact that that could happen, that gear could be stolen off a fire engine or ladder truck?

I mean, what kind of impact is that having on the fire department?

Thank you for the question, Chair Kettle.

The impacts are significant.

Morale was mentioned earlier with Seattle Police Department, but all these type of events you just mentioned impacts our morale in the fire department.

We're parked somewhere and someone, you know, steals our equipment.

or we're attacked while trying to provide life-saving care to a person who's really in need.

And when it happens over and over and over again, you know, the firefighters may feel like, well, no one's paying attention.

No one's watching what's happening.

which is why we started our Assault and Threatening Behaviors dashboard, so we can track all of these events that are taking place, which led to engaging in the conversation for the obstruction ordinance, because you could do all these things to a firefighter and it wouldn't even be considered obstruction.

We're just trying to do our job.

We're trying to put the fire out.

We're trying to provide life-saving EMS care, and there was no protections in place.

So that's why that became significant.

But all these numbers on the rise that I showed you on the slides, You know, our firefighters wanna know, people are listening, people are paying attention.

We are taking the necessary steps so we don't have to go to encampments 12, 13, 14,000 times a year.

We don't have to respond to 5,000 overdoses in a year.

I mean, can you imagine if you were a firefighter working at Fire Station 10 or Fire Station 2, both in the downtown core, and responding to overdose after overdose after overdose in the same day?

It wears on you as an individual.

If we had a brown bag, that bag would start to rip.

And then this is why our behavioral health coordinator and the work that she does, Kristen Cox, becomes so important.

So any remedies or solutions to these problems, they will help with morale, because our firefighters will know that you're listening and paying attention.

Well, thank you.

And we're definitely listening and paying attention.

And this is a good opportunity to say, you know, thank all of them for their service.

Thank you for wearing a uniform.

Thank you for responding to those calls.

It's such a critical function and service to our city.

So thank you.

And with that, Council President...

Two quick questions.

You're tracking opioid-only overdose emergencies, and then you also have the next slide, which is cardiac arrest.

What drugs are being used when those cardiac arrests occur?

Is that methamphetamine?

Are you tracking if that's different than opioid?

What is that?

It could be a combination.

It could be methamphetamines, heroin, fentanyl, and oftentimes it is an intersection of multiple things.

So we are tracking that, which is why our medical director reviews all of those reports.

So there's a lot of stuff out there right now, and I think what Seattle Police Department will tell you that the cost of purchasing these drugs is way down, so it becomes way more accessible than maybe it was in the past.

And with reports that meth is getting stronger and stronger and the fact that we don't really have a medical treatment for methamphetamine, that's what I'm trying to dig into.

Second question is the derelict building fires.

Okay, so I have been focused on vacant buildings and they catch on fire sometimes, oftentimes because of trespassers and Is it because those don't, the owners want to demolish those buildings and they're not getting permits fast enough?

I believe it's a combination of things.

Some of the property owners are in line for demolition of some of those buildings and it can be an arduous process to get it all the way to the finish line to get the permit approved, whether if you have to remediate asbestos and other things in the building.

So that's one part.

I believe that there's property owners that aren't engaged, and the building is how the building is.

And I believe those are the buildings we should be focusing on, and generally, there's a trend.

If there's fire department responses there over and over, police department responses there over and over, the vacant building, work group, Steven Lynch's team, they're citing the property owner.

over and over and they're not paying their fines, I think we should be willing to take intentional steps to abate the problem.

And sometimes to abate the problem means you have to demolish the building.

The last thing I ever want to do is sit up here in front of you and we have a firefighter that went down in one of those buildings that was vacant and we knew it was a problem and we didn't do anything.

You know, my friend, Chief Niles Ford in Baltimore, he had to go through that experience.

So there's a combination of things, and I think there are things that we could do, but we do need our property owners to be engaged in this process for the safety reasons.

Thank you.

Thank you.

That sounds like a nuisance property ordinance issue.

Next, Council Member Hollingsworth.

Yeah, thank you, Chief Scoggins, and thank you to your staff for being here.

Definitely want to give our Fire Department a big shout-out, because you all, a lot of times when we talk about public safety, we do not talk about our Seattle Fire Department, and you all are a big piece to that conversation, and you've done phenomenal, phenomenal work.

I had the chance growing up, one of my favorite firefighters was the late, great Jerry Jones, who was my basketball coach growing up with his daughter, Angie Jones.

But a question I had was related to the staffing piece.

Do you feel like our staffing levels, we're increasing a ton of population and we understand that there are gonna be more calls.

We saw that the calls have gone up.

Your staffing levels have kind of, I don't know if they're continuing to kind of just stay consistent.

Do you feel like we're gonna need more firefighters over as we are continuing to build more housing and kind of absorb a lot of the population growth?

The short answer is I do, and I'll give you perspective.

Those of you who have been around Seattle for a long time, you can just remember what South Lake Union used to be and what it is now.

The population has grown significantly.

So that's one example in the city that I'll point out.

At Fire Station 2 in Belltown, well, that engine out of that station is running close to 4,000 calls a year.

We have two aid cars in that station.

One is a 24-hour aid car, and it's over 6,000 calls a year.

We have a 12-hour aid car that's running over 2,000 calls a year, and the ladder truck is running over 3,000 calls a year out of that one station because of the growth that's taking place.

There are those examples, but that area of the downtown has grown so significantly, We have to have those conversations.

That's why I think the next time when the city's updating the comprehensive plan, I believe public safety should truly be included.

The police, fire department, care team, Office of Emergency Management, and really talk about what the growth is doing and the impacts that it's having on public safety in the city.

So the short answer is yes.

Thank you.

Thank you for that recommendation.

Council Member Saka, Vice Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you, Chief Scoggins.

Really appreciate this presentation that's over you, and it was a pleasure connecting with you during the intro meeting a few weeks ago as well.

First off, I want to echo the sentiment shared now by a few of my colleagues in expressing my gratitude Thanks and appreciation for you and the brave men and women who wear the uniform of our Seattle Fire Department and who show up every day and do the work and help keep us safe and protected in a variety of means.

And really, really do recognize and appreciate your invaluable contributions to our community.

And just for clarity, I happen to say that now, because you are sort of the capstone of, we had the three chiefs here, but that same sentiment, from my perspective, is shared, you know, for our police officers and our new third response, co-response model, the care department.

And so the care department, the folks that wear, the civilians that wear polo shirts in responding, And, you know, I appreciate the work that you all do every day.

I also want to harp upon a message I heard a moment ago from a sentiment I heard a moment ago from my colleague Councilmember Moore on the sense In that context, it was applied to policing, but I can see how this, and having had conversations with firefighters, I think this is a shared one, at least at a high level, the notion that we need to allow police to police.

And I couldn't agree more.

I'm here to empower all of our first responders, policing, firefighters, care department workers, et cetera, to effectively carry out their public safety mandate.

And rather than sort of meddle and micromanage, you know, I view my responsibility on this board as an oversight responsibility and making sure everyone has the tools and resources they need to be successful and again not the same as making sure we don't have swift accountability and high standards but um so thank you all again for for all you do and uh i so i have two two questions one is a quick, if you can help clarify, at the earlier, one of the earlier slides, you referenced that over the last 10 years, we've seen a 50% turnover of firefighters and just would love to better understand, is that net new firefighters or does that also contemplate like, people who have maybe lateraled from another department and came over here?

Or is that 50% of the new force include just people who are brand new recruits?

And then the second question that I have, kind of unrelated, but this hits to the intersection between public safety and any number of other critically important issues, in this case, transportation.

I think there's an opportunity to...

explore significantly growing and expanding our EV charging infrastructure throughout the city and you mentioned some potential challenges with lithium-ion batteries and so curious to hear your initial thought and kind of how that might may or may not show up and as we rework the and update the fire code be curious to hear your initial thoughts chief on What are some kind of emerging issues with lithium ion batteries, particularly as it relates to EV?

like electric vehicles in the city.

So those two questions, staff.

So I'll start with the staffing question first.

So I've been here since 2015, and since that point in time, we've hired about 550 new firefighters.

Now, we don't have a lateral process in the Seattle Fire Department, so everyone, we hire firefighters from other fire departments, but they all go through the Seattle Fire Department Recruit Training Program.

So there are firefighters that have been hired from other agencies locally and around the nation, but they all go through the Seattle Fire Department training program.

And so we were an older department, I think when I first got here, I looked at, you know, what was the population that was able to retire?

That means 53 years of age, approximately 20 years of service.

We're well over 30% of the population.

So we knew we were going through this transition.

Right now, we're in the low 20s because of all the transitioning that we've been doing.

And we're paying attention to it.

but it means we have to train a lot more.

We got a lot more new folks and a lot of new leaders.

I think Chief Hastings told me a couple of months back, lieutenants are our first line-level supervisors.

80% of that population was six years or less on the job.

So that's a young department, so we're getting there fast.

So that's the first question.

The second question is lithium ion batteries.

Whether they're in a scooter or an e-bike or in a vehicle, there's challenges with them because of re-ignition.

There's challenges with them because you really can't put them out unless you dunk them in something.

And as more battery energy storage systems are gonna start to come online, when they fail, it may take one battery that fails But if it's an e-bike battery, it could be this big, it could have dozens of other batteries in there that will start to fail because of the one.

When it's a vehicle, re-ignition, it can burn.

Or it can re-ignite on the back of a tow truck, or it can re-ignite at the tow yard a week later.

Or the battery energy storage systems, a couple of years ago in Chandler, Arizona, they had a battery energy storage system warehouse that burned for two weeks.

Those are real challenges.

Well, we know we're moving this way.

The federal infrastructure package is putting a lot of money into this investment, and I'm not saying we shouldn't do that.

I'm just saying we have to be prepared for the challenges, just like we've been prepared over the course of our career.

As our hazards have changed in the fire departments, We've adopted a hazmat team.

We've adopted a technical rescue team.

We've addressed the fire code over the decades.

You know, America's Burning was written in the 70s, and that was America's fire problem.

And what we took on with America's Burning is we addressed national fire codes to try to make it safer for everyone.

Will this be another one of those items?

Absolutely.

But is it a real challenge because it's new?

Yes.

Okay.

Council Member Moore.

Thank you.

Thank you, Chief Scoggins.

This is very, very interesting, and now I'm terrified that my car is going to catch on fire, so I'll have to go back and pay attention to that.

But on a serious note, the work that the fire department does is just phenomenal, and I think to a large extent you're truly unsung heroes, so thank you for all of your service and in every way that you provide service to the city.

I'm particularly interested in the Health One, and I know that, at least I read in the paper, that you were sort of given that responsibility, and you stepped up to the plate and have performed it admirably.

I'm just curious about your thoughts about housing Health One in the fire department, particularly now that we have the care department.

I'm just interested in sort of the intersection between those departments.

Is it a good place to have it given the toll that it's taking on firefighters?

No agenda here.

I'm just kind of interested in that now that we've moved into this other arena.

Absolutely.

And I drive an electric vehicle also, so I'm thinking about these things too.

But HealthONE.

So HealthONE was born out of a need in the fire department to address low-acuity medical emergencies.

So in 2019, in November, when we launched the program, we did about a year and a half's worth of research, and this problem was happening all around the nation.

We have a lot of 911 calls that come into our fire alarm center, which is our fire department dispatch center, that are not true 911 emergencies.

We have a lot of high utilizers in our system.

I mean, we had folks in our system who would call dozens of times in a year, but the root of it was a medical emergency.

The vulnerable adults, we may go into someone's home and there may be hoarding conditions, or they may not have their medications they need, or we may have gone a number of falls which is a medical issue inside of the home that we've only seen because of the medical issue, and we'll follow up and we'll put handrails in the home to help the person out.

So the fundamental difference is the follow-up, the case management, but being rooted in the medical emergency piece.

And what we know is if we don't address those small problems that may be chronic, they're gonna become bigger problems.

And that's what we're trying to prevent with our HealthONE program.

And now we, just last year, over 4,000 touches, so we can see that all in this space.

And it takes time.

Like I mentioned earlier, it's about an hour a call.

We have 36 firefighters who work in our HealthONE program on a variety of volunteer shifts, but we have case managers who can do the case management part with us that are well-trained to do that work.

Pretty soon, we'll have a nurse practitioner coming on board to help even more.

So we continue to grow it, but it's all based on the community's needs.

That's what we're doing.

Thank you.

Thank you so much, Chief Scoggins.

Thank you very much.

And I also wanted to note thank you to Deputy Mayor Burgess for being on the line for the entire meeting through all three departments.

Thank you, Deputy Mayor Burgess.

Is there anything you'd like to add just as we close?

I have two very quick comments.

First, with regard to the fire chief's comments on derelict buildings, we will be sending to the council in the next couple of months emergency demolition legislation to improve that situation.

So watch for that.

And then lastly, this has been a great presentation for the last, what, two and a half hours or so, because I know the mayor is very proud of all of our first responders, 911 call taker or dispatcher, the firefighters, the police officers, our emergency medical technicians, the care team, all of those folks.

He's very grateful and I know you are as well.

And hearing your comments about where you want to head in the future and supporting our public safety teams is very gratifying.

So thank you.

Thank you, Deputy Mayor Burgess.

Really appreciate that.

We have reached the end of today's meeting agenda.

Is there any further business to come before the committee before we adjourn?

Looking left, looking right.

Hearing no further business to come before the committee, we are adjourned.