Seattle City Council 9/13/21

Thank you so much, son.

Appreciate it.

The September 13th, 2021 meeting of the Seattle City Council will now come to order.

It's 2.01 PM.

I'm Lorena Gonzalez, President of the Council.

Will the clerk please call the roll?

Council Member Peterson.

Council Member Sawant.

Present.

Council Member Strauss.

Present.

Council Member Herbold.

Here.

Council Member Juarez.

Here.

Council Member Lewis.

Present.

Council Member Morales.

Here.

Council Member Mosqueda.

Present.

Council Member Peterson.

Present.

Council President Gonzalez.

Present.

Nine present.

Thank you so much, presentations.

We do not have any presentations this morning, so we'll move to afternoon, pardon.

We will move to approval of the minutes.

The minutes of the city council meeting of August 16th, 2021 have been reviewed.

If there's no objection, the minutes will be signed.

Hearing no objection, the minutes are being signed.

Will the clerk please affix my signature to the minutes?

Okay, we're gonna move to approval of the introduction and referral calendar.

Colleagues, there are three proposed amendments to the introduction and referral calendar that I can see in my script for today.

So here's what we're going to do.

I have to first move to adopt the introduction referral calendar.

Then there has to be a second.

And then we can consider each of the amendments individually.

So I know who has amendments based on your communications with the city clerk's office.

So I'll just call on you as we go through this just to expedite and make the process as understandable and accessible to members of the public as we possibly can.

So for members of the public, this is just an opportunity For council members who missed the deadlines related to referring items of legislation through our ordinary council president office and clerks process, this is their opportunity to make amendments to the introduction referral calendar for consideration of those pieces of legislation for consideration.

So I move to adopt the introduction referral calendar.

Is there a second?

It's been moved and seconded to adopt the introduction and referral calendar.

Again, there are three council members, including myself, who have amendments to the introduction and referral calendar.

I'm going to switch the order here a little bit to allow us to consider the perhaps less controversial amendments first and then save the best for last.

So if there's no objection to that, I'm going to go ahead and do that.

I'll start with my amendment.

to the introduction and referral calendar.

If there is no objection, Item 8, Appointment 2034 on the introduction and referral calendar will be amended by changing the committee referral from the Governance and Education Committee to the City Council.

Second.

Thank you so much.

Hearing no objection, introduction and referral calendar is amended to reflect that Item 8, Appointment 2034 is referred to the City Council.

Go ahead.

I'm sorry.

So we're not voting on the amendments to the introduction and referral calendar?

I heard you, Council President, ask if there are any objections, which would suggest that there isn't a need for a second, and then we didn't vote.

So I'm just wondering.

I'm going, but Madam Clerk, I am going to call upon you as the author of my script and parliamentarian.

It indicates here that I just needed a call for an objection.

Is that correct?

Correct, because the amendment is within the unanimous consent that you were seeking.

And if there is no objections, then you would then ask for a roll call vote.

But we did not have an objection when you asked for unanimous consent.

OK.

OK.

We don't need to second it.

But if we want to vote on it, we do need to object.

Right.

I got it.

Thank you.

Yeah.

Sorry about that.

Um, it's, it's, it's largely, I think it's largely because of the, the underlying legislation is an appointment rather than a council bill.

So I think there's an expedited process, but okay.

So this is just a, an opportunity to have a unanimous consent on this item.

So if there is no objection, item eight appointment two zero three four on the introduction referral calendar will be amended by changing the committee referral from the governance and education committee to the city council.

Hearing no objection, introduction and referral calendar is amended to reflect that item eight, appointment 2034 is referred to the city council.

There is also a request for a suspension of rules.

Council Member Mosqueda spoke to this during council briefings.

So I'm going to go through the steps needed to suspend the rules.

And then Council Member Mosqueda will make a motion that will require a second.

And then we will have a roll call.

OK.

Okay, so based on this, again, we are, if there is no objection, the council rule relating to circulation of legislation for introduction not on the published introduction referral calendar by 5 o'clock p.m.

on the preceding business day will be suspended to allow consideration of amendment to add one council bill to the introduction and referral calendar.

Hearing no objection, the council rule is suspended, and we will proceed with consideration of the proposed amendment to the introduction and referral calendar.

Council Member Esqueda, you are recognized in order to move your amendment to today's introduction and referral calendar.

Thank you very much, Madam President.

I move to amend the introduction and referral calendar to introduce Council Bill 120. of the city council and by referring it to finance and

Is there something?

Okay.

It's been seconded by Council Member Herbold.

Thank you so much.

Again, it's been moved and seconded to amend the introduction and referral calendar.

Council Member Mosqueda, is there anything else you'd like to add about the amendment to the introduction and referral calendar before we call this board debate and then a roll call vote?

No, that's it.

The eagerly anticipated strategic investment fund was discussed in my committee last Friday.

This is just a procedural motion to put it in front of us so that we can have the bill in committee on Friday and hopefully vote it out.

Community partners have been engaged with the OPCD for a long time and appreciate OPCD had sent this on Wednesday.

We just didn't get an end to the introduction referral calendar.

Appreciate your consideration of including it on the INR today so we can vote it out on Friday.

Great, thank you so much.

Are there any additional comments on the amendment to the introduction referral calendar as described by Council Member Mosqueda?

Hearing none, will the clerk please call the roll on the adoption of the amendment to introduce Council Bill 120178. Peterson.

Yes.

Sawant.

Yes.

Strauss.

Yes.

Herbold.

Yes.

Juarez.

Aye.

Lewis.

Yes.

Morales.

Yes.

Mosqueda.

Aye.

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Councilmember Peterson's amendment.

So I'm going to go ahead and recognize Councilmember Peterson to make his motion to amend the introduction and referral calendar for this afternoon.

Councilmember Peterson.

Thank you, Council President.

As it was circulated last Friday, I move to amend the introduction and referral calendar by introducing a bill entitled an ordinance relating to the Seattle Police Department renewing an incentive program for hiring police officers creating an incentive program for retaining police officers, and ratifying and confirming certain prior acts, and have it referred to the city council.

Second.

Okay, it's been moved and seconded by Councilmember Juarez to amend the introduction and referral calendar.

I'm going to hand it back over to Councilmember Peterson to address this amendment, and then we will open it up to comments and discussion.

Councilmember Peterson, the floor is yours.

Thank you, Council President.

Colleagues, I made similar remarks at our Council briefing this morning, but I should summarize them here for the benefit of the public listening in.

This past Friday, my office and our City Council Central staff circulated an amendment to Council Bill 120112, the Mid-Year Budget Supplemental.

That bill passed out of Finance Committee August 17th.

I'm not a member of the finance committee, and central staff and I needed the past week after our council's recessed to craft this amendment and get it approved by the law department.

And there are two options to this amendment, which I'll discuss later when we get to that item on the agenda.

Using the funds for recruitment and retention would require authorizing legislation, which was also circulated Friday.

I was not able to get that onto the introduction referral calendar, so that's why I'm here right now.

We are asking that we add it to the IRC.

Your vote would not be to support or oppose the authorizing legislation at this time, but merely to put it on our calendar for consideration later.

We don't need to adopt the authorizing legislation right away, but I wanted everybody to have it in front of them to read along with the budget amendment on today's agenda as part of item three.

Again, that's the midyear budget supplemental.

But to effectuate those financial changes to the budget, we do need authorizing legislation.

I want to thank Reverend Harry Walden, the leader for decades of Mothers for Police Accountability and others who have emailed us to support this legislation.

I also want to acknowledge many who have written with concerns about how we fund our police department and other programs.

I believe we can do can and should do more on multiple fronts with a multi-pronged approach.

to increase investments in human services programs, and to do something to recruit and retain officers.

So we have the frontline staffing necessary to fulfill our obligations under the city charter, respond promptly to 911 calls, and deepen the reforms required by our federal consent decree.

So I ask that my colleagues allow this authorizing legislation for recruitment and retention onto the introduction and referral calendar.

Thank you.

Okay, I see that Council Member Herbold has her hand raised.

And again, colleagues, for anyone who would like to make comments, you can either use the raise hand function in Zoom to let me know that you would like to get in the queue or come off camera and signal that you are interested in making comments.

Council Member Herbold, the floor is yours.

Thank you so much.

Just real, real simply, I appreciate Councilmember Peterson getting this bill in front of us.

It is in front of us.

We don't need it on the IRC yet.

because I still think there's a little bit of a rightness issue.

I would like to see how the discussion later this afternoon in today's meeting goes around Councilmember Peterson's proposed amendment to fund a training and recruitment program, how that goes.

and if Councilmember Peterson is successful with that vote in that amendment, we could look at next week's IRC for referring this.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Herbold.

Are there any other comments or questions on the amendment to the introduction and referral calendar?

Councilmember Mosqueda, please.

Thank you very much.

I appreciate what the Vice Chair to Finance and Housing just said.

Thank you, Council Member Herbold.

Thank you, Council Member Peterson, for reaching out and for always looking for solutions.

I will also note, though, for the viewing public, because the Finance and Housing Committee meeting was referenced and the fact that there are members who are not part of that Finance and Housing Committee meeting, I had made sure to invite every member to our Finance and Housing Committee meeting.

So if there was amendments that were being considered, I would have been in the position as chair to bring those forward.

So I did do that on a number of occasions and happily did that on behalf of you, Councilmember Peterson, as well.

So I just want to make sure that process-wise, we adhere to what Councilmember Herbold just noted.

And had there been the opportunity to bring this forward in a discussion or the desire to do that during our Finance and Housing Committee, I would have made that possible.

But I think the timing right now is outlined well by the vice chair of that committee.

and would appreciate understanding more about how the council intends to vote this afternoon before moving the INR calendar amendment in front of us today.

Thank you, Councilor Oswalt.

Councilor Sawant.

Thank you, President Gonzalez.

I will be voting no on this I would like to make a motion to amend the introduction of the calendar, but I want to be clear my objection is not about process.

It is about the content of the bill my office is totally opposed to the content of the bill.

And, as has been referenced earlier, there, there will be amendments from customer Peterson to this effect, and I will be speaking to the substance of my opposition to.

those amendments, which will be similar arguments in opposition to this bill.

So I won't say them now because I'm going to say them later.

And ordinarily, I virtually never have processed arguments against discussion.

I believe in the broadest possible democratic discussion and debate.

And I, as a practice, don't stand in the way of introduction of bills.

And I urge council members to do the same on the bills that I introduced, that even if they oppose a substance, that they should support the discussion and debate, but since there are amendments to this effect also that I will be speaking to, I think consistent with that, I will be voting no on this motion.

Thank you.

Okay.

For those councilmembers who may not be tracking this closely, I know that I just had a conversation with my staff about some of the staging issues I will describe them as that Councilmember Herbold and Mosqueda have highlighted in this discussion.

And to put it simply, my understanding is that if some of or all of Council Member Peterson's amendments to the bill as passed out of committee are successful, then that obviates the need for us to consider the legislation that he is seeking to place on the introduction and referral calendar.

If those amendments fail, however, Then it does it would require consideration of the council bill that he is seeking to add to the introduction and referral calendar.

So you're.

You're so I think some of the arguments that are being made right now is, let's see how the.

Let's see how the amendments fair 1 way or the other before.

We agree to add a council bill related to those subject matters to the introduction and referral calendar.

So for those of you who may not be following that process and procedure, that is effectively what the conversation is right now as it relates to this procedural issue related to whether or not we should amend the introduction and referral calendar.

Nonetheless, the motion has been made and it has been seconded and I'm not sure if Councilmember Peterson is.

Is well, let me, let me, let me rephrase that it is.

It is unclear to me now that we are.

Discussing the introduction referral calendar and that the motion and the seconds have been made and it's been amended.

My understanding based on the city council rules is that we now have to vote on this particular motion that is before us since it is on the table.

But I will call on our city clerk to either confirm or clarify the city council rules related to that procedure.

This is Emilia Sanchez, office of the city clerk.

There are a couple of options that can occur.

The motion can be held until after consideration of the bill itself on the agenda, which is agenda item two, three, if I'm not mistaken, or the motion can be withdrawn completely.

And later on, the IRC can also be reconsidered if the council desire that route as well, or the council can decide at this point as to how to move forward as to whether or not to introduce the bill or not.

And Madam Clerk, if we were to call this matter to a vote now, would we be able to reconsider the introduction and referral calendar?

Later on in the agenda.

You could OK.

Thank you so much.

Alright, I think we're as clear as mud now as they say.

So Councilmember Peterson, my suggestion is that we go ahead and call this to a vote and see how the conversation on the Finance and Housing Committee report goes.

And if after that conversation you wish to reintroduce or have us reconsider the introduction referral calendar, that is certainly a motion that you would be entitled to make.

Thank you.

All right, colleagues, are there any additional comments or questions on Councilmember Peterson's motion to amend the introduction and referral calendar as described?

Okay, hearing none, will the clerk please call the roll on the adoption of the amendment to introduce the proposed bill?

Peterson?

Yes.

Sawant?

No.

Strauss.

No.

Herbold.

No.

Juarez.

Aye.

Lewis.

Yes.

Morales.

No.

Mosqueda.

No.

Council President Gonzalez.

Sorry.

No.

Three in favor, six opposed.

The motion fails and the bill is not introduced.

Again, depending on how the conversation goes during the Finance and Housing Committee report, there is an opportunity to make a motion to reconsider the introduction and referral calendar.

Are there any further comments on the introduction and referral calendar?

All right, hearing no additional comments on the introduction and referral calendar, will the clerk please call the roll on the adoption of the introduction of referral calendar as amended.

Peterson.

Yes.

Sawant.

Yes.

Strauss.

Yes.

Herbold.

Yes.

Juarez.

Aye.

Lewis.

Yes.

Morales.

Mosqueda.

Aye.

President Gonzalez.

Aye.

Nine in favor, none opposed.

The motion carries and the introduction and referral calendar is adopted as amended.

Okay.

Approval of the agenda.

I move to adopt the agenda.

Is there a second?

Second.

It's been moved and seconded by Council Member Herbold to adopt the agenda.

Are there any comments on the agenda?

And I do know that Council Member Mosqueda has one amendment here, so I'm going to go ahead and call on Council Member Mosqueda to make her amendment.

Thank you very much, Madam President.

I move to amend the agenda on item number one, which is Council Bill 120119. And I move to hold this bill indefinitely.

I'd be happy to talk more in the comments section about why, if there's a second.

Second.

It's been moved and seconded that Council Bill 120119 be held indefinitely.

I'm going to hand it back over to Council Member Mosqueda to address the motion.

Thank you, Madam President.

Thank you, colleagues, for considering this amendment.

The bill that we had in front of us on today's agenda was actually an amendment to legislation that we had passed earlier this year providing $4 hazard pay for grocery workers.

The legislation also included a number of additional protections and reporting and record retention strategies to make sure that grocery workers receive the $4 an hour minimum wage enhancement, excuse me, wage enhancement.

As you'll recall, the committee passed the amendment earlier this summer when COVID rates and hospitalizations and vaccination rates were at a very different place than they are now.

Our committee had considered releasing the grocery employers from the requirement for $4 an hour hazard pay as a narrow amendment to the original legislation that we passed.

We have continued, however, to move to delay the amendment to this requirement in full council because we wanted to make sure that we were looking at the most recent public health data and we wanted to do this during full council so that there was a transparent process to address the continued COVID emergency.

I am still very committed to this being a temporary hazard pay meant to increase compensation for the extra risk that grocery workers take on a daily basis.

And of course, I'm always interested in making sure that we're strengthening labor protections but this bill was narrow.

This bill was not what overall worker pay was about.

Today's motion to delay the vote indefinitely moves this amendment into a longer period so that we have more time to consider additional public health information and make sure that we're looking at how we can address the stability for our hospital systems and risk exposure to COVID.

The information that we have right now signals to me that this is not the time to lift the hazard pay requirements.

We have learned from public health over the last few weeks about the increased rates of hospitalizations in this region and across the country.

I want to thank Karina Bull from Central Staff and Susie Levy from our Public Health Seattle King County Department who have continued to share with us the news on vaccinations and hospitalizations.

We continue to see the number of cases increasing, and we will soon be able to see the impact of the new vaccine requirement, which we are very hopeful will help to decrease the number of hospitalizations.

To give you a sense of scale, on August 3rd, just a month ago, the caseload was 344 people with several area hospitals reporting staffing shortages and occupied bed rates of over 95%.

We have the new mandatory indoor and in some cases outdoor mask requirements.

We are also very hopeful that if folks continue to follow these mask requirements, especially for exposure to our grocery store workers, that we will continue to see decreases in transmission.

But we need to make sure that we are addressing transmission and hospitalization rates.

before considering the legislation in front of us.

I believe that this is the right thing to do to delay this bill indefinitely, and then we will take it up again once we continue to look at public health data to make sure that we're moving it forward in a moment where we have greater stability in our region as it relates to COVID.

Thank you, Madam President.

Thank you so much.

Are there any additional comments on the motion to hold Council Bill 120119 indefinitely?

Council Member Peterson, please.

Thank you, Council President.

Thank you, Council Member Mosqueda, for this.

I know we've had this come back a couple of times, so I appreciate your willingness to put it on the agenda for us to discuss.

And those who are, those grocers who may be concerned about the hazard pay to know that just because the motion is to hold it indefinitely does not mean that it won't come back.

It's just that it's not practical to have it come back every two weeks, every three weeks when we're in the midst of the Delta variant crisis, and there are so many unknowns from a public health standpoint.

So do know that we, you know, I'm hearing the concerns from from grocers.

I also support what the workers are going through, and so we will.

We will.

This will be brought back eventually.

It's just it's just doesn't make sense to have it come back every two weeks, so just wanted to clarify that for for folks hearing that the official motion is indefinite, but it'll come back.

that is consistent with some of our

the end of the, I think it's six months after the state of emergency, something like that, but I really appreciate the recognition that having some consistency around our COVID response that the city is leading on for workers, for tenants, and for employers and landlords is useful to the discussion around that emergency response.

Thank you.

Council Member Morales.

I think I did that accidentally, but since I have the floor, sorry.

I think this really just points to the fact that when we created the state of emergency, we had no idea what we were getting into or you know the state that we would be in.

I read over the weekend you know some of the medical professionals are thinking we might be in this situation for another two or three years and so I think it might be time for us to just start thinking about not COVID as a state of emergency, but as sort of the state of things for us.

And, you know, I don't know what that means necessarily in terms of how we change the language, but it's just making me realize that we're going to be here for a while and perhaps the state of emergency isn't quite the right way to deal with it.

So just wanted to put that on the table.

Thank you, Council Member Morales.

Council Member Sawant.

Thank you.

I think it is important to, at the very least, hold this indefinitely.

So I will be voting on yes on this, but I also wanted to clarify to members of the public and the working people who are and activists who are watching this that, as I've said before, I would not support the ordinance to remove the hazard pay in the first place.

I do not agree with Council Member Peterson presenting the false arguments of the grocery corporations as equivalent to the problems and problems faced by the grocery workers and the sacrifices that they have made, especially during the pandemic.

But overall, the fact that workers under capitalism are paid a fraction of the value of their labor and also keeping in mind that Of course, right now we are facing the continued threat of the Delta variant, the cases, number of cases and hospitalization going up.

All of that is very much still there, and that is extremely important to note.

In addition to that, it's also important to note that the effects of the pandemic, the economic the financial and other effects of the pandemic are going to be faced by workers for many years to come.

Let's not forget that there's billions of dollars of rental debt that has been accumulated by workers.

Many of them, unfortunately, we are at this point where many of them are actually even union workers, of course, non-union workers.

are in a worse situation but there are many union workers also who are not able to keep up with housing prices simply because the rents are skyrocketing at such a rate that it is you know nobody's salary as far as workers are concerned are keeping up with the kind of rent increases that people are facing not just in Seattle but in cities nationwide.

And so I believe that whatever workers have been able to win, for example, in the form of hazard pay in this case, should be maintained.

And as somebody who is an elected representative of workers, I would not be in a position to vote to remove that pay at any time, whether it's now or a year from now.

And in fact, I would urge workers who are watching this to make sure that they build on whatever little that they have won during the pandemic in order to make sure that all workers have a living wage, whether it is a pandemic or not.

But especially during the pandemic, I think it is crucial that we do not draw a false equivalency between corporations, corporate executives, multimillionaires and billionaires on the one hand, and ordinary people and workers on the other.

Let's not forget that the latest statistics show that since the pandemic began, these are updated statistics, billionaires in the United States have become nearly 2 trillion, 1.8 trillion, which is nearly $2 trillion wealthier than they were before.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Are there any additional comments on this motion to hold?

I do want to acknowledge that it is 2.33 p.m.

and we are still on procedural matters.

If we could speed it up, that would be great.

We have almost 60 people waiting to address the Council.

Thanks so much, Council Member Mosqueda, appreciate it.

All right, will the clerk please call the roll on the motion to hold indefinitely, Council Bill 120119.

Peterson?

Yes.

Sawant?

Yes.

Strauss?

Yes.

Herbold?

Yes.

Juarez?

Yes.

Lewis?

Yes.

Morales?

Yes.

Mosqueda?

Aye.

President Gonzalez?

Aye.

Nine in favor, none opposed.

Thank you so much.

The motion carries and the bill is held indefinitely.

I am not aware of any other amendments to the agenda, so are there any further comments on the amended agenda before we call it to a roll call?

Hearing none, will the clerk please call the roll on the amended agenda?

Peterson?

Yes.

Sawant?

Yes.

Strauss?

Yes.

Herbold?

Yes.

Juarez?

Aye.

Lewis?

Yes.

Morales.

Yes.

Mosqueda.

Aye.

President Gonzalez.

Aye.

Nine in favor, none opposed.

The motion carries and the agenda is adopted as amended.

We're now going to move over to public comment.

Uh, colleagues at this time, we will open the remote public comment period for items on the city council agenda introduction and referral calendar and the council's work program.

I want to thank everyone for their ongoing patience and cooperation as we continue to operate this remote public comment system.

does remain our strong intent to continue having remote public comment regularly included on our meeting agendas.

However, as a reminder, the city council reserves the right to end or eliminate these public comment periods at any point if we deem that the system is being abused or is no longer suitable for allowing our meetings to be conducted efficiently and effectively.

I'll moderate the public comment period in the following manner.

The public comment period was originally noted to be a total of 20 minutes with each speaker being given 2 minutes to speak.

However, we do have a large volume of people signed up to provide us with public comment.

Primarily on the budget ordinance related to the Seattle Police Department and the various and competing amendments on that budget ordinance.

So given the importance of that issue and the fact that many of these amendments, if not all of them were made available to the public very late and have not gone through the committee work group process.

I'm going to go ahead and allow every person who signed up for public comment to speak today.

However, I'm going to reduce the time from two minutes to a total of one minute.

So if you're listening, please make sure you adjust your comments accordingly from two minutes to one minute.

And if you have preregistered, and if you are on the list, you will have an opportunity to speak today.

Again, so colleagues, if there's no objection, the public comment period will be extended to a total of 60 minutes, with each speaker being allotted one minute to address the council.

Hearing no objection, the public comment period is extended to a total of 60 minutes.

Each speaker will be called on in the order in which they registered to provide public comment on the council's website.

Each speaker must call in from the phone number used for this registration and using the meeting phone number, ID, and passcode that was emailed to them upon confirmation.

This is different than the general meeting, listen, align, call in information.

So if you are waiting to give public comment, double check that you are calling into the right number with the right number as you wait for us to hear your, as you wait for us to call on your name for public comment.

I will call on you even if you show up as not present on my side.

If you hear your name identified as someone who is not present, you may want to double check that data and call in accordingly.

And you can always email your comments to us at council, that's C-O-U-N-C-I-L at Seattle dot G-O-V.

If you are unable to wait to give public comment, or if you need to move on to other things, we do look at those comments.

Again, I'll call on each speaker by name and in the order in which you registered on the council's website.

If you haven't yet registered to speak but would like to, you can go to our website at seattle.gov forward slash council to sign up for public comment before the end of public comment today.

The public comment link is also listed on today's published agenda agenda.

Once I call your name, staff will unmute your microphone and you're going to hear a prompt of you have been That's your cue to press star six before you begin speaking.

I'd ask that you start your public comment by reminding us of your name, telling us what item you are calling in about, and as a reminder, your comment should relate to an item on today's agenda, the introduction and referral calendar, or the council's work program.

You are going to hear a chime at about 10 seconds.

Again, this chime means that you have 10 seconds left of your total one minute allotted time.

Once you hear the chime, please begin to wrap up your public comment.

If you don't wrap up your public comment within the 60 seconds, we will go ahead and mute your microphone so we can call on the next speaker.

Once you've given your public comment, we ask that you please disconnect and that you can finish watching today's proceedings via Seattle Channel or one of the listening options on the agenda.

So I'm now gonna go ahead and open up the public comment period and begin calling on speakers again once you hear your name.

press star six after you hear the prompt you have been unmuted.

So it is about 2.40 p.m.

We will go until about 3.40 p.m.

So the first two speakers are Peter Condit followed by Howard Gale.

Peter, welcome.

Good afternoon.

This is Peter Condit, an abolitionist in District 6. Council Bill 120.112, the Mid-Year Budget Adjustments should be rejected unless they are amended to cut an additional $2.5 million from SPD.

The legislation lists three provisos on SPD's spending authority.

Council is under no obligation to take this action for two of the provisos, which together placed $7.5 million in SPD's hands this year.

Though the bill also includes a $5 million cut to the police, the net change to SPD's budget is still an increase of $2.5 million.

This pro cop bill refunds SPD and should be rejected as should council member Peterson's white supremacist amendments.

The legislation does commit some money to community, but that funding won't be received by HSD grantees for 18 months.

Those dollars can and should be taken out of SPD's 2022 budget, which has yet to be written.

Finally, I support upcoming legislation to end the deadly police exchanges.

Thank you for listening.

Defund SPD.

Next is Howard Gale, followed by Cody Zaleski.

Good afternoon, Howard Gale.

During council break, OPA Director Meyerberg released the stunningly incompetent and cruel investigation into last year's SPD murder of Terry Kaver.

Kaver was the 10th of 11 people, all suffering a mental health crisis and wielding an edged weapon that the SPD has killed in just the nine years since the start of the consent decree.

Marburg makes the obscene claim, devoid of any compassion or understanding, that a paranoid schizophrenic and mental health crisis, aggressively chased and yelled at by six officers with guns drawn and a police dog, was somehow responsible for his own death.

Falsely claiming the caver made, quote, a choice and, quote, a decision to try and stab an officer.

The council must immediately hold a public forum to investigate last month's shocking claims by reporter Carolyn Bick.

and the OIG whistleblower concerning the application of proper investigation and oversight by the OPA and the OIG and consider removing OPA Director Meyerberg for abuse of power and dereliction of duty.

Thank you.

Next up is Cody Zaleski followed by Trevona Thompson-Wiley.

Cody, welcome.

Hello Seattle City Council members.

My name is Cody Zaleski District 4 and one of the co-directors of Decriminalize Nature Seattle.

We'd like to extend our deep thanks to Council Member Andrew Lewis for hosting the symposium discussing the decriminalization of psychedelic plant medicine this past week.

I believe he mentioned this before during the council briefing.

As a recap we've heard from both several medical professionals and individuals who have struggled with mental health and substance use disorders speak on behalf of these medicines.

A letter returned from the OEIR that Seattle City Council requested strongly recommends that psychedelic medicine be made more widely available in treatment of substance use disorder and comorbid mental health conditions.

These problems are greatly exacerbating the crisis concerning the number of unhoused people in Seattle.

Decriminalized Nature would like to encourage the Seattle City Council to take the ordinance and put it on the introduction and referral calendar without delay.

Thank you and I cede my time.

Thank you for calling in today.

Next up is Trevonna Thompson-Wiley followed by M.

Rain.

Hello my name is Trevona.

I'm calling about CB 120112. I'm a Black woman from Seattle whose family fled the Jim Crow South in the 1950s in search of a better life.

We were met with racism poverty and oppression.

And guess what SPD.

I'm demanding that we do not refund SPD.

How did that council member Peterson can hold up a BLM sign that is calling for more money from an agency that oppresses Black folks.

Make it make sense.

I'm demanding everyone vote no on Council Member Peterson's amendment.

Council Member Peterson there is no justification for your betrayal to the black community.

The same black community that told you last year we need investment and not punishment.

Black Lives Matter is not a cute campaign slogan to look cool for your liberal friends Peterson.

When we say Black Lives Matter we mean the quality of those lives matter.

We definitely need investment in creating non-police responses to crisis and harm.

Cops don't stop violence.

Cop hiring hiring bonuses won't keep us safe.

Our community organizations can and will.

And I you know at least the rest of my time.

Thank you.

Next up is M followed by Catherine Dawson.

Hi, my name is M Rinell and I'm calling in support of Council Bill 121-42 to end Seattle's participation in the deadly exchanges.

I'm a current concerned community member in District 2 who believes the SPD must halt its current efforts to militarize specifically through the police and military training with countries who have documented human rights abuses.

These trainings swap and strengthen worst practices.

SPD is already under investigation for unconstitutional use of excessive force and has to date spent over $100,000 on these trainings.

We need safe resource communities, not racist and militarized police.

We must defund SPD rather than refund.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next up is Catherine Dawson followed by Angelica Chazado.

Hi, my name is Catherine.

I'm a renter in District 3. I'm calling to voice my opposition to Councilmember Peterson's amendment to further fund SPD.

I also support Councilmember Fallon's amendment to invest in true public safety by investing those funds in community organizations.

We all know the police don't keep us safe.

A majority of this council pledged to defund SPD, a promise which still remains unfulfilled, and it would be egregious to give SPD an additional $9 million now.

Our city continues to commit racist and classist violence against citizens.

They're so disinterested in public safety, they continue to resist vaccination and masks because their hospitals are filling up during a pandemic.

The city and this country have a shameful history of funding the police in the carceral state while eviscerating community support.

Councilmember Peterson's amendment would be another step in that harmful legacy.

On the other hand, Councilmember Sawant's amendment would allocate those funds to HSC community services that create true public safety Lastly, please vote yes on Solange's amendment and to end the deadly exchange tomorrow.

Thank you.

Next is Angelica Chacero, followed by Alice Marabe.

Hi, my name is Angelica Chacero.

I'm a resident of District 2 and a member of Decriminalize Seattle, and I'm calling about CB120112.

I'll begin my comment asking that you support the upcoming legislation to end the deadly exchange.

Second, I ask you to vote today to divest city dollars from STDs, failed public safety strategies, and invest in the community-based organizations already doing the hard work of figuring out how to respond to and prevent crisis and harm.

Council Member Peterson's amendment to redirect funding in the current bill away from stabilizing long-term grants to community organizations and towards STD signing bonuses and retention bonuses does not even merit being brought up for discussion.

It's an insult to consider giving hiring bonuses and retention bonuses to a department that can't figure out how to end racist stops and excessive use of force against Black and Native communities.

You'll also be voting today to lift two provisos you put in place last fall in anticipation of salary savings from officers leaving SPD.

Please vote yes on the amendment to move funds from the salary-saving provisos towards community-based organizations building true public safety.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next up is Alice followed by Shamir Tana.

Hi my name is Alice Marabe.

I'm a resident of District 4 calling in today to remind council members of your commitment to defund SPD and transfer money into community hands.

Please reject Council Member Peterson's amendments and accept Council Member Sawant's amendment.

We desperately need investment in alternatives to police response.

We do not need bonuses for cops.

I wanted to lift up a statistic from my 2017 panel study of 264 cities conducted over 24 years The study found that in a city of 100,000 100,000 people every 10 additional community organizations led to a 9 percent reduction in murder rate a 6 percent reduction in the violent crime rate and a 4 percent reduction in the property crime rate.

Investment in community does make us safer but we cannot get there if you continue to refund SPD.

Also please vote yes tomorrow on a bill to end the deadly exchange between SPD and violate human rights.

Thanks for your time.

Thank you.

Next up is Shamir Tana, followed by Aisha Mansoor.

Hello, my name is Shamir Tana.

I'm a resident of District 7. First, I'm calling to support legislation to stop Seattle spending money for SPD to be trained by foreign militaries, including Israel.

Secondly, I'm calling to strongly urge you to vote no on any amendments like what Council Member Peterson has proposed.

We just cannot refund SPD.

Stop funding SPD hiring bonuses with money currently dedicated toward community-led public safety efforts is unjust and a complete betrayal of Council's commitment to stop funding police over community needs.

All the money from the salary savings being lifted should be transferred into community hands with HSD, Community Safety Capacity Building, receiving extra funding.

Please listen and support community organizations and leaders on the ground who have been doing this work for countless years.

Invest in the community and not SPD.

Thank you.

Thank you for calling in today.

Next up is Aisha Mansour followed by Madison Swan Bowden.

Hello.

My name is Aisha Mansour and I'm a resident of the 6th District and I'm calling to vocalize my support for CB 120-142 which would stop the Seattle Police Department from training with countries who have a documented history of human rights violations.

Most notably Israel.

At a dinner hosted by the ADL a few years back, Chief Kerman Best said, and I quote, I had the opportunity to travel to Israel to attend ADL's National Counterterrorism Seminar to study firsthand its tactics and strategies to combat terrorism, end quote.

The Jilboa prison is one of the sites in Israel that the ADL regularly takes U.S. law enforcement to.

And right now, a Palestinian prisoner at Jilboa named Zakaria is being transferred to the hospital for the second time because of the torture he's endured.

This would include electrocution, deprivation of sleep, and he's had both of his legs broken.

So whether you want to frame these trips as excuses or training, the Seattle Police Department needs to know that these trips are dangerous and unnecessary.

Please support CB 120-142.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next up is Madison.

Following Madison is Susan Kopelman.

Susan, you are showing up as not present on my end.

If you call in and we can match you, you will get your one minute.

Otherwise, we'll hear from Alexa Fay.

Madison.

Hi, can you hear me okay?

Yes, we can.

Perfect.

Hi, my name is Madison and I am a resident of District 5 and a member of the Democratic Socialists of America.

Do not refund SPD.

Vote no on Council Peterson's amendment.

Funding SPD hiring bonuses with money currently directed towards community-led public safety efforts would be a betrayal of the council's commitments to stop funding police over community needs.

Last Thursday, over 10 police vehicles and dozens of officers rushed to an incident in Capitol Hill that involved a Black man falling asleep in his car.

SPD escalated the situation, and when a group of people stood on the sidewalk to keep SPD accountable and make sure they didn't further brutalize this individual, they deemed the group hostile and activated their anti-protest unit.

Officers were instructed to, quote, pick up your hats and bats at the precinct to quell the crowd of onlookers.

This incident, along with so many others, showed that SPD does not keep our community safe.

They do not deserve more money.

Thank you.

Thank you for calling in.

Again, Susan Kopelman, you are showing up as not present.

And Alexa Fay is now showing up as not present on my end.

So we are going to move to Julie Pat and then Shelby Handler.

Good afternoon.

My name is Julie.

I'm a resident of District 3, and I'm sitting in support of Council Bill 120-142 to end the exchanges between Seattle Police Department and countries committing ongoing human rights violations.

I am a social worker.

I've worked for several years with refugees and refugees, oftentimes those who have fled abuses of their human rights elsewhere in the world.

And in rebuilding their families' lives here, they deserve a community which does not echo or put on a pedestal the abuses they fled.

Passing this legislation is one way Seattle can move toward owning its title of a human rights city.

We know that we are not made safer when our police officers are training with an occupying military force, such as Israel's, such as an open abuser of human rights.

And as a member of Seattle's Jewish community, I understand the simple criticism that Israeli policy is not anti-Semitic.

Training with the Israeli military, as it would be with any military that follows international human rights law, reinforces discriminatory and repressive policing and surveillance practices.

that do not make our Seattle community safer.

I think that.

Thank you for calling in.

Next up is Shelby Handler followed by Coco Weber.

Hi there.

My name is Shelby Handler and I'm a Jewish renter calling from District 2 and I am calling in strong support of the bill proposed to end the deadly exchange that's going to go into the Public Safety Committee tomorrow.

And I'm really calling on council to prohibit SPD from training with countries that are committing ongoing, grievous human rights abuses.

And I know as a Jewish resident and a resident that wants safety for all of us in this city, investing in community makes all of us more safe, not racist and militarized policing.

And so similarly, please vote, or I reject Peterson's amendment to defund human services.

And yeah, just invest in community and not policing.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Next up is Coco Weber.

And then we will circle back to Susan Kopelman.

Thank you, Council.

My name is Coco.

I'm a D4 resident, educator, and member of D4 for Black Lives.

And I'm here to tell you that Peterson and his racist legislating does not represent me or my community.

I implore you to vote no for bonuses.

bonuses for cops who are already very well-paid, taking money from human services that create real public safety.

Let us remember that policing is reactive, punishing those who are most in need, whereas services prevent community harm before it happens.

Please vote yes on today's legislation and give provided funds back to community safety capacity expansion.

Further, I implore you to check SPD's future spending, especially on Tech Lab bias and Accenture, who paid out nearly $65 million in settlements to the DOJ for fraudulent claims, kickback programs for recommenders, fraudulently inflated prices and rigged bids.

Remember, until you change the rules, the cops can do anything with the money you give them.

End the deadly exchange, respect human rights, freedom to the people, I yield my time.

Next up is Susan Kopelman, followed by Kevin Vitz Wong.

Go ahead, Susan.

This is Susan Kopelman.

58 local organizations have signed on to the call to end the deadly exchange and pass Council Bill 120142. These include 350 Seattle.

American Muslim Bar Association.

API Chaya.

Bayan.

Black Elephant Party.

CARE Washington.

Decriminalize Seattle.

Divest SPD.

End the deadly exchange.

Jewish Voice for Peace.

John T. Williams Organizing Committee.

Kadima Reconstructionist Community.

La Resistencia.

Maps Amen.

Muslim Forum of the Pacific Northwest.

Never Again Seattle.

One America.

Pacific Rim Solidarity Network.

People of Color Community Coalition.

Rachel Corey Foundation.

Real Change.

Democratic Socialists of America.

Seattle Educate

Thank you for calling in today.

Next up is Kevin Vitz Wong followed by Izzy Halaka.

Hi, my name is Kevin Vitz Wong.

I'm an educator from District 6. I'm calling with regards to SPD salary savings to urge the council to reject Council Member Peterson's amendment and to support Council Member Sawant's amendment.

The council should be listening to the community's demands to reduce SPD in size, function, and responsibility.

no hiding behind procedure, and no backtracking.

We need real cuts and real investment in the community.

SPD's contempt for democracy is an ongoing pattern.

Multiple officers who took part in the right-wing January 6th insurrection in D.C.

are still in their jobs now, and off-duty officers were called to aid the undemocratic right-wing recall effort against Councilmember Stallone.

It comes from their role of brutalizing protesters and making cynical arrests to intimidate journalists Ultimately, police are called to enforce eviction and to oppose workers striking for better conditions.

They are the front line of the capitalist establishment, which seeks to extract profit from the cracks in workers' lives as the pandemic continues.

So we're asking you to reject Council Member Peterson's amendment and support Council Member Stonewall's amendment.

Thank you very much.

Next up is Izzy Halaka, followed by Walker Thomas.

Hi my name is Isabel Holika and I'm a resident of District 3 and I'm here to voice my support for Council Bill 120-142 to effectively end the deadly exchange between the Seattle Police Department and countries that have a history of human rights violations.

The Seattle Police Department has a history of abuse of force and has been under federal investigation since 2011 and there's absolutely no reason that they should be training with human rights abusing countries to use militarized tactics to brutalize our communities.

Our city should not be using our resources to fund violations of international law, but instead should defund and debilitarize the police and reinvest the resources in black communities and community-based solutions for safety.

I also want to urge the council to vote no on Council Member Peterson's amendment to defund the Human Services Department and redirect it to SPV bonuses.

Invest in community and not in policing.

Vote yes on CB 120-142 and no on Peterson's amendment.

Thank you.

Next up is Walker Thomas, followed by Alice Rothschild.

Hello, my name is Walker Thomas.

I live in the third district.

I'm calling today to have my voice to the choir of people telling you not to give a bonus to the police.

I work in a homeless shelter downtown.

I work with a team of social workers and housing case managers, street medics and nurses.

All of us are incredibly poorly behaved.

And we're working all the time.

We are also burned out.

We can't retain people.

The only difference is we're not seeing as much as the SPD has paid already.

And we're also not constantly brutalizing the people that you're essentially paying us to check.

So we're going to spend money on how stressful it is during the pandemic.

And the people are putting the need to put that money into anyone but the police.

Put that money into housing.

Put that money into the school.

They're already paid too much.

They don't care about the city.

what we're now spooky vaccinated, but not the sort of people that you give any more money to.

Thank you.

Next up is Alice Rothschild, followed by Dante Miola.

Alice, just press star six so we can hear you.

Okay, Alice, one more time, star six.

And then make sure that your actual phone isn't also muted.

Okay, Alice, one more time, star six.

Alice, we're still unable to hear you.

I see you on the screen.

There we go.

Try talking now.

Okay, can you hear me now?

Yep, gotcha, go ahead.

Great, thank you.

This is Alice Rothschild from District 2 speaking in support of Council Bill 120142. I'm a Jewish physician and human rights advocate.

I strongly support making it illegal for the Seattle Police Department to participate in training exchanges and partnerships with any country that persistently violate international law and human rights.

The police department has shown documented patterns of violence and racism against Black, Native, and other residents of color, and such exchanges only reinforce and deepen these harmful practices.

I have worked extensively in Israel-Palestine and documented the practices of the Israeli police and military, and I find it abhorrent to see the same practices and military equipment used by the SPD against citizens and residents of this city.

Trainings with Israel are the most frequent destination after visits to Canada, I see the police becoming more of an occupying force than a group whose job is to protect the people living in Seattle.

Thank you very much.

Thank you for calling in.

Next up is Dante Maiola followed by Leah Radecki.

Hello my name is Dante Maiola and I will be reading a letter on behalf of members of the Seattle Education Association in support of Council Bill 120142. Dear Seattle City Council.

We members of Seattle Education Association submit this letter to you in support of End the Deadly Exchange.

We are anti-racist K-12 educators who recognize that to stand with the Black Lives Matter movement in Seattle is to stand with the principles of the Black Lives Matter movement in a global context.

In June of 2021 our representative assembly voted 90 percent in favor of endorsing End the Deadly Exchange campaign.

We call on the Seattle City Council to uphold the principle of human rights and dignity for all people and make it illegal for SPD to train with any country that persistently violates human rights, be it Israel, Morocco, the Philippines, China, or others.

We urge you to stand in support of End the Deadly Exchange.

Thank you.

Thank you for calling in today.

Next up is Leah Radecki, followed by Matthew Lauder.

My name is Leah Radecki and I'm a resident of District 5. Vote no on Pedersen's pro-police amendment.

Vote yes on Savant's amendment to move money away from police and towards community organizations that create actual public safety.

SPD is a racist and violent organization that does not deserve more money.

SPD SPD is anti-vaccination and does not care about public safety.

Defund the Seattle Police Department.

The continued unchecked violence of SPD does not serve the community.

Vote to end the deadly exchange.

I yield my time.

Next is Matthew Lauder followed by Alice Lockhart.

Hi my name is Matthew Lauder.

I'm a lifelong Seattleite and resident of District 7. I'm not as well spoken as the people who have gone before me because I'm really not sure how to vocalize the rage that sits inside of my body when I hear politicians debating on whether or not to fund a racist and violent occupying force in my beautiful city.

Please do not support Peterson's amendments and please support Sawant's.

In addition please and please pass the end of the exchange legislation tomorrow.

Thank you.

I yield my time.

Next is Alice Lockhart followed by Sadie Scott-Hobson.

Good afternoon, Council.

I'm Alice Lockhart for 350 Seattle.

We're a majority white organization.

I just heard a beep.

Am I just starting to talk or what?

Oh no, go ahead.

Time is yours.

Okay, sorry.

We're a majority white organization and our civil disobedience is consistently met with relatively civilized enforcement.

But it was very different last year when hundreds of us turned out for BLM protests that were met with unprovoked violence by SPD.

Black people in Seattle are more than seven times more likely to experience violence at the hands of Seattle police.

And we've seen absolutely no voluntary or significant movement within the SPD management or ranks or the police union to do anything to correct the situation.

We thus oppose Councilmember Peterson's amendments that in the fourth act would reward bad behavior by SPD with incentives, bonuses and funding beyond what council promises and we support promised and we support Councilmember Sawant's amendment as well as Councilmember Mosqueda's triage amendment.

Thank you.

Thank you for calling in Alice.

Next up is Sadie Scott Hobson followed by Robert Stevens Jr.

Good afternoon.

My name is Sadie Scott-Hobson and I'm from District 5. I'm calling to tell the City Council to please reject Alex Peterson's amendment to take funding from Human Services and reallocate it to the police department for bonuses.

Please also vote no on any similar amendments in the future.

It is crucial that you keep your promises and divest from policing and move towards real community safety.

Please also vote yes on Council Member Sawant's proposal to reallocate funds away from the police department and toward community organizations.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next up is Robert Stevens, Jr., followed by Alicia Foster.

Yes, this is Robert Stevens, Seattle, Central Area, speaking to the Garfield Superblock.

After City Council passed the Neighborhood District Comprehensive Plan, There was a policy put in place that any time an individual or an organization make application for city funding, they have to show a section of the neighborhood plan they were going to implement.

The Superblock proposal consists of the total package.

It's out of the Central Area Neighborhood Plan.

There are excerpts throughout that support that project.

And I want to personally thank Councilwoman for all the hard work that she's done to help us move forward.

Thank you.

Robert Stevens.

Thank you for calling in today.

Next up is Alicia Foster followed by Stephanie Ingram.

Hello, my name is Alicia Foster.

I'm from District 4. I urge you all to vote no on Council Member Peterson's amendments and vote yes on Council Member Sawant's amendments.

Seattle has already committed to defunding the police yet organizations more designed and equipped to serve the community's needs are currently sharing only $10 million in funding from the city.

Funding the creation of infrastructure and networks that prevent the causes of crime is much more sensible and effective than funding armed responses to individual instances of crime.

and creates a better Seattle in this process.

I also urge urge you to vote to end the deadly exchange.

Thank you.

Thank you for calling in today.

Next up is Stephanie Ingram followed by Erin O'Connell.

Hi my name is Stephanie Ingram.

I'm a member of the Garfield Superblock Coalition.

I wanted to thank council and especially members Sawant and Strauss for including funding for the Garfield Superblock in today's budget budget amendment.

This project is a long running project that was promised to the community by the City of Seattle and Seattle Public Schools over 15 years ago.

Today's effort by council to follow through on this commitment and fund the next phase of the project puts this promise on track to reality.

We are thankful for Council's engagement with our community group and willingness to work together to move this project forward.

The timing of this funding will allow our group to pursue further grants for construction and move forward with design without delay.

We are very excited to bring this unique, vibrant, and community-led project to the Central Area.

Thank you very much.

Thank you for calling in.

Next up is Erin O'Connell, followed by Annette Klapstein.

Thank you Council President and Council Members.

My name is Erin O'Connell Deputy Athletic Director for Husky Athletics.

I'm speaking today to ask your support of Item Number 13 Resolution 32016 adopting an updated transportation management plan for Husky Stadium.

We are proud to have the greatest setting in college football at Husky Stadium and will be even prouder of our stadium operations this updated TMC.

With this new TMP, the university will continue to decrease automobile travel to games and will clear game-related congestion faster.

The TMP identifies aggressive performance targets to be fulfilled through the annual operating plan.

That plan is built with and approved by ESPADOT, as well as a new advisory committee comprised of the key agencies and community representation.

Thank you to the staff at SBOT, SPD, Metro, and Sound Transit for their work on this update.

They pushed us and together we built a planet for better results.

Go Huskies.

Thank you so much for calling in today.

Next up is Annette Klapstein followed by BJ Last.

My name is Annette Klapstein and I'm a resident of District 4. That's your district Council Member Peterson and I want to tell you that I am appalled by your proposed amendments.

I have lived in or near Seattle for most of the past 50 years and throughout that time the Seattle Police Department has been brutal and racist.

No reforms have worked and they have only gotten worse.

Despite this terrible record the council has continued to give SPD the majority of the city budget and now Council Member Peterson wants to take money away from underfunded community public safety efforts and give it to the already bloated SPV budget.

That is a complete betrayal of council's commitment to stop funding police over community needs and frankly it disgusts me.

The council must vote no on Council Member Peterson's amendment and yes on Council Member Sawant's proviso amendment if you have any intention of fulfilling the commitments you've already made to the community.

All money from the provisos being lifted should be transferred to the community.

SPD has a ridiculously enormous budget and there is no excuse for giving them one single penny more.

Next up is BJ Last followed by Claire Baumkamp.

Hello my name is BJ Last.

I'm a Ballard resident and small business owner.

I'm calling to ask council to reject Councilmember Peterson's amendments to the supplemental budget.

These amendments take money directed to Community Life Public Safety to fund bonuses for SPD This is a distillation of the city's shameful history of divesting from community in favor of an armed violent police force that harasses and terrorizes the community.

We have decades of evidence showing these policies of funding police over community make us less safe.

These amendments should not even receive a second to be brought to the floor for debate.

I also encourage council to support Council Member Sawant's amendment.

The current bill effectively increases SPD's budget by releasing more improvisos than it transfers out of SPD's budget.

This amendment closes the gap between the amount being transferred and released.

This amendment effectively keeps us, keeps the council from refunding SPD in the name of a supplemental budget.

I also ask on council to pass, call on council to pass CB120142 to end the exchange.

Thank you, I yield my time.

Thank you for calling in today.

Next up is Claire Baumkamp followed by Renee Lamberjack.

Hi, I'm calling about Bill 120112. My name is Claire Bomkamp.

I live in District 6. I'd like to ask the Council to vote no on Councilmember Peterson's amendment and yes on Councilmember Sawant's amendment, and also to vote yes on 120142 tomorrow.

In theory, the Office of so-called Police Accountability is supposed to be holding SPD accountable for their actions.

However, in the last few weeks, OPA recommended a 20-day suspension for Officer Chris Gregorio, who was involved in the incident in which Terry Caver, a man who was experiencing a mental health crisis, was murdered in cold blood.

Council Member Peterson, I would urge you honestly to watch that video.

It's not easy to watch, but I think that you really need to know that when you advocate for hiring bonuses and retention bonuses for SPD, you're advocating for more of these incidents.

Please vote no on Councilmember Peterson's amendment.

Thank you.

Next up is Renee Lamberjack, and I'm showing that Rachel Breigel is showing up as not present, so we will hear from Leigh Swedden after we hear from Renee Lamberjack.

And Renee, just make sure you press star six so we can hear you.

One more time.

We had you and then we lost you.

Star six.

Okay, Renee, just make sure that your actual phone is off mute as well, because I show that you are unmuted on our end.

There you go.

Oh, now you're muted again.

Try star six.

One more time, Renee.

There you go.

You should be good to go.

Okay, Renee, I still can't hear you.

Just make sure your actual device is off mute.

There we go.

Renee, we're not able to hear you.

Oh.

There we go.

Can you hear me?

Yep.

You can hear me?

Yes.

All right.

Good afternoon.

My name is Renee Lamberjack, and I'm a resident of District 2. I'm calling today in regards to Council Bill 120112 to ask you to vote no on Councilmember Peterson's amendments and to vote yes on Councilmember Sawant's proviso amendment.

Last year, you unanimously passed Resolution 31962 stating Structural racism causes over-policing and under-investment in communities of color, especially black communities, and you committed to reducing SPD's budget.

Since then, SPD commissioned a report that found three quarters of all SPD calls for service could be handled by a community emergency response network.

Why then are you now considering funding police bonuses for new hires instead of building up community alternatives that create true public safety?

Don't refund SPD, invest in community, and vote yes tomorrow on the bill to end training exchanges between SPD and countries that violate human rights.

Thank you.

Thank you for calling in today.

Next up is Leigh Swedden, followed by Diane Mathers, who currently is showing up, is not present on my end.

And then after Leigh will be Ben Sircombe.

Thank you.

My name is Lisa Dean and I'm a resident of District 5. I'm calling today in opposition to council member Peterson's amendment to the supplemental budget.

The use of the salary savings is an opportunity to act on the council's important commitments to stop police funding over community needs.

To that end we must instead direct the funds to the 30 plus community organizations building non-police alternatives that currently share only 10 million by approving council members to want amendments.

I also urge the council to end training exchanges between the SPD and countries that violate human rights.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next up is Ben Sircombe followed by Eric Salinger.

Thank you.

Thank you, City Council.

My name is Ben Sircum, and I'm an organizer with Decriminalize Seattle.

I'd like to thank the City Council for hearing our panel of experts and affected individuals at last week's symposium.

You have heard countless testimonials from folks who have benefited from the use of psychedelics over the past couple of months.

We were able to get a recommendation from the OEIR Task Force supporting the ordinance we would like to pass.

We believe that the time is now for Seattle to take a stand on decriminalizing psychedelics.

With significant public backing, including policy experts and medical professionals.

We urge you to pass our ordinance before the budget committee starts at the end of the month.

This will be an extraordinary victory for the city of Seattle.

We are already behind cities like Oakland Washington D.C.

and Denver and the entire state of Oregon.

Let's let's act now for a cause that is so widely supported.

Thank you.

I yield my time.

Thank you.

Next up is Eric Salinger and after Eric will be Taylor Case and Lev Cunningham.

If you're listening, you are showing as not present on my end.

Eric, go ahead.

Hi, so my name is Eric Salinger.

I live in District 7 and I'm calling about the Seattle Police Department and the funding bill.

So I encourage you to not approve Peterson's amendments and to approve so on.

The fact of the matter is, over the last year, we've really seen no willingness from the Seattle Police Department to acknowledge that anything which it did was wrong or upset members of the community and that our upsetness at their actions was even remotely justified.

Now the Seattle Police Department is leading the charge and sending the most officers to a federal insurrection in deposing COVID-19 vaccine mandates.

You can't say you care about public safety in the middle of a pandemic if you refuse to get vaccinated against the plague and you interact with people all the time.

I think that the only real way that these police department is going to change is if they're showing their consequences and consequences mean not giving them money.

That's really all I have to say.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next up is Taylor Case, followed by Jimmy McNamara.

Hi there.

My name is Taylor Pace and I'm from District 4 and I'm calling about Council Bill 120112. I urge the Council members to vote no on this amendment.

While reading the proposal, two line items that stood out to me beyond the ridiculous bonuses for hiring and retention.

$2.2 million for Accenture to finish a data analytics platform, early intervention system, and capacity planning tool While I'm convinced that they do need health capacity planning, considering they sent over 20 officers and shut down a full block just to arrest one person last week, I'm not convinced that Accenture would help, considering they have a history of lying and cheating their way into government contracts, all while not delivering on them.

To add to this, SPD sent Accenture $30 million last year alone, which was 7% of their budget.

On top of all that, Accenture literally got hacked last month.

Considering how stingy SPD is with FOIA requests, I would assume they care about their privacy.

Thank you.

Next up is Jimmy McNamara followed by Izzy Baer.

Hi, I'm Jimmy McNamara from District 4. I'm urging the council to reject Councilman Peterson's amendments.

giving SPD hiring and retention bonuses into favor into vote in favor of Councilmember Sawant's amendment transferring provides the SPD funds into community hands.

I think if we recognize that change needs to happen then we need to follow through on it and Councilmember Peterson's amendments are not following through on that.

I don't think we're sending the right message.

If we continue to fund SPD like this we'd be rewarding their behavior that does not reflect on or acknowledge the harm that they've done in the past.

I also urge the council to vote yes to pass and the deadly exchange for legislation.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next up is Izzy Baer followed by Michael Malini.

Hi, my name is Izzy Baer and I'm a resident of D4.

I am calling to urge council members to reject Council Member Peterson's proposed amendment to continue to take money away from communities and fund racist police officers that don't even live in our city.

And to vote yes on Council Member Solange's proviso amendment to move funding from SPD's salary savings and into HSD to expand the community safety capacity building funding, which is the funding source that both versions of Peterson's amendment would gut.

Please reject both versions of Peterson's amendment and vote yes on Solange's amendment.

Additionally, I don't know why anyone thinks we should be considering top hiring bonuses in the midst of a pandemic.

And how many more black and brown folks need to die for you to see what's going on Council Member Peterson.

Thank you for calling in.

Next up is Michael Malini, followed by Tessa Jackson.

Hi, my name is Michael Malini.

I'm a renter in District 3. I'm just calling for the council to vote down Councilmember Peterson's amendments and transfer the remaining provision of dollars to HSD for community-based organizations that build true public safety and to vote yes on the bill to end trading exchanges between SPD and countries that violate human rights as well.

Thank you.

I yield my time.

Thank you for calling in today.

Before I call on additional speakers, I just want to make a note of folks who are still showing up, is not present on my end.

I have Alexa Fay, Rachel Bregel, Diane Mathers, Lev Cunningham, Quan Wah Lu, Deborah Harrison, Julia Buck, David Haynes, Rob Johansson.

All of you are preregistered, but showing up is not present on my end.

If you call in in the next five minutes or so, you will get your one minute of public comment.

Next up is Tessa Jackson, followed by Alexander Ajeto.

Hello, my name is Tessa Jackson.

I am a resident of District 4 and dismayed that this is the district of Alex Peterson.

I just wanted to talk to the funding at the defunding the SPD and the amendments that are trying to give more money to the SPD and not give them to the community that the community organizations that can make a difference.

I'd just like to speak to Alex Peterson's website and the information he puts on there which says that he is committed to responsive leadership that focuses on our priorities for effective and accountable city government.

I would say that it isn't accountable to give, go back on the promises that were made to giving money to these community organizations.

And I do not see how giving bonuses is effective, an effective policy.

And I'd also like to draw attention to the sensible and data-driven policies that you say that you would like to advocate I think many people today on this call have advocated and given lots of thought on it.

Thank you for calling in.

Next up is Alexander, followed by Stephanie Kirakoff.

Thank you, Council President.

My name is Dr. Alex Ahedo, and I am a community physician, a resident of District 3, and a proud abolitionist.

With regard to the mid-year supplemental budget, I strongly urge the council to reject both Council Member Peterson's amendments to use SPD salary savings provisos to refund SPD and instead support Council Member Salmon's amendment to allocate funding toward the Community Safety Capacity Building Fund.

As a health care provider, I want to stress that the massive amount of funding we provide SPD directly opposes our ability to combat myriad public health crises around us.

Decades of increases in police funding over the years have left us completely unable to appropriately support real community safety through community-based interventions, instead leaving us with racist policing as the only quote-unquote reasonable alternative for most folks to rely upon.

Please stop this trend and fund the human services that support the historically oppressed communities that we have promised so many times to better support.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you for calling in today.

Next up is Deborah Harrison, followed by Stephanie Karakoff.

Hello my name is Stephanie and I'm a resident of District 3. Adding my voice to those who have spoke regarding CB 120.112.

Don't refund SPD.

Vote no on Council Peterson's amendment.

Council members should follow the guidance indicated by research as others have cited including the findings that SPD continues to police in a racially biased manner and the fact that communities that develop and support more community-based programs see decreased in violent crimes and property crimes.

Unless council votes down Peterson's amendment and transfers the remaining proviso dollars to HSD for such community-based organizations building true public safety, this bill should be rejected.

I yield my time.

Thank you so much.

Next up is Deborah Harrison and then after Deborah will be Equinox Equinox.

Oh, Debra, we had you and then we lost you.

Press star six.

My mistake.

I apologize.

That's OK.

No worries.

Are we good?

OK.

Hi there.

My name is Debra Harrison, an abolitionist resident of District 5. I'm calling to support the council in rejecting Council Member Peterson's amendment and asking them to support Council Member Salon's amendment transferring provisos to STD funds into community hands.

I'm a single mother of two who has experienced issues of public safety and fervently wished I had options available to me that did not leverage police response.

Public coordination is an epic endeavor and I appreciate the complexity of building social structures but I want to add my voice to the chorus of folks asking the council to hear that we are ready to take this journey even acknowledging that it will sometimes take time to find sustainable solutions.

This begins with rejecting the processes that we know are ineffective.

SPD at its very best is not equipped to handle any of the things it's asked to address and at worst it puts people especially people of color in serious danger without accountability.

and excited to see the council acknowledging that we can and should do better and that we can find solutions that are proven and effective.

Thank you.

Thank you for calling in today.

Next up is Equinox, Equinox, and then we will circle back to Kwan Wah Loo.

Good afternoon.

My name is Equinox and I'm ashamed to admit that I'm a resident of District 4. So while I'm talking to everyone on council today, Council Member Peterson, this message is directed at you.

Here we are again begging you to stick to the promises you made last year instead of betraying us once again.

HSC is the only city department that even makes an attempt to support our houseless neighbors.

Yet here you are trying to reallocate three million dollars from them to provide SPD with hiring and retention bonuses.

The irony of that decision is not lost on us.

You should be ashamed of yourself.

I'm dumbfounded by how you think this is an appropriate use of funds When your constituents have told you time and time again that we don't want SPD.

They're racist untrained violent and reactionary.

Hey Alex how does it feel to sit here for the better part of an hour as every single caller has been opposed to your amendment.

Does this give you an idea of how we feel.

To the rest of council don't take this dangerous motion into consideration.

Black Lives Matter and the deadly exchange.

Goodbye.

The next speaker is Kwan Wah Lu followed by Sanders Latour.

Kwan, if you're on the line, make sure you press star six so we can hear you.

Still showing us muted so try one more time.

Star six.

Okay.

You are unmuted now.

Just make sure.

Thank you for reminding me.

Hi.

So my name is Kwan and I live on District 7 and I would totally suggest I mean I'm totally for that that Peter's council member Peterson's plan is a disaster and I urge you guys not to pass it.

Over the last years or so SPD has haven't taken any accountability.

And it was only seven months in SPD murder, murder, Derek, Derek Aiden, a man who was suffering mental illness on the on Alaska way on in Seattle.

And also, also, I also just read that there that the officer, Michael Tinian, who called protesters roach, and who drove a car of them, was cleared by OPA of any wrongdoing.

So with an organization like that, I really feel like they're not making communities safe.

So I yield my time.

Thank you.

Thank you for calling back in.

OK, we have two more speakers on our list who are showing up as present.

So next up is Sanders Latour, followed by Sylvie Reynolds.

Good afternoon, my name is Sanders Latour and I live in District 7. Please vote no on Amendment 3A to CB120112.

The money moves from SPD to the new Community Safety Capacity Building RFC.

shows the council's commitment to reimagining community safety by continuing to invest in alternatives to a traditional policing style.

Moving this money back to SPD, we can do that commitment.

From WTO in 1999 to the George Floyd protests in 2020, SPD has not shown itself to truly be the end-all, be-all to community safety in the city.

The road to reimagining community safety may be rocky, but we also know we must work hard to try something new rather than turn around and rely on something fundamentally flawed.

Please vote no on Amendment 3A to CB120112.

Thank you.

Thank you for calling in.

OK, last speaker showing up on my end is Sylvie Reynolds.

Hi, this is Sylvie Reynolds.

I live in Green Lake.

I'm calling to advocate for supporting Councilman Peterson's 121, 122. This place is lawless.

We have an open drug market, people getting shot very close to an elementary school during the day.

We have people running straight through the freeway on Aurora, causing great hazard to many drivers.

And Council President Gonzalez I directly heard you say last week that you met with Green Lake residents and were going to immediately go back to us and email the chief of police and ask him what he was going to do to help the situation and you would not bring your infant into Green Lake, an area of Green Lake.

And so I support that.

You all support this bill.

Thank you.

Okay, I am not seeing any other folks who pre-registered listed on my end.

Just looking to IT to make sure that there isn't anybody in the waiting room who is pre-registered.

There are no more public comment registrants.

Thank you so much, son.

Appreciate that.

So with that being said, we are going to go ahead and close out the period of public comment and move on to other items of business on our agenda.

Next up is payment of the bills.

We do have four bills to consider here.

So I'm going to ask the clerk, please read all of the titles for payment of bills.

Council Bills 120166 through 120168 and 120176 appropriate amended pays out of claims to the week of August 9th, 2021 through August 13th, 2021 and ordering payment thereof.

Appropriate amended pays out of claims for the week of August 16th, 2021 through August 20th, 2021 and ordering payment thereof.

Appropriate in mind to pay certain audit claims for the week of August 23rd, 2021 through August 27th, 2021 and ordering the payment thereof.

And appropriate in mind to pay certain claims to the week of August 30th, 2021 through September 3rd, 2021 and ordering the payment thereof.

Thank you so much, Madam Clerk.

So I'm going to go ahead and move all four bills and ask for a second on all four bills.

However, we will be voting on each bill individually, so there will be an individual roll call on each of the four bills that the clerk just read into the record.

So I move to pass Council Bill 120166, 120167, 120168, and 120176. Is there a second?

Thank you so much.

It's been moved and seconded that all four bills pass.

Are there any additional comments on the bills?

Hearing none, will the clerk please call the roll on the passage of Council Bill 120166. Peterson?

Yes.

Sawant.

Yes.

Strauss.

Yes.

Herbold.

Yes.

Juarez.

Aye.

Lewis.

Yes.

Morales.

Yes.

Mosqueda.

Aye.

President Gonzalez.

Aye.

Nine in favor, none opposed.

The bill passes and the chair will sign it.

Will the clerk please affix my signature to the legislation on my behalf.

Will the clerk please call the roll on the passage of council bill 120167. Peterson.

Yes.

Sawant.

Yes.

Strauss.

Council Member Strauss.

Yes.

Herbold.

Yes.

Juarez.

Aye.

Lewis.

Yes.

Morales.

Yes.

Mosqueda.

Aye.

President Gonzalez.

Aye.

Nine in favor, none opposed.

The bill passes and the chair will sign it.

Will the clerk please affix my signature to the legislation on my behalf.

Will the clerk please call the roll on the passage of Council Bill 120168. Peterson.

Yes.

Sawant.

Yes.

Strauss.

Yes.

Herbold.

Yes.

Juarez.

Aye.

Lewis.

Yes.

Morales.

Yes.

Mosqueda.

Aye.

President Gonzalez.

Aye.

Nine in favor, none opposed.

The bill passes and the chair will sign it.

Will the clerk please affix my signature to the legislation on my behalf.

Okay, last one.

Will the clerk please call the roll on the passage of Council Bill 120176. Peterson.

Yes.

Sawant.

Yes.

Strauss.

Yes.

Herbold.

Yes.

Juarez.

Aye.

Lewis.

Yes.

Morales.

Yes.

Mosqueda.

Aye.

President Gonzalez.

Aye.

Aye.

Nine in favor, none opposed.

The bill passes and the chair will sign it.

Will the clerk please affix my signature to the legislation on my behalf?

Okay, item one was held indefinitely, so we'll move to item two.

Will the clerk please read the short title of item two into the record?

The report of the Finance and Housing Committee, agenda item two, Council Bill 120111, authorizing in 2021 acceptance of funding from non-city sources.

The committee recommends the bill pass.

Thank you, Madam Clerk.

I'm going to hand it over to Council Member Mosqueda, who is the chair of this committee, to provide the report on this bill.

Thank you, Madam President.

Colleagues, I am excited that we finally have in front of us the mid-year supplemental budget.

This has been extensively discussed in the Finance and Housing Committee, which all of you have been invited to.

I think those of you who have joined our committee meeting and prepared amendments that we were able to discuss in that committee and in front of you, I think we have a bill that reflects many of the amendments from council and again, accomplishes some investments in new emerging areas that we did not anticipate when we had considered our 2021 budget.

As a reminder, the supplemental budget and amendments that we consider are intended to be focused on emerging and necessary items for this calendar year.

We only have two more weeks until we begin discussing the fall budget, which will allow for us to make investments in the 2022 calendar year.

Council Bill 120112 is the- Sorry, I'm going to throw up the flag here.

I thought maybe you were ahead of us.

We are on item two, which is Council Bill 120111, which is the acceptance of funding from non-city sources.

So I'm going to just take you back one agenda item so that you can walk us through the grant acceptance ordinance before we begin the conversation around the supplemental budget.

Apologies for that, Council President.

It's a good thing these two items go together, but my apologies, colleagues.

Council Bill 120111 is the Grant Acceptance Ordinance.

Again, this is a periodic ordinance that we consider to accept funds directed to various city programs and departments.

We did have the opportunity, along with discussing the supplemental budget, to ask questions in committee several times on this, and this is a unanimous recommendation for our consideration today.

Hope to have your support.

Excellent.

Thank you so much.

Okay.

Are there any comments on this council bill, which is again, the grant acceptance bill?

I'm not seeing any hands raised or anyone wanting to make additional comments on the bill.

So I'm going to ask that the clerk please call the roll on the passage of the bill.

Peterson.

Yes.

Sawant.

Yes.

Strauss.

Yes.

Herbold.

Yes.

Juarez.

Aye.

Lewis.

Yes.

Morales.

Yes.

Mosqueda.

Aye.

President Gonzalez.

Aye.

Nine in favor, none opposed.

The bill passes and the chair will sign up.

Will the clerk please affix my signature to the legislation on my behalf.

Will the clerk please read the short title of item three into the record.

agenda item 3, council bill 120112 amending ordinance 126237 which adopted the 2021 budget including the 2021 through 2026 capital improvement program.

The committee recommends the bill pass as amended.

Thank you so much.

Now we can talk about the supplemental budget ordinance.

I'm going to hand it over to you to provide the committee report.

Thank you, council president.

Apologies, colleagues.

Let's talk about agenda item number three.

This is council bill 120112. As I was beginning to say, this is the second comprehensive supplemental budget legislation that has been transmitted by the executive to the council in 2021. This proposed midyear appropriation included positions and capital projects necessary to meet the needs that were unforeseeable at the time of the 2021 budget adoption in November of 2020. several departments total mid-year supplemental improvements include necessary investments in key categories like office of labor standards which is receiving 1.8 million dollars which is to go to the driver's resolution center this was a key piece of legislation that the council passed to make sure that lyft and uber and other gig drivers had a driver resolution center to make sure that they had their knees met, excited about that piece.

Another piece that I'm excited to lift up is $2.5 million that goes into several programs at the Department of Arts and Culture.

This includes $1.6 million from the Municipal Arts Fund for public art projects associated with the waterfront, as we look to continue to get folks out and actively engaged in our community, especially along the waterfront.

I know there's a lot of anticipation for that.

It includes things like $2.5 million to increase the FAS fund to support staffing and contracts, supplies and operations of vaccine sites that the city works so diligently to make sure we're available for our residents.

And we're making sure that we're providing the funding necessary for those previous operations.

The neighborhood large Vision Zero project is also included.

$2 million is going to the Move Seattle increase to a $2 million increase from the Move Seattle levy fund is going to implement changes recommended by the Levy Oversight Committee to increase support for safety projects.

and accelerate in-demand neighborhood projects.

I'm excited about a few additional amendments that the colleagues on the committee helped to support and include in the legislation in front of you.

And if I may, Madam President, just want to highlight a few of those before turning it over to our colleagues that have really made this a robust supplemental discussion.

This includes, thank you, Madam President, this includes the inclusion of an additional position at Seattle Fire Department for a crisis counselor This will assist with training and facilitating conversations with Seattle Fire Department personnel.

Colleagues, this is a compliment to the crisis counselor that we provided in last year's budget that provides trauma-informed counseling services, referrals, and trainings for those who are focused on scene safety and making sure that we're keeping firefighters safe and increasing the positive interactions that they have with individuals in crisis or suffering from mental health and behavioral health issues.

We now, with this funding, will have two crisis counselors, one within Seattle Fire Department and one, again, within Local 27's Trust to make sure that we really have reduced the barriers for firefighters to be able to access crisis counselors.

I'm also excited about the $200,000 that we included in this supplemental budget to make sure that we're helping provide funding for material support as we continue to build tiny houses through organizations such as Sound Foundations Northwest.

And finally, I will try to be brief as we have worked on a large amendment with Council Member Herbold as vice chair of finance and housing, but as chair of public safety.

As we were on the cusp of passing the supplemental budget, we did get word from the mayor's office and then subsequent press events about $15 million underspent.

And so what Council Member Herbold and I did with the support of the colleagues on the committee was work to bring forward an amendment that included many strategies to address public safety and to couple those public safety investments with community efforts to scale up alternatives to our traditional police response by making sure that we had investments directly into community.

I think the package in front of us, including the amendment that we worked on, is an important balance, an important balance of investing in community services, civil service positions.

triage one represents an effort to make sure that we're meeting council and executive priorities and that we have expressed our intent to make sure that we are moving forward with things like making sure that the mental health providers are available for frontline responders, for making sure that we are paying for paid parental leave, addressing the increased use of overtime by making sure that we're recognizing that that overtime is probably larger than what was actually needed given the fourth wave of COVID, and that we've made sure that we've invested in King County Regional Peacekeepers and the funding that was needed to make sure that our community has the funding that they need to respond to these crises.

I'm most excited to highlight the $3 million that we have included in this proposal as well to invest in the Human Service Department community safety contracts.

that are needed to provide stability so that there's truly a landing zone or a landing place, as the firefighters have talked about, so that we can extend those contracts from not just 18 months, but truly to two years.

And we have received support from those frontline responders that that's really important to have stability for the community partners so that when 911 is called, if fire or police show up, they have someone to refer those individuals to.

That is what those HSD safety and contracts are doing.

We are excited about those, but let's make sure that they last for at least two years.

So the $3 million investment in Council Member Herbold and I's amendment that was passed in committee accomplishes that.

I'm proud of the work that we've done in front of us.

I know that there's a few amendments for us to discuss today, but want to thank all of you for your work on the supplemental.

It was three months in our committee intentionally so that we could address this underspend and and respond to the need for public safety investments as well as community investments so that upstream solutions could be funded as well as investments in our city's departments.

Please, Council President, thank you very much for the opportunity to speak to this and I'll hold the remainder of my comments.

Great.

All right, colleagues, we do have several amendments.

My suggestion, sort of consistent with how we usually structure these conversations, is to go through the amendments and before opening up discussion and debate on the substance of the bill.

If there's no objection, I would like to go ahead and proceed in that manner.

So consideration of amendments first, debate on amendments, and then we can sort of make closing wrap up comments on the bill as amended.

Is there any objection to proceeding in that way?

Okay, it seems to make the most sense to me.

Okay, so why don't we go ahead and go through the amendments.

I do have a list of all of the amendments in front of me, including the sponsors of said amendments.

I'm just gonna keep us moving through this and call on each council member as they're listed in my script here.

So let's go ahead and move over to Council Member Herbold, who I understand is intending to move amendment one.

Thank you so much.

I move to amend Council Bill 12-0112 as presented as Amendment 1 on the agenda.

Second.

It's been moved and seconded by Council Member Esqueda to adopt Amendment 1 as presented on the agenda.

And I'm going to hand it back over to Council Member Herbold to address the amendment.

Thank you so much.

So this amendment is a technical amendment.

It moves appropriation authority within the Seattle Police Department budget summary levels to effectuate the spending of salary savings described in Section 20 of Council Bill 1201. one, two, including the technology updates, the civilian divisions, the work scheduling timekeeping project, the Nick Jr. contract, the SPD mental health provider program, contract background services, separation pay, shortfall, the deferred compensation shortfall, and paid parental leave.

This is consistent with a long-held priority of mine for the oversight of the Seattle Police Department, where we work to make sure that the appropriation authority is in place in advance of the spending so that we don't have a situation where SPD in essence, goes forward with the spending in alignment with their objectives and comes back to council after the fact and asks us to approve it after those decisions have already been made.

Thank you.

Excellent.

Colleagues, any comments or questions on Amendment 1?

I'm not seeing any.

We did have a conversation about this amendment during council briefing.

So thanks so much for the opportunity to engage on that this morning as well.

OK, colleagues, hearing and seeing no additional comments, will the clerk please call the roll on the adoption of Amendment 1.

Peterson.

Yes.

Sawant.

Yes.

Strauss.

Yes.

Herbold.

Yes.

Juarez.

Aye.

Lewis.

Yes.

Morales?

Yes.

Mosqueda?

Aye.

President Gonzalez?

Aye.

Nine in favor, none opposed.

The motion carries.

The amendment is adopted, and the amended bill is before the council.

We're now going to go ahead and move over to Council Member Lewis, who has Amendment 2.

Thank you, Madam President.

I move to amend Council Bill 120112 as presented on Amendment 2. Second.

It's been moved and seconded by Council Member Peterson to adopt amendment two as presented on the agenda.

I'm gonna hand it back over to Council Member Lewis to walk us through his amendment.

Thank you, Madam President.

Fairly simple amendment.

I touched on it this morning at briefing.

This amendment was recommended by the City Budget Office to move some money that I amended at committee into this bill from the Human Services Department into the Planning Department to take advantage of an existing contract for capital support in the Planning Department.

for the Chief Seattle Club, which has a permanent supportive housing project that this amendment aims to provide support to.

It is merely a technical amendment to take advantage of that existing contract and more efficiently get that investment out the door.

And happy to answer any questions.

Otherwise, stand by those comments.

Great.

Thank you so much.

Colleagues, any additional comments or questions on Amendment 2?

All right.

Hearing none, will the clerk please call the roll on the adoption of Amendment 2.

Peterson.

Yes.

Sawant.

Yes.

Strauss.

Yes.

Herbold.

Yes.

Juarez.

Aye.

Lewis.

Yes.

Morales.

Yes.

Mosqueda.

Aye.

President Gonzalez.

Aye.

amendment 3A.

Any discussion?

None in favor?

None opposed?

Motion carries.

The amendment is adopted and the amended bill is before the Council.

We are going to move now to amendment 3A and I will hand it over to Councilmember Peterson to make his motion.

Thank you, Council President.

Just for context, there are two options here but I will move the first option.

It's been moved and seconded by Councilmember Juarez to adopt amendment 3A as presented on the agenda.

I'm going to hand it back over to Councilmember Peterson to walk us through his amendment.

Thank you, Council President.

Colleagues, this budget amendment would allocate funds that were already in SPD's adopted 2021 budget to help recruit and retain SPD personnel because we've lost 300 officers and detectives over the past 18 months.

There are two options for the amendment.

Option A would keep $3 million within SBD's budget for recruitment and retention, whereas option B would take an unallocated $1.1 million and dedicate it for recruitment and retention.

This first vote is on option 1, the larger amount.

Colleagues, I believe this motion should be viewed in the bigger picture of the substantial investments and actions that we have taken and will continue to take to boost human services programs and to reimagine public safety.

As we await various alternatives to be put in place, we must also recognize the tidal wave of attrition, the spike in 911 response times for priority one and priority two calls, the benefits of having community policing officers and detectives, and as noted by the monitor of the federal consent decree, the need to have sufficient staffing to advance and sustain reforms for the department that we still have.

We also have an obligation under City Charter Article 6, Section 1, to maintain adequate police protection in each district of the city.

I want to thank the Reverend Harriet Walden, the leader of Mothers for Police Accountability, for supporting these amendments for recruitment and retention, as well as many people who sent emails in support.

I also want to acknowledge everyone who called in today to voice their opposition and concern.

I also hear you.

It's important to note that these funds were already funded to SPD as part of the 2021 budget.

So labeling the proposals as a refunding, I don't believe is fully accurate.

These amendments would, however, focus some of those funds for recruitment and retention.

Option A would still enable the human services programs to be funded all through next year, 2022. And we have plenty of opportunities to extend and expand those effective programs later this fall or next year.

but we are in the middle of an SPD staffing crisis now.

Specifically, option A would keep the $3 million in SPD with $233,000 for hiring incentives for the last three months of this year, plus the remainder, the $2.7 million, as an immediate down payment for flexible retention strategies, which could include retention pay but does not have to.

if authorized by a separate bill that I had introduced earlier.

These, what I believe, modest amounts in my budget amendment go beyond mere words to demonstrate that we recognize the impacts of the staffing crisis and that we want our remaining officers and detectives to stay in Seattle.

So rather than delaying until the end of November to vote on this for next year's budget, we can take this swifter action this week to reduce the amount of time Seattle residents wait for an officer after calling 911. Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Peterson.

Are there any additional comments or questions on the amendment?

Okay, I have three folks in the queue.

First up is Council Member Herbal, then Council Member Lewis, and then Council Member Sawant.

Thank you so much.

I totally agree that hiring and retention is a really important issue.

And I agree with it in not just words, but in action.

The legislation before us, as amended by the Finance and Budget Committee and without Councilmember Peterson's amendment, includes recruitment support by funding hiring process accelerators.

The topic merits additional attention, and I believe it merits additional attention through the annual budget process, which begins in a couple weeks.

And I believe this because I want to look at the vacancy rates of all city departments and look at this question of how we incentivize folks taking these good family wage jobs across all the departments that are experiencing vacancies right now.

Central staff has determined that the executive has documented staffing shortages and accompanying service delivery issues in a few different departments.

And it's well known that the impacts of COVID on employment has been unprecedented, both for the private sector as well as the public sector, with people leaving their jobs and with sustained vacancies across most unemployment most employment sectors as well.

I value the delivery of city services of all city departments and if we need to just discuss recruitment I think we need to consider vacancies across all city departments and whether we need to consider hiring bonuses to fulfill hiring goals in service delivery obligations for other departments as well.

So I would support considering this within the context of the 2022 budget, again, which will begin in two weeks.

The proposal from Councilmember Peterson would authorize up to $15,000 per SPD hire.

If we are considering hiring bonuses for hires to other departments, we need to consider the possible citywide costs if we're allowing for one particular department up to $15,000 per hire.

just as a little bit of background on this topic generally, back in July, I did request that SPD send a memo to the City Council to make some recommendations for spending, given the fact that we knew there was a lot of funds within the Seattle Police Department budget in the salary savings category, that SPD was not going to be able to spend unless we authorized reallocation of some of those funds.

And so in that memo, the police department requested funding for hiring bonuses, including, as I mentioned earlier, the hiring process accelerators, but there was no broader request at the time for funding for retention.

So these are my comments as it relates to the retention piece of Councilmember Peterson's proposal.

So I just want to highlight that as it relates specifically to retention, as I mentioned during budget, I mean, sorry, during briefings this morning, I really want to focus on the recommendations of a 2019 hiring and retention report.

that called for what are called wellness first schedules.

These are four 10-hour shifts that provide officers three consecutive days of rest for officers rather than just two.

This has historically been the highest rated priority for for officers, and I'm concerned that although the amendment includes some specific language, $230,000 for the hiring bonuses piece, the description of the amendment by the sponsor expresses a vague intent.

Because the $3,000 is very specific for hiring bonuses and the larger amount of the funds, the rest of the $3 million isn't specified for any particular use, that would mean it would likely need to be reauthorized during the 2020 process in any event.

I just want to note that the that many frontline workers have received what's called appreciation pay for their service during the pandemic.

And I'm supportive of continuing discussions for how best to authorize appreciation pay for police officers.

I'm very grateful for the work of Seattle Police Department and the officers who have not left SPD and remain committed to community safety and committed specifically to community safety in Seattle.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Herbold.

Councilmember Lewis.

Thank you, Madam President, and I want to thank the sponsor for bringing this amendment forward for the discussion.

I am going to say at the top that I will not be voting for this amendment, but I want to expand on the reasons why.

And I appreciate the opportunity for this debate.

That's why this council is here to debate pressing public issues.

I agree with the sponsor of the amendment and with Chair Herbold and her comments just now that we do have a police staffing crisis.

And I think a lot of us on the council agree more broadly with that, which is why we fully funded a police hiring class for 2021. That's often not mentioned in the media or the stories discoursing about police hiring, that the council did fully fund a hiring class.

And I don't disagree that a partial strategy to mitigate this crisis can be through the hiring and retention incentives that are being proffered today by Council Member Peterson.

What I disagree with is the reprioritization of the money component of this amendment.

Money earmarked for critical crime prevention programs in the Human Services Department.

And I just want to take a moment to discourse a little more broadly about the public safety crisis in the city and how alternative investments are needed and how they can make an impact.

And I want to focus particularly because it's been a big crisis in my district, and I know it has across many other districts.

It's touched every district in the city throughout this year, and that's gun violence.

And I want to start by strongly acknowledging the critical role that the police play in responding to and preventing gun violence.

As of August 31st, Seattle police have recovered more than 700 guns this year, taken them off the street, physically removed 700 guns from the street and secured them.

Seattle police continue to have as part of their mission, serving extreme risk protection orders to seize firearms from folks who pose a safety risk to themselves or others.

And these efforts undoubtedly prevent gun violence in our community, save lives and make the community safer.

But there's limits to what police alone can achieve.

And we need to keep leaning into the investments this council has advocated for that can have a profound impact on gun violence prevention.

And I think this becomes more evident when we look at the data on the shootings that we are seeing and experiencing in Seattle this year to really determine what can we do to intervene and prevent these shootings before they occur that are having such a horrible impact on our community.

uh...

this last friday i and listen to crystal nicole fincher's we can review podcast for her hacks and walks highly recommended if if folks have haven't listened i recommend you you give it a shot it's great and crystal and former mayor mcgann i had a great conversation about the current discourse our city is having around gun violence in particular And they noted, and I can't say I disagree from their discussion, that there's been a lack of critical analysis by many in the media to delve into our increase in shootings and what the data is indicating so that we can have a real response as a community on what we're going to do to deal with this epidemic of gun violence that is crippling our city and killing people in our community.

And we need to see who are the victims, who's doing the shooting.

And we need to look holistically at how we can respond.

And I wanna briefly just illustrate by sharing a little bit of analysis I did, because I was curious in getting information and data shared by the police department.

And overwhelmingly in 2021, our neighbors experiencing homelessness have vastly and disproportionately been the victims of the increase in gun crime.

According to data that was provided to me by the police department on September 1st, so a bit over a week ago, we have had 64 shots fired incidents with a homeless nexus.

That's up 120% from 2020. It's a huge part of the increase in gun violence we're seeing on the street.

It's nearly one-fifth of all the shootings that have occurred in 2020. And tragically, I had no doubt after the last 12 days since I got that data, that that data is probably out of date.

And in almost all of these cases, the victim of the shooting is a neighbor experiencing homelessness.

In most cases, the shooting occurs in an unsanctioned encampment setting.

I raise this because police alone can't prevent these shootings.

I have incredible gratitude for the officers that have been responding to these encampments and responding to these shootings, and in many cases apprehending a suspect, recovering guns and getting them off the street.

And I appreciate that exigent response, and I know it makes the community safer.

But until people are provided with desirable alternative places to live, with wraparound services, all we are doing is responding.

to encampments that are providing, in many cases, an exigent hub of continued gun violence.

And we're not proactively solving for the underlying causes of the trauma and the violence.

We are also, frankly, putting more work and exposure on our officers to continue to respond, in many cases, to very dangerous situations by not solving for these underlying causes.

And I know I'm a broken record on this, and I know I have agreement from my colleagues here nearly unanimously, but Just Care, has undeniably prevented shootings that would have occurred, but for their intervention.

Just Care offers highly desirable, well-supported hotel room shelter spaces, which are overwhelmingly accepted by community members and by our neighbors experiencing homelessness.

And a University of Washington study demonstrated that neighborhoods where Just Care is active see a 38% reduction in 911 call volume after their outreach operations.

I have no doubt that the Just Care outreach at the former encampment on 3rd Avenue downtown, at the 2nd Avenue extension in Pioneer Square, at City Hall Park by the courthouse prevented shootings from occurring that would have otherwise occurred.

Because there is a clear correlation between having thousands of our residents exposed to the elements and their tragic likelihood of being a victim of gun crime.

Bringing it back to the amendment, I think it's critical that we center these human services investments as a large portion of these salary savings to invest in these proactive community safety strategies.

And we need to look no further than the mentorship and community building efforts at Community Passageways to know that that's true and that's possible.

Known gang-related shootings this year have actually decreased in 2021. The city, the council, and the mayor working together have expanded these youth support programs, and they're building strong communities.

These innovative community programs can get to scale.

They can give us the resources to build strong, supported, and safe communities.

We shouldn't be pitting these investments against each other.

And I stand by dedicating this money to the Human Services Department.

And for that reason, I'm going to vote against this amendment.

Thank you, Council Member Lewis for those comments.

Council Member Sawant.

Thank you.

I will be voting against this amendment, needless to say.

For members of the public who are listening, today's budget votes should be a clear illustration of the importance of movements.

At the height of the Justice for George Floyd movement, the majority of the council committed to defund the police by 50% and to instead put those funds into supporting community development, into social needs.

Now that the street movement has waned, every marginal victory that the movement won last year is under attack.

We saw earlier this year how the majority of the city council drove in loopholes into the historic ban on the so-called crowd control weapons that our movement had won through the efforts of hundreds of activists and my council office.

This is why our movement cannot trust the political establishment and why we need to build our own political power outside the Republican and Democratic parties through a party for working people.

And keep in mind that here in Seattle, every council member currently, except for my office, is a Democrat.

This is why I am a socialist.

On this issue, first, let's be clear about the double standard we are talking about.

When council members like Peterson, advocate for hiring bonuses in the Seattle Police Department.

But it's frankly, it's not just Council Member Peterson who has talked about this today or in the past.

The police are some of the highest paid people among City of Seattle employees, making more than double what is paid to many social workers like homeless service workers.

The mayor has claimed that she cannot use the funding for shelter and tiny house villages that the people's budget movement and other activists won in the last budget because there are not enough homeless service workers to staff new spaces.

Where are the hiring bonuses or just a raise for the impoverished homeless service workers who actually help people turn their lives around?

I have heard Council members lamenting the rate of attrition among police officers.

I would ask them, have they looked at the turnover among social workers because of how low their pay is in relation to the services they provide?

It should not be a surprise that there is low morale among police officers.

Of course there is.

Over the last year, we saw the murder of George Floyd.

We saw Seattle police filling our communities with tear gas, pepper spraying children in the face, running over protesters' heads with bicycles, And all that is in addition to the usual level of violence from the police towards communities of color, working class communities, and poor people, especially our homeless neighbors.

and overall repressive policing practices.

And we should, of course, note that the police do this with the consent of the political establishment.

Of course, there is a low morale among police officers when so many ordinary people have opened their eyes and are totally outraged by the harm that the police do.

The solution is not to pretend that those problems and that that justifiable outrage doesn't exist.

The solution is to hold police accountable for the violence that they do and to fund the needs of the community.

I do not support reinstituting hiring bonuses for police, the highest paid people in the city.

I do not support this amendment, which would slash the funds to community programs to fund the expansion of repressive policing.

Remember, the amount of police funding does not have any statistical impact on the amount of crime in a community.

It is inequality that has the greatest statistical impact.

I absolutely share the concerns that ordinary people have about the rise in gun violence.

I have that concern as well.

There is no question that we need to address this.

But if you looked at this statistically, you would see that this is happening even though the police budget has been bloated for many years.

The 50% defund hasn't happened.

That demand was never And if you look at the data, the police budget has been bloated for many years, while the social services and affordable housing that working people, oppressed communities, and the poor need continue to be gravely underfunded.

And I don't just mean in the city, they are underfunded at the state level and at the federal level also.

And at the same time, we are seeing rents by corporate landlords skyrocketing, even in the midst of a pandemic.

Studies show overwhelmingly that the best and really only solution to public safety issues is to fund the needs of our society.

To address crime and particularly to stop crimes before they even happen, we need to fund affordable social housing expansion, like we did with the Amazon tax.

And that was important and historic, but it is not enough.

We need to raise wages even further.

We need to have rent control and other renters rights.

We need to end exploitation as a whole, not increase repression.

And in addition to all of this, we need an elected community oversight committee with full powers to hold the police accountable.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Sawant for your comments.

Are there any additional comments on Amendment 3A?

Okay, I'm not seeing any other hands raised on Amendment 3A.

I do want to make sure that Councilmember Peterson has an opportunity to have the last word since this is his amendment.

So I'm going to hand it back over to Council Member Peterson to close out debate on Amendment 3A.

Thank you, Council President.

I appreciate the comments from my colleagues and happy to just vote on 3A, and then we might be getting to 3B sooner than I thought.

Okey dokey.

All right, colleagues, that does conclude debate on Amendment 3A, so I am going to ask that the clerk please call the roll on the adoption of Amendment 3A.

Peterson.

Yes.

Sawant.

No.

Strauss.

No.

Herbold.

No.

Juarez.

Aye.

Lewis.

No.

Morales.

No.

Mosqueda?

No.

President Gonzalez?

No.

Two in favor, seven opposed.

Okay, the motion fails and the amendment is not adopted.

So we're gonna go ahead and move to Council Member Peterson's amendment 3B.

So I'm gonna hand it over to Council Member Peterson to make his motion.

Thank you, Council President.

I move to amend Council Bill 120112 as presented as Amendment 3B on today's Council agenda.

Second.

Thank you so much.

It's been moved and seconded by Council Member Juarez to adopt Amendment 3B as presented on the agenda.

I'm going to hand it back over to Council Member Peterson to walk us through this amendment.

Thank you, Council President.

the year 2023 HSD programs.

I support those HSD programs and will support them in 2023. This however is just $1 million and it's from an unallocated portion It would be dedicated toward retention and recruitment.

It would be the same amount for recruitment, $233,000, which is for the last three months of this year.

And the remaining amount as a down payment toward efforts to retain existing officers and detectives.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

I do see a couple of people with their hands raised.

And so I'm going to go ahead and start calling on folks.

Council Member Herbold is up first.

Thank you.

All of my comments that I made about recruitment and retention strategies and my belief that in addition to the funding that's in this legislation for recruitment and retention strategies, which again, there is some funding in this bill devoted to those purposes.

So all of my comments about the funding objectives that I made in the previous amendments still stand for this.

I want to just very quickly speak to the fund source as I understand the proposal and the impacts of the proposal.

As I understand it, and from the central staff memo, that if this amendment is passed and this department spent its salary savings consistent with the modified intent, then SPD would not have remaining salary savings to spend on some items that we have identified, that council has identified as a priority and included support for And that, well, we did not include support for it in this bill.

But they have been identified by SPD as high priorities.

And one of those is funding for a new CSO squad at the rate of $120,000 for 2021. Potential COVID-related compensation, 0.5 million.

And then the identification of $3 million to fund overtime costs.

We did fund $1.5 million of the requested $3 million of overtime, and that is authorized in Council Bill 120112 as amended.

But then we specifically referenced the $1.5 million in the bill.

that came out of committee as potential sources for these other high priorities from the police department.

If we vote in favor of this second option, we're pretty close to zeroing out SPD's budget, and we can't look at funding of, or SPD can't look at the funding for its other priorities.

In particular, as it relates to the overtime, although I'm really, I'm glad that we've sort of held the line at adding 1.5 million, I just want to signal, um, that my understanding that as it relates to some specific training priorities, specifically use of force training, de-escalation training, crisis response training, as well as some particular reviews that the police department has to do, their force intervention, their FIT reviews, their force reviews, their force review board reviews, these reviews are required for SPD to do in advance of an OPA investigation, when there's an OPA investigation associated with the use of force.

And they have a big backlog on doing these FIT reviews and these FRB reviews.

which then delays the OPA investigations.

And then finally, supervision ratios, sergeant to officer ratios, a lot of those.

And so we think of sometimes we think of overtime as, you know, overtime for for emphasis patrols or overtime for associated with protest response.

This is also a really critical use of overtime, particularly when the department does have a lot of vacancies.

They then rely more on overtime so that officers can be paid to, again, complete the training, the consent decree-required training.

These FIT reviews, the FRB reviews, as well as the supervision ratios are part of the consent decree.

So for this reason, I apologize, but I cannot support the amendment, modified amendment, with a different source of funds.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

Councilmember Herbold, really appreciate that additional detail.

Councilmember Lewis, you are next in the queue, and then Councilmember Smith.

Go ahead.

Thank you, Madam President.

While I opposed Councilmember Peterson's Amendment A, I do intend on voting for Amendment D today, and I want to expand on some of the reasons why.

As I said before, I agree that the police staffing crisis is real, and I agree that we need to transition to a right-sized first response where police are one of several services that can be dispatched.

We have a report now from the National Institute for Criminal Justice Reform, commissioned by SPD and funded by this council, indicating that 75% of calls for service could ultimately be handled by civilian response service.

We know that that number is contested by the department, but that there is a consensus on a sizable percentage.

And we know that some of those services are being stood up.

But those services have not been completely built, nor have they been scaled.

And the Council has taken those initial steps by building an independent dispatch service, which is critical and essential.

We've expanded the HealthONE program.

We're in the process of developing TriageONE, which will take on a large range of calls for service.

My hope is that TriageONE will be in the mold of Denver STAR program or Eugene Oregon's CAHOOTS or something similar to those low acuity response programs.

But this is still in the future.

It's still being discussed and we still don't completely know what role those programs will fill, let alone when they'll be at scale to take calls for service.

I firmly believe, based on analyzing the whole national situation on policing and public safety, that the American cities of the future are going to be the cities that engage in this diversification of response services.

not only for the benefit to health and wellness of getting a better tailored first response for calls for service, but because responding to historic levels of attrition for police to continue to fill the same footprint police have always filled in the United States is not going to be logistically possible.

Police hiring is down 5% nationally.

Resignations from police services have risen 18% and retirements have risen 45%.

It's a crisis that is not unique to Seattle.

New York City alone lost 5,346 police officers in 2020, a 75% increase in their attrition rate.

But such large attrition prior to the establishment of scale of alternative services and responses greatly hampers our ability as a city to provide first response.

the only service that is to scale, that can fill the role of exigent first response, as of our deliberations right now, today, is the police department.

I didn't support amendment A, because the only way we're going to realize the future vision that all of us on the council share, is going to be continuing to make steady and consistent investments in the human services department to develop, and other departments, to develop and create these response services.

and have those programs continue to be evaluated and scaled to take on new and bigger duties.

But until that time, we need a viable police department capable of responding to exigent calls for service.

For that reason, I'm voting in favor of taking a currently undedicated portion of salary savings for some of these hiring and retention services and strategies, and will vote in favor of the amendment today.

Thank you so much, Council Member Lewis.

Council Member Salant, you are next in line.

Thank you.

Again, I will be voting no on this amendment.

I won't repeat what I said for the previous vote, but this proposal has all the same problems.

I do not support increasing repressive policing.

We should instead invest in reducing inequality.

One year ago, council members were saying that they could not defund the police in 2020 as promised because they would require several months to lay off police officers.

But they said, don't worry, they will do so.

in 2021, then in 2021, rather than cutting the bloated police budget, they instituted provisos to study out of order layoffs.

Now this supplemental budget ends those provisos and they're talking about hiring bonuses to increase the size of the police force.

The thing that changed is the movement in 2020, where we had thousands on the streets in Seattle protesting police violence.

I do not support reinstituting hiring bonuses for the police and will be voting no on this amendment.

And as members of the public know, I do have an amendment from my office to actually put some of the money in to the Supporting Safe Communities Fund in the Human Services Department, and that will be upcoming, and I'll speak to that at that time.

Thank you.

Thank you so much, Council Member Sawant.

Are there any additional comments on Amendment 3B?

Council Member Mosqueda, please.

Thank you, Council President.

Colleagues, I too wanted to give you my rationale for voting no on this amendment.

I want to start with reminding ourselves about what is in this amendment.

What is in this amendment largely reflects conversations that we've had with community, with the Seattle Fire, with members of the mayor's office about ideas to make sure that we are addressing some of the pressing stressors that we see in SPD.

That includes making sure that there's full funding as requested for the mental health provider, full funding for the paid parental leave.

As we know, more people have taken paid parental leave and sick leave because of a pandemic, which is something we want them to be doing.

This includes the requested civilian support positions at 1.047 million to make sure that there's additional people who can respond to crises so that it doesn't have to be an armed officer with a badge.

It includes a half a million requested for the King County Regional Peacekeepers Collective focused on addressing gun violence.

In King County, that is a proven public health strategy again as requested to help relieve officers with a gun from having to show up.

It also includes the requested 700,000 for triage one with the additional amendment that we will be making to make sure that there is a appropriate and well-thought-through protocol system so that we are having community places where people can go when 9-1-1 is called a true landing zone.

We've included these things in addition to making sure that the SCCC or the new department that we're standing up has the support that it needs to invest in the protocol system that Council Member Herbold led on last year.

It includes the two positions for public records disclosure and IT to help alleviate some of the pressure that SPD is currently facing apparently for their lack of response to the public records request.

And we have included these positions to make sure that we're addressing the long backlog of PDR requests that will hopefully relieve some of the pressure on the existing staff as well.

And in the wake of last year's uprising, there has been rightfully a call for us to increase demand for transparency, and records requests, we want to do this.

In addition to that, I want to underscore the importance of what council members have been talking about this morning, and that is the investments that we are making previous and today in the human service department community safety programs.

We have included in this proposal $3 million, as we talked about previously, to make sure that our community organizations who are showing up as alternatives to policing are are able to have funding, not just for a year and a half, but stability for two years, which is something that we've heard directly from frontline fire responders, which is so critical for those who are experiencing mental health or behavioral health issues, a place to go.

So I bring that up.

to underscore the importance of what is in this bill to address the pressure that we have been hearing about.

But it is also important to put that information in the context of what the data says.

Data has been mentioned in this comment so far, so I want to emphasize what we see from the Marshall Project that led with the headline recently that said, police say demoralized officers are quitting in droves.

Labor Day data says no.

While other industries were devastated by the pandemic last year, police departments across the country, including in Seattle, saw a much smaller impact.

According to federal data, those worries were unfounded.

The U.S. economy shed 6% of workers, and local police departments lost under 1% of employees.

Now, that attrition is something that we are all working on addressing by way of the investments that we're making today, by way of the $3 million plus the $10 million that we've invested in community contracts.

We are not acting today.

We are acting, but we have to talk about why we're acting in the way we are.

We're acting the way we are with this hybrid approach to invest in community partnerships because we know from the National Institute of Criminal Justice Reform, the analysis of Seattle Police Department calls for services between 2017 and 19 found that of the 1.2 million calls for services covering that period, nearly 80% of the calls were for non criminal events.

So to me, that means it is important for us to be scaling up the non-criminal response side.

That is why I think it's important to have this balanced approach that we worked on in the amendment.

If only 6% of those calls were associated with felonies, I think that that really underscores the importance for hiring strategies, retention strategies, and community-oriented solutions to creating stability for community alternatives to policing.

That is what I think the proposal in front of us reflected.

I'll continue to work with all of you as we work to make sure that we are addressing the stability that our community partners need so that there truly is an alternative to investing in alternatives.

Lastly, I think that this policy is a policy decision that should have been discussed in more detail either in committee or in a future committee for the purposes of really answering the questions about how the strategy would work today I would offer to you colleagues that the both investments that we're making help relieve some of that pressure that we're hearing about and also appropriately invest in community-oriented solutions.

So for those reasons I'll be a note today.

Thank you Council Member Mosqueda.

Are there any additional comments on Amendment 3B?

Okay, I'm not hearing any additional comments on Amendment 3B.

So I'm gonna go ahead and call on Council Member Peterson for closing remarks on this amendment.

Thank you, Council President and colleagues.

Thank you for the discussion today.

I remain committed to reimagining policing and revamping the police contract to provide the most effective pathways to community safety, But I believe that includes a combination of strategies, and that includes not only our increased investments in upstream human services programs and alternative responses, but also acknowledging the staffing crisis.

We've known about the staffing crisis for months.

I agree it should have been discussed earlier.

We need to do both and I think we can and I look forward to the vote on this and further discussions in the future.

Thank you.

Herbold?

Sorry, no.

Juarez?

Aye.

Lewis?

Yes.

Morales?

No.

Mosqueda?

No.

President Gonzalez?

No.

Four in favor, five opposed.

The motion fails, and the amendment is not adopted.

I believe we have another amendment, and this one is sponsored by Councilmember Mosqueda, so I'm going to hand it over to you to make your motion.

Thank you very much, and Councilmember Herbold, appreciate your leadership on this as well.

Colleagues, I move to amend Council Bill 120112 as presented on Amendment Number 4 on the agenda.

Second.

It's been moved and seconded by Council Member Herbold to amend the bill as presented on Amendment 4. I'm going to hand it back over to Council Member Muscato to walk us through the amendment.

Thank you very much.

Colleagues, we are bringing this amendment forward to you after it being drawn to our attention from first responders at the fire department who were on the front line that the triage response proposal was a step forward, but the best use of our limited resources responding to non-criminal 911 calls is to make sure that we have a place to send folks.

We don't want there to be a triage unit that gets deployed and then not to have a landing place for folks.

And we also know that there's much work in the pipeline, thanks to Council Member Herbold's leadership, to create a protocol system that is currently being designed as well.

We want to make sure that that protocol system is truly fleshed out so that we don't have a system that ends up referring folks to an emergency room or seeks housing and shelter or medical services when there isn't capacity to receive them.

We know that much of our shelter services, including the most recent data that we got last Thursday when meeting with LEAD and REACH folks, showed that there was only five beds available for the entire night for all of the folks who are experiencing homelessness out there.

And the intent of the triage system is well-received.

We also just need to make sure that that protocol system is aligned with making sure that there is a place to go for those who get visited by the triage team.

I appreciate the work on this, and again, thanks to IAFF Local 27 for their thoughtful approach to this, Council Member Herbold for her leadership and co-sponsorship on this, and to central staff and the team who has helped create this proposal in front of us.

We all want a complete response protocol that at a minimum identifies confirmed service providers, case managers, mental health providers, and support systems to make sure that folks are getting the care that they need after that call is made.

So looking forward to learning more from that complete protocol system and the provisal under this amendment will be lifted when that report is submitted to council, to Council Member Herbold's committee.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

Council Member Herbold, I see that you have your hand raised.

Please.

Thank you.

Yes, real quickly.

I just want to flag that this amendment in proviso is not in any way intended to slow down the launching of the proposed voucher program as soon as authorizations and appropriations are approved.

and after the establishment of the protocol system that will make it possible for the Community Safety and Communications Center to to dispatch a response to the sort of right size to dispatch and ensure that they are sending the right person to be either the wellness check or the person down call as proposed by the triage one program.

This amendment also flags another point of discussion that we're having in the city right now about where the staff for the triage program should be housed.

There is some interest in having that be housed out of the Seattle fire department.

I just want to remind council that the broader vision for the community safety and communication center is broader than just a new department to house dispatch functions.

And we recently made the decision that we are not going to house parking enforcement officers within the new community service communication center, despite our intention, our stated intention to do so legislatively last year.

We made a different decision a couple weeks ago.

I want to flag that this amendment parks these dollars, the dollars that are for staff in finance general, while we continue the discussion of whether or not these bodies should be housed in the fire department or in new CSCC.

And flagging if we make the decision to not have and the staff of CSCC, we may a little more than dispatch function.

So just want to flag that.

We have asked the Seattle Fire Department and the CSCC for information about the pilot startup times under both scenarios.

And we have heard from the budget office do not believe that leaving triage one in CSCC would delay implementation.

It could require additional resources.

And so I look forward to sharing with the rest of the council the information I receive from Chief Scoggins as well as Director Lombard about those projected startup times for triage one under both separate scenarios.

Thank you.

Thank you so much, customer Burbos.

Are there any additional comments on Amendment 4?

All right, customer Mosqueda, anything else to add?

There's a dance party unfolding in my living room, so sorry about the music.

I hope you guys all like the Rio soundtrack.

With that being said, will the clerk please call the roll in passage of Amendment 4?

Peterson?

Yes.

Sawant?

Yes.

Strauss.

Yes.

Herboldt.

Yes.

Juarez.

Aye.

Lewis.

Yes.

Morales.

Yes.

Mosqueda.

Aye.

President Gonzalez.

Aye.

Nine in favor, none opposed.

All right, the motion carries.

The amendment is adopted and the bill is before the council.

We do have one additional amendment to consider and that is Council Member Sawant's amendment.

So Council Member Sawant, I'm going to hand it over to you to make your motion to get the amendment before us.

Thank you, President Gonzalez.

I move to amend Council Bill 120112 as presented on Amendment 5, which was recently distributed.

which cuts $2.41 million from the SPD and adds that $2.4 million to the Supporting Safe Communities Fund in HST.

Second.

Thank you so much.

The amendment has been moved and seconded.

So I'm going to hand it back over to you, Council Member Solano, to walk us through the amendment.

Many of the comments that I made earlier, they remain valid for this one as well in terms of why this amendment is very important.

And we know that last year, the city council placed provisos on $7.5 million in the SPD budget for this year in response to the demands from the justice for George Floyd movement last year to reduce the spending on repressive military policing and to instead invest in building and supporting I think it is the least that the city Council should be doing.

The supplemental budget as a whole removes the provisos essentially freeing up an additional $7.5 million in the police budget and only transferring part of those funds to other departments.

the balance that this amendment addresses.

And as I informed the city council this morning, this budget amendment is in response to the request from the activists of decriminalized Seattle to transfer the Seattle Police Department salary savings into community funding as council members committed to do last November.

And I hope that council members would support it, especially keeping in mind the powerful public testimonials that were provided by activists, ordinary people, community members, including medical professionals, as to why this is important.

Thank you.

Thank you so much, Council Member Sawant.

Are there any additional comments on Amendment 5?

I see that Council Member Morales has her hand raised, so please, go ahead.

Thank you, Council President.

So I am going to support this amendment.

And as we've all been saying, for me, it's for a couple of reasons.

During our deliberations last year, the Council worked with community.

Our office works very hard with community to begin investing in a new ecosystem, a community safety ecosystem that really acknowledges the humanity of our residents, particularly for black and brown people.

So I think we made a lot of strides.

We've created a new division within HSD to look at particularly how we invest in community organizations that have alternative options for what community safety could be.

And we've come a long way in beginning to repair the harm done to our communities, just acknowledging that need by setting up these systems and creating some initial investments.

But if we're going to have the outcomes that we seek, we really need to commit to the kind of investments that it will take to change the community conditions that lead community safety challenges.

And I think Council Member Lewis earlier laid out a lot of those programs and the efforts that we have begun, but we are nearly done that work.

And as several folks have said, the investments that we've made are short term.

We really need to be looking at how to invest in a sustainable way so that those organizations can scale up and can really have the kind of outcomes we're talking about.

So that's one thing I'm interested in.

The other though is that as the fiscal body for this city, our budgetary and policy decisions are just that.

They are decisions.

They're the legislative body and that is our role.

These aren't permissive.

They aren't suggestions to the department.

The appropriation authority that is given to the departments are guardrails.

We have a check and balance system, the executive authority, and this isn't theoretical, something that's codified in state law.

So I think it's important to remember that we're in this position in part because of an intentional overspend on overtime last year and on several other things.

And it's important to recognize that public officials are not allowed to willfully overspend their budget.

Our state values fiscal responsibility such that over expenditure can result in a misdemeanor.

So I think it's important for us as we continue this conversation and particularly as we move into budget conversations in the fall, that as a deliberative body, we make a decision on rebalance today on the appropriation, This isn't something that should just be cured.

Overspend shouldn't just be cured by exceptions later.

So I hope that as we move into the fall discussion, into next year's budget, that we continue to support thoughtful process for community investment, and that we really commit to holding SPD accountable to their appropriation in the future.

As we do every other department, they have to perform within their budget authority in order to serve the city best.

And I just want to encourage all of us to keep that in mind as we continue this discussion and as we begin the next discussions over the next few weeks.

So I will be supporting this amendment.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Morales.

Council Member Herbold, I see that your hand is raised as well.

Thank you so much.

As I understand it, this amendment would, by cutting $2.41 million from SPD's 2021 budget and adding $2.41 million to the Human Services Department's budget, in addition to the $3 million that the Finance and Housing Committee added to the budget from SPD, that this would basically undo 2.4 million in decisions that the committee made.

in our closing remarks.

I'm sure we'll get into a bit of that and how those investments support community safety.

But I simply can't support undoing $2.4 million of work that we have painstakingly done in in finance and budget committee without knowing specifically of approximately $15 million of investments, where those dollars would come from.

In addition, If the amendment were to pass, it's very likely the SPD will request additional appropriation authority from the council later in 2021 to pay for some of the expenses that we have agreed in the bill coming out of committee that we should pay.

And as I mentioned before, it's a high priority of mine to work with the executive to identify what spending priorities are shared between the executive and the council and to grant that authority rather than continuing a scenario where They fund their priorities and ask us for permission to backfill those expenses after fact.

And then finally, it is unclear.

One of the provisos lifted is a $550,000 proviso that restricts funds into SPG.

It's in a report on Harbor Patrol Services.

That report was sent in June.

and this bill lifts the proviso as a technical matter.

And I'm not sure that this was considered by the amendment sponsor in the calculations of the amount to be cut for SPD.

So again, there's a lot of, for me, there's a lot of uncertainty about where these dollars would come and how that would intersect with the decisions that we already made in committee.

Thank you.

Thank you so much, Council Member Herbold.

Okay, any other comments on Amendment 5. I'm not seeing any additional hands raised.

Council Member Sawant, you're the sponsor of this amendment, so you get the last word.

Thank you.

I'm not sure I I understood exactly what Council Member Herbold was saying, and forgive me if I'm mistaking what was said, but just to be clear, the amendment that I've put forward does not touch the Harbor Patrol Proviso funds.

And I believe also Council Member Herbold said something to the effect, I mean, I'm not quoting you, I'm paraphrasing you, The council does not, the council passes this amendment and SPD will come back anyway to ask for more.

Of course, they will do so anyway.

Obviously that's been the practice, but this amendment comes from precinct budgets, just to be clear.

And so I'm not sure that that should be a problem really.

And it is, It is, it should be, I mean, I'll say this, it should be completely possible for the police department to do their work without these $2.41 million.

So I would really urge the council to support the amendment.

Okay, thank you so much Council Member Sawant.

I did make a call for last comments, but I think I heard Council Member Sawant asking for clarification from Council Member Rubel.

So, Council Member Rubel, did you want an opportunity to respond?

And of course, Council Member Sawant, if you want to have the last, last word, you are, would be entitled to do, to have that, that right under the council rule.

I'm reading under, the only clarification I have to make is I'm reading from the central staff memo.

Okay.

Council Member Sawant, anything else to add that closes out?

No.

OK, great.

Well, thank you so much.

Appreciate that.

OK, colleagues, I'm not seeing any additional hands raised or anyone waving at their camera to get my attention here.

So we're going to go ahead and conclude debate and call the roll on this.

So will the clerk please call the roll on the adoption of Amendment 5?

Peterson.

No.

Sawant.

Yes.

Strauss.

No.

Herbold.

No.

Juarez.

No.

Lewis.

No.

Morales.

Yes.

Mosqueda.

No.

President Gonzalez.

No.

Two in favor, seven opposed.

Thank you so much.

The motion passes.

Sorry, the motion fails.

I'm looking for the language.

Motion fails and the amendment is not adopted.

Are there any further comments on the bill as amended?

Council Member Herbold, you have your hand up, go ahead.

Thank you so much.

I just would like to make some comments on the overall bill that I've been holding through the amendments.

I want to really thank our Housing and Finance Chair, Council Member Mosqueda, for her collaborative approach on this legislation.

The amendments regarding the Seattle Police Department budget The committee shows strong commitment addressing the officer shortage by reducing the workload on sworn officers who have stayed with Seattle as well as supporting implementation of alternatives.

There's funding in this bill for SPD, for the community service officers and crime prevention coordinators.

There's funding for SPD for hiring process accelerators for both sworn officers and civilian hires.

There is funding for the 911 call data analysis that we have received from the National Institute of Criminal Justice Reform to support reimagining policing.

There is funding for the work scheduling and timekeeping project, which is so important in modernizing SPD's management of overtime and as well as management of off-duty work and addressing the recommendations by the city auditor in 2016 and recommendations recently made by the office of police accountability.

There's $1.5 million for overtime.

SPD requested $3 million.

Both the mayor and council proposed reductions in the overtime budget.

Well, actually, I should probably not mention the $1.5 million for overtime, because I think we've made it an amendment.

Take some of the additional money of the $1.5 million in overtime.

out of the budget.

So that is an issue that we might need to take up again since additional events are now taking place.

More overtime funding may be needed.

We've now scooped that extra funding for the potential session around retention and recruitment services.

non-SPD funding that is included in this bill, but that is still so important to community safety, is funding for triage one, both funding for the program, the bodies themselves to do the response, but also as we've talked about, the dispatch protocols.

funding for the regional peacekeepers collective.

This is so important right now.

Community violence intervention programs such as the regional peacekeepers collective have been shown to reduce violence by as much as 60 percent.

The mayor had proposed funding that in the 2022 budget and I'm really glad we are today making a down payment on it in 2021. And then, finally, two other items, one related to recommendations from the Inspector General, that is funding for evidence storage space.

We are at capacity for the storage of critical evidence that's necessary for our ability to pursue charges against offenders, and that could be everything from cars to actual other types of evidence.

And then finally, funding for additional disclosure work as recommended by the city auditor.

Many of these items, not all of them, but many of them are priorities that I had.

in the spring and that I proposed funding for in a SPD budget that did not pass.

And so I'm really, again, pleased and grateful that Chair Mosqueda, within the context of the midyear supplemental, has provided the opportunity to discuss those important priorities and investments again.

Thank you.

Thank you so much, Council Member Herbold.

Excuse me, I do see that Council Member Swann has her hand raised, so Council Member Swann, please.

Just making sure this is the time to make general comments on the supplemental budget.

Yep, this is the time for general comments on the bill as amended.

We don't have any more amendments, so this is your opportunity to make comments about the bill before we vote on the bill as amended.

Thank you.

I will be voting no on the supplemental budget which, as we just saw, has been used by the political establishment as a vehicle to increase the funding available in the loaded police budget by $2.1 million by reversing $7.5 million in provisos that were won by the Black Lives Matter movement last year.

As I've said during budget votes for the past nearly eight years now, a budget is a moral document, and this budget continues to betray the victories of the Black Lives Matter movement.

As several people mentioned in public comment, the SPD flagrantly wastes public resources, and this is on top of the fact that they have an already bloated police budget.

Just look at their spending of over $2 million on Accenture, which in addition to other various suits and fraud cases has been listed Exchanger as a corporation has been listed in the federal contractor misconduct database.

nine times since 1995 with $124.2 million in penalties.

That contract alone is almost enough to fund two tiny house villages for a year, you know, what the SPD spent on Accenture.

That's just a small factoid in the overall story of how much wrongdoing there is in relation to the police department.

However, before I close, just like in previous budget votes, even though I have voted no on the budget as a whole, because it has not lived up to being a genuine moral document.

standing up for the needs of working people, oppressed communities, and the poor, I do want to highlight what has been won by grassroots organizing, the work of my office, and the people's budget movement.

Particularly, I want to acknowledge the work of all the Garfield Superblock activists who worked with my office to successfully win funding to make the Garfield Superblock proposal shovel-ready after a decade of delays.

The Garfield Superblock Campus comprises the Garfield Community Center, Medgar Evers Pool, the tennis courts, and adjoining Garfield Park, including the historic Garfield ball fields, the Teen Life Center, the Quincy Jones Performing Arts Center, and Garfield High School and Track and Field.

The $500,000 in funding now included in the supplemental budget bill will complete pre-development work for this project to allow it to be shovel-ready in 2022. The Garfield Superblock is a grassroots effort to create a vital civic space that honors and tells the story through art and cultural presentations of the people who have lived here over the millennia, from the Duwamish people to Black Americans today.

The Garfield Superblock, working with staff from the Parks and Recreation Department, aims to enhance the area around the Garfield Community Center the Medgarvers School and the Garfield High School with art that celebrates the area's history, with new trees and walkways to ensure access for all, new, safe, publicly accessible bathroom facilities, and other urgently needed community amenities.

And it is precisely the kind of public product that should be funded in neighborhoods like the Central District.

When completed, undoubtedly, this will be a community gem and will be greatly valued.

Unfortunately, like many such project in working class communities of color, the city had left the Superblock unfunded for over 15 years.

And so this is exciting that it is starting to come to fruition.

Over the last three months, my council office has worked closely alongside the Garfield Superblock activists to organize working people support for this budget demand.

More than 600 community members signed our community petition.

Hundreds wrote letters to council members and dozens of people spoke up in public testimony.

And the organizers worked with our office to organize a public event at Garfield Community Center, where community members learn much more about the project.

And really, it was an event.

I was there myself.

It was an event that really brought the community together, especially in the time of isolation because of the pandemic.

Winning this funding is an important victory for the Central District and is entirely the result of organizing and activism of ordinary people.

In two weeks, the city council will begin discussing the city budget for the next year.

The lessons from this supplemental budget vote today is that we can win transformative victories if we have powerful people's budget movement work, which we have seen year after year yield many victories for working people.

Or we can have our communities continue to fall further and further behind if we do not have a movement.

It all will depend, as always, on organizing and movement building.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Sawant, for those comments.

Are there any additional comments on the bill as amended?

I'm not seeing any hands raised, so we're going to go ahead and close that debate by having Council Member Musqueda make closing remarks.

Thank you, Council President.

Just wanted to say thanks to the Vice Chair for her complete summary, an accurate summary, and also to note that it is actually a reduction of $5 million to SPD, not an increase of $2 million.

But thank you, Vice Chair, for summarizing so completely.

No additional comments from me.

Thank you so much.

That does conclude debate on this particular council bill.

So I'm going to ask that the clerk please call the roll on the passage of the amended bill.

Go ahead, Madam Clerk.

Council Member Peterson?

Yes.

DeWant?

No.

Strauss?

Yes.

Herbold?

Yes.

Suarez?

Aye.

Lewis?

Yes.

Mosqueda?

Aye.

Morales?

Yes.

And Council President Gonzalez?

Aye.

Eight in favor, one opposed.

Thanks so much.

The bill passes as amended and the chair will sign it.

Will the clerk please affix my signature to the legislation on my behalf.

Will the clerk please read item four into the record.

Agenda item four, Council Bill 120165 relating to the Department of Finance and Administrative Services, authorizing the director of the Department of Finance and Administrative Services or the director's designee to negotiate and and execute a real property lease with the Port of Seattle for vacant land known as a suboda property and ratifying confirming searching for acts the committee recommends the bill passed.

Thank you so much Council Member Musqueda.

I'm going to hand it back over to you to provide the committee report on this council bill.

Thank you.

I'm sorry colleagues to be off camera.

I just got unstable internet for a second.

Colleagues, agenda item number four is legislation that would authorize a new lease for the Port of Seattle to use their vacant land in Interbay neighborhood for continued use and expansion of Tiny House Village site.

This would add approximately 30 additional units at the Interbay Village.

This legislation is needed to allow for the lease of the expanded property that is approximately 44,000 square feet, which exceeds the FAS's Director's Leasing Authority.

We worked really quickly to get this legislation to the Finance and Housing Committee so that We can move forward on this tiny village as quickly as possible.

And again, to underscore the importance of what we talked about this morning, to make sure that there's no further delays and standing up emergency housing options.

I want to thank central staff and Aaron House on my team for their work on this.

Thank you so much.

Are there any comments on the bill?

Councillor Lewis, you have your hand raised.

Go ahead.

Thank you so much, Madam President.

And I appreciate the quick movement from Councilmember Muscata in queuing this up and getting this through.

You know, we could have passed this.

We would have passed this earlier, but we had to wait until the SEPA review was done on the site before we could pass this legislation today to move us one step closer to getting this expanded village in the heart of District 7 in the Interbay neighborhood.

I just want to give a brief shout out to the Port of Seattle, in particular Commissioner Bowman, who has been a really, really big booster and advocate for the initial siting of this village and now our efforts to more than double its size.

And I look forward to continuing that partnership potentially at other Port of Seattle sites as we look for opportunities to expand.

more tiny house shelters in other parts of the city and build on this great work.

So thank you again.

Council Member Mosqueda, looking forward to voting on this and getting another one of these villages up and running.

Well said.

Thank you, Council Member Lewis.

Are there any additional comments on the bill?

Hearing no additional comments on the bill, will the clerk please call the roll on the passage of the bill?

Peterson?

Yes.

Sawant?

Yes.

Strauss.

Yes.

Herbold.

Yes.

Juarez.