Public Safety Committee Meeting 4/8/2025

Public Safety Committee meeting will come to order.

It's 935 a.m.

April 8, 2025. I'm Robert Cattle, chair of the Public Safety Committee.

Will the committee clerk please call the roll?

Council Member Hollingsworth should be coming in a couple minutes.

Council Member Moore.

Present.

Council President Nelson.

Present.

Council Member Saka.

Here.

And Chair Kettle.

Here.

Chair, there are four members present.

Thank you.

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

Hearing, seeing, nothing coming through the ethernet.

The agenda is adopted.

So good morning.

In terms of Chair's comments this morning, I wanted to speak to one of the topics at hand today and when it comes to public safety.

And I wanted to say quite clearly and affirm that yes, Seattle is wary of gun violence.

But also, yes, we are taking action.

I recognize Seattle Times has their editorial on this.

And I just wanted to highlight a number of items to it.

We're taking action.

We've taken action throughout 2024. And today, with our after-hours establishments legislation, we do so here.

Sadly, this hearing on this legislation comes two weeks after our first meeting.

And in those two weeks, we've actually had gun violence at after-hours establishment, where two were killed, which just underscores the need to take action.

And regarding the auditor's report, we are engaged as a committee, as a council, on the issues raised in the report to include the care department.

We've had committee meetings on care.

We've had other meetings with the executive on care, but also community safety.

It's really important to look at these two topic areas, the alternative response and community safety, because we're moving in new directions and it's important to have this oversight.

And we will be having meetings on these important issues moving forward as we go into summer.

And separately, again, we've not been passive about this.

We've had meetings with the executive on this.

The report talks about frameworks, one of its recommendations, but I wanted to note our strategic framework plan seeks to address the permissive environment that really underscores the crime and random violence that we see to include gun violence.

I would note too, because the editorial talked about a lifeline, but we've been engaged on this throughout 2024 and into 25. You know, clearly SPD staffing is crucial as it relates to gun violence.

And we've been working on that from a number of angles.

The technology pieces are really important to this as well.

And this is part of our One Seattle approach.

It's interesting reading this report, the auditor's report, because it made reference to an earlier report.

So I went into that report from 2012. And it's interesting because they noted a number of things, including vacant buildings.

We've had our vacant building abatement bill that Chiefs Goggins fire along with SDCI has been using to great effect to improve the public safety posture of our neighborhoods.

Talked about junk storage with something my team knows about, graffiti, constant battle.

CEPTAD, crime prevention through environmental design, huge.

BIAs, and I'm very happy to have Soto's BIAs represented here, Ms. Goodman.

And also public health, which is one of the pillars of our strategic framework plan.

But interestingly, in that 2012 plan, it noted that many of the initiatives, many of the programs were considered inconclusive.

And this is where we have a body of work to work, particularly in this area where we have this overlap of public safety and public health.

And we will do that here in this in this committee.

I also wanted to note, and this was in today's reporting, and there's been a number of reports about the shooting at the after hours establishment where two were killed, but it talked about the use of the nuisance property ordinance.

This is something that I know from my time in community.

And so I want to thank SBD Chief Barnes for using it.

Because, you know, legal tools pillar two of our strategic framework plan, we need to engage on those ordinances that we have.

We need to be using them.

If there's any issues, come to us and we will fix them.

Or if there's any new ones needed due to changing environments, we will work them.

These are really important pieces for us to do.

And it's part of this overall effort that we have ongoing.

I also, you know, I mentioned our, when I say our, the committee's strategic framework plan, but I also want to highlight the executives, One Seattle Restoration Framework, which is a companion piece and something that we're working with them on, and along with the community safety briefings and programs that they have as well.

And this kind of, again, points to the need for public safety and public health, for public safety and human services to work together.

We talked about taking action and moving forward.

And I also want to, along those lines, thank Chief Barnes for his Intermediate Violent Crime Prevention and Enforcement Plan.

This is really important.

We've had a lot of engagement with SBD, with the precinct.

I've had many meetings in community where our public safety challenges are brought forward very strongly because it's impacting our communities.

It's impacting our residents, it's impacting our and our businesses.

And through that engagement in community and district, but really in my role throughout the city, we've been engaging in SPD, with SPD to include, with respect to District 7, the West Precinct.

And so what's important with this is, You know, the idea that we need increased patrols and visibility.

Yes.

That we need active investigation and apprehension of violent offenders.

Yes.

And proactive enforcement of gun crimes and related offensives.

Yes.

And I do want to thank the West Precinct, for example, because on my way to work one day, I dropped in with a business that was, you know, highlighting the challenges that they were facing in one of these community meetings.

And it was unannounced, and I talked to the lady that was at the meeting, and she did confirm that the West Precinct was engaging the detectives, I'm not going to go into details, but the efforts that they're doing and working with the business to ensure that we're good.

And this is something that we're going to build on as the CCTV and the real-time crime center, the RTC, come online and bring in pieces like the ALPR.

So I just wanted to note this action too.

And this is the kind of thing that we're going to be engaged on.

So there's multiple lifelines that we're going to be to work and I just wanted to close with one thing.

This area that we're dealing with, community safety, gun violence in a lot of ways, but also alternative response, it's really a theme and something that I saw in my previous career.

And themes are always a challenge.

It's always an area where bad things can happen or things can go awry.

And what falls under public safety?

What falls under human services or community safety?

How do we get that balance?

How do we ensure that these pieces are working together?

And that is my goal, that is my commitment to the people of Seattle to work this scene.

with our accountability partners also represented in the audience today.

And I think that's important for the public to know.

I think it's important to know that we recognize that there's a scene.

We're in the new area as well as it relates to alternative response, public safety, human services, the community piece, getting ahead in terms of crime prevention to ensure that we lower these deaths.

And I think we will do that because that's our mission.

And that's what we're going to do through the course of 2025. So I appreciate the reports that have come out.

I appreciate the articles and the editorials, and I appreciate the coordination and cooperation that I'm getting with the executive mayor Harrell.

Thank you.

And the, his team, but also the departments, particularly in this case, SPD and care.

So with that, I conclude my chair comment, but I will hand over to our Council President for some remarks.

Thank you so much, Chair.

I so appreciate you highlighting what the mission is, and we are at an all-hands-on-deck moment, so I just wanted to say that in one Seattle, we have the council and the executive working well together.

I do want to give a note of appreciation to the city attorney who is helping us write legislation to address some of these crucial issues and You know, it's everything that we have at our disposal.

We have to use auditors, reports, et cetera.

So just wanted to make sure that the public is aware that we are taking advantage of all the resources that we can.

Thank you.

Actually, I really appreciate you coming on.

Not normally the council president segment of the agenda, but I do appreciate that because when I talk about legal tools like pillar two of our framework plan, when I talk about the nuisance property ordinance and overall with this bill, and it's going to come up later, one Seattle in my mind, and what I mean is include the city attorney.

I do want to thank her and her team for the work that related to this.

So thank you for that reminder to highlight that right now.

All right, with that complete, we will now open the hybrid public comment period.

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

Clark, how many speakers do we have signed up today?

We have nine speakers, two in person and seven remote.

Normally we start in person, but we're gonna end in person today.

So we're gonna start online, and we're gonna start with a former council member.

Clerk, or two.

Two minutes, yes.

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

The public comment period is up to 60 minutes.

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

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

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

The public comment period is now open and we'll begin with former council member Tanya Wu on the list and then proceed in the order in which they signed up.

The first remote speaker is Tanya Wu.

Please press star six when you hear the prompt.

You have been unmuted.

Thank you.

My name is Tanya Wu.

I'm here to speak in strong support of the nightclub safety legislation.

And as you know, this is deeply personal.

My friend Donnie Chin dedicated his life to keeping our community safe in the Chinatown International District.

He was often the first to respond when emergencies happened, especially when first responders were not really available.

He was shot and killed doing what he always did, protecting others.

His loss echoes throughout our community.

Also, when I was six years old, when the Lonnie Club massacre happened, this was also an after-hours nightclub that had killed 13 people in our community.

So these incidences have been deeply traumatic and helped bring up and make a generation of people.

And you know, it hasn't stopped just this weekend.

We had two more shootings.

We continue to mourn Ozzie Whitfield and Julius Rodriguez, young men whose lives are cut short by violence connected to nightclub setting.

One of them was a security guard.

They were sons, friends, community members, and dreams of families who love them.

And we need to move from reaction to prevention.

Like this legislation doesn't penalize venues.

It partners with them and ensures that they are having basic safety standards in place.

trained staff safety plans these steps are reasonable they're necessary and they could save lives and i want to thank the escatel family for continuing to fight for this legislation and honor their their son their brother their cousin and you know your strength is a beacon and we stand with you so let's honor all those we have lost and let's act now before another life is lost i also want to thank you uh chair kettle of the public safety committee as well as dana park for for pushing forward with this legislation.

And let's ask before we lose more lives.

And thank you so much for all that you do.

And I look forward to hopefully seeing this come up for the full council the next week.

Thank you.

Next up, we have Howard Gale.

Good morning, Howard Gale.

This morning, you will discuss the search for a new OPA director, with both of our prior directors having left that role in disgrace amidst substantiated claims of bias and corruption.

Three weeks ago, the SPD killed the 19th person in a period of less than 14 years who was brandishing an edged weapon or had no weapon at all in their hands when killed.

Fourteen of these people were clearly experiencing a severe mental health crisis.

Every single one of these SPD killings was declared or accepted as, quote, lawful and proper, unquote, by all parts of our police accountability system.

Notable today is that the person before you to discuss the OPA director search process, former OPA director Andrew Meyerberg, presided over investigating seven of these cases, going so far as to blame people in severe crisis for their own death with outrageous and heartless claims that these individuals made a decision and a choice to threaten police.

On November 2, 2021, KOW's highly respected investigative reporter, Ashley Hiroko, reported on the abuses engaged in by Andrew Meyerberg, whose entire career has been spent defending police, including defending New York City against the rightful claims of the Central Park Five.

And when he was working as Seattle City attorney, was sanctioned by the court for misconduct and hiding evidence during his failed attempt to prosecute a paraplegic black man who was beaten by Seattle police.

As I explained in detail last week, when killings by police of people brandishing edged weapons in Seattle is compared to the UK, the per capita rate is over 459 times higher in Seattle than in the UK.

459 times.

And the UK is not alone in managing to not summarily kill people with knives.

In Japan, despite most officers carrying guns, people with edged weapons are almost never shot or killed.

We need a full public hearing to address this cruel and unrelenting pattern.

We need a radically altered process for investigating police abuse.

We do not need to engage in a lengthy, performative process to find our next corrupt director of the OPA.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next up, we have Caroline Escatel.

Caroline Escatel.

Good morning, Seattle Council members.

I'm calling today in representation of my family and all other Seattle families who have lost their loved ones to gun violence.

It is crucial that we continue to work together towards implementing preventative safety measures, especially between the hours of 2 a.m.

and 6 a.m.

This bill is the step in the right direction.

I humbly ask once more for you to use your position as council members to vote in this after-hours bill, which will help regulate nightlife spaces and assist in putting a stop to illegally operating venues.

I'd like to take this opportunity to thank every single person who has helped carefully draft this bill and who connected us to be a part of it and honoring my brother's memory.

Erin Goodman, Hanya Wu, Nina Park, Scott Lindsey, and their teams, council member Kettle and Sokka, and all others who have listened, our trust is in you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next up, we have Erica Santana.

Hello, my name is Erica Pantana, and I am here speaking for the nightlife bill.

I am the older sister of Francisco David Escotel, a victim on August 17th, 2024. I am here, just like my sister, once more urging you to vote yes.

When my sister and I attended the last council meeting urging you about this bill, not many days passed when two more victims in an after-hours establishment died.

This establishment had previously had a death weeks before.

How is this still allowed to be open?

How is this always happening?

Whose fault is it?

The person who owns the establishment and takes advantage of no repercussions?

How is this permitted?

How does this continue to happen over and over?

Or the person who shoots and attends this type of establishment knowing they will get away with it?

Or is it the people who permitted the lack of regulations previously before?

There are so many factors.

I understand.

And this bill will help take out those factors.

And I urge you please to vote yes on April 15th.

Just like my sister, I also want to thank all of you who have listened to us because it has been such a hard situation in our family and to have people to listen to us.

And we see...

that you are helping us and you're pushing this bill as well and we have your support.

We appreciate it so much.

I also wanted to thank Nina and Councilwoman Wu for being those who reached out as well.

Aaron Goodman, who was the very first person who opened that door for us.

Everyone involved, we thank you so much and we urge you please to vote yes on April 15th.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you.

Next up, we have David Haynes.

Hi.

We have too many over-serving bartenders sending people out drunk with nowhere to go except the hookah lounge that offers toxic poisons from the third world that mess your mind up.

Why is council going out of their way to continue a bad idea doubling down on hookah lounges between 2 and 5 a.m., or some shady characters are running a slum business that should all be shut down.

We need organic marijuana cafes before some ignorantly stupid hookah lounge that smokes toxic poison, especially given the history of horrible violence that regularly takes place in these so-called businesses.

How many more known violent acts will it take to finally shut down these after-hours so-called clubs?

that have never been properly punished and vetted.

It's all about generating revenue and looking the other way and allowing people to pay to get off scot-free.

It's like you don't care about the integrity of the community.

All you care about is generating revenue no matter what type of business it is.

Permissive environment escalates violence.

So why is council authorizing and legalizing hookah lounges without any proper ventilation allowing for secondhand smoke?

to get underage kids high and people dancing to get cancer.

It's all in inappropriate buildings that are usually commercial slums in no man's land with no food or anything really safe, anything safe to drink, but plenty of more drugs from the third world.

It's like terrorists from the third world smoke the crap that they smoke in them hookah lounges.

Who the hell do you think you're kidding?

It's like, you're not allowing for marijuana cafes.

But you're allowing for a hookah lounge.

It's filled with the evils of the third world that ain't even supposed to be in this country.

It makes me wonder what the hell you all are drinking and popping and smoking and not eating proper and doing that you shouldn't be doing.

We don't need politicians staying in office for years while they slowly get around to perfecting their messages and virtue signaling about how they got to stay in office longer to get it right when it comes to public safety.

Thank you.

The last remote speaker is Valerie.

Sorry if I messed that up.

Valley, if you're there, please press star six.

We'll pivot to in-person commenters.

The first in-person commenter is Rodney Johnson.

Good morning.

Maybe I'll do fine.

Wait, reset.

Go ahead, reset.

Start at word.

All right.

Hey.

I'm Rodney.

Hi, Sarah.

I also want to cover the city attorney's office specifically Fred.

Can you speak into the mic?

Thank you.

Reset.

Good morning.

I'm Rodney.

Sarah, good morning.

And I concur your comment.

The city attorney's office is doing really great, specifically Fred, who's the head of criminal.

I'm here for two things today.

24 hours.

versus two weeks.

That's how long it takes for a domestic violence crime to be processed if you are in custody by Seattle police or not in custody by Seattle police.

The exact same crime.

And so if someone takes an object, like a bat, hits it upside your head, if we catch them, in 24 hours there are charges that are filed and a protection order is also in place.

If not, so this person runs away, we don't catch them within the four-hour minimum, then at that point, this person will be at minimum of two weeks, sometimes up to eight, before charges are filed.

I ask you to ask the mayor to put an executive order in place for an investigation of that process.

And by the end of the year, I would love for that process to be improved by a minimum of 25%, or at least have the protection orders served or in processed immediately.

There's an option where the city can initiate that process.

If they're not in custody, the victim has to do that.

The second thing is I would like for you all to also, in some capacity, have the Seattle Police Department create an approval matrix for police reports.

So what do I mean by this?

When a police officer writes a report, That report can be approved after it's submitted within one minute and 36 seconds.

And that, on average, is what happens.

They're clicking, clicking, clicking, clicking, approved.

So I ask for you all to take a minute and investigate how is that so possible and create an approval metric because Dorothy Kim, a 30-year veteran, says there is no process.

I can do more, but you all have my email.

I got to go.

I got meetings.

But I love the city.

Y'all are doing good, Dustin.

Thank you, and our next in-person speaker is Erin Goodman.

Good morning, Council Members, and thank you for having this committee hearing.

I'm Erin Goodman, the Executive Director of the Soto Business Improvement Area, and I'm here today both in my professional capacity, but also, like former Council Member Wu, this is also personal, as I live less than a few blocks from the Capri Lounge.

So I'm here today to express my strong support for the proposed nightlife legislation.

which I believe is an essential step towards safety and regulation of our city's after-hours nightlife.

In Soto, we've seen the consequences of illegal nightlife venues.

Last year, with the tragic shooting that took the life of Francisco Escotel, and since January of this year, we have had over 200 shots fired related to after-hours venues.

This senseless violence underscores the dangers of unregulated venues that operate without the necessary permits, security, or oversight.

These businesses often hide behind the guise of legitimacy, leaving patrons unaware that they are entering spaces where safety measures are non-existent.

The proposed legislation offers a pathway towards legal businesses who wish to operate after 2 a.m.

while ensuring that safety is prioritized.

It is designed to close the gap between those who want to provide late-night entertainment legally and safely and the dangerous unregulated venues that currently exist.

By existing clear requirements such as licensing, trained security personnel, and video surveillance, it creates a safer environment for all.

It's a balanced approach that supports businesses that want to operate responsibly while prioritizing the safety of the public.

As representative of SOTO BIA, I'm deeply invested in creating a thriving neighborhood.

This will not only improve safety, but ensure that our nightlife scene is vibrant and dynamic.

I wanna commend Council Member Wu for championing this work.

Thank Council Member Kettle, and I urge the committee to support this legislation.

Thank you.

Thank you.

We'll pivot to our last remote speaker, Valerie Schlerdet.

Reminder to please press star six.

Valerie final call.

Okay.

There are no additional registered speakers.

Okay.

Thank you, clerk.

I always appreciate public comment and I hear the comments that are made and today something a little different.

I wanted to, in honor of the comments made by Councilmember Wu and the Eschatel family to have a moment of silence for the Chin family, for the Eschatel family, for the other families been impacted over the years to include the families of Ozzie Whitfield and Julius Rodriguez who were killed at the Capri just recently.

So instead of comment, silence.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Public comment period has expired.

We will now proceed to our item of business.

Members of the public are encouraged to either submit written public comment on the signup cards available on the podiums or email the council at council at seattle.gov.

Before moving on to our item of business, I do want to acknowledge council member Saka who was online, but now is here in person.

So thank you for being here.

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

Will the clerk please read item one into the record.

Council Bill 120956, an ordinance relating to the regulation of after hours, nightlife lounges, defining after hours, nightlife lounges, establishing operational and safety requirements for such businesses, describing enforcement mechanisms and adopting a new chapter 10.10 to the Seattle Municipal Code.

Okay, I'm pleased to welcome at the table two members of our central staff.

Gentlemen, will you please introduce yourselves for the record?

Ketel Freeman, Council Central Staff.

Tommaso Johnson, Council Central Staff.

Okay, according to my clerk, I will now move the committee recommend passage of Council Bill 120956. Is there a second?

Second.

Thank you.

It is moved and seconded to recommend passage of the bill.

Are there any comments?

Actually, we'll start with central staff.

Sure.

So the committee was briefed on this on March 25th.

I'll maybe just briefly describe what the bill does.

So, Council Bill 120956 would create new safety regulations for nightlife lounges that are open between the hours of 2 a.m.

and 6 a.m.

for the purposes of socializing and either smoking or dancing.

There are certain types of nightlife businesses that are already regulated that would not be covered by these new regulations, and those include restaurants, adult entertainment establishments, all ages dance venues, and entertainment venues like theaters and entertainment sports and spectator sports facilities.

The regulations, those businesses that the regulations do apply to would be able to remain open past 2 a.m., but they would have to have an extended hours permission as part of a valid liquor license issued by the Washington State Liquor and Cannabis Board, maintain minimum security requirements, including having at least two trained security personnel on site, preparing a written safety plan to be submitted to FAS and reviewed by FAS.

And they would also have city enforcement staff varying business hours.

Violations of the regulations could result in increasing fines, an initial fine of $1,000 and a subsequent fine of $5,000.

In addition to those fines, the city could seek equitable relief, including closing the business.

FAS would be the primary enforcement agency, although likely enforcement would be facilitated by other city departments for security reasons, including the Seattle Police Department.

So unless there are other questions about the bill, I can...

Thank you, Mr. Freeman.

Mr. Johnson, anything to add?

Okay, thank you very much.

Colleagues, any comments?

Vice Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I defer to my colleagues.

Council President, Council Member Moore.

Council Member Moore.

Yeah, thank you, Chair.

I just wanted to say thank you very much to the Chair for bringing this legislation forward and also wanted to thank former Council Member Tanya Wu for championing this idea originally.

It's incredibly important legislation and I appreciate the work of everyone on this issue.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Moore.

Council President.

I spoke last at the last meeting, so I won't repeat what I said before, but in addition to basically making sure that We're consistent in the rules that we want our small businesses, our large businesses, our business community to abide by.

We have to make sure that one of those rules is maintaining a safe environment.

And so that's clear, and I basically said that there are a lot of small businesses that play by the rules, and we have to make sure that they all do.

That's the comment I made with my economic development chair hat on.

But I also, the deeper issue is we also have to save lives or make sure that we are doing our utmost to ensure that there is a, as I said before, a safe environment.

This has been impacting especially a couple regions in the city for several years now, and I'm sure that there are people in the public that think, why don't we do something about this?

Well, now we finally are, and thank you very much.

Our public safety officers have been dealing with a lack of options to address this situation, and so thank you very much for bringing this before us, and as I said in my comments at the beginning of the meeting, thank you, City Attorney Davison, for your office's work on getting this legislation prepared, and also former Councilmember Tanya Wu for driving this initiative, and you, of course, for privileging the time in your committee, because we've got a lot of public safety things, Chair, to make this happen.

So thank you.

Thank you, Council President.

I also wanted to note Council Member Hollingsworth is with us, although online right now.

Council Member Hollingsworth, I'll offer if you'd like an opportunity to comment on the bill before going to Vice Chair.

Thank you, Chair Kettle, and for all your work on this.

I know this was a long time coming.

And thank our city attorney's office as well for their help and central staff.

And also thanking, I know, former council member Tanya Wu and then also Nina Park, as well for this.

I know this is important to the community and this is important to people.

I know that this is an emergency situation that is happening right now in our city, and we just want to continue to make communities safer.

And I know that we had engaged with the Capitol Hill businesses as well, so I really appreciate their support on this as well as we are trying to navigate just the different landscapes that is in our city, and I think it's a work in progress, and we have a lot of work to do, but this is a great first step in the process.

So thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Member Council Member Hollingsworth.

Vice Chair Saka.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

First, I just wanna take a quick moment to pause and reflect where we're at in time, because this same exact concept contained in this legislation has been considered before in this city.

There are efforts underway spanning many years before each and every last one of us in this dais had the opportunity to be here, to directly address, regulate, and prevent the kind of gun violence that inevitably flows and stems from these unlawful, unregulated, after-hours nightlife establishments.

This has been tried before.

Obviously nothing has ever happened.

No substance of action has flowed and followed from some of the tragedies that date back decades in Seattle from this known problem.

And tried before and because potentially it was deemed politically expedient to avoid directly addressing this and instead, write a check to communities, that's stuff we can all be proud of and celebrate.

It's hard to do stuff like this.

So where we're at in this moment, this is about leadership.

So I wanna thank former council member Tanya Wu.

Every strategic initiative requires a champion in the legislative branch.

And the champion of this specific initiative started with Council Member Wu.

And at the end of last year, because she rolled off the council, we needed a new champion to carry this forward.

So which is why I wanna thank Chair Kittle for championing this initiative.

And all of us are gonna be directly accountable for what happens here today and at any final vote.

But this, at the end of the day, is about leadership.

For me personally, I'm not here to do the politically expedient thing necessarily.

I'm here to produce results, and I'm here to work on hard problems.

This is no different.

I've said before, colleagues, players play, basketball shooters shoot, and leaders lead.

And this is exactly a moment and opportunity for us to do exactly that.

So I also wanna thank the family of Francisco David Escatel, who testified today and in the past.

Gun violence has no place in our community, plain and simple.

This is a particularly important piece of legislation for my own district, District 1. and specifically the communities of Pioneer Square, Soto, and Delridge, who are disproportionately impacted by gun violence that invariably flows from these unlawful, unregulated, unpermitted, after-hours establishments.

So we know what happened a few weeks ago when two lives were tragically and preventably lost.

Two young men met their demise.

in connection with one of these unregulated establishments.

And we also know later that same day in Delridge, North Delridge, a community that already bears a disproportionate brunt of gun violence challenges relative to other parts of my district, relative to other parts of the city.

There was a tribute memorial for one of the victims where 100 plus gunshots rang out.

Bullet went through a child's room in a home nearby.

Communities, I guess, we should be thankful that no one was hit or injured.

No, we're not thankful.

We need action.

And this piece of legislation allows us to take strong, decisive action to address these challenges head on.

Make no mistake.

We're here to work.

We're here to address these hard problems and do so decisively with bold leadership.

And that's what this is about.

Because like I said, my district is disproportionately impacted by these establishments and all the consequences that always flow from them.

And you'll often hear me talk about I'm here to champion a yes and approach when it comes to public safety.

Bottom line, we need a variety of tools and strategies to keep community safe.

And this legislation is an important part of our broader toolkit.

Another quiver in the arrows or arrow in the quiver, so to speak.

Again, these unregulated and unpermitted nightlife establishments often operate under the guise of legitimacy.

with attendees often having no idea that the club they are entering does not have the necessary permits, training or security measures in place to ensure the safety of their patrons.

We need a safe place for people to be in these early morning hours.

So it is about safety for the patrons and is about safety for the neighborhoods and communities.

This is common sense legislation.

It's unfortunate that it took many, many years to get us to even this point.

Who knows what's gonna happen with this?

But like I said, the concepts contained in this piece of legislation are not new.

Efforts have been tried in the past, but now we have appropriate political will and leadership to act, which is why, again, I wanna thank former Council Member Wu, Chair Kettle, I wanna thank Nina Park from Council Member Wu's office and Council Member Hollingsworth for the insight and savviness to retain Nina at the staff expert level.

So anyways, I strongly support this legislation.

It's about leadership, it's time to act.

I'm not prepared to tell these families, no.

We need to act.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Vice Chair, and thank you for calling out exceptional staff.

To conclude before voting, I just wanted to recognize community.

Some of it's represented here from Soto, and that's really important because we all hear from community on the gun violence issues.

that we're facing and particularly related to after hour establishments, which is more of a district one, two, three challenge, but still a challenge for our city and a challenge that we need to undertake.

So I wanna thank communities again, represented in part today by Ms. Goodman, but then also for the community leaders, past and present, I think of Donnie Chin a decade ago, who was a community leader.

And I think of today's community leader, former council member Wu, who spoke today.

It's important to have those voices heard so that story could be told and acted on.

And separately, I also want to thank the city attorney's office for all their work on this.

It was really important, kind of mentioned at different pieces.

But they also did engagement.

It wasn't just working ourselves with their office.

They reached out to community as well, and I want to thank them for that.

Not mentioned yet, but it's been part of the story that I've been involved with related to this bill.

I want to thank Finance and Administrative Services.

It's a department that kind of flies under the radar, but really important for the functioning of government, but also for legislation like this.

So I want to thank the FAS team for their support in getting to a good answer and a good approach for this legislation.

I think it's important that we recognize the challenges that we face and then that we act on them.

I noted the editorial that said that Seattle is wary of gun violence.

In the editorial itself, it said this is a crisis and it must be treated as such.

That's what we're doing.

That's what we're doing on a day-to-day, month-to-month basis, but that's what we're especially doing today because it is a crisis and we need to take action and we will work with all parts of government and the community to get answers.

And to Vice Chair's point, we do need to take action and we cannot get sidetracked, which is something that's come up recently as well, but we don't do that.

And I was recently interviewed by a reporter who kind of had a question along those lines.

And I looked at them, couldn't really understand the question.

Because what drives this?

What drives this legislation?

is our mission.

And our mission is to create a safe base in our city.

It's our vision.

It's a vision where kids can ride the bus freely.

It's where businesses don't have to have private security, where kids or young people can go after 2 AM and not fear for their lives.

So that is our vision.

And so I look at our strategic framework plan, and that's what drives everything.

That's what drives everything.

It's the mission.

And so with that, will the clerk please call the roll on the community recommendation to pass Council Bill 120956.

Council Member Hollingsworth.

Yes.

Council Member Moore.

Aye.

Council President Nelson.

Aye.

Council Member Sacco.

Aye.

Chair Kettle.

Aye.

There are five in favor, none opposed.

The motion carries and the committee recommendation that this bill passed will be sent to the April 15 city council meeting.

Thank you very much.

Council president.

I respectfully request to be added as a co-sponsor please.

Yes, council president.

Thank you.

Thank you.

In fact, I thought you already were.

I might have said that I forgot, so I thought I'd say it.

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

Will the clerk please read item one into the record?

OPA director search process update.

Okay.

Good morning, Director Meyerberg.

Thank you for joining us this morning.

Colleagues, I've asked Mr. Meyerberg to join us this morning.

partly because we will be having our next meeting will be focused on our accountability partners, the Community Police Commission, the Officer Inspector General, and also the Office of Police Accountability.

And one item, and I didn't wanna distract, I wanted that meeting to be focused on the issues related to the organizations.

And so I've asked Mr. Meyerberg as a way to address one issue today, so not to be encumbering the next meeting, which I want to be focused on the organizations and how we can set them up for success to discuss the OPA director search process.

Mr. Myberg.

Well, thank you again for having me here today.

Quick apologies.

Aisha Foster from the mayor's office was going to be here but had a conflict, so you just had me, unfortunately, for you.

First, again, thanks for inviting us to discuss the search process today, and thank you to Chair Kettle for collaborating with us on the process, and for agreeing to serve on the search committees.

We very much appreciate that.

Second, I just want to reiterate on behalf of Mayor Harrell our commitment to a comprehensive and streamlined search process that is identified, that's purposed on identifying the best candidate, whether it be in Seattle or nationally.

So our goal today is just to walk the committee through the high level search timeline and process.

Happy to answer questions during the discussion or afterwards, whatever is the council's preference.

We'll wait till the end.

Keep it to the next slide.

Thanks.

So I'll just walk through these timelines again at a very high level.

The job posting for the OPA director was posted publicly on April 2nd.

We posted on a number of websites.

Most notably, it goes on the City of Seattle website, as well as the website for the National Associations for Civilians in Oversight of Law Enforcement.

We are finalizing the date for the first convening of the search committee.

That is going to occur before April 25th, but we're still working with our committee members to finalize that date.

We're going to have a four-person search committee.

So the ordinance requires us to have a search committee that has a quarter of CPC membership.

So we will have current CPC co-chair Joel Merkel serve on the committee, and he will be a co-chair.

Councilmember Kettle will also be on the committee.

Lisa Dugard will be serving on the committee, as well as Assistant Chief Tyrone Davis from the Seattle Police Department.

So a smaller committee, but we feel like that will allow us to have a more streamlined process for the search.

We will begin assessing our applications that we receive beginning on April 25th in preparation for our first committee meeting, which will be an hour and a half, sorry, our second committee meeting that will occur on May 2nd.

At that committee meeting, the committee will be calling the resumes to identify who's going to be interviewed.

And those interviews will occur during an all-day interview session on the 16th of May.

On the 22nd of May, the finalists will meet with stakeholders, including OIG, CPC, NOPA, SPD, and others.

And on that same day, they will interview with the mayor.

And then the mayor will announce his election in early June.

So again, high-level process, overview, and happy to answer any questions about what's next.

Okay, well, thank you, Mr. Meyerberg, and yes, I appreciate the collaboration.

We've been very busy, so the timeline is something that I think works well.

I do believe Ms. Glenn, who's our interim, has the reins and OPAs and good hands at the moment, and so I do believe that this is a good setup given all the considerations that need to be part of this.

And so I will turn over to Council Member Moore.

Oh, thank you, Chair.

Thank you for that.

Timeline, I am a little confused just looking at SMC 329-115.

Can you talk about how you're calculating the 90 days?

Because I think it has been 90 days, more than 90 days.

So the 90 days is calculated from the first date of the expiration of a term.

For the last two OPA director searches, search has gone beyond the 90 days and what we've done is we've asked for council consent meaning the consent of the chair of the public safety committee and here we requested an extension of the timeline to which council member kettle extended it okay so you request an extension of the timeline from the um resignation sorry for the 90 day so there's a 90 day period set in ordinance so the Last day for the last OPA director was January 3rd, was his last day in his spot.

So the 90 days runs from January 3rd, which would have been April 3rd, approximately.

So prior to that date, we requested an extension from Council Member Kettle, which was granted.

So now the process, we're running to early June.

Got it, okay, thank you.

Council Vice Chair Saka.

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you, Mr. Meyerberg, for your presentation today.

Can you help me better understand?

So you listed the committee members.

How many total is that?

Is that five?

Four.

Four.

Four.

Okay.

Thank you.

And then also, what is the recruitment process?

outreach and engagement strategy and approach.

And this is a very high profile, high impact role and opportunity to help shape the future of accountability and policing in our city.

The next wave hopefully soon in the absence of a federal consent decree and take control of our own reigns and our own destiny, so to speak.

It's a very national role local focus and impact, how are we going about making sure we recruit, we cast a wide net across the nation and attract the best of the best of the best recruits nationally?

So the recruitment is overseen by our executive recruitment team at the mayor's office.

And we have a senior executive recruiter assigned to oversee it, as well as other recruiters that will be working under her to effectuate the recruitment.

Obviously, we post the job, but that's only a piece of what we do.

There is active contact that we make with SMEs, with candidates that we identify across the country.

So it is a very active and aggressive recruitment process.

It was the same in the last process where, yes, we received applications, but we also, again, worked with a number of stakeholders to identify other folks across the country who might be interested in a fit for the position.

So again, we have multiple staff members at the executive level working on this.

So it is now our priority recruitment for the next two months.

Thank you.

And can you clarify, has the city engaged a third-party consultant to assist, or is this 100% being handled in-house, this effort?

We're going to handle this in-house, this recruitment, which has been a successful process that we've done for the last couple of executive recruitments.

Thank you.

So I'm hearing a mixture of...

sort of passive recruitment post a job and just wait for candidates to come in and then a hybrid between that and a more proactive approach where we're identifying candidates across the country and doing some proactive outreach and encouraging them to apply.

How many candidates do we anticipate being surfaced total as part of this recruitment effort nationally?

I couldn't tell you.

Is there an estimate?

Not that I can make, but I can provide information to you at a later date.

Thank you.

All right.

No further questions.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

All right.

Thank you, Vice Chair.

Council President.

The responsibilities of the director are set by law, but I'd be interested in hearing from you or just seeing the job description to learn more about what are there any...

special duties or qualifications that are going to be requested?

I mean, so do you see the scope of the work differently or expand it in any way?

Well, to your point, yes.

I mean, there are qualifications that are in ordinance and requirements that you need to consider, including past professional experience.

They can't be a sworn form or sworn employee for SPD.

Above and beyond that, it's a great question.

I think we are, obviously, for the police accountability system to work, you need someone that is comfortable both engaging with community and meeting community where they're at, but as well as understanding the complexities of these investigations and the impact they can have on sworn officers.

So we really are looking for someone that can walk that line and to hold that balance.

And, you know, I will say our current interim director, Bonnie Glenn, has done a great job in that respect.

And I don't mean this as an affront to her at all.

But that's really, really important, right?

We see OPA, again, being highlighted by many sworn officers as an issue and an area of concern.

So, and these investigations are taken very seriously by sworn officers, as they should.

They can result in termination, significant discipline.

So we want someone that understands that duality and has experience not just running investigations, but also supervising.

I think we've seen how important it is that someone is a good manager, understands how to supervise a diverse staff and not just racially diverse, but professionally diverse, where you have sworn in civilians that work for OPA.

So those are they're not soft skills, but those are the skills that maybe aren't in the job description that we're hoping that the search committee will focus on pretty heavily in the interview process.

Thank you.

That helps.

Thank you, Council President.

I think that is it from questions from my colleagues.

I just wanted to, first a comment.

I think one of my goals is to make this job as attractive as possible to help in your search.

And I think this council's approach and support for accountability partners is evident.

And we will be showing that next week in terms of, again, my goal is always to, what can we do to, to foster success, set up for success versus set up for failure.

And that is our commitment, my commitment as a community chair to you, to the executive, but also to our accountability partners.

And so hopefully that will aid in the recruitment process.

I just wanted to ask too, so next week we'll have the accountability partner, not next week, next meeting we'll have accountability partners.

Is there anything else you'd like to add regarding the accountability system or OPA specifically?

I'll add to your point.

We agree that this job, and I can speak from experience, is incredibly challenging but also very rewarding.

But it's difficult.

You're constantly in the mix of making decisions that no one ever really likes.

So I think we appreciate the way that this council has approached police accountability because it has made it, I think, an environment where we will see people more receptive to taking on, again, this big challenge.

So we appreciate that, Chair Kettle.

I know that from the mayor's perspective, the accountability system, and he was part of the design, as was I and as others were at this dais, is a constantly evolving, changing system, and we need to embrace that and to realize that what worked in 2017 is going to be a little bit different than what works in 2024 and 2025. So we have really enjoyed our partnership with your team and your office, Councilmember Kettle, to think about what some of those future state possibilities could be.

I know that we're talking about tweaks to the chief of police ordinance, which is coming down the way, which I think makes a lot of sense and can be done in a way that that brings more accountability and more transparency to the chief of police investigations, which have increased pretty exponentially.

And we also are going to be issuing some recommendations to follow up on the MFR report.

And one of the recommendations in the MFR report was exploring the feasibility of OPA doing some EEO investigations.

So we need to look into that more deeply and to determine the feasibility and viability of that, understanding that there are probably collective bargaining implications there.

But, you know, overall, we are interested in working really closely with our partners that have been enthused, you know, working with the CPC and their new leadership.

You know, Lisa Judge is now our longest tenured member of the accountability system.

So I think we have really great pieces in place.

And, you know, we're looking forward to additional tweaks we can make to keep the system evolving and improving over time.

Okay, thank you for that.

Thank you for noting.

That kind of tees up our meeting, our next meeting.

And thank you for highlighting the Chief of Police Investigations ordinance.

That's an example that we're going to be looking at because that kind of hindered OPA and its ability to do its job.

And that goes to the idea of setting up these organizations for success versus failure.

And so we need to identify items like that.

And so...

Don't be surprised, everyone.

The Chief of Police investigation ordinance will be looked at as we move forward over the next couple of meetings.

With that, thank you again, Mr. Meyerberg, for joining us.

And I believe that's an old hand, so I'm going to say we've reached the end of today's meeting agenda.

Is there any further business to come before the committee before we adjourn?

Vice Chair, colleagues?

Okay, hearing and seeing.

No further business to come before the committee.

We are adjourned.