Seattle City Council Public Safety Committee Meeting 2/11/2025

935, February 11th, 2025. I'm Robert Kettle, chair of the Public Safety Committee.

Will the committee clerk please call the roll?

Council Member Hollingsworth.

Present.

Council Member Moore.

Present.

Council President is excused.

Council Member Saka.

Here.

Good morning.

Chair Kettle.

Here.

Chair, there are four members present and one excused.

Thank you.

And I understand Council Member Saka's in route.

So thank you, Council Member Saka, for joining online.

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

Hearing and seeing no objection, the agenda is adopted.

For today's chair's comment, I just wanted to, particularly because, well, a number of reasons.

One, we're at the start of a new year.

This is our second meeting of the year.

And I wanted to reemphasize the Public Safety Committee's mission and vision.

The mission of the Public Safety Committee is to provide a safe base for Seattle through community engagement, policy direction, and oversight.

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

This is very important.

And to carry out the mission and vision, we have our strategic framework plan And in it, we talk about a number of things, but we also note the permissive environment that has been allowed to take root in our city, and it now enables the criminal set, but also the random acts of violence and lawlessness that we have too often seen in our city.

The impact of the environment has harmed our communities across Seattle, and so our mandate is public safety to address our public safety challenges, to improve our public safety posture.

And the permissive environment is the underlying factors behind the crime and is reflecting the inability to address our public safety needs.

So that's what we looked at last year as we started our committee.

In addressing that, we have six pillars.

Pillar number one was SBD staffing.

And they're not really ranked order of the six pillars, but SBD staffing is very, very important to that.

And it was a driving factor for our work in 24. And our sixth pillar was engaging us in a one Seattle way with the county and the state.

This is really important on so many issues that are facing us in terms of crime security, our public health, mental health challenges that we're facing.

And these are the things that we need to continue to work on, the state in terms of mental health, but also what's happening in Olympia, what the State House and Senate are looking to do.

But I also wanted to add, but this also includes the federal level as well.

And our committee is positioned to work federal issues as well as they may come up over the course of the year.

One of the things on this, and it kind of goes to pillar one is the impact of our public safety staffing.

We often talk about SPD staffing and it's really important, but it's not just with Seattle police department.

It's also with the fire department.

We have issues.

on the city attorney's office in the Seattle Municipal Court, there's staffing challenges throughout our public safety ecosystem.

And basically, we have to be centered on job one.

The police need to be focused on crime and violent crime, property crime, and those issues that are impacting us.

Fire's got its challenges, both in terms of fire, but also in terms of aiding those in need, whether it's health one, Health 99, Medic 1 and all the like.

And so these are the kind of the focuses that we're doing as a city and particularly as a council and our public safety committee.

I just wanted to make those points.

And then secondly, I also wanted to note that, and I brought up the strategic framework plan, you know, as part of that review of the mission and vision statements and also, you know, the plan in terms of our approach.

And the reason why I do this is because I think there's been some misunderstandings.

I was at a meeting for the first meeting for the Downtown Community Council.

And in that Downtown Community Council, a question that came to me, I also had our two at-large, Council Member Rink and Council Member Nelson.

Council President Nelson were there too.

representing at this inaugural meeting of the Downtown Community Council.

And one of the questions for me was, what do you think about your landmark legislation related to SOTA, the stay out of drug area?

And I told him then, and I'll say again here, I was kind of like taken aback because I don't think of it as landmark legislation.

I just think it is a tool and a piece of legislation that was put together as part of our strategic framework plan.

And I think this has been kind of, you know, highlights how this has been kind of misinterpreted and partly because of the opposition to the SODA plan, for example, and SOAP, but it's also highlights, you know, the media coverage and it kind of take on a life of its own.

So I get a question from the new downtown community council describing it as my landmark legislation, when in fact it's not.

It is a very important piece of legislation, but what's important is the strategic framework plan and the approach that we're taking.

And so, And I gave an interview on this topic generally.

And in reading the article, I just wanted to note Seattle lawmakers last year made a late push.

There was no late push.

We started in February of last year.

We had some baseline.

meetings with the various, the nine entities that fall under the community's jurisdiction.

And then I wanted to start with the vacant buildings abatement bill, because I view it as very important.

And so we did.

And so then, so then we started working the bills.

You know, we had early on ALPR, automatic license plate reader and street racing.

Street racing has been very important for us.

And then soda and soap were being worked.

But I was also working the SCORE ILA, the interlocal agreement for SCORE.

And in fact, I wanted to go with that first before soda and soap.

And that got delayed a bit.

So we already had a plan.

So there was no late push.

And I also knew on the back end that I had three technology bills for the real-time crime center, CCTV, in addition to the ALPR.

And with the possibility of the less lethal weapons bill in September as well.

So there was no late push.

This was all part of a schedule.

And there's some changes that happened, like with the SCORE ILA bill that kind of jammed things a little bit.

But there was no late push for that.

And so the urgency was to work through all of these as part of the plan.

There was no specific urgency related to soda, for example.

And I also wanted to note You talk about scarce law enforcement resources.

I already mentioned us being undermanned, understaffed, and dedicated to arresting and processing those in the drug trade.

Well, this is super important.

the drug trade, which often then leads to a stolen goods trade, and then oftentimes, sadly, sex trafficking and prostitution is key.

So that is where we want to, you know, butt our resources because it plays out in so many ways.

It ripples across of what we're dealing with.

So it was important to the strategic framework plan.

So I don't understand that there's also the question of whether the city's scarce law enforcement resources should be dedicated to arresting and processing those in the drug trade.

Of course.

And I do note later in terms of the King County Jail, the King County Jail agreement was huge.

That and along with the SPOG interim agreement arguably are the two more important things that happened last year in terms of bills.

But we're well aware of what's happening with the King County Jail and we're watching it closely.

This goes to numbers in terms of where we are in terms of the agreement and where we are currently.

And I'll be meeting Chief Barnes soon and I'll be asking him that.

And I know there's different things that play into this.

I'm also mindful that with all these bills, the 11 major bills that we passed, it takes time to bring things on board.

Vacant building abatement bill is definitely on board.

Chief Scoggins has used that bill to great effect to make our city safer.

And I thank Chief Scoggins for doing that.

I'm also learning that street racing is starting to come up online as well.

I should note too, the tech bills take time.

It takes time to hire people into the real-time crime center.

It takes time to get the CCTVs and then install them.

So there's certainly a need for patients.

And in terms of expectation management, and maybe that's something that over the course of 24, I could have done a better job in terms of expectations management, because we were working all these bills.

And so that may create expectations, both in the public, but also in our local media.

Um, what's interesting too, in this article in terms of pushback against like soda and soap and you know, what they ultimately do is stigmatize individuals who are struggling with substance use disorder or engaging in sex work.

Well, that's why we have PDA and lead on our, on our agenda today.

We note that.

And I've said many times out of 10 people, if we divert six, seven or eight, that's great.

So that's not looking to stigmatize.

We're looking to divert them into treatment and care.

For those one, two, or three that do need to go into the criminal justice system and into the Seattle Municipal Court, well, oftentimes there's parallel issues with them, whether it's felony conviction, firearm possession, there's a bunch of different things that play into that.

So this comment here is, doesn't recognize our support for the diversion program, particularly the LEAD program.

And then here, too, is the importance of the city attorney's office and the Seattle Municipal Court.

And again, noted regarding King County Jail, there's a lot of factors that go up to filling up our capacity to 135, and we'll definitely be following that.

But ultimately, the point here is that The strategic framework plan drives our efforts.

It's not going after one bill or one topic is the strategic framework plan.

And that kind of plan and having that understanding brings together what we're doing.

And we're going to continue to build on that in 25 as it relates to ordinances that don't help achieve that plan or the criminal justice system to ensure it is working well.

And I'll add the community safety program too.

We're doing a lot with alternative response, but we also have to ensure that community response, that community safety programs are also nested into alternative response and the overall strategic framework plan.

So that is key.

But back to the point that I made, you know, the SPOG interim agreement, the King County jail agreement, which you could say is partly influenced with the SCORE ILA, recruitment and retention are all very important.

So that question that I got, landmark bill, and then what ends up being the focus of articles is misleading.

And I just wanted to set that straight in terms of what's driving.

And we will, in terms of our responsibilities, engage with the police department, for example, on the King County Jail situation, where it is in terms of its numbers.

We'll engage on what is happening with SOTA in that.

And again, I mentioned vacant building abatement is moving well.

My understanding is that street racing is now taking root in terms of becoming more effective.

And we will continue to do this across all the bills that were passed last year and what we're going to do this year.

So with that somewhat lengthy chair report, I wanted to now open the hybrid public comment period.

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

Clark County speakers are signed up today.

May I make a comment based on your comments?

Yes, Councilmember Moore.

Can I also note Councilmember Saka has already checked in, but he is now here in person too.

Thank you, Vice Chair Saka.

Council Member Moore.

Thank you.

Just for the record, because this continues to be misinformation, soap does not apply to sellers of sex.

Soap only applies to buyers and to pimps.

Thank you.

I want to make sure the record is very clear.

Thank you.

That goes to my point about how things are characterized sometimes.

If I may, I would also just like to thank you and Council Member Moore for level setting, taking this opportunity to level set and align on material fact.

Facts are important.

And if we're not aligned on a shared understanding of material fact, then all the color commentary that flows from that is necessarily going to be even more off.

So thank you for taking this opportunity to level set and remind what material facts are.

Thank you.

Thank you, Vice Chair.

Okay, Clerk, over to you.

Currently, we have one in-person speaker signed up and zero remote speakers present.

Each speaker will have two minutes.

We'll start with in-person speakers.

The public comment period will be following 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 end their comments within the allotted time.

The public comment period is now open and we'll begin with the first and only speaker on the list, Jared Sluman.

Hello?

This one?

Good morning.

Thank you very much for holding a forum where the public can bring our issues to light.

Safety Committee, right now Seattle streets are very horrifying.

From Shoreline to Soto, crime runs the city.

Drug addicts, vandals, thieves, motorhomes that sell drugs and traffic stolen goods are littered across our city to restore peace.

I hope they're permanently removed from our city.

We have many gigantic towing yards up and down Aurora and Soto that are a perfect place to have them towed to.

This is for the residents, not the criminals.

If you want safety for those criminals that live in the motor homes, then rehab, mental health services, relocations, women's shelters, jails, et cetera, are a safe place.

But to make the streets a safe place for the citizens, we should have the motorhomes gone.

Unfortunately, the cinder block solution doesn't work.

They just deter the motorhomes to go down to the next street or down to the end of the line.

This problem would greatly, if it was solved, it would greatly increase the lives of these citizens.

I hope My commute to the gym starts looking good, not litter and vandalism to the left and right.

These motor homes put fear and confusion into us.

Why would someone let this continue?

I have been to other countries and I don't see any of those.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

And now we have one remote public commenter.

The first remote public commenter is David Haynes.

Please press star six when you hear the prompt, you have been unmuted.

Sorry, one second.

David, go ahead.

Hi, thank you.

The strategic framework has been treasonously sabotaged by unconstitutional police reform.

It doesn't matter how much money and cops you throw at public safety if it's tainted in unconstitutional reforms and ill-trained chiefs and cops.

Where is the law to trespass all the junkie thieves and take them to the jailhouse to question?

And where is the drones to follow back the predatory drug pushers to keep rolling in and out of the open drug markets, destroying their fellow man's life, and being listed nonviolent low level by the mayor and police chief following George Soros sponsored police reform that violates the constitution.

Seattle has continued to implode because we have ill fated bad policies that unconstitutionally run interference for the low level drug pushers under 3.5 grams and repeat offenders who destroy the pursuits of happiness for many small businesses and lead of Lisa Dugard is here to ensure counsel that she will continue to run interference for the repeat offending BIPOC community of customs violating criminals to make sure that lead, co-lead, Just Care, AKA PDA and AKA George Sorrell sponsored nonprofits designed to implode America manipulating the skin color incarceration at the expense of public safety, a progressive racist world bottom of the barrel policy.

Ask Lisa Dugard how many millions of dollars does she take or get allocated from the innocent homeless crisis budget and gives to politically connected nonprofits helping evil criminals and self-destructive demons to button push the black and brown devil's advocates and protesters who are browbeating bullies who shake down the Democrats who capitulated to the devil's advocates who have a conflict of interest that justifies an investigation about the unconstitutional police reform that has imploded our society.

When's the last time y'all went all the way down Third Avenue and wondered why isn't the transit authority, the King County sheriffs, and the actual bus drivers working together to wipe out all the evil crime on Third Avenue, trespassing

Thank you.

The public comment period is complete.

We will now proceed to our items of business.

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

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

Will the clerk please read item one into the record?

Seattle Municipal Courts Update.

Good morning, presiding Judge Crawford-Willis.

Welcome to the Public Safety Committee.

As you can see, always some interesting comments for us here.

And Mr. Sattler, thank you for returning to the Public Safety Committee, basically following up on our briefing from last year.

And I look forward to hearing your briefing and the issues that you raise.

So can you introduce yourself for the record?

And then I believe with the clerk, everything is set for your briefing.

Absolutely.

Thank you.

Over to you.

First, good morning to all of you.

And thank you to Committee Chair Kettle for inviting us to come and give an update.

for Seattle Municipal Court.

I'm Judge Crawford Willis, the presiding judge of Seattle Municipal Court, and I have with me Josh Sattler, who is our extraordinary court administrator.

So today, Josh and I, we want to provide you with an update on our new change in judicial leadership.

We also want to talk about the great accomplishments that we had in 2024, talk about our 2025 priorities and initiatives and challenges.

So thank you again for allowing us to be here.

Just to give an overview, as you all know, we are the judicial branch of the City of Seattle, Seattle Municipal Court, and we provide the community with a form to address and resolve any alleged violations of the law.

And we do that in an independent, impartial, and respectful manner.

And so that is kind of what our purpose is.

We pride ourselves on being the people's court and a leader in implementing innovative court programs and services to ensure equitable delivery of justice.

We also ensure access to our court and its processes by efficient management of court business and fair and timely disposition of cases.

SMC has adapted to significant changes, as we all have, a part of city government so that we can continue to provide the community with great service.

We've met systemic changes, and we've adopted two practices and strategies of the City of Seattle.

Now, our court adjudicates misdemeanors and gross misdemeanors, offenses such as domestic violence, assault, assault, thefts, driving under the influence, harassment, reckless driving.

And we do this as under the Seattle Municipal Code and the Revised Code of Washington.

We also process all infractions in the City of Seattle, such as parking, traffic and camera violations.

We have seven elected judges, five appointed magistrates, and we all work together to make sure that we are disposing of these cases in a timely manner.

Our court is divided into four, if you will, service areas, operations, technology, administrative services, and strategy.

Just a little bit about myself.

I joined the bench in 2017, and actually Seattle Municipal Court is where I started my practice as a public defender with TDA, and I believed then as I do now that Seattle Municipal Court is the best court there is.

We make a difference in the lives of people, and so I was always wanting to get back to Seattle Municipal Court.

After leaving TDA, I went on to be an administrative law judge with the Office of Administrative Hearings.

The last 18 years I was there, I served as assistant deputy chief, a part of the executive leadership team, and running one of the biggest offices in the Seattle downtown area.

I continued to pro tem at Seattle Municipal Court for about 20 years before I finally came on the bench appointed by in 2016 by a former mayor and have run two successful elections since that time.

I'm very proud to be a native of Seattle, born and raised here just a few blocks up the hill, Swedish Hospital.

And I grew up in the Central District, so I have not ventured too far from where I started.

I am a proud double alumni of Seattle University, the university and also the law school.

where I stay very active as a mentor, and currently I serve on the Board of Trustees there.

I'm excited.

In June, I will take on the role of president of the District and Municipal Court Judges Association.

It's association where all of the district and municipal courts in the state are members, so very excited about that.

In the fall of last year, I was elected to serve as the presiding Judge and I started my term January 1st, 2025. As you see on the screen, Judge Shadid was also elected to serve as the assistant presiding and Judge Gregory agreed, graciously agreed to stay on as the third member of our executive team.

Seattle Municipal Court had really made great strides under my predecessor, Judge Chess.

We owe her a debt of gratitude.

Under her leadership, we endured, along with all of you, the city budget crisis, and we managed to come through that well with her leadership.

The court now has a really robust governance policy put in place, led by our court administrator.

And I plan to continue to champion all of these things with Josh and our other court leadership to support the initiatives that are underway.

Also want to acknowledge that I would love to continue to strengthen the ties with...

Is it my time?

No, no, no.

I also want to continue the ties that have been developed with our stakeholders and with all of you.

I hope to strengthen those.

Some of you I already know and I hope to have a chance to develop relationships with the rest of you.

For me, we're going to continue to support the initiatives that have been started before I took on this role.

But for me, a priority for me is my staff.

I want to make sure that they are empowered so that they can use the skills that they bring to the court to help us fulfill the mission of the court, want them to feel a sense of belonging and inclusion, and know that their work matters.

And so that's something that I'm really focusing on.

The other thing I'm focusing on is making sure that our court's story is told.

We do some great work.

We touch the lives of people, especially in our specialty courts, our mental health court, veterans treatment court, and our domestic violence court.

And so I want that story to be told in our community resource center.

So I am going to be working closely with our communication staff, to get that information out so that people know what we're doing.

Again, I'm going to wrap up because I want to leave time for Josh.

He has some important things to tell you.

But I'm responsible basically for all the management and administration of the court.

I serve as the spokesperson for the court and have authority for judicial assignments, calendar, and some personnel decision.

I have delegated all of the administrative decisions, policies, and signatory authority to our court administrator, which he does a wonderful job of handling.

At this time, I'm going to turn it over to Josh Sattler, our court administrator, and he's going to tell you about some of the things that we have done in 2024 and plan to do in the future.

Again, thank you so much for the invitation.

It's a pleasure being here.

Thanks, Judge Crawford-Willis.

I just wanted to quickly update Public Safety Committee on some of the things we discussed last time we were here last year and the status of some 2024 accomplishments.

Number one being the successful on time and on budget launch of our case management system.

This was a six year, $55 million investment from the city.

We successfully launched last March, so we're coming up on one year.

There was some deferred functionality inside that launch to go live on time, which we've been working towards throughout this year, and we're pretty happy with the results of where we're at coming up on its first birthday.

We also, like Judge Crawford Willis discussed, established our project governance and portfolio management.

This is how we prioritize projects and initiatives at the court, knowing that we have limited budget and resources, going through a thoughtful process that involves all areas of the court as well as our stakeholders and the community when we launch new initiatives.

Third, Ensuring adequate court funding, we were very grateful for the way the budget turned out in the midst of this crisis.

Really appreciative of the work of the council and executive branch in supporting the court to meet our mission.

We did complete our reorganization.

This was based around our new case management system launch.

We re-engineered the way we do business as a court to meet our case management system.

We went from 11 different areas of operations of the court and consolidated that down to four.

Like Judge Crawford Willis said, we really appreciate the relationships we've developed inside the city with our stakeholders, especially the city council.

You've been very collaborative and respectful of our role in the ecosystem, as you put it, and we really appreciate that.

And last, we took some strides to advance equity and engagement at the court.

We hosted Law Day.

Community Relief Day, which had over 250 attendees and 40 different providers.

And we're taking a look inside the court as well on some initiatives to advance equity engagement, specifically our dress code policy and some other things to ensure equity engagement inward as well with our staff.

So looking forward to 2025, we've identified these different strategic priorities, first being tech stabilization and future enhancements.

Like I said, we're coming up on that first year of our successful case management system launch, but there's still maintenance and different things that need to be supported.

Second being employee Well-being and engagement, this is very important to our incoming presiding judge to make sure our employees feel like they're supported here at the court.

Third is organizational resilience, making sure the court is ready for what is coming in front of us.

The court is mostly reactionary in the city.

Different changes are made at the executive or legislative branch, and we need to make sure the court is prepared for the changing landscape.

Fourth is operational excellence and accountability.

We pride ourselves on being innovative here at Seattle Municipal Court.

We had one of the first community courts, mental health courts in the nation.

Our specialty courts are very important to us, and we want to actually talk to you about some more ideas we have later in this presentation.

Another strategic priority is leadership and workforce development, making sure our future leaders are prepared and being grown inside our court.

City and legislative mandates, we know there are different things that the court has to roll out and be prepared for.

And we need to make sure we have bandwidth to take those on when they're presented in front of us.

And then last, maintaining judicial independence, making sure really everyone understands how the three different branches of government work, and ensuring our role in that process.

Thank you.

So like I alluded to earlier, we are Excited about the possibility of launching a new initiative called Seattle Drug Diversion.

This is still being in the early stages, but this will be coming in front of council, hopefully at some point with the support of the mayor's office and really being led by the city attorney's office.

What we are discussing is implementing a new diversion program for individuals charged with drug possession or related charges where substance abuse is part of the underlying offense.

The city attorney will determine eligibility and present diversion offers.

Our pretrial services unit will manage the program and coordinate with referrals to community partners for case management and other services through our court resource center.

Some of the program requirements, we are discussing adding another probation counselor to support services.

clients through this process, as well as a contract with a substance use disorder assessor being housed inside our community resource center so that all court users can access these services on site with immediacy and without delay.

So this program will require some new funding for the court as well as the city attorney's office.

We're not presenting this proposal today.

We just wanted to take advantage of our time with you to start teeing this up so that everyone's aware that we are currently stakeholdering this with our partners and look forward to presenting this concept to you later along with City Attorney's Office.

Some of our upcoming challenges and opportunities that we wanted to highlight really our marshal staffing.

We struggle with the same struggles that Seattle Police Department does in attracting and retaining qualified marshals.

We currently have two vacancies, and this process can sometimes take six to nine months to successfully onboard candidates.

We, frankly, need more marshals to support our current operations.

Knowing the changes coming down the pipeline, you know, Like I said, the court is reactionary.

We understand the changes at King County Jail.

So far, that has not increased the average jail population.

But when it does, it will have a direct impact on our Marshall staffing levels.

Just in the past year, our number of high security defendants being transported has grown by 39 percent.

In the last year, the number of ultra security defendants has grown by 200 percent.

this is before we're even seeing any changes to the booking restrictions at King County Jail.

So as this starts to increase, if we start to see more, these ultra security defendants require two marshals to be safely transported through the courthouse.

This will put the court in a position of really great risk, and we want to highlight this issue for city council and look for your support in adding marshals positions in the future.

Number two, As we mentioned, our case management system went live last year.

The city attorney's office is also pursuing a new case management system, which has been delayed.

almost on a year.

This has led to many manual processes between our biggest data exchange partner.

We're hopeful that they're going to go live soon in the first quarter or second quarter of this year, which we're hopeful will lead to some of the efficiencies that we haven't yet realized inside our case management system.

But this is slowing down our operations and making us not as effective as we could be.

The third future opportunity, We understand that there are discussions about adding traffic cameras and different implementation of those traffic cameras and all of those violations come here to Seattle Municipal Court.

We wanna ensure that we're at the table, part of those discussions and helping be a good city partner, but those will be substantial additions to our workload, depending on how many of those cameras come to fruition.

And then last is budget.

It feels like we just successfully navigated a really challenging budget crisis, but it's always budget season.

And we wanna make sure that the court is adequately resourced for some of these challenges that we see coming down the line.

With that, that's really the end of our presentation and we're happy to take any questions you have for us.

Well, thank you, presiding judge Crawford Willis and Mr. Sattler.

And this is a reason why you're here, to have this opportunity to speak.

And one thing that came through my mind was the word bridge.

which I'll come to later, but as always, and you teed them up perfectly, Mr. Sattler, with your future traffic camera expansion.

Vice Chair, do you have any questions?

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

No, I don't.

Of course I do.

Thank you, Presiding Judge Crawford Willis, also Mr. Sattler as well.

Really appreciate your presentation today.

Also want to just say thank you for your partnership between my office and the court.

in the presiding judge office over the last year, even up to your newest tenure on the court, Madam presiding judge.

And it's been a terrific partnership.

Thanks for calling out our collaboration with my council member colleagues and your esteemed court as well.

I personally worked hard and I recognize that equal effort among my council member colleagues on being very, very collaborative and engaging in robust stakeholder processes.

We no longer just, This council, myself individually, and I think many of my, all of my, all of my, I can say all of my council member colleagues, no longer just placate or intentionally talk to people that fit their political agenda and ignore everyone else.

We talk to everybody, community partners, government partners, community groups, the mayor and because these problems are challenging and we can't solve them in silos or independently.

We all need to work together.

And so all this to say, thank you for your partnership and I look forward to continuing to build upon that and strengthen it on a going forward basis.

Question, two questions.

First off, appreciate the, The first blurb there on your list of 2024 accomplishments, the launch of the new technology, and congratulations on launching that on time, as you put it, and on budget.

Very impressive.

Now, we all know that that's a great achievement.

It's important to do those two things, but that also doesn't mean that it was not without its own snags.

Launch and implementation was not without its own snag.

So can you talk a little bit more about that?

What are some, now we're a year in, what are some of the pain points or snafus that you ran into with implementation and how have you been able to overcome some of those over this past year?

Sure, I mean, this was really a business transformation project.

We had to change the way we do business.

We had had the luxury of having our own homegrown case management system for almost 30 years, which meant we could make all the changes we wanted to it.

But it also provided a lot of risk.

We are now going on to a more modern, supported contract base with a vendor, which means we're not going to have the flexibility that we've always had.

We had to change our processes to meet the new technology.

And there's been some snags there in organizational change management, making sure your employees are trained.

I think the tough part is that for our staff, this is slower.

We seem slower and less efficient as we're learning the new technology.

A lot of the efficiencies we've gained are on the back end.

Data exchanges, less paper processes.

Some of these have not come to life because our biggest partner is not on their new case management system yet, so that is a pain point.

but for the most part, here we are a year later, our calendars are moving efficiently, people are adapting, we're learning the new technology.

The biggest, I think, issue for us is sometimes when we've had to make changes to the system, we have to take it down, and I equate it to a road closure.

You can't fix a road without closing the road, and we try to be really purposeful and do that on Low times, weekends, but sometimes it's necessary to take the system down over the lunch hour, and that causes a lot of disruption for our stakeholders and is frustrating, but it's the only way to fix the road.

But we try to just really communicate with our partners, let them know when these system outages will happen, and we've seen them decrease over the past year to the point now that the system is pretty stable.

And I'd just like to add, I have to give a shout out to our staff because they really stepped up and figured out how to make this work.

As Josh said, it's slower, but they stepped up and figured out a way to keep things going.

So I have to give them a shout out.

Sure thing.

Thank you.

My next question pertains to SOTA, SOTA implementation.

SOTA passed last September, if I recall correctly.

So an implementation, as we learn, can be challenging to fully roll out.

And so there was a report in the Seattle Times a week or two ago or so about the number of cases.

And I think there's one, if I recall correctly, that was publicly reported.

And so just curious to better understand, and I'm specifically referring to soda, not soap, how rollout and implementation, because that is principally a city attorney and a Seattle Municipal Court judge who would ultimately make that determination.

So just be curious to, as written under the law, I know, because I wrote it.

I helped write it.

But just curious to better understand how implementation of that is going.

It's a two-part question.

How implementation of that is going so far?

And then two, I understand that per your slide, there is a new initiative, the Seattle Drug Diversion Court.

What role, if any, do you envision the new drug diversion program playing into SOTA at all?

So I'll take the stab at the first, and then I'll defer to Josh.

So regarding the SOTA, the judges are happy to consider that request, but it has to be presented to us.

And so if it is presented, we will definitely consider.

My understanding, there have been two presented to us.

One was the judge approved it, and the other one was declined.

So we are happy to consider them when they are presented to us.

Again, we don't initiate the presentation of the soda.

I'll turn it over to Josh.

Yeah, as related to the Seattle Drug Diversion Program, we really see this as full circle, starting with the drug ordinance that contemplated having a diversion opportunity.

We see this as that diversion opportunity.

Second, it is contemplated that the majority of cases that go into the drug diversion program the city would be asking for a soda order on those cases pre-trial.

So I think it's possible that you might see that increase if we're able to launch this new initiative.

Technology-wise, we're ready.

This is work the court used to do.

We had to retrain our staff on how to do these and process these, but so far, no real impact there.

The court is...

is ready and able, like Judge Crawford-Willis said, when we start receiving these requests, to grant them and our staff are ready and know what to do.

Thank you.

Even if, and I'll add just my own two cents to pile on, even if and when this is fully implemented, I don't personally perceive a scenario where the court will be inundated with the volume, that it was before under the old, because this is a very specific targeted place-based approach, covers less than one half, one percent of the city's landmass, unlike previous iterations of SOTA, where it was like 70 something percent of the city, so in any event.

But thank you for sharing there, and the final, it's really just a comment, is that President Judge Crawford-Willis, appreciate you and your diverse experience and perspective that you bring to the bench in this role.

It has been a pleasure to get to partner with you in our shared roles and our shared work here, serving the city, ultimately.

But I've had the pleasure of knowing you since One thing you forgot to mention about your tremendous accolades is your involvement in the Lauren Miller Bar Association, a civil rights organization and an association of black lawyers in the state of Washington that I was proudly a member of and a former vice president.

Got to know you through that and I count myself as one of your mentors, mentees, mentees.

And now we get to partner together in this work.

Oh no, Councilmember Sokka knows too many people, must be a conflict.

But in any event, you forgot to mention LMBA.

There you go.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you, Vice Chair.

And no, you don't know too many people, which is my bridge to saying Council Member Hollingsworth, who knows everyone.

Do you have any questions?

There you go.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Now, I just had a quick comment.

Thank you, Judge Crawford-Willis.

Really appreciate you.

One of the things that you also didn't mention is how big of a supporter you are for the women's basketball at Seattle University.

She never missed a game, and never does miss a game, you and your family.

Really appreciate that.

And then extraordinary Josh Sattler, thank you so much.

I just had a quick comment that it's just been really great working with the court system and understanding how the laws that we make and pass here impact and how they get implemented.

One of the things, the feedback that we get from community folks or we got from you all at the courts or different city departments is understanding how it's implemented after it's passed and seeing if it's like feasible and functional and how does it work and who does it impact who actually has to implement it and so it's been great to partner with you all understanding hey if we pass this how does it impact you all and being a great partner in that with with the city you're right across the street and I love having that relationship with you all so I just wanted to throw that out there and thank you.

And then last but not least, just doubling down on what council member Saka express is I know it was a big undertaking for the technology piece and the new software update and the new system.

So I'm glad to hear that you all are happy with it, that it's working.

I know it was a really tremendous investment for the city and just really appreciate all your hard work in implementing the software and stuff and looking forward to working with you all as well.

So it's going to be, it's going to be fun.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Hollingsworth.

Councilmember Moore?

Thank you, Chair.

Good morning, and I just wanted to say I had the great privilege and honor to work with presiding Judge Crawford Willis at TDA, and then you were my supervisor when we were the administrative law judges, so always had tremendous amount of regard for everything that you have brought across the board professionally and personally, so I'm so pleased to see that you are now presiding judge and really looking forward to continuing to work with you.

And Josh, we've had good conversations about the court as well.

So thank you so much for that.

And it does seem that you've made a number of pretty hefty accomplishments.

And you're sort of the little engine that could.

So really appreciate that.

I would like to know a little bit more about the drug diversion program.

I know one of the things that I've been interested in, had some conversations with Representative Lauren Davis about, as well as City Attorney Davidson, is really looking at a robust misdemeanor reentry program.

And, you know, you've got your drug diversion sort of at the front end, but wondering, Are there any conversations with people who are clearly in the throes of substance use disorder, are not necessarily being diverted, but are being kept in jail for a period of time, how is Seattle Municipal Court utilizing that window to try to begin treatment and getting people on a path so that when they are released they've got that What's the word?

That window, again, reusing that word, but that window of clarity to be able to think, okay, maybe now I am ready to get into treatment or work with getting onto medication management.

So is there some discussion about the back end and how to utilize the back end?

It's definitely part of the discussions we've had in drug diversion.

We're definitely at the opening stages of this, and since...

the end of community court, there's really been a gap in the court's role in connecting people to services.

So like you mentioned, we see drug diversion as front end, trying to provide as many opportunities as possible for people who are ready to take that next step.

The court can play a really unique role in then, making sure that the person is able to have those connections through our community resource center.

So a big part of this internally for us, though this is really the city attorney's office's program, the investment the court is making is in the support to help that person if they do decide to start trying to get some help and having those services embedded in our community resource center.

But we're definitely open to more discussions about bringing more people into the table and doing some of the things that you discussed.

And we have had very preliminary discussions about expansion of our mental health court to include co-occurring diagnosis, so mental health and also substance abuse.

So we've had discussions about that, which would, I think, fit in with what you're talking about.

So thank you for that.

We're thinking the same way.

Okay, thank you.

Okay, thank you, Council Member Moore.

Judge Crawford-Willis, Mr. Sattler, again, thank you for joining us, and I really appreciate it.

In terms of my questions, I mentioned, first I wanted to say, actually, in today's new environment, I wanted to say thank you for listing as one of your accomplishments of advancing equity.

I think that is something that we still need to continue to work on, be smart on.

As I often say, as my team knows, it's the idea of being present.

you know, and then being mindful of this area and then being prepared to act when needed, I think is really important.

But, you know, we have to start by being present and, you know, and then understanding, being mindful of the issues that lay within.

So I think, and then being prepared to move.

But the advancing equity piece, I think, is something that we should note first off and as chair.

I mentioned the bridge earlier.

It's interesting, these bridges in life, it could be when you're a big sports star coming back into regular life or military coming into civilian life.

There's a lot of bridges that are out there.

And one of the bridges is, it kind of goes to the question about a reentry program and probation, a way to facilitate the exiting from the criminal justice system back into society and doing so in a way that is complete and we don't see the return.

Can you speak to the point about reentry program and the idea of probation?

I know there's been history here, but is there anything on this front that you can speak to?

We don't currently have a reentry program such as council member more described, but it's certainly something that is intriguing and that we will talk about.

Josh, did you want to?

No, I'll just note one of our 2023 accomplishments was our probation evolution project where our probation department partnered with the Vera Institute of Justice and looked at disproportionate outcomes for some of our probation clients.

we really transformed the way we do probation at Seattle Municipal Court, being more outcome-based, more consistent on what goes in.

But as you said, we don't have a re-entry program.

It's something we'd be interested in partnering with.

And I recognize there's been a reorganization and all the rest.

But I think it's something at least to be, again, present and mindful about in terms of how this plays out.

And there may be different ways of doing it as well.

As I noted, one of the themes for this year for the committee is the criminal justice system, the ecosystem, and a functioning criminal justice system.

So I just wanted to note in terms of your first challenge, because Marshall's staffing plays into this.

It's huge.

It relates to the SCORE jail.

I know there's discussions on that and the like.

But the Marshall staffing, so if there's anything that we can do to support that, we can have some conversations.

Obviously, we've been working with Seattle PD staffing, fire department staffing.

There's staffing issues in, like, the care department, the 911 system.

I mean, it's endemic throughout the entire system and something that we need to be doing that.

So we can have follow-on discussions to, you know, see what we can do in terms of Marshall staffing.

I don't know.

any particulars, but we can do that.

And speaking of staffing, we're also supportive of our judges, too, in a sense of I know there's some state legislation in terms of residence requirements and the like to provide some flexibility in terms of for our judges within the Seattle Municipal Court.

So that goes to getting the best that we can get, even if they live just outside city limits.

Those kinds of things are really important as well.

And moving to your next thing, I understand the issue of the data exchange with the city attorney's office.

I think it's at a point now I think I should follow up with the chief operating officer and the IT.

director on this so for those listening upstairs we need to move forward I understand there's some deadlines end of the month February we don't we can't have the shifting to the right anymore on the schedule as it relates to this data exchange we need to have again a functioning criminal justice system this is another example different from the staffing but these these little pieces play out and really impact us so we will We will be engaged on this topic too, Judge and Mr. Sattler.

I think that is pretty much it for my questions.

Thank you for putting the future traffic camera expansion on there.

I know my vice chair was super happy about that.

And because it goes to, as I mentioned at the very beginning, the traffic cameras What happens is when nobody thinks anybody's looking, bad things start to happen.

And unfortunately, that creates that permissive environment that's permitted.

And so I thank the vice chair for his work in this area and please continue to work.

You got the lead on this, continue to work with all those involved to include the court.

And with that, If there are no further questions, thank you.

And this is a great tee-up because this is the function of this briefing is to like the, you know, the program with the city attorney's office.

It's about daylighting issues.

So now upstairs knows that we know that the data exchange system between the court and the city attorney's office is not where it needs to be and it's been delayed, delayed, delayed.

And so we need to have some additional attention on that.

And the other topics too in terms of like the diversion piece, which is, you know what, a perfect setup for the next item in our agenda.

So thank you again, Judge.

Thank you for the invite.

And Mr. Sattler will be in touch throughout the year to include budget to close on that.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Thank you all.

We'll now move on to our second item in business.

Will the clerk please read item two into the record?

Lead introduction.

Okay, that was the perfect lead-in, pardon the pun, with the diversion program and the court and everything that relates to that.

Ms. Dugard, welcome and your team.

Can you, for the record, can everybody introduce themselves for the record and I think everything's set for the briefing, so take it away.

Great.

Well, good morning, council members.

Thank you so much for having us.

And by way of introduction, I'll start it off.

My name is Brandy McNeil.

I am one of the deputy directors at Purpose Dignity Action, or PDA, and my primary area of responsibility is over the local LEAD program, which includes the project management team, at PDA, as well as a small team of lawyers that works to represent participants in their civil legal needs.

With that, I'll hand it over to Sam.

Hi, counsel.

My name is Sam Wolf, he, him.

I'm also at PDA.

My area is in the lead local team with the project management.

My role is the Seattle Lead Program Director.

And good morning, Chair Kettle and council members.

I'm Lisa Dugard.

I'm one of three co-executive directors at Purpose Dignity Action.

And our planned presentation portion starts with Brandy, moves to me, and then concludes with Sam and some data.

Thank you, everybody, for being here.

And we've had a lot of discussions, Ms. Dugard, but I just wanted to also give a shout out to Mr. Wolfe because we were working back in the early days, my Queen Anne Community Council days, on some challenges that we're facing.

And so I really appreciate, even though it's years ago now, your efforts in that and I don't want to jinx anything, but things have been relatively quiet, so.

Thank you.

Over to you, Ms. McNeil.

Thank you.

So where I want to start is really emphasizing what LEAD is and always has been, which is a public safety framework.

So we work with people whose unlawful behavior is driven by extreme poverty and or unaddressed behavioral health issues, including both substance use disorders and mental health issues.

Our goal is to work with lead clients towards behavior change and a reduction in community impact.

And the piece of the puzzle that we provide is long-term intensive case management.

Lead clients have complex situations that include both unmet resource needs and criminal legal system involvement.

And so lead case managers, they serve as the golden thread.

They act as a broker to resources like housing, and they support clients as they navigate public health and public safety systems.

LEAD is positioned to be complementary to the rest of the public safety system, so a piece of the puzzle.

And we take referrals from first responders, and then we coordinate with criminal legal system partners in order to maintain alignment between LEAD case management and public safety interests.

There are three ways to get into LEAD, and they're listed on this slide here.

When this all started in 2011, LEAD's policy coordinating group agreed on a series of divertible offenses.

And though we currently receive a lot of diversions for misdemeanor bucks, possession, and public use, there are a number of offenses eligible for diversion, including things like misdemeanor theft, property destruction, prostitution, and so on.

Law enforcement officers exercise discretion in making arrest diversions.

If someone is eligible per lead protocols, but an officer sees a reason not to divert, they are not required to divert.

Arrest diversions fundamentally are, they originate with a choice by the officer to make a diversion and a choice by that diverted individual to participate in the program.

The second way into the program is what we call social contact referrals, and those were created several years later at officer's request.

So those types of referrals allow officers to refer someone to lead when there is not immediate reason for arrest, but when the person is known by law enforcement to commit chronic law violations.

LEAD Policies Coordinating Group directed us to open the last route into the LEAD program, which is community referrals.

And we were directed to open community referrals during the pandemic.

And we operate that system with whatever capacity we have after we respond to law enforcement referrals.

The community referral system is the first to shut off when we have capacity issues.

We have done that multiple times over the years when it was necessary.

But when in operation, the community referral system has a huge potential to reduce the burden on the emergency response system.

Through robust community partnerships, we're able to identify people who are likely to generate 911 calls, and we're able to preemptively work with them before they generate those calls.

Next slide.

So as I said, LEAD is a framework.

And it's a framework for tackling law violations and problematic behavior that have consequences for self and others.

That includes law violations involving economic activities, including sex work, by those who struggle with substance use disorder.

LEAD does this work using best practices in recovery services and care coordination.

The model is closely aligned with the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Service Administration, or SAMHSA's framework for recovery, and is organized around core competencies in substance use disorder counseling.

Some key elements of LEAD include intensive case management.

This type of case management is a golden thread that sticks with the person over months and often years, and it helps participants achieve actual progress even through setbacks.

Case managers help participants navigate resources, as I mentioned earlier, housing, but of course outpatient treatment, medication treatment, inpatient treatment, legal services, job training, the list goes on and on.

And it also involves multi-system navigation.

Another key element is the framework for information sharing that includes and involves the Seattle Police Department and prosecutors at both the King County Prosecuting Attorney's Office and Seattle City Attorney's Office.

And legal system coordination is a key element, which is dependent on our partnerships and agreements with our prosecutorial partners.

LEAD also includes neighborhood-based case conferencing.

And finally, a key element is project management, which I mentioned is housed within PDA, and that ensures that public impact is mitigated and the program operates with fidelity to the evidence-based model.

Lisa?

The structure that Brandy has just described didn't come out of thin air, and it wasn't just the product of what the lead partners thought would be a good idea.

It draws on years and decades of evidence and research about what was going wrong and what needed to be improved to get better outcomes for people who commit law violations related to substance use, mental illness, and poverty.

There's widespread agreement in this country and locally that it's not the optimal response to those conditions to use the court system, but what should we be doing?

So LEAD was designed based on evidence and evidence-based practices to improve our local community's response.

It is so well-founded in the research base that and the evidence base that it's become a best practice nationally.

There is a federal funding stream that is earmarked for LEAD.

It's an Office of Justice Programs promising practice.

I realize I'm naming agencies that may no longer be operating as they were.

But for years, there's been a mounting understanding that this approach is an aggregation of best practices.

But that was the hypothesis.

We also have always rigorously studied whether or not the LEAD framework actually did deliver improved outcomes.

And I do want to say a lot of sort of adjacent outcomes have been examined.

But the key single goal of LEAD is crime reduction.

Brandy said it's a public safety program, and a public safety program has to be assessed in whether or not it is successful in reducing the amount of problematic and illegal behavior that participants engage in.

And in a rigorous study funded by the John and Laura Arnold Foundation and published in a series of peer-reviewed articles from 2017 to 2019, A University of Washington research team found that LEAD succeeded in reducing recidivism compared to a control group.

So it isn't just within subjects of this group of people reduced their incidence of crime over time.

That is true, but it also could be caused by independent factors, including like police staffing and less enforcement.

So this study used a control group of people in the same situation with identical background in the same precinct, actually other neighborhoods in the West precinct at the time, and found that lead participants compared to similarly situated others with comparable criminal history and comparable behavior We're 58% less likely to commit new crimes in any category, not just divertible crimes, any crimes, and in any jurisdiction.

We are going to...

Are you talking about COVID?

Oh, I am.

Sorry, in a moment, in the next couple of slides, I'll address CoLead.

But on this evaluation slide, we also shared that CoLead, an intensive case management team within the LEAD framework that was developed in 2020 in order to get people quickly off the street who were committing crimes related to behavioral health and poverty, that intervention has been able to achieve stable or high levels of housing placement and stabilization and maintenance of housing for the people who came in.

So again, we're using data and evaluation.

This was also done by a University of Washington research team.

to check whether or not the predicted impacts are actually occurring.

Not on this slide, but, oh, actually, yes, on the slide in the blue stripe.

Well done.

There's reference to a King County Auditor Report.

Some of you may remember there was some press about it in December of 2022 where the King County Auditor examine King County-funded criminal legal system diversion programs to see whether or not they accomplished stated goals.

And while in general the auditor found that there needed to be more rigor in that portfolio of programs, LEAD was the exception.

They called LEAD out for always having been rigorously evaluated and using data not only to validate the approach taken, but also to make changes.

So if we identify, you know, sort of performance issues that need to be corrected, that information is then brought back to the lead governing body, the policy coordinating group, and program changes are made in order to improve efficacy.

So, okay, what I was wondering about earlier, here's the story of the sort of evolution of the model.

In 2011, law enforcement assisted diversion launched here in Seattle.

This was the first place in the country to take the step of allowing police as a matter of policy to release someone who there was legal authority to book into jail and refer for prosecution, instead of doing that in an exercise of police discretion, to release that person in a warm handoff to intensive case management teams that would begin to work with people on what were understood to be complex, difficult situations to resolve.

That is now a fairly common concept, but it started here.

And until it was studied and found to reduce recidivism, it was really kind of a big deal.

And so I do wanna pause and acknowledge the coauthors of this.

We're the project management team, but LEAD has many partners and originating owners or authors.

including the Seattle Police Department.

The SPD was not required to do this or try this and really has been a national leader in innovating and now in a way that many other police departments have followed their lead, as well as the elected leaders of the city of Seattle and King County the Seattle City Attorney's Office and the King County Prosecutor's Office and the King County Sheriff, all of whom voluntarily came together to try something new because, at the time, the status quo was performing so poorly in changing behavior.

It just did not work to send people into the court system, have folks ordered to address their issues, but without the kind of intensive assessment and understanding of what exactly was causing the behavior and what exactly needed to change in order to correct for it.

So this was original LEAD 1.0 street-based case management starting in 2011 as a voluntary partnership among all of those stakeholders.

In 2019, the state of Washington started to recognize the evidence base for this approach and began to invest state funds in replication of the model around the state.

I will note the city of Seattle did not receive any state funds for LEED, even though it was a Seattle contribution to the state and the country.

until last year, when finally the state made a grant, the Health Care Authority made a grant to the city to expand the Seattle LEAD program.

But there began to be a state pilot LEAD replication grant program in 2019. And in 2021, with leadership from Senator Jamie Peterson and Senator Manka Dhingra, that program was expanded to allow for grants within King County and the city of Seattle.

And consequent to that, we did get an investment.

So Snohomish County, Whatcom County, Thurston, Mason counties then applied to replicate LEAD and have done so.

In 2021, after the Supreme Court's Blake decision, the legislature reached for LEAD as one of the bipartisan agreed approaches that should be made more available statewide and modeled the statewide Recovery Navigator Program on LEAD core principles.

So Recovery Navigator Program is essentially statewide LEAD at this point.

In 2020, as we mentioned earlier, CoLead was introduced as one of the lead case management teams, but this one operates within shelter, within temporary lodging.

We call it lodging rather than shelter because it's so much more intensively staffed than a typical shelter program that somebody might imagine when you hear that word.

And this was developed both to ensure that people were not released from jails during COVID to nothing.

That was not going to go well.

And it was obvious.

We had kind of the, we had a pool of resources and the right skill set to alleviate those potential negative impacts, but needed a place for people to come to.

And so for a few months, we used LEAD underspend in 2020. to lease hotels and folks were able to come in there.

And then starting in the fall of 2020 with COVID relief funds that expired in June of 2022, we were able to expand that co-lead Just Care response to at one point get up to almost 250 rooms.

and serving about 500 people per year.

So that is obviously not the entire lead participant population or potential population, but it achieved a great deal in more rapidly stabilizing people than we can do when we're providing case management to folks on the street living in tents, as I'm sure you can imagine.

As noted on the prior slide, CoLEAD has been extensively evaluated, both a developmental evaluation and an outcomes evaluation by the UW, finding sort of a dramatic step ahead in behavioral health outcomes and housing outcomes compared to LEAD 1.0.

but it's more expensive, which is why all of LEAD isn't co-LEAD.

And then in 2022, the city, both the mayor's office and council members at the time, as well as some of the key LEAD service provider partners were approached by downtown businesses saying, okay, we really appreciated just care and co-lead resolving encampments in the downtown core, but now our public order issues are less about encampments, people living on the street of downtown, more about a large population of people with complex behavioral health needs and behavior that is really posing a threat.

to business viability, what should be done.

And the truth is for, you know, all of the evidence would show that referral of those individuals into long-term lead case management is probably the best thing that could happen for that person in terms of their individual trajectory, but it's very slow work and the neighborhood needed, and you know, so you would work with somebody for five years, their situation would improve, but the truth is they, that would take a long time and they would also probably be replaced by someone new coming into the ecosystem.

So recognizing that there needed to be a layer of place-based response to alleviate, provide more rapid relief to local businesses.

A variety of partners, including the Downtown Seattle Association, REACH, the Public Defender Association, and Redeliver Care, which was a safety team that had been developed for co-lead facilities.

to make sure that they operate safely without negative impact in neighborhoods.

Proposed the Third Avenue project, which added a new feature of based milieu management or deescalation and problem solving.

And that is a role that WeDeliverCare plays.

So in the first year, that contract WeDeliverCare was routed through the LEED contract.

And we at PDA subcontracted with WDC.

Now the city directly contracts with them for that portion of the Third Avenue project.

Are you coming back to Third Avenue Project?

Okay.

So then I'll just note that along with project management for the Third Avenue Project, we survey local businesses for their feeling of satisfaction and responsiveness of that project to their needs.

We consistently get, and this is on a monthly basis, we consistently get feedback that downtown businesses feel that Third Avenue Project is responsive, alleviates concerns and assists with their needs and that other elements are needed.

So that's a really nuanced finding and we can provide you the sort of more granular data behind that conclusion.

So it's strongly supported by many local businesses who name that additional resources are also needed beyond just milieu management.

We also have been able to use this Third Avenue Project framework as a sort of pilot to engage the King County Regional Homelessness Authority coordinated entry system to try to get prioritized access to permanent housing resources for individuals who are having the highest degree of adverse public order impact in a hotspot, in this case, upper 3rd Avenue.

At the very tail end of Partnership for Zero, King County Regional Homelessness Authority agreed to incorporate 3rd Avenue Project into that.

prioritized access to permanent housing, and they have allowed it to continue even after Partnership for Zero otherwise was shut down.

And that has been an incredibly illuminating and successful effort, but we can only move small cohorts at a time.

So in a neighborhood where in two years We Deliver Care has found 1700 unique de-identify or de-duplicated individuals having a significant impact in the neighborhood.

Only cohorts of 30 at a time are being prioritized for permanent housing.

But among those cohorts, we've had incredibly strong success in obtaining and maintaining permanent housing.

For a time, the city was also having us make co-lead placements available for this population.

So we added an additional cohort that went into permanent housing through co-lead, again, with very high levels of success.

And then I think this is my last slide.

This is just to observe, what is the intervention here?

In, you know, we really have a high degree of consensus in this community that people struggling with drug issues, mental health issues, and who are really, and economic instability, which is just like a, people are so poor that they don't have, they don't have a source of money, they don't have a source of income except through the illicit economy, that the right response to that is rarely through the legal system and more through direct intensive intervention to address those problems.

Not always, because sometimes the legitimacy of the response requires use of coercion.

And lead is not to the contrary.

So it's all discretionary.

If police think people need to be booked into jail, they can be.

If they think they need to be prosecuted, they can be referred.

the city attorney thinks they should file charges, they can.

But in general, that isn't the way that people get better.

And we wanted to just call out LEAD is built around the SAMHSA, the Substance Abuse Mental Health Services Administration definition of recovery, which recognizes that people recover through multi-layered supports that address a safe place, basically personal security, a safe place to live so that you know you're not immediately likely to be physically harmed.

Healing and health, so addressing barriers to people's physical and behavioral health.

Long story here, but about six to eight years ago, King County led an examination of the cohort that was chronically cycling through the jails and the court system to little avail, because they kept committing new crimes, and identified that an incredibly large percentage of that population had behavioral health issues, substance use, and or mental illness, but had basically no engagement with our health systems.

And that is not because they didn't know they had health problems.

It's because those systems are so very resistant to this population.

So built...

reducing barriers to engagement in health care is a big part of the recovery process.

But also meaning and connection are integral to recovery, and SAMHSA has recognized that.

That's because in order to do the hard things that you have to do to change coping mechanisms that most of us have to deal with anxiety and questions about the meaning of life, you have to believe that life is going to, could work out for you.

It could be meaningful.

It could lead to a better outcome.

So building around that is often, rarely is that called treatment, but truly that is treatment.

And lead case management is all structured around these four elements of the recovery process that SAMHSA has recognized.

And state law also mirrors the SAMHSA definition of recovery.

So these are recovery services.

It's not lead diversion or treatment.

This is the road that most people follow to treatment and is It is the standard of care nationally and statewide.

I guess I'll just end my part by commenting that while the city has been tremendous in investing in, you know, consistently over time.

I guess I'm not quite ending investing in this approach over time.

It is a promising reality that the state has now recognized how, um, likely it is that this is the road that we need to collectively take and state investment is now available.

So the city no longer needs to carry this alone.

And I would say that the prospect for tapping state support is one that we should lean on looking into the future.

This note is one we wanted to share with you.

It was written on a building in Belltown when we had to leave it because of the end of some funding that supported CoLead earlier this year.

It really reflects how true it is that most people will walk down the road of stabilization and recovery if met with the right kind of care.

This place was a home.

It took care of us, played as a first base for many great adventures.

And for most of us, it was the first place in a long time that we could feel we belonged.

Thank you, Belltown.

Off to the next adventure.

in general, what we have built under the LEAD framework has reflected our finding that many people out there need a lot more support than any of our systems are built to provide them.

So we are doing our best with the resources that we currently have to serve over 1,000 people, a large portion of the population that needs that kind of support, but not even half of the people who would benefit from this kind of care if we had the resources to offer it.

Sam.

Right?

Yeah.

OK.

Sorry.

No worries.

OK.

So earlier, Brandy noted that LEAD is not a single entity, but it is a framework of partners that work together to maximize collective impact.

And this slide illustrates that.

So Brandy, myself, and Lisa work for Purpose Dignity Action or PDA, which you can see in the bottom left.

PDA is the project management entity for the LEAD framework in Seattle.

Among other things, we subcontract to organizations like ETS Reach, Ideal Option, and POCAN for LEAD service provision and case management in Seattle.

PDA is not a self-authorizing party.

We take direction from the Policy Coordinating Group, or PCG, which you can see in the top left corner.

LEAD's Policy Coordinating Group is a consensus governing body made up of city and county partner stakeholders, including the Seattle City Council, as represented by Councilmember Kettle.

And PCG's role is basically to write the protocols and give direction to the rest of the framework.

PDA also houses Co-Lead, which, as Lisa mentioned, is a small, very limited capacity, lodging-based lead service provider.

PDA also houses the Lead Legal Team, which is a small group of lawyers that work with lead case managers to address lead clients' non-criminal legal involvement.

King County Behavioral Health and Recovery Division contracts to the COAT Team Community Outreach and Advocacy Team, which is housed within DESC.

And the COAT Team's role is basically to work with lead clients who are also True Blood class members or people who have higher level mental health needs and who are criminally involved.

Essentially a clinical team that provides additional support in addition to lead casemen, what is it to say?

And then finally, LEAD funding goes through KCPAO and SCAO to support the LEAD prosecutorial liaison teams who help manage LEAD clients' legal involvement with the support of information sharing from LEAD case managers and from law enforcement.

Not pictured on here, but of course critical is the community members and the law enforcement officers who send us referrals and who ongoingly coordinate with us to wrap around and provide care.

So some outcomes.

The first thing I'll note on this slide is that this does not include co-lead.

So this slide largely depicts outcomes achieved by folks receiving street-based case management provided by Reach, Ideal Option, and Pocan.

Their combined caseload at the end of 2024 was a little over 1,000 people in Seattle.

Also noting here that these are duplicated outcomes, so one client might receive multiple outcomes in the same category, which of course, especially for things like substance use disorder engagements with those sorts of supports, multiple touch points is critical for folks who are, you know, deep within complex behavioral health issues and working through extreme poverty.

One thing I do want to flag here too is the legal outcomes category, just because this can look like a lot of things.

It might look like legal cases getting resolved for a client, which can be the result of information sharing between lead case managers and lead prosecutorial liaisons, allowing prosecutors to make more informed decisions.

But it can also look like lead case managers helping their clients address warrants or helping them otherwise fulfill criminal legal system obligations.

This is the same slide but for CoLead specifically.

CoLead at the end of 2024 had 257 active participants.

So this includes both people lodged in CoLead in our hotel-based lodging.

But it also includes people who are in CoLead's aftercare program.

In a nutshell, we realized that when co-lead clients moved from co-lead lodging to permanent housing, they were often struggling because they lost the robust support they were receiving in co-lead lodging.

So we created the aftercare program, which follows participants for a time, to ensure that they have a smooth transition and are able to retain their new permanent lodging.

So again, these are duplicated outcomes.

And one thing I will also flag is, and is the reason that we broke this out into a separate slide, is that you'll notice the ratio of outcomes to the participant number is pretty different than lead.

And really, that all stems from the lodging aspect of co-lead.

When case managers can find their clients and have five to six substantive engagements a week, they can really rapidly increase the rate at which clients are able to work on, identify, and accomplish their goals.

Some CoLead housing data, and so this is for the total of 215 CoLead clients who were lodged in 2024. Again, CoLead essentially is a program that is designed to bring folks inside, help them stabilize, and then move on to permanent housing.

CoLead has an over 90% acceptance rate of people going from the streets into CoLead lodging, and when CoLead has access to permanent housing resources, it has an over 70% successful move on rate to those resources.

One data point that is not in these slides that I do want to lift up as well is that in 2024 lead case managers had a total of 38,600 56 substantive meetings with their clients.

And so in this context, the way we report it, a substantive meeting is a meeting between a case manager and a client.

It could be in the street.

It could be at a lead office.

It could be on the phone.

But the idea is that this is a meeting where they are getting together with the client to set goals and work on goals.

Substantive meetings are the building block of all of the other outcomes we've shared here, and so I want to lift it up because, again, over 38,000 of those meetings happened in 2024. You know, of course, these are not the same as, like, the formal evaluations that Lisa described, but really just wanting to give the committee a sense of just the sheer magnitude of work currently being done by both case managers and clients in the LEAD program.

And again, all of this work being done with the ultimate goal of behavior change and reducing problematic behavior.

And we do that by addressing unmet needs that drive that behavior, and of course, by coordinating with legal system partners along the way.

And yeah, that is our presentation.

We can take any questions you might have.

Well, thank you very much.

I appreciate that.

And as always, I turn to my vice chair, Vice Chair Saka.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you all for this wonderful presentation, insightful kind of sharing out your work, some of the challenges and how you approach this important work as well.

It is an essential piece of, in my view, of a broader approach strategy to address important urgent public health and community safety needs.

It's not the only thing, but it is important tool instead of tools that we should freely and regularly wield to address the complexities.

So thank you all for this.

Two questions.

I guess going back to slide seven on the slide that talks about the evolution of the LEAD framework.

From 2011 to launching and pioneering here in the city of Seattle through the latest 2022 Third Avenue project.

Can you talk a little bit more?

What is your initial read or take on what's next?

Where do you see the future of LEAD directionally?

Where is it or could it potentially be going?

Two part question, one, two.

What do you think you might need from government partners and other community partners to help it be successful in that next wave?

Thank you.

It's the best question ever asked.

I think ideally, and I think we're on track for this, so this is a hopeful statement of where we might be a year from now.

LEED is a framework for making the right decision.

in any particular circumstances.

It doesn't dictate any particular decision.

So what we would really love, I think, to see is system design.

As many of you have commented absolutely correctly over the last year, We have a lot of things in Seattle, but the whole is less than the sum of the parts.

And so integration of these pieces that we have, all of which are potentially great at the thing that they are, into a coherent overall strategy, we have a big part to play here.

And what we do, and we as an aggregation of partners, it isn't just our office, we do what should be assigned to us as well as it can be done, and we commit to do it better.

As we learn and as folks raise suggestions, it's a framework for innovation as well.

But we are not first responders.

We have a large array of first responders.

None of those first responders, though, can transform someone's circumstance when it's taken years to get the person to that point.

And progress is difficult and protracted and is just going to take a long time with a heavy lift.

And there's going to be steps forward and steps back.

connecting those first responders to the second.

We're like, who comes second?

I know that's not very catchy, but we're who comes second.

We're the golden thread.

We're maintaining connection, optimizing, sharing the information that we have about what's going on with that person with law enforcement officers encountering folks on the street, prosecutors making filing decisions, disposition decisions, We have a long way to go, in part just through technology.

I have sat at this table for like eight years now talking about how if SPD could just, if they run a name and they could immediately see in the CAD system or the records management system the status of the person.

Is this person in LEAD or are they not in LEAD?

What an incredible...

We've got to be able to do that.

So I think that's really where we would like to see...

It's free.

I, of course, wanted to say money, but not saying that we would like to see the system designed so that what we're doing can be better understood and used by the other partners, if that makes sense.

For example...

In state law, in Senate Bill 5536 in 2023, LEAD was created as a presumed recipient of pretrial court referrals.

So the municipal and district courts that were suddenly given the responsibility for all these drug cases that used to be felonies are now misdemeanors without any money.

It is a very difficult situation.

Completely respect Judge Crawford Willis.

Administrator Sattler's approach to all things and we really, we should be working together so that we take the people for whom lead case management is gonna be the best solution.

It feels like we're close and I hope we can get there.

The other thing is co-lead, as Sam said, the efficacy of intensive case management in lodging and just the relief for neighborhoods where people are not living their lives out in public is tremendous.

It was tremendously successful and popular when funded at scale with COVID relief funds that are now gone.

So how can we get back to, we don't need that kind of intervention.

We don't need thousands of rooms as long as we can move people along to permanent housing, but we do need probably 500 rooms and we have 55. So getting back to a place where the city and the region's investments in temporary shelter are prioritized for people who are having a big community impact, and we can move those people on into permanent housing, that's a piece of system design, but probably one that requires some resources.

Thank you, very helpful.

My second and final question pertains to the scope and availability or potentially lack thereof of federal guidance.

And let me preface what I'm about to say by saying and recognizing and acknowledging the thought leadership that our city and this program has done and been able to launch and pioneer a brand new way forward to have better impact and bring a new approach launched first in Seattle in 2011 and replicated by jurisdictions across the country and probably internationally too in certain material respects.

That said, a couple principles I know to be true personally is one, effective leadership requires effective followership.

Can't just, no individual organization or government or nonprofit has a monopoly of the best ideas.

Two, The federal government can literally write their own checks uncapped and have deep wallets, deep pocketbooks.

They have a tremendous knowledge and expertise.

They can, as much as we aspire locally to collaborate with other jurisdictions across the region and across the country and across the world, the federal government is the best position to do that.

and then cultivate learnings and translate all that into practices that they can share directly with municipalities.

I'll give you an analog.

As chair of our transportation committee, I've gotten to dive deep in transportation policy and there is the The U.S. Transportation or Department of Transportation, the FHA, has a series of guidance to designed, curated, designed to eliminate the number of traffic deaths and serious bodily injuries on our roads.

And it's a really cool...

a pinwheel framework of about six, there's six parts, and I think the state of Washington has, because they're unique, they added a seventh dimension, but it's a six-part framework, and underneath that, there are, don't quote me, but it's roughly 40 to 44 federally, approved countermeasures, road design countermeasures that you can do that are proven that the smart engineers have said this actually works to help save lives on our roads.

And of course jurisdictions, including Seattle are free to experiment outside of that.

And sometimes you won't know how we can expand that pool of proven countermeasures until you experiment, right?

For me personally, I like, I wanna balance that with limited experimentation, people's lives are literally on the line, and so bias more towards what's proven.

That is an analog, and you mentioned this funding mechanism.

I'm not talking about funding.

What I am talking about specifically is federal guidance and best practices that guide this work Would love to learn more about the scope and availability, if any.

Is there any federal best practices?

Because I think that could be very helpful if not overly politicized.

And yeah, I'll stop there, thank you.

Another great question.

LEAD is a federal best practice at present.

So because we were early, we helped to kind of map the road, if you will.

And if you go to, I think this is still true today, who knows, but if you go to the Bureau of Justice Assistance that is the primary technical assistance provider in this realm nationally for now, you will see LEAD referenced as the standard of care.

We have worked really hard to develop the field with others to figure out, for example, all of us learning together that the coordinated entry system is a huge barrier for making progress for people who are adversely impacting public safety.

those people are not prioritized in the coordinated entry system.

Could they be?

So that conversation is one that we and other national, our local LEAD team is housed at PDA.

We also house a national technical assistance provider called the LEAD Support Bureau.

And anyway, we've just worked hard for years now to sort of advance the field nationally to arrive at best practices that then have both informed federal guidance, but are informed by.

So we've, until now, I think that's been fairly good collective learning process.

Going forward, it is indispensable, you know, There's a reason that LEAD was designed not as a public health or a social work, it uses social work, it uses health practices, but it is a public safety program and it is a partnership with law enforcement.

To the extent that it is useful to law enforcement, it will survive and potentially thrive.

regardless of sort of other ideological disputes in our country and in our state.

So I have a lot of hope that that will, there's obviously a lot of movement and change, but that this framework can continue to receive that federal support because it passes the test of a non-ideological empirically validated public safety strategy that nobody, there's no reason not to want to advance it.

It's a rare sort of oasis in the ideological battles statewide and nationally.

That's by design, and we intend to keep it that way.

There is lead implementation in some large blue cities like Seattle, but there is also lead implementation in small rural communities in red states and purple states throughout this country.

And that network of support is a real strength.

this stuff has to work for everybody.

And testing it is a good way of holding yourself accountable.

And so yes, I just think federal support and federal leadership is something we should still hope for.

Last fall, there was a national conference on pre-trial or pre-booking, pre-arrest, and pre-trial diversion here in Seattle.

LEAD was featured because it was our hometown, obviously.

But many federal agency leaders, including from Bureau of Justice Assistance and SAMHSA, were in attendance, and their plan at the time, and unknown whether this will still be true, was to feature, lead, and in the sort of best practices for their agency leaders in 2025. So we'll let you know if that continues, if that plan continues as expected.

Yeah, anyway, I think there's a federal connection here that is promising for this model.

Thank you.

Again, I appreciate your insights here.

No further questions, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Vice Chair.

I understand council members Hollingsworth and Moore have no questions, so I'll skip to the chair.

First, thank you again for coming here.

It's interesting, as I noted earlier, the idea of a functioning criminal justice system is really important.

And as you noted, the history of Blake decision, everything went from the county felony down to the city jurisdiction misdemeanor world, and I would argue that wasn't the smoothest process in so many ways to include investment and the like.

And we need to work through these things continually in that transition.

One of your slides you talked about, uh, project management and like, and also business outreach.

Um, that's vital because, you know, the businesses and the district seven throughout the city, particularly, but district seven West precinct, um, a lot of challenges.

I got an email today regarding a lot of positive moving forward, like two steps forward.

But in addition to downtown bell towns recently has a step back and, um, and it's a challenge for the businesses there.

Um, And it's frustration because they've had this period of positive, you know, public safety posture movement, you know, improving.

And now it's backsliding.

So that's one thing.

So that business outreach is really important.

But that outreach should also be with businesses and residents.

And one of the things that I've been pushing is good neighbor agreements.

And this is important.

Like if you go back to Belltown, you know, I get it.

there's been some walkabouts with DA set.

We've been engaging with DSHS because they're second or location.

And then if you go over to third, you got reach and you come down, At Bell and over, you've got community, Catholic community services and the like.

And so that good neighbor agreement is key.

And so that these organizations know what the impacts are on the neighborhood and the community so we can have that buy-in.

Because long-term, having that good relationship with the community is really important.

So somewhat of a question, but if you have anything along those lines to add, Ms. McNeil or...

I'll just say on we completely, good neighbor practices are fundamental because these need to be public safety programs that advance, not diminish public order and safety.

We co-lead, which brought people in from the street rapidly.

mostly people who had experience in the criminal legal system and were living in the illicit, working in the illicit economy at the time that they came into our program.

Obviously there was huge potential for adverse neighborhood impact.

We were able, because we were using COVID relief dollars to build a staffing model that did not have those kinds of consequences.

And in the University of Washington study of impact, one of the most important findings, we asked them, you know, to, or questions we asked them to look at, was 911 calls before and after we opened facility.

And in the vicinity of CoLead shelters, 911 calls went down, not up, after we opened because of the staffing model.

And in particular, we recognized after just a few months that we needed a safety team on site 24-7, much more than security.

These were the de-escalation and problem-solving teams of WeDeliverCare.

Their skill set is capable of crime prevention in a situation that otherwise it would have occurred.

And so we would just say beyond agreements, the organizations operating these programs need to have the resources to take the steps to alleviate adverse impacts.

We built a safety team into our budget because it was a new thing that was funded with a new revenue stream.

Other programs and organizations would need to be able to add those kinds of features beyond just making the agreement they need to be able to ameliorate, mitigate conditions.

I know some council members on this committee are very attentive to that dynamic having played out badly in a recent example.

And when we were able to bring those additional resources into the picture, the situation resolved.

So agreements and the missing pieces.

By the way, I do know that outreach from the early days, like Sam's, Mr. Wilson, outreach to the Queen Anne community was important because there was huge frustrations, huge frustrations.

There was frustrations with West Precinct, and they're like involuntary commit, all those kinds of issues.

And it was difficult, very difficult, and so we did appreciate that outreach that was years ago.

One of the things from the previous briefing from presiding judge Crawford Willis was talking about data exchange.

Then it was talking about the court and the city attorney's office.

But key to this, because you are part of the public safety ecosystem, although you fall in a lot of ways under the human services ecosystem, if you will, particularly from budgetary and the like.

Can you speak to, you know, the more in depth on the information sharing and the legal system coordination on like this slide, page slide six, and like who's involved and, you know, kind of narrate that just a bit and show people understand the public safety elements that's being done there?

Yeah, absolutely, I can speak to that.

So I think first to, I think it was Sam who, someone alluded to it, I've lost track of who.

We are actively in the process of working to have that sort of pie in the sky vision of information sharing with SPD.

We're in a real position where realistically by the summer, that's something that an officer will be able to look up whether or not somebody is in the LEAD program.

But beyond that, as it currently exists, the case conferencing model is a real important part of that information sharing, which is case managers, prosecutors, and SPD get into a room on a regular basis In some locations, it's weekly.

In some other areas, it's at different cadences.

But specific individuals are brought up.

There's conversations about what this participant is working on, what their barriers are, where they're making progress.

And the prosecutors then share, you know, SPD shares, hey, here's the last time we saw this individual.

These are the kinds of calls we're getting about them.

And then prosecutors are able to share, here's, you know, if they have active cases, here's where they stand.

You know, we can, here's what we're exploring.

Here's what would be helpful for us to know.

So that regular, getting in a room virtual or in person and sharing that information is integral to this process really working.

And outside of that even, I mean, our prosecutors will pick up the phone and call a case manager and say, hey, we've got court tomorrow.

What can you tell me?

And case managers are able to use sort of their judgment and their expertise to share the information about what that participant may be working on in a really trauma informed and thoughtful way.

So in a lot of ways, what makes this framework work is information sharing.

And I think that is included at the policy coordinating group or the governing body group about priorities and what's working and what isn't working.

But then in the case conferencing model, that's also really important as well.

And I know in some case conference, in particular, I'm thinking of like U District.

To get back to your prior question about the importance of community voices, there's also the opportunity for, you know, residents, some occasionally business community members to share what they're seeing, because I think...

Yes, obviously we wanna be evidence-based in the effect that we're seeing within the criminal legal system.

Is there a decrease in criminal legal involvement?

But also really a great indicator of how well this framework is working is how do business members, how do people who are living in these communities feel about whether or not they're seeing a reduction in crime in their community, in the suffering that they're seeing on the community.

That is an indication of how well this framework is working as well.

I'll just add that all of the above information sharing, these practices are not just something we've built because it's a good idea, but it's because it's built, baked into the lead protocols.

One unique part of our program is a release of information that all clients sign in order to do their intake to lead that enables this information sharing.

So it's something that all partners have agreed on and continue to nurture as we, you know, traverse different policies and different eras of the program.

OK, thank you.

And I know also data exchange is also with Seattle Police Department, which is probably going to be one way than two way, obviously, at least heavy one way, maybe a little bit back the other way.

I'll ask this, but we'll look to follow up later because we are at pretty much time.

Third Avenue project, which has essentially been superseded by the downtown activation team.

And I'd like to follow up on that at some point regarding how that transition is because of the elements, going back to my point about downtown and Belltown, the backsliding, I'd like to follow up on that.

And then just to close, again, thank you for being here.

As I've often said, you know, we need to lead with compassion, but then, you know, for those that are in crisis, you know, but also the wisdom to look out for community neighborhoods.

And the parallel to that is, you know, lead with public safety, but then also have the human services part, you know, backing it up or leading in some cases.

You know, that two-prong approach is super important.

And so, you know, I value your role in that in terms of, you know, kind of Again, being that bridge, going back to my earlier point from the last briefing, that bridge point is super important.

So thank you very much for joining us today.

I appreciate it.

And in terms of being part of the public safety ecosystem, No doubt there's some issues that we'll follow up with over the course of the year because that is a key theme for this year is, you know, the state of the criminal justice ecosystem.

If it's not all working, you know, going back to the marshals in the previous brief or bigger picture issues or what's coming out of Olympia, all these things need to be addressed.

And if Olympia can send more money for lead to, you know, again, I don't have all the insight on that.

It kind of falls in the separate committee, but we'll do that.

So thank you again for joining us today.

Thank you so much.

Okay.

We have now reached the end of today's agenda.

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

Nothing coming, although I would like to say happy birthday, council president.

So that is some type of business.

And just to close, this starts off with what I started in terms of mission and vision.

Our approach to policymaking starts with the three Cs, communication, coordination, collaboration.

And it's essential for our committee to communicate well with our constituents, our stakeholders, other committees, departments, mayor's office, in addition to the city attorneys, the court, and our accountability partners to accomplish our goal of creating a safe base for our families, our businesses, our culture, our neighborhoods, that safe base for our city.

However, it does take a citywide all hands on deck approach to include the two groups that were with us today in order to dismantle the permissive environment that threatens the perennial to be perennial and undermining Seattle's next generation.

So from our nonprofit service providers to community groups, our city council to neighborhood councils, our public safety departments to each of us individually, we all have a job to do to create a better, safer and healthier Seattle.

And with that, Hearing no further business, the meeting is adjourned.

Thank you.

Mic's off.