Seattle City Council Select Budget Committee 11/19/20

Good morning, everyone.

Welcome to the Seattle City Council Select Budget Committee meeting on November 19, 2020. The time is 9.30 a.m.

I'm Teresa Mosqueda, Chair of the Select Budget Committee.

Will the clerk please call the roll?

Sawant?

Here.

Strauss?

Present.

Gonzales?

Here.

Herbold?

Juarez?

Here.

Chair Mosqueda?

Present.

Seven present.

Excellent.

Thank you very much.

It's great to see you all this morning again.

Councilmember Herbold and Councilmember Peterson are excused for the first part of this meeting.

They are at the announcement about the West Seattle Bridge and appreciate their representation there.

We are going to welcome them when they come back.

At this time, I'd like to move to adopt the agenda.

My understanding is that there are no motions for amendments to be added to the agenda.

There may be substitutes that folks have, but there are no amendments to add to the agenda this morning.

So I'd like to move the agenda as proposed.

Is there a second?

Second.

Thank you very much.

The amendment has been moved and seconded.

And since there are no amendments in front of us, we have an adopted agenda, unless there's any objection.

Excellent, thank you very much.

Folks, we do have folks signed up for public testimony this morning.

I had committed to an hour of public testimony.

There are 27 people present.

We will allow for two minutes each.

If you have additional time, you're welcome to see that.

If you get to the end of your time and you haven't said everything you wanted, you can always go ahead and send us those comments as well.

We're going to open up public comment and allow for folks to have those two minutes.

You will hear a chime at 10 seconds towards the end of your allotted time.

Please do note that is your signal to go ahead and wrap it up.

Before you begin speaking, you will hear you have been unmuted.

That is your prompt to then hit star six on your end.

That unmutes your line officially and you can begin speaking.

Please start by saying your name and the item that you are speaking to.

We will call three speakers at a time in the order in which they appear on the sign-in sheet and endeavor to get through everyone in this first hour.

With that, public comment is open.

Colleagues, thanks so much for, again, being here.

We have had public comment at every meeting and appreciate the commitment to making sure that we continue to hear from folks in our last few days here.

The first three people are Brian Clark, Howard Gale, and Sophia Hoffacker.

Good morning, Brian.

Hello Council.

My name is Brian Clark and I'm.

Hello Council.

My name is Brian Clark.

I'm a homeowner in Ballard.

I'm calling on you this morning to follow through on your commitment to defund SPD by 50 percent and shift those funds to community services like the ones proposed by D-Crimp Seattle and King County Equity Now.

At the peak of this summer's protest against our brutally violent police department a veto-proof majority of this council committed to defunding SPD by 50 percent.

We've been asked to wait for the 2021 budgeting cycle for this to happen.

And now we're here and you all are coming up far short of your commitment discussing a 17 percent cut and debating whether to hire additional cops next year.

There is no excuse for your falling short.

This is a grave disappointment.

I was in a town hall this week with over 100 participants and Council Member Lewis bailed on attending at the last minute.

Do Black Lives Matter to you Andrew.

This police department tear gassed an entire neighborhood this summer.

This police department has killed and brutalized countless BIPOC bodies.

This police department mocks and harasses our houseless neighbors.

builds brutal barricades in our streets and consumes a quarter of our city's general fund with bloated salaries and rampant fraudulent overtime.

They've been under consent decrease since 2012 and under heavy public scrutiny this year and yet there's new videos every week of them continuing to harass and demean our community.

SPD does not represent safety.

They are a real and material threat to the health and safety of our community especially when they consume so much funding which could be doing so much more for the community.

There are far more effective community organized health and safety measures that will work if you have the political courage to follow through on the commitments you made this summer, housing, education, healthcare.

We don't even have a nurse in all of our public schools.

Medical staff have had PPE shortages this year.

Thousands are starving out in the cold rain, but SPD has got funding for all the tear gas and weapons of war that they want.

Defund SPD by 50%, fund community services, and drop all charges against protesters.

If Black Lives Matter, prove it.

I yield my time.

Thank you.

Good morning, Howard.

Good morning, Howard.

Good morning, Howard Gale from District 7 on police accountability.

Yesterday, in a stunning display of hubris and gaslighting, the council, all except for council members who won, voted against even exploring a truly civilian form of police accountability, which just a few days ago was overwhelmingly voted into effect in Oakland, California, Columbus, Ohio, Kyle, Texas.

Portland, Oregon, Philadelphia, and other cities throughout the U.S.

In its vote yesterday, the council made clear that instead of stepping forward post-George Floyd, they are choosing to actively retreat back to 2017 and some fantasy that if 2017 police accountability ordinance had been fully implemented, things would be different, despite the reality that the police killings of people of color and the abuses of protesters have been consistent throughout the last 10 years.

Councilmember Herbold claims the failures in policing are due to the city not adopting the recommendations of the Community Police Commission.

Yet she cannot point to a single recommendation which, if implemented, would have reduced the death and abuses of the last decade.

Let me make that really clear.

If all the suggestions and recommendations by the CPC had been followed, instead of being hurt with blast balls and batons, they would have been, protesters would have been injured by tear gas and bicycles.

Again, the Community Police Commission has failed for seven years to even hold public forums, has prohibited public comment, and failed to even look at police killings recently and remains divorced from the community.

Please, Council Members Herbold and Gonzalez, do not allow your pride and stubbornness to stand in the way of getting the kind of accountability that people in California, Ohio, Texas, and Oregon, and Pennsylvania have got.

Thank you.

As a reminder, we are staying away from impugning the motives of any council member.

Sophia, you are next, but you are not listed as present.

If we see you join in, we will make sure to get back to you, so please do call in.

I also want to welcome Council Member Peterson.

Thanks for joining us this morning.

I appreciate you dialing in.

I know you were excused for the bridge announcement.

Thanks for being here.

The next three people are Tyler Saxton, Gabrielle Pelli, and Montserrat DiCastro.

Good morning, Tyler.

Thanks.

Yeah, this is, uh, Ty Saxon.

And I just wanted to talk about defunding the police and taxing the rich.

And so I just wanted to make sure the council members are well aware that we still want to defund the SPD by 50%.

And when he said defund by 50%, we meant defund by 50%.

Um, just because there aren't as many people out in the streets right now, it doesn't mean that we changed our minds about this issue and we're not going to change our minds by the time of the next election either.

And so just to be clear, we're urging you to defund the bloated police budget by 50%, like most of you already agreed to do earlier this year, and use that money to fund community-led programs, restorative justice, and affordable housing through a participatory budgeting process.

We also want an elected community oversight board with full powers over the police.

Just like the previous caller said, this is extremely popular all over the country.

And we want no hiring of any new cops either.

Also, we wouldn't really need as many police if we just reject the budget cuts, and if we could just take care of people's economic needs.

And we can do this by increasing the Amazon tax on major corporations, including Amazon, which have dramatically enriched themselves during the pandemic.

Jeff Bezos' personal wealth alone has gone up by nearly $70 billion.

Just this year, that's billion with a B.

And at the same time, we're here arguing over a few hundred million dollars in lost tax revenue.

So clearly, we're not taxing the rich enough.

And inequality is only going to keep getting worse if we don't increase progressive tax measures.

And so we shouldn't be taxing in a regressive manner.

We have to we have to be taxing progressively.

And so lastly, I would just like to end off with a quote by Stacey Davis-Gates, who has said multiple times, and I think she's dead right, that you're not broke if you're taxing the rich.

Thanks, and I'll yield the rest of my time.

Thank you very much.

And good morning, Gabriel.

Hi, my name is Gabe Pelley.

I'm a renter in District 4 and a member of Socialist Alternatives.

At the height of the Justice for George Floyd movement seven of nine council members committed to defunding SPD by 50 percent and investing in community.

Today the council set to pass a budget that does just the opposite making cuts of $200 million to parks roads and community programs while maintaining a bloated police budget.

It's no coincidence the only council member still putting forward amendments to defund SPD and for an elected Community Oversight Board is also the only Independent Socialist.

Thank you Council Member Sawant.

Clearly Democratic Party politicians are fundamentally unaccountable to our movements not just locally but nationally as the Democratic establishment seeks to blame the Black Lives Matter movement for its losses.

We need a new party by and for working people that won't compromise with the capitalist system that relies on the police to oppress Black and Brown communities and workers.

But don't take my word for it.

Yesterday in attempting to justify why she won't support community control over a police department that regularly kills our Black and Brown neighbors and tear gases an entire neighborhood.

Council President Gonzalez said quote I'm opposed to this because it presupposes that the current system is broken.

God damn right it's broken and we won't continue to pretend otherwise.

As Howard before me noted this is gaslighting of the highest order.

Claiming the system isn't broken claiming it this isn't an austerity budget doesn't make it so.

In a pandemic a climate crisis.

and a racial justice reckoning, we must urgently organize independent politics for working people.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And to be clear also, there's not $200 million in cuts to parks and roads.

The next person is Montserrat de Castro.

My name is Monterey DeCastro.

I'm a resident of District 7, and I'm calling on the entire City Council to follow the lead of Seattle's Black-led organizations to defund SPD by at least 50% and invest that money back into BIPOC communities.

Growing up in Ballard as an immigrant woman of color, I witnessed firsthand throughout my life the inherent racism and unfair treatment of SPD to my family, my community, and to the people I love.

But nothing hurt more than hearing the pain and worry in my parents' voice on the other line of the phone when I called them from jail to tell them that SPD had wrongfully arrested and physically assaulted me.

To my fellow people of color sitting on city council, you stood as a symbol of hope to our communities, wishfully thinking that you would fight for your people.

How can you look at your constituents and tell us that you continue to give one-fourth of the city's general budget to a department that harm and kill your own people every single day?

How can you look at your children and tell them that you have the opportunity to abolish a racist and abusive police department and instead only cut their budget by 17% while your own children's teachers scrape money together for their school supplies?

How can you continue to give $340 million to people who your brown children will grow up fearing?

I'm looking at you too, white members of City Council.

This is more on you than it is on your BIPOC colleagues.

You should be using your privilege to help all your people and not just your white privileged constituents who don't need to live in the same fear as we do.

You all know for a fact that these are not exaggerations.

And by continuing to ignore the literal cries of your community and looking away at the literal blood on the streets, you remain complicit in the atrocities.

One wrongful death should be more than enough to convince anyone.

How many more need to die for you all to care enough?

Does it need to be our own children to be assaulted or, God forbid, killed by SPD for you to finally do something?

Defund SPD by 50% at least, not one penny less, no new cops, and not one more death.

I yield my time.

Thank you.

The next person is Cynda Stenger, followed by Nikita Oliver and Bailey Freeman.

Good morning, Cynda.

Good morning this is Cynda Stanger from the Great Island District 1. I serve on Camp Second Chance Advisory Council and co-founded the Sound Foundation's Northwest Tiny House Building Project for our villages.

I'm calling to urge you to shift 9 million away from SBD to fund community alternatives to 9-1-1.

Please up your investment in BIPOC communities.

I urge you to be bold by adopting a solidarity budget that reflects our shared vision of a more equitable and inclusive Seattle with less police violence.

Councilmember Herbold, thank you for your leadership and support of Tiny House Villages, as well as all members who have seen the worth and light of this crucial program.

I've seen myself how lives have been transformed when people are given a safe, warm, and supportive place to live to get their lives back together to rejoin society.

I urge the council to support as many Tiny House Villages as possible to ease the surge of homelessness in the city.

Please support the expansion of outreach programs at the Reach and Lehigh for helping our unhoused neighbors.

Please fund outreach to people living in vehicles through the Scuff Law Mitigation Project.

More and more folks are living out of their cars, and they have the highest likelihood of getting back onto their feet with support and access to resources.

Please expand the Purple Bag Program to 30 sites and the Street Sink Programs.

Thank you, Councilmember Morales, for your leadership in these.

These programs are working.

I yield my time, and thank you.

Thank you, and to clarify, the SCOF Law Program was fully funded yesterday in the package that we approved.

So that's good news.

Good morning, Nikita.

Good morning, Council.

I live in District 2 here on Duwamish land, and I want to first start by saying that underlying the movement this summer is an understanding that policing is an ineffective form of public safety.

It cannot be fixed through training.

It will not be fixed through oversight.

It cannot be fixed through additional accountability measures.

Even with these things in place, Black people continue to be murdered by the Seattle Police Department.

Continued investments in oversight rather than defunding is predicated upon the idea that police will continue to exist rather than building a community-based, community-led public health and public safety model that does not depend upon punitive and oppressive modes of control.

As a Black community member and organizer, what I want is to defund the police and build a public safety system that actually works for everyone, that makes police obsolete and eventually leads to total abolition.

I and many in my community cannot for any reason call the police for help because it may actually result in death.

What we need is to defund the police and invest in Black communities.

We need to address the housing crisis immediately and meet people's basic needs because when basic needs are met, quote unquote, crime decreases.

Building a community-based and community-led public safety system that prioritizes prevention and intervention should be our goal.

We also should not have any new cops.

And for this reason, I'm asking the council to put in place a hiring freeze.

This is an easy way to decrease the size of the force and move money in small increments into community for building community-based and community-led responses to harm.

We need larger cuts and we need larger investments in our community.

And I just want to remind you of what you committed to in July.

You committed to defund the police by at least 50%, invest in black communities, and to free all protesters.

And it is important as a voter that you actually hold to this.

Otherwise, I hope you're not in your seat again.

The next person is Bailey Freeman.

Good morning.

Good morning, council members.

My name is Bailey Freeman, and I was speaking to the item number 150 to add $50,000 for the Office of Labor Standards to implement recommendations of the Domestic Workers Standards Board.

I'm here today as a member of the Standards Board and the Chair of the Board's Subcommittee for Portable Benefits.

I'm a worker representative on the Board, and I want to thank you all for considering this funding addition to the 2021 budget.

This funding is a critical first step in implementing our future recommendations due in March, which will uphold the safety and rights of domestic workers, one of the most vulnerable communities in our city.

But this is only a first step.

And please note that the DWSC will be returning to council later this winter with an additional request for funding in the supplemental budget.

Funding for the board's recommendations will help to increase education and outreach about the city's domestic workers ordinance.

At this point, OLS has done an admirable job of connecting with workers, but have only reached 3% of the estimated 33,000 workers in Seattle.

This funding will also help develop a program for portable benefits, so domestic workers can have access to basic benefits that workers in other industries take for granted, such as paid time off and sick leave.

Domestic workers have been on the front lines of the pandemic, exposing themselves to considerable risk as they take care of children, tend to the elderly, and maintain people's homes.

Thank you for considering this initial funding, and we look forward to continuing to work with you to ensure that the city honors their sacrifices by ensuring that they can access their basic rights as workers.

I yield my time.

Thank you so much.

The next three people are Aaron Freed, Jacob Schiller, and Mia Robonino.

Aaron, good morning.

Hi, my name is Aaron Freed, and I work at the Capitol Hill Eco-District.

I also lived on Capitol Hill for a decade.

I'd like to thank Council Member Gonzalez for sponsoring the budget item to add $100,000 to SDOT's budget to support a public life study of Capitol Hill.

I'd like to thank Council Member Sawant and Council Member Stroud for co-sponsoring this item.

Capitol Hill is the most densely populated neighborhood in the Pacific Northwest.

80 percent of its renters or of its residents more than 25,000 people are renters and the number of our neighbors who are unsheltered is growing steadily.

We are living in a time of crisis.

A pandemic that shows no sign of relenting.

A homelessness crisis which has forced people to live in public.

and climate change which threatens our ecosystems our air our health and makes living in public even less safe.

Our public spaces are already being called upon to shoulder pressures beyond their means and they need to do more still.

As protests which focused on Capitol Hill and Cal Anderson Park this summer have underlined our public spaces need to do a better job of welcoming Black Indigenous and people of color and not just welcome but support experiences of belonging.

As growth and development continue to threaten small businesses community organizations and renters with displacement we see new opportunities on the horizon to do better and we need to do it as a community.

A public life study of Capitol Hill led by the Capitol Hill Eco-District which exists to promote a socially equitable environmentally resilient and culturally vibrant neighborhood would improve connectivity support public health and wellness and promote environmental resilience for an inclusive community for the co-creation of liberated public spaces.

Thank you.

I yield my time.

Thank you very much.

Jacob.

Good morning, Jacob.

Good morning.

My name is Jacob Shear and I'm speaking today on behalf of the Book Workers Union, an independent union representing the workers of the Elliott Bay Book Company on Capitol Hill.

We stand with over 1,000 Seattle community organizations demanding the 2021 solidarity budget that divests from the anti-black Seattle Police Department by at least 50% and invests in black communities and true public safety.

We demand that you redirect SPD's hiring budget towards scaling up community alternatives to 911. It is unconscionable that given the content of SPD we see every single day and that communities of color have experienced for decades that hiring new police officers would even be on the table.

We know that the culture of SPD is one rooted in a history of white supremacy and racist violence, and any further investment in the system will continue to endanger the lives and well-being of Seattle's communities of color, unhoused neighbors, queer and trans communities, and disabled folks.

We call on you to protect these communities, not embolden a disgraceful organization that doesn't keep us safe.

Please help us move towards a vision of an equitable and inclusive Seattle, not further away from it.

Thank you.

I'm out of time.

Thank you, Mia.

Good morning.

Good morning.

Good morning.

This is me.

And I'm.

Hi, thanks for validating.

You can hear me.

So, I'm calling on the same issue that many of my fellow community members have been calling about around defunding.

The Seattle Police Department by at least 50 percent.

I'm a member of SEIU 1199 Northwest and I know many of you council members relied on our organization for our endorsement our financial contributions and our organizing power knocking on doors in your community.

I echo everything Nikita Oliver said that police not make our community safer and that strong communities need resources not policing to uplift and protect one another.

I also just want to.

comment that not all communities of color experience oppression in the same ways, and the commitment was to invest in Black communities.

I want to uplift that demand, and I yield the rest of my time to POC and Black community members.

Thank you.

Thank you.

The next three speakers are Derek Chisholm, Violet Labate, and Kalia Baldwin.

Good morning, Derek.

Looks like we lost Derek.

Sorry about that, Derek.

If you want to call back in, we will make sure to get back to you before we wrap up.

Good morning, Violet.

Just star six to unmute.

Hi there.

Good morning, Council Member Mosqueda.

Thank you so much for this opportunity.

My name is Violet and I am the executive director of the tenant union of Washington.

And I am speaking to all council members about the tenant funding.

It's vital that we are in the midst of a crisis epidemic and a lot of tenants right now are all of our help.

Some of them are still receiving eviction notices and things like that.

And so we have doing our part in tenant organizing and helping tenants not get evicted.

And so I also want to thank council member Strauss for leading the way in getting the extra funding for tenant organizing.

Thank you Ms. Kada Council Member Ms. Kada also that the last meeting we had I was really touched by some of the thing on equitable in our community equitable in everything.

People of color have been so left out of everything.

And it's in our housing and everything in our world right now.

And we're asking that funding be brought back to the community, Black and Brown communities.

And I'm asking that all council members vote on this important extra funding for tenant organizing.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you very much for your time.

And I see we have Derek back.

So let's go back to Derek real quick.

And then we'll go to Kalia.

Hi, Derek, are you with us?

Oh, looks like Derek is not present, so okay, let's keep going.

Kalia, good morning, and then followed by Alexis Dots, and then Eva Ments, you are listed as not present.

Eva, I'm sorry.

Kalia, good morning.

Good morning, Council.

My name's Kylia Baldwin.

I'm a resident of District 1 over here in West Seattle.

A couple of weeks ago, I had a town hall with Councilmember Herbold.

Thank you, Councilmember, for attending that town hall.

I'd like to speak directly to Councilmember Herbold about something that you said at that town hall about being uncomfortable about reducing the number of city police officers to ending up only at 1,200 police officers by the end of next year.

And I just wanna let you know that the reduction of police officers and the number of police officers has so little to do with community safety.

I really urge you Council Member Herbold and the rest of the council to rethink how you think about, talk about and engage with the idea of community safety.

As Nikita Oliver said earlier today, the current police system is not effective in maintaining, supporting, encouraging, building community safety.

We need to be talking instead and putting our dollars down for stability in housing, for stability in access to health care stability and access to food access to to reliable transit and ability to get to to families and employment and and community.

Also over here in West Seattle we have an issue of having a lot of families and having young folks who don't got stuff to do.

And I think that that's the case.

all over the city and so talking like it's important that we talk about community safety in terms of making sure that community has safe places to be.

I urge you to defund the police and cut no new cops.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Alexis, good morning.

Good morning, Alexis.

Just star six to unmute on your end.

There we go.

Good morning.

Good morning, council members.

My name is Alexis Dox and I lived in the Puget Sound region for seven years and been a student at UW for the last two years.

I'm calling to support to voice my support for council members to want amendment to fund more tiny home villages.

Initiatives like these have given me a path out of generational poverty.

Almost a decade ago, I had to drop out of college because I knew no one who could co-sign on a student loan for me.

I was only able to go back to school thanks to the Husky Promise, which covers the cost of tuition for UW.

Thanks to that initiative, I've been able to make a difference in my community by doing COVID research in the midst of the pandemic while maintaining a 3.98 GPA while double majoring on top of working two to three jobs.

But what does that have to do with the Councilwoman's amendment?

Well, Despite my recent string of success I am currently homeless.

I put my education on pause due to a cancer diagnosis in my family which meant losing student housing.

Now my multiple jobs aren't enough to pay the market rate for apartments in our area.

And I'm one of the lucky ones who still has a job.

I have friends whose couches I've been crashing on and I don't have kids.

But programs like the Tiny Village Homes Programs like the Tiny Village Home give people a sense of community, a place to get back on their feet, a place to get back on their feet, and a sense of stability in order to get out of the situations they're in.

I yield my time.

Thank you.

Thank you so much for calling in this morning.

Eva, I see you are listed as not present.

And I also want to apologize to Kylia.

I think I pronounced your name wrong again today.

Thank you for correcting me.

The next three speakers are Melanie Owen, Star, Willie, and Tejas Donover.

Melanie, good morning.

Good morning.

Good morning.

Oh, I can hear you.

There's just a little echo.

If you're on speaker, maybe try taking that off and I'll put myself on mute.

I just muted everything else.

Is that better?

So much better.

Thank you.

Okay.

All right.

Thank you so much for taking me as a caller today.

I'm very, very new to the process of calling into a city council meeting.

I'm one of thousands of white people who really started taking action after the death of George Floyd.

And I've just been doing a lot of listening, a lot of learning, a lot of specifically listening to the parts of the community that I don't see a lot.

I'm a renter, I'm a musician, and I'm a renter in District 6. And I was able to find super affordable housing up here on Finney Ridge, which is pretty amazing.

I don't know how long it's going to last.

Anyway, I'm calling in to support what Nikita Oliver said.

I'm calling in support of the solidarity budget.

I'm calling in support of King County Equity Now, asking to defund the police by at least 50%.

No new cops.

We need a hiring freeze.

We do need to invest in community safety-based programs.

We need to free the protesters.

I'm sitting back and watching and listening.

and watching live streams and I've seen people like Nikita Oliver and people from King County Equity now who've been doing research into programs, who have programs that are working for the community that need to be funded, that could be funded more.

And I just think it's time to really not, to listen and to give them what they need in the way they need it, instead of coming up with a solution that, may seem like, oh, we don't want to give them too much power.

So that's it.

It's time to listen.

It's time to give them what they need in the way they need it so that we can all be safe.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Star, good morning.

Good morning.

Hello, council members.

My name is Star Willie.

I'm a renter in District 7 and a member of Socialist Alternative.

Thank you for listening today.

I'm calling in support of the people's budget and the solidarity budget.

I hope today you will vote to protect working people in Seattle by voting to increase the payroll tax on big businesses that have been making huge profits even during the pandemic while many working people like me are struggling just to get by.

Please fund tenants education and outreach and eviction legal defense.

We have to defend our planet and stop relying on fossil fuel.

Fund the Green New Deal and electrification projects for low income households.

please stand by your word to defund SPD by 50% and support Council Member Shama Salwunk's people's budget legislation to defund SPD by 50% or $170 million.

Don't hire new officers, and instead, fund the $9 million for Black and Brown community needs, including $500,000 for cultural spaces, 911 alternatives, and community safety-based programs.

The city should be firing cops, not hiring cops.

put in place a hiring freeze, no new cops, defund SPD.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Star.

Good morning to us.

Hi, this is Tejas.

I'm a member of UAW 4121 and Socialist Alternative.

I'm calling to reject the current austerity budget proposed by the seven Democrats on the council and to demand a people's budget that works for regular people in the city like me.

As a rent burden graduate student, I think it's disgraceful that during this pandemic and crisis, you've included austerity measures in this current proposal, including cutting funds for libraries, parks, community centers, affordable housing, and public services.

On the other hand, you're protecting the richest, most powerful businesses in the world in the city.

They're not suffering during this crisis.

We are.

The Amazon tax that our movement won and pushed through against the opposition by most of the council members here, was hugely significant for working people who are actually on the front lines, struggling to pay rent, buy medicine and food, et cetera.

But still, this represented a tiny, tiny fraction of the disgusting profits that they have made by taking advantage of this crisis.

The austerity measures I described can be avoided.

So we demand that you pass a small increase to the Amazon tax that our movement is demanding.

They can afford to pay it.

We, the working people of the city, can't.

Secondly, you committed to the justice for George Floyd movement, like many people have mentioned, by the 50% cut to the SPD.

Shamefully, you have not lived up to that promise.

If you actually do that, we will obtain the funds to ensure that working people don't have to bear the brunt of this crisis.

Most importantly, today, I urge all of you to do what many cities have done to pass Council Member Kshama Sawant's measure to prepare an elected Citizens Oversight Board with full power to hire and fire, investigate reports of racial bias and excessive force.

also I stand with the solidarity budget in demanding no new COPS, reject the $9 million to new hires of the SPD, and put it into funding community-led programs instead.

I yield my time.

Thank you, Teja.

Sorry, I mispronounced your name.

And the last three speakers that are present include Michael Malini, Sarah Cohn, and Aaron Hartwell.

And the three that I have that are not I'm calling for the council to commit to a commitment of 50% defunding of SPD by shifting $9 million away from

Also calling to advocate for solidarity budget priorities, including restorative funding for sidewalk projects in Beacon Hill, funding for home weatherization and electrification for Seattle Green New Deal, and to support tiny house villages.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

And Sarah, good morning, Sarah.

Good morning.

My name is Sarah and I'm a renter in Council Member Straus' District 6. I'm a graduate student at UW and a member of Sunrise Seattle and I'm calling into the budget committee meeting today because like so many others have voiced I want to urge you to divest from SPD and reinvest in BIPOC communities.

Defund the Seattle Police Department by at least 50 percent.

Invest in Black communities through a participatory budgeting process including the $100 million promised by the mayor.

Fund COVID relief affordable housing and a Green New Deal for Seattle.

The $100 million for Black communities must come from the city's policing budgets not from the jumpstart Seattle revenue already dedicated to emergency COVID-19 relief affordable housing and Green New Deal investment.

And this week specifically I'm calling to ask you to vote yes on two form fees.

The first cuts SPD's hiring budget and prioritizes community-led alternatives to addressing harm.

The second Form C allocates $1 million to fund the Jump Start Green New Deal program in 2021. Defunding SPD is essential to eliminating injustice in our city.

It's a first step to unwinding the deeply entrenched roots of racism and is critical to realizing the council's commitment to a Green New Deal.

So I urge you to vote yes on these two Form C's defund SPD by at least 50% and invest in Black communities through a community-led participatory budgeting process.

Thank you.

Okay.

Thank you so much.

And then our last person is Erin.

Good morning, Erin.

Hey, Erin.

Oh, there we are.

I see you.

Go ahead.

Good morning.

My name is Aaron.

I'm in District 3 and I'm calling.

I'm just wondering where the Seattle City Council from this summer went.

The one that committed to 50 percent cut to SPD's budget.

And you know the mayor it's not surprising that the mayor would be up to the usual tricks trying to add new cops this year.

given that they spent the summer tacitly or actively participating with SPD, violently putting down protests and harming protesters and supporting that organization, SPD, which has harmed black and brown communities for so long.

I hope that we find the council that committed to that and they assure us all that there will be no new cops in 2021, which is an outrage to even have that on the table.

and that we defund the police by 50%, which is a good start, but not the end game here because we know that the community needs these programs, the solidarity budget.

We need housing for houseless people.

We need programs for our youth to keep them out of the jails and out of the criminal injustice system.

And so, this is a small step, Um, today that I'm asking you to take and, um, and I hope that, uh, I'm excited for what we can do if we take that step.

Um, and I thank you and give my time.

Okay.

Thanks, Aaron.

Um, for folks who had signed up to testify, Sophia, Derek, Eva, Katie, Eric's, we don't see you listed as present and that does get us through everybody on our public comment.

list for today.

So I want to close out public comment today by thanking everybody again for calling in.

All of your public comment has been incredibly helpful, informative, and we appreciate your time.

This is our second to last meeting, and at every meeting, we have made sure to have public comment at the very beginning to both address concerns about folks being able to participate in this remote process and to make sure that we were accessible in providing content that we were considering and having your feedback on that content.

So thank you very much.

Let's go ahead and move on in to items on the agenda.

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

Cllr Rachel Gilliland?

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Thank you again to our central staff who have made this process incredibly easy to follow in a remote nature.

We really appreciate the way in which you have grouped these items for our consideration.

And I'll turn it over to Allie to walk us through the process for today and to outline the first item.

I know you're going to turn it over at some point.

I want to also welcome our interim director, Dan Eater.

It's great to see you.

Thank you as well for all of your leadership throughout not just this budget, but the entire 2020 year.

We appreciate all of your support, everybody.

Good morning, Allie.

Good morning, Chair Mosqueda, good morning committee members, Alec Pannucci and Council Central staff.

As the chair just described, we are in voting group C.

That includes items 162 through 169 on the agenda, as well as one item that was removed from group A yesterday and added to group C that will be considered today.

These are items, these are proposals that were submitted from council members via form C that are self-balanced or standalone, don't spend money, so a statement of legislative intent.

So it would not necessarily affect the rest of the balancing package.

And because these are new proposals, I am going to ask the lead analysts to describe the items for your consideration with the first one being described by Interim Director Eder.

Good morning, Dan.

Thank you very much.

Interim Director.

Thank you.

Good morning.

Item 162 is BLG043A001.

This budget action would amend Council Bill 119950 and then recommend passing the bill as amended.

The effect would be to increase the payroll excise tax rates compared to those currently included in Seattle Municipal Code Chapter 5.38.

Central staff estimates that the budget action would generate an additional $187.2 million in general fund revenues.

on top of the $214 million base amount that is otherwise anticipated in 2021 based on rates that are currently in effect.

The budget action would use the additional $187 million in new revenues to fund projects and programs in the Seattle Public Libraries, the Department of Parks and Recreation, the Office of Housing, and the Seattle Department of Transportation.

In the event that this council bill passes, there may no longer be a need to pass item number eight from voting group A, which is BLG009A002.

As Allie mentioned, this item was removed from that consent package, and the related item is now queued up later on your agenda for consideration today.

Councilmember Sawant is the sponsor of item 162.

Thank you very much.

Councilmember Sawant, I'm going to make a motion to officially move this in front of us, OK?

I move to amend the agenda to add Council Bill Council Budget Action BLG043A00, I'm sorry, Council Member Sawant, that is actually you to do that.

I apologize, I'll turn it over to you.

And for all of the sponsors on Form Cs, we are gonna have you make the motion.

So we'll just restart.

Council Member Sawant, would you like to make the motion?

I would not have had any problem if you had moved it.

I move to amend and pass as amended Council Bill 119950 increasing the payroll tax at $5.8 million general fund to Seattle Public Libraries.

add $41 million general fund to Seattle Parks and Recreation, add $46.9 million general fund to the Office of Housing, and add $93.6 million general fund to the Seattle Department of Transportation.

Thank you, Council Member Swann.

It's been moved.

Is there a second?

Okay.

Council Member Swann, I am not hearing a second on this item.

Can I request a second so I can at least describe the amendment in the interest of the public's knowledge?

Okay, Council Member Sawant, I'll give you a second on this.

Thank you, I appreciate it.

It's been moved and seconded and you're recognized.

Thank you.

The introduction to the mayor's proposed budget says, quote, spending reductions were necessary, end quote.

And that is the theme for how big business and the political establishment has approached this recession, just like in previous recessions.

Now we are hearing city council members saying that this will be an anti-austerity budget, but we know that is simply not true.

It is true that the city council's current proposed budget reduces slightly the cuts proposed in Mayor Durkan's proposed budget, from over $200 million to over $187 million, which is absolutely the correct direction to go in, but that leaves over 93% of the original budget cuts unfortunately remaining intact.

I want to be clear what I mean when I say this is an austerity budget.

Austerity is when there are large cuts to essential public projects and services, especially in the context of a capitalist economic recession, as we are at this moment, as we are in at this moment, while protecting big business and the wealthy from having to pay for the crisis.

That is exactly being proposed, unfortunately, in the budget by the city establishment if this amendment is not adopted.

I want to give some examples of the austerity in this budget.

To quote directly from the budget about the parks department, Seattle parks and recreation is managing a significant reduction in its overall revenues including an $11.4 million that is 10% reduction in its general fund support, 10.5 million reduction in revenues earned from user fees and a $19.3 million reduction in real estate excise tax, which supports capital investments at parks.

Five of the city's 26 community centers will be closed in 2021. Of the city's 10 pools, only four will remain in operation during 2021." Funding for affordable housing has been cut from $131 million in 2020 to only $84 million in 2021. And that's accounting for the City Council's additions. Funding for transportation has been cut by almost $100 million compared to the previous year. $131 million in cuts before accounting for city council's additions. Those cuts include millions for buses and tens of millions for essential maintenance and construction for our transportation infrastructure. Yesterday, many council members spoke passionately about the need to tax working people's car tabs, which is, we all know, is a deeply regressive tax and which punishes poor people to fund just $3.6 million for bridge repair. But here we have almost 100 million that is being cut in this budget And there are many, many other cuts to essential services in this budget that I won't have time to enumerate. The cuts to parks, libraries, transportation, and housing combined to a loss of $187.2 million after accounting for the funding restored by the city council amendments, as I mentioned. To be clear, the council's budget amendments have prevented the budgetary layoffs of City of Seattle workers, and that's extremely important. But it also needs to be recognized that that's only because the overwhelming majority of the budget cuts defer or eliminate public works like construction and maintenance projects that the city contracts out to be done by workers who are not directly employed by the city. By any back of the envelope estimate, the reality would be that $187 million in cuts will result in at least hundreds of layoffs and cancel job creation, not city of Seattle jobs but other jobs, which in turn will deepen the effect of the recession. that has already been exacerbated by the COVID emergency. We need to be expanding public jobs programs like the Green New Deal of the 30s. We need a guaranteed jobs program funded by taxing big business, not slashing public investments. We should be expanding these jobs programs, not cutting infrastructure maintenance. The austerity will be enacted in these forms, you know, through cuts to public services, delayed public projects, there will be less money for desperately needed affordable housing construction. And I don't believe that in the context of this pandemic and deep recession, it makes any sense to reduce public services and yet this is what's being proposed. If we don't fight this austerity now, as far as working people are concerned, we have to remember, if we don't fight this austerity now, it will only get worse for working people and communities of color in the coming months. If city council members did acknowledge that there are big budget cuts, then they would end up arguing that there is no alternative to the draconian budget cuts and talk about shared sacrifice. But the reality is the sacrifices are not being shared. Amazon and other massive multinational corporations have boasted unheard of profits since the pandemic began. And it is, as always, poor and working class people that are being asked to make sacrifices in various forms. Lost jobs, jobs not created, slashed essential services, crumbling infrastructure. There is a clear alternative. The City Council could vote to increase taxes on the largest businesses in Seattle on the pandemic profiteers and use those funds to stop all the budget cuts. Amazon alone has made an eye-popping $11.5 billion with a B profits since April. Starbucks, F5, and other corporations have also reported big profits. Yesterday, no other council member was willing to vote to use a minuscule increase in big business taxes to prevent one of the most regressive taxes, the CARTA fees, which result in poor people, particularly people of color and women, being jailed for nonpayment. In contrast, throughout this year's budget deliberations, my office and the People's Budget Movement have consistently fought to increase big business taxes to stop the austerity that was being proposed by Mayor Durkin in the budget. This budget amendment would generate an additional $187.2 million by increasing the Amazon tax rates proportionately across all its 60 years. as i explained yesterday because this and the other budget amendments that are using this revenue add to the tax rate are all of such a nature that each can be considered separately. As I said yesterday, support for one amendment neither requires support for nor conflicts with any of the other amendments to increase the tax rate. Each amendment stands alone. This budget amendment would add to the Amazon tax rates between 0.612% and 2.099%, depending on which tier of business we are looking at. and I believe councilmembers have a clear choice between taxing big business and austerity imposed on working people. And I really urge and welcome councilmembers to support this amendment. Thank you.

All right.

Thank you very much.

I want to make sure that we correct the record here.

It's been stated a few times that this is an austerity budget, that there's $200 million in cuts, specifically parks and roads.

And, um, I'm going to ask Tracy and Cal to clarify for the record what is actually being proposed in this budget.

Tracy, good morning.

Morning.

So council members, as it relates to Seattle Parks and Recreation, there is a general fund reduction of $11.4 million.

A portion of that reduction is actually mitigated by the use of the Metropolitan Park District savings of programs, about $8.9 million.

as well as $1.3 million in general fund expenditure savings, and then actually a fund swap of $1.2 million for general fund rates.

So you can see that that $11.4 million does not actually result in the total reduction because of those backfills and those fund swaps.

As it relates to the Parks Fund, that is looking at about a $10.5 million reduction.

Again, $6.4 million of that will be filled by some expenditure savings in the Parks and Rec Fund, as well as one-time savings from the MPD operating funds.

And then finally, the REIT funding is reduced by $19 million.

But about $8.7 million of that is actually a fund swap.

We are backing out what was going to be an entirely REIT-funded aquarium contribution for their renovation.

And we're replacing it with debt service payment and a bond financing.

So the net reduction, of course, is around $11 million.

And there are about $12 million worth of reductions in capital-funded programs and SPR.

to make up that re-reduction.

Thank you, Tracy.

Cal, did you want to add anything?

Chair Mosqueda, I don't.

Oh, there he is.

Sorry, I just joined.

I think the question was, how much is the cuts in the proposed budget?

The SDOT budget, it's a little bit difficult to nail down an exact figure, but the proposed budget identifies $60 million in program cuts.

There are additional capital cuts that shift between years and plan spending that look like differences, but it's hard to kind of identify those as, you know, it could be a deferment, it could be an actual cut, it could be just reduced spending.

But the proposed budget does identify 60 million of program reductions in that stock.

And then Allie, overall, it was a principle for me going into this budget that we restored all of the budgetary proposed layoffs.

Every budgetary proposed layoff in this proposed budget in front of us has been restored.

Is that correct?

That's correct.

That was an action the committee took yesterday in group B.

I don't remember the CBA number.

It begins with CW, though.

to restore all budgetary layoffs.

And as we've described previously in committee, when looking at just the raw technical details of the budget, some things that appear as sort of reductions to any given department's budget from year to year includes backing out any one-time ads from the previous year.

as well as the swings in capital projects that Calvin was describing.

And so it is not as straightforward as an answer, but yes, you are correct that your balancing package, excuse me, your amendment in the balancing package restored all budgetary layoffs.

that we received had $3 million, near zero amount as Tom explained yesterday.

And we have rebuilt that reserves, our emergency reserves to about $40 million.

In many ways, colleagues, this is the fund that helps prevent the cliff that we expect to come next year.

And the deep heart hurt that is going to be experienced by our residents, our small businesses, our elders and our most vulnerable.

So as we have protected at least $40 million in this budget, while we're also making key investments in core government services and community-led strategies, both to alternatives to policing and feeding our folks who are food insecure, making sure that there's additional housing supports for example, through some of the things that Councilmember Sawant has supported by making sure that there is the funding for the Mercer Mega Block sale allocation as it was originally intended for those who are at highest risk of displacement, funding the Africatown investments, pre-development costs so that more shelter and services can be provided by making sure that there's support on in Aurora and opening up new shelter beds.

I want to make sure folks have the holistic picture of what's being invested.

With that, will the clerk please call it?

Council Member Swatt, did you have something to close?

Yes, thank you.

Since I sponsored this amendment, I would like to quickly close.

What central staff have explained are absolutely accurate.

They have explained the differences between program reductions and capital projects.

There's nothing that they said I disagree with.

I had already explained that the city layoffs were avoided and that all the progressive modifications that have been made in the proposed city council's budget are all absolutely welcome.

And I actually congratulate both the city council for taking these steps.

And I'm happy to have both been the sponsor of and the supporter of many of these amendments.

And I wanted to especially thank community members and the People's Budget Movement and the Solidarity Budget for advocating for this.

But we have to keep in mind, as I said before, that most of the cuts at this moment are on capital, not programs that are being cut.

So those are the cuts to construction and maintenance, as I said, deferred projects, deferred maintenance.

And so nothing that the central staff said is inconsistent with what I said.

But those cuts that have happened in the construction and maintenance arena also matter because they are heading towards worse cuts.

We also have more than $4.2 billion cuts for the next biennium at the state level.

And so the point we are making is that this is only the first step in the recession.

The conditions are going to get worse next year.

And so unless working people fight against this this year, it is going to be more of this next year, and I don't agree with the characterization that this is an anti-austerity budget.

Yes, it reduces the austerity that came originally in the mayor's proposal, but it is still a budget full of cuts, and these cuts are real, regardless of how they are divided up, and I do believe that the council should increase the Amazon tax by such a minuscule amount, really, as far as the corporations that are making profits are concerned.

Thank you.

Will the clerk please call the roll on BLG043A001?

Lewis?

No.

Morales?

No.

Peterson?

No.

Sawant?

Yes.

Strauss?

No.

Gonzalez?

No.

Herbold?

No.

Juarez?

No.

Chair Mosqueda.

No.

One in favor, eight opposed.

Thank you very much.

The motion fails, and the amendment is not added to our list here.

We want to move on to the next item.

Ali, do you want to tee it up?

Or Jeff, good morning.

Good morning.

For the record, Jeff Sims, Council of Central Staff.

The next item is HOM 20-A-1.

This is a statement of legislative intent request a report from HSD would be a quarterly report on activities to respond to unsheltered homelessness.

As I discussed this, I wanna remind council members that yesterday as part of the package that has been approved is a repurposing of what was in the mayor's proposed budget called the Unsheltered Outreach and Response Team, a successor to the Navigation Team.

was repurposed to the Homelessness Outreach and Provider Ecosystem.

So I'll refer to this as being about HOPE rather than about some other entity that could change as successors happen or things along those lines.

This would look for a quarterly report on HOPE as well as contracted outreach providers to report on the metrics similar to what the council has been receiving for the last two years on the navigation team.

This statement of legislative intent does not prescribe each of those items, but generally refers to the measures that were previously reported on the map team.

There's also a broad outline of what is hope for and a process whereby HSD could propose an alternative measure in the case that the hope team does not have the same type of metric or what an outreach provider reports on is not comparable to what the navigation team provides.

So there is some allowance for variance from what has been provided before.

This is put forward by Council Member Peterson.

Thank you very much, Council Member Peterson.

I'll turn it to you if you'd like to make the motion.

Yes, in terms of the motion, I'd like to move that we adopt item 163, SLI HOM-020-A-001.

That's good move.

It's been moved and seconded.

Thank you very much.

Council Member Peterson, would you like to speak to this as the sponsor?

Thank you, and thanks to Jeff Sims for summarizing this.

It's just a statement of legislative intent.

It's to require that our Human Services Department continue to provide reporting as we want to see homelessness reduced.

We're trying a new model for outreach, but we want to make sure Human Services Department is reporting to us on a consistent basis on the high level that we're trying to achieve in terms of connecting people to services, connecting people to safer spaces like tiny villages, to shelter, to housing, and to report to us on how unsafe conditions are dealt with.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Peterson.

Are there any comments or questions?

Councilmember Herbold, please, and then Councilmember Morales.

Thank you.

I was just wondering if, Jeff, you could give us a little bit more detail about what you had said about there being some flexibility and what the metrics are.

I do know that what we asked of the navigation team are not the same metrics that outreach providers are under their outcomes and standards for performance are required to report to HSD.

We do, of course, do results-based accountability in our contracting with HSD.

So, outreach providers are definitely following the standards that we have set up for them, but they just happen to be the city auditor's recommendations, we identified a different set of reporting standards for the old

Absolutely.

You'll note in the second paragraph, it refers to allowing HSD to provide an alternative metric and then asks for instances where an alternative metric is provided that HSD gives a justification as to why that metric would be better than what would have been provided by the navigation team.

So, and then the very end of the narrative here, outlines three broad areas that kind of gives a sense of ideally what is going to be reported on.

So ideally that will provide some guardrails to HSD so they wouldn't talk about, you know, how many tomatoes are eaten when what we want to know is the sheltered response.

There needs to be some kind of a, like, some kind of relevance here.

For some specific examples, you might want to think about the, for example, the navigation team previously reported on their number of contacts.

The way that contacts were reported by the navigation team was really just any level of interaction, whereas what is utilized as a measure of a contact for our homelessness outreach providers that are contracted is a situation where someone has made some kind of a formal or informal arrangement to have a follow-up.

So perhaps talking to someone, they indicate an interest in shelter, and the outreach work would say, okay, well, I'll come back tomorrow and meet up with you and tell you what is available.

That, at that point, would need to be considered a contact.

For another example, the navigation team would have reported on the number of times someone referred to a shelter actually arrived there within a certain time frame, whereas our contractor providers currently report on, they put data into their systems to report on how many people actually enter permanent housing.

So those are some ways that we might see variance.

I'm sure there's others because there's a range of things that the navigation team had been reporting on, but hopefully that's useful examples to get a sense of the changes.

Thank you, Council Member Morales, please go ahead.

Were you done, Council Member Herbold?

You look like you had another question.

I think I just wanted to just make sure with the sponsor that that is an accurate representation of his expectations as well.

We heard from one of the folks who have been in multiple weekly meetings with Deputy Mayor Sixkiller about this and they note, again, We are currently in active discussions with Deputy Mayor Sixkiller and other executive branch staff in an attempt to develop an agreed upon transparent useful process to support good quality referrals and service connection.

We have raised the matter of collecting good and useful data in these discussions and just want to confirm with the sponsor of this, that he agrees that there's sort of flexibility built in to memorialize the agreements that the advocates are working on with the executive HSD and the deputy mayor on what we should be reporting out on.

Thank you, Council Member Herbold.

And this, again, is a statement of legislative intent rather than a proviso.

And yes, that's why it's written at a very high level to allow that flexibility.

OK, any additional follow up, Council Member Herbold?

No.

Okay.

Council Member Morales, please go ahead.

Thank you.

So I just want to say I'm having a little bit of trouble with this one.

I understand that the stated goal is to track the outcomes of hope, but the role of HSD has really shifted from providing direct outreach to coordinating with agencies.

as Councilmember Herbold said, agencies that we've been in deep communication with for months now.

And those are the folks who are already doing this work.

So right now there are no outcomes that would come from any of the teams at HSD because they're not doing that work.

We know that contracted agencies have deliverables built into their contracts with the city and those are reported to the department already.

So it seems as though we could just request that information from HSD.

But providers also have a better understanding of what successful outcomes are.

So, you know, that's what should be developed in cooperation with and the city.

I would certainly be happy to work with Councilmember Peterson and providers and the executive on what that would look like.

And then the last thing I want to say is the third criteria for data in this slide honestly seems anti-homeless, really insinuates that encampments are dangerous.

And while it's true that, you know, people have fires, people cook, people use the restroom, that is human behavior.

And if they don't do those things, they wouldn't survive.

So, you know, especially now during winter, people are really literally making the choice between perhaps having a fire in their tent or freezing.

Given that choice, I would make a fire myself.

So I just want to be careful about what data we're collecting and for what purpose.

Collecting data on hazards will only serve to fuel the idea that homeless people are dangerous and could potentially be used to weaponize city resources against folks who are living unhoused.

So I think it's important that we remember that there are many times more hazardous and unsafe conditions in people's homes, regular people's homes, yours and mine.

And we don't have to make quarterly reports on what's dangerous in our homes.

So I'm not sure why it makes sense to have folks who are experiencing homelessness have to make those reports either.

Thank you very much, Council Member Morales.

I'm not seeing additional hands.

I'm going to chime in very quickly, if that's okay, Council Member Peterson, and then you're welcome to have the last word.

I see also Council Member Strauss.

I will also say that this one is something that I am not inclined to support today.

Initially, I was supportive of it because as you may know, and members of the public may know, I have been battling with HSD to try to get more metrics for almost two years, approximately, We've been engaged in a discussion with them about how to have a dashboard of key indicators, and those key indicators should be identified by the providers and folks who are directly on the ground, helping to identify what is truly a metric of success.

I'm very concerned that the way in which information has been provided from the department to the council in the past has not looked at what true indicators of potential success for both greater housing stability and successful transition into shelters and housing is being defined.

And so I am absolutely on board with wanting more data.

We have had 18 months of engagement to try to get the type of data that providers and frontline workers have said they think is a great example of how to show whether or not programs are being successful.

But right now, if we're not able to get that information from HSD, I am very concerned that we are now imposing something else that is a metric of quote success on providers who have a better sense of what how we should be evaluating the program success so.

I think it's a not now, but hopefully soon we will be able to engage with those providers and have a better sense of how we as a council can get that data.

So I'll be a no on this today with the continued commitment to make sure we are following up on some of the ways in which providers themselves have said, let's evaluate success from various metrics that truly get to our goal, which is greater housing stability and more folks actually sheltered.

Councilmember Strauss, would you like to, and then Councilmember Gonzalez, Councilmember Peterson, I'm just going to put you last in the lineup so that you can respond to some of these items before we go to a vote.

Councilmember Strauss and then Council President.

Thank you.

I was just trying to pull up an audit right now.

If Council President wants to go forward, go ahead of me.

Thank you very much.

Council President Gonzalez.

Sure.

I just have a couple of questions about this particular slide.

And they might be more appropriately directed at Jeff than the sponsor, but of course I'm happy to hear Council Member Peterson's perspective if he has one.

So on this particular slide, I'm a little confused about what the information is going to be used for.

So I think there's been, In some of the comments that I'm hearing, there seems to be a insinuation or concern, I would say, that the information that's being requested by Council Member Peterson through this slide is somehow going to be used as the metrics of success for outreach and engagement to unsanctioned encampments.

I'm not sure that that's true.

So can you, Jeff, maybe sort of walk me through what the SLI's effect is as it relates to, you know, metrics we have in place or will have in place that HSD uses to evaluate its contracts with service providers versus what's in this SLI and the effect of this SLI?

If I understand your question correctly, I don't believe that this would result that this statement of legislative intent would result in HSD renegotiating their contracts with contracted providers to start providing different information.

And especially given that there's going to be a transition to the regional homelessness authority this year.

seeing those kinds of delays that are rejiggering right now seems unlikely to me, but that is potentially how they could approach this.

If there was a desire to make sure metrics were exactly mirroring, I don't know that that would happen.

Otherwise, this would be a way to receive the same metrics that the council has been receiving for the last two years on the navigation team.

to my understanding were not previously reported.

So that would be things like the number of removals of an encampment that occurred, number of people that were engaged through outreach activities prior to those removals, and also the examples I gave earlier about contacts and arrivals at shelter, referrals to shelter.

I think that the council has used that information for its deliberations around the unsheltered response of the city, but I can't speak to exactly how the council would choose to use that information

Okay, and then maybe Council Member Peterson, if you have some thoughts on your intended use for the information, that would be helpful for me to understand.

And, you know, I think, Jeff, in terms of your response, what I'm hearing is saying that the sly isn't It's asking for a body of information that the city council has historically received or wanted to receive, in some cases didn't receive.

But that doesn't translate into a modification of the metrics that HSD is using to evaluate the performance of outreach and engagement to unsanctioned encampments.

I believe that would be correct.

Unless the contracts are changed, the way that our contracted outreach providers are measured is their ability to primarily connect people with emergency shelter.

That's the primary metric that is evaluated at this point.

There are other things that they report on, but my understanding is that is the primary way that outreach providers are judged.

I don't believe that they receive performance pay or performance penalties, based on those results, I would need to confirm that with HSD, though, because I'm not entirely certain of that.

I don't think that would change.

Thank you.

Council Member Peterson, do you have any, is there any information you can share with us about intent of what you would like to do with this information?

Yes, actually.

And Council President Gonzalez, you summed it up precisely as to what the intent is here is to continue to gather information on on this important matter.

And, you know, I would I would say that, you know, I I disagree with the characterization from Councilmember Morales.

I think that we I think we share a desire to reduce homelessness and to help those who are experiencing homelessness.

And we need to know how we're doing.

And we're going to make sure human services department is letting us know how, how things are going, especially when we're, we're tweaking how that is done.

We need to make sure we keep to continue to get that information to know how well we are doing to improve the lives of people who are suffering on the streets.

Thank you, Councilmember Peterson.

I appreciate that.

Colleagues, I just wanted to share that I asked these questions because I was kind of on the fence between whether I wanted to support this or not support this particular sly.

And I hear the arguments both in favor of the sly and opposed to the sly.

And I think I think I'm inclined to support this particular, um, slide today, uh, knowing that there's additional flexibility around, um, making sure that this doesn't encumber the negotiations that are, that are related to actual metrics, um, and potentially, you know, revising this, there is an opportunity for us.

I think, I think it's in December.

We, um, we pass all of the slides, um, that come out of this, and so there's an opportunity procedurally to perhaps tweak this down the road to better reflect some of those negotiations that are ongoing between providers and the executive.

I would have a different position on this slide if it was more than just gathering information.

In other words, if this slide was actually intended to modify the metrics and the measurements that we are applying to the new order of how we're doing engagement and outreach to unsanctioned encampments, I would be much more concerned about the unintended consequences or effect of this particular slide.

But I'm not hearing that that's what the intent is, and I'm not hearing that that's what the effect of the language as drafted in the slide would do.

Again, I could go either way on this one, but based on the information I'm hearing and the conversation we've had in committee, I'm gonna err on the side of wanting more information rather than less and support this slide today.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Council President.

Council Member Strauss, and then I saw, I believe, Council Member Lewis.

Okay, Council Member Strauss.

Thank you, Chair.

And thank you, Council Member Peterson, for bringing this forward.

Council President Gonzalez actually just asked a number of the questions that I did.

I was looking up David Jones's audit on homelessness contracts that he presented to us earlier this year, one of them being one of the recommendations, recommendation 10, the Human Services Department should explore the possibility of moving homeless strategies and investment division data model to a database format.

Because one of my concerns with this slide was that we would either be changing the type or not lining up the data that we want to get or asking for data that is not necessarily necessary.

So I guess I just wanted to check in with Jeff.

Will this data be collected with or without this slide?

Sorry, I delayed on the mute button there.

So as regards to the contracted outreach providers, the information that they currently provide, assuming the HSD did not choose to change their contract requirements and reporting requirements, would continue and would be largely some of the examples I gave now.

The contacts, which is not the same as the number of contacts reported by the navigation team, referrals to shelter, they report currently on that are referred to shelter and what percentage of their overall caseload that entails.

They report on the number of people that enter permanent housing, so it gives you an illustration of what would continue, assuming there were no changes to contracts.

I can't speak to whether the information on HOPE itself would continue to be collected.

The navigation team went through, had three data specialists that were assigned, that were part of the team.

That is reduced to presumably one, and hope, I don't think we've, we know exactly what the job descriptions will be.

And they developed a navigate, what was called the Nav App, in order to have real-time entering of data by system navigators or outreach workers that were HSD employees.

There was also a lot of data reporting by field coordinators as they did assessments of encampments.

and track the activities of a removal.

I don't know the degree to which the team will either still require those metrics or those such metrics would still be applicable, especially given the desire for a refocus here.

And so I also can't speak to what would be collected going forward or not.

There would not be a formal a legislative request to receive quarterly reports, though, as all council members are aware, that doesn't preclude the opportunity to reach out to HSD or the executive and request specific information.

Thank you, Jeff.

That was very helpful because it does sound, Council Member Peterson, and maybe you could speak to this.

It does sound like what you are requesting is more of a performance audit rather than But that is not something that can occur quarterly it sounds like you, and rightly so want to know how well is the team performing.

Are we meeting our goals?

Are we doing it right?

But I guess my concern is that if we have field officers reporting quarterly as we progress through time, that won't be put through as robust an analysis framework as we would if we were having a performance audit looking back on the year.

Could you speak to that a little bit?

So this statement of legislative intent is not an audit.

It's collecting basic information.

And we obviously have the ability to ask our city auditor to look into things if we want to.

But this is not the intent of this slide.

This is to just continue to make sure we're collecting information.

I know we have varying We have a lot of different views at different times about how well the city departments, you know, get information to us.

And so this is just the council saying that, you know, we definitely want to get some information from the human services department.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Council member Peterson.

That's helpful.

My only concern is that when we request data put in, And that is a service of our auditor that he puts it and his team puts it through a robust framework so that we're not just making subjective guesses off of one time and point data points, rather looking at the whole comprehensive data set.

Your feedback is helpful.

Thank you.

And if I may add to that, so the collection of data will be important for additional analysis if that's what other council members want.

That's not the intent of this is to collect the data, to make sure it's being provided by the executive.

But as the council president said, the more data, the better to give us flexibility on just knowing what's going on.

Thank you.

I have Councilmember Lewis and then I have Councilmember Juarez and Councilmember Sawant and then Councilmember Herbold.

Let me make sure I note all of that.

Thank you very much, Councilmember Lewis.

Please go ahead.

Thank you.

I'll just briefly weigh in here so that we can, it sounds like all nine of us will weigh in on this one, which is great.

I will be supporting this today.

I think it is important to have more data and more information as we I think there's a couple of important things to remember.

I think the points that Councilmember Morales raised earlier are really important.

And we should be really vigilant as a council as we go through this new model and process for outreach to really hold our ground to maintain a new strategy that leads with engagement, that emphasizes mitigation as a strategy.

and that is just frankly more pragmatic given the resources we have until we do have an influx of the transitional shelter and the housing necessary to meaningfully give people a credible offer of shelter and navigate them from an unsanctioned encampment into a placement like that.

Then in the meantime, it means engaging in strategies to mitigate the impact of some of these encampments by engaging in the kind of programs we're proposing around garbage collection, for example, and by engaging in increased investments in our outreach provider community.

I don't think that those goals are mutually exclusive with the data we're going to be requesting here.

The data in and of itself does not, is not biased toward a particular policy prescription and the data could be used by this council to support the kinds of interventions that we continue as a policymaking majority to advocate for.

It is true that opponents of those strategies could use it to try to advocate for like a more sweeps based proposal, but they're going to do that anyway.

And I would also argue that I think one of the biggest points of resentment against a compassionate city policy on homelessness has been a frankly inaccurate perception from folks that we don't ask for more transparency from the provider community or that we don't aggregate and collect data, all of which is untrue.

And I think that this proposal from Council Member Peterson helps to further discredit that conspiracy theory, frankly, that is used to undermine more humane approaches.

And I think it feeds into that narrative if the council were to overtly reject a proposal to create more aggregation and sharing of data.

So for those reasons, I do support this today.

I think it is important to be requesting from HSD this information, but the policy prescriptions of what comes of it are going to be up to us.

So I think also given the fact that there is flexibility that is built into this, as has been mentioned earlier, to bend these reports to the consensus that we reach in our ongoing conversations with the mayor's office and the provider community, and that it is not unduly prescriptive.

means that it will just help to further enhance that shared mission.

So I'm happy to support this today, knowing that it really is just a method to collect and aggregate data.

Any policy implications are things that we here are going to have to decide down the road on our own or separate from this.

Thank you very much, Council Member Lewis.

I did see Council Member Morales.

I saw your hand, so we have you in the queue as well.

The next person is Council Member Juarez.

I believe you said you had your question.

Yes, I did.

Thank you.

Okay, thank you very much, Council Member Juarez.

Oh, please go ahead.

Oh, I'm sorry.

Yes, I do.

I apologize.

I want to thank Councilmember Peterson for bringing this forward.

I also want to thank Councilmember Morales for the comments and concerns that she raised, because I think those are always first and foremost in our minds about whether or not particular data if there's a potential weaponizing of this.

So I'll be very short.

I don't believe that the burden of collecting this type of data outweighs the benefits of recovering and evaluating data to fund and provide more targeted and needed services to our unsheltered neighbors.

I think this is just a continuation of our approach to sheltering the unsheltered.

Again, I said this before, and I believe this has become my tagline for some of these issues in the lens that I look at, is that this is value-led and data-informed.

And I want to continue that, that we continue looking at the value-led, meaning the humanity and the compassion, but also the solutions.

And we can't do that unless we look at data.

And I am also glad that Council Member Herbold weighed in on the issue of flexibility, because that was one of the issues that I was concerned about as well.

So for those reasons, I would be supporting this.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Juarez.

Next up is Council Member Sawant.

Thank you.

I think, you know, in general, of course, speaking as somebody who bases the work of my office in statistical analysis and economics, I am always for more data and more thorough analysis.

I think, though, there is a problem here because, first of all, we don't need more data.

There's a lot of data and reporting that is out there.

What we have had a severe lack of is the material resources, the funds for many of the organizations to provide these services, and to be honest, The underlying reasons for why these organizations are even existing in the first place to provide these services is because of the broken society we have where there's an affordable housing crisis that has progressively made more and more people homeless as the last outcome, the worst outcome of skyrocketing rents.

after having had a long struggle with near homelessness, the crisis in health care because of the lack of Medicare for all and the mental health crisis that becomes one of the instigators of the homelessness situation that a lot of people face due to no fault of theirs.

I think that overall the idea of demanding more and more reporting actually underlying all of that is the idea is that it's premised on this idea that, well, we could do a better job if only we had better reporting from the nonprofits, if we had better accountability.

I'm all for accountability.

Absolutely.

We should have accountability of the mayor and the city council of every city.

But the point is, That these nonprofits overall the overwhelming problem they face is not that they are not being held accountable as to how they use their funds.

It's the overwhelming problem they face is that they simply don't have the resources to deal with the scale of the problem they are asked to deal with, and they're always asked to put.

More and more of their resources into justifying their existing status.

That is the underlying premise, whether it's admitted or not.

That's the underlying premise in general of, you know, demanding more and more reporting.

That's the problem.

And then the other thing.

that I find not very comforting is that the amendment actually says that this report will be similar to what was previously reported by human services department on the performance of the city's navigation team.

And that's a non-starter as far as I'm concerned, because any reporting that has come forward in relation to the navigation team has been pitiful.

In fact, that has been one of the overarching features of the whole sweeping of homeless people approach, where there's been very little accountability that the sweeping approach has been held to, where it's actually not helped people.

Whereas services like tiny house villages, 24-hour shelters, we have all kinds of resources, the urban rest stop, which shows that these things work.

We don't need more reporting.

What we need is more funds.

So for all those reasons, I will be voting no on this.

Thank you, Council Member Sawant.

The next person is Council Member Herbold.

Thank you.

I just wanted to wrap up because I think in my line of questioning, I did not make clear my intent to support this slide.

I just want to remind the viewing public and council members that the items that we have asked the navigation team to report on and to do so quarterly and the data points are data points that the city auditor identified as important for us to consider within the context of whether or not the navigation team was meeting its theory of change.

And it's because we have received these reports on these data points that we have been advocates for this new model.

It is through the reporting process as well as the experiences that we hear from folks contacting us, the things that we see as it relates to the effectiveness of the navigation team, that we have been pushing for reform and change.

And so I think within this concept of continuous improvement.

I think it is important to continue to get information on the functioning of this new approach.

And I appreciate hearing from the sponsor that he is not tied to this particular set of data points, because that will allow the mayor's office, HSD, and the providers to continue to have a conversation about what the right data points are so that we can continue to, again, evaluate this new model with a goal of continuous improvement, both as it relates to outcomes for people who are living outside and outcomes to people who are housed in living around people who are living outside.

I think this endeavor is about collecting information that is friendly.

I have not heard from anybody.

I read the statement that we received from a representative of the provider community that is in these conversations.

They are not averse to reporting out on outcomes and allowing HSD to continue to communicate with us on what they're seeing out on the field.

They're not averse to the reporting process.

They just want to have the room to continue to talk about what the right data points are to report on.

So given, again, the sponsor's flexibility, I think that really questions and answers, any of the concerns that I have heard from councilmembers so far.

Thank you.

Thanks.

I'll be brief.

I've already had a chance to speak.

I think, for me, the question really still comes down to intent, especially because, as Council Member Herbold just said, this data already exists.

Contractors are already reporting on these deliverables regularly from HSD.

And so I don't understand, especially if the intent is to collect information, why lay out a set of criteria?

You know, instead of just asking for quarterly reports from and I think that the issue for me is, you know.

We're collecting it for what purpose?

How will this data be used?

You know, the app that has been referenced is something that was held exclusively by.

by HSD staff.

And so, you know, the contractors were at a bit of a disadvantage because they couldn't use that tool and were held to standards that they were impeded by reaching.

And I do think that the lack of shelter really has to be taken into account if we're talking about using that as that referral and that placement as a measure.

So I think the challenge I'm having is that A lot of this is already collected, and so I don't understand why just a quarterly report from HSD doesn't suffice.

And I'm still concerned about, you know, that we're not just collecting data for the sake of collecting it, but we're collecting it so that it can be used to find more meaningful solutions and more meaningful approaches to dealing with folks who are experiencing homelessness and the challenges that they face.

That said, so I won't be supporting this, and if it passes, I do hope that the provider community will be involved in helping create whatever the measures are that might be added to the reporting that they are already being asked to do.

Okay, thank you very much Council Member Morales.

That is the end of my list of folks who wanted to speak up.

Council Member Peterson, thank you for generating such a robust discussion today.

Again, you know, I just want to underscore when we were working on the other elements that related to homelessness in this budget, which I'm really proud of, and thank you all for your various levels of support for The outreach efforts again we have additional FTEs and targeted geographic areas where we see high and disproportionate rates of folks who are living unsheltered.

We have included additional around $400,000 additional dollars so those can be complimentary citywide to do outreach.

And now with the new Hope program, it's not just outreach, but it's getting folks into hotels, into other temporary shelter options, and ultimately into housing.

And we have made sure that there's supplementary funding available to provide the necessary case management and staffing in those new settings.

to the tune of over $2 million.

So all of these elements, we carefully worked with the providers and checking in with members of the executive team to try to make sure that we weren't upsetting the balance of those discussions.

So I appreciate that the folks have recognized that that is an ongoing conversation.

I do appreciate the council president's reference to the fact that there will be another bite of the apple on this in December when those slides come forward.

And I think that it's really important that those conversations allow to continue, because when you launch something new, it's always a little tenuous, and it feels like there's a lot of good faith right now, both from the mayor's office, the providers, and what council is showing.

So I really want to make sure that I underscore the unified commitment to this new model that's being put out there.

I'm still going to express concerns about the way in which the slide, in my opinion, is not inclusive of what we have heard from providers.

And I'm hearing there's an opportunity to include those provider directives and provider strategies as the final reporting is done.

So just for the record, I would like to note that as this gets evolved, I would like to underscore some of the things we've heard directly from providers.

desire to make sure that overall measures take into account the profound lack of shelter and affordable housing for most people who are currently living outdoors in public places.

And that there be a racial equity analysis that is included in any metric tools that are used.

Recognizing this is imposing upon the providers to provide information as well to HSD so that that report can then be generated to council.

Some of the things that I think providers and HSD, and I hope the council and the mayor's office will continue to uplift, are accurately describing the current availability of different types of shelter services and housing and barriers to accessing those resources.

Because it wasn't until, what, two years ago, we started to learn that on average, there was only around five to ten open beds a night in our enhanced shelter.

I think it was lower than that, Jeff, if I remember correctly.

He's like one, he's point of one.

There was only one bed open on average per night in enhanced shelter.

And that was an eye opener, right?

How are we evaluating providers whose contracts and funding is reliant on them getting people into shelter?

when there was only one enhanced shelter bed available in the entire city on average per night.

So that was important data.

And I think that that's an important element that is needed as we think about reporting.

So we're not holding providers to a standard that they cannot meet with getting folks into shelter if it's not available.

The second is exploring how to access more appropriate family and household shelters and options for those resources so families can stay together.

Because again, we were evaluating people on whether they got people into shelters when many families did not want to be separated from their children or their partner.

or in some cases their pets, and that was a challenge as well that we were evaluating people when there wasn't the appropriate types of shelter.

And then lastly, appropriately describing the type of supports that are needed for folks who are trying to get into shelter and housing and where there's not the well-matched and accessible shelter and housing options.

For example, folks who need permanent support, case management, not just a roof and a door, which is critical, but also there's a lot of folks who still need ongoing case management and services so that we can both describe the quality of the shelter they're receiving and not just the number of folks who potentially are getting inside.

I think that will help us accomplish various goals that I hear all council members talking about.

and making sure that people are getting inside, but they're also staying inside and that they have the resources they need in order to get housing stability, truly.

With that, Council Member Peterson, last comments.

Thank you, Chair Muscat.

Thank you, council members.

I want to thank all the council members who have been working in good faith and collectively with the executive to reduce homelessness and for Council Member Lewis's leadership chairing the Committee on Homelessness Strategies and Investments and hope that you support this statement of legislative intent to get information.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Will the clerk please call the roll on the approval of HOM 020A-001.

Lewis.

Yes.

Morales.

No.

Peterson.

Yes.

Sawant.

No.

Strauss.

Yes.

Gonzales.

Yes.

Herbold?

Yes.

Juarez?

Yes.

Chair Mosqueda?

No.

Six in favor, three opposed.

Thank you very much, Madam Clerk.

The motion carries and HOM 020A-001 is approved.

Thank you very much for that robust conversation.

Let's move on to item number three in our group C list here.

Thank you, Chair Mosqueda.

Before Jeff describes these items, I just wanted to note that this item and item 166 both assumed passage of item 162 that would increase the payroll tax.

I will just note that these items can still move forward, but if they are adopted, there will be another action needed on Monday to officially amend and pass as amended.

Council Bill 119950 that increases the payroll tax rate.

So I just wanted to note that technical piece.

Thank you very much, Ellie.

Jeff, are you walking us through this first item?

I can walk through both of these, both this item, HOM 23A1 and HOM 23B1.

For Ellie's note on 23A, They both actually invest the same amount of funding, however, that would expand tiny home villages beyond what is already contained in the balancing package.

The funding source is what is different, which is why in 23B, because the city decreasing contributions to the emergency fund, it's also one time because it's not an ongoing revenue source, whereas in 23A, it was the envisioned increase to the payroll tax.

And with both of these, it was put forward by council members to one.

Also members to want you are recognized as the sponsor to move this item.

Thank you.

I move to add $7 million of general fund, $3 million one time to human services department to expand tiny home villages.

I've spoken at length about why tiny house villages are so successful, and I will not go into detail here.

We know they're safe and human.

They have door with a lock so you can sleep without being fearful that you will be attacked or robbed.

They are part of a community to cut across the isolation and alienation that many of our unsheltered neighbors experience.

They're socially distanced, which is important right now.

And they have by far the best record helping people get back on their feet into permanent housing.

And as Jeff said, all of this is relevant to both this item and the upcoming agenda item.

And in the balancing package, we have already, the city council has already approved funding for three new tiny house villages, and I really appreciate that support.

I thank everyone on the council, though we know the reality is every tiny house Seattle opens up is immediately accepted by someone who otherwise would be sleeping in powerless safe conditions.

And we know that every tiny house actually has So many people who want to have access to that, we don't have enough numbers to keep up with how many people do feel that that is the solution they need on the road to permanent housing.

Obviously, we don't pretend that tiny house villages are a permanent solution, but it is an important humane solution while people are homeless.

And as far as this amendment is concerned, and it's funding source.

As I've said before, in a city with so much wealth, there's no reason why we cannot build all the affordable housing we need.

But as long as people are homeless, there should be tiny houses.

In fact, the same logic applies to tiny house funding as well.

We have a wealthy city, so we should be able to fund as many as are needed.

In preparing the budget amendments- Council Member, I think that that's a helpful summary.

We're at the moving of the item right now.

So thank you for that summary, because I know it relates to both of them.

It's been moved.

Is there a second?

Okay, Council Member Salmon, I'm not hearing a second.

Did you officially, I believe you officially just moved item 164. Would you like to officially move item 165?

Yes, I moved to add 7 million general fund dollars one time to the Human Services Department to expand tiny home villages and cut $7 million from the proposed contribution to the city's emergency fund.

So as Jeff said, this would fund tiny house villages by exactly the same amount as in the previous item.

The difference is in the source of funding.

And as we talk to various agencies, we know that they have expressed the reasons for why this is important.

And I will say that I continue to believe that the funding source in the previous agenda item is the best option, because it would be increasing by a minuscule amount the taxes on big business, and it would create stable ongoing funding.

That didn't even get a second.

I'm bringing forward this alternative to use $7.8 million of the city's $37 million emergency reserves.

And because using emergency reserves is one-time funding, this would require that the council find other ways to fund this work in the following years.

But I think using these emergency reserves, using a small portion of the emergency reserves would meet the real needs of the ongoing emergencies we face.

And I feel that they are entirely justified.

One other point I'll make is that I've been concerned about how emergency reserves have been discussed by many council members.

I obviously- We are at the point of the motion right now.

Let's hold for debate and discussion.

It's been moved to, Approve HOM 023B001.

Is there a second?

Hearing none, we are going to continue.

Item 166, please.

Members, Tracy Rassif, Council of Central Staff.

Item 166, CBA OH007A-001, sponsored by Council Member Swant, would add $800,000 in general fund to the Office of Housing's weatherization program to increase funding for converting homes from gas or oil heating to electric.

If this CBA were approved, it would add an additional $800,000 to the $200,000 that was included and approved part of the mayor's proposed amended balancing package yesterday.

This budget action would utilize revenue from separate council legislation to increase taxes on big businesses above the amount set in Ordinance 126-108.

Thank you, Tracy.

Can I just clarify?

It was the $200,000 that was added in the council's proposed budgeting package.

That's correct.

Yes.

Okay.

Thank you so much.

Council members, you are recognized to move this item.

Thank you.

I move to add $800,000 in general fund to the office of housing weatherization program to increase funding for converting homes from gas or oil heating to electric.

And as you said correctly, council member Mosqueda, the initial $200,000 for this purpose have already been included in the balancing package and was supported by the council board yesterday, which I really appreciate.

Council members will have seen many emails from environmental justice and indigenous organizations and supporters like 350 Seattle and Mazaska Talks demanding that the city invest an additional 800,000 to make a million for the Green New Deal for next year.

And as we all know, the big business tax will, I was just gonna explain.

Just at the point of motion right now.

Thank you so much for that context.

It's been moved.

that the council consider adoption of 0, I'm sorry, of OH007A001.

Is there a second?

Hearing no second, let's move on to the next item, please.

SPD007A001, I see that.

Yeah, sorry, Chair.

I believe my colleague Greg Doss is on the call to describe this.

Okay.

Excellent.

Thank you so much.

Yes.

And so we are on SPD 001, or I'm sorry, 007A001 by Council Member Sawant.

And this particular proviso would, well, actually it would impose two provisos and this particular budget action would request that the Seattle Police Department would request that they require that all encampment residents that would be moved would be placed specifically in a shelter or housing or be directed to a city-sanctioned encampment or another nearby location where they may reestablish an unauthorized encampment.

and also to prohibit the unauthorized encampment whose residents have been directed to that location during a previous encampment removal.

So SPD could not remove an encampment if residents had previously been moved.

And that is a summary of the action.

Okay, Council Member Swatney, you are recognized to move this item.

Council Member Sawant, you are on mute.

Sorry.

I was saying I thank Greg for reading out extracts of the amendment language because I think that was helpful.

I move to impose two provisos on SPD and GAP and removal.

And I'll just add that all too often the sweeps, which we know are inhumane and have been ineffective, we have mountains of data to show that.

are carried out informally by police officers, just telling people to move.

We've seen this happen recently over and over again at Cal Anderson Park, without going through any of the procedures and structures that are set up for other agencies, other city departments.

So this proviso attempts to address the issue in a different way.

It does not preempt the discussion about how, when, and if encampments are swept.

That debate, of course, needs to happen.

But this proviso does not go into that.

It says that if an encampment is swept for any reason, the people living there must be offered a location nearby that they can move to, and if they can move there, and if they move there, sorry, they cannot be moved again without council approval, because the reality is when people are swept, they don't vanish, they have to go somewhere.

Thank you, Council Member Sawant.

It's been moved.

Is there a second?

Second.

It's been moved and seconded.

Now, Council Member Sawant, you are recognized to explain the amendment.

Yes, as I was saying, I think the main thing I would like to explain to the city council and the members of the public is that it's not so much about how, when and if the encampments are swept, which, of course, my opinions are very clear.

I think all sweeps need to be stopped because that's not solving the problem.

But the proviso is going into the question of what should happen if an encampment is swept for any reason and that the residents of the encampment that is going to be removed must be offered a location nearby where they can move to so that they don't experience the feeling of uprooting where they are not allowed to stay in the vicinity of the location that they have organized for themselves.

And if they move there, they cannot move again without council approval.

Because when people are swept, they do not vanish.

They are human beings, not statistics.

They have to go somewhere.

And even people who do think that the sweep should continue, at least in some cases, I mean, I disagree with that.

But as I said, that debate is a valid debate.

But even people who do think the sweep should continue recognize that people need somewhere to go and they feel that if an encampment is being removed, for example, because it's hazardous, which has been the stated reason now at this point for the vast majority of sweeps, then you have to offer somewhere they can go where they are actually going to be able to and willing to stay.

So this provisor requires that that somewhere must be offered.

Thank you, Council Member Solant.

Are there any comments or questions?

Council Member Morales, please go ahead.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Sawant.

I am thinking about the phone call that I got last week during a committee meeting from a outreach worker who mentioned that as soon as she left an encampment, the police came in and moved somebody out of their car and then impounded it.

So we know that something has to be done to keep the police from harassing people who are living outside.

I'm sure this proviso won't solve all of those issues.

but neither does having nothing on the books, which is kind of where we are now.

And so I will be supporting this because I think it's important that we show our unhoused neighbors.

We don't want them to be harassed or have their homes destroyed.

And we are aware that this is a problem.

We have been contacted by outreach providers indicating that it's a problem and that we know from homeless folks themselves, they continue to be harassed.

So I think it's important for us to make a statement that we acknowledge that that's happening and that we acknowledge that we also need to do something about ending the practice of harassing folks who are experiencing homelessness.

Thanks.

Thank you very much.

Um, I have a few questions, Greg.

I guess I'm wanting to hear a little bit more about what we currently have in statute.

I mean, we have removed police officers from any form of outreach and engagement with our homeless population.

There is no longer sweeps occurring under the guise of the navigation team and having a police led response there.

I thought that we had already imposed various provisos and side boards on how officers would be engaged with our homeless neighbors.

I understand that there are situations, though, as we've talked about over the last few months, about issues that might be completely hazardous or crimes that might be occurring.

There's nothing that prevents the continuation of engagement on issues related to crimes and things like that.

Can you explain for us or for me what is the existing protocol?

Sure, well, I think the first thing to recognize is that the mayor's executive order, I think, affects the movement of encampments or movement of homeless individuals.

If the if the mayor's executive order is not in place, then SPD can move encampments for the reasons that you mentioned.

Otherwise, the and they can do so with with no warning and.

then otherwise it would be the city's navigation team's policy to provide the required notice.

My colleague, Jeff Sims, would be better to go into detail here.

That's sort of a high-level description.

I'm not sure if Jeff Sims is still on the line.

I'm just going to slow talk for a minute to see if he joins.

If not, I would say generally, I think what we've heard in the discussions about the proposed changes to how the city is conducting outreach and engagement with with people experiencing homelessness is that the the police officers will no longer be part of that team or ecosystem or, you know, the the new group that will be managing the homeless service providers for outreach and engagement.

However, I don't think there is anything specifically that, I don't know that there are provisos in the proposed 2021 budget by the mayor or the council that explicitly states that, but that's my understanding of the agreement in the discussions with the council members, executive, the homeless service providers and the human services department.

I think that's fair, Ali.

I was just sort of mentioning a current law situation, and like you said, the proviso is under 21 and direction.

But I think your description better reflects the reality on the ground.

Thanks.

Are there any additional comments?

I see Council Member Herbold.

Please go ahead, Council Member Herbold, and then I'll go back to Council Member Sawant.

Thank you, just a few questions.

I'm not quite sure.

I understand how actions would be monitored and how if.

actions were found to be contradictory to the conditions in the proviso, what exactly would happen next?

And then just one example of a condition which I perhaps It's not intended to be written this way, but I think it raises for me the question of whether or not, you know.

this sentiment, which I support and understand, is best expressed in a proviso.

It's my understanding that with provisos, they have to be really measurable conditions in order to actually implement the proviso.

So, like, for instance, there's a section where it references I don't know if you have a follow-up.

I think there is still concerns around the ability to monitor and implement this in a way that fulfills our objectives to minimize the actions of SPD to engage in that there is still the possibility that police officers will be used to remove encampments in certain circumstances.

So, I agree, we want to minimize that as much as possible, minimize the likelihood as much as possible.

I'm just not quite sure I understand how the proviso could be used to do that.

Council Member Herbold, I should mention that some of the issues that you've raised and are addressed in a memo that was circulated to all members from the law department, which I can't go into specifically, but I wanted to remind members that they did get that memo about two or three days ago.

Yeah, and that's why I stayed away from all the legal issues and focused on in my question about the implementation, like how how would we actually implement this?

Great, and I do see Jeff Sims is on the line as well.

If Jeff, you have any additional clarification.

Apologies council member and council budget chair.

I was trying to join the King County Regional Homelessness Authority, which is also meeting concurrently.

So I missed the question.

If you could restate, I could chime in.

Councilmember Herbold, did you want to restate your question?

Mine was simply how is this different than our existing policy of not allowing suites that were previously led by our SPD and navigation team?

Councilmember Herbold, did you want to add your question?

I was just asking how would this be implemented?

Who would monitor it and what would happen if if the police department was to be found out of compliance.

And I gave the example of what would happen if residents were directed to a location a quarter of a mile away instead of the required by this proviso half mile away.

I'm not actually able to add a lot more context than what Greg has on what the effect of the proviso would be if those conditions weren't met.

Jeff, I think that the original question was how are the requirements of the proviso different from what's happening on the ground today.

Ali answered a little bit about that and what kind of encampment removals are happening now and under what conditions.

I think that that was the original question that we were hoping you could help with.

Go ahead.

So per the passage of Council Bill 119942, the council lifted the proviso that was put on the navigation team over the summer and imposed a new proviso.

In that proviso, it says that HSD staff are not permitted to engage directly with encampment residents except for the purposes of the storage of their possessions in order to manage that process.

So there shouldn't be any interaction currently between HSD staff and encampment residents.

And then the police department is not envisioned as being part of the unsheltered outreach and response team at all at this time.

So my understanding is that there should not be an engagement as far as what we would have called a navigation team arrival before.

It's now called the unsheltered outreach and response team.

There has been for a more than a year now, instances where some officers, as it had been described previously, it was bike patrol and CPD, that would, if they encountered an individual experiencing homelessness who was obstructing a right-of-way, they had the option to tell them that they needed to remove their belongings to permit passageway, and they could access supports from what was the navigation team.

I can't speak to whether or not that continues, though the mayor has made statements that generally speaking, the major levels have been diminished due to COVID, clear public health concerns.

So hopefully that is helpful context going forward.

The proviso that was imposed with 119942 does not carry forward into 2021. So at that point in time, HSD staff can do, for example, posting notification that an encampment needed to be removed, or there are potentially some actual HSD outreach workers that are employed on that team that could then engage with encampment residents for proactive outreach, though the council, as you know, just yesterday passed a repurposing of the staff with the vision that that would not happen, that instead staff will be stepping back and really coordinating more and allowing contracted providers to do that work.

It's just not clear yet how that will work.

That's something that's been an emerging dialogue and a dialogue that continues even right now.

And I think more generally speaking, if the parameters of a proviso are difficult to interpret or are, or are, you know, are found to not be complied with.

There are implications for the finance managers for those, those departments, if they're spending money on, on things that were subject to a proviso that violate the conditions of the proviso.

I think, so I think more generally speaking to your question, Council Member Herbold, if I'm understanding it correctly, if the terms are difficult to monitor or to know, it can be difficult to be sure whether or not the provisions of the proviso have been met appropriately.

Okay.

So, Council Member Sawant, if you have closing comments, please go ahead.

or clarification, you're welcome to chime in.

Yeah, I wanted to provide several clarifications to the questions that came up.

I mean, one of the questions is about what interactions the police have and that they're not supposed to.

And I think Jeff did a really good job showing, describing the difference between what are sort of official sweeps that go through or official encampment removals, as the official language goes, that go through a certain set of procedures that we are all aware of, but that it's a very common, situation that police just tell somebody that they are causing an obstruction and that they need to move.

It's under the guise of obstruction or hazardous situation that many, many of these sweeps are happening.

Jeff can remind me, but I believe it's over.

I know it's an overwhelming majority of the encampment removals or removals of homeless individuals or sweeps that have happened.

And I was about to say over 90%, but maybe I'm wrong about this.

But I do remember that it's an overwhelming majority of removals that are happening that don't go through the official procedures because it sort of takes precedence.

The police come and say, you're obstructing this or that, and you're causing this or that hazard, or this is a hazardous situation.

for you, and under that guise, the homeless neighbors are removed.

And that's the kind of informal circumstance that happens all too often, is what we are dealing with here.

And in fact, as I said, the overwhelming majority of removals or sweeps are happening under that guise.

So I think this proviso is very important.

And as I said, which is precisely why we are not commenting on those official procedures, but we're talking about a lot of the times when the official procedures are not being followed.

As far as what happens when this proviso is violated, I mean, I would answer that by saying, well, what happens when any proviso is violated?

And I don't have like a precise answer for that.

I don't pretend to, but I think it is the concern of the city attorney's office.

It would be unlawful if this proviso is passed, it would be unlawful for the police to do things unless they carry out removals, unless they provided you know, an alternative location by the criteria that are stated in the proviso.

And so I would say, you know, no, I don't believe that we have clear criteria for enforcement, but nor do we have any clear criteria for what constitutes an obstruction or hazardous conditions.

I mean, the provisor does not pretend to have precisely measurable conditions, but the conditions or the pretext under which homeless neighbors are being swept today are not measurable either.

As far as I know, I don't know how to decide that the police are absolutely right when they say it's an obstruction or hazardous.

In my view, most of the sweeps that are happening are actually pretty unjust, precisely for this reason that they have nowhere to go.

These are human beings.

And so the claim that the encampment is currently creating hazardous conditions or creating an obstruction, that's not measurable either.

And who's monitoring them in the first place?

So the criteria that council members are saying about that should apply to this proviso also should apply to those and they're not to the sweeps themselves and they're not being provided.

And the reality is that it's actually community members who support homeless neighbors and who are affordable housing advocates, homeless service advocates that have done a lot of the work of actually monitoring the sweeps and letting the community know.

It's activists like Day Kim, Linda Soriano.

I mean, there's countless others.

I could not have the time to name all of them.

who provide real-time updates on social media about encampment removals and the conditions under which they are happening.

So, I mean, I would just say that I would be very happy to work with council members to turn these restrictions into systematic ordinance to flesh out that enforcement.

I'll also say that I don't believe that a proviso is a natural tool that I would turn to at normal times in the year, but this is the budget deliberation, so this is the tool we have.

I would urge that if councilmembers agree with the spirit of this proviso, then I would urge everybody to vote yes so we can indicate that this is the direction that we're going in.

And then I would welcome everybody to join me in developing the ordinance to actually ensure that this can have the enforcement mechanisms clearly stated.

Thank you.

Okay.

Any additional comments?

Not seeing any additional comments.

I want to thank Jeff and Greg for your walkthrough of this.

I think one thing that you've raised for me, Jeff, is the proviso from Council 119942 clearly is something that I would like to see continue to be extended in 2021. It sounds like you're you have referenced this ongoing conversation that's happening with the mayor's office, providers, the council, and as that next iteration of, and Councilor Morales, I'm looking at you as well, as the next iteration of HOPE gets concretized and there is some sort of MOU or final item or final summary of that piece, I'm interested in looking to make sure that that proviso piece continues as well.

I do want us to be clear about our parameters around sweeps and the Council's ongoing commitment to preventing those through the old model that was used through the navigation team.

Councilmembers, any additional comments?

Okay, I'm seeing none.

Let's go ahead and call the roll on Council Bill...

I'm sorry, Council Budget item.

SPD007A001.

Thank you for calling the roll, Madam Clerk.

Lewis?

No.

Morales?

Yes.

Peterson?

No.

Salant?

Yes.

Strauss?

No.

Gonzalez?

No.

Herbold?

No.

Juarez?

No.

Chair Mosqueda?

No.

Two in favor, seven opposed.

Thank you very much.

Madam Clerk, the motion fails and the CDA is not approved.

Let's move on to the next item here.

Thanks, Madam Chair.

The next item is number 168, which is CBA SPD 018A001.

And this particular item would cut $9.04 million from SPD and request that the department implement a hiring freeze in 2021. It would also add the $9.04 million to HSD for community-led public safety investments and impose a proviso.

And if the chair is interested, I have a, a graph and a short presentation that shows how this would affect the balancing package as proposed by the chair.

Thank you very much, Greg.

Let me see if there's interest in moving this in front of us first, and then I think we can look at that as part of discussion.

Council members, I want you all recognized to move this item.

Thank you.

I move to cut $9.04 million general fund dollars from the Seattle Police Department for a hiring freeze, add $9.04 million to the Human Services Department for community-led public safety investments, and impose a proviso.

Thank you very much.

It's been moved.

Is there a second?

Second.

Okay, it has been moved and seconded.

Council Member Sawant, I will recognize you first, and then Greg, I'm gonna come back to you for additional context with the presentation you just mentioned, if that sounds okay.

Council Member Sawant, would you like to make some opening comments?

Thank you.

Over the summer, tens of thousands of people flooded the streets of Seattle and over 20 million around the country to protest the brutal police killing of George Floyd, in particular, but in general, to protest the pervasive and ongoing police violence.

These protests themselves, ironically, were met with brutal repression from police departments in multiple cities, including in Seattle.

For many days, the streets of Capitol Hill were filled with tear gas and pepper spray from the police, grenades exploding, and police helicopters circling overhead, all justified by the idea that protesters were somehow going to be harmful because they had umbrellas and water bottles.

And the police violence continues to this day.

In all this context, the grassroots justice for George Floyd movement demanded defunding the police by at least 50% to remove the police hours and resources used to abuse protesters and communities of color and also, as we have just discussed, our homeless neighbors.

And yesterday, many council members went to great lengths to explain that the $10.7 million cut from the police by the council amendments in the balancing package would not lay off officers.

That point was made again and again by the city council members yesterday, which is true.

The reductions to the police department that have already been made by the city council in the proposed package right now would not lay off police officers.

It would not even prevent the police from hiring every officer that they expect to hire in 2021. I would say that despite that limitation, the $10 million reduction in the bloated police budget reflects a real tangible victory for the movement that is not very common and we should really, the movement should applaud itself for the incredible courage that was shown on the streets because it's almost unheard of before the Justice for George Floyd movement for police spending to be reduced in any way, shape or form.

In the next agenda item, my office is proposing to reduce the police budget by 50%, so council members will have the opportunity to vote yes on what they promised to do this past summer.

This budget amendment is actually far more mild.

Here we are proposing to cut $9.05 million from the police department's budget to freeze officer hiring in 2021. And to be clear, that would only extend to the police, the same hiring freeze that is currently imposed on many city departments that do crucial work supporting rather than abusing our communities.

The hiring freeze, obviously, needless to say, is because all departments are dealing with the recessionary effects right now.

So why should the police department be an exception, especially when the police department has been documentedly causing a lot of harm to many of our most vulnerable communities who actually need those services that are being reduced in other departments.

These funds, so instead of spending $9.05 million on hiring more police officers next year, these funds would instead be used for the human services department fund for community-led programs in public safety, programs with a proven track record of success like restorative justice, and arts programming.

I know council members have received thousands, not hundreds, but thousands of emails in support of this demand.

Both the People's Budget Movement and the Solidarity Budget have demanded this, and so I urge council members to vote yes on this.

Okay, thank you very much.

Before we move on, Greg, would you like to walk us through the chart that you mentioned or the slide

Yeah, thanks.

Patty, would you put up the PowerPoint presentation on the first slide, please?

Is Patty here?

Not seeing Patty.

OK, I can try to share my screen here and see if this is possible.

Greg, I have it.

Don't worry about it.

One second.

Oh, great.

Thanks.

Okay, so what you're looking at is a chart that was in my staff report originally.

And this is the number of SPDs fully trained officers between 2012 and 2022 under the current staffing plan that was proposed by the mayor and funded in the mayor's proposed budget.

That same staffing plan is part of the balancing package.

That particular staffing plan, if you look at this chart, would have and fund in 2021, 1311 fully trained officers, and in 1329, I'm sorry, in 2022, 1329 fully trained officers.

Fully trained officers, as I think I've told the committee before, are officers that have gone through an entire year's worth of training.

So they've been through academy training, they've been through field training, and they can be deployed on their own either to answer 911 calls or for other purposes.

So that's a good measure of the department's workforce.

And as you can see in this chart, the number of fully trained officers under the mayor's plan and the balancing package would increase from $12.95 to $13.29.

The increase is because the department will hire more officers next year than are currently separating.

So next year, they're planning, I think it's been said, to hire about 114, and they're planning to separate about 89. And so, uh, the difference there, um, and along with, uh, hiring nine net new in 2022, uh, increases the size of the police department's fully trained officer force over the next two years.

Uh, for perspective, obviously, as you can see in this chart, the 1329 fully trained officers are not as high as the, um, High back in 1359. So, it can be said that the force is growing from the 1295 that it is today.

It doesn't grow to the high it was in 2017, but it starts to catch up a bit.

And under the under the proposed budget action, the of course, there would be zero hired under the hiring freeze.

Eighty nine would a trip.

And then the number of fully trained officers would start dropping in twenty twenty one.

It drops down to twelve sixty and in twenty twenty two it drops down to twelve thirteen.

I would note that the reason that you see two years of reduction, even though there's only one year of hiring freeze, just 2021, is because, like I said at the start of the presentation, it takes a full year to get officers back into the system through the pipeline and fully trained.

So while officers are leaving in 2021, nobody's replacing them.

When officers start to be hired again in 2022, They can't start getting back into the full force until their training is complete, which is going to be 2023. So that's why you see two consecutive years of drops there.

Patty, would you go to the slide that shows the numbers?

Thank you.

So under the, as I said, under the balancing package in the mayor's proposed budget, you see 114 hires, 89 separations.

That's a net of 25. One other thing I wanted to point out, when I talk about fully trained officers, there is another measure that is used.

The mayor's office and the police department sometime talk about officers in service.

Officers in service is the fully trained officers that you see there on the left of the table, less everybody who's out on disability leave, long-term medical leave or military service, or if they're out on administrative leave.

So that number is sort of the department's bottom line on who they can deploy.

It's not always the best number to figure out how you're going to fund police because it can vary quite a bit.

You see 1247 here, that's based on the assumption that there are going to be 64 officers out on those various kinds of leaves that I said.

In the past, it's been as low as 30. Back in September, it was 88. So when you're planning for a workforce, One of the things that's good to aim for is the constant number of the fully trained officers.

And you can see what that looks like here.

Patty, would you flip to the hiring freeze?

So as you can see, under the hiring freeze, the action would cut $8.5 million in salary.

It would also cut $539,000 for advertising and testing and other costs.

It would cut the FTE, which is the funded level, from $1,357,000 down to $1,295,000.

I've already mentioned the officers in service number, or I'm sorry, the officer, the fully trained officer number in the chart, the officers in service number is quite a bit lower again, showing it not necessarily as a measure to determine your force size, but to understand what SPD would have available on the ground.

Patty, would you go back to the chart, the line graph?

I'll finish this out by noting that the police department has said that as the numbers start to drop down to 1260 and down to 1213 over the next two years, that there would as best as possible, try to not impact 911 response times and they would do that by shifting officers.

out of specialty units and investigative units into 911 response.

They've already done that with 100 officers this year because of the increased attrition that they've been seeing.

They did note yesterday that they have some concern about their ability to continue doing that because The officers that they would shift out of specialty units and out of investigations are officers that haven't been on the streets for a very long time, sometimes a decade or more.

And so there would be some potential training issues there.

Taking of the $9 million means it wouldn't be available in for overtime.

So there would be some logistical issues that would would come along with with moving officers into patrol to keep 911 response times the same.

I don't know if that would be the case.

It would shrink the size of the department.

And if SPD is able to move the officers it would not affect 911 response times.

Although I caveat that so members are aware.

And that is my high-level presentation of the effect of this particular action.

I appreciate you putting the information.

It sounds like you had this information in your presentation, but maybe not in the visual form.

So thank you for pulling that forward for us.

Or maybe I missed it.

I'm sorry about that.

This is very helpful.

Thank you.

Councilor Morales, please go ahead.

Thank you, Chair.

And thanks so much, Greg.

I know you've been really been hard on a lot of these questions, helping us get these questions answered.

Colleagues, I want to talk a little bit about why I think this matters so much and why I've signed on to support this budget action.

Prior budgets have overfunded SPD in the past for the number of officers they could hire.

I do realize that there are vacant positions already being defunded and that we're already aggregating positions.

And this is an important step in the right direction.

It can't be the stopping point for us as a council.

What other city department has been funded for 150 positions over those it could fill?

What SPD is receiving this year is a budget that matches their staffing.

This should have always been the case.

Meeting the challenge of this moment requires that we go beyond defunding already vacant positions.

It means that we actively make moves to shrink the department, removing the hiring budget for the year.

Until this year, SPD has received nearly a quarter of the city's general fund.

Think about that.

They've received more money than 25 other city departments combined, including the departments charged with housing, with education, city planning and community development, labor standards, economic development, sustainability and the environment, immigrant and refugee affairs, including funding for 114 new police officers sends the wrong message at a time when Seattle is grappling with the SPD's outsized budget and the harmful impacts of policing we've seen over the last six months, in addition to a public health crisis and a massive looming recession.

This is the opposite of the commitments made by council members this summer, not just to tinker at the edges, but to begin the work of making structural changes to how we fund SPD.

The Seattle Police Department, as Greg has said, has developed a staffing plan that assumes 25 net new hires, so the 114 hires less about 90 projected separations.

According to the staffing plan, SPD will have at the end of 2021, a total of 1,311 fully trained officers, the 1247 in service that Greg mentioned.

The proposed budget does not affect the staffing hiring plan at all.

It would result in the same staffing levels.

That's the problem here.

So I wanna acknowledge that throughout the last six months, including this budget proposal, We have, as a council, made an important shift in how the city funds police.

Despite the department's resistance to change and their resistance to increased accountability, as a council, we've worked with community to persevere, even through a veto, to deliver on the commitment we made to change the direction of policing.

This summer, we reduced salaries for one of the highest paid departments in the country, eliminated the navigation team.

We made an initial $3 million investment in participatory budgeting.

With this 2021 proposal, we're investing in alternatives to policing, whether that's the restorative justice pilot program, safety coordinators, HealthONE expansion.

We're investing $18 million in the participatory budgeting program.

And we're cutting $6 million in vacancy savings, almost $4 million in overtime, travel, and training.

So I don't want to diminish in any way the work that we've already done.

I think we have made a good faith effort to demonstrate our commitment.

And I don't think we're done.

I've had a chance to speak with most of my colleagues to explain why I think this is so important.

And so I want to end by just responding to some of the concerns that were shared with me.

One is that we're still trying to scale up our 911 alternatives that will be impacted by the staffing plan.

The hiring freeze is in line with the scaling up of a community designed and implemented response to harm.

Hiring freeze would halt the replacement of officers who will be leaving the department over the course of the coming year, not all at once.

it would immediately inject an extra $9 million into building up community-based responses to harm.

If we add that to the $10 million already earmarked, that's $19 million in a meaningful investment to scale up community groups, address situations that have previously been under the purview of SPD.

The scale-up of community solutions, which already exist but have been underfunded, can and should coincide with the scaling down of SPD.

The hiring freeze is a modest but necessary step in that direction.

The second thing I've heard is that we need to allow for new, more diverse hires in the department.

I want to be clear, new police recruits can't guarantee a change in SPD's culture of violence and, as we've seen this summer, anti-Blackness.

It won't change the role of the police department.

I know council members may be wary of a hiring freeze because of a desire to attract new recruits, particularly women and people of color.

Older officers retire and bad apples are laid off.

This presumes that the problems with policing can be addressed through more diversity in the ranks.

However, a look at the challenges facing other police forces, more closely match the demographics of their populations.

For example, Los Angeles, Chicago, Baltimore.

Prove that this is a false assumption.

The problem is not a lack of diversity in policing.

The problem is structural racism inherent to policing.

And finally, I want to say that one of the concerns I've heard is that this looks like abolition, and we're just not ready for that.

I will say that Seattle is at a crossroads right now.

We continue to invest in failed policing.

Will we accept the challenge before us to invest in a new paradigm of health and safety for everyone?

The Homeless Remembrance Project tracks the deaths of our homeless neighbors in King County.

They've reported 13 homeless people who have died outside in a public place or by violence just in the period between October 21st and November 9th.

That brings the total to 119 deaths this year.

Would 114 new officers have stopped those deaths?

Would they prevent future deaths?

Hiring new officers wrongly presumes that they can fill the role of nurses, social workers, housing specialists, mental health workers, drug treatment providers.

It's time to reject the premise that more officers equals more safety.

It's also time to fully invest in a new paradigm of health and safety.

And the last thing I'll say is that on election night, people of Seattle gave the council a clear mandate to go beyond tinkering, make the structural changes we need.

Leading up to the election just two weeks ago, law enforcement guilds and special interests spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to oppose the county's law enforcement reform charter amendment.

They used the same rhetoric that they've used to oppose every other change that we're trying to make in the city.

Arguments weren't only rejected by residents of Seattle, by residents countywide.

People who oppose change have been trying to convince us we're asking too much, that we're going too far.

On election day, which is the only poll that really matters, people told us that we're on the right track, that we need to keep going.

That's why I'm supporting this, and I'm urging my colleagues to support it as well.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Councilmembers, I do just want to ask a quick question for clarification from central staff.

It was noted that every other department or a number of other departments have a hiring freeze.

Why not continue this with SPD just so that we have clarification?

I thought that the hiring freeze was just 2020. Is there a hiring freeze on other departments in 2021?

I'll let you off mute if you have any updates on that.

Chair Mosqueda, the current hiring freeze that is the prerogative of the mayor is through the end of 2020 and isn't currently extended into 2021. And my understanding from previous discussions on the budget revision ordinance and other things that as that funding was restored for certain positions and those hiring to move forward.

So as of right now, there is not a hiring freeze imposed on departments in 2021.

Thank you very much for that clarification.

I know that there's probably a few other folks that wanna speak.

I appreciate council members Swann and Morales, what you have just said.

Obviously this chart is illuminating Greg.

I know you have provided the numbers before seeing it visually like this.

Obviously there's a concern that I will raise about net new.

I've been talking about this as replacement of positions that are vacating.

So I do want to underscore, I think that there is an interest in recognizing that there will continue to be attrition.

We have, through the existing budget, suggested that those vacant positions could be replaced.

Seeing the addition of potential officers does raise some questions for me, which I think we can get into in a little bit because I think that that this visual helps me understand the net that you're talking about.

But I wanna also offer this.

A new paradigm was described and I wanna make sure folks know the ways in which I believe that this budget is offering a new paradigm.

We have invested in community solutions to alternatives to policing.

We have invested more in mental health services and removed mental health providers and our parking enforcement providers.

out of SPD to try to continue to reduce the size and scope of the police department and offer a new paradigm for how individuals who previously were in SPD will be conducting their work in community through a non-sworn officers and through individuals who are no longer under the police department.

We have offered there to be a new paradigm by making sure that we're investing in community oriented solutions by making sure that the participatory budgeting process and the task force of the mayor is currently working with.

have sufficient funds and more funds than I think folks probably anticipated given the crisis that we are walking into.

A combined total of 60 million in that area is a tremendous amount of investment in a year where we're facing incredible restraints on our budget.

And I think that that is a signal of where the values are and making sure that the community has funding and solutions for alternatives to policing.

We're also making sure that we're following through on our commitments for not just the housing and security that we need to be able to provide to those who are facing ongoing impacts of COVID-19.

of, I guess, inequities in our city, but we're also investing in making sure that there is alternatives to police showing up by making sure that our HealthONE team and others have services in hand, the appropriate amount of services so that fewer 911 calls are going to our police department and we are referring, hopefully we're going to be referring more of those over, as you heard Greg describe yesterday, making sure that fewer mental health calls are even being answered by SPD and that those are going to the appropriate trained health personnel, I think will help a lot.

And I offer that as examples of some of the paradigm shift that we're including here and in the same breath saying, I agree as well that it's not enough, a 20% reduction in a budget over a six to eight month period is a remarkable downshift.

There's only one other city that has done more of a reduction, and that's the city of Austin.

But New York and Los Angeles are at 7 and 13% reduction.

A 20% reduction is, I think, an indication that we are continuing the path to downsize the impact or the presence of police officers where we could have community organizations and trusted community partners showing up instead.

And I think that it's about the question for me is about the right scale, are we scaling down as we're scaling up to make sure that those community oriented solutions are available so I hope that that also provides a little bit of additional context, I would love for us to, you know, look at the I think it's really important for us to get to that right sort of tipping point and recognize that perhaps as we get these dollars out into the community, there are going to be additional alternatives to traditional policing.

And so for me, I think it's really a question of perhaps somewhere between these two lines, if that's the right place and at what time does that toggle occur so that our community oriented solutions have time to scale up.

and absolutely recognize there's much more to do.

Council Member Herbold.

Thank you.

Just want to share my perspective that I wholeheartedly agree with Council Member Morales when she says we're not done.

We are not done and I don't think Whether or not we are done is demonstrated by our vote on this particular budget action.

Our budget proves that we have rejected the adage that more officers equals more safety.

We are no longer growing the number of officers.

And this budget also preserves the ability to do further reductions in 2021 with the proviso that allows us to capture savings associated with additional attrition, direct those savings to community investments should we see that we want to further reduce the number of officers mid-year that SPD hires.

the number of officers that we identified as through the Council's summer supplemental action.

Our actions today in this budget would align with that, but again, it allows for further reductions midyear if attritions are higher than expected.

Um, you know, my, my position on on on this topic is really again.

Focused on our communities ability to staff up and begin the work that we are providing funding for in this budget for us to be successful in the long term.

in our effort that, again, I see a lot of consensus around the effort of shifting to community safety and away from traditional policing.

We have to move methodically and be honest with ourselves about the ability to shift from one paradigm to the other and to lay a strong foundation.

The council is providing significant funding for community groups to do this work.

We're also acting on this paradigm shift by creating the new community safety and communication center, allowing potential expansion of the PEO's responsibilities, such as managing traffic at lighted intersections, red light camera, school zone enforcement, response to non-injury collisions, response to and reporting on minor thefts We have to make sure that we are providing the right services to the people who are in need.

creating a pathway for more crisis response within city government and funding more crisis response outside of city government.

We are, again, embracing this really important paradigm shift.

We are, I think, committing to the long haul, to continuing to do it.

Again, this effort does not stop with this budget.

And I just want to really underscore that I continue to support the effort for continued reductions to the footprint of policing.

I intend to support future reductions to the police department in the future once community safety alternatives that we've begun to fund are in place and ready to respond to crisis response calls.

You know, I, and again, I think there is there is the potential to continue to look at this, the staffing issues throughout throughout the course of 2021. we don't have to wait for the annual budget process to do this review.

And I think the reports that we're going to be receiving.

because of the staffing reports statement of legislative intent, combined again with the proviso on additional attritions, allows us to continue to have this conversation on a quarterly, even a monthly basis.

So really appreciate our collaboration as a council on these issues, appreciate that there is a lot of unity on the council on where we're going, I think it is important for us to be able to get to that point even though there might be some disagreement on how quickly we can get there.

Thank you.

So I guess I want to respond to a few things.

The first is that I think the the staffing plan itself is part of the problem, right?

There is no acknowledgment that the way we need to change policing, it isn't reflected in that.

There is still a request and a status quo in terms of not diminishing the number of officers that are being asked for, or even as Greg's chart shows here, a decrease in the number of officers themselves.

The projection is that that line will go up.

I also am really struggling with 9-1-1 response times continuing to be used as a measure.

When we have heard that most of the calls that are 9-1-1 calls aren't priority ones anyway, I don't know why using that as a measure of safety you know, they might be impacted, response times might be impacted, but that isn't an accurate determination of safety.

And we've seen this summer that many calls don't have a crime occurring.

So I'm interested in seeing other definitions of what safety means and how the IDT could help define what constitutes safety outside of a 911 response time, particularly when there isn't a crime that's occurring.

So I would be interested in, I think council members somewhat referred to it, and the chair referred to a measure somewhere in the middle.

I've also asked Greg to look at what 50% a 50% hiring freeze might be.

And so Greg, I'm wondering if you might post that.

Sure.

Patty, if you wouldn't mind putting up the other presentation.

One moment while Patty puts the entire presentation together.

Okay, and I'll just say, you know, I think that we, we really do have to.

here what community is saying and I think that the, as I said before, I am not intending to diminish at all all of the things that I think are really important that we accomplished during the summer rebalancing package and that we're including here.

So I want to acknowledge that Council Member Herbold, I do think that we're making important steps And I do think that there's, there's more that we should be doing to demonstrate a willingness to change the structure, the police department right now.

So that.

And I think I have to ask for the chair's permission to talk now.

Councilman Morales, is this something that you are interested in having described by Greg as a possible substitute?

Yes, sorry, I am.

So I am, I know that there's you know, the 50% that Council Member Sawant had addressed.

So I'd be interested in seeing that because I am interested in substituting this to see, given that there are no questions coming from anyone else, my sense here is that we're going to have a hard time with this.

And so I would like to...

Sorry, Chair, can we have a point of order, please?

Yeah, I'll clarify very quickly.

So we have a current motion.

Right.

So the motion is not motion.

And now we're hearing about a substitute, but there's been no motion made about a substitute.

Yeah, what we did yesterday was we described the substitute before we voted on substituting, because I think that if there is a vote to substitute, that removes the current item on the agenda.

And we want to make sure that folks are aware of I think it's important for us to be clear on what the substitute would be.

So yesterday we described the substitute and then we did the procedural motion on substituting.

Then we voted on the content of the substitute.

So I think in alignment with that, if Councilmember Morales, if what you're suggesting is hearing more about the substitute, we have not moved it officially in front of us.

And then we would be considering whether or not you would want to move a substitute.

Then we would vote on a potential substitute only if there was support from council members to substitute that item.

So I think it, thank you, Council President.

I think procedurally, we should make sure to recognize where we're at.

We still have council members.

So once a proposal in front of us, you are describing a potential substitute.

We will have Greg.

Help us with that data because I think that was what you were just about to put up if we could see that again.

But before any motion is made, we'll make sure that it is clear to folks.

If if I'm sorry to substitute that, that is helpful.

I'm sorry, I believe you have to move to substitute to discuss the substitution.

That's that's my point of order.

Shall I make a motion?

is that as a point of order yesterday, we actually had to move the substitute.

There had to be a second for that motion.

And then the speaker would be allowed to speak to the proposal.

But the caveat there is that once you move the substitute and it's seconded, the original proposal dies.

is my understanding.

I'm going to ask the clerks to chime in here if I get this wrong, but you can move the substitute in a second, then you can discuss the two proposals, so before voting on the motion to substitute, so that all council members understand the choice between the original option and the other.

But I believe that if a council member and the chair is okay with that, asks a question of central staff about what if this proposal was different?

Like what if it was reduced?

I think we can answer that question without having moved the substitute, but I would ask the clerks to please confirm.

This is Amelia Sanchez and you can definitely discuss policy and and the intent of policy and if it were to change, but until the actual substitute is the proposed substitutes before you, then that's when the debate should begin on what that proposed substitute language would actually look like.

So just to clarify, I think that Greg can answer the question of what that chart would look like if it was instead of a 50% hiring freeze, it was a 25% hiring freeze.

But before the committee can debate that substitute option, the motion needs to be made and seconded to move the substitute.

OK, so I just want to confirm here.

Greg can walk through this question that Council Member Morales has asked of him.

Before we debate the merits of this, it would have to be moved to be substituted.

That is correct.

Okay.

All right, Greg, I'm going to ask you to answer the direct question that Councilmember Morales has asked you to address, and then we will see if there is interest in debate and discussion of that, which would require us a move and a second to substitute.

Council Member Morales, would you restate the question?

Can I just have a process point, please?

I just wanted to confirm that everybody is on the same page in terms of what Ali just clarified is that There has to be a vote on whether or not what will be under consideration is the original amendment from me or a substitute that is apparently coming from Council Member Morales, which I was not aware of.

But just moving and seconding the substitute does not, make the original amendment invalid.

I just wanted to confirm that there has to be a vote and also just correct.

This is substantive point.

I am still not clear what the what the substitution the what the substance of the substitution is.

Yeah, that's that's fair because we have not discussed it yet.

And we won't be debating it until we hear I think what Greg has teed up here and then we will go into that.

But council members want just to confirm you're correct.

Your item is still up for discussion until a vote happens.

And then even if a motion is made to consider a substitute, your your underlying item on the agenda is still active until a vote to affirm the desire to substitute is made by the majority.

Okay, if I have that correctly.

All right, Greg, let's ask you to walk through the technical question here about, Council Member Morales, if you want to tee that up one more time.

I'm interested in knowing what it would look like if rather than a full hiring freeze, we did a 50% hiring freeze.

Okay, so you can see the, thank you Council Member and Madam Chair, you can see the purple line here.

This would be the effect of a $4.5 million cut to the department and an instruction or a request by the council, I should say request by the council that the department institute a 50% hiring freeze.

Another way to say that is to take their current staffing plan and use only 50% of that staffing plan or implement only 50% of that staffing plan.

Patty, would you flip to the slide that's on the 50% please?

This is it right here.

So as I just mentioned, this would be $4.25 million in salary funding and about another quarter million in hiring cost savings because you wouldn't be hiring 114 officers, you would be hiring 57 officers.

Because there are fewer officers being put into the pipeline, the training pipeline, there is a likelihood that fewer would drop out.

And so I modeled this particular scenario.

And under this, I reduced by a few of the separations.

And then that comes to a total of 29 fewer hires or minus 29 net hires.

The average annual FTE goes down to 1327 from 1357. And you can see the year-end fully trained officers and the year-end officers in service here on this slide.

And it's probably best illustrated by the, if flipping back to the line chart.

So at this point, before we discuss and debate, are there technical questions for Greg on this?

summary of what Councilmember Morales is suggesting as a substitute.

Okay, Greg, I just want to double check.

The 1283 number there in purple, that number is slightly toggled over.

Is that an indication that that's the number at the end of 2021?

That is correct.

Okay, so going from 1295 to 1283.

Okay.

That's correct.

Okay.

Council Member Morales, if you would like to officially move a substitute, you are recognized to do that.

Am I unmuted?

Yes.

Thank you.

Okay.

Thank you, everyone.

Apologies for the confusion.

I would like to move to substitute SPD-18-B1 in place of SPD-18-A1.

I will second that.

Thank you.

It's been moved and seconded.

Council Member Morales, did you want to speak more to this item?

Yes.

So, colleagues, you should be receiving this.

It is effectively the same language as in Council Member Sawant's proposal in terms of the well, the spending and the cut, except that this would be $4.5 million rather than $9 million.

And I do want to acknowledge that colleagues have concerns.

As I said, I've spoken with most of you already about this.

And so cutting the entire budget for 2021, I realize, is something folks were concerned about.

This offers another option and would reduce by half.

So it cuts 4.25 in salary funding, 250,000 in hiring costs.

I think it's important, as Greg mentioned, while this doesn't result in zero net new hires, does result in 29 fewer hires, which I think still is an important step towards the goal of making some structural change in the kinds of staffing plans that we approve or that we fund.

So so this means fewer officers is the point is to have fewer officers also means less risk of excessive use of force, less risk of unconstitutional policing, fewer violations of the civil rights of Seattleites, fewer city resources going to defend the city in lawsuits, And I think it's important that we reject the notion that there is this thin blue line of police between order and chaos in the city.

As we witnessed this summer, much of the chaos we saw was caused by a department that was not willing to deescalate.

And I understand that that is changing somewhat after repeated requests for that to happen.

I also do want to acknowledge that I want to know that there are detective units in the city doing actual criminal investigation work.

I want to know that they are investigating things like human trafficking.

I don't believe there is no research to prove more officers on patrol increases community safety.

So I'm asking for colleagues to support this measure, which will begin to move us toward really making the kind of structural change we have been working with community implement.

Okay, thank you very much, Council Member Morales.

Council Member Herbold, please go ahead.

Council Member Herbold, you are on mute.

Sorry about that.

I want to sort of dig in a little bit on this question around the impacts of a hiring freeze.

Greg, you have provided us information from Chief Diaz about what the SPD response would be if there was a year-long hiring freeze, and the movement of officers from specialty units into patrol.

Can you remind me of what that number of officers that he would take out of our existing specialty units and put in patrol in order to continue his commitment to 911 response?

Sure.

Patty, would you flip back to the original chart, the first page?

So council member, as you know, the the chief moved into patrol from specialty units and investigative units, 100 officers in the last month.

And if if the movement of those hundred officers puts SPD at a response time that it it seeks to continue, then it would suggest that that there would need to be there would need to be a movement of officers that correspond to the reductions that you're seeing here on the line graph from specialty units into patrol.

So if if it is the case that the number of officers now in patrol is sufficient at twelve ninety five, then given given this line graph, it would be, it would suggest that there would need to be somewhere in the neighborhood of 12 officers moved in by 2021 but you know that this is this is.

It's suggesting an artificial level of precision.

There is there's a lot that goes on with the department.

As you know, there were a large number of separations this month.

Should those separations continue, then it would be the case that the chief might have to move more officers in.

I would say that, and I don't mean to talk too much about this, but I think this is relevant.

The department is forecasting now 130 separations in 2020. They had originally been forecasting about 89. They're forecasting next year about 89. So to say that they would only have to move in The difference between these two numbers may not be fair because it's possible that that other things may come in and influence that.

Okay, thank you.

The reason why I'm raising this issue is I want to highlight that the council, despite the fact that we got a lot of flack over the summer about our targeted reductions, we identified, I believe it was 38, reductions in specialty units that we were seeking.

And we did that by looking at those specialty units and looking at where we felt based on the function of those specialty units in community, our knowledge of some of those things, those functions ending because of decisions of other jurisdictions.

our own decision to make the end of some of those specialty units.

So we knew school resource officers were not going to be needed anymore.

We knew we were intending to remove officers off of the navigation team.

In addition, we made some recommendations for reductions in some of the other specialty units based on the vacancies in those units.

felt that we didn't need a horse patrol anymore, and we reduced the specialty units there.

And so that was, I think, a well-founded look at the city's specialty units and an expression of our interest in reducing officers in those units.

And again, I just want to say that was 38 officers that we were seeking to reduce from the SPD's specialty units.

But what we know has happened in just the last few months is that the chief, in order to maintain 911 response, has moved 100 officers out of specialty units.

And they've moved officers out of, there are no longer any officers in the CPT units in any of the precincts.

We have seen reduction, halving of officers in each the Southwest, South, North, East precinct that focus on burglary and theft.

We have seen a reduction of the domestic violence squad and elder abuse specialty officers of going from four to one.

So I am very concerned that if we continue a hiring freeze, we know that the chief has said that he will continue to move officers out of specialty units into 911. We are going to see a reduction beyond that, which we plan for during the summer.

of some of these important specialty units.

We can ask the chief to focus on particular units that we think are important, like reducing or eliminating the horse patrol, but ultimately that is his decision.

He has already moved 100 officers out of specialty units when our summer budget proposed moving 38. So again, I don't think this is just about 911 response.

Because again, in the chief's authority to do deployment, he has made a commitment to a certain number of officers for 911 response.

But we haven't taken a look at how that's going to impact other parts of the department yet.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

I'm not seeing additional hands right now.

I do have two clarifying questions.

Council Member Sawant, did you want to go before those questions?

No, you can go ahead and then I'll...

Okay, just two clarifying questions.

One, the number 29 was used, 29 net less officers, if I'm saying that correctly.

But when I look at this chart, I thought it was more like 12. 12 less officers in the first year.

Is 29 that difference between now and two years from now at the end of 2022?

No, Madam Chair.

It's actually, it's the difference between the hiring plan.

Patty, would you flip back to the 50% slide?

So the hiring plan for under this particular scenario, there would be 57 hires and 86 separations in 2021. And that's where you get the 29 fewer net hires.

If the council were to ask the executive to implement a 50% hiring freeze, cut the 4.5 million and follow this particular staffing plan, then it would ultimately down the road at the end of 2021, given all the officers that you have in the pipeline and all the other changes that are coming in, it would ultimately net a total of 1,283 fully trained officers.

And so the 29 number is the net of the hiring, simple hires against separations.

And if you go back to that other chart, when you describe us getting to 1311 under the existing plan and that this involves 25 new net hires, if 25 new net hires were to be reduced, is that still considered a hiring freeze if all of the vacant 89 positions could be refilled?

I don't think that that would be a hiring freeze.

I think that that would be a change in the staffing plan.

I think that the council would be potentially providing direction about how many officers the.

the council would like to see the department have.

Of course, the council could only take the money and request what I understand your question is.

If I understand your question, I think you're saying, would it be possible to do a situation where there are 89 hires and 89 separations?

Something along those lines?

And yes, the answer to that is yes.

You could do something like that.

The council could do something like that.

I think it's fair to say that the money that would be cut would be probably about $2.3 million.

Well, actually, I know it would be $2.3 million.

And that would be for 89 hires and 89 separations.

I don't know that, I don't think that necessarily it would be the exact 1295 that would be carried forward into 21 and 22. It may be a little different.

I think it would be a little higher, but the net hires and net separations could be fixed at 89 and the council could remove 2.3 and that would sort of be a net neutral hiring plan.

It wouldn't, from a hiring perspective, there would be no more hired than there would be projected to separate.

Jared Mosqueda, if I may.

Sure.

And Greg, correct me if I'm wrong.

I think what the council has authority to do is to establish the SPD's budget.

Yes.

And what actually happens in terms of hiring can also be influenced by the number of positions that are authorized.

but much more practically is affected by their ability to attract officers and get them into the academy and and trained.

And the net number of officers who are on board is also affected by the amount of attrition that happens throughout the year, which is not in anyone's overt and specific control.

The real lever that council has is the number of dollars that you appropriate ultimately in the budget.

The different levels of dollars that you're talking about imply different levels of staffing by the end of each year, and that's what Greg's chart and his slides are referring to.

But what you can control isn't the number of people who are on board so much as the number of dollars that are available to pay for those people.

Yeah.

Thank you, Dan.

That's what I've been trying to use the word request.

That's that's a great, great description of that.

Okay.

Thank you for that clarification.

Um, are there any additional questions or comments?

Council member salon, please go ahead.

Thank you.

I'm going to respond to the question of substitution and also to another point that came up, which I didn't have a chance to respond to, because it's my amendment that's under question right now.

I would say that it is social movements that create progressive change throughout history, not the kind hearts of the political establishment.

And it was a real testament to the power of that movement that seven of the nine council members on this body committed to defunding the police by 50% at that time during the height of the movement.

Unfortunately, that same logic goes both ways.

Now that there are no longer thousands of people on the streets demanding these changes, many council members have walked back their proposals to defund the police.

And this has happened in multiple cities, not just in Seattle.

I just wanted to be clear on the numbers.

The $18.4 million reduced from the police department by the mayor and the further $10.7 million reduced from the police by the city council's proposal so far adds up to 7.7% of the police budget, not counting the technical transfers in and out of the police department that do not make a substantive change in policing.

And that's a real achievement of our movement.

I mean, some community members, organizers have used the figure 17%, but that figure includes things like transferring parking enforcement costs out of the police budget, which does not actually change anything in practice.

So I think 7.7% is the most accurate measure of what has actually been achieved.

And I would say that it is a real achievement of the movement and we should celebrate that.

but our movement also has to continue to fight for what is really needed.

And the movement has continued to demand defunding the police by 50% to fund the needs of our communities instead.

Sorry.

The community and the movement is still urging the council to defund the police by at least 50%, as I said, but the whole point of this amendment was that failing a 50% defund, the Black Lives Matter movement and everybody in solidarity with them, which includes the Solidarity Budget itself, the People's Budget Movement and Socialist Alternative and many progressive labor unions, What the movement is saying is that failing the 50% defunding, at the very least, the city council needs to institute a hiring freeze.

In other words, 0% new hiring.

I mean, that's a freeze.

I don't know how to call a 50% a freeze.

And I would also say that I was not aware that Council Member Morales was going to bring this substitution.

I want to also be clear in terms of the numbers.

We don't want activists and working people to get confused in any way.

A 50% hiring freeze will be better than no hiring restrictions at all.

But it is not the same as 50% defund.

It just happens to share the term 50%.

reduction in hiring or 50% stoppage in hiring is not the same as a 50% defunding of the police.

I just want to clarify that.

I will be voting no on the substitution because the substitution raises the question of whether to hire zero officers or hire 57 new officers in 2021 and obviously As the sponsor of the original amendment, I prefer that the police department be able to hire zero new officers, which is what a hiring freeze means and which is what the movement has been demanding.

But if the substitution does go through, I will, of course, be voting yes on ending at least 50% of the hiring in 2021. And if council members do vote yes to approve that, then I will consider that a victory for the People's Budget Movement and the Solidarity Budget.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Sawant.

Council Member Herbold, please go ahead.

Thanks.

I just wanted to, for myself, I think everybody on this council who made commitments over the summer about, in response to requests from community members, made different commitments.

But for myself, I just want to be very clear.

I did not make a commitment to make a 50% reduction in the police department's budget in six months.

I committed to do a specific thing and I did that specific thing.

I promised In writing to propose a $68 million reduction, 50% of what was left in the budget during the summer.

I did make that proposal early in the budget process and found very quickly why we couldn't achieve a 50% cut immediately.

Once again, this will not be the stopping point.

I really hope that we can move from focusing on where there's division as far as the speed at which we can reach these goals.

I continue to support the effort to continue reductions to the footprint of policing and definitely intend to support future reductions in the future once community safety alternatives that we have begun to fund are in place.

and ready to respond to crisis response.

So again, my commitment over the summer was a specific thing that I've done.

I have not committed to a 50% reduction over a particular period of time.

I made a commitment to make a particular proposal, which I did make.

And I will, again, I am pledging to continue working on this effort to reduce the size of the police department.

And I think the structure that we have in place allows us to do so.

I am concerned about that a hiring freeze will, as I mentioned earlier, I think we might have a little bit of a difference of, of in nomenclature around staffing plan.

I think when we have maybe talked about the staffing plan, we're maybe focused on the recruitment and the number of officers that SPD feels that they can hire, given the number of people that they have to interview, the number of people that have to go through the academy and out of training.

But there's also another staffing plan that I think Council Member Gonzalez talked a lot about when we had Chief Diaz with us.

That staffing plan is not, and the staffing plan is about what the goal is, the number of officers that we are seeking to have our force be.

I think the council right now by reducing the number of officers that we are funding is saying we don't agree with that staffing plan.

We don't agree with that goal any longer.

We don't make a staffing plan in the city of Seattle based on per capita population of the city.

Instead, what we look at is the officer workload.

The number of hours it takes for them to do their job.

And so in order for us to come up with another another goal another number, whether or not that's a bigger number or a smaller number and I believe it should be a smaller number, we have to adjust the workload.

Right, we have to give We have to create a different set of inputs to go into that formula.

And we can't have a different set of inputs until we have actually reduced the number of things that police officers are doing.

We cannot actually reduce the number of things that police officers are doing until the community response and city response alternatives that the council is fighting with this budget have been stood up.

And so with that, I'm just signaling my intent to not support with my vote this substitute.

Thank you.

Okay.

Motion to substitute is in front of us.

Council President Gonzalez, please go ahead.

Just really quickly, I've been sitting and listening to the debate and wanted to just signal that I haven't been saying much because I think Councilmember Herbold has been covering the ground very well.

And so just wanted to signal that I agree in principle with the points being made by Councilmember Herbold and want to make sure that that the public record reflects that I do support some of the points that she has made.

I do have concerns about the lateness of this proposal and the fact that we haven't had a meaningful opportunity to have some analysis on this particular issue.

And I'm not, criticizing the sponsor or the sponsors around this, but I do think that this is a pretty significant policy issue that is coming up, um, literally in the second to the last budget committee meeting of, of this, of this, um, process.

And, and I do worry that, that we don't fully understand the impacts, the operational impacts.

Um, if, if this, uh, proposal were to, be successful and be implemented as part of the revised balancing package.

I am concerned, as is Council Member Herbold, about the reality that the chief of police has unfettered authority and discretion to move bodies around within the police department as he sees fit.

And so when we talk about how we want to have detectives investigating human trafficking and child sex abuse cases and those types of cases.

We can't say that while at the same time believing that there isn't going to be an impact to that caseload if we further reduce Patrol operations without having a full a fuller understanding and so I just.

I just want to caution us about.

Um, about.

About.

about making sure that we understand the full impacts of what this choice is going to be.

And again, when we're talking about a hiring freeze, whether it's at $9 million, whether it's at $100 million, whether it's at $10, the question still remains is, are we ready to implement a hiring freeze?

And to me, that really is dependent on whether or not we have the community safety alternatives and programs in place to be able to respond to people who are in crisis.

Before coming to city council, I spent 10 years representing victims of crime.

Elderly people in nursing homes who'd been raped, many of whom were experiencing dementia and Alzheimer's, they were targeted because they had Alzheimer's and dementia and wouldn't be able to remember their assailants.

I represented a variety of sexual assault victims.

everything from children to the elderly.

I've sued, I've sued the Catholic church for covering up those abuses.

And I'm not saying that law enforcement would have prevented any of that from happening, but I understand what it means to represent somebody who has been victimized for better or for worse.

And I don't want us to take actions here that are going to mitigate our ability to be able to respond to those crises.

I believe that there are better systems.

We need to have better systems to respond to those crime victims.

And I think that that is possible.

And I think we've started to chart a path towards allowing that to happen.

We've made significant investments over the last six months to support community-led safety programs but what we haven't done is allowed them the opportunity to actually scale up.

And so this isn't about just flipping a switch and saying, well, we took a budget action today and I signed it and therefore tomorrow it's a safer place.

We have to give folks an opportunity to actually absorb the investments, receive the investments and build towards those community safety models while at the same time, acknowledging that we have to continue to make sure that we're not going to see exponential growth in armed law enforcement systems that have not been helpful and in some instances harmful.

And so, you know, I continue to be committed to the effort of the functional analysis that is underway to see what can be eliminated, what can be reduced.

And I think that we will get data and reports over the next six months that will allow us a better opportunity to evaluate where the number, in terms of the staffing model, should be based on that evaluation.

And I acknowledge that some of us are disagreeing here about the pace and the scale and the speed with which we should be making these decisions.

I personally feel like I need a little bit more time to be able to understand fully what the operational impacts will be here in the context of the need to respond to people who, who are in crisis and and unfortunately.

the status quo right now is that people most often will think about calling 911 when they are in crisis.

And what we are trying to build towards is a system where that's not the case.

And I remain committed to that ultimate goal and remain committed to working with all of you as colleagues to figure out how we get there.

But just wanted to vocalize my support for the rationale that has been expressed by Councilmember Herbold.

Thank you.

Thank you very much, Council President.

At this point, there is a motion in front of us.

I am going to ask the clerk to call the roll, but before we do, I want to remind folks about where we are at in the process.

Again, just before I do that, I want to say thank you, Council Member Morales, for I think it's a good point.

I think it's a good point having worked to ask the question of Jeff so we could better understand if there was a middle point there.

I personally think this is more in line with where I think we could be going.

This kind of attrition that continues the trend but the hiring plan by half would probably play out is that officers would continue to be rehired in positions that they have left at the beginning of the year.

And that would still give us time for potential community partners to get scaled up.

And the operational impacts of a reduction in the force could then potentially be offset.

I think that if this does not go forward today, and again, we're just at the substitute motion here, then I think the questions that the Council President have put forward are very important for us to continue to look into the functional analysis of that right reduction and making sure that for me, I think I'll continue to look at that 1295 number and see how we can either stay there or continue to go slightly down as the substitute had suggested.

I appreciate that we are all again underscoring no matter how we vote on this, that there has been a lot of movement already in this budget.

Tremendous traction and investments in community alternatives to public safety, investments in housing, and support for our BIPOC communities.

And we have made I appreciate all of those efforts already.

I appreciate the broad support from all of the councilmembers on many of the pieces that have downsized and divested from a system that we know is in some ways not responding to the need which is mental health, case management and other community supports which we are scaling up.

And I appreciate all the work that you've all done on that scaling upside.

I will be supporting the motion here today to substitute.

Madam Clerk, will you please call the roll on the motion to substitute?

And again, as a reminder, I know Ali will remind me to remind folks, this is not a vote on the substitute.

This is a vote on the motion to replace the item that's on the agenda with the substitute that has been moved in front of us.

Anything else to add to that, Allie?

Okay, nothing else to add.

No questions?

Let's go ahead, Madam Clerk.

Thank you for calling the roll on the motion to substitute.

Lewis?

Abstain.

Morales?

Yes.

Peterson?

No.

No.

Strauss.

No.

Gonzalez.

No.

Herbold.

No.

Juarez.

No.

Chair Mosqueda.

Yes.

Two in favor.

Six opposed and one abstained.

Thank you very much, Madam Clerk.

The motion fails and the motion to substitute is not advanced.

We are, council members, to want back at your original proposal because it has not been substituted.

Is there any additional discussion, questions, or debate on the item that is in front of us, SPD-020A00, I'm sorry, wrong item, SPD-018A001.

Okay, seeing no additional comments on this, Madam Clerk, will you please call the roll on the adoption of SPD?

Did I miss a hand?

Okay, just making sure.

SPD 018A001.

Lewis?

No.

Morales?

Yes.

Peterson?

No.

Suwant.

Yes.

Strauss.

No.

Gonzales.

No.

Herbold.

No.

Juarez.

No.

Chair Mosqueda.

No.

Two in favor, seven opposed.

Thank you, Madam Clerk.

The motion fails.

Let's move on to the next item here.

Council Member Swann, another item related to SPD.

I will have the central staff walk us through that item, and then Council Member Swann, I'll turn to you to make the motion.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

The next item is 169, which is SPD 020A001.

This item would cut $151 million general fund from SPD and would add $151 million general fund to the Office of Housing for affordable housing provided by the Multifamily Lending Program.

That's all I have.

Thank you very much, Greg council members to want you are recognized as the sponsor to move this item.

Thank you.

I moved to cut 151Million dollars from the general fund from SPD and add 151Million dollars 51Million general fund dollars to the office of housing.

Just to quickly clarify, I won't repeat the points that I've already made about defunding the police by 50% because this is the amendment to defund the police by 50% and instead fund needs of communities.

Just to explain the number for the community members who are watching, and central staff can confirm this, the 151 million number is a 50% defunding after incorporating for the reductions that have already been made with the proposed budget.

Okay, thank you very much Council Member Swann.

The motion has been made.

Is there a second?

Hearing none, the motion fails.

Let's go ahead and move to the last item.

I know Council Member Juarez, this was an item that originally you had been working with Central Staff on with the Budget Committee, so it was moved by Council Member Swann to be considered at the end of Group C, just for our reference on where this item came from.

Was originally in our group a consent package So can I spell madam chair you're referring to number eight?

That's correct.

Okay.

Okay.

So, oh, sorry councilmember.

Um, what is let me ask a central?

Sorry, I thought I was all ready to go.

Sorry.

I was teeing you up.

I appreciate your Enthusiasm.

Yeah.

Yeah Great and that's numbers.

Yes.

Go ahead Councilor Tracy Ratzliff, Council of Central Staff.

Item 8, BLG 009-A-002 would recommend adoption of Resolution 31975. This resolution authorizes the city to provide a reduced level of general fund support to the Seattle Parks and Recreation in 2021 due to the demanding economic circumstances caused by the COVID pandemic.

The mayor's proposed reductions in general fund support to SPR would result in the city being unable to meet the baseline general fund allocation that's required by the interlocal agreement between the city and the Seattle Park District.

The 2021 amount would have been $103 million and the mayor's proposed budget would provide $97 million of support.

Thank you very much.

Councilmember, you are right.

Councilmember Sawant, you did pull this, so I will recognize you first to explain the rationale for pulling it, and then I'll go to the original proponent of this.

Excuse me, Councilmember Juarez, I misspoke earlier.

Councilmember Sawant, you're recognized to explain the rationale for the poll.

Thank you.

I will not speak at length about this because I've already described it.

This budget legislation essentially authorizes the city to have major budget cuts in the parks department and basically the technical question is the parks department the cuts in the parks department greater than would otherwise legally be allowed.

I do not support the budget cuts and I have as all council members know provided an alternative that would have prevented those cuts.

Unfortunately, no other council members supported that alternative.

So I will be voting no on authorizing these draconian cuts to community centers, pools, and the maintenance of our parks.

Thank you.

Councilmember Garcia?

Councilmember Juarez?

And I'm happy to ask questions of central staff as well.

Councilmember Juarez, any additional comments on this item as you originally I think have seen it in our group A

Yes, very briefly.

Thank you, Councillor Sawant.

Thank you, Tammy.

Oh, I'm sorry, Tracy.

Thank you for teeing that up for me.

So you all know that agenda item eight is a parks resolution that authorizes the city to provide a reduced level of general fund support for Seattle Parks and Rec due to COVID-19.

It's a $6 million decrease in general funds to parks that we understand, approve, and have voted on in the past to move forward.

Superintendent Agale has also planned for this, so this is nothing new, no surprise there.

As the Chair of Parks, I understand the need to shift the funds to respond to this growing pandemic.

This budget action would affirm the acceptance of the general fund cut as we continue to face a growing pandemic which falls under extingent circumstances.

If you recall, we passed that back in I believe September.

Tracy, correct me if I'm wrong.

This is a technical piece that we have discussed before in the budget process.

Again, it's nothing new.

I recommend that the city council vote yes to adopt council budget action BLG009-A-002, which affirms resolution number 31975. Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Any additional comments or questions?

hearing none.

Let's do the final vote for form C's.

Madam Clerk, will you please call the roll on adoption of BLG 009-A-002.

Councilor Mosqueda, Thomas-Dakin, has this been moved and seconded?

Oh, Ali's already in.

I'm sorry.

I couldn't end without having an error there.

So Council Member Juarez, would you like me to just go ahead and move it?

Yes.

Okay, thank you.

I move approval of BLG 009A002.

Is there a second?

Second.

Wonderful.

It's been moved and seconded.

Any additional comments or questions?

No.

Seeing none, Madam Clerk, will you please call the roll now?

Thanks for the reminder.

Lewis?

Yes.

Yes.

Peterson.

Yes.

Sawant.

No.

Strauss.

Yes.

Gonzales.

Aye.

Herbold.

Council Member Herbold.

I'm sorry, I didn't get that.

She's on mute again.

We'll come back to her if you can.

Okay.

Sure.

Okay.

Council Member Juarez?

Yes.

Chair Mosqueda?

Aye.

Council Member Herbold?

Yes.

Sorry.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Eight in favor, one opposed.

Thank you very much, Madam Clerk.

The motion carries and the amendment, I mean, the item is adopted.

Is there anything else for the good of the order?

Allie, please go ahead.

Thank you, Chair Mosqueda.

I will just say thank you to the committee.

And just note that on Monday, there will be some final actions and some technical cleanup.

And we will get those technical corrections out as soon as we can.

But they may be a bit late-breaking as we reconcile all these decisions over the next few days.

But again, the amendments will be technical in nature, not substantive from Central Staff's perspective.

And we look forward to the final vote on Monday.

Okay, I appreciate that.

I do want folks to be able to enjoy the weekend as well.

You have all put in so much work on this budget.

I want us to remember the holistic analysis that should be placed on this budget as we look at what's been accomplished in the last two months.

Historic investments in community, BIPOC investments, making sure that folks had additional support for homelessness services.

completely reconfiguring how we engage with our unsheltered population, making sure in addition to making sure that there's case managers and appropriate outreach, we're also cleaning up the city.

You've all invested in making sure that our Clean Cities Initiative complements the longer term investments in handwashing and purple bags, you have made it possible for more of our BIPOC community to have access to child care services and additional housing support.

You've helped to make sure that working families and seniors have access to food and that we address food insecurity in this time of crisis.

And you've also helped to shore up additional support for small businesses earlier this year through the COVID relief and also investments in this budget.

There's a lot to be really proud of.

And as we thought about this budget over the last two months, we've been in waves of anguish about how we were going to be able to make investments that we needed to into community.

some of that has been possible because we did get a better than expected revenue forecast, but really it's been possible because all of you prioritized direct investments into our most vulnerable.

I want to thank you all for the work that you've done, especially as I see Council Member Juarez, all of the historic investments that have been made into the Bicapac community, indigenous community, Council Member Gonzalez, your historic investments in making sure our refugees and immigrant programs are funded and that we invest in black girl and black young youth programs.

This is really, I think, a tremendous effort that you all have put forward.

As we head into the weekend and you get a chance to reflect on the budget as a whole, please do.

We have made sure that we continue to communicate out to the community at large all of the various ways we've invested in this budget.

We've made sure that more people are housed.

We made sure that more people are safe.

And we have made sure that we are investing in green new deal priorities as we also shore up our commitments to making sure we have a thriving and more equitable economy as we look forward to the recovery.

Yes.

All right.

Madam Chair, I would like to say, as we say in Indian country, our stylish country, we raise our hands to you.

Thank you.

Thank all of you for all of our hard work.

I think we all brought our minds and our hearts together, tried to do the right thing.

So thank you very much.

Thank you very much.

And we love your new swag.

Way to go with our new hockey team.

Hello.

Looking good over there.

And I think all of your efforts are going to make a brighter tomorrow for folks in a really dark time right now.

So looking forward to the investments that we have made possible in 2021. and I want to thank again our central staff who've just been working around the clock having their family priorities and community priorities potentially put on hold as they worked around the clock.

So we thank you, we thank all of our staff, folks in my staff, Sejal Freak, Frida Cuevas, Aretha Basu, Aaron House, and all of your teams.

We could not do every little maneuver that's been done, has made a massive impact on the proposed budget that we received, and want to just say thank you.

have a great weekend.

We will see you on Monday.

Our meeting will convene at 10 a.m.

or when the Council President adjourns our morning briefing, Monday, November 23rd, where we will finalize items in the budget, as Ali said, and really hoping folks do get a chance to reflect on all the great things that you've put in here.

Council President, anything else for the good of the order before we head off for Monday?

No.

Okay.

Just buckle in.

It's going to be a long day, I suspect, on Monday.

So our work is not done, even though the good chair here is making wrap-up comments.

It's certainly not over.

Thanks again to all our Council Central staff and our IT for their great work.

Excellent.

Have a great rest of your day.

The meeting is adjourned, and we will see you on Monday.