Seattle City Council 2/28/23

Thank you, Madam Clerk.

Good afternoon.

Today is Tuesday, February 28th.

This is the meeting of Seattle City Council and I am now calling it to order.

It is two o'clock.

Madam Clerk, will you please call the roll?

Council Member Salant.

Council Member Strauss.

Present.

Council Member Herbold.

Here.

Council Member Lewis.

Present.

Council Member Morales.

Councilmember Mosqueda?

Councilmember Nelson?

Present.

Councilmember Peterson?

Present.

Council President Juarez?

Here.

Seven, present.

Thank you.

If there's no objection, Councilmember Mosqueda and Councilmember Sawant will be excused from today's city council meeting.

Seeing no objection, Councilmember Sawant and Councilmember Mosqueda are indeed excused.

Moving on to presentations, we have no presentation scheduled for today, so we will go into public comment.

Madam Speaker, let's start with the in-person folks in chambers, and then we'll go to remote, and let's give each speaker two minutes.

Hello, Seattle.

We are the Emerald City, the city of flowers and the city of goodwill, built on indigenous land, the traditional territory of the Coast Salish peoples.

The Seattle City Council welcomes remote public comment and is eager to hear from residents of our city.

If you would like to be a speaker and provide a verbal public comment, you may register two hours prior to the meeting via the Seattle City Council website.

Here's some information about the public comment proceedings.

Speakers are called upon in the order in which they registered on the council's website.

Each speaker must call in from the phone number provided when they registered online and used the meeting ID and passcode that was emailed upon confirmation.

If you did not receive an email confirmation, please check your spam or junk mail folders.

A reminder, the speaker meeting ID is different from the general listen line meeting ID provided on the agenda.

Once a speaker's name is called, the speaker's microphone will be unmuted and an automatic prompt will say, the host would like you to unmute your microphone.

That is your cue that it's your turn to speak.

At that time, you must press star six.

You will then hear a prompt of, you are unmuted.

Be sure your phone is unmuted on your end so that you will be heard.

As a speaker, you should begin by stating your name and the item that you are addressing.

A chime will sound when 10 seconds are left in your allotted time as a gentle reminder to wrap up your public comments.

At the end of the allotted time, your microphone will be muted and the next speaker registered will be called.

Once speakers have completed providing public comment, Please disconnect from the public comment line and join us by following the meeting via Seattle Channel broadcast or through the listening line option listed on the agenda.

The council reserves the right to eliminate public comment if the system is being abused or if the process impedes the council's ability to conduct its business on behalf of residents of the city.

Any offensive language that is disruptive to these proceedings or that is not focused on an appropriate topic as specified in Council rules may lead to the speaker being muted by the presiding officer.

Our hope is to provide an opportunity for productive discussions that will assist our orderly consideration of issues before the Council.

The public comment period is now open.

and we will begin with the first speaker on the list.

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

Thank you, Seattle.

Okay, our first in-person public speaker is Marguerite Richard.

Good day, everyone.

I'm back again, this is the last day for what they call, quote unquote, Black History Month.

But on the agenda, you have something about police surveillance.

And I'm not afraid of the police, but I am afraid of what they have been able to get away with for so long.

I'm going to mention his name again, Tyree Nichols, because I don't understand it.

Like the song said, it could have been me.

Outdoors, with no food and no clothes, it could have been me.

On that street, getting the hell beat out of.

Myself, because I am an indigenous black woman, female.

They don't care what color you are when they get to beating the hell out of you.

Surveillance is, to me, a crime.

To sit up there and spy on somebody where they have to do the creep walk.

They had this thing called the creep walk.

You see this cane that I'm creeping with?

Yeah.

And I don't approve of that.

I don't approve of nothing that we have to live in fear of.

Nothing, so what you gonna do about it, huh?

Keep that mess going on?

Everybody has a right to live free from racism and discrimination.

Come down here, you'll get an overdose of it, won't you?

And hope you can live another 10 years through it.

I don't get it, I don't understand it.

And I think there's a war going on in the heavenlies somewhere.

between what God is gonna do for us.

I'm talking about those that call upon his name and surveillance, because I know God is watching.

That's the only one I want to watch me.

He's keeping me too.

I don't want nobody else in my business because my business is my business and leave my business alone.

Thank you.

Our next in-person speaker is Azhane Smith.

Hello.

My name is Ajanae Smith.

It might be hard to pronounce, but it's all right.

I hope you guys are doing well this morning.

I see that this is about Economic Development Technology and City Light Committee.

And I also see that you guys are concerning yourself with more police surveillance, which I don't know who you guys are surveilling, unfortunately.

But I do say that instead of funding for more police surveillance, when you guys already, I feel like have enough surveillance, surveilling enough as it is, investing in solar power, I guess that has to do with this committee.

Also, fair economic development, because you guys are, pushing Black people out of you guys' community and it's not all right.

So I guess that's it.

You guys have a nice day.

Thank you.

We'll now move into remote public speakers and I'd like to remind remote public speakers you'll need to press star 6 to unmute yourselves.

Our first remote speaker is Howard Gale.

Good afternoon.

Howard Gale with Seattle Stop.org.

The Community Police Commission has now devolved from an entity that has failed to represent community voices into an entity that now actively attacks and slanders community voices.

This happened just two weeks ago with the CPC attacks on myself and on Castile Hightower, whose brother, Herbert Hightower Jr., was murdered by the SPD in 2004. This council has allowed many millions of taxpayers' dollars to be spent on a city accountability entity that has itself escaped any accountability.

Like any person or agency that avoids accountability, this results in behavior that only gets more flagrant, more extreme, more abusive, more unethical, and recently clearly illegal.

The CPC has fired staff and shut down its own commissioners who failed to toe the line of political expediency.

In May, it will be six full years that the CPC has failed to fulfill the legislative requirements mandated by this council in Resolution 31753. Most notably, that the CPC has failed to investigate mechanisms external to the SPD for investigation of serious and deadly force and failed to investigate and propose a complainant appeals process.

The CPC has completely failed to hold legally mandated annual community meetings to gather input from the community and has failed to provide legally mandated district representation.

This council has failed to abide by the strong recommendations by the city auditor five and a half years ago to have a full independent audit of our accountability system with certain council members actually rejecting an attempt in 2021 to initiate this.

What all this means is that tens of millions of dollars of taxpayers' money is spent on a system which now perpetrates actual harm against those already harmed by the SPD.

A variety of city commissioners, commissions, excuse me, are now joining together to provide some form of oversight that this council appears either unwilling or terrified of providing.

but it will be provided.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Cynthia Spies.

Hi, I'm Cynthia Spies.

Sorry.

Hi, I'm Cynthia Spies.

My comments are regarding all six surveillance technologies.

Thank you Council Member Herbold for proposing amendments.

Sadly, the majority of the recommendations from both myself and the working group have not yet been incorporated into any amendment.

Even though low attendance by council members in the committee meetings and only one council member proposing amendments, it seems like most of the council is not taking seriously the risk posed by these Group 4B surveillance technologies.

These technologies could lead to false arrest, stalking, abuse, death, and the violation of civil liberties, including silencing activists and journalists and the potential for wrongful convictions among others.

Yet it appears that city council is prepared to rubber stamp them.

How is that adding meaningful oversight to these dangerous tools?

How is that showing collaboration with the public or the working group for their hard work and carefully reviewing each of these surveillance impact reports and crafting recommendations tailored to each one?

The bare minimum you could do would be to allocate at least one day, such as today's meeting, solely for all council members to hear the public's comments, get up to speed on each technology, ask questions, and have sufficient time to draft additional proposed amendments, which would then get addressed in a future full council meeting.

Gaps still remain, including a ban on both predictive policing and biometric tools, such as face, gait, or voice analysis, using any of these systems or data, and legal counsel for all consent-based searches using the computer, cell phone, and mobile device extraction tools.

For both the undercover cameras and location trackers, council members should add an explicit provision that the use of these, except pursuant to that defined in the final SIR, exposes the individual to criminal or civil liability.

There's a potential for domestic violence situations where an SBE employee uses these for personal use.

The surveillance ordinance doesn't address individual city employees acting outside the scope of the ordinance.

Please require the divestment from Celebrate because it is linked to human rights abuses in multiple authoritarian countries.

I urge council members to review the emails I sent which have detailed recommendations.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Valerie Schloret.

Hi, this is Valerie Floretta.

I'm commenting on police accountability.

When city funded entities abuse power at the public's expense, city government has a duty to intervene.

I urge all city council members to inform yourself and intervene in the undemocratic, unethical abuse of power by the community police commission.

The latest examples of its outrageously unprofessional and undemocratic behavior were on display at the CPC community engagement meeting of February 14th and its regular meeting of February 15th.

You've been tweeted links to videos of those meetings.

The 2017 ordinance that made the CPC permanent stresses that its purpose is to ensure constitutional policing through a strong oversight system that takes into account the views of the police, meaning the public.

But contrary to the intention of that legislation, the CPC has changed direction and now operates to ensure the status quo.

Commissioners and staff promote police talking points and a client to interrogate failures of the OPA and OIG.

The CPC is not holding itself accountable to the public, the consent decree, or the city ordinance.

City Council should ensure that the CPC acts in accordance with its moral, social, and legal obligations.

At present, they are abusing their platform and misusing their $1 million annual budget with displays of temper and personal attacks on members of the public.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our last speaker signed up is not present.

So that will conclude all of our speakers that are signed up and present, Council President.

We are finished.

Okay.

Oh, I'm sorry.

We are finished with both our in chambers and our, um, remote callers.

We are.

Thank you, madam clerk.

Well, thank you.

Those that called in and those of you that, um, have, uh, showed up in chambers to give public comment today, public comment is now closed and we will move on to our, our agenda.

Um, we'll go to the adoption of the introduction and referral calendar.

If there is no objection, the introduction of referral calendar is adopted.

Not seen any objection.

The introduction referral calendar is adopted.

Moving on to adoption of the agenda.

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

If there's no objection, the agenda is adopted.

Sorry about that.

Reading that backwards.

All right.

Let's go to the consent calendar.

A few items to add here.

The proposed consent calendar, items on the consent calendar include minutes of February 21st, 2023. The payroll bill, Council Bill 120515. And we have nine appointments to the Community Technology Advisory Board recommended by the Economic Development Technology and City Light Committee.

which Council Member Nelson chairs.

My understanding, Council Member Nelson, is that Mr. Meng is in the audience today, and we wanted to recognize and welcome him and thank him for coming down to Chambers for his appointment.

Is that correct?

Yes, that is.

Thank you.

Uh-huh.

And thank you, Mr. Meng, for being here.

That being said, are there any items any Council Members would like to have removed from the consent calendar?

Hearing none, I move to adopt the consent calendar.

Is there a second?

Second.

Second.

Thank you.

It's been moved and seconded to adopt a consent calendar.

Will the clerk please call the roll on the adoption of the consent calendar and the legislation and the other items in the consent calendar?

Madam Clerk?

Council Member Strauss?

Yes.

Council Member Herbold?

Yes.

Council Member Lewis?

Yes.

Councilmember Morales?

Yes.

Councilmember Nelson?

Aye.

Councilmember Peterson?

Aye.

Council President Morales?

Aye.

Seven in favor, none opposed.

Thank you.

The consent calendar is adopted.

Madam Clerk, will you please affix my signature to the minutes and the legislation and the appointments that were on the consent calendar on my behalf?

Thank you.

Moving on into our agenda to committee reports, we have seven items today, and let's start with the Economic Development, Technology and City Light Committee item number one.

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

Agenda Item 1, Council Bill 120499, an ordinance relating to surveillance technology implementation, authorizing approval of uses and accepting the 2022 surveillance impact report and 2022 executive overview for the Seattle Police Department's use of camera systems, images, or non-auditory video recordings.

The committee recommends the bill pass as amended.

Thank you, Madam Clerk.

Council Member Nelson, the floor is yours.

Thank you very much.

I'm going to make some remarks that apply to the following six items, so this one included.

So just some background for everybody.

Per the 2017 surveillance ordinance, city departments are required to obtain advance council approval for the acquisition of technology that may have surveillance capabilities, such as binoculars that City Light uses to read meters and locations that could put a worker at risk.

All departments must request retroactive approval if those technologies had already been in use before the law took effect.

And that's what we're talking about today.

These six bills would approve the Seattle Police Department's continued use of those technologies and accept the surveillance impact reports and the executive overview for each technology.

So just some background on what we did in committee.

Before all of our two committee meetings, Lisa Kay from central staff distributed a memo on each of the SIRs that described the retrospective, the respective technology or tool at issue, as well as related laws and policies.

It examines the degree to which each respective SIR addresses input from the surveillance advisory working group.

provides relevant feedback from the city's chief technology officer to the work group's recommendation and proposes policy considerations that could inform amendments to that legislation and that is that memo is available to the public right now.

And I understand that Lisa Kay also made herself available before today to brief council members individually.

At our meeting on February 8th, we had a joint presentation from Seattle Information Technology and the Seattle Police Department that went over the process for reviewing surveillance technologies, including those already in use when the surveillance order was passed in 2017. They gave a description of the six technologies, basically how they work, and the related laws and policies that authorize SPD's use of them.

and as well as other existing laws and policies that limit SPD's use of them.

At our committee meeting on February 22nd, the committee adopted 15 amendments offered by Council Member Herbold, two amendments for each bill, one on equity metrics and audit logs, and the other on youth rights, and then three more for remotely operated vehicles.

And I'm not going to go into the amendments, but Council Member Herbold is here to answer any questions.

So that's what we have before us today.

And I do want to remind the public and my colleagues that if the council does not approve these bills, SPD is authorized to continue to use these tools and technologies subject to annual usage monitoring by the office of the inspector general.

And that is a big lift and council provided funding for an additional FTE to help with that review process.

All right, so the first bill, Council Bill 120499, camera systems, images, or non-auditory video recordings.

According to the central staff memo, SPD uses the camera systems covered by this SIR to covertly obtain information during a criminal investigation.

These cameras do not capture sound.

SPD's policies allow covert use of these cameras after obtaining appropriate consent and or legal search warrant authority, and also allows covert use without a warrant in areas where no reasonable expectation of privacy exists.

That's it for me right now.

Council Member Nelson.

Before we open it up to our other colleagues, the question I have is you have six matters, the camera, the crash data, geotime, remotely tracking devices.

So you're going to speak to each of them, correct?

I will I will provide a brief description of each technology like I just did for cameras, but I'm not going to go into the details in the SIRs or the amendments.

Right.

I know you're not going to go into the details.

I just didn't know if you're doing like an overview of all six.

and then briefly hit everyone.

So now I see what you're saying.

So you'll be doing this for the next five, just a brief- Council President, I am happy to shorten the process if you would like in any way that's legal.

No, I want you to be comfortable doing what you gotta do.

I'm good, we're good.

I just want to make sure I understood you.

Okay, with that, thank you.

Is there anything else Council Member Nelson before I open it up to the floor?

No.

Colleagues, does anyone have any questions or comments for Council Member Nelson regarding item number one?

Councilor Nielsen, anything you want to add before we go to a vote?

No.

All right.

Will the clerk please call the roll on the passage of the bill?

Council Member Strauss?

Yes.

Council Member Herbold?

Yes.

Council Member Lewis?

Yes.

Council Member Morales?

Yes.

Council Member Nielsen?

Aye.

Council Member Peterson?

Yes.

Council President Ores?

Aye.

Seven in favor, none opposed.

Thank you.

Bill passes.

The chair will sign it.

Madam Clerk, please affix my signature to the passage of the bill.

Let's move on to item number two, which is also Council Member Nelson.

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

Agenda Item 2, Council Bill 120500, an ordinance relating to surveillance technology implementation, authorizing approval of uses and accepting the 2022 Surveillance Impact Report and 2022 Executive Overview for the Seattle Police Department's use of crash data retrieval tools.

The committee recommends the bill pass as amended.

Thank you.

Council Member Nelson.

All right, SPD uses the crash data retrieval tools discussed in this SIR to help collect evidence related to the investigation and recreation of certain types of traffic collisions.

These tools consist of hardware and software that collects information stored in the vehicle event data recorders, which have been installed in most vehicles in the United States since 2013. I am open to questions.

Thank you.

Are there any questions for Council Member Nelson?

Anything you want to add before we go to a vote?

I have nothing.

You got nothing, okay.

Will the clerk please call the roll on the passage of the bill?

Council Member Strauss?

Yes.

Council Member Herbold?

Yes.

Council Member Lewis?

Yes.

Council Member Morales?

Yes.

Council Member Nelson?

Aye.

Council Member Peterson?

Yes.

Council President Ores?

Aye.

Seven in favor, none opposed.

Thank you.

The bill passes, the chair will sign it, and Madam Clerk, please affix my signature to the legislation on my behalf.

Let's move on to item number three.

Will you please read item number three into the record?

Agenda Item 3, Council Bill 120501, an ordinance relating to surveillance technology implementation, authorizing approval of uses and accepting the 2022 Surveillance Impact Report and 2022 Executive Overview for the Seattle Police Department's use of computer, cell phone, and mobile device extraction tools.

The committee recommends the bill pass as amended.

Thank you.

Council Member Nelson.

Yes, SPD uses these tools that are covered by the SIR to recover digital information or data from computers, cell phones, and mobile devices as part of criminal investigations.

Two units in SPD manage these devices, the sexual assault and child abuse unit and the technical and electronic support unit.

Thank you.

Are there any questions or comments for Council Member Nelson regarding item number three?

Not seeing any.

Council Member Nelson, anything else?

No, thank you.

Thank you.

Will the clerk please call the roll on item number three, which is passage of the bill?

Council Member Strauss?

Yes.

Council Member Herbold?

Yes.

Council Member Lewis?

Yes.

Council Member Morales?

Yes.

Council Member Nelson?

Aye.

Council Member Peterson?

Yes.

Council President Juarez?

Aye.

Seven in favor, none opposed.

Thank you.

The bill passes.

The chair will sign it.

And Madam Clerk, please affix my signature to the legislation on my behalf.

Moving along on our agenda to item number four.

Madam Clerk, will you please read item number four to the record?

Agenda item for Council Bill 120502, an ordinance relating to surveillance technology implementation, authorizing approval of uses and accepting the 2022 surveillance impact report and 2022 executive overview for the Seattle Police Department's use of geo time.

The committee recommends the bill pass as amended.

Thank you, Council Member Nelson.

Thank you.

SPD uses geotime software during criminal investigations to help analyze location information over time and present patterns in the data.

These linkages allow users to simultaneously visualize geospatial, temporal, and linked data to see activities and events unfold over time.

investigators input data into GeoTime, which then creates maps that link call records and cell site locations.

According to the questions and department responses section in Appendix E of the SIR, SPD does not use the social media analysis functionality provided by GeoTime.

Thank you.

Are there any comments or questions from my colleagues?

All right, I'm not seeing any.

So is there anything else, Council Member Nelson?

No.

Will the clerk please call the roll on the passage of the bill?

Council Member Strauss?

Yes.

Council Member Herbold?

Yes.

Council Member Lewis?

Yes.

Council Member Morales?

Council Member Morales?

Council Member Nelson?

Aye.

Council Member Peterson.

Yes.

Council President Oros.

Aye.

Six in favor, none opposed.

Should we go back to Council Member Morales one more time?

I'm not sure if she's voting yes or no or abstaining or...

Council Member Morales, are you there?

She'll be listed as an absent no vote at this point.

I'm sorry.

Yeah, just absent.

No vote.

All right.

Thank you.

The bill passes and the chair will sign it.

And again, Madam Clerk, please affix my signature to the legislation.

Let's move on to item number five.

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

agenda item five, council bill 120503, an ordinance relating to surveillance technology implementation, authorizing approval of uses and accepting the 2022 surveillance impact report and 2022 executive overview, the Seattle police department's use of remotely operated vehicles.

The committee recommends the bill pass as amended.

Thank you.

Council member Nelson.

All right.

SPD special weapons and tactics arson bomb and harbor units use unarmed remotely operated vehicles to access areas that are potentially dangerous for personnel to enter.

The SWAT and arson bomb units remotely operated vehicles have wheels and the harbor unit ROVs are submersible.

That's all.

Okay, thank you.

Colleagues, are there any questions or comments for Council Member Nelson or this piece of legislation?

Okay, not seeing any.

I'm guessing you're okay, Council Member Nelson, and we can go to a vote.

All right.

With that, will the clerk please call the roll on the passage of the bill?

Council Member Strauss?

Yes.

Council Member Herbold?

Yes.

Council Member Lewis?

Yes.

Council Member Morales?

Council Member Nelson?

Aye.

Council Member Peterson?

Yes.

Council President Ores?

Aye.

Six in favor, none opposed.

Thank you.

The bill passes, the chair will sign it, and Madam Clerk, please affix my signature to the legislation on my behalf.

Moving on to item number six.

Will the clerk please read item number six into the record?

Agenda Item 6, Council Bill 120504, an ordinance relating to surveillance technology implementation, authorizing approval of uses and accepting the 2022 surveillance impact report and 2022 executive overview for the Seattle Police Department's use of tracking devices.

The committee recommends the bill pass as amended.

Thank you.

Council Member Nelson.

Thank you.

Tracking devices consist of interconnected hardware and software.

SPD attaches geolocation trackers to vehicles to track and locate vehicle information during criminal investigations.

The software can map locations and movement and set reporting intervals.

SPD uses tracking devices only with a court order or consent.

And once the consent or terms of the order have expired, all data collected is maintained only in the investigation file.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Are there any other questions or comments for Councilmember Nelson?

Councilmember Herbold?

Thank you.

I just wanted to hold my comments to the last of the six.

And this is the last of the six, correct?

Yes, it is.

I also have a closing comment.

I just want to thank Council Central Staff's Lisa Kay for her deep dive into the surveillance technologies that helped me come to the 15 amendments that I proposed, and thank you to committee members for adopting those 15 amendments.

They cover different areas, but in particular, the amendments that are made to each of them include amendments that work to ensure that the Seattle Police Department and the Office of the Inspector General work together to make sure that appropriate data for an equity evaluation is required by the surveillance ordinance is included.

I want to also thank the Surveillance Advisory Working Group for their work and input on these technologies.

I understand there's some frustration about recommendations that haven't been acted on.

I do feel that many of the, some, I should say, of the recommendations fit into some categories that council central staff addressed in the central staff memo.

For instance, some of the recommendations would have been inconsistent with state law.

Some of the recommendations would have required revised policies and or procedures.

And the difficulty with that is that these are all technologies that are already in use.

They are what we refer to sometimes as the backlog technologies.

And they're the backlog technologies that we sort of grandfathered into our process as part of the surveillance ordinances agreed that since they were already being used, we would allow departments to use those technologies while the work groups were analyzing and providing recommendations around security and privacy.

So that does create, I think, some complexity around requiring the department to do new things that they haven't been doing, particularly when it comes to vendors that have contracts that have already been enacted.

But I do believe that once we move out of the retroactive technologies, that again, that are allowed to continue without council approval and move into approving or denying future technologies, we will have more robust and deeper engagement with the working group.

because, again, there will be more room to guide the use of those technologies at that time.

Thank you.

Council Member Nelson, would you mind if I said a few words and then I can let you close us out?

Yes, go ahead.

Okay.

First of all, I want to thank you, Council Member Nelson and Lisa Kay.

I was at the first committee meeting when we went through all six of these items, along with the fiscal note and the analysis and all the material.

I'm sorry that I missed the vote.

I was out of town.

So I did get a chance to go back and look at that and see what the amendments that were proposed and adopted by council member herbal in your committee.

I know that this was a lot of work.

I've been on council for a few years and I know that we've been dealing with the technology and the stuff for quite a while and it's gotten more and more sophisticated and we're always mindful of the civil liberties issues involved.

So it's a lot to sort out.

So I want to thank you for your leadership on that.

And of course, working collaboratively with all of us and giving us the information that we need to to actually wrestle with some of these issues, but also let the public know that these these devices, these electronic devices, all these like Geotime, the camera systems, they're already being used.

But we did take into consideration the recommendations and look at the correspondence that we received from the ACLU and other civil rights groups about privacy.

None of that was ignored.

I want to thank those that provided public comment, that wrote to us, that provided recommendations, and also came and spoke to the committee, at least when I was there.

With that, thank you, Council Member Nelson, and you want to go ahead and close us out.

Sure.

Thank you very much.

I appreciate Council President, that explanation of the history of getting us to this point since the, this has taken a long time, and the department has not acquired any new technologies.

So this will be good to, and there's still some in the pipeline, but I do want to recognize that the staff of Seattle IT and SPD and Lisa Kay and the, did a tremendous amount of work to get us to this point.

And I extended my gratitude at last committee meeting.

This was, people really put a lot of hours and time and effort to make sure that the spirit of the surveillance ordinance was fulfilled.

And the last words that I wanted to have today is to thank Council Member Herbold.

Thank you very much.

You really put a lot of work and analysis into combing through all of the recommendations from the working group to identify the amendments that you wanted to put forward.

And I appreciate you explaining why some of the recommendations weren't.

And that is all listed in an organized fashion in the memo, if people want to know.

Basically, I just wanted to say thank you very much, Councilmember, for your work on this and putting forward improved SIRs to guide the review of these technologies when it goes to OIG.

So thank you very much.

Thank you.

I'm sorry customer her relationship I meant to thank you as well you're in my notes but I know that we've we've dealt with these issues of civil liberties and privacy and technology and we don't just deal with it with the Seattle Police Department we deal with it across the board on a lot of social media platforms.

in the interest of transparency, but always trying to err on the side of protecting people's privacy and civil liberties and making sure that this type of technology doesn't impact one community over another.

With that, I'm going to go ahead and if you're okay, Council Member Nelson, go for the vote.

Yes.

Okay.

With that, Madam Clerk, will you please call the roll on the passage of the bill?

Council Member Strauss?

Yes.

Council Member Herbold?

Yes.

Council Member Lewis?

Yes.

Council Member Morales?

Yes.

Council Member Nelson?

Aye.

Council Member Peterson?

Yes.

Council President Morales?

Aye.

Seven in favor, none opposed.

Thank you.

The bill passes, the chair will sign it, and Madam Clerk, please affix my signature to the legislation on my behalf.

So with that, we're going to move to the Land Use Committee.

with Council Member Strauss, and we're gonna talk about trees.

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

The report of the Land Use Committee, agenda item seven, Council Bill 120509, an ordinance relating to land use and urban forestry, amending requirements for registered tree service providers, and amending sections of the Seattle Municipal Code.

The committee recommends the bill pass as amended.

Thank you.

Council Member Strauss.

Council President, we're gonna be talking about trees a lot over the next month, month and a half.

So much, you may eventually see me sing the tree song.

Oh, please don't.

There's a hole in the sky where a tree once.

So Council Bill 120509 regards tree service provider registration.

This is mostly just a cleanup bill from last year.

The bill last year was written very well.

Legislative processes are always iterative.

There's always more information to find out, and this is mostly technical fixes.

The bill, we worked with some high road arborists and the Urban Forestry Commission chairs on these changes, and the amendments included within this legislation renames major pruning to reportable work.

It includes ECAs.

It moves posting requirements from physical to online and requiring a map to be created.

of all, much like a permit map, requires all tree service providers to have contact information on their truck, allows arborists to remove dead branches and roots, changes posting requirements to at least three business days in advance of reportable work and six business days in advance of tree removal.

It adds a requirement for tree service providers to post public notices at or near the worksite while the work is underway and strongly recommends, strongly recommends that the notice be left there for five days after the work is completed and allows SCCI to determine if a third-party assessment on a hazardous tree removal is necessary.

Again, as I said yesterday, I wanna thank Council Member Peterson and Toby for their work creating this bill and your work on the technical fixes which improved the bill in many ways.

We've received emails regarding this legislation about tree issues.

Again, this is just regarding the tree service providers.

The larger bill will come to us hopefully soon, and we'll have about three to four different committee meetings in the Land Use Committee going over the larger tree ordinance.

Thank you, Council President.

That is the committee's report.

Thank you, Council Member Strauss.

Are there any comments from my colleagues before we go to a vote?

Not seeing any.

Any closing remarks from you, Council Member Strauss, before we move on for a roll call?

I will refrain from singing at this time, Council President.

Thank you very much.

We really appreciate that.

All right.

Will the clerk please call the roll on the passage of the bill?

Council Member Strauss?

Yes.

Council Member Herbold?

Yes.

Council Member Lewis?

Yes.

Council Member Morales.

Yes.

Council Member Nelson.

Aye.

Council Member Peterson.

Yes.

Council President Ores.

Aye.

Seven in favor, none opposed.

Did we get Council Member Morales' yes?

I didn't.

We did.

Oh, we did?

Okay.

All right, thank you.

The bill passes and the chair will sign it.

And will the clerk please affix my signature to the legislation on my behalf?

That concludes our committee reports.

Moving on in our agenda, there were no items removed from the consent calendar.

Moving on to adoption of other resolutions.

Will the clerk please read item number eight into the record?

Agenda Item 8, Resolution 32086, a resolution adopting the Seattle City Council 2023 Work Program.

Thank you.

I move to adopt Resolution 32086. Is there a second?

Second.

Thank you.

It has been moved and seconded to adopt Resolution 32086. As sponsor of this resolution, I will address it and then open it up for comments from other council members.

Resolution 32086 adopts the council's 2023 work program for standing and select committees.

Each committee chair drafts the committee work plan and then submits it for inclusion in the overall council work plan.

The council work plan is adopted by the council annually in the first quarter of the year.

It is then updated periodically as circumstances and priorities change throughout the year.

So sometimes we do amend and change it throughout the year.

Resolution 32086 includes plans for nine standing committees which were formed at the beginning of 2022 for a two year period.

The overall subject matter issue areas for each committee that were created at the beginning of 2022 remain the same in 2023. However, the work plan offers more specific detail on plans each committee chair has for the year ahead.

The work plan offers transparency to the public on what to anticipate coming before council in the upcoming year.

It's a blueprint.

However, it is subject, however, is subject to change as new issues arise and priority shift.

to meet public expectations.

Changes to the work plan before you today do not require a council vote and a committee and committees are not limited only to the issues highlighted in their work plan.

Meaning that you can of course with the invitation of a council or committee chair be invited to and as we've done before in the past attend a committee and have a person who's in that committee propose your amendments or changes or certainly work with your colleagues on anything that may come in your committee or someone else's committee in which you have an interest but don't sit on that committee.

If an issue crosses or overlaps over more than one committee, we ask committee chairs to work directly with each other, with one another, to determine how the issue will best be considered.

And again, I can't stress that more.

that our colleagues talk to each other if there are particular issues that overlap and come to some understanding or agreement before you approach the council president.

I would like to acknowledge the work of each of the committee chairs in drafting this work plan as well as central staff in helping assemble this work plan.

In particular, a huge thank you to Ali Panucci and Director Handy.

Are there any comments regarding this before we go to a vote?

Okay, I do not see any.

Will the clerk please call the roll on the adoption of Resolution 32086. Council Member Strauss?

Yes.

Council Member Herbold?

Yes.

Council Member Lewis?

Yes.

Council Member Morales?

Yes.

Council Member Nelson.

Aye.

Council Member Peterson.

Yes.

Council President Ores.

Aye.

Seven in favor, none opposed.

The resolution is adopted and the chair will sign it.

And Madam Clerk, please affix my signature to the legislation on my behalf.

Let's move on to item number nine.

Will you please read item number nine into the record?

agenda item nine, resolution 32087, a resolution adopting the statements of legislative intent for the 2023 adopted budget and 2023 through 2028 adopted capital improvement program.

Thank you.

I move to adopt resolution 32087. Is there a second?

Second.

Second.

Second.

Lots of seconds.

Wow.

Four seconds.

Thank you.

I'm sorry.

I think there's something wrong with mine.

I'm not hearing a few of you council members or maybe.

Wow.

Okay.

Thank you.

Everybody waited.

Thank you.

If I could get you all to agree like that all the time, it'd be a lot easier, but okay.

It has been moved and seconded to adopt Resolution 32087. As sponsor of this resolution, I will address it and then I will open it up for comments from my colleagues.

Resolution 32087, formally adopts the Statements of Legislative Intent, better known as SLIES, the City Council approved during the review of the 2023 proposed budget and the 2023 to 2028 proposed capital improvement program, which we normally call the CIP.

The SLIES, that is the Statements of Legislative Intent, reflect the Council's policies intent in the 2023 adopted budget, and the 2023-2028 adopted CIP.

This resolution includes 38 slides organized alphabetically by committee.

Central staff review the due date and the suggested referral of each slide to committee at the beginning of each calendar year.

Changes are reflected in attachment one to the resolution.

I'd like to acknowledge central staff for their review and work In particular, Patty Wiggin, I said that wrong again, Wigrin.

I'm sorry, Patty, who does this work for us and puts it together for us every year.

So thank you, Patty.

Are there any comments before I move to a vote?

Council President?

Yes.

Much like there is only one Seattle, there is only one Patty.

That's all I have to say.

Thank you.

I hope Patty's listening.

Thank you, Patty.

With that, will the clerk please call the roll on the adoption of Resolution 32087. Council Member Strauss?

Yes.

Council Member Herbold?

Yes.

Council Member Lewis?

Yes.

Council Member Morales?

Yes.

Council Member Nelson?

Aye.

Council Member Peterson?

Yes.

Council President Juarez?

Aye.

Seven in favor, none opposed.

Thank you.

The resolution is adopted and the chair will sign it.

And will the clerk please affix my signature to the legislation on my behalf?

Moving on to other business.

Is there any other business to come before council?

OK, I'm not seeing any.

So with that, colleagues, this does conclude the items of business on today's agenda and the next regularly scheduled city council meeting will be held on March 7th.

Thank you all.

And with that, we are adjourned.

Have a good afternoon.

Thank you.

Recording stopped.