Select Budget Committee Session II 8/5/20

Good morning, everyone.

Today is Wednesday, August 5th, 2020, and the Select Budget Committee of the Seattle City Council will come to order.

Will the clerk please call the roll?

Councilmember Peterson?

Here.

Councilmember Sawant?

Here.

Councilmember Strauss?

Present.

Councilmember Gonzalez?

Here.

Councilmember Herbold?

Council Member Juarez.

Council Member Lewis.

Council Member Morales.

Here.

Chair Mosqueda.

Here.

Six present.

Thank you very much, Madam Clerk.

I do believe that we will have a full Select Budget Committee today and when our council colleagues join us, I'll make sure to welcome them.

I know that we've been in back-to-back meetings for the last few months here as the Select Budget Committee and full council have convened regularly to ensure that we are having robust conversations in this time of COVID both to respond to the public health crisis and the economic crisis in front of us.

So appreciate all of your time again and when our council colleagues join us I'll make sure to note their arrival as well.

We do have a full agenda today.

We have two sessions again this morning and this afternoon.

I just very briefly want to note that this afternoon we will have items that are not really Controversial, we have no amendments basically for a handful of the bills that are coming up this afternoon.

If you'll remember, there was over a dozen bills that were transmitted from the mayor's office as it relates to the 2020 rebalancing budget package.

This morning, we will spend the majority of our time walking through the amendments as was described on Friday last week and Monday this week that encompass the full menu of SPD related budget amendments.

we will go through each of the amendment and have a chance to have a discussion and possible vote.

That's the agenda that we have in front of us.

If there's no questions and hearing no objections, the agenda will be adopted.

Council Member Lewis, please go ahead.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I just wanted to announce that I am now present for the meeting.

Wonderful.

Thank you.

Good morning, Council Member Lewis.

Okay, wonderful.

So it doesn't seem that there was any questions or objections to the agenda.

The agenda is adopted.

Wonderful.

We do have folks signed up for public comment this morning.

We will endeavor to get through as many people as possible.

Again, I know that we have in the past few weeks had 45 second testimony.

People have been very generous to include as much of their comments in that short amount of time as possible so that we can share the space to get here from as many people as possible.

We will go through the list in the order in which they appear on the sign in sheet and this morning, We will have 20 minutes of public comment with 45 seconds for folks again.

The first three people, I will read their names, the first three people, and then you will hear unmute.

You have been unmuted.

That's your chance to go ahead and share your comments.

At 10 seconds to the end of your time period, you will hear a chime.

That's your indication to wrap up your comments so that you do not get cut off.

And if you do have more to say, please email us at council at Seattle.gov.

If you are done speaking and would like to continue listening in, please hang up and listen in on our listen-in line or all of the options listed on the agenda, including live streaming and on TV for Seattle Channel.

Thanks again to Seattle Channel for constantly covering this.

We will get through as many people as possible.

And with that, public comment is open.

I will go ahead and read the first three names here.

The first three names are Madison, Madison Howie, Rachel Berkley, and Stefan Bowie.

Madison, good morning.

Good morning.

Hi, everyone.

My name is Madison Little-Hawkey, and I'm a renter in District 7. I am imploring the council members to fulfill their promise of defunding SPD by at least 50% this year.

From the aggressive use of chemicals on peaceful protesters to funding public relations campaigns to discredit peaceful marchers led by black youth, SPD needs to be held accountable for their actions now.

They have been proven time and time again that reform does not work because there are no consequences for their misbehavior.

As our elected officials, it is your job to do what is right, not what is politically and emotionally convenient.

If Black Lives Matter, prove it.

Thank you.

I yield my time.

Okay, thank you.

The next person is Rachel.

Good morning.

Hi my name is Rachel.

I'm a social worker and a renter in District 3. I want to thank my council member Council Member Sawant for taking the demands of King County Equity Now and decriminalize Seattle seriously and for creating amendments to defund SPD by 50 percent.

I implore the rest of the council particularly the other six members who have already vowed to the community to defund by 50 percent to follow through on that.

SPD does not protect the Seattle community against violence.

In fact I've witnessed firsthand both at protests and just in my neighborhood in the Central District violence perpetrated by the Seattle Police Department against Black and Indigenous people of color and their allies.

To quell violence in our community, we do not need police.

We will only further perpetuate harm through chemical warfare, racial profiling, and a very problematic criminal justice system.

We need housing, community centers, trauma-informed care, and transformative justice.

Please listen to the community, to various leaders and organizers, and to the families of those murdered by SPD.

Thank you very much.

The next person is Stefan.

Hi, my name is Steven Bowie.

I live in District 7. I'm calling to ask the council to vote to defund SPD by 50% this year and to reinvest those funds as proposed by King County Equity Now and Decriminalize Seattle.

For too long, we have used state violence as a replacement for investment in our communities.

We use police sweeps as a substitute for housing people.

We use police drug enforcement as a substitute for jobs programs.

We use police and riot gear as a substitute for meeting the demands of people protesting in the streets.

It is critical that we move responsibilities that do not require an armed response to other departments, but we must also reduce the size of the police force, entirely eliminate harmful functions like the navigation team, and replace their presence in our communities with the supports that community members demand.

Thank you.

Thank you.

The next three are Tiffany McCoy, Alan Baldwin, and Ashton Eby.

Tiffany, good morning.

Good morning, council members.

My name is Tiffany McCoy.

I'm the lead organizer for Real Change.

We are calling on you all to fully defund the navigation team.

Despite the claim that the NAV team is merely an outreach effort, we know from reporting by Erica C. Barnett that 96% of encampment removals have been focused on obstruction and have occurred without notice.

The vast majority of sweeps now occur without notice, and they look less like homeless outreach than they do an outright police force.

We've had incredible success at Real Change with Reach and Co-Lead for an encampment outside of our office.

These outreach workers diligently listened to the needs of our unhoused neighbors and connected them with services that met their needs.

We did not want to call the NAV team because we knew these folks would have just met Matt with the police presence that swept them from point A to point B.

We also.

Thank you.

Allen good morning.

My name is Allen Ballway and I'm a renter in District 7. After witnessing the attacks on nonviolent protesters by SPD, the gaslighting by Mayor Durkin and Chief Best, the representative of the police, SPOG President Mike Sloan, called for violence on protesters on right-wing media, including imploring President Trump to send federal goons to kidnap protesters here like has been happening in Portland.

It's clear that The police do not provide public safety but impose order through terrorism on vulnerable communities.

We need to let Seattle be a shining example of public safety done right.

And the only way to do that is to defund SPD and fund Black communities.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Ashton good morning.

Good morning.

Hi my name is Ashton and I'm a resident of District 7. The consent decree is an 8-year-old agreement that requires only 2 years of sustained compliance.

To put that another way, in the past eight years, there has not been two consecutive years where SPD, SPOG, SPMA, or the city have not rolled back police reform.

Reform doesn't work.

The only path forward is defunding.

I implore the council to defund by at least 50%, and it is downright insulting that Chief Best thinks her department should get a seat at the table after undermining this process at every step for nearly a decade.

Thank you.

I yield my time.

Thank you.

And I'll read the next three people here in a second.

I want to welcome Council Member Juarez.

Thank you for joining us a few minutes ago.

Good morning to you as well.

The next three people are Lucas Vargas, Abby Brockman, and Hannah LeBlanc.

Lucas, good morning.

Hello, I'm Lucas, a volunteer with 350 Seattle.

We stand in solidarity with Decrim Seattle's demand that the City Council defund the Seattle Police Department by at least 50%.

In particular, we urge the complete defunding of the navigation teams due to their violence against our neighbors experiencing homelessness.

Police have lost the privilege of being at the table when decisions about their department's budget get made at the council level.

Based on their actions over the past month, they clearly are not interested in public safety or community accountability.

This council is not accountable to police.

They are accountable to the citizens.

The SPD have lost all claim to the public trust, and their budget allocation must reflect this.

Please listen to black leadership and vote to defund the SPD by at least 50%.

I also urge the council to override Mayor Dworkin's egregious veto of the Jump Start legislation.

We need relief right now.

Thank you very much.

Thank you for that.

Abby, good morning.

Hi, everyone.

My name is Abby Brockman.

I'm a registered voter and constituent of Councilmember Alex Peterson in District 4. And I'm calling today to ask you all to commit and or keep your previous commitments to defunding and redistributing 50% of the SPD's immorally bloated and unnecessarily militarized police budget.

Please do not be swayed by voices trying to invalidate a profound movement for long overdue change with simplistic critiques about what is realistic and feasible.

These attempts seek only to uphold the status quo and belie any understanding of social history that shows time and time again how what is feasible and realistic always correlates with our bravery and our imagination or lack thereof.

You have a few seconds.

Oh, as Rabbi Jonathan Sachs writes, morality demands we look at possibility, not probability.

Thank you.

Excellent.

Thank you.

Got it in.

Hannah, good morning.

Hi, my name's Hannah LeBlanc and I live in D7.

I'm calling to demand that you defund SPD by at least 50% in the vote on August 10th.

The budget shortfall due to COVID makes it even more important that we prioritize putting money into housing and public services right now.

You continue to cut the transit budget and lay off hundreds of Metro workers.

The Police Officers Guild is working to convince some of you that their jobs are more important.

In the meantime, Guild President Mike Solon is going on interviews with Fox News, insulting our city council members and spreading lies about our city.

You don't work for Durkin and you don't work for the police please stay accountable to us the people who police are terrorizing and the vulnerable populations of Seattle.

Follow someone's proposal and take the most aggressive stance possible on defunding FPD on August 10th.

We'll see you in the streets marching today and we'll see you every day until you defund by 50 percent.

Thank you.

Thank you and I believe the next three I mean the next person is Peter.

Peter Chilton.

Good morning.

Good morning.

My name is Peter Kahn from Wallingford, Seattle, District 4. We all have big days ahead of us, so I'll keep this short.

I stand with King County Equity Now and De-Criminalize Seattle in asking you to defund Seattle Police, reallocate those funds into community-led initiatives for public health and safety, and release all the protesters without charges.

I'll see you in the street.

Thank you.

I yield my time.

Thank you very much.

The next three speakers are Lauren, Hansley Bertina McClevey and Lyndon Judge.

Lauren good morning.

Good morning.

My name's Lauren.

I'm a health care worker and renter in District 3. I fully support defunding the Seattle Police.

For too long our community has been shaped by the pandemic of racism and inequality.

Why'd we wait even one more day to make this right.

Mayor Durkin Chief Best and those who stand with them for incrementalism I already have a body of work that spans decades back and speaks for itself.

Their model is ineffective.

SPD is ineffective.

They're violent and they're wasteful of resources.

They've shown us that over and over.

It's painfully clear that our mayor and chief are out of ideas but the people of Seattle are a deep sea of brilliance.

Our coalitions abound with talent hard work and we are ready to carry forward the vision of true community safety.

Please vote.

Thank you.

Bettina, good morning.

My name is Bettina McKelvey.

I'm a renter in District 3 and I'm calling in support of defunding the SPD by 50%.

After the events of the past few months during which SPD repeatedly brutalized citizens of Seattle in my neighborhood and in countless ways endangered the lives and health of the people they are paid to protect, It is abundantly clear to me that we fund the police at our own peril.

SPD has single-handedly radicalized me and completely decimated any faith I had in the integrity, humanity, or necessity of law enforcement.

The entire city is watching and your actions in this moment will not be forgotten.

Listen to the voice of our city and vote to defund the police by at least 50%.

Our city's very soul is at stake.

Thank you.

I yield my time.

Thank you.

Lyndon, good morning.

Hi my name is London Judge and I'm a homeowner in Ballard in District 6. Calling on all of you to prove that Black Lives Matter in Seattle by listening to Black-led community organizations like Decriminalize Seattle and King County Equity Now and Defunding Seattle Police.

Seven of you made a commitment to defund Seattle Police by at least 50 percent and I'm asking you to uphold that commitment.

The current budget amendments are a step in the right direction but they fall far short of community demands.

I'm urging you to cut SPD's budget now, and then reinvest in community-based solutions for health and safety.

I'm urging you to continue cutting SPD as you move forward into 2021 budget planning.

You still have a few seconds.

Oh, OK.

Thank you.

The next three people are Kaus Han, Sue Romney, and Tyler Saxton.

Good morning.

Kaus, go ahead.

Good morning.

Good morning, my name is cause con I'm a volunteer with mom demand action for gun sense and district seven resident black young men and boys are dying violence at an unacceptable rate.

It's critical that we reimagine our public safety system and invest in local black led violence intervention and prevention organizations.

In the revised 2020 budget, we urge you to allocate $4.7 million for community passageways to build out their capacity to prevent gun violence in a way that builds safe and strong communities.

And $10.8 million for the Seattle Community Safety Initiative.

a partnership of four people of color-led organizations, including Community Passageways, whose strategies are highly effective in preventing and reducing gun violence.

These funds could not be a better investment of our tax dollars.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Sue, good morning.

Good morning.

My name is Sue.

I'm a renter in District 4. Following the lead of decriminalize Seattle and King County Equity Now, I am calling to urge every council member to vote to defund SPD by at least 50%, which is at least $85 million and not the $2.6 million you are proposing.

A sham, a fig leaf, and an utter insult to the Black Lives movement.

Black lives cannot matter if this minimal 50% defunding doesn't happen now.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Tyler, good morning.

Hi, good morning.

My name is Ty.

I'm a renter in District 3 and I teach economics.

And I just wanted to say that the best way to prevent crime is by giving people decent jobs, not by policing.

And the best way to prevent houselessness is by giving people affordable housing, not by policing.

And since the quote-unquote free market is unable or unwilling to give people decent jobs and affordable housing, the government should act immediately to defund the Seattle Police Department by at least 50% and take that money and reinvest it in the decent jobs and the affordable housing, specifically in the black community.

And lastly, if the city truly believes that black lives matter, I think we have to put our money where our mouth is and listen to decriminalize Seattle, King County equity now, defund the police by at least 50% this year.

There's no reason to wait on this because they're in the middle of a health crisis, economic crisis, which we know disproportionately affect communities of color.

Thank you.

Thank you.

The next three people are Joanna Bitton, Steve Walker, and Kwan Wah Lee.

Good morning, Joanna.

Hello, I'm Joanna.

I'm from District 7. Dear council members, I would like to remind you all that 7 out of 9 council members committed publicly to defund the police by 50%, which would be $85 million this year.

However, now I'm hearing reports that that would be impossible.

We elected you all to sit to council because we had hoped that you of the Cube would do some simple math and move around funds.

If Black Lives Matter, prove it.

Find a way to stand by your word and choose the right side of history.

Justice delayed is justice denied.

These are our other demands.

Reallocate those funds to Black communities, amnesty for all protesters, no new youth jail, and recall Joe Biden.

Also include EDM March in the participatory budget meeting.

I yield my time.

Thank you.

Steve, good morning.

Hi, my name is Steve Walker.

I moved to Seattle nearly a decade ago, and I've lived and voted in Ravenna, Ballard, and Madrona.

And my neighbors and I are worried.

We want to keep our communities safe, and it's for this reason we support the demands put forward by decriminalized Seattle and King County equity now.

We believe that our approach to policing causes just brutally inequitable harm at three levels.

The individual level, because our criminal legal system isn't about restoration, it's about retribution.

Second, harm to that person's community.

Every time we arrest someone or jail someone or shoot someone, we take away fathers and mothers and sons and neighbors.

We intentionally take away more lives through the legal system than COVID-19 ever will.

And third, harm to all of our communities.

I can't say this strongly enough that police criminals And when sick has the case and they're young, they're much more likely to interact with the legal system in the future.

Thank you very much.

Kwan Wah, good morning.

Good morning.

My name is Kwan Wah Lurie and I live in District 7. I'm calling in to support the everyday march led by a collective of Black women.

And I strongly encourage you guys to fund SPD budget by at least 50% starting in 2020. We are locating those police budget into programs that will support Black marginalized Black, Native, and Brown communities.

Also here, I'm here to call out on Chief Carmen Best's public statement over the protesters' attempts in her house in Snohomish.

As she said, it was a mob rule, undemocratic, and illegal activity.

As public officers, she has no right to claim that, including endangering people's lives, which is the exact opposite of the job of a public safety officer.

Thank you.

Thank you.

The next three people are C.J.

Williamson, Justin Allegro, and Avis Jeffs.

Hi, C.J. Good morning.

Good morning.

Can you hear me?

Yes.

Thank you.

Good morning.

Hi, City Council.

I'm C.J.

and I live in District 6. I want to echo what's been said many times today to defund the police by 50% and also to reinvest that into community programs.

Many of you have already made the pledge and I call on you to follow through with that.

The rest of you, this is still a chance to change your mind and to listen to the majority of Seattle.

The mayor and the police chief have an ongoing PR campaign to try to discredit us and you.

We don't want that to happen.

Please take 911 response out of the police and give it back to civilians.

Last night, the mayor said it takes 15 to 20 minutes, would be too long, yet it already takes hours for the police to arrive.

I call on you to defund the police and to reinvest that money, make our community safer for all of us.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Justin, good morning.

Good morning, Justin Allegro.

I'm a District 7 Queen Anne resident.

I'm on the Queen Anne Community Council speaking for myself in support of the most substantial SPD defunding amendments available today.

I'd start by appreciating the serious leadership from the large majority of you on this matter.

And I just want to say that practically and politically, phasing out sworn officer positions needs to start now during the rebalance and not all be placed on the FY21 budget.

I want to ask that you not listen to calls to slow down for more Seattle process.

It's morally wrong at this moment.

And also it will give opportunity for folks like Esparza to mobilize obstruction through inaccuracies.

So thank you for your leadership and please defund SPD.

Thanks.

Thank you.

Amitz Jeffs, followed by Amy Tower and John Thoreau.

Amitz, I'm sorry, Amzy.

My apologies.

Good morning.

Hi, this is Amzy Jeffs.

I'm a UAW 4121 head steward.

We're a union of thousands of academic workers at the University of Washington.

And I wanted to speak specifically as a union member about the weaponization of collective bargaining in this budget process.

As you know, our union joined the majority of the MLK Labor Council earlier this summer to expel the Seattle Police Officers Guild, because they've shown time and again for years that they will never align with the actual values of the labor movement.

They will not, you know, actually accept accountability or reforms, and that's why we removed them.

And we also think that they've used their position on the Labor Council as a political cudgel to bully the city into accepting regressive contracts, for example, in 2018. So we urge you to fully defund them right now.

This is a very, you know, first step, and it needs to happen immediately.

So vote for Shama Sawant.

Thank you Amy.

Good morning.

Hi my name is Amy Tower.

I'm a renter in District 4 and a tenant organizer with the Tenants Union of Washington State.

Our organization stands in solidarity with the Seattle Daily Marches with King County Equity Now and Decriminalize Seattle for the in their calls for defunding the Seattle Police Department by at least 50 percent.

We at the Tenants Union know that the only renter laws that police departments enforce are evictions.

Evictions along with encampment sweeps are violence and trauma caused by the police.

The police do not keep us safe.

It's healthy housing that keeps us safe.

Defunding the police is absolutely in line with our values at the Tenants Union that human lives always have more value and worth than property and that Black Lives Matter.

These are historic times and we call on you to be brave and stand on the right side of history and defund SPD by at least 50 percent and reinvest in community.

Thank you.

Thank you.

John good morning.

Good morning.

Hi, my name is John Thoreau and I'm here in support of defunding the SPD by 50% by following the comprehensive plan put forward by King County Equity Now.

Seven of you have committed to defunding the department by 50%.

That means the full 85 million.

No corrupt negotiations, no excuses, 50%.

Please do not fall to these politicians and liars.

We have all watched the chief and the mayor tell bold-faced lies.

The lies told by SPD and our representatives about police reform have proven to be deadly for decades.

This is a necessary step for change.

Defund by 50%?

No excuses.

The police are attacking us with violence and fear.

Please attack with love.

Thank you.

Thank you.

The next three speakers will be our last three speakers this morning.

We are going slightly over 20 minutes but I want to get these last three in and let you all know we will continue to have public comment on Monday morning at 10 a.m.

for our next select budget committee meeting.

Please do send your comments to I'm going to turn it over to Blake Matten.

Blake, good morning.

Good morning.

I'm Blake Matten.

I live in District 3 on Capitol Hill.

I gave comment last week about being arrested and jailed with my wife on 725. I'd like to thank Councilmember Mosqueda for personally speaking with us yesterday.

We want the full 85 million of the police budget Thank you to my council member Savant for planning to follow through and not making excuses.

Council member Peterson, have you ever had tear gas coming through your windows?

Council member Herbold, have you ever had a police officer put a knee in your neck?

Have you all had to tell your children how they must behave in front of cops so that they come home alive?

Have any of you council members once personally experienced the brutality from SPD that black and brown community members suffer every day?

If you had, 50% wouldn't be enough.

Okay thank you.

Chloe.

Good morning.

Good morning.

My name's Chloe Gale.

I'm the co-director of the REACH program which serves your unsheltered community and neighborhoods throughout Seattle.

I'm here to ask you to defund the entire NAV team.

Unfortunately the fundamental mission of the NAV team is to remove people or homeless from public space.

They carry this out within complex regulations but ultimately through compulsion and bullying.

Despite our years of daily requests to effectively build long-term solutions The entire Lynette Nav team apparatus continues to conduct expedient politically motivated transactions that result in continuous displacement and trauma.

Removing uniformed officers will not change the fundamental premise of this tool.

Instead we need to build our network of skilled culturally relevant providers who deeply understand the community we serve.

Outreach providers who reflect and love the people who've been pushed out onto our streets.

Thank you, Chloe.

And do send in the rest of your comments.

It sounded like you had one more sentence.

And Skylee, you are the last speaker today.

Please go ahead.

Good morning.

I'm Skylee Sals from a homeowner in District 2. In times of severe budget shortfalls, we need to look at what's been working and what we need.

What works are parks, which have been vital to our public health during this pandemic.

What we need are police.

They put their lives on the line to protect our communities, which I see no one else on this call doing.

Now, what hasn't been working and what don't we need?

You, the Seattle City Council, your divisiveness, rhetoric, and posturing have been unacceptable.

You are creating an uninhabitable city.

The next budget shortfall won't be because of your response to a pandemic, but rather because there'll be no one left in Seattle to tax.

So unless you're willing to open your yards for our use as parks, or you plan to provide physical security to your constituents, please stop.

Fund our parks.

Defend SPD.

Otherwise, abolish this Seattle City Council.

we are going to go ahead and close public comment.

Thank you very much.

Folks, again, that was all of the public testimony that we are going to be able to do.

We did 25 minutes today instead of 20. I appreciate the flexibility from the Council clerks in recognizing that we went slightly over.

With that, our public comment for today is closed.

I encourage folks to sign up at 8 a.m.

on Monday again.

Council colleagues, we are going to go into items of We are starting this committee meeting an hour earlier than we originally scheduled it for at 11 a.m.

And today's agenda reflects that by identifying this first hour as a special meeting.

We're going to then move into the regularly scheduled meeting, which will flow concurrently and there will not be an interruption, but just for the purposes of documenting the meeting times appropriately with the clerk's office.

We are doing a special meeting from 10 to 11 and then a regular meeting from 11 on.

So when we hit the 11 o'clock hour, I will make an announcement that the special meeting portion of the meeting has concluded and that we will be engaging in our regularly scheduled select budget committee.

Just wanted to orient you all in terms of how our two morning sessions go hand in glove so that we can get additional time.

I want to thank Councilmember Peterson as well for the flexibility this morning.

I know you had a previous meeting scheduled, so thanks for allowing us to have this extra hour.

Before we begin as well, Council colleagues, I want to address a few of the items that have been floating around out there in the last week or so here.

I want to start off by addressing some of the issues that have been both conflated and I think intentionally trying to confuse the public.

For a long time in politics, we have been told And we've been taught, especially as women and women of color, that we iron out our differences behind the scenes because it only can fuel opposition.

I still believe that.

I still believe that we have a better opportunity to unite together when we can find common ground and iron out our differences.

But unfortunately, there's been a lot of conflict that has been put out in the media and by some in city hall that I don't think is helping our conversation right now.

It helps when we can all come together and have a functional government.

It helps when we work well.

It helps when we're honest about the issues in front of us and identify where there's barriers and together collectively work to address those barriers.

We've had conversations and I've had specific conversations with the mayor dating back to early 2018 when we were also in a period of turmoil in the city.

again, express my interest in wanting to make sure that together we work hand in glove to show a united front as we're governing in these tough times.

Folks are stressed.

There's a lot of people out of work.

There's a lot of people who are concerned about their small businesses not being able to open.

People are demanding change from decades or centuries of inaction and wanting to see real change, radical change that gets to the root of the problem.

We're here today addressing really tough issues that have not been addressed before, and we're showing the political will and courage to take these issues on.

It's challenging to do so, but it becomes even more challenging when misinformation is put out there.

I want to be clear.

We are working to unturn every rock, to look at every corner of the budget, to try to identify where we can move forward to re-envisioning and re-imagining what community safety looks like, investing in community and right-sizing our department, not just here in Seattle, but across the country.

That has been the call for action.

And here in Seattle, we are trying to respond to that.

But it's clear we are not just diverging on strategies and talking points.

It's clear we are diverging on policy.

And in our effort to try to govern as a city, I think it's important that we put all of the ideas on the table.

We have launched the SPD budget inquest as a way to expose where each of the dollars go and identify what is possible this year and what's possible in the years to come, specifically this fall for our 2021-2022 budget.

We have led with black and brown voices.

We've invited folks to the table because I know when I was running, that was the biggest thing I heard from communities.

They wanted electives to bring people to the table who had lived experience, to have folks who represented them and also make sure that we weren't speaking for people and people could speak for themselves and help identify policy solutions because those who are living these experiences daily have some of the best ideas about how to change the systems.

By now, most of you know, that we have serious barriers in front of us.

And this council has tried to identify how we can address those barriers, not just say that it's a barrier and know we can't get there, but re-envision what it looks like to get to yes.

Identify what needs to be changed to get to yes.

Identify what needs to be changed so that we can eventually get there to re-envision what community safety looks like and break down those barriers together with community.

But as we diverge on policy, there's a few key things that have really stood out.

By now, most of you know that SPD, has issued a subpoena on journalists to turn over footage from protests.

And journalists have been intentionally targeted.

Medics have been targeted.

Legal observers have been targeted.

And this has a chilling effect on our freedom of press and our ability for folks to exercise their First Amendment rights.

I want to make sure that no matter what those opinions are as well, from those expressing their First Amendment rights, that press, legal observers, and medics have the protections that they need to do their jobs.

And I'll be working on our resolution that we have coming forward on Monday.

But this is a big policy divergence from what the city council has passed.

We unanimously said that we wanted to see these less lethal weapons taken away.

And instead, the executive and partners at the federal level pushed to repeal what we had done.

and used those harmful weapons that are harmful to the lungs during a deadly pandemic on folks expressing their First Amendment rights.

We've already said that this council has a deep desire to make sure that all journalists, medics, and legal observers have the protections that they need.

And I'm still concerned that the city is advancing the lawsuit against members of the media, paying upwards of $35,000 for external legal advice or lawyers to push forward the subpoena.

I don't think we should be doing that.

I think we should be spending money on making reparations to those folks who've been harmed by the type of actions that we've seen in our streets.

We've been asking as a city council to get into this level of detail because we want to know where the money is coming from, where it should be going.

And in the midst of this budget inquest, we've seen money spent on concrete fences around the West Precinct.

Where is that money coming from?

Where is the money coming from for the continued military weapons used against our residents?

Where's the legal costs coming from to launch these efforts against members in the media and folks in our community?

We'd love to engage with conversations about where these dollars are coming from and where they're going.

We launched an SPD inquest to get to the heart of what is actually included in the SPD budget.

We've been having conversations with folks in the budget office and across the city for many weeks, for the last two months, But here we are, where more money is being spent on gassing folks, putting up fences, instead of actually working with us to identify where dollars could go.

We want these dollars to go into the community.

We are open and wanting to have conversations with the executive about how we rightsize the department.

But instead of having that conversation, more money is being spent to build fences and continue gassing folks in our community.

But this council's been busy.

We're busy working to address the barriers in front of us, trying to disseminate information that we receive and really break apart the information we've received to make it sure that it's transparent and accountable.

Council is doing the work.

We are listening to the public.

We are providing transparency.

We have put ourselves out there for accountability.

We work not just within City Hall, but we work with the community at large to make sure that all of our residents can be heard.

We're not trying to silence folks by using subpoenas against members of the press.

We're not trying to put people at risk by pushing that forward.

We're trying to dismantle that.

We're engaging with community residents and we're out there putting ourselves out there to be held accountable to try to reach these goals.

But where they're not possible in the short term, we are committed to continuing to do the work.

Since day one, We've wanted to make sure that we can show that we lead, not just tear down each other or tear down plans.

We're trying to get to yes, and we're trying to make progress, not just hear no and not just hear barriers.

So our plans are not perfect, but they always have the chance to be built upon and improved.

We always have the opportunity to enhance and keep going forward.

But what is not helpful is to say no to community and just shut down everything that is being asked.

We work with very limited staff compared to those in the mayor's office.

Our plans, though, are transparent, they're thorough, they're done publicly, and they're done efficiently by working with the public, by working with our incredible teams, and by working with the expertise from community.

We are going to continue to work to right-size the department, and we know that the majority of Folks within the city want to see the department, the Seattle Police Department, right size.

That's not just what I hear.

That comes directly from the Downtown Seattle Association poll that shows that over 50% of Seattleites support reducing funding for the police and increasing funding upstream for our community members.

We're not going to be bullied into doing nothing.

We will continue to work together to advance where we can and come together collectively this fall as we work to do more.

But we want this to be a thoughtful, thorough and transparent conversation and to make inroads where we can and continue our commitment this fall.

I think that it's important that we've shown to community members that we hear them.

We're working towards that same goal and we're not just saying no.

Council colleagues, are there any other comments that folks would like to make?

I know that there's been a lot of issues out there in the press and I see Council President Gonzalez.

Thank you for your leadership on this issue.

I'll turn over the mic.

Thank you, Chair Mosqueda, for an opportunity to make some opening remarks before we dig into the important work of this committee and the council as a whole.

I also appreciate your remarks and agree wholeheartedly.

I wanted to also take an opportunity to address the latest comments coming out of the mayor's office in yesterday's press conference.

I find it extremely disheartening and disappointing to see the amount of misinformation and mischaracterization of the work of the city council in partnership with community that is coming out of that office.

So I wanted to share a few remarks with you and members of the public.

I want to start off by saying that the council does have a plan to reduce the scope and size of the Seattle Police Department.

We can disagree and have been having debate amongst ourselves about whether it's the right place to start or whether we need to go further.

But the steps we intend to take represent both the urgency with which we need to address the issue of police brutality against black and brown communities.

Our plan, it takes thoughtful steps to engage community and partners and partner with them to scale up those programs and community safety programs that work for BIPOC communities and all Seattleites.

Today, we are taking votes on a series of actions we are going to take in the next seven days that will represent the first steps in this effort.

Our plan also outlines the next steps that will be taken in the coming months.

The work we are doing now and that we will do with community in the next few months will inform and refine how we intend to implement and implement community-led vision for the future of community safety.

The simple fact, colleagues, the simple fact is that the mayor does not like our plan.

She has a strong ideological opposition to our plan.

The mayor does not agree with the city council and the people of Seattle, a majority of the people of Seattle, who believe that we need to substantially reduce the size and scope of the police department.

As a result, she is spreading misinformation and fear about what the council intends to do in order to undermine our genuine efforts to transform community safety in our city.

The council is building upon a vision that is being generated in collaboration with BIPOC community leaders and members.

And the mayor simply does not agree with that vision.

and does not think policing needs to be transformed in the way that we have described.

So instead, she is repeatedly and sadly disingenuously trying to undermine our collective efforts on the council.

She is hoping that this whole effort to demilitarize and divest from the police will blow over in a matter of months.

Her strategy to delegitimize, delay, and distract us from this effort is being done in the hopes that the political winds will change.

Defund SPD is more than a hashtag.

It's more than a talking point.

It's more than a bumper sticker to the city council.

It is neither of those things.

When we say defund, we mean take action.

As we've heard loud and clear from many of our constituents that more officers does not equal more public safety, especially for BIPOC communities.

Again, as a council, we continue to have a debate, a transparent, open public debate about where to set the dials.

And that is a fair thing for us to be doing in public.

Our community is asking us to act with urgency in transforming our public safety system.

The mayor's proposed $20 million cut to the police department's budget and the proposed transfers for 2021 simply does not get us there.

As a legislative body, as the sole legislative body for the city of Seattle, which takes seriously the role as prescribed by the city charter to balance the $6 billion budget and provide for the public safety of its citizenry, we proposed amendments that will begin the process of repairing the harm done to black and brown communities by reducing the size and scope of what SPD responds to.

These are first and initial steps.

Again, the work begins with the rebalancing package.

It does not end with the rebalancing package.

We refuse to play politics when people's lives and livelihoods are at stake.

The budget amendments we have put forward are sound, and we stand behind those proposed amendments.

These are real decisions, real dollars in the lives of real people, the mayor's constituents and our constituents that are at stake.

It's easier to be critical of other people's plans than it is to be creative in creating your own plans.

This council has been creative.

We are trying our best to identify resources that are desperately needed to meet the needs of the people who depend on us the most.

I and I know many of you colleagues remain open to working with the executive.

If the mayor can show us some joint leadership by finding a pathway forward that will uproot the harmful systems that have continued to oppress black and indigenous communities, and to help us lay the foundation for new systems to be built that center the humanity, healing and growth and prosperity and liberation of BIPOC communities.

That is my invitation, my open public invitation to this mayor.

And I will end by saying that I had a 60 minute phone call with this mayor yesterday, several hours in advance of her press conference, where I openly invited her and the chief to a conversation about how we chart a collaborative path forward on delivering on this transformational change that community is asking us to deliver on.

And I was disappointed to hear not only that she accepted that invitation first, but that she went then before a set of cameras to continue to misrepresent this council's willingness to continue to engage collaboratively and in a non-divisive way to push us through these really difficult periods of time.

And I am further disappointed that as the chair of the Select Labor Committee, and as the president of this council, and as a member of the Labor Relations Policy Committee, that our Labor Relations Division, which lives in the Executive Department, appears to be utilized in a politically motivated fashion to advance the goal of never seen layoffs of badge and gun jobs at the Seattle Police Department.

That is not how I believe we should govern.

It is not how I believe we should do business.

And I hope that we can move past this period of time so that we can actually get to the work, focus on our plans, continue to provide community partners an opportunity to speak to us and the public.

And I, again, remain open to working with the executive, with the chief, and with other members of the community to make sure that we not only get the rebalancing package over the line, but that we chart forward a course on what transformation of the police department will look like starting in just seven weeks.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you Madam President.

Council Member Sawant, please go ahead.

Thank you and thank you to Council Members Mosqueda and Gonzalez for your comments.

I have to shame on Mayor Durkan that the positions that her administration has taken throughout are entirely non-representative of where the vast majority of ordinary people, working people, community members stand.

And that is not just about defunding the police, but also her firm opposition to the Amazon tax and many other progressive policies that have been advanced by our movement and have been taken up by the city council.

I want to thank the council for standing unanimously with the amendment from my office to make sure the tiny house village is not evicted because as you all have said which I agree with this is about real people's lives.

I would like to congratulate the police department and the federal police establishment administration has deeply unfortunately found common ground in allowing the police and continuing to allow the police to use harmful weapons whether it is tear gas or rubber the activists on the ground, the multiracial Black Lives Matter movement that has been so courageously on the streets, to rank-and-file Democrats, labor union members, socialists who fought for the first-of-its-kind chemical weapons ban that this city council voted unanimously on from my office and from our movement.

I'm, you know, despite all the obstacles that have come forward, we should remind ourselves that this was a victory won by our movement.

The best way to defeat Mayor Durkin is for the city council today to formally vote for the proposals for defunding the police this year in 2020 by $85 million, which is 50% of the remaining budget of the police department.

And even with this defund, the police department will be left with more money than most other social service-oriented departments of the city, whether it's immigrant and refugee needs or libraries or the office of labor standards.

I would urge all councilmembers to support the amendments from my office and the people's budget movement to defund the police actually this year by $85 million.

This council cannot take $2.6 million, not counting the $16.3 million that the movement has forced Mayor Durkin already to concede to, The council cannot take $2.6 million and then call it defund.

If the council believes that $16.3 million that were conceded to by the mayor don't get us to defund, then how do you think that $16.3 million plus $2.6 million get us there.

Ordinary people who have been part of this movement, who have courageously spoken out day after day, understand that defunding is not taking a few million dollars from the police.

Defunding is actually at least 50%, which is $85 million.

I also join with the community members in urging the council to stop the sweeps here and now and disband the euphemistically named navigation team.

And lastly, I will say if King County Metro drivers could be who are essential workers and who provide such an important service and who have put their lives literally on the line during this pandemic, if King County Metro drivers could be laid off with 25 days notice, you know, shamefully, the state and county administration putting the burden of the recession on essential workers, then why can't the police be defunded, not because of austerity, not because of recession, but because of a specific policy to defund the police because the police are mostly causing harm to our community members of color, to poor people, to homeless neighbors, and to the protest movement.

So if state laws apply equally, then I really urge that the City Council today vote to defund the police by at least $85 million.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Sawant.

Again, thank you, Council President.

Before we begin with today's amendment discussion, are there any additional comments from our Council colleagues?

Yes, Madam Chair, I have one point of order to make.

Please, Councilmember Juarez.

As you know, we are working really hard.

We got all these amendments late and I'm not, no fault to anyone, we're just trying to get through this.

I did not know that we had an opportunity this morning for half an hour to have prepared statements to read about our fight with the executive and all the other crap.

So we have a lot of stuff to do and we just now are an hour into our meeting, we're nowhere near getting to it.

So I would ask a point of order that we hold the speeches until we get to the actual amendment that we're gonna debate or talk about.

because this lecturing and scolding over and over does no one any good.

It creates more anxiety and divisiveness.

And I just think it's completely uncalled for at this point.

I would like that we just get to the agenda, start the amendments and start the debate.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Juarez.

And I think that's where we are at.

I see no other hands.

Council Clerk, will you please call the roll?

I'm sorry, will you please read item one into the record?

agenda item one review of potential legislation related to the police department for briefing and discussion.

Okay, thank you very much.

Council colleagues, we do have a full agenda today.

Item number one here is a review of legislation related to SPD amendments, but are pieces of legislation that will be forthcoming.

The first item on our list is from Council Member Herbold, amendment number 26, and I believe Dan Eater is with us, and I'm looking for central staff.

Hi, Ali, I see you.

Thank you so much for all of your work and walking us through agenda item number one.

It may be introduced at full council on Monday and then acted on on Wednesday, August 12th at the special meeting.

This legislation is needed to perpetuate some of the changes council members have proposed to date.

The first item sponsored by council member Herbold, who is joined by council member Strauss and was previously discussed as amendment 26 would be new legislation to disaggregate Seattle Police Department's patrol operations to create a new budget summary level.

And this new legislation is necessary because the package of legislation that makes up your balancing package did not include an opportunity to create new budget summary levels.

And I will turn it over to the sponsor.

Madam Council Member.

Did you think that, or is there intention that I move this amendment?

Allie, could you remind us, we're just gonna give a preview, is that correct, of what's coming on Monday?

That is correct, because this legislation has not been introduced, the committee can't actually take action on any of the items listed under agenda item number one today.

So this is an opportunity, if you just have anything to add, and if any council members would like to join you to sponsor the legislation that we will have ready for introduction on Monday, if you choose to proceed.

Thank you for clarifying my script had a prompt to make a motion.

So, yes, I want to thank Councilmember Strauss for joining me in sponsoring this amendment.

It reestablishes budget spending levels for each of the five police precincts.

As central staff has noted, up until the 2020 budget, for many years the council adopted budgets that included budget control levels for each of the five precincts.

With the 2020 budget, for the first time, the five precincts were combined into a single budget level.

of Seattle's five police precincts.

The purpose of each precinct budget control level says the patrol budget summary level is to provide the full range of public safety and order maintenance services to residents of and visitors to the west, north, south, east, or southwest precinct to promote safety in their homes, schools, businesses, and the community at large.

Central staff has indicated that a new council bill for this would be on the August 10th introduction and referral calendar and in the schedule sent last night from Chair Mosqueda.

is scheduled for a vote at the full council meeting on August 12th.

Again, the origin of this amendment is in recognition that we in the past had separate BCLs for each of the five precincts.

We just last year combined them.

And in recognition of the chief's mention several weeks ago, the possibility of closing the Southwest precinct, I think based on the actions that this Council might take related to reducing funding for patrol officers, I believe that returning to the long-standing practice of approving BCLs for precincts makes a lot of good sense for the Council members that represent districts all over the city and have not just the Southwest precinct in mind, but each of their own district precincts.

to want to have this level of detail around the appropriations available for their precincts.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Councilmember Herbold, before I see if Councilmember Strauss has anything to add, I do want to note that it is 11 o'clock, and that means that our special meeting portion for this meeting has concluded, and we are now moving into the regularly scheduled Select Budget Committee meeting that was previously announced at 11 a.m.

We will continue with our conversation now.

And Councilmember Strauss, would you like to add anything to this amendment discussion?

I see you are on mute.

I will take that as a no.

Thank you.

unless you would like to say something.

Hi, go ahead, please.

Thank you, Chair Mosqueda.

Just to echo what Councilmember Furbold had said, that it is necessary for us to ensure that the beneficial and important roles of the Seattle Police Department are in fact retained as we make these transitions and how we provide public safety to Seattleites.

And it's important that we are able to represent our districts in a way that we're able to ensure that they are receiving the level of public safety service that they need in the appropriate way from each of our precincts.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Councilmember Strauss.

Are there any additional comments or questions on the upcoming legislation that has been described and is referenced here as amendment number 26 in concept?

Okay, seeing no questions at this point, are there folks who would like to indicate support for working with Councilmember Herbold and Strauss, I should say, official support for this item as it's introduced on Monday?

Okay.

Seeing none at this point, but looking forward to that document.

Thank you very much, Council Member Herbold, and we will move on.

In front of us is amendment number 53 that would have corresponding legislation to be introduced on Monday.

Council Member Swant, this is yours.

I'll turn it back over to Ali first, and then we'll turn it to you, Council Member Swant.

Thank you.

The next item, sponsored by Council Member Swant, who's joined by Council Member Herbold and Morales, would introduce a new bill to transfer 911 services from the Seattle Police Department to the Department of Finance and Administrative Services.

Thank you.

Please go ahead.

Thank you.

We discussed this budget amendment last time, and it's unchanged since then.

One demand of the Justice for George Floyd movement has been to take the 911 call center out of the Seattle Police Department's chain of command, which is important because so many 911 calls do not require the response of an armed officer, and so many do not require someone to be arrested, and yet so many responses to 911 calls end in absolute tragedy, like it happened to one of our community members, Charlina Lyles.

This budget amendment does not claim to answer the questions about which calls are best answered by a social worker and which not, because those questions need to be answered by people with real expertise, and we need to move towards that work.

This budget amendment is a first step towards moving the 911 call center out of police department control, moving its funding from the police department budget, and instead placing that funding in the Department of Finance and Administrative Services, which is a civilian department, as a temporary measure while community organizers design where it should ultimately go.

There are really good precedents for using this approach.

When the Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion or LEAD program was first being formed, for years it was funded out of the same department that we are proposing to move the 911 call to, which is Finance and Administrative Services.

LEAD organizers successfully resisted efforts by the political establishment to move their budget into the SPD because they correctly warned that if the police chain of command had control over the budget, then those funds would be used for much more repressive policing rather than the diversion programming, which has been working so well.

Ultimately, LEAD funding was moved into the Human Services Department because FAS was not meant to be the permanent location, but the mechanism worked.

I would, of course, remind everyone that the budget amendment here is a first step in removing 911 from SPD's chain of command and will need to be followed up with other changes to have the full practical impact and not just remain nothing more than an accounting change.

However, if we are serious about removing the 911 call center from the police chain of command, then giving it financial independence in this way, I believe is an essential step.

I thank council members Morales and Herbold for co-sponsoring and I invite other council members to co-sponsor as well.

Thank you.

Thank you very much Councilmember Swann.

Before I see if there's other folks who have questions, I want to just throw in a quick question.

I was not familiar with the effort to try to put LEED under SPD.

Can you remind me what year that happened?

I don't know.

Does central staff remember which year?

I remember the whole process exactly.

Councilmember Herbold might remember.

My recollection is the reverse.

LEED used to be under SPD and the council moved it out and put it under the human services department.

Probably within the last two or three years.

Yeah, I think so.

Well, maybe I think it's just an interesting point of reference.

It was about three years ago, I think.

OK, yeah, I think it was before I was there.

So let's let's double check to see just what that history is, because I think that's just an interesting note that you made.

Thank you, Councilmember Herbold, for chiming in.

And we'll follow up with central staff on that question just for historical purposes.

Council members, do you have questions on the introduction?

Sorry, the language that will be on the introduction of a full calendar on Monday.

Councilmember Lewis, I see you.

I'm not seeing any additional questions or comments at this

I'm sorry.

I'm sorry.

Okay.

Are there folks who would like to signal interest in co-sponsoring this as it's officially, oh, excuse me, Council Member Herbold, please go ahead.

I'm sorry.

I just wanted to correct what I just said.

I just got a note.

There was a proposal to move it to SPD as Council Member Sawant said in 2018 and it being lead.

So my bad.

You are absolutely 100% correct, Council Member Sawant.

As it relates specifically to this piece of legislation, I am, of course, very supportive of moving dispatch out of SPD and have co-sponsored a resolution with councilmember Lewis that expresses our intent to do so, expresses our expectation that there will be a legislative act of the council, I believe, the date that we have identified is third quarter 2020. I just want to indicate that although I was an early, early, I guess two days ago, I agreed to sponsor this proposal because I was really excited about doing something concrete now.

I think we have a lot of work to do beyond the resolution with the understanding that we might need to go back and update the legislation at a later time.

But one of the things that I found out because I just spoke to the dispatch that we are planning to move 9-1-1 into FAS has pretty significant impacts.

And what they would like is for 9-1-1 to be moved either into its own sort of integrated 9-1-1 BCL or into a new public safety department such as the council might create at a later date.

The problem is if it's moved into FAS, it would no longer be considered a first responder.

And if the entity in which 9-1-1 lives is not a first responder, what we've learned is it loses its what's called an originating agency identifier.

It's an interstate telecommunications directory that provides users with an organized and cross-referenced list of agencies to respond to the 911 calls.

And so by moving dispatch into a newly created So, we're working with the Department of Public Safety, which is a civilian-led department of public safety, where we clearly say that this is a department that is a first response agency.

We can retain this ORI status, this originating agency identifier status, that enables dispatchers that they have now, they have this designation now, and it allows them to quickly and effectively communicate with other necessary transportation department, utility departments in a way that they through telecommunications, they have access to those responses in a way they wouldn't if they didn't have this designation.

So I don't know if there's a way to either make changes to this.

this legislation so that we are ensuring either that we are, that the new 911 is considered a first responder agency and that it is not housed in an organization, a department that is not.

a first responder agency, if there is a way to do that with this particular bill, I'd like to signal my interest in doing so.

And if not, again, I'm concerned that there would be a negative impact given the structure that's proposed now.

Thank you, Councilmember Herbold.

I see Councilmember Lewis and then Councilmember Strauss.

Councilmember Lewis?

Right, I think I will jump in now because I did have a conversation with the Dispatchers Guild as well about this issue that is a very real issue that I don't really see an easy or quick way to get around right now.

So I'm flagging it for central staff.

to look into what it would entail to be able to get a new ORI originating agency identifier for whatever the successor agency is for the 911 dispatch.

I would just add the dispatchers are very keen on this project of being removed from SPD and put under civilian command.

Um, they, uh, they just wanted to flag this, um, unique issue that, that will prevent, you know, us from being able to have a dispatch at all if it is, uh, moved, um, to a, an agency that does not have this critical, um, I guess I'm flagging for central staff, what I would be interested in to try to make this transfer happen as quickly as possible is just some analysis on what it entails to get this certification for another department, how long that application process takes, and whether we could just cut out the the middle department in this process and just stand 9-1-1 dispatch up as its own department with a civilian director pending a future folding in of the 9-1-1 dispatch to some future Department of Public Safety, which will probably be a longer process to create.

It seems like this would actually be We would actually be able to have this be a standalone department on an interim basis.

But we do need to square it with making sure the dispatchers can maintain this critical certification that is essential for them to do their job.

So I think that until we get an answer on what that process is and how we can do it, I think that this is something that we are going to have to wait on.

Otherwise we are not going to be able to have a functional 9-1-1 dispatch.

I wanted to flag that for to do this as quickly as possible, knowing that that is another hurdle we need to be able to jump over.

And it might be a longer conversation than this week, just given that there's probably is probably more involved to be able to move that certification to another department.

And we need to make sure we do that carefully.

Thank you.

Before I go to Councilmember Straus, did you have a comment on this?

I didn't want to skip over you if you did.

And we will probably need some time to determine exactly how to set up that new department.

the existing department at FAS, what is your thought about how long that would take or the process involved in that?

Sorry to put you on the spot.

If you don't have any answers, that's okay, we can wait until Monday.

Yeah, we'll need to do some research into how long that process takes.

Okay, Council Member Swann, I saw your hand.

I'll go to Council Member Strauss first and then I'll have you wrap it up maybe if there's comments in response to all the above.

Okay, Council Member Strauss, please go ahead.

Thank you, Chair Mosqueda.

Thank you, Council Member Swan.

Thank you, Council Member Lewis, for your work on this.

I will be bringing in, per my comments earlier this week, I will be bringing a proviso forward for next Monday that implements the final recommendations that an outside consultant had provided regarding our 911 call center.

That proviso will remove the remaining sworn officers in the 911 call center, which is a captain and a lieutenant, and replace them with a director and deputy director.

While I want to move as fast as possible to get this 911 call center into the appropriate department, I fear that moving it multiple times within a year could be unnecessary transitions that create barriers that are unforeseen and unanticipated.

I do really want to thank my colleagues for trying to push this as fast as possible.

I believe that a proviso removing the remaining sworn officers within the department, replacing them with civilians as a director and deputy director that are in line with recommendations we've already received from a third party consultant would be the prudent step at this time.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Council Member Swann.

Thank you, Council Member Lewis.

Thank you.

Councilmember Sawant I think to wrap up our discussion I don't see any additional hands.

Thank you.

So just first of all, my office is absolutely willing to work with other council offices and central staff to look into this issue between now and Monday.

We obviously want to do this in a way that it works and we're eager to explore what is possible to make it work by Monday.

And if it is absolutely not possible to overcome the barriers between now and Monday, then we would be happy to wait because we want to do this right.

But we also don't want to be brought up as if they are actual barriers.

For example, this whole concept that if you do multiple moves, it will cause all kinds of problems.

In my view, that is just an accounting question.

It doesn't matter because it's simply a change to what budget the funding comes from.

What does matter is the question brought up, you know, if this is, you know, what kind of training do we need in terms of if this is seen as a first responder type of So all of those are absolutely valid questions, and we will follow up on that.

But I also don't want that to be used as an excuse to pile on things that don't actually, to me, seem as consequential.

So because at the end of the day, we want to make this work, but we also don't want this to fall by the wayside after having talked about it so much.

We want to make this happen.

So as soon as possible, making this happen would be the goal.

Thank you.

Thank you for that.

I know there is a number of questions you have written down and looking forward to seeing if there is a path forward on this for Monday.

In addition to the provisos that have been described by Okay.

Thank you very much, Council Member Sawant.

Looking forward to working with you and others as you make final changes to this before introduction.

Let's go on to amendment, excuse me, amendment number 32 that would have corresponding legislation.

I believe I'm turning it over to Dan.

Thank you, Council Member Mosqueda.

The last two items on your agenda under item number one refer to three bills.

There is a new COVID relief bill, which would have a spending reduction, a new $3 million spending bill that was formerly captured under amendment 32 that would have a spending increase out of the legislative department, and a new inter-fund loan All three bills will, my understanding is that they are going to be queued up on the August 10th full council introduction referral calendar and council could take action on those three bills as early as an August 12th special meeting of the full council.

These bills are part of a $17 million package that involves spending balanced with revenues.

If the chair is amenable, I think it might be helpful to provide the council with an overview of how those bills factor into the $17 million package.

If that's okay, I will ask Patty to share a matrix on the screen that shows these bills and how they fit into amendments that are on your agenda later today and are up for a vote.

I mentioned there's a $17 million package.

At the top of your screen are the revenues that would allow for the spending on the bottom half of your screen.

The $17 million, I'll get to the spending side in a moment, comes from $886,000 of cuts.

These are in several amendments, amendments 35, 36, and 37. Those cuts are all to the Seattle Police Department.

The next column shows $3 million coming from a reduction in the COVID relief bill.

One of the pieces of separate legislation that I mentioned will be on next week's introduction referral calendar.

And then the last item is a $13.1 million inter-fund loan.

That too is the subject of a separate piece of legislation that will be taken up next week.

If there are no questions about that, I'll go down to the spending side.

And I'm just going to provide a quick encapsulation we can talk about.

questions that you may have now or when we get to the agenda items.

But on the spending side, as I mentioned, there is a $3 million item that will be taken up as separate legislation next week that would spend $3 million out of the legislative department.

And then the next two rows are spending that would happen out of the human services department.

First, a $4 million expenditure that's taken up in Amendment 33 on your agenda later today.

It would be supported fully by an Interfund loan.

And the last item is a $10 million of spending out of the Human Services Department.

It is addressed through the spending cuts that I mentioned from the Seattle Police Department And an interfund loan, the balance of the $13.1 million interfund loan, approximately $9 million of change.

So that's the big picture of how the $17 million package works, which elements are on today's agenda versus next week's agenda.

Other questions?

Big picture.

I know I haven't done a lot of talking about the specifics here, but those elements will come up later in your agenda.

Let's hold the questions real quick and let's go back to the two amendments, I'm sorry, the chart that shows the two pieces that will potentially be introduced on Monday, because I want to give some framing comments to those as well.

Yes, of course.

And Dan, before I do that, did you have anything else that you wanted to add about the two pieces of legislation that will potentially be introduced?

I think what I would mention is that the Interfund loan legislation that will be up for introduction referral next week is, and the legislation assumes, or I'm sorry, will authorize a loan of $13.1 million from the Construction Inspections Fund.

That loan would be repaid in 2021. with anticipated savings from the Seattle Police Department's budget.

Those are decisions that would be made in the fall as the council takes up the 2021 budget and would naturally be available from the continuation of the spending reductions and cuts that are happening in this mid-year cycle.

In the event that the general fund, you know, Revenues turn out to be even worse than we are expecting and and that those monies are not available to Repay the interfund loan principle and interest those Payments could be made by Relying on the payroll tax proceeds in 2021 instead of other spending that is anticipated in the Council's previous look forward.

We will cross that bridge when we get to it, but there is a game plan for repaying the Interfund loan proceeds fully, including interest, in 2021 that involves, if necessary, future expected revenue from the payroll tax if the cuts to the police department are not sufficient to allow repayment of that $13.1 million interfile.

Okay, great.

Well, if we can, thank you so much.

Yes, if we could show the information for amendment number 32 or the chart that we had.

That would be great.

Thank you so much.

I'll have some comments here and then I just want to frame up what to expect on Monday and Wednesday next week.

As council colleagues know, last week we discussed the ability to take about $3 million from the COVID relief bill that was allocated specifically for administration.

and apply it to our efforts here to make sure that Black and Brown community organizations and leaders have the ability to do their number one priority, as we've heard it, was to have community-led research project or a participatory budgeting strategy specific to the SPD budget.

The outcome of that contract would inform where we would be identifying possible cuts for the fall discussion.

Again, the fall discussion begins in just six weeks and informs our 2021 and 2022 we're going to be doing is we're going to be looking at a biannual budget.

Our biannual budget is just around the corner, and we need these dollars to get out to community, specifically black and brown community organizations and members so that we can be informed about additional strategies that folks would recommend for the full picture of what the ultimate goal is that we've been asked to accomplish from community.

to specific to amendment number 32, which you would see is two pieces of legislation related to this topic.

Again, one is to appropriate $3 million to the legislative department, us, so that we can use this funding for the community-led summer research project.

the first piece of legislation would show this coming from the reserves.

However, the second piece of legislation would amend the COVID relief bill to reduce the funding for administration by $3 million.

So this is really important because we're not actually going deeper into the reserves that we have currently remaining in the balance.

We would instead be taking this from the COVID relief bill administration portion.

Again, we allocated 5% of the total funds that go out the doors for COVID relief, which is a significant amount of money in 2020, given that we're more than halfway through the year.

And as a reminder, these are programs that are largely already implemented by the mayor and the various departments.

We're talking about food assistance, rental assistance, small business assistance, and we're going to refugee assistance.

That's a broad stroke.

Child care assistance that will go also to small businesses and workers.

So these are programs that with additional funding, yes, the department can get these dollars up and running out the door and we are I'm optimistic given where we're at that they can be done in relatively quick time.

What I'm not optimistic about, though, is the fact that we had a veto on Friday of the Jumpstart COVID relief bill.

And I believe that this council is poised to reverse that veto.

I appreciate the council president's scheduling time on Wednesday, looking forward to that conversation around Jumpstart's COVID relief bill, which was passed unanimously.

And my hope is that on Wednesday, assuming that we are able to override the Jumpstart COVID relief legislation veto, we will take action on the bill to reduce the COVID relief bill by $3 million from the administrative cost of Jumpstart and the bill to authorize the legislative department to fund the community research.

So that is our effort.

First, we will have basically a hold for $3 million from the reserves.

And then immediately after we repeal the COVID relief bill, we will then amend to take the $3 million from the COVID relief bill to in effect have no change to the reserves.

Those are the two pieces of legislation related to this issue.

I know Councilmember Morales has done some incredible work thinking about how to articulate exactly where those dollars go based on the blueprint that we received from community partners.

And we are prepared to show that just as a handout.

Again, if we were in person, I'm sure this would be handed out to the audience and to our colleagues.

the $3 million for the community-led research project.

Before we go to where those dollars would go, just as a reminder, we will talk about this on Monday again, but we thought it would be a helpful reminder.

Are there any questions about the two-part process that I just outlined for the $3 million for the community-led research project?

Okay.

I'm not seeing any questions on that.

Councilmember Morales, did you want to very briefly talk about some of the

Uh, let's see.

So, uh, Patty, while I'm sort of introducing here, if you could, um, bring up, I believe it's item number one.

Um, I do want to give a little more information about the investments themselves.

Um, but first I do want to make clear that these investments come, the idea for these investments come directly from community advocates, not from backroom deals.

Uh, we've been meeting with community for weeks.

That's how policy gets crafted by meeting with stakeholders and seeking feedback along the way.

So the blueprint that we drew these from is from the King County Equity Now and Decriminalize Seattle coalitions that we have been, that's the document we've been referencing.

It is a public document.

And I just wanna say in light of the conversations that we have been hearing in the last couple days, dividing communities of color with misinformation about what we're trying to do as a council is itself anti-black.

There are many buildings of BIPOC communities.

They're not homogeneous.

And there are differences in goals and perspectives, but we do have a common goal of investing in black communities so that we can transform what community safety is.

So the first investment here, Patty, sorry, can you, yeah, go to the next page.

Ooh, and I cannot see that.

Um, sorry, even with my glasses.

So I'm going to go to my own document, but, um, so this is about investing $3 million in a community led research project to generate public safety that is informed by community needs.

Um, the intent here is for a community led research process, um, about what, uh, what community safety looks like that can transition then into a participatory budget process for the public safety components of the city budget.

Um, Organizations that we would want to see participate and lead this process are BIPOC community organizations with experience with black youth, with people who have firsthand experience of policing systems.

There are any number of criteria here that we're considering for the kind of organizations that are really centering black and brown communities.

The deliverables for a project like this, as Council Member said, I think Mosqueda said, the intent here is to contract with a local organization to help facilitate this process.

And some of the deliverables would include research activities, staffing up, preliminary work plans, language needs assessments, the participatory budget process itself, and then all of the data collection, analysis, and subsequent reporting that goes with it.

Thank you very much.

Councilmember Morales, does that summarize your comments?

Yes.

OK, great.

So thank you for sharing that, Patty.

I think we just wanted to offer that as a preview of what to expect for Monday on the two pieces of legislation regarding the $3 million.

Again, this will not be an additional reduction in the reserves once we do the two pieces of legislation together on Wednesday.

And now you have a preview of where those dollars would go.

I'm sure more conversation is to come.

I'm not seeing any questions.

Are there any folks who at this point would like to express interest in adding names to either of these two pieces of legislation?

No pressure.

They're kind of wonky in nature in terms of just where the dollars come from.

Okay.

Great.

Let's move on to...

I have comments.

I'm so sorry, Councilmember Sawant.

I did not see your name or your hand.

Please go ahead.

Thank you.

I do have some comments on this amendment.

This amendment adds, as was stated, $3 million to support community organizations to design alternatives to repressive policing paid for out of the Revenue Stabilization Fund.

I support funding this work and as we discussed Monday, my office has submitted the same amendment except the version of this amendment proposed by my office proposes paying for this amendment by defunding the police by those 3 million, which I should point out again is still a very small fraction of defunding by at least 50%.

I will support this particular amendment because regardless of the source of funding, it is important for this community work to be done.

However, later today we will vote on the amendment from my office to defund the police, which will also fund these $3 million.

And if council members support defunding the police then this legislation to use the revenue stabilization fund or raiding the COVID relief funding will become unnecessary.

Council members who like me both support this community research and support defunding the police, I would urge them to vote yes, both on this amendment as I am, but also on amendment 54, which would fund the same programs by defunding the police.

It's important to note that the issue is not only the fact that these community organizations need to be funded, but also that we want less repressive policing in our community, which requires defunding as a big part of the policy measures needed for less repressive policing.

which is why the movement is demanding that these programs be funded by defunding the police.

Because if we are not funding these programs by defunding the police or by raising new taxes on big business, both of which I would strongly support, regardless of which fund this is coming from, if it is not done by defunding the police or by raising new progressive revenues, By definition, it is using a robbing Peter to pay Paul strategy because it will force different community needs to compete for funding against one another.

Whether that is immediately visible or not, effectively, that is going to be the impact of it.

If it was only a question about finding funds for good projections, then of course, I would propose funding this work by increasing the Amazon tax, which I think we should do in addition to defunding the police.

and I don't I don't agree with calling it administrative costs and saying that this is not going to affect the COVID relief fund because the COVID relief bill sets percentages not hard dollar amounts for the various buckets so taking three million dollars out of COVID relief in my view reduces the overall monies available for COVID relief administration or otherwise and I think it's important that we focus on defunding the police and funding these programs by defunding the police.

Thank you.

Okay, thank you very much.

Yeah, just as a reminder, this does not add to any of the reductions that we're taking from the reserves.

In fact, this holds stagnant that number that we proposed earlier in the jumpstart conversation in terms of reserves and rainy day fund.

And we are going to be also advancing the $200,000 that we understand the department needs to stand up the tax collection process for Jump Start so that we have no excuses to get that tax going.

I believe that this will be sufficient funding for the administrative costs as we've understood it to be.

And again, the reason being because many of these programs that we're talking about are already existing.

So it's augmenting existing structures within the department.

and holding harmless the investments that are supposed to be going out into community.

Appreciate though the comments and support of the jumpstart COVID relief bill as we know that there will be more discussion about that next Wednesday.

Council Member Strauss.

Just signaling my support for the Interfund Loan Bill.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Oh, thank you very much.

Let's go ahead and move to that one.

And I'll note you in advance there, because I think we have a little bit more of a description on that one.

Council, central staff, Dan, did you have anything else to add on the Interfund Loan Bill as we head into that one?

No, sorry, I think I jumped the gun and just got provided my comments on that one already.

No, no problem.

I think that they go together as you clearly articulated, so we appreciate that.

Council Member Strauss, I appreciate you signaling support.

Council Member Morales, did you want to speak more to this piece of legislation that will be introduced on Monday?

Sure.

Um, just briefly, I think Dan did a great job.

Um, but colleagues, we've been discussing for several weeks now, how best to accomplish two goals, um, supporting community demands to shift public dollars away from the police department and into black communities and taking action on this council's common policy goal of reducing the size of the police force.

Um, so I think there's acknowledgement, both of these are important, And in 2020, to achieve both, we have to decouple them a little bit.

So the package of amendments that I and others have put on the table would reduce the force by 100 officers this year.

Council Member Morales, I just wanted to- Specialized units where there's broad agreement should not be.

Yes.

You were just freezing for a second.

So I just wanted to give your computer a quick second to catch up.

If you would like to say, start again from where there is broad agreement, I think is where we lost you.

I will speak slowly.

That seems to make things better.

I was just saying that I do think that there is broad agreement on this council that there are some functions the police department should not be involved in.

That's where some of the shifts in reducing the force is coming from.

The other goal is about investing in black communities.

Last week, we reviewed this proposal for $17 million in investments through the use of some cuts to SPD, funds from the COVID relief, administrative costs.

And last week, we're talking about the $12.8 million drawdown of the Revenue Stabilization Fund.

Many of you expressed concern about that last piece.

And we do continue to hear strong objection from the executive branch.

So today we're offering a proposal that maintains the revenue stabilization balance and instead uses this inter-fund loan that is backed by the SDCI fund.

And Patrick, if you, well, you can bring my table up.

better, more official looking.

But just to quickly walk through this one more time, what you see is that we proposed to fund the participatory budgeting process that I just spoke about, investments in community organizations that are doing public safety work in community, and then the Community Safety Initiative.

And I'll talk more about those last two items on the agenda Item 2. But for now, I'm going to share this with you again.

As Dan said, COVID-19, we override the mayoral veto and shift the $3 million in administrative costs.

And then the SDCI, the ending cash balance as of the end of June in this fund was $118 million.

That's based on FAS data.

We know that the executive plans to use $50 million of that, along with $20 million in REIT funds for the West Seattle Bridge.

But based on that information, there is sufficient funds for us to do both the West Seattle Bridge and an inter-fund loan here of $13.4.

And as Dan said, the intention is to repay those funds in 2021 with cuts to the SPD budget.

And if that isn't fully workable, then we do have some of the jumpstart revenue as backup.

That's all I have on this piece, unless there are questions.

Thank you, Council Member Morales.

I appreciate the creative thinking that's gone into I would like to say thank you for identifying fund source from your office, from my office, from central staff and council colleagues here.

I think that the point is still well taken that these dollars would ultimately be replenished from SPD's budget cuts in the future.

Recognizing the desires to do that this year and the ongoing both, I would say timing issues we are looking forward to seeing more from you on this effort on I think that got us through agenda item number one.

Thanks to all the folks on central staff, especially Dan for walking us through this compilation of amendments in front of us that will, I guess, will be translated into legislation for Monday's introduction calendar and to be taken up on Friday.

Again, council, sorry, to be taken up on Wednesday.

Again, council colleagues, you saw a calendar.

meeting on Wednesday.

Let's move on to agenda item number two.

amending ordinance 12600, which adopted the 2020 budget, changing appropriations to various departments and budget control levels, and from various funds in the budget imposing a proviso and ratifying and confirming certain prior acts, I'll invite the first vote of the city council for discussion and possible amendments.

Thank you very much.

Colleagues, in front of us, we have a total of 24 SPD-related amendments.

that each tie to one of the two bills.

To manage our time effectively, I did ask central staff to create a consent package that groups together all amendments, which had five or more co-sponsors.

But I know that there are some amendments that overlap, so my intent is not to preempt any discussion on any amendments.

So if there are members who would like to pull any of these amendments that are included in the consent package under number two.

We will welcome that as we have in the past for the purposes of question or discussion.

Items that are removed from the consent package will be considered after a vote on the individual amendments listed on the agenda.

For amendments listed on the agenda for individual vote, I'm going to ask central staff to provide us with a brief overview of each amendment, and then I'll ask the sponsor to move their respective amendments.

Again, I will try to remember that process, but just be cued up to move your individual amendment.

We will start with amendments to Council Bill 119825, which is the 2020 Budget Revisions Ordinance, and then go to Council Bill 119818, which is the Second Quarter Supplemental Budget Ordinance.

With that, you can see the number of individual amendments for consideration teed up as item number one under agenda item number two.

And Ali, I would ask, we are going to begin with amendment number 33, is that correct?

that is correct.

And as we conclude with amendment number 52, when we get to the consent package, I will ask council colleagues if you have specific amendments you would like to pull out of the consent package before we begin the discussion.

Seeing no questions, let's go ahead, Allie.

I'll just note here that amendments 33 through 37 relate to the overview that my colleague Dan just described and you all discussed.

So this relates to some of the spending and cuts proposed to fund the full $17 million package.

The first- Okay, great.

And Allie, just as we do this, I apologize for the technical back and forth.

Is it possible, as we did before, to show the amendment and then to show the various co-sponsors on it with that header like we did last time?

I think my colleague Patty is doing that as it's the magic of technology.

Okay, great.

And then as you introduce each amendment, if you don't mind reading the co-sponsors as well, I think we've seen the list of the initial sponsors on that grid, but I think it'd be helpful to list co-sponsors as you introduce each item.

Great, thank you.

So Amendment 33, sponsored by council members Gonzales, Herbold, Morales, and Mosqueda, who are joined by council members Lewis, Peterson, Sawant, and Strauss, would add $4 million to the Human Services Department's budget for investments in the Seattle Community Safety Initiative.

And I'm not sure with these amendments that have multiple sponsors who you would like me to turn it over to, so I'll take the direction from you.

Okay, I'll divvy it up here.

Council Member...

I'll take it.

Okay, go ahead, Council Member Morales.

Thank you.

Good morning, thanks everybody.

So the amendment 33 is a $4 million investment in community safety initiative.

In 2020 with this amendment, the city would contract with the community safety initiative to set up, I'm gonna try to talk slower so I don't freeze again.

to set up community safety hubs in target communities and to facilitate culturally relevant community safety efforts.

This is an alternative to traditional policing that seeks to build and strengthen neighborhood safety for black and brown communities.

And it is a people of color led partnership between Community Passageways, Urban Family, Southeast Network Hub, Boys and Girls Club, and the Alive and Free program at the YMCA.

So you'll have to tell him to wait.

Sorry, kids.

So some of the outcomes from this initiative include violence interruption programs, decreasing gun and gang violence, decreasing referrals and calls to law enforcement, increasing neighborhood safety, community safety teams in black and brown neighborhoods.

You can read through the

Now you have officially frozen.

I am sorry, Council Member Morales, if you can hear us.

Just making sure I haven't frozen.

Okay.

I see other heads moving.

This is governing in the time of COVID.

Apologies, Council Member Morales, as we are all remote.

We appreciate your walkthrough on this.

And when you rejoin us, if there's things that you haven't said, you're welcome to say those.

I will note that Councilmember Juarez would like to officially be added as a co-sponsor as well.

Thank you, Councilmember Juarez for that.

So Council colleagues, this has all Councilmembers signed on as co-sponsors.

Are there any additional comments or questions on amendment number 33?

Okay, so the process will be for us to go ahead and vote on these.

Hi, Councilmember Morales, did you have anything else that you would like to add?

I'm not sure if you officially moved it.

Would you like to move amendment number 33?

I move that we adopt amendment 33 to Council Bill 119825.

Thank you.

I'll second.

Thank you, Council President.

It's been moved and seconded that we adopt amendment number 33. Are there any additional comments or questions?

Hearing none, will the clerk please call the roll?

Peterson?

Aye.

Sawant?

Aye.

Strauss?

Yes.

Gonzales?

Aye.

Herbold?

Yes.

Juarez?

Aye.

Lewis?

Yes.

Morales?

Yes.

Chair Mosqueda?

Aye.

Nine in favor, none opposed.

Thank you, Madam Clerk.

The motion is, has carried, and amendment number 33 is adopted.

Can the central staff please walk us through the next amendment?

Yes.

Amendment 34, sponsored by council members Gonzalez, Herbold, Morales, and Mosqueda, who are joined by council members Lewis, Peterson, Sawant, and Strauss, would add $10 million to HSD's budget to invest in community-led organizations.

Okay.

Council colleagues, would somebody like to speak to this?

I'll do that.

Yes.

Okay, thank you, Councilman Morales.

Do I move or speak first?

Why don't you go ahead and move it?

I move Amendment 34 to Council Bill 119825. Second.

It's been moved and seconded.

Thank you, Councilman Morales.

Please go ahead.

Okay, Patty, can I ask you to bring up, I believe it is page three, item number two on the Oh, well, that's fine.

I'm going to walk through this investment.

Again, this is investing $10 million to scale up community-based organizations.

The idea here is to contract with a local organization that would invest in subcontract with community organizations that provide community-led alternatives to policing and criminalization.

We are especially interested in funding organizations that are already undertaking safety building activities, like self-defense classes, working with perpetrators of domestic violence, for example, deescalating, reducing the harms of drug addiction, And with this, safety that don't involve policing.

As we are spending some part of our energy dismantling systems that don't work for folks, we need to also be spending the resources and the time to build up what we want to see instead.

And that is the intent behind these investments that we've been talking about.

So this is about building up community safety in our neighborhoods with the organizations that are already involved in doing culturally relevant work that is peer-led.

There are organizations that are trauma-informed, that are gender-affirming, that have an anti-racist praxis already.

And so we know that now is the time to invest in their ability to scale up so that as we reduce and restructure what the police department looks like, as we re-envision what can...

Council Member Morales, thank you for your comments.

I am gonna ask that you call in so that we can visually see you and then have the audio from your phone.

I want to note on this amendment, Colleagues, that means that there's all nine council members signed on to amendment number 34. Thank you, Council Member Juarez.

Council Colleagues, comments or questions?

Council Member Swann, please go ahead.

My comments here apply to this amendment and also the previous amendment.

As I said on the last agenda item when we discussed the Interfund Loan, the restorative justice work of organizations based in the community is vital.

By lifting up young people in our community rather than incarcerating them, the lives of the individuals can be radically transformed, as we know from practice, and it also has a far greater impact on keeping our communities as a whole safe.

These amendments fund these programs.

with the understanding that the funding will come from the Interfund loan previously discussed.

And as I mentioned then, I will support this work by voting yes, because I believe in the work that will be funded, but I hope other council members will also support defunding the police when we get to amendment 54A.

54A is the full $85 million defund from the police department's remaining 2020 budget.

And I wanted to reiterate, that what the community is demanding is defunding the police this year by 50% and using those funds to fund the community programs.

And just as a technical point, because amendment 54A duplicates this funding, if both are passed, it would simply mean that the council would need to pass a technical amendment on Monday, removing the duplication along with all the other technical amendments that will be voted on on Monday.

But I really hope that the city council today decides to stand up to Mayor Durkan and do repressive policing as a whole by voting for the full $85 million defund.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Swan.

Are there any additional comments or questions on amendment number 34?

Council President, please go ahead.

Thank you, Chair Mosqueda, and hopefully I won't have the same internet issues that Council Member Morales has been having.

It's nice to know that I'm not the only one who has those issues.

I just wanted to just for the just for the viewing public, make sure that folks understand that this particular amendment, Amendment 34. is intended to really bolster some of the existing programming that we have already invested in.

And of course, the issue is that we've not done that to the scale necessary to create the meaningful transformational change that we need.

And so there are a lot of great programs that are funded through the Preparing Youth for Success line, including The Seattle Youth Employment Program, the Summer Food Service Program, Our Best Initiative, which is a program that focuses specifically on Black male youth in our city and is run by our Department of Education and Early Learning, is also, you know, sort of works hand in hand with this particular area of investment.

And and I think just to put this in perspective and why this is so important.

We know that in the at least the 2018 budget.

There was only a total of 17.8 million dollars invested in this particular area that really is designed to.

increase community safety.

And obviously $17.8 million of a $6 billion budget is almost nothing.

So the fact that we are almost doubling it through this $10 million proposal is significant, but there's obviously a lot more investment that will need to occur in this area.

in order to truly bring up these programs to scale and to also allow for not just existing grantees to participate, but for emerging organizations to also be able to participate in this funding opportunity.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Council President.

Appreciate those comments.

And Council Member Morales, I see that you have joined again.

Would you like to add anything?

And hopefully we can also have your video up.

If you keep your video on mute and you keep your phone going, we can then see you speaking in real time too.

So go ahead, Council Member Morales.

We see you on the line.

I'm going to try to deal with this technology thing.

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I don't know I don't have anything to add right now.

Thank you.

Okay, well, the echo is gone, so that's the good news.

Thank you, Council Member Morales, for walking us through this amendment.

Seeing no additional hands or comments on amendment number 34, Madam Clerk, will you please call the roll on amendment number 34?

Peterson.

Aye.

Sawant.

Yes.

Straus.

Yes.

Gonzalez.

Yes.

Herbold?

Yes.

Juarez?

Yes.

Lewis?

Yes.

Morales?

Yes.

Chair Mosqueda?

Yes.

Nine in favor, none opposed.

Thank you so much.

Let's move on to amendment number 35. Thank you, Allison.

Amendment 35, sponsored by Councilmembers Gonzalez, Herbold, Morales, and Mosqueda, and joined by Councilmembers Lewis, Sawant, and Strauss, would cut $36,000 from the Seattle Police Department for implicit bias training and impose a proviso.

I may ask, Council President Gonzalez, did you want to speak to this amendment at all?

I think we've already talked about this one in the initial conversation.

I appreciated Council Central staff emphasizing that this is just a partial reduction in the implicit bias training for the remainder of 2020, largely based on the fact that in the time of COVID, some of these dollars that would ordinarily be provided for logistics or traveling or any kind of model premised on being physically present just aren't necessary.

So again, contrary to the assertion made in the press conference yesterday by the executive that we are gutting implicit bias training because we don't believe in implicit bias training, that's just simply not true.

What we're doing here is taking a modest to be cut from the implicit bias training category in order to acknowledge the fact that these dollars are not likely going to be used in the remainder of 2020 in the original intent proposed by the department or envisioned by the department.

Council Central staff also in our conversation, I believe last week, confirmed that there are still dollars available in the implicit bias training budget category.

So this is, again, a sort of modification to that budget line to recognize the issues that I just described.

Thank you.

Thank you, Madam President.

And would you like to move Amendment Number 35?

I will move Amendment 35 to Council Bill 119-825.

And I'll second that.

It's been moved and seconded and described.

Thank you, Council President.

Are there any additional comments or questions?

And I will note Council Member Juarez would like to add her name to this amendment.

Thank you, Council Member Juarez.

We will officially include you for the record on Amendment Number 35 as well.

Seeing no additional comments or questions, Madam Clerk, will you please call the record on Amendment 35?

Peterson.

Aye.

Sawant.

Yes.

Strauss.

Yes.

Gonzalez.

Aye.

Herbold.

Yes.

Juarez.

Yes.

Lewis.

Yes.

Morales.

Yes.

Chair Mosqueda.

Yes.

Nine in favor.

None opposed.

the motion is adopted.

and Council Member Juarez would cut $50,000 from the SPD budget for travel costs and impose a state proviso.

Thank you very much, Ali.

I will go ahead and move amendment number 36 to Council Bill 119825. Is there a second?

Second.

Wonderful, it's been moved and seconded.

We discussed this quite a bit in line as well with what the council president just said.

This is, I think, just common sense to reduce the spending from the travel costs and impose a proviso, especially because folks are not traveling right now and we need to get these dollars out the door and into community hands to continue to invest in community safety.

Additional comments or questions?

Seeing none, thank you to all the co-sponsors on this and encourage folks to, yes, if you can.

Madam Clerk, will you please call the roll?

Peterson?

Aye.

DeWant?

Yes.

Strauss?

Yes.

Gonzales?

Aye.

Herbold?

Yes.

Juarez?

Yep.

Lewis?

Yes.

Morales?

Yes.

And Chair Mosqueda?

Yes.

Nine in favor, none opposed.

Thank you.

The motion carries and the amendment is adopted.

Let's move on to amendment number 37.

amendment 37 sponsored by councilmembers Gonzales, Herbold, Morales, and Mosqueda, who are joined by councilmembers Lewis, Sawant, and Strauss.

And I'll note, councilmember Juarez.

And councilmember Juarez would cut $800,000 from the police department's budget for recruitment and retention staff and activities.

Thank you, council colleagues.

Thank you, council, central staff, Ali Benucci.

Council President Gonzales, would you like to move this amendment?

I will.

I move Amendment 37 to Council Bill 119825. Second.

It's been moved and seconded.

Council President, would you like to make any additional comments?

Just really briefly, I appreciate the near unanimous sponsorship of Amendment 37, which would reduce the Seattle Police Department's budget in the leadership and administration line in the amount of $800,000.

SPD has indicated to the council that the recruitment and retention initiatives that are accounted for in this particular to the city's reopening and other COVID-19 related projects.

we are going to be able to see where the money is going.

This is a memorialization of that prior executive action and a capturing of the dollars for other purposes.

Thank you very much, Council President.

Are there any questions or comments?

It has been moved and seconded and discussed.

Seeing no additional

Yes.

Gonzalez?

Yes.

Purple?

Yes.

Juarez?

Yes.

Lewis?

Yes.

Morales?

Yes.

Chair Mosqueda?

Yes.

Nine in favor, none opposed.

Thank you very much.

The motion carries and the amendment is adopted.

Let's move on to the next item on this list here.

I believe it's Council Member Sawant.

Thank you.

Amendment 52 sponsored by Councilmember Sawant, who is joined by Councilmember Mosqueda, would impose a proviso on the Seattle Police Department's budget to prohibit spending any funds to prosecute individuals for actions taken during the Justice for George Floyd protests.

Thank you very much.

Ali, Councilmember Sawant, would you like to move Amendment 52?

Thank you.

I move to adopt amendment number 52 as presented on the agenda, which says, which places a proviso on the police budget saying none of the money appropriated in the 2020 budget for the police department may be used to support the prosecution of individuals for participating in justice for George Floyd protests, while funds may be used for the purposes of dropping charges, releasing arrestees, and clearing records.

I will second.

It's been moved and seconded.

Council Member Swant, would you like to speak to this?

Thank you.

We discussed this budget amendment in detail last Monday when the Seattle Police Department arrests protesters.

They are in a position to forward those arrests to the city attorney's office for prosecution, but they can also send them to the county prosecutor.

And while the city attorney has issued positive public statements which have been welcome about not prosecuting arrested protesters, we have not seen similar promises from the county.

And while the city has no authority over the county prosecutor's decision, The reality is it is difficult for the county to bring prosecutions without the evidence and testimony directly from SPD officers.

As we discussed on Monday, this proviso will not be sufficient to force all the charges against the protesters to be dropped because that is beyond the authority, the legal authority of a budget amendment.

If a judge subpoenas evidence and testimony, then the city needs to legally comply.

And we discussed this fully on Monday.

But before getting to a judge, the prosecutor is sent case files by the police that they use to decide whether or not to bring charges in the first place.

And sometimes prosecutor requests further evidence, further interrogations that the police can go and comply with before the prosecutor decides to bring charges.

But those are the sorts of things where damage is done to innocent protesters and we hope to prevent that kind of damage with this proviso which should make it more difficult to bring fabricated charges which has unfortunately happened too many times against arrested protesters.

I appreciate council member Mosqueda's support and I urge all council members to vote yes today.

Thank you.

and I appreciate the discussion that our office has had with councilmember Lewis on this issue, both at the meeting and offline, and welcome his support for this amendment as well.

Thank you.

Thank you very much, Councilmember Sawant.

Councilmember Lewis, please go ahead.

Yeah, thank you, Madam Chair.

So on reviewing this further and consulting with some folks, I think that in the couple of cases where cases might actually go forward.

Coming out of the George Floyd protests, the fact that there is the caveat of allowing the court order to subpoena the materials means that there wouldn't actually be an issue in cases of merit being able to go forward.

I mean, since we can kind of I mean, I think we can all basically recite from memory the cases that have been in the news that have, and count on it being a pretty small number that would actually go forward to some kind of action.

And there is that exception in here.

So given that, I don't have strong objections to this amendment and I'll vote for it today.

Thank you, Councilmember Lewis.

Very helpful.

Any additional comments or questions, folks?

Councilmember Herbold, I apologize.

Please go ahead.

I appreciate that there is an exception for the ability of the county prosecutor to subpoena information that has already been collected, but I'm concerned that the broadness of the language as drafted includes the collecting of evidence.

And so, you know, as we, and that language prohibiting collecting evidence coupled with the broadness of the language for actions taken, for me, suggests that this proviso would prohibit SPD from doing the kinds of investigations that we know they're doing as relates to the shooting injuries and deaths of people.

that occurred while participating in the Justice for George Floyd protests.

So I don't, I appreciate the spirit in which this is offered, but I'm very concerned that it would prohibit SPD from investigating deadly felonies that have occurred at these protests.

Thank you very much, Council Member Herbold.

Any additional comments or questions?

Yes, Madam Chair.

Please go ahead, Council Member Morris.

Thank you.

I agree, and thank you, Council Member Sawant and Council Member Lewis.

I agree with Council Member Herbold, and I think that I like the proviso.

I like that it's a little bit more general, that we're giving some room, but when we talk about maybe used directly or through contract to support the prosecution of individuals for acts that's taken while participating in justice for George Floyd protests, the ambiguity there, I agree in principle that people who are protesting, exercising their First Amendment right, nonviolent, should not be prosecuted for exercising their constitutional rights.

When we leave it open to the George Floyd protest, then as I said earlier, this creates, I believe, an affirmative defense that if you are out there and you don't agree, with the George Floyd protests, and I'm not saying that I don't agree, then that means you're picking a side that gives the defense and the other side doesn't.

Now, we've had different incidents where people have came out and said, I support defunding police, but I don't support, let's just say, 50%.

And people are assaulted.

People are hit.

People have their phones taken away.

When I look at this and how broad it is, I have concerns for every side around the argument, around the protest and what it means.

I don't want to prohibit Seattle Police Department from investigating serious felonies and crimes on either side, either the police or agitators assaulting peaceful protesters.

or people that just come out of their home and say, this is not right, and be attacked.

That's the concern I have.

Now, someone may read into it, as usual, if you're not for us, you're against us, and that's not my point.

My point is that I believe in the spirit and passion of what Council Member Solano is putting forward, but I think we have to be realistic about what the judicial branch, SPD, and the city attorney can do.

I know a lot of it is up to the prosecutorial discretion of those involved or the city attorneys, King County, their prosecutors.

And so I cannot support this in this forum.

So thank you.

I'm going to turn it over to you.

Thank you, councilmember Juarez and I want to point to the comments you made immediately after George Floyd because I think they really underscore your point and I know you are there in terms of policy and priorities and values.

I really love the way in which you frame the discussion at the beginning around this not just being about individual actors or bad apples.

comments.

I want to make sure we get to all of your comments as well here.

And make sure I underscored that I knew where you were coming from.

Councilmember Lewis I saw your hand go up.

Councilmember Silva?

Councilmember Herbold?

I do think actually on discussing this, that provision could be problematic.

Given the broadness of the proviso, I wonder if there might be scope to remove

And just to reiterate, we're looking, I know that there's not line items here, but we're looking at about the fifth line down, the words that you were mentioning are collecting or, so it would be not limited to, is that the correct amount, the correct language highlighted there, Council Member Lewis?

I was referring to, including but not limited to, I guess the way that it would read on the language that I'm proffering would be including but not limited to, transmitting evidence and providing testimony, rather than collecting or transmitting.

So the three words that would, Council Member Swan, I'll turn it to you in a second, the three words that he's referring to, and Patty, if you want to highlight this, is to, collecting or.

I think that is correct.

Yes.

I don't agree with the characterization that this is overly broad.

I mean, I agree it is broad, but there's an intent behind it.

That is the very point.

By making the language be this way is why this proviso would matter, is why this proviso would be effective in the first place.

The proposal to eliminate the words.

Sorry, collecting or like basically removing the word collecting is problematic and I would not agree to that, and I'm flexible but but I want the provisor to actually have.

the intended, achieve the intended objective.

And from what we, from my, from what my office understands and from the discussions we've had, I don't think that deleting the word collecting will make it meaningful because the word transmitting is what subpoenas do.

Collecting is what happens before any formal process begins.

And that is where the whole sort of gray area where the fabrication of evidence and the area where the fabrication of evidence happens, and where the protesters, individual community members, are left completely vulnerable to the criminal justice system because they have no control over what is being said.

So that collecting word is part of what makes this proviso meaningful.

And I would also say that a lot of the language that was used by council members to express concern on this amendment It's not driven, it's not data driven.

I mean, this council, you know, as repeatedly council members have said, you take pride in being data driven, but that is not a data driven approach to have hypotheticals and presented as if the both sides, the criminal justice system and protesters in the movement are somehow roughly equal and you're trying to take care that that equality is maintained, but that's not true.

If justice were blind in real life, then this would not be necessary.

If justice was blind, we would not have such just stark disproportionalities in our criminal justice system.

If we are going to be data driven, then we have to lean on the overwhelming evidence, not the hypotheticals, but the overwhelming evidence of what happens to innocent people who are out there actually showing courage and they should be commended for that courage, not punished for showing that courage.

And I don't agree with the idea that this is somehow every side wills, every side is going to benefit by taking away the word collecting.

In my view that is not true at all.

The fact is the criminal justice system has taken a side already and we cannot have a pretense that both sides are roughly equal.

This proviso is meant to balance the scales that are deeply unequal.

I hope councilmembers We will take that overwhelming evidence into effect, into consideration, take the incredible power that the police department has over individuals, that into consideration and understand that the language in this proviso is intentionally, has been presented because in our view, it actually would address the existing problem.

Thank you.

Council members, I saw Council President Gonzalez and then Council Member Herbold.

Thank you.

So there's a couple of things.

One thing is one of the issues that I brought up in our conversation on Monday doesn't appear to have been addressed in this language.

And Council Member Sawant, I apologize for not following up directly with you and your staff around those temporal issues that I flagged.

My area of concern around ambiguity Is with the phrase, while participating in justice for joy, George Floyd protests again because I think.

I think there's the, there's the, there were the, you know, a couple of weeks and the weekend immediately after the murderer of Mr. Floyd that could be considered that period of time justice for George Floyd protests.

Others might interpret that language as being the ongoing protest.

I mean, there's going to be a protest today related to these issues.

And so that's where I was trying to zero in on is, is there a particular period of time that you are using as the sponsor to define the period of time that is intended to be covered by this proviso when you say, um while participating in justice for George Floyd protests.

So that was that was that was the issue I was trying to to flag.

Um I think um so that's one.

Two on the on the issue around whether or not striking the word collecting or the words collecting or in um this area and you know we're we're actively engaging in a little bit of sausage making here at the committee um so I apologize to the members of the public But I think, I guess there seems to be a little bit of a conflation of how that impacts cases that need to be investigated related to serious felonies and crimes that are unassociated with the exercise of the First Amendment.

I was reading this as the next sentence, the second sentence talks about how funds can still be used for purposes of dropping charges to release arrestees, clear records, or to prosecute individuals for physical violence.

Inflicted on individuals participating in the justice for George Floyd protests or Or it happens sort of in the surrounding area.

So I think one of the specific examples brought up is What, how does this proviso impact some of the gun violence incidents that we saw in your district council member salon in particular.

and some of the incidents that Council Member Lewis flags that occurred in his district.

And my understanding is that this, everything that, all the language that exists before funds doesn't impact at all any issues related to potential prosecutions and law enforcement investigations of potential felonies involving things like gun violence, loss of life, serious assaults.

And I guess I just want to make sure that I'm understanding that correctly, that there is a separation there, and that the collecting is only related to activity of ongoing investigation related to First Amendment activity that could unearth other things, but that sort of starts the genesis of that investigation would be the mere act of engaging in First Amendment activity that could then lead to other potential findings of potential crimes.

So I'm sorry that I'm not framing this up perhaps in a more artful and concise way, but I just wanted to get a sense from you, Council Member Sawant, about sort of those two separate issues, and then maybe we can hear from somebody from Council Central staff to sort of walk us through how those two separate that is consistent with what I just described to be my understanding.

I'm looking at allie, did you want to say anything?

Um, sure.

So I, sorry, I was dealing with another, another issue.

So I may not have heard the full conversation, but I think in a general sense, I just want to note that the language in terms of the including, but not limited to, and then it provides some example, the including, but not limited to is I think an critical piece because it is really saying, uh, you can't spend any money, um, to support the prosecution of individuals.

It could have just stopped there.

It provides some examples, but whether or not, is listing, collecting, or transmitting, or whatever the examples are, it really is restricting any actions taken to support the prosecution of individuals for actions taken during the protests for justice for George Floyd protests.

So I just want to note that.

However, if council members wanted to make a change to this amendment, they could make a motion to amend it to remove that language or other language.

In terms of the timing of exactly, I think I spoke to this briefly, maybe it was on Monday.

was that what exactly, without sort of putting a specific timeframe around what is intended by the Justice for George Floyd protest, that will be interpreted by the executive in applying this proviso.

I'm not sure if I'm answering all the questions.

I will say that, I just wanna note that there was a, question last week about whether or not this proviso would restrict prosecution of other physical violence acts, other crimes that were in the vicinity or happened during the protest but not related to First Amendment issues.

In response to that I had drafted a revised version and I am seeing now that inadvertently that version got posted to the agenda so the language that says, or to prosecute individuals for physical violence inflicted on individuals participating in the Justice for George Floyd protests or for physical violence inflicted on individuals that occurred during and in the surrounding areas.

of the Justice for George Floyd protest should not have been included in this version that was posted to the agenda.

That was my error.

And I just want to note that that was not the sponsor's intent.

So it actually should be, the proviso should end after clearing records.

And I apologize, Council President, Council President Gonzalez, I think I've lost the thread on what your second, what your question was.

Well, I mean, that was the question.

I think that that second sentence is absolutely critical to recognizing that there needs to.

Council President, I'm sorry, your Internet is now freezing up.

If you can hear me, we will come back to you.

and I agree with, I believe, where her line of comments were headed, that this is a critical component, given the questions and concerns that were raised.

I'm going to come back to the Council President when she rejoins us.

And Council Member Sawant, did you want to hold to then respond also to Council Member Herbold?

I know she had her hand up as well.

Or did you have something that, because some of those questions were directed at you, Council Member Sawant.

So would that make sense to have Council Member Herbold Speak 1st, that's fine.

Okay.

Council member herbal, please.

Council member, if I had anything.

I do want to make very, very clear that I don't think that only I'm not quite sure I understand data-based decisions, but I am not going to compare the numbers of people gassed unjustly on our streets to the murders of young people in making a decision on whether or not funds from the police department's budget should be allowed to be used to investigate those crimes.

Thank you very much Council Member Herbold.

Council Colleagues, I'm going to ask us to hold this debate and discussion.

I'm going to let Council Member Sawant wrap us up.

But Allie, what I think would be helpful is after we get through all the amendments in agenda item number one, could we come back to this in terms of process?

Just to have the accurate language in front of us all as we seek to make a decision on voting today.

I think it will allow us to have greater clarity on this piece.

Councilmember Sawant?

I'm happy to do that.

I welcome that because I want to expand protections to peaceful protesters and not take away from what this proviso as it If council members want to have some language like as long as justice for George Floyd protests continue, or something like that, then I would welcome that because in reality we need these protections for as long as the Seattle Police Department remains a racist, an entity that is carrying out racist violence.

And so in that sense, expanding the temporal plane is something that I would, of course, welcome.

As to the other points that have come up, all in relation to will this proviso prevent the police and the prosecutors from carrying out what we would all agree is the correct thing, which is arresting and prosecuting on where actual violence happened, not the police targeting innocent protesters.

In my view, this proviso does not impact the issues related to the gun violence.

None of the shootings were done by protesters.

And I would also say, of course, that the gun violence didn't just happen in District 3. It happened in our city, regardless of which district it happened in.

And all council members are responsible equally to make sure that we respond from a standpoint of social justice, not perpetuating what the police and the criminal justice and law enforcement system are already doing.

So in that sense, I would just note that the shootings were not done by the protesters.

Also Council Member Lewis mentioned on Monday that no one has been arrested as far as as of Monday.

I haven't checked since then that no one was arrested for the violent incident that was described by him.

So in my view, this is just a lot of I will tell you honestly, this seems to me as a lot of scrutiny, and I've seen countless examples of this in my six and a half years as a council member, the kind of scrutiny that is applied by the city council establishment to proposals that come from the movement completely dwarfs the scrutiny that is applied to what is coming from the establishment and that is potentially harmful to the community, like the repeal of the Amazon tax, for example.

So there's many examples of that.

But I do welcome any genuine clarification that council members want.

And to that extent, I'm happy to hold it and also make sure that those concerns are addressed and have something positive and effective voted on.

I just wanted to note in closing that, and I had said this the last time, but I just want to reiterate it.

If you look at the actual on the ground real life experience, not hypotheticals, but actually what happens to people, they will tell you and this has been documented, the police never say I'm arresting you for using your First Amendment because I'm ideologically opposed to you and my role as an organ of the state is to repress you.

No, that's not what they're saying.

They say you're being arrested for something like assaulting a police officer when that assault never happened.

So the whole point of this proviso is to say that the police should stop investigating protesters.

They should not have the power to investigate protesters.

And so in that sense, the murders are not relevant because they were not by protesters.

So I'll just say that in closing.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you, councilmember Sawant.

Thanks for your flexibility on that.

I will look to you to know when we may be able to insert this back into the agenda today for the purposes of considering it and if there are still ongoing questions about the drafting, obviously we have another meeting before a final council vote, but would love to come back to this before we move on to agenda item number two, I believe.

One more thing, did you want to add it now or later?

I'm just going to be very brief, I promise.

Thank you, Council Member Sawant.

I see what you're getting at, but I think the discussion, and I agree with Council Member Gonzalez, is what you're seeing the back and forth underscores and underlies why we have concerns with the ambiguity because we are now putting ourselves in the position of being fact finders.

Who is a peaceful protester?

Who is an advocate?

Who is not a protester?

who is an interloper.

That's not our job.

That's on the judicial branch.

And all the other rights that you've discussed are already secured in our Sixth Amendment right to a jury, to counsel, to all those things.

Whether we agree with that or not, or if they're gonna do the right thing, that's another issue that defense counsel will raise and judges will rule on.

But my point is this, the last sentence you said actually goes right to how it probably should have been written.

is you want to prohibit the Seattle Police Department from arresting and doing all these things that you listed against any protester that is out there exercising their First Amendment right.

I get that.

The problem I have is that if you just limit it to George Floyd, then what happens to other protesters that are protesting about other stuff during the same period?

Do they not get the same protections of this?

And if they don't, then you're back to unequal treatment, due process, and all those other issues.

And that's not what we're here to do.

I see what you're getting at.

And I'm with you on that.

And I think the way to write it is to be more laser focused within the legislative branch about the intent to protect people's right to go out there and protest and not have the Seattle Police Department using, collecting, transmitting, whatever you want to call it, against them I think that is the point I was getting to.

I think that is the point I agree with councilmember Gonzalez on the temporal nature.

Thank you for striking that last paragraph.

That made no sense to me.

I will leave it at that.

Thank you.

I would just say in response to what Councilmember Juarez said, that it's just deeply disappointing what is being said.

I mean, the Proud Boys, the Proud Boys, the right wing, are not the ones getting arrested.

So this is absolutely, the statements that were just made are completely The right wing is not getting arrested.

The Proud Boys are not getting arrested even when they march with guns and even when they assault people.

And just to correct one thing, we're not in the position of fact finders, and we're not saying that the council should be fact finders.

The council, because it is the highest legislative body of the city, is being called by the community to bring balance to the deeply unjust situation that we see here, and I would urge council members to keep that in the center.

Thank you.

Okay.

I'm sorry.

I see, Ali, you did put the revised language on the screen here.

And Council President, I don't want to jump the gun because I did say we were going to move on.

I'm happy to come back to this, but you were cut off earlier.

Did you want to finish your comment in the context of this discussion real quick?

I think I made my point.

I apologize about getting my internet.

I am now seeing that this is the version that Customer Support intended to introduce.

And again, I think that I just have significant concerns about the temporal nature of this and about how this would impact felonious activity that might have occurred.

I think it's important for us to make sure that we have a plan during that period of time.

I appreciate councilmembers' perspectives.

I share those perspectives.

Frankly, I'm more concerned about how the department will interpret this and how the executive will interpret this and apply this if it is clear enough to make sure that we are focusing on those individuals who are exercising their first amendment.

So my hope is that we can, I think there sounds to be a lot of alignment on that end goal, and I think If the sponsor is willing to continue to work on the language to make that intent clear, then I think we can avoid having the Seattle Police Department interpret this in a way that may be inconsistent with the intent.

So that's all I'll say.

I'm just concerned about how it will be interpreted by the people who it's directed at.

And I think that's a real risk.

Thank you.

Council Member Swan, I see you're off mute.

Comments on that?

Yeah, just very quickly.

I'm happy to continue to work with council members to have a proviso that actually meets the objective that we have stated.

And I wanted to state just for the record, I completely agree with all the council members who have expressed concerns that we don't want something that the council does to be interpreted by the Seattle Police Department in a way that is to the very people, which is community members, whom this proviso is intended to protect.

So I absolutely 100% agree that we don't want those any kind of unintended consequences.

I would just say, I did invite council members to send us their suggestions for revised language at the two previous council meetings.

I appreciate Council Member Lewis engaging with Jonathan Rosenblum in my office.

I now invite, I would reiterate my invitation to all the council members who have spoken, which I appreciate, to continue working on this to make sure that we can have a proviso that does achieve the objective in your eyes.

I mean, as far as I understand it, this does achieve it, but I'm happy to address those concerns and hopefully move a proviso forward that does get a majority or unanimous support.

Thank you.

Thank you very much, Councilmember Sawant.

Just to wrap this up, we were going to come back to Amendment 52 at the end because we didn't have the language in front of us.

Now that we have the language in front of us and the dialogue that you just engaged in, would you like to have this on the agenda for Monday then to give us a little bit extra time for that conversation?

Okay, I see a yes and a nodding of the head.

So thank you, Councilmember Sawant.

We are going to skip over Amendment 52. Looking forward to the ongoing conversation that you're going to have with others on Council to provide some clarification here.

I think that as the Council President summarized along with a number of other Council colleagues, there's a lot of shared interest in the intent here.

So let's continue this discussion on Monday.

Ali, thank you for walking us through that.

And Council Member Sawant, thank you for your flexibility on that.

That wraps up our set of amendments in this portion.

Allie, I believe we are moving on to the next set, which is a consent package.

Is that correct?

That is correct, Chair Mosqueda.

Okay.

Council colleagues, thank you so much.

Let's see.

We can go ahead and begin this discussion.

I will also note that we are going to have We are going to take a break for an hour between meetings, so we can kick this off, but just note that we are going to give ourselves some time to replenish and rest for a moment, along with our teams.

Councilmember Herbold, I saw your hand up.

Did you have a question before we launch into this component?

No, I was just prepping to move the amendment, which I think has to be done before.

You are excellent.

Thank you so much.

Council Member Herbold, I would turn to you.

Would you like to move the consent package?

Yes, please.

I move to adopt amendment number.

I don't have the number.

I move to adopt the consent package amendment as presented on the agenda.

I'll second that.

Thank you, Council President.

It's been moved and seconded that the Council consider the consent package in front of us.

I understand that we will get an overview of the consent package.

and if there is any member who would wish to pull an item from the consent package during the overview of the amendment, you may do so.

I will note that it would be helpful, I think, if council members could note that they would like to pull amendments as we go through.

That would be helpful for the discussion.

Council Member Lewis, did you want to make a comment now or did you want to make a comment when we get to an amendment to pull?

I would like to make a motion to approve the consent package.

And Ali, if you could go ahead with the overview of the consent package, and as we go through, we will pause to see if anybody would like to remove any amendments.

Thank you, Ali.

Thank you, Chair Mosqueda.

I will just note here with the chair's permission that amendments 16 through 25, if I could just note the original sponsors now and just highlight the co-sponsors as I move through each one just to for a more efficient description of each.

That sounds great.

Thank you.

So amendments, the first 10 amendments in the consent package of a total of 13 amendments were originally proposed by council members, Gonzalez, Herbold, Morales, and Mesquita.

As I walk through each one, I will note the council members that added their names to the amendments during the previous budget committee discussions.

amendment 16, with councilmember Sawant and councilmember Strauss added, would impose a proviso on $533,000 in the patrol operations BSL to require a general reduction in sworn personnel.

I'll just pause if anyone would like to pull it.

Thank you.

Seeing no hands, please, oh, councilmember Lewis, please go ahead.

This is amendment 16. Yeah, I'd like to pull this one for some additional discussion.

Okay, it will be pulled.

Thank you very much, Council Member Lewis.

Thank you.

And so the Amendment 16 will now be considered after all other amendments to Council Bill 119-825 are discussed today.

The next amendment in the package is Amendment 17, co-sponsors Council Members Lewis and Sawant.

This would impose a proviso to restrict expenditures related to the mounted unit in the Seattle Police Department.

I'm sorry.

Seeing no hands, please continue.

Okay.

Amendment 18, with co-sponsors councilmember Juarez, Lewis, Sawant, and Strauss would impose a proviso to restrict expenditures related to the community outreach unit.

Seeing no hands or comments, please continue.

I'm sorry, councilmember Strauss, did you?

Amendment 19, the sponsors were joined by council members Juarez, Lewis, Peterson, Sawant, and Strauss.

This would impose a proviso to restrict expenditures related to the school resource officers.

Seeing no hands, please continue.

Amendment 20, with the addition of council member Juarez, Lewis, Sawant, and Strauss would impose a proviso to restrict expenditures in SPD's budget that assumes that there will be at least 30 unplanned resignations before the end of 2020.

I'm seeing no hands, please continue.

Amendment 21, the original sponsors were joined by council members Lewis, Sawant, and Strauss, would impose a proviso to restrict expenditures related to the public affairs unit in the police department.

Seeing no hands, please continue.

amendment 22, with the additional sponsors of council member Juarez, Suant, and Strauss would impose a proviso to restrict expenditures related to the police department's homeland security unit.

Seeing no hands, please continue.

Amendment 23, with the addition of council members Juarez, Suant, and Strauss would impose a proviso to restrict expenditures related to the police department's community outreach administration section.

Seeing no concerns, please continue.

amendment 24 with councilmember Juarez and so want joining the original sponsors would impose a proviso to restrict expenditures related to the police department's Harbor Patrol operations.

Okay, thank you.

Councilmember Peterson, please go ahead.

Sure, I can speak to it for just a minute or two and keep it in the consent package.

It's just that would be fine.

I if that was what you like to do, that'd be fine.

That would probably be faster.

I just for the folks.

We've gotten a lot of emails about Harbor Patrol and I just wanted to assure them that this this here is simply to reduce by two FT ease full time equivalent positions.

out of 30 that are there.

And so it's really just an initial down payment as we're trying to look at budget savings throughout the police department.

The bigger discussion about Harbor Patrol will happen later.

I do have concerns because Harbor Patrol does do a lot on Lake Union.

I know we can do that at a later time.

I didn't want my support for this small reduction to be an indication of not advocating for the other

Yes, Chairman.

Thank you, Councilmember Peterson.

Well said.

I too will be supporting this reduction of two FTEs and I think that we need to have a more robust discussion as we look to transfer operations to another entity, whether it is public safety or Seattle fire department as the majority of the areas of operation for Harbor Patrol are dictated between memorandums of understanding rather than the legal restrictions and requirements of sworn police officers as we've seen as far as writing traffic tickets, etc.

It is important that we maintain the level of service of protection on Lake Union and it is an understanding that that I think it's important to note that the separation between Puget Sound with the fire department and Lake Union with the police department is mostly based out of a memorandum of understanding.

Thank you.

Councilmember Strauss, helpful clarification.

I'm seeing consent on this item still.

I think we are good to continue.

Thank you.

to restrict expenditures related to the police department SWAT team.

Okay, seeing consent on this.

And again, as a reminder, this is two FTEs, not the entire department.

Just want to make sure that that is clear.

Thank you.

Please continue.

I see consent.

Okay.

Amendment 46, sponsored by Council Member Strauss, who is joined by Council Members Gonzalez, Herbold, Juarez, Lewis, Morales, Mosqueda, Peterson, and Sawant.

would impose a proviso on the police department's entire budget contingent upon the council receiving a report from the police department or the mayor's office on which functions, which SPD functions could be fully civilianized and or removed from the department.

Seeing consent, let's continue.

Great.

Amendment 47, sponsored by council members Strauss and Herbold, who are joined by council members Juarez, Gonzalez, Mosqueda, Lewis, Peterson and so on, would impose a proviso on all funds in the police department budget contingent upon the SPD or the mayor's office submitting a report every two weeks that provides detailed departmental expenditures for the police department.

Seeing consent, please continue.

Thank you.

And the last amendment in the consent package, Amendment 49, sponsored by Councilmember Lewis, who is joined by Councilmembers Mosqueda, Juarez, Sawant, Morales, and Strauss, would add $50,000 to the Human Service Department's budget and would cut $50,000 from the Department of Finance and Administrative Services and imposes a proviso on those funds for HSD to contract with a community-based organization for development of a new 911 response system.

and that concludes the description of the items in the consent package.

Wonderful.

I don't see any concerns, so I see consent on that last item as well.

Wonderful.

So our consent package, hearing no concerns, and Allie, correct me if I'm wrong, includes amendments 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 46, 47, 49. Okay, I'm seeing nods.

And just remind me, Allie, in terms of process, will we be coming back to amendment number 16 after we conclude with the consent package or at the next list of amendments that are for individual consideration?

For the next list of amendments considered for individual vote.

So it would come on the agenda.

The last amendment posted would be amendment 40. So we would take up amendment 16 again after the discussion of amendment 40.

makes perfect sense.

Thank you very much.

I think that this would be a good time for us to take a break folks for us to recess and then come back with.

Well let me just do this real quick.

Are there comments that folks would like to have on the consent package in front of us.

Yes, Council Member Peterson and then Council Member, okay.

So folks, would you like to quickly wrap this up before we go into break?

I think we can and have some comments and then we can come back with the individual amendments.

We can do that.

I have a quick point of order.

Council President, please go ahead.

Yeah, so there has been a motion and has been seconded.

True.

So we just had a description.

So before we break, I do believe that it would be, important to take a vote on the consent package before we, before we break.

So I just wanted to make sure that that was what the order was going to be here after comments.

Let's do that.

Thank you for the reminder.

I think I need to fuel my brain here.

Appreciate you reminding us where we are at in the process.

So we're going to now discuss the consent package that is in front of us.

Again, all items in the consent package except for amendment number 16 are up for our consideration right now.

I saw three hands, starting with Councilmember Pedersen, Councilmember Herbold, and then Councilmember Solan.

Councilmember Pedersen, please go ahead.

I was going to say what Council President Gonzalez said.

Vote on it.

And I do want to make some general remarks about what we're doing here.

But I can save those until we vote on Amendment 16, since that's a big amendment in terms of reducing FTEs.

So I'll wait, because I need to explain myself to my constituents.

And I can just wait till we do that at that point.

But yeah, I was just going to say, let's vote on this consent package.

Let's do it.

OK, thank you, Council Member Peterson.

We'll tee you up first for item number 16 as we get there.

Council Member Herbold, did you have additional comments?

I was just going to say some summary remarks, which as I drafted my summary remarks, unfortunately, are difficult to speak to because I would have to back out the impacts of the amendment that Council Member Lewis has withdrawn.

But I'm going to try to do my best.

In terms of expected reductions to SPD, This package would result in salary provisos on a number of FTEs.

I believe with this package, it would be 54 FTEs within SPD.

with a projected salary savings of $1,000 or $1,434,000.

An additional amendment that we will discuss later is amendment 31 that originally was in the consent package, but we agreed to pull that because there is an amendment related specifically to the police officers assigned to the navigation team, which has a salary savings of about $216,000.

But amendment 31 includes also the entire navigation team.

So again, the consent package includes savings expected from attrition within the department of 30 FTE and specific suggestions of FTE reductions in specific units.

So with this package, we signal our intent that two SPD units be eliminate it entirely, that's the mounted patrol and the school resource officers, and we call out specific areas for very modest reductions, including officers on community outreach, public affairs reductions, homeland security, harbor patrol, and SWAT.

We all know that Chief Best ultimately holds the authority for how to make decisions about how and where these reductions might occur through the process of delivering layoff notices.

The mayor's office holds a great deal of authority about how to bring forward the negotiations associated with these reductions.

And I'm really hopeful, despite the conversations over the last few days very publicly, I am very hopeful that we will find a way to move forward together on the next set of discussions and deliberations associated with implementing the Council's intent here.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Herbold.

Councilmember Council Member Sawant, I did have a note that if you could speak up a little, that would be helpful.

Yes, I'll try to.

Thank you so much for the reminder.

My comments will apply for the whole content package, including amendment 16, which has been removed for discussion.

But as a package, this affects about, and I'm using the word affects deliberately because I wanted to expand on that in a second, affects about a couple million dollars of the police budget.

And I believe that is under 1% of the remaining budget of $170 million of the police for the rest of this year.

So even in the base scenario, you know, without removing any amendments, this is nothing, absolutely nothing like the 50% defund that the community has demanded and that the majority of the council had promised.

Even if one believes that the police department budget cuts could not happen until November, which I don't think is based in reality, but even if you believe that this is only about, this would be, this would amount to affecting about 5% of the budget starting November, not a 50% cut defund of the police budget starting November.

And I use the word affected very deliberately I have to be clear, this package does not actually defund anything.

It is $0.

It instead uses something called provisos.

It's a package of provisos.

And I have supported this as central staff's recitation of all the amendments showed.

I have agreed to co-sponsor all of these because I want to make I want to thank the council for making every effort possible to move towards defunding.

It is also my responsibility to point out this package does not defund anything.

It is a package of provisos.

I strongly believe if councilmembers are serious about this small reduction in the police force, which is not anything like 50%, I don't understand why not Next on the agenda, we will be discussing amendment 54A proposed by my office and the people's budget movement to defund the police by 50% now or $85 million.

And if council members fail to support that amendment, I will move amendment 54B, which defunds the police by 50% starting on November 1st.

I don't agree with the idea that the cuts cannot be made until November.

Let's accept that scenario and at least see if the council will at least support 54B if not 54A.

which is 50% defund starting November 1st.

So if council members who are just actually just worried about the timing with the SPOG negotiation and are honest about wanting to defund the police by 50% and honestly believe that cannot happen until November, then I would fail to understand why you would not support 54B.

So I will be voting yes for these amendments, as I said, because our movement supports every progressive change, no matter how tiny.

I don't know if we will be able to do that.

But I really hope that the council will support amendment number 54. Thank you.

I will just say some closing comments.

Thank you very much to our central staff and to each of our offices.

I know in my office there's been so much work gone into this from Aretha Basu and Sejal Parikh and for all of our teams that have been working together.

to pull forward the proposal in front of you, overturn every rock.

We have additional comments that will come with the remaining amendments, but just wanted to say thank you.

I want to reiterate that the work to achieve the cuts that we're talking about will happen over two budget cycles.

This is a unusual year in that we have a summer budget cycle, and the majority of our conversation that we want to get to will be informed this fall by this community-led research project that is identifying how we get there.

to making sure that we defund SPD by 50% is a goal that has been set out by the community, and we have done everything that we can in the last eight months, which is a very fast period of time, to get, sorry, in the last eight weeks, which is a very quick period of time, to get to the proposal in front of us.

And this will continue over the next few months in front of us.

What we see in front of us once we see the resolution and the chart that goes with it is around a 41% reduction.

This will be in addition to any other strategies that will be in front of us in 2021. At the end of this year, we'll be able to total up the amounts and look over the span of this two years.

And I think what we will see in front of us is a roadmap to transformational change, to really envisioning community safety model that is informed and led by black and brown communities, that prioritizes our communities that have been most influenced by the harm that's been created over generations.

and we recognize that this is not enough yet this year, but we are doing everything we can within our power to move forward to what the community has been demanding us.

I want to appreciate that this is an ongoing conversation that leads us up into the 2021-2022 budget cycle, and also note that in the first 12 days of the protest spanning the period of May 29th to June 6th, we are looking at a lot of money.

A lot of money had already been spent.

21% of the 2020 overtime budget was spent in that period of time.

That is the reality we are faced with.

We are looking at all the rocks and crevices we can overturn to pull money and invest into community organizations.

More to come on this in the fall and more to come on this in the afternoon.

Yeah, I had a question.

I heard you say 41%.

I wonder if you could explain, because I don't understand how something like $2 million could ever be 41% of $409 million.

So if you could elaborate on that.

We're in this dovetails into the conversation that we had on Friday with the chart that was provided on the screen.

We will be bringing back the discussion as it relates to the resolution on Monday.

But very briefly as you heard Dan eater extrapolate or annualize along with all the other central staff each of the provisos each of the transfers each of the cuts that are taking place as we annualize that over the twenty twenty one we will be seeing is north of 40% reduction.

That's just the proposal as it is.

It can continue to be elaborated on and built upon.

We are doing this in a way that helps to scale up community investments as that type of reduction is made.

Thank you, council colleagues.

I think I have not seen any additional hands on this.

I'm not seeing any additional comments.

Seeing no additional comments.

Will the clerk please call the roll on the consent package to Council Bill 11985.

We do have another set of individual amendments that we will

Enjoy your break.

The Select Budget Committee meeting is in recess until 2 p.m.

Thank you so much.