Select Budget Committee Session II 10/27/21

Welcome back to the Seattle City Council Select Budget Committee meeting.

My name is Theresa Mosqueda, Chair of the Select Budget Committee meeting.

Today is Wednesday, October 27th, and the time is 2.01 p.m.

We are reconvening from our recess, which began at 1 p.m.

Madam Clerk, will you please call the roll on the reconvened session here today?

Lewis?

Present.

Morales?

Here.

Peterson?

Here.

Sawant.

Present.

Strauss.

Present.

Gonzalez.

Here.

Herbold.

Juarez.

Oh, thank you.

Juarez.

Here.

And Council Member Mosqueda.

Present.

Nay and present.

Thank you very much, Madam Clerk.

Colleagues, thanks for the conversation this morning.

We are at item number three on our agenda.

As a reminder for our agenda today, we have 11 topics to get through.

If there are any items that we don't get through today, I will be moving those over to tomorrow morning to try to adjourn close to 5 p.m.

tonight, but please do continue to exercise I'm going to turn it over to Tracy after I ask the clerk to read item number three into the record.

Thank you very much.

Welcome back, Tracy.

Good to see you.

Thank you so very much, council members.

I and my glowing colleague, Anne Gorman, will walk you through 14 council budget actions and one walk-on amendment for the Seattle Parks and Recreation Department.

Moving to the very first one, SPR 1A1.

This would add $3.1 million of general fund to Seattle Parks and Rec, Seattle Department of Transportation, and Seattle Public Utilities to extend the Clean Cities Initiative through the end of 2022. To remind Councilmembers that the Mayor's 2022 proposed budget includes $6.2 million of one-time coronavirus funds to continue the Clean Cities program, but only through August of 2022. So this ad would add the additional dollars necessary to take it all the way through the end of 2022. The prime sponsor is Councilmember Juarez, with Councilmembers Peterson and Mosqueda as co-sponsors.

Thank you very much.

Council Member Juarez, please go ahead.

Thank you.

So before I begin, I just want to share with my colleagues in the viewing public, we went back and looked at the PowerPoint presentations that were given to us by the executive and by central staff back on September 30th and October 1st.

So a lot of what I'm sharing is a repeat, but I try to pull it all together to put it all in one place about why we want to move forward with the 3.1.

Thank you, Chair Mosqueda and Councilmember Peterson for your support on this.

So every Monday, I do share with you all the results of this program, which I believe has been successful.

I do this to demonstrate the need in our city and highlight the effectiveness of the program.

The Clean City Initiative has quickly become a vital part of the essential governmental services we provide to our residents in our city.

The Clean City Initiative is part of our city's coordinated response to homelessness Seattle Parks, SPU, SDOT, OED, HSDs, Hope Team, and our county partners at King County Regional Homeless Authority are all working together, sharing information, and solving the problems that we're dealing with now with not only the unsheltered piece, but the cleaning piece of the park, but also finding services for those, our neighbors.

So the city's strategy to address homelessness includes wraparound services, RV remediation, hygiene stations, and with Clean Cities funding, maintaining clean conditions for those who are living in our parks.

The operational component, and I think you remember this from Superintendent Agare when he talked about what the operational component would be for the city family, and that is, again, Seattle Public Utilities, SDOT, and parks is laser focused on cleaning, site restoration, staff safety, and staff training, which goes hand in hand with the social services piece provided by HSD and the King County Regional Homeless Authority.

So as you all know, these last couple of years in particular, we are in a new era with parks where we are working with a half a dozen city departments and with the county to clean, restore, and protect people and parks.

And this is, I have to hand it to parks that they took a hit in the budget last year.

It got replaced by the executive.

We maintained it.

And we've been able to, they've expanded their services far beyond just working at parks with the community centers, what they've done with picking up the trash and the needles.

working with the pre-k program, the food program, what community service centers have become, and of course, the excess and some of the detrimental use and damage to our parks.

So basically, we believe that once folks have a safe and consistency clean living conditions and other basic needs met, that outreach workers can focus on the next steps, which means meaningful shelter and service connections.

So cumulatively, The parks department has cleared 3.6 million pounds of trash over 90 and over 91,000 needles this year.

And again, I share that I was criticized for sharing that.

And the reason why I want to share it is I want the taxpayers to know that the city of Seattle, Seattle City Council, we are working with the county and all of our city departments.

to do our best to clean up as much as we can, and we need the funding from now.

We can't have the funding in August 2022. I really think it needs to go to the end of the year.

As you shared, as Tracy shared, the mayor's proposal only included funding until the end of August.

and so I'm sponsoring this budget action to ensure funding for the program through the end of 2022. And I wanna thank my colleagues on Seattle City Council for being so great about taking in this information, contacting our office, working with parks, SPU and SDOT, a special thanks to Council Member Herbold.

I know SPU is in your committee and they've been great working with us as well as SDOT with Council Member Peterson and Council Member Strauss.

So thank you.

Councilmember Herbold, please go ahead.

Oh, Councilmember Herbold, I could read your lips, but you were on mute.

I just want to add my name as a sponsor to this fund.

Thank you.

Excellent.

I did a good job of reading your lips.

You will be added to Seattle Parks and Recreation Amendment 001. Councilmember Herbold, thank you very much.

Any additional comments or questions?

Yes, Council President Gonzalez, please go ahead.

I'd also like to have my name added, please.

Thank you, Council President Gonzalez.

Council President Gonzalez adding her name to SPR 001. Any additional comments?

Wonderful.

I really appreciate the work you have done, Councilmember Juarez, in keeping us updated and for your leadership on this amendment.

One of the questions that I may have, Tracy, going forward is what potential additional capacities Seattle Department of Transportation, Seattle Public Utilities, and Seattle Parks and Rec may have to even do more.

So not just continue this through the end of the year, but if we were to add additional capacity, what might that look like?

And so it would be a...

I'm happy to work with you offline on that.

I'm sorry, SPR1A1.

I'm so sorry.

Okay, no problem.

Thank you, Council Member Sawant, adding her name to SPR001 as well.

And Council Member Herbold, just double-checking that that's a leftover hand.

Any additional comments?

wonderful.

Thank you very much, all.

Let's go ahead and move on to 002.

Very good.

Moving to 002A01.

This would add $171,000 to SPR to fund an after-school program for resettled kids living at Magnuson Park.

This is sponsored by Councilmember Peterson as the prime and Councilmembers Juarez and Strauss as co-sponsors.

Thank you very much.

Councilmember Peters, please go ahead.

Thank you, Chair Mosqueda.

Colleagues, this modest investment would enable engaging in culturally competent afterschool program for children of low-income families living in and around Magnuson Park with a focus on immigrant families.

I appreciate the leadership role many of you have taken to create additional affordable childcare, and here's an opportunity to provide it immediately where there are over 850 low-income families currently residing at the park.

These families living in solid ground housing, Mercy Magnuson housing, 70% of whom identify as BIPOC, as well as low-income immigrant families nearby.

And this programming would support immigrant children.

It would potentially fund programs such as Kids and Paper, which is a nonprofit for which we've received many emails of support.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

I would like to add my name as a sponsor.

003A1 would add $50,000 of general fund to Seattle Parks and Rec to support adding pickleball court lines to existing tennis courts in the city.

This is primarily sponsored by Council Member Morales with co-sponsors Council Members Swant and Strauss.

Wonderful.

Council Member Morales, please go ahead.

Thank you, colleagues.

I don't know if you've been getting these calls, but we've got a lot of people interested in pickleball courts.

We hear a lot, especially from seniors in the district down here in South Seattle and other communities have reached out regarding the inequity around pickleball court lines.

So this proposal would allow us to add 25 additional pickleball court lines to already existing tennis courts around the city where there is a deficiency.

I will admit, I did not know we had a deficiency, but I met with the Pickleball Association and we have a deficiency.

So I'm excited for the opportunity to begin to address that with this amendment.

Thank you, Council President.

Excuse me, Council Member Morales.

Any additional comments or questions on this?

Moving right along.

Thank you very much.

SPR 004A001.

This would add $250,000 of general fund to Seattle Parks and Rec to fund the Green Lake Small Craft Center redevelopment.

Just to remind councilmembers, the 2022 proposed budget does include $1.25 million in funding for this project in the major projects challenge fund.

This is sponsored by Councilmember Strauss, as well as Councilmember Juarez and Luis as co-sponsors.

Thank you, Councilmember Strauss.

Please go ahead.

Thank you.

And just before I jump in, Tracy, can you confirm that is the correct number?

I understood it to be $750,000.

There's $750,000 that was called out in the budget, but there's also another $500,000 in the major project challenge fund that will go towards this project.

And I think this is consistent with what you had been told earlier this year by the budget director, Ben Noble.

So that is the latest confirmation I got from Seattle Parks and Recreation.

Okay, that is new information to me and always good to receive good news.

And so, colleagues this amendment seeks to help close a budget gap for the Green Lake small craft center, also known as the Green Lake Boathouse.

This is a multi million dollar project that is shovel ready.

and within dollars or inches of being completed.

This is one of two boathouses in the city and serves the entire city.

The other boathouse is located at Stan Sires Park in South Seattle.

Both boathouses needed replacement a decade ago, and the one at Stan Sires was prioritized and renovated first.

The Green Lake Boathouse is the only place in New York, in New York, Seattle, that provides low cost rowing paddling and sailing all in one place as well.

We've had a number of Olympic medal winners coming out of the programs there.

So, That is despite the Green Lake Boathouse in need of serious replacement.

The current facility is not ADA accessible, does not meet seismic safety requirements, lacks proper ventilation and lighting, and is too small for the current usage of the building.

If anyone can picture the stadium seating that is at Green Lake, the workout facility is underneath the stairs.

And so people are cramped underneath the stairs doing their workouts.

For the past eight years, community members have led the campaign to raise money for the new Green Lake Boathouse, and the project is now shovel ready, but pandemic driven cost increases have created this new budget shortfall.

$750,000 of parks funding to support the boat house project.

With Tracy's latest information, it sounds like there might be more money available.

Even with this additional funding, the boat house still faces a $700,000 shortfall.

My amendment does not close the shortfall completely.

for a total of $500,000 impact.

So this amendment, the desire is to use it to be matched and double the funding.

So after eight years of designing, planning, and fundraising, it is important that we support the boathouse in closing this budget cap so that we can break ground before previous donors or grants walk away, and so that we can send more Seattleites to the Olympics to win gold.

Thank you, Chair.

I did have a question just in terms of timing, perhaps for the prime sponsor or for Tracy.

The line in the budget amendment that says Seattle parks and recs is planning to rebid this project after making revisions to the project in an effort to lower costs.

Will we know, when will we know what the new revisions look

You are on mute, Tracy.

My understanding is that the bidding probably will happen after the budget, but there is funding.

I should have mentioned this in the description.

There is additional funding in the major projects challenge fund of about a million and a half that could be tapped both for this project as well as the South Park Community Center.

So there is some additional funds that would be available to help fill a gap.

we're hoping that things haven't worsened.

They think they would have enough with the addition of the funding here proposed as well as the money that's actually in the major project challenge fund.

Let's go ahead and move to the next one.

Okay, moving to SPR 005A01.

This would add a million dollars to Seattle Parks and Rec for a new playground at Violet Commons Park.

The prime sponsor is Council Member Strauss with Council Members Warris and Lewis as co-sponsors.

Thank you very much.

Councilmember Strauss, please go ahead.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Tracy.

This is a budget request for Ballard Commons Park.

And before we get in, I need to just be very clear and set the table that we need to use a Just Care model encampment removal at the park to ensure that everyone's needs are met and that we're able to move people inside and have the adequate number of shelter beds with adequate shelter to get folks inside.

Speaking directly to this amendment, this amendment was originally brought forward in 2019. to create a children's playground at the park.

this amendment seeks to create a more vibrant unique and inviting experience by installing a playground at the park.

on the playground and the park.

So we've already done the first step in 2019. The public outreach and conceptual design stage work was completed in 2019, and this amendment seeks funding to construct the previously engaged upon and planned playground, which is estimated to cost $1 million.

I want to start by saying thank you to councilmember Strauss.

He has grown dramatically over the last decade welcoming thousands of new neighbors and families with more to come as we prepare to welcome white Braille in about a decade.

As more people call a denser Ballard home providing adequate public parks and playgrounds will ensure the neighborhood remains vibrant, welcoming and a welcoming home for families and kiddos.

Thank you, chair.

Thank you for reminding us how long this type of request has been out there as well prior to the pandemic.

An increase in housing stability.

I appreciate your comments as well about the need to make sure that there's a just care type model.

I know that there's a lot of work that was done by LEAD and REACH folks in the neighborhood there.

And obviously, we need to continue to do more so that they have a place to refer folks to for those who need housing.

So thank you.

OK.

$414,000 of general fund to Seattle Parks and Rec for development and construction of a bike and pedestrian trail at Cheasty Green Space.

This is by sponsor is Councilmember Morales with Councilmember Sawant and Straus as co-sponsors.

Wonderful, thank you very much.

Please go ahead Councilmember Morales.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Our office is looking to provide support for a community organization to develop trails at the Chistie Green Space.

Neighbors in the area have been working actually for several years to clear space for mountain bike and for pedestrian trails there.

two loops that are envisioned.

One loop is completed and they're requesting support from parks to complete a second loop.

They'll connect communities and add additional space for folks to recreate.

The project is a collaboration with parks and with Green Seattle Partnership.

They're also working with Mountain Bike.

I'm going to forget the name of the association, but They're working to make sure that the slope and grade and how to lay the trail so that, especially in our rainy winters, it is done well.

And they've also been maintaining existing trails and planting hundreds of trees and plants there every year.

So the work continues and they're looking for support to complete this project.

in what is a very diverse neighborhood and really this would be the only mountain bike trail in the south end so we're excited to get this project completed.

Thank you very much Council Member Morales.

Any additional comments or questions?

I don't know if there's any way to flag items that are on the list.

Tracy, I might ask if you are going through amendments and there are items that are on, for example, the parks levy list or an implementation plan for move Seattle levy or something like that, if there's any way to flag items that are on those other lists simultaneously, that would be great to know how they Thank you.

Okay, yep.

Moving on to SPR 007A001.

This would add $188,000 to Seattle Parks and Rec for community capacity building for the Garfield Superblock project.

This funding would be used to hire or maintain part-time staff at a community organization that supports this project, to pay artist stipends, and to support community events.

This is sponsored by Councilmember Sawant with co-sponsors Councilmember Strauss and Mosqueda.

Thank you very much.

Councilmember Sawant, please go ahead.

Thank you.

And thank you to co-sponsors, Chair Mosqueda and Council Member Strauss.

In the summer of 2021 supplemental budget, the Council allocated $500,000 to support the pre-development costs of the Garfield Superblock.

With those funds, the design and engineering for this important park project is now fully funded.

The lead landscape architect has been contracted to complete construction documents, permitting and bidding for the project.

The mayor's proposed budget also allocates $1 million in parks funding for capital improvements to the Garfield playfield.

This budget amendment would allow the Garfield Superblock to hire or maintain the following part-time staff to maintain their momentum.

A part-time project coordinator, a part-time arts team project manager, a part-time fundraising consultant, a part-time youth coordinator, and a part-time bookkeeper.

The budget amendment also includes funding to allow the Superblock to make available artist stipends and fund community outreach events in 2022. And I also thank Council President Gonzalez who asked to co-sponsor this amendment after we had sent in three co-sponsors.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Council Member Juarez, please go ahead.

Madam Chair, will you please add my name as co-sponsor to Council Member Sawant's request to parks, which I would be supporting.

to be listed as a co-sponsor to SPR-007.

Thank you, Councilmember Juarez.

I want to double check, Councilmember Gonzalez, it sounds like you have already communicated you would like to be added as a co-sponsor as well.

Councilmember Gonzalez, we will go ahead and add your name and if there is any Councilmember, just one question for you.

Kahilo, Council President, did you want to add anything else?

Yeah, I wanted to make sure that I got added on to, hold on just a minute here, 006 and 007, please.

Okay, wonderful.

Council President Gonzales adding her name to SBIR 007 related to Garfield Superblock and 006 related to the She's seeing green space.

Am I saying that right?

Okay.

Thank you.

Um council members so on on the Garfield Superblock, again, thank you for your work on this.

Happy to be a co-sponsor with you.

Just wanted to get a chance to get any additional information you might have about the positions.

$188,000 is clearly not a lot of money, and there's five positions located there.

Do you have any additional information about how those positions maybe will be supported with additional funding and the way to make those sustainable wages?

I absolutely agree with your concern, Council Chair Mosqueda.

I share those concerns and I've had those concerns and we've been discussing with the community members who are advocating for this.

I mean, as of now, these positions are part-time, but I think it would make sense to look into it a little bit and see if there can be less than what we have, I mean more, sorry, not less than, more than what we have right now, which I think even with part-time positions is bare bones funding.

Okay, thanks.

We'll look forward to following up with you with more details.

Council Member Peterson, please go ahead.

Thank you.

I'd like to add my name as a co-sponsor.

on mute that whole time.

Councilmember Peterson, thank you very much, adding your name to SPR 007. Thank you, Councilmember Peterson.

Okay, let's move on to SPR 010, number 10.

Handing it over to Anne Gorman.

Thank you, Tracy.

Good afternoon, Madam Chair and Councilmembers and Gorman Council Central staff.

First thing I'd like to do here for SPR10A1 is note an error in the file in your packet.

We currently show Councilmember Morales as a co-sponsor of this amendment.

That should, of course, be Councilmember Juarez.

Sincere apologies to you both, and thank you for the opportunity to correct that.

SPR10A1 is sponsored by Councilmember Strauss.

This would add $1 million in one-time general fund to Seattle Parks and Rec to support site restoration in city parks and right-of-way areas.

There's been damage to a lot of parkland and facilities due to prolonged use and misuse during the pandemic, and this funding increment would supplement $2 million in one-time funding from the cumulative reserve subfund that is in the proposed budget for the same purpose.

Thank you very much.

Council Member Strauss, anything else to add?

Yes, I'll keep it brief.

And colleagues, the next number of amendments are all mine because I love the park so much.

And just by way of background, there's already, as Ann correctly stated, there's already $2 million in the transmitted budget for parks remediation.

I initially was looking to add $2 million and have been talked down to one, which I think is still appropriate because the remediation efforts in our city park There's so much to do.

This park's remediation funding is distinct from the Clean Cities effort that Councilmember Juarez spoke to just a few moments ago, which is focusing on the city's effort to remove trash and debris.

And we all know of the success because she reports to us on a regular basis.

of the success of Clean Cities.

Park remediation is different.

It includes efforts like replanting and seeding grass, repairing lighting and irrigation systems, and conducting soil remediation for places that have been heavily impacted.

These additional resources are desperately needed to restore the park spaces that we all love.

In my district, there are many parks in need of serious remediation, including Ballard Commons Park that was just discussed, Green Lake Park, and Woodland Park, and I know that if that's the case in my district, it's going to be the case across the city, and that's why I brought this amendment forward.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you very much, Councilmember Strauss.

Councilmember Peterson, did you have a leftover hand there?

Leftover hand?

I'm already a co-sponsor on this.

Thank you.

No problem.

Thank you very much, Councilmember Peterson.

Councilmembers, any additional questions or comments on this?

Wonderful, thank you very much.

Let's move on to number 11, parks.

SPR 11A1, also sponsored by Councilmember Strauss, co-sponsored by Councilmembers Lewis and Peterson.

This would add $430,000 in one-time general funds to Seattle Parks and Rec to support the establishment of a small dog park on a parcel in Ballard that is currently in the SDOT right-of-way.

It would also add a proviso restricting the use of these funds to the creation and the maintenance of the new facility.

That would transfer the site jurisdiction to Seattle Parks and Recreation, which would make improvements consistent with its standard in other city dog parks, for instance, the installation of fencing and plumbing.

Thank you very much.

Council Member Strauss, please go ahead.

Thank you, and did a really wonderful job summarizing this I'll add a little bit more context that the neighbors surrounding this s dot right of way, that is, that has treason is a park like setting.

They've been working on this effort since probably 2016 or 17, because they want to see This amendment would add funding to create a dog park at the Leary Triangle in Ballard.

I've been in discussion with community members since last year about how we can establish future activation of the Leary Triangle, which is currently SDOT-owned land.

Again, I will highlight for the record that there are folks living outdoors there today and currently.

And again, the efforts that I'm discussing here would have to follow a Just Care model the city's brewery district.

This is a very unique response for the record.

It always has to be stated.

When we have engaged with the community, we did a survey and had a statistically significant response rate which is quite astounding.

The leading idea has been a dog park as well as potentially a skate park or a food truck corral activation in the future to create a unique entryway to the city's $430,000 budget amendment would cover the cost of creating the dog park as well as the initial operating and maintenance costs.

Additional operating and maintenance funding would be needed in future years to be dedicated once those costs are better understood.

So what we have, colleagues, is we have a triangular space of land that is not streetscape but is owned by SDOT.

And then adjacent to it, we have a underutilized street.

And so what my request is here is for the triangular section of the SDOT land.

And this would be the first step to then also creating more pedestrian space in the currently used street.

So it's a multi-step process.

And this is the first step in expanding our public space.

I have been in conversation with parks and SDOT about reclaiming the street for use again as a skate park or food truck corral or another community driven request.

This is the first step because we have a known understanding of the triangular space and the desire for a dog park.

Our next step will be reactivating our streetscape to be more pedestrian friendly.

Thank you, chair.

Okay, thank you very much.

Is there any additional comments or questions, colleagues?

Okay, thank you very much.

Let's go on to the next one.

FPR 12A1 is sponsored by Councilmember Strauss, co-sponsored by Councilmembers Morales and Lewis.

It would add $119,000 in ongoing general fund and one FTE Strategic Advisor I to Seattle Parks and Rec to support the Seattle Conservation Corps.

Specifically, this would establish and fund a new position to expand and sustain the Corps' pipeline of projects which enrollees work on.

The proposed new position would be tasked with expanding and sustaining the pipeline of projects that enrollees work on.

It would also initially lead analytical work on expanding the program itself, and then track and report on program outcomes.

And just for some context, the Seattle Conservation Corps provides people experiencing homelessness with training and experience in a structured green jobs program, and enrollees' project work benefits both community members and the environment.

Thank you very much.

Please go ahead.

Council Member Strauss.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you.

And colleagues, this is the budget amendment that I'm the most excited about.

There's really great stuff that we're going to be doing with the Mobile Crisis Team.

Happy to talk about this.

But the Seattle Conservation Corps is one of Seattle's best-kept secrets.

I am BIAS.

I'm an alumni of the National Civilian Community Corps, which is a similarly structured program, but it is an AmeriCorps program, served two years there.

The Seattle Conservation Corps program provides employment and green jobs to people experiencing homelessness.

This is a step out of homelessness with a job.

Typically, the Conservation Corps enrolls about 50 people at a time.

The program is currently ramping back up to typical levels after having to reduce service dramatically during COVID.

In future years, I'm very interested in expanding the Conservation Corps program, both as a strategy to address homelessness and as a conservation effort.

While I initially had wanted to expand the Corps by another cohort, immediately I was told that we need to scale up the program.

And so this amendment seeks to add one FTE to the Conservation Corps to assist with the program administration and to prepare for that future expansion.

This would include identifying more city projects that the Conservation Corps enrollees can be employed on.

and understanding what other changes need to be made before scaling up.

The amendment also requests a report from parks department on program outcomes and opportunities to expand the program in future years.

Again, this is another moment where I'm asking for a report and asking for the funding for the staff to do that report as well.

Thank you, chair.

Thank you, council member Strauss.

Thank you for noting your enthusiasm for this one.

Duly noted.

And are there any additional questions or comments?

Councilmember Peterson.

That compelling pitch, I must sign on as a co-sponsor.

Thank you very much Councilmember Peterson.

Councilmember Peterson adding his name to Seattle Parks and Rec.

Amendment number 12. Thank you.

Let's move on to number 13.

SPR 13A1 sponsored by Councilmember Strauss and co-sponsored by Councilmembers Morales and Lewis.

This council budget amendment would add $361,000 in ongoing general fund and one FTE lifeguard to Seattle Parks and Rec to enhance water safety in and around city beaches and waterfront parks.

In addition to the full-time year-round lifeguard, the proposed funding would also support 14 seasonal full-time lifeguards.

These lifeguards would work on boats in order to provide water safety education, as well as any needed first aid or rescue services to people who are swimming or participating in on-water activities.

Thank you very much.

Please go ahead, Council Member Strauss.

Thank you, Chair.

As Anne well noted, this amendment adds $361,000 to fund 15 lifeguard positions, 14 temporary and one permanent to provide on water safety around the city, beaches and shoreline parks by working from boats.

Two things that I discussed yesterday is one, we need to have a nationally certified third party provide us recommendations and report on what level of service we need.

on our waterways in Seattle.

And this is one of those programs that I believe will fit nicely into that report.

Secondly, I discussed yesterday the recreational use of our waterways has dramatically increased in recent years.

to a point where we just need we need more people on boats.

Putting lifeguards on the water will ensure that there are more eyes on the water and provide more ability to respond to boaters in distress rather than only swimmers near beaches.

I think that there's an important component here with the create with there's Many people are excited and using paddle boards.

Many people are excited and using kayaks.

A lot of people are renting them for one or short time use.

And for folks that are not experienced on the waterways, they can become a very deadly place.

I need to be very transparent with everyone on this call.

We do not have the boats identified to get these lifeguards on the water.

And I'm working, Council Member Juarez sent me a note this morning and I'm working with her to ensure that We have a good pathway forward with this.

We do know that the city currently owns 55 boats.

And if this program is not ready for the expansion of the temporary employees, it will be important.

to study and develop a plan forward for this program to be successful.

And again, as we discussed yesterday regarding the farmers markets line, my last amendment, it's important that if we are requesting reports of this level of significance, we also have an FTE associated with that.

So again, I'll continue working with Council Member Juarez and others to identify the best pathway forward, because this is an incredibly important direction to row to reduce preventable drownings.

Thank you, Chair.

Excellent.

Thank you very much.

Additional comments or questions?

Council Member Peterson, I believe your hand is a carryover from the previous, and I want to thank you very much.

Thank you, Council Member Strauss, for noting your coordination and connection with the parks chair there.

Part of my question was how was this going to be directly related to that statement of legislative intent that you have?

I also identified and so Am I understanding you correct that you are interested in teeing up the availability for these FTEs?

You also recognize that that may be influenced by this statement of legislative intent and the analysis that you're completing.

That's correct.

Okay.

Thank you very much.

All right.

I have a walk-on amendment.

That is our last one here.

Seattle Parks and Recreation walk-on number one from Councilwoman Peterson.

There's actually one more, SPR 14A1, before the walk-on.

Sorry about that.

Didn't mean to cut you off there.

SBA also seeks to enhance water safety by the addition of $725,000 in ongoing general fund and 10 FTE to Seattle parks and rec.

The appropriate job classification for this body of work has not been determined.

So this council budget amendment includes placeholder funding at the park ranger level.

Seattle parks and rec would work with the Seattle department of human resources and the law department to further scope the personnel related aspects of this new program.

Apologies for that.

No, no worries.

Thank you, Chair.

Because these are similar and different amendments, and thank you, Anne, for that clear description, I am agnostic at what level or what job classification this position retains.

Whether it's a ranger or just a parks employee, I'm agnostic.

What is important, and as Councilmember Juarez reminded me today, lifeguards are mostly teenagers here in the City of Seattle.

many other cities, we have adults working as lifeguards, and here in the city of Seattle, we have teenagers.

And that's the important distinction between this amendment and the previous amendment.

This would be for adults, adult employees on boats.

This amendment would provide funding for 10 year-round parks employees to work on boats to provide on water safety parks.

Park employees, rather than lifeguards, will have a broader role, including reminding voters of safe boating practices, providing water safety education to boaters and paddlers, and in addition to assisting distressed boaters or swimmers.

Parks employees would also provide more eyes on the water at a time when we have higher levels of water recreation.

And then this is also has the issue of, like the last amendment, this amendment has the issue of identifying boats for use.

I'll continue working with Councilmember Juarez to fine tune this proposal.

And just as colleagues, this is the third part of a three-part strategy that I'm bringing forward in this budget cycle.

The first being requesting the study for the correct level of service on our waterways and lifeguards on boats to have more lifeguards patrolling our waterways.

And then this one to be able to provide the parks department the assets and resources that they need to keep our water parks safe.

If you think about South Lake Union Park, Gas Works, Golden Gardens, Seward Park, there are a lot of parks that have water adjacent to them.

And it's important for the parks department to also be able to ensure that everyone is behaving safely that we are doing to make sure that we are reducing the number of people in those spaces and reducing preventable drownings.

Thank you, chair.

very much, councilmember Strauss.

I want to note our colleague councilmember Herbold has also asked to be listed as a cosponsor to this item, 014 and 013. Now I think we're ready to move into the walk-on.

Thank you very much, Anna.

This council budget amendment is SPR walk-on one.

It is sponsored by Council Member Peterson.

It would add $190,000 in general fund on an ongoing basis to sustain the current use of the Laurelhurst Community Center and its staffing by Seattle Parks and Rec employees.

The 2022 proposed budget ends Seattle Parks and Rec programming at this facility and converts it from public to rental use.

It also transfers the community center staff to the Rec in the Streets program.

The community center is adjacent to a public elementary school where a significant proportion of students' families are BIPOC and or low-income, and this is also true of community center visitors.

Thank you very much.

Councilmember Peterson, please go ahead.

Thank you, Chair Mosqueda, and thank you, Anne, for that summary.

Colleagues, when was the last time you heard of the Parks Department permanently closing a community center in Seattle with no advanced community notice or outreach?

My earlier amendment request was about adding a program to Magnuson Park.

With this amendment, I'd be asking you to retain an existing community center that's been providing programming for people throughout Northeast Seattle for decades.

recognizing that our city can sometimes be painfully slow on process, it was actually a surprise to me and to the community that the Parks Department and Budget Office decided to suddenly cut this $190,000.

out of the total annual parks department budget of over $283 million, simply to close this one center.

This closure would unfortunately happen at the same time the parks department has kept another community center in northeast Seattle closed for a long, delayed rehab.

In other words, now both community centers would be closed at the same time.

I'm sure you've seen the dozens of emails coming in from community members who are upset with the Dirk administration's proposal to suddenly close this public building to the public.

And I know the community is very open to whatever type of programming is available at the center.

They just want to keep the building open to the public.

Closing the center will guarantee there's no programming for anybody at this location.

So if a majority of my colleagues, I hope you consider restoring this $190,000 if you're not able to do it during this fall budgeting process.

I look forward to working with you all on how best to restore and reopen the center as soon as possible in 2022. Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Peterson, for bringing this forward.

And this is definitely something that we've heard about in our communication from constituent.

I'm just wondering if central staff might be able to remind us a little bit about the history or the why this center was slated for closure from the executive.

I don't have too much background on this.

I'll follow up.

I'll follow up some more.

I think that this decision was made partly because of there are other community centers within a three-mile radius of the Laurelhurst Community Center, and I think that park staff believe that some of the patrons will be able to go to some of those, will be able to go to the other community centers and take advantage of the programming there.

The Laurelhurst Center also is not open and programmed for a large number of hours per week, unlike some of the other community centers.

But I will get some more specific information and follow up.

Okay, and I see Tracy on the line here too.

Tracy, anything to add?

and has done a good job of describing it.

It is a more limited facility.

It doesn't have a gym.

It has only a number of meeting rooms.

It is also just part of the plan for the Parks Department to start delivering some of their recreation programs to other communities where they don't have recreational services.

They started this with the pandemic.

So the staff and the funding that go along with the staff are helping to fund that Rec in the Streets program.

is in fact trying to get to other communities that have no recreational opportunities in the south end and so forth.

So it is their way of beginning to expand recreational activities to other locations in the city.

And they felt like this was a center that has limited capacity for providing recreational services.

And as Anne said, other locations nearby, they felt like this was one where they could make that transition at this time.

Yeah.

I'm going to turn it over to councilmember Morales.

My question has changed now.

Can you just confirm that this isn't, the plan here is not to sell the facility, so it will stay in city ownership, it will just be rented out rather than have sort of regular programming?

That is correct, Council Member.

for rentals.

similar to what we've done with the bathhouse and also at golden gardens with the bathhouse.

those are similar type of limited use facilities that can be rented for various events including activities, weddings, but also different recreational opportunities.

if you had a nonprofit that wanted to operate, they could do something like that with those facilities as well.

I just wanted to address how it was presented in the budget document from the Dirk administration as basically a false choice between this program or that program.

Out of the $283 million, they can do both programs, and I'd be happy to work with the parks department on how to reallocate those funds because they're, and throughout the city budget, it's very inefficient to shut down a program that's been operating for decades.

So thank you for your time.

Thank you very much, Councilmember Peterson.

Okay, thank you, Anne and Tracy, for your work here today.

We are going to move on to our next item of business, that is Seattle Police Department's budget.

Agenda item number four, Madam Clerk, could you please read item four into the record?

Agenda item four, Seattle Police Department for briefing and discussion.

Thank you very much, and welcome, Greg.

I appreciate you being here with us.

I want to just make sure that as we get into the amendments here in front of us, I know that Council Member Herbold was having some connectivity issues, and I want to make sure that she is able to join us if there's any technology concerns.

I want to make sure she's in the lobby that we're grabbing her and getting her into the meeting as well.

Wonderful, I saw her pop in.

Okay, Council Member Hurdle, we didn't want to start this section without you because you are up first.

With that, Greg, thank you for being here.

Thank you for calling me in.

Appreciate it.

No problem.

Wonderful, Greg.

So we are on SPD-001.

Let's start and welcome.

Thanks for joining us, Greg.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Good afternoon, Madam Chair and members of the committee.

Greg Dawes, Council Central staff, here to go over with you seven Council budget actions for SPD, and then there are going to be two walk-ons at the end of this.

And so we'll go ahead and jump right in with SPD 001, A001, which is a statement of legislative intent that is sponsored by Councilmember Herbold, and it's co-sponsored by Councilmember Peterson and Council President Gonzalez.

The statement of legislative intent would request that the Seattle Police Department provide quarterly reports to the Public Safety and Human Services Committee on police staffing over time, finances, and performance metrics.

these are the same reports that SPD has been providing to central staff this year and that central staff has been using to provide the quarterly updates on staffing and financing at the department.

And they would continue to provide those reports through the next year.

Council Member Herbold, thank you for being here with us.

Please go ahead and provide any additional context.

Thank you so much.

I'm a little bit at a disadvantage here.

I am on my phone.

having had my internet go down.

Greg did a great job as always describing this particular request.

It just simply continues the reporting requirements that the council required last year, standardizes them to be quarterly in 2022 in alignment with the central staff's ability to process and analyzing them.

And this will give the council needed transparency into SPD's operations and spending that will allow us to perform our oversight role.

Thank you very much.

And Council Member Herbold, you're coming through loud and clear, and we can see your image.

So thank you for finding an alternative way to join us and be present today.

Thanks for this.

Colleagues, do you have any questions or comments on this first SPD-related amendment?

I have one question, Councilmember Herbold.

I know you have done some requests in the past along the same lines.

Greg can, I think, address some of this, but some of the data, the reports that we've been requesting have been coming in on a monthly basis because that's what we asked for.

But the reality is that central staff has been, although letting us know where all the information is held, they have been sort of doing the analysis around even those monthly reports on a quarterly basis.

So that is one substantive change, but I think it will not in any way hamper or lessen our ability to have physical oversight of those items.

Wonderful.

Greg, anything else?

No, council member that that that's a that's a great summary.

The data is exactly the same.

We get the same level of detail, exactly the same data that we've gotten before.

But hopefully you all won't have to be crunching those numbers and doing the analysis.

OK, great.

Wonderful.

Let's move on to number two.

All right, SPD 002A001 is a statement of legislative intent that is sponsored by Council Member Juarez and co-sponsored by Council Member Herbold and Council President Gonzalez.

This particular statement of legislative intent would request that SPD provide to the Public Assets and Native Communities Committee a report on the department's collection and management of data associated with murdered and missing indigenous women and girls.

The Seattle Police Department was provided with funding and position authority for a strategic advisor one last year to manage data with MMIWG cases and to manage the coordination of data with several different units within SPD to make sure that communication was happening between units on these cases and that data was being exchanged.

And this would simply request a report to make sure that that is actually indeed happening.

Thank you very much.

Council Member Juarez, any additional comments?

Yes, thank you.

I'll be brief.

So the council took a leadership role in instituting a response in 2019 to the National Missing and Murdered Indigenous Report drafted by our own Urban Indian Health Institute, a project led by Abigail Echo Hawk.

The statement of legislative intent would have SPD report to the Public Assets and Natives Committee on how well it has implemented best practices across multiple units to ensure collection, reporting, management, and data of missing, murdered indigenous women and girls.

And now I believe it's missing, murdered indigenous peoples.

I would like the report due May 2022. And let me just, if some of you who were around back in 2019, we were the first city to pass an ordinance for missing, murdered indigenous women and girls patterning it after the federal law.

We passed that in fall of 2019. And SPD, I believe, hired the staff person with subject matter expertise working with United Indians in the Urban Indian Health Institute in 2020. And so we have been meeting almost weekly for a lot of issues, boarding schools, all kinds of stuff, nationally with Secretary Deb Haaland's office.

So I'm really proud to share that the state, other cities, and the federal government are very anxious to see the data that Seattle has – hopefully has collected since we rank number one in the country with missing murdered indigenous women and girls.

So this is more than just a check-in, and I think we saw in the news that we had one woman missing in Utah, whereas in the last – less than 10 years, we've had over 800 missing – murdered indigenous women missing in that state alone.

and nobody went looking for them.

So all that aside, this is why it's really important for our city and particularly for our committee to get this information out and continue working with Abigail Echo Hawk and the Seattle Indian Health Board so we can finish the last report.

And I know that the state convened a more deliberate committee, but I still think ours is pretty good.

So thank you.

and thank you for your leadership on that, Councilmembers.

Morales, please go ahead.

Thank you.

I just want to thank Councilmember Juarez for the leadership that you've shown on this.

I think this is really important, and I know that we are all frustrated and saddened by this continued situation of Indigenous women and girls being I would like to say thank you to the councilmember Morales for adding her name to the list.

I have not forgotten.

As somebody who grew up in Texas I can tell you that Mexican women on the Texas border regularly show up murdered and not very much happens.

I totally understand and would like to cosponsor as well.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

All right, thank you, Madam Chair.

SPD-003A-001 is a proviso that is sponsored by Council President Gonzalez and co-sponsored by Councilmember Herbold and Councilmember Morales.

This is a proviso on $5 million of salary savings, and the Seattle Police Department is very, it is the exact same proviso as one that was, or was in place until very recently in 2021. The CBA assumes that SPD will in 2022 realize up to $5 million of salary savings due to differences between the projected staffing plan and actual staffing plan due either to not enough hires or too many separations.

It is the Council's intent to pass legislation at some point in time during 2022 that would take up to $5 million of salary savings if it is indeed available and held by this proviso.

Yes, go ahead Council President.

Thank you so much, Madam Chair.

So as Greg just described, this proviso would renew the $5 million proviso on salary savings that was imposed on SPD for the 2021 fiscal year.

This is an important budget accountability tool to employ, and as Greg so aptly described, should SPD underperform their staffing plan with less than projected hiring numbers, greater than projected attrition or both, there could be significant salary savings just as there were this year.

So this proviso prevents the department from repurposing those funds for uses such as unauthorized overtime expenses without council approval first.

And as evidenced by the many high-cost proposals for alternative community safety response programs proposed in this budget, I believe that it is critical that we continue to squeeze excess funds from the department for the purpose of funding the expansion of our harm reduction public safety efforts that are also alternatives.

to ongoing law enforcement.

There is one flag that I'd like to raise for you, Madam Chair.

The budget action item as drafted is almost a carbon copy version of the one that we did last year.

There is some language in there that I'd like to have modified.

In particular, I do think that the decisions around lifting the proviso on salary savings should be left to the end of the year as opposed to coming up mid-cycle so that the council has a full sense of what the breadth of the salary savings are going to be, and therefore has a better sense of the collective amount of dollars that would be available for other council priorities in the area of public safety.

If we, for example, commit through the budget action to For example, you salary savings in the mid year or the first quarter supplemental or the second quarter supplemental, we won't at that time have a clear picture of what the totality of the potential salary savings are.

So I'd like to just suggest that the temporally we look at.

I think it's a great way to look at repurposing and evaluating the salary savings proviso at the end of the year as opposed to other periods of time.

Thank you.

I really appreciate Madam President bringing forward this amendment this year.

It is aligned with my hopes that the council moving forward can continue to exercise oversight around the department budget.

My concern with the discussion around lifting the proviso at the end of the year is a concern of what might happen.

I understand that these are provisoed, but we've had some questions around provisoed funds in the past, and I just don't want to create a situation where SPD moves forward and begins to encumber funds and then asks us for permission after the fact.

And I think the timing around lifting the proviso this year, I think in some ways helped, but yet As we know, we did not even capture all of the unspent salary savings for 2021. But we did have the opportunity to redirect some salary savings as well as funds from the 2021 $5 million proviso towards the council's priorities, some of them priorities for SPD, some of them priorities external to SPD, and we did not, well, I shouldn't say we didn't run into a situation.

I think we minimized the harm done in those instances, because there were some instances where the department had basically begun to encumber responsibility for expenses, particularly in the area of technology investments.

And I'm just concerned that if we wait until the end of 2022 to do this exercise, the answer we're gonna get is, yes, those dollars were provisoed, but we've begun to spend them all anyhow in the expectation that council would lift the proviso.

Thanks.

I had a similar question, and I believe that is a question for Greg and central staff.

It's more along the lines of how do we make sure that the department actually adheres to the proviso?

I think that's been an ongoing issue, whether or not the proviso is lifted at certain points in the year, I think is a good flag that you've raised, Council Member Herbold.

Thank you for the concerns around that.

I also just have the general question of How do we ensure that they stay within the proviso and the dollar amounts that we are allocating to the department overall?

Well, thank you, Madam Chair.

So with regard to what Councilmember Herbold was saying, you know, the executive branch can can make commitments on its appropriation authority at any time within the funds that are not provisional.

So as long as the department believes that it can, at the end of the year, elapse $5 million, then it can make commitments up to the authority level that it wants, knowing that it can elapse $5 million at the end of the year and fulfill the intent of the proviso.

I believe that that was the thinking of the department this year when it started making commitments Towards the technology provide towards the technology commitments that it was going to have 5 millions of dollars of savings and that it would be able ultimately to lapse that amount of money anyway.

And in in that sense, they are being held accountable.

because they are spending within their authority, but they are still saving the $5 million that Council would want to have lapse or take back at the end of the year.

Okay, thanks.

Any additional comments or questions on that line of questioning?

Council President, please go ahead.

Yeah, I appreciate Greg saying what he just said, because I agree with the pickle as described by Council Member Herbold.

And I just, because this is a department that is funded by the general fund, for the most part, I mean, there are some grants that they receive that they can only use for grant-specific purposes.

I just, um, I don't know if we can achieve the, the sort of, um, You know, the, the, the sort of dynamic of respecting the proviso, but finding money and other parts of the general fund to encumber.

The dollars in a way that.

That council member verbal described.

I just don't know if we can.

I don't know how to achieve that through a proviso that is only on 5M dollars of general fund.

And I think that that.

That complexity exists regardless of the timing of when the council makes its decision to revisit the proviso.

But I certainly understand the argument that is being made by Council Member Herbold.

But I also, I'm not sure that the timing alone of the reconsideration of the proviso is going to solve for what we have seen the department engage in in terms of how they encumber dollars in other parts of their general fund that we have not provided.

Follow up on this item before going to Council Member Morales.

My question is actually around the same issue.

Okay, go ahead Councilman Morales, why don't you put it on in there.

So I was going to ask sort of the same question about this and about number six, which is whether, and it doesn't sound like they do, whether either of these actually abrogates the positions as they become And I think we've had this conversation in the past, but I think that that is how we deal with this issue as we are talking about shifting the way we allocate resources, the way we invest in upstream preventative alternatives for community safety.

At we baseline, you know what dollars used to be in the general fund baseline for SPD get shifted to baseline general fund for community safety or for health or for participatory budgeting.

So I think that is the kind of structural change in how we allocate what general fund looks like.

that community is asking us for and that I think we have all agreed is part of the solution.

So I am eager for us to get to the part of the conversation where we decide that there is going to be some abrogation of some number of positions and that that funding will be made available as baseline for these other preventative measures that we wanna be taking.

Yeah, Council Member, thank you, Council Member Morales.

In answer to your question, no, none of the positions, the 134 that are currently producing salary savings are being abrogated by any of these actions.

The money, the vacancy savings for all of those positions, however, is being spent either by the department or by these actions.

So abrogating the positions would not create any more money in this budget.

But you do, however, note the policy consequence of abrogating those positions in future budgets.

The executive would not fund positions that aren't there, and so there wouldn't be salary savings in the SPD budget for them to repurpose for other things.

Okay, I think Councilmember Herbold has a follow-up question, and then we'll go to Councilmember Solan.

Thank you.

In response to Madam President's comments, I totally agree that having the conversation around how to spend a potential $5 million in salary savings earlier in the year does not solve for the problem that we're describing.

I do have the sense that it reduces the scale of the problem.

And that is my goal in having that discussion earlier.

I'm wondering, Greg, if you could speak to what happens if the department spends everything but that $5 million and then needs to pay people at the end of the year, for instance, for you know, separation pay or long-term leave or some of the things that we've been asked to pay for at the end of the year.

Thank you, Councilmember, I think what you're I think what you're implying there is that they.

That they overspend their budget that they.

That they indeed don't leave $5,000,000 that they they have intent to leave $5,000,000, but they get to the end of the year and they wind up needing it for these things that you've mentioned.

Is that correct?

uh...

the questions it's uh...

you're rephrasing the question may be more accurate that question as has been suggested to me by another is that i should ask uh...

whether what happens if they spend everything but the five million in need that five million to pay people at the end of the year which i think is a slightly different it i think it would be that they would need to go to the five million to pay Rather than allowing the council to have that sort of conversation about what its priorities are, they would come to us and argue, we have these costs associated with paying people that we have no discretion about paying.

I'm sorry, I was just, it wasn't soaking in the right way.

To be clear, they would spend the money, they would pay the people, and they would create an exception.

They would create a legal exception, they would overspend their budget, and the council wouldn't get the $5 million, and that would be something that would have to be legally fixed through legislation in the following year.

Allie, anything to add to that?

Yeah, I would just add, I think it can play out in two ways.

One is that they are reaching the end of the year and they come to the council with legislation and ask you to lift the proviso because if you don't, they will run out of money, which is in fact the situation that we found ourselves in at the end of last year and then still continue to have issues.

So I think it either is that they just overspend their budget, as Greg described, and ask for an exception in the following year, or they ask you for either to lift the proviso or increase their appropriation authority, which both things were occurred in 2022. So it is a challenge.

But I think I'm hearing some consistency in what people hope to achieve.

And I think there is a way to try to find a middle ground here.

And Greg and I can talk more about how best to construct this proviso to achieve the goals that Council President Gonzalez is outlining, which is before we make decisions about how to repurpose funds and all of those things, let's have a better sense of where we're really going to end the year, but also not create a situation where council is in a difficult situation to do anything but lift the proviso or increase appropriation.

So I think there's a little bit more thinking we need to do on how best to achieve the goals here.

Perfect.

Thank you.

And I know that consumer salon has her hand up just to sort of put a fine point on what you just said, Ali.

Like, I agree that we need to continue to have the highest degree of budget accountability possible.

But I also I also want to know how big the pot is so that we have an idea of of of what what realistically the salary savings are in this area.

And if there is a way to accomplish that earlier in the year, then I'm all in for that.

But I just I'm having a hard time.

Finding a way to have a.

High level of confidence and how big that pot of savings is going to be.

you know, so early on in the year or mid-year.

But you all are greater experts on this than I am, so perhaps you might be able to guide us in the right direction.

I appreciate the follow-up work that will happen on this.

Thank you for the discussion, Council Member Sawant.

I'm going to turn it to you.

I do want to note as well, colleagues, we have a handful more on SPD, and then we have a whole slew of other departments.

And my hope was that we were going to have SPD wrapped up by 3.30.

So let's keep going here after this last comment.

And Council Member Herbold, I'm thinking your hand is a carryover, so I'm going to hand it over to Council Member Sawant to close us out.

Thank you.

I just have a question for For Greg last year during the budget votes, there were several provisos put on the SPD budget with the stated intention to use SPD salary savings to support community investments instead of the bloated police budget.

And those provisos were presented to The community to the black lives matter movement as support for community match and those were important, but my understanding is those providers were lifted the supplemental budget by the by the Council majority and the SPD cuts at that time or less than the $5.4 million.

and the council had promised to cut to make up for the $5.4 million.

The police went over budget in 2020. So the question is, is this meant to do the same as what those provisos were meant to do last year?

Or is there something more substantive beyond that in this case?

I would also add that council members have been asking what happens if the police overspend their budget again.

And my opinion is, of course, the only answer is that they will continue to do that, continue to overspend as long as the council keeps giving them the money that they overspend.

So I think that it also begs that question of what the council should be doing in terms of addressing the overspend.

That happens year after year.

Thank you.

I think with regards to the $5 million of salary savings, the proviso that was on the budget for this year, that was released in the midyear supplemental at the same time that the midyear supplemental transferred out of SPD about $5 million of general fund to pay for other council priorities and the alternative forms of police response, including, I believe, $3 million in community investments.

So in one way, I think that the $5 million proviso that was holding $5 million of salary savings, it was released at the same time that $5 million was redirected out of SPD.

I don't think that those two things had any I don't mean to suggest that there was a cause and effect there.

It might have been circumstantial, but there was a hold on $5 million.

And in the end, the council redirected $5 million.

So those two things did happen.

There were other holds on the police department budget.

There was a hold regarding potential $2.5 million for layoffs that out of order layoffs that the council was looking for.

Those layoffs did not occur because labor laws did not allow for out of order layoffs.

And there was also a $500,000 proviso that allowed, that was asking for a report that was subsequently turned in.

So those provisos were released and the only thing left was that $5 million proviso that was released in lieu of that $5 million transfer.

So that's the history of the provisos this year.

Okay, thank you very much.

And Greg, the takeaway that I got there was that the $5 million proviso led to a $5 million cut.

When we realized that those dollars were available, we freed those up and redirected them, as you just noted.

So thank you very much for the robust discussion on this.

And Council President, thank you for bringing this forward again.

We'll move us on to SPD number four.

All right, SPD 004A001 is another proviso.

It is a proviso that restricts $2.5 million on $5 million of technology expenditures that the department plans to make.

This particular proviso would withhold $2.5 million until the council passes another ordinance to lift it and anticipates that the council would not pass that ordinance until SPD provides more detailed information about the costs and the benefit of those technology projects and provides for each one of those technology projects a specific project plan that is consistent with best practices.

Then the CBA lists a number of best practices that should appear in the report.

The CBA also recognizes council's intent that the department should focus its initial spending the two and a half million of authority that it has on the six projects in a manner that prioritizes consent decree reporting, officer wellness, and evaluation of the Nick Jr. report on calls for service analysis.

Thank you, Council President Gonzalez.

Well, I think Greg said it all.

I just sort of wanted to remind folks that we had had a discussion about these various technology needs at the October 5th issue identification presentation related to the Seattle Police Department.

And there were a lot more questions than there were answers during that presentation, not because of a lack of analysis, good, strong analysis by our central staff analysts, but just because we just simply don't have the information we need from the department to to have a clear understanding of what these proposed technologies are, some of which are completely new ideas and projects that have never previously come before the council.

And in some instances have never been utilized, including biometric technology and other sort of similar types of technologies.

So I do think it's important for us to take a more judicious approach here and to be utilized for some of the higher priority technology projects, but require some further study and evaluation on some of the other technologies identified during that presentation.

Thank you very much, Council President.

Any additional questions or comments?

Seeing none, let's move on to SBD number five.

All right, sbd005A001 is sponsored by Councilmember Herbold and co-sponsored by Councilmember Lewis and Councilmember Gonzalez.

In this particular council budget action, there is a proviso on SPD that would restrict $200,000.

regarding the add of community service officers.

SPD has said that it typically takes four to five months to hire new community service officers.

And as you may be aware, they are adding a new squad in this particular 2022 budget.

And this particular CBA would put a hold on 200,000 to see if the new squad can be hired.

And if it can't be hired in the first three months, then the council could pass legislation to take back this $200,000 that wouldn't be needed for the first three months of funding for those CSOs.

Thank you very much.

Could not find my mute button.

Council Member Herbold, please go ahead.

Thank you so much.

I originally proposed this as a cut, as we often do, when the proposed budget assumes a full year's funding for new hires, given the fact that most new hires in a new budget year take a few months to bring on board.

but in an abundance of caution and in my efforts to get sponsors for this popular program, I really support adding the new unit.

This is in no way a suggestion of concern or a lack of support for another CSO unit.

It's really just, my original proposal was really just in recognition that we often, when the mayor's proposed budget comes to council, make that sort of adjustment in order to find salary savings.

But again, because of my desire and need to get sponsors for this item, I did structure it as a proviso instead of a $200,000 cut.

Thanks.

Thank you, council member.

Are there any additional questions on 005?

Okay, let's move on to 006.

All right, thank you.

SB006A001 is a council budget action sponsored by Council Member Herbold, and it's co-sponsored by Council Member Mosqueda and Council President Gonzalez.

This is an omnibus council budget action.

It consists of a number of parts, and I will go over each part individually.

If need be, I can pull the CBA up on the screen and slow down and go over each part with more care, but we'll take a shot at it.

It starts out by cutting $4.53 million from the SPD budget and imposes a proviso.

The first part of that cut is a salary savings cut.

If you'll remember from my issue paper presentation, there is approximately $19 million of salary savings in SPD this year due to officer separations.

And SPD has proposed to spend, as part of its 2022 budget, $17.9 million of that salary savings.

And so that leaves about 1.1 million of salary savings that is unprogrammed in the budget.

And as the first part of this cut, there is a cut of 850,000, a piece of that 1.1 million that would be cut.

And then the rest of that 1.1 million, which is 250,000, would be left in the department for the department to be able to spend on its relational policing program.

And then the rest of it would be kind of freed up for council priorities.

So that's the very first part of the cut.

The second part of the cut is a cut of overtime savings.

And that cut is $3.2 million.

The cut is made because the council expects that the department will implement efficiencies that will reduce the demand for overtime.

And that could occur whether the department finds staffing reductions on events or demonstrations where safe and feasible for officers and participants.

That is the preference of the council as stated in the intent, and also that the department track overtime staffing for demonstrations and events as a separate category for overtime.

So that is a $3.2 million component to that cut.

There is a $175,000 component to that cut that is for travel and training savings.

Again, because the council expects that the department will implement service efficiencies that will reduce the demand for travel and training.

That cut amount and the remaining budget in the travel and training budget is the exact same as the amount that was cut and remaining in 2021 from Budget Action SPD 013B002.

And then the last part of that action is a discretionary purchase cut for $300,000.

And here again, the council expects that the department is going to find deficiencies in purchasing and be able to absorb that cut.

And here again, that cut is the same level of cut, leaving the same level of budget that SPD had in 2021. The cut is mirroring the cut that is made in SPD-014A-003.

So with that, I'll stop and ask if there are any questions.

Thank you very much and very comprehensive.

I want to thank you and Council Member Herbold for your comprehensive look at where there's the possibility to make these adjustments.

Council Member Herbold, anything to add?

Sure, thanks.

I just want to be really clear for the viewing public and my colleagues that these cuts do not impact SPD's hiring plan, which remains fully funded in the 2022 budget.

It does strive to cut $850,000 of the $1.1 million in salary savings that SPD has themselves identified.

And it invests the balance in the relational policing program per the request of Chief Diaz for a training program that precedes cadets going into the academy and sends those recruits into community for 45 days before they go to the academy.

Again, giving them the opportunities to meet directly with community leaders, activists, and young people impacted by law enforcement.

The goal is that this experience becomes a lens through which they receive their academy training when they go there.

The total cost has been estimated by SPD to be $2 million over two years, but SPD is seeking outside funding in this allocation.

of $250,000 would serve as an internal match.

As it relates specifically to the overtime funding, again, this is half of the amount that the council cut from overtime last year.

And it reflects our intent that the police department, where safe and feasible, provides less intensive policing of First Amendment demonstrations in particular.

and prioritizes public safety over protecting overtime.

And this is also, as it relates to staffing demonstrations, it's consistent with the SPD crowd control policies promulgated by Chief Diaz this year.

As it relates to staffing events, It requires the police department to prioritize overtime staffing reductions on both events and demonstrations.

And as it relates specifically to the events, it's consistent with council stated preference that PEOs be used to staff events when it is consistent with the existing SPOG, SPEOG, MOU.

with the understanding that we are looking at the issues in the MOU itself as well.

As it relates specifically to travel and training, again, this is the same amount that the council cut last year.

Though it cuts $175,000, it maintains $925,000 available to the police department.

for travel and training.

And then similarly, discretionary purchases.

The $300,000 is a very modest cut, same amount that we cut last year, and leads $4.1 million to SPD for discretionary purchases such as office supplies, equipment, software, furniture, et cetera.

Thank you.

Again, thank you very much Council Member Herbold for bringing this forward and the work that you and central staff have done to analyze these options.

Council Member Sawant, please go ahead.

Just wanted to add myself as a co-sponsor to this amendment.

Council Member Sawant, adding her name to SPD-006.

Thank you, Council Member.

Any additional comments or questions?

All right, let's go ahead and move on to number seven.

All right, SPD-007A-001 is an action that would cut $1.09 million general fund from SPD for hiring incentives, and it would add that $1.09 million to finance general.

and hold it pending recommendations from a report that would be made on citywide hiring incentives, a program that might be implemented to provide citywide hiring incentives rather than just incentives in SPD.

The report would be produced by the city budget office and the Seattle Department of Human Resources and would be provided to the governance and education committee.

Excellent, thank you.

Council Member Herbold, please go ahead.

Thank you so much.

As I've spoken to in past meetings, we've been hearing from multiple city departments about their need to hire for vacant positions and their difficulties in doing so.

This would cut the funding proposed for hiring retentions exclusive for SPD and preserve the resources for a possible future citywide hiring incentive program.

The action requests a report from the budget office and human resources that includes an analysis on the need for a citywide hiring incentive program with a focus on vacancies in frontline positions, vacancies that cause service disruptions, and vacancies that inhibit a department from fulfilling a core function.

The report would include recommendations on strategies to address these hiring difficulties, and a race and social justice analysis on those recommendations.

I just, to add, you know, I think taking a look at this citywide is necessary, not just because we know that people are leaving their jobs, all different types of jobs, whether or not they're public sector jobs or private sector jobs, and that there are vacancies across different employment sectors.

And we've known that for a while.

I think the loss of some city employees as a result of the vaccine mandate also illuminates the need to potentially work harder to fill those additional vacancies that have been created associated with the city employee vaccine mandate.

We talk a lot about the vacancies in the police department and the vacancies in the fire department.

Recently learned, and I think we heard a speaker this morning speak to the fact that there are a lot of vacancies at 901. At this particular moment in time, I believe the vacancy rate is 40% of their funded positions.

But then there are also vacancy rates in departments that are out there to ensure that people who rely on city-funded services get those services.

And so that can include grant monitors in our hum and and and folks whose j seen this year, right?

We when we haven't seen the we're allocating, getting enough.

Some of that has There are people that need to do the functions that make it possible to get our dollars out the door into the hands of people who need those funds for housing, food, and other services.

Thank you, Council Member Herbold.

Council Member Morales, then Council Member Peterson.

Thank you.

I do first just want to say thank you to Greg, who has always been so patient in answering all of these questions for us, sometimes answering the same question over and over again.

So thank you.

It sounds like you're getting sick, so I hope you get a chance to rest this weekend.

Madam Chair, I just wanted to sign on as a co-sponsor for this, please.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Morales.

Council Member Morales adding her name to SBD007.

Council Member Peterson.

Commissioner Mosqueda, I support keeping the hiring incentives for SPD and also looking at how to fill vacancies throughout all the city departments so that we're functioning at the sufficient staffing levels throughout all departments.

I'm not understanding why we would have to, if we know there's a need in one department, why we have to cut there.

Why not just add to the exploration of how to hire more folks in the city family and staff up?

So I would not be supporting this.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Peterson, Council Member Lewis, then Council Member Sawant, Council Member Lewis.

Thank you so much, Madam Chair.

I appreciate us taking this new approach because I think we need to remember that we're actually looking at to a certain extent creating permanent something that was sort of a pilot in a sense when we created the first police incentive hiring program to see if we could increase the police recruitment rate by offering a one-time signing bonus.

That was a temporary program and we know that because there is accompanying legislation to this proposal to to come back and have the legislation to authorize this incentive program.

I think actually, given our current posture in the pandemic, where we have seen that the pandemic has had a big impact across a number of city departments, obviously, and rightly so, the Seattle Police Department gets a lot of attention for the issues and being able to hire and retain.

But a lot of our city departments have been experiencing those same pressures.

As Council Member Herbold mentioned, we did hear this morning from someone from the 911 call center, which I know has had very big morale.

issues throughout the pandemic, given how hard that job is, given the staffing crunches that they're experiencing.

We know that the fire department has actually been slowed down a little bit in standing up the new HealthONE vehicles because the latter companies have to come first in terms of staffing, and that means getting more fire recruits in the door.

The pandemic has been really hard on all of our first responders, and that is leading to an across-the-board challenge to maintain adequate staffing and all of our first response capabilities, including the police.

If we're gonna go forward and restore this policy of having a hiring incentive policy, which I think is a good idea, and I was one of the council members to vote for a similar proposal earlier this year.

I do think that it would be worth it to take a look at how we can expand that higher incentive to meet a lot of our public safety and first response crunches, including in the police department, and the police department is envisioned as being.

one of the departments that would be able to access this money.

This is not taking it away from the police and just giving it to other offices.

This is looking at a way that we can have a broader incentive policy that is broadly going to bulk up and build up our first response capability as a city at a time when it's desperately needed.

So, you know, I appreciate, you know, as another consideration that there were four council members to vote for the hiring incentives earlier this year when council member Peterson brought a proposal, council member Kerbold was not one of the four at that time, but promised at the time to, innovate and bring forward a proposal that she would support.

And I appreciate Council Member Herbold doing so and coming forward with a way to get to five votes on a proposal to have a hiring incentive system that centers our entire first response.

So I am happy to sign on to this and support this and look forward to having a policy that really reinvigorates our first response staffing here at the city.

Thank you very much Council Member Lewis.

Council Member Lewis adding his name as a co-sponsor to SPD 007. Council Member Sawant, please go ahead.

Thank you.

I just want to add a few points to make about this amendment.

I'm not sure about co-sponsoring because I don't want to give hiring incentives to police also, but I just wanted to say a few things that are relevant just for the record.

It is really shocking that the mayor has proposed over a million dollars for hiring bonuses for the police.

First, let's be clear about the double standard we're talking about, social workers who support helping people turn their lives around, get paid less than half of what Seattle police officers are paid.

And the mayor claims that she cannot set up more homeless shelters because the agencies cannot get enough staffing.

Well, the reason you cannot get enough staffing is because these jobs are unsustainable and the turnover rate is just stunning in social work precisely because we need jobs that are funded through of wages and benefits that allow people to sustain themselves and their families.

So the question is, where are the hiring bonuses and retention funds for social workers?

It's not a surprise also that there is low morale among police officers.

Over the last year, we saw the igniting of the nation's largest street protest movement following the murder of George Floyd at the hands of the police.

And then we saw the police departments in various cities, including Seattle, tear gassing our communities, macing children in the face, running over protesters' heads with bicycles.

And all that is in addition to the normal violence that is faced at the hands of the police by communities of the working class, communities of color, especially disproportionately, and generally a use of, you know, a status quo, a normal status quo of repressive policing.

Of course, there is low morale among police officers when ordinary people are correctly, completely outraged by the role that the police play.

And that's, of course, come much more to the fore because of the Black Lives Matter movement from last year.

So the solution, if the police officers want to find a solution, is not to pretend that outrage doesn't exist.

The police, the solution for us is to hold the police departments accountable.

And I think in that context, it is extremely important for us to note that an elected oversight, you know, independently elected oversight board that will have full powers over the police is extremely important.

And we should also keep in mind more immediately that the police are currently negotiating their contract The background of this contract is the 2018 police contract vote by the city council, where I was the only council member to vote no on a contract that walked back the meager steps towards police accountability, and in the face of an entire community pleading with the council to not approve that contract.

So when we talk about accountability, we need to wait for contract negotiations.

But the mayor proposes to give the police hiring bonuses before a contract is agreed.

No doubt she will turn around and say, oh, too bad.

We tried very hard.

They would not agree to accountability measures.

So in reality, unless elected officials really push back against this, elected officials are also complicit in police contracts that prohibit accountability or are an obstacle to accountability.

And proposing hiring bonuses by the mayor is really an example.

I proposed a similar amendment, which appears as a walk-on amendment because it did not have the requisite three co-sponsors.

And I'm speaking to this issue now.

I do not think I'll need to speak to it again.

Okay, that's what I was going to ask you.

at the end of this section of the agenda.

Okay, thank you for taking that up.

We do have two additional walk-on amendments that are specific to retention incentives.

So thank you, Council Member Sawant.

Your comments also pertain to walk-on number two.

I understand from your last comment there.

Okay, any additional comments here on 007 SPD?

Hearing none, let's move on to the walk-on amendment, Greg.

All right, thank you, Madam Chair.

SPD walk-on one is brought to you by Council Member Peterson.

It adds 2.14 million general fund to SPD for a one-time retention incentive program in the form of frontline worker acknowledgement or hazard pay.

It would support a cash payment of up to $1,750 per sworn officer.

Thank you, Council Member Peterson, please go ahead.

Thank you, Chairman Mosqueda.

Colleagues, you may recall earlier this year I attempted to offer legislation through the mid-year supplemental budget process with options to retain our remaining SPD personnel because we've lost 300 officers and detectives over the past 18 months and 911 response times have increased.

One of those financial proposals earned four votes.

At that time, I believe a couple of council members pointed to this bigger fall budget process as a better, more comprehensive setting to address these issues, the ongoing staffing crisis there.

So I'm reintroducing today this concept of retention for frontline officers and detectives, specifically asking the council to consider 2.1 million for retention programs, as Greg mentioned.

That would average to $17.50 per officer, which I think was similar to what was offered to other frontline workers recently.

While hiring incentives are also important as we compete with jurisdictions across the country to recruit new officers, it takes over a year to recruit, hire, and train new officers, and many months to train lateral hires from other departments.

So to mitigate the trend of detectives and community policing officers leaving at alarmingly high rates, We can take this concrete action to retain these city government employees already serving Seattle.

This retention strategy is commonly successful in the private sector as well.

While we await alternative emergency response programs to be developed and implemented, and while we wait for hired officers to get through the academy and all their subsequent training, I encourage us again to consider this concrete action to take now to retain detectives.

We need to investigate crimes, entertain community police officers who help to prevent crimes.

We also just want to, while I have the floor here, to encourage us to accelerate the process to revamp the police union contract so that we can deepen and expand accountability reforms.

That contract expired 11 months ago.

Thank you for your consideration of this.

Thank you.

Council Member Herbold, please go ahead.

Thank you.

Council Member Peterson is correct that I was a person who had said that I was willing to entertain appreciation pay and thought maybe the budget might be a better time to raise that issue.

But that was because I was hoping that we would hear from more within the context of our conversations at NLRPC about the SPOG's position on appreciation pay.

Just want to remind everybody that SPOG is not part of the mix on the approved agreements regarding appreciation pay.

Despite the fact that the city offered the same package to each of the unions, SPOG was the only union not willing to entertain the city's offers.

The city reached out with tentative agreements with each of the other unions that the council then approved.

And that's really the process by which this council approves appreciation pay is after it is negotiated with the labor union.

I think it would be very, very inappropriate for us to move forward appreciation pay in this budget process outside of the LRPC process.

And I also agree with Council Member Peterson's points about hoping we can expedite those conversations, but also want to remind the viewing public that we do not have labor relations and also the L.R.

personnel who are charged with negotiating the SPOG contract, that position is now vacated as well.

Thank you.

Thank you for that context as well, Council Member Herbold, as Chair of Public Safety.

Council Member Peterson, thank you for summarizing amendment block on number one related to SPD.

Any additional comments or questions?

Hearing none, thank you.

Let's move to number two, which Council Member Sawant spoke to as well.

Greg, any additional context for us on this one?

Not too much, Council Member.

Not too much.

SPD Walk-On 2 brought to you by Council Member Sawant.

It would cut the $1.09 million for hiring incentives and make it available for other council priorities.

Thank you very much.

And Council Member Sawant, thank you for adding your comments as well as it relates to this topic from the last official walk-on, excuse me, the last official amendment submitted.

Any additional comments and questions on this?

Hearing none, I want to thank you, Greg, for your work with us on this large section.

And we're going to move on to item number five.

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

I think we can do this.

Lisa K great to see

Thank you, Chair Muscat and I assist you too.

I'm Lisa Kaye on your central staff.

CSCC 1A1 would add approximately $1.8 million general fund and 26 FTEs to increase community safety and communication centers existing dispatch operational capacity.

A 2016 staffing analysis found that 9-1-1 call center, SPD's 9-1-1 call center should have 169 FTEs based on its workload at that time.

As you know, the call center has since been moved to the CSCC.

It currently has 140 funded positions of which 20 are vacant, and the executive is making process changes to fill its vacancies more quickly.

The 2022 proposed budget does include $150,000 to fund a technical and operational study of the 911 center that could update the 2016 analysis.

I'll hand this over to Council Member Herbold.

Thank you, Council Member Herbold.

Thank you so much.

As mentioned before and heard in public comment, the 911 call center is facing challenges due to staffing shortages in line with other first responders.

The high vacancy rate has led to a significant amount of mandatory overtime hours, which are not always filled, as well as the additional use of sick time.

The 2016 Kimball staffing analysis report recommended that the call center, which of course was in SPD at the time, should have 169 positions.

This is 29 more positions than the current 140. So this action would add 26 in line with the 2016 staffing analysis and provides six months of salary for the 26 positions.

I want to note that this is scalable and it's potentially could be funded.

We're asking questions about this.

It potentially could be funded with funds available from current vacancies in the department because there's a sort of a two-fold that we're trying to address here, both that there are vacancies that are unfilled, as well as that there aren't enough slots for additional positions.

So just wanna note that according to the CSCC regional facilities, with the exception of the Fire Alarm Center, are running vacancy rates of about 15 to 30%, And what is, I think, I understand is a 40% vacancy at CSC makes our center an outlier here.

And just really think that this is something that we need to pay serious attention to.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

And Council Member Lewis, please go ahead.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I just want to voice my strong support for this.

Making sure we have a strong, robust, and well-supported call center is going to be essential to stand up alternative first response.

It's also essential under our current system to dispatch any kind of first response capability.

Our dispatchers, as was indicated in public comment today, are the first responders, the first people that someone in crisis is connected to.

And we need to make sure that we are keeping that asset fully staffed and able to get the job done.

Excellent.

Thank you very much.

Council Member Peterson, please go ahead.

Thank you.

I'd like to sign on as a co-sponsor.

Thank you, Council Member Peterson.

Council Member Peterson adding his name to CSCC001.

Thank you.

Hearing no additional comments, Council Member Herbold, anything else you'd like to add?

No?

Okay, great.

Thank you very much, Lisa.

I'm so sorry.

Go ahead.

I do have a question for Lisa.

Lisa, much like we have done with the fire department, where we provide funding for sort of an additional recruit class, so that can help speed up hiring.

Is there anything that's possible to be done for CSCC in that same sort of spirit?

Council Member, I've had some conversations with Interim Director Lombard about this, and they are, the way that they're trying to address this is by having ongoing recruitment basically.

So instead of recruiting every few months, they are accepting applications all the time.

I think there are some challenges about adding a recruit class based on capacity and the impact on the operations since a lot of the training takes place in the actual facility.

So I think there's ongoing conversations about that and I got the feeling that the director would be willing to talk about that a little bit, but they have taken, I think, a little bit different approach to this.

Thank you for that question, Council Member Herbold.

Looks like more work to come.

Thank you, Lisa, for being here today with us, and I will ask the clerk to read in item number six and to the record.

Agenda item six, Seattle Fire Department for briefing and discussion.

Thank you.

Good to see you again, Anne.

Please go ahead.

Thank you very much, Madam Chair and council members.

This is item SFD 1A1.

It is sponsored by Council Member Herbold and co-sponsored by Council President Gonzalez and Council Member Lewis.

It would add 1.5 million in one-time general fund to the Seattle Fire Department to support the training of 20 additional firefighter recruits in 2022. SFD's base budget includes funding for 60 recruits per year.

Some background as of Monday, the 25th, SFD had 81 firefighter vacancies with at least 10 more expected by the end of the year due to planned retirements.

This is a higher number of vacancies than SFD typically has at this time of the year.

And they also anticipate that there will be some firefighter separations due to the city's vaccine mandate.

I also want to make sure that council members are aware of an update to SFD's recruit school plans.

I learned from them on Monday that they plan to hold two simultaneous recruit classes of 30 in March in order to get more new firefighters trained and ready as early as possible in the year.

We'll make this change to the council budget amendment.

Thank you very much.

Council Member Herbold, please go ahead.

Oh, Council Member Herbold, you're still on mute.

There we go.

Sorry, no, I was multitasking here and couldn't get over time.

Sorry about that.

So yes, this action would create an addition of 20 firefighter recruits to address a higher than usual vacancy rate with higher separations occurring during 2020 and 2021 than during the previous five years.

There have been over 70 separations.

during 2021 and there were 70 last year compared to an average of 53 from 2015 to 2019. Last year, the council added back 20 recruit positions that were removed in the mayor's proposed budget.

And I'm proposing that we do so again.

So funding a recruit class is an important step to address these vacancies, thanks.

Thank you very much, Council Member Herbold.

Please go ahead Council Member Szilagyi.

I just wanted to indicate my desire to co-sponsor this amendment, and also I'll go ahead and say I would like to co-sponsor the next one, the upcoming one as well.

Okay, this one and the next one, Council Member?

Yes.

Okay, great.

Council Member Sawant adding her name to SFD002, and also Council Member Sawant adding to 003. I'm sorry, Council Member-

001 and 002.

Thank you very much.

Okay.

So I'm adding her name to SFD 001 and 002. And on 002 related to the Health 1 team, thank you, Council Member Herbold, again, for your work with the co-sponsors here, Council Members Lewis and Council President Gonzalez.

This was something I was really excited that we were able to expand Health 1 to three units last year.

and central staff, I'll look forward to following up with you afterwards just to make sure we're still on track to have that third unit open up in quarter four as we originally intended, and look forward to the opportunity to do even more with this additional class.

Any additional comments?

Okay, let's go ahead and move on.

I believe that summarizes everything for SFD.

We'll move on to item number seven.

Anne, is there anything else you had?

For SFD 2A1, the additional Health 1 class.

Anything else that you wanted to add to it?

OK.

No, nothing I need to add.

OK.

Thank you so much, Anne.

Wonderful.

Apologies, Madam Clerk, please go ahead.

Agenda item 7, Office of the Inspector General for Public Safety for briefing and discussion.

Wonderful.

Thank you very much.

Please go ahead.

Great.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Greg Dawes back with you all again just for three quick items.

OIG 1A1 is a $152,000 ad for a Strategic Advisor 1 for the Office of the Inspector General to conduct annual surveillance technology reviews.

The 2022 proposed budget included one strategic advisor positioned to conduct these same reviews.

OIG had asked for two of these positions as part of the proposed budget.

They got one of them.

They say that it's necessary to have two positions due to the volume of surveillance review requests.

And so this particular budget action would provide the other one.

It is sponsored by Councilmember Herbold.

It is co-sponsored by Councilmember Peterson and also Councilmember Strauss.

Thank you.

Please go ahead Councilmember Herbold.

Thank you.

The only thing I think to add is the Inspector General is not only required to do this work under the surveillance ordinance, but also under the duties as prescribed by the accountability ordinance.

And I appreciate that they did make that request of the executives for this year's budget.

and think that we have an obligation to make sure that they have adequate funding to do the functions that they've been chartered to do.

Thanks.

Excellent.

Thank you, Council Member Herbold.

Council Members, did I see an additional hand?

Okay.

Wonderful.

If there's nothing else on OIG-001, let's move to OIG-002.

All right, OIG 002A001 would add 86,000 and a half times strategic advisor to OIG for public disclosure work.

This is an ad that OIG did not make of the city budget office during the proposed 2022 budget development process.

but have found that over the last several months, their public disclosure workload has increased and that they are now in need of an additional staffer.

So this would add the halftime strategic advisor to help with their public disclosure work.

Thank you, Greg.

Council Member Herbold, please go ahead.

Thank you so much.

The public disclosure officer duties are performed by the OIG operations manager.

This person has responsibilities in other areas, such as human resources, finance, budget, contracting, administration, and document production.

As a result, PDR responses must be balanced against these other matters competing from office time.

These PDRs have a high level of complexity and require a lot of redaction and advanced notice requirements when they involve the police department or OPA, and in particular involves body-worn video that is accessed by the OIG in the course of that work.

These requests are growing in size and complexity, including more records to review, responsive records that span multiple file types, and an increase in files that require redactions.

So in the absence of dedicated PDR support, the requests are increasing at a pace that is interfering with the ability of the office to move other priority work forward.

forward, the benefit of a dedicated partial resource for OIG.

PDR duties would include greater transparency via improved PDR response times, improved ability to keep up to date on public records, legal requirements, trainings, and other specialized use of tools.

In particular, I think the enhanced transparency for PDR responses is, for me, a really high premium value for this investment by allowing the OIG to be responsible for its PDRs and responding to its PDRs.

It doesn't get caught up in a backlog.

And then, you know, in a way sort of dinged for being in the backlog of SPD.

So I think that sort of outlines the interest of myself as the sponsor and the need of the OIG.

Thanks.

Thank you.

And Greg, did you have anything else to add to that?

No, Madam Chair, I was going to note that there is a walk-on amendment that I forgot to mention at the top of my presentation.

That's okay.

We got you.

We got you covered.

I appreciate the flag.

We'll make sure to get to that one.

Any additional questions or comments on OIG 002?

Wonderful.

Thank you very much Council Member Herbold for those comments as well.

Let's go to OIG Walk-on 01 from Council Member Sawant.

All right, thank you, Madam Chair.

So OIG Walk-On 1 from Council Member Sawant would cut $545,000 from OIG.

It would reverse the 2022 proposed operating budget ads.

Those particular ads would be the surveillance ordinance position that we just spoke about and about $200,000 in surveillance ordinance consulting funds.

and another position for Office of Police Accountability Oversight, and funds for that position.

Those things combined tally up to 545,000, and this amendment would cut those funds.

Thank you.

And Council Member Sawant, please go ahead.

Thank you and thank you Greg for the description.

The mayor's proposed budget expands the Office of the Inspector General by two positions and $545,000.

In my mind and in the opinion of a large number of community members who have spoken up about this at various points throughout last year, The Office of Inspector General has played no constructive role in bringing about or helping to bring about police accountability since its inception in 2018. In fact, I would challenge council members to think of one valuable thing that the office of actually, you know, that has helped the community.

You know, just doing paperwork is not what counts.

It's actually the results have to be measured in terms of what our community members' lives have been improved.

and in terms of what the Office of Inspector General has ever accomplished.

In fact, the recommendations I have seen come out of the Office of Inspector General have consistently urged the council to leave questions of police accountability up to the discretion of the police.

For example, when the Justice for George Floyd movement was being tear gassed by the police on the streets of Seattle, The Office of Inspector General opposed virtually all restrictions on the militarized crowd control weapons that police could use.

The mayor proposes expanding the budget of the Office of the Inspector General, but more of nothing is just more of nothing.

This budget amendment does not eliminate the Office of Inspector General, although that would be justified on the basis of the fact that they have, in my view, never done a single thing of value to ordinary people.

Because, of course, what they do is of value to the political establishment because it helps the political establishment to justify the lack of police accountability, but it's a question of what's actually working for ordinary people.

So this budget amendment does not even reduce funding for the Office of Inspector General.

It simply cuts their expansion.

And over the last couple of days, we've discussed many, many crucial funding needs that this $545,000 would be better used to fund, in my opinion.

And if the OIG needs to use resources to analyze surveillance technology or do public disclosure, they should use their existing budget, which is currently, in my view, again, as I said, serving no valuable purpose for the community.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Council Member Herbold, please go ahead.

That may have been a leftover hand.

Apologies.

No problem.

No problem.

Council Member Stallone, thank you very much for the explanation of this walk-on amendment.

No additional questions or comments?

Okay, hearing none, let's go ahead and move on to the next item on our agenda.

Madam Clerk, could you please read item number eight into the record?

Agenda item eight, Seattle Municipal Court for briefing and discussion.

Wonderful to see you again, Asha.

Thanks for being here.

Let's go ahead and get started.

Asha Venkatraman from Council Central Staff.

SMC 1A1 would request that the court report on all fees and fines imposed on a court-involved individual and, excuse me, and analyze associated disproportionality.

This is related to criminal fees and fines, not parking-related fees and fines, just for clarity.

It's sponsored by Council Member Herbold and co-sponsored by Council Members Straus and Lewis.

The report would be due back to the Public Safety and Human Services Committee on March 31st, 2022. I will pass it over to Council Member Herbold.

Thank you very much.

Wait one second, Council Member Herbold.

Thank you.

All right.

Thank you.

No problem.

We appreciate you making it work with the technology difficulties, so no problem.

You're coming through loud and clear.

So, yes, this slide was developed with the city auditor and builds off of an auditor's assessment of municipal court.

losing track of my speaking points here.

The Municipal Court Probation Racial and Ethnic Proportionality Report.

The report itself recommended that the Municipal Court should continue to examine the purpose and outcomes in its fines and fees and apply the City of Seattle RET Racial Equity Toolkit to examine discretionary and administrative fines and fees given that as of September of this year, the municipal court will have had a full year worth of data to review its new fine and fee structure.

It was outside of the audit scope that was previously done to determine which criminal fines and fees that the city has the authority to eliminate are being applied disproportionality by race and ethnicity.

The slide requests that the municipal court analyze its data to make that determination with the understanding that there are fines and fees that are not discretionary, that state law does not allow the court to waive.

Again, the purpose of the report is to determine which fines and fees associated with an individual municipal court obligation the city has the authority to waive or suspend and whether the payments owed to the city disproportionately affect individuals by race and ethnicity.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Herbold.

Any additional questions or comments on this?

Council Member Herbold, I'm not seeing any additional questions.

Thank you for bringing this forward.

And then you are our next Council Member on number two.

Let's go ahead, Asha.

to the general fund and a strategic advisor one position to the court as well as $119,000 of general fund and one strategic advisor position to the office for civil rights, for race and social justice initiative efforts and a risk assessment racial equity tool kit and impose a proviso on those funds.

Sponsored by councilmember Herbold and co-sponsored by councilmembers Strauss and Lewis.

Thank you.

The auditor's report that I mentioned earlier, um, included 14 recommendations.

Um, as part of the audit, they found that the news court uses a risk needs assessment tool.

Um, this tool is a tool that is known to, um, have implicit bias in it.

Um, and race assessment, uh, risk assessment tools are, um, have been opposed, um, by the, uh, uh...

criminal system criminal legal system uh...

advisory group as well as the king county uh...

office of public defense the harris day i work is relatively new in the municipal court uh...

and the uh...

thinking behind this proposal is to provide funding for opposition to court and one in the office of civil rights uh...

to insure that uh...

the court has a a better opportunity to examine how the application of a risk assessment tool impacts the disproportionate outcomes on people going through the court.

Hopefully, this risk assessment would lead to one of two outcomes, maybe both outcomes over time.

One outcome could be the development of a risk assessment tool that relies less on criteria that have implicit bias and more on individual strengths that people have.

And so, people would be deemed to have lower risk if you de-emphasize some things that are a result of institutionalized racism in our society and emphasizes the strengths that they particularly have because of support of them as an individual by community members or by other community-based nonprofits.

The other potential option is that courts that have a probation division are required to do a risk assessment.

The hope, I think, is that the court in seeing some of the harm that can be perpetuated by risk assessments, would over time reduce the size of its probation division, recognizing that there are some individuals, again, because of state law, that must be put on probation.

specifically DV and DUI cases, but the idea being if we can reduce the use of probation, we could also be reducing the harm that could be done by risk assessments.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Council members, are there any additional comments or questions?

I just had one question, Council Member Herbold.

I think we've all heard pretty clearly from some members of the Solid Clarity Budget that there's a desire to make sure that we're constantly removing investments in courts and criminal systems overall.

I think that this is an interesting nexus that you've outlined here about how to do that further analysis to really get at some of the harms that I know many community members are concerned with about criminal and justice systems overall.

Any feedback that you've heard so far on this proposal for RSJI analysis?

I think it would be fair to say that SOCR is reluctant to participate in a RET that would be on a strategy that they know the stakeholders that they work with don't support.

But I think it's important that we understand that we do more to explain what the goals of the RET are.

are, the goals of the RET are in recognition that one, we have a probation department, and two, that having a probation department results in a requirement of the municipal court of doing a RET.

So we want to impact how they do the RET and how they do, we want to use the RET as a tool to impact how they use the risk assessment.

and reduce the frequency of the use of probation because of the harms associated with a risk assessment model.

So there is, answering your inquiry straight on, there is a reluctance, I think, but I think once we get some alignment on what the long-term goals are, I'm hoping to,

to change that.

Okay, thank you for that update and that context as well.

Seeing no additional hands, I think that covers SMC 002. Is there anything else, Asha, that you'd like to flag for us before moving to the law department?

No, nothing further on SMC.

Okay, thank you very much.

Madam Clerk, could you please read item number nine into the record?

Agenda item nine, the law department for briefing and discussion.

The first item for law is law 1A1.

It would provide a $1.8 million general fund in the city attorney's office specifically for prefiling diversion, pretrial diversion, and let everyone advance with dignity or the LEAP program.

You'll see each of the separate amounts for each of those three programs in the title and in the proviso itself.

This is sponsored by Council President Gonzalez and co-sponsored by Council Members Herbold and Lewis.

I will turn it over to Council President Gonzalez.

Thank you.

Great, thank you so much, Asha, and thank you so much, Chair, for giving me an opportunity to just add a little bit more context here.

So in recent years, the City of Seattle, in collaboration with community members, national experts, and local advocates, have done good work to establish a number of programs that divert certain individuals with certain charges to community-based alternative programs, both before charges are filed or before a trial is set.

So that is what we commonly refer to as either pre-filing diversion or pre-trial diversion.

So these programs essentially divert cases away from the criminal justice system, which we know produces disproportionately negative outcomes and instability in communities of color in particular, while not addressing the underlying challenges that lead to the offense in the first place.

So instead we have through the budget prioritize moving people into opportunities that reduce reoffense and recidivism and create space to allow offenders to meaningfully reconnect with those harmed.

So I'm bringing forward this proviso to ensure the ability of the city attorney's office, who is going to be led by a new individual starting January 1st, to have the dedicated funds necessary to continue this body of work while we work on identifying where the right place is for ongoing work in this area.

So I want to thank Council Members Lewis and Herbold for their co-sponsorship of this amendment and appreciate an opportunity to put this forward as we continue to evaluate how we can institutionalize and preserve the ongoing programming that is represented by the pretrial and pre-filing diversion programming.

Thank you very much, Council President.

Any additional comments or questions on this item?

Okay, Council Members, I am not seeing any.

Let's move on to Law 002.

Sorry, I didn't...

Council Member Herald had her hand up.

I didn't want to...

I just want to thank Madam President for thinking ahead about all the progress that the city has made around diversion programs and what that might mean in the new year and how we can work to preserve that progress.

I think it's very, very important that we do so.

Thank you very much, Councilmember Herbold, and I appreciate the note that the hand was up, Asha.

Okay, let's go to 002.

Law 2A1 would add about $260,000 of general fund and four positions to the city attorney's office to fully staff and expand prefiling diversion, and it would cut one FTE strategic advisor three position from the law department.

sponsored by Councilmember Herbold and co-sponsored by Councilmembers Lewis and Gonzalez.

I'll just note on this piece, the funds that are described in this CBA are not accompanied by a proviso, but the proviso from Law 1A1 that we just discussed would cover the funds that would be added to this programming.

Okay, thank you.

Councilmembers, please go ahead.

Thank you, not a whole lot to add here.

I just want to recognize that this budget action is tied to, I think, a long term goal that the city council as well as the city attorney have had for expanding.

The approach of sort of a general us diversion that currently is focused sort of on a wide swath of misdemeanors for people under 25 applying that same principle that.

folks who are over 25 for these same types of misdemeanors should have access to these important diversion services.

We have adopted a statement of legislative intent in the 2020 adopted budget, which requested that the law department evaluate the staffing and resources that would be needed to expand diversion to individuals 25 and older.

We've had the law department come and report to us on the results of a racial equity toolkit on doing this work.

And I think this is an important next step for this council to take to expand this really important approach towards addressing misdemeanor criminal legal involvement in Seattle.

Thank you.

Is there any additional comments or questions on this item?

Okay, Council Member Herbold, thank you very much for bringing this forward.

I am not seeing additional hands raised at this time.

I believe that that gets us through the law department amendments.

Correct, Dasha?

That's correct.

Thanks for your work on this.

Madam Clerk, could you please read item number 10 into the record?

Agenda item 10, Office for Civil Rights for briefing and discussion.

Welcome back, Dasha.

We are now discussing OCR 1A1, which would add $152,000 of general fund and one strategic advisor, one position to the Office for Civil Rights for a commission liaison supervisor.

This is sponsored by Councilmember Morales and co-sponsored by Councilmembers Herbold and Strauss.

I'll turn it over to Councilmember Morales.

Oh, boy.

Okay.

Thank you, Asha.

Let's see, so we are providing here.

Sorry, which one am I doing?

Okay.

The office of civil rights provides administrative support as my colleagues know to several different commissions that provide a conduit about governmental processes and policies.

to communities that have traditionally been excluded or absent from our processes.

We've heard from many of these commissions on a regular basis about their ideas for the city.

This strategic advisor position would provide the necessary administrative support to better realize their engagement, especially for those with developmental or intellectual disabilities.

Any additional comments or questions on this item?

Okay, thank you very much, Councilmember Morales.

I appreciate bringing this forward.

No additional questions.

We can move on to number two from OCR.

OCR 2A1 would add $120,000 to the Office for Civil Rights for a domestic violence community expert and stakeholder work group.

This is sponsored by Councilmember Herbold and co-sponsored by Councilmembers Morales and Lewis.

Thank you, Councilmember Herbold.

Thank you so much.

This work group was a recommendation of the Criminal Legal System Community Task Force presented at the Public Safety and Human Services Committee last month.

The task force was convened by OCR at the request of Council through budget action in 2019. comprised people with lived experience and expertise of the criminal legal system.

They were charged with providing recommendations for reform efforts targeted at institutions within the municipal criminal legal system in the city of Seattle.

Their report, Centering Impacted Voices, identifies several concerns about the current handling of domestic violence cases, through the criminal legal system, including a heteronormative framework, punitive response that dissuades individuals from engaging for fear of unintended consequences and drawbacks of mandatory treatment.

They recommended a work group of community experts and survivors to focus on responses to DV outside the criminal legal system and support building up community infrastructure for non-criminal legal system responses that have the ability, the capability, the capacity, agility, and flexibility, got to get those adjectives right, to respond to a host of scenarios that would otherwise constitute misdemeanor DV.

This funding would support that work group, including payments for members that would lead to recommendations for new approaches to DV misdemeanors.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Herbold.

Are there any additional questions on this item or comments?

Hearing none, thank you Council Member Herbold for bringing this forward and we will go on to number three.

OCR 3A1 would add $100,000 to the Office of Civil Rights to engage a task force of community members to assist with an assessment of the police accountability system.

Sponsored by Council Member Herbold and co-sponsored by Council Members Morales and Strauss.

Thanks, Council Member Herbold.

Thank you so much.

This amendment would allow the auditor's office to move forward with a planned rapid assessment of our police accountability system, comprising the offices of police accountability, the inspector general, and the community police commission.

My office distributed a brief overview of the recommended rapid assessment yesterday, and I understand it will be made available to the public as well.

The rapid assessment approach was developed in alignment with recommendations contained in the 2017 auditors report issued at then council member Burgess's request for information about the issues involved in evaluating the new police oversight system over time.

A rapid assessment of Seattle's police oversight system would at the start rely on conducting self-assessments using tools outlined in the 2017 report, as well as a brand new police oversight audit tool developed by a team of researchers and scholars from across England, Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland, and Republic of Ireland.

Normally, our CPC would fulfill the function of engaging community and providing broad community input, which the auditor's office has identified as an important part of the rapid assessment.

But CPC is a subject of the assessment.

We need to find another pathway.

to working with CPC, but another pathway to do community engagement, not just focused on the communities that the CPC represents, but a broader cross segment of communities.

impacted by the police accountability system.

The amendment proposes funding to SOCR to allow them to convene and support a work group of people impacted by law enforcement, including paying them for their time and their expertise to participate in the rapid assessment.

Again, the rapid assessment is just the first step.

The secondary step would be the the new tool that was designed by the team of researchers as, again, brand new as of February 2020, and I think would be well, our system would be a, it's a unique system, but we would be well served by sort of using this tool in that sort of next step.

And I have additional description of that tool for council members who might want to receive it just to understand more on what is contemplated as a second step after the rapid assessment.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Herbold.

And again, for members of the public or any members of the press, those materials are available posted to our agenda items after the meeting.

And if anybody needs some faster, obviously let us know and we'll make sure to try to get those to you as a matter of public record.

Any additional comments or questions?

Okay, thank you.

And thanks to your team, Council Member Herbold, for providing that follow-up information to correspond with that item.

Let's go to the next one.

OCR 4A1 would add $152,000 of general fund and a temporary Strategic Advisor 1 position to OCR for RSJI ordinance outreach.

It's sponsored by Councilmember Morales and co-sponsored by Councilmembers Herbold and Gonzalez.

Wonderful.

Thank you very much.

Please go ahead, Councilmember Morales.

Thank you.

So, colleagues, you know, that we have had the initiative in practice for about 17 years.

Now, as follow up to the report that was led by council member herbal and the slide that are the slide report that our office did last year.

Um, 1 major step was identified to strengthen the role of and to strengthen our commitment to race and social justice.

And that was to actually codify the initiative as part of our city.

Sure.

So, this amendment would provide time limited support to engage change teams across the city across our different city departments.

in the development and transmission of an RSJI ordinance to the council.

And I believe the intent would be to have something by the end of next year.

So you probably have there, yeah, end of next year.

So this position would provide support for that work.

Thank you so much.

Just a little history on this one.

Was there ever an effort to try to do something like this in the past?

to do the RSGI ordinance?

Yeah.

Well, I've known about this conversation since about 2018. There was a lot of work done over, there was a racial equity toolkit done on the sort of positioning of the department and RSGI within the department.

I think there's been, a lot of conversation and then the pandemic sort of interfered with the process that was at hand.

But yeah, this is part of a conversation that has been going on for at least, you know, since then that I know of.

Asha, you may have more background that you can provide.

I believe it's just been an ongoing conversation since RSGI was even introduced as an initiative, whether it should be a codified ordinance or it should be just a initiative that is implemented through executive order.

So I think it has been an ongoing conversation with change teams and the RSGI infrastructure generally for many years, but is only now, I think, coming to the point of council, potential council action, I should say.

Okay, thank you both very much.

Seeing no additional questions, Asha, is there anything else you'd like to cover in Office of Civil Rights related items?

No, I should wrap it up.

Okay, let's do it.

We got one more agenda item.

Madam Clerk, could you please read agenda item number 11 and do the record?

Agenda item number 11, City Budget Office for briefing and discussion.

Thank you, Madam Clerk.

We're on 001 for CDO related to SPD items.

Good afternoon, Madam Chair and Council Members and Gorman Council Central staff.

CBO 1A1 is sponsored by Council President Gonzalez, co-sponsored by Council Members Lewis and Morales.

This is a statement of legislative intent that would ask the Office of Innovation and Performance, which is a work unit within CBO, to partner with the Seattle Police Department and community to report on SPD's community service officer program.

The report would include recommendations about whether CSO duties should be expanded to include response to non-criminal 911 calls and whether that program should focus on non-law enforcement activities, thereby alleviating SPD officers' work burdens.

In light of these recommendations, it would also ask for an analysis of in what city department the CSO program is most appropriately housed.

Wonderful.

Thank you very much.

Please go ahead, Council President.

Anne gave a very detailed description of what this does.

And so I don't think I have much more to add.

Really, this does just create that pathway of answering that question that I think members of the council have been grappling with.

And so I do think this is the more judicious way to advance that policy conversation so that we can engage relevant stakeholders and continue to get the information that we need to really answer this question once and for all.

Thank you, President.

Council Member Strauss, please go ahead.

Thank you chair and thank you Council President Gonzalez for bringing this forward.

You know, I have been extremely supportive of the CSO program because I think it's the right program for our city, and I want to continue supporting it.

As I understand as we make the shifts in addressing public safety and as we scale programs up.

It's always center of mind for me that we need to best support them before expanding their programs.

And so I know that conversations are continuing about which department, the CSO program is housed.

I guess I'll be.

clear with colleagues here that I think that the community safety and communications department is the correct place for this program to to be housed and to grow and so I just wanted to have it on the record that I do have concerns about expanding the program before that move is made.

I'm absolutely I want to see all of the teams that are currently existing fully staffed as they are and have all of the support that they need I just wanted, because this is a dynamic situation conversation, I wanted everyone to know where I was coming from, rather than finding out in two weeks.

But I do have some concerns about expanding the cohorts of the CSO program until they are stabilized with where they will live and grow.

And so I do look forward to championing and supporting the CSO program in many ways.

I just wanted everyone to know where I was standing today.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Strauss, and I think that concern is something I've heard as well from others in our dialogue.

So thank you for lifting that piece up and simultaneously underscoring the support for the work that CSOs do.

Any additional comments in this amendment, CBO001?

Hearing none, thank you, Council President, for the summary of that.

Let's do 002.

I would like to make a request Human Services Department and Seattle King County Public Health, as well as with community.

This group would quantify the city's existing need for 24-hour response in the field to mental and behavioral health calls and its ability to response to this need.

Then they would provide the cost, a staffing plan, and a timeline to implement the needed response within three years.

Great, thank you.

Council Member Peterson, please go ahead.

Thank you, Chairman Mosqueda, and thank you, Anne, for that great summary.

So this is the last item on the agenda.

It's just a statement of legislative intent.

And colleagues, our robust and vital discussions about reimagining public safety have often referenced our shared goal to expand alternatives to traditional gun and badge police response.

And we produced a multitude of good ideas about new or expanded upstream programs, such as more affordable housing and more youth programs.

I've consistently supported these upstream programs.

I'm especially proud of work such as the Seattle Preschool Program and the Nurse-Family Partnership.

But I also want to make sure we're addressing the full gap of emergency responses.

So even though we've made incremental increases to alternatives such as Health One, and we've identified good alternative response models such as CAHOOTS and STAR, we don't seem to have fully fleshed out the plan that tackles head on the full scope of emergency response alternatives.

So let's flesh out the quantity of qualified personnel, vehicles, training, and dollars needed for mental and behavioral health responses to be dispatched 24 hours a day in the field.

So this statement of legislative intent would require the executive departments to flesh out this full scope for a 24-7 emergency response for people experiencing behavioral and mental health emergencies.

And I'll also be supporting expansions of HealthONE, community service officers, nonprofit mobile units.

But let's also get the information we need for the full implementation citywide, 24-7, 365 days a year.

Thank you.

Excellent.

I appreciate your work on this.

And I see that there's only one co-sponsor listed on the sheet.

Can you remind me if there's another one?

Councilmember Herbold, then Councilmember Lewis.

a feeling about this statement of legislative intent is, I think it's perhaps a useful report to request.

It is not inconsistent with the work that is happening, perhaps less visible to council members who aren't on the Public Safety Committee.

But as it relates to the work associated with funding the 9-1-1 protocol system, which will allow Um, uh, the, um, CSCC to refer more.

calls to responses like triage one, like the mobile, DESC's mobile response teams.

And then also the other piece of work that's happening is the police department's ongoing analysis of the Nick Jr. report.

And what we've talked about is the 26 different call types that the police department agrees do not need a 911 response.

Given that I am confident that this work is occurring, I don't think there's anything wrong with getting sort of a report on the work.

I'm just not 100% sure that this statement of legislative intent as drafted fully captures the breadth of the work that's being done.

And so if that's the sort of the goal of this slide request, I would love to work with a sponsor a little bit more, but I'm happy to put my name on as a co-sponsor.

Thank you very much, Council Member Herbold.

We will add your name to CBO-002.

and Council Member Peterson, I see you off mute.

I'm guessing that's a welcome request to be able to work together, so please go ahead.

Yes, thank you very much, Council Member Herbold.

I appreciate that.

Your chairmanship of the Public Safety Committee would very much like to work with you on this.

And Council Member Lewis, please go ahead.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I would also like to be added as a co-sponsor.

Thank you.

You all had just put my binder away, so I'm gonna pull it back out to add these two co-sponsors on there.

And really appreciate your engagement through the end here.

We'll make sure to add your names to the list here.

So officially, let me just say again, Council Member Herbold, Council Member Herbold adding her name to 002 CBO, Council Member Lewis, Council Member Lewis is adding his name to CBO 002 as well.

Okay.

Great way to end the day.

Thank you, colleagues.

Oh, excuse me, Council Member Strauss, please go ahead.

Thank you.

On another item, I didn't come off of mute fast enough during the Seattle Fire Department section, so sorry to go back to that.

SFD001 and 002, I would like to be added to it as a sponsor to Council Member Herbold's great work there.

So for both of the items under Seattle Fire Department, you are interested in adding your name to both of those.

councilmember Strauss, adding his name to SFD001 and 002. Any additional comments or thoughts, colleagues?

Well, I will just again show you this binder and thank our central staff for all of this work that they have done.

We are one day away from the end of our review of the council budget actions.

The amendments tomorrow include 55 amendments in two categories, Seattle Department of Transportation and the Human Services Department.

So again, we are very thankful for your participation in our discussions and really the work that you put into these amendment items for your comments and your questions today and also for being judicious in identifying which items you'd like to sign on to.

That helps to make sure that we can get through these conversations in great detail.

They said it couldn't be done and we're giving you an additional 12 minutes back to your time today.

If there's no objection, our committee meeting will be adjourned for today.

Any additional comments or questions for the good of the order?

Hearing none, Thank you very much.

We'll see you tomorrow morning at 9 30 a.m.

Thanks, everybody.