Seattle City Council Briefing 6/6/2022

Today is Monday, June 6. This is our council briefing meeting.

The time is 202. Will the clerk please call the roll?

Council Member Lewis.

Present.

Council Member Morales.

Here.

Council Member Nelson.

Present.

Council Member Peterson.

Present.

Council Member Strauss.

Present.

Council Member Herbold.

Council President Horaz.

Present.

Six present.

Thank you.

For the record, I should note that Council Member Sawant and Council Member Mosqueda are excused from today's council briefing.

If there's no objection, the minutes of the May 23rd meeting will be adopted.

Hearing no objection, the minutes are adopted.

I'll move to the president's report.

On today's agenda, we have no proclamations for signature and no executive session.

We will have one 30-minute presentation on the Seattle Police Management Association, the SPMA Collective Bargaining Agreement.

We will welcome presenters Otto Klein from the Summit Law Group, Danielle Malcolm, Labor Relations, Greg Goss, and Allie Peterson.

I'll say Peterson, Allie Panucci from Central Staff will provide an overview of the contract.

You should have all received your materials regarding today's presentation.

with the republished agenda which was sent out on Friday.

Thank you central staff for the memo that you provided as well.

At tomorrow's meeting, the council meeting tomorrow, the SPMA will be considered for a vote.

So let me just get through this before I hand this off.

Also on tomorrow's agenda, The consent calendar will include the minutes and the payment of the bills, as well as six appointments which were reviewed and recommended by the Neighborhoods, Education, Civil Rights and Cultural Committee chaired by Council Member Morales.

And then we will take a vote on all items on the consent calendar, unless, of course, any council member asks or requests that an item be removed from consideration and considered separately.

Following the consent calendar, we'll be voting on two items, I believe.

The first one would be the Seattle Police Management Association SPMA contract.

If you have questions about this bill after today's presentation, please feel free to contact Greg Das or Ali at Central Staff, Ali Panucci.

We'll be voting on the appointment of Hamdi Mohamed to the Director for the Office of Immigrant and Refugee Affairs, that's OIR.

And I see that Council Member Herbold has joined us.

Welcome, Council Member Herbold.

There are no signing of letters or proclamations, I believe.

So with that, let me move on to the presentation on Council Bill 120332 regarding the Seattle Police Management Association Collective Bargaining Agreement.

I've already introduced, but I'll stop with all the presenters, but I would like to just kind of hand it off to Council Member Herbold.

If she would like to introduce some of this, Council Member Herbold, and we can go from there, or we can just move right into the presentation.

I can say a few words, thank you so much.

So as we know, collective bargaining agreements are negotiated with our labor unions representing city employees.

And our approval of these contracts are different than the typical legislative process where the council has the opportunity to, in addition to voting up or down, also making amendments to the legislation.

Negotiations with Seattle's two police unions, SPMA and SPOG.

SPMA being the Seattle Police Management Association.

That's the contract that's before us now.

But for Both sets of negotiations, the council is required by law to hold a public hearing at least 180 days before negotiations begin and to consider in good faith whether and how to carry forward the interests that were expressed in the public hearing that occurred before the beginning of negotiations.

For SPMA, the public hearing was held in September of 2019, and the start of negotiations, as we all know, was delayed to the arrival of the COVID pandemic.

A round of negotiations with SPMA and SPOG are different than previous negotiations because in November of 2020, Mayor Durkan and I worked together to create newly expanded roles for our accountability partners in bargaining police contracts, and that covered both negotiations with SPMA and SPOG.

For the first time, a community representative from the Community Police Commission has had a role in the bargaining process, and the Inspector General and the Office of Police Accountability also serve as bargaining advisors.

As a result, And in addition to considering the 2017 accountability legislation, which was really, I think, a foundational driver in our identification of priorities for this negotiation, is bringing our contract in sort of alignment with the 2017 accountability legislation for new issues also considered in the negotiations that came from our accountability representatives.

In 2019, also, it's important to recognize that the court overseeing the consent decree highlighted several issues regarding discipline and appeals.

and those issues as well, I think, were really important to the negotiation process.

And I think it's important, finally, to close out with the recognition that the Labor Relations Policy Committee is established by the Seattle Municipal Code, and it creates a for labor negotiations between the city and representative employees.

It's a joint executive and council committee, and five of the council members sit on that committee.

After, I may have some additional comments about the content of the contract itself, but wanted to help set the stage in advance of the presentation.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Herbold.

I think what we'll do is I'll hand it off to Otto and you want to introduce your team and then Councilmember Herbold, remind me to let you close us out on this because I'll forget.

Thank you.

Go ahead, Otto.

You want to introduce your team and then we can start with and I understand Mr. Doss will be controlling the PowerPoint.

I do.

Thank you very much.

We have Danielle Malcolm, who is with labor relations and has been involved in the bargaining for the SPM a contract and Greg Doss from the central staff who have the council, who also was part another one of the improvements in terms of the bargaining process.

was to get someone from the council who would participate.

And so Greg was actually at the table with us.

And having said that, Greg, it's over to you.

Oh, thank you, Otto.

Good afternoon, Madam Chair, and thank you for your introductory comments, Council Member Herbold.

I was just going to help set the stage a little bit, run you through what we're going to do here today.

Otto is going to provide a bit of opening remarks, set the stage for how the how the negotiating team put together its proposals and how that was influenced by the accountability agencies.

And then we are going to break this down into various sections.

Otto is, I'm going to start out by covering really the biggest change, which is the change, the move away from arbitration to what is being called discipline review.

And that's really the sea change that's happening here in this contract.

Greg, can I have you hold off just one second?

Sorry.

Can we make sure we introduce Danielle and where she's from?

Oh, I'm sorry.

Otto did do that.

Did you do that?

Oh, I'm sorry.

No, that's OK.

Danielle is...

I should have done more of it.

Danielle Malcolm from Labor Relations.

She and I and Otto were on the negotiation team.

OK, thank you.

And I'm also a central staff.

And so I'm going to go over discipline review.

After auto is done giving a little bit of context in that background, and then auto is going to go through about 10 or 12 changes that were made in the area of police accountability.

Next, Danielle is going to go over the financial implications of this particular contract and the costs associated for this contract.

And then lastly, I'm going to finish up with how those particular costs translate into the city budget and what it would mean or what it might mean for the city budget for 2022 and 2023. So that's our plan.

And with that, I would just go ahead and turn it over to Otto to give some context for how we got to negotiations and how the negotiating team move forward with its directions from the LRPC.

Thank you, Greg.

I'll try not to Uh, and, and, and, uh, cover territory that, uh, council member Herbold always already did in going through the process.

The collective bargaining agreement with SPMA.

The last one expired on December 31 of 2019. That the city began working on.

Because of the many of the things that council member herbal raised in terms of the courts involvement and looking at what was happening, the city had hired CP night the organization to come in and help with us on accountability.

We decided with the agreement of SPMA to start the negotiations in early 2020 on issues other than accountability to give us the city time to really figure out what we wanted to do and make sure that we had covered everything we needed to.

So we began with a few sessions with SPMA in early 2020. COVID came along and so we ended up stopping the negotiations to, well, obviously for, because of that was happening.

And that also put off a little bit our review internally to get ready for accountability and also changes in the grievance procedure.

Because those are the issues that we had kicked over with SPMA.

During late 2020, we went through a very extensive process in terms of putting together what is it we want to try and achieve in bargaining with SBMA related to accountability and related to the grievance procedure.

As Council Member Herbold indicated, we had involvement from our sort of Three, the three different experts that we have that is these, the representative from the community police commission.

Lisa judge the inspector general and Andrew Meyer Berg who was at that time the OPA director.

And they were all involved in providing input to us both in writing and also providing input to us and most importantly, input directly to the members of the LRPC on the issues related to accountability to ensure that the members of the LRPC had an opportunity to hear directly from those three stakeholders, the things that were important in helping the LRPC think through priorities.

The city then, we then agreed upon what we were going to try and do and put together a proposal for SPMA that we got to them in early 2021 and spent 2021 in negotiations.

We had ended up getting a mediator from the Public Employment Relations Commission who came in in the late summer of 2021 and helped us get to a resolution and the TA, which we're looking at today, which was achieved in the early 2022. Anything else, Greg, that would help table set?

I think that's pretty good.

Why don't I jump into the meat of the contract and we'll fire through.

And as folks have questions, they can Throw Mattis.

Sounds good.

Ali, would you please put up the share the memo?

Thank you.

Could you please put it all the way to the very last page of the memo?

Page two of the appendix and what you're going to be looking at at the very last page of the appendix is going to be a A description of the neutral of the discipline review process I get to talk about discipline review which is really lucky for me because this is the biggest and most important change that is made in the contract I called it a sea change earlier.

I think that if you ask the accountability advocates or even the judge that oversees the consent decree, you would probably be told by any of them that the most important thing that the city change in terms of accountability is its current system of arbitration and this contract does that.

This contract moves to what is called discipline review.

Before I go there I'm just going to do a little bit of background on what the current arbitration process is.

So under the current contract, the current CBA for SPMA or for the Seattle Police Officer Guild for SPOG, if an officer wants to appeal discipline through a grievance, it has two routes it can go.

It can go to the Public Safety Civil Service Commission, or it can go through binding arbitration.

In either case, those processes are known as de novo or new again.

And that's because in either case, it's like the officer gets a brand new trial.

The investigation within the department is over.

The case is closed.

The chief has issued discipline.

The discipline has been appealed.

But when it hits arbitration, it's all open again and it happens all over from the beginning, witnesses can be called new evidence can be introduced, and essentially it's a brand new trial that would allow officers to reach a better outcome.

Unless there is another outcome that is set forth in a contract, it is the arbiter who gets to determine what the standard is for that particular trial or for that new again examination of the evidence and witnesses.

And national research will show that in many cases that standard is clear and convincing for cases that involve termination or suspension.

And that's a very high standard.

It's much higher of a standard than preponderance of the evidence, which is a standard that is most likely or most often sought by accountability advocates, preponderance of the evidence meaning more likely than not.

So what you're seeing is that as officers appeal to arbitration, they're getting a new trial, and it's with a higher standard.

This new process, discipline review, would not make de novo a possibility.

What happens is the chief would take a look at the file, the OPA file, the investigation filed, would render discipline, and then that discipline could be appealed to a neutral reviewer.

And the neutral reviewer would take a look at the case file, would re-examine the facts in the case, the same facts that the chief was able to see, the same witness testimony that the chief was able to see, all the same information that only the chief was able to see.

And then the neutral examiner would base their judgment on only those facts.

They would be looking for two things.

First, did the city meet the evidentiary standard?

And this contract negotiates the lower standard, the preponderance of the evidence standard.

So that right there is a significant difference from the existing arbitration scheme.

No longer would you have clear and convincing that higher standard, it would be a lower standard of proof a preponderance of the evidence that the neutral examiner would be looking to see if the city achieved.

The second thing that the neutral examiner would be looking for is whether the discipline that the chief administered was arbitrary or capricious.

In the past, in arbitration, if a arbiter had determined that the discipline was not appropriate, it was up to the arbiter to decide what discipline might be appropriate.

Under this new process in this contract, if the neutral examiner found that the discipline was arbitrary or capricious, they could only change the discipline, they could only lower it enough so that it was no longer arbitrary or capricious.

only to that standard.

The neutral examiner would be picked off of a list that would be, um, that would be established by the, uh, disciplinary grievance register, register, pardon me, uh, under the state RCW.

And so there would be, uh, no opportunity for either side, the city or for the union to, um, for lack of a better way to say, game the system, the neutral examiner would be coming from.

from the state and there would be, as I said before, no opportunity for any new evidence or any new witness unless it was found during the course of the neutral examiner's review that something new had come up, new information that was not discoverable at the time the chief made his or her investigation and discipline review.

or if the credibility of a witness during the investigation was for some reason questioned, then that could be something that the neutral reviewer could look at.

But even in those cases, the neutral reviewer would not defer back to a trial type atmosphere.

It would just be the neutral reviewer meeting with those particular witnesses and the neutral reviewer asking questions only of those witnesses to clarify the new information.

Because this new scheme is essentially closing the books before the neutral viewer ever begins their process.

It does allow the union, an opportunity to see the OPA investigative file before the chief sees it.

And that will allow the union to see if there's anything that the OPA investigation missed, if they feel like they would like to supplement it by putting a letter in it that they think that the chief should see, they may do so.

That way, the chief has all of the information that the neutral reviewer will eventually see.

Again, the neutral reviewer working with all the same information as the chief and ideally no different outcome.

That's a lot that I just described.

So I'm gonna stop right there and ask if anyone has any questions.

I must have done something okay.

Council Member Nelson, or I'm sorry.

Sorry, is this a model that's used in other cities?

The, it's, It's very similar to the way an appeals court might work, I'm told by my attorney friends.

But it's really something that the I think it's really something that the negotiating team sort of came up with from scratch.

have to give a lot of credit to SPMA for coming up with the concept originally.

And there were some there were some bumps along the way, you know, recognize there were some challenges, just, for example, thinking about, well, if it's if the information is going to be closed, the neutral reviewer, How can we make sure that the union gets a chance to have its input?

And so we had to work through some of that stuff.

And it really is sort of a novel concept in that way.

But before I sign off, I'll maybe turn quickly over to Otto and see if he can elaborate on anything else.

Yeah, we have Otto in the queue and Council Member Herbold.

Council Member Herbold was there before me, so why don't you feel free to jump in.

I just wanted to say that though the nuts and bolts of this disciplinary review system are designed by this effort, the principles that we're identifying as necessary to move forward reform are the principles that really mirror previous concerns about the old process, the need for a neutral examiner, the need to ensure that the hearing is not the kind of hearing where a lot of new information can be brought in, and a hearing where the standard of review is a preponderance of the evidence.

Those are principles that were identified early on, Really foundational, I would say, even to the 2017 accountability ordinance and also principles that were enshrined in legislation that the state considered for.

police discipline systems statewide two legislative sessions ago.

The bill did not pass, but again, these principles are reflected in sort of the policy approach that folks are seeking, not just here in Seattle, but in other jurisdictions across the state.

Thanks.

I will just add that the not having a hearing de novo is really, really important.

Because what that means is that the review consists of looking at the information the chief looked at.

It's not what are the lawyers afterwards cook up that they want the arbitrator to hear.

But rather it's what did the chief see?

And so then the two next points and Council Member Herbold and Greg were spot on with this are the importance of the standard being a preponderance of the evidence.

So it's not putting an additional burden on the city to establish that misconduct occurred.

It's rather a preponderance of the evidence which is what's traditionally used.

If we went to a court case of one kind or another, that's the standard that gets used.

And the second piece is a chief in this kind of situation, if a discipline, if we've established and the city has established a discipline occurred, then the chief ought to get a lot of discretion in terms of what's the right discipline to impose.

And what this does is just that, by having a system that says the neutral examiner is only able to overturn the discipline if it's arbitrary and capricious, sets a standard which gives the chief significantly more discretion than they have had in the past in terms of making a disciplinary decision.

And those, again, are really important changes and things which are really important in moving the ball forward.

Thank you.

Go ahead, Greg.

One more quick thing.

The negotiation team also negotiated that should an officer decide to take the other route and go to the PSCSC and appeal their discipline on that route, that that standard of review is also locked in as a preponderance of the evidence.

So that is now in the contract should they go the other way with the PSCSC as well.

Thank you.

Is there more auto you have?

Is that an old hand or a new hand?

And auto actually is, if we have no more questions, going to trans transition us into the accountability table, Ali, if you want to move us in right there.

Perfect.

Greg, before you move on, can you just address, and if you did already, I'm sorry that I'm asking you to repeat it.

Is this one of the elements that Judge Robart flagged?

The disciplinary review.

Thank you, Councilmember.

I think this is the element, the central element that Judge Robart flagged.

It was the arbitration and the fact that the chief in one particular case, the firing of an officer for excessive force was overturned by an arbiter.

that led the judge to, at least partly led the judge to his decision that the city of Seattle was out of compliance in relation to its accountability system.

And so this is directly on that point.

Thank you.

There's no other questions on that.

I'll move on to other issues in addition to the discipline review, which Greg just covered.

First is that there is a has been in place as sort of a double notice to officers who are who may have engaged in misconduct and for whom we've been started an investigation.

The first one is done in 10 days.

The second one is done in 30 days.

The result of the two is that the 10 day notice really becomes, is difficult for OPA to get out.

And so OPA had requested that in terms of better using their resources, that we just, we don't have two different time periods and two different notices that everything be done after 30 days, which will get free up some resources at OPA and still allow the process to be moving along in a timely manner.

The next change has to do with the 180 day time clock and in particular, its relationship to a criminal investigation.

Generally speaking, if an officer is being investigated for a criminal, an alleged criminal violation, we don't start doing our administrative investigation until the criminal investigation is complete.

That's because of some due process rights or constitutional rights that an officer has in terms of a criminal matter.

And so the problem has been that there has been language in the SPMA contract, as well as the SPOG contract, that said our 180-day clock continued to run under some circumstances when a criminal investigation was going on.

In the SPMA contract, this just applied to those cases that were that occurred in the city of Seattle, but then for whatever reason, the city decided because of a potential conflict of interest to refer the investigation out elsewhere.

And in the SPMA contract, the clock didn't stop.

That has changed.

And so now in all cases, regardless of where a criminal case arose, who's investigating it, whenever that's going on, then there's no time clock which is running.

Ali, if you could, thank you very much.

Another issue that arose with the or a problem that we've had potentially with 180 day time clock deals with where OPA needs additional time to conduct the continuing investigation, continue working on an investigation in order to complete it.

what's the process utilized for getting an extension.

And the old contract said that while the SPMA would grant an extension, it would only be done if, or it would be done if OPA could show it had established due diligence in conducting the investigation.

And, and the concern that we had an SBA had always SPMA to their credit had been really good with working with the city on this issue, but the concern was, was that the phrase do exercise due diligence is really subjective.

when we're talking about all the many investigations that OPA is doing, there may be times where they've decided to put more resources on some things than other things.

And so does that mean with the other things that there's a limitation on the ability or that the SPMA could establish that somehow we weren't acting and using due diligence?

And so that test has been replaced.

And the with regard to the request that will be granted in terms of his law and the burden will be on the on the SBA to establish that there's if they ever do deny a request that there was good cause to do so.

So it again significantly improves the operation of how the clock operates, where we need some additional time.

I know it looks like Councilmember Lewis has his hand up.

Yes.

Thank you, Council President.

So Otto, just to dig in a little bit on the 180-day clock, which is a big area of interest for me as well as I believe the federal judge overseeing the case.

Can you walk me through maybe a scenario where this would come into play with this burden on the union to establish a reason to deny the 180-day extension.

What's the kind of scenario where you think the union would be successful in blocking 180 days under this language?

And what do you think would be a common scenario where the city would be successful in extending the clock to complete a sufficient investigation to get accountability?

Let me try and get those in order first.

The the the way it would come up would be they we make there's a request which is made.

The, for whatever reason, and the SPMA asserts that they have good cause not to approve it.

And so that then would go to the neutral.

Ultimately, we would then continue our investigation.

That issue would sort of be out there.

It would be something which would go to, in the old days, the arbitrator.

And now I guess it would go to the neutral examiner.

The kind of sit in the kind of situation which it arise is pretty hard work where that would be where the good cause wouldn't get us where we need to go is pretty hard to come up with.

I think good.

If we're requesting an extension for a reason, and we have a reason, I think it's pretty unlikely that the neutral examiner would ever overturn that.

And again, I want to emphasize SPMA has been really good.

So I'm just talking hypothetically about what might happen.

But with regard to the language in the old contract of the exercised due diligence, that's where I would have concern that it would be hard for us to establish that the burden was still on us.

that we had acted in due diligence in terms of this particular investigation, again, because that's in the context of many, many, many other investigations going on at the same time.

So the question would be, well, why didn't you put more resources on this one rather than that one?

And that's a slippery slope that we don't want to be on.

And that's why I'm really, really think this should SBMA ever decide they wanted to start pushing back, this change is a really important one.

Did that cover your question or if not?

Yes, I mean, it sounds like it would be a very high bar for SPMA to be able to obstruct this.

And it sounds like, Otto, in how you were phrasing this, that the investigation could continue and it wouldn't have to halt while we argue whether there's good cause or not.

Is that correct?

That's exactly right.

Okay, because that was another concern I had is if we were creating a bottleneck somewhere that could delay a bunch of investigations, but it sounds like that's not the case.

In the pre-2015 to 2019 contract, there was the bottleneck you've just described, but that was removed in the last round of negotiations.

Thank you, Otto.

Council Member Herbold.

Slightly different.

I just wanted to share.

information from the OPA's annual report around their timeliness and their obligations when they are unable to meet timeliness requirements.

In 2021, as we all know, which was an extremely busy year, not a typical year for OPA at all, of 285 investigations, They failed to issue timely findings in 12 of those cases.

And that doesn't just stop the case, right?

They are still going to have to issue findings.

They will be not considered timely, and OPA will have some responsibility and some transparency requirements for those 12 cases.

They'll have to send a letter to each, the mayor, the council, and the city attorney, and the inspector general, and the CPC that documents the reasons why they were not able to issue findings within that 180-day timeline.

So, I think it's just important to recognize, um, we do have some accountability, uh, requirements in, in the, uh, accountability legislation for, um, what we expect when that rare case, case occurs, um, where findings are not timely.

Okay.

Are we going to continue to go?

I'm going to do a time check here.

So how much more time do you, are we, are we going through your whole memo, Greg?

Yes, we are, although I think the financial sections will go fast.

OK, I'm just trying to keep everyone on on our time.

We're scheduled to end now, but I'm guessing we'll probably need another 10, 15 more minutes.

Yeah, I think so.

OK, go ahead.

And I promise to start talking faster.

We can do it.

The next one has to do with with criminal investigation is that we talked earlier about there's it's not unusual for there to be the administrative investigation by OPA will stop when the criminal investigation is being done.

At the same time, OPA wants to know what's the status of this, what's happening, when you're going to finish, are you talking to these people, et cetera, and sort of just make sure that they're ready to go once the criminal investigation happens.

And there is some language that limited that kind of communication from occurring.

And so one of the things we wanted to address in bargaining was to fix that, and we have done so.

Next issue deals with the, there are currently two civilian investigators in OPA, and then the rest, which are either eight to 10 sergeants from the, who are also in OPA doing investigations.

That number two grows out of some language that's in the SPOG contract, which is the sort of next stop in terms of negotiations for the city.

The OPA wants to ensure that whether we have 10 civilians, five civilians and five sergeants, however it works out ultimately, that OPA has the ability to assign the best person to the job, not dependent upon whether someone's a civilian or whether someone is is a sergeant, but rather, under these circumstances, who should we be assigning to the job?

The old SPMA contract had language which said all SPAMS investigations have to be assigned to a civilian.

That meant when we only have two civilians, that it made it more difficult to assign those people to SPOG investigations.

where there's going to be times where we think that's really what they ought to be doing.

So the new language removes that restriction such that the OPA director has the ability to make the assignment based upon whomever they believe is the right person.

Next is, Greg already touched a little bit on the information disclosure, which is just to ensure that there's a burden, that there's a downside to someone not providing whatever information they have.

Under the old system, there were times where someone could stick something in their pocket, not tell us about it, and then it would come out in an arbitration, and we wanna make sure that doesn't happen.

Council Member Herbold.

We're getting our inboxes are receiving a lot of emails from constituents that there's a high interest in this.

And one of the things that they've raised is that officers not be allowed to withhold information until after investigation is closed.

As I understand this, description of this item, that is a misunderstanding around the new contract because really, as you say, the new contract makes this whole topic of information disclosure not relevant because of the establishment of the new disciplinary review system.

Is that more or less correct?

That is not just more or less correct, it is correct.

All right, thank you.

There is some potential ambiguity in the dishonesty language that had been pointed out, I believe, by CPC.

And we fixed that.

So it was clear that that applies in all cases to where an officer says something which is dishonest.

And it doesn't matter whether it's in an investigation or in any other part of their duties.

Mediation and rapid adjudication were two things that the OPA requested that we fix.

One dealt with having the, what do you do where there are several officers who are involved and some want to mediate and some don't.

The others had to do with rapid adjudication and the timing of when that might occur.

And we were able to, and SBMA agreed to make the changes that had been requested on that front by the OPA.

Retention of OPA files, the old contract provided for.

that contracts for sustained complaints would be kept for six years post-employment, but for non-sustained employment, non-sustained complaints would only be kept for three years.

The accountability ordinance provides that all such files would be retained for until after six years, and the new TBA is consistent with and applies the rule that's in the accountability ordinance in terms of six years for all.

The final change has to do with layoffs and there's issues often come up in bargaining dealing with.

What is it that the city has to bargain about?

And what do they not have to bargain about?

And so we wanted to get language in the contract that was made it clear that in the event we should ever need to make a layoff, make a decision that if there's a financial downturn, and for some reason we have to do layoffs, that that decision is something that the city gets to make.

And then with regard to who gets laid off, that's covered by the Public Safety Civil Service Commission rules.

There's no questions.

I will turn it back to Greg, I guess.

Danielle, and if Ali could move.

Yeah, there we go.

Ali's on.

Before you move on, can you address the other big topic that we're receiving emails about?

I know we only shared that with you very recently, but the issue of subpoena authority.

I think that's another area where there's a lot of misunderstanding about what it means that subpoena authority is not explicitly granted in the contract, but we, last year passed legislation giving OPA and OIG subpoena authority.

And so given that there are no restrictions in the contract, it means that our ordinance granting subpoena authority is able to go into effect.

Can you confirm that, please?

Yeah, I can.

Actually, the accountability ordinance itself, ordinance one, two, five, three, one, five, granted the accountability agencies, OIG and OPA subpoena authority.

The the unions, both SPMA and SPOG, objected to it because there was not a specific process that would potentially protect the folks that would receive the subpoenas.

The ordinance that you refer to, Council Member, created that process to protect the folks that would receive the subpoenas, specifically to give them notice and a chance to appeal.

By doing that, with the SPMA contract, it will now allow the service of subpoena to SPMA officers.

Long way of saying yes, you're right.

Thank you.

One last thing before we move off of these really important accountability issues and move into the topic of the financial package.

A different group of folks raised concerns around the reference in the contract to the Officer's Bill of Rights and that there is some language in the Officer's Bill of Rights that suggests that prior practices will prevail in instances where there's a conflict.

I'm not sure if you might be able to speak to that.

Otto, I know another council member may have raised that issue with you, but I think, again, to the extent that This is information that we could share with the public.

I know that there are a lot of members of the public that are keenly interested in this topic that are watching now.

Yeah, Otto or Danielle are the best folks for that one, the labor attorneys.

Why don't I take a crack at it and then Danielle can fill in anything I missed.

The, the language that you're referring to says that the police officers Bill of Rights spells out the minimum rights for an officer but where the language of the contractor past practices of the department grant the officer greater rights.

These greater rights shall pertain.

First off, I'll point out the language which is there has been there for a long time.

It's not something that was just added.

Second, the reference, the word pertain is interesting.

It doesn't say shall prevail.

And I think that's often in language like this.

And we saw that in, I think, in the SPOG contract.

It used the word prevail, and that's not what's here.

It's pertain.

Third is this just deals with things that are in the Bill of Rights.

That's a particular section of the agreement.

It just it's limited to those things which are in the Bill of Rights.

And that's things like we're not going to engage in intimidating conduct in terms of how we do investigations.

There are things which we have been doing and practicing for many years now.

And so there's not like there's going to be or could be any past practice which comes up and changes all that.

So I guess the quick version would be that's not language I'm concerned about in terms of moving forward and implementing the contract.

Thank you, Otto.

And then the very last topic.

One of the things that we had discussed that we, because there hadn't, that the CPC and the OPA and OIG had some interest in, but they hadn't developed a policy yet, is the topic of a complainant appeal process.

And I'm just wondering, is that something that we could have like a re-opener on if in the future maybe, but before the SPMA contract is terminated, that it's a topic that we could return to.

I know it's an issue of keen interest.

It's an issue that was flagged in the accountability ordinance, but it's definitely something that our experts in accountability have not developed a policy around yet.

Yeah, I recall back when we had our meeting with the CPC on the SBMA contract, what, I guess almost three years ago now, that issue was flagged because it was one of, I think, the 10 items that CPC or the 12 items CPC had raised as being of priorities.

And at the time they said they were working on it and would get that to us if and when they came up with something that they thought was workable.

With regard to a reopener, we don't have it.

We didn't explicitly flag that as something that we could reopen.

There is there is other language that talks about reopeners.

There's reopeners for changes, for legislative changes that probably wouldn't fit in that.

So I guess it would be something that I think if it if it came up, it would certainly be something we could talk to SBA about.

We'd have to figure out whether or not the contract really required Reopen it.

Are we actually changing something which is in the contract?

As I understand that what they were talking about conceptually, it would not be something which actually changes the contract.

So in that case, we could bargain it and wouldn't need to reopen the contract.

Thank you.

So is this Daniel's portion?

Is, yeah, and then I need about three, four minutes to wrap it up with the city budget.

All right, I'll try to go quickly.

So first off, we have changes to wages, including wage increases.

So CPI here is the consumer price index.

That's a calculation of averages based on how much more goods cost.

And so we have those numbers for 2020, 2021, 2022. 2023, that 4% is the cap.

So just so you know, if for some reason CPI gets calculated much higher than 4%, the contract still has a 4% cap in it.

So we can anticipate the cost even though we aren't in 2023 yet.

There's the precinct commander premium, it's currently at 5%, changing it to 6% in 2022. Deferred compensation currently at 2% increasing to 3%.

Watch commander adding a 3% premium for them in our discussions with SPMA there was difficulty in retaining people in these positions with experience.

So we've added a new premium to kind of help that process.

The captain's flex time buyout.

To describe what flex time is, just because it's not really self explanatory, flex time is what captains can accrue instead of overtime.

So if a captain does overtime instead of getting compensated for that overtime financially, they're able to accrue what was referred to flex time.

It can be used kind of like vacation time, except it can't be cashed out normally.

So what we've had is a system where officers, based on prior agreement, were able to accrue up to 384 hours.

If they wanted, had a reason to get more than 384 hours, they had to get special approval to go over that cap.

What we've done here is we're reducing the cap down to 200 hours.

And so that will make it so that there's kind of less hours floating out there over time.

So it'll be a resource saver for the city in the long term, even though we are cashing out the hours up front.

So at the beginning of the process, the captains can for hours in excess of 200, they can cash it out at 35%.

And at the end of the process, they can cash them out at 25%.

So it's not an hour for hour cash out, it's a reduced percentage cash out, or during the period where we're transitioning to 200 hours, they're able to use those flux time hours instead of cashing them out.

The sick leave currently has a cashout system of a flat 25%.

We're moving to a tiered system that also allows VIVA.

And so there'll be a vote by the union for VIVA.

VIVA is a voluntary employee benefits account.

And so it can be used for healthcare costs.

The tiered system has cashouts for 25%, 50%, and then 75% based on how many hours there are.

And both the flex time changes and the sick leave changes are done to kind of reduce the amount of excess non-actual working hours that SPMA members have before they retire.

That's one of the things is that they tend to accumulate a lot of hours, which results in people that have, they're in a pocket in SPMA, but they're burning down their hours.

And so we aren't able to actually fill that pocket with a new person until they leave.

So the change is here.

make that system easier to manage.

It's a new body-worn premium, but it's important to note that it's a temporary premium.

So this premium will expire at the end of 2022. So the last pay period of 2022, which ends the first week of 2023, that will be the end of the body-worn premium.

And so this is a four-year contract.

The body-worn premium will be in effect for three of those years.

And are there any questions?

I do not see anyone raising their electronic hand.

So I think we're good.

And then, Council President, with your permission, I'll just finish up quickly on the on the financial implications.

So the cost of the cost of this contract over four years from the time it starts at the end of 2019, beginning of 2020, through the end of 2023 is $6.1 million.

And it is the case that in this year, Allie, could you go back up to the table really quick, please?

In this year, you can see that 2022 column, and you go all the way down to the end of it, you'll see 3.4 million.

That is the amount that will be needed this year to cover the wage increases for SPMA members for the rest of this year from the time the contract is enacted by the council or adopted by the council all the way and including the back pay for 2020 and 2021. So the way that the city normally handles contracts like this is that that amount of money, the 3.4 million is being held by the city budget office in an account that they call planning reserves.

And in any normal department in any normal year, when this legislation adopting this contract is sent over the city budget office would also send over separate legislation or a supplemental budget that would provide the additional money authority needed to pay for the contract.

So in any normal year, we would see this particular piece of legislation accompanied by another piece of legislation that would appropriate $3.4 million.

That is not going to happen this year, the reason being that SPD has already in its budget now $4.5 million of salary savings.

I think this is an issue that everybody is familiar with.

Councilmember Herbold and Councilmember Nelson's resolution and bill, Councilmember Herbold's bill and Councilmember Nelson's resolution both endorsed and authorized expenditure of up to $1.1 million in that salary savings.

If you take back 1.1 million from 4.5, you get to 3.4.

Basically, there is just enough salary savings in SPD to cover the expenditures that the council have authorized in the last few months with Council Member Herbold's bill and the endorsement that Council Member Nelson's resolution made.

and the expenditure of the remaining salary savings for this contract.

But what that means is there would be no more salary savings left in SPD, at least as we know and have forecasted at this moment of time.

Could there be more salary savings in future?

I think probably yes.

That's a likely thing as officers are not being recruited as fast as they want.

I think it's very likely that updated staffing forecast will show that there will be more salary savings.

But as of this time, if the council chooses to use this 3.4 million in salary savings at SPD to pay for this contract, then there would be none left.

Alternatively, the council could write its own legislation or in a supplemental budget, make its own appropriation for the $3.4 million out of the city planning reserves and spend the money that way.

That is a fiscal policy conversation that the finance chair and the council will need to have.

I am simply passing along the information that the mayor's office and the city budget office have made the decision that they will not send that legislation and that they will rely on salary savings at SPD to cover this.

Thank you, Greg.

I think Councilor Herbold has her hand up.

Thank you.

And just to clarify, this $3.4 million that the executive proposes to come from salary savings would not require a lift of the salary savings proviso because the funds and the use of the funds and the BCL are all aligned.

That's correct.

Thank you.

Okay.

Is there more, Greg?

No, that's it.

Wow, that's pretty ceremoniously ending us there.

You're going to add some more on.

So before we wrap up, is there anything I need to hear from Ali or Otto or Danielle before I hand it over to Council Member Herbold on the memo and the PowerPoint?

I would just ask if Ali, if there's anything I missed in that bigger picture that she wants to convey.

Thank you, Council President, Greg, Allie, Puget, Council Central staff for the record.

I don't have anything to add.

I think next steps is there'll be the vote scheduled for tomorrow, and then we'll continue to have these budget discussions as we move into the supplemental budget conversations later this summer.

Thank you, Allie.

Council Member Herbold?

Yeah, just in closing, I just want to, again, underscore that The contract as negotiated really addresses, I think, a lot of, as it relates to accountability, our priorities as it relates to items that have been identified by the CPC in their November 2019 letter.

Our goal to make the contract in alignment with the 2017 accountability ordinance, as well as addressing issues flagged by Judge Robard.

that are continuing to impede progress in adherence with the consent decree.

Namely, this contract includes a preponderance of evidence standard in discipline review.

It addresses the concerns with the 180-day timeline.

It removes the requirement that when proving dishonesty that intentionality must be proven, and it allows the OPA to play a role in investigations.

And then I want to recognize the helpful role that Historically, reform in the SPMA contract has provided to all of us in moving forward in reform in the SPOG contract.

SPMA contract is often sort of ahead.

in those reforms and it creates a really helpful baseline for us when we go into negotiations with SPOG.

So I'm hoping that we can move this work forward.

Thanks.

Before we close out, I just want to thank Council Member Herbold because we've been working on these.

I know that we went through your memo and the 10 highlights in the CBA, but also it's good to hear that our other accountability partners CPC, OPA, and OIG were involved.

And a lot of this obviously came back to the LRPC, which Council Member Herbold, myself, Council Member Lewis, Council Member Peterson, and Mosqueda are a part of.

So we've been kind of discussing all these issues.

But for you, Greg and Ali, to put it in the format that you have in the memo, and walking us through it again on some of these issues.

And I know you're going to be available for other council members if they have more questions before the vote tomorrow.

Can I ask a question of the clerk?

Did we post the information in the memorandum that we received on this or the PowerPoint for the public to open up and read as well?

Greg's memo sat on there.

OK, good.

So there's a lot of questions, but And I like the format.

Thank you, Greg.

So the public and Allie.

So the public can go ahead and look at that memo because Council Member Herbert was right.

Our inboxes are filling up with some issues and I wanted to give Council Member Herbert as much time as possible to flesh out some of these issues in the discussions and also to correct some some misconceptions and some things that aren't quite you know just information just didn't get out.

Well now it's out and that's good and we've been in front of everybody and the memo's out and so with that I'm going to ask any of my colleagues if they have any more questions before we close this subject out and move on to our regular schedule.

Oh Council Member Strauss

Thank you, Council President.

Just noting, I don't have questions because I spent about an hour with Danielle and Greg asking a lot of questions and just very happy to see this before Council.

And thank you, Council Member Herbold, for shepherding a lot and all of the members from LRPC for shepherding this along.

You know, I think we should add, Councilor Herbold, should we add that we are talking a total of 81 employees in this contract?

OK, and I we've got some interesting questions and my burn down my cheetah step pointed this out as well as Greg did in the memo, how many employees we're actually talking about here.

So thank you for that.

Is there anything else before we say goodbye to our guests?

OK, so with that, thank you, Otto.

Thank you, Danielle.

Thank you, Greg.

Thank you, Ali.

All right.

Let's let's continue on in our agenda, folks.

Thank you, Otto and Danielle again.

Take care.

So with that, we'll go do our regular city council actions and have every council member do their report.

So the lineup starts today with Council Member Lewis, Council Member Morales, Nelson, Peterson, Strauss, Council Member Herbold, and then myself, Council Member Lewis.

Okay, if you're not, Council Member Lewis?

All right, so we will go to Council Member Morales.

Are you ready, Council Member Morales?

If you're not, that's okay.

I can be ready in two shakes.

Okay.

Shake of what?

But okay.

Yeah.

OK, thank you.

First of all, I do want to thank Otto and Greg and Danielle for for walking us through that memo.

I also had a chance to meet with them last week, but it's always good to hear.

I know I was on LRPC for two years, so I know how complicated these conversations can get.

And I just appreciate the chance to hear them talk about all of that again.

Okay, so let's see.

For my committee, the Neighborhoods, Education, Arts and Civil Rights Committee will meet this Friday at 930. And we will be discussing and voting on landmarks ordinance for the Caton Revels House on Capitol Hill.

That's going to be very exciting to hear about.

We had a conversation this morning with Landmarks Board.

Sorry, with Department of Neighborhoods.

We have reappointments to the Landmarks Board and appointments to Historic Seattle.

And then on the IRC for tomorrow's full council meeting, we have 12 appointments to various boards and commissions on the consent calendar.

We have six appointments to the Seattle Youth Commission and to the LGBTQ Commission.

And then on our full council agenda, we will vote on the confirmation and appointment of Hamdi Muhammad as the new director for the Office of Immigrant and Refugee Affairs.

So looking forward to that and her confirmation, her appointment was unanimously recommended by the committee.

Department updates.

Last week, I met with our Department of Education and Early Learning for our monthly meeting.

We have been in discussion about increasing services and programs for all Black students, including more support for Black girls.

Colleagues, you'll recall the last two budget cycles, I have tried to add in some additional funding, particularly to support the leadership and mentorship of young Black girls in our schools.

The FEPP levy oversight committee has also been discussing changes that may happen to allocate, how we allocate resources, especially in light of some of the financial constraints that the city is facing and how we support better programming for all black students is definitely part of that conversation.

We also discussed teacher and substitute teacher shortages at Seattle Public Schools.

As the mother of two kids in Seattle Public Schools, I can tell you it's been rough this year.

We've got a lot of educators who are out and there is a substitute shortage.

And so there is a shared interest between DEEL, Seattle Public Schools, the school board and me representing council to figure out how we might work together to address some of the challenges that our school district is facing and sort of better prepare our schools for next fall so that students aren't spending time in the gym because there is not sufficient instruction or folks available to offer instruction to them.

So that is, we're at the beginning of that conversation and I hope to have more information about how we might collaborate together try to move the dial there.

This week I'll have my monthly meeting with Office of Civil Rights will be reviewing preparations for an RSGI ordinance.

We've been talking about this for a couple years as well.

The department has been working on that.

I know we had a survey here within the legislative department so all of our departments have been presenting on their RSGI work.

It's something that we've, it's an initiative that we've had at the city for over 10 years now.

And there's a real interest in trying to codify that initiative so we will hopefully have legislation ready for this year.

Last week, we celebrated the start of Pride Month with the annual flag raising at City Hall.

We were joined by community organizations like the Lavender Rights Project and FEAST.

Hearing from these community leaders was a really important call for us as a city to remember our obligation to protect the rights of all of our neighbors, regardless of their gender.

We also had our monthly Mount Baker meeting on Wednesday and began meeting with the Georgetown Community Council, which we do intend to make a more regular occurrence to see how our office can support some of the issues that folks in Georgetown are having.

And then on Friday, I joined other community change makers at Maple Elementary School, got grilled by a bunch of third graders who really had some great questions for leaders of their community about how we contribute to our community, what kind of preparation it takes for us to get in the positions that we're in.

It was really great to meet with the students and all of their teachers.

And I did have a student thank the council for establishing an eviction moratorium, particularly during COVID.

So I thought it would be important for me to pass that on to all of you.

I was surprised to hear that from a third grader, but there you go.

What we do matters to our neighbors, no matter how small.

This week, I'll be hosting office hours at Columbia City farmers market on Wednesday afternoon to hear from more neighbors and support our small businesses and vendors.

And then I will also be joining the regional leadership advisory group on gun violence prevention.

This is part of as a board member what of public health.

what Seattle County Public Health has been working on for some time now.

We know that gun violence is an epidemic and a public health crisis.

And I'm just excited to be part of this group of folks who are really taking a public health approach to tackling gun violence.

We know that we have to address root causes and prioritize the safety and well-being of all people who are involved.

And we also know that black, Latino, and indigenous young people in King County are disproportionately exposed to gun violence, not just as perpetrators, but as victims and as bystanders as well.

So I'm looking forward to this conversation, the next part of this conversation, and to remind all of us that as regional leaders, we really have a historic opportunity to very tangibly impact positive long-term change for our young people who are dealing with a lot right now.

That is all I have this afternoon.

Thank you.

Council Member Ross, we're going to go back to Council Member Lewis if he's ready.

Council Member Lewis?

I am, Madam President, thank you.

Apologies, my desktop sound stopped working, so I called in on my phone, so here I am.

I'm sorry, I didn't see you come back, so I wasn't sure, but thank you.

Yeah, no worries, and so hopefully I will be back on camera at some point, but for now I can give my briefing over the phone.

There are no items on tomorrow's full council agenda from the Public Assets and Homelessness Committee.

The next meeting of the committee will be held on Wednesday, June 15th.

We did have a committee meeting last week on June 1st.

It was the first hybrid committee meeting under the new rules promulgated by the council president for us to return to a hybrid model in compliance with the order of the governor from last month.

I am pleased to report that it mostly went off without a hitch.

And I'm sure that we will learn from that experience and any potential technical issues that hindered that meeting.

But on the whole, we were able to conduct our business effectively.

We were able to appear on the Seattle Channel and we were able to get the people's business back into the council chamber.

So for what it's worth, you did a great job.

Well, thank you.

Yeah, without a hitch.

Everybody should just calm down.

Councilmember Lewis took the remote public comment first, did the in-person, it was just like it used to be, went really smoothly.

So well done, Councilmember Lewis.

Thank you, Madam President.

Definitely appreciate that.

It was good to be able to figure out how to do this in a way that still affords a remote option for people to testify.

And as you just indicated, we had a mix of in-person and remote testimony, and it was able to go off without unduly delaying the agenda.

So it was great.

Appreciate it very much.

In terms of that committee meeting, we received an update from the Seattle Public Library on the library levy oversight presentation to discuss the status of the goals of that levy and implementation.

And as always, it was good to hear from Chief Librarian Fay and his leadership team.

We also heard a presentation from the Low Income Housing Institute about some of their homelessness investments with a combination of talking about permanent supportive housing acquisition, the winding down of the hotel at the Executive Pacific in downtown, the hotel-based COVID-era shelter, and, of course, the tiny house program that now totals about 488 tiny homes distributed across more than 10 villages in the city of Seattle.

So that was a good update and we look forward to continuing to work with the Low Income Housing Institute as one of our provider partners in our work on homelessness.

This week, fairly busy week in the community.

I will be attending a walk with the Belltown Community Council tomorrow on Tuesday.

I'll walk around the neighborhood to look at ongoing public safety issues as well as some community activation ideas.

I look forward to reporting back on that meeting.

A meeting I try to have at least every six months with my friends in the Belltown neighborhood on ways we can continue to build a strong dense urban neighborhood in the center of District 7. On Wednesday, I will be attending the Regional Policy Committee representing the City Council.

If members have any comments on that agenda for the Regional Policy Committee, do please let my office know.

On Thursday, I will be taking a station tour with stakeholders at the Seattle Center of Potential Station Locations.

in and around the Seattle Center for the Sound Transit 3 light rail route.

As members are well aware, particularly on the Public Safety Committee, there is a great deal of concern from a number of our arts community members in and around the Seattle Center on the impact of construction on their ability to operate and maintain their institutions like KEXP, Seattle Rep, Seattle Opera, among others.

This will be a good opportunity to hear directly from them and examine a variety of different locations proffered by Sound Transit and their environmental impact statement to see how we can make sure that we bring Sound Transit 3 to the uptown neighborhood, but also preserve and protect our cherished art institutions in that neighborhood.

And Council President, with that, I don't have anything else to add.

And I will, unless there's any comments or questions on my presentation.

Seeing none.

We'll go to Council Member Nelson, because we've got to step in the order.

Excellent.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member.

Council Member Nelson.

Thank you very much.

Good afternoon, everybody.

There is nothing on tomorrow's agenda from the Economic Development Technology and City Light Committee.

And my meeting this Wednesday has been canceled just for lack of items.

So please everyone note that.

And I was disappointed because I was looking forward to having my first meeting in chambers, but that will have to wait until June 22nd.

And I'm just really excited to be able to have those in a hybrid model in chambers and got my first training today.

So that was exciting.

All right.

So hot off the press on Saturday, June 4th, the Seattle Channel, which is the city's government access station, in case people don't know, won two awards at the Northwest Chapter of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences Emmy Awards Ceremony.

And there were two shows that were honored, an episode of City Inside Out, which dove into police reform.

That won an Emmy in the interview discussion category, and a profile of a local fashion designer won in the short form arts and entertainment category.

So congratulations, Seattle Channel.

All right, on Memorial Day, I attended the Garden of Remembrance ceremony at Benaroya Hall, which basically honors our fallen service members.

And there was a very powerful speech given by Captain Strand.

And also last week, I attended Visit Seattle's board meeting, that's one of my external committees, where I met the new CEO, President Tammy Caravan.

And I have to note that I was really excited to see in their presentation such excitement about receiving some of the first new, larger checks from STIA, the Seattle Tourism Improvement Area.

We increased the rate from $2 to $4 a night, and they have already allocated that money to advertising Seattle, promoting Seattle in new markets, including but not limited to Salt Lake City, Phoenix, and Anchorage.

So that was really exciting.

And they also had a presentation on the progress of the The Convention Center Expansion Summit is going to be, is the name of that segment of the Convention Center, and it's been rebranded to Seattle Convention Center, and the existing one is now called ARCH.

So that was really interesting for me, and there will be many opportunities, let me know, for tours coming up.

All right, let's see, my staff and I and other, fun thing, was able to attend the film set for the filming of a, well, it's going to ultimately be more than one episode of, in the second season of The Sex Lives of College Girls.

And this is being filmed at the University of Washington.

And it's in the second, yeah, like I said, the second season.

I connected with Mark Freed, who is the location manager, where he thanked me for the work that the state and city has given, especially recently with the new film package that passed the legislature.

And also I learned a lot about film in Seattle, of course.

And one fun fact that I did not know is that Washington State is a leader in filming car commercials.

Those companies bring in millions of dollars every time they film in our region.

And when I use the word film, I'm not just talking about a movie.

I'm also talking about television episodes and commercials.

Anyway, that was fun for me to go to that set, and they will be filming again in, they'll be wrapping up here in a bit, and then they'll be beginning in, they'll do some more in July or August, I believe.

And in total, they will have spent about $4.5 million in Seattle, and they will have hired about 100 local crew members.

So that shows you the power of the film economy.

All right, just to highlight because we're out of time.

Well, we're running short on time.

So I'll just go through quickly a couple highlighted external events that I'll be participating in this week.

So I may be the only person here that has not yet set foot in the Climate Pledge Arena.

So I'm really excited to get a tour on Wednesday of the of the interior and see how it honors city environmental commitments and also showcases our work with community groups and our commitment to the arts.

So I'm excited about that.

I'll be joining City Attorney Davison and John Richards, who is the owner of Life on Mars and morning show host of KEXP on a public safety walk in the Pike Pine Corridor and see firsthand what these small business owners in the area are facing.

They have some specific issues that they want to bring up to the with the city attorney.

And then finally, this Friday, I'll be speaking at and delivering the three hundred thousand food delivery that was that is sponsored by Project Dash.

Project Dash is a program that empowers community organizations like United Way to increase food access to their communities.

And at the state level, Washington residents, we all know that food insecurity is an ongoing issue, and especially during the pandemic.

And so what this program does is it links United Way and other food providers with DoorDash and they deliver food to people who otherwise would not have access to it.

So I'm honored to support this program addressing food insecurity and also which demonstrates the importance of partnerships that connect organizations that provide food for our low income and especially vulnerable people.

And with the solutions, with the technology sector that does have some solutions that can work and help us during the pandemic.

So that's it for me.

Are there any questions?

Yeah, I actually have something to add to.

We're talking about the Emmys.

We, I was getting clips and texts and emails all weekend.

We have two things, big shout out to Omari and Triana at Converge Media.

They won an Emmy.

First, it's amazing.

I talked to Mr. Callahan and I had a chance to talk to Omari and it's exciting.

They won an Emmy.

for Black Media Matters, and they're opening up another studio in Portland and one in Washington.

So that was exciting.

But also, I also got the same emails in Texas from our own Sharon Williams.

who is the one in Emmy that she actually gets to take home for being the voice of the Kraken.

We worked with her and the Kraken and the Louie Keys to bring Sharon in and have her be the voice of the Kraken.

But I think more importantly, you guys, we haven't, you haven't heard this yet, but we've been working with Channel 21 and Brian Callahan or Seattle Channel.

And Sharon Williams, she will be becoming the voice of Seattle City Council to read the directions, instructions to the public when they come for public comment.

We just have to get it through legal and that's done.

And I think Dean is going to roll that out this week.

So from now on, going forward, we don't have to read the instructions.

We redid them.

They're much more welcoming.

They're much more kinder.

And it's going to be exciting to just say, hey, hey, Seattle Channel, can you run the directions?

So that's coming out, I think, next week.

So anyway, two of our good friends to City Hall and certainly good friends of mine won Emmys as well.

So congratulations to them.

Congratulations, everyone.

We have lots of talent in this town.

Yes.

OK, so we have Council Member Peterson, who's

Thank you, Council President good afternoon colleagues on tomorrow afternoon school City Council agenda there are no items from our committee on transportation and Seattle Public Utilities.

Our next committee on transportation and Seattle Public Utilities is tomorrow, Tuesday, June seven at 930am.

As shown on the agenda published last Friday, tomorrow's committee considers four items.

We've got two bills from Seattle Public Utilities.

Council Bill 120322 accepts an easement from the State Department of Natural Resources for a replacement sewer line.

Council Bill 120323 is essentially a technical correction because it accepts two property deeds to perfect the property rights of Seattle Public Utilities for those two parcels originally acquired in 1986. S.

will provide their RSGI report.

And then our biggest item as we know the Sound Transit Board is working toward its decisions for the West Seattle ballot link extension routes and stations and published on last week's introduction referral calendar was a A joint resolution 32055 from the executive regarding the potential preferences for Seattle.

After tomorrow's presentation and discussion of that resolution, we'll have a second committee meeting to vote on that.

That second committee and vote is likely to occur several weeks from now.

Council members can reach out to central staff analyst Calvin Chow to provide their early input.

Tomorrow, I was originally hoping to get to Mayor Harrell's nomination of Andrew Lee to become the permanent general manager and CEO of Seattle Public Utilities, but I've rescheduled that for our June 21st committee.

As the chair of that committee, which includes Seattle Public Utilities, I'm following the confirmation process outlined in Resolution 31868. We already circulated the mayor's appointment packet to you, and it was also on the introduction referral calendar a few weeks ago.

As with all the mayor's appointments thus far the council sent questions to the nominee about their experience and priorities and my office circulated interim director Lee's answers to those questions and.

We're currently scheduled to have him at our committee as early as June 21st.

At the June 21st, committee will also plan to hear from SDOT's Vision Zero team to get an update on their efforts to reduce traffic-related fatalities and serious injuries.

That concludes my report.

Are there any questions before we turn it over to Council Member Strauss?

Okay.

Thank you.

Are you turning it over to Councilmember Stroud?

Councilmember Stroud, yes.

Thank you, Councilmember Peters and I appreciate it.

Council President, I'm going to just set a timer because we're going to check to see how long I go today.

Usually I'm very good.

Yeah, I know.

Yeah, that's true.

It's been two weeks and so much has happened in District 6. Well, thank you, Council President.

Thank you, colleagues.

In the last two weeks here in District 6, I hosted my weekly office hours this last week with D6 residents on Thursday from 2 p.m.

to 6.30 p.m.

I met with D6 residents, two from Ballard, six from Whittier Heights, two from Green Lake, one from Finney Ridge, one from Crown Hill, and one from Fremont.

We discussed homelessness, public safety, catalytic converter theft, safety measures for bicyclists, tree ordinance provisions, adding a crosswalk to 73rd and 3rd, 70th and 3rd, and one other place, as well as another intersection in the area, as well as the upcoming parks levy.

In other work, since completing the work at Woodland Park, I'm now focusing on the Industrial District and 8th Avenue Northwest.

This work will again be operational in nature and require the participation of many different entities, both governmental and non-governmental.

The Industrial District and 8th Avenue are very different than the work we've completed at the Ballard Commons and Woodland Park because of the geographic differences.

This is not a park.

The population differences.

There are more people living in cars than in tents.

And the land use differences.

Being an industrial area, there's not as much evening and nighttime activity.

as compared to residential or commercial areas.

So to accomplish this work I'm working with stakeholders in three specific areas, people, identifying needs and resources, interrupting criminal activity, and activating places in the area to encourage pro-social behavior.

And quite honestly, this happens with stop signs, this happens with art, it happens with adding park benches, because activation of space is never designed to push anyone out.

Rather, it is to create a place where everyone is welcome.

whether you're down and out or up on your luck, we want this to be a place for everyone to come in and have a nice time.

So over the last two weeks, I've become my one-on-one meetings in advance of launching this program, these meetings, and then the operational meetings will begin this week and will continue until further notice.

And in addition to this, I'm constituting a similar operational meeting to implement strategies, coordinating work in and around the Ballard Library and Ballard Commons Park.

So over the last two weeks, I have begun began my one-on-one meetings in advance of launching this program.

Additionally, I attended Mayor Harrell's press conference, where he released the city's One Seattle Homelessness Action Plan and public-facing dashboard, and announced the acquisition of dockside apartments in Green Lake, which Low Income Housing Institute will operate.

The dockside apartments, I call it spuds, fish, and chips.

Actually, I should have this up beforehand.

Oh, well, I'm not going to bring up the renderings.

I've had the renderings of spuds, fish and chips in my office for many years now.

And the redevelopment of that building will serve as a permanent housing for 70 people experiencing homelessness and 22 additional homes for low income workers.

When I look at housing projects like this one, I see what needs to be and is being multiplied in every neighborhood across our city.

We need to be building as much housing as possible, as fast as possible, while also scaling up the adequate shelter options.

While we currently do not have enough shelter online to address the entire homelessness crisis in our city and region.

We are working as fast as possible and the 1300 units of shelter plus permanent housing projects like this one will expand the pipeline that we need as well.

In my work over the last weeks, I met with Lehigh Director Sharon Lee about this permanent housing acquisition ahead of the announcement.

I also met with 36th District State Representative Liz Berry to discuss many issues, including the Ballard-Interbay Regional Transportation Corridor.

I worked to create the Ballard-Interbay Regional Transportation Corridor as a way to package all of the transportation projects in the area to make them more competitive.

And as a result, We were able to receive state funding for the Ballard Bridge and other transportation issues in this area.

It's so important because 15th Avenue is the third most used north-south corridor, only behind SR 99 and I-5.

And with the amount of development and projects going on, if we do not pay close attention to this area, it's going to become a very bad situation quickly.

That said, in other parts of District 6, I met with SDOT to discuss the Ballard Avenue short-term safety improvements, which will be announced this week.

We are now implementing the short-term improvements as developed in our design shred last year.

These improvements provide us a real opportunity to test and pilot strategies to increase vibrancy, give business owners the ability to use their entrepreneurial skills, increase pedestrianization, allow for safe movement of cars and trucks, and improve parking.

As this is a pilot, it gives us as the city the ability to test these ideas, get feedback, and then create policies for citywide implementation.

And as a reminder, there are three large steps to this process, short-term, interim, and long-term.

Once the short-term improvements are implemented, I will host another design shred to gather feedback on these improvements.

Did they work?

Do they need improvement?

And then look forward, do the forward looking to interim standards that will focus on pergola design for structural integrity and aesthetic.

Colleagues, you have had my pathway to permanency bills before you a number of times, giving SDOT the time they need to create permanent policies that are right-sized for our city, and the step we're taking this week is an important one along that pathway to permanency.

Additionally, in my work over the last several weeks, I met with Mayor Harrell's Public Safety Director, Andrew Meyerberg, as we continue to fine-tune my regular public safety conferencing meetings with King County Prosecutor's City Attorney's Office and SPD to address public safety incidents in District 6. I also attended the North Seattle Industrial Association monthly meeting to where there was a discussion about the Seattle Transportation Comprehensive Plan that SDOT is developing.

As well, my staff attended the North Precinct Advisory Committee hearing from Dr. a doctor at Seattle University's Crime and Justice Research Center about research that goes into SPD's micro-community policing plans and also the city attorney's office.

North Precinct lays on Megan Westfall on the city attorney's quarter one report.

Biggest news out of that meeting, congrats to the new NPAC president and D6 resident, Pete Hanning.

So coming up this week in District six I'll be kicking off the operational meetings that I just discussed with members of the community to discuss the Leary triangle activation industrial outreach area outreach and 22nd Avenue coordination.

My staff will be attending both any rich neighborhood Council and Wallingford Community Council meetings in the last two weeks at City Hall and around the city, I met with SPD chief Adrian Diaz for a regular monthly meeting I attended the bike everywhere breakfast and was reminded by Casey Gifford that as of 10 years ago, we did not have a single protected by clean in our city, not one.

stunning to see where we are today.

I also was able to kick off SDCI's design review workshop meeting.

I sponsored the budget item that stood up this committee because I've heard from so many people that design review is a flawed process that needs to be improved.

Whether people view design review as only overly burdensome and slowing development or lacking the teeth to meaningfully shape development, people of every perspective seem to agree that changes could be made to make this process better.

And we need to give the process teeth to ensure buildings fit the character of our neighborhoods and that the process does not slow the building and certificate of occupancy of the housing we desperately need.

I also met with Seattle Conservation Corps.

Seattle Conservation Corps is a job and life skills training program for adults who have experienced homelessness where participants learn skills and gain experience working in crews assigned to perform public work tasks.

They are currently looking for a supervisor to coordinate these crews.

So if you know a professional who wants to use their leadership skills to help people get on their feet, please email my office.

We'll connect you with Seattle Conservation Corps, an amazing Seattle Parks Department program.

I also met with Mayor Harrell's Chief Operating Officer, Marco Lowe, and the department staff to discuss the waterway safety study funded in the 2021 budget.

Looking forward to getting that underway.

And on Friday, June 3, I attended two National Gun Violence Awareness Day events.

First, I attended the Safe Summer Initiative launch and presented Council's Wear Orange Gun Violence Awareness Day proclamation.

to community members.

I want to thank all of the community-based organizations who don't wait for solutions and undertake the work themselves to reduce gun violence in our communities.

It was stunning to see everyone there, because these folks don't wait for lawmakers to pass laws.

They take action to save lives, to work upstream, and in our communities, people to people, to make changes.

Again, people to people.

in and across our city.

And so I was just, it was just such a nice time to be with everyone there.

Secondly, I attended the Alliance for Gun Responsibilities event to recognize National Gun Violence Awareness Day and responding to a number of mass shootings across our country.

And I've heard many people ask where America's backbone is.

And I can tell you, America's backbone is here in Washington State.

In Washington State, we don't hope and pray gun violence will go away.

We change the laws to make sure tragedies don't happen again.

The position President Biden and our federal Congress are in today is where we were in Washington State in 2015, even after we closed the background check loophole.

2015 was the year after the shooting in Santa Barbara, and Senator Frack wrote the extremist protection bill, and the legislature wouldn't give them a hearing, because the politicians that gun responsible gun was legislation was a third rail, and I frankly don't blame them, because the lobby gun lobby had spent years and years and millions of dollars to make this thought a reality.

When the legislature wouldn't act on her pose Maryland bolster act whose family experienced preventable tragedy in the alliance for gun responsibility.

took this legislation to a vote of all Washingtonians in the past overwhelmingly this legislation is saved sales superstars and so many more.

And then the killings in the muckle to muckle to happen at a high school party 2016 so Washington state responded with the enhanced background checks classes and waiting times semi automatic rifles rifles.

And now today we have a legislature actively passing responsible gun legislation and addressing ghost guns and more and Attorney General Bob Ferguson's agency request legislation to ban high capacity magazines.

We gathered this weekend as Americans in many ways to tell President Biden and Congress, especially Democrats and Republicans in purple districts, you can be pro-Second Amendment and pro-gun responsibility.

Do not be afraid of the conjecture because the American people want laws that stop giving guns to people who are a danger to themselves or others or don't have impulse control.

Because when somebody doesn't have impulse control and their finger on a trigger, they make life-altering decisions without even thinking about it.

Washington state has given our nation roadmap to creating laws that protect our communities that uphold the second amendment and save lives and President Biden Congress.

I think all of us this weekend have been asking for you to stop hoping and praying stop being sick and tired and put pen to paper save American lives, because every day Americans are with you and are and are on your side.

And with that back here in City Hall and around the city I've been having my regular check with Seattle City Light CEO Debra Smith discussing distributed energy resources, how to make city light own properties in District six more vibrant Councilmember Peterson mentioned the Transportation Committee will be taking up the sound transit resolution, where I'm advocating for the needs of Ballard and surrounding neighborhoods.

with regards to the station placement of the ballot station.

And on Tuesday I'll be attending my second association Washington City's audit committee meeting, and I plan to be attending the PSRC transportation policy board meeting to discuss the Federal Transit Administration funding process and PSRC transportation work program.

Here in the land use committee there are no items from the land use committee on this week's full council agenda.

There are 28 event items on the land you from the land use committee on the this week's introduction referral calendar grant acceptance legislation for STC I know PCD seven appointments to the equitable development initiative board.

19 appointments to the Design Review Board, and one appointment to the Seattle Planning Commission.

The next meeting of the Land Use Committee is on Wednesday, June 8th at 2 p.m., and we have a busy agenda.

Seven appointments to the Equitable Development Initiative Advisory Board, 19 appointments to the Design Review Board, and a vote on Council Bill 120287, which updates the regulation, rooftop features, and equipment.

We also have a briefing and public hearing on Council Bill 120313, which changes the rules for major institution master plans for allowing for housing development at Seattle Central College, and a briefing and vote on a grant acceptance for SDCI and OPCD.

And on a separate note, this will be Noah Ahn's last committee meeting that he'll be clerking.

Noah has clerked for the Land Use Committee for three land use chairs and is an absolute asset and land use guru.

While this is not going to be Noah's last day in the office, I do want to take this time to recognize his immense contributions to our city and the legislative department.

With that, thank you, Council President and colleagues.

That is my report.

I see I'm three minutes over my allotted time.

Thank you, Council President.

Colleagues, any questions?

Only three?

Yeah, I timed it.

Okay.

If you're not seeing any questions, I'll pass it over to Council Member Herbold.

Thank you, colleagues.

Thank you so much.

There are no items from the Public Safety and Human Services Committee on tomorrow's full council agenda, and the Public Safety and Human Services Committee is meeting on June 14th next.

I'm looking forward to having a hybrid meeting in council chambers.

Got lots of good examples of how to do that from Councilmember Lewis in his meeting last week.

Glad he went first.

On Wednesday, June 8, there will be a public forum for the finalists for the position of the Director of the Office of Police Accountability.

That public forum is occurring from 6.30 to 8.30 p.m.

You may recall that there is a hiring committee for this particular position.

I am representing the council on that committee.

There are currently four finalists for the position.

One individual is Eddie Aubrey, the civilian manager for the Office of Professional Accountability in Richmond, California.

Bets, who's this Assistant State Attorney at the Community Justice Center within the Cook County State Attorney's Office in Chicago.

Janelle Harris, the Program Director of the Felton Institute in San Francisco.

And Belisa Nash, who's the Supervising Investigator for Special Duties at the Civilian Office of Police Accountability in Chicago.

Two Chicago candidates.

Members of the public can send questions up through noon tomorrow.

There's a link at my newsletter for how to do so at herbold.seattle.gov.

The public forum will also be broadcast on the Seattle Channel and live streamed.

The link is on my newsletter as well.

As far as things going on for the Herbold office, I'll be having my twice-monthly meeting with Chief Diaz later today and with Southwest Precinct Captain Rivera later this week.

Thank you, Councilmember Strauss, for your comments regarding gun violence.

I had the opportunity in my newsletter on Saturday to lift up A voice of a young person in district 1, where this young person shared a very moving poem and a piece of artwork.

He's 15 years old and with the approval of his family, I was able to share that reflection.

I think it does a really heartbreaking job of showing the experience of our young people and how these horrible mass shootings are affecting them in their lives.

Moving to just a few words about some recent coverage I know many of you have seen from the Seattle Times and KUOW and Axios regarding a reduction of police investigations.

of cases involving sexual assault of adults.

Just want to share that back in April, the Domestic Violence Prevention Council, of which I am a member, Chief Diaz, who is also a member, attended and shared the data that very transparently shows that about one-third of sexual assault cases are rooted in assigned to investigation.

Really appreciate SPD's willingness to share this data.

This is not a new development.

The sort of one-third assignment to investigations, the data shows that this goes back to 2020. April, my office met with Advocates for Survivors, and because there's another system that works with SPD as it relates to specifically allocating or designating advocacy resources that goes through the Human Services Department, I reached out to the Human Services Department to find out how those victim advocacy services were functioning given what we learned about the number of cases being investigated.

I received a report in late May that shows that survivors actually only receive this outreach from an advocate when their case is signed assigned for an investigation, not when the report is first taken.

So what that means is when cases aren't assigned, survivors are doubly impacted.

They both don't have the investigation of their case, nor do they have advocacy services.

So HSD is launching a pilot with the Seattle Police Department to change that, to begin to refer unassigned adult sexual assault cases to the victim support team, who then can provide a limited range of support and advocacy services.

I also want to flag something that hasn't been covered as extensively.

There's the issue of cases that are assigned for investigation, but then there's also the issue of cases that don't even have reports taken from patrol.

There are anecdotal instances that I think we really need to get some additional data that patrol officers are not being sent to take reports of sexual assault from survivors.

For something even to be referred for an investigation or for advocacy services, there needs to first be a report.

I appreciate Diaz when he attended committee in May, when we had this conversation generally about staffing and the use of patrol officers, and the assignment of patrol officers, where he said, if we don't have an officer to respond to sexual assault, we're never going to be able to have the follow-up to that investigation.

But as we all know, we received a report from SPD that shows that in the first quarter of 2022, the department has deployed patrol officers to 23,000 hours of overtime for events staffing.

and much of that is exclusively for traffic enforcement events.

Again, I really think we need to be looking at parking enforcement officers doing more of that event staffing.

I'm not saying that police officers should not get overtime.

I'm saying that overtime for events staffing should be switched out for overtime to both be meeting minimum staffing requirements of for the department, as well as for addressing the needs to take reports for things like sexual assault and and other other crime.

really want to want to flag that I think is really important that both Mayor Harrell and Mayor Harrell's administration as well as Chief Diaz should look at ways that might be available already to us to again to prioritize deploying officers to overtime work to fulfill high priority public safety incidents.

Then lastly on this topic, I just want to also mention that advocates are aware that so many cases are never routed to investigators and for specifically that reason, sexual assault survivors interventions with SPD are more limited to their interactions with patrol officers who often lack training in trauma-informed interactions specifically around sexual assault.

And so advocates have been reaching out to me to help them advocate training that is done out of the Criminal Justice Training Center for a training that is specific to interviewing techniques focused on working with survivors of sexual assault.

And I'm happy to say that SPD is considering this request.

Moving on to regional committee updates.

This week, I'll be attending a meeting of the leadership advisory group for the regional violence prevention.

effort of which I'm a member of the leadership advisory group, and as I understand it, this meeting is going to be focused on briefing us on the latest data about gun violence in our region, efforts on prevention and well-being, and hearing more about King County's partnership with the White House Community Violence Intervention Roundtable.

Other events that happened last week, I want to flag that I had a great meeting about the efforts of the West Seattle hub of the Seattle Community Safety Initiative through the YMCA discussing with Marvin Marshall their efforts to address district-specific issues and plans for the summer months.

I also had a lot of fun going deep into the woods of a West Seattle green space to join volunteers with the Seattle Urban Carnivore Project, who work with the Delridge Neighborhood Development Association and Parks Department and the zoo, all in a partnership to collect data on the movement of carnivores in and around our urban spaces.

I got to go to Concord Elementary in South Park to celebrate Page Ahead's four millionth book distributed to our young readers.

And on Friday, I also joined the Alliance for Gun Responsibility for observation of the National Gun Violence Awareness Day.

It was great to hear State Attorney General Bob Ferguson discussing not only the need to ban assault guns, but his resolve.

to fight and eventually prevail in a really dangerous lawsuit that we learned was just filed against Senate Bill 5078 that I know many of us worked on to ban high-capacity magazines that was passed in the state legislature last year, or I guess this year, this session.

So really glad to hear how confident he is that we will prevail and be able to maintain this ban of high-capacity magazines.

Then lastly, on Thursday, the West Seattle Bridge Community Task Force will be meeting.

And SDOT is, drumroll, expected to provide an update on timeline, so on timeline on reopening the bridge.

So hopefully we'll have some good news to share there.

That's all I have.

Do any of you have questions or comments before I pass it on?

Thank you.

I wanted to follow up on some of the points you were making about well, about SPD and in staffing priorities and and also requirements for deployment, because I read your newsletter and some of the points you just made, I read over the weekend.

And when you when we believe me, I agree that it is A lot of officers are required for events and Council Member Strauss and I have been working for months to ensure that the Fremont Solstice Parade and also the Fremont Fair happen on Solstice weekend because there's a shortage of officers.

So I understand that.

But when we talk about patrol and maybe you could answer this better.

But my understanding is that parking enforcement officers are civilians.

And so it is, they're not able to do some of the things to keep people who go to events safe, like seizures of weapons, drugs, alcohol, or apprehending someone who might be acting violently or threateningly.

And even when it comes to traffic control, people have to be able to, they do more than just, you know, get out tickets for, you know, for mis-parked cars.

They have to interrupt bad flow and people that are, you know, going down streets they're not supposed to.

So anyway, interesting to explore that more, but that is one of the things that I was thinking about.

And so when we talk about, you know, all of this, over time being assigned to these events instead of the implication being something else or high priority public safety events.

Not really sure if the crossover as well, because you said later on that advocates are saying that patrol could lack the training to really respond well to incidents of sexual assault and what we've got with You know, is the default is mostly patrol that would either that would respond.

So in any case, that was just one of the follow up points I wanted to make.

And just to remind everyone, SPD has lost about I think the latest figure I heard was four hundred and three officers since January 2020. And to help reduce or maintain or keep from getting any higher response times to 911 calls, 100 officers, this was, I think, presented in the February briefing in the Public Safety Committee, 100 investigators were deployed to patrol.

And so those folks are not investigating cases of sexual assault.

I'm not getting into the weeds of how those investigators that remain are allocated.

I just want to you know, note that.

So when, you know, when we talk about lack of investigators, that's a big problem when it comes to both sexual assault and guns on our streets.

Okay.

Council Member Nelson.

So, you know, Council Member Herbold, thank you for your report and Council Member Nelson, thank you.

But I just want to remind my colleagues that this isn't a committee and it's really not a time to to rebut or challenge each other.

This is just when we go around and we talk about a preview of city council actions council and regional committees, letting the public know what you've been doing what you plan on doing.

We'll, I think a lot of your comments customer Nelson are better served in committee, where we actually have robust discussion and debate, and it kind of puts customer herbal in a position.

to have to respond and that's not what today's that's what that's not what monday's uh at two o'clock forums are for so i'm just going to kind of be a little stickler on the rules there because if you have a question then you have a question i'd rather you just ask the question um to the to the presentation that council member um spent time to share with us so that's my comment and why i'm going to keep be a stickler on the rules for that okay so i'm going to go ahead and end my council briefing about what I did and what I'm going to do and what's happening in my committee.

There are no items from the Governance, Native Communities, and Tribal Governments Committee on tomorrow's council agenda.

The next meeting is July 21st at 9.30 a.m.

And myself, as Councilmember Herbold said, as well as Councilmember Lewis had an opportunity to do the hybrid meeting and things went fine, actually went really, really well.

So I'm looking forward to having more meetings in our hybrid format.

Regarding Native communities, I held a meeting at City Hall with representatives from the Office of Intergovernmental Relations, OIR, the Department of Neighborhoods, DON, and the Office of Planning and Community Development, OPCD, to talk about my office's intentional efforts to bolster what we are calling more than a land acknowledgment campaign, which we will be rolling out and been working on for quite a while.

We'll have more details for the public and for my colleagues.

But it's basically talking about actual land policies, land back, consultation with tribes, opportunities for tribes to buy land in their ceded area or buy land back from their ceded area, return of land, economic opportunities in the city and elsewhere and where the other properties that the city may own.

and more representation in Seattle structures and public assets in the city of Seattle.

In regards to Sound Transit, I attended a Sound Transit Rider Experience and Operations Committee meeting to discuss the ways to make elevators and escalators more reliable.

So when they say the vertical conveyance system, they're talking about the elevators and the escalators.

So moving on, as you probably all heard, Julie Tim from the Richmond Transit Company was selected as the new CEO of Sound Transit.

And again, she comes to us by way of Virginia.

And I know that she's making the rounds and I hope I have an opportunity to maybe have her present or to present in council member Peterson's committee when we get closer to when she's actually physically here.

Last week summary.

My staff attended a pedestrian safety and audit surrounding Ingram High School with representatives from the Aurora Reimagined Coalition, SDOT, Ingram staff and students, and SDOT informed the group of important new construction happening in that area.

Thank you SDOT for your work to keep our students safe and on their way to school.

And thank you to Ingram High School students who are out there with my staff, Murphy and Dean, to do the audit walk.

And I think we've done about three of these so far.

So thank you.

Finally, I attended the 10-year anniversary of Hoyt.

And Hoyt is an indigenous human rights nonprofit here in Seattle in District 5 that provides economic, educational, rehabilitative, and religious support for indigenous prisoners in the Puget Sound and the Puget, I'm sorry, in the Pacific Northwest and throughout the United States.

I was joined by former State Senator Claudia Kaufman, Minty Longearth, and State Department of Corrections Secretary Cheryl Strange.

Basically, the HOIT program, HOIT is a Lushootse word.

It's spelled H-U-I, but you say it HOIT, and that isn't a goodbye or hello, because like most native languages, there is not a word for goodbye.

It's basically I will see you again or I will see you later.

So the HOI program is a re-entry program for incarcerated indigenous brothers and sisters.

And it's a re-entry program to, again, line them up with education, housing, and it's just, it's been a really phenomenal program.

It's been successful these last 10 years.

They were shooting to raise, they met their goal of raising $250,000 and they received a $50,000 check from Coordinated Care on Friday.

So Gabe Galanda is the person who started Hoyt along with Minty Long Earth and some other folks who had experience with working with people, our brothers and sisters that are incarcerated and helping them re-entry into society.

That concludes my report.

And let's see, before we adjourn, colleagues, our next meeting, as you know, council briefing is scheduled for Monday, June 13th at two o'clock.

and not see anything.

Is there anything for the good of the order?

Seen anything from anybody.

OK, I think we're good.

All right.

We are adjourned.