Seattle City Council Briefing 111318

I am on good morning.

Thank you for being over a regularly scheduled council briefing I'll just very briefly sort of go through the lay of the land this morning.

Well this afternoon.

Let's go through the full council actions this afternoon I'll speak to a resolution setting forth our city of Seattle's state legislative agenda, and I really want to thank all of you for your your input in your comments and wordsmithing and I think you have a really good document ready for presentation.

We sort of delayed it a little while to make sure we got all the input, so we'll present that this afternoon.

Of course, we have the Council Bill 119-368 to spoke to CBA, and we'll talk collectively about that.

I'm sure that will garner more support, but as the public would know, we're through budget, so we won't have a lot of legislation this afternoon.

Just to, so I know a few of you may mention this, so I'll just sort of go through the schedule.

Today, right after our full council meeting, we'll have a public hearing and special meeting of the Seattle Parks District Board, led by our favorite council member, Council Member Juarez.

That'll be at 2.30 p.m.

Where did that come from?

And then Wednesday, as Councilmember, and our other favorite Councilmember, Wednesday, tomorrow at 9.30, we'll start in the Budget Committee and start voting on the balancing package.

Everybody's been so nice to me for the last two weeks.

And I know this afternoon, Councilmember Herbold, you'll talk about the proclamation.

Okay, so that's what we'll do this afternoon, and Council Member Bekshaw, you have the floor.

Thank you.

Well, let's talk a little bit about what we're gonna do tomorrow, since I guess I'm the second favorite today.

At 9.30, we will convene to go through the next round for our balancing package and ultimately come up with something that we are going to pass, hopefully, a week from yesterday.

So tomorrow, my presentation, so thanks to all of you, we have about 49 more green sheets that we get to go through because some of my other favorite council members came up with some additional ideas.

So tomorrow, what we're going to do is I'm first going to present what I believe is the consent package.

Now, if I've missed some or if there's some that you want to pull out, you have the right to do that.

But since we've got so many items, I'm suggesting that if we've gone through them in the last number of weeks, if we have supported them, if we've approved them, that's part of the balancing package that we've already seen, then we will vote on that as a consent package first.

Then, as I said, if there's things you want to pull out, you are free to do that and we will vote on those separately.

Then there is going to be a much smaller group.

These are the ones that are essentially self-balancing.

And I will just use my suggestions as an example.

Within my balance package that we had seen last week, I am taking out $25,000 from various categories to put money back into the Office of Economic Development.

OED is investing in a new group called Greater Seattle Partners.

I want to make sure that we are doing what OED had asked and felt like we had taken a great deal out of their department.

And what this greater Seattle partners and why I'm willing to support them is they're going to be focusing on businesses, middle-sized jobs, not high-tech, but also I want to make sure that their that we are obviously going to be talking a great deal more tomorrow.

So it doesn't have any impact on anything else that you have recommended.

It's all coming out of my...

my budget sheet that was balanced and presented last week.

So there will be categories in there, and I think Council President Herold, you may have one or two in there as well.

So we will present those next.

Then the third of the ones that have items that you all are wanting to rebalance, and we're going to have to vote on those, Individually because just as an example many requests for funding are coming out of the same funding sources and There's more requests from those sources than there is money available So we're going to have to go through and vote on those as and as an example Top two priorities in that category Councilmember Juarez and with my full support mother nation and aurora commons, so those are We are going to get those in here.

So those will be the first couple that we'll be voting on.

Then there is another item in there, and Council Member Sawant and I have worked on this, and that is to get one, fully funded lawyer for advocacy for tenants and eviction.

There's money for those three things, Mother Nation, a Royal Commons, and that one attorney position.

Beyond that, there are three other requests.

Council Member Sawant has asked for additional lawyers within that fund.

and Council Member O'Brien has asked to have a lead expansion.

There is not enough money to cover all those things.

So I am prioritizing them, but we will have to vote on each one of them.

And I'm starting with Council Member Juarez with your package.

Then there is another set of other contracts, again, competing for funds.

And then at the very end, I'm going to be taking up a group, and I think Council Members will want that you have about a dozen where you're asking for us to fund affordable housing from new sources, including a $480 million request for a long-term general obligation bond.

So we'll be taking those up, but that's the order of things.

First the consent, then the ones that are self-balancing, then the ones that we're going to be having good items, but they're competing for some funding.

And then lastly, the affordable housing ones.

So we will take that up tomorrow at 9.30.

I'm going to be asking you all about public comments, and we're going to take those first.

I anticipate we'll have a full chamber.

I'm going to also anticipate that people will have a minute to speak to us, and that'll be the plan for tomorrow morning.

Thank you.

Council Member Herbold.

Can I ask a follow-up question?

Absolutely.

Thank you for that overview.

That was really helpful.

I appreciate all the juggling and balancing that you're having to do.

I think you're doing a great job.

Thank you.

As it relates to a topic that we've heard a lot about since late last week, the dedicated funding for the red light cameras.

Right.

heard it said that that dedication for the next three years reversing the council's decision in the past to have that dedicated specifically to traffic safety programs that that's not actually going to result in the number of projects that will be completed.

I would love a little bit more detail on that.

I will ask our Council Central staff to swing by and talk to you about this, but I've asked that exact same question, that the projects are going forward.

We're actually putting more money in the budget than the mayor had initially put into her budget.

Nothing is being cut.

We just had more money in that particular category than anticipated.

So since it is available for general fund, I'm putting it back into general fund to cover many of the requests that my colleagues here have made.

And since this is a commitment to do only for the next couple of years, are the things that those dollars are going to, are they only obligations for the next couple of years?

Yes.

But I will confirm that so you've got that and you're comfortable with it.

Just so we have the flexibility to revert back.

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

And I think as we're going forward this next year, looking at how we're going to fund the many things, particularly around affordable housing that we all are clamoring for, me on a regional basis, I think that this is just a bigger picture that we're going to be talking about for 2020 as well.

Thank you.

Thank you for asking the question.

Just in response to Council President Harrell's recognition that the state legislative agenda is coming to us, I just want to publicly thank OIR for including many of the things that we had discussed at the table, things that they had previously had concerns about including, see this last version does include many of those things.

So that's great and look forward to voting on that.

No items on the full council agenda today.

No civil rights, utilities, economic development or arts committee meeting.

And the only thing I have is a proclamation that we're gonna be presenting today at full council.

This is a proclamation by the mayor and the Seattle City Council honoring Filipino and American World War II veterans.

And then finally I just want to make note of a couple of events this week.

I am really excited to announce that my A couple of the organizations in District 1 have began to think about organizing themselves differently so that they could have more influence over me.

So there's a new District 1 organization.

It's sort of folding in a couple of the neighborhood district councils into one organization so that they can sort of speak with one voice.

when advocating for the district's priorities, both to the council and to the mayor.

So I'm really excited they're having their first meeting this evening.

In addition, we've got the mother's...

for a police accountability breakfast Thursday morning.

And we've got a Puget Sound Sages annual celebration that I'm excited to attend.

So always a great, great event.

And then finally, on Saturday, there will be again in my district, the 10th annual Chief Sealth Auction that I'm looking forward to attend to support our public schools.

Nice.

Excellent.

Thanks.

Thank you, President Harrell.

Good morning, everyone.

No items in today's full council agenda from the Human Services Equitable Development Renter's Rights Committee.

And because of the budget process, the committee meetings will be after we're done.

Excellent.

Casper Juarez.

There's real leadership there, Council Member Swann.

It's less than 15 seconds.

Let's see, I have some stuff, but let me just say the next meeting of the Civic Development, Public Assets, and Native Communities Committee will be Tuesday, November 27th at 2 in Council Chambers.

We originally had this scheduled for November 20th and is now updated for now November 27th.

to accommodate the holiday schedule.

Currently, there are two items on the agenda.

Number one, we'll hear from the Department of Parks and Rec for a briefing on Portage Bay Park and the Bryant site and the Arboretum Loop Trail.

So today, Tuesday, November 13th, we'll have a parks district meeting immediately following our full council meeting here in council chambers.

This is a friendly reminder that we need a quorum of five, so I look forward to staff presentations with all my colleagues present.

This meeting today for the Park District will cover two items.

The first item is the Seattle Park District midterm report required under the interlocal agreement between the city and the Park District.

Christopher Williams and Michelle Finnegan from the Department of Parks and Recreation will provide this report.

And number two, a public hearing to solicit comment on the Seattle Parks District's revenue source for 2019 operations.

This is non-capital.

Non-capital budget and a possible property tax levy increase for 2019. The Park District will collect 52 million in 2019 which equates to approximately 0.22 percent 1,000 assessed value.

So what we basically are increasing the the amount that the voters when they voted for the park districts in 2014. It looks like we're gonna be increasing that tax assessed value.

These funds will support the activities included in the 2019 spending plan for the Seattle Parks District.

Next week, November 19th, we'll have a second Parks District meeting at 2.30 following full council.

Same setup as this week.

From the dais, we will immediately transition from budget to parks and continue with items on the agenda.

On November 19th, we will discuss and potentially adopt the 2019 spending and operations plan for the Seattle Parks District.

Thank you.

Thanks, Council Member Morris.

Council Member Esqueda.

Good morning, Mr. President, and God bless you.

There are no items from the Housing, Health, Energy, and Workers' Rights Committee on today's full council agenda.

As a reminder, our first meeting is December 6th, and we look forward to taking up items that have been previously discussed, including, but not limited to, our ongoing conversation about how we Enhance and expand our commitment to protecting workers from sexual assault and harassment Looking forward to working with all of you on that effort as we get that legislation finalized this week on Thursday I'm excited to join Councilmember Cole Wells at King County Council where we will be introducing a panel on the public health approaches to Preventing sexual assault at the Board of Health meetings.

This item will start at around 2 30 p.m on the agenda and I encourage folks to join us and as that the joint council chambers on the 10th floor of the courthouse or tune in to KCTB and check it out there.

The panel is gonna include a number of public health professionals and individuals in this area that are issue experts and hope that we can again add to the work that this council has done prior to my arrival here, the work that the state legislature has done and further our commitment to preventing sexual assault and harassment.

On Friday, I'm excited because we are going to have our first Census Task Force meeting and this will be the first of many that the mayor and my office and others on council have committed to making sure that we have a robust approach to getting the word out about the census coming up in 2020. And again, the importance of this is recognizing that the Trump administration has included a citizenship question on the census.

And at this point, there is a number of growing concerns about the impact that this will have, not only for those who might not be here with documentation, but also those who are in mixed status families and citizens as well.

We think this will have a detrimental impact not only on getting a count by getting an accurate assessment of who was all here and thus the resources to serve them.

And tomorrow, I'm looking forward to joining our friends at the Martin Luther King County Labor Council at the Teamsters Hall to welcome their new leadership and celebrate the elected individuals who won this year in our labor community.

Excellent.

Thank you.

Councilmember Johnson.

Good morning.

No items to report for today and nothing on today's full council agenda.

I do want to take a moment just to say thank you to the Seattle voters.

If it wasn't for their generosity last week in adopting the renewal of the families and education preschool and promise levies the budget conversation we'd be having today would be much more difficult.

That you know significant amount of resources that we're going to be putting to supporting kids from ages 3 through College is going to be really critical for our city's future and I'm grateful to folks for their overwhelming support.

You're here.

Thank you.

Councilmember Gonzalez?

I'm gonna let Councilmember O'Brien go.

Okay.

Next.

He might be brief, but.

I might.

There is nothing on this afternoon's agenda from the Sustainability and Transportation Committee and we do not meet this week.

Good call.

I just didn't want you to wait all through whatever I'm going to say.

I memorized that.

I was going to lose it.

I wanted to give you an opportunity just to get your report out before we delve into the next topic.

So Council President Harrell, I did have an opportunity to talk to you before we came out here today.

I don't know if you want to open up comments about the council bill any further or if you'd just like me to go ahead and dive in.

Okay, so this afternoon, we will be considering Council Bill 119368, which would approve the proposed tentative agreement with the Seattle Police Officers Guild.

This would be a contract that would run from January 1st of 2015 through December 31st, 2020. As many of us are aware and have continuously been reminded, the Seattle Police Officer Guild membership has been operating as law enforcement in our Seattle Police Department without a contract since December 31st, of 2014, and after many, many, many, many, many sessions of negotiations with our labor negotiators under the guidance of the Labor Relations Policy Committee, the mayor has advanced to us a tentative agreement for the city council's consideration in approval consistent with Seattle Municipal Code.

So that is what we are going to be considering this afternoon.

Before I talk a little bit about the bill, I wanted to circulate technical amendment that came to us from the law department related only to the appropriations of the of the proposed bill so this is a bill that would effectively be a technical correction to appropriations made in council bill one one nine three six eight it adds language that allows the appropriations to carry over into 2019 so This was a oversight in the drafting of the bill initially that did not include language that said that the appropriations carried into 2019 as opposed to just ending on December 31st of 2018. So without this correction, we would have to run another bill concurrent with our existing budget process in order to be able to effectuate payment for 2019 and 2020 so We will have an executive session today after council briefing where all of the relevant lawyers will be At the table and they intend to talk about this and why it is a technical amendment.

So if anybody has additional questions for our attorneys about that you will be able to Ask those questions to your heart's content during executive session.

OK, so council bill that we are going to be considering this afternoon, as I mentioned, is designed to approve the tentative agreement.

I just wanted to say a couple of introductory remarks initially.

So first of all, I want to thank all of the members of the Labor Relations Policy Committee who both preceded me and have served at the same time with me as we continue to make sure that we uphold the City of Seattle's values and commitments to what it means to be a good faith partner and negotiator in our collective bargaining processes through the established Labor Relations Policy Committee process and the council members who have been involved in the Labor Relations Policy Committee since I've come on to City Council in in November 2015 have included myself, Council Member O'Brien, Council Member Mosqueda, Council Member Juarez.

For a short minute, as Budget Chair, Council Member Herbold, Council Member Bagshaw, and Council President Harrell, and previous to that, former Council Member And so, in some way, in some capacity, many of us have had an opportunity to be a part of the LRPC process, which is specifically designed to evaluate and set parameters for our labor negotiators to go strike a deal with our collective bargaining units across the city.

So it is an important part of how we engage in labor negotiations as management with our labor unions.

It has been a process that has been in place for many, many years at the city of Seattle.

And it is something that has worked in terms of a process that really does instill good faith amongst our labor unions and their understanding that our labor negotiators are in fact empowered to make decisions on behalf of management that will then be distilled into a collective bargaining agreement.

So that is the process that has led us to this point.

We have been on a very, very long journey to get to this point.

And I'm advancing this council bill because I think it's time for us to take the next step in this process to be able to both provide fair wages to our officers who are currently being paid 2014 wages while also not letting go the opportunity of memorializing some of the accountability reforms that I believe are necessary for us to continue to advance our in this space.

And I'm going to talk a lot more about what I think those accountability reforms are today at 2 o'clock.

But as a preview, there are things in this tentative agreement that I think are really important that we were able to, their labor negotiators were able to achieve.

First and foremost was the abolition of the Disciplinary Review Board, which was a And so I think that that getting, abolishing that particular appeal process is a significant accomplishment in this tentative agreement.

Secondly, we have a tentative agreement that will allow increased civilianization within the Office of Police Accountability.

OPA Director Andrew Meyerberg was at the table and was in agreement with the increased number of civilians that would be introduced into OPA going up to three additional civilians.

One would handle HR, two would handle investigation, so that's work that would be moved away from sworn investigators and a sworn officer doing HR work.

That move was made in large part under the guidance of the OPA director, Andrew Meyerberg, who indicated that that would be about all that his office has the capacity to be able to do over the next couple of years.

That particular term, in terms of increased civilianization within our internal investigations unit, is a big deal and has been memorialized in this tentative agreement.

The third thing that I would say that should not be overshadowed is the basic wages and compensation that will be paid through this tentative agreement to our officers if we if we approve this contract.

We largely compare ourselves to what is called the West Coast Seven.

Those are the seven major cities along the West Coast that we ordinarily compare our wages with.

We are currently dead last in that comparison.

This tentative agreement and approving the tentative agreement would actually put Seattle in the middle of the pack.

We'd be sort of at the top of the chart in terms of Washington State, but we'd still be competing pretty evenly with most of those West Coast seven cities that we tend to do wage comparisons with, that we tend to compete with for additional officers.

This tentative agreement also allows for the full deployment department-wide of body-worn video cameras on every single uniformed officer.

We have heard from many folks that body worn video is not the tool to effectuate accountability, but it is a tool to be able to identify what might have transpired in an interaction between an officer and an individual.

And it has been you know, sort of widely rated as one of the things that many community members, particularly within the city of Seattle, would like to see fully deployed within the city on every single officer that would be incorporated within this tentative agreement.

And, you know, there's many other things in the Tentative Agreement that I think are important, but those are just the highlights from my perspective.

And while I give you the list of all of the things that I think are significant in this contract, there is no question that I agree with our friends at the Community Police Commission and others that there are things that we did not get in this contract.

And so I'm not going to hail this contract as the end-all be-all of accountability reform, but I do believe that we have in the ordinary course of labor negotiations, which do inherently involve a give and take, We have received quite a bit in this contract and we have a lot more work to get to the finish line in terms of what else we might be able to accomplish in a few short months when we reopen negotiations with the Seattle Police Officers Guild to identify what other reforms we need to put on the table and what other we need to negotiate for in order to fulfill our ongoing commitment to systemic reform of our accountability system, while also being fair to our officers.

So that is, in a nutshell, the council bill.

And before...

Before I hand it over, I also wanted to let folks that I'm running a companion resolution with this council bill that lays out some of the history in terms of the collective bargaining agreement and also purports to lay out the intersection between what we have been doing in council chambers as it relates to legislating the accountability ordinance and what I believe our obligations are in terms of submitting the collective bargaining agreement and the tentative agreement once approved by the city council.

to Judge Robar, so I have incorporated those those concerns that I have about this tentative agreement into this resolution as an opportunity for Judge Robar to weigh in on those particular areas, but of course Nobody tells a federal judge what to do.

So Judge Robar has the latitude to look at other aspects of the collective bargaining agreement as approved by the City Council and weigh in on those There's been some conversation about the fact that there's no way that he would do that.

I've been able to find no less than two orders and my own memory of the status conference last week that specifically in which the judge stated that it is his expectation that the city council will submit the tentative agreement and the accountability ordinance to the judge upon completion of all of these processes.

So from my perspective, this is the next step for us to take.

The judge made clear last week that he has concerns.

He also made clear that he cannot weigh in on those concerns unless this city council approves this contract.

So I'm asking my colleagues to approve this contract for purposes of advancing this particular piece of legislation forward to the judge so that he has a full of information that he needs to be able to weigh in once and for all on these issues that I think are of mutual concern to all of us.

So I'm going to circulate a copy of the resolution for you all to have.

And just please be aware that we are still actively working on the resolution.

There are some sort of technical changes that have to be made.

made that are way beyond my pay grade in terms of understanding why.

But I wanted to circulate these to you all.

You will notice that it's a very thick package.

The reason it's thick is because there are three attachments to this resolution.

The three attachments are the that we received from the Community Police Commission, from the Office of Inspector General for Public Safety, and from the Office of Police Accountability, because I do think it's important for the judge to have that context in addition to the information that I included in the resolution.

So this will not be the last, unfortunately, colleagues, that you hear from me.

So I apologize in advance for taking up so much air time.

Oh, that's very helpful.

Thank you, Council Member Gonzalez, for that.

Nutshell large nutshell.

I'm sorry it was a very large one.

Councilmember Juarez, I saw you in queue there.

Yes, just briefly and I'll have a smaller nutshell than Councilmember Gonzalez.

I first wanted to thank Councilmember Gonzalez for all the work that she's done.

I know that this goes way back to 2012. Of course this council passed the accountability ordinance in 2017, but There's just two things I briefly want to mention.

On the collective bargaining piece, I think it's real important that we're mindful that we honor this process, that there was good faith bargaining.

Did the city get everything they wanted?

Probably not.

Did the SPA get everything they wanted?

Probably not.

But when you do these kind of good faith bargaining and these kind of contracts, concessions are made.

There's some sort of meeting of the minds.

And, you know, there are a lot of these issues that were mandatory bargaining issues, the wages, the hours, and, of course, the cameras and a bunch of other issues.

But what I really want to speak to is some of the issues that have been raised by the community.

And I understand that those are concerns, that they feel that there are some significant flaws that undermine police accountability and that there may be some departure from the original ordinance or the accountability ordinance.

But I think what the real core issue here, and this is a legal and a judicial issue, not a policy issue, whether the tentative agreement undermines the 2017 Accountability Ordinance.

My understanding, and Councilman Gonzalez correct me if I'm wrong, is that Judge Robart will be reviewing the Accountability Ordinance and the TA together to make that determination whether or not it undermines or rolls back any of the issues that were brought by or some of the concerns that were raised by the Community Police Commission.

That's that's correct.

Yes, okay.

There's a court order dated September 7th of 2017 in which the judge specifically declines to approve our accountability ordinance.

and in particular lays out the fact that he is declining to approve the accountability ordinance in large part because he saw it as a work in progress.

Specifically because collective bargaining needed to occur and had not yet occurred at the time that we submitted the 2017 accountability ordinance to the court.

So as a result of that particular order, there is language in the Seattle Municipal Code related to the accountability ordinance that said that implementation was effectively not possible.

to be able to occur until such time that the judge approved the accountability ordinance.

So we are dealing in a situation where I know that there are folks who feel that we are rolling back the accountability ordinance, but in reality, what we have right now is our current accountability system because the judge has not approved the accountability ordinance in its entirety, and in fact, only approved two aspects, the creation of at the creation and hiring of the IG and the hiring of the OPA and in his September 2017 order specifically indicated that any terms related to the OPA and IG that may have been modified through the collective bargaining process would need to be returned to the court for judicial review to make a determination about compliance with both the accountability ordinance and the consent decree.

Thank you, because I know as a former member of the LRPC, and then also thank you for allowing me to participate in selecting the IG.

And I just think that we should let the community know that their concerns about the discipline review process, the new legal standard for misconduct, the 180-day clock for looking at internal investigations or completing internal investigations, none of that has gotten by us as elected officials.

As you said, and as we all know the history and what we've been dealing with since 2012, And then the accountability ordinance in 2017 and then of course Judge Robart did rule I believe in January or December was in 2018 that we were in compliance Or that the police department was to be was in full compliance with the 2012 consent decree so what I just want to get back to is this is that We have to get, I believe and I will be voting to support this contract today because the next step, and I think the judge made that clear at your hearing on November 5th, correct?

Is that it was premature and not right, that these issues have to get in front of this judge.

This judge has been presiding over police department reforms.

He is no stranger to being critical of the city.

In fact, in August, I believe he got angry with the city about their lack of compliance with his court's directions.

He certainly has shown his frustration with the city and the police department.

But on the other hand, this is my opinion from watching Judge Robart.

He's been a federal district court judge for 14 years on the federal bench.

And this is the same judge who temporarily blocked this administration's immigration order.

This is the same judge that talked about, from the bench, which is unusual that Black Lives Matter, when he talked about the casualties and the effect to African American communities when they only make up 20% of the population, that that was unacceptable.

And I'm particularly impressed by this judge that he talked about, just recently, that the city will be held to the standard that the spirit and the purpose of the federally mandated reforms must be seen in this tentative agreement and also in light of the accountability ordinance as well.

So again, I just, the reason, one reason why I want to see this go forward is setting aside honoring the whole the whole bargaining process that people go through and Spock stepping up in the city stepping up and operating without a contract with the city and moving forward is that I think we just have to move forward and I think we have to put this in front of a mindful judge who was by the way One thing I admire about Judge Robart is that he is born and raised in Seattle and understands the sensibilities of Seattle and the history and what this city has been going through with the unconstitutional policing that had occurred.

And I have faith in the system that when we do get this issue, hopefully if it does pass today and it does go in front of Judge Robart, that he will hold our feet to the fire and make sure that we are not rolling back any of the achievements or any of the efforts that we've gone through since 2012. to truly have community policing and constitutional policing.

And I think that that's important because, well, we all know why it's important, but it's like we can't just stay stuck in this process.

And unlike before, we do have an inspector general on board now.

And I have always said and use this analogy that, you know, we have three legs to this stool.

We have the IG, we have this community police commission, and we have the OPA.

And I think we all have to work together.

And then I think moving this forward and honoring this process of the bargaining process, and then letting the judge make the determination whether or not the tentative agreement or the ordinance, accountability ordinance, violate or roll back any of the efforts gained through, or successes gained through, or violate, I'm sorry, the 2012 consent decree.

So, with that, I will be supporting the voting yes for this contract this afternoon.

Thank you, Councilmember Juarez.

I saw Councilmember Herbold would like to say a few words.

Thank you.

I really appreciate it.

A couple things.

One, I wanted to speak to an amendment that I don't have ready that I'm thinking of bringing forward.

It relates to the MOUs and the MOAs in Appendix F. They are listed in appendix F as being incorporated into the collective bargaining agreement, but they have not actually been included in the collective bargaining agreement.

I don't recall seeing legislation in the past that has stated that other agreements were incorporated, but not actually included in the legislation.

We have checked with the law department.

These are publicly disclosable documents.

I think it's important for transparency and public understanding as to what the agreement includes.

And I have asked for these MOUs and MOAs.

I've received them.

It's a little awkward that we're being asked to vote on legislation that doesn't actually include the relevant items.

The Inspector General's letter noted that five of the MOUs could have potential impacts on OIG operations.

All of that aside, I'm going to be looking at bringing forward a clerk file that includes those MOUs and MOAs.

Secondly, an amendment that I do have ready, but that I also don't know for sure.

MOUs and MOAs are actually, as I understand it, are effective documents that have already been signed between the SPOG and the city.

And so they'll be sort of referenced to in the country.

Got it.

OK.

Thanks.

And then the other.

May I?

Please.

I have no objection to publicly posting those MOUs.

I think that's a smart and appropriate thing for us to do for purposes of transparency.

Very good.

The other amendment I'm going to share, but again, we're going to have a conversation in executive session that I think might have some impact on whether or not I bring this forward.

This is an amendment that relates to the effective date of the ordinance.

Specifically, as it relates to the request contained in Councilmember Gonzalez's resolution for the court to make a determination of the consistency of the contract with the obligations under the consent decree, this amendment, if passed, would basically establish the effective date of the legislation as occurring after the approval of the U.S.

District Court.

It also includes a recital that whereas U.S.

Judge Robart noted in the January 10th, 2018 order finding initial compliance, the court has previously indicated it will not grant final approval to the city's new accountability ordinance until after collective bargaining is complete.

And then we've heard since that time that He will not make that determination until after the council has adopted the the contract I just want to one of the questions that I heard Councilmember Juarez speak to is whether or not the judge is going to be looking at consistency with the ordinance and as I understand it and as Councilmember Gonzalez's resolution says it is not to look for for compliance and consistency with our accountability ordinance.

It is specifically related only to those items that are governed by the consent decree.

And I appreciate Council Member Gonzalez pointing to the orders that the judge has issued.

indicating his expectations that the contract comes back to him, but there have been, I think, serious questions that concern me about the expectations that we're setting up with this resolution because the scope of the judge's review is limited to only the things in the consent decree, and there's some question of how many of the things that we've identified in the resolution that we want, the six things, how many of them actually are within the scope of the consent decree.

So I kind of veered off of the amendment that I wanted to propose, but also to speak to Councilmember Juarez's resolution.

Again, sorry Councilmember Gonzalez's resolution, Councilmember Juarez's question and just wanting to share this potential amendment.

It also includes the language that we heard from Councilmember Gonzalez earlier about the need for the carryover, the technical amendment that's also included in this amendment as well.

Thank you, very good.

Okay, so excuse me Yeah, so I think it's really important for us to be clear on what the city's obligations are in terms of constitutional policing now as a civil rights lawyer for over 10 years who practiced constitutional law and in particular practiced in the space of constitutional policing I've had an opportunity to really be probably a more in-depth in terms of this issue than most folks might otherwise be.

Maybe perhaps Council President Harrell might want to challenge me on that, but...

He says no.

But I think it's really important for us to understand that the accountability ordinance is not separate and apart from the consent decree.

There are definitely aspects of the accountability ordinance that are folded into the construct and the spirit of the consent decree.

And I think it is problematic to create some sort of artificial daylight between the accountability ordinance and the consent decree, as though the accountability ordinance actually is a higher standard of constitutional policing, because that's not true.

Our higher standard, the standard for constitutional policing, is the United States Constitution, period.

And the consent decree aspires to really import those constitutional principles into the city's accountability and reform system.

And so our accountability ordinance, when we first sought approval before we began the legislative process, approval that we were not able to necessarily garner from the judge, really was designed to try to meet that minimal requirement under the consent decree.

So our accountability ordinance, of course I love it because I helped write it.

And I believe deeply in what we were trying to accomplish through accountability ordinance.

But we knew from the start that it was a pie-in-the-sky ordinance, that we might not be able to get everything that we had, because there were many things that needed to be bargained in that accountability ordinance.

And I just want to be really clear that I don't think my resolution sets up false expectations at all.

I think it actually moves us forward in a way that the court has signaled to us more than one time that he wants to see happen.

And in this order from September 7th of 2017, he stated, the court declines to rule on the entirety of the ordinance as it relates to the SPD accountability system at this time.

Until the collective bargaining process is complete, the court cannot be assured that the ordinance as it stands today is a final product.

The court declines to rule on a variant of the ordinance, but will await the final version that is ultimately implemented following collective bargaining.

He goes on to say, the court simply declines to place its final imprimatur on what is essentially a work in progress.

The court cautions the parties who either are or will be engaged in collective bargaining over provisions of the ordinance that the United States Constitution and the right of the city's citizens to have constitutional policing ultimately trumps all other concerns at issue here.

He ends his order by approving the city's ability to move forward with the hiring of an OPA director and the IG because we claimed that those were vital to the city's implementation of the remainder of the ordinance, and I agree with that.

He ends the order by indicating that the court's approval of those sections of the ordinance are conditional.

If these provisions change in any way as a result of the collective bargaining process or otherwise, the parties must so inform the court and resubmit the provisions to the court for further review.

So again, this judge has told us many, many times that it is his expectation, it is his order, court order for us to resubmit all aspects of the accountability ordinance that may be in conflict with the consent decree and with what ultimately is distilled into the tentative agreement.

So I don't think we're setting up false expectations at all by advancing this resolution.

I think we're following through on what I have heard and read the court say to this city council multiple times.

Thank you, Councilman Gonzalez.

I'll just say a few words.

That'll hopefully be the last words, and then we'll go into executive session, but it never works.

I want to thank you, Councilman Gonzalez, that this is a huge body of work, and we've had it, actually, on our full council, DACA now, for a few weeks, to have these difficult discussions.

And when you look at, perhaps, the six areas of criticism that many advocates will say, using terms like we're rolling back reforms, quite candidly, the critics are many of whom are our friends and our allies and who have been in the trenches with us working on accountability.

And so none of my remarks would be critical of their concerns at all because they are empowered to do exactly what we want them to do, which is to fight for the maximum level of accountability we can achieve.

But when I look at those six areas of concern and then I look at what we are getting, And many of us who were on the LRPC would realize when we would pound the table and says we are not budging on this.

This is what we must have to protect our residents in our community, to protect people of color, people who are on the receiving end of unreasonable force, that the end result of that may not reflect everything we wanted as Councilman Gonzalez said, but I think compared to what's happening in this country, It's a damn good package.

And the accountability work is not an end destiny.

We finally achieved it.

It is ongoing work.

And I think the people we have in place, whether it's Andrew Meyerberg or Lisa Judge, or even our monitor, our police chief, et cetera, the faces and personalities and spirits we have in critical positions will help make this work.

But I do say that I fully respect the criticisms we are getting when they are saying that it does not meet the needs of many of the community members who I respect and care for so much.

So anyway, thank you, Councilman Gonzalez.

This has not been an easy piece of work, and we have some issues in executive session we must discuss, and I look forward to that.

Okay, would anyone like to say anything before I close it?

Okay, good.

So we're going to go into executive session.

As presiding officer, I'm announcing that the Seattle City Council will now convene in executive session, and the purpose will be discussed pending, potential, or actual litigation.

The council's executive sessions are an opportunity for us to discuss confidential legal matters with our city attorneys as authorized by law, but we always have a monitor present from the city attorney's office to make sure we reserve questions of policy for our public open sessions.

I expect this session to end, I'm gonna say 45 minutes, and right now it is...

I'm saying 45 minutes.

So we'll say an hour so we don't have to reopen it.

So we'll say one hour.

So I can't even see the clock.

It'll go to 1124. And if it goes beyond that, I'll announce its expected duration and the extension of that.

So at this point, let's move into executive session.