Seattle City Council Select Budget Committee 7/23/2020

Okay, good morning, everybody.

Thank you again for joining us.

Today is July 23, 2020. The Select Budget Committee will come to order.

This is Teresa Mosqueda, and it is 10.02 a.m.

Will the clerk please call the roll?

Councilmember Lewis?

Councilmember Morales?

Councilmember Peterson?

Here.

Councilmember Sawant?

Here.

Council Member Strauss.

Present.

Council Member Gonzalez.

Here.

Council Member Herbold.

Here.

Council Member Juarez.

Chair Mosqueda.

Here.

Bix present.

Thank you, Madam Clerk.

As additional colleagues join us, I will make sure to welcome them so the viewing public knows that they are with us.

Appreciate you all joining us this morning.

This is the second part of our Select Budget Committee meeting this week.

We will continue with our conversation regarding amendments to the 2020 rebalancing package that are focused on non-SPD related items.

Again, we're continuing with amendments that were proposed and introduced, 8, 9, 10, 11, and 12 that were on the agenda.

That is the majority of our agenda today, but we will, of course, start with public comment.

If there's no objection, today's agenda will be adopted.

Hearing no objection, the agenda is adopted, and we will get right into public comment.

Colleagues, I mentioned yesterday I'd like to have as much time as possible for public comment and allow folks the chance to chime in if they haven't yet had a chance to speak publicly or to speak again if they'd like to.

So we will begin our public comment today with at least 45 minutes.

Why don't we make it 50 minutes, Madam Clerk?

A number of people signed up and I'd love to give them as much time as possible.

If there is additional people who do chime in, we will again extend the public comment period.

If there's no objection, the public comment period will be extended to 50 minutes.

Hearing no objection, the public comment is extended.

That means at 9.50, we will check back in with folks and make sure that we we will open remote public comment period.

I ask that everyone please be patient as we continue to learn to operate the new system in real-time and navigate through the inevitable growing pains.

We are continuously looking for ways to fine-tune this process and adding features to allow for additional means of public participation.

It remains a strong intent of City Council to have public comment regularly included in our And you will hear at 10 seconds between the time that your time is slated to end, you will hear a 10-second chimer to let you know that you should wrap up your comments.

I'll call on speakers, three speakers at a time, in the order in which they are registered.

And today, if you have not yet registered to speak, but you would like to, you can do so by going to Seattle.gov backslash council.

The council public comment link is also on today's agenda.

Once I call on the speaker's name, you will be prompted to begin speaking.

You will hear you have been unmuted, and that's your cue to start speaking.

Please begin speaking by stating your name.

And as a reminder, you are welcome to speak to any items on the Select Budget Committee's agenda.

They do not have to be on today's published agenda.

If you have completed your speaking and you would like to continue watching, please do so by hanging up and dialing back into the listen line or watching on Seattle Channel or the live stream on their website.

The public comment period is now open.

I'll begin by calling on three speakers at a time.

And the first speakers that we have here include Daniel Swanson, Alan Ballway, and Ava Menz.

Daniel Swanson, welcome.

Hi my name is Daniel and I'm a worker and voter in District 4 and a member of Socialist Alternative.

I'm here speaking in support of defunding the remaining 2020 police budget by at least 50 percent and investing those funds in black and brown working class communities stopping the sweep of houseless folks and winning funds for rental organizing to fight against the tsunami of evictions that will hit us once the moratoriums are lifted.

We have shown through winning the Amazon tax struggle that the momentum behind our movement is stronger than ever and is capable of winning strong demands.

We need to continue to use this momentum to organize around a people's budget to make our demands clear.

We will not sit idly while Seattle residents face houselessness joblessness evictions racism and police brutality all during a pandemic and recession.

Please join us July 28th for the people's budget rally to keep the pressure on and fight for these demands.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Allen welcome.

My name's Allen Ballway and I'm a District 7 resident.

I'm calling to urge the council and my representative, Councilmember Lewis in particular, to support Councilmember Morales's proposed budget changes to SPD and supporting community and protester demands to cut the remaining SPD 2020 budget by at least 50%.

Important services and planned projects such as the city center streetcar connection shouldn't be sacrificed to continue funding SPD terrorism of Seattle communities.

I'd also urge my council members to keep in mind the environmental impact of continuing to prioritize expensive, destructive car-based transit over more environmentally friendly and revenue-producing mass public transit.

A prime example of this inequity is the proposed laundering of funds from other sources to fund short-term repairs and an expensive, wasteful replacement of the West Seattle Bridge while public transit, bike lanes, and other transportation projects are cut.

Thank you.

Thank you for your time, Daniel.

McCraw and then Daniel Cavanaugh will follow Ava Mance.

Ava, you're up next.

Good morning, Budget Committee.

My name is Daniel.

My apologies.

So we have Daniel McCraw and then Ava Mance.

OK, that works well.

Go ahead, Daniel.

No problem at all.

Good morning, Budget Committee.

My name is Dan McCraw, and I'm part of SHARE's Housing for Work program.

First, I would like to comment on Councilperson Strauss's Amendment 4, which would reallocate funds from the jail shelter towards tiny home villages and enhanced shelters.

With the pandemic, everyone has seen that mass-based shelters have serious challenges.

People in mass-based shelters, always crowded, too close together, and the pandemic caused many to test positive for the coronavirus.

Please don't forget there's another shelter model, community shelter.

Shares community shelters have been a great success through the COVID crisis.

We've never been crowded the way mass shelters were.

Our big adjustment to the pandemic was to move to 24-7 operations so we can shelter in place.

We need to make sure something more is going towards supporting shares community model due to this.

By its nature, our shelter design empowers people, and as an extension of that, empowers them to stay healthy.

The community-based model of SHARE is safer, less expensive, more in line with our demographic values, and best of all, actually works.

SHARE merits your support.

Thank you.

Excellent.

Thank you.

Ava, welcome.

Hi, my name is Ava.

I think the coronavirus pandemic and this recession are really exposing everywhere how deeply rotten the capitalist system is.

It's a system where, in the richest country in the world, most Americans are living paycheck to paycheck.

And I think how this crisis is hitting Seattle is also a result of the long failures of the political establishment, including long-time reluctance to tax big business and the rich that's meant chronic underfunding and budget cuts.

We won the Amazon tax by building the fighting movement.

with multiracial solidarity, and I think it's a start to what we need, including investing in housing in the Central District to address racist gentrification.

We've seen that winning anything meaningful requires a struggle.

Continue that throughout the summer budget season to win was absolutely a minute, but we need.

Once eviction moratorium is lifted, renters will face evictions.

We need to invest in renter organizing, defund the SED by at least 50%, and stop the sweeps of our homeless neighbors.

Thank you.

Thank you.

The next three people will be Daniel Cavanaugh, Kathy Mathy, and Craig Swanson.

Daniel, welcome.

Hey, my name is Dan.

I'm a renter in the Central District and a nursing student.

And I'm calling to support defunding the Seattle Police Department by at least 50%.

Most of that news coverage that's come out has been I'm uh...

to the people's budget uh...

rally joint council members to want tuesday july twenty eight at six p m uh...

yeltsin for college to fight for a defunding fpb to invest in the community as well as uh...

stopping the sweeps of our homeless neighbors winning funds for renter organizing uh...

to fight against the uh...

you know huge massive wave of evictions that are are going to hit us uh...

when the moratoriums are going to be lifted uh...

so that's uh...

tuesday july twenty eight at six p m

Thank you very much.

Kanthi, welcome.

Hi, my name is Kanthi Mathi.

I'm a volunteer with the Coalition of Seattle Indian Americans.

Our group follows the leadership of King County Equity Now and decriminalize Seattle.

Since 2011, Seattle police have murdered 30 black and brown community members.

Not a single police officer has been brought to justice.

And eight of those murders occurred right under Mayor Jenny Durkan's watch.

The reforms have not worked.

Tinkering with the police system does not get rid of such racism and we cannot wait for more black people to be murdered before we make change happen.

Defending Black Lives in Seattle can only come from defunding SPD and reinvesting in community.

It's time for the council to listen to the people and defund the SPD now.

Start with at least 50%.

And to ensure that we can actually make progress, the council needs to first impeach Mayor Durkan and fire Police Chief Betz.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Craig Swanson, welcome.

Hi thanks it's Craig Swanson.

I sure appreciate your consideration and I want to talk about the defunding of SPD.

I'm sure there are many meaningful opportunities to improve SPD through careful cost reductions.

However I'm concerned with the haste with which you're moving especially as you're looking at COVID and with the West Seattle Bridge and other significant city issues.

I would argue that public safety is arguably as elected officials your number one priority.

The 50% number represents an arbitrary, round, and if not political number.

What are the ramifications if one, five, ten additional people die as a result of your reductions in the police funding, let alone the additional petty crime that's inevitably going to happen?

I couldn't imagine a 50% reduction with such haste to SDOT or the Seattle Public Schools How about consider a 10% reduction per year for three years and evaluate how well you're doing.

Community engagement to help articulate and communicate a plan.

Craig, thank you.

Please send the rest of your comments in.

I appreciate your time this morning.

The next three people are Logan Swan, Lee Carroll, and Sumay Ng.

Hi, my name is Logan Swan.

I'm a rank and file union iron worker.

Yeah, I'm calling in.

I can't imagine cutting the police budget by 50%.

All you have to do is go back seven years since the police budget has been ballooned by 42% in the last six years alone.

And yeah, like I support the demand for public safety, like safety from eviction, safety from homelessness, safety from police violence.

And so while corporations like Amazon are profiteering from the crisis and supporting law enforcement against working people going out into the streets demanding justice, especially communities of color and the marginalized, we're being faced with massive joblessness, the healthcare crisis, and stunning cuts to public services, which are an attack on our public sector union, sisters and brothers.

And then we're looking at the prospect of a massive wave of evictions once the moratorium is expired.

So we need to fight back.

So hopefully people will come out to our people's budget rally on July 28th, the day before the pivotal city council budget meeting.

Thank you, Logan.

Lee, welcome.

Thank you.

My name is Lee.

I was born in Seattle.

I'm a resident of Seattle.

I've been listening in to the meetings and it's apparent to me that you are clearly hearing from the 10% of people that are organized and want to defund SPD.

I represent 90% of your constituents who don't believe this is the right thing to do.

People of color who are not thriving, they want the opportunity to thrive.

Defunding SPD does nothing to facilitate that, nothing.

What's happening here is the dehumanizing of the men and women who have served and protected the people of Seattle, some for decades.

They're not only being dehumanized, they are being demonized at the same time.

City Council, where's your backbone?

What do you stand for?

You recently, City Council, supported SPD's hiring and recruitment, leading to a 37% diversity hire.

You recently approved the SPD's expansion of the contracted civilian and mental health professionals who advise and respond to incidents throughout the city, which is over 10,000 crisis calls a year.

And you approved relaunching community service officer programs.

And there are many things in the proposal that are simply not doable, have no basis

Thank you.

Sue May, welcome.

Sue May Ying of Chinatown ID regarding SPD defunding.

The sense of urgency to respond to calls for change is recognized and shared, but too vague.

Some day-to-day focus.

CID and SPD have made strides in reducing crime and increasing public safety.

We continue to need ongoing policing to keep serious crimes at bay, as well as the yet-to-be-seen availability for after-hours presence 11 p.m.

to 5 a.m.

Already shorthanded when crimes occur in other areas, like the eight shootings, one killed in January at the Third and Pine Hotspots.

Officers were pulled from the CID for weeks.

How does the 50% reduction proposal affect this?

It's worrisome that you are moving forward before sharing any plans to ensure safety.

Our leaders are expected to ensure public safety and enter into planning for reduction of programs with deliberation and inclusion.

Council members, Lores and Harrison, appreciation to you for taking time to consider the overall outcome.

Other council members are encouraged to do the same.

Failure to do so could easily result in unintended consequences with outcomes and undermine important goals.

Thank you, Sumay.

Stephan Locke, followed by Castille Hightower and Mike McQuaid.

Steve Locke senior citizen and one of thousands of small minority landlords and longtime native of Seattle.

As a landlord in the U District and volunteer with the seniors in Chinatown we continue to experience increasing rates of property crime.

Physical threats to our seniors who are most vulnerable and property crime to our businesses are a daily occurrence which has plagued our community.

Any responsible public safety plan must include a disciplined community engagement process with all stakeholders involved in the analysis and development.

Over the past 10 years, we've experienced an increase in businesses and residents leaving Seattle due to the rampant property crime theft and safety concerns.

Any budget cut or major policy change without the due diligence will further place the safety of our residents, businesses, and visitors at risk, resulting in unfortunate, unintended consequences to those who are most vulnerable.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you, Castille.

Welcome.

Hi, my name is Castille, and I'm urging you to defund SPD by at least 50%.

Every case matters.

Every victim matters.

In September of 2004, the Seattle Police Department ended the life of Herbert Hightower Jr.

Before the age of 30, the failures of the City of Seattle and the Seattle Police Department, that as far too often protects, forgives, and overfunds, was placed on the back, or rather in the chest, of my older brother Bert.

Not many care to know what happened to a young black life cut short because rather than being thoughtful and understand the layers of a mental health crisis met with bullets, they'd rather blame the victim of not only a failed community but a failed society.

How in so many ways we were failed and ignored only to be ultimately thrown away and denigrated.

I buried my brother knowing that justice would not be served.

Knowing that the pain I felt and the pain of so many other families of those lost at the hands of police violence will be wiped away and forgotten.

going away with the communities they represent.

But today, I'm not going to be silent.

Today, I'm going to say out loud that we matter, that the ancestors whose legacies I come from matter, that every case, every loved one, every sister, every brother, every niece, every uncle matters.

I urge you today to show not only with your words, but with the responsibility given to you

Castile, thank you for writing for your comments and I'll be reaching out to you for the rest of your statement as well.

For folks, we've asked to provide additional public comment if your time gets cut off, but I wanna express my condolences and also our call to action on behalf of your brother and so many more.

So thank you for writing in and we'll be reaching back out to you.

Folks from IT, could we give folks a little bit extra time to wrap up their comments before Mike gets cut off today?

Thank you, that'd be appreciated.

The next three people are Mike McQuaid, John Foster, and Caitlin Heenan.

Mike, welcome.

Welcome.

Good morning.

My name is Mike McQuade.

I'm a fourth generation Seattleite, business owner and former community council leader.

I lived in nearly every district in our city and currently moved or lived in district three.

I'm concerned with the haste and speed at which we are moving to dismantle core functions of our city, specifically the police department.

As a city council, you adopted a budget in 2020. It reflects Seattle's priorities, planning and trust.

We must follow through on that promise.

including our commitment to an adequately funded police department.

Yes, we're in agreement that it's time to rethink our policing functions and how it could function in a contemporary society.

But there's so much more we don't yet know.

Approached by their cities, mindful community dialogue, ability to recruit and retain policing roles, and the harsh realities of the global pandemic.

As leaders and competent ones, I urge you to take a breath.

please proceed incrementally with mindful planning and a steady hand.

Seattle's viability, trust, and safety is at stake.

Thank you very much.

Mike, thank you for your time this morning.

John, welcome.

Good morning.

My name is John Foster.

I live in District 5, and I have lived in Seattle for the past 36 years.

What I'd like to say is let's reduce police workload by having other kinds of skilled responders handle the calls that don't require an armed response.

Let's leave the police to do what they do well and shift the other work to social service providers who are experienced working with available community resources and people with diverse needs.

The reduced workload for SPD would allow shifting funding to the appropriate responders in our communities.

Much good can be attained by applying responders who deescalate situations and help solve problems.

Let's do this.

Thank you.

Thank you very much, John.

Kaitlyn, welcome.

Hi, my name is Kaitlyn Heinen and I'm the Housing Justice Project staff attorney.

And I'd like to talk about shifting funds towards funding for more addiction defense and rental assistance programs.

Housing is an inherently racialized issue, and race will be the biggest factor in the fallout of the eviction crisis to come.

As of June, 42% of black households and 24% of Latinx households were behind on rent, compared to only 8% of white households.

Projections right now say peak unemployment in Washington will peak in September, so the worst is still yet to come.

The similar surveys indicate that about 83% of landlords in Seattle are white.

So a failure to provide tenant protections in order to support small-time landlords is simply coded language for racism.

If we don't act and if we don't intervene, then who are we helping?

We're helping these white landlords preserve their wealth.

And this is exactly the systemic racism that we're fighting against with the uprisings and justice for George Floyd and defund Seattle PD.

And in places where there are no eviction moratoria like Arkansas, there has been a 172% increase from just May to June.

Because there's no eviction moratorium, the increase cannot be excused as a backlog in the courts, but rather as increase in need.

And we can only expect this to rise as the CARES Act benefits expire in August.

Rental assistance programs as they are will likely be overwhelmed.

LA has put $100 million into rent assistance, but within 48 hours, they received 150,000 applications.

They will only be able to process 50,000 of those by lottery.

It is a...

Thank you very much, Caitlin.

Margaret Cowley, Lou Bond, and Emily McArthur.

Caitlin, if you could send in the remainder of your comments as well, that would be appreciated.

Margaret, welcome.

Hi, I'm Margaret McCauley, more commonly known as Midge, and I live and work in District 2. I agree with the calls to rethink how we police and serve the social and safety needs of our citizens.

There have been too many people living both short and long-term on our streets.

Our downtown is riddled with repeat crime offenders with whom the city and its police department have long been familiar.

There is a dire need to overhaul how we approach lawlessness, social and mental health issues, but to defund policing by as much as 50% as a knee-jerk reaction to public protests is not the best route to go.

City Council must slow down and take its time.

The Council deliberations must be based on extensive data, its analysis, and community collaboration.

And I thank you for your time.

Thank you very much.

We thank you for your time, Margaret.

Lou, welcome.

Thank you.

Lou Bond, I'm the property manager of the Melbourne Tower.

We're located at the northwest corner of 3rd and Pike.

We're a small 10-story office building.

Most of our businesses are all small office businesses.

Over half of them are women-owned and managed.

Two of our tenants deal with kids.

We have one retailer, Walgreens, and it has a pharmacy and a clinic.

We know that the city is overwhelmed with budget issues that they're gonna have to deal with.

And we support the mayor and chief best plan of reducing the police department by 10% right now as manageable.

We don't believe in slashing them at all.

I urge each of you to come and hang out at Third and Pike right now at Third and Pine.

The drug addiction and the mental illness is overwhelming right now.

There's no response to it.

In the past year, each of you Many of you have agreed that we needed more policing.

We needed to do better on our drug addiction and mental illness, and yet it's returned in the last six weeks.

It's overwhelming.

Our folks here don't feel safe.

Nobody feels safe here at the moment, and we need your help.

So please don't do a knee-jerk reaction and reduce funding by 50%.

Thank you so much.

Thank you very much.

Emily, welcome.

Hi, my name is Emily MacArthur.

I'm a renter in District 2, and I first want to address a comment to everyone who's listening to this, which is that a tweet is not a vote.

We cannot be complacent that we have a veto-proof majority for a 50% defunding of SPD.

We must continue to build this fight on the basis of a multiracial working-class solidarity, and I urge you to join us Tuesday, the 28th at 6 p.m.

at Seattle Central College to show that you support this demand.

And we mean defund SPD by 50% in 2020, not gradually, not in 2021, not with a bunch of shell games like we've seen in New York and L.A.

You know, police terrorize our community.

They tear gas children and murder people like Tarlena Lyles.

Use those funds for education and mental health services.

It's how we support public safety.

We support public safety by investing in public services run by union members who are not regularly appearing on Fox News, making racist comments.

And we do not need the police to enforce the law and order agenda of Trump and Mayor Durkin.

I'm sad at the people who have just accepted that we need a small layer of armed men to enforce the right of profit in our city.

But me and millions of other young people.

are able to envision a different society that's not based on profit, and that's a socialist society where we do not need police because...

Thank you very much, Emily.

Before we move on, I just want to confirm the folks who had signed in earlier who are not present, just to see if they've called in.

Olga Sagan and Amsi Jeffs, if you are listening, we are able to get you back in.

If you are on the line, just want to pause to see if they've called back in.

Okay, just a PSA to them.

If they're listening, feel free to call back in and we'll get back to you.

The next three people are Laura Larson, Anitra Freeman, and Amanda Kim.

Laura, welcome.

Thank you.

My name is Laura Larson.

I've worked in downtown Seattle for 32 years, and I've also volunteered at the Downtown Emergency Service Center right down the street from you guys for once a week for the past 11 years.

I'm just calling to share that I'm really concerned about how fast the council's moving to defend the police, and I'm concerned that you're presenting this as if the police department is fundamentally bad, which I do not believe it is at all.

I support reform in many areas of our government right now, and I agree we want to take steps that help ensure that all citizens are treated with dignity and respect by everybody, not just the police.

With that being said, calls to just flat out reduce the SPD budget by 50% are very powerful political statements, but you still have a primary duty to ensure the safety of the citizens, so it needs to be done in a very deliberate and thoughtful manner.

It seems backwards to me to arbitrarily pick a number like 50% before you've examined detailed police expenditures, needs, and options, and then shared that info with the public, allowing us to then comment back.

I'm also concerned you don't see I'm also concerned and not believe you can make a knowledgeable and appropriate decision without including the police department at the table.

I'd like to see Chief Bester, someone she designates, consistently at the table with you for these discussions.

In the last...

Thank you very much.

Please do send in the rest of your comments.

It sounded like there was another sentence that you had there.

Appreciate it.

Anitra, welcome.

Good morning.

My name is Anitra Freeman, speaking from Wheel and Share, supporting 50% cut to the SPD funding and complete defunding of homeless sweeps.

Sweeps do not help.

Sweeps kill.

Women in Black stood with Black Lives Matter last week for six men.

and likely will stand again next Wednesday on the step to City Hall.

Fund community and health services for social problems that the police should never be addressing, like mental illness and drug addiction and homelessness.

Fund wheel and share wheel shelters to continue 24-7 operation, not send participants back to a shelter only.

include real and shared democratic grassroots operations and new programming, like tent cities and tiny houses.

We can keep people a lot safer by spending the money on things that work.

Thank you.

Thank you, Anitra.

Amanda Kim, welcome.

Good morning, council members.

My name is Amanda Kim.

I live in District 2 and work for Puget Sound SAGE.

Seattle severely underfunds essential services that keep Black Indigenous and Brown communities safe.

Services like housing child care food programs and mental health.

Meanwhile the city has been allocating enormous sums of fund money to fund a violent militarized police department.

We have an opportunity to fight for a new economy where Black people and communities have control over housing land energy and work.

Please defund SPD by 50 percent this year.

We can live in safe and healthy communities without policing our prisons by investing instead in civilianized 911 operations, trusted community-based organizations and leaders, community-led research and housing for all, not only through affordable housing and tiny villages, but by preventing gentrification, displacement, and houselessness to begin with.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you.

Sean Butterfield, followed by Alicia Roberts and Lisa Nietzsche.

Sean, welcome.

Hi, my name is Sean Butterfield and I'm a home care aide for disabled women and also a nursing student in District 3. I just want to respond to the gentleman who called and said he couldn't imagine defunding the police by 50 percent.

and that doing so might cost one to five additional lives.

And if that's true, we ought to defund SPD even more because SPD is going to kill one to five black or brown people in that time if we don't defund them, if not far more.

And with the extra $200 million, we could save a lot more than one to five lives in the city by spending that on housing, healthcare, education, and skilled professionals instead of armed thugs to respond to 97% of 911 calls.

I want to echo some of my other comrades who've called in.

uh...

say that yeah you should join black lives matter activists homeless advocates socialists and health council member someone at the people's budget rally tuesday july twenty eighth at six p m at seattle central college and finally i want to challenge the kenton karen calling in to complain about the need to slow down and take our time on defunding the police collect eric chauvin meal on their necks uh...

you know for for nine minutes uh...

and see if there is eager to have to have a slowdown on getting getting getting there at the police uh...

off their neck Thank you.

Have a good day.

Thank you.

Alicia, welcome.

Good morning, council members.

My name is Alicia Roberts and I live at Nicholsville North Lake.

Please pass an amendment that would prevent city money from being spent on sweeping my home, Nicholsville North Lake.

We support Shawna's effort in keeping the sanctioned and unsanctioned encampments, especially those already established such as Nicholsville North Lake.

Nicholsville opposes sweeps on unsanctioned, sanctioned camps and tiny house villages.

We support more tiny house village enchantments and community shelters like SHARE.

Thank you, Councilperson Strauss, for your amendment that would move money from a shelter at the jail to tiny house villages.

This should include democratic and self-managed enchantments.

Nicholsville supports the agenda of Black Lives Matter and has worked vigilantly on the tax Amazon initiative.

We are thrilled to see the positive results in Seattle that are coming.

Right now, the Human Services Department says that They may sweep us on August 1st if we haven't found another location.

Please help us stop this from happening.

We have continued to be COVID free and hope to keep us all safe during this pandemic.

Thank you very much.

Thank you very much.

Lisa, welcome.

Hi, I'm Lisa Nitze with Nitze Stegen.

Thank you for your time.

We're longtime developers, property owners and business in Seattle.

and owner of the Starbucks Center.

We and many others in the business community are concerned about proposals to defund the Seattle Police Department while agreeing that finding he can be changing how it's carrying out its work to address the important and addressing the important issues of injustice raised in recent protests.

We know that stability and peacefulness on the streets in our city neighborhoods is a precondition for the city's economy and society to thrive.

Businesses large and small are currently keeping their doors closed for the foreseeable future, with no plans to return their employees and establishments to the current violence and fear prevalent on the streets of Seattle, with employees being threatened with knives, harassed, and people being shot.

Seattle's large and medium businesses coming back to their offices with all of their employees being stalled due to violence on the streets will lead to small businesses that serve them perishing.

Lisa, if you could send in the rest of your comments, we'd appreciate that.

Thank you for calling in today.

Going back to Amzy Jeffs, who was not present when we got to his name.

Amzy, are you with us?

Yes.

Hi, I'm Amzy Jeffs.

I'm a head steward with UAW 4121, the academic worker union at the University of Washington.

And I'd like to speak strongly in favor of defunding SPD at least 50%.

I'm proud to say that my union played a role recently in removing the violent police union from our MLK Labor Council, and that we also helped build the movement that won the recent Amazon tax And what we saw there that was that it required a movement of, you know, our rank and file members of ordinary people in Seattle to hold the political establishment's feet to the fire until they were willing to act on that issue.

And I think that's exactly what it's going to take in this case as well to win defunding SPD.

As other speakers have said, a tweet is not a vote.

And we'll need to build that movement starting next Tuesday, July 28th, with the people's budget rally in March.

And, you know, I think I'm excited to bring the energy and organizing of my union to that campaign and to that meeting next Tuesday.

And as a union, we stand completely in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement and reject the idea that increased or maintained bloated police funding is a solution to the problems that we face in Seattle.

We need to invest in housing, jobs, and social services.

That's how we get the quote-unquote peace the previous speaker mentioned.

And we don't get that by maintaining funding on the police and their violence.

I urge.

Thank you.

And thank you for calling back in.

Colleen McAllen, followed by Lori Campbell and Sean Smith.

Colleen, welcome.

Yes.

Good morning, city council members.

And I urge council not to defund SPD's budget by 50 percent.

Instead work to analyze and plan for those impacts of such a drastic and arbitrary budget cut.

Right now there are no detail on evidence based programs and implementation mechanisms that are proposed that are proven to be effective to provide public safety.

What is the plan to protect its constituents from this violent crimes on the streets theft and provide adequate response to a mass casualty with half its budget.

It would require SPD to cut officers and many of them are the new hires that are most diverse and most well trained in de-escalation techniques.

Some of the other most innovative and effective police-based units, such as the bike unit, community outreach unit, anti-crime unit, gang units, would be eliminated.

The city's invested in these teams to reduce violent crime, and it's worked.

And other cities will snatch up these well-trained officers.

Also, the reduced capacity of SPD will result in long response times for violent crime and a higher overtime rate to try to cover the patrols in each area of the city, and also result in more individuals, gun ownership, and who wants that.

I urge the city to work with the mayor's office and the chief of police and all stakeholders to realign the budget in a way that ensures that citizens will have public safety.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Lori, welcome.

Thank you.

Good morning, city council members.

My name is Lori Campbell, and I'm a resident of Nickelsville North Lake tiny house villages.

We're located at 3814 4th Avenue Northeast.

We've been running a self-managed village for the past two years, and it works.

Everything is safe and well-maintained, and we're financially poor adults that need low-income and subsidized housing that is safe and clean from both drugs and extreme mental illness.

or have been or are currently employed, due to a rising housing cost and facing an influx of homelessness, it makes it virtually impossible to meet the needs of low-income people.

We ask that you acknowledge how dangerous it would be for us to be moved out of our existing homes due to the COVID pandemic and the up and coming flu season, which is right around the corner.

If we can't stay at Northlake, we will do our part to be reasonable and working with the city for a fair solution.

Please let us stay together where we are safe.

We're like family.

We ask you to please pass this amendment.

We think it will encourage a better solution.

Thank you for your time, city council members.

Thank you.

Thank you again.

And thank you.

Thanks for calling in.

Sean Smith, welcome.

Thank you, city council.

Good morning.

My name is Sean Smith and I reside at Nicholsville North Lake Village.

opposes sweeps of sanctioned and unsanctioned encampments.

Armed response to people living in tents is no response that the city should be doing.

We should defund the navigation team's police aspect and instead put forward people who are more familiar with the resources available for those living in unsanctioned encampments.

Thank you, Councilman Staros, for your amendment that would move money away from the jail and into tiny house villages.

But this should also include democratic and self-managed efforts.

We support the tax Amazon movement and the Black Lives Matter movement.

We're thrilled to see positive changes in the city.

Please pass an amendment that would prevent the city money from being spent on sweeping our high home.

before the resolution can be accepted and found.

Right now, the Human Sciences Department says it will sweep us on August 1st.

Please pass the amendment, and thank you for your time.

Thank you so much.

Good to hear from you again, Sean.

Before we move on, I just want to do another public service announcement for anybody who might be listening.

We are getting to your names and it looks like you're not present, so I'll just call the first names.

And if folks can, if you're listening, if you want to call back in, we will still get to you before public comment ends.

Celentiona Vann, Sophie Taylor, Anna Lee Brimmer, It looks like Elena Loper, Alicia Paris.

Dave Sullivan, and Teal Sean Turner.

If you are interested in providing public testimony, and it looks like you've signed up this morning, just want to give you a heads up that we are getting to your names.

And that also includes Olga Sagan, who I mentioned earlier.

Please do call back in, and we will make sure to come back to you.

The next three speakers who are present include Leila Blair, Brent Barlett, and Annalie Bremer.

Layla, are you available?

Good morning, city council members.

My name is Layla Blair, and I am a lifelong resident of Seattle and a current resident of District 3. I'm also a graduate of Roosevelt High School and the University of Washington.

I am 22 years old, and upon witnessing the brutality SPD had brought against its residents back in May, I joined others in protesting their actions.

At these peaceful protests, we were met with tear gas and flashbangs.

And for me, that showed the true colors and intention of our police force.

It is not protecting its citizens' First Amendment right to free speech, but is instead using its intimidation tactics to suppress voices that are fighting for basic human rights.

Please use your power in this council to reallocate funds from the Seattle Police Department, at least 50% of their budget, to community-led solutions, specifically following the detailed plan that King County Equity Now and Decriminalize Seattle have put forward last Wednesday in efforts to keep all Seattle residents safe.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you.

Annalie, are you available?

Looks like she's not yet dialed in.

You're welcome to speak when you call back in.

Brent Barlett.

Bartlett.

Welcome, Brent.

Hi, my name is Brent.

I'm a renter in District 4. I'm calling to say I support a cut in the police budget by at least 50%.

And I also want to say I think we should end homeless sweeps.

CDC recommends against conducting sweeps during the pandemic.

If people in the encampment don't have coronavirus, a sweep forces them to move somewhere where they can catch it.

If people in the encampment do have coronavirus, it forces them to disperse throughout the community, spreading the disease further.

I've been reading that some cities have been appropriating hotel rooms to house members of the homeless who are especially at risk.

So that might be something to consider as well.

Thank you.

I can see the rest of my time.

Thank you very much.

And the next person that we'll call on is Olga Sagan.

Olga, welcome.

Hi, my name is Olga Sagan, and I'm the owner of Piroshki Piroshki Bakery, and we are located on Thurden Pike in the middle of a crime in Seattle.

We want to encourage CT before passing anything drastic and running leadership on the motion to have our leaders to step back and be clear in their intentions and processes.

We want to see what is the plan.

How are you going to deal with crime that it's been happening in downtown, that's been running and killing small businesses in downtown?

People don't want to come to downtown.

People don't want to visit downtown.

In January, when we had the shooting in downtown, TTF Seattle wanted the police present.

Mayor came out for photo op.

We asked for a meeting with Mayor.

I never got a meeting with Mayor.

I asked for a meeting with City Councilman Lewis.

Never got a meeting with Councilman Lewis.

So we want to see what the plan is.

We agree that things need to change, but before they change so drastically, please consider to provide us with a plan.

Thank you, Olga, and thanks for calling back in.

We'll follow up with you.

The next three speakers are Rosemary Kim, Dave Semsen, and Carly Gary.

Rosemary, good morning.

Hi, my name is Rosemary Kim from District 6. I am, again, calling on my Seattle City Council representatives to please vote for the four-point plan proposed by King County Equity Now and Decriminalize Seattle to defund the police by 50% and reallocating the funds to the community.

Thank you to those of you who have committed to this plan, but I am calling on those of you who have not committed to that plan, especially council members Peterson and Juarez to support this plan with your vote in the name of this community safety.

It is a mark of white privilege to believe that the police are keeping us as a community safe.

When we see a fire we do not incrementally spray water on the building over a long period of time.

We put out that fire and we put it out as soon as possible in order to keep people safe.

And we need to stop that fire that is engulfing the Black and Brown communities in Seattle that is the unsafe and violent armed police force.

Thank you.

I cede my time.

Thank you.

Dave welcome.

Hi, I'm Dave, a resident worker in District 7. I'd like to thank council members for their protester prosecution.

It's so important that we protect our right to protest in Seattle when the police would rather harass and intimidate protesters exercising their rights.

That being said, I'd like you all to stay committed to funding the Seattle Police Department by at least 50%.

And I'd like to challenge council members Peterson and Morris to get on board with that commitment as well.

That $200 million extra dollars should be invested in black communities, affordable housing, and mental health services.

The public can't wait for analysis.

Also, we need to stop the sweeps of houseless people and extend the addiction moratorium.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Carly, welcome.

Hi, my name is Carly Gray.

I'm a renter in the East Lake neighborhood in Alex Peterson's District 4 and a member of the Sunrise Movement and UAW 4121. I'm speaking today in support of defunding SPD by 50% and demanding that city council sign on to the four-point plan to decriminalize Seattle and county equity now.

Reform does not work.

It's long past time to dismantle our racist, violent policing system.

And while some may say that this is a knee-jerk reaction, there have been decades of calls to abolish policing in the prison industrial complex.

Police are not here to protect our communities.

They're introducing violence by arriving armed with guns and armed with impunity when they don't need to be.

I support decriminalized Seattle and King County Equity Now's four-point plan.

The remainder of the 2020 SPD budget must be cut by 50 percent and the 2020 must be determined through participatory budgeting.

Replace 911 with a civilian-controlled system.

Invest money to scale up community-based solutions to health and safety.

And please fund a community-created roadmap to life without policing.

Finally, please invest in Housing for All and Ed Homeless Suites.

City Council members, especially Alex Peterson, I urge you to vote to fund SPD.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Ethan Manns, welcome.

Hey, thank you for letting me speak.

My name is Ethan Vance.

I'm a resident of District 2. I just wanted to, like, figure out some of the calls to a colleague in concern with, like, the housing population, and to say that I agree to an extent.

I definitely want to get these people off the streets, and in kick out the equity now, and decriminalize Seattle's 4-point plan.

point number four talks about defunding the police in order to fund housing for all so we can get these people off the streets and into safe housing.

When we talk about safety, like who are you talking about safety for?

Am I supposed to like feel bad for landlords and business owners when black and brown people are being brutalized in the streets by police?

It doesn't make sense to me.

We talk about the police presence.

The Seattle Police Department has had 100 years to not be a racist institution.

Guess what?

Still a racist institution.

If you look at the eight can't wait, Seattle Police has already implemented six of the eight reforms.

None of it is working.

So when we talk about safety, people who are calling for more police presence, it's an insane idea to me, because at the same time, they're claiming that crime is going up and that people are leaving the city.

So if increasing police budget and police presence doesn't work, I don't understand how we want to keep going down the same route that clearly isn't working.

I think it's time to try an alternative.

Thank you.

Okay, wonderful.

I'm going to read the rest of the names that I have here.

And if folks are listening in, and they still would like to speak, you're welcome to before we close public comment.

Celentia Vaughn, Sophie Taylor, Annalie Beamler, Bren Berliner, Elena Loper, Alicia Paris, Dave Sullivan, and Teal Sean Turner.

Folks from IT, do we have any of those folks with us right now?

It looks like we have confirmed all of our callers.

No other callers.

Okay.

Colleagues, that puts us exactly at 15 minutes as we talked about.

We were planning to extend this for an hour and a half.

We will again have opportunity for public comment next Wednesday and as always at 2 p.m.

at our full council meeting chaired by Council President Gonzalez.

Looking forward to hearing more from folks and if you were signed up to speak and you were not able to call back in today, we do encourage you to send your public comments to Council at Seattle.gov, and feel free to call back in at another meeting.

Council colleagues, that ends our public comment portion of the meeting for today, and we'll move on to items of business.

Will the clerk please read the title of item one into the record?

Agenda item one, review of proposed amendments to the 2020 proposed rebalancing package for briefing and discussion.

Thank you, Madam Clerk.

Council colleagues, again, we are continuing our conversation about non-SPD-related amendments to the 2020 rebalancing package.

I want to thank all of you for the robust discussion and productive amendment discussion yesterday.

We got through almost all of the amendments.

And right now, we are currently on packet three, where we will continue with amendments 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 to Council Bill 119825. We're going to follow the same process as we did yesterday, where we will ask the Prime Sponsor to speak to the amendment that they put forward, and then we'll have the opportunity for questions and comments.

And then if Council members would like to sign on as a co-sponsor, you are welcome to.

It's not required, but we want to make sure that folks get the chance to add their name if they feel like they would like to do that at this point.

I also want to take the quick second to welcome all of our colleagues.

I know that folks have called back in.

We started right on time and we didn't get the chance to welcome some folks.

So we just want to welcome all the folks who are here.

Council Member Morales, I see you.

Council Member Lewis, we know you are at PSRC.

Thank you.

and just for the viewing public, our council colleagues are on the line.

So thank you, Council President Gonzalez, Council Member Lewis, Council Member Peterson, Council Member Strauss, Council Member Herbold, Council Member Sawant, and I know that Council Member Juarez, if not on the line, is joining us in a very quick second.

Did I miss anyone?

Okay, great.

Thanks again for being here, everybody.

Before we begin with the remainder of our amendments, I did want to take a quick second for our director, Director Erstad, to comment very briefly and provide us with some information.

We know that many of our council colleagues have been raising questions, concerns about whether the mayor provided a complete picture of how she is proposing to rebalance the 2020 budget.

We call this the 2020 rebalancing package for a reason, and we want to make sure that this is truly rebalanced.

Without a clear picture of whether or not we have all the information, we are in a position to pass a rebalancing packet, and we want to make sure that the public has been engaged with all of the information that has been available to us.

We want to make sure that us as council colleagues, as we think about our amendments that we're putting forward, we have the full picture of the funds available.

And right now, I'm worried, given the amount of questions that we have, that we need to offer some clarification so we get a clearer picture.

So, Director Aristad, I'm wondering if you might be able to address some of those questions that have come up, and please provide us with the whole picture of whether or not we have the information needed in front of us for this 2020 rebalancing package discussion and any late-breaking news that you may have received in the last week.

Great.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I'm Kirsten Aristad, Central Staff Director, and I appreciate those introductory remarks.

I'll just begin by saying that we have received a number of questions from council members and staff about the lack of complete information and or transparency related to the mayor's rebalancing measures, largely because we did not receive an ordinance that would enact a balanced budget as of a specific date, nor did we receive a holistic financial summary of how the individual rebalancing proposals would address the city's financial challenges.

Instead, we received a set of legislation that would enact some of the mayor's rebalancing measures, but not all of them.

Therefore, it's been difficult to clearly see the full picture.

which as Chair Mosqueda mentioned, has raised a number of questions.

So to further explain, earlier this month, we heard from CBO that the city has a $299 million budget shortfall in 2020. CBO put in considerable efforts to provide a package of materials that we refer to as the Mayor's 2020 rebalancing package.

And they did so under some trying circumstances.

A quick side note, this package, which CBO has acknowledged, was not intended to be fully balanced across all funds due to the dynamic nature of the situation and also to preserve as much resources for 2021 as possible.

So we know the budget deficit consists of two elements.

First is the significant drop in revenues due to the COVID pandemic.

and the second are the new costs associated with the city's response to this pandemic.

Tracking the various pieces is difficult at best, and as I mentioned last week in committee, the budget deficit is a moving target.

For example, since receiving the May revenue update, the May revenue update, that is the update which the mayor used in balancing her budget, Council subsequently received a second update in June that reduced revenues by an additional $11.4 million.

We expect at least two additional forecast updates before the end of the year and the next one coming as soon as next month, August.

So due to the unpredictable nature of our times and the understanding that the mayor's package is not balanced, we recommend that council nominate an agreed upon point in time budget shortfall target to achieve a definitive rebalancing, which I have conveyed to CBO director Ben Noble.

And I believe, you know, by doing this, that this will allow the mayor and the council to transparently make further spending adjustments in response to unforeseen fiscal events.

In order to provide a complete and transparent picture of these complex issues, central staff is preparing or is taking two approaches to better illustrate how the various component parts fit together in rebalancing the 2020 budget.

The first is a comprehensive balancing tool that will clearly show the revenue shortfalls for each impacted fund not just limited to the general fund, and will include the mayor's rebalancing actions to date.

Again, I have shared this balancing tool with CBO and have requested that they confirm our numbers as the information that we have received, central staff has received, has come from the various ordinances, resolutions, the myriad of memos, and verbal exchanges, as well as an Excel spreadsheet that lists all the spending reductions.

So as central staff has also learned, not all of the mayor's proposed budget savings are included in the 2020 revisions ordinance, which is Council Bill 119, 825. So this leads us to central staff's second approach.

We will construct a substitute bill for council bill 119825 that would codify the mayor's administrative spending reductions as cuts to the city's 2020 budget appropriations.

Building the reductions into the substitute allows for this body to consider and potentially adopt an ordinance that does several things.

First, it will fully reflect the mayor's balancing measures.

Second, it will include planning and contingency items for which we do not currently have information.

Third, it will resolve for errors and omissions.

And four, it will ultimately provide council clear insight into the balanced status of the 2020 budget.

Our goal is to have the substitute developed for the June 29th Budget Committee meeting so all amendments can be made using this substitute bill.

Both the balancing tool and the substitute bill will provide greater transparency and again, a better foundation upon which council will ultimately balance the 2020 budget.

So with that, Tom Mikesell and I are happy to meet with each of you one-on-one to further elaborate these points, answer any questions, and preview the balancing tools.

I believe that these conversations will help put you, you know, put some comfort in knowing that the council will be using these various tools in order to make sure that we are being as transparent and thoughtful during our budget deliberations.

So that concludes my presentation, Madam Chair, and if there are any questions, I'm happy to answer them.

Thank you.

Thank you very much, Director Garza.

Council colleagues, are there questions on this issue?

I see Council Member Herbold and Council Member Morales, did you have a question as well?

Councilmember Herbold, go ahead.

I'll go back and review the tape, Director Aristad, but I'm wondering, again, it's a lot of information to absorb.

I'm wondering if we're preparing a memo that explains sort of what's missing and what we hope to ensure is in place moving forward.

Thank you for that question, Council Member Herbold.

As far as the timeline, what central staff is doing behind the scenes is, I feel like this is an overused term, but we're working around the clock so that we don't have to make any adjustments to Madam Chair's budget process timeline.

With regard to providing additional information or more detail with regard to what's missing, lacking, what's confusing, That is all of the research that we are currently doing.

And we have a whole host of questions out to CBO, asking them to confirm our numbers, fill in the blanks.

And as soon as we have that information, we will share that with the budget chair and with all of you.

As I indicated, Tom and I are happy to meet with you one-on-one.

This is a conversation that's really difficult to have here.

in this forum, but we are happy to give you as much detail as we can.

Can I just follow up, Madam Chair?

So just big picture, is what you're telling us just basically sort of what we learned day one of this budget process, that the cuts that are included in the ordinances that we've received reflect only the cuts that the council's legally required to act upon, but all the other proposed cuts are sort of like you know, trust me, we're making these cuts, cuts.

And we want to actually memorialize them legislatively.

Right.

I think that that is an accurate statement.

I would just put a finer point on, you know, that all of these other things that aren't necessarily reflected makes it almost impossible for individual council members to determine as they're making amendments, where can I take money?

Is this being double counted?

How does this impact other fund balances, the levy exchanges, how we dip into the emergency funds and so forth?

Thank you.

It's very helpful.

I saw Council President Gonzalez was off mute.

Did you have a comment, Council President Gonzalez and then Council Member Morales?

Okay, Council Member Morales.

I appreciate this, Kirsten.

I can't remember, a couple of weeks ago now, I made the point that we are, I made the point of asking Director Noble for the actual documents that they were using to share with us, not the PDF that just shows their sort of policy priorities, but the actual spreadsheet with formulas so we could understand what kind of assumptions were being made and could ourselves, use our own criteria for what projects we wanted to see and what the implications of those cuts or those restorations would be.

The fact that this process has been so obscure, so opaque as a freshman coming into this process has been really frustrating.

So, you know, I mean, I worked for the Appropriations Committee at the Texas Legislature.

So I understand what kind of information we should be receiving in order to make the kind of analysis that we want to make.

And we are not getting that kind of information.

So I really appreciate you helping us pull together what we need to see to be able to fulfill our duty to make fiduciary decisions on behalf of the city and on behalf of the taxpayer.

So thank you for what you're doing.

Thank you for those remarks, Council Member.

Well said.

Thank you, Council Member Morales.

Any additional questions?

I'm not seeing additional questions.

I want to thank you for that overview and for daylighting this.

I want to underscore the request from Councilmember Herbold about a memo.

I really think that would be a helpful document to have.

I know you are working around the clock, and to the degree that we see from the memo and the future conversations that you are having with this VO that we need additional time, we will work with the Council President and all of you to make sure that we are getting all of our T's crossed and our I's dotted before we move forward.

If the calendar does need to be adjusted, but just want to underscore how important it is that we are working towards getting this relief out the door and adjusting the budget, but want to do so in a timely way that works for your incredible team on central staff.

So thank you for that overview today, and we will follow up with you.

Thank you.

We wanted to provide that context as we endeavor to be as transparent as possible with all of you and with the public about the tough decisions that are both in front of us and how we can potentially be making decisions that rightsize our investments and make sure that the budget document as a moral document really invests in what we want to see prioritized as we rebalance.

I'm optimistic about our future conversations on 2021 and 2022. given the jump start proposal that we passed to have progressive revenue in hand so that we are not constantly in this position of trying to pit one program against another and we are not making the type of austerity cuts that we will be seeing across the country due to the economic crisis that is presenting itself.

Thank you again for all of your work to make sure in our future budgets we will have we are going to continue with So again, central staff will read through each amendment, and then we will talk about the effect of the amendment, and folks will get a chance to sign on if they like.

I'm going to ask that we have Lisa T.S.

up.

I see Asha on the line.

Thank you, Asha.

We have amendment number eight to packet number three in front of us.

And before we begin, any additional comments or questions?

Okay.

Let's go ahead and start.

We are on amendment number eight and packet number three, which is related to Council Bill 119825. I'll turn it back over to you, Lisa, and you can get us kicked off here.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I think Asha is going to be speaking to the first three that you're considering today, amendments and then Karina and Lish.

So they will just go in that sequence and I will just turn it over to Asha, please.

Thank you, Asha.

Great.

So as you mentioned, we are on amendment number eight.

This is a amendment sponsored by Council Member Herbold to add $25,000 to the city attorney's office.

to conduct a racial equity toolkit on potential expansion of the pre-filing diversion program to a variety of different crimes, as well as for adults that are 25 and up.

These funds would come from the FAS contract for jail services, assuming that we receive a waiver of those, of the jail contract between October and December.

And I will turn it over to the council member for further comments.

councilmember Herbold.

Councilmember Herbold, this is your amendment.

Please go ahead.

the city attorney's office.

the city attorney's office led by the president adopted a statement of legislative intent requesting that the city attorney report to the council regarding recommendations of the The city attorney in his response concurred with the recommendations of the reentry task force and requested funding to create, to conduct a racial equity toolkit in advance of expansion.

This is very timely for a new approach to criminal justice is taking place.

both here at the City of Seattle and also in King County.

As we know, this week, King County Executive Constantine announced his proposal for a phased closing to the jail in Seattle once the COVID-19 pandemic has been brought under control and an intent to support programs for prevention, diversion, rehabilitation, and harm reduction, noting that, of course, more details would be available later in the year.

I'm losing my place here.

Funding, if adopted by the council, would be used to compensate stakeholders that they engage with and provide resources as part of the RET.

And, of course, the city attorney has been, as we all know, running a pre-filing diversion program for 18 to 24-year-olds since 2017. And, you know, again, this funding, this expansion, or the beginning steps of this expansion would be an important commitment to our ongoing efforts to increase alternatives to incarceration.

to do everything we can to not only support alternatives, but prepare for the reduction of jail services, which I know we on the council support.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Herbold.

Are there questions or comments for Councilmember Herbold?

Councilmember Lewis, please go ahead.

Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you for bringing this forward, Council Member Herbold.

I'm a very strong supporter of this and having worked on this diversion program in the city attorney's office in my previous role can personally attest to the strength and the value of this approach.

And when the opportunity arises, Madam Chair, I would like to be added on as a co-sponsor.

Appreciate that.

Thank you, Council President Gonzalez.

Thank you, Chair Mosqueda.

Really, just a quick question here, since it's not included in the document before us in the proposed amendment, and I guess this is a question for the sponsor.

I'm obviously really supportive of this and have been supportive of these racial equity toolkit analyses on all of our diversion programming, whether it's pretrial or prefiling.

Just a quick question around how you envision the $25,000 would be spent.

And in large part, I ask that question because when we did RSGA requirements and funding in the past to the city attorney's office in the, I think it was the 18 to 24 group, we were very deliberate in making sure that that was being done with community partners and just want to hear a little bit more from you about how you envision that work being completed as it relates to the 25 plus adult population.

Sure.

Um, I actually, um, I, I know that this is an area that, uh, central staff, um, has been digging into a little bit that proposal, um, coming out of the city attorney's office, um, was specifically, uh, for funds to compensate stakeholders that the city attorney engages with and providing resources like food, daycare, and possible fees for engagement sites.

Asha has raised the question of whether or not this is the correct universe of expenses for a racial equity toolkit analysis, given that we're looking at doing this work potentially remotely in a COVID-19 era.

And so that might change the mix of expenses associated with.

Member Herbold, I believe you froze.

Did you want to, it might be my internet connection.

I apologize, guys.

Could you wrap up that last comment, that last sentence that you said?

Because I believe you froze.

I'm sorry.

I asked Asha to, I don't know where I froze, but I asked Asha to fill in the blanks for me as far as what the universe of expenses would be included in the RET.

Yeah.

And I think you covered it council member.

It is primarily for, um, um, facilities, rental, uh, childcare, that sort of thing.

And so once we have an updated number, uh, around what the costs would be, given that we're in a remote situation, it's likely that that cost will be updated.

So if I may, I follow up.

Oh, please.

So Asha, if I'm understanding what you and council member Herbold are saying, does that mean that the, that the costs, estimated, which is currently $25,000, might actually be less because of the remote environment?

Is that what I'm hearing you say?

Yes, that's most likely the case.

Okay, so this is sort of a placeholder, for a lack of a better term, while that deeper analysis occurs so that we have a better sense of exactly what the cost will be for for community partners to engage with the city attorney's office in doing this work, similar to how they did it in the 18 to 24 category, but acknowledging that it will have to be done remotely.

Is that an accurate summary?

Yes, that's correct.

Okay.

I just wanted to make sure that I had clarity in my mind around that because that granular detail wasn't included in the documents.

I really appreciate the opportunity to ask those questions and would like to signal my support and interest in being a sponsor on this particular request.

And I want to thank Council Member Herbold for bringing it forward.

Thank you, Council President.

any additional comments or questions on amendment eight?

Okay.

I am seeing no additional comments or questions.

Um, I also, uh, as we turn to summarizing all of the co-sponsors that have already signaled interest, I will note that council member Juarez has also signaled interest.

I see council member Strauss's hand and we know that council member Lewis and council president Gonzalez have also added their names.

I will be adding my name as well.

So, co-sponsors include Councilmember Juarez, Councilmember Lewis, Council President Gonzalez, Councilmember Strauss, and Councilmember Mosqueda.

And Councilmember Sawant.

Okay.

Thank you all very much.

Let's move on to Amendment Number 9, sponsored by Councilmember Sawant, and I'll turn it back over to Asha.

Thanks.

Just before I do, I just want to make sure I didn't miss something.

I saw Council Member Morales.

I didn't know if you were trying to reach me.

Okay.

That sounds good.

Okay.

Thank you, Asha.

Please go ahead.

So amendment number nine sponsored by Council Member Sawant would place a proviso on the city attorney's budget and restrict the city attorney from using any funds to pro, excuse me, to prosecute individuals that were participating in the Justice for George Floyd protests.

The funds could be spent on releasing or clearing charges, but not on prosecuting those individuals.

I'll turn it over to the Council Member for further comments.

Please go ahead Council Member Sawant.

Thank you.

This budget amendment altogether actually places a proviso on both the city attorney's office and the Seattle Police Department because the Seattle Police Department related amendments are being discussed next week.

The substance on today's agenda is only the city attorney's office part of the amendment.

But really to understand the budget proviso, I would think about it in conjunction with the identical Seattle Police Department proviso.

The Seattle Police Department, when they arrest someone, can defer that person for prosecution to the city attorney's office or to the King County prosecutor.

We want to make sure that people who have fabricated quote unquote crimes like assaulting a police officer are prosecuted through the county.

the county from prosecuting protesters.

While we have no direct power over the county, it will be difficult to prosecute someone without the police providing the evidence and the testimony that is needed.

The whole criminal justice system has been used to attack the free speech rights of protesters, the police violence, the tear gas and flashbangs, the mass arrests, including of journalists, The absurd charges that everyone who has ever been at a protest knows are textbook imaginary crimes that are fabricated charges used to arrest peaceful protesters, like pointing a laser pointer, an assault on a police officer, which has been used as a false charge many times, pedestrian interference, refusing to disperse.

We've seen this happening in many cities.

And for protesters facing prosecution, some are being prosecuted by the city and some by other jurisdictions like the county.

And there are chilling reports, of course, of Trump's FBI interrogating arrested protesters.

The Seattle Police Department and the city attorney's office, in our view, should be prohibited from using any public funds, city funds, to cooperate in any way beyond what is strictly required by law with any of the investigations or prosecutions.

Thank you.

councilmember Sawant.

While the demonstrations have been going on for the last two months, I've been personally in pretty frequent contact with city attorney homes for this very purpose.

I don't want any of the folks who are being picked up and referred to the city attorney's office to be charged for exercising their First Amendment rights for really, in lots of cases, really arbitrary claims of pedestrian interference or failure to disperse or obstruction or things that are being referred to the city attorney's office but are clearly pretty specious.

And throughout those conversations, city attorney Holmes has been very transparent with me and I think with other members of the council in distributing information on how his office has elected to use their discretion in I just wanted to share, and I think that this information was distributed to all of the councilmembers, but I wanted to share it for the benefit of the public as well if folks are watching at home.

72 referrals, which is the overwhelming majority of the referrals they received.

They have diverted three of those cases to choose 180, the diversion program we just discussed, and only one individual engaged in any activity tangentially related to the demonstrations has actually been charged.

So the city attorney's office is actually only at this time pursuing charges against one person actually who brandished weapons at demonstrators.

not for necessarily a first amendment activity they were engaged in.

So I just bring that up to say my sense has been that the city attorney's office has been very ably using their discretion to work and act in the spirit of what this proviso is attempting to accomplish.

And so I just, I don't know, You know, and then charter issues and division of power issues aside on, you know, Pete having been duly elected to make these decisions under the charter.

I just, I don't know that this proviso is necessarily called for based on the situation, considering that.

the city attorney has elected to only charge one and has affirmatively dismissed or declined well over 95% of the referrals.

I just wanted to mention those statistics.

I do, but if other council members want to speak, then I would just hold off until then.

Council Member Morales.

Thank you.

I've also been in conversation with the city attorney and with the King County prosecutor, and I am with Council Member Sawant in the spirit of this.

I do have the same kind of questions that Council Member Lewis raised, but You know, I think the crux of the matter is that what we understand is that the problem isn't with the folks who are being charged with misdemeanors.

The problem is that people are being charged with felonies, getting sent over to the county prosecutor, and then either having their cases dropped, you know, once they're already in the system, or having, you know, he's requesting bail on just about everybody.

So I'm not sure what to do with this here, I guess is what I'm saying.

Because I do feel like our city attorney's office is taking advantage of every opportunity to make sure that folks are not entering the system for specious reasons.

And would love to hear your thoughts, Council Member Sawant, on how we might get to the real crux of the problem here.

Please go ahead, Council Member Szilagyi.

Yes.

So there's a couple of different aspects here.

One, which I should have clarified earlier, which I forgot to include in my points, is that originally my office and I know my staff had communicated this very clearly, but I'm not sure where it sort of got infused.

The city attorney and king county prosecutors sort of that stuff separate from the Seattle police.

Which is also part of this provider, but we're not discussing that today because we are, you know, the, the budget committee is going to discuss them next week.

I think substantively, that is the most important part of the amendment.

And as I was saying, my intention and the intention of my office was to have them as separate amendments, because I think they do come up somewhat separately.

And the facts that Council Member Lewis relayed just now, yeah, those are not in doubt, and I've talked to City Attorney The city attorney Holmes, myself, about this proviso and about these issues in general.

And sorry, I didn't mean to say combined.

I meant that we intended the amendments to be separate, not combined, but for some reason they've appeared as combined, which was not our intention.

So that's one thing.

And so, but as far as the city attorney's portion is concerned for this amendment, I, as I said, I don't deny the statistics, but I don't think that puts aside the other facts, which is that the city council is the only branch of the city government that is required by law to have open meetings.

We have had a movement, in fact, an uprising demanding that all the charges against protesters be dropped, but also there's a problem with charges being made in the first place.

And the council has the duty to use every tool available to us to support that.

And I'm not a lawyer, but I do know that the council has that so-called power of the purse to decide what gets funded.

I don't know if it's the police or the CAO believe that they can spend money that they don't, that they have not allocated, not been allocated to prosecute people for using the first amendment right that's that is on them but the and and you know people should hold them accountable but the at the same time, regardless of what the city attorney is doing, should make our position crystal clear, especially in this historic moment that we don't agree to any public funds being used to prosecute, to carry out these undemocratic prosecutions.

So I would say, first of all, as I said, I think the SPD part of this is more potent and I'm looking forward to that discussion, but even for this portion of the amendment, And I hope central staff are hearing and will give us an amended version of separate amendments here as we had originally intended.

But even with this one, I feel there is an important position for the city council to take.

and governments will change.

There may be a different city attorney with a completely different philosophy.

And that's not to imply that I agree with everything on the current city attorney either.

I want to make that clear to the public, but to the extent that they are taking the steps to not prosecute, I appreciate that.

And I recognize that, but I also think that it is important for the city council to take a position on this regardless, especially at this moment.

And so that's why I would advocate for this amendment.

And also I have let City Attorney Holmes also know that if his office wants to suggest an amended language which does not feel like it is, which feels like it's taking into account what is happening, but wants to take a position from the council as to what we want to happen as going forward.

I welcome those amendments and he has promised that he would look into it and let my office know if he has any suggestions.

Likewise, if any council members have suggestions for how to amend this language in a way that you feel reflects the reality better, then I welcome that, absolutely.

But I don't think we should just push this aside.

Council Member Lewis, please go ahead.

Thank you.

And, you know, I appreciate Councilmember Sawant's comments right now.

And I do think that many of us have publicly gone on the record, you know, including myself, including Councilmember Sawant very strongly urging both the city attorney and the King County prosecutor to to use their discretion to not bring charges against peaceful protesters.

I just wonder, because I do agree with Council Member Sawant, I think some formal way of us manifesting that value is important, but I wonder if it would be better done through a resolution or some other device that is available to us than this proviso just just given that And, you know, the charter issues aside on if it's infringing, like if we did have a draconian city attorney, I would honestly have no problem passing something like this, even just to make the statement and make the point.

But the fact that the city attorney is willing to work with us has been very transparent about his process.

I just wonder if we might explore a less sort of, I don't think there is a less confrontational way to do this that wouldn't potentially lead to some kind of charter fight or some kind of strain between the Council and the city attorney's office.

I am just bringing that up.

I support the sentiment.

I think this is an important

Thank you, Councilmember Lewis.

Councilmember Sawant, can you close us out?

Yes.

Thank you, Councilmember Lewis.

I'm not ready to give up on this yet, so I will, as I said, keep working with the city attorney's office to see what they have to say about it.

And as I said, I welcome you, Councilmember Lewis, or any other council member, if you have a suggested language change for this.

I do believe that I mean, I don't have a problem with the resolution.

And as a matter of fact, as soon as you said this, I've indicated to my staff that we should we should look into that.

And I what what I would prefer is that we we that I my office try our best to see if we can get agreement from you all on a proviso of this kind.

and if that doesn't work, then I would be happy to bring a resolution forward, but obviously the potency of a proviso is different than a resolution, which is why I don't want to give up on that yet.

So that's one thing.

And the other thing, as I said, is the SPD amendment, I mean, the proviso that deals with the Seattle police is the most important.

And we have to remember that the Seattle police can refer charges to the county and bypassing the city attorney's office, you know, that's an option to have.

And, you know, just overall putting limitations and codifying those limitations on the Seattle police's power is the I think the most important for the council to do through a proviso.

We know the Seattle police are subpoenaing footage from TV stations.

They are continuing to support prosecution.

So it's that I would say that's the most paramount of most paramount importance.

Thank you councilmember Sawant.

Thank you council colleagues for your comments here.

I guess I look forward to the future conversations that you may be having with the city attorney's office.

I do appreciate the spirit in which this has been brought forward.

Definitely supportive of working with law to figure out how we achieve this and I'll continue to stay tuned as you may fine-tune this potential proviso to make sure that we address the concerns that have been brought up about us not necessarily having the authority to legally bind we have heard a lot of support for the concept and possible resolution in the future if the provisor does not move forward.

At this time I would ask if there is anyone who wants to add their name as a cosponsor?

Councilmember Sawant thank you for Let's go to amendment number 10. This is Council Member Morales and I will turn it back over to Asha.

So this amendment, number 10, would add about $72,000 to the Office for Civil Rights for them to be able to fill a dispute resolution mediator position for the remainder of 2020. This was a position that the council added in the 2020 adopted budget.

The original idea from the executive was to cut the full amount of the costs, which was closer to $127,000.

But given that there's only six months left in the year, the idea in this amendment is just to provide the amount of costs that it would take to employ somebody for six months.

And the backing for this would come from the FAS projected vacancies that we had discussed yesterday in committee.

I'll turn it over to the sponsor for further comments.

Thank you, Asha.

Please go ahead.

Thank you.

Um, good morning, everyone.

Um, so, uh, as Asha mentioned, this is, um, uh, an attempt to restore funding for a particular position.

A few years ago is, um, I think everybody knows I was a member of the human rights commission.

Um, and in that role, I participated in a pretty robust, um, racial equity assessment of the office of civil rights, um, and how it serves as a guide for departmental recommendations on the city's civil rights investigations.

Um, and transparency and accountability for the community.

One of the steps that we agreed on was that we need to provide more timely resolution to civil rights complaints by providing folks with an opportunity to engage in dispute resolution.

And so restoring this mediator position plays an important role in ensuring that those who are seeking a case um, can get a more expedient resolution to, to their, um, to their case.

So this is a position that helps support community and look in seeking fair treatment for housing and employment.

Um, and we know that, um, city council has generously, uh, created, I think it's 21 protected classes that we have in the city now.

Um, and it is the office of civil rights that's responsible for enforcing and investigating problems there.

we need to make sure that that office has the kind of staffing that can help make sure our neighbors are protected.

So we are hoping to restore this funding and make sure that that position is there to continue to protect the civil rights of our neighbors.

Council Member Herbold can be council president too if she wants.

It's a lot of fun.

Just a quick question on this for the sponsor.

So I guess I'm a little confused because there's language in here about a mediator, but then I heard you, Council Member Morales, talking about investigation and mediators don't do investigation.

So I'm a little Concerned about whether this is the right thing to restore if there is a restoration here.

My understanding from my team's conversation with OCR is that they have a more significant need around having an additional investigator as opposed to a mediator position.

And so, and my understanding is that those are fundamentally different.

And so if we want to get at, if the council wants to provide OCR additional resources to be able to do investigations to identify and resolve potential violations of the items that fall under the enforcement of OCR, then an investigator would be a more appropriate thing for us to fund.

But if what we want to do is fund a position that would, after an investigation is done, or in the course of an investigation being done, or after a complaint has been filed, engage in dispute resolution, i.e. not litigation, this would be the position to fund.

And so I'm a little, because I'm trying to identify what your actual intent is, Council Member Morales, in terms of what need you are trying to meet.

And what kind of conversations do you've had with OCR around what resources would be most desired from their perspective?

So you're right.

Um, uh, Asha, I know you, you want to say something here, so I just want to, I do want to say that, um, yes, OCR needs more investigators for sure.

Um, and this is, um, also a piece of what we are trying to solve for.

So, um, you know, I, um, I would like to be able to support the entire office better.

And Asha, I don't know if you want to chime in here, but what we're trying to do is support the different elements of what the office does.

And I don't know that we have an entire position that we can advocate for.

This is trying to save part of a position.

But Asha, I'll let you.

Yeah, so the dispute resolution mediator position is intended to be a complement to the investigation process.

And so in those cases where I think, let me back up a little.

In the RET report, there was conversation about how the way that the law is generally crafted is about equality and not equity.

And so a lot of the times there's not a lot of resolution that comes out of investigations that satisfy the person that's filed in the way that they would like to be.

And so the idea was to create this sort of restorative, I don't want to say restorative justice, but that sort of approach to alternatives to investigations.

And so this dispute resolution mediator was supposed to be the sort of arm of that, that if people didn't want to go through the official investigation process, then the dispute resolution mediator could provide some sort of alternative to figure out how to get to the complainant's stated goals.

And so without this position, there's not really any way to sort of divert from the investigative process.

And so the idea was to restore this position so that there could be some diversion from that process, notwithstanding the fact that the enforcement division does need more investigators.

And so the focus was on Making sure that this alternative was in place, rather than not rather than but sort of at the same time that enforcement does does need more investigators, if that's helpful.

Yeah.

And what I will say, too, is, I mean, I participated in I don't remember how many community meetings we did throughout this process to hear directly from folks about their thoughts about the Office of Civil Rights.

And what I will say is that when people understood that the Office of Civil Rights is charged with being sort of a neutral body, when complaints are brought, They were astonished, you know, because you think that the Office of Civil Rights is there to fight for you.

And the fact is that our investigators have to hear from both parties, and it is trying to resolve for outcome.

It is about making sure that there's a balance for the Office of Civil Rights with a complaint.

They are expected to have a different intent, have a different job than that.

And so what we were trying to do is say, OK, now that you understand what this office really is able to do, if an investigation isn't the right path, if what you really want is a referral to legal services or some way to resolve your dispute, this is another path that we can take.

So thank you, Asha, for triggering my memory about what those conversations were like, but it really was eye-opening to hear from community members just how frustrated they were with their engagement with the office because of the constraints that the office has with the kind of work that they do.

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

I think I walked away with the gist of what it was.

And I appreciate the clarification.

And so I guess the one.

the last piece of information that I like to sort of hear from you all if you have it, and if not, that's okay, is whether there have been any conversations with OCR around, you know, if there is going to be a restoration of dollars for a particular position, whether they have a greater need on the investigation side or a greater need on the mediator side.

We've been having conversations about how OCR particularly when you compare it with OLS is not funded Equitably in terms of the enforcement mechanism as a whole and you know councilmember Herbold has spoken very eloquently about about Her discomfort with that and I won't put words in her in her mouth I'm sure she's she'll chime in here, but I do I do I I do worry about funding mediators over investigators because I think that a lot of the teeth exist in terms of enforcement of the full intent of our law exists in the investigation side as opposed to the mediation side.

And so I just want to flag not sort of a lack of support for giving OCR additional resources, but sort of just having a deeper conversation around whether this is the right bucket or whether there needs to be a different bucket that we support in order to continue to resource OCR, but I certainly appreciate the intent and the desire to provide OCR additional resources as opposed to less resources as proposed in the rebalancing package.

And I'm happy to have another conversation with them and see if there is a shifting that we need to do.

So we've got, a little bit of time, and I'm happy to have that conversation, see what we can do.

Thank you very much.

Any additional questions?

Councilmember Herbold, please go ahead.

Thank you.

I just want to express my appreciation for Councilmember Morales for bringing this forward.

As both she and Asha explained, this was a high priority for the racial equity toolkit that the council supported and it was a high priority, partially in addition to the equity issues described by councilmember Morales, but it was also a high priority in consideration of the workload for full investigations.

prior to the council's funding of this position, there wasn't a second path.

The only path was all cases went to full investigation.

And so one way, much like the OPA did for, in its creation of a mediation process, process.

One way of addressing investigator caseloads is by giving people who have complaints an alternative path that does not involve a full investigation.

I did talk with Director Lockhart yesterday and I think it sounded to me like this was a high priority for their office now, as it has been in the future.

And again, this has been the establishment of this new program to act as a second path for people with complaints to take has been a priority of the council in prior years as well.

Okay, great.

Seeing no additional questions or comments.

Asha, did I cut you off?

Were you about to say something?

No, no, you didn't cut me off.

I just wanted to make one more point.

Just with with the salary savings proposed by OCR, excuse me, by the mayor's office, almost all of those are because they didn't hire anybody for this first six months.

The exception is this position, which in which they brought up the entire year's worth of position.

And so I know we don't know how vacancy savings are going to be used for the latter six months of the year.

the positions that haven't been filled still do have that half year's worth of salary in the budget.

And so this would basically put this position at the same standing as those other positions that need to be filled in terms of the funds that they would have to fill empty positions for the latter six months of the year.

And so even if we were to fill a vacant position enforcement position, the salary savings for the first six months have already happened because they haven't been hired, if that makes sense.

So you would still have the ability to hire an enforcement position for the latter six months of the year, assuming that the hiring waiver went through the executive, the funds for that still exist.

Thank you for providing that additional piece of information.

we have a number of individuals who have worked with the council members on the labor side and worked with councilmember Herbold for protections for domestic workers in terms of their civil rights protections so we know that we in very recent years have continued to add to the number of individuals who meet the classification for needing to be protected and appreciate all the work at OCR so thanks for flagging all the work that they are doing.

Any councilmembers want to add Okay.

And, um, Council Member Strauss, I see you as well.

Okay.

So I, uh, Council Colleagues, I see Council Member Strauss, Council Member Herbold, and Council Member Sawant as co-sponsors on this amendment, which is Amendment Number 10. Thank you, Council Member Morales.

Let's move on to, um, Amendment Number 11, which is co-sponsored by Council Member Morales and Sawant.

Turn it back over to you, Washa.

and I will turn it over to Karina Bull.

Oh, hi, Karina.

See, I see you there now.

How are you?

I'm doing fine, thanks.

Thanks for joining us.

Yes, absolutely.

I am Karina Bull.

I work for Council Central Staff, and I'm going to speak to amendment number 11, which as Council Member Mosqueda referenced, is co-sponsored.

by Councilmembers Morales and Sawant.

This amendment would add $75,000 to the Office of Labor Standards to partially restore funding for three senior investigator positions.

And these positions are vacant due to the six-month hiring freeze that would have reduced OLS's budget by $150,000.

The restoration of half that amount would allow OLS to fill these positions for three months, October through December, and would support their ability to conduct their investigations and respond to worker inquiries.

So filling these positions for three months would allow OLS to have an accelerated hiring process that could happen in the interim during August and during September.

The money for this amendment would come from FAS.

It would be a $75,000 cut that would come from their salary savings that Asha referenced for the OCR amendment and that was also referenced yesterday as well.

So that would impact their ability to reprioritize the one-time salary savings from the FAS department.

And I'll take it, leave it to Council Member Morales and Sawant to say more.

Thank you, Council Member Morales.

I see you off mute.

Please go ahead.

Sure.

Thanks.

I want to first thank Council Member Sawant for co-sponsoring this with me.

And as we just said, both the Office of Civil Rights and the Office of Labor Standards have really important investigative work to do to make sure that if we have unfair labor practices, in this case in particular, that those get investigated and that we are addressing the challenges that our small businesses have and that our workers in some of those businesses have.

So we wanted to make sure that the positions, these three positions are restored so that that work can continue and to find a way to continue protecting all of those classes and the labor provisions that the city has been so strong in putting in place over the last few years.

Council Member Swat, did you want to add to that?

Thank you.

As I've raised throughout the year, the hiring freeze and austerity in the Office of Labor Standards is totally unacceptable.

We know that labor laws especially, but in general, the ordinances that the City Council passes needs to have strong enforcement and workers facing wage theft or violation of their paid sick and safe time are sometimes waiting over a year to have the city even to start looking at their cases.

If the mayor's hiring freeze and austerity in the Office of Labor Standards is allowed to continue, then it will mean workers will continue to have the theft of their wages unremitied.

And of course, we know that disproportionately, it is workers of color, immigrant workers, women workers who are the most vulnerable among the working people who are vulnerable to violation of their labor laws.

So as Councilmember Morales said, this budget amendment restores the funding for the investigator positions that are currently frozen.

And as Karina said, so, you know, this amendment will fund filling these OLS positions out of the delays filling in the vacant positions at FAS.

but my office has also prepared a version of this amendment to fund felling these positions by cutting four one hundredths of one percent of the police patrol budget.

So we have two different options to to do but this would be the right thing to do.

Thank you so much to the co-sponsors.

Council colleagues are there questions or comments?

Council Member Herbold please go ahead.

Thank you.

This is a question not specific to this proposal, but in general for all of the proposals where we are considering restoring funding for vacant positions that have been subject to the hiring freeze.

I'm just trying to think through, we restore funding for positions that have been held vacant because of the hiring freeze.

And then what do the departments do in response to the council's restoration of funding?

Are they going to put in for a hiring freeze waiver based on the council's action?

I really don't know what the steps are.

the executive departments would take given the fact that the mayor has a hiring freeze.

And I'm just wondering if we might want to consider for, not just for this proposed ad, but for sort of globally for all of the vacant positions that we are considering restoring that have been subject to the hiring freeze, whether or not we want an accompanying resolution or something of the sort that provides some clarity about what the council's expectations are, both vis-a-vis the department's actions in response to the restoration and what we expect of the mayor in response as well.

Did council members or central staff want to respond to that?

Council Member, this is Kirsten.

Did you want to respond?

Yeah, I was just going to say that we are going to catalog all of these positions that are being restored and we'll communicate that to CBO.

CBO is the one that operates or manages the exceptions program.

And if they think that they need something more like a resolution, as you mentioned, Council Member, we will work on that.

So let's get back to you on the next steps.

Thank you.

Peace.

Other comments or questions on this?

I have a few questions, council colleagues.

As you know, in each of the budget debates that we've had in the past few years, I've been leading the effort to put more of the funding into the Office of Labor Standards.

So I definitely appreciate what you're doing here to try to move additional funding into OLS.

I have a few questions about both what the executive intended these dollars to be used for originally, if you could comment on that, central staff.

And from OLS, have we heard about their capacity to hire by October for these positions?

So as to what the proposed reductions would go towards, it would be toward the general fund shortfall that happened in response to the COVID emergency and would need to check in with OLS to see if they would have capacity to hire within a two month accelerated hiring process.

I can comment to the fact that OLS already started a hiring process for these three positions earlier in the year.

And so all of the pieces are in place.

It's my understanding that they were excited about the candidates that they received for the positions, but the hiring process did need to stop due to the hiring freeze.

So sometimes part of the issue with a long hiring process is that the pieces aren't into place, the correct forms aren't.

aren't ready or the job posting's not ready, but I think that those items would already be ready to go in this situation and I can check with OLS or CBO to make sure.

Okay, so the process for hiring for these positions had already begun.

They were on the cusp of being able to make an offer, and then the freeze went into effect.

So the question would be whether or not the candidates are still available, and if not, then how they do an expedited interview process.

Well, so I believe that this hiring process was much earlier in the year.

I don't know for certain, but it was pre-COVID or right on the cusp of COVID.

My understanding is that they had not conducted interviews yet, but were excited about the candidates selected for interviews.

So whether or not those folks still are looking for a position is unknown.

I mean, that was quite a number of months ago, but that is something that I can check into to find out more.

Okay, and then just a question about 2021. Do we have any certainty about what the executive or the mayor's office is considering for maintaining the three investigators if they were picked and hired within this short time frame?

Given the cliff we keep hearing about for 2021, is it possible they would only be on for three months?

We do not have that information yet.

I imagine that sort of information would come in the proposed budget that OLS would submit in September in advance of the 2021 proposed budget as is applicable to their unique situation with the Office of Labor Standards Fund.

But my sense is that that is something that would be addressed in the 2021 proposed budget.

Okay.

Additional questions, colleagues?

Okay, I'm not seeing, Council Member Swamp, please go ahead.

Not a question, but just a comment, Ben.

I mean, I think Karina gave an excellent response to the question you raised about, you know, do they have the capacity to hire?

That they have had excellent candidates.

I mean, what could be better?

And also just, you know, once the funding is available, then I have no doubt that they will Um, get on that because we, you know, we have talked my office and I have talked to a number of the workers in the office of labor standards and they really believe in what they do.

They care about what they're doing.

They see the positive effect it has, and they are quite frustrated about not being able to fill those staff positions.

And I personally, I have no doubt in my mind that they will be able, they will be eager to get on it once they know that the positions can be funded.

Thank you, Councilmember Swann.

Okay, I'm not seeing additional questions.

I will open it up for co-sponsorship.

If you are interested in co-sponsoring, please let me know.

I'm going to add my name to this as a co-sponsor as well, but I would definitely want to work with you all and Office of Labor Standards if this amendment is adopted to ensure that we have sustained OLS funding for investigator positions in the 2021-2022 budget.

councilmember Strauss and councilmember Morales.

We continue to prevent that type of cliff that we know is potentially going to be proposed.

With that I will add my name.

Any additional folks want to add their name?

Councilmember Strauss?

Councilmember Gonzales?

Moving on.

Let's go to number 12. You guys, this is the last amendment for our consideration for today.

Sponsored by Council Member Strauss.

And I'll turn it back over.

It looks like Lish, welcome.

Good afternoon, Council Members.

This is a proviso that would be placed on the Office of Planning and Community Development's budget to reserve $15,000 to enable them to translate materials related to accessory dwelling units for non-English speakers.

A year ago, the council adopted new ADU legislation, and this would provide information and language for homeowners who are interested in building additional units on their property.

Council Member Strauss was the sponsor.

Council Member Strauss, please go ahead.

Thank you, Chair Mosqueda.

The proposed budget revision Does include this $15,000 cut from OPCD that was, as Lish said, intended to fund the translation and interpretation services for these new laws that have been put in place a year, a year and a half ago.

As we all know, as the City Council acted to allow for more ADU development throughout our city, We know that everyone needs to be able to interpret this information, read this information, digest this information in language that is easy for them to understand, because these are technical and detailed pieces of information.

It's not a bland, call this number, find out more information.

And it's not a service that can be provided by less than extremely articulate folks who are fluent in language we can't use basic translation services, because at us provide opportunities to bring in additional income for struggling homeowners to build generational wealth and to add affordable housing to communities.

It's important that we make this opportunity accessible to as many people as possible.

In the city's analysis of last year's ADU legislation, it found that access to this information does create barriers and that racial disparity in utilizing these housing options is further exaggerated if we don't provide this information in language.

I don't believe that it's worth cutting these translation services in order just to save $15,000 in a budget of hundreds of millions.

And I've been told that even the small cost of this item, OPCD, should be able to find the necessary funding without increasing their overall budget.

This proviso would ensure that they do so by reserving $15,000 of their budget to only be spent on providing translation of ADU materials, which, again, is detailed, technical, and needs a fluent speaker rather than a basic translation service.

Thank you, Chair.

Wonderful.

Council President Gonzalez, please go ahead.

As you can imagine, I have a PNs in this particular space.

I want to thank Councilmember Strauss for identifying this as a potential amendment to the rebalancing package.

I want to encourage all of my colleagues to be supportive of this particular amendment.

There is a lot in the rebalancing package that I strongly disagree with, but this is one of the proposed cuts that I find most offensive in the rebalancing package.

completely contrary to our stated commitment to language access, to providing an equal opportunity to homeowners who have limited English proficiency, who could and should be taking advantage of the ADU program and who, frankly, would benefit the greatest from taking advantage of the ADU program to propose a cut that would effectively leave those non-English speakers or limited English proficient speakers completely in the dark as to a really important home stabilization anti-displacement tool available to them is just wrong and really would encourage folks to support this particular amendment and to put back into place a really important component to the ADU program that I advocated for last year, which is to fund translation and meaningful engagement with non-English speakers and limited English proficient speakers to be able to access this ADU program, which at the time the mayor advocated was intended for exactly those populations.

Well, I don't know how it could be intended for those populations if we are now going to leave them in the dark in terms of I feel strongly about this one.

And I hope that colleagues will join me in sponsoring Councilmember Strauss's amendment.

Thank you, Chair Mosqueda.

Thank you, Council Member Strauss, for bringing this forward.

And I support this.

Even though I had concerns with some of the components of the recent ADU legislation, I agree with the goals of having to Enabling people to build that wealth and what to echo what Council President Gonzalez was saying, we need to have the translation services to do that.

I have some constituents who attended some of the seminars and explanations of the new ADA legislation.

to hear about these new opportunities.

The translation services are the bare minimum of what should be done as well as affirmatively marketing this program to folks throughout the city.

Thank you for bringing it forward.

Thank you Councilmember Strauss for bringing this forward.

I think, you know, when we began this conversation several weeks ago, I asked our colleagues to keep in mind that we need to be centering racial equity and all of the decisions that we make, especially when it comes to the budget.

so that communities of color are not bearing the burden of the cuts that we might have to make as a city.

This is an example of what I'm talking about.

You know, in my district, we have people who speak, I think 100 something different languages, who need to be able to understand what their city government is doing, particularly if there are ways for us to support uh, increasing wealth in our communities of color.

And so, um, you know, it is not just planning documents.

It is loan documents and transportation documents and, you know, options for understanding parks and public health and education.

And we need to do a much better job as a city of making sure that our, our rules, our policies, our decisions are made available to the public in the different languages that they speak.

So I appreciate this as a really important first step.

I would ask, Lish, if you have any information about how many languages this $15,000 would allow us to translate, because as somebody who's tried really hard to make sure materials are translated in the past, I know that it is an expensive proposition.

And it is important that we do it in as many languages as possible.

I do have that question for you, Lish.

Thank you.

I'll ask the department what their plans are.

Thank you, Council Member Morales.

Any additional comments?

Let's try that again.

I also want to say thank you.

Thank you to the sponsor for bringing this forward.

I did get a note from Council Member Juarez that she is also supportive of this effort.

And when we get to co-sponsorship, I'll be listing her name.

We have seen more and more people facing housing insecurity due to the financial impacts of COVID.

So I think this is really timely and very appropriate for our 2020 rebalancing package.

Given the nature of COVID and how it spreads, we want to continue to push for as many options as possible for folks to stay stably housed, and ADUs across our community help provide that.

These structures can house family members, friends, and enable folks who may be struggling to make their ends meet and pay mortgage the ability to get additional resources to capture some value from their properties that currently exist.

And hopefully in the future, it allows for more folks build generational wealth as well as these new properties could potentially be first time home ownership options to allow for us to get at the legacy of racist redlining and precluding people from having home ownership options is something that I'm really excited about for Addie's and DATUs in the future.

Given the results of the racial equity toolkit conducted on ADU policy last year, which found that access to capital and information about ADU policies and financing options could be a barrier to communities of color, realizing these benefits by creating ADUs in their properties, I think it's really important that we move forward and make sure we're getting information out there in multiple languages, just underscoring what our council colleagues have said, and I will also be supporting this.

I don't see any additional comments.

Council Colleagues, any additional comments on this?

Okay.

Looking for co-sponsors on Amendment Number 12. Again, Council Member Juarez has indicated support.

I saw Council Member Sawant.

I see Council President Gonzalez.

I see Councilmember Morales.

I see, I think I see everybody, frankly.

Let me just make sure I got everyone and see if we missed anyone here.

Okay, so in my read I see Councilmember Juarez, Councilmember Morales, Councilmember Lewis, Councilmember Peterson, Councilmember Herbold, Councilmember Sawant, Council President Gonzalez and myself.

That is a full council list of co-sponsors to go with Prime Sponsor Council Member Strauss's amendment number 12. Okay, that answers the question on that one.

Central staff, is there anything else that you would like to cover for us regarding the bill in front of us, Council Bill 119825?

The previous packages that we covered was amendments to Council Bill 119818, which was in package one, and Council Bill 119824, which was in packet two.

Lisa, I'm looking to you to see if you're still on.

Hi, Lisa.

Hi, Director Arrasad.

Any additional comments on the amendments that we've discussed over the last 24 hours?

Not from me.

I will ask Director Aristotle if she had anything that she wanted to add.

Okay, she's got to know an okay sign from her as well.

Council colleagues, I want to thank you for your thoughtful amendments that you have all put forward as we try to rebalance the 2020 budget that is in front of us.

And especially hope that you will join me in thanking the central staff for all of their work.

We know we are just halfway through our discussion about amendments, and that will continue next Wednesday.

We will look forward to those future conversations.

And again, thanks to the entire team.

I'm looking to see if we heard from anybody else from central staff.

So thank you all for providing that feedback today.

If anybody wants to say any more of the good of the order, you're welcome to.

Otherwise, oh, Council Member Gonzalez, I think you're on mute, sorry.

Of course I am.

That's my weird face for the viewing public.

We can see each other and I know that the viewing public can't see us in Council Chambers, so I just wanted to follow up with what I thought was a hand signal.

Yes, thank you, Chair Mosqueda for an opportunity just in sort of a good for the order opportunity here.

I just wanted to take a moment to, of course, say thanks to all of our Council Central staff for the work that they have been doing in the background that, you know, the general public doesn't get the privilege of seen occur.

I know that you all are working really hard to get us all the information that we need to make some really important policy decisions in the course of these budget discussions in addition to just fiscal decisions and making sure we have the most accurate information.

Also huge thanks to our technology folks who make it possible for us to do these remote meetings and who make it possible for members of the public to call in remotely to give a public comment.

And then I really just wanted to address the fact that I know that we have a lot of important decisions to make here, and I want to thank the Budget Chair Mosqueda for Shepherding us through these very difficult and heated conversations around the budget, not just in the general fund sense, but also in the context of the Seattle Police Department's budget and the decisions we have to make.

We continue to obviously receive significant amount of public comment related to the proposals to defund the Seattle Police Department and to redirect funding to community-based organizations to support public safety interventions that will meaningfully keep our community members safe, particularly black and brown community members.

I know that next week we will have a continuing conversation around the Seattle Police Department budget.

And I just really want to acknowledge that we continue to hear in public comment.

And in the public sphere, comments targeted to two of our colleagues in particular, and there have been actions, direct actions on the homes of Councilmember Peterson and Councilmember Juarez.

And for those of you who may have seen, I put out a statement in response to that.

I continue to believe that demonstrations are a very powerful tool to effectuate meaningful, lasting change, to really challenge the status quo and to, again, social change that is really important from a perspective of having it be people-driven and community-driven.

But that also, that doesn't mean that we don't support the feeling of security and safety of all of our constituents and certainly our colleagues who are being subjected to these direct actions.

And I just want to encourage people to continue to use the tools that are available to engage with us as your elected officials.

We have had countless hours of public comment.

I want to encourage folks to continue to use public comment period, to speak directly to your council members.

I know a lot of you who call in for public comment can't see all of us.

You can oftentimes just see the timer or the chair of the committee.

but we are all here, we are all listening and we are all engaged and want to continue to receive your comments.

So I just wanna just publicly take an opportunity to say that I hope that we can channel our frustration through these channels and that I continue to support us as a council and as representatives of our constituents to do the best that we can to invite each other into these conversations and to do that in a way that feels meaningful and that we can work together to rise to the occasion here and deal with some of these difficult issues that are facing us and difficult issues facing our community members that we're being called upon to answer and to deal with directly.

So I just wanted to take an opportunity to say that on the record here as we turn the corner from these general conversations towards conversations about the SPD budget in more particular detail.

I just want to urge us all to be patient with each other and to approach each other with a degree of care and welcoming in each other to our conversations because we have so much important work that needs to happen and we'll need each other to get across the finish line.

So thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Madam President.

And very well said.

Did I see another hand?

I would like to just say how much I appreciate your words and also your statement, Council President.

I think it's really important as we're dealing with issues that are dividing the country.

We know that our city can become more and more divided and all of the conversations that we're having here are not easy.

If they were easy, they would have been done years ago.

We are talking about dramatically changing institutions that are rooted deep in public policy and trying to uproot some of those past systems is really challenging work.

I completely get that.

And we also want to make sure that we're allowing folks to express their concerns, express their frustration, and to practice their First Amendment rights, but also wanting to make sure that when it does cross into, you know, profanities at children or the letters and comments that we've been receiving about death threats and the such.

I think that it is really hard for our body as a whole to continue to move forward in a proactive and progressive manner.

I think it is a positive change.

I think it adds to the division that I don't think any of us really want to see in the city right now as we are trying to create these massive public to be able to express your differences of opinion.

And in this situation, I think We face very similar challenges in the past to try to uproot past public policies as it related to labor standards.

And this council has been, I think, on the front line of showing what it looks like to both listen to diverse protest strategies and to have those who are pushing from the outside have their voices lifted up.

But we want to do so in a way that makes sure that people feel safe in their own homes and allows for us to have constructive public policy.

So just as we've done in the past in protecting and I want to echo my appreciation for the words you have shared and echo those statements in my own comments to say we stand by all of our to be safe from the threats that they've received on council and for members of the media to also be protected in the work that they do.

So this is tough stuff and looking forward to really engaging with you all and the public as we look to create the institutional and radical changes that are needed.

And I just want to say thank you.

Okay.

Councilmembers, appreciate all of your work today.

We are looking at another meeting next Wednesday at 10 a.m., and I look forward to the conversation that we have upcoming on Monday.

Thank you, Council President, for steering us through Monday's discussion.

Council colleagues, stay safe and appreciate all that you have done throughout the last month and a half here as we've engaged in this public discussion on rebalancing the 2020 rebalancing package.

Take care, everybody.

Thanks again, Council President for your words.

Thank you, everybody.