City Council 4/1/2025

Good afternoon, everyone.

The April 1st, 2025 meeting of the Seattle City Council will come to order.

It is 2.04.

I'm Sarah Nelson, council president.

Will the clerk please call the roll?

Council member Kettle.

Here.

Council member Rink.

Council member Rivera.

Present.

Council member Saka.

Here.

Council member Solomon.

Here.

Council member Hollingsworth.

Here.

Council President Nelson.

Present.

Six present.

Thank you.

If there's no objection, council member Rink will be excused from today's meeting.

Hearing no objection, council member Rink is excused from today's meeting.

All right, there are no presentations today, so colleagues at this time will open the hybrid public comment period.

Public comment is limited to items on today's agenda, the introduction and referral calendar, and the council work program.

Clerk, please let us know how many speakers are signed up today.

We have eight in person and three remote.

Okay, let's give everyone two minutes and start with our in-person commenters.

Okay, so we will moderate the public comment in the following manner.

Public comment period is up to 20 minutes.

Speakers will be called in the order in which they registered.

And we will call first with in-person speakers.

Please begin speaking by stating your name and the item that you are addressing.

Speakers will hear a chime when 10 seconds are left at their time.

Speakers' mics will be muted if they do not end their comments within the allotted time to allow us to call on the next speaker.

The first in-person speaker is Bennett Halston followed by Alex Zimmerman.

Good afternoon, counsel.

So I talked before about the city attorney and the press release they put out containing false statements about Judge Vedati and disqualifying her from hearing criminal cases.

So this time I brought the actual audio.

So just to recap, the city attorney in their press release about Judge Vedati said, in one recent case, Judge Vedati ruled the defendant was in substantial compliance with treatment and dismissed the case, even though it was clear the defendant never got on the transport van to ABHS.

to fulfill his residential treatment requirement.

So first of all, defendant was a woman, not a man.

Case 673014, defendant Georgia Phillips.

I got that with a PDR request.

Also, defendant's lawyer told Judge Vidati in court the defendant was in a wheelchair, and that's why she couldn't get on the van.

So here's the audio.

There are a couple different complications that came up with that.

It sounds like she has significant medical issues, which is why she was denied even to get on the bus.

Is that what it was?

Yeah.

She wasn't allowed to even get on the bus.

ADHS does not transport people with certain medical conditions.

I think she's wheelchair-bound, at least she was at the time, having been shot in the leg previously.

All right, so that was Judge Vidotti responding to the lawyer's statement.

Also, Judge Vidotti does not dismiss the case.

Here's the rest of the audio.

Well, uh, Deny without prejudice the motion to find substantial compliance and dismiss.

Just at this time, because I think it's a little bit, I just want to make sure I have all of the right information.

So basically every part of the city attorney's statement about that case was false.

Judge Vidati never found that defendant in compliance, never dismissed the case.

Now, the city attorney has walked back their position of disqualifying this judge from hearing criminal cases, but I think that is not enough.

The city attorney put out a statement impugning a sitting judge, tarnishing her reputation by extension of the judiciary.

They have never taken responsibility for it.

I'd like to reiterate, I think the city council should issue a resolution calling on the city attorney to retract the false statements that they made.

Thank you.

Alex Zimmerman.

And then following Alex will be Tia.

Oh, Tia, excuse me.

Yeah.

My name is Alex Zimmerman.

I am President of Stand Up America, Trump supporter from beginning, and I have something that nobody has in human history.

I have 6,000 days of trespass that has come from King Country Council, different council.

6,000 days.

Nobody has this in human history.

I want to speak about agenda number three, because you start right now appointment somebody, you know, for commission.

I tried doing this for the last 20 years like a dozen times.

Nobody approved me.

I don't understand.

When you have 6,000 days of trespass, 18 trespass only from Seattle for 1,500 days, this means you're very good.

This means you're smart.

You educate.

Because people like you who don't want to listen to me acting like a Nazi pig in Martin Luther King County, you know what this means?

So this means I'm very good.

Yes.

So my question right now to this idiot who sit here, an idiot who sit here, you know what it means?

Maybe it's time for elect Alex Zimmerman for president of King County.

You know what it means?

Because president, what we have before, his name Don Constantine, he go for $450,000 in sound transit board who give me three year trespass because I told them they have a $200 billion pound this ham.

They cut me three times for three years.

Smart, yeah, absolutely.

Viva Trump, viva new American revolution.

Stand up, American.

We need stop acting like an idiot because 700,000 idiot who live in this city look absolutely sick.

They are mentally sick Nazi fascist pig.

Thank you very much.

And we have Tia Petroch, if I'm not mistaken.

Please, thank you, I appreciate that.

And then after Tia would be Sandy Smith.

My name is Tia Petrovich.

I live in Pioneer Square, and I chair the Pioneer Square Residence Council.

I'm here in support of the proposed consent decree legislation and its critical role in shaping the future of public safety in Seattle.

I wanna open by expressing my appreciation for our first responders, Seattle police, fire, paramedics, and our care team.

Their dedication and sacrifice are essential for the safety and well-being of all communities, and especially in my vulnerable Pioneer Square community.

I recognize the immense challenges that first responders face and the importance of providing them with resources and support that they need to effectively do their duties.

In specific, I support the expansion and diversity in our public safety response to include mental health professionals, social workers, and other trained specialists who can provide appropriate assistance in situations that don't always require police response.

This diverse response is crucial for addressing the complex needs I know of my community and of other communities at large.

We must ensure that individuals receive the right kind of help at the right time.

I also support legislation that addresses deescalation training and the use of alternate conflict resolution techniques to minimize the use of force and prioritize all community safety.

A comprehensive approach to public safety must include citizen-led accountability, a commitment to continuous improvement and reform, and strong support for first responders.

True public safety, I feel, is built on a foundation of trust, transparency, and accountability.

By working together, we can create a safer, more just, and equitable city for all.

Thank you for your support.

Sandy?

And then following Sandy will be Steve.

is still a little taller than I am after all these years.

I have been here recently, but I'll remind you that I have been a Pioneer Square resident and business owner and worker for over 30 years.

And I am here primarily on behalf of Circle the Square, which is over 100 members of citizen-led work where we We walk the neighbourhood twice a week, and we try to engage with others across the spectrum to make it just safer, healthier for all of us.

And we want to thank all of you for what you are doing in that.

And I know it's not for today, but the nightclub thing.

Amen, the nightclub thing.

That's where we got our trouble, of course.

So we particularly want to call out your commitment to expanding the social worker-led interventions and the trauma-informed responses.

We see the care members on the street.

We get to see what happens.

I want to say a week ago, it might be a little bit more than that, We had a person with a knife in Pioneer Square, and we couldn't tell what was going to happen, whether it was a big deal or a little deal.

And the police response was so measured and beautiful.

Nothing bad happened.

So we have those things regularly.

And I also want to say, I've lived there long enough so that I remember when we knew our beat cops.

we would have coffee together and some of that's coming back.

We sometimes have the officers in Pioneer Square and we will stop in and say, hey, how's it going?

And they'll ask us, how's it going?

This is how we want to get back to, get the goodness and not the craziness that we once had.

So on behalf of all of us, we thank you for the work that you're doing for a safer, more healthy and inclusive environment for all of us.

Much appreciated.

Thank you.

Dr. Steve, we have Charlotte.

Good afternoon.

My name is Steve Pumphrey, and I think most of you know me by now.

Sorry.

I'm here in support of Council Member Saka's Resolution 32167. I'm a founding member of a group of roughly 180 residents that have been working with the Seattle Police Department and other city departments to improve public safety in our city and especially in West Seattle and around the Alki Point, Harbor Avenue areas.

We found that when we work as partners to identify our unique safety needs, we have success.

Our city partners are sometimes hamstrung by lack of staffing, as is the case with the police department, or yes, the maddening bureaucratic processes sometimes get in the way.

But generally, we find them to be very responsive and supportive.

I can tell you that getting past the we versus us mentality and working together with mutual respect especially with frontline first responders, is paramount to making Seattle the safest of cities.

And it will be critical if Seattle is to return to a fully staffed, diverse, well-trained cadre of compassionate police officers, care team members, firefighters, EMTs, among others, committed to public safety in all neighborhoods and accountable not only to the community but amongst themselves.

Seattle citizens deserve a safe city and first responders deserve our respect and utmost gratitude.

Please adopt council member Saka's resolution 32167 doing this in recognition of the city, excuse me, in recognition of the people we rely upon every day for safety and peace in our lives.

And please let's never ever return to a defund the police mentality.

Thank you.

Charlotte Stark, president of Alki Community Council, non-profit nearly 400, and part of a family of retired fire and federal law enforcement.

Resolution 32167, I think, is the right thing to do because, finally, it feels like Seattle is pulling the political dagger out of the backs of city police officers, and it's needed to help build trust with them.

Here in these chambers, they were often They were often dehumanized, yet we citizens recognize, many others recognize, how brave these humans are.

Brave men and women every day running to danger, to help strangers, they're not running away from it.

Council Member Saka, thank you, first of all, for all of your work on this in conjunction with Council Member Kettle and Chairman.

This resolution sets the city priorities straight, I think.

Placing the value of human lives far above the value of political ideologies which should rank down here.

Some of those very radical and divisive as we saw.

Defunding policies were predictably disastrous.

Too many citizens and far too many children are dying still.

And across West Seattle, I with others are advocating for safety with neighborhood leaders as we head into summer.

And it's typically and historically our most dangerous season today.

We stand with over 300 officers short.

So never again.

We all have the power to make Seattle better and safer.

So my message is let's get it done.

Thank you.

We now have Victoria Palmer.

Following Victoria will be Gary Lee.

Hello, council members.

My name is Victoria Palmer, and I'm an executive board member of the King County Republican Party and a resident of City Council District 6. I'm here today to applaud council member Rob Saka for introducing Resolution 32167, recognizing the value of our Seattle police officers, fire department, and other first responders working together to improve our public safety while maintaining accountability and compassion.

We applaud this resolution, recognizing that 2020's defund the police was poor public policy and marking that Seattle is well on its way to correcting this mistake.

We support the city council in its progress to restoring good governance, regardless of party affiliation, and we encourage the council to vote yes on this resolution.

Thank you.

I'm Gary Lee from the CID Public Safety Council, and I want to express my support for the resolution that's before you today and also echo everything that these few people behind me have said before.

I'm appreciative that you're moving forward from this deep fund the police movement.

We really appreciate the the police folks that are serving the city, especially CID, and we are so grateful and behind you today.

Thank you so much.

That is our last in-person speaker.

We'll now move into remote speakers.

As a reminder to our remote speakers, please press star six after you have heard the message that you have been unmuted.

We'll begin with Howard Gale, followed by David Haynes.

Go ahead, Howard.

Good afternoon.

Howard Gale, District 7. As we heard as recently as just yesterday in council briefing, council members speak often and passionately about the horrors of gun violence.

That is, except when it is an SPD officer holding and firing the gun.

Two weeks ago, the SPD killed the 19th person in a period of less than 14 years, who was brandishing an edged weapon or had no weapon at all in their hand when killed.

14 of these people were clearly experiencing a severe mental health crisis.

Every single one of these SBD killings was declared or accepted as, quote, lawful and proper, unquote, by all parts of our police accountability system.

Yet today you will vote on a resolution congratulating SBD's success in reform and accountability.

How tone deaf and heartless.

Over the last 35 years in the United Kingdom, accepting Northern Ireland and very rare cases of terrorism or hostage taking, civilians brandishing edge weapons and killed by police, nine.

That is nine people in an entire country of over 66 million.

That translates to an annualized per capita rate of police killing over 450 times higher in Seattle than in the UK.

459 times.

Council Member Kettle.

You stated to me at your last town hall that Seattle's police officers must do what is necessary to get home alive.

What a shameful standard for public safety officials.

Imagine if our firemen and women adopted that philosophy.

Would they rush into a burning building?

In the United Kingdom, police say our duty is to make sure everyone goes home alive.

We should have no lower standard.

And the UK is not alone.

In Japan, despite most officers carrying guns, people with edged weapons are almost never shot or killed.

We need a full hearing on this unrelenting pattern of executing folks experiencing a mental health crisis.

Such a hearing requires someone with expertise, like myself, to ask and pursue questions that have remained unanswered, thereby perpetuating this cruelty.

Council members Rincon Solomon committed last week to holding a town hall to confront this issue.

For the seven other council members, are you willing to pursue real answers or simply perpetuate inhumane practices?

Thank you.

Our next speaker is David Haynes.

Go ahead, David.

Thank you, David Haynes.

Most of the gun violence is directly correlated to low-level drug pushers being exempted from jail and police chiefs not being actual crime fighters.

The council thinks young people need a place to go after they're drunk at 2 a.m., yet there's no food available in all of these slump pieces of real estate run by shady, untrustworthy characters.

Yet you want to provide hookah lounges that offer poisons that are from the evils of the third world while purposely not allowing organic marijuana cafes, which would definitely chill people out more.

It's more proof of the aloof Democrats who treat the government like a greedy corporation and are willing to look the other way on customs violations and toxic imports to prop up slum real estate as if being respectful to customs violating vulture culture.

as long as they can generate some cash through taxes that they can use to buy off some more voting blocks and prop up the artificially inflated property values that devalue the community safety.

And yet there's no investigation of all the over-serving bartenders sending everyone out swerving home, stopping off to mess their mind up on toxics from Egypt and other third world regions that destroy your mind with hookah.

It's an evil drug.

The resolution council is voting on today that I support is more empty worded virtue signaling and is irrelevant to public safety because council already budgeted more money for the same spending priorities that originated from when they defunded the police and shifted the paradigm away from improving the war on drug pushers and paid to run interference for repeat offenders, prioritized for housing and services first, using homeless money while racially discriminating against innocent white homeless citizens, subhuman mistreated, I hope somebody sues the Seattle Police Department and this city for your continued unconstitutional police reform and your priority to hire untrustworthy police chiefs who run interference for drug pushers who turn against the cops, normal crime fighters while getting rich, prioritizing overtime, hanging with law-abiding citizens, falsely assuring communities that were safe because the cops were hanging around with us as they dispersed the criminals around the corner.

God bless the true democracy revolution.

That was our last remote speaker.

Thank you very much.

Thank you everybody for coming to speak today.

The public comment period is now closed.

All right, moving on.

If there's no objection, the introduction and referral calendar will be adopted.

Hearing no objection, the introduction and referral calendar is adopted.

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

Hearing none, the agenda is adopted.

Now we'll consider the proposed consent calendar and the items on it are the minutes of the March 18th and 25th meetings, 18th and 25th, 2025 meetings, Council Bill 120961, payment of bills, six appointments from the Housing and Human Services Committee, one appointment from the Sustainability, City Light, Arts and Culture Committee, and one appointment from the Libraries, Education and Neighborhoods Committee.

Are there any items that council members would like to remove from today's consent calendar?

All right, hearing none, I move to adopt the consent calendar.

Is there a second?

Second.

It's been moved and seconded to adopt the consent calendar.

Will the clerk please call the roll on the adoption of the consent calendar?

Council Member Kettle?

Aye.

Council Member Rivera?

Aye.

Council Member Saka?

Aye.

Council Member Solomon?

Aye.

Council Member Hollingsworth?

Yes.

Council President Nelson?

Aye.

Six in favor, none opposed.

The consent calendar items are adopted.

Will the clerk please affix my signature to the minutes in legislation on the consent calendar on my behalf?

All right, will the clerk please read item one into the record.

The report of the public safety, agenda item one, resolution 32167. I am acknowledging that Seattle residents, workers, students, and visitors to be safe and feel safe recognizing and appreciating first responders from the Seattle Police Department, Seattle Fire Department, and Community Assisted Response and Engagement Department, affirming the city's obligation to fully support, train, and equip first responders committing to a diversified public safety response team, acknowledging the city's actions to reform the police department under the federal consent decree committing to resolve the remaining issues on the consent decree, and affirming the essential services provided by the police department.

The committee recommends the resolution be adopted.

Thank you very much.

Councilmember Kettle, as chair of the committee, you are recognized in order to provide the committee report before the sponsor addresses it.

Thank you, Council President.

And as the committee chair, all I want to do right now is thank everyone who's been involved in this process, which is not just the resolution, but all the work behind it related to the consent decree.

But a special thank you to my vice chair, Councilmember Saka, for his work on this.

He and I have been working on this for quite a while, collaborating with the mayor's office and others.

But I just want to thank him for the effort and being the leader on this topic, because his leadership is vitally important.

So with that, I'd like to hand the mic over to my vice chair, Councilmember Saka.

Thank you.

Go ahead, Councilmember Saka, Vice Chair.

Thank you, Madam Council President.

And I also want to thank Mayor Harrell and Public Safety Chair, Councilmember Kettle for their partnership, not only on this specific resolution, but for what this resolution stands for.

A recommitment to supporting our public safety professionals, our first responder heroes, and delivering a world-class public safety system for all.

Together, since I took office January 2024, along with many of you all colleagues, proud to say that this council has passed 14 pieces of transformative public safety legislation to better deliver upon our charter responsibility to keep people safe.

And this legislation enables our city to take a significant step towards doing two things.

finalizing the 2012 federal consent decree with the Seattle Police Department, and helping to shape a future of public safety in our city that we can all be proud of.

Broadly speaking, this resolution sets forth our city's policies with respect to first responders, empowering them to effectively carry out their public safety mandate.

providing them with the appropriate tools, resources, and training they need to be successful, at the same time setting and enforcing the highest standards of excellence and professionalism, and swiftly holding individuals accountable for misconduct, no different than you would any department or any employee, all while advancing a truly diversified public safety response model in parallel.

One that includes social workers, behavioral health teams, and other trained crisis response personnel.

Again, today's resolution is another crucial step toward resolving the remaining issues in the federal consent decree by recognizing the many prior and current actions to reform our police department while also supporting and uplifting and amplifying the work of other first responders.

Key provisions include supporting first responders, strengthening police accountability, recognizing the vital public safety reforms that our city has made, reaffirming our commitment to a diversified public safety response, and importantly, reversing defund commitments and pledges by past councils.

This legislation helps advance all these things these exciting things and more.

But I wanted to take a moment to pause, reflect and acknowledge one specific element of this bill, its reversal of the defund the police movement as a city policy matter.

Now, in 2020, when, just wanna clarify, in 2020, when pledges or commitments to defund the Seattle Police Department's budget by 50% were made by city leaders, I was not in office at the time, nor were many of you here today at the dais, my colleagues.

So I wasn't involved in it.

Personally, I didn't support it at the time.

I've never heard of, ever, 10 years as an Air Force veteran, 10 years in the military, 10 years in the private sector, in big law and big tech, then law school, I just never heard of stripping resources away from anything, any individual organization, and expecting that same individual organization to produce better results.

I've never heard of it.

So I didn't support it at the time.

But the context and the history behind it, I think we also need to acknowledge and recognize.

So when George Floyd was murdered on camera in Minneapolis, Minnesota, it inspired a racial reckoning in communities across the country.

As the resolution notes, the ensuing protests caused local governments across our great nation including our own here in the city of Seattle government, to acknowledge the history of institutional racism within their criminal justice and law enforcement systems.

I should also note, ironically, at the time those defund commitments and pledges were made in the city of Seattle, there were zero, zero black or African American, African descent council members serving on the council at the time.

Yet strangely, those defund pledges were made at the height of a racial reckoning in America that needed to happen in 2020. And they were also purportedly made in my best interests as a black man and purportedly in the best interests of other black people across our great city.

I didn't benefit from that.

No communities that I'm involved with benefited from that.

It hurt all communities.

It was divisive.

Seattle, I'm proud to say, is increasingly diverse from a demographic perspective.

And we welcome people from all backgrounds.

And my commitment is to make sure, I don't care where you are, where you're from, You come to the city of Seattle, you should feel safe and protected and free to experience the many wonders and joys that our city has to offer.

So we're an increasingly diverse city from a demographics perspective.

That said, we're also one of the least diverse big cities in America.

One of the whitest big cities in America, one could say.

And that commitment to defund the police was made purportedly in the best interest of black and brown communities, with not one black person on council at the time.

As a black man, I'll say, look, black and brown communities, we don't need white saviors.

We speak.

We are perfectly capable of speaking and self-advocating on our own behalf.

People cherry picking, and we're also not a monolith.

Black people, we're not a monolith.

We agree on any number of things and disagree on any number of things, just no different from any other group.

But at the time those commitments were made, people cherry pick specific voices and specific perspectives from our black community here in Seattle and held it up.

as the perspective.

It's not.

It wasn't then, it's not true now.

And today in stark contrast to the composition of the last council in 2020 that made those defund commitments, given the shift of this council's composition, we now have a history making three black council members.

At the end of the day, I do believe the intent and motives behind defund was 100% positive and pure.

I think we're all aligned on the same shared goals of making sure we have a more just, equitable society for all.

I think that was the wrong approach to take then.

And I think in the end, it was flat wrong.

It was divisive and counterproductive.

purporting to advance a 50% cut threshold or standard was entirely arbitrary and capricious.

It was a head scratcher.

And again, as a black man growing up in this country, as an Air Force veteran, someone who's over busted their hump and was able to overcome the foster care system, and any number of life challenges that we all face, it didn't benefit me.

Didn't benefit any of the communities that I've been involved with.

So when George Floyd was murdered on camera, I was outraged like everyone else.

But I was also uniquely traumatized more than most because, Not only as a black man who knows what unequal justice feels like and can feel like, I was traumatized when that happened when I saw that video because I too have experienced police brutality.

Not just that, I too have had the knees of injustice pressed up against my neck in my early 20s for some nonsense that should have never happened to begin with.

And by the Minneapolis Police Department to boot.

So that experience let me know that we need better policing, not no policing, better policing.

And I also know firsthand the importance of our first responders, that they play in our society.

In 2013, me and my wife had just finished running the Boston Marathon.

We're at the finish line a block away from Boylston Street, at the family meetup location about a block away from Boylston Street, when the first of multiple bombs went off and exploded.

And I'll never forget, in that moment, in the confusion and chaos, in the pain, and people were scared.

That unfolded in those ensuing moments after the bombs went off, myself included, by the way.

I'm a combat veteran.

I'll never forget in those moments when everyone was trying to figure out how to escape the danger, run away from it, keep themselves safe.

I'll never forget seeing not dozens, but hundreds of first responders, firefighters, EMTs, and yes, police, putting their own safety and security on the line, running towards the danger to protect us.

That's how I know we need first responders that are well-trained, well-resourced, and that have the tools necessary to effectively carry out their public safety mandate.

More recently, a few nights ago, shooting in Delridge, where I live, hundreds of gunshots in my own backyard.

SPD responded promptly.

conducted their investigation.

Again, that's how I know we need first responders, and yes, including police.

U.S.

District Court Judge James Robart, who oversees Seattle's compliance with the consent decree, has previously noted that the words of the past of slashing SPD's budget and worse, abolishing the police entirely was not the path to lifting the consent decree.

The court previously criticized Seattle's legacy defund police or defund SPD policy as a knee-jerk reaction.

In fact, Judge Robart previously noted, quote, the city, the mayor, and other elected officials from the city council need to be constructive, not destructive, to progress.

Colleagues, as I noted earlier, most of us on this council were not elected to office when the defund pledges were pushed.

To be sure, if I had been at the council at the time, I would have strongly pushed back against any actions to defund our police department or any public safety.

I remember at the time vividly thinking, The King County Sheriff's Office at the time didn't have any body cams, dash cams, or any proven transparency, trust-building mechanisms.

But we wanna defund the police?

If anything, to build trust, improve transparency, and strengthen accountability, we're gonna need, public safety departments and agencies are gonna need more resources, not less.

So this council proud to say has nonetheless taken the court's guidance to heart.

The court's call to be constructive, not destructive to progress.

We've taken that to heart.

And today we have renewed reason for hope and optimism.

This is a new council, a new day in Seattle.

Worked hard to make the Seattle Police Department, a model department and grow its ranks.

Some would say, oh, well, we've passed these 14 bills and no need to revisit or relive some of those painful memories.

I do think we do.

I think we need to acknowledge the impact that words have.

in order to effectively and collectively heal and move forward.

But again, defund is dead if this passes.

That's the headline, if this passes, defund is dead.

This legislation allows us to collectively heal from the shameful legacy of defund and importantly, officially pivot towards a diversified response model that communities so desperately need.

And I'm proud of the work of our Seattle Police Department, Seattle Fire Department, and our new Care Department.

And I'm also proud of the work done by this mayor, this council, and I urge you to vote for this resolution today.

Thank you.

Let the public know there are loud jazz hands in the audience.

Are there any comments?

Councilmember Rivera.

Thank you council president really just to underscore I really want to thank Councilmember Saka for bringing this resolution forward and and just for greatly Setting up what this resolution is really meant to do and also always appreciate your personal experience, that is important, that matters.

And you said it so well that I'm not gonna repeat all the things, but I very much support this legislation, I very much support this stance that folks need to admit when they make decisions based on what seemed at the time the right thing to do, but we know wasn't.

Although I agree with you, council member Saka, I never thought that the defund rhetoric was the right thing to do.

We need our first responders, all of them, including police.

And then we need to work to make sure that we hold police accountable and that we're providing the training necessary to ensure that they're always doing the most good in our communities.

But they're very much, we very much need them, which is why, and when you and I have talked about this since I've been here, I've worked really hard to build relationship with SPD and I encourage constituents in the D4 to do so as well.

And it is true because I appreciate what audience members who gave public comment came to say about that includes building relationship between constituents and police because building that relationship is what I believe also leads to better outcomes in communities.

When police see themselves as part of the community, when anyone sees themselves as part of community, you get better outcomes.

And that includes our folks that come here from other places of the country and the world.

And so we are a welcoming city.

We're a city that's going to do its due diligence to provide public safety.

and support all of our first responders.

And I also want to say something.

Because it's part, I think it bears mentioning in the light of this particular resolution that you're bringing forward.

But as part of that defund rhetoric and movement, there were some elected officials who also got caught up in this aggression in the city, including some council members.

I'm going to...

here recognize Council Member Deborah Juarez, who was a subject of very hateful folks coming to her home and attacking her, something that should never happen.

And this also happened across the country, so it wasn't just here.

And of course, former Mayor Durkin also experienced this as well.

And it's just, it was the tone at the time and it was not the proper tone for our city.

And it doesn't make people safer and it doesn't really correct what needed correcting.

But to the point of your resolution, council member Saka, doing the work of doing the training and holding police accountable, that is going to make a change.

Not the rhetoric and the hate.

And so I really want to thank you for all that you've done and putting this resolution together.

I want to thank you for being bold and bringing it forward and resetting.

It's a resetting of the tone in our city about our first responders, about public safety, about how to treat each other with respect even when we disagree.

I've said this.

about 100 times, I think, in the year that I've been here.

We can all agree to disagree.

We live in a great city.

We have a lot of things in common.

I say we have shared values.

We don't always agree on how to get to some solves for some of the policy issues, but we have shared goals and shared outcomes.

And so we need to treat each other with respect.

and agree to disagree.

That's how you serve, in my opinion, our constituents the best.

And I think your resolution also gets to that.

So again, I want to thank you for bringing it forward.

I'm going to vote yes, of course, to it.

And, you know, I too, I'm going to encourage our colleagues on your behalf to also join us in voting yes.

Thank you.

Councilmember Kettle.

Thank you, Council President.

I wanted to speak to Resolution 32167. As stated, it's a resolution acknowledging that Seattle residents, workers, students, and visitors deserve to be safe and feel safe.

I think it's really important to focus on that sentence, to focus on that point.

Be safe and feel safe, something that I see and feel every day in terms of as I work the issues related to public safety throughout our city, to include yesterday at Freeway Park and First Hill.

Resolution 32167 also speaks to our consent decree process, and it's important entirely through its entirety.

I will speak to it in terms of its sequence, but each area is important.

It's about enacting reforms.

It's about improving the Seattle Police Department, but really our entire system.

You know, it started with the Seattle Police Department, but it ends with Seattle Police Department, but also the Fire Department, the Care Department, the entire system of our public safety.

Part of this reform is moving Seattle Police Department from being so central in our public safety posture, our public safety system.

It's easy to add things on to SPD's mission set because they have the ability to take it on.

Something that I know from my experience in the military where DOD, because of its logistics capability, its communications capability, intelligence capability, would take on missions that weren't traditionally military, but because it could.

But that, too, causes problems.

And so I think it's really important to note that this is about looking at the system in its entirety and finding SPD's place in it, allowing it to focus on law enforcement, violent and property crime.

I was working these issues very directly in 2020, and it was always interesting that people always forgot about property crime and these discussions that were happening.

particularly when they're trying to justify budget decisions.

But they need to focus on law enforcement, violent property crime, and other areas appropriate for SPD.

But a key part of this resolution and the consent decree process is what we've developed over the last dozen years, particularly in the last few years, related to alternative response.

To help in that intersection between public safety and public health, something that I wasn't speaking to a lot, over the course of my candidacy and my year and one quarter here on the council.

And so I think it's really important that the resolution calls out the Seattle Fire Department and the care department and their efforts.

I've done ride-alongs, I've done visits to fire stations and the like, and the work that they're doing, you know, expanding their capabilities.

It's not just Medic One.

Health One, Health 99. We have the care department that we're building out now and increasing its capabilities.

So it's important that this resolution calls that out.

Another important area, and I think this gets short shift, and one of the reasons why I keep focusing on it is our accountability system.

Our accountability system is key.

The partners are one of the highlights of this consent decree process, and it's a highlight of this resolution.

I constantly have periodic meetings with our accountability partners, the CPC, the Community Police Commission, talking to them about the challenges that we face as a city, to include what was mentioned in the public comment.

We need to look at these things, these issues that come before us in a proper way, investigate properly, independently, and then have the oversight responsibilities.

This is part of our job too with the City Council, the Public Safety Committee particularly, is to have that oversight to ensure these pieces are done right.

And as I said before, I think it's important for SPD to take on accountability.

When you're the best force with all these reforms, you should welcome accountability.

And that's the mindset that we should have is to welcome accountability.

but it also goes to the Office of Police Accountability, the OPA, and we're looking to support them and the OIG.

Key here, in terms of our role here on the Dias, is how do we support the accountability partners?

How do we set them up for success?

Not failure, but for success.

And that applies, too, to our Alternative Response pieces and SBD itself.

To the last part of the, resolution, and it was important to bring this up, and that was part of the discussions that we had over the months, that reverses any prior commitments or pledges to defund or abolish SPD.

There's a reason why it's focused on the defund pledge.

I'm well aware of those that will say, no, didn't happen, didn't happen.

you could almost say it's fake news, because they go to the specific budget actions or pieces that were taken.

But that ignores the impact of the pledge on the men and women of the Seattle Police Department.

It ignores the impact that that had on how their ability to do their job.

And so I say that that pledge did have grave impacts.

on our public safety posture, that we are living to this day, day in and day out.

And in terms of another important point is, as noted, we've had 14 public safety bills out of this council.

If you count this as 15th, obviously we have another one related to after hours, the late night violence.

That would be 16. These are bills that we are showing our commitment to improve that public safety posture.

And at the end of the day, and just to conclude, what we need is leadership.

Leadership that is forward thinking and understanding, you know, the idea of compassion, but also wisdom, as many have heard me say before.

The idea that we need to press forward on public safety, but also public health and human services.

And we're looking to do that.

I advocate for that.

Truly, as I've said before, there are two sides of the same coin.

We cannot succeed in public safety if we don't also succeed in public health.

It's very clear.

Leadership that also believes in taking responsibility, not selfies, that believes in building up and not tearing down our ability to provide a safe, thriving, and vibrant Seattle.

That's my underlying comment.

Because at the end of the day, it's about leadership, and it's about us showing leadership.

And one way to do so, and I ask my colleagues, is to vote in affirmation of this resolution.

Thank you, Council President.

please allow me to make some comments and then I'll open it up to this, to the sponsor if needed or anyone to make, to close us out.

But I have to say that thank you very much for putting it so eloquently and so vividly council member Saka because it's the, It's the catastrophic impacts of seven of nine of the council members pledging to defund the police in 2020, and they've been mentioned here, that actually had largely led me to run for office in 2021. not just the skyrocketing property crime and violent crime and drug overdoses that were a result of drug dealing and inhumane conditions that people were living outside, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, but also the unacceptably long 911 response times and I did have a mother-in-law who was living in town, aged, et cetera, and this is what I was hearing all the time.

The point is, I was motivated to run for that reason.

And I had to work with and around that council in my first two years.

And for perspective, here we are voting this out of full council after it's been before us for a week or two, if you count the introduction process.

It took four months for me to get my SPD hiring bonuses legislation passed in 2022. So what a difference a supermajority of reinforcements makes.

And so thank you very much for all of your hard work.

It is a pleasure to work with you, and I look forward to more progress that we can make for our constituents together.

I do want to note that the...

The symbolic, the end of a kind of a symbolic policy era that we're celebrating here, to me, defund the police, et cetera, is less important than a more profound difference or change in council that I'm seeing, and that is that this council does truly seek to listen to their constituents and listen to a diversity of perspectives.

And in fact, I'd go so far as to say in fact, that's why you were elected.

I was watching all of your campaigns and it was clear that public safety was top of mind for everyone.

And so I do have to say that We're here because the public spoke loud and clear of the changes they wanted to see.

And I just hope that we keep that close connection.

And again, yes, Council Member Rivera, there will be differences of opinion because there are differences of opinion.

amongst our constituents and that is natural what is important is that we work together and that we don't close off options and that we don't get too wedded to options that we get tunnel vision and failed to see that being in that condition can lead to unintended consequences that will have long lasting negative effects.

So I just, I thank you very much for not just for this legislation, but also for the hard work and the change that it manifests.

Go ahead.

Thank you, council president.

I want to clarify too, when I say differences of opinion, I mean collectively amongst constituents across the city because we often get folks coming to chamber and they don't always agree on the things that they would like to see.

And so I wanna say that, I hope that we're leading by example on, you're not always gonna agree, but we do.

I always attribute good intent to everyone and to the constituents that come here and speak with us.

So I was talking about the collective agreeing to disagree because the constituents also who come have differences and we've seen that.

So anyway, wanted to clarify that point.

Thank you for that.

And, and I think what it comes down to for me is, is humility that we, we must have humility to be open to other perspectives and to admitting that we've made a mistake as well.

And that's, to me, a sign of good leadership and going forward with the best interests of as many people as that we could gather.

Or as I think it was Spock that would say, do the most good for the greatest number of people.

But in any case, there we go.

Any further comments?

You're not gonna let me get away with a Star Trek quote, are you?

I was just gonna say, thank you Council Member Sacco for bringing this forward.

thinking about where my home has been for the past 35 years, I know that this is going to mean a lot.

I'm just going to send a clear message, not just to our law enforcement, but I happen to run into Kenny Stewart from Local 27. It's a big deal for them too, to acknowledge their work.

And again, this is going to go a long way.

So I appreciate you bringing it forward.

OK.

I'm not seeing any other comments, so would the clerk please call the...

Oh, go ahead, sorry.

Oh, yep.

Thank you, Madam Council President.

If I may, just to close us out.

Awesome, awesome.

Well, thank you, colleagues.

Appreciate your comments here.

Couldn't agree more with everything I just heard.

This is about turning a page.

I love the framing from my colleague, Council Member Rivera.

This is a resetting of tone.

It's a perfect description of what this is ultimately all about.

And again, at the end of the day, I think the underlying concerns that the defund pledges and commitments were ultimately designed to address, they're valid concerns.

It's neither a progressive thing or a liberal thing or a conservative thing to want to address those issues or a Democrat thing or a Republican thing.

This is officially a nonpartisan office, but I'm a proud Democrat.

And addressing the underlying issues is a valid concern.

It's neither a progressive, conservative, Democrat, Republican thing.

So I actually appreciate those council members, although I disagree on substance and where they landed.

I appreciate those council members for taking a deep shot downfield.

These are hard problems.

I don't question any of their motives.

I know they all have the best of intent, purest of motives.

We all have the same shared goals here to keep people safe.

I get it.

So I don't want to I do, again, strongly disagree with that policy and pledge, but I think they're coming from a great place.

These are hard problems we're facing.

And you gotta be willing to take deep shots downfield.

And to Council President's point a moment ago, this is also about humility and grace And we need to be able to humble ourselves if and when those big shots and big investments didn't work.

And that's what this is about.

So we can collectively move forward.

Greed, Chair Kettle.

This is about leadership too.

Some would say we don't need to do this.

Oh, well, let's just focus on 14, we'll do 15 and maybe 20 by year's end, public safety bills over the last 2024 and 2025. Well, yeah, I think we do need to acknowledge the lessons learned from the past and move forward because it is impactful for all of our first responders.

And Council Member Solomon, you met with, you saw Kenny Stewart from our firefighters union earlier, because I coincidentally happened to be meeting with him.

And you're right, he does strongly support this.

But in any event, this is about turning a page for Seattle.

This is about resetting the tone.

This is about allowing us to collectively move forward and chart a new, bold, transformative path towards achieving better public safety outcomes for all.

And in that work and in that goal, I am fully committed.

And if we support this today, that makes clear the city is fully committed to that work.

So again, thank you to Councilmember Public Safety Chair Kettle and the mayor.

Unusual step about this resolution is the mayor has already concurred.

So this is a city policy priority, not just reflecting the wishes and intent of the council or the executive.

This is a city policy, and I would appreciate your support.

Thank you, Madam Council President.

Thank you.

With that will the clerk please call the roll on the adoption of the resolution.

Council member Kettle.

I. Council member Rivera.

I. Council member Saka.

I. Council member Solomon.

Council member Hollingsworth.

Yes.

Council President Nelson.

I. Six in favor none opposed.

Thank you.

Resolution 32167 is adopted and the chair will sign it.

Will the clerk please affix my signature to the legislation on my behalf?

All right.

There were no items removed from the consent calendar today and there is not a resolution for introduction and adoption.

Is there any further business to come before the council?

Council Member Rivera.

Thank you, Council President.

I'd like to ask to be excused on Tuesday, April 15th.

All right, thank you.

If there's no objection, Councilmember Rivera will be excused from the April 15th, 2025 City Council meeting.

Hearing none, Councilmember Rivera is excused from the April 15th, 2025 City Council meeting.

Council President, the same for me, but for the 22nd of April.

If there is no objection, Councilmember Kettle will be excused from the April 22nd, 2025 City Council meeting.

Hearing no objection, Council Member Kettle is excused from the April 22nd, 2025 City Council meeting.

All right, I'm looking to see if there are any other pieces of business.

All right, we've reached the end of today's agenda.

Our next regularly scheduled City Council meeting is on April 8th at 2 p.m.

Hearing no further business, we are adjourned and it is 3.08.

Thank you, everyone.

Bye.