SPEAKER_10

And good morning.

The Public Safety Committee meeting will come to order.

It's 934 AM, September 19th, 2024. I'm Robert Kettle, Chair of the Public Safety Committee.

Will the Committee Clerk please call the roll?

SPEAKER_11

Council Member Hollingsworth.

Hey, President.

Thank you.

Council Member Moore is away.

Council President Nelson is also away.

Council Member Saka.

Here.

Chair Kettle.

Here.

Chair, there are three members present.

SPEAKER_10

Thank you.

Yes, three members present, two excused.

We do have quorum.

If there is no objection, the agenda will be adopted.

Hearing and seeing none, the agenda is adopted.

Before starting, I want to first, on a little bit of a lighter note, I want to thank Deputy Mayor Burgess for attending this morning.

I've been getting reports that people were confused, thinking that he'd come back to the city council.

Just so everybody knows, this is not him.

I know, you know, folks can get confused.

So I just want to thank Deputy Mayor Burgess for being here, being in the same room.

So it dispels the notion that he's come back to the city council, as some were thinking, looking at yesterday's Seattle Times paper.

Also, I want to thank the One Seattle team on the recently passed soda and soap stay out of drug areas and the trafficking stay out of areas of prostitution.

It is an incredibly One Seattle effort that went over months and related a lot of coordination and engagement with the communities by myself and my particularly Council Member Moore and other of our colleagues.

So important, a lot of coordination with the elements of local government in a good governance kind of way.

And I really appreciate all that to get to where we were with this week's vote.

I'm also very appreciative of our colleagues for their thoughtful amendments to help round out and make legislation better.

And that's the goal here.

So I just want to take an opportunity just to say thank you to all those involved.

I appreciate it.

We will now open the hybrid public comment period.

Public comments should relate to items on today's agenda or within the purview of the committee.

Clerk, how many speakers have signed up for today?

SPEAKER_11

Chair, we have 10 in person and seven online.

So 17 total.

SPEAKER_10

Okay, each speaker will have one minute.

We will start with the in-person speakers and then go to remote.

Clerk, can you please read the public comment second instructions?

SPEAKER_11

The public comment period will be moderated in the following manner.

The public comment period is up to 60 minutes.

Speakers will be called in which order in which they've registered.

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

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

The public comment period is now open, and we'll begin with the first speaker on the list.

The first in-person speaker is Gary Lee, to be followed by Beth Koo.

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04

Good morning, I'm Gary Lee, and I am the co-chair of the CID Public Safety Council, and I am in support of the CCTV program in CID.

At the beginning of the whole process, we collected over 750 signatures from from businesses, workers, and residents in the CID area that are in support of this program.

We think it will be a great test, and we hope that it will help to deter the crime, because we have lots of crime.

in the CID.

It's currently not very safe.

And if we have the presence of the cameras, hopefully that'll be able to catch people.

But also with the signage that says, hey, you're under surveillance, they'll let people know that they are under surveillance.

So we are in support of that.

We really need that.

Thank you.

All right.

Thank you very much.

SPEAKER_11

Next up, we have Beth Koo to be followed by Patrick Burns.

SPEAKER_01

Hi, good morning, everyone.

I'm Beth.

I visited 46 shops and restaurants in CID.

Over 95% owners and employees are full support the CCTV project in the community.

More than 96% of residents are full support too.

And quite some of them request the sooner the better.

We call that, like Gary said, 745 supporting signatures within a week.

The crime in our community is a disaster zone in Seattle.

We badly need the CCTV installed in CID soon and can't wait to see the good result for the decline prevention of crimes.

We need our good leaders, city council members who care about people to approve for...

installed in CID community to ensure the public safety for everyone.

We also need more police patrol too.

Thank you very much.

SPEAKER_10

Thank you.

SPEAKER_11

Patrick Burns to be followed by Cynthia Spies.

SPEAKER_00

Good morning.

My name is Patrick Burns.

I'm a member of the Freedom Socialist Party.

And I have some real concerns about extensive surveillance in the Seattle community.

But I had a long conversation with some people supporting this issue.

And I understand, we really believe communities have a right to self-defense.

So there's a real dilemma here.

And the dilemma also is I have no trust for this police department to this day.

From the many attacks I've seen on friends of mine whose lives have been destroyed by the police.

So to give this to the police to monitor, I have real suspicions.

The other thing is we don't believe in public-private arrangements.

This should be something that's run by the city.

responsible by the city, I call for a vote by the community, by the citizens themselves, to decide whether this should be done or not.

SPEAKER_10

Thank you.

SPEAKER_11

Cynthia Spies, to be followed by Renee Peters, Jr.

SPEAKER_15

Hi, I'm Cynthia Spees.

I've been in tech for 16 years.

Ten of those were at Big Tech, and neither the data nor the financial support passage of the CCTV or RTCC bills.

Municipalities naively believe that tech knows what's best.

The City of Seattle is an easy mark, ready to write a blank check to any vendor that has a decent marketing team.

SPD already has a real-time crime center on premise, and this will be a second line item because the old system will be retained for investigations.

The largest assessment to date on CCTV is a peer-reviewed meta-analysis of 76 different studies, which found, quote, no significant effects were observed for violent crime or disorder, end quote.

And further concludes, quote, public safety agencies combating violent crime problems may need to consider whether resources would be better allocated toward other crime prevention measures, end quote.

The only data-driven decision CCTV.

This is snake oil with the projected cost of 5.3 million for the new RTC alone.

This is a wasteful boondoggle.

Don't pass these bills.

Thank you.

SPEAKER_10

Thank you.

SPEAKER_11

Rene Peters, Jr., to be followed by Mr. Michael Ball, if I'm reading that correctly.

SPEAKER_24

Hi, my name is Rene, and I'm one of the co-chairs for the Community Surveillance Working Group.

I wanted to restate and underline some of the points of our assessment for the committee.

Five of six of the working group members were unsupportive of the proposals, and this reflects public sentiment via comments and many community letters that we reviewed.

Key issues include the impacts on constitutional rights, concern that the risk of disparate impacts on minority communities aren't being met head on, AS WELL AS LACK OF SPECIFICITY IN TECHNOLOGICAL CAPABILITIES, STATE OF GOVERNANCE, THE JUSTIFICATION MEASURES AND TIMELINES NEED A LITTLE BIT BETTER OVERSIGHT AND STRUCTURE AND BETTER DEFINITION.

BECAUSE WE BROADLY RECOMMEND THAT THESE CERS ARE NOT GOING THROUGH PROCESS, I STRONGLY URGE CITY COUNCIL TO AT THE VERY LEAST REQUIRE SPD TO RESUBMIT THESE.

Our city leaders and SPD leaders should collaborate on how to address this properly, and that's gonna take time and more community work.

Thank you.

Thank you.

SPEAKER_11

Mr. Michael Bell, to be followed by Lily Hayward.

SPEAKER_12

Praise God, praise God.

The first thing I want to say is that I think you guys, the last meeting that you got out about the safety, I think you had some good ideas and in the right direction.

I also think that if we go in that direction with a small the police department, we need to add some of this technology.

I don't think that's going to hurt.

And if we do it and add it on, it would save a lot of lives.

The other thing I think we do, we should add some younger people.

These young people, when I was young, I wanted to be a police officer.

But things happened.

But now that I'm older, I think we should mix the ages and then upgrade the training about we don't have to kill everybody all the time all we have to do is kill people you don't have to go out there aiming out to take a life all the time anyway thank you praise God and enjoy life everybody enjoy life thank you Lily Hayward to be followed by Matt Offenbach sorry if I got that wrong

SPEAKER_14

Thank you.

Good morning, Chair Cuddle and committee members.

My name is Lily Hayward speaking on behalf of the more than 2,500 members of the Seattle Metro Chamber of Commerce in support of Council Bill 120844, excuse me.

The Chamber's semiannual polling index shows that since 2021, public safety and crime has consistently been a top concern of your constituents.

It is a priority for Seattle employers, too, because it impacts their ability to attract and retain patrons and workers, bring employees back to the office, and operate in certain areas of the city.

With staffing of SPD-sworn officers at the lowest number since 1991, the police department needs more tools in their toolbox to adequately address crime in our region.

Please support businesses and residents along the CID, downtown and Aurora by passing this legislation and continue to leverage all resources to make our communities safer.

Thank you.

SPEAKER_10

Thank you.

SPEAKER_05

Hi, Council.

Good morning.

Welcome.

Morning.

I know you guys are really busy this month with lots of stuff.

And there's these surveillance impact reports that's been a year-long process in generating that are hundreds and hundreds of pages.

So I thought maybe I could just give you a quick summary of what's in them.

So SPD says yes, they want this technology.

Office of Civil Rights say the placement of surveillance technology in disproportionately BIPOC neighborhoods is likely to worsen racial disparities in the criminal legal system.

The community surveillance working group, who you just heard from one of the chairs, says definitively that a majority of the working group is unsupportive of any pilot deployment of these two technologies.

People of Seattle, in thousands...

Thousands of public comments and letters have said almost unanimously that we do not want this tech in our neighborhoods.

In addition, there's dozens of trusted community organizations who have weighed in, such as the Rainier Beach Action Coalition, the Northwest Immigrants Rights Project, and the Planned Parenthood Alliance.

And they've all said that they believe the risks of this tech far outweigh any potential benefits.

Thank you.

I hope that's helpful.

SPEAKER_10

Thank you.

And to your comment, I do have the OCR memo.

I do also have the working group memos as well.

So thank you.

In addition, I also have People Power Washington as well.

So thank you.

SPEAKER_11

Last up for our in-person speakers are Jay Yanamura.

SPEAKER_02

Good morning.

I'm a resident of Seattle Chinatown.

And on behalf of the residents and business owners there, I wanted to, you know, beg you to pass the CCTV bill to give us more protection in the Chinatown area.

Many of the residents there are elderly.

Many of them don't speak English.

Many of them will not testify because they're afraid.

But you know, if you don't prosecute these people, They keep doing it again and again and again.

And this is including like all the tagging you see in Chinatown.

So when you have prima facie evidence in the form of a CCTV recording, the conviction rate goes up pretty close to 100%.

So that's why we need this technology.

Otherwise, we just keep being victimized by the same people over and over again, often by very violent people committing assaults and shootings.

Thank you.

SPEAKER_10

Thank you.

SPEAKER_11

First up for our remote speakers, Julia Buck.

Remember to please press star six when you hear the prompt.

You have been unmuted.

SPEAKER_19

Good morning.

My name is Julia Buck.

I'm a resident of District 6 in Seattle.

I recently read a report from Whose Streets Are Streets that looked at the effect of the city's current level of surveillance on Black people in terms of mental health, stress, and deleterious health outcomes.

And our city already has enough surveillance that it causes a measurable medical impact.

I don't expect this, of course, to sway the council.

And in fact, I really appreciate hearing that there are so many areas that are so dangerous in the city.

Some of those I've been going to and doing things like grabbing dinner, I certainly won't anymore.

I mean, I wouldn't want to risk my safety.

Oh, and the One Seattle slogan?

I don't know.

I just, I understand your praise of it, Council Member Saka, but I think it sounds better in the original German.

Thank you.

SPEAKER_11

Next up for our remote speakers, BJ Last.

SPEAKER_08

Good morning.

My name is BJ Last.

I'm a Ballard homeowner, and I oppose the expensive and harmful surveillance technologies of CCTV cameras and RTCC.

I'd also like to point out that this committee is really ignoring the Community Surveillance Working Group by not including them in any panel presentations during committee meetings.

The role of the CSWG is to assess disparate impacts, privacy and civil liberty impacts of proposed surveillance technology.

And the CSWG, like their members were appointed by this council and mayor, like y'all appointed them to now go and ignore them because they oppose these technologies.

In fact, opposition has been so unanimous to these technologies that the best the mayor's office could do in their memo to y'all on this is say that the CPC does not oppose them, which Let's face it, not oppose really is kind of a loser rallying cry, if that's the best you can do for support.

I'd also like to point out SPD has already been caught lying during the SIR process for these technologies.

February 12th, SPD said there would be no live monitoring.

June 26th, SPD said there would be live monitoring.

So there's no reason to believe that anything SPD has said during the SIR process or will say today about these technologies, given their track record during this process of giving inaccurate and conflicting information, and their history of doing that knowingly in prior sectors.

SPEAKER_11

Thank you, Vijay.

Next up, we have David Haynes.

SPEAKER_25

Hi, David Haynes, thank you.

Noble use of technology, anything that helps the cops accurately pinpoint and verify who the evil bad guys are in the community to help them trespass and question them would be great.

Because as it is now, when the cops slow roll into 3rd Ave, all the bad guys kind of look the other way or stop doing what they're doing.

And then the cops, when they continue on, the crimes continue.

I just wish that the CCT camera technology was more secretive so we don't have to give the bad guys a heads up about what's coming.

But it doesn't change the fact that we need overtime for cops to actually fight crime and use all the additional resources of undercover and higher levels of agency so that when you go into a crime hotspot and the bad predators take off to their safe house, somebody can follow them without them knowing it.

So we can shut down the drug pushers and the pimps once and for all and stop exempting evil from jail.

Thank you.

SPEAKER_11

Thank you, David.

Next up, we have Brett Papowski.

SPEAKER_17

Hello.

My name is Brett Papowski.

I live in District 2, and I work for an agency that provides housing and clinical services to people who are or were homeless.

I hear that people are concerned about crimes, but this is not actually an effective crime deterrent.

And besides being ineffective, it's really creepy.

It's a big invasion of privacy, and it's a huge waste of money.

When I'm moving around the city, being watched doesn't actually make me feel safer.

What makes me feel safer is I know that I can rely on my community, and we have resources to take care of each other.

Therefore, this money would be much better spent on housing and food programs for my community, including the people that I work with.

Please vote no.

Thank you.

SPEAKER_11

Thank you.

Next, we have Tee Sanon.

SPEAKER_16

Good morning.

My name is Tee Sanon speaking on behalf of the ACLU of Washington.

We strongly oppose the pilot program.

Research shows that both technologies do not reduce violent crime.

Instead, they disproportionately over police and harm communities of color.

Storing real-time crime center data in the cloud would make it possible for ICE and red states to prosecute immigrants and people coming to Seattle for reproductive and gender-affirming healthcare while bypassing state protections like the SHIELD law.

Please know that a vendor may still be legally obligated to provide access to this data regardless of what is in its contract with SPD.

We urge you to listen to the overwhelming opposition to the pilot program, including from the Community Surveillance Working Group in their impact assessment report that reflects public input and perspective, as well as the many community-based organizations, advocates for reproductive rights and immigrant rights, and community members.

Thank you.

SPEAKER_11

Next, we have Colleen McClure.

SPEAKER_18

Good morning, council members.

Colleen McClure, president of Lowerhurst Community Club.

I'm going to read you a letter I got last night We want you to know that in our neighborhood regularly between 1am and 3.30am, I see two cars, black or white, two guys in it, hopping in and out, checking all the doors of every car in every house on the street and breaking windows.

I can't identify them.

They're outside.

My neighbor Lisa just got her truck stolen, and next day they came back and stole everything out of her car and porch.

Everyone knows that there are not enough police officers, and these criminals do what they please and know they can get away with this criminal activity.

Since it's happening regularly every night in many neighborhoods, what can we do about it?

Can we get cameras to help patrol and read license plates and find these perks from 1 to 6 a.m.?

What can be done so we can sleep at night?

We support Council Bill 129844 using this camera technology as a pilot to deter criminal activity and improve response times for SPV and actually to provide the detectives tools needed to solve the crimes and protect populations.

Thanks so much for your work on this, and we urge you to pass it.

SPEAKER_11

Our penultimate speaker is Lila B. Can you hear me?

Yeah, go ahead, Lila.

SPEAKER_20

My name is Lila B.

calling from District 4. I urge you not to advance CB 120844 RTCC and CCTB ordinances.

This surveillance tech is costly, ineffective, and will exacerbate biased policing.

You already pushed through automatic license plate readers, also known as ALPRs, without three council members even present.

And when the community brought up very legitimate concerns of this technology being abused by vigilantes to catch people seeking abortions and gender-affirming health care in Washington state, Sam Kettle tried to say that that wasn't practical because, quote, Seattle was so far north and west, unquote, which tells me you aren't actually paying attention to the growing criminalization of reproductive and gender-affirming health care, including our neighbors in Idaho, but that you're also skipping over data on both this technology and its subsequent harms, not just the ALPRs, but our TCC and CCTV networks as well.

Did you know that a police chief in Kansas used ALPRs to stalk his ex-girlfriend?

and her partner over 200 times in a four-month period.

Given the number of sexual harassment claims, even within SPD itself, alongside the well-documented prevalence of abuse by police overall, you can imagine my concern about this technology being readily accessed by abusers.

Vote no on CB120844, which your own surveillance working group is also against.

Thank you.

SPEAKER_11

Thank you.

And our last speaker is Aiden Carroll.

SPEAKER_09

There's so many throwback ideas here.

The idea that there are just good and bad people, the idea that we can tell who they are without recreating racism, the idea that the prison can help with any of this, which has all been repeatedly disproven.

The, Speaker who mentioned that, you know, kids don't want to be cops anymore.

Like that's not just about the shootings.

The fact that when police are doing their job, that's the problem because so many of the laws they have to enforce are unethical.

And if you refuse any of that, you would lose your job.

This, your lawyers are lying to you about the technology because like a couple of more staff told us that your lawyers told you, or SPD's lawyers told you that they, they can't use the footage of the pimps to just like take their guns now.

But that's not how the law works.

If somebody provides footage now, SPD can use it.

You need accurate information about how this works because otherwise you're just traveling money at the police because the police want more money, but it's not going to make any of us safer.

It's a distraction from things that actually help.

It's a whiz of precious resources.

Safety is a real problem, but none of it is actually going to fix it.

when you look at the way you're doing things.

SPEAKER_11

Thank you, Aiden.

SPEAKER_09

It's a giant bait and switch.

SPEAKER_11

And I think we have one more that just showed up.

Give me one second to confirm.

Yes, we have one more speaker, Peter Condit.

Peter, go ahead.

Remember to press star six.

SPEAKER_13

Thank you for taking my call at the last minute.

My name is Peter Condit.

I live in Green Lake.

I'm calling to object strongly to the CCTV and national database of footage that's accessible to FBI, ICE, DHS, and others.

Being surveilled is not something that creates safety.

It leads people to self-censor.

It leads to a loss of creativity and individuality.

And it has been shown to have very disparate outcomes according to race and socioeconomic status.

And I hope that you will vote no on this legislation.

Thank you.

SPEAKER_11

And we have one more that just showed up.

Amarinthia, I'm sorry.

The floor is yours.

SPEAKER_19

Hi there.

Can you hear me?

SPEAKER_11

Yeah, go ahead.

SPEAKER_19

Good morning, council members.

My name is Amarinthia Torres.

I'm the co-director of the Coalition Ending Gender-Based Violence.

We support over 35 community-based and BIPOC-led culture-specific programs that work to end gender-based violence, such as sexual assault, rape, and domestic violence.

I'm speaking today to share our concerns regarding the CCPB pilot.

We're particularly concerned about the impact of increased surveillance and the potential for abuse of this technology on survivors of domestic violence and stalking.

I'm thinking about survivors who are in confidential shelter in some of the areas that this would be used that are seeking safety from abusive partners I'm thinking about survivors whose stalker or abuser works in law enforcement.

The bottom line is that the high bar we hold for safety, confidentiality, and privacy of domestic violence and stalking survivors has not been met with this bill.

Additionally, explanations around how to mitigate those risks don't seem sufficient given the potential impact.

So thank you so much for the time today.

Appreciate it.

SPEAKER_10

Thank you.

Okay, we have reached the end of our public comment period.

We will now proceed to items of business, our items of business.

Members of the public are encouraged to either submit written public comment on the signup cards available if they wish, which are available on the podium, or email the council at council at seattle.gov.

So we'll now move on to our first item of business.

Will the clerk please read item number one into the record?

SPEAKER_11

CB120839, an ordinance relating to Seattle's technical codes, adopting the Seattle Fire Code by adopting chapters of the 2021 International Fire Code by reference, amending certain chapters of the code and adopting new chapters for the code, amending sections 3.02.125 and 22.600.020 of the Seattle Municipal Code.

repealing Section 1 of Ordinance 126283 and Sections 2 and 3 of Ordinance 127037, and ratifying and confirming certain prior acts.

SPEAKER_10

Okay, thank you, and welcome to Chief Munness, also Mr. Burelette, and we have joining us Battalion Chief Harmon.

Please introduce yourself for the record and begin your presentation.

SPEAKER_28

Ken Brouillette, the Technical Code Coordinator for Seattle Fire Department.

I'm Tim Muniz.

I'm the Fire Marshal.

SPEAKER_02

Jack Harmon, Assistant Fire Marshal.

SPEAKER_10

Thank you.

SPEAKER_28

All right, well, thank you very much for taking the time to put together this special public safety committee meeting for us.

So a little update, the anticipated effective date of our 2021 Seattle construction codes, including our Seattle fire code is November 15th.

The Washington state codes went into effect back in March of 15, 2024. So we're kind of playing catch up at the moment.

But I'd like to talk a little bit about the history.

So our very first fire code ordinance was way back in 1870. And I'm having technical difficulties here.

I'm going to ask for some help over here.

SPEAKER_13

Oh, you're looking at the right.

SPEAKER_21

Mm.

SPEAKER_28

All right.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

So back to our history.

So we had the Great Fire in June 6, 1889, and it was a significant turning point in Seattle's history and changed both the physical and political landscape of the city.

The fire started at 2.30 in the afternoon in a paint and woodwork shop at Front and Madison, and over the course of 18 hours swept southward across 100 acres of Seattle's business district and waterfront.

The fire left little standing in its wake, consuming buildings and docks and wooden sidewalks at the time, and anything else combustible.

Losses from this fire were estimated at $20 million.

So we've come a long way.

So part of the...

2021 Seattle construction codes is the Seattle fire code.

Yesterday afternoon, the land use committee made recommendations to move out a committee to the September 24th council meeting, the other city of Seattle construction codes ordinance.

And the Seattle fire code is the only construction code that is heard by the public safety committee.

They are interconnected and need to be in effect at the same time.

So we will always want to make sure that building code and the fire code are always in effect at the same time.

Many technical changes were proposed at the state and also state and any local Seattle specific changes were reviewed by our Fire Code Advisory Board.

The Seattle Fire Code Advisory Board spent over 18 months reviewing all of the chapters in the 2021 Seattle Fire Code and they approved each one individually.

In addition, the Seattle Construction Code Advisory Board reviewed and approved items that are mirrored in the Seattle building code, but originating the fire code.

All of these meetings are open to the public and were attended by the public.

So a little bit more about the Seattle Fire Code Advisory Board.

The last time that we were in front of this committee was to add two new members to the Fire Code Advisory Board and reaffirm several existing members.

They are such an integral part of the development of the Seattle Fire Code.

Just this week, we met to discuss proposed changes to the 2024 Washington State Fire Code, even though it won't be coming in front of this committee for another three years.

The early work has already started.

The board does all the research in the proposed changes that will affect the city of Seattle.

Their job is to do the long and hard work of reviewing the entire code that was produced from the international codes.

They review all of the changes from the 2018 to 2021 international fire code, all of the Washington state amendments and existing and new Seattle amendments.

So there are just a few significant changes that are kind of points of interest.

And I'd like to bring those up.

The first is the storage of lithium ion batteries.

So we all understand that lithium ion batteries have been a challenge for the fire department.

So what has happened at Washington state level, they've adopted early provisions of the 2024 international fire code, which is already published.

They brought those provisions in early in Washington state.

So with that, we have implemented those or our proposals implement those in the city of Seattle.

In addition, some of the fires that we've had are related to e-bikes and scooters.

And one of the issues is the batteries.

And sometimes the batteries have not been what we call under laboratory, I'm sorry, underwriters laboratory listed batteries.

So that's one of the items that we'll be looking at to try to make sure that those batteries that are being purchased and used are UL certified.

The other item is emergency preparedness.

So with the new requirements requiring lithium ion batteries in the state fire code came an additional need for a fire safety evacuation plan to be developed for those businesses that store or use large quantities of batteries.

And this will ensure that the employees have a plan if the fire does occur.

And when I say large quantities, it's generally our permitting requirements are like 15 cubic feet, which is two 55 gallon drums of batteries.

So it would take a large quantity of batteries until somebody would actually have to develop this plan.

The other big item is closed dryer exhaust systems.

So NFPA has tracked dryer fires and has determined that the leading cause was lack of cleaning.

So the fire code allows the fire inspectors to require the cleaning and maintenance of dryer systems.

Many apartments and condominium complexes use a shared ductwork system.

And we will be able to use this code section to help prevent fires and closed dryer exhaust systems in the future.

Existing high-rise buildings, so the National Code put in a retrofit requirement for certain high-rise buildings.

So we took this provision, in addition to presenting it to the RCL Fire Code Advisory Board, we met with Rod Kaufman, who's the president of BOMA and other BOMA members, regarding this new section in the Washington State adopted fire code and explained that, as the fire department, we'll be evaluating which buildings may need to comply with this section.

And this section just requires retrofit sprinklers, but these buildings have to not have a fire alarm system, be limited on exiting, and there's several different criteria until that gets kicked in the requirement.

And then once we identify those buildings, we will send a notice out to the building owners.

They then have up to a year to come up with a compliance plan.

And again, at the very end of this, it says they have up to 12 years to come into compliance.

Electrical energy storage systems, or ESS.

So since the 2018 fire code adoption, there's been a lot of work done on energy storage systems and the different technologies.

So these systems are used as an alternative power supply in lieu of traditional fossil fuel systems, like a diesel power generator.

Energy storage systems technology has just been fast moving, and Washington State has tried to adopt the most recent national standards to ensure safe installation and operation, and the Seattle Fire Code will include those updated standards.

So nationally, they've been working on this through NFPA.

There's actually the document referenced here, 855. It's been updated and evaluated through the public process.

And we, again, in the state of Washington, have brought those requirements early, and they will be in effect in the city of Seattle.

So a little bit more about lithium-ion batteries because it's kind of a hot topic.

There's a fire code that has a specific chapter just regulating what we call high-pile storage, which is normally when you store things higher than 12 feet.

But if you have something called a high hazard item, you only can store no more than six feet in height.

So there's been recent fire testing with automatic fire sprinklers to determine that lithium ion batteries should be classified as a high hazard because the design of the fire sprinkler system to suppress the fire needs to be more of a robust system.

It has to have more water.

So lithium ion batteries will be classified as high hazard items and their storage height will be limited unless a properly designed fire sprinkler has been installed.

So again, the Seattle construction codes are updated approximately every three years for the most recent codes adopted by the state of Washington.

This ordinance allows the city of Seattle to be enforcing those codes with our local amendments that serve our businesses and residents of Seattle.

There should not be an expectation that each city council member to take the time and review every single national, state and local change through the development of the fire code and the other Seattle construction codes.

That is why these advisory boards have been created and they have been doing this work for many years on previous code cycles.

They have made the recommendation to move forward with all of the items in this ordinance and the other construction code ordinance that was presented yesterday in the land use committee.

We have used our advisory board members, met with other stakeholders like BOMA and the local home builders to hear any concerns.

Please believe me that if any of your constituents had issues with a particular section of the fire code or other construction code, you would have been made aware of it in advance and they would be here today asking for a relief.

We are asking that you trust the process of code development at the national level, the state, and the local level here in Seattle.

The material in the ordinance presented today has been vetted by national experts in the field, public safety officials, state building code councils, and Seattle's construction and fire code advisory boards.

And all of this took years of meetings that were open to the public for transparency.

Thank you very much for your time and understanding of how important moving this legislation forward is for our city and the Seattle Fire Department that serves proudly the great city of Seattle.

So thank you very much.

SPEAKER_10

Thank you, Mr. Roulette.

Fire Marshal, anything to add?

Battalion Chief?

SPEAKER_26

No, I just want to thank you, like Ken said, for getting us on the agenda.

This is an important thing that we're trying to get forward so that we can align our codes with everybody else.

SPEAKER_10

Okay, I understand.

Thank you for being here.

Chief Harmon?

That's it.

Okay, good.

I think we're good.

All right.

You're their backup, just to make sure.

SPEAKER_28

Just in case something fails.

Yeah, sure.

SPEAKER_10

Just in case Mr. Burlatt starts going off on you there to, okay.

As always, I always start with my Vice Chair, Vice Chair Sacco.

SPEAKER_27

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

And can I just say that your earlier comments, that the uncanny resemblance between you and the Deputy Mayor, that's true.

You do have a doppelganger in the Mayor's office between our distinguished leader in this city, past and present, who is here and going to be talking with us later today.

Funniest thing I've heard all day, by the way.

It's early in the morning.

Okay, well, back to the fire department issue at hand.

Thank you, gentlemen, for being here this morning.

Mr. Brouillette, fire marshal, assistant fire marshal.

This is really important information and topic.

I would just be curious, so as I understand it, by law, Seattle is required to adopt the international fire, like whatever that, the international fire code, and so that is the baseline.

And regardless of whether we formally adopt it or not, that is the standard.

We're required by law to do that.

And then Seattle, every jurisdiction, including Seattle, can go above and beyond and amend further, consistent, of course, with the International Fire Code, but we can add our own amendments, right?

And I think that's collectively what we're considering here today.

But one thing that is unclear to me is, and thank you for describing some of those high level changes, the Delta here.

One thing that is unclear to me, which of those amendments, which of those changes are Seattle specific?

So we talked about the lithium ion battery storage requirements, a number of other things.

Which of the proposed new changes are Seattle-specific amendments?

SPEAKER_28

Out of the high level on the slide show, all of the ones shown are Washington state amendments.

Either it starts, again, like you said, at the national level, and then Washington state has their amendments, which we then bring into Seattle.

The only one listed would be with regards to the batteries that need for the e-bikes, the scooters that need to be listed per Underwriters Laboratory.

That is the only local Seattle ordinance or part of the ordinance that is Seattle specific.

That's not at the state.

That did not go through the state code process.

This was something that we brought forward that we heard nationally.

City of New York did it.

And we decided that it was best for in the city of Seattle to try to make sure that if somebody is selling these batteries that they have been UL listed.

So we're looking at just providing an educational campaign to the businesses.

So when we go out and do inspections, we'll provide them some literature that they can put up in their businesses and just ask them, say, hey, we just want to make sure that you guys are just selling batteries that have been UL listed so they're not a third party.

battery that hasn't gone through the testing process.

And those are the types that we're having issues with, with overheating.

SPEAKER_27

Got it.

Thank you.

And I guess as part of that new requirement, it sounds like you engaged with the companies, the operators of these various e-bikes or whatever they are.

What other kind of stakeholdering did you do as part of that process?

Did you engage with SDOT, for example?

SPEAKER_28

We did not reach out to SDOT for this.

This was just something that was brought in through our fire code advisory board.

Okay.

SPEAKER_27

So, and just so I'm clear, these new requirements for storage, those are imposed on powered micromobility devices.

Those new requirements are imposed on the companies?

SPEAKER_28

Which exact, I mean, is there a bullet point you're thinking of?

SPEAKER_27

Oh, no, I'm reading from the summary and fiscal note, which I think you prepared on the...

Yes, no, I know what you're referring to.

SPEAKER_28

But are you talking about just the batteries on e-mobility bikes?

So that's what we were just discussing.

Yeah, I think...

The accumulation of batteries for permitting, that's a statewide amendment.

But the specific ones regarding making sure the batteries are UL listed, that's a Seattle specific.

SPEAKER_27

What is the anticipated impact, if any, on any of these new changes on electric vehicles in our city?

Personal, trucks, buses?

SPEAKER_28

There's nothing proposed that would affect that.

OK.

SPEAKER_27

And out of all these new suite of proposed changes, what have you seen so far seems to be the most, to the extent there is, most contentious or most, I guess, troubling thing for people to swallow, garnering a lot of anxiety and mixed feelings?

And how are you thinking about supporting people as they transition into compliance?

SPEAKER_28

We haven't had that feedback.

We don't have anything that's being proposed that has been brought to our attention that's going to cause anybody any issues.

And that's good.

I mean, that's part of the entire code development process because it starts nationally and The public comes there and they make their voices heard.

It comes to the state level.

They make their voices heard.

Any tweaks can happen.

Then it comes down here to the local level.

We listen.

We haven't had anything.

This has been a great code development year for us for the 2021 code.

Not too sure if that's going to be the same for the 24 or the 27 that we're also working on right now.

But right now, the 21, it's been nice.

SPEAKER_27

Thank you very much.

No further questions.

SPEAKER_28

Thank you, Vice Chair.

SPEAKER_10

Council Member Hollingsworth.

SPEAKER_07

Thank you, Chair.

I actually don't have any questions.

So thank you so much for being here and your presentations.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

SPEAKER_10

I APPRECIATE IT, COUNCILMEMBER HOLLINGSWORTH.

JUST BECAUSE PEOPLE ARE CURIOUS, WHY THE THREE-YEAR, LIKE THE 24 IS OUT, CAN YOU EXPLAIN THE THREE-YEAR CYCLE?

BECAUSE I KNOW PEOPLE ARE SCRATCHING THEIR HEADS, OKAY, WE'RE DOING THE 21, IT'S 24, THE 24 CAME OUT.

CAN YOU JUST EXPLAIN IT FOR THE PUBLIC?

SPEAKER_28

YEAH, SO THE CODE...

The code development cycle starts at the International Code Council.

And they've changed their process a little bit.

But it's basically an 18-month to two-year cycle to develop a code.

So right now we're in the 27 code development process right now nationwide.

So you realize it's 2024 right now.

We're going through the code development hearings.

The proposals are getting reviewed.

People will be able to make public comments on them.

So we're developing again, the 27 code in 2024. The 24 code, which has already been published because it was developed back in 21 and 22. That right now is being reviewed at the state.

So there's this three-year process because it takes so long to go through all of the meetings and the code change proposals and public hearings that we have nationally.

And then it comes ultimately to the code correlation of correlating all these different books together and then the actual printing of them.

So that's why it takes that three-year time period to actually develop this set of construction codes.

And why we are here where we are now with just adopting the 21 code versus the 24 code is that we had a holding pattern with COVID and that kind of held things up.

And so we didn't, you know, we We're somewhat ready to come to the council last year, but that got held up for other reasons.

So yeah, we could be looking at the 24 code, but right now the state's not done with the 24 code.

That's why we're at this three-year cycle right now, and that's just how it's laid out.

Again, the 24 Washington state codes are just starting.

Their proposals are actually due today, so if anybody wants to make a code change proposal to the 24 international code series in the state of Washington, you have to get your proposal in today to the State Building Code Council, and if you don't, you're out of luck.

So we will have proposals that will be going there.

They are being reviewed by our Seattle Fire Code Advisory Board and the two chiefs next to me will be taking a look at them prior to us talking about them in the coming weeks.

So I hope I answered your question.

SPEAKER_10

You did.

Although if they miss the deadline today and they're from Seattle, they can engage the Fire Code Advisory Board and Seattle, we can have our opportunity to weigh in on that topic.

SPEAKER_28

You are exactly correct.

So if we miss out in Washington, we still have our or local amendments that we can do in Seattle.

Good point.

Excellent.

SPEAKER_10

Also, I recognize and appreciate your reference to emergency preparedness.

It's an often under-thought-about, undervalued element of public safety, so thank you for that.

I also noted your point about the clothes dryer.

I'm happy to...

I shouldn't say anything jinx myself, but mine is clean and relatively new, and I like to say well done in terms of getting it But that brings up a question of public awareness.

If this is an issue, how do we get it out there?

Seattle Times or other publications to say, hey, this is an issue.

Be mindful and be prepared.

SPEAKER_28

So different things that we can do.

I mean, we have our business services team that we have our web page, and that's front-facing.

We can ask the chief officers to reach out to our public education division and put out some other educational-type materials, and they have their connections with the media.

So maybe a media will pick up on the story and present it.

SPEAKER_10

OK, WELL, WE'LL DO OUR BEST TO DO SO, AND THIS IS ONE ELEMENT OF THAT.

THE LAST QUESTION, AND IT'S RELATED TO THE HIGH RISE SECTION.

AS YOU KNOW, IN DISTRICT 7, BUT ALSO IN DISTRICT 1 WITH PIONER SQUARE, THERE'S A BIG PUSH TO MOVE FROM COMMERCIAL TO RESIDENTIAL.

IN FACT, I TALKED TO A DEVELOPER THIS WEEK WHO'S GOT AN IDEA, AND HE'S LOOKING TO PRESS FORWARD ON ONE.

I WON'T SAY ANYTHING MORE ABOUT THAT.

It shows, by the way, that I reach out to community on a whole bunch of areas to include our next agenda item.

But is there anything related to the commercial to residential that you need to be engaged in and related to the high-rise?

Is there any unique pieces to that that we should be thinking about?

SPEAKER_28

Probably the biggest concern is when you're converting business to residential business.

um because you're changing the occupancy classification and now you're putting people in a building and they're going to be sleeping and the most important part is that you know we preach fire sprinklers we want to make sure that that building is safe so majority of those those buildings will need to have fire sprinklers and when they change their occupancy classification from a business to residential, the national, state, and local fire and building codes require sprinklers in those types of residential occupancies.

And that's one.

And then two is the fire alarm requirements to making sure that there's that early notification to allow people to get out of the buildings.

And hopefully they'll be able to get out safely.

The sprinkler system will be able to extinguish the fire or hold it in check before our operation crews get there.

SPEAKER_10

I APPRECIATE THAT.

THANK YOU AND I WOULD HOPE TO THAT GOING BACK TO MY EARLIER POINT ABOUT EMERGENCY PREPAREDNESS WHEN THEY GO THROUGH THIS TRANSITION THAT THEY ENSURE THAT IT'S READY FOR THE BIG EARTHQUAKE TOO.

SO THANK YOU VERY MUCH.

VICE CHAIR.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

That often happens.

Vice Chair gets another bite at the apple, if you will.

SPEAKER_27

So one final question, and I totally recognize that it's not directly within your purview, but just curious, you're broader understanding of how these various international standards and kind of work their way through, in this case, local government.

On your slide four there, which talks about the 2021 Seattle construction codes, and then what we're at issue here today before us is the 2021 Seattle Fire Code.

Where does the accessibility code and standard fit?

fall within any of this?

SPEAKER_28

I'm not the technical expert on that, so I don't deal with accessibility code.

I only deal with the Seattle Fire Code.

So I'm sorry.

I can't help you with that.

Fair enough.

Thank you.

SPEAKER_10

OK, THANK YOU.

ANY ADDITIONAL LAST COMMENTS?

THANK YOU SO MUCH.

I REALLY APPRECIATE.

THIS IS A VERY IMPORTANT PROCESS AND IT'S VERY IMPORTANT.

YOU KNOW, IT'S GOOD GOVERNANCE.

IT'S ABOUT MAKING SURE OUR PEOPLE ARE SAFE AND I RECOGNIZE THE TIMELINES THAT YOU BRING UP.

WITH THAT AND NO FURTHER QUESTIONS, I MOVE THAT THE COMMITTEE RECOMMEND PASSAGE OF COUNCIL BILL 120839. IS THERE A SECOND?

SECOND.

THANK YOU, VICE CHAIR.

That is moved and seconded to recommend passage of the bill.

Are there any final comments?

Hearing and seeing none.

Will the clerk please call a roll on the committee recommendation to pass Council Bill 120839. Council Member Hollingsworth.

SPEAKER_11

Yes.

Council Member Sacco.

Aye.

Chair Kettle.

Aye.

There are three in favor and zero opposed.

SPEAKER_10

Thank you, clerk.

The motion carries and the committee recommendation that council pass council bill 120839 will be sent to the September 24th, next Tuesday, city council meeting.

Thank you very much.

SPEAKER_28

I do have one last thing.

I first appreciate you moving it forward to council, and then please talk to your other council members about the other construction codes also and how important that they all come together.

I really appreciate your time.

Thank you.

SPEAKER_10

Well, I thank you.

My clerk, my policy director will make sure that the other members of the council, if they have any questions, that they can track you down.

All right.

Thank you.

Okay, with that, we will now move onto our second and third items of business.

Will the clerk please read items two and three into the record?

SPEAKER_11

Number two, Council Bill 120844, an ordinance relating to surveillance technology implementation, authorizing approval of uses and accepting the 2024 Surveillance Impact Report and 2024 Executive Overview for the Seattle Police Department's use of closed circuit television camera systems, amending ordinance 126955, which adopted the 2024 budget and lifting a proviso Item three, council bill 120845, an ordinance relating to surveillance technology implementation and authorizing approval and uses and accepting the 2024 surveillance impact report and 2024 executive overview for the Seattle Police Department's use of a real-time crime center software.

SPEAKER_10

Thank you, Clerk, and thank you, Deputy Mayor Burgess, for joining us this morning, Mr. Maxey from Seattle Police Department, and also from Police Department, Captain Britt, and finally, Mr. Zakrzewski.

Hopefully I said that right.

And finally, from our own central staff, Mr. Johnson, thank you all for coming this morning to talk about this very important, actually bills too.

And so can you please introduce yourself for the record and then begin your presentation?

SPEAKER_06

Good morning.

I'm Deputy Mayor Tim Burgess.

Thank you for this opportunity to present the Technology Assisted crime prevention pilot to you this morning.

If we could bring the slides up, please.

Great.

And we could go to the next slide, please.

The objective of the pilot project is to address gun violence, human trafficking, and persistent felony crime where it is concentrated at specific geographic locations in the city.

It's our belief, and the research supports this, that these technologies will help reduce crime, improve evidence collection, strengthen cases for prosecution, lead to safer neighborhoods at a time when our police staffing levels are at historic low levels.

Next slide, please.

The police department conducted an analysis of violent crime in the city and particularly gun violence between January 1st, 2023 and September 8th of this year.

And these maps reveal in these heat maps where that violence is concentrated.

Next slide, please.

This table looks at gun violence in the city historically from 2012 through this year.

The 2024 column is through August 29 only.

It shows that there have been 499 gun violence incidents in the city this year.

I just looked at the report through September 12, so a couple of more weeks, and we're now at 526. Sadly, we are on pace to exceed 2023. You see the surge that began in 2020 and continued through 2021, 22, and 23, and sadly that is continuing in our city today.

Research shows that when these technologies are used appropriately, with other police interventions like dedicated patrols, or environmental enhancements like better lighting, taking care of overgrown vegetation, frequent street and sidewalk cleaning, street activations, they can have a positive impact in reducing violent crime and property crime.

The mayor's letter to you from September 12 cites some of that research and documents that for you.

It's also true that as important as police actions are, they alone are not sufficient.

The city spends over $100 million each year on non-police crime prevention and reduction efforts, including early life interventions to give kids the strong start they deserve, community-based peer-led violence interruption and reduction efforts, crime victim supports, retaliation reduction efforts, diversion from the criminal legal system.

and reentry programs designed to reduce recidivism.

Mayor Harrell's approach to public safety and crime in particular is this holistic approach that involves a multifaceted approach to crime control.

Next slide, please.

The technology project is following some very important guiding principles.

First, CCTV cameras will only monitor public places like sidewalks, streets, parks, et cetera.

There will be signs posted that video recording is in progress.

Recordings will be kept for up to 30 days and then erased unless it contains evidence of a crime and then the video is transferred to the police department's digital evidence lockers.

face recognition technologies will not be used spd will not cooperate in criminal or civil enforcement of laws related to immigration reproductive or gender affirming health care this is consistent with city ordinances city law and state law the pilot will be research based and data driven the office of the Inspector General for Public Safety has retained academic subject matter experts who will assist the police department in the implementation of these technologies and will also conduct an effectiveness evaluation.

The police department will publish a public-facing dashboard that reports on the use of these technologies, what is being recorded, what police actions have occurred, such as arrests or investigative stops, vehicles recovered, guns recovered, et cetera.

And finally, there will be an extensive audit log for access and use that will be maintained and be fully available to the Office of the Inspector General at any time so that every use of this technology is recorded and maintained, that database is maintained.

I'm going to turn now to Captain Britt to talk about the specific technologies.

SPEAKER_23

Thank you, sir.

Captain Jim Britt with the Seattle Police Department for Technology and Innovation.

The two technologies we're speaking about today, if we can go to the next slide, thank you, sir, are the closed circuit TV camera systems and the real-time crime center software that we're seeking to implement.

The closed circuit TV camera systems, as Deputy Mayor described, will be deployed in public areas, facing public areas only, and he spoke about the retention and usage of that footage.

The second technology is the real-time crime center, which is intended to basically make some order out of the noise that can come from so many different systems coming into a single location.

So it helps us organize those feeds and actually be able to operationalize our usage of them.

Based on the heat maps that were shown early on, the three pilot locations where we intend to deploy these is where crime is currently concentrated.

Those three areas include Aurora Avenue North in the North Seattle area, Chinatown International District, which will include Little Saigon, and the Third Avenue corridor in the downtown area.

As you saw on those maps, many of those areas are showing some deep red colors for both gun violence and other violent crime.

If you can switch to the next slide, thank you.

This is all a part of our efforts to do more with less.

As Deputy Mayor Burgess mentioned, we are facing historical lows in our staffing, and in order to work through those, we have to rely on other resources that can help us be more efficient.

So the model we're using is a concept called precision policing, and it's in our efforts to create safer neighborhoods.

Precision policing, for my needs, or for my definitions, has five parts to it.

The first is to respond quickly.

using real-time crime center software and the video camera feeds that are available, we can be considered having responded before we're even on scene, which means we can be getting real information to the responding officers, which will allow them to get to the actual location of an incident faster.

Rather than going to where the suspect was, we can go to where the suspect is, and we can be more efficient with that work.

Investigate thoroughly is the second part.

This is going to help us know what happened on a scene rather than relying on oftentimes skeptical witness information, we can actually look at footage of events and know exactly what happened.

The third piece is identifying correctly, not just offenders, but also victims and witnesses, making sure that we know exactly who we're going after.

Rather than having to stop a person who might match the description of a suspect leaving a scene, we can get a more accurate description and know exactly who we're going after.

This will help us be more precise in making sure we're stopping the right people.

Having better information is going to help us affect safer arrests so we know what's going on before we enter.

Having better information leads to better and more desirable outcomes for everybody involved so we can be more deliberative in our entries into locations or our contacts with people.

And the last piece is prosecuting successfully, which will include relying on this evidentiary information when it comes time to present to juries and prosecutors and judges to make sure that we have a whole picture of what occurred and provide better information to those that are considering the charges before a person.

Last slide, please.

A big piece of this, because this is a pilot, we need to measure the success of this.

As Deputy Mayor Burgess mentioned, the OIG has retained academic subject matter experts to study the effectiveness of these technologies.

They'll be working very closely with the Seattle Police Department's Performance Analytics and Research Unit conducting scientifically-based research to ensure that we have objective information about how well this technology is being used and how effective it is in our goals.

The specific outcomes that we're going to be measuring are going to include reported crime rates and trends in the geographic zones, the police actions in those areas, including arrests, Terry stops, citations, recovering vehicles and guns, crime clearance rates, and the community perceptions, which is an important aspect of this as well.

The transparency aspect of this is also very important when it comes to public reporting on how this is used.

The public reporting via a public dashboard, we will make sure that it's updated frequently and report on the usage of these technologies to make sure the public has the awareness and the confidence to know that they are being well served.

And unless Deputy Mayor Burgess has anything else, we can open for questions.

SPEAKER_10

Thank you.

Okay, Mr. Johnson.

SPEAKER_22

Good morning.

Tommaso Johnson, Council Central Staff.

Just going to follow up the executive presentation with a brief summary of the Central Staff memo on these pieces of legislation that you are in receipt of and is posted on the agenda if any members of the general public want to look at that.

The only things I would say in addition to what's been said already is the real-time crime center software that would be authorized by one of these ordinances As was said, it pulls in a variety of data sources that are both technologies that have already been authorized by the council for SPD use, such as automatic license plate recognition technology, body-worn camera, and in-car video, and if approved, it would also incorporate the CCTV pilot project.

Just by way of brief background, we're here today looking at these ordinances because the City of Seattle surveillance ordinance requires proactive council approval of new acquisition of surveillance technologies, as well as retroactive approval of surveillance technologies that were in use prior to the passage of the ordinance.

There were civil liberties and potential disparate impact analysis included in the SIR document, in that document there.

are described the anticipated impacts that SPD is anticipating and their mitigation efforts.

In addition to that, there was a racial equity toolkit performed separately by the Seattle Office of Civil Rights.

The SIR materials also include, as you've heard mentioned earlier, the Community Surveillance Working Group recommendations analysis on these issues as well as the chief technology officer response to that analysis.

And there are quite voluminous public comments on this issue.

There was public comment held in the winter and spring of this year.

I think in excess of 1,000 public comments were received as part of that process through both two in-person meetings as well as online public comment.

Taken together, these bills would authorize, as you've heard, the executive's technology-assisted crime prevention pilot project.

Council Bill 120845 would approve and accept the real-time crime center software package, and 120844 would approve and accept the CCTV technology package.

I think it's important to note, since we're talking about these as a package, though they are separate pieces of legislation, the executive has stated that the effective implementation of the CCTV pilot is dependent on also having the real-time crime center software, since that's an important analysis tool for the cameras.

Briefly on the fiscal impact, there were $1.5 million of funds approved last year in the 2024 budget for the crime prevention pilot.

The executive notes that these costs may increase potentially.

There might be additional associated personnel and other costs.

which are not determinable at this time and will be known as the pilot moves into implementation.

Of that $1.5 million allocated in 2024, 1.1 was allocated for the real-time crime center and $400,000 was originally allocated to the Acoustic Gunshot Location System, or AGLS.

Following the adoption of that budget and prior to the transmission of these SIR approval ordinances, the AGLS, the Gunshot Detection System, was withdrawn from the pilot by the executive.

There is a proviso that was put on the 2024 dollars, which specifies the use of those dollars and also includes a request that the Executive Office of Civil Rights and OIG co-prepare a racial equity toolkit.

The ordinance before you today for CCTV lifts this proviso.

I will note By way of just process considerations, the racial equity toolkit, one was completed by SPD, the executive, with collaboration from OIG.

A separate racial equity toolkit was completed by OCR, as you noted, that is available in the surveillance impact report package.

I'm just going to briefly summarize a few policy considerations that the central staff memo identifies.

Number one relates to the timeline of the pilot.

Neither ordinance imposes a set end date on the pilot project.

The real-time crime center software approval ordinance notes continuous deployment, so the effect of approving this legislation would be just that, to approve continuous use of the real-time crime center software.

The CCTV approval ordinance notes that council approval will be effective for the duration of the pilot, but does not specify a set end date.

Within the SIR for the CCTV pilot, there are specific milestones identified with initial analysis report at the end of year one and a final analysis report at the end of year two, though the authorization does not cease at the end of year two.

One more policy consideration that's been identified is the potential for the real-time crime center software to integrate private cameras, cameras not owned by SPD.

Just flag this because the universe of SPD-owned cameras is you know, discrete and knowable and includes, as I said before, body-worn video, potentially, in-car, as well as the CCTV cameras, if approved.

Many of the real-time crime center software packages, such as those being considered here, also have the ability to integrate private video feeds, such as from surveillance cameras at private businesses.

SBD has stated that they plan to use this technology Integration of private cameras primarily to allow for businesses to opt in, either to notify, to register essentially to notify SPD that they have cameras and that SPD can reach out to them if there's an incident in the location and they wish to obtain footage, which would essentially be process optimization of work that is already being done by SPD manual canvassing when there are incidents that Private CCTV cameras capture so that would create process efficiencies and work that's already ongoing.

Some software, real-time crime center software, also includes the ability for private cameras to proactively opt in to be viewed live, which would require additional steps, including the installation of on-site hardware.

Thirdly, as was mentioned in some of the public comment, there have been, similar to automatic license plate recognition cameras that you already authorized, there have been concerns raised related to The potential use of that data by outside actors for the purpose of attempting to enforce federal immigration law or enforce state law in other states criminalizing access to reproductive health.

As the executive has noted, provision of that data, sharing of that information State law enforcement or city agencies is expressly forbidden by both Washington state law and Seattle city policy.

Some of the concerns, however, center around the attempts of out-of-state actors through a court order or other means to try to compel data disclosure directly from the third-party vendors, since the technologies being proposed here would utilize cloud-based storage stored at offsite servers outside of the state of Washington.

And there are some ways that the council could attempt to further mitigate that through contract provisions.

through requesting contract provisions in some of the contracts that will be obtained for this technology.

I will note that such an amendment was brought on the automatic license plate recognition SIR earlier this year.

And that's it for me.

I'm happy to answer any questions you may have.

SPEAKER_10

Okay.

Thank you very much, everyone.

As custom, I turn to my Vice Chair, Vice Chair Saka.

SPEAKER_27

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you all for this presentation today.

I appreciate the opportunity to learn more about it.

Same with the pre-briefing I got a few weeks ago.

But I would just be curious to better understand what other jurisdictions are currently using and deploying this technology.

SPEAKER_23

Real-time crime centers are in use across many of the cities in America already.

specifically Los Angeles, New York, Denver, San Francisco recently started up on the same process we're on right now, Washington, D.C. Detroit has had great success with their real-time crime center, with their Project Greenlight program.

So many of the major cities across the country have already established similar processes.

SPEAKER_27

Even San Francisco is on the same path to adopting real-time crime centers.

SPEAKER_23

How about CCTV?

Same thing, sir.

A real-time crime center without camera feeds isn't really a real-time crime center.

I know it's been discussed that Seattle PD has had a real-time crime center, but in the reality, we built the room and never turned on any technology.

Some of you have had the opportunity to see that physical space, and it's a very impressive space, but it's not receiving any information.

So in order for a real-time crime center to truly be real-time, it has to have real-time camera feeds.

So anywhere you see real-time crime centers, you're seeing the use of cameras as well.

SPEAKER_27

Thank you.

So I'm a...

I'm a council member today, but I'm also a has-been technology attorney, still an attorney, has-been former technology attorney.

And so when considering any use or deployment of any technology or innovation, I've learned that there's a couple of key considerations.

Well, broadly, categorically, we're talking about the collection, what information is being collected, how is it being used, including retention as practices, and then the sharing of that information.

And so the sharing, that third bit, the sharing or potential or risk around sharing is what I kind of view as the most notable part opportunity to continue to make sure to refine that, you know, if we deploy this, it's done responsibly.

And I understand, and we learned last time during when we considered the automatic license plate reader technology, the ALPR, some of the potential concerns around sharing, but including with other government agencies, et cetera, there is, as was noted, not only in the central staff memo, but, you know, in other places.

I guess, formats, other areas.

We've learned that there is Washington state law on point and Seattle city code to address that.

So that's, and then also with respect to ALPR, there was an amendment to, I think, address that as well.

Tomaso, can you talk a little bit more about that amendment and just remind everyone what that did and what, like how it operated?

intended to operate.

SPEAKER_22

Yes, the amendment which was adopted to the automatic license plate reader, ALPR, Sir Approval Ordinance, essentially requested that the City of Seattle, Seattle Police Department, include specific terms in the contract with the vendor for that technology that require the vendor to share information with the City of Seattle if there's an attempt to access data directly from the vendor.

I believe it also had some provisions regarding what level of legal defense the city was instructing the vendor to undertake to protect City of Seattle owned data.

There may have been one other requested contract revision.

And then finally the amendment also requires SPD to share with the Public Safety Committee a copy of that contract once it's finalized.

My understanding with the ALPR is that contract hasn't been finalized and executed yet, so this committee is not in receipt of a copy of that, but that was the amendment with respect to ALPR.

SPEAKER_27

Okay, thank you, yeah.

And having negotiated and drafted substantially similar provisions before, like the first component of that, the first obligation to share and disclose if a third party has requested access, that's generally a standard commercial term.

So I'd be surprised if that wasn't already in there.

But anyways, look forward to seeing.

the final executed form of that.

But it is definitely an analogous construct as it relates to what is before us here today.

Can I, I guess, Deputy Mayor, would you mind talking a little bit more about the intended deployment and implementation strategy and plans of this technology?

I understand that there's three just general hotspots.

The goal is to address gun violence, you know, major crimes, among other things.

But can you talk a little bit more about the, again, anticipated deployment and implementation strategy?

SPEAKER_06

Sure.

So the three areas were chosen based on analysis of reported crime, gun violence, human trafficking, and persistent felony crime that's concentrated at specific places.

And we've identified those three areas.

We also have maps of those areas that we're happy to share with you if you'd like to see those.

Assuming approval by the council to proceed then the police department will go ahead and execute contracts with the vendor and begin the process of installation and Maybe Nick you or Brian could talk about the installation of the CCTV Because that involves multiple city departments, not just the police department

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, of course.

Nick Zahowski, project manager at Seattle Police Department.

We are working with Seattle City Light, as well as Department of Transportation, and there are also some King County Metro infrastructure, street infrastructure, light poles.

uh, trolley, uh, poles and so forth that we'd be mounting these cameras on.

And so, um, we are, uh, we've engaged in some, some early discussions with them and, and, uh, and, and, uh, uh, and learning the, the permitting process and so forth.

So, um, that's going to take a little bit of time.

Um, it is a, it is a, a complicated, uh, process for, uh, for permitting.

for attaching things to poles and getting them powered up.

So, you know, we hope once we have the contract signed You know, in two or three months, we can start to deploy out into the field.

But there are a lot of other dependencies that might push that out a little bit.

But, you know, that's what we're aiming towards.

SPEAKER_06

Sure.

We would like to begin installation before the end of the year.

I'd say one more thing about where these are going to be located.

You know, during the year of public comment that we've had in engagement with community groups, lots of folks have come forward and said, we want cameras here in our neighborhood, or we want them over here in our business district.

And so that's why we have been pretty rigorous in analyzing exactly where these should go so that we are placing them where we think they're going to have the best return on investment.

in terms of deterring and preventing crime or helping to hold offenders accountable.

There's no desire to be London and have cameras everywhere in the city.

This is a very targeted approach to address specific crimes at specific places where we think these technologies will help.

SPEAKER_27

or China, where CCP, where they not only have everywhere, cameras everywhere, but have facial recognition technology attached to it, so they're not only looking at people with criminal records, but everybody, and track their social status and standing.

Yeah, we don't wanna be that.

So, okay, final question along these lines, Mr. Chair, if you will entertain me.

So, we talked about the initial deployment.

and the initial trial or phase or whatever it is, pilot deployment of this technology.

But as you started to, other communities around the city are desperately asking for new technologies and new tools, mindful of the very limited officer staffing challenges that we're facing.

other communities across the city, not just these three spots where the data most closely supports implementation, if that's what this body so chooses to authorize.

So how are you thinking about that next wave of potential deployment in other areas across the city to reduce crime and lawlessness?

And I'll give you the example.

area in my district that I represent is Alki and Harbor Avenue.

They're clamoring for new tools and technologies to to address and better shut down some of the problem behavior there that we're seeing there with people starting with street racing but you know that devolves often into more dangerous behavior and shootings and And it's out of hand there.

And so, you know, I think ideally they would love, and I strongly continue to strongly support and advocate for speed enforcement cameras as the next technological implementation to help address some of the challenges that they're experiencing there.

But short of that, sure, some would love to see this deployed there.

My point is, my question is, how are you thinking about expansion to other areas where there's strong community demand and or data to support it?

SPEAKER_06

So I think one of the one of the issues here is what will we learn in this initial pilot that we're doing?

The academic literature on the use of these cameras and real time crime centers is very clear.

that it is most effective when it's integrated with other activities designed to reduce criminal behavior, not just police actions, but other efforts like I described earlier in my testimony.

So we'll learn from this experiment, and then we will know how we might use it in the future.

These cameras also can be moved.

So if we solve a problem in a particular area and We've seen that over a period of time, that the crime is not continuing or not returning, then cameras can be moved elsewhere in the city.

But I think that'll come later in the process when we've done this for a while, because this will be the city's first experiment with this technology.

SPEAKER_27

Thank you, Deputy Mayor Burgess.

No further questions.

Mr. Chair, thank you.

Thank you, Vice Chair.

Council Member Hollingsworth.

SPEAKER_07

Yeah, I just had one question.

Thank you all for being here.

And Council Member Saka had asked the question about getting the cameras up and running.

How long before we start seeing the data, like the dashboard, which I think is a big piece to the transparency piece online for people to be able to see the data being collected?

SPEAKER_06

The dashboard will come online at the same time we start using the technology.

The first evaluation will be at the end of the first year.

So the University of Pennsylvania subject matter experts that have been retained, that report would come at the end of the first year and then again at the end of the second year.

But we've retained these folks not just to do the evaluation, but to do handholding through the process of implementation.

The particular researchers that we've retained have done this in other cities, other jurisdictions, so we hope to learn from that experience as well.

But the dashboard, which will report the use of these technologies, will happen at the same time.

SPEAKER_07

Thank you, Deputy Mayor.

SPEAKER_10

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Councilmember Hollingsworth.

For me, It's interesting.

I think this is a great opportunity to look at what we did with the automatic license plate reader.

I think going through that process was very educational as now we look to the Real-Time Crime Center and the CCTV to bring in those YOU KNOW, SEATTLE KIND OF VALUES, SEATTLE APPROACH TO THIS, YOU KNOW, YOUR POINT ABOUT THE FACE RECOGNITION, BRINGING IN, YOU KNOW, THE COMMUNITY AND THE LIKE.

SO I THINK THAT'S ONE POINT TO MAKE IS THAT WE CAN BUILD ON THE LESSONS LEARNED OF GOING THROUGH THE PROCESS FOR AUTOMATIC LICENSE PLATE READERS TO, AS WE LOOK TO BRING IN THOSE PIECES.

ONE OF THE THINGS THAT CAME OUT OF THAT PROCESS, AND IT'S GERMAIN HERE AS WELL, AND I JUST WANT TO BRING UP FIRST IS, YOU KNOW, THE CONSENT DECREE.

AND I BRING THIS UP BECAUSE EARLIER THIS WEEK THE CONSENT DECREE WAS KIND OF USED AS A BLUDGEON, IF YOU WILL, AND IT WAS ALMOST LIKE IT WAS SET IN 2020-2012.

WE'RE IN 2024. THERE'S BEEN A GREAT AMOUNT OF WORK, REFORM AND PIECES.

THERE'S BEEN A GENERATIONAL SHIFT IN TERMS OF THE STAFFING.

WE'RE LOW, BUT ON TOP OF THAT, THERE'S A GENERATIONAL SHIFT And all these pieces have come in through this in terms of the training before the badge, all these different pieces.

And so I'm anticipating the arguments against it.

And the consent decree, which was used earlier this week as a 2020-12 or earlier piece, I think was a misuse of that.

And I just wanted to bring that out first and foremost because it happened on Tuesday.

And I think that is wrong because it does a disservice to all the work throughout the city in terms of both SPD, but the mayor's office, the council, previous council, this council, and then the communities involved.

And I think that's really important.

In a piece that came out about the consent decree and we're still in it and we're still improving is our accountability partners.

I think we need to acknowledge that what we have today and what Seattle has that other cities don't have.

That includes primarily our accountability partners.

Clearly, OIG, Officer Inspector General, is so important to this.

And I've had discussions with Inspector General Judge on this and other issues.

And she's ready to work these pieces and the others as well.

And so we need to...

account for, if you will, the accountability partners and acknowledge that role and acknowledge that piece and acknowledge how that makes Seattle different than other cities and other jurisdictions around the country.

These changes are important, but there's also changes here in the dais.

And first, by the way, as I shift, I'd like to thank the mayor and the team for his letter on this.

I appreciate it.

And I also appreciate the memo from the Office of Civil Rights.

And I highlight the first of their concerns was insufficient outreach to pilot communities.

Okay, but that doesn't recognize that, as opposed to 2012 again, we now have seven district council members who believe me, A, all ran on public safety, two, know their districts very well.

The amount of outreach, I'll just speak for myself, in District 7 is large, both as a candidate and as a council member.

I've done walkabouts with church groups.

I've done groups with community groups, broad-based community groups, specific kind of focus groups.

I've walked this entire area.

And so that is something that's not accounted for in terms of you know, these pieces.

And I think it's something that we need to acknowledge.

We need to say, hey, we have a new council in the sense of we have district representation and not just a transition from the totally at large, but to a district system of seven districts where the candidates and the council members run in those districts, know it left, right, and center, and ran on public safety.

and continue to engage in their district, whether it's my districts that have a neighborhood council, in my case, council of councils, but then office hours or walkabouts and ride alongs that I've done in district, both with community groups, but also, for example, government institutions like Unified Care Team, SBD itself.

I think that is something that we need to acknowledge and bring into the conversation And, you know, because I respect the memo, but I just wanted to highlight that that doesn't really appreciate this one Seattle, if you will, approach, you know, in terms of the judicial, the legislative, and the executive branches working together.

But I also note that, again, the ALPR process, which is this combination, kind of goes to some of the recommendations that OCR had made in terms of you know, the notices, the storage time, which in this case is a third of the ALPR, the tracking of actions, you know, in terms of the audits, again, OIG, all these things are in place.

And I think we need to say that out loud.

And I say that appreciative of the memo because it's something that we should bring up.

It's something that we should discuss.

It is something that we should address.

And I am good with that.

And I think that's super important.

And by the way, this also goes to the community surveillance working group.

And again, We need to do this engagement.

And it's across the board.

Good governance means you just don't talk to people that you anticipate that will be based on your engagement in favor of this, but also those that may be against.

And that's where those entities come.

For like People Power Washington, I have their letter.

I've read it.

YOU KNOW, AND HIGHLIGHTED, YOU KNOW, THEY TALK ABOUT THE DATA OF THE RTCC BEING KEPT ON SITE, WHICH IS IMPORTANT, AND YOU'VE ADDRESSED IT IN THIS, AND ALSO IT WAS A BIG PIECE OF THE ALPR, AND WE NEED TO LOOK TO IMPROVE IT WHEN WE CAN, AND SO THIS IS PART OF THE DIALOGUE, SO, YOU KNOW, THIS MAY BE A FOLLOW-ON QUESTION, BECAUSE TODAY IS ONLY BRIEFING AND DISCUSSION, AND PARTICULARLY BECAUSE WE DON'T HAVE TWO OF OUR COLLEAGUES HERE ON COMMITTEE, AND THIS IS A VERY IMPORTANT BILL.

there's this kind of contrast between, on one hand, I hear, oh, as mentioned in other things, it's concerned that there's not effective for combating And then we have studies that show it can be, particularly if it's part of a package approach, comprehensive approach.

Because like people part of Washington said, are you aware of any independent peer reviewed studies that look at the efficacy of RTCC on clearance rates for violent crime?

This is something that we can walk through as we go through this process in terms of our next committee meeting and the full council.

And here's an important one, too, and I think this is, and it kind of came up in the ALPR, actually it did come up in the ALPR, but it's even more, I think, a question.

Is it possible to procure the RTC system and disable any automatic updates that would automatically add new features?

I'll ask that question.

Can you speak to that point in terms of the working with the vendor in terms of knowing what's being added, Captain Britt?

SPEAKER_23

Yeah, there's a couple of key important pieces here.

One of the good news right out the gate is that the company that we procured for ALPR is the same company that is likely to be procured or that is going to be procured for the RTCC.

So a lot of the work we did related to the contract language to protect our data will be very similar and easy to port over to the new contract.

Secondly, we work with this particular vendor on the regular and have regular conversations with them about this exact topic.

We get updates as to what updates are coming.

We speak with them about what we do and don't want enabled.

We speak with them about improving their product in a way that is consistent with the needs of both the Seattle Police Department and the city government at large.

So we're working with that vendor constantly to make sure that those exact kinds of updates aren't simply shoved down our throats, that we have some say in how they are deployed.

SPEAKER_10

Understand.

I'll come back to a closing piece for myself, but I see that, as you see the rhythm here, my vice chair has a follow-on question.

SPEAKER_27

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Yes, your various curious mind that I have here, but I appreciate you all entertaining my questions here.

One final question and actually relates to what I think is a very salient point that the chair made a moment ago about us being in touch with the seven council districts and us being in touch with our districts.

I think from a democracy standpoint, Democratic standpoint, lowercase d.

All of us that were, that all seven individual council members were all of us.

I would argue we're the most in touch at this point with the needs of our direct constituents in the districts.

And that same thing, it's going to, It's going to change over time, and we're going to have to, if we go up for re-election, then we're going to have to get back.

So I would argue we're most in touch and close to the needs and wants of our constituents.

But which leads me to my next point.

I've been doing, me and my office have been doing some initial stakeholdering and engagement about this technology and to better understand the needs and concerns.

And some of my earlier line of questioning was directly related to that, actually.

But I'll be a little more explicit here with this final follow-up question.

So I represent, proudly, five terrific neighborhoods across District 1. West Seattle, South Park, Pioneer Square, Soto, and Georgetown.

And one of those neighborhoods, South Park, has very high concentration of population of Hispanic and Latino people.

And a lot of native Spanish speakers live there and do business there and come there.

And I'm honored to represent them.

And we've heard a lot of valid potential concerns with respect to the sharing, potential sharing of this information and data around gender affirming care and reproductive care.

But I think the concern that I'm hearing that is the most concerning from my constituents so far relates to the potential sharing of this information with immigration officials and ICE.

So to our executive partners here at the table, starting with you, Deputy Mayor, what would you say to my constituents in South Park who are anxious, maybe concerned about that?

SPEAKER_06

Yeah, and that's a very legitimate concern.

And city policy is that we do not share this information.

We do not participate in immigration enforcement.

So that would not happen.

South Park is also not identified as a location for these cameras.

So I think they can rest assured that the longstanding city policy of not engaging with immigration enforcement continues.

Thank you.

SPEAKER_10

Thank you, Vice Chair, Council Member Holland.

I JUST WANTED TO CLOSE.

AGAIN, THIS IS JUST BRIEFING AND DISCUSSION.

I JUST WANTED TO CLOSE WITH ONE FINAL POINT.

AND AGAIN, WE'RE GOING TO HAVE TWO ADDITIONAL MEMBERS NEXT TUESDAY.

AND THIS WILL ALSO HAVE THE CHANCE FOR EVERYBODY TO DIGEST TODAY'S MEETING.

AND I THINK THAT'S REALLY IMPORTANT.

I JUST WANTED TO CLOSE ON THIS SLIDE.

AND AGAIN, WE ALL GOT, WE ALL RAN ON public safety and we represent as vice chair confirmed in terms of the, you know, our understanding of our districts and hearing from the community and in terms of an individual basis or a small group basis or, you know, the business district or, you know, a group of neighbors and the like.

And so we as a committee have looked to create, our mission is to create a safe base in our city with the values that we have in our city, which has kind of come up and will come up again, no doubt, next week.

And we're pressing forward on this in a lot of ways, both in this committee, but we also have two bills, one already done, another one in process with the Governance Accountability Committee, and then obviously with the SPOG Interim Agreement through the Labor Committee.

But for this committee, you know, we're pressing to create that safe base in our city, to put in place our strategic framework plan to address the permissive environment that underlines our challenges.

And one of the things, and we got the different bills where, you know, vacant building abatement, you know, ALPR, STREET RACING, AS NOTED, SCORE JAIL RELATED TO THE PIECES, AND THAT KIND OF WILL COME UP AGAIN.

OBVIOUSLY SODA AND SOAP AS EXAMPLES.

BUT IT'S ALSO IMPORTANT FOR US TO ENSURE THAT WE HAVE A CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM THAT IS And I have great concerns.

I have great concerns related to how we've done the Blake and then Blake fix and the balancing between the various levels of government.

I'm also concerned about the status of the public defenders as it relates to the staffing in their case and the volume of cases and what the Supreme Court may do.

And I don't know how much coordination Supreme Courts don't necessarily coordinate, but the governor, what's the governor doing on this front?

So I look at the criminal justice system overall and I'm concerned.

And I think we as a city need to be thinking about these and advocating on these pieces.

And this slide right here kind of goes to how can we do our job better?

to assist the process of going through the criminal justice system in terms of investigating thoroughly the identification and getting those data points, as mentioned earlier about, I think it was a public commenter was talking about how important that is for success in terms of identifying, A, the right person, and to ensure that that person, once goes through the criminal justice system, is found guilty.

If found guilty, then the jail, and that's where the score and everything else comes in.

And I think this is an important, when done right, can really assist as we work through the criminal justice system with the safeguards, doing it in the Seattle way, with our accountability partners.

And I just wanted to highlight that, because I think, bottom line, As noted here, your term at precision policing, it's about creating safe neighborhoods.

So on that point, I want to close the meetings and say that we have reached the end of today's meeting agenda.

Is there any further business to come before the committee before we adjourn?

Vice Chair, Council Member Hollingsworth?

Hearing and seeing no further business come before the committee, we are adjourned.

Thank you very much for coming.