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The Public Safety Committee meeting will come to order.

It's 9.34 a.m.

February 10th, 2026. I'm Robert Kettle, chair of the Public Safety Committee.

Will the committee clerk please call the roll?

Councilmember Lin.

Councilmember Juarez.

Councilmember Rivera.

Present.

Councilmember Sacca.

Here.

Chair Kettle.

Here.

Chair, there are four members present.

Thank you.

And Councilmember Juarez is on travel.

She is excused from today's meeting.

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

Hearing, seeing no objection, the agenda is adopted.

Good morning.

This morning for today's committee chair comments, I think it's important for this committee to note that On Friday, the 30th of January, 30 minutes after school ended, a 17-year-old and 18-year-old students, both Rainier Beach High School students, were at a bus stop near Rainier Beach High School and right in front of the South Shore Pre-K to 8 school, the K through 8 school, and they were killed.

They were gunned down right there at the bus stop.

It was noted, and quote, doing what they can to respond to the situation, meaning they, meaning government and others' community.

This community deserves justice.

I read that quote and I say to myself, what to do?

Yes.

Real solutions first.

We have to have real solutions, but first we have to look to the real people the community affected.

We need to hear their voice.

We need to have that engagement.

in terms of the challenges that they face on a daily basis, to really understand and then really understand as well what will make the difference.

They are making their voices heard.

We are hearing in different ways here in committee, both in district, council president and others, our city-wides, myself and others.

and it's really important for us to do what our pieces of this are, to do what our job is.

And that goes to, as I look at it through the strategic framework plan for, say, for Seattle, I look at SPD staffing, Pillar One.

We did a lot of work on that.

We need to increase the staffing, because the people in the community, I've heard, They want the police there.

They want police that are respecting them.

This goes to our community accountability partners that we have in chambers, but also to be there for them.

and we've been working that.

Community police teams, having a squad car at a strategic location at a very important location can make the difference.

That presence is so important.

But in order to have the presence, we need to build up our police staffing and we've been doing that.

But we have to look at what we can do to further that.

How can we make it better?

How can we make it possible for the precinct to have vehicles there?

and that's really important.

But that also points to another pillar of our plan and that is to engage.

Normally pillar six is about engaging with the county and the state on public safety.

Obviously with the county, it was at a bus stop, King County Metro, King County Sheriff, what can we do for those bus stops that the kids use to get to school and back?

But it's more than that.

We have a long history in the city of the school district and the city government being really two very different entities that don't communicate necessarily as well as they should.

We need to be looking to improve that communication, that understanding between the city, city government and our city school district.

That's something that's not talked about often, but it's something that we need to expand on in terms of the work that we've been doing thus far.

and related to public safety, that makes a difference.

We have to be having that common understanding both at the school district level and here with the city and, as I noted, the county.

Those three pieces need to be working together and it's so important.

And that collaborative relationship can really, I think, help make a difference.

And then lastly, we have a new pillar in our plan this year, and it's gun violence and prevention and community safety.

Last year we had bills like on after-hours establishments that made a big difference in terms of gun violence, but that was the 2 a.m.

to 6 a.m.

period, particularly in combination with the chronic nuisance properties bill that we updated.

that's making a difference.

But what else can we do, particularly for this challenge that we're facing with our students, our young people being killed?

The prevention and reduction, but also the community safety pieces.

I'm meeting soon with community passageways.

What can we do there as well?

It has to be a partnership.

I often talk about and this is another pillar of the scene between public safety and human services, this is an example of that.

You know, where can we be doing work on the human services side, you know, in terms of community safety and how does it partner with our more traditional public safety pieces?

And so when I look at the question, you know, it's like what can we do to respond to the situation?

Those are like three areas that we need to press forward on and be engaged and work with community as a baseline, as a foundation.

Because at the end of the day, from the quote that I've said from our mayor, this community deserves justice.

They deserve justice and they deserve peace and they very certainly deserve a safe base for their kids and for their families.

Thank you.

All right, now we'll 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 are signed up today?

Currently we have two in-person speakers signed up and there are two remote speakers.

Okay, thank you.

Each speaker will have two minutes and we'll start with in-person.

Clerk, can you please read the public comment instructions?

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 the order in which they 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 on the next speaker.

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

The first in-person speaker is Jonathan Moore.

Hello.

My name's Jonathan Moore.

I was a Board of Immigration Appeal.

I'm here to address the Councilwoman Rivera's proposal to revise the provision about cooperating with immigration.

I was a Board of Immigration Appeals representative for 30 years.

I worked at the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project for 16 years.

I worked at the Washington Defender Association since 2005, and I was on the board of directors of the National Immigration Project for seven years.

I commend you for...

It's really shameful that this language is still in the Seattle Municipal Code, and I commend you for starting the process of revising it.

I think, though, there need to be some other changes in addition to the ones you proposed.

I think it needs to be strengthened.

For example, I think it's section 4.8105D.

Well, I think the whole provision has been basically superseded.

This is 2003, the Keep Washington Working Act 1093-160 was passed in 2019. So if for no other reason than to make it coherent with state law, those provisions need to be eliminated.

But in particular, Section B, which has police officers somehow having a reasonable suspicion of whether someone has been deported.

I mean that's I think beyond the purview of what they're supposed to do under the Keep Washington Working Act and of course how are they going to know whether someone's been deported?

What's a reasonable suspicion?

Do they know what a voluntary departure is?

The difference between a voluntary departure before or after proceedings, whether someone has returned after removal but is in withholding only proceedings or has a motion to reopen and so forth.

It's not their job.

and if you take out the parts that are extraneous, you just get that they can arrest someone for a felony.

We have some other ideas we'd like to submit in writing.

I only found out about last week, so I hope I'll be able to submit some written suggestions to strengthen your proposal.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our second in-person speaker is Howard Gale.

I'm here to speak on CB121158 and I sent all the council members a long memo about the inadequacies and the fact that this, six years now, seven years after Keep Washington Working, this still does not bring us into compliance.

This is a 23-year-old law and it can't be sort of patched back into compliance.

The biggest concerns I have is the repeated use of the word law without specifying local and state law.

and I elaborated that in my email.

There's a whole section 4.18015 which is entirely unnecessary, which Mr. Moore spoke to about reasonable suspicion that an officer might have.

Third, there's a...

In 418.016 it talks about not giving up non-publicly available information for people that are doing immigration enforcement.

That seems like an unnecessary qualification.

People should just not be giving out non-publicly available information, period.

It shouldn't be left up to a city worker to decide.

Fourth, unlike the state model law, it fails to create a documented audit trail.

Fifth, there's no procedural check for department heads so that a city employee is not left to their own devices to make that decision.

Finally, I think one of the greatest concerns is that this legislation provides no cause of action and no punishment.

So if a city employee does something wrong, if an SPD officer does something wrong, there's absolutely no cause of action.

So if I'm taken away because of information that was given by a city employee, I have no cause of action.

That is wrong.

And I think people do not fail to notice that when it comes to property crimes and other crimes, for people that have power and money, we always but when the people most impacted by the terror that's coming to Seattle, somehow there is no sanction and there is no cause of action.

That has to be corrected.

So my suggestion is this should be put on hold and we should have a town hall to be able to hear from people.

Thank you, Mr. Gale.

Thank you, Mr. Gale.

The first remote speaker is Fathia Morgan, and if I mispronounced your name, please correct me.

Please press star six.

Now that you've heard, you have been unmuted.

Hi, good morning council members.

I'd like to thank you for giving me an opportunity to speak today.

My name is Fathia Morgan.

I live in Capitol Hill and I go to Seattle University as a social work graduate student.

and I'm here to voice my support for Council Bill 12-11-58, which was introduced by Councilman Rivera to amend Seattle's municipal code.

As a social work student, I'm trained to advocate for social justice, equity, and client confidentiality.

I believe this bill will provide much needed protections for the immigrant community in Seattle and the preservation of their right to privacy.

As a social work intern working with clients of various documentation statuses, the fear that personal information could be shared with immigration enforcement, is definitely a barrier to people seeking services.

I'm currently working at Children's Health Care Clinic, so maintaining access to safe mental and physical health is essential for my clients and the continuity of care.

Care of ICE is creating barriers to essential care, leaving immigrant communities vulnerable.

Confidentiality and trust are foundational elements of social work practice, and this bill ensures that personal information remains personal.

I believe that all Seattle residents are deserving of services and care regardless of information immigration status and they should be able to receive them without fear of being arrested by ICE.

I agree with Councilman Rivera and her statement that the behavior of ICE is unconstitutional.

Clients should be able to trust us as practitioners and be able to trust other city employees and we need legislation that helps us to protect them.

I believe that this bill could do better to define cause of action for city employees that do share personal information.

I think that things would be a little bit more clear.

and that there should be enforceable consequences for employees that do break this law.

The failure to pass this bill could leave members of immigrant community vulnerable and it would fail to uphold the ethical principles of autonomy, confidentiality, beneficence, and justice.

Cooperating and sharing personal information is not aligned with my ethics and cannot be part of my practice as a social worker.

This bill is imperative in protecting the rights of all.

Thank you.

Our next remote speaker is David Haynes.

Please press star six now that you have been unmuted.

Thank you, David Haynes.

Spare us the staffing excuses from the police chief when they have plenty of cops in one place to make overtime at a law-abiding event.

Yet when it comes to fighting crime properly, they always come up with a staffing excuse and Nobody has kept the Chief honest about the fact that he has dispersed the wicked curse that's been operating in those alleyways behind Ross and elsewhere.

And a lot of them went up to Belltown and they've made life a living hell for people from Columbia City, all throughout Queen Anne, Ballard, U District and now further elsewhere places using the Linklite rail.

Yet we have virtue signaling distractions from the new member of Public Safety who seems to need to distract from certain conflicts of interest and self-feeling on the comprehensive plan that's been sabotaged and undermined.

Yet, Seattle has been running interference for evil, low-level drug pushers since Jenny Durkan, the U.S.

Attorney, and the pedophile Ed Murray shifted the paradigm away from improving the war on drug pushers by legalizing organic, proper-grown marijuana.

proactively training proper to shut down these evil predators instead we got people who are bent over who are given lead lists to take over the capacity and they're never forced to break their addiction in an authorized encampment and there's a real concern about the efforts to shut down the black and brown drug pushers and all the traffickers because they just want to like Thank you.

Chair, that was the last speaker.

Okay, thank you very much.

I do wanna thank everyone who made public comment and Mr. Moore, Mr. Gale and Ms. Morgan.

Thank you for your input.

Two things, well, a few things.

One is Council Member Rivera, she has a very tailored brief that she's been working and we'll hear that coming up in this meeting.

but also related to federal law enforcement.

We have a number of bills that are essentially in the pipeline.

One's related to ALPR.

One is related to staging Another one is related to professionalism and standards.

And separately, and I've had conversations with Councilmember Lynn and also Councilmember Rivera, but to, you know, do some additional work in the areas that, like Mr. Moore, that you were speaking to.

And so I'd ask for you to connect with Mr. Lynn, Councilmember Lynn and his team.

Separately, I need to add that as chair of the committee, I work with our in-house legal counsel in the department, legislative department, and the city attorney Evans and her team.

And that's really what drives in terms of what we're doing and the advice that we get, the legal advice that we get.

But I do appreciate the input and probably best to work through some of our individual offices, particularly those that have expressed an interest.

in this area, in the area of law, which as I noted in last meeting, I'm the only person without a JD on this committee now.

and so I have a lot of talent on this committee from a staffing perspective.

But I think it's really important that we know, that people know, that we are working in a number of different areas.

And we're working, I had a meeting yesterday that related to some coordination with the executive related to federal law enforcement.

So these pieces are in work and these bills will be coming down and they'll be popping up in Legislature.

and into our system.

But we're going to do it very methodical.

We're going to do it with the device of the city attorney and her team plus our in-house legal counsel.

But I do value the inputs because I do bounce it off various members and various players within the system that we have here.

And I would add, too, separately, without acknowledging the various points that he's made, we're also working public drug use and possession and alternative response coming up as well as additional topics separate from federal law enforcement.

And I bring that up because it comes up, we've heard it this morning, and I bring this up because this is also very important.

and so this is somewhat a transition to our first item of business but I will add that public comment has expired and we'll now proceed to our items of business and members of the public are encouraged to either submit written public comment on the signup cards available on the podium or email the council at council at seattle.gov and given what I just said also you can engage individual council members who you can be found online.

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

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

Evaluation of ordinance 126896 on public drug use and possession.

Thank you.

We have Inspector General Judge and Ms. Morley joining us at the table.

Can you please get settled and then introduce yourself for the record, and then you can proceed.

I believe the presentation will be run through this computer, so if you could just let our clerk know when you need to advance.

Is it possible to run it from this computer?

We had a technical hangup this morning.

Good morning, Chair Kettle and committee members.

Thank you for the opportunity to be here this morning to talk about our report on the evaluation of Seattle Municipal Code 3.28.141.

I'm Lisa Judge, Inspector General.

I'm Emily Morley, Performance Auditor.

Thank you.

Welcome.

Thank you.

So we don't have, I think a lot of time here and I anticipate a number of questions.

So I'm just gonna give a couple of brief introductory remarks and turn it over to Emily and her capable hands to answer probably all of your questions about this.

The ordinance was passed in October of 2023. So our evaluation period was required by the ordinance in 2025. So we began identifying an academic partner in 2024, and the contracting period for us started pretty early in the year in 2025. It took almost 10 months to be able to get access to all of the data that we needed to do the analysis required by the ordinance.

So what you're gonna see here is our best first attempt to answer the questions that are posited by the ordinance and that giving way to ways that we can that SPD and others have worked to sort of begin collecting and keeping data in a way that will make answering these questions much easier and more complete and streamline our review.

So I'll turn it over to Emily Morley.

Thank you.

Yeah, I want to also take this opportunity to thank Dr. Mandy Owens at the University of Washington's Addictions Drug and Alcohol Institute, who led our research team for this with my support.

As Lisa indicated, this ordinance was passed in fall 2023. There was a number of antecedents to this law, Washington state law that changed as a result of a Washington state Supreme Court decision in 2021. and the council will recall that that was past September and went into effect in October.

What it primarily did was adopt sections of RCW 6950 4013, which had previously been, in its original iteration, was deemed unconstitutional.

The significant change was about knowing possession in public.

So a lot of what OIG examined, what the research team examined, rather, is based around the decision making defined in the ordinance known as the threat of harm assessments.

So it's worth spending some time on understanding exactly what threat of harm assessment means.

And if we could advance to the next slide.

Thank you.

So the ordinance defines threat of harm in an abstract way with a vision of its goal.

Arrest in the case of knowing possession or use in a public place of a controlled substance should only occur when there is a threat to the peace and well-being of the community or a threat of harm to others.

Importantly, the law also emphasizes that diversion treatment and other alternatives to booking are the preferred approach.

So this abstract language had to be implemented by SPD, which was then implemented in SPD policy 15.150.

And So the way that they implemented the specific criteria of what it means to be a threat to public harm is based on the totality of the circumstances that an officer encounters when they are called to a scene involving knowing use, knowing possession or use of controlled substance.

So those factors might include but are not limited to threats of violence, escalating demeanor, co-occurring crimes, the location of public use, the type of narcotic or narcotics used, presence of community members and businesses nearby, and the physical condition of the subject.

Importantly, the policy presumes public harm in the event that knowing possession or use take place near a school park, bus stop, and rail station.

The rest of the policy also identifies the threat of harm to self.

SPD policy states that when a sworn employee determines there is probable cause that public possession or public use of a controlled substance has occurred but the subject does not pose a threat to others, the sworn employee will make a reasonable attempt to contact and coordinate efforts for community care resources.

So this part of a graph shows public possession and or consumption of controlled substances incidents.

And the diamond at the center, the threat of harm assessments, that's the decision making that a lot of our review examined.

Two of the outcomes could be either a threat of harm to self, in which case arrest should not occur, the prioritization there is diversion.

In the other instance where there's a threat of public harm, arrest can occur, but the ordinance and SPD policy emphasizes diversion is the preferred method for dealing with that.

So it doesn't preclude diversion to have an arrest, just that it is eligible for an arrest.

The next slide shows the rest of this system.

So this is obviously a simplified system, a track where incidents or officers' encounter.

Can I ask a quick question?

Don't interrupt the flow, but is this your depiction of the thing, or is this coming from this diagram?

Is this coming from SBD or some other location, or is this to basically help you explain the process?

Thank you for your question.

That is our depiction of it.

That's why I say it's a simplified diagram.

In reality, there would probably be arrows across all of these.

There are very few instances of where one track precludes another.

So in reality, a threat of harm assessment could result in these two.

In either case, diversion could occur.

Someone who is offered diversion may not take it, called conversion.

in some cases where there's a threat of harm to self, they may still be transported to a medical facility.

So this is kind of a simplification for understanding the major areas of analysis that the ordinance requests of OIG.

So the general trend or path would be, in the case of an arrest, even an attempted diversion, in addition to that, they may be referred to city attorney's office.

Some number of those may be accepted or declined.

Some number of those may have pre-filing diversions.

Of those that are accepted, they may make it to Seattle Municipal Court, still more may be dismissed.

So there's many other outcomes not depicted here, and it's more complex than this.

So onto our findings.

As Lisa mentioned earlier, there were some significant delays to getting access to data, so we made our best attempts to answer as many of these areas as possible.

So the ordinance defines 11 areas, and they fall into general trends, interactions with the public, prosecution, and then interviews.

So the first one, general trends, there are three major areas, which include the number of- Can you advance the slide, please?

number of drug overdoses in Seattle on a quarterly basis.

These data are publicly available with King County.

So the next slide will show a graph of those data.

They show, in general, a trend of increasing number of drug-related overdose deaths.

Over this period, there were 1,871 drug overdose deaths.

It rose from an average of about one overdose death every other day in 2019 to two deaths a day by 2030 or 2023, excuse me.

Another area in the general trends was the number of shootings in which drugs were present or an individual was under the influence of drugs.

we were unable to answer this question.

Again, due to the delay in getting access to data, it would have required a very in-depth qualitative review of every police narrative related to shootings, which we just had not the time to do, but is one of our goals for this year to examine.

The last area of general trends included the number of 911 calls about the use of controlled substances.

These are also publicly available data, and the next slide shows the trends of 911 calls related to it.

It shows 12,270 calls over this about five-year period, where on average there was about 650 calls for any given quarter.

And you can see there's kind of a general trend after 2020, an exceptional year, where quarters one, two, and three of 2021, 22 and 23 increased in the number of calls before falling in quarter four, could be a result of weather patterns and people being outside more, or other factors, but you can see that there.

The next area that we looked at really dived more into threat of harm assessments and police narratives about the accounts.

So these three areas included the number of contacts between police officers and individuals, the number of attempts of efforts of diversion, and then the number of arrests.

The next slide will show a graph depicting the trends of these three areas.

Again, those were offenses, so the incidents, that's the green line.

The orange line shows the arrests trend line, and then the purple show diversion efforts.

Now, you'll see there's a note on there, diversion counts are likely inaccurate.

when we received access to SPD data, we also worked with Let Everyone Advance with Dignity, formerly known as the law enforcement assisted diversion lead, and we tried to corroborate data trends between them.

Unfortunately, we saw that the data structures were not in place to capture diversions as accurately as would have been desired to make a causal test for this.

We found there were more than 200 diversions between SPD and LEAD that each only reported and we could not find any other.

So put differently, there were 160 reported diversions among SPD data we couldn't corroborate in LEAD.

data and then about a hundred vice versa that we also couldn't corroborate.

So the next slide gets into the kind of our interpretation of perhaps the purpose of all of our reporting.

As a question, was the ordinance effective as intended in increasing the number and rate of pre-booking diversions?

And we can see there's likely an increase in the volume that the number it's very difficult to, perhaps even impossible to determine if passage of the ordinance caused that.

Again, because we didn't have accurate counts of diversions, so our interpretation would be based on data that have questionable accuracy, but we did report those.

Thank you.

You know, this is like a good break point.

This is a, this is like a, stay on the slide, please.

This is a foot stomping slide, but it's also a good natural break.

Colleagues, any Councilmember Rivera?

Can you go back to that slide, please?

You want to go back to the previous slide?

It's not what, the graph.

Did you want to be on the graph?

No, I wanted to stay on the, on the basically the bullet there.

That's a very important bullet.

Councilmember Rivera.

Thank you, Chair, and thank you for being here.

Nice to see you, OIG Judge.

I mean, IG Judge, not OIG.

You're not the office.

You're a human.

Just call her General.

General.

Quick question.

I understand you had insufficient data back and forth between SPD and LEED.

Then there's this other component because I know that some community referrals at some point entered this equation, meaning that diversion referrals are not only from SPD is my understanding, there's also some community referrals.

So I say that to say in terms of gathering data of how many diversions, et cetera.

That is also, I didn't hear you mention that, but I believe that's also, please correct me if I'm wrong.

that's another source where referrals are being made.

Yeah, I'll defer to Emily about the data sets that they were able to get.

And moving forward, I think this kind of information is helpful to make sure that we're looking at all of the potential sources of information about diversions.

Emily, do you have any specific?

I do.

Thank you.

I knew she would.

And thank you for your question.

That's a great one.

The specific question in the ordinance for us related to the number of diversion efforts coordinated by officers, so that's why we did not explicitly examine community referrals.

Additionally, the quality of data we received meant it was difficult to parse whether it had come from SPD or the community.

For the most part, we have reason to believe the subset that were the result of police interactions.

Without promising too much of other city departments, I am aware that LEED and SPD have been working, I believe more than a year now, on integrating their data systems.

So we expect to see accuracy and diversions to really increase with that collaboration.

And chair, one more question if I may.

Just on the, thank you for that.

I did notice the data goes to 20, it's just 2023, but the ordinance didn't go into effect until 24 and really later in 24. So really the 2025, we don't have data past 23, I guess is my question.

because that's what you have here is up to 2023. So we still would need to get data from 24 and 25 not available yet or?

That's a great question as well.

For the general trends sections, those requested specific quarters.

So that was why we defined it in that way.

Going forward, our intention is to include all years that have lapsed.

So during 2025, it was not possible to also report on 2025 since those data were not yet available.

However, we are working again with the University of Washington's Alcohol Addictions, Drug and Alcohol Institute researchers.

So we've renewed that contract and we'll be examining the years since represented here.

Yeah, if I could add, the ordinance requires annual reporting from OIG until 2030. So we've got a number of years to continue to refine these data and hopefully answer all of the questions that you all will have.

Thank you, Chair.

I just wanted to point out the piece about we're missing information here, particularly post the ordinance, so it's good to show our work, I always say that, and it's a bit incomplete just through no fault of your own, you're collecting the data, but that is missing and I think it's important to point out because it's not painting as clear a picture as we would like if we had had the 24 even, because we're in 26, and then obviously it takes some time to get the year before, which would be 25. Thank you, Chair.

Yes, and I agree.

This is why we're having this committee meeting, because we're showing the work.

This is the kickoff.

This is just the first of many.

But to that point, and to your point, General, in terms of helping out in the out years.

I was told I wouldn't be hazed today.

Please continue.

Thank you.

The remaining slides will be rather quick.

As a result of some delays with access to data, it was challenging to then identify the population of individuals with whom we could track their outcomes or their cases as they were referred to City Attorney's Office and on the Seattle Municipal Court.

So the next few slides show the rest of the prosecution areas that we were unable to examine but are confident we will examine this year with this year's report.

So that included number of individuals transported for booking at jail or a medical facility, number of possession or public use cases referred to city attorney's office, for prosecution, number of pre-filing diversion cases and dismissals, and last, the number of excuse me, the reasons for the dismissal in those referred cases.

So we were able to identify and work with our other city partners, City Attorney's Office, the Seattle Municipal Court, both of which have already committed to providing us these data this year for our next report.

So we do anticipate having those and ample time to examine them.

And those data sets are coming from all the various stakeholders, the players in this, like, you know, individuals transported for booking at jail.

That is coming from SPD?

Yes, that would be, there isn't a specific data field in SPD reports for this.

We would have to examine the narratives for keywords, you know, medical facilities and whatnot.

But that qualitative review would take time, time that we have now this year.

I'd just bring that up because that's very important related to, and it's interesting, both our King County entities, King County Jail Health and in Harborview, there's a lot of issues.

And we've had King County Jail Health here to this committee, but we also need independent reporting.

We need SBD numbers in addition to KCJA Health, you know, these pieces, in addition to on the academic side, very important.

Okay.

Sorry, go ahead.

Thank you for that.

The last area is interviews, the results of any interviews with SPD personnel with experience in the field implementing this law.

We were able to schedule some interviews with officers in September, but there were some delays in getting approval for interview questions.

There had to be a vetting with SPD management and the Seattle Police Officers Guild, and that took time.

Once we were able to schedule with officers, that was the point at which data became available to us, so we made the call to more closely examine those rather than scheduling additional interviews.

So our intention, again, is to pursue this area as best as we can with interviews of officers this year.

We're almost done.

In conclusion, there were some issues with getting access, but we're confident we have resolved many of those hindrances and we are optimistic about our work for this year and into the future.

Again, it was it's likely not possible to, now or in the future, make a causal claim about the passage of the ordinance due to the quality and accuracy of the rate and number of diversions.

But we are committed to examining these and we're excited to work again with researchers from the University of Washington on this.

I'd just like to close by thanking all of the folks that collaborated with us to put together this first report, the researchers from University of Washington, the Seattle Police Department, members of LEAD, City Attorney's Office, and other city departments that helped, so much appreciation.

All right, thank you so much.

I really appreciate this briefing, and as I noted, this is the first of a number that we're going to be having on this topic.

I have a few questions, comments, but as always, I refer first to my vice chair, Vice Chair Saka.

Do you have anything?

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Inspector General Judge or Lisa and your team here for presenting this important briefing and giving us an update on such a important and impactful topic.

If you wouldn't mind flipping to, I don't know, it's page 10 on the broader packet.

It's the slide, I don't see it numbered, but it begins with, towards the beginning, it begins with the heading threat of public harm, calling out the SPD implementation policy and guidance that last bullet there.

So just for crystal clarity, so none of these items here of what that kind of defining what that standard is.

None of them are currently codified in the code, right?

The 2023 ordinance does not include these express things.

These are just implementation guidance that the department, in this case SPD, chose to set forth and articulate.

Correct.

Exactly, yes.

Okay.

but these also strike me as being fairly rational, makes sense.

I wanna double click a little bit on the last bullet there, public harm, on the presumed instances of public harm for use and possession when it occurs near a school, park, bus stop, rail station, or other transportation structure.

So just as context and reminder for most, I am chair of our city's Safety Transportation Engineering Project Sports and Experiences Committee.

STEPS, and one of the committee's big priorities is, continues to be and has always been, improving transit safety for all, improving that experience for riders and operators.

and we've done a lot of things to directly advance that and haven't, need to check in with, I ride transit almost every day and so I've seen, you know, my fair share is just as a rider, commuter, take it regularly to big events and just as a side plug to everyone who's going to the Super Bowl victory parade tomorrow, take transit, take transit, please.

The mayor's office is hard at work in coordinating extra service, including extra Metro bus service and capacity and sound transit train capacity.

So let's use this great, wonderful, vibrant transit system that we have here in our region.

In any event, I need to check in with some of the brothers at ATU who see this every day and experience the the possible incidents of public drug use and possession on their buses and their trains every day.

But I've certainly, as sort of a casual rider, or regular rider, I'm more than casual.

Regular rider, I've seen it myself and we all have anecdotes.

Where I'm going is, it purports to, this SPD implementation policy purports to cover bus stops, rail stations and quote unquote other transportation structures.

First question pertaining to that is, do you know what is intended specifically with the quote unquote other transportation structures?

We weren't involved in the policy discussions at SPD in the adoption of their policy guidance.

I assume that it's a catch-all, so that if there's some sort of place where people are waiting for a mode of transit, that that would be covered by this ordinance.

I can't speak to their thought process, but it feels like a catch-all to me.

Sure.

No, that makes sense.

Where I'm going is that seems to contemplate a physical structure and location, a stationary location only.

Does the current policy, to the best of your knowledge, with the understanding you weren't involved in drafting it, does the current policy contemplate or cover used for possession while riding transit, while riding the bus, while riding the train.

Does it do that at all?

Because I don't see it in this.

Yeah, I guess it depends on the interpretation of the word structure.

I don't think a bus is a structure, so I think this is good feedback for SPD to consider for this policy.

Yeah, no, thank you.

It just, in my mind, highlights a gap in sort of like the language and language does matter and the context does matter.

We shouldn't be in a scenario where we're applying this standard and this rubric solely to physical stationary locations.

Meanwhile, the experience for riders and operators there's a differential experience for writers and operators, right?

So in my mind, so thank you for clarifying what a plain reading of this language seems to infer, but sounds like an opportunity for clarification on SPD's end or anyone's end, you know, if this gets taken up again in any event.

I think we had one more little tidbit to add to that conversation.

Yeah, I think that's a great point.

Thanks for raising it.

I think the challenge with identifying instances where they take place on transit has to do with jurisdiction.

whether or not SPD has jurisdiction in those cases of county-run facilities or whatnot.

But I've made a note to more closely examine that, especially with regard to the geography of transportation structures as well and whether that changed.

Thank you, that makes sense.

And just so my understanding is right, is to the best of your knowledge, is it true that county rules and laws would apply in instances where the conduct occurs on the transit bus or train itself?

Would that be true?

Or would it matter if like, a train that starts in South King County, as it's traversing through Seattle, then the Seattle rules would apply if the conducts would...

Can you help unpack that construct a little bit?

To the best of your knowledge?

I think that would be something that we would probably like to speak with the city attorney about.

I don't know that we should opine on particular jurisdiction issues, but it strikes me if there was an event on a bus and someone called Seattle Police Department and it had occurred within Seattle jurisdiction, it feels like they would have maybe concurrent jurisdiction with others, but I can't specifically speak to that.

Got it.

All good.

Well, thank you for that.

Final question on the underlying ordinance itself.

So I took an opportunity to re-review it.

Here are the final adopted ordinance from 2023. And just noting there on section two where the adoption of RCW sections where it purports to incorporate by reference applicable state statute provisions, including calling out the federal scheduling and what's permissible versus not, and it carves out specifically cannabis from Schedule 1, which makes sense.

Just curious.

Isn't there an effort to de-schedule cannabis at the federal level to your knowledge?

I feel like I've read something, but I don't have specific knowledge of that.

Yeah, I think there is an effort or was, I don't know.

But regardless, to the extent that's true, that might warrant further cleanup on a going forward basis.

So in any event, thank you.

Appreciate you and your guidance here and entertaining my pesky, but very thoughtful questions.

Thank you.

No further questions, Mr. Chair.

Always thoughtful, always thoughtful.

Council Member Lin.

Thank you, Chair Kettle.

Thank you to our presenters.

So this ordinance was passed in 2023. I don't think any of us were involved in passing that ordinance.

I'm struggling a little bit just because it sounds like some of the data was hard to collect, specifically around the diversion accounts.

What I heard was that there were quite a few diversions that are not in this chart, just to confirm, is that accurate?

You mean diversions that may have generated from other sources than SPD and LEAD?

Yeah, I thought I heard you say there were potentially over 100 diversions, or maybe I misheard that you could not confirm because there were different data sets between SPD and LEAD?

Thank you.

These figures were all the cases that we could find.

In some cases, we couldn't corroborate.

If it was a case of SPD, for example, in the case of a lead employee keeping record, they may mishear report number, or it's the same one, or it wasn't actually with SPD.

Those kind of things happen.

It's a common data generating process issue.

the graph represents all that were described to us as potential diversions, so it may be that it's an overcount in that case.

It could also be close to being accurate in the sense of if those were all bonafide diversions, if you will.

It's hard to know with certainty because so many of them could be verified and we had hoped to be able to identify 90 or 95% of them in both data sets.

Yeah, and I think the number that you were hearing at 100 was, Emily's used the word corroborate, like that they appeared in both LEED and SPD data sets.

I guess you could use the word discrepancy, although it wasn't a requirement of either of these organizations to keep this, but differences in counts that couldn't be reconciled as between the data sets.

SPD and LEED are working together to try to resolve that so that they will have more of a shared understanding of the number of diversions.

Okay, thank you.

And I'm sorry, there's no page numbers, but there was one chart that showed the sort of diversion counts with the qualifier diversion counts are likely inaccurate and it shows zero diversions from like 2022 to end of 2023. Is that accurate?

There was zero diversions or is that just because the data set was, we can't corroborate?

Right, so the number of diversions over that period would be much greater than those represented here.

These are just the subset of those related to RCW 69504013, so those that were explicit.

So in the case of any other drug-related offenses that aren't exactly the result of that particular RCW, those wouldn't be counted here.

So LEAD had many diversions during this period.

They're not represented here since they aren't immediately related to the ordinance or the functioning of the threat of harm assessments.

Okay, thank you.

And going back to the threat of public harm and the presumption of harm if it occurs near a school, transit stop, do we have any idea what near means?

And just because as I look at that language, near, and I think of where public spaces are, I think most public spaces are probably near one of those park, school, transit stop.

So I'm struggling to understand sort of how that's a meaningful criteria for our officers if most of our public spaces are near those things.

Yeah, you know, this may be often when SPD implements a policy, there's a training component, so there may be something in training that expands on what the interpretation of NEAR is.

It may be a common understanding that SPD is relying on the officers to use discretion for, so we're happy to go back to them and seek some clarification.

on any guidance given to officers in the interpretation of what NEAR means and come back to you.

Okay, thank you.

And kind of last, and this is sort of a big picture question is, you know, I'm still just trying to wrap my head around sort of the what we need to do to increase sort of the accuracy of the data or to make this the most meaningful sort of exercise possible.

It seems like I think there's a commonality in the policy of wanting to have diversion, wanting to understand the effectiveness of diversion, wanting to understand the impact of sort of this change in our laws.

And so I guess I would just sort of ask you, are there any recommendations from you in terms of how to better collect this data or if there's a more meaningful question that you think we should be looking at in terms of looking at diversion and the impact of this ordinance.

Thank you for your question.

We opted not to issue any recommendations on this report on the basis that we had so little time to evaluate as much as we would have liked data trends and the evidence that we did have access to.

In the future, however, recommendations are common practice for us.

we may have opted to do a recommendation had we not also learned of the, I think actually years of effort between LEAD and SPD to integrate their systems.

So that work, by the time we identified this, that was a problem they had already established.

and had taken steps to rectify.

So we felt no recommendation would be necessary since that work was already underway.

Yeah, so I think with this next review, with this under our belt, having an understanding of the factors that impacted the ability to do deep analyses of some of these questions, will it be in a better place to identify ongoing gaps and perhaps things that could further increase our ability to do the analysis?

But I think the next report will be the one that's really illuminating on that.

Okay.

Thank you so much.

And Chair, appreciate this presentation.

I think the other part that is a little bit difficult for me is that we have so many different moving parts.

You know, we now have a new city attorney.

We have different resources that like DESE with the post overdose, you know, recovery center.

And so understanding, you know, with all these moving parts, you know, what is having an impact or not and just So, look forward to you coming back and providing more analysis and recommendations for us.

Councilmember Lin, this is why we're doing this.

Accuracy of data, that's pillar two, functional criminal justice system.

And to your point, one of my main bullets here is that we need to fix OIG's ability to work the requirement.

That goes to your point about the accuracy of the collection and the accuracy of the data.

So I really appreciate OIG being here for that reason.

And we do need to work all these different pieces.

It is more complex, if you will.

There is more moving pieces.

You know, for example, in one of the slides, by the way, if Council Member Juarez was here, she would be like, where's your slide numbers?

There's a reason why she says that, and she's right, because it's easy to refer back to whatever slide we're going to.

So she's not here today, but I just wanted to bring her into the meeting.

But the CSO's point was made in there, and that relates to public drug use and possession, but it also relates to alternative response.

and so going to the point about more complicated or more players or more factors is the fact that, well, you have CSOs, but then you also have CCRs now and care department.

Nobody's even mentioned care department.

And guess what?

And to the point that Councilmember Lin, we've been identifying these things.

It's like peeling the onion and we find the hiccups and the bottlenecks and so forth.

Well, that's the reason why PDA and the LEAD program are no longer with HSD, Human Services Department, that were the care department.

So now they fall under this committee, not by accident.

And because we need to address these pieces, and it's so important.

And so we need to bring that in, because that may make this more effective.

At the end of the day, the bill is about either arrests go to jail, or arrests get diverted.

and that's a key point too but there's different ways to do that diversion, there's different ways to have that contact and key here is, and this is something not spoken but we have to get to, these are the two options.

We can't have anymore the look the other way, move along, you know, those kinds of pieces.

We need to have diversion, which is the primary, and I agree with that, that is the preferred.

But for those that need to be in King County Jail, they need to be in King County Jail, which then brings up other issues, because one reason why officers may not want to go to King County Jail is because of the medical declines and all those factors.

So those are pieces that we need to address.

But we have to get to the point where people are either being diverted, and out of 10, five, six, seven, whatever the number is, I'm good with, but then that remaining three need to go to jail.

and because, I'm saying this publicly because it's come up in little conversations, for those on our streets that are in difficulty or in crisis, if we don't have them in a system, diversion or otherwise, we don't account for their status, whether it's mental health, behavioral health, substance use disorder, addiction.

When the federal government comes down with work requirements for Medicaid, that money's not gonna be there if we cannot account for those individuals and their status and their ability to work.

And for all my colleagues up here, and I'm sure a lot of people who have been on the streets know Most of those people are not really work eligible.

But if we don't account for it, either through one of these processes, then the dollars go away, the Medicaid dollars go away.

And I've said before with other folks here and other committees over the last year, that would be catastrophic to what we're seeing on our streets if that Medicaid system with all these service providers was to dry up because these individuals could not get Medicaid because we couldn't address their situation.

So this is very complicated and we need to keep working through these pieces.

And so, and we will do this.

We will do this for a couple of reasons and we'll have PDA lead come in independently.

We'll look to SBD care, city attorney, different pieces come in and then look to what do we need to do in terms of the overall architecture, but also this law that we, as noted, we weren't on the council in 23, although we were all at least the three of us were all very engaged on this law, trust me.

Council Member Juarez, when she comes back, obviously was there.

Because at the end of the day, when there's a threat of peace and well-being of the community, well, I think after two years it's well established, the threat to the peace and well-being of the community.

And the importance of the second bullet there of, you know, really doing the diversion treatment, all their alternatives to booking that is done right.

And so with that conclusion, I just want to thank everybody here.

Was that an old hand?

Okay.

And thank

Vice Chair.

Thank you, Chair.

Appreciate you, this presentation.

Just an epilogue to my earlier comments and please, really, for people to take public transit to tomorrow's Super Bowl victory parade.

I'll add, I just saw a headline, haven't read the article yet, in the Seattle Bike Blog by Tom Fucoloro.

It says, trust me, you're gonna want to bike to Seahawks Parade Wednesday.

so I'll add that as another alternative option just get out of our cars get on our vibrant transit bike if you're so able and willing for me I'm a fair weather biker but I guess that doesn't apply because the weather is supposed to be good tomorrow but I'm gonna get on a bus take other things than cars thank you chair

Thank you for that public service announcement, Vice Chair Saka.

And it's a good thing we're no longer in the military.

I think your call sign now would be Gus, playing off a Paul Simon song.

Anyways, thank you so much, Inspector General and Ms. Morley.

I really appreciate it.

And you will be back at some point.

And hopefully, given the tools and information in order to be able to do this right, because this is what we're highlighting.

This is why we're using this OIG report.

is to kick off, to highlight the issues that we have that each of my colleagues have noted.

So thank you so much.

Thank you very much.

Thank you for your partnership.

Okay, now we'll move on to our second item in business.

Will the clerk please read item two into the record?

CB121158, an ordinance relating to information sharing for enforcement of civil immigration laws, prohibiting city provision of non-publicly available personal information for use in civil immigration enforcement, clarifying the city's position on immigration enforcement being a federal matter, making technical corrections, adding a new section 4.18.016 to the Seattle Municipal Code, amending section 4.18.015 of the Seattle Municipal Code, and repealing section 4.18.010 of the Seattle Municipal Code.

Thank you, Clerk, and thank you, Mr. Johnson of Central Staff for joining us.

Before going into your remarks, this piece of legislation has come from our colleague, Council Member Rivera.

So Council Member Rivera is a point of privilege.

Can you speak to your legislation?

Yes, thank you, Chair.

I appreciate that.

Colleagues, We are in an alarming and chaotic point in time, as we all know, and I know we are all struggling with what we can do to keep our immigrant residents safe and maintain calm as federal officials continue their unprecedented and egregious actions across the country and in our own city.

What I and we can all do is to ensure the cities of Seattle's policies around information sharing are clear, that they reflect our values and are in alignment with state law.

This legislation provides that much needed clarity.

My bill does two things.

First, it strikes out existing code that directs city employees to cooperate with the enforcement of federal immigration laws.

Secondly, it prohibits city employees from sharing any nonpublic information outside the city, including for use in immigration enforcement, absent a judicial warrant.

The brutal dehumanizing and I believe to be unconstitutional behavior by ICE officials in our city and in other cities is just simply unacceptable.

Whatever actions we can take, such as clarifying and strengthening Seattle's laws, we must take.

This is what I've done with this legislation.

I want to say, colleagues, related to 4.18.015 to clarify, this is not language that I added to the SMC.

This is language that is part of the SMC.

It only appears in this bill because we needed to change a code number that appears in this section.

My bill does not preclude further actions, and as you heard the Chair, there are other potential bills being considered.

I will say that as I recently confirmed Section 4.18.015B is narrower in scope than current state law.

calls for, which means both that state law, which prevails over local laws, is the law that governs and is likely broader than the SMC in this section.

I say likely broader, colleagues, because on its face, it is broader, and then there are other factors to be considered in its implementation.

This being the case, any change to this section merits further discussion and of course legal analysis and does not preclude our passing my bill today, which takes a much needed and important step in the right direction.

Colleagues, I hope I have your support in protecting all of our Seattle residents, not just some, and moving this bill out of committee today.

I'm happy, colleagues, to take questions and then obviously want to thank our central staffer, Tommaso Johnson, for his help, who's here today in chambers.

But I also want to thank Lauren Henry, our legal counsel, who is very instrumental in helping me put this bill together.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Councilmember Rivera.

All right, Mr. Johnson, can you step through from the central staff the work that you've done in addition to our in-house counsel on this bill?

Yes.

Thank you, Chair.

Good morning, Chair Kittle, members of the committee.

For the record, Tommaso Johnson, Council's central staff.

here to discuss Council Bill 121-158.

I'm going to provide just a brief bit of background on existing law in this subject matter area and then walk you through what this bill does.

So, for starters, just as a general matter of course, immigration law in the United States is exclusively a function of the federal government.

Federal immigration law is, with few exceptions, a system of civil law.

Certain violations of immigration law can be considered federal crimes, but the majority of immigration law violations are civil violations.

One thing to note is that federal law explicitly prohibits states and localities from enacting any policy that would restrict the sharing of information regarding citizenship or immigration status with Department of Homeland Security.

So that is one reason why this bill does not prohibit sharing of citizenship and immigration status, but rather prohibits another broader category of information that I will describe which could be used in those enforcement actions.

So we're foreclosed from doing that legally, so that is the reason why this bill does not address that.

Furthermore, Washington State has passed a number of bills, two notable ones in recent history governing immigration enforcement.

That's the Keep Washington Working Act in 2019 and the Courts Opened All Act in 2020. As applied to Washington cities, Keep Washington Working, generally speaking, prohibits local law enforcement from performing certain actions, namely collecting information about a person's immigration status or place of birth, and there are several exceptions to that.

We're providing non-publicly available personal information about any person to federal immigration authorities in a non-criminal matter.

Courts Open to All Act imposes similar restrictions for judges, court personnel, and prosecutors.

So what's notable, among other things, about these two relatively recent state law changes is that while these laws and Keep Washington Working in particular prohibits information sharing by state agencies beyond the context of the judicial system and local law enforcement, The state laws generally don't impose restrictions on information sharing for local agencies that are non-law enforcement or court agencies.

In terms of city of Seattle law in this area, City regulation of matters relating to immigration enforcement dates back to 1986. An ordinance passed in order to carry out a local ballot measure, local initiative to the City Council in 1986 created a current Seattle Municipal Code Chapter 4.18.

418.10 directs city officers and employees to, quote, cooperate with and not hinder federal immigration enforcement.

This code section, this chapter was subsequently revised in 2003 by another ordinance.

That was the ordinance that gave us the general so-called don't ask restriction, which means that city officers and employees will not inquire about someone's immigration status.

And as Councilmember Rivera, as you noted, there are in municipal code some exceptions to that for Seattle Police Department, which I'm not going to get into the legal analysis or offer an opinion, a legal opinion about it, but I think you are correct in stating that Keep Washington Working Act, as a matter of general principle, when there is a state law at a Seattle Municipal Code section in the same area the state law will control.

In addition to the 1986 and 2003 ordinances, the city has enacted a number of resolutions and issued various executive orders and mayoral proclamations in this space.

Notably, in 2018, there was a directive from the mayor which was revised somewhat and reaffirmed in 2025 that directed all city department heads to refer requests for information from federal law enforcement to the mayor's office for legal review.

As I mentioned earlier, we have the restriction that applies to law enforcement and the courts from the state.

We have long-standing, since 2003, city policy about not inquiring.

What we don't have up to this point is a Seattle Municipal Code section that specifically restricts the sharing of non-law enforcement officers.

So coming around to the bill before us today, CB121-158 would do several things.

Most notably, it would create a new code section, which would be Seattle Municipal Code 418-016, which would prohibit the disclosure of certain information for the purposes of civil immigration enforcement.

Under this bill, all cities of Seattle officers and employees would be barred from providing any non-publicly available personal information to anyone outside of Seattle government for use in the enforcement of civil immigration laws.

That term, non-publicly available personal information, is not a term that is in municipal code at this point, but it largely mirrors language used in state law, the revised code of Washington, that is referenced by both Keep Washington Working Act and the Courts Open to All Act.

This bill would create two exceptions to the general information sharing prohibition.

Number one is an informed consent exception.

It's designed to address situations where the individual whose information is being inquired about The person may desire to have that information shared for the purposes of work authorization or renewal of immigration status.

There are situations in which that might be wanted and preferable for a person, so there's an exception there.

There's also a general exception if the disclosure is required by law or court order, which is just an acknowledgment of the fact that there are certain things that are outside of our power as a city to legislate.

court orders or other laws, federal laws or otherwise, may exceed our ability to restrict this sharing.

I wanted to make a note to talk about enforcement since this was raised earlier.

So Seattle Municipal Code, this chapter 4.18, already has an enforcement provision.

The enforcement is not addressed in this bill because we are not adding an entirely new chapter to the code.

We are modifying 4.18.

So the existing code specifies that the City Attorney's Office has the ability to enforce any sections of this ordinance.

To my knowledge, there haven't been other enforcement actions under Chapter 418 to date, and the City Attorney's Office has described a potential enforcement scheme that would involve injunctions and or writs of mandamus to compel compliance with this ordinance.

Finally, the bill would make some, largely, make one technical change and one conforming change that was mentioned earlier.

So this bill would repeal SMC 418-010 in its entirety and once again this was the 1986 section that would, purported to direct employees, City of Seattle employees to cooperate, quote, cooperate with and not hinder federal immigration enforcement.

Removal of this language would not, of course, alter the obligations of the city or city employees to comply with federal law, generally speaking, but striking this section would bring the municipal code into line with policy decisions and statements, both at the state and city level, over the last 20-plus years.

Pursuant to that removal, a reference to the removed section would be struck as well in SMC 418-051A.

And I'm happy to answer any questions.

Thank you, Mr. Johnson, and thank you for your staff memo.

Very complete.

Appreciate the various pieces that essentially you have outlined in your remarks.

Okay, normally I go to my vice chair.

Vice chair, anything?

No.

Councilmember Lin.

Thank you.

First of all, I want to thank Councilmember Rivera for bringing this forward.

I think we all share the concerns and the values of wanting to protect our community from what we see happening with, and I agree with you, Councilmember Rivera, I do believe these actions are likely unconstitutional and certainly cruel and inhumane.

So I appreciate you bringing this forward to update what was certainly problematic language that is no longer, I believe, in line with our values or in line with the Keep Washington Working Act.

I do have a question about the 4.18.015 which we've received some public comment on.

And I just want to confirm what I heard earlier is that federal law in certain circumstances requires disclosure of information that we might have about somebody's immigration status.

Is that correct?

It can require, I think the section that I was referring to, it restricts our ability to prohibit.

That's a little convoluted.

Thank you for that clarification.

And I guess part of my point is that Once we collect that information, our ability to prohibit disclosure is more limited.

But if we don't collect it in the first place, then theoretically that protects it because we don't have that information in the first place.

Would that be kind of correct?

Yes, I think that's correct as a general matter and could apply to any number of different pieces of information we might collect about people.

And so if we look at 418.015A, it says, no city officer employee shall, unless otherwise required by law or court order, inquire into the immigration status.

And so again, if we don't inquire, then we're not gonna have that information and it provides a level of protection because now we don't hold that information.

Would that kind of be accurate?

Yes, yes.

As you noted, the 418-015A is the general prohibition on not inquiring.

Okay, but then 418-015-B is an exception to A, which allows police officers to inquire if those three prongs are met, if they have reasonable suspicion to believe that somebody's previously been deported, is again present, and is committing a felony.

Is that correct?

Yeah, that's correct.

That's what's currently in Seattle Municipal Code.

I want to be careful here because it's probably not appropriate for us to get into a legal analysis while we're here at the meeting at the table, but as it was noted earlier, revised code of Washington 10.93, 160, specifically 164A, is the section that was added by Keep Washington Working.

It was added after almost 20 years after that municipal code section that you mentioned was added, and it purports to govern the same question of when inquiries can happen, and it differs from what is currently in Seattle municipal code.

One other thing I would bring into this conversation is current SPD policy, right?

So, you know, we have maybe some difference between municipal code and what Washington state law is.

I think people will be familiar with the fact that when there is a difference like that, the state law generally supersedes.

Once again, I'm not gonna do a detailed analysis of how that applies here.

But beyond that, operationally on the ground, what governs officers' actions primarily is SPD policy.

And the policy, the relevant policy here is SPD policy 6.020.

And I'll quote that in part.

It says, officers will not, quote, will not inquire about any person's citizenship or immigration status.

There are no exceptions to this policy.

Wonderful.

So the policy's pretty clear.

It contemplates exceptions that can be specifically carved out by the chief.

To my knowledge, there are currently no such exceptions.

But I just want to point out that the state law and our municipal code to operate in a certain relationship to create, you know, the bounded box by which policy must be written, and then SPD policy in this case goes quite a bit, current policy goes quite a bit beyond those to be more prescriptive about will not inquire.

Thank you so much.

So just to clarify, so SPD policy prohibits collecting that information.

Generally, it sounds like there might be some exception that the chief could make.

Sounds like there is protections under the Keep Washington Working Act as well.

and nothing under 418.015 would require a police officer to collect that information.

It's sort of an exception to the general prohibition under A, but it sounds like there are additional protections both in policy and the Keep Washington Working Act.

Yes, I think that's accurate.

The statutory framework sets a- those statutory criteria, I should say, set a framework by which SPD may make policy or may make decisions.

They have chosen to enact policy governing officers in this circumstance that is quite a bit narrower and does not contemplate any of the criteria described in current SMC or in RCW, for that matter.

Thank you so much, and I'll just provide a quick comment, which is just in my opinion, I think 418-015-B probably could be cleaned up and updated.

I don't wanna hold up the important bill and the good work that you brought forward, Council Member Rivera, but it just, seems like there's still a little bit of confusion, at least in my mind, under 418-015-B and the relationship of that and keep watching the Working Act and current SPD policy.

But I appreciate you clarifying that for us, for me at least today, and appreciate again you bringing this bill forward.

Thank you, Council Member Lynn.

As stated at the beginning, following the comments from Mr. Moore, Mr. Gale, and Ms. Morgan, we can follow up on that point.

If I may, Chair, respond to this conversation.

I just wanna say there's law, what's on the book says law, and then there's practice.

So Mr. Johnson was talking about what SPD practice is, which is really based on our shared values and then what is law.

And I think this is why this merits a further conversation and a legal analysis because state law does prevail and state law is likely broader on Section B. So this is why I think, you know, again, it doesn't preclude moving forward with this bill, but it does merit further conversation if we're going to make that policy decision to make changes to that.

That's important.

We do need a legal analysis that we cannot have in chambers.

But I also don't want to, we can move this forward.

As Chair Kettle said earlier, there are a lot of things being considered in this immigration space.

So one doesn't preclude the other.

So we can move this bill forward.

We can do this, take this important, what I deemed to be an important step, all the while then having the conversations about what else, because I know that many of our colleagues are looking at other things, you know, such as the staging piece that Councilmember Kettle talked about earlier.

So I just wanted to say that is that there is state law, there is what's in practice, and there are legal considerations, and I don't want to, I want to make sure those are very clear.

So thank you.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Vice Chair Saka.

Thank you, Chair.

First, I want to thank Councilmember Rivera for your leadership in bringing this forth, very important piece of legislation.

In my view, this is a transformational piece of legislation that's critically needed to help us as a city better protect our immigrant and refugee neighbors.

Is it the end-all, be-all legislative solution?

No, probably not.

Is it an important tool that we can, an action that we can undertake legislatively now, in combination with other things, as the chair noted earlier, that there's other efforts, legislatively underwear and our executive, I support the mayor's executive orders and actions so far all that I've seen.

Is this another thing we can do among a broader set of policy solutions?

Yes.

As some of the discussion makes clear, great questions.

I think this is a excellent base policy, but as some of the discussion makes clear, you know, At the end of the day, it's imperfect, like everything.

I don't think we should, in my view, I don't think we should let perfection be the enemy of good.

We're at a point where we need to continue acting, and this helps us do that.

There are obviously some very non-trivial legal considerations, and as policy makers, we must Listen to the advice of our lawyers, including City Attorney Evans and her entire team that advises on these and any number of things.

As policymakers, that said, we are also, while we should and must listen to their sage legal guidance, we must be willing to overrule them from time to time if there's a sufficiently compelling enough policy justification.

And so, in my mind, if it flouts federal law, that's a set of litigation that I'd like our city to have.

That's a courtroom fight I'd like our city to have.

And I know City Attorney Evans is a highly skilled litigator in her team.

And again, for those policy changes or proposals that would purport to be inconsistent with federal law, especially on the issue of federal immigration enforcement, I take the Winston Churchill position.

We shall fight them on the beaches, fight on the fields and in the streets, fight in the hills.

Anywhere and everywhere we will defend vigorously our values in the city of Seattle.

For me personally, I also wanna make sure we're directly consistent or not at least inconsistent with state law.

I'm open to other tweaks around the edges of this and other, but it is needed now and we must act and therefore wanna thank again Council Member Rivera for your steadfast leadership on this and more to come of course, but thank you.

Thank you Vice Chair Saka as the grandson of somebody who survived Dunkirk.

I appreciate your reference.

Thank you, I wasn't expecting that.

Just to close, and because I will bring this up for a vote, again, this is just once, would you like to do a concluding?

Yes.

Okay.

I'll let Council Member do a closing, but just before she speaks, this is step one of a multi-step process.

And generally we do two meetings per meeting.

topic.

Every year there's always the exception to the rule and generally this year federal law enforcement will be that exception if they're clean bills like this one.

I will say the staging bill will definitely be a two-step process but we'll be bringing those forward and then I will work with our colleagues as mentioned earlier with Council Member Lynn in terms of the reference to the public comments and the various pieces that we get in of course in cooperation with central staff to include our attorney and city attorney Evans team.

With that said, Council Member Rivera, you have the last word for this, go ahead.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, colleagues.

I really just want to say that my impetus for this bill was I wanted to do something.

I wanted to do something now.

I wanted to do something that I knew would be legally defensible.

I knew that we had the Seattle Municipal Code on our books that was outdated from the washington working.

I know that there are a lot of things that do need to be litigated if there are to be changes to be made.

And I wanted to find something that I knew we could do today.

That's just the bottom line.

And so this isn't meant to be.

like the end, as Chair Kettle said, this is one thing that I knew I could do, we could do today, and it's important.

And the reason why I feel so strongly about it is because there is something new here.

There is two pieces.

We're codifying state law as our SMC should, so that when people look at the SMC, they know what is legal or not, what our codes are.

Sometimes if our SMC is outdated or silent, people don't always know whether our SMC is updated or not.

State law prevails.

And so we don't want to have to have or I don't want something on our SMC that's not clear to our public and importantly to our city employees, whether they be law enforcement or otherwise.

And so I think it is important for us to have the most updated SMC as we can.

And this is why looking at the SMC and knowing that Keep Washington Working was not codified in here.

I thought this was an opportunity, an important opportunity to do so.

And then in the context of that, knowing that when the state past Keep Washington Working, they talked about local law enforcement and not sharing of information, but they didn't talk about local agencies outside of law enforcement.

They talked about the courts, they talked about schools, but we have a lot of city departments beyond SPD and some of the other law enforcement agencies at the city.

And so the new is I wanted to make sure that these other sister departments like the Human Services Department or OIRA or Office of Immigrant and Refugee Affairs also had the same directive.

Because the law at the state level is silent, we're actually able to put this in our SMC and guide our employees on what they can and can't do regarding public information.

And let me just say this.

I feel really fortunate to live in Seattle.

Our employees share our values.

You know, am I worried that someone is going to give information purposefully?

No.

And also, you know, when folks get reach outs from the feds, we know, you know, we don't want there to be a lack of clarity to our city employees on what to do.

So now they are clear, the SMC will now make it clear that you employee at HSD or IRA or Office of Housing, you are not to share information.

And then of course there's that warrant piece, but that is another, that is something and that is something they should know.

So this is really about providing that clarity to our employees across the board, not just our law enforcement employees, we can do this, we can do this today and I felt like I said earlier really passionate as you can hear me that this is an important and something that we have to do.

There are other things that are going to require more time because there are legal analyses that have to be done.

but this is not that.

And so I think we should take this step because we know we can do it, we know it does not require, it is though a simpler step, a really important one.

And so this is why I feel really strongly that we should pass today.

One thing doesn't preclude another.

And we know that we could do this today.

It is legal to do so.

It is codifying state law.

It's adding to state law in parts where it is silent for our other non-law enforcement city employees.

That's what this does.

And so we should move forward with this and then continue the fight and thank you Council Member Saka for those words on fighting.

That's what we're doing.

We're fighting for our residents in the city, all our residents, including our immigrant residents.

And so I wanna do what we can do today.

We can do this today.

Let's make it happen.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Rivera.

Okay, will the clerk please call the roll on committee recommendation to pass Council Bill 121-158.

Council Member Lin.

Abstain.

Councilmember Juarez.

Councilmember Rivera.

Aye.

Councilmember Sacca.

Aye.

Chair Kettle.

Aye.

Chair, there are three in favor, none opposed and one abstention.

Thank you.

The motion carries and the committee recommendation that the bill pass will be sent to the February 17th city council meeting.

Okay.

We have reached the end of today's meeting agenda.

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

Again, looking, seeing none.

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

Thank you very much.