Public Safety Committee 6/23/2026

The Public Safety Committee meeting will come to order.

It's 9.36 a.m.

June 23rd, 2026. I'm Robert Kettle, chair of the Public Safety Committee.

Will the committee clerk please call the roll?

Councilmember Juarez.

Here.

Councilmember Lin.

Here.

Councilmember Rivera.

Present.

Councilmember Sacco.

Present.

Here.

Chair Kettle.

Here.

Chair, there are five members present.

Thank you and welcome and good morning and welcome to everyone here to the Public Safety Committee meeting.

Just a quick note on chair comment this morning.

I just wanted to note as a follow-up to North Aurora that It's interesting, but already I'm hearing, you know, different words in different sectors saying, oh, but prostitution's been here forever.

It's the second oldest profession.

You know, it is what it is kind of thing.

Or, oh, these are misdemeanors.

We shouldn't be bothering with misdemeanors.

You know, this is the situation.

and I say this because this is the start.

Previously in chair comment and also at the press conference on North Roar, I mentioned that we are a city of two minds and this is how it starts.

But instead we should be focused.

So rather than, and these are the voices that I hear sometimes too, like rather than continuing to waste limited resources on a failed and harmful carceral and criminal legal system resources to low level misdemeanor offenses, that we should be taking a different approach.

And by the way, these low level offenses include obviously things like theft, obstruction, property destruction, but also prostitution.

And so we're in a situation on North Aurora where there's definitely gonna be individuals and groups that will be, basically countering and basically creating that situation where I speak of being of two minds.

But instead, we should be focused on our framework.

Police staffing is very important to this.

A functional criminal justice system, which is our second pillar.

And then our third pillar is gun violence reduction, prevention and community safety.

These are the things that we should be working through.

Our fourth one is crime reduction through urban blight remediation, vacant buildings, lots and graffiti.

and then important for this as well is addressing the scene between public safety, public health, housing and human services.

That's where we have the other side in terms of the women, the young girls, the minors particularly, the services in order to allow them to escape the situation that they found.

And then the sixth pillar that we have is collaboration with county and state.

I've had meetings follow up on this issue in terms of functional criminal justice system, working with Council Member Juarez and the idea of getting a .5 FTE city attorney felony prosecutor, basically a partnership between the King County prosecuting attorney and our city attorney to basically work this area, which is so important.

You heard the city attorney talk about ERPO the extreme risk protection order pieces.

So these are the things that we need to do in addition to ensure police staffing is where it needs to be.

And then also that the programs that are designed to help the women, particularly again the minors, are there.

and important there too is I've been to North Precinct, all of us go to the various precincts and I remember being North Precinct talking to a couple lieutenants and they said the hard part is a lot of these groups don't show up when it's second and third watch.

So we need to be working with service providers that are there at second and third watch because 9 a.m.

the next day is too late.

So these are the things that we need to be working through and not get carried away with the varying voices that are basically gonna create that of two minds challenge that we have in our city.

So that's my commitment to my colleagues here in the council, but also importantly to the various communities in this case, specifically North Seattle.

Okay, that is the chair comment.

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

Hearing, seeing no objection, the agenda is adopted.

We will now open hybrid public comment period.

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

Clerk, how many speakers are signed up today?

Currently we have three in-person speakers signed up and three remote speakers.

Okay, each speaker will have two minutes.

We'll start with the in-persons first.

Clerk, will you please read the public comment instructions to include, if you hear that chime, that means you got 10 seconds left.

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 allotted time to allow us to call on the next speaker.

The public comment period is now open.

We'll begin with the first speaker on the list.

The first in-person speaker is Jeff Silverman.

Good morning.

This is an apology for big government.

In the 1860s, the Union Pacific Railroad laid 1,100 miles of track in four years.

Sound transit laid, or will lay, less than 100 miles of track in 50 years.

In the 19th century, the only computing devices the engineers had were slide rolls.

In the 21st century, they had computers and supercomputers and artificial intelligence.

Why were the engineers in the 19th century so much more productive than the engineers in the 21st century?

It's a good question.

Let's find out.

We're a lot smarter now than we were in the 19th century.

In the 19th century, railroads didn't concern themselves with the property rights of the indigenous people.

They didn't care about selenium and cuts and fills.

They didn't understand that buffalo were part of the ecosystem.

And they certainly didn't understand anything about flooding or the weather or trade-offs between distance and grade.

When I look at the problems we have in Aurora Avenue North, it is with the benefit of a century of understanding of the physiology of substance abuse issues and a better understanding of economics.

In the 18th century, when the Second Amendment was written, a good shooter could get off a shot in a couple of minutes.

Today, any idiot with a submachine gun can get a shot in a couple of milliseconds.

when I look at Aurora and listen to people with an 18th century or a 19th century understanding or a, I don't care, just do something.

Oh, and don't raise taxes.

I just despair.

Mr. Kettle, your comments are very well taken.

A good solution to the problems of Aurora Avenue might not be cheap, but an expensive solution to the problems of Aurora Avenue might not be good.

So do not rush to a quick solution, but also do not be paralyzed looking for a perfect solution when a good solution presents itself.

To conclude, I think your critics are wrong, but I'm not sure your supporters are right.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next up, we have Rick Fordyce.

Hello.

Good morning.

My family roots go back to the 1910s, Scandinavian immigrants who came to Seattle speaking no English.

and my godmother, more or less, was Phyllis Lamphere, who used to sit up there on the president's seat.

So I live on 102nd, as you know.

And I've been doing this for a couple of years now.

Two things I kind of want to try to get across.

First, how do you take the ideology that decriminalizing prostitution is going to help them when, in fact, It did the complete opposite.

It created that.

That's six prostitutes standing on 102nd.

So instead of helping them, it created the hugest, the biggest sex market in the country, from what I understand.

So there's that.

And then the other thing I'm going to try.

Hundreds, if not thousands, of people driving by this for the last five years.

So why should they follow any rules?

They see this.

Why should anybody get a license for a business, pay their taxes?

This just corrodes the civility of the city really badly.

And the idea of law enforcement, it's an inconvenient truth.

Instead of defunding the police, you have to change the concept of who they are and what they do.

Because otherwise, it makes it worse.

It just harms the people that it was supposed to help.

Thank you.

And next up, we have Peter Orr.

Good morning, counsel.

I'm Peter, a resident of North Aurora since 2010. This past Friday marked the anniversary of Juneteenth, which celebrates the end of legal slavery in our country.

Yet that same day, I encountered this young girl at 102nd and Aurora dressed for sale while a pimp, her master, watched nearby.

I had seen her Wednesday, too, when I was in the area, and my neighbor Rick had also observed her often.

Last year, Mayor Harrell appointed $1.7 million to support four service organizations servicing victims of the commercial sexual exploitation, like this girl.

The intent was to fund 24-7 assistance for SPD to direct victims.

To date, I've seen no evidence of follow through.

To my understanding, The More We Love is the only organization currently capable of such service, and they do not have a city contract.

Please provide an update on the use of this funding in the next meeting's agenda.

Despite Chief Barnes' recent assignment of two regular patrols along Aurora Avenue and our calling 911 to report this young woman in need of rescue, she continues to be on the block, our block, for sale.

SPD claims officers searched the area for your incident, but were unable to locate the incident or persons.

It seems to me that we need police in this area to be more vigilant than the citizens right now.

I would again encourage expanding police presence by opening a satellite precinct at the corner of 97th and Aurora.

The building owner has offered flexible lease terms, and I would like assurance of funding for this and movement to secure it.

I also advocate again for funding a prosecutor dedicated to Aurora Avenue for Erica Evans' office to target pimps and johns.

A refrain I've heard over the past month since I picked up 13 bullet casings from pimp gunfights in my neighborhood is that this human trafficking situation on Aurora is unacceptable.

Yet we are accepting it, aren't we?

Every night that goes by without barriers to keep pimps from cruising our residential streets, we're accepting it.

And every day this girl is out for sale again, we're accepting it.

Now we're transitioning to remote speakers.

Our first remote speaker is Aaron Gartner.

Please press star six when you hear the prompt, you have been unmuted.

Erin, please press star six.

Sorry about that.

And sorry about my voice.

I'm pretty sick.

But I did want to come.

I'm also a neighbor who lives along Aurora, and I do want to echo everything that Peter just said.

We have a crisis along Aurora.

But what I'd also like to do is sincerely thank you, specifically members of this committee, for taking on this issue so publicly and for bringing the hard-to-admit facts to the public.

During the press conference last week, thank you for telling the city that there are girls out in Aurora.

They are young.

They are 14 years old, 13 years old.

Thank you for telling the city that violent trafficking is indeed happening along this roadway and that despite being, I think, where Seattle's the 18th or 19th largest city in the country, we have the number two prostitution street in the country.

Thank you for agreeing to close the streets in our neighborhood.

The major shooting about three years ago along 101st, streets were closed right away.

I believe that the deputy mayor gave an order and later that morning they were closed.

And that significantly decreased the violence along that roadway.

So we're watching as far as the road closures now.

I've seen signs go up saying that Starting tomorrow, there will be construction at those areas.

So fingers crossed that it happens, but we will be holding the mayor's office accountable.

This Thursday, we'll mark the two-week deadline that she said the streets would be closed.

And just real quickly, finally, to your point, Councilman Kettle, about a city being of two minds.

For any individuals who believe the women along Aurora are independent or they're by choice Please, come here.

Come to Aurora, especially at night, and see for yourself what's going on.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And last up, we have David Haynes.

Hi, David Haynes.

You know, it's obvious that the city and the county are not going to make a concerted effort.

Even you're all news press release.

Did it have the federal government and the state government that could help?

And it's really concerning to me how the police chief refers to his captains and wants to leave it all up to the captain's responsibility to fight crime, yet he withholds the crime-fighting tools and punches.

It's like How much overtime does Seattle pay for law-abiding events?

And how many cops were down by the stadium during the World Cup game?

And why can't all those cops show up at Aurora for a day and grab all these evil predators?

You know, the only wickedness of the two mindsets is a bunch of two-faced hypocrites in Seattle that like to enjoy other people's suffering, pulling their punches on these evil criminals like they don't know any better.

When I saw the cops having to do an outreach to the prostitutes who were sitting on the ground with their legs up and their skirt kind of showing, I was thinking, wow, they're not even going to arrest her and separate her from the pimp because she's probably 18 and older.

They're just going to let her go back and be abused.

But they got their cheap thrills.

You know, it makes me wonder, like, exactly why did the chief get hired?

Was it because he's black and because he's willing to run interference for black drug poachers and pimps?

because he's not doing his job proper.

He always has a bullshit excuse, man.

And, you know, when you have the city attorney show up and say, well, I need another attorney to take people's guns away.

And she's already said she's not gonna prosecute any drug crimes that are misdemeanors.

She's purposely helping predators who are committing crimes against humanity and only being listed misdemeanor because they're under 3.5 grams or whatever it is. but yet you all show up and falsely assure the community like they've finally been heard.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I want to thank everyone.

I'll say first the public comment period has expired.

We will now proceed to our items of business and members of the public are encouraged and thank you for everyone for being here to either submit written public comment on the signup cards available at the podium or email the council at Council at seattle.gov.

And I just wanted to say thank you for the various comments to include discussions about the police.

I'm having a meeting with Chief Barnes tomorrow.

I will ask about satellite.

I mean, there's varying levels of that, but maybe there's a way to increase presence.

And this is the part of the discussions I've had as well with the city attorney.

and for Erin, it's her focus on the minors, the 13, 14 year olds is really important because at the end of the day, for those who are like, oh, it's the oldest profession, just leave it as it is, that means you're consigning a 13 or 14-year-old, as she said, to this life.

And that's not right.

And I will just, normally I don't comment on Mr. Haynes, but I will note, he mentioned about the county and the state.

I already mentioned the King County Prosecutor.

99 is a state highway, but I also want to thank, FBI had a sting on Aurora that was successful.

These are the things that we need to do in partnership, because at the end of the day, as someone said, it's not right and it's also not acceptable.

So thank you, everyone, for your comments.

All right.

Before, before.

Chair?

Yes.

We have a point of privilege here.

We'll speak quickly.

Yes.

Can I say first, though, because before I forget that Council Member Rivera is here on remote, and that is why, because she is one of our representatives for the Association of Washington Cities, and she's at a conference for the Association of Washington Cities, and that's where she'll be.

you know for this and she'll have to leave at 11 as part of that you know being part of the Washington City's Association Conference so I just wanted to note that she is here with us remotely and it's been because of the Association and by the way Council Member Rivera will definitely allow you to speak to the the third item on the agenda before you before you step off and and Council Member Juarez I will I swear I'll be really fast and I will save all my comments when we get to Council Bill

1, 2, 1, 2, 3, 3. I just want people to take a step back and note that the historical perspective is back in 2016, we actually had, I think, $200 or $300 million set aside for a police station on Aurora, and the community came out and did block the bunker, and that did not happen.

so if you can go back into the time machine, I don't think a lot of people know this, we had 12 votes voting yes for a new precinct on Aurora for these very reasons we're talking about in 2026 and on the 13th vote in August of 2016, I was the only yes vote and that was a long story there you can go back and look at the video so I just want folks to know that historically we have seen this problem we've been working on this problem our answer was to staff up and build a community center slash police station on Aurora on 125th bought the property had the votes and then we had blocked the bunker and then it ended so that should be noted thank you

Thank you for bringing that up.

That's important context.

And it kind of goes to the point that I've been raising.

And I would note, I think my vice chair would agree with me that this committee, to include in the past term of the council, that would have passed.

That would have been buttoned place.

But unfortunately, to your point, it got undermined.

And it's having impacts today on North Aurora.

With that said, we'll now move on to our first item of business.

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

Council Bill 121232, an ordinance relating to the operations of the community assisted response and engagement department describing the duties of the community crisis responder team amending section 3.15.060 of the Seattle Municipal Code and adding a new section 3.15.064 to the Seattle Municipal Code.

Thank you, Clerk.

I want to invite Mr. Johnson from Central Staff who's here to give the introduction.

But I also want to invite Chief Barden from CARE herself.

And I also want to note we also have our Director of Public Safety, Ms. Holcomb here as well.

You're welcome to join as well or you can stay where you are, your choice, Director Holcomb.

Okay.

So what we'll do is we'll have a basically a review, basically summary with Mr. Johnson and then turn it over to Chief Barden and then some questions and then we'll move on as we work through the three agenda items for today.

All right.

Mr. Johnson.

Good morning Chair Kettle, members of the committee.

I'm Tommaso Johnson from your Council Central staff.

The ordinance before you 121232 was discussed in draft form two weeks ago.

We discussed the substance of it at some length, so I'm just going to provide a brief summary.

The only change from the version that was heard in draft at the last committee is a technical correction to some language in the bill that was a Scrivener's error, so it's not substantive.

There are no amendments to the bill at this time.

By way of reminder, this ordinance would relate to the part of the Seattle Municipal Code that describes the function and purpose of the Community Assisted Response and Engagement or Care Department.

This department by this name was established by ordinance in 2023. CARE supports the city's public safety response with two primary functions, operation of the 911 communication center and fielding the community crisis responder or CCR team.

The role and deployment of that team has expanded significantly since the original ordinance was passed in 2023. Most notably in the last budget year, the CCR team was further expanded, doubled in size from 24 to 48 FTE responders.

This legislation would amend Seattle Municipal Code in several ways.

One, by acknowledging the CCR team as a core function of the care department.

Two, by defining at a high level the role and purpose of the CCR team.

This language serves the purpose of describing, generally speaking, the body of work that the CCR team does, as that is a significant function of the department that is not currently described in code.

and further it would clarify a few of the administrative functions of the department.

That's it for me, but I'm happy to answer any questions once we finish the discussion.

Thank you.

Any questions for Mr. Johnson, colleagues?

Okay, not seeing anything.

So Chief Barton, over to you.

Good morning.

Thank you for having me here.

So candidly, Chair Kettle, when I heard you were working on this, I wasn't quite sure where you were going with it or what might be accomplished beyond the 2023 Ordinance 126954. When I reviewed it, I realized I was wrong about that.

The original care ordinance was drafted before we even had job descriptions for the care responders and before we had state legislation expanding the definition of first responders to include social workers, behavioral health clinicians, registered nurses, community health workers, and peer support specialists who go out alongside police, fire, and EMS.

That was House Bill 1811 back in 2025. The ordinance was drafted before the launch of a really significant coordination effort with King County and Crisis Connections leaders to standardize language and to articulate protocols for 911 to divert appropriate calls to the 988 system.

And that work is culminating and being put into practice this summer.

It was drafted before we had really considered that people exit our jails every day and head straight back into the same self-destructive behaviors and before I personally understood that 911 is and has always been a crisis hotline.

Crime correlates with crisis and the objective of the criminal legal system must be to permanently break cycles of crisis and not simply pause them.

CARE naturally does sit at the intersection of public health and public safety and at the nexus of the criminal legal and behavioral health systems.

And this department does have the potential to coordinate investments across silos and to provide a line of sight into how people are moving across the systems and whether or not our interventions are working.

And so I am in favor of all legislation that entrenches diversified response in Seattle Public Safety.

The journey that brings people to a state of crisis that merits a 911 call can be very complex, but sending the right response to the call is not.

It should be simple and straightforward.

That part of the system can be easily fixed.

And so I thank you for continuing to press to make things better and for remembering the promises that we've made to our community.

Thank you, Chief.

Appreciate both of you, central staff, for your work on this bill, but also, Chief Barton, in the way you're up here representing, there's a lot of stakeholders that we engaged with on this, on this bill to basically, you know, it's alignment.

And so thank you, and thank you all to the various stakeholders that we've been working with, particularly my team, my Chief of Staff, Steve Smith, and my Clerk, and my Policy Director, Mr. Lowe, Brent Lowe.

Colleagues, starting Vice Chair, any questions?

No.

No questions?

Okay.

Any questions from my other colleagues?

This is very good in terms of my three agenda items.

Colleagues now?

Okay.

All right.

I would just want to sum up that, you know, one of the changes that we made in here, it's about being compassionate, but it's also about being accountable.

And that accountability is across the board.

That in terms of our accountability, in terms of oversight of this system, which is now furthered because of the fact that purpose, dignity and action PDA and its lead program is now within the department and that we have this in the ordinance to recognize that and also from accountability, yours in terms of being the department head, but also ours in terms of a committee who oversees public safety.

So that's really important.

It's about alignment and realizing, as you noted, that it's broader than what one may seem on the face of it.

We can get caught up in the 911 piece very quickly, very easily.

But it's important to say, or other mechanisms, because there are so many mechanisms.

And this is where we come to.

This is the reason why our strategic framework plan was updated to talk about the seam between public safety and public health and housing and homelessness.

That scene is basically where, as an alternative response, is where care lies.

And so we have to acknowledge these pieces, and it's important to acknowledge in order to enable care to do its job.

I view my job as, in my role as council member, but also as chair of this committee is, what can we do to set up individuals and organizations up for success?

I don't think care was set up for success in many ways but this is an evolving piece and as I said two years ago and a year ago there's going to be changes and so these changes are done with the thought that we need to set care up for success and more importantly set those that are on our streets with clinical issues or behavioral health issues up for success to clear up the lines if you will.

And it's also to recognize leadership is about recognizing who your people are and the work that they do.

And as stated in state law, you know, we do have police first responders.

On the other side, we have fire first responders, which also has a medical piece, you know, if you have your heart attack.

But also if you're OD'd with Health 99. But then that alternative response piece is also a first responder, and I think it's important and if you want to motivate and to lead teams, and this is our job as upper management, if you will, sitting here on the dais, we need to ensure that the teams know that they too have a mission on our streets to be that first response, particularly in the area of the clinical pieces and the behavioral health pieces.

I already mentioned oversight in terms of diversion, but we need to get diversion right.

and to ensure that we're good, ensure that everybody's on the same playing field as well.

This is gonna show up in our next bill and it goes to the relationship between SPD and the other elements of the public safety system.

So that's really important.

But lastly, the most important thing, and Chief Barton you mentioned it, it's that being at the focal point of public safety and public health.

And who does public health?

Technically it's Seattle, King County, but King County.

and there's so many pieces there at King County to include the jails in terms of that warm handoff and all those pieces like what are the opportunities?

What can we do to get ahead of a problem instead of always reacting to the problem?

And I think CARE and this mission set within Alternative Response hopefully aided by these changes in this bill will allow them to be ahead and to take proactive action as opposed to always being reactive.

And I think at the end of the day that will improve on what we see on our streets because that is the approach that we take as a council and a committee and that's my approach.

We have to have a comprehensive approach where alternative response is also central in our response along with police and fire in those traditional areas, include OEM too by the way.

and so we need to work these pieces colleagues and that's what the intent of this bill is to do and I look forward to seeing CARE really taking on the mission set, being that focal point with public health and those pieces and then really the diversion and then for us to do our bit too and at the end of the day I think again it's about helping on those situations on our streets where we have a a crisis situation that doesn't really need the carceral, as I noted in my little remarks, but it needs something.

Because at the end of the day, what we can have, and I'm gonna reflect back to Chief Barden, we do have this idea that in our city that either we're doing the carceral system, the lock-em-up system, or we do nothing and call it compassion.

Doing nothing and calling compassion is not compassion.

So hopefully this allows the entire system, but particularly care, to do something for that compassion piece with the accountability added in.

All right, colleagues, with these two meetings that we've had to cover this bill, it's pretty straightforward, in terms of the pieces.

I move to recommend passage of Council Bill 121232. Is there a second?

Second.

it is moved in second to recommend passage of the bill.

Will the clerk please call the roll and committee recommendation to adopt Council Bill 121232. Council Member Juarez.

Aye.

Council Member Lin.

Yes.

Council Member Rivera.

Aye.

Council Member Saka.

Aye.

Chair Kettle.

Aye.

There are five in favor and none opposed.

The motion carries and the committee recommendation that council bill be adopted will be sent to June 30th City Council meeting.

Thank you for joining us today.

I appreciate it.

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

Will the clerk please read agenda item two into the record?

Seattle Police Department, 2026 Q1, sworn staffing, overtime, and performance metrics report.

Thank you.

We have Mr. Doss from central staff joining us at the table.

today.

I do note that we have SPD's Chief Operating Officer, Ms. Smith, here too.

I don't want to play favorites amongst the public safety elements of the executive, so I'm highlighting Ms. Smith is here along with our Director Holcomb.

All right.

Colleagues, we're going to run through this briefing, so please write down your questions, hold them until the end.

This will help facilitate our third agenda item as well.

Mr. Doss, over to you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Good morning, Mr. Chair and members of the committee.

Greg Doss, your council central staff here, to present to you the first quarter 2026 SPD sworn staffing overtime and performance metrics report.

This report is being presented a little late this year.

Fortunately, I have online with us Budget Chair, SPD Budget Director, Dan Eder, who will be able to provide some updates to the data that I will be showing you today.

I always say that while this presentation has my name on it, I have to share credit with the department who pumps out the data and does a lot of work to make sure I get things right.

So I really appreciate that partnership.

And with that, I'm going to jump right in.

Thank you.

So we're going to start out talking about staffing.

and I think that council members are well aware of the unprecedented success in hiring, which has really been happening since about the fall of 2024. In the first quarter of this year, SPD made 41 hires and has 19 separations.

You can see that in the upper right-hand corner of this slide.

That's pretty close to the original plan and doesn't change the annual picture very much.

You can see down at the bottom the revised annual projections and all of those projections basically net out to one additional unplanned FTE.

But what's not captured here are some pretty significant changes that happened at the end of last year.

In the fourth quarter of last year, SPD realized 11 fewer separations than it had planned.

and that created a net change of seven more officers than the hiring plan was designed to support.

So when you add that to the one FTE here on this slide, the net change, SPD is now running about eight FTE ahead of their staffing plan.

The plan, of course, is supported by staffing dollars in the department's budget.

And running ahead of plan means that they are spending salary faster than they have budget to support.

And we'll get into that in a few minutes.

The last thing I'll do is to talk about the chart here.

What you can see is that there are currently 985 fully trained officers and that number is reflective of an officer who has completed all of their classroom work field training and is out on the street and can be deployed alone.

and then you see a smaller number, the number of deployable, and that's 939. That number takes into account officers who are fully trained but they're out on long-term sick leave, parental leave, or military leave, other kinds of leaves that take them out of the deployment process.

And so, as you can see, if things keep going on their current trajectory, the department can expect to have about 1,029 fully trained officers at the end of this year, Q4 2026. And if trends hold on the officers who will be out on military leave, et cetera, long-term leaves, we can expect there'll be about 981 officers that are available to be deployed.

However, I'll caution that there are a lot of assumptions that go into those numbers, and some of those assumptions we will be talking about soon.

Okay, so I'm going to talk now a bit about what's going on behind the data points I just showed you.

As I first said, starting in the fourth quarter of last year, we can see that fewer fully trained officers are leaving SPD.

Because officers are staying longer, there is increased pressure on SPD's budget.

This is because it's more expensive to retain an existing higher-salaried officer than to hire a lower-salaried recruit.

so low separation rates can have an outsized impact on the department's ability to hire recruits and build its ranks.

SPD had planned to hire 174 net new officers over the 2025-2026 period.

That plan may have to change because of the changing separation picture.

the department may need to either slow hiring or come up with reductions in other areas of its budget to be able to support additional unplanned officer hires.

Right now, with the additional eight FTE over plan, SPD is is poised to overspend its staffing budget by about $1.7 million.

And so that's the amount that they would either have to find in another place in its budget or there would have to be a staffing slowdown to make sure that they can stay within budget.

Another staffing challenge SPD is facing has to do with its ability to train all of its new officers.

So as this slide says, SPD had 135 officers in field training in April.

Some of those officers in field training are in the classroom, and some of them are out on the street with specialized training officers who help them learn how to respond to 911 calls.

Just for some context on that number, 135 in April is comparable to an average of about 56. So clearly a lot more in field training as a result of the hiring successes that SPD has had.

One of the problems that SPD is having right now is that there are not enough training officers to assign to the students who have finished their classroom work.

in April there were about 21 officers who were waiting on trainers to be available so that they could begin their field work.

It's my understanding that SPD has been able to bring that number down a bit and I'm gonna pause at the end of this slide and let Dan tell you a little bit more about the progress that they're making there.

As I said, to give you context, that number of 135 is normally about 56. In a normal situation, SPD would expect to graduate about six to seven officers each month out of field training and into the SPD ranks.

Their current staffing plan is hopeful that they will be able to do 10 graduations per month out of field training and into the officer ranks.

and if that happens, then they can reach those numbers that I showed you at the first slide.

If it doesn't happen, then they won't reach those projections.

So why are there not enough trainers?

In short, existing labor agreements allow officers to volunteer to be trainers, and not enough of them are volunteering.

There are some things that the department can do to entice officers to become trainers, and as I say, Dan's gonna talk a little bit more about that.

and I'm going to pause at the end of the slide right now.

Give Dan a chance to provide an update on FTO work within the department and then, yes, Mr. Chair.

I was going to say I wanted to officially welcome Mr. Eder to the meeting today because I didn't do that earlier and also give myself a chance to welcome Council Member Rink to the diocese joining in.

As she and the others know, our colleagues not on the committee are always welcome to join in.

So, Mr. Eder, welcome, and I guess Mr. Doss is throwing you the pass.

I was going to do a World Cup thing, but I'm going to resist.

Mr. Eater.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I won't make any sports metaphors because I'm not good at them.

Yes, as Greg mentioned, we are trending in the right direction.

21 is about the high watermark of the stats this year of folks who have been ready for an FTO to be assigned, but we didn't have an FTO to assign.

We have been making steady progress and fully expect to resolve the issue this year.

The chief has been attending roll calls, has been working cooperatively with the police union, SPOG, Seattle Police Officers Guild, and we are all rowing in the same direction.

The number that you see on your screen, 21, is how many people were at the end of March waiting for an FTO to be assigned.

We are now down to 16. and hope to clear that deck by the end of the year.

Part of the way we are doing that is by adding to the number of folks who are certified to do field training officer work.

We have a field training officer school class to do that certification coming up in July.

There are 20 seats there and we expect them to be filled.

So we should add up to 20 new FTOs, which will help.

We are going to offer another 20 seat class in November.

We don't know yet that those will be filled but we expect based on past performance.

The last time there was an FTO class was in April of 2025 when the class was filled with 20 folks.

Happy to answer any other questions that you may have.

But the bottom line is we recognize that this has been a challenge.

It's a challenge because we've had a surge in new recruits and lateral folks who have joined SPD.

and we have been working to increase the number of field training officers.

That is finally showing some progress.

So we're down from 21 to 16 who are awaiting a field training officer to be assigned.

Thank you.

I'll tell you what, let's finish out the staffing section first and then have staffing questions because we do have three distinct elements of this briefing.

Yes, thank you, Mr. Chair.

So moving along, The Council has expressed its interest in the 30 by 30 initiative over the last few years, so I have provided here data on female hires through March of 2026. Through March, women continue to make up about 10% of SPD hires.

The good news is here Dan can tell you in a minute that things are trending a little better there.

I'm going to keep moving, and as we get to the end of the slides on staffing, we can talk more about that.

So, as you see here, SPD staffing, precinct staffing numbers are broken out.

in officers and sergeants by precinct, 911 and other patrol areas for your awareness.

That's really all I provide this table for.

What's important about this slide, the recent history of 911 response and patrol officer staffing, is that there's not a lot of change in the last three years between 2023 and 2026. We're still seeing about 490 officers in patrol, roughly hovering around that number because there's not yet been an influx of new officers from this hiring surge.

Some of that has to do with the fact that it takes about a year to train officers and they're still in the pipeline and others have to do with the FTO bottleneck that we just talked about.

And then I will stop and offer a chance for questions per the Chair's direction.

Okay, colleagues, Vice Chair, any questions related to staffing?

Chair, thank you.

Taking all this, internalizing all this in, very helpful information.

I have some questions and observations, but I think these three distinct separate but related constructs all fit together.

I will reserve my own questions for the end of the presentation.

Thank you.

Okay.

All right.

Colleagues, press on.

I'm not seeing anything, so we'll do that.

Okay.

Please press on.

Oh, I'm sorry.

Did you have a question?

I do, Chair, and I also see Council Member Rivera has her hand raised.

Council Member Rivera.

Thank you, Chair.

I have a couple comments related to the women hires.

My understanding is that the 30 by 30 position has not been hired because of the hiring freeze.

So I just want to daylight that this is a position that we put in to help female recruiting and something that we obviously still very much need.

So really, we should be hiring this person to help beef up our female officer hiring.

But I do want to say that my understanding from SPD is that Assistant Chief Underwood has and others at SPD reviewed female hires that have been denied their applications to make sure and give a double check and ensure that it wasn't anything, you know, to make sure they were actually folks that didn't meet the level of requirements.

And I appreciate the Chief and Assistant Chief Underwood and others at SPD who've taken that second look to make sure that we are We're doing the best we can to hire more female officers because that's important.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Council Member Rivera.

I am going to promote Deputy Chief Underwood to her position.

Council Member Rink.

Thank you, Chair, and thank you for allowing for my participation in committee today.

Thank you, Greg, as well as Director Eder for your presentation.

There's a lot of information to unpack here, and certainly this information speaks to some of the structural issues and how we're funding and providing services within the department.

And I wanna start by taking us first to slide five.

Greg, you've highlighted the bottleneck with field training officers and noted that the 21 student officers are currently awaiting instructor availability.

I think I heard a correction or an update from Director Eder that that's now 16 student officers.

Now, my understanding is this training is the final stage of training officers, correct?

Yeah, the final stage is where an officer goes out with an experienced officer, the FTO.

Yes, that's correct.

And without that training, what kind of activities can these student officers engage in?

I'm gonna turn it over to Director Eder to answer that one.

Yes, Councilmember, thank you for the question.

I want to assure you that we don't have folks who are just twiddling their thumbs.

These are folks who have been through the Academy.

They are sworn officers, but they're just not out in the street as fully independent police officers.

We're keeping them busy.

They're either supporting our investigations unit with cases, working with precinct staff and clerking and joining in on some foot patrols with sergeants but under strict supervision and they're not acting independently.

So they're all doing a variety of useful work but they are just not independent police officers quite yet.

Thank you for illustrating that.

And just to clarify, what kind of calls can student officers respond to?

They do not respond independently to any calls.

They typically are doing things like, speaking of calls, they take telephone calls in the telephone reporting unit and fill out police reports.

They can on some occasions go out into the field with sergeants, but they are not acting as independent officers.

It's just to get a sense of what it's like to be out on the street.

Thank you for clarifying that, Director Eder.

And you mentioned that we're bringing online additional field training officers to help with this bottleneck.

What are the costs associated with additional field training officers?

As more folks get trained up, do they receive a raise or a bonus for becoming an FTO?

Officers who are FTO certified do not receive any augmentation in their pay.

rather they get I believe it's an hour a day for report writing so that we can allow for them to keep track of how field training officer trainees are doing as their time as FTOs progress.

And I might add that last hour, I believe, and Director, you can correct me, is paid on overtime, and we'll see the impact of some of that overtime later in the presentation.

Yes, that's correct.

Thank you.

Moving us to this point, just with regards to the staffing plan, the staffing plan assumes that 10 student officers are graduating per month, but we're highlighting that we're only graduating about six to seven officers per month, so unlikely to reach that goal.

But even if we did reach that goal, are we solving the problem?

I would say no.

At 10 student officers per month, there will still be 154 officers in field training in December, unless SPD can bring to bear on this problem additional field training officers quickly over the summer.

Understood, thank you.

If I may, I would just say we've been tracking this closely as well.

We are confident that we will be able to average 10 per month in May.

We had 11 folks who graduated, It is true that we haven't yet achieved a steady state of 10 or more graduating from FTO, but we think with the additional FTOs who become certified in the July class, and more coming in November that we will be able to address this.

There is also some additional capacity from the 130 folks who are currently FTO certified.

That is to say they have been properly trained to take on trainees.

and we have been working with SPOG to try to encourage folks to help the entire department and help themselves by taking on trainees.

We think there's additional capacity there.

Thank you for that response, Director Eder.

And Chair, if I may, I just have one additional question.

Okay.

Thank you, Chair.

Today's presentation has clearly outlined that given the trend in police hiring, the Department is on track to create $1.7 million in unfunded salary costs by the end of this year.

So my question to Director Eder, does the Chief intend to slow hiring to ensure SPD is staying within their approved budget?

I would say that that is on the table.

We haven't yet exhausted all possibilities.

We're looking at contracts and non-sworn expenditures.

It is possible that if that is not enough savings that we will not shrink the police force but we will slow the growth in the police force for the remaining six months of the year so that we stay within our 2026 budget.

That's just in recognition of the dire strait that the general fund finds itself in this year and for the next biennium.

We just don't feel like there is extra money.

Thank you for that, Director Uduran.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Council Member Rink.

I will note for transparency's sake, I as Chair of Public Safety and the Chair of the Finance Budget Committee have both indicated SPD to continue the hiring to maintain the momentum for all the reasons why it's so important to do so.

I didn't know, but we also have Council Member Foster joining us.

I didn't know this until I saw her on my screen.

Council Member Foster, you're welcome.

do you have a question I do thank you so much chair I appreciate that and my question is brief I really appreciate this update as well as the numbers on the 30 by 30 and I just want to ask when it wants to sorry about my dog there when it comes to separations are we seeing any notable differences in separation by gender

Councilmember, we do track that number.

That's not something I have with me right now.

Unless Director Eder has it, I'll have to get that to you later.

I apologize.

I could not hear the question.

It was about whether or not SPD tracks separation by gender.

Could you hear my question?

I heard it when you relayed it.

Yes.

I do not have the answer.

I believe we could answer it, but I can't answer it in real time, so I will have to follow up with you, Council Member.

Okay.

All right, thank you, Council Member Foster.

I will note, I'm more than happy to do a public service announcement for field training, Director Eater, because it's so important, as my colleague, my Air Force colleague knows, training is paramount for the next generation.

and it's something that's looked upon favorably and at least within the military circles and I think this is something that should be a great opportunity for sworn officers for the next generation.

And I will add too, we have to maintain the 30 by 30 and at least the 80 by 20 as the national trends are, at least that.

And I appreciate Deputy Chief Underwood's work in this area.

So Mr. Doss, can you move to the next section please?

I can, Mr. Chair, if it's all right.

I wanted to give Director Eder an opportunity to provide an update on the 30 by 30 numbers.

Since the time of the report being put together, that has moved a little bit and don't want to bury that.

Yes, happy to do that.

I'm sorry, I'm looking at too many screens.

Am I off mute?

You are.

Go ahead, Mr. Eder.

Terrific.

So year to date, we have made progress in hiring female officers.

We are not yet at 30%, but we are increasing over past years.

We are at 17% of the new hires.

That's a total of 16 out of 95 officers who have been hired in 2026 are female.

The remaining 79 or 83% are ma'am.

Was there another question, Greg, that you wanted me to cover?

With the Chair's permission, I just wanted to let you give that update.

Terrific.

I guess I would just seize the moment and let you know how important this goal is for the department.

We are committed to continued improvement in this regard and recognize how important it is for the city, the police department, and for the people that we all serve, that we more aptly reflect the the gender split on the police force so that it looks more like the people who we are protecting in the community.

Thank you, Mr. Eder.

Okay, Mr. Das.

All right, I'll move along to overtime monitoring.

So I'm going to start out here on slide 10 and point out that what will jump out right away on this table that you're looking at is that the budget for overtime between 2022 and 2026 has grown significantly.

It's important to point out here that that budget is growing significantly, not because SPD is necessarily using more overtime hours in the first quarter of each year.

It's using about the same amount of overtime hours in the first quarter each year.

In fact, it was slightly down in 2026. And what you're seeing here, the inflation in the numbers is strictly related to the increases that came from the SPOG contract.

So as the wages grow, the overtime wages grow.

And as you can see on the very first bullet there, there's a breakdown for how the SPOG contract is is affecting overtime spending overall.

Last year, good news, SPD came in pretty close to its overtime budget.

And more good news, it is on track so far this year to stay within its overtime budget.

If you look at that last line on the table, 2026, you'll see that there's a little star by that 34%.

There was a retro payment made for this BOG contract in the first quarter of this year, and that throws out of balance the comparison with prior years.

If you take into account that SPOG payment and you take it out of the equation, then SPD is running about 24% of its budget in the first quarter.

It's a little higher than probably it could be, given the fact that this is seasonal work, but it doesn't show any signs at this point of going over the budget.

So diving a little deeper into what's going on with overtime, and I think that's important because understanding the trends that are supporting the expenditures helps understand whether or not their SPD will stay within their budget this year.

The first thing I'd point out is that overtime in the patrol precincts is down pretty significantly.

As you can see, it's down by about 29% in the first quarter.

and this was due to patrol precincts paring back on their use of officer overtime for special emphasis.

Counter narcotic or retail theft emphasis got pared back quite a bit in the first quarter and so that resulted in some significant savings of the overtime budget.

You can see that events are quite a bit higher and that's an easy one.

That's the Super Bowl parade.

Fortunately, most of that In fact, all of that, I should say, is reimbursed by the NFL.

So that's good news.

And then the last important force driving overtime spending has to do with training.

There was quite a bit of training in the first quarter having to do with FIFA and that training.

Again, good news is all reimbursable.

However, I should also point out that there were there were quite a bit of hours that were used in the training of student officers.

And so there's about 7,250 hours or about $900,000 that were used for field training for new officers.

Actually, I've got to stop.

That's the overall.

There were about 3,000 hours that were used for field training of new officers.

So that extra hour of overtime that we talked about earlier, that is impacting the overtime budget in a, I don't want to say significant way, but it is one of the trends that is driving the spending right now.

So now I'm going to- Oh, did you want me to stop, Mr. Chair, at the end of this section?

Yes.

Colleagues, any questions?

I know my vice chair is waiting until the end.

Anybody else waiting until the end or would you like to ask questions regarding overtime right now?

Okay.

Proceed, please.

All right.

So response times.

and this is a table that I show every year as the table shows response time to priority one calls really hasn't changed much.

It's still hovering at about 10 minutes on average and about seven minutes at the median.

What is significant about that is that there has been a 12 percent volume increase And so officers have found a way to maintain response times, even though there have been more calls.

Some of that may be due to alternative response, helping officers and freeing up their time so that they can move on to other calls.

That's been something that the department has highlighted in the past, last year during this presentation.

There is also at the bottom a table that shows the number of calls that SPD has not responded to, very small, 36 calls out of 39,000, and that's around up to 1% or 1 tenth of a percent.

It's actually way, way smaller than that.

I provide this table showing a history of 911 response times by precinct so that council members can see on average within their districts how the median and average response times look.

I think the thing to point out about this is that it really hasn't varied a lot.

There's no distinct pattern.

The times may be up slightly or down slightly, year to year, reflecting patterns in deployment or crime in the particular area, but not a significant difference anywhere.

And I think I would say that that is likely because, as we saw earlier in the patrol slide, there have been about 490 folks consistently in patrol since 2023. So I think once we start seeing more folks in patrol, there may be a more steady trend in response times.

Okay, and so I'm not gonna spend too much time recapping the issues that we've discussed, would just point that If SPD is going to reach 174 net new hires by the end of this year, they're going to have to do so by finding other ways to save within their budget.

And as I said before, SPD is not showing any signs of an overtime problem this year.

but a big part of that is because there was a 30% reduction in emphasis spending in the first quarter.

As the department ramps up its spending on emphasis, say in the 12th and Jackson area or downtown, that may require more overtime and might put more pressure on the budget.

And that's it.

Stop and ask if there's any questions.

Okay, thank you, Mr. Doss.

All right, Vice Chair.

Thank you, Chair, and thank you, Mr. Doss, Mr. Eder for the presentation today.

A lot of encouraging signs and data that kind of highlight the momentum here and highlight the collective actions that many of us on this council have taken over the last couple of years to specifically boost officer hiring and recruitment and morale, doing so through various precinct visits, showing up and supporting all of our first responders, including SPD, various pieces of legislation to streamline and boost the officer hiring process, et cetera, et cetera.

So we're seeing record hiring.

including some of the coveted lateral hires, a hiring surge if you will.

We're seeing great retention.

Also seeing the bottleneck there with respect to field training officers.

First question pertains to that sort of bottleneck.

So it sounds like there is now 16 folks that are awaiting field training officer assignment of some sort and they're able to perform other duties that were described.

How long is the average latency period whereby an officer is just waiting for a field training officer to be assigned?

How long is the average wait or latency period for that?

Prior to this year, there hadn't been a wait.

Prior to this year, there were enough field training officers that when a student officer had completed his or her classroom training, their classroom training, then they would immediately be assigned a field training officer to go out in the field for training.

recent history, but I guess how long, and this is a newer problem or newer phenomenon, what is the average that we're seeing since we started observing this challenge?

Are we talking a matter of weeks?

Are we talking months?

Multiple months?

I think I'd let Mr. Eder answer that, but one thing I can say is that as the backlog grows, again, even if the SPD hires is able to graduate 10 per month.

There will still be 153 backlog at the end of this year, unless there are more field training officers brought into the fold.

But it will certainly grow.

And let Mr. Eder give you more detail there.

I don't have a ready answer, Council Member Saka.

I will note the question and follow up in writing with you.

Thank you, would greatly appreciate that.

And another question, I think this one would be best directed to Mr. Eder.

So you mentioned that the 30 by 30 initiative, so obviously that's a very important strategic priority of this council.

Proud to be the prime sponsor of that legislation alongside my colleagues, Council Members Rivera and I believe former Council Member Moore to fund that position and create that position and authorizing legislation to accompany it.

But so 17% of Current hires by this year, is my understanding, are women.

How does that compare year over year over the last two, three years?

Again, I apologize.

I don't have a ready answer for past years.

I know what this year's stats are.

I know also that that is more as a percent of the total hires.

That is a higher proportion of female hires this year than in years past, but I don't have the answer of about how this compares to previous years in percent.

My understanding is that the total number of female officers who were hired so far this year as of mid-June exceeds the total number that were hired in all of 2025.

Yeah, thank you.

Oh, go ahead.

Yeah, so And thank you, Director Eder.

That last piece was important.

If you look at the beginning of the hiring surge, which started about fall of 2024, and you look all the way through the end of last year, December of 2025, it had been 10 percent.

10 percent of the hires were female.

From what period?

from the beginning of the hiring surge, which would have roughly been fall of 2024, through the end of last year, the hiring had been, actually all the way through March of this year, hiring had been about 10%.

It has jumped up recently, and now if you look at just this year by itself, it's up to 17% of hires.

Okay.

encouraging and it is important for all of us to align on a shared set of facts and the raw data from this year alone is limited without additional context.

When we talk about the last couple years and to have a some comparators, if you will, because that's the only way we're truly going to be able to track and monitor progress and hold ourselves accountable for results.

So 10% roughly, and the raw numbers are helpful, I think in this case, the more compelling figure or set of stats is the percentage.

So roughly 10% since 24 on average and now, especially with the surge, this year we're seeing 17% for this year, is that correct?

That's correct.

All right, thank you.

All right, a lot of important information here.

and so I really do appreciate this presentation.

Can you help call together Mr. Doss, Mr. Eder, if applicable, and make crystal clear, explicit and express as you possibly can, what are the potential policy decisions that are looming here?

What are the potential policy decisions?

And when would those need to be made?

Well, I think I'll go ahead and take a first shot at that.

To some extent, the mayor and the council are already making those policy decisions.

The policy decisions to increase emphasis, anti-narcotic emphasis, and human traffic emphasis in crime hotspots around Seattle will have an impact on the overtime budget.

That is absolutely a policy decision.

In terms of staffing, the continued hiring at the pace that's happening now will also have budgetary impacts.

There are internal protocols and policy decisions that SPD is making right now to try to figure out how to increase their FTO participants, their field training officers.

That will obviously have an impact on how many officers they can get out onto the street.

I would say that right off the top of my head, those are the three big policy pieces.

Ask if Director Eder has any more that he would mention.

No, I think that does a good job of covering things.

Thank you, Greg.

Thank you.

I'll just close by saying we made a lot of, a tremendous amount of progress over the last couple years, and we're seeing it again, and I'll emphasize that we're seeing it again in the raw data here in terms of officer recruitment, hiring retention, and that's the direct result out of, from community-led efforts to restore our officer staffing to more appropriate levels that we need for a city of our size and scope and scale.

We need minimum 1,400 officers and we're still far short.

We're encouraging data, but we're still far short of that.

Now is not the time to defund the police.

Now is not the time to withdraw our sustained investments to boost our officer staffing levels and therefore boost our response times.

It's time to lean in, not lean back.

It's time to tap in, not tap out.

Public safety is our highest responsibility.

So all the public safety departments Police, fire, care, those are sacrosanct.

And we shouldn't seek to balance the budget on the backs of our firefighters, social worker responders, and yes, police.

Communities are asking for, in my own council district, communities are asking for more emphasis patrols and directive patrols in areas like Elkai and Harbor Avenue.

And I'm grateful for the leadership of Chief Barnes, Southwest Precinct Commander Bayer for launching a pilot program recently to help do exactly that.

But it's a pilot, it's limited term, one time.

We need sustained, focused, year-long efforts.

The only way to do that is to continue that pace of hiring.

It's not just Elki.

Other communities across the city are asking for more directed patrols, emphasis patrols.

Magnuson, Park, Councilmember Rivera's district.

We hear some members of the public here today from the North End community in Aurora.

They want and this morning we heard they want officers that are there to be more vigilant.

Well, it can't be more vigilant if you don't have adequate staffing and you can't be more vigilant if you don't have them properly trained with field training officers.

So again, now's not the time.

We all unanimously passed a resolution joint mayoral council resolution last year that did a number of cool things.

It reaffirmed our city's commitment to offer a balanced, diversified approach to public safety and response.

It thanked all of our first responders.

It directed the city attorney's office to file a motion to lift the federal consent decree, which was ultimately lifted.

And yes, it officially repealed the defund the police movement.

Now is not the time to continue defunding the police.

I'm here to tap in, not tap out.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Vice Chair, for tapping out on your comment because it gives time for Council Member Rivera to jump in just before she has to roll off this meeting, so thank you.

Council Member Rivera.

Thank you, Chair, and plus one Council Member Saka.

I was going to make all the points you just made, so I'll just add one other piece to all the things you said that I 300% agree with.

and that my constituents agree with, and that other people I've spoken to from across the city agree with, is that Chief Barnes' community policing strategy can only happen if we have a fully staffed police force where he can actually place officers in community and community can know their officers back to that strategy of it works best when constituents have a relationship with their police officers and they know who they are so that can only be accomplished if we have a fully staffed police force and what I would like to ask and I can answer later Mr. Eater and Greg is how are our staffing numbers compared to other cities of similar size to Seattle because I think I recall a story from a coma last year that said our numbers are lower than cities of our similar size still, even with the inroads we've made.

So I appreciate the inroads.

I appreciate Chief Barnes's focus on community policing.

And I am with Council Member Saka.

We've got to keep pressing and moving forward.

I'm pleased to see we've done better and we need to continue to do better.

And particularly also, we need to do the emphasis patrols because we're seeing, as we're seeing on Aurora, which is not my district, but one I also care about with my sister here, Council Member Juarez, we need to have police staffing to address those issues.

And toward that end, I want to thank SPD for their more recent operation, which led to the, and Council Member Juarez, maybe you were gonna talk about this.

I'm sorry, I don't wanna speak out of turn, but just to say that I appreciate 13 I believe it was 13 women and children were removed from Aurora and provided with services last last week I believe or the week before and I appreciate that and these things can't happen if we're not adequately staffed on the policing side and then toward the Aurora piece I want to thank you Councilmember Harris so very much for bringing this emergency legislation you know I don't think that we needed emergency legislation to do this but unfortunately that's what it's going to take to make it happen so I really appreciate your leadership Council Member Juarez in making this happen it is very needed I'm so sorry I won't be here for the vote today but I will would have voted yes and I will be voting yes at full Council and with that I would say thank you Chair.

Thank you Council Member Rivera.

Council Member Lin.

Thank you, Chair.

Just a question in terms of, as we look at, obviously we had a low number of officers for many years and it's good to see the hiring is going up and that we're getting to a more sustainable level.

We also are facing, obviously, a difficult budget this year, and so I'm just wondering, and maybe this would be for a different sort of discussion or presentation, but in terms of how we deploy officers and what's sort of the best strategy, whether it's hotspot policing or community-based policing.

Where do we get the most bang for our buck to speak in terms of how officers are deployed, given that we still have relatively low numbers, it appears, and given our difficult budget scenario?

I'm just wondering if you have any thoughts

gonna pass to directorator who's probably, or if it's more appropriate to bring up COO Sarah Smith to talk about deployment.

You know, 911 is a little easier.

I can probably take that one right off the top.

That's based on demand.

There are obviously historical call rates that SPD can look to when they're figuring out how to deploy the 911 force.

I think that the The bigger question you're asking, Councilmember, an absolutely appropriate one, is how do you work within the city boundaries on the crime hotspots?

And I think it's worth pointing out that in the past, SPD has had, prior to 2020, when the staffing numbers were higher, they did have dedicated foot beats and bike beats of officers that were on regular time that would go to crime hotspots and would work those spots on regular time.

Special operation teams, whether they be community policing teams, anti-crime teams, foot beats, bike beats, all sort of went away after the 2020 pandemic.

And the only one that's really left is a bike beat in West Precinct.

And so I think that as the SPD numbers of officers increases, there'll be more availability to put regular time officers into some of those hotspots from a deployment standpoint, but not at this time.

And I'll ask Director Eater if he wants to add anything.

I think it would be appropriate at another time for the chief to come and answer for how the department is prioritizing use of limited resources to best address the public safety needs of the community.

All I would add at this time is That one of the most significant ways that we use overtime at this point given the diminished number of officers who we have on board is Augmentation we we provide opportunities for staff to voluntarily use Work on overtime so that we can meet minimum staffing and address keep up the response times that Greg's presentation touched upon.

Even though we've had increase in number of 911 calls, we've been able to maintain fairly even response times across all kinds of priority calls.

And that is in large part because we've been prioritizing using other staff who are on board on overtime to fill out the missing ranks, if you will, of police officers that we'd like to have moving forward on a regular time basis.

Thank you so much.

And just sort of a final comment, I get the sense of, you know, when we were in super low numbers, we were in kind of triage mode where we were just, you know, barely able to respond to the highest priority.

And hopefully as we kind of get out of triage modes, where we can sort of be, I think we are getting to that place where we are seeing more return to more community-based policing.

a return to more proactive and just sort of looking forward to that discussion of how to best use our resources, how to best use the combined resources of SPD and care and just any other things that we can do with other departments to work on public safety more holistically.

Thank you, Chair.

Before Councilmember Rink asks a question, I just want to note it is 11.05, so answer your question.

I will keep it short, Mr. Chair, thank you.

I appreciate it.

And I will build my couple of questions just based on some of the remarks Councilmember Lynn just shared, just to connect a couple of dots from across this presentation.

We've talked a bit about how patrol has hovered around 490 officers since 2023, and understanding that unless that number increases, I assume that the department will have to use overtime to increase coverage on emphasis areas, correct, Mr. Doss?

Yes.

So part of, to then draw the dotted line to some of the questions about FTOs, it seems like the bottleneck with FTOs is not just slowing officer graduations, but also costing the department money that it may not have, particularly in overtime, correct?

It is true that without additional officers coming out to work emphasis on regular time, without additional patrol officers, the way that SPD has to staff those hot spots is through use of overtime.

Director Eder did mention that there was some effort underway to take FTO officers who have not yet received an assignment and pair them with other officers to put out into emphasis areas.

That's not something I'm familiar with.

it's sort of new territory as it is with this whole hiring situation.

I don't know how that alleviates the need for overtime.

Intuitively, it seems like it would, but I think at a high level, the answer to your question is yes, until we see SPDC's more officers, you can expect overtime is going to be the main way it uses emphasis or completes emphasis.

Thank you for that, Mr. Doss.

And to put a finer point on something you noted at the end of your remarks, particularly as it relates to Mayor Wilson's plans, announced plans for 12th and Jackson as well as Aurora, maybe this is a question for you or for Director Eder or to follow up with the department, but will this be done with existing patrols or will overtime be used for these emphasis patrols?

I'm gonna kick that to the department.

I think they're more familiar with their current plan.

Emphasis patrols are typically done on overtime.

And I think we would, for many applications, that would continue to be the case.

I know there are some exceptions to that.

For instance, Little Saigon is typically done on straight time, but I do believe that the majority of our emphasis patrol work is done on overtime.

Thank you, Director Eder, and I appreciate the conversation, colleagues.

I'll just close with a comment, perhaps to highlight the obvious that a growth in 29 million in overtime spending, 112% increase in four years is a significant increase, and I appreciate in the presentation that has been laid out clearly while also noting the primary drivers of that increase being from the interim agreement in 2023, the CBA approved last year, as well as the MOU.

And so I just wanted to close in acknowledging that fact and I thank you colleagues for the discussion.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Council Member Rink.

Thank you, Mr. Doss and also Mr. Eater, Director Eater, thank you for being here.

I'm just gonna close really quickly by saying Vice Chair, It was just you and I.

I'm thinking back, February of 2024, our first committee meeting, I said to the men and women of the Seattle Police Department, you know, give us one year if you're looking to retire or transfer to another jurisdiction.

I knew that within one year, within that term of the council, that we could make a difference and then we're seeing it.

to the point that with field training officers, you know, that needs to be fixed.

It should have been anticipated because if you have confidence that you're going to be making these changes and making these differences and partly because of the help of all the council in terms of going to roll call and showing that leadership because it's not just about, you know, a contract changes and so forth.

It's more than that.

30 by 30, we still need to do more.

Again, that's the leadership piece.

I think we can.

I do note the DOJ saying across the country it's 80-20.

At minimum, we need to be doing that.

Leave and overtime, we need to be smart about these pieces.

You know, there's been news reports about different things related to this.

We just need to make sure T's are crossed and I's are dotted and then the, you know, the common sense test is put into place.

Response times, 36. Technically, that might be true, but I'm still a block watch, Captain.

I know people who are there, and if they're waiting for three hours or two hours and nobody's come for them, there's been no response.

So I recognize the number, but we also need to be mindful that people who are waiting for two hours and give up, they say there's no response.

Now technically, according to the data, because it came at, you know, one hour and 52 minutes later.

But we need to be careful in terms of how we communicate that, because all we're going to do is agitate.

I'm going to have, and rightfully so, have public commenters coming here saying, you know, I waited two hours or, you know, and there was no callback saying, hey, it's going to take another hour or something like that.

So we need to be mindful of that.

By the way, I mentioned I'm still a block watch cam.

Community-based policing, Councilmember Lynn, actually all of us, as Chair of Public Safety for the Queen and Community Council.

I'm Lieutenant Larrabee and Officer Larrabee and Officer McLaughlin.

There were the two from the community police teams that I worked with.

Such an important thing to have because it's the people that we have, you know, in the department.

That's number one.

It kind of goes to what I was saying with Chief Barden earlier.

You know, it's the people.

It's showing that investment with the FTOs.

But I want to end with one piece.

Stability.

Stability.

All these issues, we need stability.

I'm on my third chief at the halfway point of my third year.

I think Chief Barnes has been doing a fantastic job and we need that stability of the senior himself but also the senior team to work these pieces that we have and so that we can follow up on it.

And again, the closed vice chair, it's interesting.

It's you and I, we're here in February 24 and here we are today.

So thank you.

And with that, thank you, Mr. Eater.

And thank you, Mr. Doss.

We are gonna move to a third item of business with the clerk.

Please read agenda item number three into the record.

Council Bill 121233, an ordinance relating to closing public streets to maintain or enhance public safety, authorizing the director of transportation to close streets, amending section 11.16.125 of the Seattle Municipal Code, declaring an emergency and establishing an immediate effective date, all by a three-fourths vote of the City Council.

Thank you, Clerk, and thank you, Mr. Chao, for joining us at the table.

Before speaking, I wanted to give the privilege to my colleague, Councilmember Juarez, from D5, from the area that affected.

Councilmember Juarez.

Are you going to move it?

Don't you have to move it first?

I was going to do the introduction first.

No, just go ahead and move it, then I'll- Okay, I'll do that.

I move to recommend passage of Council Bill 121233. Is there a second?

Second.

Okay, it's moved and seconded.

And Council Member Juarez, as sponsor of the bill, you are- Welcome to speak on your bill.

Thank you.

Well, thank you.

Thank you.

It's 11-13 and I'm really happy to speak.

So let me just, I have a few notes here and I would just, some of it will just go, and thank you Chair, you shared some of this in your opening comments and thank you for that.

This ordinance allows SDOT and SPD to close public streets based on the recommendation of the Chief of Police, quote, in order to prevent criminal activity.

The original legislation was drafted and transmitted by former Mayor Harrell and at this time I want to thank Council Member Lynn who brought this to our attention.

Council Member Lynn, thank you so much.

This is a great example of shared leadership and I really appreciate that you stepped forward and helped me out here and then we move forward on that.

We've been working with City Attorney Evans, Council President Hollingsworth and of course co-sponsor Council Member Saka and of course our Chair Council Member Kettle.

I'm going to quickly go over for the record the community support and events timeline.

Our neighbors saw an 8% increase of gun violence in the month of May.

Recent shootings have taken place further into neighborhoods as crime-related vehicles park and wait in neighborhoods rather than Aurora itself.

Neighbors held public safety meetings and walked with city officials and called for the streets to be shut down.

Neighbors blocked the streets with planters between May 24th and 28th, and there was a reduction in activity and shootings on those streets during that shutdown.

However, on May 28th and 29th, the mayor's office removed the planters and stalled slowdowns.

I don't know why they're called slowdowns, but OK.

In any event, the shootings returned.

May 30th to June 1st.

So on June 11th, the mayor's office announced to close roads from 95th to 102nd Street and increase police presence.

I should add that that was done because and before we had a press conference and at our June 11th press conference with community, Council President Hollingsworth, City Attorney Evans, King County Prosecutor Lisa Mannion, Council Member Strauss, Council Member Rivera, and of course Council Member Kettle, along with the Mayor and the Interim Director of SDOT, Angela Brady, attended.

And so this is what happens when community gets together.

We focused on pulling together and working with Chief Barnes, and I should have added that in there.

Chief Barnes was there and has been instrumental through this whole process.

and I really appreciate working hand in hand with him.

This legislation is met as a temporary tool when public safety issues areas arise, I'm sorry, in concentrated areas, providing the city the ability to act quickly instead of doing crime, which allows time to assess long-term needs and implement solutions for these areas.

Criminal activity is gun violence, shootings, sex trafficking, prostitution, solicitation, drug activity, and all the above.

and I'm sure we'll see some of the other issues as well, but criminal activity per the code is broad and we will rely on the chief of police to make those recommendations based on his experience and expertise.

I want to make clear that SDOT and the mayor's office has always had the authority under our city charter article four and specifically under article five to direct such actions.

within the charter, we are all, including the mayor and city council, to protect and enhance the health and safety and general welfare of the people.

SDOT, via the mayor's office, can close streets for pedestrian bike safety, speed limit, traffic calming, safe streets, healthy streets, speed bumps, round bumps, roundabouts, I'm sorry, parking restrictions, street vacation, street racing, and of course our national night out events, and also for bike lanes.

And we do street closures for pedestrians, bikes, heavy foot traffic, and when we have sporting events.

SDOT has closed the streets at Golden Gardens Drive, for safe streets, Elkai for healthy streets, Pike Place through a pilot project to 2026 for the Sip and Savior, and for shoppers and tourists that are in Pike Place Market, and of course Lake Washington Boulevard for bicycle weekends.

So this can be done.

I think it's just unfortunate, and I'm just going to be straightforward about this, that it had to get to this point to have legislation to make an emergency to do what the mayor's office could always have done.

I want to thank working with City Attorney Evans which we met since January and brought in King County Prosecutor Lisa Mannion and requesting and will request in the supplemental budget a shared FTE position funded by the city in the King County Prosecutor's Office to focus directly on sex trafficking, prostitution, crime and drug activity on Aurora.

If we can have the authority to shut down a street for bullets flying and endangering the lives of those there Well, let me rephrase this, because I think we stated this wrong.

We have the authority, and if we can have the authority for all the things that I just rattled off, I think that we do have the authority to shut down a street for bullets flying and endangering the very lives of those that live there, actually live there, go to school there, walk their children to school there, get on the bus there, use the transportation.

when we were working on Aurora in the last decade, you can go down Aurora from 85th to 130th, you can go two blocks in on each side on the east and west, and there's no, I don't think it's hyperbole to say that the crime has gotten much worse, much more violent, and much more predatory.

Also, I also want to thank all those folks and community members that stepped forward, that marched, that have attended public comment.

I want you to know that, yes, fear is contagious, but what is more contagious is courage.

And I know a lot of you reached out to our office, and I want to thank all my colleagues for working with us.

And for those of you that think that this is something about, you know, more police, or we're over-policing, or we're militarizing, we're not.

We're saying that we took an oath when we were elected for the public safety of this great city and we're saying that there are hot spots in this city including little Saigon What we see every weekend on Beacon Hill Capitol Hill 12th and Jackson, 3rd, Downtown, and Aurora, where we have cameras, where these communities have asked for cameras, and I'm gonna say it, I'm gonna say it again, those are our children being shot.

The children and women that I see being trafficked and the issues that we focused on with missing murdered indigenous women and girls are brown and black girls between the ages of 12 and 16. They look like me.

So again, I've said this before and I'll say it again, you can always judge a society about how they value their women and their children.

I am not gonna politicize this issue.

This is about having officers at the ready, working with CARE, which came out of post 2020, and I'm glad Chief Barton was here, and our work with her, and that we have a community response.

So this isn't just about, let's hire more police and go arrest more people, that there's a prison to pipeline thing.

That's not what this is.

This is just pure common sense.

regardless of how we got here, we're here.

And so today I'm asking my colleagues and thanking Councilmember Kettle as Chair of Public Safety to bring this legislation, get it passed, and then really work with the SDOT and the Mayor's Office to look at some permanent solutions that I've seen in other neighborhoods to protect the neighborhoods and the communities in the schools along Aurora.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Councilmember Juarez.

Final and comprehensive solutions, so important, so thank you.

Vice Chair.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Would actually, might I suggest we get a quick overview from central staff at the table before we- Yes, thank you.

I'll have some comments after that.

Thank you.

Oh, I didn't know I was supposed to do that.

Go ahead, Kelvin.

Thank you, Council Members.

Kelvin Child at Central Staff.

Thank you for the The sponsor described the legislation in some detail.

I'll just highlight a couple items to just fill out some of the details.

The legislation does make changes to the Seattle Municipal Code, which previously already allows the SDOT to close alleyways at the recommendation of the Seattle Police Department.

This would extend that same authority to the streets.

You could argue that that authority was eligible already under other provisions of the law.

Oh, I will argue that.

It was.

I looked at the law, and I looked at the charter, so let's go.

The legislation is proposed as emergency legislation, so it will require a three-quarters vote of the City Council, and it will become effective immediately upon the signature of the mayor.

and there is a segment that declares the findings that makes that an emergency as well.

Unless there's specific questions, I'm happy to support the Council in its discussion.

Thank you, Calvin.

Okay, any questions?

No, I just want to thank Calvin.

I'm sorry I jumped the gun on that, pardon the pun.

Thank you, Calvin.

And Council Member Lynn, too.

Vice-Chair, before I go to Council Member Lynn.

Vice-Chair.

Thank you, Chair.

First off, I want to start by thanking the bill's sponsor, Councilmember Juarez.

Very well said, by the way.

I almost wanted you to scream it louder so they can hear you all the way in the back, but no.

Very well said.

Really appreciate your comments there, but more importantly, appreciate your leadership.

I couldn't agree more.

This is an example of shared leadership, which is why I also want to thank Council Member Lynn for all his work and efforts to kind of daylight this opportunity for us.

Council Member or Chair Kettle for holding it in committee and expediting this in his committee here today.

I will obviously be voting in favor of this council bill, which would allow the director of SDOT to close streets for the purposes of preventing criminal activity.

This vital piece of legislation aligns perfectly with our ongoing efforts to improve safety across our transportation ecosystem.

and as chair of the council committee that oversees transportation policy in our city, I strongly support this piece of legislation.

And it also represents a willingness on behalf of the city to take innovative measures to be responsive to community fears and concerns.

And also say that I couldn't agree more, again, with your comments a moment ago, Council Member Juarez, because I think authority.

It didn't need to be expressed.

It was already strongly implied under existing authorities at the charter and ordinance level.

But this makes crystal clear.

We had pre-existing authority to close streets to protect our most vulnerable users of the road.

Elkai Healthy Streets is one example.

And I strongly support efforts to do exactly that.

Closed streets to protect our most vulnerable users, pedestrians, cyclists, from cars on a thoughtful, limited basis.

Not wide-scale mass deployment, but very thoughtful about it.

And if I support efforts to close streets, to protect cyclists and pedestrians, I'm damn sure gonna support those same efforts to protect communities from bullets.

The community told us in Aurora, the community told us over a month ago what they needed.

That's why they went and built and put their own obstructions to block off the road, certain roads in Aurora, along Aurora.

They told us what they wanted.

We had that authority at the time.

So I applaud, I applaud the mayor's decision to, you know, recent decision to actually close some of those streets.

And I appreciate every last one of you colleagues for your, especially you, Councilmember Juarez, for your strong, strong leadership on that issue.

But again, this is important.

We had that authority, if not expressed strongly implied, Now we're taking away all excuses.

We're leaving for the avoidance of doubt.

There will be no doubt now.

And let us use this.

Let us wield this new tool responsibly and thoughtfully and proactively.

And because I strongly support it, I would love to requests to be listed as a co-sponsor of this legislation, if it is OK with you.

Of course it is.

I think I already said it.

OK, OK.

Thank you.

And no further questions or comments, Chair.

Thank you, Vice Chair.

Councilmember Lin.

Thank you, Chair Kettle.

Thank you, Councilmember Juarez, for bringing this forward, and Chair Kettle for getting this on the agenda quickly.

Just happy to support.

And as part of this ongoing dialogue we're having around public safety, just seems like very common sense legislation to support.

sort of a holistic, all the tools that we have, let's use every sort of tool that we can, including things like crime prevention through environmental design.

Just, you know, obviously there will always be a role for SPD to play, for enforcement to play, but if there are other things that we can do to make their job a little bit easier to help create community, to make the community safer, and let's use those tools and you know as we think about Aurora and why this exists in that location there's obviously a number of reasons but part of the one of those reasons is because there's this highway there because of some of the land use decisions that we have allowed to sort of continue in that area so just my commitment to you all to if there are Other things we can do on Aurora to make it a more safe, welcoming environment, to activate it in a more positive way, happy to work with you on those.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Lin.

To close before giving Councilmember Juarez the last word, I will add a first thank you, Councilmember Juarez.

Obviously, we've been partnering on this and a host of other issues along with our other colleagues here on Council.

I just wanted to note, I mean, we just had our first agenda item was, you know, speaking Chief Barden, being proactive in the area of public health and the nexus with public safety.

The first bill that came out of this committee and this council was with Chief Scoggins related to dangerous building abatement, which he used to great effect, primarily with D2.

That was co-sponsored with Council Member Morales.

And for SPD, overnight establishments, but to great effect last summer, along with chronic nuisance property.

So we've done this, and so we have this now with Chief Barnes and Director Brady at SDOT.

These are the things that we're looking to do to make more efficient, to get effects on the ground.

And so thank you for doing that.

And I like the references to the charter because it's so important because we've all taken an oath to uphold the charter and the ordinances of the City of Seattle.

I just wanna foot stomp that.

So thank you.

Council Member Juarez before moving to the vote.

Thank you for the last comments, and yes, I have the charter right here, so you know me.

I've just got to make sure I know what I'm talking about.

Hey, Council Member Lynn, I want to thank you again.

I know this sounds kind of, I know everybody thanks everybody in God when they get up here, but I really do appreciate working with you, also on the data centers.

That was fun.

And also on this police issue on Aurora.

and you brought up a really interesting point and we can talk more about it offline and as we move on and certainly after I leave there will be a policy issue but you're right a lot of those issues on Aurora and we saw it on Lake City and the annexation when Lake City became a part of the city of Seattle in the 60s is land use decisions and how that was made and D5 is unique in that it has three state highways through it 522, 523, and Aurora.

And those are state highways.

And so dealing with homelessness, drug activity, and all the other issues, it's been difficult at times, but sometimes we've been successful in Olympia in gaining money to address those issues on Aurora and Lake City.

And I should add, I have a great staff that's been working with SPD and Chief Barton and Chief Barnes to have a satellite SPD office on Lake City Way.

And for those of us that survived, blocked the bunker and defund the police in post 2020 and the consent decree, yours truly, we've learned a lot and we've taken a lot from that.

I mean, that's where care came out of.

All of that came out of that and that's how it should be.

And you're right, I think for me as a legislator, the first tool I look for is healing.

and community.

Nobody says the first thing you want to do is call the police.

That's not our stance.

Our stance has always been to look at the humanity of the situation and not be cruel and not create chaos, but look at the humanity and the kindness and what people are asking for.

and not politicize it and not do this performative crap.

Just say, no, these things are happening.

This community wants it.

And I'll go back to it and I'll say it again.

That's why I voted the way I did on the cameras.

Now that may change.

And again, it's not an absolutely deterrent tool.

It's an investigative tool.

and when people politicize those issues, they forget that they're removed from the people that actually live in those neighborhoods and they look at it from a lens that isn't, I don't think, responsible or accurate.

And so I will stand by those words and I stood by my vote and I paid for that vote on defund and I would vote the same way again today.

So with that, I also want to thank the leadership of Councilmember Kettle, as someone who's gone through two governors and four mayors and four chiefs of police, and watching the arc of how we've changed as a city, at least in this last decade, and how we approach crime in the underlying issues that cause crime.

And you know what?

Quite frankly, it's poverty.

If you don't interrupt that poverty cycle, then people have other means to try to live.

And that's just basic.

And so that's where we look at first.

And that's why I think we're such a good city in the sense that we're a sanctuary city.

We care about our folks.

We want people to have housing.

We want people to be safe.

We want them to use transit.

and so for that reason, thank you council member or chair for allowing me to bring this emergency legislation and thank you council member Lynn for bringing this to me when you were still a city attorney and you helped draft this.

So thank you.

Let's get the vote done first.

Will the clerk please call the roll on committee recommendation to adopt council bill 121233. The motion carries and the committee recommendation that the council bill be adopted will be sent to the June 30th city council meeting.

Now you can clap.

Now you can clap.

So, by the way, thank you.

And representatives of the community, it's really important here in chambers, here in City Hall generally, or on a march on North Aurora.

I really appreciate that.

And thank you for going to that, too.

Thank you, Customer Kettle.

You were there that night.

Yes, of course.

And so now, we have reached the end of today's meeting agenda.

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

Seeing none.

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

Thank you.