Seattle City Council Special Joint Meeting with the Select Labor Committee - Public Hearing 8/8/23

Thank you.

The August 8th, 2023 joint meeting of the Public Safety and Human Services Committee and the Select Labor Committee will come to order.

It is 5.31 a.m.

I'm Lisa Herbold, Chair of the Public Safety and Human Services Committee.

Will the clerk please call the roll.

Council Member Nelson.

Present.

Council Member Peterson.

Present.

Vice Chair Lewis.

Present.

Chair Herbold.

Here.

Council Member Mosqueda is excused and Select Labor Committee member, Council President Juarez, is also excused.

Thank you.

And you want to relay the attendance for the record?

For present.

Thank you so much.

So on today's agenda, we are going to hear a brief introduction to collective bargaining with the Seattle Police Management Association by Council Central staff.

We'll proceed to the public hearing on collective bargaining with the Seattle Police Management Association, hearing first from the three accountability bodies.

And we'll move to approve the agenda for our committee meeting.

And I want to thank committee members for their forbearance.

You know, it's been a long day, and we've been asking a lot for you, so I really appreciate your being here today.

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

Hearing no objection, today's agenda is adopted.

Clerk, please read in agenda item number one.

Agenda item one, introduction to collective bargaining with the Seattle Police Management Association, or SPMA.

Thank you so much.

We are joined by Central Staff Director Esther Handy and I believe, yes, Greg Doss, also on Council Central Staff for the introduction to the collective bargaining process, specifically in this case for us today, the collective bargaining process with the Seattle Police Management Association.

Thank you.

Thank you, Chair Herbold.

I'm just going to pull up a very brief presentation.

That is working.

As I do so, I'll introduce myself.

I'm Esther Handy.

I'm the director of the council central staff, as you mentioned, here to provide a very brief overview of the city's labor negotiation process to set some context for the public hearing.

I'm joined virtually by our supervising analyst, Greg Doss, who will be available to answer any questions.

The Seattle Police Management Association is the smaller of two unions that represent city of Seattle police officers.

The larger Seattle Police Officers Guild, also known as SPOG, represents most sworn officers, and SPMA represents 94 lieutenants and captains.

The purpose of tonight's public hearing is to seek input on the effectiveness of the city's police accountability system before the city and the union begin contract negotiations.

The current SPMA contract runs from January 1, 2020 through the end of this year, December 31, 2023. And there are two timing considerations that affect when formal negotiations can begin.

First, acknowledging the expiring contract on May 19 of this year, the Director of Labor Relations provided the Labor Relations Policy Committee a formal 180 day notice of the city's intent to begin bargaining with SPMA, which prompted the scheduling of this public hearing.

The city and SPMA can begin negotiations no sooner than 90 days from tonight's public hearing, which is November 7th, 2023. This is the first step in the city's labor negotiation process, which I'll walk through.

And I want to thank Jesse Franz from Council Communications for helping us create this graphic to help explain it.

I want to try to advance my slides.

There we go.

So Washington state law establishes the right of public employees to join labor organizations and be represented in matters concerning their public employment.

The law requires that the city and unions negotiate in good faith all mandatory subjects of bargaining.

That generally is wages, hours, and working conditions.

And for our police unions, those negotiations will also include subjects of police accountability.

This process kicks off with a joint public hearing this evening.

That input will be taken to the Labor Relations Policy Committee, whose job it is to establish bargaining parameters for the Labor Relations Negotiating Team.

The Labor Relations Policy Committee includes these members from the Seattle City Council, Council President Deborah Juarez, Council Members Herbold, Lewis, Mosqueda, and Peterson, and from the Executive Branch, Deputy Mayor Tim Burgess, Director of the City Budget Office Julie Dingley, Kimberly Loving, the Director of Seattle Department of Human Services, Jeremy Rocca, Chief of Staff and General Counsel to the Mayor, and Dan Eder, Policy Director to the Mayor.

This committee meets regularly to discuss bargaining strategy and negotiations for the city's unions and therefore are excluded from typical requirements from the state's Open Public Meeting Act.

They set the parameters that the city's negotiating committee uses to develop a tentative agreement or essentially a proposed contract with SPMA.

That contract could be for one year or as many as four or five years.

Once a tentative agreement has been reached, both labor and management must ratify that agreement.

SPMA would do that through a vote of its union membership, and the city ratifies it through a majority vote of the council in open session.

That's a quick overview of the process.

Greg and I are available to answer questions before you take comments from the public.

Thank you so much, Director Handy.

Greg, do you have anything that you'd like to add?

No, Councilmember, thank you.

Just here to answer any questions you may have on SPMA specifically or on the last contract.

Thanks.

Thank you.

Checking to see if there are questions from Councilmembers.

Looking for raised hands and Real hands, not seeing any.

And just before we move on, I do want to just, again, underscore the purpose of the hearing was established by municipal code under the leadership of a previous council member because of public concern that the contract negotiation process Once it began, it was a closed process, and so when this law was passed, we really wanted to make sure that there was the ability of the public as well as our police accountability stakeholders to give input to that negotiation process before it began.

And that's why this moment in the process is important.

We had, I think, a lot of good outcomes with the last SPMA contract negotiation, and a number of the police accountability reforms that were reflected in that contract were reforms that were identified by the public and by our police accountability partners, the CPC, the OPA, and the Office of the Inspector General in advance of the negotiations for the SPMA contract last time around.

So, with that, if there are no additional questions, we'll proceed to the public hearing.

And I believe we're going to be hearing first from our accountability partners.

Is that correct, Mr. Clerk?

That's correct, yes.

Clerk, can you please read in the next agenda item?

Agenda item D, public hearing on collective bargaining with the Seattle Police Management Association.

Thank you so much.

So, as presiding officer, I'm opening up the public hearing on collective bargaining with the Seattle Police Management Association.

Folks are probably aware that the online registration to sign up to speak at this hearing opened at 3.30 p.m.

In-person registration began at 5. Again, Mr. Clerk, my notes say that I'm going to be calling people on in the order of registration, but I believe that is not the case.

We're going to be hearing first from our accountability partners?

Yes.

Okay.

So that is not in order of registration.

So am I asking folks to the table, Mr. Clerk?

We've talked about going to the podiums, but given that that's not filmed, you could ask them to come to the table.

Okay.

Would our accountability partners like to come to the table and give your comments there?

Is that okay?

Okay.

Thank you.

I didn't have direction prompts to do that.

Thank you so much.

So, again, we're beginning with our three accountability bodies, the Community Police Commission, the Office of the Inspector General, and the Office of Police Accountability.

You'll each have five minutes to speak, and I will allow you to go in order.

I think, first, we're intending to hear first from the Community Police Commission.

So, start with that.

That'd be great.

Reverend Hunter.

Thank you so much.

Good evening, and I am Dr. Patricia L. Hunter, one of the co-chairs of the Seattle Community Police Commission.

And my other co-chairs are the Reverend Harriet Walden and Mr. Joel Merkle.

In 2019, the CPC provided a brief presentation to council about the upcoming SPMA contract negotiation.

Today, we are here to do the same.

The CPC remains committed to the public goals of accountability as outlined in the city's police accountability ordinance and believes that community concerns about accountability should be robustly presented as part of the bargaining process.

The commission is pleased to note that it appears that many of the recommendations suggested to counsel three years ago have in fact been implemented in the current SPMA contract, including using a preponderance standard for allegations of misconduct.

accept dishonesty and requirements for disclosure of material information during investigations, and reforming the 180-day timeline for OPA investigations and establishing firm timelines for each step of the disciplinary process, including appeals.

to reduce the length of time for cases to be resolved.

And three, the reform and reforming certain features of the disciplinary process that affect public confidence.

As we noted in our presentation in 2019, the ordinance has not been fully implemented, which continues to cause friction between police contract terms and the legal requirements around the consent decree.

And while the city's last contract put Seattle in compliance with the consent decree, there are still gaps that need to be addressed in the upcoming rounds of negotiations.

And we believe that there are three areas the council and SPEMA should still focus on for this new round of contract negotiations.

The office, number one, the Office of Police Accountability has an important role in the accountability and oversight system that is well addressed in this contract.

However, the CPC still proposes that union approval of extensions of the 180-day timeline should not be required when OPA is not responsible for the delay.

And number two, the CPC also proposes that the statute of limitation should not apply for serious excessive force, for example, type three force, dishonesty, criminal conduct, or where the underlying allegations were concealed by anyone, and that all personnel files should be preserved for at least six years after the officer is no longer employed by the city, not just OPA files.

are per the current contract.

Number three, CPC proposes reforms to secondary employment, a practice by which police agencies permit officers to work for other employers when off duty while still wearing SPD uniforms, carrying weapons, and maintaining the powers and authority of on-duty officers.

The mayor's office issued an executive order in September 2017 directing a coordinated interdepartmental effort to require SPD to provide greater oversight through internal regulations and management of all secondary employment for SPD officers.

The CPC has additional recommendations for council that are outlined in our forthcoming letter, including suggestions that were not included in the last contract.

It is our sincere hope that in this next round of union contract negotiations that recommendations by all accountability partners will be implemented to ensure that SPD is guided by constitutional policing as intended by the city's accountability ordinance.

Finally, the Community Police Commission is concerned with the biased culture that is prevalent within Seattle Police Department.

We believe it is the responsibility of the chief and management to ensure SPD is a biased free employer.

The CPC was recently made aware of of the 2021 video depicting a mock tombstone of Demerius Butts sitting above a microwave in a break room in the East Precinct.

In that same room hung a Trump for President banner.

We are also aware of the lawsuit of Detective Denise Cookey Bolden alleging racial and gender discrimination at SPD.

It is incumbent upon management, lieutenants, and captains to prohibit reprobate behavior and not negotiate it away in this contract.

And we hope that this contract will ensure that discipline of those who engage in racist, sexist, homophobic, bigoted acts and those that allow these acts to go unpunished will be held accountable.

Thank you.

Thank you so much, Dr. Hunter.

I believe next we have the Office of the Inspector General represented by Deputy Director Smith.

Thank you.

Yes, thank you so much.

Good evening.

I am Bessie Scott, Deputy Inspector General for Public Safety from the Office of the Inspector General for Public Safety.

We appreciate being included in this hearing this evening.

In advance of bargaining in 2019, OIG generated a memorandum to the Seattle City Council identifying potentially problematic provisions in the SPMA agreement that impact accountability.

That memo was intended to highlight areas of focus for the city in bargaining efforts to strengthen and actualize the accountability reforms enacted by the Seattle City Council in 2017. Primary areas of concern at that time included ensuring measures that provide transparency, enhance community trust, and solidify authority and sustainability for the accountability entities.

Specifically, subpoena power for OPA and OIG, quantum of proof on appeal, the 180-day timeline clarity, arbitration reform, and OPA authority in criminal cases were identified as primary areas for improvement.

Additionally, increased transparency in the bargaining process was also called out for reform.

Since that time, the current CBA was negotiated, resulting in substantial strides that address specific concerns raised by OIG and other stakeholders.

Improvements and gains that directly benefited accountability efforts in the current CBA include additions to Article 15 that clearly acknowledge and adopt the philosophy and purpose that underpins the accountability ordinance, including prioritizing community trust and transparency and recognizing the role of proper discipline in police legitimacy, clearly acknowledging preponderance of evidence as a standard for appeal, clearly repudiating de novo review, and clearly describing what evidence may be considered in appeals with deference to decisions of the chief, providing that discipline review hearings will be made publicly available for viewing, Language acknowledging the city may implement the accountability ordinance while reserving rights to potentially bargain effects.

Addressing a tolling loophole for crimes committed in other jurisdictions.

Allowing any OPA staff to investigate SPMA members and clarifying and formalizing processes for mediation and rapid adjudication.

Issues for future bargaining parameters include strengthening OPA processes for mediation and rapid adjudication, records retention, conformance to state law, and addressing potentially concerning issues in Article 16. Overall, the current CBA presents a dramatic step forward in fostering meaningful oversight of the Seattle Police Department and increasing accountability and transparency to community.

Addressing these remaining recommendations and future agreements will further strengthen the accountability system established by the city in 2017. The OIG looks forward to hearing from the public tonight.

Thank you for having us.

Thank you so much, Deputy Director Scott.

And then lastly, we have OPA, Office of Police Accountability, represented by Justin Piccarelli.

Thank you.

So we really appreciate the opportunity to be part of the bargaining process tonight.

And overall, we think the agreement brings us a lot closer to the 2017 accountability ordinance.

I think It really allows us to do our jobs and remove some of the procedural issues in particular.

That said, it's only been in place for a little over a year, so we have kind of limited experience operating under that agreement and roughly, like, less than 4% of our cases actually fall under the SPMA agreement.

Most of them default to the SPOG agreement because they might have multiple officers involved.

So, that said, the SPEMA agreement might be used as kind of a model for SPOG negotiations, we hope.

That's part of our hope.

So, with all that said, We're particularly interested in hearing from the public tonight.

And more specifically, are there provisions you have problems with in the current agreement and why?

Are there ones you'd like to introduce and why?

I view this as kind of like a book club in the sense that we're all kind of talking about the same book tonight, we hope.

So that said, we're here to listen.

Thank you.

Thank you so much, and I understand that we may be getting additional comments after this meeting from each of the three bodies.

In the past, we have memorialized what we've heard in the form of a council resolution.

We do recognize that I think much of the focus is about retaining the gains of the last contract, so we will, based on our analysis of the feedback that we're getting now, we'll have a conversation about whether or not we want to memorialize the input that we're receiving further in the form of a council resolution.

And so, now moving back up to the public comment for the general public, just giving the rules for that process.

Each speaker is given two minutes to speak.

I will alternate between virtual and in-person public commenters.

I'll call on each speaker by name and in the order which they registered on the council's website.

and the sign-in form.

If you haven't registered yet to speak, but you want to do so, you can still sign up before the end of the public comment session.

When I call a speaker's name, if you are using the virtual item, we ask that you listen for the prompt.

And once you've heard that prompt, we ask that you press star six to unmute yourself.

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

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

And once the speaker hears that chime, we ask that you begin to wrap up your comments.

When speakers don't end their comments at the end of the allotted time provided, unfortunately, The speaker's mic is muted after 10 seconds to allow us to hear from the next speaker.

We have 12 speakers signed in, eight people in person, four speaking virtually.

And I guess I will start with the in-person public speakers.

And presenters, you are welcome to continue sitting there, or you can You could not, whatever you're most comfortable doing.

We'll start with Kathleen Bruce, followed by Amy Summers.

Good evening.

My name is Kathleen Bruce, and I'm a resident of downtown Ballard.

And I live across from the Nyer-Earnest House, which is transitional housing.

So I see a lot of things, and I hear a lot of things.

four hours a day.

I support the Seattle Police Department.

Defunding the police was, in my book, a colossal failure.

I want to see, I want to keep the police we have.

I want to see more police on the streets.

I'd like to see somebody maybe walking the beat in downtown Ballard.

I'm tired of seeing broken windows.

and graffiti, and maybe something like the navigation team.

I'd like to see that return.

Thank you very much.

Thank you, and I would request that people speak to the topic of the public hearing this evening, which is the input that the public is giving to the individuals who are involved in negotiating the contract with the Seattle Police Management Association.

In my public safety committee, I do have the flexibility to address other, broader, more public safety issues, but for the purposes of this public hearing, it is specifically designed for the topic of the public hearing, which is the contract with SPMA.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Amy Summers, and Amy will be followed by Carolyn Malone.

Thank you, Councilmembers.

My name is Amy Summers.

I'm a member of P4, Proactive Persistent People for Progress, which is the citizen's organization.

We are here because we are very concerned about the imperative that the 2017 accountability ordinance be fully incorporated into the collective bargaining agreement with SPMA.

We think that The current form of the agreement, while others have noted it is an improvement, there are still several provisions where there are gaps.

The representative of the OPA has asked for comments on them.

I'll just draw several to the council's attention.

Section 12.2 notes that employees of the city are governed by applicable city ordinances.

and said ordinances are paramount except where they conflict with the express provisions of this agreement.

Section 16.6 refers to the police officer's bill of rights.

It spells out the minimum rights of an officer, but then it goes on to state that where the language of the contract or past practices of the department grant the officer greater rights, those greater rights shall pertain.

That to me and to our committee seems like opening up a terrible potential for going back rather than forward.

A third provision appears in Appendix B and it refers to the results of the bargaining on the accountability ordinance are incorporated into Article 16 of the collective bargaining agreement between the parties.

In accordance with this, the city may, note it does not say must, the city may implement the accountability ordinance.

The association retains the right to bargain any unforeseen effects arising out of the implementation of the accountability ordinance.

That is very troubling to us.

We urge that the council and the SPMA finalize unequivocal language stating the officers are subject to the 2017 accountability ordinance.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Carolyn Malone, and Carolyn will be followed by Todd Snarr.

Thank you.

I'm Carolyn Malone, and I, as well as many others, should know who the six police officers were who went to Washington, D.C., not to serve and protect, but to destroy.

Why don't we know, the public know, who these officers are?

My particular topic, one of many to talk about, is police presence in my building.

They have no right to maintain surveillance on me because I'm a mouthy black woman who stands up for her rights.

Each time I contact an agency, to get intervention to stop police harassment or remove them from my building and the illegal surveillance I'm thwarted, harassed, interfered with.

Police harassment began against me when my driver's license of 55 years was terminated without due process.

My car, a year later, engine damaged.

A lawsuit Judge Marsha J. Peckman was assigned to me, mysteriously disappeared.

And each time I fight, continue to go after police to stop the harassment, retaliation, intimidation, I am harassed even more.

So I'd like to know who these supposed law-abiding public servants who went to Washington, D.C.

to do exactly opposite of what they took an oath to do.

I'd also like intervention from the appropriate agency to stop police harassment, retaliation, and removal from my building with their illegal audio, video in my unit.

Police harassment must stop against people who speak out.

Joseph Ellenbos claims to be a social worker at Chancery Place Apartments.

I challenge that.

The police department, I do believe, has no social workers.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Todd Snarr, and Todd will be followed by Howard Gale.

Real quick before I get started, I want to make sure what you mentioned on the rules, could you kind of explain that a little bit more to me on the rules about our comments?

This is a public hearing to give the city input to the next Seattle Police Management Association contract.

So we ask that people direct their comment in today's public hearing towards the elements of the contract that you feel the city needs to work on addressing.

About directly with the contract?

Correct.

Well, I'm hoping I can have a just to be able to share my thoughts and concerns.

And if you could just allow me that two minutes.

Sure.

My name is Todd Snarr.

I spent 10 years in the service, the U.S.

Navy.

I did 15 years as a resolution rep with the IRS.

And since 2010, I'm the owner of my S Corp accounting business.

I do not live here.

I'm in Washington State.

I live over in Clarkston, Washington.

I do have clients that live over here.

I observed through our newspaper articles all the information that transpires here in Seattle.

When it comes to public safety, what that means to me is law and order.

We must have law and order.

Yes, there needs to be accountability.

Accountability is with everybody, not just police officers.

that's just a normal citizen like everybody else.

And all the employees that work for that owner, they're probably out of a job because they're having to rebuild their store or they shut it down.

Anyways, please bring back the police force.

If a police officer violates their oath, they must be held accountable.

But most police officers are good citizens like everybody else.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Howard Gale, and Howard will be followed by Valerie Schlorett.

Over six years after Seattle's 2017 police accountability legislation, and over three years after the police riots of 2020, the city still plans to negotiate a new contract with SPMA, as they are with SPOG, with the maximal demands, the maximal demands still based on the failed 2017 legislation.

That is why today's hearing is purely performative and pointless as indicated by the total lack of participation.

We might have like 10 people speaking today.

We know that this is pointless because community input was sought in 2021 by the CPC with the clearest demand being that police stop investigating their fellow officers.

This was immediately rejected by the CPC.

Instead, the CPC forwarded recommendations as in the 2017 ordinance to maintain police investigating police, a system that was entirely rejected by the state legislature in 2021 when they set up the Office of Independent Investigations.

It's also a system that's been totally rejected by every city that has put forth police accountability since George Floyd.

Most notable in city demands they will still allow police to investigate police, still allow for arbitration, and still allow the police chief to summarily overrule all discipline.

The bottom line is that where dozens of U.S. cities have learned from the summer of 2020, Seattle remains stuck in the failed experiment of 2017. And let me point out, no matter if every aspect of 2017 ordinance is implemented, we still would have had the summer of 2020 and we still would have the repeated killings every year of someone in mental health crisis.

Why?

Because we still have police investigating police and in the rare instance when they do a halfway reasonable job, that is then overturned by the police chief.

This has to stop.

We have to have community police accountability without the interference of groups like the CPC, the OPA, and the OIG.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Before we hear from our next speaker, Mr. Clerk.

The technical issue appears to have been fixed and the time is working now.

Okay.

Okay.

We need to restart the recording here.

So Seattle Channel, are you okay?

Yeah, it'll channel is good to go.

Okay, we're going to restart the recording here.

We're sorry about that.

We don't know what happened.

Stand by, please.

Recording in progress.

Okay, please proceed.

Thank you.

I've been in this chamber often commenting on police accountability.

And I have to say, on that subject, the more things change in Seattle, the more they stay the same.

In 2015, here in this chamber, there were large meetings with understandably outraged public comment from people who had experienced aggressive police responses.

to the Black Lives Matter protests of the winter of 2014-2015.

Was there accountability?

No.

Did policing change?

No.

We saw that during the protests of the summer of 2020. Over the years, the public, in very many different ways, has let council and the accountability partners know what we think of policing in Seattle, and what we think of accountability, and what we think of reform under the consent decree, which for people who really know what's going on, we don't think much of it.

It's not very impressive.

And that the process of public consultation is also extremely unimpressive.

If members of the public watching this on the Seattle Channel could see the very sparse turnout in this chamber of the public to discuss such an important subject, they might wonder what's going on.

And what is going on is that this so-called public hearing was announced online by city council eight days ago.

in Councilmember Herbold's blog and in a Twitter post by her four days ago, that really doesn't allow enough time for unpaid members of the public who are activists who may have been egregiously harmed by policing to put together an impressive and informed show of public comment.

So I think that we can assume that going into this round, SPMA contract negotiations, the public is really not represented.

This is not, this really isn't satisfactory at all.

It's a sham.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Eric Simmons and Eric will be followed by Carrie Kaplan.

Testing, testing, hello.

My name is Eric Simmons.

I am here to speak on the job performance of the police from the perspective of a queer person living in the city.

This is a review to keep in mind during negotiations with the police union.

We all agree that the SPD is ineffective currently and are incapable of keeping law and order.

Many propose that increased funding in police power could help.

However, we've been trying that for as long as I can remember, and it hasn't worked.

Despite what some may claim, the police still very much are funded and are far from anything resembling genuine defunding.

Currently, the police budget sits at just over a fifth of the city's budget, so now is the time to ask, can we afford this failing program?

Have they earned our funding and trust?

With abysmal response times, ceaseless reports of police misconduct, and a population with zero faith in the program, it is time we demand that the police earn their budget and privileges, which starts with asking if they even deserve the immense 23% of our tax dollars they already have.

Our current police force is too big a luxury for a city with rampant poverty, and it is time we demand that the police either use the money and power we already gave them more responsibly, or we give our money and trust to more effective and competent programs, ones which we desperately need.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Carrie Kaplan.

Hello.

I actually came here to advocate for our homeless brothers and sisters, but since we're not going to do that, that is fine.

I'm a neuroscientist, and I'm going to share with you what I think about police.

I would love to support our police force.

I would love to support everyone in our community.

And as a neuroscientist, I think that us all learning, our police force, and them helping people in the community learn about breathing exercises to help our brains to function better and to have better responses would be an easy, cheap, and effective way of everyone coming together in our community.

I really look forward to trying to promote that in my own world and my desire for public health to be better.

And from what I've heard, people who are not police officers anymore, that they feel that everyone in the community hates them and they so want to serve our community.

And it should be a win-win situation for everyone, should be supported by our police and feel like they are part of our community.

They're there to help us.

And I think that with just less anxiety and stress and more of us coming together as humans, as one collective unit, will be the way to do it.

And I really hope that we can all put away a lot of our antiquated perspectives about the other side being bad, and we can just come together.

And that's what really needs to happen.

And I'm happy to advocate for that and be a resource for that as well.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And the police contract does cover officer wellness, so your comments are well received.

I'm sorry, what did you say?

The police contract does address the issue of officer wellness, so your comments are well placed.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Paul Comrie, and Paul will be followed by Molly Somerset.

We're switching to online speakers.

Paul Comrie.

Are you with us?

Okay.

Now I'm unmuted.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Herbold.

Yes.

I don't have comments on specific provisions of the contract in discussion today.

I wanted to mostly have a tone-setting statement about the negotiations themselves.

My name, again, is Paul Comrie.

I live in Ballard as well, like the First public comment today, unlike my neighbor, I don't support SPD.

I understand that the police were never defunded, and I want to see fewer police officers stalking the neighborhood.

And I want you to remember that you represent the citizens first and foremost.

City Council does not represent SPMA in negotiations, and that this should not be a fast-tracker rubber stamp.

The police do feel like a threat to the majority of us Seattleites.

We understand that they see us as their enemy, and we want less of our money in their hands, meaning fewer officers.

I and many of our neighbors understand police in general and SPD in particular to be an occupying force that defends capital first and foremost.

They see themselves in battle with the community, often living outside of the city limits, and they only rarely accomplish anything that approaches crime prevention.

We remember that our neighbors were assaulted and gassed on Capitol Hill in summer 2020. Remember that the leadership of SPD, the kind of people who you'll be negotiating with here in SBMA, elevated people like former police chief Carmen Best, whose interest in law enforcement ended at her own public disclosure of her own communications.

We saw that the representation of SPD on January 6th does not represent the culture of our city.

And most obviously, we know that SPD is still under the Seattle Consent Decree for obvious reasons.

In short, many of the people of Seattle understand that the culture of SPD continues to be rotten.

But obviously, for the purposes of contract negotiation, you can't assume the worst of the employees you'll be negotiating with, And I acknowledge that you are legally required to negotiate in good faith.

So, in short, I ask you to remember during negotiations with SBMA and its 94 members, you negotiate shrewdly on behalf of citizens like myself.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Molly Somerset, and Molly will be followed by Beth Durangciang.

Molly, if you could hit star six so that we could hear you.

Again, Molly.

Oh, there you go.

Perfect.

Thank you.

Good evening, Public Safety and Human Services Committee.

I am Molly from the Unceded Land and Waters, the Duwamish and Coast Salish People 98102. I call you to not renew the Seattle Police Management Association contract.

As the committee responsible for public safety, I look forward to you taking steps away from an institution that has always been about maintaining white supremacy and suppressing the working class and poor.

Policing in the U.S. has its origins in slave patrols and union busting.

In Seattle, we saw this with SPD enforcing sundown rules in white neighborhoods in the 1960s and SPD killing two striking maritime workers in 1934. More presently, in 2012, SPD went under a federal consent decree due to biased policing and excessive force.

A study from the Center for Policing Equity came out in 2021 found that SPD continues to exhibit bias policing compared to white people.

SPD stops indigenous people nine times more frequently and black people five times more frequently.

Additionally, indigenous people, Pacific Islanders and black people are subjected to more force than white people.

Within SPD, there's evidence of bias and discrimination, as noted by the $10 million lawsuit brought against SPD by Detective Bowman, who expressed racial and gender discrimination for 43 years.

Contracts with SPMA protected people like Lieutenant Gagan, who killed two Seattleites in crisis, and people like Lieutenant Teagan, who drove onto a sidewalk and called protesters cockroaches.

We must end qualified immunity And we should not be bargaining and negotiating with those who uphold contempt for the people.

Do not renew the contract.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Beth Duran-Tsiang.

Go ahead.

Hello.

My name is Beth Duran-Tsiang and I want to advocate for a good contract for the Seattle Police Department.

The Seattle Police Department are city employees that have been working without a contract for more than two years.

They've been mistreated by the city council.

They've been mistreated by the city.

They have been the subject, the victim of hundreds of assaults.

And even in the middle of those assaults, the city council was supporting the people who are assaulting the city employees.

The data says that there's much less staffing on the Seattle Police Department than needed.

I don't know what the percentage is.

It's probably, it's incredible because they were low staffed three years ago, and the new city council members were promising to get more staff, more police officers, and since then they've lost 600 staff, maybe almost a third of the staffing.

It was becoming a more diverse police force, except when the city council supermajority threatened to defund them by 50%.

Many of those new and more diverse officers could see the writing on the wall, and then they needed to get a new job before they got fired.

So they did.

They went to appreciative cities across the state and across the country.

The city council has mistreated the city employees for far too long.

The homicide rates and the violence rates, the most vulnerable in our city are being killed.

They're being assaulted because there is not the police force that is needed.

They just do not have the staff.

They do not have the ability.

Police are being asked to do incredible overtime, which is just not fair.

And it makes them not, you can't keep doing overtime and keep doing a job That's just, you can't keep going like, and no staff member, no city employee should be asked to do that.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Moving back to our in-person public commenters, we have Roxy R.

followed by Brad Spiegel.

Hello.

Can you all hear me well?

Get right up into it.

All right.

Thank you.

I am one of those protesters who was grievously injured by police a couple of years ago in the uprising.

I also had short notice, and I don't have anything prepared.

And public speaking is a little bit difficult for me, given all these things that have happened to me surrounding these events.

What I would like to remind everyone here is that eventually we will make all of these institutions irrelevant.

What we do here today is only applicable in the short term.

This contract, if it is renewed, which it probably will be, will one day not matter anymore.

We will make better systems.

We will make better alternatives.

We need to house, feed, educate everyone.

That's it.

That's all we need to do.

Police actively exclude people from attaining the resources that they need to live a meaningful and fulfilled life.

We see police actively pointing guns at people trying to get food from dumpsters in parts of this country.

We see police throwing away people's belongings when they're living on the street and that's all they have every day.

Every day sweeps are happening and these people are being displaced.

Their lives are being disrupted.

It is time now for us as a collective to disrupt these systems.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Brad Spiegel and Brad will be followed by Stone Lavin.

Good afternoon, or I should say good evening now.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak here.

Like many people, I just found out about this just a few hours ago, about this meeting.

And Seattle's been home for myself and my family for nearly 25 years.

So we have seen the good, we've seen the bad, and now we're seeing the ugly.

We've seen things that work.

We see things that haven't worked.

We've had city councils that have come and gone who have both supported our police, our fired city employees, and unfortunately we've had councils who have not.

The important takeaway from this is that as much as some people may not like the police for whatever the reason, they're an integral part of our community.

We're seeing what happens when we don't have effective policing, and enough police officers, we start seeing burnout huge amounts over time.

We started seeing this during the huge crowds that came to Seattle, visiting and otherwise, over the last several weeks.

And how many officers just said, listen, I love my job, but I can't work 80 plus hours a week.

That being said, there has to be give and take within a contract.

I myself and many people that I know, we all agree that certain things such as having all of our police live within the city limits, which used to be a thing that we would see across the United States, an officer who lives in the community is invested in the community.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Stone Lavin.

Okay.

So first I'd like to talk about the expense of grocery prices.

Like honestly, as like a 27 year old man, like I'm on living off EBT cash, EBT like food stamps.

They just randomly cut off my cash, which I was living on for a while.

Like these prices, grocery prices are nuts.

Like I've never made more than $50,000 in this city, like working here.

Like I used to be homeless and I had to like work my ass off and almost die to get out of it.

Now I live on like, I live at Addison on 4th, which is supposed to be a low income housing unit to help like people get out of homelessness and they'll still evict you.

And it's funded by the taxes that pays your guys is like paychecks.

Honestly, it's really disgraceful to like try and evict me.

You know, like, in a low-income housing unit that's funded by the state of Washington taxes.

Like, it's pretty unbelievable.

Like, that's nuts, dude.

Like, you can't, you can't do that.

And like, people are really scared to call, like, the police when actually they need it.

If you call the police, they'll just start saying you're nuts, and they'll lock you up in a mental hospital.

One of the things that makes me so mad about this government is that I've been sent to mental hospitals, which are really insane asylums, like five times for absolute bull.

Honestly, I don't want to be arrested and put me in some loony bin.

when I didn't hurt anybody, I didn't shoot anybody, didn't stab anybody, never violently assault anybody.

You guys got to stop the police from locking people up with that crazy white lady in the vest that just brings you out of jail and then transfers you to a mental insane asylum.

Those places are like hell.

Honestly, I don't want to be forced pills down my throat.

I never want to go back there again.

Like, you guys gotta do something about this mental hospital lock-up crap.

And everything is too expensive.

Like, the taxes are ridiculous.

Like, all right.

Yeah, honestly, the police, like, they gotta be put in check.

Like, they get bullied into arresting people.

It's some, like, higher-up, like, rank, like, discrimination they got going on.

Yeah, all right.

Thank you.

That is our last in-person public speaker.

We had a couple people who were assigned in virtually who are still showing as not present and have not seen any change in their status as not present.

So that, as noted on the meeting agenda, people can also send written comments on the subject of this hearing.

Oh, well, you don't have to sign up, Reverend Walden.

You can go right ahead and speak.

You're our last speaker.

We'll make note of it.

Good afternoon, thank you.

I'm going to speak in the eye of a mother's fully accountability.

Our group is 33 years old.

We've been doing this work a long time.

And we've done a lot of work.

I want to speak to the fact that as much as the contract as I can, but the fact that no one here is speaking for or about the black community.

I mean, our black community is different right now.

I mean, it's a lot of lot of issues going on.

And in other words, our community is on fire right now.

I mean, with a lot of violence that's happening, not enough detectives, nobody's getting back to the mothers who's crying because their children have been killed.

And so, um, It has to be a balance, like this young lady talked about, about the wellness and that type of stuff.

But really and truly, all these people who want to see a community without policing don't hear gun bullets every night.

They don't hear shots every night.

They don't hear what the kids are going through and how the trauma that the black kids are living in right now in Seattle.

and across the country, because that's escalating in violence in our community.

And in fact, a large part of the black community really do care about the police.

I mean, when the chief was in the parade, I mean, a lot of people was just so happy to see him there.

And also, so you hear another story, but you don't hear our story.

So we've had this long history with policing ever since slave catchers.

Nobody else has that history.

So people can talk about what happened to us, but they don't live with us.

They don't understand what we need.

And sometimes people who have lived in this community and been here, I came in 1975, so I've been here for a long time also.

Uh, and right now we need to look at a balance and um, there are some mothers who are crying because they can't even get a word back from a detective and I don't even know who Thank you very much Appreciate that So that is our um

last speaker to speak at this public hearing.

We have exhausted the list of folks who have signed up online, as well as the in-person speakers.

As noted on the meeting agenda, folks can send written comments on the subject of this hearing to me at lisa.herbold, H-E-R-B-O-L-D, at seattle.gov.

The hearing is required to be heard at least 90 days before bargaining begins, so there is still some additional time for community input.

And with that, the public hearing on the collective bargaining with the Seattle Police Management Association is now closed.

Before we adjourn, just checking to see, are there any comments from committee members?

Looking for virtual hands raised.

Not seeing any.

The next meeting of the Public Safety and Human Services Committee will be a special meeting, another special meeting scheduled for this coming Monday on August 14th at 2 p.m.

Again, appreciate particularly the Public Safety Committee members because this is their second Public Safety and Human Services Committee meeting of the day.

And the time is now 6.30 p.m.

and we are adjourned.

Thank you.