All right.
Good afternoon, everyone.
The date is March 27th, 2024. This is the meeting of the Parks, Public Utilities and Technology Committee.
And I am Joy Hollingsworth.
I'm calling the meeting to order.
It is two.
Let me bang the gavel.
Meeting to order.
It is technically 202. Will the clerk please call the roll?
Councilmember Kettle.
Here.
Councilmember Rivera.
Present.
Council Member Strauss.
Council President Nelson.
Present.
Four council members are present.
Thank you so much.
So we have three items on the agenda today.
Super excited about that.
First, we will have a pre-introductory briefing on the 2024 open spaces by our Seattle Parks Department, Parks and Recreation.
And then next we'll have presentation on agenda items number two and three.
These are the SIRs for the call yo and hostage negotiation throw phones respectively.
And so those will coincide back to back.
we will now consider the agenda.
And if there are no objections, the agenda will be adopted.
Awesome, hearing no objections, the agenda will be adopted.
With that, we're gonna actually open up the hybrid comment period.
Public comments should be related to the items on today's agenda.
Within the purview of this committee, Clerk, how many speakers do we have signed up today?
We have one in-person speaker and one remote.
Okay, each speaker will give each speaker two minutes to be able to give public comment.
And clerk, will you please read the instructions for the public comment?
The public comment period will be moderated in the following manner.
I will call on speakers by name in the order in which they are registered, both on the Council's website or from the sign-up sheet available here in Council Chambers.
We will start with in-person speakers first.
If you have not registered to speak what you would like to, you can sign up before the end of the public comment period.
Just go to the Council's website or sign up on the sign-up sheet.
When speaking, please begin by stating your name and the item you are addressing.
Speakers will hear a chime when 10 seconds are left.
of the allotted time.
If speakers do not end their comments at the end of the allotted time, provided the speaker's microphone will be muted to allow us to call on the next person.
The public comment period is now open, and we will begin with the first speaker on the list.
The first speaker is Alex Zimmerman.
Thank you.
Bandito and killer.
My name is Alex Zimmerman.
I want to speak about two problems, number five and number six.
Number five, park.
I've come here for many years to spend million and million dollars for park.
Seattle park, good.
So stop spend million, make a relax for two or three years.
It's enough cleaning, that's it.
Second, about program, what is half policeman.
My experience, and I top educate men, you know what this mean.
No one program make idiot smarter.
It's never happen.
It never will happen in human history.
So the program that we have right now does not mean the police department will be smarter.
What I see right now, for the last many years, you know what it means?
We charge somebody, bosses for the police department, who are very low-class professionals.
What does this mean?
This means the whole department.
Not so good.
I want to make advice a couple of years ago.
In the committee, what they were talking about the police department, nobody listened to me.
I have experience with many two different systems, you know what I mean, with two different police departments, one is KGB, another political police, what we have in Seattle right now, you know what I mean.
My opinion straight, when you don't hire smart people, intelligent people, who know what is need doing for city, nothing will be changed.
Police department critical.
When you control by idiot, department cannot be good.
Never will be good.
Head post to be smart, intelligent, educate.
Only one chance.
What is we can bring Seattle back.
Stand up America.
Make Seattle great again.
Thank you very much.
We will now move on to remote public comment.
Once I call the remote speaker's name, staff will unmute the appropriate microphone and an automatic prompt of you have been unmuted will be the speaker's cue for their turn to speak and the speaker must press star six to begin speaking.
The next commenter is Ruth Williams.
And Ms. Williams will probably have to press star six to unmute yourself.
We do not hear you.
Can you hear me.
Now we can.
Yes please go ahead.
Oh OK.
Thank you.
I'm sorry.
Yes.
Hello.
I'm Williams and I wanted to speak to the SPR open space plan today.
I'm speaking on behalf of Thornton Creek Alliance generally based in District 5. I thank you for the opportunity to speak.
You have each received a copy of our letter commenting on the SPR open space plan.
We noted some deficiencies in the plan, including a lack of planning for environmental stewardship in our time of diminishing tree canopy and increasing harm due to climate change.
And despite the fact that responding to climate change is included in the mayor's draft of the One Seattle plan.
Also noted is the lack of recognition of the value of our natural areas, even though their use is cited by about 39% of park users as a favorite place to go and observe wildlife.
I would also like to raise the issue of the SPR draft discussion in the SEPA environmental checklist.
On page 91, alternative level of service standards first appear.
As a cost savings, a formula would be adopted where current recreational value is assessed and a potential recreational value created for each park.
This implies moving away from the current standard of acreage per 1,000 people, and in a rapidly changing city like Seattle, unintended consequences can be assured.
Please approach with great caution.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Is there any more additional public comments?
You have to sign up for public comment if you wanted to give a public comment.
I'm just addressing you, sir, in the audience, but you have to sign up.
Please stay at the microphone, sir.
We'll allow...
Go ahead, clerk.
I'm sorry.
Next speaker is Honorio Mendez.
Hello, sir.
This is my first time at this meeting, but I want to address something.
I got arrested.
Please speak into the mic, sir.
Just please speak into the mic.
Yeah, you can pull it towards you so we can hear you.
I was arrested maybe a week ago, and I'm very concerned about floor number two.
It was the nastiest experience I ever had in my life.
It was flies, shit.
It's like, come on, guys.
We are...
My understanding, the United States has a lot of money, right?
We got the printing machines, a lot of bullshit.
But that day, I was like, what's wrong with these people?
I spent five days.
And the guards who, the COs who take care of the guys who's going through the window and
Sir, I hate to interrupt you.
You have to speak about a comment that's related to something on the item today.
Well, I don't know what comments means, but this is what I want to talk to you guys.
There's a lot of stuff going on in the city that nobody pays attention to this.
And I've been so many times to come over to tell the city council what's going on.
But the mayor, come on, the mayor worries about his next salary, worries about his people.
That's another that really bothers me because I had to do a meeting with him or send an email that never plays me back.
I'm a normal guy who lives in North Seattle by the cemetery.
I pick up the garbage because I respect the dead people.
All those assholes who live around the cemetery, let's talk about the homeless, and I believe number eight, Sarah Nelson, do you represent North Seattle?
I'm asking you a question, man.
We're not allowed to respond.
See, that's another thing.
Why not allow the way to speak the way I feel?
Why?
You can.
You can speak however you want, and then we can respond after at a later time, or you can make a meeting with us.
Well, that's what I'm saying, because I don't know anybody or you guys.
I don't know who represents South Seattle, North Seattle, West Seattle.
I don't know.
My question is here, what I see.
I get to jail, you guys need to fix number two.
They put me in the hall for two weeks.
After that, I transmit to the general population.
I have nothing against the police department.
They do their job.
Okay, nothing against you guys.
But this is how bothers me because everybody.
So I'm sorry, I had to go but have a lot of shit to talk.
Okay.
I'm sorry about that.
No worries.
Thank you, sir.
If there are no, are there more additional people that have signed up?
Awesome.
If there's no additional people who signed up online, we'll now proceed to our items of business.
Will the clerk please read item number one into the record?
And Chair, just apologies for being late.
No worries.
Please note that Councilmember Strauss is here.
One of my favors.
Agenda item number one.
2024 parks and open space plan presentation for briefing and discussion the presenters are christopher williams and kevin bergsrud from parks and recreation awesome thank you please note i said one of my favorites for council member strauss today i'm super happy to have our parks department here to talk about the open space plan we know that this year we've talked about we have a lot of things on the docket we have our move levy and our transportation plan we have our comprehensive plan, but we also have our open spaces and our parks plan that also plans out strategically about our growth in our city and how we're gonna continue to keep those spaces open and accessible to people.
So very happy to have Mr. Christopher Williams here and Kevin, I'm gonna, I apologize for butchering your last name, Berkshire.
Thank you.
I apologize.
Thank you.
And will you please introduce yourselves for the record and then you can start your presentation.
Thank you.
Sure.
I'm Christopher Williams, Chief of Staff, Seattle Parks.
Kevin Berkshire, Senior Park Planner.
So maybe I'll kick us off here.
Good afternoon, council members.
Thank you for the opportunity today to present the 2024 Park Open Space Plan.
The plan was last updated by the City Council in 2017. Today's presentation is an example of some very technical work that the Park Department does kind of behind the scenes to maintain a well-run park system.
Frequently, people associate the park system with all the fun stuff, and we are a fun organization, but there is a lot of comprehensive technical work in the background that we do.
And today's presentation is an example of that work.
The park open space plan is how the park department participates in the city's comprehensive plan.
The open space plan informs how the park department will prioritize funding for park development and asset maintenance.
The open space plan serves to document OUR LANDS AND FACILITIES.
WE LOOK AT DEMOGRAPHICS AND RECREATION PARTICIPATION AND NEEDS ACROSS THE SYSTEM.
WE TRY TO DEFINE THE LEVEL OF SERVICE STANDARD.
THE PLAN IS ALSO REQUIRED BY THE WASHINGTON STATE RECREATION AND CONSERVATION OFFICE OR RCO.
This requirement allows us to, or rather having you adopt a resolution makes us eligible to receive state funding for park development projects.
And we're coming here today because we are leading up to the next grant cycle here.
And the RCO grants are our primary source of state match for capital development projects.
The RCO plan is required again to be adopted by resolution.
Today we're going to present kind of a light presentation.
We're going to come back here again on April 24th to this meeting where you'll discuss what you've heard here today and hopefully make a vote approving or adopting the resolution.
We're calling the 2024 version of the plan a light update because for the park open space plan and the Seattle park district plan, those two plans are not in sync.
And we want to use 2025 to have the park district plan and the comprehensive plan kind of sync up with each other.
So we'll be back again next year.
A LITTLE CLARIFICATION ON THE METHODOLOGY WE'RE USING.
ONE OF THE COMMENTERS COMMENTED ABOUT A CHANGE IN THE APPROACH AND THE OVERALL PLAN WE'RE PROPOSING TO REDEFINE THE LEVEL OF SERVICE PROVIDED FOR PEOPLE IN SEATTLE.
INSTEAD OF FOCUSING ON A CERTAIN AMOUNT OF ACREAGE PER CAPITA, WE'D LIKE TO FOCUS ON ENSURING THAT PARKS AND PARK FACILITIES ARE WITHIN A 10-MINUTE WALK for every resident of Seattle.
And that is an aspirational goal.
We're almost there.
We have a different goal of a five minute walk in our urban villages.
But property is not cheap in Seattle and that will continue to be acquiring more property will be something we continue to struggle with.
So with that, I'll turn it over to Kevin Burke's route.
Thank you, Christopher.
As Christopher's covered, most of the major points you'll see today, so hopefully I'll keep it short, but you'll see more graphics.
So as Christopher described, the Parks and Open Space Plan, it's required by the Washington State Recreation and Conservation Office in order to be eligible to apply for and receive grants from that office.
I'll add that Seattle Parks relies on a lot of different grants, and we actually have a grants coordinator, a great grants coordinator, Moshe Hecht, who coordinates that.
So the objectives of the parks and open space plan, as Christopher so greatly described, was that we conduct an inventory and analysis, and that's of how many parks we have, open spaces and facilities.
We also conduct an inventory and analysis of city demographics, recreation participation, and projected demand.
And then, as he just talked about, we define a level of service standard.
We have also coordinated with OPCD on early planning for the One Seattle plan, and then we'll be coordinating with them even more through the draft plan on the park element.
All in all, the Parks and Open Space plan will help define near-term capital spending priorities.
And as Christopher said, the plan will require adoption by Council resolution.
And as Christopher mentioned, the last plan was approved in 2017, and the Parks and Open Space Plan guides long-term facility planning, capital project development, asset management, which means both maintenance and repair of capital facilities, land acquisition, which, as the plan describes right now, Seattle is kind of in an opportunistic mode land acquisition when we somebody offers saying that we've got this property would you be interested our parks real estate section checks that out and then as mentioned earlier that all these items above we prioritize those so for funding.
public engagement, like many city projects, we try to be very inclusive.
And our public engagement started out in late 2022 and early 2023 with OPCD when they began their One Seattle public meetings.
Then if we move on to mid-May of 2023, that's when The first open space plan public meeting was held virtually.
And then right after that, we created an online engagement hub and lots of comments, lots of interest.
And then later on in May and through June and July, we held six in-person public meetings at various community centers.
The public comments that were received included more than 60 themes and in more than a dozen categories.
So after the public engagement effort, we were working on the plan through August, late fall, and then early winter, and then a draft plan came together, and that's when we took it to the Board of Park and Recreation Commissioners, late February 2024, and they reviewed it and held a public hearing and public comment.
And again, more comments were received.
And then now we're here today presenting the plan and looking forward to city council approval.
As I said, we do a lot of public engagement, and part of that is trying to reach out to marginalized communities, and we do that through various ways.
One is compensating community-based organizations to help us with outreach or more precise outreach.
We also translated flyers and press releases into each of the seven cities' designated languages, and you can see examples of that on the right-hand side of the slide translation into Vietnamese and then Spanish.
We also purchased advertising in Northwest Asian Weekly and South Seattle Emerald of upcoming public meetings.
And then at sites that we knew had higher diversity of languages, we hired interpreters.
So that ended up being at Delridge, Yesler, and Van Asselt.
You heard this before that this parks and open space plan is a light update and that of course we're doing this mainly in order to get the parks and open space plan and park district planning in sync.
And we look that that will take care of duplicate processes hopefully make it more understandable to the public and also come out with even a better result.
So this park level of service standard that we've mentioned several times.
The previous park level of service standard was number of acres per thousand people, and that was an interesting one for us to handle.
Actually, we looked at it historically from the city size, number of park acres per the population, and it was actually quite low all the way through the 60s, and it was only through the 80s when more consistent park funding came to Seattle Parks, and some of that was actually funding for green belts, and that increased the park acreage quite a bit.
And then we come to the late 1990s and early 2000s, and we're at a pretty high...
ratio or acres per thousand, it was a little over eight, but we could see that the rapid increase in population, we weren't going to be able to meet the aspiration of 10 acres per thousand.
So with that and wanting to be more equitable, That's how we started looking at walkability or walk sheds.
And we see that a walk shed is a more meaningful measure of how people arrive to a park, how far away they are from a park.
In fact, something that we may want to consider in the future that one other community in the region, Linwood, their actual level of service standard was based on availability and condition of sidewalks to parks.
and I don't think we're quite ready for that yet because that would involve a huge commitment from SDOT, but a lot of other park departments, they've been rather creative on finding level of service standards.
The walk shed, of course, aligns with other city departments such as OPCD and SDOT, and the five-minute walk shed is applied within urban center, urban village boundaries, and then the 10-minute walk shed is applied outside urban center, urban village boundaries.
The graphics here show on the far right hand side is the entire city with the different walk shed levels and then the purple boundary areas are the various urban villages, urban centers.
And then the graphic in the center or on the left hand side is actually a close up and it's around Rainier Beach.
And so what you can see is the Very dark areas are park properties.
The next darkest green is the five-minute walk sheds.
The lightest green is the 10-minute walk sheds.
And then we'll go to the next graphic, but kind of a hint here, this area with no green, that's actually a gap.
And I see Council Member Strauss has a question.
We'd love to recognize him.
Thank you.
Thank you, Chair.
If you want to go back to the last slide, this is me just being...
It's not even my district, actually.
It used to be.
I'm sorry, the one with the map that you were just speaking on, the 10-minute walk sheds.
Let's see if I can get back there.
Yeah, sorry about that.
As I was looking at the map quite closely, the north side of Carkeek Park, I believe that there are access points from that neighborhood into Carkeek, but it was not colored within the walk shed.
Sorry, that's my question.
Is it...
I'm so sorry.
I've totally taken us down a rabbit hole.
No, that's fine.
We'll figure it out.
Maybe I need some technical help here.
Yeah, no worries.
We'll get you that.
If my wife was here, she'd be the one.
You're all good.
While we take this time, we got the presentation up.
Okay, perfect.
Thank you.
Logan, you're the best.
I did something with the previous one.
I know you were pointing out that up near Carkeek, and so if you look on this one, actually, on the right-hand side, if you can see the cursor up there, that would be Carkeek, and that there is a gap right here, and that would be kind of the Blue Ridge neighborhood, and then this other large gap, that's more Broadview and south of Bitter Lake.
Uh-huh.
And so my question was, I believe that there are northern entrances to Carkeek Park.
Yes.
In, I think, in Broadview.
That's right.
And so I think you're not giving yourself credit, is all I'm saying.
No, that's true.
You get more credit than you're giving yourself.
I see it, and I'm thinking of Carkeek.
That's all.
That's true.
A lot of the data here was utilized from the 2017 plan and updated, so perhaps this is an error, and we'll definitely check it.
Thank you for pointing that out.
Already exceeding expectations.
All right.
I love it.
So, as mentioned, the goals and policies are the same as in the 2017 Parks and Open Space Plan, and they cover mostly about providing a variety of outdoor indoor spaces throughout the city, providing opportunities for all people in a variety of recreational activities, providing safe and welcoming places, maintaining the parks so that we attract more park users and visitors, and then the one that, at least in the division I am in, We work hard to engage community members to find specific items of interest or cultures, and that way we can better design the park to serve their needs.
This is a little bit at the inventory level, and one of the graphics here on the right is showing all the sports fields in the city, and then they're color-coded to show whether they're lighted or not.
And then on the left-hand side is showing by category the number of facilities that we have.
So you can see there's quite a few.
And I'll say from working on the open space plan, this doesn't quite exactly show all the structures that Seattle Parks owns and maintains, which is more than 600 structures.
The last slide that we have here is showing the recreation trends and needs.
And working with the consultant, they used Washington State Recreation Conservation Office data.
They complete surveys every two years.
And so the graph on the left is actually showing percent of people identifying what activity they're using.
And so this is only a portion of the whole list.
There's about 40 or 50 different recreation activities shown, and at least for this one, it's showing the highest was for people walking or using mobility devices on roads and sidewalks.
The one thing I'm not entirely sure about if that's getting to a park or also within a park, but still, it's very high.
If we look on the right-hand side, this is another one from RCO, and this is measuring user days, so how many users used a park on a day over a year, and that's why you're seeing these very high numbers.
And so, 2020 is the blue line, and you can see that walking is one of the highest.
Walking or using mobility advice on trails is one of the highest, but then you look at 2050, and both walking depending on the mode you're using, it's still very high.
And like I said, on the one on the left, there are many more activities that we tracked.
So this is the last slide, except for this one, and it's also mentioning that we'll be back on April 24th, and our goal is to submit the final plan to the Washington State Recreation Conservation Office.
So thanks for listening, and if you have any questions, we can address those.
Thank you for that presentation.
And I know we have some council members who would love to ask some questions.
I saw Council Member Kettle had his hand up first, had your virtual hand up first.
I'd like to recognize you.
Thank you, Chair Hollingsworth.
Yes, I have a few questions.
Regarding parks and open space, it's been an issue for District 7, and particularly in my experience with Queen Anne, is the question of green belts.
We've had some major challenges with the West and East Queen Anne green belts, and they've been degraded.
They've been hit.
They've been, you know, not...
and in my previous life on the community council, I had a park safety meeting where a parks department briefer said that green belts weren't accounted for in the budget process.
There was no money, quote-unquote, for green belts.
Can you answer where we are with green belts in terms of budget?
And two, your assessment of the west and east Queen Anne green belts?
Well, I think we would...
agree with you about some of the historic conditions in the West Queen Anne Greenbelt.
That situation is improving.
A lot of it, I think, was a result of large unhoused populations in that park.
Recently, as recent maybe as four or five years ago, and maybe even a little longer, we adopted the Green Seattle Partnership Plan, which is a partnership with For Terra to restore our greenbelts in natural areas.
We added $4 million in the park district funding plan to plant trees across the city and to restore them.
So I think the response to that is that we are now funding our greenbelts historically.
Greenbelts have not been funded yet.
that change is happening, and it is with hope that you will begin to see lush, verdant green belts versus places you wouldn't want to take your family into.
That's true.
What's been the partnership?
Because it's really, in my mind, it seems to be a public-private partnership.
For example, the people of Seattle should know how much garbage was pulled out of the East Queen Greenbelt by We Heart Seattle.
Tens and tens and tens and tens of thousands of pounds was pulled out of the East Greenbelt.
It's incredible.
And separately, McLean Park, which is adjacent, the friends of McLean Park, the volunteers, I've walked with them, I've been with them.
It's incredible what they do on a regular basis with the McLean Park, which is there on the east side, not to mention Kinnear on the west as well, which is a similar amount of work.
What's been the partnership with those groups and your approach to working with those groups?
Well, we love I Heart Seattle.
They do great work, and we have tried to...
maintain an open, communicative relationship with them.
When they are doing cleans, we will frequently take dump runs of debris to the dump.
We try to facilitate their work as much as we can within the standards of our UCT team requirements for how we work with encampments and remove debris.
They're a force to be reckoned with, and we appreciate everything they do across the system.
And we have a good partnership with Andrea.
Well, that's good.
I've been in the west, the Kinnear, up and down.
By the way, there's one structure that's got black mold.
It needs to come out.
Okay.
Just put that on your list.
The other thing was, and this goes connected to this, in terms of the health of our urban forests and the greenbelts, is also the goals that we have regarding canopy here in Seattle.
I'm probably the only council member who's ever testified in front of the Seattle Urban Forestry Commission as it related to a project in Queen Anne.
How do you see the canopy goals point and the relationship with the Seattle Urban Forestry Commission?
So, great question.
We really doubled down on the tree loss that has been occurring across the system.
In the last two or three years, Seattle has lost a huge number of trees, tree canopy.
And the latest tranche of park district funding added roughly $4 million to restore trees across the system.
We currently have a two to one tree replacement program right now.
Trees are a big deal.
They make the city livable.
And we're continuing to work with groups like Fortera, Tree Seattle, any number of groups that support restoring our urban forestry, or rather urban forest and urban tree canopy across the system.
And my last question, and by the way, I would love to walk through the D7 elements of the plan.
That's like a separate question.
But my last question is, and this is a chance to your point that you just made in terms of increasing the canopy and so forth, and to be a hero amongst the people of Belltown, which does not have a park.
is Portal Park.
And we're working with the neighborhoods, Belltown United, Belltown Community Council.
I've engaged the Indigenous Advisory Council because Belltown needs a park and Portal Park needs to come.
And it's a chance to get some evergreens, to increase our green canopy right there in Belltown by the old Battery Street portal from the old viaduct.
And to kick off that process, by the way, we just need SDOT and Seattle Light.
So I'll be checking in with the mayor's office in terms of having that property switch to line this up.
So I just want to put that on your radar.
And it's a great opportunity to increase Canopy, Green, all the above, Portal Park, Belltown.
I can happily report that we are already engaged in those conversations about the Bell Street Portal Park opportunity.
Excellent.
Thank you.
Thank you, Councilmember Kettle.
Councilmember Rivera, and then we'll go to Council President Nelson.
Thank you, Councilmember Hollingsworth, and thank you, Christopher and Kevin, for being here today to walk us through this.
And Councilmember Kettle, we have friends of Ravenna Cowan who are also partners in the park cleanup.
So we'd love to hear at a later time how the city goes about partnering with these volunteer organizations that do a lot of work.
in the parks across the city.
But that's not part of this presentation, so I did wanna call that out, though, that would love to have more conversations about how we partner with those organizations, because I'm sure that you do.
I did wanna highlight on the sports fields, I hear from constituents, some of the, or at least one school in the D4, does not have a field, so they rely on parks fields.
to play their sport.
And so I have heard from constituents who have concerns that the fields that need maintenance are not going to get the maintenance that is needed.
And I have a question about where that stands in terms of maintenance of the fields and prioritization of usage of the fields, because we know that We have a great city where a lot of grownups also utilize the fields because they play on co-op teams.
I mean, sorry, co-ed teams.
But then we also have this need to have students be able to access the fields because their schools don't have adequate fields.
So we'd love to know about both the prioritization and then the maintenance plans.
Like for instance, Lower Woodland, I hear it needs some work.
And also there's some prioritization issues because it's very popular.
All right.
Well, thank you for that question.
You are read into a very nuanced area of our work.
Athletic field...
Availability is a big issue across the city.
We've got two types of fields, synthetic turf fields and grass turf fields, and they require different things.
We have set aside about $30 million toward the replacement of synthetic turf fields over the next maybe 10 years.
We started that program probably two or three years ago.
Synthetic turf fields have a 10-year life.
The rug needs to be replaced on a roughly 10-year cycle.
Grass fields are another set of challenges for the department, because with the rainy weather, a grass field can become unusable very quickly.
It needs to be shut down and restored.
One of our constant challenges is finding available practice time and game time on our athletic fields.
This gets harder during this time of year when it's wet a lot.
We have fewer options to be able to move teams to because the fields are wet and need to be taken offline, but this is something we continue to prioritize.
One of the things we're gonna do that you may be interested in is we're gonna host an athletic field summit meeting Many of you may know Bill Farmer, who runs the Friends of Athletic Fields.
And this fall, we will be hosting an Athletic Fields Summit meeting to hear from all of those user groups who care about these issues.
And we want to continue to work with them to figure out how we can find more access and availability to fields, but maintenance is a top priority.
Thank you, Christopher.
Is that in preparation for the next Parks District levy?
Is that in preparation for the next Parks District levy or prior to...
Yeah, so it's something we try to do on an annual basis with the Friends of Athletic Fields.
And, you know, part of it is inventorying their needs.
We get a lot of good ideas from them on where to create new turf fields or new opportunities for synthetic turf fields with lights.
That provides us the maximum...
use and availability to the public.
So we're gonna explore those ideas and happy to have you show up at that if you're interested.
Very interested in attending the summit and also just having a robust conversation in particular about the students and how we accommodate student needs across the city.
given the circumstances.
So would appreciate meeting on that.
Thank you, Christopher.
We'll keep that in mind.
Awesome.
Council President Nelson.
Thanks.
First, I just wanted to say thank you to Council Member Rivera and Kettle for mentioning the importance of volunteer work on behalf of residents for the health of our green spaces because really they're kind of unsung heroes in a way.
And thank you also for the shout out to We Heart Seattle.
Not only do they haul garbage out of our green spaces, but they are also extremely effective in performing outreach functions and getting people housed and help.
So thank you very much.
It's hopefully whatever partnership can be formalized with ReHeart Seattle going forward.
My question was, I didn't realize that compliance, that doing a parks and open space plan uh made um and then was kind of a requirement of the state or at least for receipt of grant funding so could you and i am embarrassed to say that i have not read the report but could you quantify how much we have received in grants for did i did i understand that correctly
Yes, so perhaps I'll take the first part of that question.
So the state requires that our legislative body, the city council approve or adopt a plan.
And that is a requirement before they will give us grant funds.
Right.
it's sort of a tacit authorization that we will provide a match to those funds.
And so, the second part of your question was really around
How much have we gotten?
Could you just sort of help quantify in the past?
Yes.
So it is literally millions of dollars that we've received from the Recreation Conservation Office for projects.
This is our number one source of match for capital projects.
I don't know, do you have a number for that, Kevin?
I WAS THINKING ABOUT IT, BECAUSE OUR GRANTS SPECIALIST, HE SENT OUT A NUMBER YESTERDAY, AND IT SEEMED THAT FOR UPCOMING TWO TO THREE YEARS, IT'S PROBABLY IN THE FIVE TO SIX MILLION DOLLAR RANGE.
BUT IF YOU EXTRAPOLATE THAT OVER THE LAST 20 YEARS, IT'S A LOT OF MONEY WE'VE RECEIVED FROM THE STATE THROUGH THIS PROCESS.
THANK YOU.
AND THEN I SEE COUNCILMEMBER KETTLE WITH HIS HAND.
Yeah, just a, not a question, but a thank you.
Council Member Rivera, you know, jogged my memory, and I just wanted to say a thank you to the team, particularly Paula Hoff, who's our liaison, and Andy Sheffer.
Because we had a great meeting discussion regarding the West Queen Anne play field, otherwise known as Big How, and to get the turf onto that and getting it into the plan.
And this is another example of public-private because that's like a good chunk of the quote-unquote Big How, the West Queen Anne play field.
But there's a smaller area, Queen Anne 3 Little League field, which is going to be another version of a public-private partnership to upgrade the the baseball Little League field of capacity there, too.
So I really appreciate the engagement of the team.
We had a meeting with Queen Anne Little League and Queen Anne Community Council members, and they were on it.
They had all the points.
Andy was on it.
And so I really appreciate that engagement.
So please pass my thanks.
I will.
All right.
Thank you, Council Member Kettle.
Council Member Strauss.
Thanks, Chair.
This is the opportunity that I'm going to take to also share with the viewing public, everyone who's watching at home right now, that they too can donate land to the Parks Department.
Is that correct?
That's right.
And the reason I know that is because you've been able to land bank and people, at least in District 6, have...
put their land in their will.
Right.
Because as our city becomes more dense and land becomes more expensive, it is harder to meet that aspirational goal that you shared.
That's right.
Our city has really benefited.
I think it's Peaks Park on Finney Ridge?
Yes.
I know parks by their location and not by their name.
Council Member Kettle started talking about Howe Park, and I can't remember if it's big or little, or I think we changed some of their names, but I know where both of them are.
We talked about
Yeah, and it really speaks to how many people, I know Cher was talking about this when she was being sworn in.
we all experience the parks and it is all like, that's where we have our best memories, right?
It's where, and so how to have that aspirational goal within 10 minutes of everyone who's living here is really incredible.
It's forward thinking and it's important and it builds upon the Olmsted Brothers stewardship.
And so thank you for stewarding their legacy.
Again, lots of thanks from me.
Last thank you here is about grants since we started talking about it and I appreciate the due diligence that you go through looking at grants, because oftentimes it might look attractive to take an RCO grant, and 10 years down the road, the strings that are attached to it and the changed dynamics of our city, it's actually a larger detriment to our city to take that grant.
That's right.
So what you are talking about is encumbering large swaths of city property for a $50,000 grant, which can place all these restrictions on a property.
And we have become more strategic about how we think about that.
THE IDEA IS THAT PUBLIC OPEN SPACE NEEDS TO REMAIN PUBLIC OPEN SPACE IN PERPETUITY.
BUT WE MIGHT WANT TO INSTALL A SOCCER FIELD OR MAKE SOME CHANGE, AND I THINK WE HAVE TO WEIGH SOMETIMES THE VALUE OF A SMALL GRANT AGAINST THE ABILITY TO USE THAT PARK LAND FOR A DIVERSE RANGE OF USES.
And just to continue this conversation, what I've found is that the state, their conservation aspect of these grants is, differently aligned than our city's needs.
We talked about a soccer field or what type of boat can land here.
It is within a Seattleite's opinion, conservation is recreation, it is open space, but not in the defined terms from the state.
So thank you for your due diligence.
Thank you.
Awesome.
And then I have a couple of questions myself real quick.
The first one was trying to figure out what criteria do you use to like determine which capital projects are, which capital projects are included in the plan, like that are available for RCO funding?
So we do two things.
Leading up to this last tranche of the park district funding, we went through probably a two and a half year strategic planning process with the community.
And out of that process emerged a list of capital ideas, improvements to the Amy Yee Tennis Center, improvements to community centers on Queen Anne and Green Lake.
So there's that process.
We also have a normal CIP program, which is a major maintenance program.
So if a roof needs to be repaired, that's also part of our prioritized needs.
Or, you know, when things break, we need to fix them as the landowners.
So part of it is a strategic plan driven by a lot of community input And the other is a basic CIP or major maintenance approach to maintenance.
Understood.
And then the other question I had, just going, when I'm thinking of different parks in Seattle, one of them is Jutkins.
And I know that Jutkins play field, CD Panthers play on, but that's also the school district, right?
Right.
And so how do you all partner with the school district to address some of the fields that are, you know, in Seattle that, you know, are heavily played on?
Especially in Jenkins, there is going to be a massive amount of units that's going to be on both sides of I-90, right?
South of...
or on Rainier, or on 23rd, that's 23rd, excuse me.
No, that's Rainier.
South of I-90 and then just north, you're talking about 2,000 to 3,000 units that are going to be put there in the next five to 10 years, some that are coming online in a couple years.
Jutkins is going to be used significantly.
That lid, Coleman School, that dog park, those tennis.
How do you all prioritize understanding where the density is going in our city and understanding like, hey, we probably need to start investing in this area?
Well, thank you for that question.
So we have a great joint use agreement partnership with the school district.
We meet with Fred Podesta and his team on a regular basis.
Examples of where we have prioritized and shared development of a field recently is the Cleveland High School field.
Part of that field was owned by the park department.
The other half was owned by the school district, and we developed a project and made that work.
Now is the right time to begin having discussions early.
The school district and the park department require kind of a long lead time.
to create funding for large capital projects.
And now is really the right time for us to begin to engage the school district in a discussion about their BEX levy, about our park district ballot measure that's coming up in 2028. So we will begin having those conversations because the more planning time we give ourselves, the more opportunity to capitalize on future success we'll have.
Well, that's great.
And this is a shameless plug for synthetic fields.
I know people had concerns because it used to be rubber.
Now it's cork.
Oh, yeah.
And when those are lit, I know that they create three times more revenue as lit fields.
And you can use them year round.
That's right.
And that's super, super important.
Last question I had.
Chair Hollingsworth, before you move on from that, just wanted you to know that Jenkins...
play fields are in the resolution.
I got them in there as a priority if and when there is ever an agreement and it comes up in the spending plan.
So thank you for that.
Hey, that's huge.
We love our CD Panthers.
Yes.
Thank you for that.
Did you have a...
Well, I just think this is of great interest to all of us because we have schools in all of the districts.
And so I would recommend perhaps parks can come back and we can have them present just on this topic of schools and fields and not just what will be coming up, but how they currently make the decisions about the prioritization of usage of the fields.
Oh, for sure.
No, absolutely.
And then my last question, I'll be super quick.
I was reading through the report and I saw one number that stuck out the most was our population growth by 2050. and three numbers that were pretty key that a large percent of our population by 2050 is gonna be over the age of 75. And those are the three biggest categories from 75 to 79 has a large amount of growth.
The 80 to 84 range is going from 11,000 to 33,000 and then 85 to 100, which is shocking 14,000 to 55,000 folks.
How does accessibility in a park you know, play into the strategic plan for our open spaces?
So ADA accessibility is a big part of all of our park development projects across the city.
We want people to be able to enjoy the park system literally from cradle to grave.
So that means creating accessible paths and walkways, having ADA-accessible restrooms and bathrooms across the system, not taking for granted the need for railings, and even the distance toilet paper is installed in our comfort stations and restrooms.
So it's a big part of the normal routine work we do, and we are always making an effort to double down on our ADA commitment.
Awesome.
Thank you.
Those are all the questions I have.
And thank you all for being here and presenting.
Any more questions at all?
All right.
Awesome.
Thank you both.
Appreciate y'all.
So will the clerk please read agenda items two and three into the record?
Agenda items two and three.
Agenda item two, an ordinance relating to surveillance technology, implementation authorizing approval of uses and accepting the 2023 surveillance impact report and 2023 executive overview for the Seattle Police Department's use of Callio for briefing and discussion.
Agenda item number three, an ordinance relating to the surveillance technology implementation authorizing approval of uses and accepting the 2023 impact report and 2023 executive overview for the Seattle Police Department's use of hostage negotiation throw phone for briefing and discussion.
The presenters for both items are James Britt from the Seattle Police Department, Sarah Carrier, Eleanor Bounds, and Ginger Armbruster from the Information Technology Department, and Tommaso Johnson and Greg Doss from Council Central staff.
Awesome, thank you everyone for being here today.
We appreciate your time, looking forward to this discussion.
Will you please be able to introduce yourself?
And I think we'll, oh, the presentation is up.
I was looking at myself on the screen thinking that it was gonna be right here, but it's right here.
My apologies, please introduce yourself and please start your presentation, thank you.
Hi, everyone.
I am Sarah Carrier.
I am the city's privacy program manager within Seattle IT, helping support the IT leg of this compliance process.
I believe we have Ginger online, but I'll let these folks go first, introduce themselves.
Good afternoon.
I'm Captain Jim Britt with the Seattle Police Department.
I oversee technology and innovation for the department.
Hi, my name is Eleanor Bounds, and I work on Sarah's team in privacy and surveillance and responsible AI.
Ginger Armbruster, And online hi i'm ginger arm Brewster I met you all, or at least most of you a couple of weeks ago with Jim loader when we came by and Sarah and Eleanor are on my team and i'm happy to join you here virtually.
And just a heads up for my colleagues, we'll also have a presentation by our central staff about these as well.
So just wanted to give you all a heads up.
That will be at the next committee meeting that we'll have a briefing from our central staff.
Go right ahead.
Thank you.
Great, so thank you so much for having us here today to talk about the last two surveillance impact reports that we are bringing to you guys as part of the retroactive technology reviews.
I believe that Ginger Armbruster and our interim CTO Jim Loader were here at a previous committee meeting to kind of discuss, provide a high level overview of the process.
So we'll briefly talk about what the surveillance process is. what the report contains, and kind of a recap of the public engagement for COGLIO and hostage negotiation throw phones.
So the surveillance impact report process is essentially a process that involves a large report on a specified technology, in this case, COGLIO and hostage negotiation throw phones for the Seattle Police Department.
The report contains several components that are listed here in the slide deck.
So there's a section that discusses the privacy impacts, financial information, an adaptation of the racial equity toolkit, a section for public engagement, which is part of the process, a working group report that is called the privacy and civil liberties impact assessment, excuse me, a CTO response portion, and then any supporting appendices and documentation.
And that's kind of all bundled together in what we call the surveillance impact report that is created by, in this case, the police department, with some project management support from the IT side.
So that's why we're here today.
So in terms of the process overall, we first draft the report or rather the department does.
It goes into a public comment period where we have at least one public meeting to collect public comment on the technologies.
We kind of bundle all of those public comments up and all of the information as part of the report, hand the report over to the surveillance advisory working group where they review it and have six to eight weeks to provide their privacy and civil liberties impact assessment.
The CTO has the option to draft a response to any concerns raised as part of that public comment and working group review.
We bundle that all up together and help present it by ordinance to you all.
And that's ultimately the process.
So a quick high-level recap for the public engagement.
Oops.
Yeah, thank you, for the public engagement for hostage negotiation throw phones and also Callio.
Callio happened in 2021 for the open public comment period around the June, July timeframe.
You can see some of the statistics for the two public meetings in the amount of online comments, about 13 online comments in total, 15, which includes letters that we receive via email or regular mail.
So we include those as well.
And we have a high-level overview of approximate number of individuals who join the public meetings and attend those.
So for COGLIO, we have a total of approximately 28, about 15 public comments including those letters.
and around eight formal questions that were part of that public process.
For hostage negotiation throw phones, that public comment period happened in 2023. The two meetings were held April 18th and 28th, and we had 21 public comments in total.
And approximately seven folks participating in either providing public comment or attending the public meeting events that we had for that.
So as part of the engagement process for all public open public comment periods, we do post not only the SER for folks to review and read through, but also a high level overview that we call a one page kind of It's a quick look at some of the key points that are in the very long and detailed report.
Those are also translated into the seven tier one languages to try to make them more accessible.
And then we also record those public events and make them available online for folks who couldn't attend.
They can go back and watch them later.
So that's what I've got.
I'm going to hand it over to Captain Britt.
Thank you.
As with all things, we start with the admission of the Seattle Police Department, which is to prevent crime, enforce the law, and support quality public safety by delivering respectful, professional, and dependable police services.
The two presentations I'm about to give today are broken into categories, and so If it sounds like I haven't gotten to what you're wondering about, give me a moment, get to the next slide, and hopefully we'll address it.
We start with what the technology is, then move to why SPD uses it.
We'll speak about what the data collected looks like, what protections are in place related to people's privacy.
and then what related policies and laws are in place.
The first technology we're talking about today is the hostage negotiation throw phone, which is pretty much exactly what it sounds like.
The hostage negotiation throw phone is part of a communication system used to negotiate with subjects in hostage or crisis situations.
The phone case includes microphones and speakers to enable communication in an overt or covert manner.
It also includes hidden cameras to support threat and tactical assessments.
We use this technology as standard equipment, and it is standard across the country for various hostage and crisis negotiation teams.
It's considered an integral part of making sure that we can communicate with the people that we are dealing with.
At times, there are no other means of phone communication with the subject in a hostage or barricaded person situation, and this phone fills that void.
The system allows the team to facilitate the development of negotiation strategies and ensures the safety related information is relayed.
The most critical piece in any kind of event like this is in fact communication.
So if we're not able to speak with the people we're dealing with, it's very difficult to facilitate de-escalation.
So the hostage negotiation throw phone is a critical component to our de-escalation efforts.
Sorry, I went off track there a little bit for Vin, so thanks for getting back.
The data collected.
The delivery of the throw phone is typically pre-negotiated with the subject via hailing or other meets.
By hailing, we mean we either use a loud speaker or we just shout real loud through the wall to let them know that it's coming.
Live feed video is monitored by either a hostage negotiation team or SWAT team personnel, either from the HNT truck via a system network laptop or through a remote view application in range of the Wi-Fi system.
Video recorded on the system hard drive is only accessible by HNT members who have controlled access either by password or by permission granted from the computer running the software.
So it's a very narrow band of people who have access to the information coming through that system.
Now the important part, the protections.
Deployment into a constitutionally protected area requires an authorized entry into the area via a warrant or warrant exception.
Those warrant exceptions can include consent, exigent circumstances, or a community caretaking emergency situation.
Deployment of the throw phone system during an incident involves the authorization of the HNT supervisor, incident commander, and the SWAT commander if SWAT is on scene.
RCW 9.73030 expressly provides an exception to the all parties consent rule for the monitoring, intercepting and recording of calls involving communications with a hostage holder or barricaded person.
This is critical to our ability to make sure that we can communicate and document the communication that occurs during those times.
The next slide, which is rather dry but very important, covers the related policies and related laws that come into play when we're dealing with this particular technology.
There's various different SPD policies, which include our standards and duties, responsibilities of employees concerning alleged policy violations, bias-free policing, collection of information for law enforcement purposes, submitting evidence, department-owned computers, devices, and software, criminal justice information systems, department records access, inspection, and dissemination, and use of department email and internet systems, as well as the Washington Privacy Act, Chapter 9.73.
We can move on now to Caglio, unless there's questions that want to be had at this moment.
Chair?
No.
Up to the chair, sorry.
Yeah, no, you're all good.
On slide 11, did you recite that RCW off of memory?
No, sir.
It was on my thing.
All right.
I mean, I just, like...
It was a long time ago, so I don't have those right on my memory.
Fair enough.
It looks like it impressed me either way.
Thank you for your service.
I appreciate that.
Thank you.
Related to Callio.
Callio is a cell phone identification masking and recording technology.
Callio is installed on a cell phone and can disguise the identity of an officer's phone by masking a phone number, record phone conversations, and GPS locate identifiable individuals who are unaware of the operation.
And again, we'll get into the protections here in just a moment because I know that that can make people nervous.
Why we use the technology.
Callio allows SPD to mask the phone number of a willing participant in an undercover investigation and record conversations and locations of suspects.
The High Risk Victims Unit uses Call You to mask phone numbers, but does not utilize the recording features of Call You.
Audio recording by Call You and phone numbers masking contribute to crime reduction by assisting in collecting evidence related to serious and or violent criminal activity as part of the investigation of criminal activity.
The data collected by COLIO.
When COLIO is utilized to record, it collects conversations and sounds of individuals related to a criminal investigation.
Data collected by COLIO is provided to the requesting officer or detective for inclusion in the investigative file and is stored following evidence guidelines.
After having established probable cause, officers make a verbal request to the TESU, which stands for Technical Electronic Support Unit, for deployment of Kalyo.
TESU documents the equipment request, the legal authority, and the case number.
Now for the protections.
Audio recording devices are utilized only after legal standards of consent and or court-issued warrant have been met as required by the Washington Privacy Act, Chapter 9.73.
Deployment of audio recording devices is constrained to the conditions stipulated by consent and or court order, which provides the legal authority and the scope of collection.
All deployment of audio recording devices are documented by the TSUE and subject to audit by the Office of the Inspector General and the Federal Monitor at any time.
And once again, the related policies include the Washington Privacy Act, Chapter 9.73, and various SPD policies, which include standards and duties, responsibilities of employees concerning alleged policy violations, bias-free policing, collection of information for law enforcement purposes, submitting evidence, department-owned computers, devices, and software, criminal justice information systems, department records access inspection and dissemination, use of department email and internet systems, and use of cloud storage services.
And that's all I have for you today, but I'd be happy to answer any questions you may have.
Awesome.
I see love.
Thank you so much for that presentation.
Really appreciate it.
And I would love to open it up to my council, to my council members, to my colleagues.
You all are my council members.
Council Member Rivera.
Thank you, Council Member Hollingsworth, and thank you for the presentation.
Can you just give me, well, first of all, how often is hostage negotiation through phone use?
Like, is this technology used often?
I mean, how often are we in Seattle in a hostage type of situation, or is it hostage abroad term?
It's an overly broad term.
It's not to imply that the situation we're dealing with involves a hostage, but the tactics used by HNT run universal to the ability to speak to a person who may very well be in crisis, but we have somehow developed a barricaded situation where we cannot physically encounter that person, and entry into that area may be not tactically sound at the time.
So we want to communicate with them.
Hostage negotiators, you know, very rarely do we have an actual hostage situation, but we utilize those skills anytime we need to talk a person out of a situation or try and relieve a barricaded suspect and try and get to the peaceful resolution we're looking for.
It's not terribly frequent, but when needed, it's very, very needed.
And can you give me an example, like a world example of how?
Certainly.
Without naming names, of course, I can give an example from my patrol experience.
We had a subject who was in crisis who had taken a hatchet to the front door of his apartment building.
When officers arrived, he fled into his apartment, closed, locked the door, and moved the refrigerator against the door, thereby preventing officers from being able to gain entry.
This person then started hacking at the gas lines, trying to leak enough gas into the building to cause damage to the building or inflict other harm.
While alone in the building, there was still a danger and a concern, and so we had to evacuate the building, and this person did not have a cell phone in the room.
And this was many years ago, so we ended up lowering an older version of what we're talking about today from an apartment above into that person's apartment so that we could have direct communication.
One of the challenges that comes with dealing with a person in crisis such as this is if you don't have the ability to communicate like we are right now and you have to yell through a wall, the very act of yelling can oftentimes escalate a situation.
So the ability to have a normal toned conversation with a person, which these phones enable us to do, can oftentimes lead to a de-escalatory effort.
Thank you.
And can you talk a little bit about the protections that would be used in such a case?
Certainly.
That we're talking about things as a real world example.
Absolutely.
So in a case like this, we would want to make sure.
So there's some exigency to the one I just described because of the danger to the building, the danger to the person inside.
Sorry about that.
But in most cases where we're going to be deploying something along these lines, we mentioned consent and we mentioned a warrant.
What we would say is, hey, I'm having difficulty hearing you.
Would it be okay if I sent in our phone or a device that would allow us to communicate with one another?
When the person says, yes, we now have met the legal statute for consent and we can send that in.
If we don't have consent and we need to proceed with a warrant, we're usually getting a judge on the phone.
We're writing things oftentimes right there in the patrol car on scene.
or somebody back in an office writing it up, and we'll send it to a judge to sign.
And as mentioned in the, especially in the Callio section, what we're talking about there is the judge can actually limit the scope of of the warrant very, very strictly.
So we can't write this and say, I want to use this anytime in the next year and a half.
The judge would oftentimes say, well, no, no, you have 10 days, 20 days, or just this date if there's a specific operation in place.
So there's a lot of judicial oversight into how this technology is particularly used.
And just when the warrant is issued doesn't actually conclude that oversight because once we actually go to trial on a person who's being charged with a crime, the nature of the warrant and the approval of the warrant and how we applied the warrant are also brought into scrutiny during pretrial efforts as well.
So there's a lot of oversight that goes into how these particular technologies and the exceptions are used.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Awesome.
And Officer Britt, what is your official title?
So I make sure I recognize you correctly.
Oh, I'm called, I'm a captain, but people call me Jim.
It's perfectly fine.
No, no, no.
Captain, you're good.
Captain Britt, you earned it.
My mother taught me to address people by their title.
So thank you, Captain.
I also see Council Member Kettle.
Thank you, Chair Hollingsworth.
And I recognize the color device, so that gives it away too.
It's interesting.
Obviously, well, first, Chair Hollingsworth, I love the fact that our committee's turned into somewhat of a public safety committee meeting.
I really appreciate that.
Everything is public safety.
True.
And obviously, technology and law enforcement is of great interest to me, with my background previously.
And I know it is of interest to a lot of people, as my inbox will attest, and so I thank the members of the public who do that outreach to express their opinions on law enforcement and technology.
And given the volume that I received, I have to ask the question, I'm a little bit shocked, because the volume is very different.
The participation and the comments on the public campaign here for these two programs is...
let's just say, a small fraction of the emails I receive in my inbox.
And I was like, why is that?
Is there any explanation?
Is this standard in terms of public feedback and the like?
Yeah, I'll take that one.
Yeah, so it can be challenging, you know, to...
I think oftentimes...
It has been typical to have a lower volume than what we are currently experiencing for some of the current technologies that you might be getting emails about right now.
But it has historically been a little bit challenging to engage the community in a way that is specific around a particular technology.
Oftentimes there's a desire to have a broader conversation.
And so just to make sure we're meeting the letter of the law and what the ordinance requires in terms of let's discuss a specific technology and get comment on how this particular technology is used, I think has been a challenge.
Typically, when we open the public comment period and try to do the communications to get folks to provide public comment and do that type of outreach, we do run to the best of our abilities through our typical communications channels.
So we have blog posts we put out.
We work with, we notify the working group to try to activate their channels to inform people that the public comment period is opening.
We do social media kind of blasts saying public comment period is open, right?
So we try to activate the channels that we have available to us, but it has typically been a relatively low public comment turnout historically for a lot of the retroactive technologies.
Okay, thank you.
We'll look to support that effort as chair of the Public Safety Committee and as District 7 representatives.
I'll use my new District 7 Neighborhood Council to do some outreach.
Awesome.
And I see Ginger has her hand up.
I want to make sure that you're recognized.
Thank you.
And thank you for letting me just chime in.
Sarah answered that very completely.
And I've had a little more experience than she has.
This has been pretty typical for a specific technology review with members of the public.
Throw phones may be of interest, but maybe folks really want to talk all up about surveillance of a different kind.
And the way the law is written, we must focus the conversation on the technology being reviewed.
So it really does not lend itself to a broader conversation, if that makes some sense.
And that's something we can certainly talk about more at another time.
But I wanted to just emphasize that's been really the case from the beginning of the ordinance that we've been managing.
Thank you.
And I think I did, I apologize.
I think I did a bad job of facilitating questions.
I know that there's two items.
There's the hostage throw phone and then there's call yo.
And I think we've had questions about the hostage throw phone.
I wanted to make sure that we separated them.
Did anyone have any additional questions regarding the hostage throw phone at all?
Okay.
Do we have any questions about call yo from my colleagues?
Chair, just for...
Our colleagues that are...
We've had these before, the council before.
Is that correct?
Or am I just having deja vu all over again?
These particular technologies?
Yeah.
Callio has been here before, no?
It came up last year.
You might have...
That might seem familiar because...
The I believe it was the working group that asked for an extension because they weren't able to do their review of it and get their comments in.
And so you've heard that brand name before because the the report was the deadline was extended.
And so that's why at that time I did more research and I don't have any questions.
So thank you, Chair.
Awesome.
And for the record, could you say how long this has been in use with our Seattle Police Department?
Honestly, I can't.
But when the surveillance ordinance was passed in 2017?
Yes.
It was on the master list of technologies at that time.
So it's been in use at least since then.
Understood.
And then last but not least, does SPD have any contracts with Motorola and Callio right now, currently?
I believe so, yes, ma'am.
Okay, awesome.
Yeah, I only had those two questions.
I don't know if anyone, anyone?
Okay, well, thank you.
Appreciate your time.
Thank you, Captain.
Thank you all for being here as well.
Thank you all.
Thank you.
We are now towards the end of our meeting.
Does any of my colleagues have any more items of business?
Seeing none, this concludes our meeting March 27th.
Meetings of Parks, Public Utilities, and Technology Committee.
Our next meeting will be scheduled for Wednesday, April 10th.
It will be at 2 p.m.
If there's no further business, we will adjourn.
The time is 3.20 p.m.
Thank you.