SPEAKER_09

Good morning, everyone.

The Special Governance, Accountability, and Economic Development Committee will come to order.

It is 9.33 a.m.

I'm Sarah Nelson, chair of the committee.

Will the clerk please call the roll?

SPEAKER_15

Councilmember Kettle?

Here.

Councilmember Hollingsworth?

Present.

Councilmember Saka?

Here.

Councilmember Rivera?

Present.

Chair Nelson?

Present.

Five present, none excused.

SPEAKER_09

Thank you very much.

So we've only got one item on our agenda, which is a briefing discussion and possible vote on Council Bill 120862, which would extend the hiring incentives program and increase the amount of the bonus provided for lateral hires.

And with that, we'll now move into public comment on that agenda item.

Tameen, how many speakers are registered to speak?

SPEAKER_15

Council President, we have two in-person public commenters and 10 virtual.

SPEAKER_09

Okay.

As usual, we will start with the in-person commenters.

Let's get through all of them, of course, and everyone will have two minutes.

Go ahead and you can read the instructions, please.

SPEAKER_15

I'll call on the speakers in the order they sign up to speak, starting with the in-person commenters.

Speakers will have two minutes.

When you hear the chime, you will have 10 seconds left.

If you exceed that time, your microphone may be cut off so that we can move on to the next speaker.

If you're offering remote comment, please make sure to press star six to unmute yourself.

And as Council President Nelson mentioned, we'll be starting with our two in-person commenters.

Alex Dermenman, you're up next.

You're up.

SPEAKER_10

Hi, my name Alex.

It's working?

You sure?

Go ahead.

Yeah.

Working?

Yeah.

Okay.

My name Alex Zimmerman.

Guys, I come today speak not about money.

What does it mean?

For policeman, less money for policeman.

Problem what is we have right now?

It's a fundamental problem.

Bonuses, no bonuses, don't change nothing.

I look, you sit in this chamber almost for one year right now, and I don't understand how you different, but as I see before for 20 year here.

You absolutely identical.

You cannot change philosophy or principle how make city better.

Everything what is you doing, you know what is mean.

Change color of your closet, but clown from same circle, exactly same.

This is exactly who you are.

It makes me totally sick because I remember first meeting.

When you come to power, you know what this mean?

And people here very happy, we have more, more, more, what is this, conservative council.

You same, you nothing different.

It's a problem what is I have.

Bonus can be a million bucks.

We'll be same, people come.

Money never change principle.

Cannot change principle.

It's not matter who you are.

You understand what this mean?

Or what is you doing?

It's need change cities.

You don't doing nothing about this.

Are you speak about this bonuses with Q&A in every year?

District, you know what this means?

No.

Our mayor, our Q&A speak about this.

No.

It's people money.

You're doing with this money same what as you did before.

By definition, you're not sure of boring degenerative and idiotic.

This exactly what as I told you many time before.

For this, my speech, you know, for 100 years.

Stop Seattle fascists with idiotic face.

You, by definition, idiot.

It's a problem.

Thank you very much.

SPEAKER_15

Thank you.

Next, we have Lily Hayward.

SPEAKER_00

Good morning, Chair Nelson and committee members.

My name is Lily Hayward, speaking on behalf of the more than 2,500 members of the Seattle Metro Chamber of Commerce in support of Council Bill 120862. Our city's shortage of police officers impacts all members of our community.

And for the employer community, it means waiting on the non-emergency line for hours after a break-in, training employees in de-escalation, hiring private security, and paying skyrocketing insurance rates after continuous break-ins.

Some of you have heard these stories in meetings that the Chamber has hosted with small businesses and council members.

Several restaurant owners even said that they sleep in their businesses to deter break-ins.

We support an all-of-the-above approach to public safety, and that must include attracting and retaining highly qualified police officers.

We need to be competitive with municipalities in Washington and in other states, and making permanent these hiring incentives is an essential way to do that.

Please pass this legislation and continue finding ways to make our communities safer.

Thank you for your time.

SPEAKER_15

Council President, that concludes in-person public comment.

SPEAKER_09

Thank you.

Please proceed to the remote speakers.

SPEAKER_15

For the first remote speaker that is currently present, we have Julia Buck.

Julia, you have been unmuted.

Go ahead, Julia.

SPEAKER_05

Good morning.

I'm a resident of District 6. I would like to start by quoting Council President Nelson.

I say we have to stop doing what we're doing.

The amount of money that is thrown at a problem that doesn't get better requires that we stop, evaluate our investments, and evaluate whether or not we want to continue or redirect those dollars.

Last Thursday, we learned that SPD developed a real-time crime center in-house for the city's current video footage from private sources with an unknown price tag but, quote, never turned it on, unquote.

SPD's own internal reporting has said that hiring bonuses haven't helped them to make up the difference in officers.

If our council's unifying principle is fiscal responsibility and results, and that includes $40 million a year that was somehow spent on the salaries of officers who were not in fact hired, which has been an ongoing issue, Why does no one ask these questions about efficacy of our police department as we commit ever more funds?

Why is our city and metro chamber suddenly saying, well, you can't expect to improve in the problem, but this is working, when anyone who's in downtown or in quite a number of other neighborhoods can see it's not?

If council's principle is fiscal responsibility, I would love to hear why this is happening.

And if the principal is not in fact school responsibility, I would like to know what principal you are operating from.

Thank you.

SPEAKER_15

Thank you.

Our next present virtual public commenter is BJ Last.

BJ, you have been unmuted.

SPEAKER_14

Good morning, my name is BJ Last, I'm a Ballard homeowner.

I'm calling on council to reject CB120862, which would give cops 50K hiring bonuses.

And cost the city, the estimate is $1.5 million a year.

Council members claiming last week that this is somehow budget neutral because it's coming from SPD's ghost cop slush fund, aka it's salary saving, is a lie.

It's not even a good lie.

Council can take away this slush fund Council can shift budget between departments.

It's council's job actually to control the purse and fiscal responsibility, which y'all claimed to have run on.

And we saw this shifting of money between departments last month.

Council had no problems defunding student mental health by $8 million.

There weren't council members saying, well, this money has already been allocated, so leaving it there is budget neutral, so we get to leave it.

Nope, they took it away.

Last month, council also gave SPD over $1 million of additional budget even though SPD has millions of dollars in salary savings.

So these bonuses are already actually having budget impact.

That million dollars apparently didn't have to go to SPD because SPD could have covered it out of its salary savings.

But that was never, yeah, but SPD got more money.

In fact, council never even asked what SPD is doing without additional salary savings and just like keeping it for slush funds.

And this constant throwing money at SPD and letting SPD keep this money is how SPD's budget has grown to record levels, even as the number of cops has dropped.

Greg Doss of Central Staff always used to say at the start of budget that SPD's budget was almost entirely wages.

And this was meant to imply that if you wanted to reduce SPD's budget, this clearly meant you'd have to take away cops.

Well, the number of cops has dropped, and yet the budget has continued to grow.

And somehow the Fiscal Responsibility Council has never decided to actually ask how that's happening.

And so voting for these bills is choosing to cut 1.5 million of housing, libraries, EDI, food access, student mental health, and other services.

SPEAKER_15

Next virtual public commenter we have is going to be Aiden Carroll, followed by Lilia B. Aiden, go ahead.

SPEAKER_02

Hi, well, a couple of reminders.

The biggest waste of police time is where I am right now, sweeps.

If you, there's a lot of alternative options, but if you leave a camp alone for a year or two, they become shacks and those become slums and those become neighborhoods faster as you offer the infrastructure.

If you care where this happens, you ought to decide where it happens.

If you let it happen, those who steal will eventually stop stealing things.

But also, you can just pay people not to with basic income.

It sounds crazy, but as with many left-wing things, you check the evidence and it's true.

It would be cheaper in the budget to give everybody housing, healthcare, education, and food than to spend the money we spend, increasingly it looks like, on police, prisons, courts.

The other thing is just how in circles you seem to be going.

Like you've forgotten everything that we learned four years ago about systemic racism.

That wasn't some ideological game.

There are inherent and unchangeable things about the way the laws are written so that when police are just doing their job enforcing the laws, that is systemic racism inherently because of the way the economy is set up based on slavery and things that came directly from it.

And you cannot change this with any kind of special words or special reform laws because that's not where the problem came from in the first place.

The problem is inequality, and then they came up with racism to justify it, and they came up with police to stop the whole thing from falling apart.

You can check every single bit of this in the history books.

It's not that complicated.

So, in summary, I don't expect you to listen, but I want to leave a record for the next time.

We should be spending this money.

SPEAKER_15

Thank you, Ada.

Next, present virtual public commenter is Lilia B followed by Trevonna Thompson Wiley.

You've been unmuted, Lilia.

SPEAKER_03

Hi, my name is Lilia B in District 4. I strongly oppose and ask you to vote no on CB 120862 and not to advance the extended increase in hiring incentives.

Lateral transfer hires to SPD is how you streamline hiring cops who are escaping accountability in their home jurisdictions.

You do not have mechanisms in place to screen for this and don't seem to be motivated to change that.

Kevin Dave, for instance, who killed Janavi Kandula had six investigations in two years in Tucson and two on duty collisions and didn't have a valid driver's license when he hit and killed her going 75 miles per hour in a 25. And this program gave him a signing bonus.

This is the kind of behavior you encourage and reward with these incentives.

Additionally, this money coming out of the so-called salary savings does not change the fact that SPD is absorbing all possible city money.

While you defund student mental health by $8 million and attempt to cannibalize both affordable and social housing and libraries and schools closed due to budget deficits and you refuse to add services to your draconian exclusion zones, you've given huge sums towards SPD already this year.

The $100 million in back pay through the Guild contract earlier this year was even larger than the city had anticipated and set funds aside for, justifying these hiring incentives to come out of so-called salary savings.

has no barrier to exceeding that fund.

And you'll have to find another program to cut to fund this department.

And in doing so, encourage hiring cops that are already avoiding accountability before they even start here.

Vote no on hiring incentives and vote no on CB 120862. And then additionally, vote no on RTCC and CCTV ordinance.

Increased surveillance won't solve crime.

It'll increase bias policing.

It will open a door to extreme privacy violations.

And it's yet another way for SPD to absorb every possible city dollar Resources and social programs promote public safety, not SPD.

I yield the rest of my time.

SPEAKER_15

Thank you.

Next present virtual commenter is Trevona Thompson Wiley, followed by Katie Gendry.

SPEAKER_06

Hi, my name is Trayvonna Thompson-Wiley and I'm a long time resident of Seattle.

I reject this amendment and we should not extend.

Why are we giving 50,000 higher bonuses to police when we have community violence intervention programs campaigning right now for donations to keep their faith running?

Just five of these positions have set aside $250,000 for funding local organizations cultivating a space of growth and healing.

I work with young people and I hear firsthand their experiences of wanting more in their community.

Please don't make them feel safe, but safe is like no organization does.

We keep youth out the street and out of harm by providing food to nourish their bodies and allow safe for creativity and to pursue their passion.

Please do not keep us all safe.

While we are giving them an incentive to join a department that has a history of abuse and harm to the local community, I just really don't understand why we're doing this.

I know hundreds of organizations that would benefit from this surplus of money.

Our youth are asking for more affordable housing options, mental health services, food support, access to art spaces, and job training.

The youth are asking for more place in the streets.

They're asking for more community support.

Over the next several weeks, you'll have the privilege to hear from young people, community members, and solid budget organizers who are passionate about a budget that amplifies their voices and demands our city really prioritizes the budgets in general care.

$50,000 cop bonuses, that's not here.

Cops don't stop violence in the research shows.

Ultimately, police are violent workers.

Their response to violence is more violence or the threat of violence.

If funding police work, why do we keep feeding a system that has proven that it's not doing what it's supposed to do, you know?

I understand police responses are taking a longer time, but where's the guarantee more police will actually help you when they are conditioned to over-police black and brown communities?

And I yield the rest of my time.

SPEAKER_15

Thank you.

Next, we got Katie Gendry, followed by Alice Lockhart.

Katie?

SPEAKER_04

Hi, my name is Katie Gendry, and I'm calling in today to reject Council Bill 12862 and say no to permanent $50,000 hiring bonuses for cops.

Where is the funding for affordable housing, student mental health, libraries, public health, and meaningful outreach to our unhoused neighbors.

Bring back funding from public health mobile medical vans, for example.

$50,000 is the annual salary of many homeless service providers.

At a monthly rent of $2,000 per month, a sum of $50,000 could house 25 people for an entire month.

Instead of giving this bonus to 12 officers, choose to house 25 people for a year instead.

Police do not keep us safe.

What keeps us safe is access to healthy food, affordable rooms over our heads, access to physical and mental health care, harm reduction services, outreach to vulnerable neighbors, which is connected to appropriate resources like non-congregate shelter and voluntary substance use treatment options.

Please do not pass this bill.

Please divest from harm, which is SPD, and invest in care for the people instead.

I want to live in a Seattle where people care for each other, not surveil and criminalize our most vulnerable community members.

Thank you.

I yield my time.

SPEAKER_15

Thank you, Katie.

Next, we got Alice Lockhart.

And to conclude virtual speak public comment, we got Gabriel Jones.

Alice, you're next.

SPEAKER_07

Committee members, after the last public comment period in this committee, council members Hollingworth, Rivera, Kettle, Baca, and Nelson all made comments explaining that the new hiring bonuses are already paid for.

Well, having, I'm so frustrated by this as someone who gives public comment.

As a taxpayer, I just object.

You all know that the general fund is going to fall way short in budget season and that you will be making hard decisions about what to fund.

And you know that it is completely in your power to not do these hiring budget bonuses and instead spend this chunk of the general fund, the general fund that disproportionately funds the Seattle Police Department, spend this on the things you will otherwise cut.

That is a decision that you will all be making.

And it is a fiscally irresponsible decision to award these, decide on these hiring budgets before you decide what other things that are funded by the general fund you will cut.

I, I'm just ashamed of my city council today.

And I am particularly ashamed that my testimony was called an egregious myth by council members.

That was erroneous.

and honestly basically defamatory um you guys are not this is not okay this is fiscally irresponsible and the sort of i don't know the the way you think about the taxpayers of this city is not okay that's all i can

SPEAKER_15

Thank you.

The last virtual public commenter this morning is Gabriel Jones.

Gabriel, you've been unmuted.

And Gabriel, press star six to unmute yourself.

SPEAKER_08

Hi, can you hear me?

SPEAKER_15

Yes, we can.

SPEAKER_08

Great.

Hi, folks.

My name is Gabriel Jones.

I'm going to tell you a little bit of a story today.

Recently, a very close friend of mine was assaulted outside of where our council member's house is.

When I went to go report that with my very close friend to make sure he got justice reserved, we went to every single police precinct in the city.

Not a single one of them was open to taking reports.

But do you know what I did see throughout my journey to every single police precinct?

A really nicely wrapped cyber truck in the parking lot.

We don't have enough money to keep, we don't have enough money apparently to be able to make sure that citizens report crimes that happen to them.

But we do absolutely have enough money to make sure that cops can own cyber trucks, which are sitting at 80K a year.

Sorry, excuse me. 80K to buy a cyber truck.

We talk over and over again about good governance to the point where it could become a drinking game.

But we don't actually do it.

There are so many opportunities for us to actually do something with the money.

But instead, we just funnel it to cops over and over again who don't make self-solutions and are actively not using the money they have.

We always talk about fiscal responsibility, making sure, you know, they're accountable.

That's why we didn't pass when it makes self-housing so much easier.

But, you know, when it's time to hold cops accountable for the money they spend, ah, well, we'll give them another huge bonus.

That way cops who commit crimes in other districts can just move here and work for us and we'll pay them for it.

SPEAKER_09

absolutely insane does not make any sense we need to make a change vote now and council president we reached the end of the list of people signed up to speak and public comment is now closed thank you very much public comment period is closed and will the clerk please read the item one the title of item one into the record

SPEAKER_15

Agenda item one, council bill 120862, an ordinance related to recruitment and retention of police officers in the Seattle Police Department, making permanent a hiring incentives program in the Seattle Police Department and amending ordinance 126654, briefing discussion and possible vote.

SPEAKER_09

Thank you very much.

Last time we had a presentation from the executive on this, and this is our second discussion, and I'm hoping to vote this out today.

Colleagues, I fought hard to reestablish the hiring bonuses or the incentive program that had been in place in previous years.

and I fought for this in 2022, as a means to better compete with neighboring jurisdictions who pretty much all have some form of hiring bonuses and incentive program, putting us at a disadvantage for not having one.

We're all competing for a limited pool of recruits, and that's why I was so focused on this.

And so it should be clear that I'm very invested in extending this program, which is set to expire this December.

And that's why we're here today.

The data show that hiring bonuses do work as a means to attract more applicants.

And that's the top of the funnel leading down to ultimate hires.

And so I just want to hold this slide up to remind people that this program Although there are dips in the month-to-month numbers, the general trend line from when this program was established is up, and that's what we want to see.

So I'm going with that.

Reminder that these bonuses are funded by the salary savings from vacant positions in SPD.

because we're still losing more officers than we can hire, and we're working on all fronts to reverse that trend.

The money that is in the salary savings bucket is primarily used for overtime.

Lateral recruits are especially valuable because they've already gone through the academy and can hit our streets faster, plain and simple.

So this is why they're so sought after by every other city that wants to staff up their police departments.

So we have got to ensure that the bonus we offer is competitive or superior to the bonuses offered by other jurisdictions because essentially it's a numbers game.

plain and simple, and we want to be in the position of choosing the best candidates for our police force that reflect the values that we've strived to institutionalize.

So that's why this legislation is before us.

The hiring bonuses in this legislation for laterals is proposed to go from 35,000 to 50,000.

And the executive explained that rationale last time.

I will be the first to admit that money isn't everything when it comes to bringing on more officers.

But we have to have all the things, and that's what we're trying to do with so much of the legislation that we've passed this year.

People don't make a decision to work for the Seattle Police Department based solely on the hiring incentives.

There is evidence from a survey that suggests it did factor into their decision.

So if anybody wants to revisit that conversation, there was a presentation that was presented on September 16th, just giving that date out so people can find it.

That was a special meeting of this committee.

So I will move this legislation and then allow for more discussion as desired.

With that, I move that the committee recommend passage of Council Bill 120862. Is there a second?

Second.

Thank you very much.

It's been moved and seconded to recommend passage of the bill.

We have our central staff analyst Tomaso here at the table to describe more what this legislation does, and then we'll address a potential amendment after the fact.

But first I want to open it up for questions or comments.

Go ahead, Councilmember Rivera.

SPEAKER_01

Thank you.

I will be supporting this today because it is a fact that we need more officers in the city.

I hear from folks in the district overwhelmingly the conversations I have with the constituents and the D4 is that we have a lot of crime happening in the D4 and across the city, and police is not able to address the crime that we're seeing.

And so these are tools that we're trying to utilize to hire more police officers to address the crime and the situations that we are facing across the city.

And so for those reasons, and the ones that you stated, Council Member Nelson, I agree with all the points that you made, and I will reiterate that this is coming from salary savings.

These are one-time bonuses that we're using to attract police officers.

This is not and that we need to be competitive across the region and across the country because we know that there is a scarcity of officers across the country and we know that folks in the region are offering better than we are.

And so we're trying to compete as you so aptly put it with other cities for officers.

And so, like I said, for those reasons, I'll be supporting this.

Thank you for bringing it forward.

Thank you very much.

SPEAKER_09

Tommaso, did I get, did I hit all the points, the relevant points of this legislation?

Yes.

SPEAKER_12

If there's anything you'd like to add.

Chair, members of the committee, Tommaso Johnson, Council Central staff.

I'll just note a couple other elements in addition to what you mentioned.

As you said, the city has had some version of a hiring bonus program for SPD officers.

There we go, excuse me.

The city has had some version of a hiring bonus program for SPD officers in place since 2019. The current bonus structure is set to sunset at the end of this year and is currently $30,000 bonus for lateral hires and $7,500 for new officers.

This legislation would increase the lateral officer bonus from $30,000 to $50,000, retain the $7,500 bonus for new officers, and make the program permanent.

There are some other technical changes in the bonus program that the legislation accomplishes.

Substantively, the only other thing I would note is the modification to the clawback provision.

One of the areas was identified in the executive's evaluation of the current program.

was to note that other jurisdictions have shorter clawback periods, meaning the amount of time that an officer needs to stay in employment with SPD after receiving the bonus to retain it.

Between one and three years are more common than our five-year clawback.

This legislation would retain our five-year clawback period, but would prorate it so that the officer could receive a bonus commensurate to the number of years up to five that they stay with SPD if they were to leave after receiving the bonus, and that is it for this bill.

I will note, just to reiterate, the fiscal impact is $1.5 million projected.

As you noted, that's coming from SPD salary savings this year and into the future.

As far as I know, SPD is predicted to continue to have salary savings into the near term, so this $1.5 million fiscal would not represent a net increase into the SPD overall budget.

Thank you.

SPEAKER_09

Thank you very much.

And hope springs eternal and also our hard work because we are hoping for the day when we don't have that big pot of money that is coming from vacant positions.

And at that point, we can reevaluate whether or not this program is necessary.

But I don't see that changing within the next year or two for sure.

Council Member Hollingsworth.

SPEAKER_16

Thank you, Council President Nelson.

Let me put my hand down.

Thank you, Council President Nelson.

I think definitely want to address and make sure that our council and it's probably going to be our council, particularly doing a better job of communicating to the general public about and I'll take this on myself.

communicating regarding the investments we're making on the holistic approach of public safety, in addition to our police hiring, but the food investments, the afterschool programs, the gun violence prevention programs, and making sure that in the budget process, that we are doing our due diligence, because I think we all believe in this holistic approach of public safety, and that includes our police, fire, EMT, and our social workers.

The Anne piece that I think is incredibly important, but that we as a city continue to make those investments and we just do a better job of articulating those, showing where those services are, showing those investments and how they are, especially with our care team and our health one with our fire department.

That's incredibly, incredibly important.

And I think people have this notion of police officers, we need more out there fighting crime.

We need more detectives, people behind the scenes that are a lot of the detective work from different units, from the gun violence prevention to the detective solving, just behind the scenes that I don't think a lot of people see.

that we as a council might hear different stories about a lot of the crimes being solved behind the scenes that I don't think the general public sees in the front.

So I just wanted to express that comment because I know that we've heard a lot of people for public comment that had valid statements regarding our police department, regarding the concern about the investment piece and them, you know, wanting to make sure that, you know, in their neighborhood that they have the community resources that they need to feel safe, which is incredibly important.

So I just, I want this to be an and conversation.

I think that's incredibly important.

And I know when I talk to my colleagues, it's an and, and we can continue to push that forward.

So thank you.

SPEAKER_09

Thank you very much and thank you for bringing up again the detectives issue because in 2022, 100 officers that had been in the specialized investigations units were moved to patrol because our 911 response times were getting so long.

And so without that investigation capacity, it's very difficult to track how the guns and the fentanyl is hitting our streets and mount cases against the perpetrators at the top.

So I do want to recognize that that is a problem we're hoping to solve.

And laterals, I would imagine, but do not know for sure, lateral hires would work.

would be able to perhaps fulfill those investigation functions more quickly than recruits.

Co-sponsor of this bill.

SPEAKER_13

Thank you, Council President.

Chair Nelson, I appreciate it.

Thank you very much, Mr. Johnson, for coming today.

Obviously, this is our second hearing.

And I appreciate you noting, and you as well, Council President, regarding a lot of the public commenters regarding the source of the funding of this.

The SPD salary proviso is real.

It's there.

And as you noted, we may get to a day and we will get to the day, it's a question of when, where the incentive piece is going away.

My experience in the military, there's tons of incentives.

These things ebb and flow, and they can be very effective both on recruitment and retention.

And we can't really think of one thing as just retention or one just recruitment.

We really have to think of them in combination, because in today's world, retention programs really are recruitment programs.

And vice versa.

So that's one key.

So thank you for highlighting that.

Also, in the bill, it talks about regarding coming back.

We will definitely be, as a council and as a committee, either governance and or public safety committee, you know, having SPD from accountability and oversight perspective, we will be following this.

This goes to the good governance, you know, following on the budget piece.

And we will have these numbers and we will be looking to see if they are, you know, achieving their goals.

You know, this kind of attention to, you know, was behind our recruitment bill.

And these are the things that we need to continue in terms of our responsibilities and oversight and accountability.

One thing, and this comes back to my military experience with bonuses and the like, which I should note the intelligence folks never got.

It was always the aviators and others that got these bonuses to which I was somewhat jealous.

One of the things is like in the note, in the summary fiscal note, it talks to the point that the incentive shall not exceed 50,000 per hire.

One of the things oftentimes in terms of bonuses is what you bring to the table, and that would go up to $50,000.

So is there a little bit of a scale in terms of what this recruit brings, maybe education, additional education, certifications, training, specialized training?

My brother was a former sheriff's deputy.

He got a lot of specialized training, which made him valuable.

Is there anything like that in terms of a graduated scale, up to $50,000?

SPEAKER_12

Yeah, thank you for the question, Councilmember Kettle.

The legislation doesn't address that.

It is my understanding, as you said, though, that under both the current $30,000 system as well as the proposed $50,000 pay scale.

It is a maximum amount and the chief reserves discretion to determine the actual number.

I believe it is, as you said, based on the qualifications of the potential lateral higher applicant.

There's not more information about that at this time in the legislation, but that's my understanding of how the executive plans to implement this.

SPEAKER_13

That was my understanding, too.

So, but now it could be a question as we follow this program as well, just to ensure.

And that kind of goes to the point that, you know, for some of the callers, some of the public commenters, it's not automatically that a lat transfer, a lateral transfer is 50K.

It could be based on what that person brings to the force.

Lastly, and as you can imagine, when I talk to a lot of folks, I hear from a lot of folks, I think the laterals are, Seattle PD is becoming way more attractive to laterals for two different reasons.

One, what may be happening in their own jurisdictions.

I won't mention what jurisdictions may be having some challenges, which may increase the desire for those officers to look at Seattle.

But our focus is on what we can control, and that is what we do.

And I appreciate the council president's note of this chart.

SHOWS THE INCREASE PARTICULARLY FROM, YOU KNOW, THE TIME OF COUNCIL PRESIDENT'S INITIAL INCENTIVE BILL.

BUT I ALSO HIGHLIGHT THE STEEP CURVE AFTER MARCH OF THIS YEAR BECAUSE I HEARD FROM MANY FOLKS REGARDING, YOU KNOW, THE NEW COUNCIL, NEW COMMITTEE, PUBLIC SAFETY COMMITTEE, NEW GOVERNANCE AND ACCOUNTABILITY.

THEY'RE ON STANDBY BECAUSE WE ALL RAN ON PUBLIC SAFETY.

WE ALL HAD IDEAS.

WE WERE GOING TO PUSH ON THESE, BUT THEY'RE ON STANDBY.

But with the stand-up of the committees, the questions, the comments made, both in this committee and the Public Safety Committee, opening, closing, all the above comments from my colleagues on the dais, that showed intent.

And then, like with the vacant building abatement bill, and then ALPR, street racing, and score jail, And as you know, we had the news from Friday regarding King County Jail.

Separately, you know, obviously more recently, soda and soap.

And we also have in the public safety community, real-time crime center, CCTV.

So this is really showing these potential lat transfers to our jurisdiction that we're serious about, you know, taking on our public safety challenges that we've inherited and that we're acting on them.

And I think that is the key thing for us to attract officers, particularly lateral transfers, to show that we're taking action as it relates to our public safety posture and our goal of creating a safe pace in our city.

So thank you, Mr. Johnson, for the summary and my colleagues for setting up, I believe, conditions for success.

Now we just have to act on it.

SPEAKER_09

Thank you very much.

Council Member Saka.

SPEAKER_11

thank you madam chair and uh...

i will probably be voting for this legislation today uh...

maintaining colleagues as you know maintaining public safety is a key and core charter responsibility that we all have for our city and in just nine months our city council has taken strident action uh...

policy strides towards addressing the public safety challenges in our city and our colleague Councilmember Kettle ticked off a couple of them, scratches the surface, what we're doing from a public safety standpoint.

But colleagues, underpinning all of these policies is a fundamental recognition that we need officers on the beat and able to effectively respond to calls to create a safer Seattle for all as part of our blended approach, comprehensive approach to public safety.

Yes, we need officers on the beat to respond.

And to Councilmember Hollingsworth, Great point earlier.

You know, we also need to focus on other things like prevention, where officers are going to play less or no role.

And prevention is great for preventing things, obviously, crime and situations for tomorrow.

But what about today?

Yes, we need officers to address, and we need good interventions and response capability.

So, today, we have a crucial officer shortage that has made the enforcement of basic public safety a significant challenge.

All of us felt it, our constituents.

As Councilmember Rivera noted, we're feeling it hard in District 1. I know all of you, even from a citywide perspective, Madam Council President.

I know you're hearing it from various constituents.

So it is crucial that the public understand, however, that the financial incentives in this bill are not net new dollars, but instead an expected reallocation of police department salary savings.

We are a world-class city, and we need and also demand that we have the best, we hire and retain the best officers.

So this legislation will allow us to attract that elite-level talent And again, I'm proud to support it today.

We're in a really unique position where we're always collaborating with neighboring jurisdictions on any number of things, on policy challenges.

These are all shared.

But with respect to the hiring and recruitment and retention of qualified officers, we're in a unique position where we're not only collaborating, for best practices of the best talent, but we're also competing.

It's a dogfight for hiring and retaining the best talent.

So this legislation, I'm confident, will help put us in a better position to achieve our officer staffing goals over time and proud to support it.

On Councilmember Kettle's earlier point about the military incentives and bonuses, I'm sorry that it sounds like, at least in the Navy—the Navy—Intel was not a prized possession in terms of the prime beneficiary of some of those generous recruitment and retention bonuses.

Good news is the Air Force was intelligence as a discipline and a function, and the Air Force was on the list.

And unfortunately, I didn't personally benefit because I was principally a reservist most of the time, and most of those bonuses for intel were for active duty.

Hey, now we get to do something for the betterment of our city.

We served our country.

Now we get to do something to help retain and recruit talent for the betterment of our city.

And I'm proud to support it.

So thank you.

SPEAKER_13

Thank you, Council Member Saka, about that.

But of course, we were fully manned and staffed.

And I realize the Air Force was coming up short in that area and had to go to the bonuses.

But yes, I appreciate the efforts undertaken by the Air Force to catch up to the Navy in terms of staffing goals.

SPEAKER_09

Council Member Rivera.

SPEAKER_01

Thank you, Council President.

I agree with Council Member Sacca and Council Member Hollingsworth.

Thanks for bringing up and.

It's very much always and.

And I know this council very much feels and supports the and approach.

We need the violence prevention programs.

We need social workers and mental health services.

And we also need to make sure that we have the police available to answer 911 calls when they come in, and we know right now we cannot do that.

And I also want to say that I have heard from low-income housing providers, I have heard from low-income residents, and I have heard we even, I've heard from Seattle Housing Authority that services low-income folks, that they also are suffering from public safety issues and we need to be able to address public safety across the city and including for our partners, like I said, the housing providers and Seattle Housing Authority.

So this is something that's being felt across the city and that all residents need.

They need public safety.

They need to know that when something happens and they call 911, that we can have an officer at the ready to be able to address that emergency right away and not have to wait.

Or what I hear mostly, they don't come at all.

And so this is what we're mitigating for.

And I just want to make it very clear that we have heard from the low income community as well.

So this is something that all residents across the city are suffering from, a lack of being able to have an officer come when there's an emergency.

It is something that, like I said, all residents are suffering concerned about and are asking for us to do something about.

And these are the things that we're doing to try to address that.

And to Council President's point, these are all tools.

We don't know if it's all going to work, but we have to do all the tools to try to do something about this issue.

So I wanted to address that as well.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

SPEAKER_09

You're absolutely right that our partners who build and maintain affordable housing and Other organizations around, other nonprofits in town do request services of first responders.

In fact, if you look at the addresses that are most responded to, you'll see that many of them are places where we are also investing in services such as housing, et cetera.

So that was a good point to bring up.

Now look, we, and I want to remind that we do have quarterly reports since this program started on the use of these incentive dollars.

And so there is ongoing reporting on this program that will continue.

And I remind people that we also have a report due to us on how the recruitment and retention legislation that we passed this year is being implemented and what is working and what isn't.

I want to know if that, how the the mandate to rapidly respond to applicants to the Seattle Police Department, how that is going, and what new recruitment outreach activities are being contemplated or performed.

And so I'm mentioning these that we're also looking at the other side of the recruitment and hiring issue.

At the other end of the funnel, which is to make sure that our processes are working well.

And then finally, I will also talk about a proposed amendment.

But when it comes to the fact that we always take a services and a law, we try to take a services and law enforcement approach, compassion and wisdom, et cetera, I will note that the job of local government per the charter is to deliver essential services and police, fire, parks, transportation and police, fire, parks, transportation.

Then there's one last one that is meant are specifically called out in our charter.

Our charter also says that there will be adequate police presence in every district of our city, etc.

We take an oath.

So I do want to emphasize that we have a responsibility of maintaining the numbers in SPD to keep our people and all constituents safe, visitors, et cetera.

When I went to the NLC this past week and heard from leaders of other large cities, it was in one of the segments that we did was on public safety exclusively, when they heard how many officers and the percentage loss to our force that Seattle is suffering from, they were astounded.

And so I do have to say that we are in a unique position of very much needing to do absolutely everything that we possibly can to bring those numbers up.

I had circulated a proposed walk-on amendment today.

It was a technical amendment that had to do with two words, striking or SPD, in a section of the legislation.

This was requested by the Public Safety Civil Service Commission late last week.

And I am just noting that I'm not going to move that amendment today because we're doing our last bit of due diligence with the law department.

And so that will likely come up if we proceed with it, which we likely will, that will come up at the vote in full council.

So thank you very much for your support of this legislation.

What I'm hearing is that you are interested in voting this out and that you approve of this legislation.

So with that, unless there are any further comments, will the clerk please call the roll?

SPEAKER_15

Councilmember Kettle?

Aye.

Councilmember Hollingsworth?

SPEAKER_01

Yes.

SPEAKER_15

Councilmember Rivera?

SPEAKER_01

Aye.

SPEAKER_15

Councilmember Saka?

Aye.

Chair Nelson?

Aye.

Five in favor, none opposed.

SPEAKER_09

Thank you very much.

The motion carries and the bill passes.

So will the clerk please affix my signature to the legislation on my behalf?

And this will come before full council on October 8th.

Thank you very much.

All right.

Is there any business that we have before the committee before we adjourn?

No.

Okay, I will, in case you're interested, I will provide for more information about what I learned from other cities and some of the best practices that I see other cities implementing.

We did tour the D.C.

equivalent of a real-time crime center there.

And so that was really exciting.

I'm sorry to have missed that discussion in the Public Safety Committee.

All right.

Seeing no further business, this concludes the special September 23rd meeting of the Governance, Accountability, and Economic Development Committee.

And our next meeting is scheduled for 2 p.m.

on Thursday, December 12th.

Seems like a long way off, doesn't it?

All right.

Thank you very much, everyone.

This meeting is adjourned.