Public Safety Committee 8/11/2026

Good morning.

The Public Safety Committee will come to order.

It's 9.35 a.m.

August 11th, 2026. I'm Robert Kettle, chair of the Public Safety Committee.

Will the committee clerk please call the roll?

Council Member Juarez.

Here.

Council Member Lin.

Here.

Council Member Saka.

Good morning, here.

Councilmember Rivera is excused.

Chair Kettle.

Here.

There are five members present, sorry, four members present, one non-member present, one excused.

Yes, thank you, yes.

Councilmember Rivera is excused.

I did have...

Okay, I'm going to start.

Okay, here we go.

All right.

First things, Councilmember Rivera is excused.

I did have conversations with her.

on some of the issues related to the topics on the agenda, which I'll follow up on at different points.

Thank her for that.

I also wanted to welcome Council Member Strauss, who's obviously here for the RV agenda item, but also importantly for this first agenda item and obviously welcome to stay during the course of the Harborview medical decline presentation as well.

I'm not going to do a chair comment this morning, but I did want to because this Thursday is going to be 20 years since the end of the watch for Officer Lito Barber who lost his life 20 years ago.

This Thursday there will be an event to commemorate it at the Filipino Community Center Seattle on Martin Luther King Way South.

And I just wanted to take a moment to remember Officer Barber 6897. Thank you.

Officer Barber's name is on the wall next door across the street at the headquarters building of the Seattle Police Department.

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

Hearing and seeing no objection, the agenda is adopted.

We'll now open the hybrid public comment period.

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

Clerk, how many speakers do we have signed up for today?

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

Okay, each person will have two minutes and we'll start with the in-person of course and clerk can you please read the public comment instructions.

The public comment period will be moderated in the following manner.

The public comment period is up to 60 minutes.

Speakers will be called in the order in which they registered.

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

Speakers' mics will be muted if they do not, and their comments within the allotted time will allow us to call on the next speaker.

The public comment period is now open.

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

The first in-person speaker is Hannah Ziff, to be followed by Steve Rubstello.

Thank you.

Good morning.

was the meeting between with Zuckerberg because their software was preceded what we see now in AI, and he invests a lot into our city.

What if small businesses were surveyed about how to solve crime and other antagonism around and towards their businesses?

Because there's a lot of statistics and resources put into gathering statistics, and I think it could be really efficient to just ask small businesses who's doing crime.

Seattle Police, I'm told, used to be top paid in the state at one point.

I'm not sure if that's true.

Hopefully, it is still true.

The city should be affordable for everyone, and Seattle is consistently listed as one of the most expensive cities.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Steve Rabsello, to be followed by Andrea Suarez.

We need a better Seattle.

I don't think we've got it yet.

I was around for the beginning of the bite.

Some of you may not remember that it started at Green Lake.

And one of the constant problems we had with the bite of Seattle was number of police officers there.

Of course, the bite wanted Few or none.

And the Green Lake Community Council was probably the leading advocate to support the police officers in the numbers that the city actually wanted there.

And I think that is a problem that we need to look at, not just the communications, but do we have a real plan that actually has a good chance of succeeding?

I do remember one morning coming to the bite, and our arts and crafts fair ran at the same time, and discovering that all the night police officers had been canceled for private security.

Took me a little while, but I found out they also canceled the one for the Arts and Crafts Fair.

Now, some of the officers were quite accommodating, and we did get the problem solved.

But I know that the Byte has never really wanted to pay for the real costs.

My hope is that we will add those squads again so that the city can actually be a real police force.

We're not looking for a Gestapo.

We're not looking for a real heavy hand.

But we are asking that the people who commit crimes actually go to jail.

I'm surprised the jail isn't empty with the crimes I see and nothing happening.

Thank you.

Good morning Andrea from We Heart Seattle.

We filled your chambers a couple weeks ago with men and women in recovery who arrest saved their lives and we presented you data from the Washington Policy Center that the law enforcement assisted diversion program is a scam.

It's now a national news story.

You now have in your inbox the information from Washington Policy Center that Lisa Dugard and her team have been unfactually presenting the data for years, taking hundreds of millions of dollars from us.

Lives have been lost to the tune of 20,000 since implementing LEAD.

It doesn't work, yet you still voted to expand infield pre-booking handoffs.

Why would you do that?

It's not working.

We gave you the data.

and the media is here and everybody has the study now and you guys passed something that you were presented data that clearly showed it doesn't work.

We can also look outside and see we're number four in overdose deaths.

We're number one in homelessness growth by 418%.

We're number one in hospital response.

We're number one in retail theft.

Lisa Dugar gets to put people in a hotel and allow them to smoke fentanyl and hands them the foil and the glass pipes to continue to do it while ripping me and you all off.

So take a look at your inbox and please reverse expanding the lead.

Stop lead now.

To Councilman Strauss, I was in Ballard yesterday.

I saw a lawnmower man.

He says hello.

I bought his tabs for him again.

We're both wondering where this other $5 million in RV outreach goes.

We'd ask you to bring in other outside voices, not Jen, not the old guard.

Bring in some new voices to help you with your RV legislation.

Storing RVs that are dilapidated while somebody gets free housing is wrong.

Putting dilapidated RVs anywhere in our city, even in an industrial area, is wrong.

They're blowing up, they're trafficking children, drugs, stripping wires, leaving off our communities, and they're an environmental hazard.

So please bring in WeHeart or other outside voices to help you fine-tune your legislation.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And next we have Clive Hayward.

Clive Hayward.

The Emergency Services Unit is a Seattle Center uniformed security force.

Its officers patrol the waterfront.

They do not wear body cameras.

On June 4th, I sent the city's attorney's office a claim about two ESU officers who assaulted me on the promenade the week earlier.

I wrote that their reckless endangerment not only endangered me, but the officers themselves.

had it been directed at someone less committed to de-escalation than I was.

I asked for the unit to be retrained.

Nothing was done.

On August 6th, the same two officers tried to detain a pedicab driver.

An ESU sergeant was injured and has been off duty for more than nine months.

Seattle police found no probable cause to detain the driver.

On December 5th, Seattle Center's own Human Resources Manager wrote, quote, it is not within the ESU's officer's authority to detain with or without force.

She wrote their actions were, quote, considered unlawful actions.

And she wrote that they would not be disciplined because, quote, the allegation that they were not previously trained to this standard.

Since that claim, I've taken this to the city's attorney's office, the risk management, two mayor's offices, this council, the office of inspector general, ethics and elections.

One body produced a result.

The office of police accountability issued a supervisory action against Seattle police for failing to collect evidence.

It has no jurisdictions over the officers who assaulted me.

One of those officers was promoted when and how will the assault against me be resolved?

Thank you, Mr. Hayward.

The first remote speaker is Hallie Willis to be followed by David Haynes.

Please press star six.

Good morning, committee members.

My name is Hallie Willis, and I'm the policy manager for the Seattle King County Coalition on Homelessness, commenting today on the proposed suite of legislation regarding people living in RVs.

We appreciate Councilmember Strauss' intention to create additional services that people living in RVs need to survive and move into shelter and housing when it's available.

We support the work to develop safe lots, storage and additional shelter and housing for all people experiencing homelessness, including people living in RVs and other vehicles.

However, we have significant concerns about the permitting process overall, the one-time nature of it, and what the impact will be to people who miss the opportunity to get a permit, lose their permit, or become homeless and start living in an RV after the permitting process.

We're concerned that as it's currently conceptualized it would be punitive and not helpful to move people into shelter and housing.

We look forward to working alongside Councilmember Strauss and all of you with direct service providers as you continue to work on this legislation.

Thank you.

And last up we have David Haynes.

Hi, thank you, David Ames.

When you exempt misdemeanor drug crimes, you escalate violence between rival drug gangs.

Seattle's city attorney is repeating the same failures of her boss, Pete Holmes, and the city council has looked the other way and signed off on the same bad policies that are baked into the budget that line the pockets of corrupt nonprofits that pay felons to run interference for felons and then claim that they're having success dialing down how many people are being incarcerated because they're literally running interference for them.

You can tell Seattle's in a lot of trouble because our leaders keep lying to themselves and to us by claiming that violence is prolific all throughout the nation, yet the entire nation is basing their police reform on what Seattle sabotagingly did in 2012 and since then, where they purposely misconstrued what constitutes a criminal, exempted drug crimes from jail, and then You allowed escalations of violence and then want a virtue signal how you want to take away the guns of innocent people as if they're the biggest threat.

But yet you keep lying to us about an adult who misguided a youth.

Yet when you deal with the youth, you don't deal with the adults.

You just hide behind the idea that you're helping them stay out of jail, making sure they don't get properly punished because you never improved the punishment.

Yet community passageways and all those racist, felon-fronted, corrupt non-profits keep squandering millions of dollars and yet innocent homeless people are still suffering because you ought to provide the capacity for an innocent homeless that's being racially discriminated and subhuman mistreated.

But yet Lisa Dugard shows up and takes away all the available capacity of housing for self-destructive criminals who've stolen from their fellow man, ruined the pursuit of happiness, and participated in the drug underworld that you all

Okay, thank you.

The 60 period for public comment has expired early at this time.

We will now proceed to our items of business.

Members of the public are encouraged to either comment on the sign-up cards available on the podium or email at thecouncilatseattle.gov.

I just wanted to note too, Hannah, thank you for coming.

Just for clarity on the AI piece, I did reach out to Ms. Smith on public safety, and she's our new CTO.

And so we're getting follow-up on that.

So this is not with some of the bigger companies out there, but with our CTO, Ms. Smith.

And for Mr. Rustello, Seattle Police Coverage Staffing, that will be one of my questions.

Thank you.

And for Ms. Suarez on the question of LEED, this is the reason why we've changed the dynamics.

They're under our committee now.

As noted in the last meeting, the issue related to public drug use and possession is the concern related to LEED from the officers, but also medical declines, which is on today's agenda.

So we are working that topic and we have a lot of lessons learned on RVs too from our Salmon Bay Village project.

And Mr. Hayward, thank you for being here and also for our online commenters.

Okay, thank you everyone for the public comment.

We will now move to our first item of business.

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

Board of Seattle, Security Response, Quick Click.

I'd like to ask Chief Sales to join us at the table along with Captain Ward and Ms. Holcomb, Director of Public Safety.

These are our representatives.

Obviously, Chief Barnes is no longer with us.

and Assistant Chief Davis has a conflict, which we spoke about on the family emergency side, so spoke to that.

We also asked for Mr. Pritchard from Seattle PD to be here as well.

This will be the first, this is more tactical operational, but there will be a second meeting on July 22nd on this topic, which will be follow up on tactical operational level, but also the higher level piece as relates to SBD and not just SPD and the mayor's office, but the entire executive.

And there's precedent for that.

It was noted to me by my colleague, Council Member Rivera, on Wednesday, June 3rd, 2020, there was a executive department's response and presentation of timeline of events with Chief Scoggins and Chief Bess.

And this related to the CHOP.

So there's precedent for that.

So we're gonna schedule that for September 22nd.

I did ask our in-house counsel related to the possibility at some point having Chief Barnes here, but also we really do need to have Assistant Chief Davis and Sergeant Pritchard on that September 22nd meeting as we move forward.

So with that points, colleagues, there's not gonna be a presentation, but I'm gonna turn it over to the Chief Sales, obviously with Captain Ward to assist.

and I should note I have two statements going out.

One of them is a timeline statement.

I was at Seattle Center.

I did meet with Captain Ward on station at the command post there near the armory on the north side of the armory on the night of July 22nd.

And so I'm glad that you're here to have somebody who was on scene present to be here today and speak to the issues and assist chief and also director hokum on the issues related to Byte of Seattle security response.

Again, this is a quick look.

and it will be followed up on September 22nd.

Over to you, Chief.

Good morning, council members and everyone in the audience here.

As already spoken, my name is Andre Sales, interim police chief.

Thank you for the opportunity to introduce myself and publicly express my appreciation for the men and women who work for the Seattle Police Department, the Seattle Fire Department, our CARE 911, and the security guards at the Seattle Center.

I know that a tragic incident during the bite of Seattle remains a concern to us all, and there are still questions about the progress of the investigation.

I spoke with our investigators this morning, been having meetings with them every morning, and the investigation is still ongoing.

I know that there are some search warrants that are being written, for evidentiary value.

There's some information that's going for technology advancement in regards to what we can see on those things that we're writing search warrants for.

You can pull that microphone closer to you.

I know my voice carries.

I didn't want to be too loud.

But we're working on some search warrants as of today.

Spoke to the lieutenant over our homicide investigation.

There's some search warrants that they're writing today that they've written over the last couple days that are going to be fruitful to this investigation.

There have been many headlines on this topic, but as a city, we have not yet had the opportunity to show our appreciation for the safety personnel who worked on that day.

We have several men and women that ran towards gunfire on that day.

While the loss of life we endured as tragic, the immediate action of those personnel saved even more lives and prevented even greater tragedy on that day.

We had great command staff presence on scene and working during that time.

I think Captain Ward has a number of police officer personnel that was there.

I think we were close to about 200 personnel that either were on scene or responded to the location at that time.

I will also talk about the response of our SWAT team during that day.

If you recall, or if you have the information, the IMAX was said to where some individuals may have ran into that location.

During that time, our SWAT team responded, say, with less than an hour and a half, which sometimes, in these situations, it can take SWAT teams to assemble about two hours, but they responded in a great fashion of time to make sure we can preserve life.

For those that do not know about tactical teams, searching a building of that magnitude takes a lot of time.

It's methodical to making sure that we're not missing any nooks and crannies in those buildings.

Those officers did an exceptional job in making sure that they went through and searched that building with great diligently and making sure that they were deeming it safe at that time.

On Sunday, August 26th, thousands of people from the region gathered at the Seattle Center for the annual Bite of Seattle event.

At around 6 p.m.

on Sunday, gut shots were heard in the area.

Officers that were working that area were within 100 feet of the location, ran towards that situation, identified a 15-year-old individual that was involved in the situation, was able to take him into custody without further loss of life at that time.

Our officers, without hesitation, responded As I mentioned earlier, our commanders were on scene, providing guidance for our officers at that time, making sure that the events that we train on a daily basis, we were following.

These incidents happened without us knowing it.

Our officers provided the training and went to the training that we provide them every day.

Captain Ward was instrumental in establishing teams to make sure that we were preserving lives already from the ones that we had already lost.

Our officers did not hesitate with regard for the safety of their own lives.

They contained the main shooter within 20 to 30 seconds of the first shot being fired, all with additional gunfire being fired.

SPD personnel immediately began lifesaving efforts on multiple gunshot wound victims immediately after the shooter was taken into custody.

They also began a quick and methodical search of the grounds, locating even more gunshot victims, including a two-year-old toddler.

All efforts, including CPR, wound care, tourniquet use, and emotional support for the victims continued until our fire medics arrived on scene.

Thanks to those extensive training and preparations for such emergencies, our supervisors and commanders were well prepared and confident in their roles.

Incident commander protocols were followed throughout the event, resulting in seamless scene control.

This was an outstanding team effort by all, including which lasted for several hours.

I won't be able to name everyone who participated in this response.

However, I want you to know that your service, your dedication, and your professionalism during this tragic event were commendable.

Once again, our officers responded to a chaotic scene, a scene that was ever-flowing at that time.

They did an exceptional job.

setting up debriefings.

As you mentioned, Assistant Chief Davis couldn't be here.

He has some personal things that he needed to take care of.

When we meet again in September, we will have Assistant Chief Davis here and also Detective Pritchard so we can further talk about that.

I'm sure and I'm confident that our debrief as a police department will be completed at that time and we'll be able to give a more high-level account what occurred on that day.

Thank you.

Thank you, Chief.

Captain Ward, anything to add?

I really don't.

I think- Can you bring up the mic to you, please?

All the way up.

I think the Chief covered it.

Thank you.

Okay.

Thank you.

I think it's important, by the way, and for everyone here, I think it's really important to have this opportunity.

Obviously, Sunday night, the 26th, the event, there's obviously questions regarding that press conference, and then we've had press conferences on the Monday and Tuesday but we've not really had any updates since that point.

And so this committee, this is part of our job.

This is what we're here to do is provide the public the opportunity to hear, in this case, Interim Chief Sales and on the add-ons with Captain Ward to get a baseline and for us to do our duty in terms of follow-up.

And to that point, I normally go to my Vice Chief, but today I'm gonna start is my first question that I want to ask is, and again, for the record, I was there as about 7.15, 7.20 on the Sioux Byrd court angle and then made my way under escort to the north side of the armory.

And I was there until about 10.15, 10.05, 10.15, at which time I left the scene.

And one of the points from that perspective, by the way, One of the points I wanted to make, when I arrived, I thought it was a done set scene that was going to be some type of update and then a press conference.

And I think the public should know that that SWAT operation was ongoing.

And that changed the dynamic considerably for me in terms of, you know, being there.

And I noted that to my colleagues, which will be in the timeline that I released today.

So I wanted to note that about the SWAT operation at the IMAX theater and the broader Pacific Science Center.

But my question, first question is, because I think this is important in terms of, it kind of goes in terms of the command and control and so forth, but what is the active shooter incident management system, or ASIMS, and does SPD use the system?

Because I've been getting conflicting information on that.

Or does it instead use tactical protocols, incident command system, or ICS principles?

Can you speak to whether the ASIMS or Some other type of protocols are used in terms of going to the checklist, in terms of the response and what is happening.

After that initial number of officers that were on scene, which my understanding was about 30, their initial response.

but bringing in people, Captain Ward and others, and then going through that piece.

Can you speak to that process?

Yes, our tactical operations unit does use ASIMS.

We also use NTOA, the National Tactical Officers Association.

When you're looking at the checklist, we have to keep in mind that during this chaotic scene, it's a fluid scene, but we're also still responsible for the entire city.

So when we're pulling resources from our East Precinct, West Precinct, North Precincts, we have to continue to keep in mind that the entire city needs to be cared for as well.

I know we did have a situation, I believe it was in the North Precinct developing as well.

but we do have checklists, but we have to understand that the checklist is for the perfect situation.

In these situations, we had the grounds that we had to take care of, and then we also had the IMAX that we had to take care of.

So some of our resources are gonna be pooled, and some of those checklists say we need X amount of officers, and sometimes we have to pool those officers to go to different areas.

So we were following our training that we provide from SPD and then some of the outside training that we've gotten.

Okay.

Quick follow-up to that.

and I know the mayor has just announced an OIG, Officer Inspector General, review of the higher level comms between the mayor's office and the department, but can you speak, does these tactical protocols with ASIMS and the like speak to communications or notifications at the more operational tactical level?

with OEM, fire, care, in this case SDOT, because obviously we have thousands of people being flowing into Denny and other areas to the west as well, and the streets were obviously impacted.

So I raise SDOT as well.

And is there any requirement in that kind of operational way from the department in terms of communication, separate from electeds and the like?

ASIMS or the other protocols speak to that more tactical operational communications?

And were they done?

I haven't done a fully debrief on that, so I can't say with 100% certain that was done.

But there are guidelines for communication.

I think the main point is with the communication is communicating amongst the officers and our tactical operators, letting them know, hey, we're clearing this location of the building.

and we're moving on to these locations.

We have to keep in mind that these are stressful situations.

The radio communication and the communication that we have is gonna be fluid information.

It can change at a moment, so we have to make sure our communication and the communication and the information that we're passing on is accurate information.

So with that time, it's stressful.

And we're getting multiple people talking on the radio from the grounds before the shooting occurred, then our tactical operation unit that are working within that IMAX building.

So with the communication that we want to make sure we're giving them close to 100% accurate information.

So once we did the debrief, I'll be able to respond to that with a little bit more clarity.

Okay, I appreciate that.

And, you know, the OEM, SDOT, obviously fire was there, but, you know, some of these other departments I think are important as part of that.

I had a question about SWAT.

We already spoke to that.

And my last question before I turn it over to the Vice Chair is can you speak to the mutual aid agencies and also staffing generally with respect to the event?

Obviously we had the base staffing and then we got augmented.

You know, the CRG was there at some point.

Obviously the, you know, the SWAT in terms of the IMEX.

When I was there I saw King County Sheriff arrive.

Obviously they had their drone program.

I saw at least four ATF officers show up at the scene at the command post along with others.

Can you speak to the other agencies that were supporting us in that process and their impact?

I think one of the biggest things is it was a great response by our mutual aid partners.

When you hear a scene or a call like that go out on radios, I think they answered the call without being requested, which is what we want to see.

It was a great working partner relationship.

I think the relationship that we've developed as the Seattle Police Department with King County and our other mutual aid responders, which is great.

I think the officers did a great job on that.

I was not on the scene, so I think this is a question that I believe Captain Ward can answer in regards to that.

And then also your second part of that, some of the staffing numbers that we had on scene.

So I will turn it over to Captain Ward so he can answer those in questions.

Yeah, just briefly.

There was a small response from the FBI and ATF.

My understanding is they self-deployed to the scene.

They checked in at the command post where you and I were standing.

We sent them to the homicide unit to be of assistance with the on-scene investigation.

King County responded.

My understanding is they deployed a drone to assist with the on-scene processing of the shooting scene, and that was their role of responsibility.

And then I also understand the Washington State Patrol responded and assisted with the IMAX scene where we were searching for the suspect.

So to my knowledge, that's the extent of the mutual aid response that we had.

Thank you.

Okay, Vice Chair.

Thank you, Chair, and thank you, Interim Chief Sales, for being here today for the overview.

Most importantly, I want to thank the brave men and women of the Seattle Police Department.

I want to thank the courageous response and expertly executed actions from the brave men and women of the Seattle Fire Department, the care department from the call taker perspective as well, from a frontline rank and file first responder perspective.

This was a well-executed and well-responded-to scenario from my perspective, and I want to applaud and commend the courage and swift actions of our care, police officers and firefighters who responded.

No doubt they saved lives.

No doubt they prevented further tragedy and further loss and further injury.

And I can't emphasize enough the impact, the tremendous benefit and impact that they had on our community.

I also appreciate the, in addition to the courageous and swift response from our first responders, I also appreciate the collaboration from my council member colleagues, who I was in touch with on a one-on-one basis that night, including Public Safety Committee Chair, who I spoke with via phone right around the incident.

He had just arrived, as you noted.

I was, getting ready to drop everything and head out from West Seattle to go to the center myself when I first spoke with the committee chair.

And I am, after all, the council chair, city-wide chair that oversees the Seattle Center as part of my portfolio, and the vice chair of the Public Safety Committee.

So I was going to drop everything, head out there myself when the chair advised that it's currently an active shooter situation, potentially.

Unknown if there were additional assailants on the loose that might be hiding out, and he advised that probably not a good idea if you come out here now.

Okay.

In any event, the public has a lot of concerns right now and a lot of questions over a number of issues pertaining to the event.

Not the frontline rank and file response, but at the top leadership level.

Concerns over, for example, lack of integrated security cameras in real time monitoring infrastructure in the Seattle Center.

We saw subsequently a letter from all the major event providers that was sent to the mayor and this council urging, begging for security cameras at big events like this.

and they're absolutely right.

We are hearing concerns from the public around the delayed updates to the public, and I think we'll dive deep into some of that today and on the follow-up meeting on the 22nd next month.

We're hearing concerns from the public around inconsistency in reporting and information, particularly in those first few critical hours after the event unfolded.

But Chief, I have a number of questions, and I'm just gonna be point blank here and ask you one that is on the minds of many members of the public, and they absolutely deserve to know.

Is there a killer on the loose?

Yes or no?

Speaking with my detectives this morning, we're combing through some warrants and looking at some things.

We still have to comb through some video surveillance that was there.

I can't say yes or no.

There is a possibility and I think we're getting to the end of that.

Once we get the evidence that we need from our detectives, looking at the video, looking at some social media things, I think we'll have a better response and a better idea if there's actual killer loose on the loose right now.

As part of the ordinary course of the investigation, didn't you talk to, didn't investigators speak with, interview, talk to dozens of people who are around there, including the victims, that could have firsthand knowledge of whether or not...

of how many shooters there were.

In traumatic events, sometimes when you're a witness, some things may be not as true as you think they may be because you're in a traumatic event.

So once again, like I spoke at the first press conference, I don't want to say a person in a green, purple, yellow shirt is the person that we're going to arrest and we make an arrest and that is not the person that was there because there's thousands of people that were running from that scene at that time.

I think the public does deserve to know whether a killer is on the loose or not, or a potential or suspected killer, frame it, couch it in whatever sort of qualifying terminology you want, but that is baseline information that the public deserves to know.

If there was another shooter, a potential shooter, whatever, choose your preferred framing.

Can you provide a description of this person or persons?

I can't give a description, but I will say there's a potential shooter out there.

There's potential people that we're looking for.

Once again, I don't want to mischaracter someone and then, next thing you know, there's other things that come with that when we're saying, this is the person and that is not the person.

We want to be accurate.

Too many times, I know people don't like this response, but too much in policing in this world, there have been injustices of people being arrested.

Little to no information.

We want 100% accuracy when we make an arrest, if we have to make an arrest.

So, as a black man, I understand that all too well.

At the same time, it's imperative that we balance the need to avoid perpetuating historical injustices and racial discrimination in policing with the need to provide objective, timely, relevant information to the public so they can make decisions accordingly.

So irrespective of the race of this person, are you able to provide a description of what they were wearing?

At no time did I bring up anybody's race in regards to this.

As a black man myself, I understand it as well.

I did not say a race.

There was a potential identification of a person wearing a blue shirt.

That's as far as I'll go with that.

blue shirt about three weeks after the incident.

That is better than nothing.

But again, frame it however you want or you need.

Person of interest, that's not too condemning.

Legitimate investigators want to talk with someone who may or may not have information.

It may or may not rise to the level of arrests but if there is a person of interest, a potential killer, again, choose your preferred framing, the public deserves to know that.

My hope and my expectation for the department, and I know there's a lot of people working hard behind the scenes to potentially hold additional individuals accountable to the extent they're involved in this and bring people to justice.

That said, the public deserves to know more information about the potential...

whether or not there's a potential killer out there on the loose.

So my expectation for the department is that you be as transparent as possible on that fact.

I'm trying to be as transparent as possible without losing the integrity of the investigation.

As much as I want to give all the information that we have, at the same time, though, we have to understand that when the information is put out there and it's either going to help us, that suspect, person of interest, may get that information because, let's face it, they do watch the news because they have to be ahead of what we're doing.

It gives them an opportunity to leave this area, and then now we're going searching throughout this country for this individual.

I believe once these search warrants are signed, we collect the information, we identify the person of interest or the potential suspects, the community here in Seattle will get that information.

will, when will SPD release an after-action, a formal after-action report of some sort?

I would say in the coming weeks, once again, I want to meet with all the commanders that was on scene, get our executive staff together and do a debrief.

We have one of our assistant chiefs that's out for some personal things, not gonna go in his personal business, but that's what we're gonna be pushing for in the next week or so.

Thank you.

In that timeline, I spoke yesterday with one of your counterparts from the first responder perspective, Fire Chief Scoggins, and he indicated that the Seattle Fire Department after action report on this incident will be released in a few weeks as well.

agreed to share a copy of that with me in my office, which I appreciate.

I'll ask the same from you and your department.

That said, next question for, I think, the mayor's office, Director Holcomb, this is probably best towards you.

So we have a number of city departments individually releasing their own after action reports with respect to the items and, you know, matters and scope within their kind of remit.

Is there a planned coordinated inter-department comprehensive report that the mayor's office is coordinating to be released that cuts across fire, police, care, emergency management, et cetera, in terms of a formal after action report?

Is there something being planned and what's the timing on that?

Thank you, Vice Chair Saka.

Yes is the short answer.

The Mayor's Office has requested that the Office of the Independent, excuse me, Office of the Inspector General conduct a third-party objective review of specifically the lack of public information being pushed out that evening.

I think we've seen through multiple stories last week and media coverage of the events of that evening that there was confusion and frustration about not getting access to information about what was happening at the center.

The mayor's office believes that, rather than the mayor's office try to explain that, rather than SPD try to explain that, or OEM or any of the other city departments and offices, that asking the OIG to conduct an independent review is the appropriate way to address whatever shortfallings there were and to make recommendations, if appropriate, about what we can do to ensure that similar failures of information being pushed out do not occur going forward.

Inspector General Judge, Lisa Judge, has indicated that she will in all likelihood bring in experts on mass shooting events and other similar types of events where this information needs to get out to the public.

to assist with producing that report and believe she's looking at a fall release date for the final report that will come here to this committee and be presented to the committee and also published on the OIG website for public consumption.

Thank you, and thank you for indulging me.

Another question here, Chief.

Do you believe there was adequate police staffing at this event?

when you look at it, I always think about what is adequate and how many officers should you have?

I think it's an opportunity for us when we do our debrief.

What is a baseline number?

What does that look like and how do we get to that?

So I can't say what an adequate number is. because it flows, it's ever-flowing.

But we need to look at ways to up staff if we can, look at every event as their own separate event, and see what the past ramifications of how many people have come through the gates, doors, whatever that looks like, and then what can we adequately give as a department.

Thank you.

I hear your response is more kind of forward-looking and generic, applied to other potential events in the future.

I'm taking up a lot of time, but I'll just close by saying I would really appreciate if your after action report addresses whether, as it relates to this specific event and this specific crisis incident, whether or not you believe in hindsight, hindsight is always 20-20, whether you believe that their SPD believes there was adequate staffing or not.

So, in any event, thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Vice Chair.

I just wanted to note, like, your questions about cameras.

I have a statement going out calling for a comprehensive look forward, moving forward to include cameras, but also in other areas, too, in terms of gun violence, building on what we've done in community already.

plus obviously Councilmember Rivera's work is on top of that for, you know, bringing all these different pieces as it relates to this issue forward.

So that statement is probably going out right now.

Thank you for your questions regarding, I understand the investigations piece, but again at the same time we need to press forward and obviously there's a lot of different types of information out there and definitely be getting the AARs like I said September 22nd.

On the staffing question, I'm interested in that too.

On scene, obviously I know West Precinct officers that are there.

That's in my district and obviously in my role as chair.

But then there's also the CRG, then there's the SWAT.

Is it a quick reaction force or the on scene?

All those kinds of questions.

So we look forward to that.

And one last question too is tied to your comments, Vice Chairs.

You know, is there some type of situation room?

You know, did the mayor bring different people together to, you know, go through and, you know, essentially, do they have their own checklist similar to the ASIMS?

And I'm not sure about that.

And I think that's a good point to understand is, Who was talking to the mayor?

Where was she?

Were they co-located?

Were they separate?

Was there, again, a protocols that were worked through in terms of highlighting different pieces?

Because I think that's important.

And I think about the Situation Room kind of, you know, what's the equivalent for the city?

And I think that's another area that we can speak to on September 22nd.

Okay.

Councilmember Juarez.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

First of all, thank you for being here.

Thank you for serving as the interim chief.

So I just want to ask some basic questions from the information, and I'll get to Allison and you in a moment, because we spoke yesterday, and I want to be transparent and honest and clear about the conversations that has happened since July 26, that Sunday when there was the shooting.

Chief Barnes was not there, as we know.

He was in Texas.

Chief Deputy Underwood was not there.

He was on vacation.

Interim Chief Andre Sales, that's you.

You were not there.

You were on vacation.

And nothing wrong with that.

I just want to make sure I understand.

And if I'm wrong, please correct me.

My understanding is that Assistant Chief Tyrone Davis was present.

He's not here today.

And my understanding, I just learned, is that Captain Ward, you were actually on site on July 26th, correct?

Yes, ma'am.

I responded from home.

And, of course, you're here today.

Yes, ma'am.

We also understand that Detective Brian Pritchard was also on site, correct?

He's part of our public relations unit, and he was called out as well.

Okay.

And he is not here today?

No, ma'am.

And we requested him to be here today, correct, Allison?

Ms. Holcomb?

You indicated to me that you wanted him here.

I believe that Chair Kettle had this similar conversation with Interim Chief Sales earlier yesterday morning, and Chief Sales explained to Councilmember Kettle that Detective Pritchard was not here.

Okay, so let me just go back because, and I'll loop back to why, and I'm glad you're here, Allison, or Ms. Holcomb.

We had started conversations last Thursday and Friday with the Mayor's Office asking to talk about the five-hour delay.

That's the elephant in the room.

So I just want to, if I can just get through this litany, and then please, if I'm incorrect, please let me know, just so the public's watching.

As the legislative branch, we have a responsibility to have integrity, transparency, and honesty.

So I think it's important to note that the only person who was on site and here today is Captain Ward.

Yes, ma'am.

So thank you.

So what I understand is, from hearing from you, Interim Chief, is that you had a great command staff present, that you had 200 personnel on scene and responding, that you had the SWAT team, and that, in your words, it was chaotic and traumatic, correct?

So my understanding is that the shooting occurred between 610 and 618.

I think it was in between like 6 and 6.05 p.m., correct?

Okay.

All right.

And give or take half an hour here or there, five hours passed and we had a press conference, correct?

Yes.

And you were not at that press conference?

I was not.

Okay.

But you were in contact with Chief Barnes?

Yes, I was.

All right.

So you went through, and as the Chair, you went through, and I've seen a copy of it, with the active shooter incident management checklist.

My understanding is every protocol, and I learned this actually from Chief Best as well, and I also understood it from Chief Barnes.

Like, this is the protocol, this is what we do, we're all trained in it.

It's not uncommon to have a chief or a deputy chief not be present, because you can't always be there.

And that's why you have a protocol that everyone's on the same page, and they know what to do when there's an active shooter.

Is that correct?

Yes.

All right.

So here we go with the elephant in the room.

We have a shooting.

We have a five-hour delay.

Three people lose their lives.

We have, and I'm going to say this, mass hysteria.

We have people sheltering in place.

We have vendors hiding.

People sheltering at the armory, the Pacific Science Center.

We have one suspect apprehended.

We have one at large.

We learned three days later that there's more than one suspect.

We have a police chief that was asked to resign.

And here we are today.

Last week, we were asking, and I was working with and talking to Chair Kettle and some other folks, what this public safety hearing would look like.

And I was very straightforward with Ms. Holcomb, and I gave her a call yesterday at one and said, these are the facts as I know them.

and then yesterday at about 6.15 we all got a text saying we're going to open, I believe you called it a independent, what was the term that you used?

I used investigation but you used the term independent review, correct?

Correct.

Okay, so why are we doing that now?

Why were we notified yesterday at 6.20 after everything that's happened and not allowing Mr. Pritchard to be here today, that now we're going to do an independent investigation, and then I'll come back to the timing on that.

So the decision to do an independent after-action review of how information was transmitted to the public is a decision that was made over a week ago, and I have been in consistent and repeated conversation with Public Safety Committee Chair Bob Kettle about that decision.

The fact that we announced it yesterday was due to the fact that we've been in conversation with Inspector General Lisa Judge to work out the details about what we wanted to be able to say, to see whether or not she already had particular experts in mind that she wanted to conduct the review.

And so we rolled out the official announcement of that decision yesterday.

But Chair Kettle has been aware of and in conversation with me about this intended plan for a week.

Okay, so let me ask you this.

Based on our conversation yesterday, and if I'm incorrect, I can call you Allison.

That's fine.

Thank you.

Because I want to be clear.

I just don't want to do a gotcha moment.

I'm not trying to humiliate anybody.

I just want to understand.

So in our conversation yesterday, you stated that the mayor does acknowledge that there was a communication problem.

Yes, I think she's publicly stated that and that's included in the announcement that was published on her blog yesterday.

And the communication problem was between the mayor's office and SPD.

We do not know where the communication problem was.

That's exactly why we want the Inspector General to conduct this after action review.

We will be producing all texts.

We will be asking, we have asked all city department and offices staff to participate in interviews to make sure that an independent party can piece together a timeline from the multiple channels of communication that were happening that evening.

and find out where, if there were in fact dropped calls, dropped communications, failure to follow protocols, where exactly did this breakdown happen and what can we do to ensure that it doesn't happen again?

That's the purpose of this audit.

I don't think any one of the three of us at the table has a full picture of what happened Sunday.

I know I don't because I was trying my hardest to push information out to people I thought I needed to be pushing information out to, but I'm one person, and as Chief Sales has already indicated, there were dozens of people that were trying to coordinate communication and ensure that public safety came first.

So, do you know what time the SPD and the Mayor's Office, along with the Governor and Congresswoman Pramila Jayapel, do you know what time that press conference was?

I don't know specifically.

It was sometime after 9.45 when that press conference conducted.

So, the shooting happened at 6.10, 6.15.

The first press conference is at approximately 9.45?

Right, but I defer to...

Captain Ward was on the ground.

It was a little later than that, ma'am.

It was later than that?

Yes, it was later.

Can I hear from Captain Ward?

Sir, what time do you think it was approximately?

I don't have records.

If you don't have it, it's okay.

We're not in a court.

You're not under sworn testimony.

I'm trying to get an idea.

My best estimation was closer to 11 o'clock.

Okay.

So...

Was the press conference that was done around 11-ish, or that's approximate, I'm not going to hold you to that, obviously, was it delayed waiting for dignitaries?

I can't answer that.

Were you in communication with Brian Pritchard, your PIO, Detective Pritchard?

I wasn't.

I didn't have direct communication with him.

And I want to be really clear as the incident commander, I was engrossed in the operations of what was occurring.

This incident never allowed us the opportunity to plateau.

We constantly had one challenge after the other.

and I will say that the active search at the IMAX theater took place very close up to the point where that press conference occurred.

So once we received word that SWAT had cleared the IMAX, I communicated that to Chief Davis, who was on scene, and I'd like to circle back if I could.

We also had the acting chief of patrol, George Davison, on scene as well.

So we had Chief Davis who was the acting chief of police and then we had the chief of patrol George Davison on scene and then I was there as the incident commander.

So we communicated that information that the IMAX had been cleared to Chief Davis and at that point I'm not sure what other communication took place or other conversations.

I just wanted to clarify that timeline.

I hope that that's helpful.

No, it is helpful because you're the only person here that was there on July 26th on the ground and in front of us.

We asked that Mr. Pritchard be here.

He's not here.

I understand that Chief Tyrone Davis was present on site.

He's not here.

I understand that now the mayor's office wants to do an OIG independent investigation or independent review.

We learned that yesterday.

Quite frankly, I think that the public deserves to know what happened and we should not wait until mid-September.

Is that what you're saying?

This may come out?

We agree 100% that the public deserves to know what happened and we want to make sure that they have thorough investigation of what happened.

So the time that it's going to take is what Inspector General Lisa Judge believes we need in order to conduct that thorough review of all actions from that evening.

So I'm going to submit to you, Allison, and we both know how this works.

I don't think we need an investigation.

I think you could tell us right now why there was a five-hour delay.

and I think the mayor should have said it on July 26 and every other press conference afterwards because we're hearing conflicting stories that the press conference was upheld, was told to stand down until dignitaries arrived, that some of the people in the mayor's office didn't know the difference between a mass hysteria, we need a we need a press conference now to calm people down that they can shelter in place or that they're safe or they're not safe or there's a shooter out there and then later on you do the fancy political press conference and wait for dignitaries to arrive.

That's why the governor and Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal sent out a press release saying we didn't delay the press conference.

So I would like to know from you Why is there a five hour delay and why can't this mayor and this mayor's office, and particularly not having Mr. Pritchard here, we had these conversations last week, why can't we know that now?

Councilmember, respectfully, you're asking why there was a five-hour delay in a press conference.

What we want to know is why didn't the public receive more information sooner?

A press conference that was held on-site after the completion of a SWAT inspection, SWAT search of IMAX, is only one way.

that the public could have received information.

There were lots of other ways that the public could have received information.

We want to know all of them because what we care about is making sure that this doesn't happen again and that the public gets accurate information that is releasable without compromising the investigation in a timely fashion.

That's a very different question about why didn't a press conference happen on site at a certain time?

What were the reasons for that?

Which, frankly, because you and I both know what's happening here, is a political question.

We're concerned about public safety right now, and that's what we're focused on.

Well, I disagree.

I don't think it's a political question.

I think it's a factual question.

I think that we need to know how the mayor, what we heard on TV is how the mayor found out her answer.

And then that is the legislative branch puts us in a position, particularly on this committee and those of us who, and you were around when you were, I think you were still at the ACLU and we went through CHOP and defund.

in the East Precinct, and we went through that whole investigation of handing in our phones, saying what we knew, what we didn't know.

I've worked with three mayors, and I will say this unequivocally, that this mayor's office was not communicating.

with Seattle City Council.

I found that her response to how she learned inadequate.

I think that you came to the conclusion to do an OIG because we started asking questions and getting documents that in fact there was conflicting information.

that there was a 27-minute phone call between quote-unquote dignitaries in which Mr. Kettle was on the call and the council president was on the call as well as the mayor and the governor and the congresswoman and of course we've all heard details about that call and quite frankly people didn't know where the mayor was.

She didn't turn a camera on.

We don't even know why.

I'm not trying to create some cloak and dagger, but if I were the mayor, I would have, and I would have back on July 26 and thereafter, been transparent and honest about this is when I learned of it.

This is when I got the page that there was a shooting.

This is what I did.

This is how I responded.

Instead of Chief Barnes was in Texas.

That's what we got.

And I think you know, I'm not, you know me, I'm not gonna hide the ball, I'm not to do gotcha.

I just wanna know what happened.

And when you say a five hour delay, I could see if there was a five hour delay and you know, well actually many incidences, there's a five hour delay and there isn't a press conference.

This was a five hour delay in which three people lost their lives.

and there was a shooter, a suspect out there, and then we learned three days later offhandedly that, oh, there's more than one shooter.

So I guess what I'm saying is the communication, which you acknowledge that there are some issues in communication.

I am going to respectfully disagree with you.

I think the mayor's office should have Mr. Pritchard here to answer to us.

And I think you could answer today why there was a five hour delay.

I think you just don't want to share that with us, quite frankly.

I could be wrong and I don't have a problem being wrong.

I do not have a problem being wrong.

I do not have a problem apologizing.

I do not have a problem asking for help.

I do not have a problem admitting, you know, when I'm wrong.

And if I'm wrong, then I'm wrong.

but that's what I owe to the City of Seattle.

Thank you, Councilmember Juarez.

Just to follow up on this and to conclude, because I understand Chief Sales needs to leave hopefully within five minutes as opposed to five minutes ago.

Thank you, Councilmember Juarez.

To the point about independent review, yes, there's been discussions about that.

Obviously, it has to be independent because both parties cannot be involved.

It's been evolving.

I've had a press statement related to it for a number of days, but it's out now, OIG.

And I support General Judge doing her work.

That said, that's not going to impact December 22nd meeting here in committee.

SPD can have its AAR.

As Vice Chair noted, FHIR can have its AAR.

We can have other elements come in in terms of OEM, SDOT, as it like.

And I do think it's important to kind of go along the lines of Council Member Juarez in terms of what was the mayor and her team doing broadly in terms of where she was, did she bring people together, what was the decision process in terms of what they were looking to do.

I think it was great that Deputy Mayor was on scene at Seattle Center.

That makes a lot of sense to me.

But what's not known is, you know, did other people come here to City Hall?

You know, did they, you know, review?

Did they check and see, hey, this is what needs to be done?

Because that's so important.

And it was important for the 26-minute meeting started at 8.57.

I was there.

obviously, along with CP, Council President Hollingsworth.

And this followed, this was in the basement of the armory, because police had, SPD had their review, which took a certain amount of time.

And then we basically cleared them out, and the senior stayed of SPD, and then people like myself, Deputy Mayor, came in.

And then we were joined on teams with Congresswoman Jayapal, Governor Ferguson, Executive Sahalai, obviously Mayor Wilson, and I've already mentioned Council President, myself, and again, the seniors from SPD, you know, to walk through these pieces and, you know, understanding that process and what the mayor was doing, what the mayor was doing from that meeting.

I mean, this is just like a, you know, again, I use the word sit room, situation room, but this is kind of standard.

And I think that could be presented at September 22nd as well, or if you want to earlier.

But I think that's a very important piece to this and it kind of goes to the question more generally in terms of the comms.

The comms is a little bit of a, I don't want to say sideshow, but it's important, but it's also deflecting attention to the operational piece.

And this is why I want to start today with the tactical side.

But in September 22nd, I want to bring it up a bit because everything's interrelated.

And obviously, I'm in a unique position since I got the call from Deputy Mayor.

I was on station seeing these pieces.

And by the way, I did get the invitation to join the press conference.

I had just left, and I got a call from Deputy Mayor at 1015. And to be frank, I declined to go to the press conference.

People can decide whether that was a smart decision or not, but that was my decision.

Just to close this section, Chief Sales, thank you so much for being here.

Captain Ward, thank you for being here, particularly because you were on station.

And then September 22nd, Assistant Chief Davis, Sergeant Pritchard, Definitely need to be here.

And Director Holcomb also, thank you for being here.

But just to close, I do want to say more broadly, thank you to those that responded.

Again, I know Officer Vaca, who's part of the beat there at Seattle Center, he was like the, one of the first immediate people to respond.

Him and his colleagues, incredible.

The firefighters, the EMTs, the work that they did to get these people en route to Harborview and so forth.

And there's that one person who went to UW.

and so forth.

Incredible.

And also, by the way, Seattle Center.

My escort, again, I did not know it was an active with the IMAX SWAT operation, was a Seattle Center security officer.

And I should note a former Marine.

So that was good, too, as a Navy guy.

I love my Marine brothers.

And so the Seattle Center team, too, in their role.

And I just want to thank all of them and those that participated in the TEENS meeting.

I should say thank you to Councilman Jayapal, Governor Ferguson, and the Executive of Sahar Halai, who were also there on Monday at the pre and post meetings for the press conference.

And I think their involvement was really important as well.

So I want to thank them for being there.

And with that, we will see you no later than September 22nd.

Yes, Councilmember Boros.

Councilmember Strauss, I didn't see your hand.

That's kind of like a concluding point because Chief Sales does need to go, but...

If that needs to be the concluding point, I'm happy to, but also Chief, if you need to take off, I...

Captain was the one on scene that day and...

Public Safety Director Holcomb is also here from the Mayor's office.

So don't feel like you need to stay for my questions.

We got some promotions that we're trying to get people into.

Oh, you both gotta go.

I'll just be brief.

Yeah, I didn't see your hand.

Yeah, I'm sorry about that.

You know, first and foremost, thank you, Chief Sales.

Thank you, Captain.

Thank you to every single person who works for our city and who doesn't work for our city that ran towards danger It cannot be overstated or understated how Putting your own life behind the lives of the others around you in our city is something that we never want to ask of our city employees, and it is something that they did for us on that Sunday, and I am eternally grateful for all of the work that your officers, the Seattle Fire Department, the Care Department, everyone did, but it's a really big deal to run towards gunfire in a big crowd.

So, thank you.

And I guess I'm not gonna ask, in the interest of time, I'm not gonna ask you to walk me through the timeline of what happened there between 6 o'clock and 9 p.m.

when that meeting occurred, but I'll share with you that I was, I became aware of it probably 6.30.

By 7.09, I was on a phone call with Council Member Kettle and I had full information that this was not a person attempting to shoot people indiscriminately, that this was a group-on-group interaction.

And that really changed my entire demeanor, really frankly, because it's a really big difference between somebody who is a danger to the entire public as compared to somebody who is a danger to people whom they know.

So for me, I guess the next question here is, and I know I've had my colleagues share, but what is the standard operating procedure for informing the public with just even that smallest a nuance of information?

I think that's the information that we're working on, making sure we're getting that out.

I know I've been working with our PIO office over the last week and a half in regards to coming up with a comprehensive plan, looking at an old plan that we had and revamping that, looking at, okay, I don't want to say minutes because somebody's going to hold me to, oh, you said 20 minutes, but looking at that and say, what is accurate information that we have right now that we can get out to the public, utilizing Alert Seattle, utilizing our social media platforms that we have.

So we're revamping it, looking at that.

I think in our debrief that we're gonna have, we're gonna be able to put together and continue to put together a plan, looking at some things that we might have missed on this incident.

If I may, Councilmember Strauss, I just want to say thank you.

Those are exactly the kinds of questions that we're expecting Inspector Judge to ask.

What were the protocols in place?

because I recall that the standard operating procedure in the past regarding informing the public didn't fail in January when the two students were shot at Rainier Beach and the mayor was unavailable at that time.

I believe, and correct me if I'm wrong, that the public was informed about the four corners of what was going on within 45 minutes.

Is that your recollection?

I don't have a recollection of that, but I think that's also a great question for the after action review to dig into.

What has worked?

Where did things differ this time around and why?

And I'll never forget the call that I got at early in the five o'clock hour from the Seattle Police Department.

Not on this day, but the day where there was officer involved shooting in my district.

And I recall the person that called me, you know, gave a general description of maybe the cross streets generally.

And I told him that's Adams Elementary.

because that officer-involved shooting occurred in the very intersection that I was a crossing guard as an elementary school student.

And I got there as fast as I could.

and when I arrived, the press conference was done because it was important for the police department to get out all of the information as soon as possible.

I did not ask, hey, can you wait for me to get there?

This is bigger than me.

At that moment, the most important thing was for the public to know that a very dangerous man had been following an 18-year-old woman to do immense harm to her was not about me that day.

Public Safety Director, you've made the comments a couple times that the OIG will be reviewing this information to see where those decisions are being made.

In the past, an OIG investigation implies wrongdoing on behalf of the police, maybe explicitly or implicitly.

And so the question is, will they also be reviewing the chain of command all the way to the mayor herself?

We've asked the Inspector General's Office to review all actions by all offices, all departments, and ask all department and office staff, yes, that office includes the Mayor's Office, the Office of Emergency Management, all offices and departments to cooperate fully in the after-action review so the public can have a full picture of where communications may have broken down and why.

And I ask that because what I saw with the flow of information on Sunday at the Bay to Seattle was consistent with some challenges that we've had with the mayor's office regarding communication, cooperation, productivity, and working together.

And they are different than what I have experienced from the police department in the last seven months with flow of information.

And so I'm having trouble seeing what is that mismatch here today, right?

I am experiencing the same communication and cooperation challenges that I've had with the executive's office regarding the stopping and then doing a sweep in Ballard in early January.

from the department director departures in December, January, February, including Don Lindell, who is in charge of our utility, that we are now having a 9.5 increase in the rates.

There had been an entire plan to walk through why those rates need to occur.

That plan didn't get to occur because we changed out leadership with so little time, I never got to even have a debrief with Don about the work that we needed to continue.

This has happened with MHA, this has happened with school lunches, with the shelter bill.

So this is a set of experiences that I've had with the executive's office and this is not a set of experiences that I've had with the police department just in these last eight months.

And so that's why I ask, how will the OIG be reviewing the information within the chain of command all the way to the mayor herself?

I appreciate that.

And it is the mayor's office and the mayor's sincere hope that by requesting an independent after-action review by the OIG, you'll be more reassured with the conclusions that are drawn than if the mayor's office alone was trying to provide answers to the questions that you're posing.

But we could answer those questions today.

I'm sorry?

I mean, it doesn't take an OIG investigation to be able to answer those questions today.

The questions you just asked about?

Who made the decision to pause, delay, or not hold a press conference between 6 p.m.

and 7.30, or between 7 and 8, or between 8 and 9?

Or by the time that Councilmember Kettle was leaving, only after that, there was a decision to move forward with a press conference.

And I can't remember who said it, but a press conference is not the only way to inform the public.

Alert Seattle is not the only way to inform the public.

But what was most important for the public to know at 7.09 p.m.

was this was not a person who was killing people indiscriminately.

This was a known set of like there was a known set of actors in here.

There are so many more that we may or may not know.

And Chief Sales, I cannot thank you enough about how thoughtful you are about both following up on these murders and not making indiscriminate accusations without the information to back you up.

That is the standard of professionalism that we desire and that we appreciate in this city.

So immense immense thank you to you for that.

But that's what I'm getting back to is we don't need to have an OIG investigation.

We can answer those questions right now.

And so I'll say this in answer both to you and to Councilmember Juarez.

No, we can't because, in fact, I don't know the answer to that question.

And as I indicated in my answers to Councilmember Juarez, there were dozens of people who were texting and calling each other with lots of information that evening.

You probably knew what you knew about what was happening on the ground sooner than I did because you had Chair Kettle calling you with that information.

Chair Kettle wasn't calling me with that information.

I called him for the record.

I called him.

Exactly.

So that's my point is just that I feel the frustration and I feel that it doesn't make sense that we're not able to answer all these questions.

And I'm just trying to reiterate a version of what you heard Chief Sales say earlier.

There were dozens of people that were mobilizing, that were trying to figure out You had the operational work happening on the ground, and you had a lot of people that weren't on the ground that were trying to get information to and from other individuals so that we could get an accurate picture of what was happening.

So the mayor's office can't answer the questions that you have right now.

If we did so, it would be a knee-jerk reaction.

We would be rushing to judgment about what really happened, what the facts were, when there were multiple offices and departments that were contributing information that evening.

and because this has become such a charged topic and has pulled focus away from the operational excellence of the people on the ground and the victims and their families who continue to suffer through this, we're spending a lot of time talking about when the press conference happened So we're going to give it to OIG, they can do that investigation, they can do that after action review, they can give us a report, we're going to cooperate fully, we're going to provide all the records that we have from all the phones, all the emails, we're going to sit down and have interviews, and hopefully we can get an answer that will satisfy you because it will be an objective third party that is actually charged with doing that kind of after action review.

So no, the mayor's office does not have an answer to that question today, but we are committed to getting it because we want the answer just like you do because we don't want it to happen again.

Okay, but you see this different set of interactions and experiences that I and some others have had with the executive as compared with the Seattle Police Department.

And so you can't answer today.

I'll just ask directly.

Did the mayor's office or designee of the mayor ask to pause, delay, not hold a press conference at all at any time that evening?

No, I can't answer that question, honestly.

OK.

Yeah.

And the question really comes back to it's not about a press conference.

Right.

It's about how do we share with the public to allow people to go to sleep knowing that they're safe that night?

And so did the mayor's office at any time slow down, delay, or pause the release of information, the mayor or the designee,

No, I think two pieces of information that haven't been raised today are the fact that SPD was the first to put up something on their X account or SPD blotter.

I can't remember where, but they had information about the shooting go out immediately.

I believe the mayor put out a statement later in the evening before the press conference.

There were a number of different channels through which communications could have gone out and perhaps should have gone out.

and I can't answer today why that wasn't happening, what those channels could have been, and that's part of what we want this review to do.

We want the city deserves to have excellence in public information getting out, and we want to have the OIG conduct this after-action review in support of that goal.

I'm going to talk now about the police chief being asked to resign because it was similar in the way that Don Lindell was fired, was asked to resign.

But the difference between Don and asking the chief of police to resign is Don runs a utility.

It should make sure that our lights are on and that our rates aren't going up too high.

But that same set of experiences that I had with Don Lindell being let go from the city occurred with Chief Barnes last week.

With the most information that I've been able to be provided is that the mayor has a different window into the operations of the police department than the Council does, yet I haven't been told what she sees through that window.

Why this is charged is there's three people dead.

Why this is charged is that Seattleites went to sleep that night thinking that there was somebody indiscriminately killing people at the Space Needle.

This is charged because the mayor asked the police chief to resign with very little information.

And so the best that I can do is surmise that because there was some communication difference or difficulty that the chief was asked to resign.

That's why this is charged.

And this all could be avoided if there was clear, transparent communication from the start and just like back to you, Chief, I cannot thank you enough for not taking your attention off of finding these murderers because we should be spending all of the time that we've spent this morning just focused on that.

Thank you, Councilmember Strauss.

Just to close, because you're going to leave now.

I know that the ceremony's already started.

But I will say, again, this is not going to stop the 22nd September meeting.

The OIG has no impact on that.

and we will be hitting the operational pieces like I care about the CRG.

For those who want to know, that's what I care about.

But I also care about the comms piece.

And what's clear from this is it doesn't help going to the point about communications.

When the mayor says, I have a better window, what's clear here is that she does not have a better window.

She does not have a better window than I do.

She does not have a better window than probably the majority of the council.

We're gonna move on, 22nd September, thank you very much.

Clerk, can we move to the second item of business?

Will the clerk please read agenda item number two in the record?

King County Jail Medical Deferral Data and Impacts on Harborview Medical Center and Seattle Police Department.

Thank you.

And as they come up to the table, I just want to note, this is a part of the process that we have.

This is part of the process that we had.

We started with the OIG, speaking of OIG, and their report on public drug use and possession earlier this year in committee.

is part of the process with the care and alternate response with our public drug use and possession.

It really highlights that we have two issues.

One is confidence in the LEAD program, but also medical declines.

And I want to express a very deep thank you to Harborview for attending.

And we'll start with introductions.

Can we start with you, sir, and then move across the table to Ms. Smith?

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Hi, my name is Ian Goodhue.

I'm the Chief External Affairs Officers and VP for Government Affairs for UW Medicine, which part of UW Medicine is to operate Harborview Medical Center.

So I also have the honor of representing the frontline workers at Harborview.

Thank you for having me.

Thank you for being here.

Hi, Lieutenant Nate Chopay.

I work directly with Chief Rob Brown.

Good morning, Council.

I am Rob Brown, the Chief of Patrol Operations, Seattle Police.

Good morning, my name is Sarah Smith at the Seattle Police Department Chief Operating Officer.

Thank you.

Okay, over to you.

I know we have a briefing from SPD, but are we starting with you or starting with Ms. Smith?

Okay, go ahead Ms. Smith, take it away.

Alright, thank you.

Brent, do you mind just going on to the next slide for me?

And we'll hold questions until the end.

I appreciate it.

But we won't have as many questions as we did with Agenda Item 1.

I'm going to hold you to it.

Thank you.

All right, everyone.

I am very thankful to be able to have this space to talk about an issue that the Seattle Police Department, but also Seattle and our health system is facing.

Before I get into this, though, I do want to frame us in why we are here and what our mission is.

It is the mission of the Seattle Police Department to serve the City of Seattle with professionalism and dedication, to keep our city safe, to prevent crime, and enforce our laws.

However, we can't do it alone.

Today we are here with our healthcare system, but there are also so many other individuals that we need in order to keep our city safe.

It includes the council, the executive, the county, our community.

And so I just want to acknowledge that because we can't do this alone.

I also want to acknowledge that this work is going to change.

The needs of the city have been changing.

The needs of what we are seeing on the streets have been changing, and we as a system have to change with it.

So today's objective, today's objective is to show you all and inform you all on an issue that we are faced with and discuss some next steps that we can take as a system with all of the partners involved.

Next slide.

So what are we here for?

We're here to talk about jail deferrals or jail declines.

So to give some context, because I think background's important, it's important for us all to know that the King County Jail has jurisdiction over our felony arrests.

So that is something that is set alone, that is how it is in the city of Seattle.

Also, it is important to know that in 2011, the City of Seattle went into an interlocal agreement for misdemeanot jail bookings.

And so what that essentially is saying is that the King County Jail is where we are taking our misdemeanors from the Seattle area.

We have a contract for that.

That contract right now is approximately $25 million annually, and currently it's for 135 misdemeanot beds on a daily average.

That can change.

It's an average.

I will also note that at this point in time, we are only using an average of 77 beds per day.

There is a lot of history since 2012 that's happened.

We have to acknowledge COVID and some of the capacity changes that happened both in the law enforcement side, but also in the jail.

We changed some of the restrictions around misdemeanors, and that only was changed in 2023 after amendment.

Since that time, we've still not gotten anywhere close to 135 misdemeanor beds.

And we've been running into an increasing issue with some of our individuals who are trying to book into jail being deferred or declined due to an emergency medical need.

Now, that is not to say that we don't think that's important.

We want to make sure at the Seattle Police Department that we are keeping everyone safe.

But it is important to acknowledge that as we are doing these deferrals, we have to increase our capacity.

There are a lot of resources going into that.

So I just want to bring that ahead and say that we need to address it.

Next slide.

So now I'm gonna hand it over to Chief Brown to discuss what is actually happening in the deferral process, and he's gonna use an actual example to walk through.

So I'm going to start by talking about the basic process.

But before that, I want to highlight and emphasize, as the Chief of Patrol Operations, I attend many roll calls.

This is the number one top frustration of officers in patrol in performing their duties.

This tops the list.

It comes up every time.

So with that, talking about the basic process.

Typically, when an arrest is made, I'm going to make a decision to bring that person to the King County jail.

That's usually about 30 minutes.

It can be up to two hours if they take them to a precinct for additional processing, evidence processing.

But they're ultimately going to fill out an affidavit of probable cause for a crime and bring them to the doors of the King County jail.

They enter and part of the process of the intake is that there are screening questions that the, and I want to emphasize this too, it's not actually King County Jail staff.

It's Public Health has a nurse that's on, they always have that staffed and there's always a medical screening.

There's a couple of questions amongst a variety.

I have a form that has a variety of checkboxes, but I want to talk about two of them that are specifically on their medical screening checklist.

There is a question that the nurse poses to the arrestee regarding sexual assault, rape within the last five days.

the other one and we're going to get into examples of this later in my presentation but ingested drugs within six hours so these questions are asked automatically not waiting for the arrestee to bring these issues up all right so This medical screening is conducted, and then we hear whether or not the jail is going to accept this person in or if they're gonna be medically declined.

Like we're gonna be getting into, it's not uncommon for there to be a medical decline.

Once that happens, The jail does not take custody of the arrestee.

They're handed back over to the officer.

It is the responsibility of the officer to transport that person, that arrestee, to further medical care up to a hospital.

Typically, Harborview Medical Center is where they're directed.

A decision has to be made at that point.

And I'm going to be very brief about this, but if it's a felony arrest, typically they're going to guard it.

Not always.

There may be greater demands for officers on the streets, so they may decide that for a property crime, whether it's not a victim of violence, they may decide that they're going to step away from that.

and because they don't have the resources, it's usually six or more hours that they're having to sit on somebody to get them medically cleared to bring them back to jail.

So they make that decision.

If it's a misdemeanor, and I'm speaking in generality here, more often than not, they are not going to guard that person because, again, it's six or more hours.

It's an incredible drain on our staffing resources to have to staff an officer there until they're medically cleared.

And I say six or more hours.

You're going to hear in examples I give later.

It can be 12 hours.

It can be up to 24 hours.

So with that, I'll talk through the process.

Yeah.

All right.

All right.

concerns, this deferral process, while intended to keep the individual safe, leads to several unintended consequences for the city.

So I kind of already highlighted this, but you have a public health nurse with a high level of medical training, and you have an infirmary at the King County Jail.

And yet this nurse is saying, no, we can't accept this person.

We've identified a medical issue.

They may not even tell the officer what that medical issue is, because they're going to write it down.

on a piece of paper that's put in an envelope for the officer to transport this person to the jail.

So now it's the responsibility of an officer whose level of medical training typically is going to be CPR and stopping major blood loss to perform this transport in a patrol car to a medical facility.

So there's a couple of things of concerns here.

The level of care, they're being handed back down to a lower level of care after they've been identified with a medical issue.

What I understand is that, because I've been in multiple conversations with public health as well as the jail, they have concerns about liability.

But what they're doing is they're handing the liability over to the city of Seattle.

I think that's the point I wanted to make there.

Let me move on to this process places insurmountable strain on our staffing capacity because of the amount of time it takes.

I've already highlighted that.

I'm not going to go into that again, but there's multiple hours that are tied up, multiple officers that are tied up in hospital guards.

Finally, it strains the city's emergency care capacity as these individuals are now being added to their waiting rooms.

So the place, I already mentioned how Harborview Medical Center is the place where they're directed to go.

This is the preferred place.

This is what King County Jail appears to have agreed.

And that's our expectation, is it's Harborview unless there's some compelling reason to go elsewhere.

Harborview, the regional trauma center, they're triaging and what they're bringing on board.

And so quite often, somebody who is an arrestee that has a relatively low level medical issue, they're going to be waiting for a very, very, very long time inside of Harborview in the emergency room.

I don't know if you've been in there, but it's a very, very busy place.

And so often, you'll see an officer sitting beside somebody who's on a gurney waiting for literally hours and hours and hours before they're even getting, you know, examined other than with a precursory interview with what their issues are.

Okay, moving on.

I'm gonna cover the categories here briefly and then turn it back over to Sarah.

So we have these categories that have been tracked for reasons for medical deferrals at the King County Jail.

Altered mental state.

I'll comment briefly on this.

Not everybody that we bring to the King County Jail gets along well with others and sometimes they're a little bit amped up or agitated.

That can be perceived by jail nurse as an altered mental state.

I couldn't give you a count on how many times it happens, but I know of a number of examples.

Sexual assault.

I've already mentioned this.

It's a question that is asked, and if they answer that they have been sexually assaulted in the past five days, they don't have to specify anything further, then that's a medical deferral.

Narcotics, they're asked if they've consumed it.

If they've consumed it within the past six hours, that's a medical deferral, no further questions asked.

All other medical is a category, and with that, I think I'll turn it over to you.

And I will just note that the all other medical is where we are lumping really anything where we don't have an explanation for in the narrative.

And so this data, Councilmember Kettle, we finally have.

And so I remember last year you asking for us to do this.

And so we have built a system.

Our data team is actually going through all of our booking reports to pull this information.

So there are going to be times where things are not reported or they did not give us enough info.

So I actually feel after talking to officers, this is probably under reporting, but this is where we were able to find reports where it clearly stated that there was a decline or deferral for a reason.

and so far, I'm just going to say, as of July 27th, we've had 862 deferrals this year.

And when you talk about an average of six to 10 hours that we have to stay with an individual, that is a huge capacity problem for us.

This is not just misdemeanors, this is also felony level crime.

It can be both, and we're gonna actually talk about how we've seen both of that within really a very short amount of time.

Now I wanna talk about kind of the elephant in the room.

The elephant is it's not that these people don't need emergent medical care.

We actually want to make sure as a joint system that we are working together to keep our people safe, period.

No matter what, we have to keep people safe.

That's true both in our jail and custody, on our streets and in our hospitals.

And so we as a system have to do more to make sure that is what we are doing.

Next slide, please.

So now to go into those two different topics that we just looked at, which make up for more than a quarter of our deferrals so far this year, I'm going to get a little bit more details on why they're automatic deferrals.

The first one.

So for individuals who allegedly ingested narcotics, they must be observed by medical staff for six hours.

That's a medical standard that is kind of set forward by the medical staff.

It is not something that the police department should be weighing in on because we are not medical professionals.

However, I will say that as fentanyl has changed, things are changing with it and we need to be able to change our systems to address this need.

For recent sexual assault, that is actually something that's stipulated in our state law.

It is state law that every single individual who alleges sexual assault is offered a sane evaluation.

This is a forensic evaluation where we can actually make sure that folks who are hurting others are held accountable, and they have to be offered that.

Currently, the King County Jail does not have medical staff that can do sane evaluations, which is why they are sent to Harborview or other EDs.

I will say that it is a certification process.

It could be a nurse that has that certification, and we can ask more of our medical professionals.

But those are the two biggest categories that we hear about, both from our patrol officers and can see in the data it makes up over a quarter.

If we could address even just one of these issues for the City of Seattle, we're talking over 100 different times of deferral that we could save that many hours from our officers.

All right, so I'm going to take this part of the presentation and forgive me, I'm going to take a little bit of time with this because we have five different examples that all occurred in one weekend and one precinct.

and I think that there's a number of points that can be illustrated from these examples.

So this is in the East Precinct.

It is a weekend of Friday, April 3rd through basically Monday morning, April 6th.

I say the morning because it was in the wee hours of night.

So essentially a weekend.

This was brought to our attention by this precinct because of their frustration with these declines.

So the staffing I want to emphasize for this East Precinct on this weekend, I looked at it, and only on two shifts were they even able to get up to safe minimum staffing levels.

A number of times there were one, two, three, and even in one example, four officers below their safe minimum staffing.

So having to dedicate officers to hospital guards is a strain.

So, I'm gonna start with the first arrest, the first item on here, 4-3.

This is about 6 p.m.

on Friday.

There was a call in the East Precinct of a man that is screaming and kicking and breaking down a basement door to an occupied residence.

The resident inside is a 70, was a 79-year-old man who was absolutely terrified.

He was extremely thankful when the police arrived and took the person who was attempting to break into custody.

By the way, that person that was taken into custody, that was our seventh arrest of that individual this year alone.

He was taken down to the King County Jail for booking.

He alleged a sexual assault.

He was then deferred to HMC as is the protocol.

He would not provide any further details of the alleged sexual assault to the officers at our attempt, because we always take these allegations seriously and we always document whatever is reported to us.

He refused to participate in giving any details to the officers and would not speak to the hospital staff.

And ultimately, we spent eight and a half hours until he was finally released to be booked into King County Jail, which he was.

Let me turn to the next example that occurred on Saturday the 4th at about 5.30 p.m.

A person was passed out on the ground at a local college in the East Precinct.

He happened to be holding a gun in his hand, which was visible.

Officers responded, as well as fire personnel.

Ultimately, the officers determined that the gun was stolen and took the suspect into custody for the firearms violation.

He was transported down to the King County Jail.

He alleged a sexual assault.

He was refused at the jail.

He was transported up to Harborview Medical Center.

He refused to provide any information to the officers about the alleged assault.

And he ultimately took 14 and a half hours.

You're probably wondering why 14 and a half hours.

Although it requires a sane nurse, a sane nurse is not always on duty.

So it's when one is available.

And again, they're constantly triaging, but that'll be more kind of for you to cover.

Let me go to example number three.

So this is on Sunday at about 11 p.m.

This was where officers recognized somebody that they knew was wanted on a sizable warrant, $50,000.

This was the previous arrest where they were familiar with him from.

He had a substantial amount of fentanyl and was believed to be dealing.

and so that's why the felony warrant for the drugs dealing.

He had a fixed blade knife on him at this new arrest that occurred on that Sunday evening, as well as more fentanyl on his person.

He was taken down to the King County Jail.

He claimed that he'd swallowed drugs.

So this one's an interesting one.

I'm gonna go through this.

He was taken up to Virginia Mason and guarded there.

Like I said, it's not always Harborview Medical Center.

and then once he was cleared, he was taken back to King County Jail.

This time on the screening, he claimed that he was sexually assaulted.

He did not provide any information about the alleged assault to the officers.

And I want you to hear, I'm going to read this verbatim.

This is what the arresting officer wrote in the report.

It gives the name of this arrestee.

Then stated that he has been arrested on the same exact warrant five separate times and has been released three of the times by officers for doing things like this.

Meaning what he claims occurred, right?

That was a nine and a half hour hospital guard to finally get him booked.

Okay, example number four.

So this is one where the officers arrested somebody that they knew had an organized retail theft, a felony level warrant.

He had additionally fentanyl and meth on his person when he was arrested.

And he was brought down to the jail, claimed that he had been sexually assaulted.

He refused to participate, refused to provide any additional information, refused to participate with the SANE nurse.

For those of you, you probably know, but SANE nurse is a sexual assault nurse examination.

There's only some nurses that are trained to that level.

So that one took 16 hours to get him booked, 16 hours of officers guarding him.

Last one, but I think this one's important too.

It's the shortest one, only two and a half hours, but this is interesting.

Listen to these details.

So officers recognize this person as having a warrant for his arrest.

VUFA, by the way, that's Violation Uniformed Firearms Act, a gun crime.

He also was for taking motor vehicle and auto theft.

That warrant was a $100,000 bail.

He was transported down to the King County Jail.

And I'm going to be a little specific here.

He was asked by the jail nurse several times if he had swallowed drugs.

He admitted to smoking fentanyl, but specified not swallowing it.

Finally, after being asked multiple repeated times, he said, and it was characterized as in a confused manner, he said, I guess I swallowed drugs.

He was then transported to Harborview Medical Center, once cleared, officers attempted to book him.

King County Jail said that, well, this two and a half hours wasn't long enough, that you didn't properly, you know, they didn't follow the process.

I'm guessing, and again, I may be speculating here, I'm guessing that he probably told the hospital staff the same thing, that I didn't swallow drugs, and they may have believed him, given his vitals didn't indicate that he did, but I'm speculating.

So a sergeant responded there.

and ultimately talking to the jail staff, they had a different nurse available to perform the, you know, because originally they were refusing to take him, that a different nurse performed the screening and they agreed to take him.

So, in total, on that particular weekend, East Precinct officers alone spent 51 hours total on hospital guard.

That's it.

And so again, I want to repeat it is this is an issue around capacity around liability when you are taking someone who is actually sick and having them be with officers.

That is a concern for us.

And so it is not to say that it is not right that those individuals are being given extra medical attention.

but I do think it's important for us to talk about how do we address this capacity and this resource issue.

This is a significant resource issue when we have a staffing problem.

51 hours at the hospital is not what the East Precinct needs when they are already short staffed and we are trying to respond to 911 calls.

We have to figure out this and it's not just one partner.

I want to say that this is a joint issue that we all have to do together and fix together.

It's not one person.

It's all of us.

Next slide.

So going into next steps, I've already kind of hit it a little bit.

I want to mention that this is an important issue that has been growing and growing, and we have to address it now.

I knew about this issue last year.

Councilmember Kettle, you knew about this issue last year.

We finally have the data.

I want to move us forward.

We have to move forward.

As you heard from Chief Brown, this is one of the top issues that our patrol officers are addressing, and it leads to a culture problem.

It leads to, if I cannot hold people accountable for crime, then Why keep trying?

Not saying that's what they're doing, but it's hard not to feel that way when you just wasted 51 hours at Harborview or at another hospital.

So we have to come together to address this real medical need and see what our solutions are.

So we have to work with our partners to address the immediate medical staffing.

I'm sure we need more medical staffing.

We need to have a medical plan between the professionals to talk about coordination.

And we have to continuously look at this data and improve together.

Going back to my original acknowledgement, times have changed.

We are a denser city.

We are short staff, over 400 officers still compared to when 2019 was around.

We have got to change in order to meet the needs of Seattle.

And it takes all of us.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I just need to take a moment.

No, I just need to take a moment.

Your briefing is the reason why we updated the public drug use and possession bill to get even more data to characterize this.

And in terms of our strategic framework plan, pillar two, functional criminal justice system.

This topic is like the poster child of a dysfunctional criminal justice system.

And I really appreciate Harborview being here, because I think it's really important to hear directly the impact on our premier hospital system, not just in the city, but the entire Pacific Northwest, because this cannot be helpful to your carrying out of your own mission.

Mr. Gudeau, I really, again, appreciate you being here.

Over to you for any remarks that you'd like to make.

Thank you, Mr. Chair, members of the committee.

So again, my name is Ian Goodhue, and I represent UW Medicine and Harborview.

And I'm here in that capacity.

Our CEO, Summer Clavinowali, who appeared in front of you last month on a different matter, she would have been here, but she had a conflict.

She and I also talked about this too, and I have some background that I think is helpful on this issue.

I was also at the King County Prosecutor's Office for 15 years.

before going to UW Medicine, and six of which I served as Deputy Chief of Staff, and so oversaw relations with the jail.

Our officers and the folks that work at the jail work hard every day, and I know they're working hard to do their job the best they can.

So I just want to give you a little bit of context.

So Harborview Medical Center, right, is owned by King County, but it's been operated by the University of Washington's health system, UW Medicine, since the early 1970s.

We have over 6,000 state employees.

We admit over 17,000 patients a year into 540 licensed beds.

It makes us the second largest hospital in the state next to UW Medical Center, our other hospital that we operate.

And we provide over 254,000 outpatient clinic visits a year.

As the chief said, Harborview is the state's level one trauma center.

We're also the largest acute psychiatry care hospital in the state.

We're also the largest public safety net hospital in the state, serving under and uninsured patients.

So as you can imagine, the Harborview's emergency department is a very busy place.

We see over 63,000 different patient visits a year in that Harborview ED.

So I want to talk about what the role of Harborview is on this particular issue that we're here to discuss today.

So when a person is brought to the King County Adult Detention Center, or KCJ, as we sometimes refer to it, for booking, who are then declined for being booked due to their medical condition, they are usually, not always, as was noted, brought to Harborview.

I think there are some reasons for that, some good reasons for that.

What is the relationship between Harborview and King County?

So, as I said, King County owns Harborview, and we've been in agreement with them for decades to operate it.

But we operate under a hospital services agreement with the county.

Part of that agreement actually explicitly states that UW's Harborview team is required to provide health care to inmates at the King County Jail.

Now, those are individuals who have already been booked, right?

Not the situation we're talking about here.

However, that doesn't really change Harborview's responsibilities when a person is presented to the ED for possible medical care, whether it's by a Seattle police officer, other law enforcement agency, or just brought to the ED by first responders or even family members.

So what is our responsibility?

Our responsibility is that when an individual is brought to the emergency department, like all emergency departments, we operate under what's called the federal EMTALA law, the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act.

That requires hospitals with emergency departments to provide a medical screening exam and any stabilizing treatment to anyone with an emergency medical condition, regardless of their ability to pay or insurance status.

Now, that's something that our staff at Harborview take very seriously, right, above just the legal requirement.

But every patient is going to be seen.

And, of course, they try to do it in as timely a manner as possible.

Now, that screening component is important because I think that, you know, getting that done, getting initial screening and then any follow-up treatment or, as was observed earlier, Any observation period that's required takes time.

And I think that contributes to the issue that the Seattle Police Department was pointing out earlier.

So we see about an average of 170 to 180 patients a day in the ED.

And our team has to obviously prioritize those patients.

And they do it basically on one factor, and that is the acuity of the patient.

and as the chief noted, right, obviously we're seeing anything from people being brought into the ED because they think they might be sick, they might bring themselves in, might be one of the individuals that's brought in on a jail decline, to people being air medevaced to us with a level one trauma injury.

So this means that lower acuity patients usually drop to the bottom of the queue.

until staff have time to see them.

That means hours can pass while sicker patients are given the priority, and that's just the protocol that you're going to find in any ED, but certainly in the Harborview ED.

As I've understood it over the years, right, and the jail process has already been described, when an officer presents an arrestee for booking at the King County Jail, a King County Jail officer and a representative of King County Public Health, which provides jailhouse services, conducts this initial screening.

And the Chief showed you what that screening form looks like.

It's a one form, one-page form with several questions.

It also asks for observations, questions about particular medical condition, physical medical conditions, and then there's also a section on the individual's mental health.

Is there any evidence of potential suicide or suicidal tendencies or other behavioral health concerns?

So, as I understand it, once those screening questions are asked, if there's a positive answer, then there's some type of assessment done by Jail Health Services and a determination made by Jail Health Services about whether that individual can then be accepted at booking.

And as the Chief noted, there is an infirmary at the jail.

I actually have visited it.

It was many years ago.

and it provides basic medical services.

It is certainly not a full-fledged healthcare clinic or certainly not on the par of an emergency department, let alone Harborview's emergency department, but it does provide health services.

So once that determination is made, again, as we heard, if the decision is for the jail to decline the booking of the individual, then it is up to the officers, whether it be Seattle Police Department or another agency, to take that individual to a nearby hospital.

And, you know, I don't know the stats on how many times individuals are taken to other hospitals, but I believe the default is Harborview.

I think that's for a number of reasons.

Obviously, there's, you know, King County owns Harborview, so I think it makes sense.

that there's a referral there.

But I also think, and the officers can certainly correct me if I'm wrong, but I also think there's actually a very strong relationship between the Seattle Police Department, other law enforcement agencies, and the frontline staff at Harborview.

I mean, quite frankly, they interact with each other a lot.

They know each other.

They trust each other.

Not to say there probably aren't some differences from time to time, but they know how to work together within the system.

So I think, by and large, these individuals are brought to Harborview.

So we actually have been looking at this issue when we were reached out to you by the city and by the police department, as Ms. Smith said last year, and took a look at what we thought the impact was on our emergency department.

We know that KC Jail Health has a protocol in place to try to ensure that people are getting the appropriate medical care, but we found in our data that we looked at last year and then again this year we've been tracking that the numbers are very similar to what we've just presented to you.

We believe we tracked just a two-week period last year and we had about, in that two-week period, 65 jail declines brought to the ED.

Of that data, about 55% of those jail declines, the reason given for them were the two reasons that the chief cited to drug ingestion or report of sexual assault, and there was actually a significant number where the individual was reporting both of those events.

as the reason for the decline.

And so as a result, we then took a look again at just tracking the numbers.

I will tell you, our ED staff did it by paper.

They don't let lack of technology get in the way, but from January till June of about this year, so a little shorter period of time than what the police department presented, we had approximately 600 declines that we tracked.

And again, I wouldn't say the vast majority, but the near majority were for those two reasons.

There are also obviously dozens of mental health-related, I think, declines.

As I said, Harborview has a very large inpatient psychiatry unit.

We also obviously host the involuntary treatment court for the region, so that, you know, there's some sense there or some connection there.

And then other matters like high blood pressure, wound care, things that were listed on the documents that SPD produced.

So if we put it in context, the ED is extremely busy.

Like I said, we see about 63,000 patient encounters a year.

So that means we're seeing somewhere between three to four to five declines a day.

But as was cited to by the police department, there are protocols that we follow.

So for example, if there is an indicia or evidence of drug ingestion, our ED staff is most likely gonna conduct a six hour observation period.

So that means we have an individual going into an ED bed or space, and we're observing that individual for six hours.

In talking to my chief charge nurse at Harborview about this issue, he clarified for me, looking, there's not a magical intervention with a report of drug ingestion, because you'd have to do a full blood panel, you'd have to figure out what the narcotic actually was.

That can take even longer.

but you can do an observation period to see if there's any actual physical manifestation of it and after about six hours they can use their expert healthcare opinion and make a judgment.

So again, that would be a period of time that an officer would either have to wait or an officer would have to make a decision to leave.

during that period.

When it comes to the sexual assault nurse examinations, this is a complex process that we follow.

And as Ms. Smith noted, there are now recent state laws that have passed about making a SANE available.

We're fortunate at Harborview in that we actually created the state's SANE training program.

It was actually founded at Harborview.

Some of the first SANEs in the state were deployed at Harborview.

We have SANE resources.

But as the chief noted, there may be times where someone may come into the ED and our trained SANEs who are on duty are actually already deployed interviewing patients.

So that means you have to wait.

I would also point out that a SANE exam, having been a special assault prosecutor for several years, A SANE exam can take anywhere from between three to four to even five hours.

That's how intensive it is in terms of the collection of forensic evidence.

There's also a ton of social work that goes into that beforehand and then aftercare for that patient if a full SANE exam is done.

Now, we do have social workers come and speak with our patients who are reporting a sexual assault at first.

Sometimes, I would say it's the exception, not the rule, sometimes that leads to a SANE exam not happening because there may be a recantation or an indication that it wasn't within the last five days.

And if it's not in that time period, then the protocol is not to conduct the exam because it's unlikely there'll be physical evidence.

But we do have a fair number of individuals, not just individuals who are declined, who do initially report a sexual assault, who also choose not to go forward with the SANE exam.

So again, all of those are things that can lead to lengthy periods of time lapsing from when a person presents at the ED front door and to when they're actually released.

In the data that we collected, very few of the cases that we believe were jail declines were actually admitted to the hospital.

That's actually true for a significant number of ED visits.

Not every person who comes to the ED is later admitted into the hospital.

It's actually, again, the exception to the rule.

So in conclusion, I would just state that, yes, certainly a volume coming to the ED in these instances does impact our staff.

It impacts it in the numbers that I gave.

We see thousands and thousands of patients.

Our staff is very good at triaging and moving through those patients, but there certainly is an impact here.

We've had some conversations with both the city.

We've also had it with our colleagues at the county.

and I believe, you know, Jail Public Health is interested in trying to have a discussion, particularly around the clinical decisions that are made.

I think that's where our clinical experts in the ED can be of help in having those discussions about what the appropriate clinical protocol is or is not.

I think these protocols were put in place with a lot of hard work, but they were put in place a long time ago, as far as I can tell, and I think it may be time to look at them again and see if we can make some improvements.

I don't want to speak on their behalf, obviously, but I do believe the county's experts in public health are willing to have that conversation.

They've actually reached out to our folks at Harborview as well.

So with that all in my presentation, happy to answer any questions.

Thank you again so much.

This is really important, really important, and right now I'm regretting that Ms. Holcomb's not here because pillar six of the strategic framework plan is us working together as a city team to work with the county and the state.

In this case, the county.

Obviously public health.

Some investment in public health at the jail, jail health.

I mean, the dollars and cents, Executives of Halalai and Mayor Wilson should be able to say, this is a no-brainer.

if you just look at the numbers from a budget, and we have major budget issues at the county, here, and also the state, and it becomes a no-brainer.

And so we will press this, press forward on this, and this is where, Mr. Gideon, you're very important, and Harborview is a very, very important voice in this, and so thank you so much for coming forward.

on this.

I could do an editorial comment for your SPD colleagues there, like, you know, since we authorized the score agreement, that never happened.

But that's a side note.

All right.

Colleagues, in the interest of time, I'd like to be brief, but Vice Chair, any questions or any comments?

Thank you, Chair.

So thank you.

Customary appreciation and gratitude.

Got to be brief.

So apparently there's a governing law, presumably at the state level, might be at the county, that specifies that, you know, like, people must receive medical services of some sort.

Mr. Goodyew, this is what you kind of started off your presentation is, talking about, does this governing law...

that requires medical services, does it purport to specify or contemplate whether the medical services must be administered or received onsite at jail versus at a non-jail hospital?

That's a great question, Councilmember.

So the law that I cited to is called EMTALA, the Emergency Management Treatment and Labor Act.

That actually only applies to acute care hospitals, so hospitals like Harborview or Virginia Mason or Providence.

and what that says is when a patient presents at the front door of the ED of an acute care hospital, it's actually conditioned on the fact that you receive federal Medicare reimbursement for the care you provide.

Those hospitals have to conduct in the ED an initial health screening and then provide any emergent follow-up care.

So that law would not apply to jail health services.

The reason why I brought that up is that explains that once an officer presents that patient to Harborview, unless the patient wants to leave against medical advice, we have to then go through that screening and then provide, for example, in the drug ingestion example, a six-hour observation period.

So those are our requirements, not the jail.

Okay, thank you.

Next question is, so at a bare minimum, I agree with the assessment that Mr. Goodhue that you mentioned at the end, like this set of criteria and protocols need to be revisited and revised in light of today's capacity constraints and challenges.

But also, so starting point one, also as a starting point, why can't we just push King County Jail for expanded to provide an expanded scope of medical and behavioral health services that they can provide on-site that presumably wouldn't require you to form, you know, someone to guard them or whatever from SPD.

On-site, just expand the scope of the way they can provide on-site versus off-site requirement at Harborview.

Why can't we just push or negotiate for that?

Because this sounds like a system issue that's not just frustrating, you know, us here within the city of Seattle, it's across the entire region system.

Why can't we just push for better, more expanded medical care coverage to handle this?

So it doesn't need to go to Harborview.

I think you can.

So I think that's what it takes.

I think we have to come together to be able to do that.

But I also want to note that I think we all have staffing capacity issues and resource, so financial restraints.

And so I think that is something to consider when you come together with the executive to talk to the county about.

We all have capacity constraints.

And yes, and then but when one main system, their capacity constraints, it results in countless hours, hundreds of hours of officer like and hundreds of potentially millions, tens of millions of dollars and slower response times in the city of Seattle alone, not to mention these other jurisdictions who are no doubt confronted with similar challenges.

And so, yeah, the urgency is felt upon all of us and the pinch point is clear for for some in particular, but the underlying challenges as it relates to officer capacity are not unique to the, or specific to the city of Seattle.

We talked about, you know, potential regional implications here, but aside from that, like how do other major jurisdictions deal with the same challenges, like let's say in San Francisco or other kind of major, major cities across the country?

I'm not sure I can answer as far as San Francisco, but I did want to say something about your previous question, Councilmember Saka.

This is not the same as it always was, meaning that over the course of my career as an officer on the Seattle Police Department, typically when I would bring an arrestee to the King County Jail and they would bring up their medical concerns, I would tell them, no worries.

King County Jail is equipped with a full service medical facility.

They will attend to all of those issues.

It had never been a commonplace practice to have to transport somebody up to a hospital unless there was truly...

Well, let me see.

How do I say that?

Something that was beyond their capacity to handle, something that was truly requiring the medical intervention of, say, Harborview Medical Center.

So these jail declines, this is a recent past few years, past five, six years phenomenon.

So in the past, it's worked, where they took care of all the medical needs.

I can't really speak to the San Francisco question, though.

Well, I would encourage you all in the executive branch more broadly to explore working models and best practices across other jurisdictions, because it's not unique to the city of Seattle here within this region, and it's not unique to the city of Seattle from a national perspective.

Finally, I'll note, Chair, thank you for indulging me. that appreciate some of the initial data and evidence gathered here today.

I would also encourage you all on the executive partner side to specifically quantify how with more precision, accuracy, and detail how jail deferrals are affecting overall response times, patrol availability, overtime costs, beyond the weekend example provided.

And yeah, but it's clear we have an opportunity as a region and as a broader system, not just the city of Seattle, to do better.

So thank you for your partnership.

That is all, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Vice Chair.

I will admit it would be great to move on to agenda item three just to have it introduced into the system.

And I think this will be an area of follow up.

I love to work with Council President and for the members at the table to work with Director Holcomb and the Mayor to them in partnership with Harborview but also obviously King County Executive and King County Council and we can do our part there.

And they know about the system because I've spoken to them, different members about this.

And I will follow up this with a call to them on that.

But I really appreciate you being here and this is a step which I believe should be the next step because We are in a period of strong fiscal challenges and it's just to be blunt ridiculous that for a cost of the same certified nurse and some other medical through public health, the savings, not just SPD but to Harborview, to Virginia Mason, and the other impacted hospitals.

So thank you so much.

Thank you, colleagues.

I appreciate it.

Colleagues, we'll move to item number 300 business.

Clerk will please read the agenda item into the record.

Colleagues, this is gonna be an introduction only.

So I'm not even gonna ask the question.

I just asked Mr. Strauss, Council Member Strauss has joined us and his partnership with central staff, Mr. Child, Ms. LeBrecq, to give a brief overview of this as part of the introduction into it.

I will say to Council Member Strauss, use your time for your questions earlier.

So thank you.

Vehicle Residence Assistance Program and Draft Legislation.

Good morning, Councilmembers.

I'm Calvin Schell with Council Central Staff.

All right.

And hi, I'm Jennifer LeBrec, City Council Central Staff.

Councilmember Strauss, you'd like to do it before.

So they're going to be presenting the brief.

Would you like to introduce them to do the brief?

Yeah, and I've cut 90% of my comments, so I'll be very brief.

I will be more brief than before.

Thank you, Councilmember Kettle and colleagues, for hearing this legislation today.

I'm going to just really set the stage for central staff to be able to walk us through this by saying today there are no dedicated city teams focused on helping people who live in their vehicles.

We currently have zero safe lots open.

We have zero services available for people to to transition into shelter or housing and store their vehicle.

We're overloading the small amount of contracted outreach and assistance that we do have, often leaving few caseworkers.

We do have to provide services for hundreds of clients at a time.

We know that our city's approach to RVs is not working.

We are failing to provide pathways to housing for people in need who are living in motorhomes.

Meanwhile, we are failing to address a small minority of RVs that are not continuing to move every 72 hours, that are not being decent neighbors at the end of the day.

And over the past year, I've worked closely with city departments and service providers who work directly with vehicle residency to create this policy.

For the service providers who work in other spaces of addressing homelessness, we've had very productive conversations.

And I will be setting that table, a table in September to ensure that this legislation does, with service providers to ensure that this legislation does two things.

Better address vehicle residency, and do no harm and do the best to improve our homelessness response overall.

We have specialized services for youth who are homeless, for families that are homeless, for folks that are living on the street homeless, but we do not have services dedicated to people who live in their vehicles, whether it is a 15-passenger van, a sedan, or an RV.

The regulations today are only on RVs and fifth wheels, and the services are for anyone living in any type of vehicle.

There are no silver solutions.

No one action can tackle this alone, and this legislation is about ensuring people who live in their vehicles are not forgotten.

and that they are cared for and that they have a clear road to housing.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chow, Ms. LeBrick.

Good morning, Councilmembers.

So thank you.

Central staff has worked with Councilmember Strauss to help develop his proposal.

And of course, we're available to support you all in any questions you might have as this moves forward.

The legislation in draft form is attached to the agenda and we're going to do a very short presentation to try to go through it at a high level.

There are six pieces of legislation that are part of this package.

I'll go over those in a little more detail.

The first item is a resolution that is intended to talk about how these legislative elements go together.

It really talks about Councilmember Strauss' pathway of out-of-vehicle residency as the intention behind all this package.

It includes the RV permit program, or excuse me, vehicle resident permit program as well as appropriations to support implementation of that program and then a bunch of code revisions and other sort of more ministerial adjustments to make some of those things possible.

The Vehicle Resident Assistance Permit Program is sort of the main piece of this package.

It focuses specifically on motorhomes and travel trailers.

Currently, those types of vehicles are governed in the existing code as large vehicles over 80 inches wide, so this is a specific sort of focus on these particular types of vehicles.

It establishes general parking restrictions on all of these vehicles effective April 30th of 2027 and restricts parking for those vehicles to two hours maximum in all areas of the city.

and it prohibits parking those vehicles between midnight and 6 a.m.

It then creates a separate vehicle residence assistance permit for motorhomes and travel trailers that allows basically the use of general parking restrictions, the 72-hour restriction on parking, and allows parking overnight in industrial zones with specific geographic service areas that are established by the permit.

To implement the program, the legislation calls for SDOT to develop a director's rule in consultation with the Human Services Department and the Seattle Police Department to establish the standards and administrative procedures for this program.

The legislation does include the criteria that the director's rule has to address.

This includes permit eligibility criteria.

So the focus is on HSD's work to establish a one-time census of individuals and vehicles that would be eligible.

This is intended to be a one-time only assessment of who can apply for a proposal and the program would not be open to latecomers.

The program would have a limit of one permit per person and that person must be the registered owner of the vehicle.

HSD and their affiliated service providers could help support applications on behalf of these identified individuals.

The legislation includes permit condition criteria, so that includes establishing the geographic locations where these vehicles can be parked overnight, and that is intended to help assist service providers stay in contact with these individuals.

These geographic service areas would be within the industrial zones.

The permit could be revoked, would be revoked, if the permit holder turns down offers of shelter six times and it requires HSD to maintain the certification list to document those contacts.

The permit also has a number of other conditions about the maintenance and condition of the vehicles and how they interact in the right of way.

The enforcement criteria is also to be established in the Director's Rule.

It relies on SPD's Park and Enforcement Division to enforce.

HSD would establish a number of the policies and procedures to document the violations, and those violations could be- the permit is ultimately an SDOT permit for being in the right-of-way, so the appeals process would go through the SDOT Director.

Legislation would take effect on April 30th, 2027, and then it allows for 90 days of warnings before full enforcement of parking restrictions would begin in July 31st.

I'll turn to Jen for the other elements of the package.

All right.

Thank you.

So the third piece of legislation would be a land use bill.

This would update the definition of recreational vehicles within Title 23, the land use section of the code, to note that a recreational vehicle may contain its own motor or maybe towed behind a motorized vehicle.

And this is essentially to align with the definitions that are used in the vehicle assistant permit legislation that Cal just discussed.

It would update the definition of outdoor storage to include storage of unoccupied recreational vehicles.

And it would adjust the definition of flexible use parking to exclude storage of recreational vehicles.

Next slide.

The fourth piece of legislation is related to the signature authority of the Director of Finance and Administrative Services.

Ordinance 127-423, which was passed earlier this year, allowed the Director of FAS to execute leases for up to 65,000 square feet without needing council approval if the site were to be used for transitional encampments, which includes safe lots.

This legislation would further expand the FIS director's authority to execute leases when the site was to be used for outdoor storage for vehicles of any type or for overnight respite areas for drivers, including truck drivers.

It would also increase the FAS director's authority to execute leases for sites being used as transitional encampments, outdoor storage vehicles, and overnight respite areas from 65,000 square feet up to 100,000 square feet.

The fifth piece of legislation would update the definition of a junk vehicle.

Under the current SMC, to be considered a junk vehicle, a vehicle must meet at least one of the three of the following requirements that are listed below.

I'm not gonna go through each one of these, but I did just wanna establish a baseline of this is what the existing code says, and that you have to meet at least three of these for a vehicle to be considered a junk vehicle.

This ordinance would update the Traffic Code's definition of junk vehicle by clarifying what is meant by a vehicle that is extensively damaged, clarifying what is meant by a vehicle that is apparently inoperable, clarifying that part of not having a current vehicle license or registration means that there are not current vehicle license tags and adding two new criteria that can cause a vehicle to be considered a junk vehicle, either that the vehicle identification number is not easily readable or visible and that the vehicle has no license plate.

I did want to note that under the vehicle resident permit program that Cal just discussed, the first piece of legislation, if a vehicle would meet these criteria and be considered a junk vehicle but has an assistance permit, it would not be subject to impoundment as other junk vehicles are.

And the final piece of legislation is an appropriations bill.

There is currently in 2026, $5 million available related to RV or work related to recreational vehicles and other vehicles.

None of that has been contracted or committed.

Three and a half million of that is ongoing and 1.5 million is one time funding that was carried forward from 2025 into 2026. That funding currently all lives in the Human Services Department within their addressing homelessness part of their budget.

under the Appropriations Bill.

The Appropriations Bill would create eight new positions related to implementation of the Vehicle Resident Permit Program.

That includes one permit technician in SDOT and then seven outreach staff positions called counselors in the Human Services Department.

It would also transfer $216,000 in appropriation authority from the Human Services Department to SDOT to pay for IT and staffing costs related to implementation of the vehicle resident permitting program.

and then it would both modify and create a new proviso on remaining funds in HSD.

It would modify an existing proviso in HSD.

There's currently a proviso in HSD on $2 million worth of funding related to work for a program activity, programmatic activity related to RVs.

This bill would modify that proviso to allow the funding to be spent on outreach and also to make it clear that money could be spent on any type of outreach or program to serve any type of vehicle resident, not just recreational vehicle residents.

and it also imposes a new proviso of $2 million which restricts funds for service providers who are engaged in outreach to persons living in vehicles including for capacity building and increased staffing to reduce case management ratios and to help vehicle residents meet code requirements related to their vehicle.

All right, and then we'll talk briefly about next steps.

So today's August 11th, we are here.

We're discussing the six pieces of legislation, which again, have not yet been introduced.

They are on the agenda as informational items only.

The current plan is to introduce all six pieces of legislation or to have them on the August 18th introduction and referral calendar, and then to have a discussion and possible vote at the September 22nd Public Safety Committee.

That will also be a public hearing as required for SEPA purposes.

And I will stop there.

And council member, you know, we've kept this at a very high level and of course a number of central staff have worked on this and we're happy to work with you or your offices if you have additional questions.

Well, I'm sure there were.

Thank you, Mr. Chow and Ms. LeBrecq.

It's really interesting, really comprehensive, and I will say two things.

One is, from the public safety perspective, as pretty much everybody knows, once you have five RVs together, one's going to start dealing drugs.

Once you have a drug market, you have a stolen goods market, there's a clear public safety nexus.

The other thing I want to say is that this is an incredible amount of work.

and I just think former Council Member Sally Backshaw would be extremely proud of Council Member Strauss right now.

And so with that, really briefly, again, we're over time and thank you, but- Oh, you're gonna do that now.

Vice Chair.

Thank you, Chair, and I want to start off by thanking Councilmember Strauss for offering this, bringing this forward.

I mentioned it yesterday, I'll mention it again today here in another forum.

Appreciate you and your leadership for bringing this forward.

I think at a high level, I'm still unpacking it, but it's very thoughtful, very comprehensive, but I appreciate the work and leadership that went into this.

Couple of questions here for central staff.

Thank you, Mr. Chow, Ms. Labreck.

First question is around geographic equity and concentration risk potential.

So, because the proposed permit structure appears to limit overnight parking to industrial zones, has central staff analyzed how industrial zoned land, existing RV concentrations, and potential permit locations are distributed across council districts and neighborhoods.

Two-part question.

The second part is, could implementation unintentionally concentrate permitted RVs in a relatively small number of communities and what specific mechanisms could council use to prevent disproportionate geographic impacts while ideally still preserving the industrial zone framework of the package?

Well, Councilmember, we have not done that analysis, but I would say that a couple things that touch on that.

The existing vehicle restrictions on oversized vehicles is currently in industrial land, so that is the current requirement for these vehicles, regardless of the enforcement that you currently see out on the streets.

That is where oversized vehicles with higher than 80 inches of width are only allowed to park overnight.

The industrial lands are focused in a number of districts, so we have the Ballard Inner Bay District, we have the Duwamish, so there is a geographic element to this, but we have not done the analysis beyond to identify who is there or whether that information is available.

Yeah, thank you.

I would appreciate the analysis and, you know, follow-up and clarity on that question.

And all of these that I'm going to read into the record here to the extent there's not- Just may I say one thing real quickly.

We don't know that there is data to know where these vehicles are.

That is, I'm not sure that we have the data to actually provide our analysis.

Thank you.

I understand you're not sure.

So would appreciate confirmation and follow up and reverting back.

Thank you.

Next question pertains to coverage of non right of way city property.

So one of my colleagues yesterday expressed curiosity around the potential coverage of of private property versus city property.

I'm curious more about coverage of non-right-of-way city property.

So the new two-hour and overnight restrictions appear written around vehicles parked on streets and alleys.

How would the proposed package apply to RVs located on or adjacent to other publicly owned property, including city parks property, green belts, utility facilities, city parking or equipment storage property, and similar municipal assets.

Are there material coverage gaps where an operable occupied RV could remain even though the same vehicle would be subject to the new restrictions in the right of way?

Well, the right-of-way is a broad category of property that's laid off as right-of-way, so if the one condition that I think is an interesting one is our parks boulevards, where they are right-of-way, but they are managed by parks, but they are right-of-way, so it is governed by SDOT's jurisdiction.

I think the question is for other city-owned properties, then it would be the property owner's right and responsibility to maintain those facilities.

So if it is a utility substation, the actual parking lot of, say, a utility substation, that's a security and a property management issue of that property and not part of the right-of-way.

The right-of-way extends to the property line of adjacent parcels, whether those are privately held or publicly held.

And so what about green belts and parks?

Well, a greenbelt, it depends on where that greenbelt is.

There are unincorporated right-of-way, and honestly, I don't know that...

I think that is a situation where if the greenbelt is improved enough that you can get one of these vehicles into these areas, then I think it would be...

I think it would be enforced the same way as part of the right-of-way.

And if it's a parks facility, then it would be a parks jurisdiction over how they manage their property.

Okay.

Thank you.

I appreciate some confirmations and that's definitely a bit of clarity I might be willing to offer on that point in particular in those specific scenarios.

Can you talk more about sensitive locations and priority interventions under the proposed framework here?

Does the legislation provide any differentiated treatment or priority response for RVs located near particularly sensitive public uses, such as schools and preschools, parks and play fields, waterways and storm drains, emergency access routes, bicycle facilities, or other critical infrastructure?

This legislation provides a permitting tool, and it does not specify anything about how services are provided by HSD.

That is not part of this legislative package.

Got it.

Thank you.

I'm curious to learn more about predatory RV rentals and how this legislation deals with predatory RV rentals, particularly RV ranching.

My office having had many conversations over the past couple of years with our executive experts across two administrations, SPD, unified care team, HSD, outreach workers, learned of a practice basically called RV ranching, where people rent certain RVs in dilapidated, inserviceable condition that wouldn't meet the sniff test for if it was a a non-fixed wheel property renting in terms of habitability standards and rent these out to our most vulnerable population.

So just curious, does the current proposed package address situations where a single person or entity owns, controls, rents, or repeatedly places multiple RVs into the right-of-way particularly vehicles that are extensively damaged or otherwise being used to house vulnerable residents.

If not, what existing authorities, you know, apply today?

legislation does not directly address that but it has two pieces that are related one is that the permit is only eligible for an individual is only eligible for one permit and must be the registered owner of the vehicle so that is one element for who is eligible to apply for these permits other than that these are vehicles that would be in the right of way and be subject to the same rules requirements as unpermitted they would be subject to potential towing without notice

Thank you.

One more question, Chair.

Thank you for indulging me.

I do need to get this in the record.

So final question pertains to vehicle definitions and potential unintended exemptions that may be read and strongly inferred.

How complete is the proposed definition of vehicles subject to the new framework?

Specifically, what would converted buses converted box trucks, converted truck campers, fifth wheels, modified vans, detached trailers or other oversized lived-in vehicles necessarily fall within the definition of motor home or travel trailer and could substantially similar vehicles therefore receive different treatment based primarily on vehicle configuration.

This legislation applies to motor vehicle, motor homes that are 80 inches wide or more So if it does not reach that, if it is smaller than that, then it would not be covered by this regulation.

It covers travel trailers, so your detached trailer example, if it is custom built for dwelling, then it would be covered, but other conversions would not be included.

So something like a truck back top would not be covered by this legislation.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Curious to further explore that so we don't, as part of this framework that we'd be establishing, create a new market for converted vehicles to specifically circumvent the standards here.

but I appreciate the initial clarity, would really appreciate further clarity on these questions as well.

So thank you.

Thank you, Vice Chair.

This topic area is one that districts, as you move north, south, 671 are greatly impacted, but it also goes to other districts as well.

But yes, clearly, and It's well known that we have Rivera due diligence, but when it comes to RVs, I think we're going to be introduced to SACA due diligence.

And so we'll be working these issues as we move forward under the leadership with Councilmember Strauss.

Thank you so much.

Colleagues, there are no more questions.

I'm not going to take any more.

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

If there's any further business, come before the committee before we adjourn.

Don't think so.

We're adjourned.

Thank you.