Seattle City Council 1/11/22

Thank you, son.

Good afternoon, everybody.

It's January 11th, obviously the year 2022. Meeting of the Seattle City Council will come to order.

It is 2 o'clock.

I'm Deborah Juarez, Seattle City Council.

Will the clerk please call the roll?

Lewis?

Present.

Morales?

Here.

Mosqueda?

Present.

Nelson?

Peterson?

Here.

Sawant.

Present.

Strauss.

Present.

Herbold.

Here.

And Council President Juarez.

Here.

And Council Member Nelson.

Present.

Nine present.

Thank you.

Let's move to the, we did the call to order and the roll call.

Let's move to presentations.

I'm not aware of any presentations today.

Let's move to approval of the minutes.

There are no minutes for approval today.

Let's go to approval of the introduction referral calendar.

If there's no objection, the introduction referral calendar will be adopted.

Hearing or seeing no objection, the introduction referral calendar is adopted.

I will now move to approval of the agenda.

If there is no objection, the agenda will be adopted.

Hearing no objection?

The agenda is indeed adopted.

And I'm going to read some of the public comment instructions and then I'm going to hand it over to our clerk.

Colleagues, at this time, we will open the remote public comment period for items on the city council agenda, on the city council agenda, introduction referral calendar, and the council's work program.

It remains a strong intent of the city council to have remote public comment regularly included on meeting agendas.

However, as a reminder, the city council reserves the right to end or eliminate these public comment periods at any point if we deem that this system is being abused or is no longer suitable for or allowing our meetings to be conducted efficiently and effectively.

Our city clerk will moderate this general public comment period.

So I'll now hand it off to our clerk of the day, Deputy City Clerk Jody.

Jody, please.

Okay, the public comment period for this meeting is up to 20 minutes and each speaker will be given two minutes to speak.

Speakers are called upon in the order in which they registered to provide public comment on the council's website.

Each speaker must call in from the phone number used for this registration and using the meeting phone number ID and passcode that was emailed to them upon confirmation.

This is different than the general meeting listen line call in information.

Again, each speaker will be called upon by name and in the order in which they're registered on the council's website.

If you have not registered to speak but would like to, you can still sign up before the end of the public comment period by going to the council's website.

Once a speaker's name is called, staff will unmute the appropriate microphone and an automatic prompt of you have been unmuted will be your cue that it's your turn to speak.

And then the speaker must also press star six to begin speaking.

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

And as a reminder, public comment should relate to an item on today's agenda, the introduction and referral calendar, or the council's work program.

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

Once you hear the chime, we ask that you begin to wrap up your public comment.

If speakers do not end their comment at the end of the allotted time provided, the speaker's microphone will be muted.

Once you've completed your public comment we ask that you please disconnect from the line and if you plan to continue following this meeting please do so via Seattle Channel or the listening options listed on the agenda.

The public comment period is now open and we'll begin with the first two speakers on the list.

And please remember you must also touch star 6 on your phone to unmute yourselves after you've heard the prompt of you have been unmuted.

So our first two speakers we have Howard Gale followed by David Haynes.

Howard?

Good afternoon.

Howard Dale, District 7, speaking on our failed police accountability system.

You have sat passively by as our police accountability system has determined recent killings, like the SPD murder of Terry Kaver days before George Floyd, to be lawful and proper, followed by the all-too-predictable SPD murder of Derek Hayden last year, and then, just six days ago, another person in mental health crisis wielding knives was gunned down by the SPD, a fact that remained unremarked upon in council briefing yesterday.

This was the 19th person suffering a mental health crisis killed by the SPD since John T. Williams, all of them deemed, quote, lawful and proper, unquote.

And now we discovered that the SPD engaged in a dangerous disinformation campaign during the summer of 2020 that vastly increased paranoia and the influx of guns to Capitol Hill with a severely flawed OPA investigation holding no one responsible.

These abuses of justice don't just happen.

It requires folks in power at the OPA, the OIG, and the CPC to actively undermine accountability.

Two high-level investigators at the OIG risked their livelihoods and well-being to sound the alarm and to explain to us how all these failings of accountability are possible.

Yet you ignored them.

KUOW reported on the abuses engaged in by Andrew Meyerberg, when he worked as a seattle city attorney and whose entire career has been spent defending the police that too has been ignored this morning the public safety committee heard from the very folks that have worked to minimize and cover-up police abuse instead of hearing from the people who have lived and uncovered the facts about the sbd disinformation campaign no one asked the obvious questions this morning why did opiate director myerberg accept the claim by officers their rules that was claimed to be used to disperse protesters from capitol hill obviously only have the opposite effect why weren't these officers investigated for flagrant dishonesty we need civilian oversight okay our next speaker is david haines and he will be followed by a gallery all right thank you david haines

District 7, homeless crisis is ongoing, still concerned about it.

And I was calling in about, is the city council authorizing, what is the city council authorizing $30 million to be paid today?

It would be nice to know exactly what that expense is, because I know the homeless are still needing a shelter.

There was no indication what council is authorizing $30 million for.

Maybe it's hidden on the website, but it's not evident.

Secondly, city council is undermining community quality of living, public health and safety by allowing a watered down, building codes to build more obsolete, flawed floor space dining areas in dirty, cemented, and dusted streets.

It's offensive to listen to City Council lie to us repeatedly about how successful the Street Cafe program is when you say they've closed off the street.

Ballard Avenue has never been closed down, despite one-way traffic barrier.

While people are eating in the gutter and rain is washing under their feet as sidewalks as the sidewalk allows unmasked spit spraying public to walk through the dining area on the public sidewalk as a waiter walks your food right behind them catching their breath on your food.

as these drunk drivers from the Lock and Keel down the street on Ballard Ave and delivery trucks and cars are speeding by non-stop, sticking their exhaust within inches of your dining area, toxifying the oxygen, giving you leukemia cancer air to breathe, proving a climate change impact by man subjecting to man while dining as liberal Democrats are popping up banks owning condemnable commercial building slums on Ballard Ave who donate to, thanks, excuse me, man, I'm out in the rain trying to wash my laundry, and this is not fair, you only give me two minutes, but it's not fair that you got all these rundown slums.

We need a, Ballard Ave is proof we need to tear that all down and rebuild a 21st century, first world quality commercial and school and residential build out of homes for real equity and justice.

Okay, our next speaker is Valerie Schlored, followed by Bill Johnson.

Valerie.

Hi this is Valerie Sloret.

I'm speaking on policing.

I believe that is allowed because it is on your annual work plan.

SPD's Proud Boys ruse of June 2020 was discussed in the public safety meeting this morning.

The Proud Boys misbehaving aspects of this SPD disinformation campaign is not surprising because despite a reform process that has been going on for over a decade, we don't truly hold police accountable in Seattle.

For example, the OPA took so long to investigate the dangerous Proud Boys ruse that the clock ran out on discipline.

In the meantime, the public did not have the full story about police conduct during the 2020 protests.

But they voted in local elections where policing was an enormous issue.

That lack of transparency and accountability impacts who gets elected, and who holds power in the city, we have a policing problem, and we also have a democracy problem.

In August, an investigator in the Office of Inspector General made a detailed whistleblower complaint about the OIG's rubber stamping of OPA investigations.

Issues related to the complaint have been investigated by Carolyn Beck, an article in the South Seattle Emerald, over the past five months.

Biggs' article of December 7 was Investigating OIG Complaints in City Council's Court, but SCC isn't acting.

To reiterate, City Council is not taking action about credible evidence complaints that OIG's certification of OPA investigations show deep pro-police bias.

It's an abuse of power to only discuss holding OPA to account when a mess like the Proud Boys' ruse is daylighted, and to ignore everything else that is going on.

Please stop pretending that our system is working and begin with a fully independent investigation of the OIG.

Thank you.

Our last speaker listed is Bill Johnson, but he is not present.

So that concludes our list of public commenters today.

Thank you, Jodi.

And thank you, those who called in.

So the public comment period is now closed.

So let's move to payment of the bills.

Clerk, can you please read the title?

Payment of bills, Council Bill 120254, an ordinance appropriating money to pay certain audited claims for the week of December 27, 2021 through December 31, 2021, and ordering the payment thereof.

Thank you, Jodi.

I move to pass Council Bill 120254. Is there a second?

Second.

It's been moved and seconded that the bill pass.

Are there any comments?

Seeing or hearing no comments.

Clerk, please call the roll on the passage of the bill.

Suez?

Aye.

Morales?

Yes.

Mosqueda?

Aye.

Nelson?

Aye.

Peterson?

Aye.

Sawant?

Yes.

Kerbal?

Yes.

And Council President Juarez?

Aye.

Nine in favor, none opposed.

Thank you.

The bill passes and the chair will sign it.

Will the clerk please affix my signature to the legislation on my behalf?

Next, we're going to go to committee reports.

It's my understanding that there are no committee reports on today's agenda.

This will probably be the first and last time that ever happens.

So with that, we'll move through the calendar.

We have no other business.

Before I adjourn, is there any other items that any of my colleagues would like to share or end with before I adjourn?

Looking at you, Council Member Mosqueda.

Council Member Strauss, I saw his hand up.

Oh, his hand up, oh, I didn't see that.

Go ahead, Council Member Strauss.

Thank you, Council Member Mosqueda.

Council President and colleagues, I request to be excused next Tuesday, January 18th.

So do we vote on that, Jody?

Or we just say, go ahead?

No, if there's no objection, then he will be excused.

So you can ask if there's any objections.

Does anyone have a problem with Mr. Strauss leaving us for a week?

Looks like nobody has a problem with that.

So go on, Mr. Strauss, have fun.

Thank you, Councilor.

Be safe.

Council President.

Yes, Councilor Mosqueda.

You read my mind, Council President.

I too would like to move to be excused on Tuesday, January 25th.

All right.

Is there any objection to Councilor Mosqueda not being with us on January 25th?

I'm not seeing none.

I'm guessing that's okay for you to go to Council Member Mosqueda.

You too, Council Member Peterson, are you raising your hand?

Nope, you're with us.

Okay, great.

Okay, so I think that pretty much wraps everything up.

So let me go to my old script here.

Colleagues, this does conclude the items of business on today's agenda.

Our next regularly scheduled city council meeting is on January 18th at two.

I hope you all have a wonderful afternoon.

We are adjourned.

Thank you.