SPEAKER_07

I want to thank everyone for being here tonight and taking time out of your busy schedule to come and to be engaged.

Many of you have voiced concerns to me directly or via phone calls or emails to my office and to other offices at city departments expressing your concerns about issues in the D4.

Recent crimes have understandably left folks feeling unsettled and wondering what the city's doing to address these issues.

We have representatives here from the city who are gonna try to answer your questions.

We'll start this evening by introducing the panelists up here, then I will share questions for their response and discussion.

If we have time, we'll try to take some audience questions via the note cards that were up by the desk when you first came in.

MENTIONED THE QUESTIONS FOR THIS EVENING WERE GATHERED FROM RSVP'S FOR THIS EVENT AND FROM EMAILS AND CALLS TO MY OFFICE.

WE COMPILED THE MOST FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS FOR THE PANEL.

THESE QUESTIONS ARE ALSO SIMILAR TO CONCERNS WE'VE HEARD FROM FOLKS ACROSS THE CITY.

PUBLIC SAFETY IS OBVIOUSLY TOP OF MIND FOR MANY PEOPLE AND ALL OF US HERE AND I KNOW ALL OF YOU.

I'VE HAD CONVERSATIONS AS I SAID EARLIER WITH MANY OF YOU ABOUT PUBLIC SAFETY HERE IN THE D4.

I'D LIKE TO ACKNOWLEDGE AND THANK MY COLLEAGUES, COUNCIL MEMBER SARAH NELSON AND COUNCIL MEMBER TANYA WU FOR BEING HERE THIS EVENING.

Many of you know council members Nelson and Wu are our at large representatives on the Seattle City Council and public safety is top of mind for them as well, as well as many of our other colleagues on the City Council.

I also want to welcome and thank the members of the panel for being here tonight.

I know all of you want to solve these problems just like everyone else here.

We have Deputy Mayor Tim Burgess, we will have We will have a little later City Attorney Ann Davidson joining us.

We have Captain Lori Agard here who oversees the Seattle Police Department's North Precinct and she does deserve a big round of applause for her partnership with I Know My Office and with so many of you have had the opportunity to meet her as her team is really trying so hard to address the issues on the north end of Seattle.

We also have Seattle Parks and Recreation Deputy Superintendent Christopher Williams.

And Lee Momin, Division Director for Seattle Public Utilities Clean City Initiative.

And last but not least, my friend Bill Laborde, Council and Government Relations Manager with the Seattle Department of Transportation.

I'd also like to thank the Seattle Channel for taping the event so that community members can watch if they could not be here tonight.

The video will be posted on the Seattle Channel's website this Friday.

And thank you to the staff from the city council offices for being here tonight, including my staff, council members Nelson and Wu, staff members, and a staff member from council member Kathy Moore from the D5 who is here with us tonight.

Staff from city departments are here tonight as well.

Thank you for coming.

And panelists, please feel free to introduce members of your team as we get going.

All right.

Before we get to the questions, I do want to briefly explain the role of the city council in the context of public safety because I get this question a lot.

the legislative branch enacts the laws that govern the city and it oversees the budget that allows the city departments to implement these laws and provide the city services such as those provided by our public safety departments while council partners with and requests support from these city departments we do not have authority over them That role is delegated to the executive, who is the mayor, Mayor Bruce Harrell, who's been a great partner throughout my time in office here since I've been here in January.

As per the city charter, public safety is one of our collective primary mandates.

The council has passed to date 11 pieces of public safety legislation since January.

We partnered with the mayor and SPD on many of these.

Briefly, they include supporting the recruitment of and accelerating the hiring of SPD officers to relieve the staffing shortage.

Expanding or allowing the use of tools like automated license plate readers, CCTV, and the real-time crime center to help police detect and deter crime both in hotspots and across the city.

areas of emphasis for both police and prosecutors to combat rampant drug dealing.

The Ave in the U District was included in the state out of drug area legislation known as SODA.

There's also a state out of area prostitution known as SOAP legislation that addresses the gun violence associated with the trafficking of women and young girls on Aurora.

Both soda and soap can be expanded in the future if proven successful.

And we also gave the city new tools to fight illegal street racing, which is an issue I know on Sandpoint Way right outside of our doors actually here.

I supported all 11 of these bills because public safety is a priority for me as I know it is for you.

And we're trying as hard as we can to address all the public safety issues in the city and we know we can't do it without tools.

And as we've often, I have said, and my colleagues have said on the dais, if these tools don't work, then we will pivot to something else.

But we got to try all these different avenues and ways that we can think of in order to address the situation that we're experiencing in the district here and all across the city.

I want to say I very much appreciate, as I said earlier, the partnership with the mayor's office and the city departments as I've brought your concerns and needs to their attention.

I've seen their responsiveness to the issues at Magnuson and across the district.

and you will hear how they are taking action on your public safety concerns.

So let's get to your questions.

Deputy Mayor Burgess, I'm going to start with you.

Folks, and I'll hand you the mic after I ask the question.

Folks are wondering how the mayor's office has responded to residents' emails and calls about violence, crime, and noise in Magnuson Park and Sandpoint on the weekends.

SPEAKER_04

Thanks for that.

And thank you to all of you for obviously caring about your city, about your neighborhood, and for coming out tonight to share your views and to listen to us.

So the question is how do we handle emails or phone calls or letters that we get in the mayor's office about crime problems or concerns about public disorder?

I can tell you that we receive hundreds of those every week from all over the city.

And they come into our communication system triage and we either respond to them directly from the mayor's office to whoever sent us the message or made the phone call or sent the letter.

We don't get very many letters, by the way.

We get lots of emails.

or we send them to the department that deals with the topic that was raised by the resident or by the business or whoever is sending it to us, and then they respond as well.

So it depends on what the topic is.

It depends on the urgency of the message.

But we try to respond either directly ourselves or from a city department to each complaint or each question or issue that's raised with us.

THE VOLUME IS OVERWHELMING.

AND, YOU KNOW, THAT'S UNDERSTANDABLE IN SOME SITUATIONS.

WE HAVE CERTAINLY HEARD FROM A LOT OF YOU HERE IN DISTRICT 4, ESPECIALLY RELATED TO MAGNUSON PARK OR TO ACTIVITIES IN THE U DISTRICT ON UNIVERSITY WAY OR SOME IN THE ROSEVILLE-RAVENNA NEIGHBORHOOD AS WELL.

SPEAKER_07

AND I KNOW YOU HAVE A STAFFER HERE TONIGHT.

DO YOU WANT TO INTRODUCE HER?

SPEAKER_04

Yeah, thank you very much.

Natalie, who's down here in the first row, Natalie Walton Anderson is...

Thank you.

She's the Director of Public Safety in our office.

Natalie has a long history in criminal justice affairs.

She's a former King County Deputy Prosecuting Attorney.

She also worked at the U.S.

Attorney's Office for Western Washington, and also for a while at the City Attorney's Office.

So she's not leaping and jumping from job to job.

She's actually being recruited.

We recruited her to come to the mayor's office because of her expertise, because of her sensitivity to criminal justice issues and the need for reform in those areas, but also her keen understanding of policing and the role that the police play in our community to help with crime and disorder.

SPEAKER_07

Thank you, Deputy Mayor.

And folks also wanna know, and I think you can answer this question as well.

Folks have been told to call 911, but the call takers are transferring them to the non-emergency number where no one answers.

Can you please clarify where residents should be calling?

Also 911 says they will only dispatch if residents report hearing gunshots or if they're being shot at.

Is this true?

SPEAKER_04

So when you call 911, that call is answered by call takers at the 911 center, and they go through a triage protocol to determine how best to respond to your call.

This is city attorney Ann Davison.

I'm pleased to introduce her.

And Anne was at another event, that's why she's a little late here, but thank you.

SPEAKER_06

Being a mom.

SPEAKER_04

Well, that's a good responsibility too.

So thanks for joining us.

So when you call 911, that call is received at the 911 call center, and they go through a protocol of triage to determine how best to respond to that call.

Sometimes, if it's a fire or a medical emergency, they will transfer the caller to the fire alarm center, and then they go through their process there.

If it's a crime, then they go through a prioritization that classifies that call as a priority one response, priority two, three, four, et cetera.

Priority one calls are the most urgent.

They involve threats to human life, or other very serious crimes in progress or other events that require an immediate police response.

Those are dispatched first.

That's the highest priority in the city.

Priority two calls are also important, but maybe not quite as risky or as urgent, and it goes down that prioritization ladder.

I think it actually goes to priority nine, but those are rarely dispatched.

Sometimes when someone calls 911, it's not priority one or two or three.

It's a non-emergency type call, still important, and they will transfer to the non-emergency number, which is also answered at the same place by the same people.

So when you call 911, a call taker is receiving that call.

making a judgment based on various protocols as to how best to respond to that call.

Sometimes it'll transfer to a person at the 911 center that's taking non-emergency calls.

The non-emergency number is never turned off.

It's always active.

We just checked two days ago what is the current average wait time when a call is transferred to the non-emergency number.

It's running about nine minutes right now.

That means sometimes it's answered more quickly, sometimes not so quickly.

But that's the average that's running right now.

And it's fluctuated this year in 2024 between seven minutes and 11 minutes.

SPEAKER_07

Thank you, Deputy Mayor, and welcome, City Attorney Ann Davison.

Thank you for that, Deputy Mayor.

So what people really want to know is where should they be calling and when?

When should they be calling for 911, and when should they be calling the non-emergency line?

We understand that right now the non-emergency line has a 7 to 11-minute wait time.

We'd love to hear...

From you or maybe even I know Natalie's been working on this too You know, where should people be calling really and why I?

SPEAKER_04

So when I'm asked this question, I always tell people, call 911. And here's why.

Sometimes when citizens or small shop owners or myself or anyone sees something that they think needs a police response, we might not know all the characteristics, all the things that are happening around that particular incident.

So rather than make a judgment myself as to where I should call, I'll call 911 and let them decide.

A lot of times people will say, well, I don't want to bother the police.

Well, you might have a piece of information that you think is insignificant, but when you call 911, they'll say, Gosh, this is really important.

I'm going to transfer you right now to X or to Y or Z or whatever is appropriate.

So rather than make that judgment yourself, I would just encourage you to call 911. Let them decide and then steer you to the appropriate place, whether that's the non-emergency number or to transfer you to fire or whatever is appropriate for that call.

So you asked earlier, and I forgot to answer, If someone calls and says, someone's shooting at me or I hear gunshots, are the police going to respond?

They're going to go through the same triage they do for every call to determine whether or not there should be an immediate response or a secondary response or whatever's appropriate.

But I guarantee you, if you call 911 and say someone is shooting at me right now, you are going to get an immediate response.

In fact, your call will probably be transferred to the radio dispatcher for your district who wants to hear that call as you are talking to the call taker because they're in turn talking to officers who are responding to the scene.

So shooting incidents where you're a victim or you're watching somebody shooting at somebody else is obviously going to get an immediate response.

Now if you call in and say, hey, I'm in my apartment and I just heard three gunshots, the call taker's gonna say, do you know who's shooting?

Do you know where those shots are occurring?

And depending on your response, then their response will be appropriate to whatever you're telling them.

SPEAKER_07

Thank you.

And going from the 911 call center where they're making the judgment calls on who needs to respond, we're going to go to Captain Agard because it's her team who's actually responding to these calls.

And so, Captain Agard, I'm going to let you answer someone asked or multiple people asked, how many officers and patrol cars routinely patrol the D4 or assigned to the D4?

Why isn't there a more reliable and consistent presence of officers day and night?

Okay.

SPEAKER_05

Yeah, so for D4, we have two sectors.

One sector is called Lincoln Sector, and then the other sector is called Union Sector.

And in the front row here, we have the Union Knight Sergeant Sector.

Stephanie Marks has come.

And then we also have the night watch commander, Lieutenant Mike Teejan, and he's in charge at night.

And I'll just introduce everyone since I'm going.

And then we have Lieutenant Sean Moore, and he is the lieutenant of robbery in our gun violence unit for Seattle.

Thank you.

And then we have our project officer who will contact and follow up on certain things that need ongoing attention.

And this is Officer Mike Kruzan.

So precinct-wide, looking at numbers for third watch, that's our night watch.

It starts at 7 p.m.

and it goes until 4 in the morning.

City-wide, if you're looking all, not city-wide, sorry, north precinct, we have our perfect staffing would be 20 officers.

And For Lincoln Sector and Union Sector D4 area, you would have two squads of about four each on a perfect night.

So you would have eight.

I want to give you an example, though, for our staffing because we rarely have those numbers.

So I looked it up for last weekend on, let's see, on Friday night, we had 14 squads.

And that's for all of North Precinct.

And that includes Ballard, over on Greenwood, Golden Gardens, the whole west side and east side of the freeway.

And then on Saturday night, we had 13 working.

and Sunday night we had 15. So starting out, we're always below what we want.

We have officers on vacation, baby leave, light duty, sick time, so we're always dealing with these staffing shortages.

We are getting new officers in.

We had a couple of new officers last month, and I know Chief Rahr, her priority is to get more officers hired and trained, but that's going to take some time to get them.

It takes an officer about a year to be fully trained where they're working hard.

by themselves out in a patrol car.

So we're working on that, and I know it's going to get better, but right now we're dealing with staffing shortages.

Yeah.

SPEAKER_07

Thank you, Captain.

And just to underscore, ideally you would have 20. You never have 20 right now.

And I assume that 20 would be the minimum as an ideal situation.

More would be better, obviously, because...

SPEAKER_05

Yes, yes, more would be better, yes.

SPEAKER_07

And then I'm going to ask you specifically, what SPD investigations, what have they revealed about the two recent homicides, one here at the park, one across the street behind the 7-Eleven?

Were they in any way related to the problem with the excessive noise coming from the boat launch area at the park?

And what is being done and can be done to stop the loud parties at the park?

And I know that you've worked a lot on this since the beginning of the summer, late spring.

SPEAKER_05

Yes, we had the two homicides.

We had the one on the 13th of August and then the one on September 8th.

And I know both of those make all of you fearful and no one ever wants to have that in your community.

Our follow-up units did a really good job and they have made arrests in both of the homicides.

So they're in custody.

Are they directly related to the park?

We can't say that.

We don't see any direct connection to Magnuson Park, even though they're in the vicinity.

There's no direct connection that we're seeing to the park.

So when all these complaints started coming in, Council Member Rivera and I met with parks.

And we discussed the issue and we were able to get the parks to close the park at 10 o'clock at night.

And then to hire, they hired one security guard to lock the gate up.

When they did that, they started just driving around.

They were cutting the gates and just pushing their way back into the park.

So I put the mobile precinct down there for one week.

I don't know if any of you saw that.

24 hours a day just for that added presence, and I assigned two officers to be in there to talk to the community and just show their presence down there.

In addition to that, Every weekend I have been having an overtime operation there on Friday and Saturday and Sunday nights from 8 o'clock in the afternoon until 8 o'clock at night until 4 in the morning.

So they go down and they...

have seen, I'm sure as you have all seen, like 100 to 200 people in there.

And they're opening up the backs of their cars, playing this very loud, amplified music.

And even Kirkland, we get 911 calls from Kirkland.

because they can hear it across the water, too.

And beer, they're drinking beer cans all over, littering.

I know I talk to parks.

They have to clean it all up the next day.

Litter.

There's been some road racing.

There's been some reports of shots fired.

So this operation, their only job is to be there and to remove the people in there that are drinking and creating chaos in your parks.

And once they kick them out, they literally have to stay there because they try to get back in.

So Lieutenant Teejan here can tell you that they have to post cars there to get them to not reenter the park.

So going forward next year, I've talked to Council Member Rivera and Parks.

I really want to get a, I don't know if any of you are familiar with Golden Gardens on the west side.

We had very similar problems in Golden Gardens, and we were able to model an operation that was permanent and ongoing starting in the late spring all through the summer where we have parks there and SPD, and it's a regular ongoing patrol there every Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.

And we started doing that in Golden Gardens, and we haven't had any issues since then.

So we're going to be planning this winter, and hopefully by Memorial Day weekend, we'll have that completed so we don't have this happen again.

And the word will get out.

Yeah.

Thank you.

And the word will get out that this is being patrolled and it's not going to be allowed.

And that way they won't get embedded in there again because I know how upsetting it is hearing all that loud music.

You can't sleep.

It's, you know...

It does bring crime to your neighborhoods when you have large groups of people being lawless like that.

So that is my plan for next year.

SPEAKER_07

Thank you, Captain.

And I know that we've talked a lot about the fact that there's a lot that you're trying to do.

And again, not to, I mean, I often feel like when I talk to constituents, a little bit of a broken record about the, you know, low staffing numbers, but it is real.

And it is something that you are dealing with.

And the more police patrol, because we talk a lot about the number of officers that we have at the department, but not all of those are actually patrol officers.

Can you talk a little bit about how that works?

SPEAKER_05

Oh, yeah.

When we hear about deployable officers on the police department, you're looking at, those numbers include detectives and outreach and special units.

So when you're actually looking at patrol officers, that number goes down.

It's a priority though.

Our officers are also dealing with demonstrations.

So every time there's a demo, like if you hear of a demo downtown, North officers are called in early, held over, drafted on their days off.

So they're responding downtown to deal with these other events all across the city.

So our patrol officers are doing like triple duties.

So, yeah.

SPEAKER_07

Thank you, Captain.

And then there's another issue that has been raised a lot for the last few months, and that is the robberies that small businesses have had to deal with on 35th.

And that's one of the first things when I came on that you and I had many conversations about and with constituents.

So can you talk a little bit about what you did to address that and how you can continue to address it and what's being done to support the small businesses there.

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05

Yeah, I think they're not actually robberies, they're burglaries.

Yeah, if you don't know the difference between a lot of people, even on TV they say robberies, but a robbery is when something is taken by force.

a weapon or someone hits you and takes your stuff.

Burglaries are when they break in and still things, but there's no force or threat to doing that.

And along 35th, there is some burglaries.

It's citywide.

I wouldn't say it's more of a problem there than some other places, but there was at one time there.

some cars that were bashing into the storefronts as well.

So I did deploy the mobile precinct to the Safeway parking lot there for a week to try to just, it's kind of like a force multiplier, just more presence in the area.

Our crime prevention, Sarah Lawson, went out and met with the businesses and did SEPTED, to kind of look to say, hey, you should do this to try to prevent future break-ins.

And I know Officer Mike Cruzan went out there, made contact with the businesses there as well.

And Lieutenant Mike Teejan was aware of it, and he had some officers out there assigned in the early mornings when it was happening.

And his officers are there patrolling whatever they can when they're not answering calls.

So we know what's happening.

We try to be there as much as possible.

SPEAKER_07

Thank you, Captain.

And Officer Cruzan, I don't know if, would you mind standing?

Because this is the person that's doing the outreach and outreach with the small businesses.

And I've been trying to do these small business public safety walks.

We did one on 55th, not far from here.

And then we did one in Wallingford.

And Officer Cruzon and Captain Agard and Chief Rahr have joined us and representatives from the mayor's office and city attorney have joined us too.

So they can hear from the small businesses themselves on what they're experiencing.

And I also know that.

Sarah Lawson can you explain a little bit about the work that she does because I think a lot of constituents are not aware this is something she could provide to also if you if neighborhood streets have a block watch Sarah can also come and meet with your block watch to talk about how to prevent being the victim of a crime

SPEAKER_05

Yes, Sarah Lawson is our crime prevention officer, and she works on the east side of the freeway.

And she didn't used to be assigned to the precinct, but now she does work for me, and she's assigned to the precinct.

And now we have her on a site, and also our CSOs now are assigned to the precinct.

So they are, yeah, that just happened.

They've moved into the precinct, and...

They work for me now, so you'll probably see them out there more as well.

But Sarah Lawson can come out and work with any block watches.

She does personal safety classes.

She'll come out and look at your business and give you tips on how to prevent future break-ins.

She's an all-around good person, resource.

If you're having any crime...

problems that can be fixed by removing brush or trees or looking at locks, alarms.

And so she's an excellent resource.

SPEAKER_07

Yes, of course, but I'll say you don't mean the old growth trees because we love our trees here on the north end.

I think a Captain Agard means a small brush and things that you can do, smart things you can do in your homes to really prevent crime from being the victim of a crime, like I said.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah, I just want to jump in here.

You guys are very fortunate to have Lori Agard as the captain of the North Precinct.

She does an amazing job.

And the two homicides that she referred to, our detectives were able to identify those offenders and arrest them and get them in custody fairly quickly.

So they've done an amazing job.

And that actually happens all over the city.

Our police officers, and the mayor says this all the time, how proud he is of the effectiveness of our police officers.

Yes, we have too few, and maybe we'll talk about why that is.

That goes back several years to why we have so few officers.

But the officers we do have are working very, very hard.

They're doing very good work.

They're exceptional.

We are very proud of our police officers and Lori and the officers that are here deserve our appreciation.

SPEAKER_07

thank you deputy mayor and i um the office of economic development is not here but they're another great partner and i did want to mention in terms of the support to businesses experiencing the burglaries there was the storefront repair fund and that was a fund that businesses could apply to if they needed a window fix because it was broken when they got burglarized or a store that was um a fund that was established with federal funds federal funds came with less because of covid this was during covid less i will say strings attached normally because of the gift of public funds there's certain things that the city cannot fund and providing this kind of funding to businesses is one thing that we can't do, but I will say that I have heard from the director, Director McIntyre from the Office of Economic Development, where he's looking into what can we do, now that this fund at the end of the year will be expiring.

So just know that he is working on ways that he's able to support businesses who are being impacted by public safety issues.

And I did want to say that.

All right, and then lastly, Captain, can you talk a bit about another huge issue is the car prowls and thefts and there's juvenile crime.

What are you working on?

What has that looked like, your efforts there?

And actually, a second piece also that folks want to know about is the drug problem in the university district.

So those are two things, but if you wouldn't mind quickly touching on each of those.

SPEAKER_05

Yeah, I'd like our Lieutenant Sean Moore to quickly talk about his excellent follow-up and arrest that he has made on, there was a group that was doing carjackings and armed robberies in the area.

One where a lady was coming out, was pistol whipped, put in the hospital, stole her car, and robbery unit was able to track down this person and arrest them.

So I would like you to talk a little bit about that.

SPEAKER_03

Good evening.

Thank you very much for giving me this opportunity to talk to everybody.

Chief Mahaffey is the Investigations Bureau chief, and unfortunately, he was not able to be here today.

He wanted to, but he wasn't able to.

Captain Agard mentioned it.

We had a string of robberies, a rash of robberies in the North Precinct area.

The robbery detectives were able to get information to figure out who the suspects were.

And I'm going to take this opportunity to give a plug for the Crimestoppers.

So some of the information that we got for this investigation came from the Crimestoppers' tip line.

And that tip line, if you didn't know, is 800-222-TIPS.

And so we got some bits of information from that that were very small on the surface, but we were able to put those together with other bits of information and figure out who the suspects were.

The suspects were fairly local.

They were juveniles.

They were all arrested, and the majority of them are still in custody as of this moment, as far as I know.

But I can't stress enough to everybody how important it is for you to be involved, and everybody in here obviously cares, and that's why you're here.

And the detectives in the Detectives Bureau truly appreciate that.

Anybody who has a ring camera or a blink camera or an external camera, believe it or not, sometimes the suspects are smart enough not to leave their masks off right at the point of where the problem is.

But they're not so industrious that they'll come from 10 blocks.

So you may be a block away from where this happened.

And your ring camera, your bling camera may pick up the suspects before they put a mask on or the car that they were in.

And those little bits of information, all those small pieces of that puzzle are what the detectives use to put together a case against the suspects.

So I really appreciate all of the information that we got from the tips line.

If you have a tip, please pass that on.

And if you're tech savvy, which I'm not very tech savvy, there's actually an app that you can put on there.

And it's completely anonymous.

And we appreciate the fact that not everybody wants to get involved because they don't want to become the target of somebody's problem.

So please continue to use the tip line.

Call 911. I'll say the same thing.

Please call 911. And we can't do it without you guys.

Thank you.

SPEAKER_07

THANK YOU.

SPEAKER_05

OKAY.

TO TALK A LITTLE BIT ABOUT THE U DISTRICT, WE'RE FORTUNATE TO HAVE AN EXCELLENT RELATIONSHIP WITH DON BLAKENEY AND MARCUS JOHNSON WITH THE UNIVERSITY PARTNERSHIP THERE.

THEY'RE AWESOME.

WE DID A BIG SAFETY WALK THERE uh...

a lot of the partners up here yeah and uh...

went around all the businesses talking about their issues and then doing uh...

follow up problems and trying to come up with solutions to that.

We've been doing ongoing operations in the U District.

We will continue to do that for narcotics.

One thing that is really gonna assist us, I don't know if this has been announced yet, but starting on November 1st, we're gonna be able to once again book misdemeanors into the King County Jail.

So that's gonna be huge.

Yes.

So that is going to help with, like, if there's an arrest, instead of just releasing them back the same day and have them to continue selling drugs or committing car prowls, like I think that was another issue is car prowls, we're going to be able to unplug them and book them.

So that's going to assist us a lot.

SPEAKER_07

Thank you, Captain.

I know that City Attorney Ann Davison was working on this.

Ann, do you want to talk a little bit about municipal?

There was a question on the status of staffing capacity at the municipal court and the jail.

and what we've been able to do since.

And then you can talk about the drug possession law because I think most people understand we passed a law, but then people don't understand how we go about being able to implement the law, especially with the low staffing numbers and the challenges with being able to book folks And folks, we're talking about drug dealers.

The drug possession law was meant to have a vehicle for booking folks that were doing the most harm, the drug dealers, and then having a mechanism for being able to divert folks that were addicted and using into treatment because really that's what we want to do.

We want to be able to have those folks go into treatment.

But for the people that are dealing the drugs and really committing and preying on these people, on the folks that are addicted, those are the folks that we're trying to get booked into the jails.

SPEAKER_06

Well, thank you, and apologies for my tardiness, and thanks for having me here, and for all of you for spending your evening hours listening to us up here, so I really do appreciate it.

The drug law that we have is a complicated item.

It does move drug use and possession from what used to be a felony down into a misdemeanor area, which is my area.

So we have changed statewide where that criminal activity resides.

And so prior to this law, it was prosecuted by the county prosecutors across our state.

So again, it was at the felony level.

There were no drug crimes that were coming through at the municipal level.

So we are shifting down an entire work area down into the municipal area for the first time.

And that's happening across our city and all the other municipalities across the state.

And so when there are still significant issues going on, like dealing in...

that's gonna still be in the felony area, but what we're talking about is use and possession in public specifically, when we're talking about street disorder, a lot of the issues that are coming about, a lot of the unpredictability, a lot of the sense of do you feel safe when you go to the bus, to this place or that, is some of the issues that we're talking about.

The booking restrictions were there, and Deputy Mayor Burgess and the mayor's office was significant in getting that, resolved for us because when it comes to my office and the prosecution of referrals we get from Seattle police officers, it was difficult because we were not able to quickly deal with somebody that was maybe being held at the moment and deal with it from an arraignment standpoint.

They were being released or unable for officers to do anything and so we were at a place where we might charge it but we wouldn't have the person there at the time.

So now we have the drug law, but we also now have the stay out of the drug area zone of which Council Member Rivera was instrumental in making sure that was added in at the University District location.

And so that will be a different criminal violation.

So that would be a separate item.

So just to make sure that people can understand what we're talking about.

underlying drug-related crime, and that is referred to my office, we can, if the evidence is there, we can request to a Seattle Municipal Court judge for them to issue a pre-trial, stay out of a drug area condition of release.

And so we have to convince the judge.

It's not automatic, so this isn't just suddenly going to happen to everybody.

This is something that we have to first have an underlying crime that is connected to drug use of some sort.

And then we have to request that and be persuasive with the evidence, and the judge issues that.

So that's when those soda orders can come into place.

There's multiple locations around the city.

The first two zones that I proposed for that was the downtown area and the international district.

And just to give you a sense of the size of those areas, the two areas I proposed were less than one quarter of 1% of the 83 square miles of our city.

And with the additional areas that the council members have proposed, it's still less than one half of 1%.

of the 83 square miles of our city.

So this is not large swaths of areas that we are looking to say people cannot access.

We also were very deliberate in making sure we analyzed where services were, where supportive housing was, to make sure that those zones did not include those to the best of our ability and looking at the topography of things.

And so we weren't trying to make it difficult for somebody to access things that they need, the treatment that we're talking about.

But we are looking to disrupt those locations that are known for that open-air drug use so that we can make those public spaces accessible for everybody so that we can just do the coming and going that it's intended for.

And so that's kind of the overlay of that.

So the lifting of the booking restrictions is significant because, again, if we can address things at the misdemeanor level, then we don't hopefully are looking at waiting unless and until there's a felony, right?

And so there might have been some that were here that were not liking what your announcement was.

But I really do see that if we are responsive to the misdemeanor level, we are saying our laws matter.

We don't want this criminal activity to increase.

We would like people to get the help that they need and to get on with some other things.

But harming one another in society is not what we want.

And so that's kind of where we come in with that.

And so to me, having those booking restrictions lifted supports the officers that we do have so that they can be responsive in the moment should that be what they think is necessary.

And then if they refer it to me, then we will look at that evidence and proceed as we are supposed to and file a charge if that's what the evidence supports.

I'm hopeful that now we are all kind of headed in the same direction of understanding what we each do within the city.

Hopefully you all feel that way.

And I think it's really a great day that we have now for the city because I see a lot of progress and patience with one another as we improve the sectors that we're responsible for.

SPEAKER_07

Thank you, Ian.

And thank you for, you know, I understand that the drug dealing is at the felony level, but my understanding was there were booking restrictions even for that.

Maybe...

Am I, do I have, no?

Not for felonies, it was just misdemeanor.

Okay, well thank you for explaining that.

I've learned something today too.

And so that is the point of this, so we can learn about how these laws and what the efforts are looking like.

But to your last point, there is more partnership amongst city council members, the mayor's office, the city departments, the city attorney's office, and that really has, served as a conduit to get some things done to try to effectuate positive change in Seattle.

So thank you for doing your part and for explaining that.

I want to shift over to My friend Christopher Williams, Deputy Superintendent of Seattle Parks and Recreation, to talk a bit about what Parks and Recreation has done here at the park to address the criminal and nuisance behaviors here at the park that Captain Agard talked a little bit about earlier.

What steps has Seattle Parks and Recreation taken to address both the criminal and nuisance behaviors in the park?

Can you explain the gate closures, times, logistic, has it worked or not?

SPEAKER_01

Thank you.

And maybe I'll start out with an introduction of our team who is here.

We have Daisy Kateg, who literally has worked at the park department since she was 14. Daisy serves as our Deputy Superintendent of Park and Recreation Operations.

She's responsible for the grounds maintenance crews who maintain this park, who maintain the athletic fields, who are responsible for...

Sorry about that.

Daisy is responsible for all of the facility maintenance staff and for just basically all the park operations across the system, including the park ranger program.

Next to Daisy, we have Jasmine Rydall, who is a recently hired manager of our park ranger program.

We were fortunate to have Jasmine choose to work at parks, and she's doing a great job managing the renewed Park Ranger program across the system.

And then we have Joanna Suchy, who is a long-term Seattle Park and Recreation employee as well.

Give Joanna a hand.

Joanne is the site manager extraordinaire for Magnuson Park.

She manages all of the tenant relationships.

She facilitates the Magnuson Park Advisory Council.

There is literally nothing Joanne doesn't know about Magnuson Park if it is happening here.

Joanne is the right person to know.

So Council Member Rivera asked about some of the steps we were taking to respond to a whole range of illegal behavior here in the park and nuisance behavior.

And I think that's a good distinction because sometimes behaviors aren't illegal, but they are a nuisance.

And we try to have strategies and interventions for both.

So thank you, Council Member Rivera, for pulling us all together here.

The first intervention we have piloted are gate closures.

So on 65th Street entrance, you go about 90% of the way down to the boat ramp, and there's a gate there that gets cleared out at about 9.30.

We've invested in hiring a private security firm that clears out the parking lot so that no cars get locked behind the gate at 10 o'clock.

That gate gets closed at 10 o'clock, and that was in response to a lot of the feedback we were hearing from you.

In fact, we did a walkthrough of this park with Council Member Rivera in the summer, and thank you for your leadership.

It really helped uncover some opportunities we had for change, such as the gates.

The other change that we have implemented is expanded programs for youth at our community centers.

We are implementing a teen night program which occurs on Friday nights.

We're serving between 25 and 35 youth every Friday night.

they show up they have a good time and by 915 there are no youth left in the building everybody's gone and we think we'd like to make that program permanent it's continuing to do its thing and it's being well received by the youth that come to that program the other thing we're doing is We want to engage in deeper conversations with the police captain about deepening our partnership at this location so we can have expanded SPD services here in the same model that is being practiced at Golden Gardens.

We have a commitment to continuous performance and improvement and practicing innovations that help the public better enjoy your parks.

So we really look forward to rolling up our sleeves over the winter and coming up with the design of a model that replicates the success at Golden Gardens.

The fourth thing we're doing As just today, we were on the phone with the unified care team.

That is the unit within the city that manages RV camping.

They manage encampments across the city.

And as part of our conversation today, we will be posting signage that prohibits the parking of RVs at the parking lot just south of the Mountaineers.

And then there is...

There is another location just south of here where RVs are known to congregate.

So you'll see those signs go up on the 14th.

Our goal is to place ecology blocks around those areas to just reduce the number of opportunities where people are illegally camping in RVs.

And then the other strategy we're implementing here is probably maybe one of our most innovative, and it is an expanded park ranger program.

So I mentioned nuisance behaviors, and I think the first message about park rangers, they are not police.

We have a police force, and what rangers do is practice interventions that gain willful compliance for people, largely around a whole range of nuisance behaviors.

Even our park rangers, sometimes when the behaviors become too disruptive, have to call the police.

They aren't necessarily seeing that kind of behavior during the daytime hours that they work.

They are here in the park pretty regularly.

With their new fall-winter hours, they're working until 8.30 every day.

Those are some of the interventions and strategies that the Seattle Park and Recreation Department is trying.

And I would just challenge anybody here that has an idea that you want to suggest to us that you think we should try, shoot us an email.

And I'll bet you we'll think about it and consider it because we want rightfully the neighbors that live near this park to enjoy your park experience here.

So thank you.

SPEAKER_07

Thank you, and I know we're going a little bit over time, so I'll just try to get, if you all are okay with it, a couple more questions, because I do want to hear from our person, Lee Momin, who's with Seattle Public Utilities and the Clean Cities Initiative, to talk a little bit about needles and cleanup of needles, because I know that's another question that was asked, and then we'll give Bill an opportunity just to talk about mitigation of speed racing on Sandpoint Way.

If we can quickly address that, that'd be great.

Oh, I think you've got one.

SPEAKER_00

Sorry about that.

So we, Council Member Rivera brought to our attention that there was a needle exchange and that there were a lot of people hanging out outside of this needle exchange and that there were needles around the neighborhood.

And so what we decided to do was we have what we call is a litter abatement program.

And so in a litter abatement program, as well as our sharps, program, disposal program.

So the combination of those, we have a Sharps disposal box that's on the corner, and it collects so far this year over 35,000 needles.

And then we have our Sharps pickup 24 hours, well, seven days a week.

And within 24 hours, if you use what hopefully most of you are aware of, the Find It, Fix It app, if you use the Find It, Fix It app, we will guarantee that we will get that needle picked up in 24 hours.

I looked at our numbers, and there's not a whole lot of folks reporting needles in that area, but that's not stopping us from doing something about it.

So we instituted a route after Councilmember Rivera brought it to our attention, where Six days a week, five hours a day, we have our litter abatement program where they go around and they're going to clean up needles, clean up litter, pick up all that.

And the only reason why we're not doing it seven days a week is because there's a farmer's market, I believe, that's there.

So we're not trying to involve that.

So we will continue to clean up needles as best we can.

We continue to pick up litter.

If you see garbage and debris, illegal dumping, sharps, needles, please use the Find a Fix It app.

And we have a 99.9% success rate of getting illegal dumping cleaned up within two to five days.

99.9% of sharps are picked up within 24 hours if you use the Find a Fix It app.

SPEAKER_02

Thanks.

I know there's a lot of concern about speeding and racing on Sandpoint Way.

Racing is, I believe it's a form of reckless driving that's a misdemeanor level crime.

So there's definitely an enforcement aspect to that as well.

We're also trying to make changes to the streets that make it harder for people to drive too fast or make it less attractive to drive too fast.

So we're making some improvements early next year on Sandpoint Way, first between 110th and 125th that will help narrow the street and make it easier So that drivers need to concentrate more and slow down more to maneuver through there we're also looking at.

Speed speed cushions and other kinds of low cost fairly easy to implement.

Traffic calming on standpoint way as well.

And then I know several of you lived through a fair amount of construction two or three years ago when we added sidewalks and made some improvements to the intersection here at 74th and Sandpoint Way.

So it's sort of an iterative process to make these improvements, but we're making more and more over time and we'll continue making more as we go along to try to really calm that traffic down.

SPEAKER_07

Thank you, Lee, for Seattle Public Utilities' efforts and Bill for SDOT's efforts on the traffic calming specifically.

And I will say Deputy Mayor Adia Memery oversees the Seattle Department of Transportation.

I spoke with her today.

She's very supportive of the traffic calming measures that Bill just talked about.

And so you can look forward to seeing something happening there soon.

I did want to, we're going to close out.

I did want to clarify though on the booking restrictions and I want to appreciate city attorney Davidson's clarity on the felonies piece.

I do know we had booking restrictions on the misdemeanor piece, which is what led the city council in partnership with the mayor to go to SCORE to get more booking capability there.

And then my understanding now is that at King County, there is no longer the booking restrictions for misdemeanors.

That is what city council had been focused on, such as to Bill's point, street racing and some other gun related activity that don't rise to the level of felonies, but that are misdemeanors related to guns.

And so having the ability to have capacity for booking.

So I did wanna clarify that and some of the work that we had been working on at the city council level.

So with that, I know we didn't get to all of your questions.

There will be cards for each of the city departments And my office, as well as the city council members who've joined us today, Council Member Nelson, again, Council Member Wu, and there's some cards for Council Member Moore.

I know she wanted to be here tonight but was not able to because though she's my neighbor, on the D5 and we work very closely together.

I know her constituents have concerns as well and we recognize the Magnuson Park.

We have constituents from all across the city that utilize the park.

There may be some of you here that don't live in the D4 but utilize the park and care about the park.

So wanted to say that.

With that, I want to thank all of the panelists and guests who came here tonight to address everyone's concerns.

Thank you for your consistent partnership, your time, and your efforts.

I know we all want the same thing, to ensure that our residents feel safe and peaceful in our communities.

I'd like to also thank the Magnuson Park Theater for having us in this lovely space tonight.

And I especially want to thank all of you for your engagement, for sending in your questions, for showing up tonight and listening to the city departments about the work that they're doing to address the public safety issues that you're all concerned about and that I am concerned about as well.

I wanna thank you for your patience as we continue to all work together on these issues.

And as I said earlier, we're all committed and unified to making Seattle a safe and vibrant city for everyone.

And I will readily acknowledge You know, we, and I will say Captain Agard and I have very frequent conversations because we both share a frustration.

We want to effectuate more change.

Obviously, like I said, I can't do that at the city council level.

The city departments and SPD and the mayor have that responsibility, but I care and we're in constant partnership.

And I am frustrated that we can't do more faster.

And the reality still remains that we don't have enough police officers, but we're working on that.

And so, you know, in 2020, when decisions were made that had an impact on police and police leaving the force, we're suffering the consequences of that.

But the city council is working, like I said, in partnership with the mayor's office to pass laws to be able to hire more officers it's going to take some time but we're getting there and it is encouraging as you hear um captain agar talking about they've hired two more officers that might not seem a lot but it is a lot right now it's two more folks that can help address this issue and i know that since we've passed some of the incentives hiring bonuses that we've done at the city council level, we've seen applications to SPD really rise significantly.

So that is all very encouraging.

And so again, thank you tonight.

If we didn't get to your question, then please do contact my office and the other city department offices.

Thank you so much.

Thanks for sticking with us.