Seattle City Council Committee on Public Safety & Human Services 32222

We are recording.

Thank you so much.

The March 22nd, 2022 meeting of the Public Safety and Human Services Committee will come to order.

It is 9.36 a.m.

I'm Lisa Herbold, chair of the committee.

Council Member Lewis is excused.

Will the clerk please call the roll?

Council Member Mosqueda.

Council Member Mosqueda.

Apologies a present Thank You councilmember Nelson present councilmember Peterson present chair Herbold here for present

Thank you so much.

So on today's agenda, we will be hearing the adoption of the Office of Police Accountability Director search process.

I'll be moving to adopt the process as outlined in the memo and the schedule that Senior Deputy Mayor Harrell shared at the meeting of this committee on the 8th.

The schedule has been updated to include feedback received at last public safety and human services committee meeting to include a forum as requested during that discussion and committee by Councilmember Mosqueda.

We received an additional update from the mayor's office this morning, and my staff emailed committee members and updated version two of the schedule that updates the first line on March 11th to note work with SDHR to prepare the search process.

Secondly, on our agenda this morning, we have a report from the Office of Emergency Management on their 2021 Race and Social Justice Initiative report.

We'll be scheduling these reports much like we did the Human Services Department's report.

We'll be scheduling these reports over the next several committee meetings.

Third, on the agenda, we will hear from Chief Diaz, who will present on the Seattle Police Department strategic plan for 2022. And finally, we will have a second briefing and a vote on a council bill for grants related to the urban area security initiative, otherwise known as OASI.

There will be an amendment that I have proposed.

That amendment is linked to the agenda, the amendment notes.

that the expenditures made by the ordinance which when they're spent, those expenditures are spent on equipment for use by SPD is subject to Municipal Code 1418 regarding acquisition of surveillance technologies including a determination as to whether the equipment is a surveillance technology.

That covers the four items on today's agenda.

We'll now approve our agenda for our committee meeting.

If there is no objection, today's agenda will be adopted.

Hearing and seeing no objection, today's agenda is adopted.

At this time, we will transition into public comment.

I will moderate the public comment period in the following manner.

Each speaker is given two minutes to speak.

I'll call on each speaker by name and in the order which they are registered on the website.

If you have not yet registered to speak but would like to do so, you can sign up before the end of the public hearing by going through the Council's website.

This link is also listed on today's agenda.

Once I call a speaker's name, you'll hear a prompt, and once you've heard that prompt, you'll need to press 6, star 6, to unmute yourself.

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

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

And once the speaker hears that chime, we ask that you begin to wrap up your public comment.

If speakers do not end their comments at the end of the allotted time provided, the speaker's mic will be muted after 10 seconds to allow to hear from the next speaker.

Once you've completed your public comment, please disconnect from the line.

If you plan to continue following this meeting, please do so via the Seattle Channel or the listening options listed on the agenda.

We've got three people in the queue signed up for public comment, and I will read the first speaker's name.

First, we have Howard Kale, and Howard will be followed by Beat Baylast.

Howard?

Good morning, Howard Dale District 7. In Nashville, TN on January 27th, the Nashville Police killed Landon Estep, a man experiencing a behavioral health crisis and wielding an edge weapon.

Within 24 hours, the Nashville Citizen Oversight Board officially released a statement calling the killing, quote, gravely disturbing and immediately initiating an independent investigation.

The National NAACP stated, quote, it appeared as a firing squad as an execution.

In Nashville, an independent investigation means exactly that, an investigation that does not involve police officers doing the investigation.

In Seattle, on January 5th, the Seattle police killed a man experiencing a behavioral health crisis and wielding edged weapons.

Nearly three months later, we still do not even know his name.

His case has disappeared from the headlines and public awareness within days, and the CPC has released no official statement of any sort.

If and when an investigation is done in Seattle, it will be police investigating police.

To be more precise, it will be SPD officers investigating other SPD officers.

It is hard to comprehend two such radically different approaches from two such similar cities having nearly identical populations in terms of numbers and demographics.

It is also unambiguously clear that a proactive and community-involved citizen oversight board at National helps produce a radically different response from the local news and community organizations when compared to what happens in Seattle.

In Seattle, it is the silence of the SPC, the CPC that gets everyone's silence.

Nashville has had their Citizens Oversight Board for three years and two months.

It is a system chosen by the people for an initiative.

Three years and two months.

On March 27th, this month, the Seattle CPC will be starting its 10th year.

For over 10 years now, we have suffered through a police faux accountability process foisted on the people of Seattle.

We need an independent oversight board.

Go to seattlestop.org to find out how, seattlestop.org.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is BJ Last, and BJ will be followed by David Haines.

BJ.

Good morning.

My name is B.J.

Lass.

I'm a Ballard resident.

I'm calling on SPD's 2022 strategic plan.

The plan includes multiple inaccuracies such as SPD's claim that it managed the department within budget in 2020 and 2021. SPD exceeded its budget in 2020 and SPD and its defenders including the consent decree monitor then spent the first eight months of 2021 saying that any attempts to hold SPD fiscally responsible for this overspending would somehow ruin the department.

SPD continued to shun fiscal oversight in 2021 by shifting funding between DSLs to make spending commitments and to pay for new projects prior to submitting the projects to council for approval, effectively eliminating council's power of the purse over executive departments.

The plan also doesn't mention what SPD is currently doing.

It doesn't talk about sending over 50 officers to sweep homeless encampments and threatening to arrest volunteers who try to help their homeless neighbors move.

It doesn't mention allocating multiple officers to run shoplifting prevention operations for Target.

It doesn't mention repeating discredited broken windows hotspot policing plan of having officers occupy certain city blocks around the clock.

What the plan does mention is largely technology and new systems, all of which raise a lot of questions.

It talks about looking into data-informed 911 non-SPD responses.

Last year, two studies came out, the National Institute for Criminal Justice Reform and Center for American Progress and Law Enforcement Action Partnership.

Both studies use different methodology and both found that SPD should be handling less than 30% of the calls it currently handles.

Since those studies have come out, SPD has shifted exactly zero calls to non-SPD solutions.

So what is the status of that?

How is that not the top priority in the strategic plan and what is being done?

Triage one is at most 12% of calls.

Why is SPD continuing to drag this one out with additional analysis?

Thank you, BJ.

Our last speaker is David Haynes.

David.

Thank you, David Haynes, District 7. Public safety is at an all-time low.

payday, doing relationship building, public tricking, law-abiding citizens, misleading us with excuses, always blaming council, city hall, and the prosecutor's office.

And they're greedy over time, not fighting crime budget for why cops refuse to jail criminals, conducting uncivil war on community, creating a bunch of customs violating, junkie thieves, and strung out disease, repeat offending, mental health crisis psychos.

The police chief only fought street crime for eight years, a long time ago, and has spent another 17 years not fighting street crime, instead working overtime, getting rich, and playing police propaganda with coffee outreach and flawed data.

The police chief has sabotaged every specialty unit and has created his own training program that has completely mismanaged the whole effort of proper policing.

It's obvious the police chief is allowing media reports and only or following media reports and only sweeping out of sight crime hotspots that are allowed to continue crimes around the corner and in all the original areas of hotspots.

Only time Seattle police take credit for fighting drugs is when they rely on the federal agency to help them look good, only going after rich drug pushers, while Seattle police chief refuses to go after all the evil people who sell less than 3.5 grams connected to meth houses and traffickers, which result in robbery of one drug pusher being robbed by another, resulting in most gun violence.

It's obvious we need a better police chief, not a waste-baiting hypocrite conducting war on the poor while lying to community about why cops refuse to judge 20 people in my park.

at pioneer square every night making life hell.

Just take a look at the crime Seattle is focused on.

Thank you.

I just want to note that in public comment I ask that folks please refrain from making accusations or impugning the motives of individuals and to keep your comments focused on policies and activities of the city.

So thank you so much.

And that will end our public comment for today.

Will the clerk please read in agenda item number one.

Committee agenda item number one, adoption of office of police accountability director search process.

Thank you so much.

So item number one, as mentioned earlier, will relate to the adoption of the Office of Police Accountability Director search process.

Greg Doss of Council Central Staff is here to present.

We had Senior Deputy Mayor Harrell with us to explain both the need for this council action as well as the proposed process moving forward.

Greg, can you briefly summarize the action before us today?

Yes.

Good morning, Madam Chair.

Thank you.

And good morning, members of the committee.

The action before you today is a memo which will be put before you for a vote.

And if you vote on the memo, then it will be forwarded to the clerk to be filed.

The memo basically states that the accountability ordinance, which is section 3.29.115, governs the appointment of the OPA director.

And that upon the vacancy of that director, it is the mayor that has the reappointment authority.

And that the mayor is required by the ordinance to make the appointment in 90 days.

And that if the mayor does not make that appointment within 90 days consistent with the terms of the accountability ordinance, then that appointment authority falls to this committee.

And so what the memo is doing is adopting the document that the deputy mayor put before you.

on March 8th as the search process that the mayor's office is going to use as the committee's own search process so that the provisions of the accountability ordinance are being met and the memo is more or less acting as an extension process so that the mayor's office has enough time to do the search and the committee and the mayor's office are in alignment on the search process.

That's an overview of what's happening here today.

The clerk has asked that I show an updated search process.

So with the chair's permission, I'd want to go ahead and do that and share my screen.

And this is not working.

There we go.

Can everyone see the new search process?

Okay, so just a couple things to point out here.

This is the same search process that the Deputy Mayor presented on March 8th, except you'll see that it's version 2. A couple changes that have been made, I think the Chair noted at the start of the hearing.

The first is that the search itself is going to be conducted by the Seattle Department of Human Resources instead of by an outside firm.

And the second is that there's going to be a public forum with the finalists.

And so this updated version of the search process will be posted to the website after this hearing, but wanted to share that with you so that you're aware that the change was made.

And as I said, the memo will adopt that search process as the committee's process so that the mayor and the committee are in alignment with the accountability ordinance.

Perfect.

Thank you again.

And I just want to say a few words about, I think, the language that is in the 2017 accountability ordinance was very forward thinking in that the responsibility for appointing an OPA director falls to the Public Safety and Human Services Committee.

In those instances in which the mayor does not act, and I think that was intended to.

eliminate the possibility for a situation where a new executive deprioritizes the importance of filling this position.

And I'm very supportive of making sure that that doesn't happen.

And I'm really glad that the mayor has come to us with this request for additional time because it in itself, in essence, fulfills the intent of the ordinance, which is to just confirm that the executive prioritizes this position as a very important component of our police accountability system here in Seattle.

So I'm happy to bring this forward.

And I want to also thank Councilmember Mosqueda for her suggestion in the last committee meeting, the addition of a public forum is critical.

And I think we have seen with other high-profile appointment processes that that is sort of the standard in the city of Seattle.

and our public institutions that finalists have an opportunity to meet with the public, and the public has the opportunity to meet with them.

So I'm going to work to get the item in front of us, and if there are questions or comments, we can take them then.

I move that the committee adopt version two of the search process for the OPA director contained in the letter.

Is there a second?

Thank you.

Are there any further comments or questions from committee members?

Thank you.

Seeing none, it has been moved and seconded to adopt the OPA director search process containing the letter.

Are there any, oh, already did that part.

After no comments, will the clerk please call the roll?

Council Member Mosqueda?

Aye.

Council Member Nelson?

Aye.

Council Member Peterson?

Aye.

Chair Herbold?

Yes.

Four in favor.

Thank you so much.

The motion carries and the OPA director search process contained in the letter is adopted and the letter will be sent to the office of the city clerk for filing.

Moving forward, the next item on the agenda, will the clerk please read the agenda item two?

Committee agenda item number two, office of emergency management 2021 race and social justice initiative report.

Thank you so much.

We have some presenters here with us this morning.

Can we do a quick round of introductions from folks from the Office of Emergency Management?

I see we have Director Merritt here.

I'm not sure if we have anybody else, but let's do a quick round of introductions and then I'll hand it over to you guys.

Yeah, thank you very much.

Curry Mayor, Director of Emergency Management, and I'm very thankful and pleased to have two of my team members here with me to present on the work that they've been doing related to our accomplishments.

So Lucia and Tay, could you please introduce yourselves?

Good morning.

Lucia Schmidt, Emergency Planning Coordinator with OEM.

Good morning, everyone.

Tay Thatch, Outreach and Training Specialist.

All right, great.

Thank you.

Thanks for bringing up.

Yeah, just a

reinforcing something I mentioned earlier.

The departments under this committee will have presentations similar to the ones that we're going to hear today from the Office of Emergency Management on the 2021 race and social justice accomplishments.

I'll be bringing them forward.

We had the Human Services Department in a previous committee meeting and we'll be bringing forward.

I know the Community Police Commission has identified a desire to do a presentation soon, and so we'll be scheduling those over the next several weeks.

And with that, we'll hand it over to Director Mayer.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Thanks, Chair Hairbold.

It's my privilege to be with you today, and I'm really proud of what the team has accomplished in the last year.

So I don't know, do I have control or is someone else doing the slides?

I'm not sure.

I think I'm doing the slide, Curry.

Just let me know when to move on.

Okay, perfect.

Thank you.

All right.

All right.

So next slide, please.

So just to set the stage, we wanted to talk a little bit first about what we worked on as our race and social justice strategy.

So really looking at aligning everything that we do with race and social justice principles so that we help all communities in Seattle build resilience.

And what that means is that communities are able to not only withstand challenges that might occur During a disaster or right after a disaster, but what are the things that are challenging for them all the time and meeting people where they are intentional focus on those most impacted by structural racism, but it's really important to note that if.

people are not able to do their daily activities and have daily challenges, then they're not going to be thinking about preparedness.

So we're looking at that all the time.

We also really focus on assisting communities by listening to their perspectives and seeking to understand what are their critical needs and what preparedness and mitigation actions will be most meaningful for them.

Okay, next slide, please.

So there are a number of challenges in emergency management as there are in most of government, not the least of which is having dedicated funding for all of our outreach activities.

Currently, we don't have that.

We did have some UASI funds that were dedicated to outreach and that has gone away.

That doesn't change our work.

It just means that we're looking for other ways to do the good work.

And sometimes funding is a barrier.

to being able to bring everyone to the table that that needs to have their voices heard.

I know that you're aware that BIPOC communities are significantly impacted by natural disasters at a higher rate than their white counterparts.

Usually this is tied to either lack of of individual or family wealth.

And as I mentioned earlier, if folks are concerned about daily challenges, then they're not gonna be thinking about preparedness.

Also, there's a higher concentration of BIPOC communities in areas where there's elevated vulnerability.

It could be the neighborhood, buildings are unsafe or haven't had any maintenance in quite some time, they may live closer to water bodies or places that have landslides for obvious reasons.

So in emergency management, we like to think of what we do as consequence management.

And that means what's happening after an event occurs, then we come in and help people work on how they will recover from that.

But it really is only successful if there's work done in the preparedness and mitigation space prior to an event, so looking at what are communities needs, what are their challenges, and then also really for this to be the most successful, those root causes of why people are most vulnerable will need to be addressed for there to be substantive change, and that's really the job of all of government, so all of the city, and we have that commitment from our other city departments to looking at how do we make those substantive changes prior to a disaster, actually, before the disaster occurs.

So mitigating risk also in the physical environment, it can be really expensive.

And as you know, grant requirements from the federal government and other sources are usually pretty complex and have very strict requirements about what you can spend money on.

So just a quick note about an example of mitigating risk in the physical environment would be retrofitting of unreinforced masonry buildings, which I know you're all familiar with.

It takes a number of years for that to occur.

You have to displace people while you're doing that work.

So those are all factors that we think about.

Also, the unequal access in communities due to either their lack of trust of government, It may be a cultural thing and also maybe a lack of resources.

So those are the challenges that we look at when we're thinking about involving the community and asking them what makes the most sense to them.

So just to give you kind of a overall picture of what we're thinking about prior to engaging with the community.

All right, next slide.

So today, these are the projects that you will hear about, how we've changed our emergency management planning policy so that it's more inclusive, and we really hear a lot from the community that we serve.

We'll also talk to you briefly about workforce rallying points, a program we have called Stop the Bleed, which is a disaster skills training, and then also our community safety ambassador program.

So next slide, and then I'll hand it to Lucia.

Thanks, Kerry.

So when developing emergency plans OEM really serves as a convener.

We hold the pen and we rely on the various departments and organizations that we speak to to describe their capabilities, which then become the foundation of the city's response plans.

We have great processes and standing committees in place for collecting this input from other departments and from partner organizations, but historically the community input on plans has been primarily provided by predominantly white volunteer groups.

And obviously this can lead to the mismatch that we sometimes see where the city's services during a disaster are going underutilized while the community's needs remain unaddressed.

So early last year, we finalized a policy that dovetails with our office's existing outreach plan and explicitly defines how we will conduct community-focused outreach for different kinds of documents.

By better understanding our BIPOC community's needs, barriers, and expectations during disasters, we can improve our plans overall, and especially our plans and assumptions around helping the city's most vulnerable community members during disasters.

Next slide.

So here are a few of the RSJ benefits that we've seen since implementing the planning policy.

At a very high level, just having the policy has improved the transparency of our government processes, so people can understand how they might provide input into the planning process, and it has institutionalized the need to speak to the people who would be most directly impacted by disaster response plans.

At a more practical level, implementing the policy is providing valuable input into specific plans.

We'll be updating the city's evacuation annex next year, so our outreach team conducted pilot focus groups to understand the community's needs and expectations around evacuation.

How they would expect to be notified, what would encourage or prevent them from taking action, and so on.

In the coming weeks, we'll be conducting focus groups on extreme heat.

And then we can take what we learned from that to our colleagues within the city and with partner organizations to discuss how we can collectively improve our response.

Some of the city's emergency plans are more internal facing.

So the community that we need to gather input from is the city workforce.

And the workforce rallying points are an example of this that I'll discuss more in the next slide.

One lesson that we've learned as we implement this new policy is the importance of reimbursing community partners for their time and input into our planning processes.

This is something that our office has not had to budget for in the past.

And so for the current and the planned outreach that we have right now, as Kareem mentioned, we've been able to use one-time funding, such as Urban Security Initiative funding.

But as Tay will discuss more, this funding is unreliable.

Next slide.

A catastrophic earthquake would damage transportation and communications infrastructure, preventing city staff from reaching their work assignments and preventing remote work, while simultaneously creating an unprecedented need for skilled workers.

The workforce rallying points are our strategy to address this conflict.

And I do want to emphasize that they are constructs specifically for the big one, a disaster that causes system-wide communications and transportation failures.

A workforce rallying point is essentially a predetermined location where city staff who are unable to make it to their normal work location can show up and be connected with the citywide response and guidance via amateur radio operators.

This planning advances equity by supporting decentralized response and decision making, meaning that the responders who are on the ground in an impacted neighborhood, who by design are more likely to live in that neighborhood, are the ones who are determining that community's needs.

We're structuring the guidance at the rallying points to identify key community lifelines and gathering places where staff should go to learn about spontaneous community response efforts and hear from the community what their gaps are.

We're building the guidance to emphasize supporting and empowering community response because we know that after a catastrophic disaster, government alone will not be enough.

We're doing work now in the initial planning stages to bring in labor partners and frontline staff to ensure that we do this planning with internal staff equity considerations in mind.

And we're still in the early stages of planning, so perhaps next year we'll be able to present a follow-up on how successful we were in these areas.

Next slide, and Tae, I'll hand it over to you.

All right, thank you, Lucia.

Hi everyone, my name is Tay Thatch.

I'm outreach and training specialist and part of the community engagement team here at OEM.

I will be talking about two programs that sit under our community engagements team.

And the first one is Stop the Bleed.

And as mentioned earlier, this is grant funded by the URC grants.

Stop the Bleed is a national program that teaches individuals how to stop a person from bleeding out, whether it be how to use a tourniquet or how to pack a wound.

And the RSGI outcome for this program is for BIPOC and underserved community members to be prepared to respond to a mass casualty event or incident.

Um, you know, the general goal is to prepare the public to save lives.

Um, we, um, partner with community based organizations or nonprofit organizations to train staff, um, on stop the bleed.

And the program is, um, currently, um, managed by an individual in our team, but we have volunteers go out and teach the skills.

To be able to go out and teach Stop the Bleed, you must be a paramedic, an RN, a physician's assistant, or a medical doctor who have successfully completed a bleeding control provider course.

Currently, we have six volunteers going out to teach.

And the program started in 2018. And we've taught 621 individuals since 2018. But due to COVID, the number was not as big as we wanted it to be.

But With restrictions lifting, you know, recently our last class, we taught Seattle Armory Center staff, and we had 66 attendees.

So we expect the number of individuals taught to increase this year.

We have purchased 85 stop-the-bleed kits to be distributed to nonprofit and community-based organizations in the Seattle area, and we hope to get those staff from those nonprofits trained up on Stop the Bleed.

Again, it is funded by Uwasi, so it has a terrorism tie to it.

So we are looking to train organizations that have high foot traffic.

but we hope to be able to not be so reliant on the UASI grant anymore and to have, to focus training Seattle folks on how to stop the bleed in a more kind of individual basis and for general community, not just staff that works at community-based organizations.

So that's one program.

Just real quick question on that one.

Thank you.

Can you just let us, is there a annual, I totally understand with COVID the numbers have reduced, but I'm wondering is there an annual goal for the number of trainings that you strive to do?

And can you just talk a little bit more about how you can, how you are ensuring that you are reaching the target population, specifically BIPOC and underserved community members?

Yeah, so the goal, we don't have a number yet, is as many people as possible.

And we are looking at community-based organizations that serve BIPOC communities.

So that's how we, you know, target our organizations.

If we go on their website, we look at, hey, they make a comment about but their focus is on BIPOC underserved communities.

We invite them to apply for Stop the Bleed Kit, and everyone is welcome to apply.

But we do target those communities and make sure that, hey, this is free, the kit's free, and we provide the training for free.

Does that answer your question?

It does.

Thank you.

Just one follow up.

I remember a few years ago I received an advocacy request to get this program in the public high schools.

I'm wondering, is there a program like this in the high schools?

Not to my knowledge.

We are in the beginning stages of trying to start a youth program and with Seattle Public Schools in mind.

And I think Stop the Bleed would be great for that.

Thank you.

All right.

The second program is the Community Safety Ambassadors Program.

And this program has been around since 2015. And as Curry and Lucia mentioned, it's funded by UASI grant.

And the RSGI outcome for this is that LEP, Limited English Proficiency and Underserved BIPOC Populations, are equipped and empowered with critical life-saving preparedness skills.

As Curry mentioned earlier on, disasters impact low-income BIPOC folks the most.

And with Community Safety Ambassadors, they are individual vendors that are multilingual, some speak three languages, who live in the Seattle area.

And they are trained in disaster preparedness, and they go out and provide outreach and engagement to their language community.

We currently have CSAs providing outreach and engagement in 12 languages.

And here are just some pictures of CSAs in action.

They go out and they present on topics such as disaster preparedness, heat and winter preparedness, Alert Seattle education, which Alert Seattle is the city's official alert and warning system, so they teach folks on how to sign up for that.

They also teach CPR education, 911 education, disaster skills classes, and disaster skills classes include how to how to use a fire extinguisher, how to shut off your gas after a major disaster, how to clean water, all in language.

And it's important to note that not just in language, but CSAs also provide a cultural know-how, a cultural lens to the community that they teach because they do come from that community.

And I say that because not all cultures view disaster preparedness the same way.

So they bring that understanding on how to engage.

And they not only go out and teach classes, but they also provide me with feedback on, okay, this presentation would work for this community, or you should approach this topic this way.

So they, again, provide the cultural know-how.

Communities that they work with, LEP communities, BIPOC communities, elderly communities, low-income communities, again, all populations that we know are impacted more by major disasters.

Under the CSA program, we also work with community-based organizations.

that help us cast a wider net to the populations that we want to serve.

So in the past three years, we've had partnerships with VIA Communitaria, International Rescue Committee, and the Pacific Islander Community of Washington.

CSA activities and any outreach activities that we do, and that means printing materials, getting things translated, paying CSAs for their time.

Again, it's all funded by the UASI grant that will probably not be here in the next year or so.

And that's the CSA program.

It's been around since 2015 and it's still going strong.

And we're continuing to look for funding for that program as well.

And I think this next slide is Curry.

Great.

Thanks very much, Che and Lucia.

Really appreciate it.

So just to kind of sum things up and give you another lens to look at what it is that we've been working on.

So our accomplishments last year included, one, realigning staffing for equitable engagement.

So moving, we're talking about the volunteer program that had kind of the same group of people all the time.

So look, that planner position really looks at how do we engage different parts of the community to get really good data on how our planning efforts affect people and whether or not that makes sense to them.

The image that you see here is part of our, the way that we look at the analysis of earthquake impacts.

So part of our Seattle hazard identification and vulnerability analysis, which is part of our overall emergency planning, but also part of our.

our planning efforts, including mitigation.

We look at not only who's gonna be impacted, but what makes them vulnerable, whether it's the neighborhood they live in, whether or not they have access to a highway or access to resources.

So there's a social vulnerability piece that's rated as part of that hazard identification.

So it's not just what are the hazards, but how does it affect the people that are close by.

We also did some work this last year with the Afghani community outreach under the CSA program and also with the International Rescue Committee to provide disaster preparedness education for newly arrived immigrants from the Afghan community, letting them know what are the hazards in Seattle, how do they prepare for those, and who else could they connect with.

We also made sure that our application process for partner organizations to be engaged with us or to apply for grants had the lowest barrier possible, including providing someone that would help them go through that process and really understand what the application is about and how best to access those resources.

We're also really proud of the seismic retrofit of the Bremer apartments that was just completed last year.

That was an unreinforced masonry building.

This project was the first time that a partner organization that was not a government organization could apply for that mitigation money to do that retrofit, and they were successful at doing that and partnering with us and learning the ropes and everything for a FEMA application.

So that was just finished.

It's very exciting that the Bremer apartments are very close by here in downtown Seattle.

So next slide, please.

So just wrapping up, I'm happy to answer any questions that you may have about our presentation.

Thank you again for joining us today.

I do have a couple of additional questions, but I just want to pause to see if other council members might have some before I go ahead.

I did have a chance to get mine in earlier.

All right, not seeing any.

Maybe folks will chime in afterwards.

But I just want to talk a little bit more about earthquake training.

exercises.

You know, we've heard the message that individuals will be expected to take care of themselves for at least the first 10 days after a major earthquake.

I appreciate understanding a little bit about the city staff response hubs throughout the city, nearby, where people live in order to inject some equity principles to the city response, but I'm wondering, are there other things that the city is doing to help prepare and support vulnerable BIPOC communities who aren't in a position to set aside resources to maintain themselves for at least 10 days.

And then secondly, just want to understand a little bit about whether or not this year's earthquake training and exercises address the tools and resources needed to help BIPOC communities after a major earthquake.

Okay.

Yeah, great, thank you for that question.

I always like talking about earthquake preparedness.

So in addition to being concerned about those most vulnerable and BIPOC communities in particular, we really are focused on helping everybody that lives and works and plays or is in Seattle at any time.

So there's two things.

One is helping those who do have the resources to understand what it is they need to do so they can be on their own and we can focus on those that are not able to do that.

So a couple of things that we do related are, so the workforce rallying points as part of that effort to help communities is because most likely with a catastrophic earthquake, there will be geographically isolated areas throughout the city based on how the damage occurs to bridges, freeways, overpasses, all of those things will make it so that there are communities that are isolated and can't get to other places.

So by having workforce rallying points where we can have city workforce that are trained in different disciplines, so not just emergency management, but transportation, or human resources, or whatever those other departments that might help, is that they have a location where they can rally, if you will, or go to, to start to provide information about what the damage is in that particular area, and then work with other city personnel to get that, get those resources to those folks.

So that's one piece.

The other, it will take funding, but we're also looking at having community-based resources placed throughout the city in those areas that we believe, based on hazard analysis and seismic hazard analysis of where those communities will be impacted and isolated than having resources strategically placed there.

So we've been looking at that for a while.

We sometimes call, you might hear the term preparedness islands.

So, and it would be exactly that strategically placed resources so that people don't have if they're isolated, don't have to go outside.

The community preparedness is also an important piece for people who can't, for whatever reason, space reasons, income.

They're worried about what they're doing on a day-to-day basis and don't have time to plan for preparedness.

If you do things as a community and with a community group that people already trust and have them do collective preparedness activities, that's also helpful so that we don't just expect everyone to have You know, a bunch of supplies in their house or garage or their car.

So we're looking at a number of those things to address those issues.

Also, awareness of what the hazards are and how you're likely to be on your own is a really big part of preparing.

And that goes back to working with those CSAs, the community safety ambassadors, to understand what communities are thinking about and to also give them some information about how they might be isolated for a while, where to go to get that community support, and plug into the community preparedness of those other organizations.

Thank you.

So just to be clear, though, there aren't stockpiles of food and water to survive 10 days located in areas where we know there are high concentrations of BIPOC and vulnerable communities.

That is something that we're working towards.

Is that what I'm hearing?

Yeah.

So it's really a little more nuanced than that, because there are community organizations that do have supplies.

some faith-based organizations and some other community groups do.

So where there currently are supplies, part of our job is making sure people know where to go to get that.

But if we had the funding, absolutely, we would have, you know, seven to 10 places throughout the city where we know you're not gonna be able to go over this bridge or this part of the freeway is likely to be down and you're not gonna get past that.

Where is the community resource hub, if you will, or cash of supplies, that would take additional funding for us to be able to do that.

But we're already planning what would that look like and how could we best strategically place those resources.

So yeah, I appreciate the question.

Thank you.

Thank you.

All right.

I don't have any additional questions.

Not seeing any from my colleagues.

Again, really, really appreciate all of the care that goes into this work, care for our city, and care for the resiliency of our residents.

So, again, thank you for being with us today.

Yeah, thank you for having us.

I'm really proud of the team, and I appreciate the opportunity.

Thank you.

All right.

Will the clerk please read in agenda item number three?

committee agenda item number three, Seattle Police Department strategic plan.

Adrian Diaz and also the Chief Operating Officer Brian Maxey.

They're both here to present the Seattle Police Department Strategic Plan.

I appreciate the note in the foreword of the Strategic Plan.

Just want to make a point of this before we jump in, that this is not a closed plan and that you encourage engagement and ideas.

Thank you so much.

And with that, I'll hand it over to Chief Chiaz.

Thank you for being with us today.

Well, thank you for having me.

Good morning, Public Safety Chair Herbold and all the council members.

Thank you for having Chief Operating Officer Brian Maxey and myself here to cover our strategic plan.

I first want to start off with acknowledgment regarding three homicides within the last five days.

Each of these incidences, the victim has been homeless.

The Central District, the Chinatown International District, and the U District communities have all been impacted.

And we continue to see that escalation of gun violence, which has almost doubled since last year.

Officers responded to over dozens of 9-1-1 shots fired to call this last weekend.

Not all the calls were able to recover shell casings or observe bullet damage, but we know our communities continue to feel this violence.

We've had over 95% increase in more shots fired with 171% increase in people being shot compared to last year.

And last year was one of our highest years that we could actually have on record.

We continue to work in strategies to deal with community violence focused on community intervention, analytics, prevention, a changing environment and enforcement.

However, we know there are limited resources.

Two years ago, we were moving forward our department in the direction of significant change.

And since George Floyd was murdered, we've had massive change in our city in regards to policing.

The Seattle Police Department has hit reset button.

And during this time, I've had to adjust to make changes to a deployment throughout the department.

We have worked to build a strategic plan for the future of policing in Seattle.

It lays a foundation for compassionate and empathetic department that solves problems by creating innovative approaches to public safety.

In other words, simply stated, we're here to help people.

And that is what we've done and continue to do.

And building a strategic plan, we must acknowledge what we've been able to accomplish over the last 20 months.

We worked with the Seattle Fire and UW Medicine to establish the country's first first responder COVID testing site for public servants.

Community service officers and police officers distributed food and supplies to vulnerable communities.

We launched the active bystander training for law enforcement training.

This training is used to give employees tools and skills to intervene in misconduct.

And we continue to see officer complaints drop.

We've changed our policies and tactics regarding crowd management.

We have not deployed crowd control weapon tools or weapons since September 26th of 2020 and October 3rd, 2020. That's 18 months.

We've undertaken a comprehensive review of less lethal tools and we're launching the pilot of Ebola rat.

We have now a policy in place.

We continue to participate and learn from the officers inspector general Sentinel review process.

We continue to engage community and reconciliation and peace dialogue sessions by impacted communities.

And we continue to have 42% of our hires are from diverse communities.

And more importantly, we continue to see officers do amazing work.

We continue to see some of the highest amount of call outs for our hostage negotiation team, including SWAT, dealing with barricaded and crisis situations.

And almost all handled with no force ever being used.

As I presented a few weeks ago, we were moving towards a relational policing model.

In the coming months, we will launch SB360 before the badge training.

Previously, this was referred to as pre-BLEA.

We're going to be utilizing virtual reality to train officers.

We are launching the first in the country model focused on equity and quality in policing known as EAQ, equity, accountability and quality.

I just want to say that before the badge is a much better framing and branding for the program rather than pre-BLEA.

Thank you.

I know.

Because BLEA was the Basic Law Enforcement Academy.

But yes, before the badge is literally the new name.

So this will be rolled out in phases on the EAQ.

We know that there are disparities in our systems to include the criminal justice system.

And we've continued over the course of my career to conduct a research document using census data noting these disparities.

And these reports are done years after police work is done.

We need to have a better model, which COO Maxey will go into further detail.

But we need a model that can look at data in real time using propensity score matching that accounts for the covariance.

We're grounding the overall strategic plan of the department in an enterprise risk management model to ensure decisions, policies, trainings, and wellness efforts and tactics are aligned to ensure public safety while protecting the safety of everyone.

And we'll continue to hire and build up the community service officer program.

This expansion will increase new opportunities to having civilians engage community, follow up on concerns and work on non-criminal calls navigating services.

It is difficult when your personnel are working long hours, responding to more calls for service than ever before.

We've created significant investments into officer wellness.

We will continue these investments and expand.

We know a healthier officer will respond to a community in a safe and healthy way.

We will continue to train our staff with the best training for changing policing environment.

We'll be conducting training for all supervisors in outward and growth mindset and law enforcement casualty care programs.

We have continued to innovate in policing.

We continue to save lives.

We continue to respond to 911 calls and we continue to have a staffing crisis.

We are seeing positive results when we all work together to tackle issues like 12th and Jackson and 3rd and Pine.

I know there are many areas throughout Seattle that need policing resources and I'm committed to ensuring we have full coverage to make Seattle safe.

I'm proud of what we've been able to accomplish in the direction we are going and I can turn it over to COO Maxey to provide more details regarding EAQ.

But if there are any questions I can also answer questions as well.

I want to thank you for this overview.

I do want to take a pause in case there are questions for the chief before we go into the presentation.

I do have one.

You mentioned the bullwrap launch pilot first, I believe.

Can you just let us know when we expect that pilot to launch?

Also, on the issue of continuing to build up the CSO staffing, wondering if you could let us know sort of where we're at on that.

Are we on target for hires for 2022?

And what's it look – are we having the same challenges on recruitment for CSOs as we are for officers?

Yeah, we did see a little bit of a decline in the amount of applications for your CSOs.

However, we are on pace to do hiring in 2022, meet the hiring demands.

We've actually just did interviews over the last several weeks.

And so I know that some of those interviews will then go to the process of offering people employment and then backgrounds.

And those backgrounds do take a little bit of a time, but we are prepared to making sure that we rush some of those applicants through the background process.

And BoloWrap?

Oh, yes, BoloWrap.

So on the BoloWrap, there are a couple of versions of it.

So we're looking at the latest version.

The latest version uses technology very similar to an airbag deployment.

So they're using microchips to be able to, you know, be able to push out how the wrap is actually done.

And it's a much safer sound, and it's a much safer process.

You don't want it to sound like a gun.

We don't want it to sound like a gun.

And so we wanted to make sure that we get the latest version and moving that forward before we actually test it out.

So that's what we're waiting on right now.

Just, and do you have an ETA on that?

I know I checked on this a little bit.

No, that I don't know.

It's really just upon waiting and making sure that we have the version two model that allows us to have a better deployment.

And so, I'm sorry, the question, is the version two model available and we just haven't acquired it yet or is it not available yet?

That's what they're working out to push out.

That's what the company is still working on.

Perfect.

So yeah, that's all we're waiting.

We have actually a policy in place ready to train and ready to move everything forward on our side.

Thank you.

Chief, let me just jump in here.

I believe we will have the new model as early as next week.

Okay.

Oh, that's great.

Thank you.

You heard it here first, folks.

One other one other question and Brian if this is covered in your in your presentation I'm happy to hold it but on the topic of officer wellness as a high priority retention policy that was recommended several years ago in a retention and hiring study, I think that came out in 2019, moving the staffing to a model of four 10-hour shifts a week.

And I know that the department has been experimenting with a pilot to do so.

I'm wondering if you could talk a little bit more about that

I can follow up on that.

So we are still working with the union on a 410 schedule, just working out some of the details.

One of the concerns in just general is just the staffing level and making sure that there is not some sort of a mandatory overtime.

I mean, the whole goal is to, you know, for wellness and people get time off and then And then to put on some level of mandatory overtime would not be in the in the best interest of us.

So those are things that we are still working through on detail, but we know that giving more people days off setting their days off more recovery time makes it much more competitive, not only for our officers to be well, you know, to have a level of wellness, but also it's more competitive with other jurisdictions as well.

My recollection, maybe I'm remembering you correctly, but that you had started separate from the discussions with SPOG that we had actually started to try out a pilot of 410s as an incentive to move folks over to the new unit that you had temporarily created.

Am I remembering you correctly?

And if I'm right, were there any lessons learned from that pilot?

Yeah, so our patrol deployment is not on a 410. However, our community response group is on a 410. That is the new group that I created in 2020 to be able to respond to the emerging needs and also have a timeframe of them during the most calls for service during the day.

And so they have really appreciated that schedule and many of them stayed on just because of the schedule, even though that the hours have changed when they were in actually a patrol schedule.

So those are things that we're always looking at and evaluating and taking that information as we move forward on the 410s.

Great, that's very helpful.

So I think the fact that folks have stayed on in that unit for the schedule, I think it tells us a lot.

Appreciate your efforts in that area of, important area of officer wellness and retention.

Thank you.

Brian, you wanna give it away?

Sure, Council Member, and thank you for the opportunity to talk about the EAQ, the Equity, Accountability, and Quality program that we're developing at the Seattle Police Department.

You know, at the outset, let me just say, you know, I have a master's in public administration and I routinely use data in my daily job to understand department operations and officer activities.

I've just got to get it right out of here and say, I know enough about this program to be dangerous.

The math that is involved in this and the analytics are at a level that I grasp and understand, but I do understand the functionality of the program and how it's going to be very, very useful to the department.

So I will say up front, this will be an introduction to what it is we're doing, but in order to get more in depth, we'll probably want to schedule a follow-up session with some of our actual researchers to present the detailed explanation for what's happening.

That being said, this math, this complicated analytics that the program uses, it's all open source and we're gonna be putting it out publicly.

There's nothing to hide here.

We're not doing some sort of secret sauce math.

So it will be available for public consumption to pick us apart, give us better suggestions on how we can approach this.

All right, so what is this thing?

So the equity accountability and quality program is it's an advanced analytics program that analyzes outcomes of officer activity using a clinical research model and applying propensity score matching to determine how to improve services across the department.

So as I think you are all well aware, as part of the consent decree, the city has spent a lot of money, somewhere north of $20 million on the development of the Seattle Police Department Data Analytics Platform.

And the DAP connects most data around officer activities and performance, and it allows for an analysis and presentation of that data.

Historically, SPD has reported out on our crisis contacts, our stops, our arrests, use of force, And a common question has been about disparities that are identified in police activities and whether those disparities are driven by police behavior or simply reflect the disparities generated upstream of government interaction.

You know, I would submit that the answer to that has been primarily driven by beliefs, not data.

And the mechanisms that have been used historically is to throw officer activity or any government activity over population census data to determine whether there is any disparity in comparing the outcomes of the officer activity and the representation of any demographic in the census data.

This methodology has been long disparaged in the research community.

As the Center for Policing Equity said, in the science of justice, race, arrests, and the police use of force, population benchmarks provide only a crude method for estimating disproportionality.

And in particular, they do not allow for a clear inference as to whether the police activity is disproportionate to presence in any particular area or to legitimately provocative behavior.

And by doing this type of analysis, it really has put Seattle Police Department on the defensive and at a disadvantage, because there are clear disparities when you throw officer activity over population data.

But frustratingly, this methodology, and we submit that it's not a very good one, really does not provide actionable intelligence for improving our activities.

How do we, based on the information we have, improve?

So we set out to solve this.

The EAQ, Equity, Accountability, Quality, really has three aspects to it.

And the equity aspects, the E, attempts to resolve this very problem of disparities using statistical modeling.

And so we started with the decision to frisk.

And basically, by controlling for all the collected variables, and there's over 100 of them, the department is able to identify decisions systemically.

This is not at the individual officer level.

We're looking for patterns and areas and these outcomes, but this allows us to find the patterns that are only driven by subject race data.

In other words, we're able to control for that and see really what we cannot explain except by the subject race.

And this is done in the FRIS context by looking at perceptions of dangerousness, which is a proxy for implicit bias in human decision making.

And by looking at this, we're able to then develop a comprehensive program about what do we do with this data.

And we are starting a program where we are going to, on a monthly basis, provide this information to leadership.

When they look at the patterns and they look at the information in these dashboards that we're able to present, we can start having command level discussions about what is driving this.

If there's been a change in criminal activity that may have some form of racial underpinning, that could explain this.

That wouldn't necessarily be in our data.

But the important part here is While the information that we're putting forth to these commanders does not meet any decision to frisk was racist or actually biased, it does mean that these are the ones that SPD identifies as we do not have an alternative explanation other than race.

So it narrows the focus and allows for a real conversation on far more nuanced data.

And it's fascinating to look at because in some areas and in some locations and time periods, the disparities flip and we're actually over frisking members of the white population as opposed to the non-white population.

And one interesting thing here is, I know there will be concerns about how we calculate this.

And in our data, there are a lot of unknowns on subject stop.

It's something that we're working hard with training to resolve.

But in this analysis, an unknown defaults to not white in the analysis.

So to any degree that we're putting our thumb on the scale, it is actually to assume that race is a driving factor.

You know, this type of work is unprecedented at a police department.

These analyses have been conducted in research.

Cambridge is the most notable.

But that's based on information that has occurred after the fact.

This is a real-time application to directly shape operations.

And it's actually a pretty novel step in policing.

I'm pretty excited to see how this rolls out.

So that's the E in EAQ, the accountability.

Really what we're looking at is hot and cold spots of policing.

And, you know, we have these competing allegations of over-policing in some communities and under-policing in some communities.

And often those allegations are coming from the same community.

So the perception is, are we there too much?

Are we there for the wrong reasons?

What's driving our deployments?

And so what we did is we took the AVL data, this is our car GPS data, and placed it over calls for service, and we developed a heat map which shows where we are needed based on calls and where we are overpresent, where there's less call volume.

At the most basic level, this controls for demand for service and visualizes our discretionary police presence.

And this tells us about opportunities for problem solving in cold spots, and it shows hot spots of police presence where demand does not support the measure, hot spots.

And this is going to allow us to look at our deployments, how we're managing it, and make operational decisions to ensure we are where we are needed.

The last piece, and this is highly under development, and I'll look forward to presenting again on this, is really the quality piece of this.

And for this, we're using Trulio, which is an application that I think we're still in the middle of the SIR to obtain.

somewhere at the contracting level.

But what this application will do is it will read and classify information from body-worn camera data.

And this will give us an estimation of quality of service based on an analysis of all recorded information.

So to look at stress levels, it will be able to read and classify information from this volume of body-worn camera.

data.

So those are three things that are in the system.

As it's being developed right now, the E part exists.

The accountability part exists.

Quality piece is still being built.

But once this system is in place, we're going to be able to add new components to it.

And what we would be able to point the equity analysis at stops and look at officer discretion in making those stops.

So In sum, this is a high-level statistical approach to better understand our activities, to explain them, and correct them when needed.

And I'll stop there for questions.

Thank you.

I just want to note that funding for the EAQ was a technology investment that the council debated during the budget discussions.

And it was a technology investment that the council was considering cutting.

My recollection is that the monitor for the consent decree weighed in.

and let us know that from his perspective that was a bad idea.

And so there's, I think, high interest in the utility of this data analysis for purposes of compliance with the consent decree.

One, I'm wondering if you could talk a little bit about that, and two, I just want to flag I'm very interested in this topic first.

Let me just preface my comment with that.

When we talked about this presentation, I thought we were going to cover the strategic plan, and that's the document that is available for public review with the agenda.

If we're going to do a deep dive in an element of the strategic plan, because there is such a high interest in this particular line of work, It'd be great to get some advanced materials on that.

So we have the benefit of having maybe a more robust conversation.

That would be super appreciated.

But that said, maybe you could tell us a little bit more about how the EAQ relates to our commitments and obligations under the consent decree.

And I can just briefly just mention.

So as we covered the strategic plan, we obviously covered the relational policing earlier on.

EAQ is just a component of it.

We will do something that's a little bit more comprehensive for a deeper dive into it.

But I did want, it's one of the foundations that we're building out from our strategic plan.

And so I wanted to have just a little bit of a snapshot into it today, so.

I appreciate that.

I guess I'm just reacting to the fact that I already feel that it's like up here, even though I realize that in reality we are just dumping our toe in.

So thank you.

I think Councilmember, as the chief said, fully expect to do a full presentation to this committee on this, where we will actually have visuals and get you materials in advance so that you can really dig into this.

But I think the impetus for bringing it forth today is that we're really excited about this, and certainly, I've spent a lot of time looking at other police departments and I've never seen anything that approaches this level of sophistication.

So I'm, I do I'm very excited about it.

In terms of the consent decree.

I would submit that the whole goal of the consent decree is to create a learning organization, one that looks at itself, does rigorous critical self-analysis into its activities.

When you look at the consent decree, really what it is, it's about policy training and review and then assessments of all of those criteria.

I see this as the next evolution.

I think this is beyond the consent decree.

None of this is required by it.

Certainly the data analytics platform was part of it that gave us the building blocks.

But where we're taking it with this, this will certainly support our efforts in the consent decree.

It will Show that we're continuing the momentum that was generated by the consent decree.

But this is this is the beyond and where we go with this.

And as we continue to develop this into the future.

You know, certainly we're doing this openly and.

It is our understanding that our accountability partners will eventually be the backstop to the work that we're doing to ensure that we're continuing down the right path.

But this, I think, is really just demonstrating the department's commitment to iterative improvement and reform and evolution.

Thank you to correct for the record.

I've been reminded that I was incorrect.

It wasn't the that the the monitor weighed in on.

It was the.

adapt the data analytics platform.

But nevertheless, we have listened and made several of the technology investments and really appreciate that we're going to have continued conversations about the application and how it will impact our commitments to equity, accountability, and quality.

Got it.

Any other questions from council members?

Council Member Nelson.

Thank you very much for this presentation.

I was reading the strategic plan, thinking we were going to get into it in depth, and In the executive summary, it's noted that between 2020 and November 2021, SPD has seen over 325, this is on page four, officers leave the department.

And it goes on to say that in the face of these staffing constraints, the department has identified new approaches to recruitment and retention of qualified officers, et cetera.

And then it goes on and talks, there are several bullet points of some of the, you know, the initiatives.

And one of them is launch direct recruitment strategy to maintain record levels of diversity and quality in hiring.

You noted that in the introduction.

But I my question is around incentives.

The mayor Durkin ordered hiring and retention incentives that is no longer on the table.

What I want to know from your professional perspective is, do those kinds of incentives work?

What can you tell me about that here or elsewhere?

Yeah, you know, there has been a lot of research in regards to retentions.

I don't think anybody has seen anything like what we've seen over the last couple of years.

Most agencies are all struggling with hiring.

We're all trying to look at the same candidate pool.

When I started looking at 2016 data on lateral testing, we had 95 applicants that tested in 2016. And then it was consistent around 60 and 68 and 57. So over the years, it's been a little bit more consistent.

And then in 2020, we saw a drop down to 30. So a third of the total applicants And we're seeing that even when it comes to the basic law enforcement hiring, where we're actually seeing a much smaller amount of population that is looking to become police officers.

And one of the struggles that we have is when you have other cities that are offering incentives, so anything from Everett to Tacoma, you're trying to create a level playing field.

You're trying to be able to have some, some of those opportunities number.

What makes people come to different agencies?

If you start to think about some people have some agencies have vehicle take home vehicles.

King County Sheriff's is one of those agencies.

Pierce County is also Snohomish County is also an agency, so those are agencies that have something that we don't have.

You look at training.

We do have probably some of the best training in the country, and that is that's a benefit to us.

probably, I believe, better training than any other local agency around.

That is a good thing.

But when you start to look at, you know, pay and incentives and just the ability to feel like they can, you know, people feel like they're valued in the job, that is one of the struggles that we've experienced over the last couple of years, that we know that morale can be low when they're not appreciated.

And so we've really, really spent a lot of time also as well on trying to find a schedule at our shift that actually gets people the wellness that they need, the time off that they need, the ability to recover and recoup.

But we're also working people two or three shifts extra a week.

And so when I look at the lateral testing in 2022, we've had 23 people test in 2022. Of that, the first test in January, we had 17. And then in March, we only had six people sign up.

We know that in January, that was kind of at the height when we started announcing the incentives.

And then in March, those incentives had gone away.

And so we did see a drastic drop in the amount of people just signing up to the testing process.

In March of that March test, we only had one that actually finished out the oral board.

if we're looking at trying to hire people and find good quality candidates, having one lateral is gonna be, it's not a good place for us to be in.

Okay, so you're saying, so you're making a direct correlation, but was, the executive order wasn't in place for very long, but was there an uptick in interest when it was announced?

So in January, we actually had our highest sign up since 2020. And then March, we dropped drastically down to just six people signing up.

Okay, thank you.

Okay, appreciate your covering that, Chief Diaz, and appreciate as well the conversations that you and I have had around how to fashion a incentive program to be more focused on what makes it more desirable for lateral hires from perhaps from jurisdictions where officers have less of a pay scale that allows them to actually save money to fund the high costs of relocating to a city like Seattle.

So whereas our salaries are very competitive, that doesn't help somebody when they need to have resources to pay for first, last, security.

their uniforms, equipment, that they're not actually compensated for a lot of the costs associated with becoming a police officer here in Seattle.

And so really appreciate the recentering of your proposal for an incentive program towards relocation.

I think we might be seeing something similar to that for perhaps for other departments.

We have asked for a study from a report from from the executive to look at the needs of all apartments departments.

I also want to flag here the conversations that we've we've also had around around retention and the legislation that was recently passed in the state legislature regarding the police department pension program and some reforms that were done to make the pension program more solvent, but that might have the consequence of encouraging officers to retire early and appreciate that there may be some sort of counter incentives that we might want to consider to to sort of balance out the incentive created by that new state legislation to keep good officers with experience here.

This is really important, I think, for when you look at our specialty units, which have been often our specialty units are full of positions that are held by detectives who have been around for a longer period of time, and right now we're seeing those numbers still very low in each of our specialty units.

Things like domestic violence, elder abuse, and some of the other really important both prevention and victim support work that is necessary, that's held by detectives who have been with the department for a longer period of time.

Yes.

And we've done some advertising to that point, Council Member.

Not only we are hitting local advertisement in a lot of the BIPOC and various ethnic and community newspapers, But we are focused out on finding areas throughout the country, such as, you know, Georgia and and some of the cities in the south and Midwest to that have a lower pay structure that also make it, you know, a much better opportunity because being a large department, a major city, we do have a variety of different specialty units that people do look to eventually work to achieve.

Having its own dedicated homicide, having its own hardware unit, and having a SWAT team, and having a variety of different units that do make this a very attractive department.

So we are looking at different agencies that have a much lower pay structure.

that people do, and we also want to make sure we're hiring the right officer too, you know?

And when we do look in these areas, we do see a very great mix of diverse communities in these areas.

And so that is a good population that we continue to get new hires from.

In fact, I just swore in somebody from Mobile, Alabama, and it just happened that his wife had been transferred to work for Starbucks.

we were able to hire him as well.

And what's the lead time for a lateral transfer as compared to a new hire as far as the reduction, significant reduction in training?

I know there's still Seattle specific training that's necessary, but can you talk a little bit about that?

Yeah, so a lateral Academy is roughly about three weeks long because they've already gone through an Academy in their state.

Then they do do a preview are not.

I should say a post Belia component where they're learning, you know, Seattle specific work that usually runs around a month.

So you're looking at about a month and a half of not ability to deploy, and then they're in the FTO phase that still stays.

That still runs the course of of several months, but you're looking at a lateral applicant literally almost dropping off about six to nine months worth of training time.

And so that training and deployment time is huge.

Plus you're getting somebody with a lot of experience.

And we have, we've actually had people that had experience in, you know, in Detroit that have worked in a detective units and they've already, you know, now that they're in our department, They were already moved to a detective unit, and they're already making really, really amazing arrests, amazing cases.

And so having that experience has been invaluable.

That's great.

I think there is a lot of good reason to focus on lateral hires in recruitment.

Before we close this line of not saying that we're ending this conversation, but as far as the issues around hiring, I was just wondering, could you speak to And you may have already covered this, and if so, just restate it.

Are there trends in recruitment as it relates to the balance or the number of new recruits versus laterals that either have remained um, currently or have reversed.

Do we have, you know, before 2020 where we're bringing in more new recruits than laterals and that's flipped or is it still the same basic proportion?

It's still the same basic proportion.

So majority of our applicant, a majority of people that we're bringing in are from the basic law enforcement.

In fact, we've seen Uh, the numbers drastically drop in the lateral, uh, applicants as well as the lateral actually finishing the process.

Um, we've and the good thing is we've done a pretty good job of doing thorough backgrounds and some of the people that applied in 2021 that were lateral applicants.

Uh, our detectives have really our background detectives have done a lot of making sure that we don't hire somebody else's problem.

Um, and actually we've been able to ensure that we've weeded out people that have had less than stellar careers and that are just looking to switch over because they've had, they've caused another problem in the city.

So, you know, those are things that we are going to continue to do, that we do not relax those standards.

We do want to make sure that we, we up the amount of people that are in the lateral process, but we are not going to relax the standards on whether we, we don't want to inherit somebody else's problem.

Thank you.

All right, are there, Council Member Peterson.

Thank you, Chair Herbold.

Thank you, Chief, for, at the beginning, acknowledging the recent violent crimes.

And that's consistent with SPD's year-end crime report confirming violent crimes and property crimes have increased.

Regarding the strategic plan, I just want to be sure I understand how it will be used.

As I understand the strategic plan, it's only 29 pages.

It's more of a high-level visionary document.

rather than an implementation plan with details on how to reduce crime.

Is that correct?

That is correct.

Okay.

And so I appreciate Council Member Nelson's questions and Chair Humboldt's follow-up on recruitment and retention.

I know that a lot of us are very focused on that with 300 officers having left the department.

I wanted to ask about page 10 in the community collaboration section where it says SPD expects every member of its force to work to restore and strengthen community relations.

With the community policing officers reassigned to patrol due to the severe reduction in staff, what are some specific ways SPD officers can work on community relations?

So a couple areas of where we're focused.

So we actually started this last at the end of 2020 with a relational policing model training, and it's going to focus on outward mindset, which is really on problem solving, because what we're trying to then kind of reshift our efforts because we don't have as many specialty units is really kind of making every officer generalist.

So being able to be good at building relationships and community problem solving, and then also being able to have the skill set to handle an active shooter situation.

And, and so we're already starting to implement the training, uh, is part of our relational policing model that, that started in 2020. Uh, we are also doing outward mindset.

We're actually training all of our supervision, uh, in, uh, from sergeants, lieutenants and captains in both outward and growth mindset.

Um, and that allows our supervisors to also be able to assess and triage when there's a community problem to figuring out where it needs to be best assigned and how it can be accomplished.

And we're finding, I mean, I am drastically missing my community policing teams.

I mean, that is just, they really were able to handle a lot of, you know, put out fires before they became big issues and not having those is hurt, it hurts us quite a bit, but it's really having us to rethink about how we train our officers into more of a generalist mentality.

And so you might not see that work on the front or on that end until a little bit later in the process, because we wanna still make sure that we're providing good training to them.

Thank you.

It's kind of follow-up.

Okay, go ahead Council Member Pearson.

I also had a follow-up, but I think maybe you're going to cover.

the topic.

It's actually a second question rather than a follow-up on that one, so if you want to go first.

May I?

Yes.

And this might not be a follow-up if it's not, I apologize.

What I thought I understood Council Member Peterson to be asking, and I appreciate the answer sort of focused on the sworn force, but what I thought I heard him asking is how we are going to, given that there's There are only so many officers that we know that we can hire in a year.

And we're going to do our best to hit that number.

There have, we have, we have a department that has three, I think it's actually 375 fewer officers now than it did in early 2020. But what are we going to do to maybe sort of refocus some of our public safety work towards non-uniformed parts of the department because I really, that's what I'm hearing from a lot of community members.

People are starting to understand that we've funded the department for as many officers as you can hire, but it's not enough because we need to be doing something different to activate the staff either that we have or to increase the staffing for non-uniform folks who are focused on public safety, like the CSOs?

Yeah, so actually that's a good point.

So we are in discussions, I don't want to get too far ahead of us, but how we are deploying CSOs and crime prevention coordinators and how we're, you know, being able to support their level of work because you know CPC or crime prevention coordinators are typically on the front end doing prevention work and CSO's work is really on the follow-up component and doing different levels of engagement.

We actually have deployed a couple of the CSOs at 212 and Jackson in conjunction with kind of in a hybrid model where we have you know three officers and two CSOs to engage community, to engage businesses, and also be able to have them support that effort that we're, you know, working to maintain that site rather than just moving all of our resources over to 3rd and Pine.

But this allows us to still have a visible presence and in a non-sworn capacity.

So that is already starting to, you know, we're already starting to make those efforts now.

As we start to build the CSO program out and have more CSOs to be able to do that, obviously it will be able to start hitting other different areas and also being able to look at even Thurden Pine as being another location where we would have that level of support as well for a non-sworn presence as well.

Thank you.

And sort of related to that before we go back to Councilmember Peterson, can you talk a little bit about the analytical work related to the 911 call analysis that will, again, this isn't just within the context of reimagining policing in the racial reckoning of George Floyd's Floyd's murder, this is really also this is work that is so important given our staffing challenges and the work to identify the types of 911 calls that we don't need to be sending sworn police to so that we can make sure that we have sworn police to answer the calls that only they can make.

I'm wondering if you could just talk a little bit about that project.

Yep, I actually I will turn it over to COO Maxey that is actually under his shop and there is a risk assessment that is going to be conducted, but I will leave it to you.

Yeah.

So this is the risk managed demand project that came, that's being undertaken right now.

Again, this is using the DAP.

This is using 911 call data.

And really what it's doing is creating a risk index for each call.

And it's looking at What are the calls start as how did it end as in order to see whether we can identify the type of call this actually is and it's it's using all the available analytics to.

categorize these calls based on our best understanding.

And this will be supported with dispatcher protocols on how to tease out the proper information about the call.

But in the end, once this analysis is complete, this will give us a categorization of calls as to whether there will be death, serious injury, minimal injury, or property damage stemming out of any individual call, which will help us assess the risk.

So this is the responsible way to determine what calls could be served by an unarmed responder.

And we're still working on this.

I think we're going to report out to this committee of the first quarter on where exactly we are in a lot more granular detail.

One thing that I did want to just sort of level set is that looking at the calls and looking at the direction we're going with this, I think this is more that the city will be providing a service that is currently not being served.

then it will be supplanting the work of officers.

And that's just, in my mind, that's an important distinction because there are things that officers simply are not going to at this point.

And those are the calls that will be filled by this alternative response.

That's a helpful distinction.

Council Member Peterson.

Thank you, yes, I appreciate talking about these alternative responses.

I just for the viewing public.

We know that crime prevention goes beyond just the Police Department and had a meeting recently with several neighborhood business district leaders who are seeking to have a position that also has cross departmental authority to to link people to services as well as to to call upon the Police Department as needed.

So as we attempt to restore the 300 plus officers that left, also looking at new models of positions who will be able to link to other city departments in the field, especially in those neighborhood business districts where we're seeing a spike in crime.

My last question about the strategic plan on page 22, It talks about wellness, and I know that Officer Lexi Harris, who's honored in this strategic plan at the end, who was killed on I-5, that was important to her as well.

Where are you looking for best practices on officer wellness, and what can we as a committee do to help in this effort?

Yeah, so we were we were actually awarded what they call a cry tech award, which is a it's an assistance where we can get expertise from across the country.

We actually had Indianapolis and San Diego being able to assess some of our programs.

We have helped build up our peer support program.

We have now 70 peer support volunteers throughout the department, including all precincts and all watches.

We also have our mental health professionals that are on contract and we are deploying them at the various precincts, including east and west precincts, which has seen probably the most activity as far as even demonstrations from two years ago.

But we want to make sure that we assign MHPs in each of our precincts so that way they get to know each other.

build relationships and be able to see the very early onset where there could potentially be a decline in an officer's performance.

We also are doing a vet corp, which is for SBD employees who are veterans, and they provide benefits and services.

One of the things about, you know, wellness is also making sure that you maintain, you know, just being physically healthy.

So we have a tactical athlete program that conducts, you know, in-person functional mobility screenings, and actually provides nutrition assistance as well.

The other things that we're looking at also doing is leadership trainings.

So we've been working on bringing in different professional speakers for the department.

We have different apps because of the nature of our work.

We have a cortical app, which is a wellness app, and it provides different contacts and different ability for people to reach out.

We have a mentoring program, and that mentoring program was very important for me when I came on to the department, having somebody that you could ask questions to and guidance.

And actually, we're pairing senior officers and detectives with brand new recruits to guide them through the first year of the department.

We have actually just recently have somebody, one of our personnel that is certified to run our alcohol and substance abuse program.

We know that when officers find themselves not in a good place, that sometimes alcohol can be a contributing factor.

And so we wanted to make sure that we are doing a lot of work on the prevention side so we can make sure that officers are getting potential treatment should they be going down the wrong road.

And then one of the coolest things that we are doing is we have facility dogs that we are now bringing in.

We actually received a donation.

We have three facility emotional support dogs that are coming in this spring from vet dogs and They're what we you know, we are vet these type of dogs have been deployed in a variety of different situations in mass casualty situations and situations where there is, you know a huge disturbance or a critical incident that it goes on along in the community and Um, and they know these dogs know when somebody is feeling sad and feeling having a certain level of emotion and they will, you know, come right up to the person and, uh, we've deployed them, you know, in Lexi's death.

We've actually deployed them, uh, in a variety of other situations.

And so, uh, having these three trained dogs to be able to support when they'll be available for all critical incidences, you know, officer of all shootings, riots, et cetera, in a variety of different needs.

And I think that this will really be, I think it's gonna be critical for our officers to be able to have those dogs be part of their livelihood, so.

Thank you.

Thanks so much, and I think it's really important to note that when we talk about retention, a lot of retention policies are also wellness policies.

I mentioned the 410s earlier, and I think it's really good to think of that as fulfilling two important dual purposes.

Thank you.

Council Member Mosqueda.

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

I'd like to continue on with a theme that you brought up around retention.

I think that it gets lost sometimes in the last two years what we hear directly from officers.

Officers in Seattle, but also across this country, have been saying that they cannot be mental health providers.

They cannot be housing connectors.

They cannot be crisis management responders when they are not social workers.

And it's because of the direct feedback that we've received from officers that there has been an intentional effort to try to make sure, as Council Member Herbold noted, that the calls that do not require an officer with a gun to show up go to someone else.

And t been actively funding and Um, so I know you've spe and some of the council m a lot of time talking ab have done recruitment bon we haven't seen is the cha strategies.

And I feel l And the larger public is having around how do we off load some of these jobs that are not necessary for officers to respond to will be a very important element of retention strategies.

I too have extended family members who are officers.

I'm sympathetic to their concerns about them not being equipped to be case managers and mental health counselors.

And so I want to make sure that we continue to underscore the why behind why we are interested in moving some of these strategies.

It will also help with retention strategies.

I also want to make sure that we're having a conversation about the data analytics.

And you mentioned the conversation that we're looking at in terms of who the alternative is, the alternate response could be based on the outcome of certain officer interactions.

But I'd like to know if there's a outside party that's helping with that analysis.

For example, I think that in some cases, the fact that an officer showed up to some of these calls with a badge and a gun versus a mental health counselor with the training and skills to deescalate using mental health counseling strategies or engagement strategies that a case manager might be more equipped to have.

there is a different outcome.

So for example, if you looked at Charlene Lyle's case and the analysis of that interaction was, yes, an officer was needed because there ended up needing to be interaction with someone.

The outcome could have been completely different if a mental health provider had shown up to that case.

So I'm very interested in wondering if we can have that analysis done with an outside party to look at the type of situations that you're evaluating with the 911 call surfaces, because the outcome would be potentially completely different as, again, for the individual who was on the pier, who had a knife, and then was immediately shot.

I'd very much like to have a conversation about analyzing that with an outside party as well.

And if I might, Madam Chair, I do have two questions related to the strategic plan.

On page 12, there is a conversation in the strategic plan about It says, quote, focus on collaboration with courts, jails and service providers to find better solutions for repeat misdemeanor offenders.

Again, this is related to 2021 and beyond interactions with community.

On this bullet, as it relates to the Operation New Day and the interaction with shoplifting, we talked a lot about this last time, very sympathetic to the smaller shops who are seeing higher rates of theft and vandalism.

I also do have continued concerns about the presence of officers, some officers in the larger chains, who are interacting with individuals who they may be engaged in Shoplifting.

An example is on Friday, February 11th, SPD stationed a plainclothes officer in the downtown Target and arrested shoplisters.

All five booked that day were indigenous and represented by public defenders.

One was initially too sick to come to court.

Another was charged with $6.99 worth of merchandise and is now in competency proceedings because of their ability to understand the charge against them and assist with their own defense in questioning.

Another had an argument delay because of lack of an interpreter and chose to go forward with arraignment without an interpreter because the court failed to provide one.

at the second scheduled arraignment.

So I'm wondering if you have any information for us on the demographics of the individuals arrested with Operation New Day, given the short staffing that you cited, despite the city council fully funding the hiring plan, wondering how much these operations are costing in terms of time and capacity.

And I will also ask about whether or not on page 25 you can help me understand what the difference is between a Terry stop and stop and frisk.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

So Terry stop is it's actually a case law, so it is Terry via Ohio.

It's what it basically constitutes reasonable suspicion.

Stop and frisk is something that is was created in New York.

Um, and it has it's less grounded in in in legal and constitutional law.

And so we we we do all of our work based on T.

Terry versus Ohio.

We base all of our our stops on reasonable suspicion stops that are grounded in constitutional law.

Um, and not on not on a stop and frisk the one of the cases that you brought up on the 696 dollars and 99 cents.

was actually they had assaulted one of the staff.

At that time, we had not booked them under the case number because we could not find or locate the case number.

We were able to do that.

We put a supplemental report and then end up having requesting charges for an assault on that case.

We have been actually doing triaging of a lot of the cases, so we are not trying to book them and trying to issue out warnings.

However, when there are situations that there are multiple charges that we are making those, you know, at those times making certain arrests, we can get to some of the demographic data or we can work to get some of the demographic data as well to you as well.

I do want to confirm, since it came up in a previous committee meeting, the question around the relatively minor target shoplifting, that even though the report that had been attached to some circulation in the public around this case not include reference to the assault on a target employee, where she struck the employee with a bottle several times.

It was documented, the assault was documented under a different report.

be, uh, was only for the theft because the victim, this store employee, didn't have the incident number for the assault, um, under the, um, to, to, to use.

Um, and apparently, um, there is a follow-up report that was generated requesting charges of assault on the individual.

So I just wanna flag that this is something that we did look into because it was brought up in public comment in a previous committee meeting.

But I do agree, we have asked for and received demographic information as it relates to the city attorney's frequent offenders program.

And we've received that demographic information and it would be very helpful and useful.

I know that, I understand, well.

I understand that there is, I don't know for a fact that there is weekly reporting, but I understand there was a plan for weekly reporting on Operation New Day and hopefully it addresses the demographic composition of folks arrested as well.

Member Nelson.

I agree that retention is important it's the biggest bang for our buck to keep the officers that we already have and if there is an incentive program it's best to uh...

it you know it we should reward the people that we already have for doing the work that they've been doing.

That has to be bargained, so that's a different story.

But per Council Member Mosqueda's point, I agree.

We need to make sure that the right people are going out on these calls.

And SPD does have crisis response teams that have social workers in them.

I don't know how many of those units exist, I think four or something like that, but that is a model that has been proven to be effective.

And it's similar to the fire department's Health One, where EMTs go out with social workers.

So I like that combined approach.

And until we have a triage one set up so that there's a place for these calls to go that don't require a uniform police response, we need to focus on combining these specialties in these call responses.

So thank you very much for bringing that up.

Hey, oh.

Sorry about that.

Yeah, and I think that Council Member Peterson had another question a long time ago.

I didn't wanna jump in, so.

Just going to return back to that.

Thank you so much.

Council Member Peterson.

I was able to ask all of my questions, and Chair Humboldt and Council Member Ranel, she would ask my recruitment and retention questions, so thank you.

Perfect.

Any other thoughts that we would like to cover on behalf of the 2022 strategic plan?

I want to just note that, appreciate that in 2020, the Seattle Police Department blotter was expanded to add a report out on daily significant incident reports reports that are generated for internal distribution for providing command staff and rapid notification events to inform supervisors and commanders of potential cross-precinct issues and to make specific information about significant events.

directly and quickly available to officers.

As I understand it, these significant incident reports are available to the public.

And I think it's a good practice in order to enhance communication, both within the department, as well as informing, you know, the public, often the eyes and ears to the Department of emerging issues.

So just wanted to flag that before it looks like we might be about to close out here.

Well, thank you.

And thank you, everyone, for the questions and the discussion.

We want to make sure that we're moving the department in the right direction.

So as I noted in the executive summary, this is really not a closed document.

It really is based on a lot of feedback from community and continued feedback.

for us to move the department and continue to move the department in the right direction.

Thank you.

And even though we didn't do a deep dive in it into the issue, I do want to again, as I do often recognize and flag the amazing work the department is doing, getting guns off the streets.

Just really, unfortunately, there are significant increases in numbers of people who have guns, and you're doing a great job of making sure the folks who should not have them do not.

Thank you.

Thank you.

All right, be well.

Thank you.

And let's move on to the last item on the agenda to read in agenda item number four.

Committee agenda item number four, Council Bill 120-280, an ordinance relating to the 2022 budget, amending ordinance 126-490, which adopted the 2022 budget, changing appropriations to various departments and budget control levels, adding provisos, and ratifying and confirming certain prior acts.

Thank you so much.

Again, this is an item that we discussed at the March 8th meeting of the Public Safety and Human Services Committee.

Greg Doss is here for a second briefing.

And as mentioned at the start of the meeting, I do have Amendment 1 to Council Bill 120280.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Greg Doss, Council Central staff.

So Council Bill 120280, as a reminder, would appropriate to the Seattle Police Department $2.3 million in funding from the U.S.

Department of Homeland Security for the Urban Area Security Initiative grant.

That's the WASI program.

The committee heard on March 8th testimony from Assistant Chief Todd Kibbe and COO Brian Maxey, who you just heard from.

from SPD about the purchases that they intend to make with the $2.3 million in Homeland Security OWASI funds.

Additionally, there is a spreadsheet that is posted to today's agenda that details each of the programs and the projects that would be highlighted with that funding.

We went over that, the committee did, in depth on March 8th.

There were a couple questions that were left outstanding from that meeting, and I want to address those now.

The first one was from the chair, and that was for the department to identify which of the items on the list would be subject to the city surveillance ordinance.

And of course, They're all subject to the surveillance ordinance, but which ones would most likely trigger the definition of surveillance and require a surveillance impact report?

And there were four that the department thought would most likely be categorized as surveillance.

The first one was some cybersecurity software that the Fusion Center is going to purchase.

Another one was the wall radar and FLIR system that is going to be purchased.

The third is the binocular night vision system and enhanced clip-on thermal imager.

And the last is the portable digital x-ray system.

I think that last one we talked about a little bit at length.

So those four will require surveillance impact reports most likely.

And the second question that was asked was about whether the department had any specific policies that would prohibit the TAK system from being used to track civilians.

Just as a refresher, that's the system that allows the police department to track all of its units during an emergency.

SBD has indicated that it doesn't have any policies to prohibit that because the system is only used or capable of tracking police and not civilians.

And so those were the only questions on that list.

That is the only information I had for you today, because there are no amendments that would seek to prohibit or condition the spending in any way that would potentially disrupt the grant.

there's not a need to discuss any fiscal matters relative to provisos.

So at that point, I think we are, the committee is ready to vote and I am able to answer any questions or discuss amendment one at the chair's direction.

Greg, I just want to flag what the significance of a technology that requires a SIR has to the funding that would be authorized under this grant.

And the significance is that the, surveillance ordinance prohibits any department from spending funds that require a SIR until such time as the council acts on that SIR.

So we've identified the technologies that are likely to require a SIR.

We have heard from executive because we were hearing both that they were hoping that we would act on this on this grant in a way that allowed them to, as soon as possible, do the purchases so they could close out the grant.

And we did ask a little finer point on the questions of, you know, what do we do if we haven't acted on CSRS?

that are required, and thus the department isn't doing spending.

And we got a great answer from SPD.

They note that, again, they're making the commitment that any items that include technology will automatically go under the privacy review.

And if they are instructed to prepare a SIR, they'll complete that process before they make the purchase, as required by the surveillance ordinance.

But then they go on to say that if the SIR is not approved at the end of the grant term, they will coordinate with the state to request an extension from FEMA, and that it is not uncommon to ask for contract extensions for grants, and that it is ultimately up to the feds to decide whether to grant the extension.

So I'm satisfied with my response and really want to Thank Councilmember Mosqueda for all of the great questions she had in committee last committee meeting.

It really gave us, I think, an opportunity to learn more and get more in the weeds about this program and how it's not used as relates to your general, ordinary, run-of-the-mill policing for tactics associated with community safety, and they're generally not used in crowd control situations.

There's a really sort of targeted focus of most of these grant programs.

There are no general questions.

Greg, could you describe the amendment, please?

Yeah, thank you.

Amendment one simply establishes that the projects that would be funded with UASI funds are subject to the surveillance ordinance.

And the effect statement that I was going to describe, I think you just gave a perfect explanation of, that until such time as the CSRS are approved, the purchases can't be made.

And the department has indicated that If they can't spend the money by the end of the grant, which is December 31st, 2023, they'll ask for an extension.

Thank you so much, Greg.

If the committee agrees, I'd love to get the amendment before us.

Seeing any objections to that.

So I move to adopt Amendment 1 to Council Bill 120280. Is there a second?

Second.

Thank you.

It's been moved and seconded to recommend passage of, I'm sorry, that's not right.

It's been moved and seconded to adopt Amendment 1 to Council Bill 120280. May I, can we vote on the amendment, please?

Council Member Mosqueda.

Aye.

Council Member Nelson.

Aye.

Council Member Peterson.

Aye.

And Chair Herbold?

Aye.

Four in favor, none opposed.

Fantastic.

Thank you.

We now have the amended bill in front of us.

Is there any comments or questions on the amended bill?

Thank you.

I move amended Council Bill 120280. Is there a second?

Second.

Second.

Thank you.

The amended Council Bill 120280 is before us.

Will the clerk please call on the roll on the passage of the amended bill?

Council Member Mosqueda?

Aye.

Council Member Nelson?

Aye.

Council Member Peterson?

Aye.

Chair Herbold?

Yes.

Four in favor of the amended bill?

Fantastic.

Thank you.

The motion carries.

The committee recommends that the amended bill pass, and it will be forwarded to the March 15th City Council meeting.

That is the last item on our agenda, folks.

Are there any other comments or questions for the good of the order?

Seeing none, it is 1146 a.m., and we are adjourned.

Thank you.