Seattle City Council Public Safety & Human Services Committee 9/14/21

Thank you so much.

The September 14, 2021 meeting of the Public Safety and Human Services Committee will come to order.

It is 9.32 a.m.

I'm Lisa Herbold, chair of the committee.

Will the clerk please call the roll?

Council President Gonzalez?

Present.

Council Member Lewis?

Present.

Council Member Morales?

Here.

Council Member Sawant?

Chair Herbold?

Here.

That is for present.

Thank you so much.

On today's agenda, we will be hearing three primary items.

The first is sort of a status report on the pay-up policy proposal, discussion of one of the draft unintroduced bills, the one that covers minimum compensation, flexibility, and transparency issues.

And we'll move into a presentation from the city attorney's office, who will present the racial equity toolkit analysis for expanding the pre-filing diversion program to adults 25 and older.

This has long been a priority for the council, led by previous chair of public safety, Council President Gonzalez.

And then finally, we will hear a bill sponsored by Councilmember Sawant relating to the Seattle Police Department prohibiting training, exchanges, and partnership with certain governments.

We were intending to hear a presentation from the Human Services Department lead and reach in response to SLY, Statement of Legislative Intent 6A1.

However, we were not able to hear that report today and look forward to rescheduling at a future committee meeting.

With that, we'll move on to approving our agenda for the committee meeting.

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

At this time, we'll transition into public comment.

I will moderate public comment in the following manner.

I believe there are 20 speakers, 19 speakers.

Chair, there was just several that signed up.

There are 39 now.

39. Okay.

Thank you so much.

So in order to accommodate as many speakers as we possibly can, each speaker will be given one minute 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 to 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 hear that prompt, you need to press star six 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.

Once the speaker hears the chime, we ask that you begin to wrap up your public comments.

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 us to hear from the next speaker.

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

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

There are 39 people signed up for public comment.

And so to allow for as many speakers as possible, if there are no objections, I propose to suspend the rules to allow an additional 20 minutes of public comment for a total of 40 minutes of public comment.

Hearing no objections, public comment has been extended.

Council Member Sawant has joined the meeting.

Greetings, Council Member Sawant.

So, moving into public comment, I will start reading two names at a time.

First is Howard Gale, followed by Blythe Serrano.

Howard?

Are you with us, Howard?

There you are.

Can you hit star six?

There you go.

Good morning.

Howard Gale.

You've ignored the fact that more people have been killed by the SPD during this past decade of federal police oversight than during the decade prior, that the SPD keeps killing folks experiencing a mental health crisis, and that the SPD faces no accountability for the abuse of protesters last year.

Then there were last month's headlines.

Federal monitors cost millions with disputed results.

Seattle's police watchdog is a case in point.

Or, report, Seattle police stop black people, Native Americans, at a far higher rate than white people.

Or, OIG auditor resigns, claims OIG puts OPA allegiances over police accountability.

This last news story revealed a complete dereliction of duty by the heads of both the OPA and the OIG, along with possible criminal acts committed by OPA Director Andrew Meyerberg.

And then, during council break, OPA Director Meyerberg released a stunningly incompetent and cruel investigation of the last year's murder of Terry Kaber, blaming Terry Kaber's death on his own choices and decisions.

This committee must hold a public forum to investigate these shocking failures and scams.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Blythe Serrano, followed by Nevitt Basker.

Blythe?

Hi, my name is Blythe.

I rent and work in the Central District, and I'm calling in to urge the committee to support the legislation banning Seattle police from training with countries that have violated international human rights.

I want to start by saying thank you to the hundreds of rank-and-file activists, organizers of End the Deadly Exchange, Jewish Voices for Peace, Socialist Alternatives, the Democratic Socialists of America, and especially Council Member Solant's office, who have been fighting for this legislation.

Unfortunately, but not surprisingly, Herbold and the political establishment have introduced an amendment that at minimum would weaken our legislation and that might even potentially exclude the Israeli state from being covered by the law.

Last summer's historic Black Lives Matter protest movement put a spotlight on the role of the police under capitalism.

Police departments in Democratic Party-controlled cities across America carried out violent repression of peaceful protest marches.

The Democratic establishment has failed to hold Seattle police accountable for this violence.

In addition to banning SPD from learning how to best brutalize working class people from nations which has violated the Geneva Conventions, we need an elected community oversight board with full powers over the police.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Nevett Pasker followed by Samia Leba.

Hi, good morning.

Council Bill 120142 started out as an anti-Israel initiative Now it pretends to be an anti-police bill.

But don't be fooled.

It is still an anti-Israel and anti-Semitic effort.

The campaign behind the bill, as you just heard, is all about Israel.

If passed, it will be weaponized against Israel and against Jews.

It will start with protests and may end with violence.

This is completely foreseeable and entirely preventable.

You are hereby put on notice.

If Seattle has a problem with its police force it should reform the police.

Foreign governments and international travel did not cause SPD's problem.

Pointing fingers at other countries and scapegoating people does nothing to improve public safety or address police accountability and institutional racism.

Please vote no on this hateful and dangerous bill.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Samia Saliba followed by Shelby Handler.

Hi, my name is Samia Saliba and I'm a resident of District 3 and I'm calling in support of CD 12142 to end the deadly exchange.

We know that a safe and healthy Seattle must be grounded in our city's respect for the human rights and dignity of all people.

SPD has already shown documented patterns of violence and racism and are under court supervision for excessive force and racially biased policing.

The current exchanges with militaries, such as the Israeli military, the second most common destination for these trainings after Canada, are an opportunity for SPD to exchange worst practices.

Worst practices for Israel means decades of documented human rights violations, surveillance, and torture practices.

This violence has no place anywhere, but we can make sure it does not become common practice here.

We must stop using our resources to support violations of international law.

Instead, we should invest in Black-led, community-led safety.

Investing in community makes us safe, not racist and militarized policing.

Please support CB 12142 and end the deadly exchange.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Shelby Handler, followed by Anna Powell.

Shelby.

Hi there, I'm Shelby Handler and I'm a Jewish resident who lives in District 2 and I'm calling also in support of Bill CB 12142 and as others have said, just really calling on the Public Safety Committee to pass this legislation to prohibit SPD from training with all countries that are committing ongoing human rights abuses.

And this feels so no-nonsense and we know that we should be investing in ways of safety that are centered in BIPOC communities and specifically Black-led communities.

And when we invest in those solutions, we keep all of us more safe instead of spending resources on these exchanges of worst practices.

So thank you so much for your time and for hearing this.

I think this is an essential and beautiful act that we can take in our city to protect the human rights of all people.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Anna Powell followed by Abby Brooke.

Hi there.

Thank you.

My name is Anna Powell and I'm on the government relations team for DoorDash.

Thank you for this opportunity to share our concerns with the pay up policy proposal.

We care about the drivers, customers and retailers with whom we partner daily and we're eager to promote their interests, including the importance of flexible work.

We appreciate your interest in the complicated policy issues related to delivery and are committed to working collaboratively with each of you to work to find a workable compromise.

To get this legislation right we recommend careful consideration of an array of highly complicated regulatory provisions.

Similar City of Seattle legislation regarding TNCs took two years to develop.

Since TNCs are different from TNCs in numerous ways this work cannot simply be copied and will require more careful deliberation.

We want to ensure that there is opportunity for meaningful negotiation and respectfully request a process and timeline that allows for the necessary substantive exchange of ideas and proposals to develop DNC standards that are products of data and honest dialogue between stakeholders.

Thank you for your consideration.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Abby Brooke, and Abby will be followed by Nina Krasdorf.

Hi my name is Abby Brooke.

I'm a resident of District 3 and I'm speaking today in support of Council Bill 120142 to end SPD training for countries that violate human rights.

This legislation is in line with the fund movement which we heard strong support of yesterday as it will aid and demilitarize the police in making Seattle communities truly safer.

It makes no sense for SPD to be training with countries that violate human rights according to international standards such as those of the ICC or the 14 America Convention.

This legislation.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Nina Kranzdorf and Nina will be followed by Emily MacArthur.

Hi.

My name is Nina Kranzdorf and I am a Jewish resident of Seattle living in District 2. I'm also calling to ask you to support Council Bill 121.42 to prohibit the Seattle Police Department from Training with countries that are committing human rights abuses, as many others have said, this bill is common sense for the city of Seattle.

As a human rights city, affirmed in Resolution 31858 and 31929, the city is endorsing the rights set out in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and we need to stand behind those commitments to protect the human rights of those in our city.

As a city, we need to be investing in community-based solutions rather than militarization.

easy and logical bill for the City of Seattle to be passing and I encourage you all to vote in favor of it.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Emily MacArthur and Emily will be followed by Sonia Ponath.

Emily.

Hi.

Thank you so much for letting me speak today.

My name's Emily.

I'm a renter in District 2. I want to especially thank the rank-and-file activists, including Jewish Voice for Peace, Socialist Alternative, Democratic Socialists of America, and especially Councilmember Sawant for bringing forward this legislation today to end the Denley exchange and stop training with nation-states who have violated internationally agreed-upon basic human rights.

I especially do, though, want to – while I'm appealing for all councilmembers to vote yes on Councilmember Sawant's legislation, I want to speak really strongly against Council Member Herbold's amendment.

I think especially it's really deceptive that it's written to potentially include the Israeli state.

Notice how it refers to investigations, quote, within the country or territory boundaries.

The ICC investigations, as you know, are about Israeli human rights violations in Gaza and the West Bank.

which Zionist defenders will argue are not technically within Israel or its territorial boundaries.

This is incredibly problematic, and I don't think it should be.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Sonia Poneth, and Sonia will be followed by Tamar Wilson.

Hi, this is Sonia Poneth.

I'm a working mom.

I really want to thank all the activists and organizers within the Deadly Exchange, the Jewish Voice for Peace, SAA, DSA, and especially Council Member Solange's office, who's brought forward this.

I'm speaking against Herbold's amendment today.

Council Member Herbold and other Democrats are arguing that this amendment simplifies things, but I think it does the opposite.

It's a memo spending pages explaining that the SPD would have to do research to determine if a country they want to train with has violated human rights.

I don't think that's a difficult search.

I don't agree there's any problem necessitating this amendment.

International training sessions are not a daily thing.

If the police can't do that research how on earth do they ever solve crimes.

There's also a problem that has already been addressed about excluding important languaging.

So what I really think is the Democratic establishment has failed to hold Seattle Police accountable.

We really need.

an elected community oversight board with full power.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Mary Cypress followed by Savannah Thompson-Wiley.

Mary?

Mary, if you hit star six.

Mary, you have to hit star six, please.

There you go.

Perfect.

Thank you.

My name is Mary Cypress, and I serve as the director for the Anti-Defamation League in Seattle.

I'd like to share my concerns with the ordinance introduced by Council Member Sawant.

As an organization that's taken U.S. law enforcement on trips abroad to widen their perspectives and share best practices, we have an interest in this policy.

According to the proposal, if you actually read it, there are dozens of countries that would be restricted for partnering with SPD, and the term partnering is not defined in the proposal and could have far-ranging public safety implications.

Countries on the list include Canada, Britain, France, Italy, China, even the United States for our own human rights abuses.

By preventing SPD from partnering with law enforcement in our own country, law enforcement from border countries, and law enforcement from allied countries, How can we assure our local police department shares intelligence, supports public safety, and conducts day-to-day business?

This ordinance is a small, ill-conceived proposal that does not address systemic racism or holistically reformed policing.

Thank you so much for hearing.

Thank you.

Speaker is Trayvonna Thompson-Wiley, followed by Carolyn Hathaway.

Trayvonna?

Hi, my name is Trayvonna and I'm a resident of District 2. I'm calling today to demand the passing of CD 120142. As a black woman, part of three generations from Seattle, I have seen repeated patterns of violence, racism from STD.

STD is currently under court supervision for excessive force and racially biased policing.

STD literally brutalized protesters for months and I was one of those protesters.

I was literally tear gassed while I was talking about the atrocities that folks face around this city.

Just one year ago, 12,000 community members told you loud and clear, enough is enough, defund SPD.

Invest in the community.

This legislation supports these ongoing demands by cutting back on funding for military training that puts the residents of Seattle in danger.

Stop SPD from training with foreign militaries like the Israeli Occupation Forces.

Do the right thing and end this deadly exchange.

And I relinquish the rest of my time.

Thank you.

And although on my tracking sheet, Samar is, Mark spoke, I believe we skipped for her.

So let's go back to Samar Wilson and Samar will be followed by Carolyn Hathaway.

You still with us, Samar?

We'll need you to hit star six if you are.

There you go.

Hello.

Yes.

Hi.

Hello.

Thank you very much for allowing me to speak.

My name is Tamar Wilson.

I live in Beacon Hill and I work in the Central District.

I am calling because I am a Black Lives Matter organizer.

And last year I witnessed SPD attack protesters joined in the largest multiracial movement in our country's history with tear gas and rubber bullets.

That was until Council Member Sawant led the way on banning the police from using chemical weapons on peaceful protesters.

Later in the year, I saw the Free Palestine movement erupt all across the world and learned in real time how interrelated both of our struggles against racist oppression of the black and Palestinian communities are linked in a very material way, linked between our police forces.

There is absolutely no way that the oppressive crowd control tactics that SPD engages in and that the Israeli military uses against Palestinians are not interrelated.

So I'm calling in support of Council Member Shama Swan's legislation to end the deadly exchange, and I want to speak against Council Member Hobart's amendment.

Thank you.

We'll go back onto Carolyn Hathaway.

Carolyn will be followed by Daniel Kavanaugh.

Carolyn, you have to hit star six to speak.

Carolyn, can you hear me?

Please hit star six.

All right, one more time.

Carolyn, if you can hear me, can you hit star six?

There you go.

Can you hear me now.

Absolutely.

Great.

I'm the Seattle bear shadow sister city president that works to create friendships between public and private citizens believing in the power of system citizen diplomacy.

We support improving human rights around the world not by vilifying foreign governments but by reaching out and engaging and empowering people around the world.

We influence through partnership.

Please do not create artificial barriers that separate our people.

and discourage collaborative work.

This began as a racist anti-Israel initiative where in Seattle when in Seattle we benefit every day from exchanges with Israel in trade education medicine agriculture and security.

Now it will impact more countries which are working with us to build better lives for their citizens.

This legislation has unintended consequences.

It condemns the collaborative international work It encourages good behavior.

Please stop it now.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Daniel Cavanaugh, and he'll be followed by Jeremy Bang.

Daniel?

Daniel, we need you to hit star six.

Daniel, I'm not sure if you can hear me.

Can you hit star six so we can hear you?

Okay, one more time, Daniel.

You're the next speaker.

We need you to hit star six so we can hear you.

All right, we'll have to come back to Daniel.

Let's move on to Jeremy Bang.

Jeremy?

Good morning my name is Jeremy Bang.

I live in District 6 and I'm calling in to support CB 120142. It only makes sense as a human rights city to stop training with police and military forces that have known human rights abuses.

I think it's pretty it's a pretty simple math there and I think that we should support ending this deadly exchange.

All right.

Thanks.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Henry Luke, and Henry will be followed by Jim Hall.

Henry?

Hello, I'm Henry Luke.

Hello, I'm here representing the International League of People's Struggle and Anti-Imperialist Alliance of more than 350 organizations in more than 40 countries across the world.

The ILPS enthusiastically supports the End the Deadly Exchange legislation.

We stand with our member organizations, End the Deadly Exchange and Palestinian, which have been tirelessly advancing this effort.

We stand against 73 years of illegal settler colonial occupation of the foreign sovereign nation of Palestine.

Do we want to learn from war criminals like the Israeli Defense Forces how to police the population of Seattle?

The IDF is recognized by numerous governments and institutions, including the United Nations, as a gross and habitual violator of human rights.

Palestinian civilians are treated as enemy combatants.

I ask the city council, do we sincerely want to teach the SPD how to treat the Seattle population as enemy combatants as ILPS opposes imperialist wars abroad?

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Tim Hall.

Tim is showing as not present.

So we'll go down to, um, Linda Setzer and Linda will be followed by Carly Brooke.

Linda.

Deadly Exchange is a conspiracy theory.

I'm Linda Setzer opposing the Deadly Exchange bill.

Conspiracy theory that attempts to whitewash the history of American racism.

and resulting excessive use of force by police towards black people in an attempt to shift the conversation to disparage Israel.

America has enough of its own racism to explain its problems of police brutality.

The idea that counterterrorism training from Israel is related to police violence towards black people is a dangerous and false conspiracy theory.

The purveyors of anti-Semitism never talk about the end game, talking about the two-state solution or making the Middle East only Arab with no Jewish state.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Carly Brooke, and Carly will be followed by Daniel, I'm sorry, Danielle Alvarado.

Carly?

Carly, I see that you are off mute, so we're halfway there, but we're not hearing you.

Oh, you're back on mute again.

Star six, please.

Good morning.

There you go.

Good morning.

Thank you.

My name is Carly Brooke and I represent the Coalition of Anti-Racist Whites.

We're an organization of 6,000 white residents of the Seattle area and we stand in strong support to end the deadly exchange.

We have mobilized alongside our communities last summer in the uprising to protest police brutality.

And we understand that this is an international crisis of state repression.

And I want to ask the City of Seattle whether we want to be seen as a human rights violator in collaboration with some of the worst purveyors of state violence or we want to be seen as a city that stands for all people's rights to uplift their voices in defense against abuse by the state.

So I really encourage the City of Seattle to all vote against to stand against these exchanges and to support this legislation today.

Thank you.

Thank you, Carly.

Our next speaker is Danielle Alvarado, and Danielle will be followed by Justin Smith.

Good morning.

My name is Danielle Alvarado, and I'm the Executive Director of Working Washington and Fair Work Center, and I'm here in support of the payout policy being discussed today.

The flexibility promised by apps like DoorDash, Instacart, and GoPuff can be a lifeline for many workers.

But there's no reason to let these multibillion-dollar companies get away with paying sub-minimum wages to people just because they rely on that flexibility.

Right now, we have more than 40,000 people in our city working on these apps, but they aren't protected by minimum wage and other basic labor standards just because of who they work for and what they do.

The policy you're hearing about today is the first step to change that and to ensure that gig workers are paid at least minimum wage after expenses, with flexibility, transparency, and other basic protections.

We've changed the ugly history of excluding domestic workers, farm workers, and workers with disability from minimum wage.

We can close this loophole and the exclusion of gig workers from our basic labor standards, too.

Today's a big step forward.

Let's keep up the momentum and make Seattle a national leader on workers' rights once again by ending the exclusion of gig workers from our basic labor standards.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Justin Smith, and Justin will be followed by Emily Bee.

Hi, I'm a former gig worker on Postmates and Uber and a member of the Pay Up campaign.

I'm here because I'm tired of seeing gig work apps manipulate and exploit the law in pursuit of their own profits.

I started doing gig work in 2014 because I needed to make ends meet while working in the non-profit sector.

I don't do gig work anymore, but I do work with job training programs and non-profits across the city and state.

Many, many times I've seen clients in these programs leave support, leave good opportunities, and leave second chances behind because they're sold false promises from these app companies that never pan out into real opportunities with the security of employment that almost every other sector guarantees.

We can change that by holding these app companies accountable, raising and guaranteeing decent pay, and listening to gig workers about their needs, giving them a voice and a seat at the table.

We need the pay-up policy for gig workers in 2021 because it is what is right, it is what is fair, and it is what is equitable.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Emily D.

is showing as not present.

If that changes, we'll come back to Emily.

Next, we'll move on to Carmen Figueroa followed by Michelle Baltzer.

Carmen?

Hello.

On-demand gig workers need lawmakers to standardize pay and set standards for this emerging billion-dollar industry by passing the proposed pay-up policy this legislative year.

I am partially disabled due to a back injury.

The gig industry is the only industry that allows me to set my own hours while working at a pace and intensity that I'm physically comfortable with.

Thousands of people with hidden disabilities depend on gig work.

Gig work is our only source of income.

Gig workers should be afforded the same rights and dignities as traditional employees.

We are trusting lawmakers to pass the payout policy for us because we are not disposable and should not be exploited.

Thank you for your support.

Thank you so much.

Our next speaker is Michelle Balzer followed by Elena Perez.

Michelle.

Michelle, you still need to hit star six to get off mute, please.

Thank you.

Hi, sorry.

So I am also a gig worker.

I work with Instacart and I am here to advocate for the pay and transparency.

And, you know, right now, we don't have a lot of control over things that happen on our orders, such as traffic and busyness and things that are out of stock, we get dinged for that and Instacart really doesn't.

make any kind of concessions for that.

Last week, I didn't order.

It took me 45 minutes to get through just the checkout area.

So that $40 that really was pretty good pay ended up being less than $15, probably like $10 an hour because of that 45 minutes.

That's something I can't control.

And I wasn't able to take another order.

I wasn't able to do anything.

It's essentially time that I'm standing there and not getting paid for.

And that's just not OK. very equal and I think that we need to have a pay fuller.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Elena Perez followed by Kevin Bolt.

Elena.

Good morning.

My name is Elena Perez with Puget Sound Sage here in support of Pay Up.

We have been part of labor community alliances over many years to win groundbreaking campaigns that have made Seattle a national leader in labor standards.

but gig workers on apps like DoorDash, Instacart, and Handy have been excluded from these standards and are still left behind.

Multi-billion dollar gig companies get away with paying as little as $2 a job to the people who do the work.

We have allowed these companies to pay what is effectively a sub-minimum wage for the most marginalized workers who are disproportionately people of color, immigrants, workers with disabilities, LGBTQ folks, and single parents.

It's well past time to close this loophole in our labor standard.

Raising pay and providing basic protection to our lowest paid workers is a key piece of an equitable recovery alongside the PRO Act at the federal level.

Today's hearing on pay flexibility and transparency policies is a great step forward.

Please keep up the momentum and get pay up passed into law.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Kevin Bolt and Kevin will be followed by Aviona Brown.

Kevin.

Kevin, you're on.

There you go.

Yes, good morning.

My name is Kevin Bolt.

I'm a member of the Pay Up campaign.

I am very concerned about stable pay and Instacart platform transparency.

I perform gig work part-time in order to earn supplemental income.

However, lack of platform transparency creates a gig worker uncertainty.

We ask the Seattle Civil Council to pass a pay up policy for gig workers because we need adequate representation.

I want the Seattle Civic Council to focus on stable pay so gig workers may continue to work more effectively.

I really appreciate your time and patience, and thank you very much.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Aviana Brown, and next will be Mary Luzzi.

Aviana?

Hi.

I, too, am a gig worker on Corner Shop and Uber Eats and a member of the Pay Up campaign.

I'm here because I believe the pay up policy will help so many of us alternative work seekers and I want this to be put in action this year.

We can't wait anymore.

I started doing gig work in 2017 because my mom was ill and I absorbed the head of household responsibilities.

I've experienced unwarranted penalties, unrealistic driving expectations from apps assigning seniority to folks who have been logged in longer than I have.

For me, this is the opposite of the purpose of using gig work as income alternative.

For my life, I need to be able to log in to see all the options in front of me at full transparency and choose the deliveries that are going to serve me, not send me 20 miles from my home for low pay that doesn't even equate the gas I now have as an expense to get back home or to my other gig.

We can change that by raising the pay floor and listing full payouts for the available gigs.

We need the pay up policy for gig workers in 2021.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Mary Lucezzi, and Mary will be followed by Patricia Merton.

Looks like Mary is showing is not present, so let's move forward.

If that changes, we'll go back to Mary, but for now, we'll move forward to Patricia Merton, and she'll be followed by Katie Nauerhaus.

Patricia?

You're on mute.

We need to hit star six.

I'm sorry, Patricia.

If you can hear me, please hit star six.

Thank you.

I'm calling in to put the payoff policy.

I work in the gig economy because of ageism and the work travels with me.

I can do Uber Eats and DoorDash anywhere in the country.

I worked in the Seattle area this summer.

At first, I could make $300, and then an algorithm made it possible for me to work the same amount of hours and put in the same amount of gas and only make $200.

I guess they call this throttling.

So I worked all day, every day, for personal reasons.

In six weeks, I put 10,000 miles on my vehicle.

I don't think that I could replace that vehicle with the money that I made.

if I were to be able to sustain that.

As drivers, we genuinely care about our clients, and sometimes we have to take time.

Anyway, so Uber Eats has a tendency to send drivers on erroneous routes, and I feel like if we were paid by the minute, by the mile,

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Katie Narhouse, followed by James Thomas.

Hi.

I'm Katie, and I'm a member of the local SEIU6 for Security and Janitor Services.

When it comes to gig workers, I feel like we have a lot in common.

We're supposed to be out of sight and out of mind until we're needed.

That means the work that we do goes unnoticed, unappreciated, and is quite honestly taken for granted.

That needs to change, and it starts with a minimum wage for everybody with no exceptions.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is James Thomas, and James will be followed by Dan Cortese.

James?

Yeah, so six weeks, 10,000 miles, my experience.

No more jostling for a position on the food chain for hard-working people of color and immigration status.

This enhances the will of cancerous magnitude that once again is being inflicted among people of color and immigrants worldwide who are steadily lying to us.

Oh boy, over and over the same thing.

Never will we be able to afford a justifiable return pension for hard-working people.

Seattle right now gives you the opportunity to regain the fortitude and the way we were back in 2016 when we had 58 cranes in the sky and the whole world was looking upon us as a leader.

This is your opportunity to be a leader and put laws in effect that support everyone, that work hard every day and make them get paid and be able to take care of their families equally as well as other people do.

Thank you so much.

Our next speaker is Diane Cortese, and Diane will be followed by Jason Reeves.

Yes.

Hi, my name is Diane Cortese.

I am for the Pay Up Policy.

I work for Postmates since 2019. I currently work for Uber Eats.

I started through delivery because I needed something that had flexible hours and pay to supplement my only other income with the spousal support, and I support another family member as well.

I fall under the guidelines of DSHS, and basically my rent is pretty much two-thirds of my spouse's report.

So I see offers for order now for about $5 or $6, taking deliveries from the U District to, like, West Seattle, with the cost of gas, car payments, insurance, and all that.

It just doesn't make sense for the distance I'm required.

I also have an injury to my arm right now.

I can't really take off work.

That reflects the instability of the job.

And I just wanted to say that these companies continue to cut our pay.

We're supposed to be essential workers.

However, it's very inequitable page gap, which is not something the city should be known for.

I urge you to increase the flexibility of order and pay what we deserve for every minute worked and travel.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Jason Reeves and he's going to be followed by Carrie Purnell.

Thank you very much.

I've been coming here for the last two years in advocacy for the Pay Up campaign and Pay Standards and Flexibility.

And since I've started coming here, since I've started doing the work, every single year that there is no standard, the app platforms come up with new ways to get more money out of our pockets, more work out of their gig workers, and pay out less this is not hard mathematics when they ask for more time for a uh...

uh...

true diligence what they're asking for is more time so they can figure out better ways to take more money from hard-working Seattleites and Washingtonians this isn't hard stuff let's get this done uh...

we've done this work we're hard-working people we're not trying to do anything crazy pass a pay-up transparency policy.

Thank you.

Thank you, Jason.

Our next speaker is Kerry Purnell, but Kerry is listed as not present.

Again, we will go back through and try folks who were previously listed as not present after we get to the list.

We've just got a few more to go.

Next speaker is Leif Gearing, and Leif will be followed by Kim Wolfe.

Leif?

I am, so I'm an on and off gig worker in the scale area, and I've noticed that there's a big difference between, Uber Eats has, I think, made more progress than the other services, but we still see a lot of services that are just offering horrible pay rates, and a lot of times it can be so bad that it's that unless you have a very efficient car that you're still spending so much on gas that it's not even, you're almost not able to turn across it and it's, and this is just, this needs to be fixed.

I mean, I resent the rest of my time.

Thank you.

Next speaker is Kim Wolf and Kim will be followed by Susan Koppelman.

Kim.

Hi, Kimberly Wolfe.

Regarding the pay-up policy, there's a couple things in here.

You know, I'm a little disappointed that you took the associated time factor from 1.25 down to 1.21, and I don't agree with the removal of the requirement to provide public disclosure of aggregate records.

Hopefully, you will change that to the fact that the OLS can at least aggregate all the companies and give that information to the public.

But generally, I love this.

You've done such a good job.

But I do want to turn your attention to one other thing that hasn't been mentioned much.

There's a very large cohort of gig workers that have disabilities, both obvious and hidden disabilities.

There are other vulnerable groups being economically disadvantaged by the lack of pay standards and a pay floor.

Groups of people who rely on app-based work because regular 9-to-5 work isn't a real option for them Proper compensation for personal service creates economic health in the community.

Thank you, Kim.

Yes, thank you, Kim.

Next, we'll go on to Susan Kopelman, and then we'll go back up to hear from some of the folks who are listed as not present.

Susan.

Good evening.

This is Susan Kopelman.

I join the call of 58 organizations in support of Council Bill 120142. including Care Washington.

Decriminalize Seattle.

Palestiniat.

Jewish Voice for Peace.

Maps Amen.

One America.

Seattle Education Association.

BSA.

Transit Riders Union.

Veterans for Peace.

And Washington for Black Lives.

We call on you to commit to making Seattle safer by supporting an ordinance that will end police exchanges with any country that violates human rights.

It is common sense that the SPD should not train with any country with a pattern of persistent human rights violations.

I appreciate that council members are looking at ways to both simplify and strengthen the legislation.

I hope that council members are able to find a way to clarify legislation while ensuring that the ordinance holds the SPD and any country it trains with to a genuine respect for the humanitarian and human rights and

Thank you, Susan.

Now, just going back up, folks who were listed as not present, who I now see present, we've got Mary Lucchesi.

Mary?

I'm not Mary, but I was asked to unmute.

I'm Dan Cavanaugh.

Go ahead, Dan.

We have Mary also.

Yes, hello?

Sure.

Mary, go ahead and we'll go back to Dan.

I'll mute Mary.

Thank you.

I really appreciate it.

Okay.

Yes.

Hello.

Hi, this is Mary and I am, uh, I work part time and I am a member of pay up, pay up.

And before I was working about 20 hours a week and I was doing Instacart shopping for food and I earned maybe between $350 about a week.

And then I learned about the taxes for driving.

And that's a lot of money that's coming out of my income.

And I feel like they're kind of cheating.

The system is cheating me.

And I'm not getting paid enough.

And my other part-time job, they did increase the pay.

So I've been deciding to focus on that work more.

because I'm able to save more money through it.

And, you know, with this gig worker, I think all gig jobs should be paying the same as the other one.

And so I think this pay up bill is a good one.

Thank you.

Mary.

I know.

Thank you.

I appreciate your patience.

You're welcome.

All right, sounds like I'm unmuted.

My name is Dan Kavanaugh.

I'm a renter in First Tell and an organizer with Socialist Alternative.

And yeah, I just really want to give a big thank you to the hundreds of rank-and-file activists, organizers within the Deadly Exchange, Jewish Voice for Peace, Socialist Alternative, Democratic Socialists of America, and especially Councilmember Sawant's office who have been fighting to ban Seattle police from training with nation states that have violated internationally agreed-upon basic human rights.

And I want to strongly oppose the amendment from Councilmember Herbold that essentially says, well, except the ones that Seattle police has already been training with, like Israel.

It really reminds me of Herbold's amendment weakening the ban on police use of tear gas and crowd control weapons, essentially saying, well, it's up to the police's discretion.

That is a truck-sized loophole.

But it's not just Herbold.

It's the whole Democratic establishment.

who have failed to hold Seattle Police accountable.

And so we urgently need Council Member Sawant's legislation and an elected community oversight board with full powers over the police.

Thank you.

And with that, the other speakers who were listed as not present are still listed as not present.

So we will, with that, end public comment and move into our agenda.

Will the clerk please read in the first agenda item?

Agenda item number one, pay up policy proposal, draft legislation for briefing and discussion.

Thank you so much.

So just a couple of introductory remarks.

I just want to give some background.

As we heard from many folks speaking today, there has been efforts among independent contractors working on this issue for a significant amount of time prior to our beginning a stakeholder process early in June.

So I want to recognize that.

But since we began meeting early in June, my office and staff from other Council offices have met 10 times to hear feedback from over 30 stakeholders, including representatives from network companies, worker advocates, and workers.

On July 13th, Council Central staff reported to this committee updating us on those meetings, basically walking us through the issues that there are decisions that need to be made.

And the topics being discussed and the stakeholder feedback we've received thus far on those broad issues within the context of this policy.

Those stakeholder conversations have informed the draft legislation being discussed today.

And again, when I say draft, I don't just mean pre-amendment.

I mean, this bill has not yet been introduced and we are committed to additional time before introducing this bill and the other bills that will need to be considered along with it.

I want to thank all of the stakeholders who participated in our meetings.

Gathering this much feedback prior to introduction of legislation is very, very helpful.

And I really hope to continue refining the draft prior to introduction which, again, will not occur until after conclusion of the council's budget process.

And with those opening remarks, I'll hand it over to Karina to walk through her presentation.

Good morning, Council Member Herbold and other council members.

I'm glad to be here this morning.

I am Karina from Central Staff, and I'm going to begin by uploading my presentation.

All right, so this is a presentation that I'll be, for the most part, familiar to council members and the public because it is similar to the presentation that I provided in mid-July on the payout proposal.

However, this presentation reflects the council member policy decisions and reflects some changes from the proposal that was discussed in July.

So I will highlight those and I'll go over the proposal fairly quickly since it was already discussed in July.

So to begin the pay it proposal as it is called it would be a suite of labor standards that would offer protections for app-based workers and you see here that there are up to eight categories of protections or seven protections along with an advisory board.

As part of this proposal, there also would be amendments to the independent contractor protections ordinance that was passed last year just to make sure that all of the provisions in that legislation line up and align with the app-based worker proposal.

So probably up to six different pieces of legislation.

And the one that will be discussed this morning is what's called the minimum compensation legislation.

It addresses those top three topics of pay structure, transparency, and flexibility.

So minimum compensation, it would be a creation of a new title in the Seattle Municipal Code, Title 8. So everything in that title would be related to labor standards.

And you'd see here, this is 8.37, so you can go ahead and bookmark that.

And in addition to the three main components of pay structure, transparency and flexibility, the legislation would have the standard labor standard components of notice of rights, record keeping, prohibitions against retaliation, and it would be implemented and enforced by the Office of Labor Standards.

The policy goals of a minimum compensation pay structure would be to set a single pay standard for all businesses to ensure a payment of minimum wage plus with a per mile minute and per mile floor to compensate workers for their time and their expenses.

The types of app-based workers that would be covered would be those providing on-demand or pre-scheduled physical services.

So that would not cover app-based workers that have been deemed to have significant bargaining power and influence over their terms and conditions of work.

And there would be an explicit list created by Office of Labor Standards by rule that would exempt certain types of services that could only be performed with licenses.

And also those that would include creative work and a sale or rental of goods of real estate.

The types of network companies that would be covered would be those that have 250 or more app-based workers worldwide, regardless of where they work.

So the initial policy decisions for these threshold issues include a removal of an exemption for online orders resulting in the payment of $1,000 or more.

And also based on stakeholder feedback, there is a new requirement for OLS or I guess the ability of Office of Labor Standards to engage in discretionary rulemaking on what kind of work constitutes engaged time when it might seem to be like a not work-related activity.

For example, if there's an overnight pet sitting service, the worker might be engaged in sleep times or other periods of off-duty time when they can pursue their own personal activities.

Another example might be overnight home care.

So for those sorts of situations, the OLS director could issue rules on what would compensate or what would rise to the level of compensable time and non-compensable time in those situations.

And Council Member Herbold, I see that you have a question.

It was an error.

I raised and then lowered my hand.

Thank you so much.

I appreciate it.

Understood.

Just as a point of reference, the Department of Labor has issued similar kinds of rules for what constitutes work time for overnight live-in home care workers in the employment context.

So there is precedent for issuing these kinds of rules.

Next, the heart of the legislation, the pay standard for workers, it would be comprised of a minimum pay for each minute that the worker engages in work and also a minimum pay for each engaged mile when there is travel involved.

And there is a formula for that.

The formula for each engaged minute includes the base rate of whatever the minimum compensation is for employees in Seattle, broken down to a per minute standard along with additional pay for expenses that the workers are bearing.

That's called the associated cost factor and a time that they are spending to complete their work that might not be reflected in the actual time that they're engaging in the services.

So I'll provide more information on that as I go through each of these different types of factors.

And then I'll go back and give a 2021 example.

So for the associated cost factor, again, that would be payment for the baseline expenses that are borne by app-based workers.

And the director would have the ability to adjust the associated cost factor in the future after three years.

You see here a list of the type of expenses that the workers are bearing.

It's payroll tax.

contributions to state-paid family medical leave, unemployment compensation, workers' compensation, et cetera.

So when the expenses for those are added up, it comes to a total rate of 1.13.

The time factor, same premise.

It would be payment for the additional working time that a worker needs to engage in to complete the services for the companies.

And you see here what comprises That time, it's time to take rest breaks, time to review offers, time to be available for the next offer, time to complete administrative tasks.

And in total, this results in 12.5 minutes of time.

Two things to note.

First, this is different than the proposal that was discussed in mid-July, which had a total of 15 minutes.

Council members reduced that to 12.5 minutes.

In the presentation that was loaded to the agenda, my error, I noted that it was 11 minutes instead of 12.5.

So this presentation has been revised and I'll be sure to get that revised version to the clerk so that everyone can have that for their records.

Just to note that the council members reduced the time and the area of reviewing offers down from five minutes to three minutes.

and then the time for administrative tasks, and I believe that was three minutes to two minutes.

Altogether, it is a total of 12.5 minutes.

The mileage factor is something that would be added to each engaged mile that the worker has to complete an offer, and it would pay workers for miles that they drive, that are needed to perform the work but might not necessarily be reflected in the time it takes to complete an offer.

So a non-exclusive list of examples could be the 1.25 miles to travel to the next location or 1.25 miles to travel to the place for a rest break or restroom access.

Altogether, it's a mileage factor of 1.25.

So when these factors are plugged into the formula, you can see here that per minute, the 0.28 is the per minute amount to get to the Seattle's minimum wage.

For 2021, that's $16.69 divided by 60 minutes, gets you to 28 cents.

And then that would be, oh, and I see I didn't fix this, so I apologize.

I'm sorry, it'd be 1.21 times 1.13.

And I apologize, I did not update this to reflect the new amounts.

So I will update those and that will reflect the correct per minute of engaged time.

I apologize for that.

Oh, good.

Thank you.

But you do get a sense of the formula that will be required for payment of app based workers.

And then there is also a minimum amount per offer, and that would be at least $5.

Now, no matter how small the service is, the offer would need to at least pay $5.

And then the Office of Labor Standards Director would be able to annually adjust that minimum offer amount, or would have to every year to reflect the rate of inflation.

So here we see a list of the policy decisions in the area of pay structure.

One is that a change of associated time factor from 15 minutes to 12.5 minutes.

And a new requirement for discretionary rulemaking on adjusting the time factor, the director would now have the ability to adjust the associated time factor based on any new information that the director would have that previously was not available to the director.

And then the new requirement for three years before the director can adjust that associated cost factor or the time factor.

The next major component of the legislation is about transparency, making sure that workers and customers have information they need in order to select the offers that they fulfill and customers to know what companies to support so they know what's happening on the ground with their consumer purchases.

The major part of transparency would be the workers' right to upfront information about their offers.

And you can see here a list of what would comprise all of that information.

They'd be able to look at it for at least three minutes.

They would have a best estimate of engaged time and mileage to complete the offer, guaranteed minimum amount of payment, location of works, the physical requirement of work, and then the contents of unsealed products they would receive information when handling contents of unsealed products might pose health risks or violate their own personal beliefs.

Next would be electronic receipts sent to workers and customers within 24 hours of completing those offers, weekly information to the workers on completing their offers and their payment, 14 days of notice before any significant changes to their payment structure, and then a disclosure to Office of Labor Standards of aggregate and disaggregated records of work performed by the workers and the offers made to the workers.

the policy decisions?

Yes.

Council Member Herbold.

Thanks.

I just want to flag just for folks general awareness and correct me if I'm wrong, Karina, that last area of transparency may result in some amendments to the legislation that we recently passed that covers a broader group of contract workers, but is also focused on transparency for contract workers.

Is that correct?

So are you speaking of the disclosure to Office of Labor?

Oh, okay.

There's just the word disclosure.

I see how that led to your question.

So number five relates to- No.

Oh, no.

The legislation that the council passed, I guess, was it May or June for the transparency rights of contracted workers?

that ordinance covered a broader group of contracted workers than the one that we're talking about today in this bill.

And there may need to be some amendments to that ordinance in order to accomplish the goals, the transparency goals in this ordinance.

Is that correct?

Yes, yes, absolutely.

Writ large, I thought you were referring to number five on that list, but yes.

But yeah, go ahead, Karina.

Yeah, absolutely that the independent contractor protections ordinance will need amendments to make sure that these two laws align with each other and that ordinance is much broader.

However, it does have some components that were.

drafted with the intention of covering the experiences of app-based workers.

And so these two pieces of legislation have different requirements for the company.

So there will need to be some amendments.

Perfect.

But now that you mention it, can we talk a little bit more about item five?

since we did hear some mention of it in public comment.

And can you talk a little bit about the question of the aggregate and or disaggregated effort offers on the offers facilitated by the worker platform and what was not included in this particular policy preference expressed by the draft ordinance?

Yeah, so the original proposal would have required the companies to provide public disclosure.

So some sort of website or place that the companies would share with the world aggregated information on offers facilitated on its on its worker platform, a whole host of information about worker in earnings and and other items.

And so the change to this is that instead of the companies providing that information to the public, the companies would provide that information directly to OLS in both aggregated and disaggregated format, which would provide OLS with a tremendous opportunity to use that information to learn more about what's happening in the world of app-based work and also to use it for their enforcement and they could manipulate that to help inform their implementation and enforcement efforts.

And then that information could still be requested as part of a public disclosure request by the public, but it wouldn't be made directly to the public in the way that it was in the initial proposal.

Notably, the same structure of companies providing the Office of Labor Standards with a wide range of data mirrors the records requirement and the transportation network company minimum compensation ordinance that's required to pay rideshare drivers minimum compensation as well.

So there is precedent for this idea.

It already exists for TNCs and rideshare drivers and their offer data.

This would pretty much mirror it for app-based workers.

Thank you so much.

Yeah, so you see those policy decisions there.

see if there's anything else that we haven't already discussed.

Okay, so number one, the initial proposal had a requirement to provide businesses with electronic receipts after each offer was completed.

That requirement has been removed along with the requirement to provide workers with annual and quarterly tax information.

And then the change to the public disclosure that was required of companies that was just discussed.

Just as it relates to the first policy decision, I want to flag the decision to not have that be a requirement is not a comment on whether or not it's a good idea or a bad idea.

It just does not fit within the scope of this ordinance, which is not focused on the rights of third-party businesses, but is focused on the rights of contract workers.

There may be another place where we want to consider inclusion of a requirement like this.

And then the final major policy piece of this legislation regards flexibility and the workers' ability to freely choose jobs, reject jobs, and be able to do work that fits their schedule, especially as they are categorized as independent contractors.

So this list itemizes the flexibility requirements.

No requirements to be logged onto the platform for specific dates or times.

no adverse action based on availability, right to cancel an offer with cause, and so on.

No policy decisions in that area, which brings this presentation to next steps.

There are still a number of issues for further consideration awaiting feedback from stakeholders and Office of Labor Standards, and those would include the effective date of the law, making sure to allow Office of Labor Standards sufficient time to develop rules and implementation and outreach, and for the companies to develop their methods for complying with this ordinance as well.

Next, joint liability for end consumer.

This topic addresses situations where There's questions about would the consumer ever be responsible for compliance with this ordinance, whether it be the payment that's made to the worker or information that's required of the customer or required of the company to give the worker about physical, requirements of an offer or contents of unsealed products.

So the way the legislation is written right now is that it does not definitively say whether the end consumer would be responsible for compliance.

It's open-ended and it would be determined on a case-by-case basis.

It's sort of standard language in employment law for employees for joint liability.

It's whether an entity is directly or indirectly accountable or responsible for controlling the worker.

And so that's what's in this legislation right now.

So it would be no definitive statement on the end consumer.

However, the independent contractor protections ordinance has definitive language that does not hold the end consumer responsible for compliance.

So it's sort of related to amending that law, but there could be a decision on either to definitively say something in this law or to amend the other law to remove that language.

At any rate, they should be consistent.

Why would we want to hold a consumer responsible?

Anybody listening, this is definitely not something I want to be the subject of an email campaign from Uber Eats or Instacart users on.

I don't think that is the intent.

to hold the users of these apps responsible for the actions of the apps.

I'm concerned.

Are you just flagging that this is something that is undefined, or would there be a policy reason to have joint liability?

Well, there could be a benefit to leaving it open-ended, and depending on the nature of legal protection, there could be reason for end consumers to be responsible.

Currently for the Domestic Worker Rights Ordinance, there is open language that doesn't say it's got the acting indirectly or directly language that this law has, and Office of Labor Standards has interpreted it as holding an end consumer responsible for complying with the Domestic Worker Bill of Rights.

One might imagine in this sort of instance, if an end consumer is paying a company to deliver a service and that consumer doesn't have input into what is paid to the workers, like going into a store and buying a shirt, that consumer doesn't have any impact on what the company pays the worker to sell that shirt.

However, there are some situations, some laws where the end consumer could influence how the worker is treated.

for example, thinking of discrimination and harassment, or in the context of domestic workers, perhaps interfering with the ability of the worker to take a meal break or to take a rest break.

So it would depend on each kind of law.

And so my understanding is that Office of Labor Standards is concerned that if there's different language and different laws, then that could negatively impact their interpretation of domestic worker bill of rights.

And there are situations where domestic workers could be hired via an app.

And so that is something to consider.

Understood.

How is the TNC legislation handle this issue of joint liability?

Without looking at it, my sense is that it probably has that same open-ended language of acting indirectly or directly.

Yeah.

struggling, you know, with the exception of something that happens directly in between the consumer and the worker.

I'm struggling to imagine a scenario where the end consumer has responsibility for how the app treats the worker.

But like I said, with the exclusion of something that actually happens in the interaction between for that short period of time when you're having that interaction.

But appreciate you flagging the issue.

And the question is whether or not to definitively say anything about it, or just to leave it as is and to allow Office of Labor Standards to develop policy guidance and information to the community, which could consist of Office of Labor Standards is not going to as a policy decision to not prioritize any sort of enforcement action against a consumer or how they would analyze that situation.

So something to consider.

Yeah.

The third issue for further consideration is definitions and categories of types of offers.

And there's been feedback that from Office of Labor Standards that the categories of on-demand versus pre-scheduled offers could be, they're so very precise, especially for the pre-scheduled types of offers, that it could lead to inefficient enforcement if they would be required to go into every single offer for an entire company and hundreds of workers and multiple offers.

completed each day to determine, is it this kind of offer or that kind of offer?

So there's some thought that maybe could be done on maybe ways to shore up these definitions to make them more broad or more efficient.

Another idea could be to amend the recordkeeping requirements.

So to require the companies to provide Office of Labor Standards with spreadsheets that would categorize how these offers are of what sort of category they fall into.

So Office of Labor Standards wouldn't have to do that work.

The company would do it for them and they would be required to provide those kinds of records.

Another idea could be for the receipts to workers to have that information.

It's this kind of offer or that kind of offer.

weekly statements to have that kind of information as well.

So there are a variety of ideas for helping to make enforcement easier for Office of Labor Standards and to help workers understand what rights they have and what payment is owed.

Next is a notice of contents of unsealed products.

Right now there is a requirement for notice of those.

contents when there might be a possibility of those contents violating religious, I'm sorry, violating personal beliefs.

Someone might not want to transport a particular kind of item.

That is quite broad.

So there is already precedent in employment law that employers are required to provide religious accommodations.

And so that could be something to consider.

perhaps replacing the concept of might violate personal beliefs with might violate religious beliefs.

And then that would have a whole body of law to help companies and workers navigate those kinds of situations.

And it would be narrower.

So that would be the result of that.

Other issues for further consideration regard enforcement.

Right now, the law allows Office of Labor Standards to designate a minimum daily amount for money that is owed to the workers if the company doesn't provide sufficient records to make a precise determination on that remedy.

It would like or could help Office of Labor Standards to at least set a floor for a minimum amount that would be required for that.

For example, I believe the TNC ride share minimum compensation ordinance has a minimum daily amount of $200.

This legislation also would have a complaint procedure similar to the independent contractor protections ordinance.

It right now is very open-ended.

If there's an interest in having specific protocols, then that is something for council members to consider.

The enforcement section also has a navigation program, also something that is an independent contractors protection ordinance.

This is basically an office of labor standards outreach program that provides information to workers on court procedures and court systems.

So they choose to use that form for resolving complaints and beliefs that they have not been paid properly.

Council members might want to include information on private arbitration as part of that program, given that many workers are required to settle disputes through private arbitration.

Something to consider.

It wouldn't be legal advice.

It would just be simply information on how to navigate private arbitration systems.

And then next, potentially a number of amendments to an independent contractor protections ordinance since the pre-contract and disclosures and payment disclosures are different than, a little bit different and similar than what is required in this legislation and do cover out-based workers.

So then as far as future stakeholder meetings, As I understand it, there will be meetings to address all of the different pieces of legislation.

You see here a possible way to organize them, minimum compensation, right to access work, that would be deactivation and background checks, access to restrooms, the establishment of an advisory board, protections against discrimination and right to reasonable accommodations, and then amendments to the independent contractor legislation.

And that is all for the presentation.

Thank you, Karina.

I'm wondering, could you just real quickly talk a little bit about the topic of I have a feeling it will come up again, and this is relating to discussion around an off health of payment for engaged miles at the IRS standard mileage rate.

draft legislation includes the use of the IRS standard mileage rate with some question about whether or not we could allow for a possible opt-out because of a belief that drivers may not be able to itemize their deductions with the, when filing with the IRS, if this language was left in.

So just wondering if you could cover that issue.

That issue came up in stakeholder meetings, whether or not workers would benefit from the ability to opt out of payment for their engaged miles.

And that payment would be at the standard IRS mileage rate, which is 56 cents per mile.

And I'm going to scroll back semi-slowly back to the formula to give you an idea of when that would be applied.

And more research would be helpful for helping council members make this determination.

Initially, my understanding is that payment from companies is simply payment.

And so the way that the companies get to how much they pay would be established by this ordinance, which is kind of like a wage and hour issue is one way of thinking it.

And then when workers get that payment, then they would be free to choose whether to do standard deductions or itemized deductions or do no deductions.

And that would be an IRS tax issue.

So my understanding is that workers would not be precluded from deducting their expenses if they get paid for those expenses theoretically via this pay standard.

And so that still needs to have more research, but that is something that's not listed on here, but that is happening behind the scenes to gather more information.

Thank you, Karina.

Are there any other questions from members?

Looking for any raised hands.

Not seeing any.

I'll just...

I don't hear from anybody.

Thank you.

I appreciate the efforts of external stakeholders, the efforts of the office of labor standards to be engaged in the development of this draft We will be continuing stakeholder conversations to discuss this proposed minimum compensation flexibility and transparency legislation.

three or four bills associated with the recommendations.

And the stakeholder process and development of the policy and introduction will likely, on the schedule that we're on, continue into the new year.

And I recognize that our Folks who are associated with Working Washington, the Pay Up Campaign, are really hoping that we have a full vote before the end of the year.

My goal is to introduce the primary bill, the bill that handles the issue of minimum compensation, FlexPay.

flexibility and transparencies to have that introduced by the end of the year.

And just want to make sure, I mean, really, this is sort of a check-in with committee members, just so that when these bills are moving forward, that you are comfortable with the concepts that we're making some preliminary decisions on in this draft bill, so that when something is introduced, you will be familiar with the concepts.

if not supportive of the decisions made, but familiar enough with the concepts so that if you feel that a different policy choice should be made on some of these concepts that you are well-informed on them.

I just want to kind of close out with something I read on Labor Day from a Seattle Times reporter.

John Talton, and he was writing in recognition of Labor Day about the impact of the growing prevalence of gig work and impediments to organized labor.

And he wrote, it will take time for the pendulum to swing back to more fairness.

Seattle will be a good place to watch what happens.

And I just want to say to councilmembers and the public that I hope that we can continue to make that so as we have in the past with the development of this policy.

Thank you all.

Moving on to the next item on the agenda, will the clerk please read in agenda item number

Agenda item number two, pre-filing diversion racial equity toolkit report for adults 25 years old and older for briefing and discussion.

Thank you so much.

I really appreciate that the city attorney's office is joining us today, as well as the attorney, Pete Holmes.

Thank you so much for making time in your busy day to brief us in committee.

I'll have some opening remarks, but perhaps if we could first just do quick introductions from the presenters, that would be appreciated.

Sure.

I'm Pete Holmes, your city attorney.

Good morning.

I'm Jenna Robert.

that an assistant city attorney doing our pre-filing diversion work.

And I'm Deja Vestas.

I'm from 218. Great.

Thank you so much.

So some quick background.

Since 2017, the city attorney's office has operated a pre-filing diversion program for adults aged 18 to 24. The key focus of today's presentation is the Racial Equity Toolkit for Expanding the Pre-Filing Diversion Program to Adults 25 and Older.

Council requested this as a statement of legislative intent adopted with the 2020 budget sponsored by Council President Gonzalez.

And like many things in the city, this has taken additional time due to the impact of the COVID pandemic.

But I am so pleased that the city attorney's office has been working with the city attorney's office due diligence and attention to this priority.

Work on these issues dates back to the establishment in 2015 by the City Council of a Prisoner and Community Corrections Reentry Work Group, which issued its final report in October 2018. And we're going to hear not just the outcome of the pre-filing racial equity toolkit on the expansion of pre-filing diversion for adults 25 and older, but we'll also hear from Dacia a little bit of an update on the success of the existing program, Choose 180, A community report was issued during the spring, sort of an annual report, and due to time constraints, we weren't able to hear that in committee, so we'll touch on that as well.

Just want to mention that, you know, in my, the first point I made was a reference to the existing pre-filing diversion program, and I described it as the program for adults age 18 to 24. I want to just, I want to, suggest that even though that age of folks is maybe considered adults, that from what we know about brain development, that this is a population of folks who really benefit from prefiling diversion because of their youth.

But that said, we have learned a lot of really important lessons about this program that is focused on young people.

And I'm really optimistic that some of those lessons learned show that this is a good program for older folks as well.

So with that, I will turn it over to our guests.

Thank you, Councilmember Herbold.

It's great to see you, Council President Gonzalez, virtually, albeit, but it's really an honor to be able to speak here today.

I do want to keep my remarks really, really short because you want to hear about the meat of the program from Jenna and Deja.

I just want to reiterate what you said.

We do go back to 2017 when, thanks to city council, you provided the funding so that we could start this prefiling diversion program.

And it was dedicated from the beginning to be in partnership with community.

And you're going to see today from Jenna and Dave that this has been a resounding success.

The fundamental goal of the program is to reduce disproportionate impact that the criminal legal system has had on BIPOC communities and to provide individuals to receive support opportunities, support from the community by way of diversion in a way that simultaneously increases public safety.

And you're going to hear from the pre-filing diversion team lead, Jenna, and hear about the efforts, our efforts, office-wide to minimize these impacts, the negative impacts of the criminal legal system.

This team, I'm proud to say, was an active member of the reentry work group, as you pointed out.

And it was instrumental in the council's repeal of the loitering crimes.

The team represents my office on the criminal justice equity team.

and on the jail use review team.

And it looks at ways to decrease the criminal legal system's reliance on incarceration.

The same team partnered with the cities and counties for fine and fee justice grant and which has led us to present working on creating a victim's compensation fund and driver's license reforms.

The team is a member of the Community Organized Washington Drivers Relicensing Task Force, and that was active in the legislative reform efforts around driving while license suspended in the third degree.

And that, in turn, led to the Supreme Court issuing an order to pause license suspensions during the pandemic.

This team has also worked on a number of efforts related to clearing old warrants not covered by the warrant sunset policy.

And it includes a motion that Jenna submitted just last week asking the court to clear warrants for prostitution cases, some of which were issued as far back as the early 2000s.

So I'm going to close by saying that this program really just captures the essence of everything that's near and dear to me.

I think it's so important to this city and its efforts to reduce disproportionality in the criminal legal system.

And I'm asking you and thanking you for your support and asking you to expand it.

None of this work, though, let's be really clear, would be possible without the community that guided the work and the nonprofit community partners who are actually doing the work.

And I just have to say once again that Choose 180 has been a godsend.

Thank you, Council, for funding the Racial Equity Toolkit to look at this program, to expand it for young adults, older, 25 and older.

And, you know, the amazing thing is you should take credit.

You sought this funding two weeks before George Floyd was murdered.

I think that that's something you should all keep in mind.

It demonstrates your foresight and the partnership that we have had to try and advance the cause of social justice in this city and beyond.

I want to acknowledge that this work wouldn't have happened, it won't be happening, frankly, the work that we're talking about now, the expansion while I'm in office.

We're talking about work that's going to hopefully start next year, and we're not even sure who's going to be leading this office at this point.

But I'm committed, and that's why I'm here today, to make sure that the tool is available, the expanded tool.

And I would just add as a closing comment that even for people who disagree with diversion as a principle, Our numbers show that the thousands deep backlog of cases that are the direct result of the pandemic, we need this tool.

To the haters out there, and there are haters out there, I just want to reemphasize that our numbers, our data show the program is effective.

and that we are simply not going to work our way through a thousands deep criminal case backlog without programs like this.

So thank you.

I promise I'll try to keep it brief.

I want to turn it over to Jenna again.

Let me just close by saying Jenna is exactly the kind of public servant that personifies the dedication to justice and public safety.

We can do both.

And Jenna, I'm going to turn it over to you.

I'm going to miss working with you.

Thanks.

Thank you, Pete, and thank you, Council.

To date, the City Attorney's Office stewards three pre-filing diversion programs, the Mainstream Young Adult Program in partnership with Choose 180, a Family Domestic Violence Young Adult Program in partnership with Gay City, and a relicensing program in partnership with Legacy of Equality Leadership and Organizing otherwise known as LELO.

Today we're here to focus on the mainstream diversion programs which include the Choose 180 program and the yet to be developed adult diversion program for individuals over 25 and older for which we just concluded our racial equity toolkit.

We're going to focus most of today's presentation on the racial equity toolkit regarding expansion of diversion to adults But I think it's helpful to the expansion conversation to first hear about the model of diversion that we're talking about in partnership with community.

So at this point, it's my pleasure to turn it over to Daisha Mestiz, CHOOSE 180's workshop coordinator, to provide more information about how CHOOSE has been supporting young people, especially during these tough times.

Hi, everyone.

So during COVID, we only had to take a month off, and then we were able to quickly shift our workshops to an online platform.

And we were able to provide laptops to the young adults that we were working with.

Or if they were experiencing homelessness, we were able to meet them in a park setting outside.

That way, we could go through our curriculum with them, which consists of a goal-setting exercise that we call the compass.

And once they are done with the workshop and they get their charge diverted, we're able to connect them with an aftercare specialist that does things like mentorship or help them search and apply for jobs.

And we also received a grant where we were able to...

been incarcerated or have some involvement in the system so we're able to relate to them in that way and they have said they feel heard and we also have a counselor they're able to go see for free so we get a lot of people that want to stay connected to us after our workshops and we're able to help them out.

Thank you so much, Daisha.

I think the real thing that, you know, we're talking about here with Pete and Daisha is this partnership that we have.

The beauty of it is really the partnership with community and it allows community to support the young people that have gone through the program in a way that they are, you know, choosing to continue to work with Jews.

The design of the program is really to give them all these extended supports that they can take advantage of and they continue to do that.

And we have young people work with Choose 180 for months even into years.

So I think this is a really great program that we're very excited to be working with Choose 180 on.

And we see a lot of opportunity for expanding this type of partnership with community to allow this kind of opportunity for people ages 25 and above.

So as we talked about in 2018 the re-entry work group recommended expanding the pre-filing diversion as one of its core strategies.

Our office was in full support of this recommendation and we're thankful that council provided funding for us to undergo that racial equity toolkit.

In the winter of 2021 we partnered with Baker Consulting who hosted a total of seven focus group sessions with two different groups of community members.

The groups consisted of community members well-known and trusted in BIPOC communities.

Various experiences were represented, including lived experience going through the criminal legal system, program design and management experience, youth advocates, and those who work with formerly incarcerated individuals, and those who currently and formally worked in the criminal legal system, including probation, court operations, legal defense, and prosecution.

The focus group participants met virtually, and the final report contains several recommendations, a few that I want to highlight today.

Number one that diversion should be as broad as possible when it comes to charges that are eligible with many people calling to divert all but the most serious crimes.

Number two that we must eliminate barriers to diversion that maintain disproportionality such as criminal history exclusion arbitrary referrals to diversion and financial barriers.

Number three that the diversion program must be designed and delivered by community.

And number four that services must focus on healing centered engagement and restorative practices.

Over the years in partnership with Choose 180 we have met these recommendations with the Young Adult Program and we strive to be able to create this opportunity for individuals 25 and older.

It should be noted that there was a significant perspective among some community members calling for abolition of the criminal legal system.

for decriminalization of many offenses except the most serious.

The Pre-Filing Diversion Program is designed to help individuals receive the supports they need to thrive.

92% of the young adults who have completed the Choose 180 program have not had another criminal conviction.

We are eager to expand community-owned diversion opportunities to individuals of all ages, and we hope that funding will be made available to expand the program beginning next year.

I welcome any questions or comments.

Thank you so much.

Are there any questions or comments from my colleagues?

President Gonzalez, I see you're coming off mute.

Sure.

On camera, I should say.

Yeah, yeah.

Thanks so much.

Really appreciate an opportunity to have this conversation.

I know we had intended to hear from you all sooner, and of course the agenda got away from us and we didn't have an opportunity, but I wanted to start off by just publicly expressing my appreciation and gratitude for the public service of City Attorney Pete Holmes, who has been our city attorney for many, many years here at the city.

And Pete, I really want to acknowledge, I know you've given us credit for advancing the funding for this program, but I first started talking to you about your vision around recidivism programming and really, truly a harm reduction approach to Prosecutorial work in 2014 when I was legal counsel to the then mayor and.

You know, you didn't you didn't get the funding that you envision and wanted then and I was lucky enough to be elected to the city council in 2015 and you and I got to work pretty early on on.

championing and envisioning what this program could look like.

And we all pushed ourselves to really center racial equity and have that analysis in the center of this work to really produce the outcomes that we're talking about now.

But I do want to give you a tremendous amount of credit for leading the way together with community on making these investments in the first place and on creating the foundation That is that is necessary to really truly address the root causes of why young folks become engaged with the criminal system to begin with.

And I think that.

You have acknowledged together with our community partners that the response.

of government is not to just continue to engage in failed policy of incarceration, but to really truly understand the root causes of what is creating this behavior and to invest in solutions to those root causes and to divert youth towards a life of understanding that we, the city, care about their livelihood and their belonging within our city.

So I want to thank you, Pete, for all of the work that you've done together with Choose 180 and others within the city attorney's office to really bring us to a place where I think we should all be proud of the results that we're talking about here.

This is the really important and hard work that is not always popular, as you mentioned, but should be.

This is really, really a good standard, and I'm really proud to be able to continue to champion these efforts.

together with you and with our partners over at Choose 180. So congratulations on really good work, and we will miss your public service and your stewardship of these programs on the inside, but I have no doubt that you will continue to advocate and push us as a city to continue to do more in this space.

So thank you so much for an opportunity to make those remarks.

Thank you so much, Council President Gonzalez.

It takes a village.

I'll just say that and we couldn't have done it alone.

So thank you.

Thank you.

I'll hand it over to Councilmember Lewis, who I want to just also thank him for his role in the work around Choose 180. I remember, I think it was in 2000, maybe 2019, I had the privilege of watching Councilmember Lewis conduct a choose 180 session and just recognize that he has done some hands-on work on these types of diversion programs as well.

Thank You councilmember Herbold, I'm actually the next panel presenter.

So thanks for introducing me.

No, I'm just kidding No, I I appreciate I think that was in the fall of 2018 And that is a good segue I was not moonlighting as they choose 180 session coordinator as a council member that this job keeps us busy enough, but I did just want to take a moment to briefly talk about, I guess I'll just start since you've queued it up this way, how exceptionally formative that work with Choose 180 was to my own conceptions and ideas about how justice can and should work.

And the ability to be hands-on and really see the potential of so many people in our community to rise above and shape and form a new system of collective accountability that is completely separate from courts and police and a carceral system really shows that we can do something different.

and that our unchallenged preconceptions about how justice is administered, both in this country and abroad, is not how things have to be, and that there are models that are successful in providing results.

And I think what we've seen now from the preliminary stage of this program over the last three years is we now have data that confirms that.

It's not just something that we're saying or something we're aspiring to.

We have data that shows how we can scale certain practices, particularly in our misdemeanor practice here in the city.

I know it's not widely understood necessarily that the Seattle City Attorney's Office only adjudicates misdemeanors.

There has been fairly widespread confusion about that in a lot of quarters.

But I do think that it really shows how there's a lot of advantages that I think we have in the city from having a system that primarily intersects and deals with misdemeanors.

where this kind of experimentation can start having a demonstrable impact and effect specifically on those types of offenses in a different and innovative way.

And I do just want to say it was a really great privilege, Pete, to be an assistant city attorney that helped pioneer this program under Jenna's leadership over my years of service in your office.

And I look forward to that continuing, becoming a larger part of our practice and becoming a cornerstone of how we do this work.

So thank you so much.

Thank you, Councilmember Lewis.

I have one question.

Since we are going to be moving into the budget cycle deliberations very soon, it's September 27th where the mayor releases her proposed 2022 city budget.

I'm not going to ask you if you know what's in it.

I am interested to know whether or not the city attorney's office put forward a request for the expansion of this program for the 2022 budget.

We did.

Thank you.

There's some support in there.

All right.

I'll leave it at that.

We'll take a finer look after that budget is proposed, but happy to know that you did put in a request and we'll have the opportunity to see what that request is and compare it to what's actually in the budget.

So that's great.

Thank you.

This is really bittersweet for me to have you with us.

Pete, really enjoyed working with you for so, so many years prior to your becoming city attorney, when former council member Nicola caught up with you on the precursor to the Community Police Commission, the OPARB, the Office of Professional Accountability Review Board.

so many years ago and your commitment to criminal system reform is unparalleled for the city attorney's office and really right up there with the top small number of people that I've had a privilege to work with over the years.

So thank you so much.

for your leadership on so many things.

And specific to our discussion today, thank you for your leadership on this effort.

Council Member Herbold, we go way back.

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

That really touches me.

But I don't want to get emotional here.

So I'm going to, any more than I already am.

But thank you.

Sounds like a good time to segue to the next issue.

Thank you so much.

All right, so will the clerk please read in agenda item number three?

Agenda item number three, Council Bill 120142, an ordinance relating to the Seattle Police Department, prohibiting training, exchanges, and partnerships with certain governments, and adding a new section, 3.28.141, to the Seattle Municipal Code for briefing, discussion, and possible vote.

Thank you so much.

Just a couple quick opening remarks before I turn it over to central staff.

Before I turn it over to central staff, I want to provide the sponsor, Councilmember Sawant, with the opportunity to speak to the proposal.

But before doing so, I just want to thank the members of the public who've been advocating both in favor of this legislation as well as folks who have made, I think, hopefully some productive critique of the legislation as originally conceived, as opposed to the bill that's before us today.

I really also appreciate, among the folks who are proponents, the patience that people have had.

We have had public comment in nearly every public forum and human services committee meeting over the last few months, so at the beginning of the meeting, as well as the public comment in full council as well, urging this committee to take up this legislation.

So I want to thank you for your many, many hours of public testimony thus far and your patience in getting us to this point.

And with that, Council Member Sawant.

Thank you, Council Member Herbold.

And good morning to everyone and everyone who's watching or listening to this meeting.

My council office has worked closely with a wide range of Union and community members and Black Lives Matter and Palestinian rights activists to develop this legislation to ban the Seattle Police Department from engaging in training with states or state agencies and nation states or nation state agencies that are international human rights violators.

And I wanted to thank all the activists from Inter-Deadly Exchange, Palestinian Socialist Alternative, Democratic Socialists of America, Jewish Voice for Peace, and special thanks to the rank-and-file members of Seattle Education Association, who put forward a resolution in their representative assembly, which passed with an overwhelming majority and this is the second time I'm having the privilege of thanking the Seattle Education Association this way because as council members will recall SEA members played a critical role for us to win the renters' rights legislation from my office to ban school-year evictions of public school workers and school students.

And so this type of rank-and-file-led union activity is so crucial in putting forward a progressive agenda and then winning it.

This legislation before the Public Safety Committee today would ban Seattle police from training or having any exchange with police forces, intelligence agencies, security services, or other armed forces of any nation.

violating the Geneva Conventions of the United Nations, or the International Bill of Human Rights, which together form the basic humanitarian standards that have been agreed upon internationally over the last 70 plus years.

This follows city council resolutions committing to uphold civil and human rights, and in fact, not passing this legislation in its form, without watering it down, without introducing ambiguities, would directly contradict these past City of Seattle resolutions and long-standing City of Seattle policy.

Some of the opponents have claimed that this ordinance unjustly singles out the State of Israel, but it does not, as any plain reading of our bill shows.

The bill bans training with the military, police, intelligence agencies, or security forces of any state that has been found to violate these basic human rights standards.

And it should be mentioned also that, one, that these are very basic, fundamental human rights standards.

It's not something that is over and above what is agreed upon by mainstream organizations throughout the world.

And of course, this ban would apply to Seattle police engaging in training with Israeli state forces, which the SPD has done in the past, because these are state forces who have been responsible for brutalizing the Palestinian people for decades and who were roundly condemned worldwide by labor unions, faith communities, including Jewish communities, human rights groups, progressive organizations of every kind, and governments this past spring for their brutal and disproportionate military assault on the people of Gaza, their attempted eviction of Palestinians from their homes in East Jerusalem, and their instigation of violent right wing mobs.

And also, I would have the public recall the letter that council members Mosqueda and Horvold joined me in sending to the US Congress and to President Biden denouncing the Israeli state's violations of human rights.

So I really appreciate that.

We know that the Israeli state has been found by organizations such as Amnesty International and by Israeli human rights, mainstream human rights organizations like B'Tselem to have found to have repeatedly violated the Geneva Conventions and B'Tselem especially has detailed systemic human and political rights violations in their important report that was titled This is Apartheid.

But ordinance applies across the board.

And if there are other nation states that violate such basic international human rights laws, such as the Geneva Conventions, as the Geneva Conventions, as the Israeli state has done, then of course, the SPD would be banned from training with them too.

And I would also share that this summer, my office circulated in the community a petition calling on such a ban.

And the response was remarkable.

Within the first 48 hours, more than 800 community members had signed.

Just wanted to quickly share one or two comments from the people, you know, because these are voices of our constituents and it's important to include that in our discussion.

Martin, a union member of the International Order of Masters, Mates, Pilots, and a Central District resident wrote, Geneva Convention violators have no place in our community.

Is Seattle a police state city affiliated with the worst in human rights offenders or a city with standards and justice?

Catherine, a member of SEIU 775 from the University District wrote, these kinds of tactics are inexcusable.

Our police are already too militarized.

Cops precipitate violence by using these sorts of aggressive tactics.

And Christian, a member of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, Local 289, wrote, simply, our community is not a war zone.

The increasing levels of militarization of our police force has been ongoing post-9-11 and has only gone to endanger our people and create fear, mistrust, and anger towards the very people we are supposed to trust.

And then the comment goes on to talk about the violations of the Geneva Convention, but I won't go on.

But shockingly, right now, there are no restrictions in Seattle law on Seattle police engaging in such training.

And that's why this legislation is necessary.

And of course, it is appropriate that this is coming in the wake of the historic George Floyd protests.

And I hope that council members will see this legislation as part of the work that basically every council member has pledged to do in responding to the demand from the Black Lives Matter movement.

I do have comments on Councilmember Herbold's amendment, but I will reserve them for when we come to the discussion on the amendment.

Thank you.

Thank you so much, Council Member Sawant.

I think you, in your introductory remarks, raised an important part of background that I want to be transparent with the public about.

This version of the bill seeks to identify verifiable human rights violations using a nation-neutral standard.

The earlier version of the legislation before it was introduced was a piece of legislation that exclusively banned exchanges, trainings, and partnerships with Israel.

And I informed the proponents of this legislation that I was uninterested in introducing a piece of legislation that called out a particular country and really appreciate their efforts to work to fulfill my goals for this legislation.

Although I'm not the sponsor, I am the chair of this committee, and they understood that my willingness to put this on an agenda in my committee was tied to that.

to that particular criteria and objective.

And so with that, I will hand it over to central staff to walk us through the bill.

Thank you, Madam Chair and members of the committee.

Good morning.

Greg Doss, Council Central Staff.

And I'm here with my new colleague, Anne Gorman, who is going to be giving her first central staff presentation today.

And I'm going to provide a quick overview of this bill.

And then I'm going to turn it over to Anne to provide some analysis on the bill and then together we are going to go over a couple of amendments that are proposed on the bill.

So just by way of introduction, this bill, Council Bill 120142, would prohibit SPD training with certain foreign governments, as Council Member Sawant articulated very well.

It does so in a manner that would prohibit exchanges, partnerships with military forces or police forces or intelligence agencies or security services or armed forces of any country.

and prohibiting travel to any foreign country that meets three different categories.

One that is not a party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and another that is not a party to the International Covenant on Economic and Social and Cultural Rights.

That's sort of the first bucket or category.

The second one is that it has been found – the country has been found in the last 10 years by an international court or United Nations body to have been violating either of those two covenants that I just mentioned.

Or third, and the last bucket is, that it has been documented by an international court or UN body to have committed violations of the Fourth Geneva Convention or that has not And that such violations have not been fully remedied to the satisfaction of that court or the body that documented those violations.

And so if a country fits into any one of those three categories, then SPD could not train with them.

or actually, in a much wider way, couldn't coordinate exchanges or potentially even communicate in any training capacity with them.

So with that, I'm going to turn it over to my colleague, Anne, who will tell you about some really good, extensive work that she has done analyzing this bill and its effect on training with SPD in the context of human rights and international law, which I think you'll find from what Anne says is not that easy to understand.

So go ahead, Anne, please.

Thanks.

Thank you, Greg.

Thank you, Madam Chair and committee members.

In researching this bill and international human rights law and treaties more generally, we unearthed a couple of policy considerations for committee members in thinking about this bill.

It could be difficult for SPD staff to determine the countries that have violated the ICCPR and IESCR and or the Fourth Geneva Convention, or to determine if any country had remedied violations that have been found in the past.

The reason for this is that there is no publicly available list of countries that have violated these treaties or this convention, or that have remedied previously identified violations.

There is something called the UN Jurisprudence Database, but its output is PDF documents, not data, not yes, this country has made a violation or no, this country has not made a violation, which is what SPD would need in order to apply the legislation as currently written.

The second consideration is that these treaties, the ICCPR and IASCR, are not the only measures of a country's human rights practices.

Both of those treaties were established in 1966. And since then, the United Nations has created eight additional treaty bodies, each of which has a very specific purview with respect to human rights.

And each of these treaties addresses subjects or aspects of human rights about which the IESCR and ICCPR were silent.

So that's just a consideration.

Those two documents may not identify everything that we're interested in identifying.

And finally, as Greg started to talk about, the broad language in a bill would prohibit training, programs, exchanges, or partnerships with police forces.

in countries that met the bill's criteria for exclusion.

But it does not define these terms, so there is some concern that if they were interpreted broadly, SPD would be enjoined from some activities, such activities as collaborative research, learning and teaching best practices, and simply discussion of issues related to law and justice and cross-national issues.

Are there any questions?

Yes, Council Member Lewis.

I see your hand.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Would this be a time for general questions to central staff?

Indeed.

OK.

Well, first, I want to thank Greg and Ann for queuing this up and finally having a hearing on this.

I feel like we've been talking about this for a while.

I was surprised to review this and see there's not a training definition.

I mean, if we're prohibiting training, I would think we'd want to be fairly clear about what practices we're prohibiting, because I think that would be another area of uncertainty with the department.

Because, I mean, we're talking about what countries fall in the box.

And I did look at the summary in one of the attachments.

It looks like there's going to be no training in St. Kitts and Nevis in our future.

That's good.

But I did just want to ask, because I think in addition to finding what countries fall in those boxes, is also determining what conduct is prohibited.

And there don't really seem to be any definitions in this that give that guidance to the department.

I'm going to go to councilmember lewis.

Councilmember lewis.

Can I ask just a quick follow-up then?

Because I think that this is also related.

So if we do ultimately in this legislation define training, I do have another question in terms of when it would kick in.

I mean, I know this is no longer a bill specifically about Israel, but in one of the formulas envisioned, Israel would be included in a country that would fall within the scope of this ordinance.

And there has been some conversation publicly about an anti-defamation league exchange that former Chief Best attended a few years ago in Israel, which has been cited as a reason to create this ordinance to prevent that from occurring.

I'm not aware whether or not the police department actually paid for that exchange.

And this is something I think I'll actually request information from the department and the Anti-Defamation League on.

If either are watching, please send it to my office, because I'm curious.

Because if the Anti-Defamation League merely invited Chief Best, and then paid for her expenses on that exchange.

My read of this is that would not actually be impacted because the department is not paying.

She was invited in her personal capacity.

Obviously, if the department did pay for it, that would be different.

But I guess my question now is if that distinction that I'm throwing out there is an actual distinction or if it would cover personal capacity even if no Seattle money went to pay for it.

The ordinance refers to participation, not who's paying, but I will, I'll let Council Central staff handle that one.

Council member, I think that anytime an SPD officer is wearing a uniform and representing the department, they are representing the SPD policy manual.

And I think they would be forbidden under this ordinance from participating in that training.

I will clarify with the law department.

If they went as a civilian without representing the department on their personal time, that would be something that I would have to, I'll ask for more information on.

Because I think there's a go ahead council member supply.

Yeah, just to clarify.

I mean, Greg is absolutely right that actually, when when my office was looking at drafting this.

We intentionally avoided using language that would make it specifically about.

public resources being used for this.

Obviously, it would be, in our view, much more egregious if public resources were used for such exchanges and such training sessions, but we don't want to restrict it just to that.

It would be opposed regardless, as Greg explained.

So Council Member, as an example, if an SPD officer is wearing the uniform and they're working an off-duty job at a nightclub, they still have to abide by the SPD policy manual and they still have to represent the department.

So the same would be true if they were flying overseas to train with a foreign military.

If they were wearing the uniform, in representing the department, then I don't believe they would be able to do so with this legislation in place.

But to use an example of something that would probably fall outside of the scope.

If an SPD officer, let's say, went and did birthright.

Right, like in Israel, like on their own time, just as as a civilian that has no nexus whatsoever with.

you know, a military exchange or training that would be outside of the scope of this because they're going over there as, you know, who they, you know, just as an individual rather than as an officer.

I doubt that you're going to be able to prohibit that.

I'd have to check with the attorneys.

But to be clear, I'm not seeking here to prohibit that.

I'm trying to clarify the scope of the ordinance since in corners it's a little vague and unclear.

But I appreciate that.

central staff believes that would be outside the scope.

Yeah.

And I will get back to you with a, with an official legal answer.

I would just add that, um, I mean, I'm, yeah, I would appreciate clarification on that, but in my view, one, just to reiterate what I believe Greg said, and forgive me, Greg, if I'm misquoting you, but, uh, if you, if this is what you were saying, I would agree with that, uh, which is on our mind too, which is that, That is when, when the, when the police departments go for such training sessions, I don't imagine that as informally going as individuals, they will be going there in some shape or form representing the department.

And as Greg said, you know, in, in their uniform, or I don't know what the phrasing is, but, you know, basically representing the department in some shape or form.

And as far as the, question of what police officers do informally.

Yeah, I mean, this legislation is not going to address all the wrongdoing informally, on their own time, in plain clothes.

Seattle police officers went to the Capitol to participate in far-right riots.

So, yes, we will need an elected community oversight.

That is why we are arguing for that.

But this is specifically about what we have observed, what activists have observed, which is SPD officers going for legitimately sanctioned, legally sanctioned training sessions with nation states or agencies of nation states that have violated internationally recognized standards of human rights.

Thank you.

Council Member Morales.

Thank you.

So I I may have just thought myself out of my question, but I was interested in what kinds of trainings we might be talking about.

Obviously, there are the military, you know, trainings to learn tactical things that I will say right now that I object to that.

But one of the things that you mentioned is that, you know, the language is broad and prohibit could potentially prohibit collaboration and best practices.

But in my mind, that is still, as Council Member Sawant just said, you know, if we're still talking about countries that have violated or have, you know, a history of human rights violations, even if the department is sending officers for what may be presumed best practice, it still seems counter to what we as a human rights city would be wanting to support.

But do you have specific examples of what outside of sort of tactical training they might be going to participate in?

When Anne and I talked with SPD last week, we asked them some examples of some trainings that – or conversations that they've had with countries recently, and they said that they had reached out to the UK and Sweden about some crowd control tactics that had been used in those countries.

around less lethal weapons, ways to employ demonstration or crowd control without use of less lethal weapons.

And maybe that would be an example where they might not be able to collaborate with foreign countries that were, that might be the kind of collaboration that could happen that would be outside of military tactics or training, if that's an example that you're looking for, Councilmembers Morales.

Thank you.

Thank you, Greg.

Again, I think it would be useful to have some additional conversation after voting.

in committee before full council on that issue.

Appreciate your raising it, Council Member Morales.

Council President Gonzalez.

So this is along the same lines as Council Member Lewis and Morales' line of questioning, which is sort of the getting a better understanding of the type of activity we're looking to prohibit or otherwise restrict by the Seattle Police Department.

And I do recall, and perhaps Greg and Anne, you can help me track this down, I tried to do a quick search in my email inbox and was not successful in tracking down Then Assistant Chief Leslie Cordner's response to a statement of legislative intent that the council supported, I believe it was in 2018, that was sponsored by Council Member Sawant that requested, or maybe it was Council Member O'Brien, that requested a list of trainings in this area that SPD had engaged in.

for a set number of years.

Again, it's going to be outdated because if I recall correctly, that was produced to us in 2018, but it might be the most, you know, most recent compilation of the kinds of trainings that were related to the issue that we're discussing now.

And so I would encourage Council Central staff between now and full council to help us track down that particular inventory of training to see, to sort of refresh our memories on the kinds of trainings that SPD was doing related to this particular issue that again was, this slide was being advocated for by many of the same activists that are engaged in this legislation as well.

And I do see, and for what it's worth, I do seem to recall that Chief Best's trip to Israel was paid for, in part at least, by the city of Seattle.

Thank you.

We will track that down.

Thank you, Council President.

Much appreciated.

Council Member Lewis, I see your hand raised.

Yeah, I guess I just want to signal my interest for central staff based on this conversation, particularly around the, I mean, it doesn't look like it would be affected from the list of countries in the memo that was distributed this morning, because Sweden and the United Kingdom don't appear to be on it.

But I do think a good point is raised that there are a lot of countries, particularly in Western Europe, who have developed really effective and good practices around de-escalation and more peaceful method of crowd control that we would certainly want SPD to avail itself of.

And if, as we do put together a definition of training, making sure we don't inadvertently exclude seeking out best practices from other countries regarding de-escalation considering that there are a lot of police departments around the world that could teach us quite a bit about it.

I don't know if that is gonna be as relevant given the list of countries that I'm looking at that are included in the current legislation, but you never know.

Perfect segue, I think, to the discussion of the amendments, because how I chose to deal with this issue in the committee discussion was, again, to create objective standards of human rights violations that were significantly high, that even absent a more narrow definition of trainings, exchanges, partnerships, It's hard to conceive of many of these countries having best practices that we would want to emulate.

But I still recognize that there is unknown whether or not either one of these amendments are going to pass, and that there is appetite for more discussion around that item.

So with that, central staff, can you move into the discussion of the two amendments before us?

So Amendment A simplifies the exclusion criteria for potential SPD partners across any of the dimensions of partnership that we've been discussing.

The current exclusion criteria reference a violation of one of those two treaties or the Fourth Geneva Convention, and Amendment A changes those criteria to the existence of a non-preliminary investigation or past finding by the International Criminal Court.

And the ICC's work program and history are readily available online, so that is something that SPD staff would be able to check and know that they are compliant with the legislation.

Amendment A also bans all SPD training with foreign militaries.

without the exclusion criteria need to be in place?

Yes, correct.

Thank you for the clarification.

Amendment B adds an exclusion criteria, which is a documentation of a fourth Geneva Convention violation by an international or intergovernmental human rights organization.

The current exclusion criteria requires that that violation be documented by an international court or UN body, so Amendment B opens it up, allowing more organizations to document a Fourth Geneva Convention violation, which would exclude the violator country from any kind of SPD partnership.

Thank you so much for that description.

So let's first get the bill before the committee, and then we can move into a greater discussion around the amendments.

I move Council Bill 120142. Is there a second?

Second.

Thank you both.

So Amendment A is the potential amendment that Dan just went over first, that is the amendment that I am sponsoring.

I move amendment A as listed on the agenda.

Is there a second for amendment A?

Second.

Thank you, Council President Gonzalez.

So again, as mentioned, I'd like the goal with Amendment A is unamended this legislation conceivably could incorporate, scoop up hundreds of countries.

I want to make sure that the bill and the implementation of the bill and the enforcement of the bill is understandable and straightforward for SPD to be able to implement.

My goals are verified criterion that are both based in the foregrounding of human rights and are easy for staff to apply because having a verifiable list is not only necessary for implementation, it's necessary for enforcement.

This proposed amendment simplifies the proposed standards that would be used to exclude foreign police agencies and intelligence agencies and security agencies as training partners with SPD.

In doing so, it establishes, again, easily verified criterion that are based in the foregrounding of human rights.

And given that there is no centralized public resource that contains data about violations of the two covenants to which training partners must be a party in the proposed legislation, enforcing the proposed legislation would be difficult absent this amendment.

Are there questions about the amendment?

Member Morales.

So if I am understanding this right, it bans all training with militaries, but may still allow training with other police departments or intelligence agencies or other actors.

Is that?

As long as There are no exclusion criteria for training with military.

The SPD just simply will not train with any military in any country, irregardless of their human rights standards.

Which I appreciate.

But what I'm really trying to understand is there are other agencies in government that aren't militaries that still engage in practices that violate human rights.

And so that's why the legislation is beyond just foreign police agencies, but also includes intelligence agencies and security services.

Countries with police agencies, security services, or intelligence agencies that are triggered by the human rights criteria in the amendment, the trainings, exchanges would be banned for all three of those types of agencies.

Yes, I mean, first of all, just on that question from Dr. Morales, I mean, yeah, that's in the base legislation, that clarification.

And just on the amendment and also on the questions that came up about what we – or the points that came up about, you know, we don't want to scoop up opportunities for best practices, of course, I want to be clear as the sponsor of the legislation that, yeah, absolutely.

But we have to be concrete.

We cannot be in the realm of hypothetical.

I mean, we have no evidence whatsoever zero evidence actually that the police department in Seattle has made any effort.

to get educated on, I mean, presuming we all have agreement on what best practices would constitute nonviolent de-escalation type of practices, but all the evidence that has necessitated this legislation in the first place and why these activists have been pushing for this for over 10 years is precisely because there is all the evidence to the contrary, which is the training sessions that have been sought by the police or engaged in by the police in whatever way have been towards repressive measures from countries that have a long track record of using those repressive measures.

And I think that on Council Member Herbold's amendment, I appreciate the intent of the amendment, but I'm afraid that it creates a loophole, perhaps inadvertently.

I mean, it states that, quote, SPD shall not participate in any training programs, exchanges, or partnerships with the police forces, intelligence agencies, or security forces of any country or engage in travel to any foreign country or territory.

A, that is not party to the international covenant on the civil and political rights and you know the ICESR, I won't expand on that, and B, that within the country or territories boundaries exists a situation under non-preliminary investigation by the International Criminal Court or an actor against which that court has found a violation in the last 10 years." The problem here is the subparagraph B, which refers to investigations of potential human rights violations within the, quote, the country or territory's boundaries, end quote. Because as we know, human rights violations often occur, I mean, it's not necessarily inside the nation state boundaries, but outside of it. The police or military of one country inflict violations on people in another country or territory or in land occupied by the accused country. So under the amendment's current phrasing, a nation states violations of human rights in land, it is militarily occupying but does not claim within its national boundaries, would not qualify. I mean, that's our read of the language of the amendment. And I believe the problem can be fixed simply by adding after the territory's boundaries and before the word exists, adding the phrase, or within territories occupied or effectively controlled by the country that would address the problem.

Thank you Council Member Sawant.

Before, I'm willing to entertain that as a friendly amendment, but I do want first to give central staff an opportunity to respond to that.

I see the language in the staff memo saying the ICC has over 20 potential cases in some state of review.

would include situations in the state of Palestine for alleged, or I'm adding, for alleged crimes committed since 2014. And so we're talking about activities that are occurring in territories within the boundaries of countries.

I believe central staff drafted this language to be inclusive.

I appreciate the concern that you're raising that we might want to replace the words territories with occupied territories within its jurisdiction, but would love to hear from, and like I said, I would consider that a friendly amendment, but we want to hear from council central staff.

well we could we could certainly take a look at at whether that language would fit the reason the language is written the way it is is because it reflects the way in which the international criminal court uh...

opens an investigation and ICC investigation uh...

is always taking place within a geographically circumscribed area and um...

it has a definite starting point.

So ICC investigations take a long time and that is because they give themselves permission to investigate, you know, incidents that may have taken place over many, many years and over a broad geographical territory.

So in the sense that we want an objective metric, and the ICC non-preliminary investigation seems to be one that will work, that has a broad human rights purview.

The language was written to match what is available as an objective metric.

We can certainly take another look at how the ICC describes its investigations and adding the language that Council Member Sawant has suggested.

Thank you.

I think I would, given that, prefer that we wait until you look at that more.

I would want, again, my goal is to ensure that this is not targeting any particular country.

And I appreciate that central staff developed this in a way to incorporate the nations that advocates have been coming to us about without excluding other human rights violations that are occurring within the territory's boundaries.

I'm concerned if we insert the words occupied territories, we're going to be making some exclusions in leaning more towards a country-specific objective.

Can I just ask one question for central staff?

They don't even have to address it now.

They can study it offline.

That's fine.

But just flowing from what you just said, Chair Herbold, and also what Anne just said, I'm not clear how adding this language would I mean, I don't see this as adding this phrase as precluding any of that careful, thoughtful process that the ICC goes through, and I understand what you're saying, that these are I'm not denying any of that.

But I don't see these phrases as precluding any of that in any way.

The only thing I see it as a good thing, which is that it actually makes sure that if anything is unintentionally or inadvertently falling through the cracks, we make sure it doesn't fall through the cracks.

In that sense, I do see, I mean, I do bring this forward as a friendly amendment to your amendment, seeing it in that light.

I understand the question.

I don't want right now to characterize how the International Criminal Court describes its own work.

And the current language is very carefully in alignment with how the ICC describes its work.

So I would just want to go back and revisit it to make sure that the proposed new language does not add a nuance that isn't present in how the ICC administers cases.

And I had originally raised my hand.

I just want to add for everyone's consideration, international human rights administration and treaty law is enormously complicated.

And we have been very hesitant to draw our own conclusions about what we think these treaties say and what we think is included and excluded.

So if you hear me being very careful and cagey in what I'm willing to commit to, it's just because the context is very complex and outside of most people's area of expertise.

So I apologize for that.

Thank you, Anne.

I do think it's worth noting, if I could throw in there really quick, that Anne has worked with the city's OIR and also with the University of Washington to do what she can to try to interpret some of this.

So even though it's well outside central staff's expertise, doing the best we can, sort of.

much appreciated.

Uh, this work often makes, um, experts out of people who weren't when they started it.

So thank you so much.

Um, with that, I'd like to, uh, call the roll on amendment.

Uh, we'll call the roll.

Council President Gonzalez.

Hi.

Council Member Lewis.

Hi.

Council Member Morales.

Yes.

Chair Herbold.

Councilmember Sawant.

Abstain.

That's four in favor, one abstained, one opposed.

Thank you so much.

So I'm sorry, I didn't know the answer to this question.

It's the chair of this meeting, but I'm not sure how passage of this amendment affects Amendment B. I believe Amendment he changes a section that we just struck.

Am I correct?

Correct.

So, is it written in a way would overdo?

I guess it's not really a necessary question now because we just voted in favor of Amendment A. We are unlikely to vote in favor of an amendment that would undo what we just voted on.

So, is that your understanding of the action we just took?

Yes, that is my understanding.

Is our central staff confirming that?

Because the amendment was actually something that the central staff pointed out and proposed to us.

I would say, Council Member, that your amendment, Amendment A, eliminated C, the reference to documentation by an international court or United Nations body.

And Council Member Sawant's amendment would essentially, it would have changed C.

So in a sense, your amendment eliminated from the underlying legislation, the piece that Council Member Sawant's amendment would change.

Thank you so much.

So with that, I think we can just move forward.

I move Council Bill 120142 as amended.

Is there a second?

Second.

Thank you.

Will the clerk please call the roll on the bill as amended?

Council President Gonzalez.

Abstain.

Council Member Lewis.

Abstain.

Council Member Morales.

Yes.

Council Member Sawant.

Yes.

Chair Herbold.

Yes.

Three in favor, two abstained.

Thank you so much.

Given that we have a divided vote, we will need to hold this bill from consideration by the full council on the next regularly scheduled meeting, which would be on the 20th.

But we're going to be looking at this again on the 27th in full council.

And I trust we'll have some opportunity to work on some of the issues that we discussed in committee today.

Really appreciate everybody sticking with us so we can get through the agenda.

And if there are no further comments or questions, the next...

All right, see you there.

I'm not sure you have a divided report, Council Member Gervald.

Oh, because it's abstention.

I was bringing it up.

Sorry.

We can confirm that with the clerk who is on the line.

I think you're right.

My understanding is that abstentions don't count as a divided report, only yeas and nays do.

That's my understanding also.

We will, in my office, We'll confirm that that's the case, but I'm pretty sure that that is what the City Council rules tell us.

And there wasn't an opportunity to engage in conversation or make comments before we called the roll.

And if it's appropriate, Madam Chair, I would like to just make just some brief, brief comments.

Great, I, I'm standing on this bill for now, because I really think there are several moving pieces still related to the underlying legislation.

I've heard several times during our conversation during committee that that there'll be some more information and follow up.

during the interim between now and full council on September 20th.

And I would like to have the benefit of understanding how those pieces are moving about within the context of the underlying bill before I make a decision as to whether I support the bill or not.

I will say that I want to caution the council based on conversations I've had with stakeholders in this area, particularly with members of the Jewish community, about the language that we are using in advocating for or against this particular piece of legislation.

I have heard multiple times now from members within the Jewish community that given the uprise in hate crimes against our Jewish community in particular, there are significant concerns about how language used by the council in advocating for this bill may be received by the Jewish community, and I just think it is incumbent upon us to whether you agree or disagree with the fundamental issues related to matters in the Middle East.

I do think it's important for us to be responsible in how we are.

We are speaking about the issues that we care about so that we are not creating division amongst our community here and so that we are not exacerbating the sentiment of anti-semitism within our local Jewish community.

So I agree with the concepts that we should not be engaging as a city with countries who have a verifiable incidence of human rights violations.

We do this often even in our own country.

where we engage in conversations related to boycotts because of states' positions on issues like immigration and on women's rights and on reproductive justice and on LGBTQ rights.

And so this is not unusual for the city to take a position against another jurisdiction because of their poor track record on issues of human rights, of civil rights, of immigrant rights, of women rights.

And so I see this consistent with that.

But I also want us to, in the course of engaging in this conversation, be mindful of the impact that this can and does create within our local Jewish community that I've heard directly from them about how it impacts their safety and their feeling of belonging.

here in our own city.

So thank you for the opportunity to explain my abstention.

I also wanted to just end by saying that the city clerk has confirmed with me that abstentions does not count as a divided report, so this bill can go forward on the 20th of September.

Perfect.

Council Member Morales.

Thank you.

Thanks for the reminder, Council President, opportunity to comment.

And thank you for your remarks as well.

I think we have all learned over the last year and a half that communities are not monolithic.

We have folks who have differences of opinion about all of the things that we do as a council.

And this is certainly no different as a member of the Jewish community.

This is something that I support and I just wanted to.

Folks know that I think it is important for us to remember that there are differences of opinion within all of our different communities.

And that communities across the country take in similar action to ensure that they don't send local police to train with foreign militaries and other foreign police departments.

Cities in North Carolina, in Vermont, in Massachusetts, agree that local police departments should not be participating in exchange trips to learn, particularly to learn what is very often, you know, kind of extreme anti-terrorist tactics that end up using here to police our black and brown communities.

And that, in my opinion, is the real crux of the matter here.

We don't want our police department coming back with, you know, tactics that when we know that there is already very often an abuse of power when there are things like peaceful protests happening.

So I know that the bill isn't really focused necessarily on the use of public dollars, but I do concur with the policy imperative.

Our city should not be spending taxpayer dollars to send our officers abroad when we all know that we have an incredible need here for services that support our most vulnerable communities.

That said, the Council has long upheld the principle of human rights and dignity for everyone, including somebody referenced earlier the passage of resolutions that declared Seattle a human rights city.

And as a former Seattle Human Rights Commissioner myself, I'm really committed to passing a policy that moves us as a municipality toward actively ensuring and endorsing the rights that are set out in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

You know, the United States doesn't even follow some of those precepts.

We don't abide by the economic justice elements of of those declarations.

So I know we have our own work to do, and I think it's important that we acknowledge that and that we move toward the goal of protecting everyone's dignity and acknowledging the human rights of folks who are abroad and in our communities here by ending participation in programs that lead to the militarization of our police department.

So I am happy to support this and look forward to able to do so in full council.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Morales.

Council Member Swann?

I think Council Member Lewis wanted to speak.

Oh, I'm sorry.

I thought I was just calling people.

And in the order of the hands I saw raised, my apologies if Council Member Lewis had his hand raised before you, Council Member Swann.

Go ahead, Council Member Lewis.

Yeah, I'll just be really brief.

I mean, similar to Councilmember, Council President Gonzalez, I can't vote for or against this legislation until we have a training definition.

I mean, this ostensibly is an ordinance about training and protocols around training, and I don't really see how I can cast judgment on it without knowing what the scope of what it covers is going to be.

So that's my extension today and look forward to amendments that will flesh that out and answer those questions.

Thank you, Council Member Lewis.

Council Member Swann.

Thank you.

And I also appreciate being able to actually make closing remarks.

I'm really sorry, you guys.

I really I was just really focused on trying to get everybody out of here.

I was afraid I was going to start losing people.

My apologies.

No, no problem at all.

But I'm glad I am able to make closing remarks as the sponsor of the legislation and absolutely no need for apologies.

No problem.

I just wanted to clarify for the record that, as a matter of fact, the vast majority of those who have initiated the End the Deadly Exchange struggle really, and it's not just in Seattle, but it's nationwide, are actually members of the Jewish community.

And as Council Member Morales correctly said, it's not appropriate to think of any religious or ethnic community as monolithic.

People have their own points of view on what kind of society they want to live in.

And that should not apply to any more than it applies to the vast majority of American people.

There's a wide ranging a wide range of points of view.

and this legislation from my office, as I said, was brought forward in response to the excellent ideas originating from the left-wing and progressive Jewish community, from the Palestinian activists, from Black Lives Matter activists, from socialists of various organizations, including my own organization, Socialist Alternative.

appreciate all the members, especially members of the Jewish community through EDX, through Jewish Voice for Peace, through many of the religious communities, including Kadima Reconstructionist community, who have taken a stand on this and said, not in our name, that they want of human rights to stand for human rights, and they reject the equating of their justified opposition to oppression and to state-instigated violence and repression to being anti-Semitic.

They don't accept that.

I don't accept that.

And I think it's important that we, as a progressive city, as a city that is upholding progressive ideas, that we stand against that kind of oppression and state instigated violence and oppression everywhere.

And we stand with any community and every community that is targeted in that manner.

And I'm really excited that this legislation has reached this point.

And I would really urge all council members as this legislation comes to the city council for the final vote, I would urge all council members to vote yes.

And last but not least, I would thank all members of the central staff who have done such excellent work on this.

Thank you, Council Member Sawant.

I have nothing to add to all of the great remarks made.

And the next Safety and Human Services Committee will be a special committee.

It is scheduled for September 24th.

And before we adjourn, just checking to make sure there are no further comments.

are not.

The time is 1226 and we are adjourned.

Thank you so much.