Parks, Public Utilities & Technology Committee 03/13/24

March 13th, 2024. This is the meetings of PUTT, Parks, Public Utilities, and Technology Committee.

And the meeting will come to order.

It is exactly 2.05.

We're getting started a little tardy here.

I am Joy Hollingsworth, committee chair.

And will our clerk please call the roll?

Councilmember Rivera?

Present.

Councilmember Strauss?

Present.

Councilmember Nelson?

Present.

Three council members are present.

Awesome.

We have a quorum.

We'll go ahead and get started.

Thank you.

There are three items on the agenda.

First, we'll have an overview by our phenomenal Seattle Parks and Recreation.

Super happy to have them here so we can hear about all the exciting things that are going on in the city and our green spaces.

And...

just everything that are with parks and how much a lot of people love them.

And then the second, we'll have an overview presentation from our city surveillance technology process from our information technology department.

So we have two amazing things.

We will now consider the agenda.

If there's no objections to the agenda, it will be adopted.

Hearing none, the agenda is adopted.

With that, we'll open up the hybrid public comment period.

Public comments should relate to today's agenda items to be within the purview of the committee.

Clerk, how many speakers do we have signed up?

We have no in-person speakers and two remote speakers.

Awesome, so each, we'll go ahead and give each speaker two minutes.

Clerk, can you please read the instructions for the public comment?

And before we go, I wanna note that Council President Nelson is present.

I am sorry, Chair Hollingsworth.

No worries at all, you're all good.

No need to apologize.

Two minutes.

Clerk, can you please read the instructions for public comment?

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

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

That's star six.

The first speaker is Cynthia Spies.

Hi, I'm Cynthia Spees.

My comments are regarding agenda item two.

Since some committee members are new to the surveillance ordinance process, I wanted to bring two things to your attention.

First, all prior 24 surveillance impact reports approved by City Council were processed through the City Council Committee covering technology.

This includes all 16 SPD surveillance impact reports and SPD's material update that was approved last year.

IT's slide deck says that four of the upcoming surveillance impact reports are going to the Public Safety Committee.

I strongly suggest you reconsider this and revert to the usual process.

As someone with a decade of experience working in big tech, including leading multiple different global initiatives spanning all business sectors, I can tell you most assuredly that processing surveillance impact reports through different committees are a result of inconsistencies of application of the ordinance and resulting in amendments instituted by council.

Instead, these should be consistent across the city.

One of the upcoming surveillance impact reports is for CCTV.

SDOT CCTV was processed through the Technology Committee, and SPDs should be held at the same bar.

Reports from the Community Surveillance Working Group will be delivered to this committee, as will any updates from Satellite T to keep Council appraised of the surveillance ordinance status.

Any future proposed amendments to the surveillance ordinance would also go through this committee, which is the same committee that passed the surveillance ordinance.

It's unwise for this largely new City Council to abruptly change the processing of surveillance impact reports from what has worked for the last six years, banning all prior technologies and departments, including the police, and throughout Councilmember turnover.

If not reverted to the standard handling by the technology committee, you will be setting a precedent that will impact any future council members reviewing surveillance technologies and wishing that this current council didn't create the mess.

Lastly, before removal from the master list, the department should file a report with the city clerk attesting that all sensors or hardware have been removed and any related software uninstalled.

Otherwise, the technology could be unused by the city but still collecting data about residents that the vendor would then have access to.

I just ask the situation be tidied up.

Thank you.

Next we have David Hines.

Hi, thank you.

David Hines.

Noble use of technology.

I thought this was going to be about improving the digital display monitors around the bus system and the tunnel to let you know what time the bus is coming through.

But I see it's mainly about somewhat leftover police restraint policies.

And I'm not saying that you shouldn't surveil the police when it comes to body cameras, but I am saying that if you're going to only focus on the surveillance of the police, giving the fact that we have a societal implosion and crime all over King County, We need some surveillance to help the crime fighters verify who keeps destroying their fellow man's lives right in front of all these people who look the other way when all these criminals are conducting an uncivil war on Third Avenue, around the corner from the tunnel entrance to West Lake, and all throughout the county.

We need an improvement to verify who keeps supplying the drugs and shut them down.

And quite frankly, when you have your park rangers, If they're not trained properly to communicate to the police, when there's a difference between some evil criminals selling drugs versus some innocent, who's reading a book and closes their eyes for five minutes, all of a sudden gets her brass.

When the Ranger just comes up and sweeps everybody who they deem is violating the rules.

They're just pushing that along.

That's what's already taken place where people realize that there really is no repercussions for committing crimes against humanity and destroying their fellow man's lives with drugs.

But if you tap into the video cameras in certain hotspots, you can expedite the concerns that make it unsafe for the residents and still hold the people and the vendor honest and forthright and diligent and keep tabs on them so they don't abuse their privilege of verifying who the criminals are.

Because I know I get treated like a criminal every time I walk into the cameras.

And it's kind of annoying.

You can feel that stuff hits you pretty hard.

And if there are no additional people for sign up for public comment, the public comment is now closed.

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

Agenda item number one, overview presentation by Parks and Recreation.

For briefing and discussion, the presenters are Superintendent A.P. Diaz, Christopher Williams, and Michelle Finnegan from Parks and Rec.

like to invite our Parks and Rec to the table.

And while you all were coming, so happy that you all are here.

I'll tell you a quick story.

When I was a little kid, so my dad worked for the Parks Department for 35 years, who some of you have met.

And every time I saw a white truck with the Seattle Parks logo, I always thought it was my dad coming through.

So anytime in the city, I was like, there's my dad, even though I didn't see who it was.

So to see the white trucks with the Seattle Parks logo on the side, I was like, there's my dad.

So anyways.

I wanted to share that with you all.

Please introduce yourselves for the record.

So happy to have you all.

And you can go ahead and get started with your presentation.

Well, thank you, Chair Hollingsworth.

And good afternoon, Council President Nelson, Council Members Rivera and Strauss.

My name is AP Diaz.

I have the pleasure of serving as the 26th Superintendent for Seattle Parks and Recreation.

And I'm joined today by Christopher Williams, who's our Chief Deputy Superintendent and Chief of Staff.

Michelle Finnegan, who's our deputy superintendent over policy and finance and also part of my team in the audience is Paula Hoff, who serves as a council liaison to all of you.

David Takami, a strategic advisor, as well as Jacob Thorpe, who is our special advisor in the superintendent's office.

So we're really pleased to be here with you today to give you a snapshot and overview of our department, since you have direct oversight on your committee of our department.

I think we can all agree how much you love our parks and recreation system, but because our constituents love them.

And, you know, the resounding thing that I hear throughout the community in my time and tenure here in Seattle, doesn't matter whether I'm at the market or a barbershop or even the doctor's office, when people find out what I do, they light up because they have some great story to tell about how They use our park system, how much it touches their lives, and how much it is an important part of what they do.

So on our first slide, we just have an overshot snapshot of some of the high ratings that we continue to receive in our department.

And I'd like to point out that every year, the Trust for Public Land ranks all public park agencies throughout the nation.

And last year, we moved from the number nine position to number eight.

So the city of Seattle is now the number eighth ranked park system in the United States, and we're very proud of that.

Let's see if I...

So today's presentation, I'm just going to walk you through and then want to allow any time for any questions or comments that you may have of me or my staff.

But we want to walk you through how we sort of organize our department in our mission and affirmations, our land acknowledgement, our system overview, our RSJI commitment, our department motto.

our leadership and organization, our budget and financing, and also just kind of share what we do and the people that we do it with, which is our tremendous community partners.

So our mission at the Seattle Parks and Recreation Department is to equip both employees and the public for well-being as we support healthy people, a thriving environment and vibrant community.

And I want to stress here a point that I wanted to make sure that was important when I was appointed to this position by the mayor.

And that was that my responsibility is to uphold our city charter.

and to be a caretaker and steward to our public land.

But I also feel that I have a duty to take care of our employees in our department and to ensure that they remain as a North Star of what I do.

Because like all city workers, they work tirelessly in public service to serve our city, to serve our public.

So a lot of our mission and values are also focused around supporting our employees in this manner.

And I think that it's a difficult task to ask city employees or to ask standards, to set standards for the public as city officials and leaders if we are not also ensuring that we're abiding by our employees in the same way.

we make a distinction to include employees in much of our mission that we do.

And so, as I mentioned, we focus around these three environments of the healthy people, which you can see is reflected through all of our public recreation.

What I love to always tell people is that we serve three constituent bodies through Parks and Recreation.

We serve children, we serve adults, and we also have a duty to take care of our aging population.

So that's when we talk about healthy people is the role that we serve to ensure that.

We also have a responsibility to the environment and to the land that we take care of that has been here since time immemorial.

And our duty to really ensure that there's a thriving environment through nature, mitigating the impacts of climate change, and being a good partner with our other departments like OSC, the mayor's office, the city council that all share these goals to make our city more equitable, less dependent on traditional sources of energy, and to really be good caretakers of the environment.

No better place to demonstrate that at our nearly 500 parks in the city of Seattle.

And then lastly, we really want to create vibrant community.

And this is where our city comes alive, through our festivals, through our art programs, our collaborations with our sister city departments.

The fact that we're in every single neighborhood throughout the city is a wonderful blessing, and each neighborhood is unique, and we wanna highlight and amplify the uniqueness of each community, each council district, so that we're again demonstrating that Seattle is diverse and vibrant, alive and thriving.

I really wanna point out here, although sometimes we become routine in the land acknowledgements here in the city of Seattle, first of all, I just want to express to you as city leaders and much longer residents of the Pacific Northwest than I am that I was so impressed when I moved to the city of Seattle, leaps beyond other cities in giving recognition and support of our indigenous communities, even though we have much more work to do in this space.

I really want to just acknowledge the city of Seattle.

And because of that, you know, You can't go unnoticed again that although I and my staff are caretakers and stewards of the park land, we are not the original caretakers and stewards.

In fact, it's an ensuing legacy that continues and we have great relations with our tribal partners.

I know last year, the city of Seattle hosted its first ever tribal summit, uh, with the actual tribal nations in Seattle.

And we were one of the first, I think we were the first city department to then host our own, uh, tribal summit with our tribal partners, um, and representatives of the different, uh, councils.

And we have a lot of great, um, work and partnership planned with them building on some of the things that we do already.

but making sure that we acknowledge and recognize that we will continue to commit to sharing their legacy for future generations to come because it's so unique and important, particularly in Seattle and this part of the country that we inhabit.

It's a great legacy, and so we want you to know that we're committed to that.

We wanna show you just a system overview of your wonderful park system.

It's some 641 hundred acres and growing.

12% of the city land area is actually park land.

And I always love to share the story that the first time I kind of flew up here to Seattle, leaving California, going through the central coast of California, which is brown and a lot of farm fields, much like Eastern Washington.

And then coming up into Northern California, you begin to see more of the trees and the greenery.

You pop into Oregon, and the trees really shine out at you in the greenness.

And then right when you get to that border with Washington, you get the majesty of these volcanoes and the mountains, and then the trees even more.

And as you land in, it always reminds me that, you know, Seattle is really just one big park.

In my opinion, Washington is one big park and all of the little neighborhoods are just sort of villages in the park.

So it's really a wonderful blessing and we're the evergreen state in the Emerald City.

So this is just a snapshot.

We're really proud of the fact that 99% of our citizens live within a 10 minute walk.

to a park, and that's something really to be proud of as city leaders.

That is the standard that many cities across the nation, my colleagues and my trade organizations that I'm part of, that's the gold medal standard, is that we have people living within a 10-minute walk from a park, and we're very proud of that.

We have, you know, this is a long list of some of the things that we do from athletic fields, tennis courts, pickleball, golf, community centers, aquatic centers, environmental education centers, as well as some special sites and facilities.

As you know, our aquarium and zoo are part of our park portfolio, as well as our partnerships at the Washington Park Arboretum and many of our specialty gardens, like the Japanese Garden, Kubota Gardens, et cetera.

Our department is also very committed to support racial social justice initiatives both from the city mandate perspectives but also of how we are showing up in our department and also in the community because we work with so many diverse groups and it's important that our park system reflect what is our broader goals here at the City of Seattle as well as Seattle Parks and Recreation, and, you know, we have many examples, and we have learned along the process, like many of our city departments, and we're now in a period of growth where we want to look at how have we implemented our SJAI, but what are the next steps?

to ensure that we're moving with purpose and with healthy objectives for our employees and our workforce, and to continue to grow them and equip them.

And we're also giving back in how we do a lot of our park projects and planning.

We'll talk about that in a little bit, but there's a lot of historical practices that have occurred throughout our community and the way our city was formed and where our development showed up first and we have a lot of intentionality in that space we also want to support our community through scholarships programs that really affect the most disadvantaged and ensure that everybody has a seat at the table one of the things that i always love to quote one of my favorite quotes from mayor bruce harrell he told me that He's been blessed with much opportunity in his life.

He grew up here in Seattle and that he would never want any child to have to feel like they needed to leave Seattle to find opportunity when there's so much abundance around us in terms of our business.

But sometimes it's about exposure and access.

So we really work hard to implement some special programs we're going to talk about.

but also scholarship programs and expanding our community centers, whether through operational hours, capital improvements, and making them safe and accessible.

So it's really important.

We have an internal department motto that we've created since I've been here.

It's called Seattle Shines.

And some examples here through photographs of some of our beautiful students sky that illuminates.

And one of the things that I love about this, these are photos that I've taken, by the way, throughout my time here, but we believe that we are a reminder that we're shining sources of strength for the community, that even in our darkest days, we show up for the community.

Our maintenance staff is there 365 days a year, whether the sun is out, whether it's cloudy and gray, we have a few of those days here in Seattle, whether it's cold, sometimes it's snowy, they show up, our recreation staff shows up in the field, we show up for people, and in that, we really shine our services.

And we also really come along and shine, of course, in the beautiful summer and spring when the sun is out in Seattle.

So it's a reminder that...

we can be a proud source of light in sometimes a dark or complex city.

So we want to kind of just walk you through the budget system.

Most of our lines of businesses are supported by multiple funds, and this slide provides an overview of our overall 2024 budget.

You can see here that our 2024 budget includes both operating and capital.

at approximately $320 million across all funds with a general fund and our Metropolitan Park District or our park levy, providing almost equal amounts and making up nearly 70%, 75% of the total budget.

Moving to the blue chart on the top right is showing our 2024 proposed operating budget, which is about 228 million, 70% total, and approximately 30% is supported by the Park District along with the General Fund, a little over half, and the Park Fund at 18%, which is where our earned revenues go to support a like amount of expenses.

The green chart on the bottom right is our 2024 proposed capital budget, which is about 93 million, supported mostly by the Park District and the REIT real estate excise tax.

The waterfront is a big chunk of the pie for next year, based on the timing of the project, which you all know is on time and doing amazing things for our city, and significant construction planned for the opening of that in 2025. So this is a snapshot of our budget.

And as is mentioned, it's made up of many different sources.

But we are thankful for the opportunities that we have and the way that our council, the way our mayor and our citizens have stepped up for parks.

by instituting the park levy system in Seattle, which is another gold medal desire of many park agencies throughout the nation, so we can be very proud of that here in Seattle.

The next snapshot for you is just an overview of how I've organized our department here in the Parks and Recreation Department.

So I'm supported by a wonderful team.

I was just telling some staff members today at an expanded budget meeting that we had that no director of any department can truly be a subject matter expert in every single line of business that a department does.

We are many corporations here in the city of Seattle through our departments, and my fellow director, Jim Loader, is here as well with his assistant.

We run complex organizations, and to do that, we need the assistance of really talented people.

And fortunately, I was blessed with an amazing team when I came here.

Christopher Williams, as many of you have known, has been here for over 30 years.

and has served as the superintendent probably seven or eight times in his tenure here.

He brings a wealth of institutional knowledge and he's a great partner to me and has just been a godsend in terms of his knowledge and support and his ability to provide me some discernment is really great.

He's our chief deputy superintendent.

And then I'm supported by three deputy superintendents, Michelle Finnegan to my right, who also brings a tremendous wealth of experience here in the department and oversees a very complex unit of all of our different funding sources, our budget, our personnel, our contracts, and our performance management, our property management.

So Michelle and her team keep our operations running.

which is really fantastic.

Many of you may know Andy Sheffer, who is the deputy superintendent.

I see heads nodding, and we always do.

Andy oversees our planning and capital development team, and really charged with ensuring that all of our capital projects, mostly that are funded through the MPD Park Levee, come in on time, that they're organized well, that we're delivering for the community.

We'll be talking about that more, but Andy is a subject matter expert in this area.

He's a planner and oversees architects and engineers, designers, and a planning team, and this is his portfolio.

And then we just promoted recently a long time, Seattle Parks and Recreation employee, self-styled.

She grew up in recreation.

Kind of, I think, like Councilmember Hollingsworth, using our facilities and growing up in the community alongside community centers.

It's Daisy Katagi.

and we've just promoted her to be a Deputy Superintendent over our Parks and Recreational Services Branch.

This is where a lot of our frontline operations occur, our community centers, our Parks and Environment Division, which is where our maintenance workers are, our Facilities Division, the folks that take care of our facilities and do all the repairs, as well as our park rangers and our park concierges.

So these are the people that are activating our park spaces for good and maintaining them.

And then we also have in the superintendent's office our public affairs division.

Rachel Shulkin is our comms director.

She's wonderful and excellent in the work that she does, as well as Desiree Tavares, who oversees our human resources division.

She's also a wonderful person who has a real heart for people and service.

So I want to talk about, just quickly here, the Seattle Park District.

You'll hear from time to time, this is also referred to as the MPD, which is a big term for us here in parks, but it's the Seattle Parks District.

It is integral to almost all of our lines of business and supports enhanced operations such as more community center hours, additional park cleaning, major maintenance of our valuable assets such as restroom renovations, play area improvements, and also where again, the majority of our park capital projects come out of.

In fact, in June of 2024, the park district board, which is made up of city council members, all the city council members, right?

Yeah, all the city council members.

So all of you will hear more about our 2023 accomplishments and we'll talk about are different cycles.

So right now we're in cycle two, which will be coming up, that we will be talking about.

So we can go to the next slide.

So as I mentioned, we are currently in the second cycle of, each cycle is six years.

And some of the investment highlights, these are things that again, you all and your predecessors have voted on and will continue to oversee and shepherd and vote and guide on.

But some of the things that are underway are making parks safe and welcoming through expanded park ranger programs and increase activation in the center city and the neighborhood parks.

So the park ranger program directly came from a cycle two allocation and the monies that were allocated through the funding allowed us, when I came here there were two, approximately two park rangers and two support staff in that unit.

We got authority from the council and cycle two to ramp up hiring to approximately 26. to 26, eight park rangers.

We have hired an initial tranche of about 14. and had a very successful campaign.

We're now in the second phase of hiring, and we are going to be doing that.

And fortunately, the park ranger hiring will not be impeded by the temporary hiring freeze, so we'll be able to move through that.

And I also want to point out that after some long labor negotiations, we were able to remove a restriction that previously only allowed the rangers to do duties in the downtown area of Seattle, but that geographic restriction has now been lifted.

And once we hire up the second tranche of park rangers, we are currently working on a citywide program of how we can deploy our park rangers throughout all of our Seattle neighborhoods, and to try to be really park ambassadors for the community in all of your council districts, as well as our entire city.

We also were able to improve restroom access and cleanliness, a huge concern that you no doubt will hear many times on the council.

But because of this cycle to investment, we've been able to increase our daily maintenance, We've been able to do winterizing projects to reduce seasonal closures and have increased frequency of major renovations, as well as launched a citywide dashboard for our residents to be able to get real-time information about which park restrooms are closed, which ones are open, which ones are down for repair.

So that's been a really great thing that we've been able to give the Seattle citizens.

And then we also are using these monies to combat some of the climate change issues that I was talking about, preparing for decarbonizing facilities and ensuring that future facilities are built in a way that...

adapts to climate and meets the standards that has been set by the city.

And we are restoring our natural areas in a wonderful way.

We have a wonderful partnership with the Green Seattle Partnership, as well as some of our amazing staff.

We have an ecologist on staff, which is really amazing.

Again, another one of these gold medal standards that we have here in the city of Seattle.

And because of some of the work that we're doing here for forest regeneration, last year we planted, and now I don't want to get the number wrong, can't remember, do you remember how many trees we planted?

Well, those, yeah, over, no, actually, I think it's not, I'm going to say 9,000, but could be wrong.

But I think it is, we planted with Green Seattle Partnership nearly 9,000 trees in the city of Seattle.

And I just saw a statistic that we planted over 60,000 plants.

And these are obviously things to regenerate and to adapt to climate here too.

So we're actually working with the University of Washington and other people to also keep an eye on the future.

What are the types and the best types of trees and plants that we need to be planting today so that they can grow into any climate changes?

And because of this work, we were just recognized by the United Nations as a role model city.

The only North American city to get this designation was the city of Seattle.

So I just wanted to point that out.

Wow, congratulations.

Thank you.

So we serve the community through a variety of ways, but through parks and recreational services, this is...

some of the heart and soul of our department, our staff that works in recreation.

Because again, they're working with people.

And we do so many wonderful things.

And there's just a snapshot here on the slide of all the different things that we do.

I just want to call out a few programs that we've started and launched since my tenure here.

One of them is the Swim Seattle Initiative.

We are continuing to make it a priority of ours to ensure that every child in the city of Seattle knows how to swim.

We're a city of water.

It is staggering and disproportionate, the number of children that are still drowning today because of not knowing how to swim.

And the statistics are even more frightening among children of color that still are the highest number of kids that are drowning.

So we're in a city of water, and we have a duty to...

remove barriers as much as possible to get kids to learn how to swim.

So we've launched the SwimSeattle program.

It's something that is a priority of ours.

The mayor's office, we know the council office has been all on board about this as well.

And we're gonna continue to lean into that with some of our partners, like the YMCA.

This is Laurie Yeadon, who is the president of the King County YMCA.

And we're going to continue to grow that partnership even stronger.

And we're doing a lot of work in our community service as well as with our planning and capital team to ensure that we build the facilities and improve the parks in all parts of Seattle so that we are meeting the needs.

In our Parks and Recreation Division, this is where we take care of the parks and environment.

Hopefully, you've noticed in the past couple of years just how improved our park system has become.

And we always can do better, and we always have goals to improve our ground maintenance and our natural areas.

But one thing that we're very proud of is how our parks show up for the community.

in terms of their well-manicured cleanliness.

We have so many experts.

We even have specialty staff that work specifically at the Japanese Garden and know how to take care of those types of plants, which is done in a very specialized way.

Again, our natural areas, our forestry division, our horticultural experts or ecologists, as well as just your neighborhood parks.

I'm always keeping an eye out for the rainbow signs, and if you see them too, let me know if you see a park that's not looking healthy or clean or shining or just needs an extra love and attention.

Our staff is always on track to do that, and we're very proud of them.

And then I'm just leaving you with really some fun pictures of how we're showing up.

We do specialized recreational programming.

And we do aquatics.

We do programming for children.

We do programming for adults and youth.

And so just want you to kind of see where we're showing up in the community here.

And then I mentioned our facilities teams are custodial ground maintenance they work so hard every single day and are constantly.

With nearly 500 parks, you can imagine how many things can go wrong or break down and although we do have good asset management plans in place there's always the unexpected call.

and our teams are out there to remove graffiti, fix lights, fix potholes, fix things that need to be fixed, and our facilities division is also a point of pride, too.

We also work with the Seattle Conservation Corps, which you may have heard of, which is a partnership that we do that's run by our department to help people transitioning out of incarceration or other difficult life circumstances, and oftentimes find jobs in our facilities division to gain employment and skills and references.

And I can't tell you how many people I've met in that program that have turned their life around, and it's really wonderful, so we're very proud of that.

In our Planning, Capital, and Development Division, we're doing a lot of work.

This is where we oversee a lot of our strategic planning, our asset management, our engineering and design.

These are the things that we...

plan for and that we build for the future as well as maintaining our existing facilities.

So I always invite the council members and Paula will continue to work with your staff to let you know if we are having a groundbreaking, an opening or a community event in your district and you would love to be there.

We would always love to have you there.

And I did an introductory meeting yesterday with council member Tammy Wu, who's a district-wide council member, as you all know, and equally told her she is invited to anything in the city that she wants to see and be part of.

So we're all in this together.

The mayor has the wonderful phrase of one Seattle.

And at the end of the day, our job is to support and equip you as a council to really shine that good work that we're doing.

And so, in the next slide, you'll see some of our completed community projects.

We were at Dearborn Park Play Area.

I was actually there with Councilmember Rivera, if you remember, when we unveiled this beautiful mural that was a combined effort with the Department of Cultural Affairs.

This is actually the side of a homeowner's back wall cinder block wall that abuts the park.

And they didn't have to say yes, because it was a private property, but through some really wonderful community dialogue, since that wall faces the park, we were able to incorporate this beautiful community led community-designed art mural, which just adds so much color and wonderfulness to the park.

And we're looking at other joint opportunities to bring more art in the park as well.

We have a partnership with DCA to look at developing some of our park restrooms.

Instead of just being cinder block walls, why not create them as art spaces in parks?

And these are some of the other just programs we continue, some of the play areas, the lighting projects, and community events that we've done.

And then, we're doing a lot of synthetic field conversion projects, which is really important.

Not only is it sustainable, but it also provides for more year-round play, and we have some of that in construction, as well as a trend that we're really trying to move.

The Pathways Park is under construction, and when it opens, I would invite as many of you to come out as possible, because it's going to be an all-accessible playground.

or what we sometimes call universally accessible, but it's getting away from traditional wood chips or other things that sometime impede families with children with disabilities.

We want our parks to be more accessible, and so this is a great project that's a public-private partnership with our Parks Foundation and community partners, and just wanted to point out some of the things that we're doing there.

And as we wrap up, I just want to reiterate that we have a big department, and we're really blessed with community partners in Seattle.

Another thing that I just really fell in love with in the city is how much people are willing to roll up their sleeves in Seattle.

As public servants, they will hold us to the test.

We have an educated and informed public, which is a good thing.

But also, what is equally admirable is that our public doesn't just talk or talk at us sometimes.

They are willing to get involved and to roll up their sleeves.

And this is just a snapshot of some of the amazing people that work with us, our Associated Recreation Council, our Board of Parks and Recreation Commissioners, the Seattle Parks Foundation, DEAL, our sister city department does a lot of education with us in our public facilities, the Seattle Public Library, MOHAI, the Downtown Seattle Association, the zoo, the aquarium, that Green Seattle Partnership.

We have over 31,000 also individual volunteers touching our parks every single year.

So it's really important to recognize that partnerships are what help ensure success for all.

And I just want to end by saying, you know, as we lean into what are gonna be some difficult and challenging times for our city, we all know that in terms of the budget, we're gonna continue to show up for the public through Parks and Recreation.

It's too important of an asset, and we are planning for that.

We keep reminding our staff and the public we have been here before as a city.

We will get through this, although this presents an immediate challenge.

We have a lot of dedicated and talented and smart people working in this city, both on the city council and the department's office and the mayor's office.

and we want to continue to shine our light so that we are meeting the needs of our citizens and so we are not going to let down on that we're going to do it in a way that's constructive and positive that meets the challenge and the need that we need to meet going forward but also that's going to provide a surety for the public that at the end of the day our Seattle parks and recreation system will continue to be the cornerstone of our society, which now more than ever, I think we need to amplify the importance of parks.

We all learned that through and out of the pandemic, that the one place that our entire world could go to, whether you lived in Seattle or Rome or Seattle, was our public park systems and You know, thank God for these wonderful places that provide health and wellness to society.

So with that, I want to thank you for your leadership and that ends our presentation for you today.

Awesome.

Thank you so much, Superintendent Diaz.

That was phenomenal.

I want to open it up to my colleagues if they have any questions.

And I want to first start, I missed Councilmember Strauss before this presentation started.

So I want to recognize you, Councilmember Strauss.

Oh, thank you, Chair.

I was just sharing for the viewing public.

You might not see me at the dais, but I'm here live from District 6 coming to you from my district office today.

I have been working in office five days a week for two years now.

And Superintendent, just what a great presentation.

I could probably talk for two hours about all of the amazing things you do.

I'm not going to do that for the benefit of everyone.

Just noting I'm excited to have gained Discovery Park in the redistricting that happened last year.

I'm in my district office and I can see Ballard Commons Park from here, knowing that Green Lake is the center of the north end And is the highest used park in the city.

We couldn't be getting to that small craft center ribbon cutting next month without you and Debbie super chief deputy superintendent Christopher Williams.

And it's folks like Tom from I don't know if he's with arc or if he's What role the activation bit and blanking on his last name, but, you know, Tom was really helpful in making the reopening of our commons park successful HAB-Jacques Juilland- folks like Ryan dole as well, you know the list could go on and on and on just to say so many people's first job is with the parks department it's a real gateway into the city and.

HAB-Jacques Juilland- As I said, like I could talk for hours about you know my elementary school Adams elementary had bad me Center next to it it's a place that provides refuge provides early learning recreation and.

your impact on our community is so incredibly important because it's where people go to rest, play and rejuvenate.

So just wanted to say huge thank you, Superintendent Diaz and to Michelle and Chief Deputy Superintendent Christopher Williams.

Thank you, sir.

Thank you, Council Member Strauss.

I want to open up if my colleagues have any questions.

Council President.

Sure.

Well, first of all, I want to say thank you very much for the presentation, and I want to get on the record that I've been extremely impressed in the two years that I've been in office.

The state of the parks has changed so much, and I know that you've done a lot, too, on the There was a big challenge coming out of the pandemic, and I just have to say that I recognize that the progress that you've made took a lot of planning and work to get on a schedule so that our parks and facilities were usable by people.

So thank you for that.

I had two questions.

On page 17, you mentioned intern...

Well, maybe I'm just reading that into it, but I believe that you were talking about internships and different educational programs.

Or maybe I wanted just to add, yeah, skilled trades.

Okay, so carpenters, electricians, I think that you're talking about working with the trades.

But I also know that you've got internship programs and youth programs.

And so could you talk about those a little bit?

And are there any opportunities for the people that go through those programs?

Have you thought about creating pathways to actual paid employment once they're done and of age?

Chakundi, I'm talking to you.

What's that?

Go on.

No, thank you for bringing that up.

Yes, so on this page, we're talking about some of our skilled trades, which are oftentimes an entree for city work because city work, especially a trade, can be a great career and provide that opportunity.

But we also do have expanded internships on our recreation side.

A lot of our employees, in fact, I was just talking to someone today that I was so surprised has worked for the department for 35 years.

He started as a lifeguard.

And we have a lot of, even though we're recruiting and we need more lifeguards, Always put a plug for that.

We do look for opportunities where we can bring in people, whether it's through our partnership with ARC or through the city, to bring in people, but always trying to capture them in a way that if they want to stay in the city, there should be opportunity for them to do that because...

they can start to earn city credit and service, and again, provide an entree to what can be a wonderful career.

So, yes, we very much have either dedicated programmings that are set up for that, some of it through the MPD specifically, as well as expanding those partnerships as much as possible.

My second question, partnerships, leads right into that, if I may ask my last one.

It's not going to take a long time.

So you have a partnership with Seattle Public Schools, and I'm sure that that's a very varied partnership.

One of the things I'm thinking about is land share.

I mean, they own property that we've been using for years, Memorial Stadium, for example, and I imagine that there are many other ones, and I just came to, not just came to realize, but I was, one of my priorities is to turf Judkin Park's play field, which is the home of the City Panthers, which they really need some turfing, otherwise, you know, they have puddles and sprained ankles and stuff.

But then I came to learn that, in fact, that is not city property, that is school district property.

So does it happen that you work deals or borrow land and make co-improvements or anything?

How does that work?

Yes, that's an excellent question, and I'm glad.

That's actually something I was going to end on, and then I ended up on my tangent.

But I believe on that point, like also now more than ever with some of the budget challenges that we have, that we all have to be creative in the city.

as well as the Seattle Public Schools, who faces its own economic challenges.

You know, at the end of the day, to your point, you know, the public, we do a lot of finger-pointing sometimes in government.

Well, that's not my responsibility.

That's the school's.

Oh, that's DOT.

No, that's, you know...

parks and rec.

No, that's City Light.

That frustrates constituents more than anything, because they just want things done, so it's our job to figure that out.

So specifically with the school district, we have been working very closely with them, and we've just reinstituted a quarterly in-person meeting to look like where do we have crossover you know where can we be activating spaces perhaps um you know uh joint use programs where if we need to invest in the field can you give us access to the field or can you provide after school staffing through your programs and we'll provide the kids for that so um it is negotiated um sometimes it's a little challenging because it's different you know intergovernmental districts.

But we have a very good working relationship with our partners in the school district.

We also program all the fields for Seattle Public Schools.

So there is a mutual goal of wanting to make sure that their kids and programs are meeting the programs.

But I also think we also, on that point, really need to lean into more public-private partnerships in general for our city.

And again, with these budget challenges that we have coming up, If there's people that need access, we can still control parameters, we can still adhere to our public responsibilities and make sure access, but we can't mess up opportunities as well so that we can continue to grow in this time of challenge and also limited space.

We have a lot of talented partners in the city of Seattle, a lot of private organizations that want to be good corporate citizens and invest in their parkland and in kids and programs.

I'm a big proponent of ensuring that we do not miss out on those opportunities.

Thank you.

Council Member Rivera.

Thank you, Chair Hollingsworth.

I'm so glad to hear you say that, Superintendent, because I know that in the D4, there are some schools, I'm thinking of Lincoln High School in particular, they don't have a field.

They have a lot of kids, a lot of students that are involved in athletic activities, and they rely on the city's and I would love a conversation about how you all go about prioritizing those fields because I'm hearing that there's some issues with students having access to those fields.

I know there are also adult intramural programs and there's a lot of, which is in some ways a good problem to have as you started the whole presentation, we are a city that loves our parks.

folks are engaged, adults are engaged, everyone wants to use the field.

And so knowing how to prioritize the fields and your partnership with SPS is really critical.

And in terms of the private if there are opportunities for private use of any private lands, that is something I'd love to hear more about because these students do need spaces to play.

And so would love to hear more about that.

And just in general, I wanna really compliment you and your staff because they do an excellent job with parks across the city.

And you all do a great job with customer service I know whenever I've reached out, your staff has been very responsive.

So I want to compliment you there and all the hard work that I've seen going into the various parks across not only the district, but across the city.

And one thing that I really appreciate, you know, that Seattle swim program.

These are programs that really speak to me as a a low-income kid.

I grew up low-income.

I didn't learn to swim as a kid.

And that's a big deal because there was no access.

So I really appreciate the goal of having all kids, not just some kids, have access and learn.

And that is not something really that...

we should have that as a goal regardless of ability or access.

So thank you for prioritizing programs of that nature.

And I know that you and I have talked about in general, how do we bring more access to families across the city that might not know about the programs at parks, et cetera.

So I very much appreciate your attention to that.

One last question I have, if I may, Chair, is just what are the number of FTE employees you have at parks?

You talked about the operating budget, but it'd be really great to see or hear about the number of employees at parks.

At parks, yes.

At Parks and Recreation, we currently have...

1,131 FTE employees.

Thank you.

perfect well thank you i had two questions and i'll be super quick um i know you all installed the lights at juckins which was great um because in our district i don't know if a lot of people know we have a ton of housing that's coming along rainier just north of there there's gonna be 400 units of affordable housing just south lake washington union partners they're building a thousand units.

Urban League just bought the lot, which is where the old Burger King was that burned down.

That's going to be their new headquarters where they're going to build a ton of housing.

And so as we are growing as a city, because we see density everywhere, we're growing up.

And so a lot of people don't have front yards and backyards.

How do you all prioritize which fields, depending on where housing is going, and you know that those are gonna get extra use, understanding like scheduling, like you might have to, like, do you prioritize or project like, hey, we're probably gonna have to take care of this park a little bit more or anticipate the usage of certain areas because of growth?

Yeah, that's a very good point.

And it's something that we do think about because the more dense, you know, the city becomes or the more housing, like you mentioned, you know, sometimes a traditional one size model doesn't fit well.

So like the very fact that we just put 77 lights, you know, and a new staircase at Hiawatha, Judkins Park, and you were talking about the playground, you know, is the footprint of that playground just being replaced one to one going to support these additional families coming in.

So we really have to look at that.

I mean, our first and foremost priority, our highest priority, usually with field prioritization, although people have questions about that and we are doing more community surveying on that to make sure we're being responsive.

because we have this responsibility to the schools.

You know, when the schools are in session, that's the, you know, our priority.

But there are many needs for that.

So we need to be, you know, creative in our approach.

I think we also perhaps at some point need to have a conversation about, you know, the more...

when building projects are coming into the city?

You know, do we look at even asking, you know, different cities have done, you ask the developer to set aside a certain amount of public land, it has to be public, as part of that project to support a recreational purpose.

whether it's an extra field, an extra playground, more space as part of your development footprint.

It also improves the price of property, but also alleviates some of the responsibility, so we could be creative in those areas, too.

And also looking at non-traditional park spaces.

We're talking a lot about this in the Downtown Activation Corps.

You know, we have a lot of these big buildings that are being abandoned or not occupied for traditional.

Let's look at opportunities to create more indoor park space, especially in a city that sometimes has some challenging weather in the wintertime.

You know, having places where people could come and recreate or do recreation inside.

could be really valuable too, or using some even abandoned rooftop parking, old parking structures that could be pickleball places, that could be other forms of recreation.

So we're trying to look at all of our spaces because we are limited.

As you know, in the city of Seattle, we are growing, but we still have limited amounts of large areas of land for those traditional parks that we have at the places that, you know, we're so blessed.

We have Magnuson, Discovery, but how many of those future big sites will we have again?

So we have to be really creative and maximize our space.

Yeah, no, that's, I love that.

And then the last question I have, Office of Economic Development really wants to have a whole bunch more of business improvement areas, BIAs.

And I know for the park side, and I've met a ton of them, there are like little groups that take care of parks.

You know, they're friends of this park, or it's like the Garfield Superblock, or you know, they have different groups, which I really appreciate because you have neighborhoods taking ownership of their park.

If there's trash there, if it's not just, oh, the city needs to clean that up.

No, we need to clean, it's our neighborhood, you know, like kind of taking like some responsibility.

Is there like a program where you're encouraging like certain parks maybe to have some like community, like group or ownership with it as well?

Yeah, I mean, you mentioned the Friends program.

We have a Friends program, and oftentimes, you know, because we can't be in all places all the time, being open to the fact that we need community partners is really important.

So usually, we try to have it organized around some sort of an organized program because, for instance, with our Green Seattle Partnership, we actually have what are called park stewards or park...

forest stewards, and we provide the materials and supplies.

They have drop boxes where we can deliver the materials in a safe space.

They have the keys.

I see them working there all the time.

There's one near me where I live.

And at first I thought, gosh, is that our Seattle Parks people out here?

It's so late.

It's like 6.30 or it's a Sunday at 10. I was like, wow, our staff works all the time, which they do.

But these are actually parks.

These are community members that have said, we want to take care of this park.

And, you know, if you provide us the plants, teach us, give us some of the materials, we'll organize the groups.

And I think it's one of the best things that we can do.

And we want to support that.

That's one thing, is that people love to be in nature and the garden.

We also have a variety of community gardens and pea patches where people can actually come work the land, which is really great.

So I want to encourage more of that because, again, in these times, that's where we can...

You know, be creative and have other opportunities where if people want to organize, you know, a cleaning, their own cleaning system and come up and help us and report things to our maintenance teams.

Those are the first eyes.

They notice things quicker than we might notice them.

We have the Find It, Fix It app now in Seattle where you can take a picture and upload it directly.

There's supposed to be an answer within seconds.

72 hours and a tracking number, that's been a big help.

But to get back to your question, I love any kind of community partnership where people can come in and feel a little bit of ownership and pride in their neighborhood park.

It just makes it a better experience for everyone.

Awesome.

Are there any more questions from my colleagues?

Well, Superintendent Diaz, Michelle, oh, I'm so sorry, Council President Nelson, go ahead.

I just wanted to say that I feel, and we've talked about this before, Superintendent, we're fortunate enough to have you here from LA, where you've done some really creative things with the parks down there and public lands and public-private partnerships.

And on the record, plug for encouraging the use of our parks for film.

as sets because that is often in demand and there are ways of making it easier or harder or whatever, but we can continue that.

So thank you.

Thank you.

So more movies and shows in Seattle.

We don't want, I think it's Grey's Anatomy, isn't that filmed in Vancouver, not Seattle?

I know, right?

I know, very disappointing.

Thank you.

And there's another show that's a Seattle based, that's a public safety, the fire one that's not filmed in Seattle.

It's very disappointing.

Anyways, thank you, Superintendent Diaz, Christopher, Michelle, for your presentation today.

Really appreciate y'all.

So thank y'all for coming.

Thank you.

And if there are no further questions, will the clerk please read agenda item number two into the record?

Agenda item number two, overview of surveillance technology process by the Seattle Information Technology Department for briefing and discussion.

The presenters are Interim Chief Technology Officer Jim Loader and Ginger Armbruster from the Information Technology Department.

Thank you, Chief Floater and Ginger.

Welcome back to the hot seats.

I'm just playing.

Would love for you all to introduce yourself and then you can jump right into your presentation.

I know you'll need a little bit of time to get it loaded, but looking forward to hearing the presentation today.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I think that Vin is projecting.

That's not, yeah, there he goes.

So thank you very much.

Once again, we from the beautiful IT department are happy to be here.

And last time we were here, Chair Hollingsworth, it was your mother's birthday, I believe.

And today we learned about your father's background in parks.

So by the end of the year, I expect to be surrounded by your family members here at the table sharing a meal.

They will all be here.

Thank you.

All right.

Thank you for welcoming us again today to present to you.

I am Jim Loader.

I'm the Chief Technology Officer, Interim Chief Technology Officer for the city.

And joining me is Ginger Armbruster, who's the city's Chief Privacy Officer and our Division Director for Data Privacy, Accountability, and Compliance.

And before Ginger takes us off with her presentation, I want to, by way of preface, just say that we're here to provide an overview of the administration of the city's surveillance technology ordinance.

Since the adoption of the ordinance, Seattle IT has been responsible for implementing the processes required to meet the city's obligations under the law.

Ginger will step you through what that entails, but I do want to say that today's focus is to brief you on how that ordinance is administered, and we're not planning to present anything about specific technologies.

But if you do have questions about that, we may need to consult with our departmental partners to get answers to those.

And we certainly answer anything that we can, but our primary focus today is on the administrative processes and the management of that ordinance.

So with no further ado, Ginger.

Thank you, Jim.

Am I on?

OK.

I can't think of a more different transition from parks to IT, and then specifically to the kind of IT we do around compliance.

So I will say parks is a terrific partner.

We've worked on a lot of wonderful projects with them.

And I saw some of my friends that are gone now that I worked on with them past.

And that's one of the interesting things.

I want to take just a moment to position who are we, and how did surveillance end up there?

I am the division director for DPAC, we call it, Data Privacy Accountability and Compliance.

There's 18 of us, and we work with five different programs that touch just about every department.

So I've probably worked with every city department or my team has on a variety of projects, either touching open data.

We were one of the first cities to offer data up through an open data program for entrepreneurial or transparency or academic reasons.

We have something like two terabytes of lines of data available for folks.

We offered and built the first privacy program, municipal privacy program in the nation and are a leader and continue to consult with folks that are doing that kind of work across the country.

Surveillance, I'll talk about in just a moment, but surveillance compliance is part of that.

The data compliance and policy group are responsible for letting us to keep taking payment cards.

So we have a series of responsibilities around payment card compliance to keep that information secure.

Public records support 70-odd public disclosure officers across the city.

including the ones who answer your requests.

So they keep them trained, keep the technology up and running.

It's a big job to keep everybody coordinated on multi-department requests.

And finally, we have a responsible AI program helping to bring artificial intelligence in a responsible way to the city.

We have over 20 petabytes of data that we manage that we have collected.

That was a few years ago, so I can only imagine what it is now.

And that translates to about 20 million file cabinets worth of information.

So we have a lot of David at the city.

Almost all of it is available by public request.

And that's what we do.

We help all the departments do the right thing around structure and guidance to build trust and confidence in how we manage the public's information.

And all of us connect, even though these are different programs, we all connect through either public transparency around data, the ethical use of data, data stewardship generally, civil liberties impacts, and that's the surveillance data we'll speak about in just a moment, or being compliant with requirements and obligations we have.

And the legal mandates range from council resolution, executive order, legislative intent, up to city ordinance, state or federal law, and regulatory mandates.

So that's where we all connect together.

And next slide, please.

And I'll dive right into surveillance.

And that's my team.

They're a little fuzzy there, but I wanted you to know who the folks are, 18 hardworking people in different groups trying to keep all this going.

All right, next slide, please.

Okay, long slide, lots of information here.

Just wanted to give you a brief history of the surveillance ordinance and why we are where we are today and what it looks like.

So this all started over 10 years ago with an ordinance that was very specific about acquisition and use of specific technologies, focusing on drones, on a social media analysis tool, a couple of other items that were called out specifically about surveillance.

And that worked for a while until the realization that there's a lot broader range of technologies that are coming up, a lot of different ways that information is being collected.

And so the ordinance was revised to address the use and intentional use of technology.

beyond just drones, because drones don't have to be just for surveillance.

They can be used for other reasons.

Let's look at the wide range by definition of what surveillance may be.

So the law was revised in 2017, and then we had about six weeks to look at everything the city did that might possibly meet that definition.

You can sort of imagine how the crazy was.

We went from thousands and thousands of potential candidates down to about 28 technologies.

Half were in police, Others were in either City Light, Office of Transportation, Department of Transportation, or the Fire Department.

And then a few revisions along the way to make sure that that list of technologies was accurate.

Some of those technologies are no longer in use, but that's what we landed on.

And then in 2018, we had another amendment to the ordinance, adding a community surveillance working group.

And this is a group of folks appointed both by council and by executive to do an oversight of what these technologies are and provide a public input and perspective.

outside of just public comment.

So that group came together, seven individuals, and we've been working with versions of that ever since, people coming and going there.

We started finally in 2019 to look at and approve the first group of technologies that looked at closed circuit TV and license plate readers.

And then from there, we worked on other technologies as they came up.

In 21, we spoke specifically about facial recognition technology as a surveillance tool and began from 20 to 23 submitting additional council bills for approval for retroactive technologies that were already in use at the city.

to get those approved through city council.

So that was the work of those two or three years.

We finally did another update looking at policy playbooks and did some work in 22 and 23, putting some templates in place so departments were a little more self-service on doing this work as we looked to this year where we have completed finally the review of all the stuff that was in use before, all the old stuff, and are looking at possible new technologies for consideration and any changes to the technologies that council's already reviewed and approved and now need to go from there.

So that's a short version of a lot of work that happened over time.

And I've been here for most of this, but we started off with a broad view and now are looking now to the future and what we're gonna do next.

So if you could, next slide please.

And what are these surveillance impact reports?

They are a lot, I'll put them in paper.

Some of these are pretty big.

They have different sections of them looking at different aspects of technology use and consideration.

So we have submitted now for all technologies that are already in use.

We are now looking for any newly proposed technologies that meet the definition and criteria of surveillance.

I'll hit on that in just a minute.

And these are created by departments who are proposing the technology use.

They come to us.

We say, hey, that brings all the right bells.

We need to start going through a process.

for council approval.

And then these seven items are what are in a surveillance impact review.

There's a privacy impact assessment, financial information to understand financially how these tools rank and rate.

There's a version of the racial equity toolkit that may be familiar to you from other projects around the city, public engagement, comment and analysis.

So we give opportunity for for members of the public to tell us what they think.

And then that working group comes up with a privacy and civil liberties impact assessment that the CTO that can have a response to.

And then finally, any appendices, other policies, supporting documents.

And we've done this for 28 total, but they're now published and have been reviewed.

And I think two, the last two are just going to be coming in front of council here in the next few weeks.

Next slide, please.

So what are we talking about when we say surveillance?

I imagine if I said surveillance to everyone in this room, you'd have a different definition or idea of what that meant to you.

We had to land on one.

So after a lot of communication and conversation externally and inside of the city, this was the definition that's in the law.

Technology whose primary purpose is to observe or analyze the movements, behavior, or actions of identifiable individuals in a manner that is reasonably likely to raise concerns about civil liberties, freedom of speech or association, racial equity, or social justice.

Also included in that definition are license plate data that can be combined with other records to get you to the same place.

There are exclusions to those technologies, so anything that you get a consent for, may I collect this information?

Yes, you may.

It does not count as surveillance.

If there's an opt out, if you can opt not to use or be present and have that data collected, that also isn't surveillance.

Body worn cameras and police vehicle cameras are handled under different legislation, so they were exempted from having to go through this process because they have their own process.

And cameras that are installed for traffic violations, like red light cameras or turn cameras, those are also exempted from this.

They have a different set of legal obligations around them.

Security cameras, which are usually signed and say there's security cameras in this building, are also not included.

Those are not surveillance.

And any infrastructure protection cameras, so critical infrastructure, undersides of bridges, places you could imagine we want to keep an eye out but are not looking at people or individuals, they're looking at the structure or infrastructure.

And finally, any technology that monitors just city employees.

So if we have a camera over a pay station or over someplace where money is being collected or other sensitive information, then that doesn't count for employees.

And the inclusions really are what this law wanted to get to, which are Any technologies that disparately impact disadvantaged groups.

Any personally identifiable information, PII, that's shared outside of the city that can be used for purposes other than what we agreed to collect it for in the first place.

Any data that can be personally identifiable, even if it's obscured or de-identified after.

So I took a picture of you, I make it fuzzy later, that still counts as surveillance because I have the original copy of that image or anonymized.

And then finally, anything that raises reasonable concerns about impacts to civil liberty, freedom of speech or association, racial equity, or social justice.

So that's what we have, that's the definition, and that's how we look at every technology that comes in that could possibly hit those marks.

Next slide, please.

And this is something of a timeline.

It can take several months to get through this process.

We have a lot of discussion built into it.

So after the draft of the staff of the department that's requesting the technology completes the templates that we've created, this is what it looks like, explaining what the data is and the data collection and use and management and security, then we move on to a public comment period where that initial draft is made public to a variety of places, either public meetings or online for collection of data.

We're in the process of that right now.

And then we go through an analysis of what came up, what themes, Are we looking at staff and the folks who are involved in that technology acquisition look at that?

And then the working group that we mentioned before has an opportunity six to eight weeks to look over all this information and decide what their take on this might be around civil liberty impacts.

And then finally the CTO has an opportunity to answer any questions or concerns or issues that may come up during the course of those analysis exercises.

An executive overview is created so we can present it to you all and you can get an idea of what this technology is before you delve into the deep dive.

And then finally, council gets to decide, vote and decide on the use, any policy surrounding or changes in policy surrounding the technologies.

And that can all take six to nine months depending.

The public comment period usually runs 30 to 60 days and the working group has anywhere from six to eight weeks to review.

So that's kind of built into the process.

And next slide, please.

And then what's on top of that?

So we have the process of approving a new technology or an existing technology.

The compliance beyond that is that city staff must submit a privacy and surveillance assessment before any non-standard technology can be acquired.

This means that we look at everything that comes in that may have a touch on surveillance or privacy.

And we determine if the city, if this meets the definition, if it then needs to go through the process.

And then prior to acquisition, council needs to approve through ordinance.

the use of that technology, looking at any impacts, civil liberty impacts.

And then we have beyond that a quarterly surveillance technology determination report for anything that goes through a review, whether it's determined to be surveillance or not, because council has the ability to take a look and make a change or ask for additional information.

So that comes out on a quarterly basis one month after the quarter ends.

And then there are two annual reports.

One is coming out of IT.

It's the Technology Community Equity Impact Assessment to look to see, are we doing what we thought we were with this law?

Are there any suggestions, changes, or considerations we should have?

And finally, there's an audit report of all the approved technologies to make sure they're being used the way they were supposed to.

The Office of the Inspector General manages the one for police and the City Auditor's Office for all non-SPD technologies that go through this.

And the next slide, please.

And finally, what's coming up?

What are the new technologies or new things that are coming up for 2024?

There is council committee action for two remaining retroactive serves, we call them.

One is call you and one is a hostage negotiation throw phone.

Callio is a recording technology for cell phone use that can be used with or without consent, and then the hostage negotiation throw phone is used for hostage situations.

There are council appointments for community surveillance working group members, and that I think we're still finalizing.

We have been running low on quorum for that group, and with all the opportunities to participate in various things that we've been working hard to recruit, and that's up to council and executive, and we help guide that.

And then finally, we are looking to clean up the master list of surveillance technologies.

Some technologies no longer are in use, some have changed, some are updated, so we have some cleanup to do.

The Public Safety Committee will look at several new technologies that are part of the technology-assisted crime prevention pilot, the close circuit television, acoustic gunshot location system, and real-time crime center.

as well as the automated license plate recognition fleet-wide use of ALPR.

And that SIR is going to be updated to reflect a change in material change in how we're using the technology.

So those are coming up through Public Safety Committee, and that will be in the next few months.

And then finally, there are some material updates to some SIRs, and these are anything that Council's already approved, but, oh, we got a change or a significant change to how we're either using it or the ability of the technology.

So that is a whole lot of information.

And that is surveillance.

And I think that's it.

May I answer any questions?

Anything that that may have brought up for you all?

Yeah, I want to open it up to my colleagues if they have any questions.

Council Member Strauss?

And then we'll go to Council Member Rivera.

Go ahead, Council Member Strauss.

Thank you, Chair, and thank you, Director Loader and Ginger.

I have to say your explanation of the process was crystal clear and almost easier to understand than some of the reports that we receive, not for any other reason than technology can be confusing for those of us that are not on the back end.

So having been through a number of these, I just really wanted to thank you for the clarity in the presentation provided.

And also thank you to Vin for always making this happen.

And without you, I would not be able to be in my district office doing my job.

So I appreciate y'all.

We all appreciate Vin.

Thank you.

Council Member Rivera.

Thank you, Chair.

And thank you for that clarification.

Very cogent presentation.

I just have two quick questions just about the reports, both the annual surveillance technology community equity impact assessment and the audit reports.

When are those released usually?

And I imagine they're on your website.

It can be accessed there, yes.

The date that is there, when they are due, is September 15th of each year.

So some of the technologies that were not approved in time to hit that deadline will be coming up in the next review for the audits, and that's happening through the Office of Inspector General or the Audit Department.

And then the other report that we create that is our CTO's report comes out at that time too, and they are online and available.

Thank you.

And then my other question is about the community surveillance working group.

That is, you said seven individuals sit and are they all community members then because it's a community working group?

Yes, there are two positions I believe that are at large so that from any kind of interest, but they are looking, the intention of the ordinance was to look for representatives from communities with disparate use of surveillance potentially so that they may be included in the conversation around new technologies or existing technologies and how they do or do not meet the need for their use.

So that has been part of the challenge I think in making sure we're reaching out appropriately and finding the right folks to participate.

And how often do they meet?

How do you interact?

There is a quarterly meeting, and that becomes interesting after we're done with all this retroactive review because it is dependent on how much new technology is coming up or being considered.

So it is a quarterly meeting by ordinance, and then they can meet in between times as well.

And they have their set of bylaws and how they operate.

We provide the administrative support, assistance, and technology so they can do those meetings in person or remotely.

Thank you.

Yeah.

Anyone else have a question?

Council President?

So once you're finished, so this says the two remaining SIR council bills, so that's the last retroactive technology, right?

Okay, so then what, once those are done, I understand that there's all the other, that there's a package of technology that's taking a different track.

And by the way, that was defined in the legislation that was sent down with the budget, I believe, right?

That wasn't a the closed-circuit TV system, acoustic gunshot, and real-time crime center.

I believe that it was defined in the mayor's proposed budget and then, okay, and approved by council.

So it wasn't a decision that was made by us to...

have the Public Safety Committee process that and not this committee.

Okay, just wanted to get that on the record.

Here's my question.

So let's say that a department, not necessarily the SPD, does want to acquire technology that has a surveillance capability, say a drone.

Lots of departments could probably take advantage of that.

Then what would the process be?

They would fill out, create, look at the templates we have around a privacy impact assessment, and then go through the public comment period, followed by the working group having an opportunity to look at the proposed use of that technology, going through that process of then having...

Same process.

Same thing.

Same thing, but probably much quicker because we don't know what the technology, it doesn't have history around it or how we've used it in the past.

It's more about building policy and process than looking at what we did in past uses, if that makes sense.

So it would still be the same process.

We still have the public comment period in person and online.

We still have the working group evaluation of the technology and then council would then vote.

Okay.

Okay.

Thanks.

Yeah.

And I definitely wanted to echo Council Member Strauss's comments on making this crystal clear because a lot of people have asked, what is the process?

How do we engage?

And to have, I think it's slide seven, to have one through seven for people to understand like, hey, this is where we are in the process.

It's easy to follow along because people want to get engaged with government.

And so a lot of people didn't know that there were there is a surveillance impact report and it goes through an extensive process.

And so just want to thank you all for putting this together on paper because this is something that I'm going to refer to when talking to people and then being able to articulate information to folks so they understand the process as well and they can get engaged.

So right now we are accepting public comment for certain items that people know about.

So thank you.

Thank you.

And if I may offer, I think, a little bit more information to Council President Nelson's question.

The process, the example that I always use, the kind of thought or concept example is the mythical picture-taking robot.

So there are certain technologies that you can look at them and on their face, they are surveillance technology.

And if a department comes and and says we want to buy a picture-taking robot to roam around downtown, we would pretty quickly label that as surveillance tech.

But not every technology a priori can be determined to be surveillance technology according to the definition.

So we have to look at everything that anybody wants to buy in the city, which is why it's also critically important that we have a centralized technology acquisition and procurement process managed by Seattle IT.

We're able to do that pretty quickly.

We've distilled the criteria that Ginger outlined down to a few key questions that employees can answer and say no. this technology doesn't collect information about people in the public, or it doesn't do this, it doesn't do that.

And then our report that we submit to council quarterly includes everything that we've identified is surveillance, but also everything we've identified that is not surveillance.

So you can go through that list and pick something out and say, wait a minute, I think a picture-taking robot's surveillance, why isn't that on your list?

So I just want to acknowledge that sort of below the water where the larger part of the iceberg is, there's a lot of work going on.

And as part of that process too, one of our focuses in the program is to work with the department to mitigate preemptively surveillance impacts that a technology acquisition might bring.

So for example, if a department wants to implement cameras to count people moving in and out of, say, a parkland or a business improvement district for completely legitimate purposes to understand how many people are using this area, we can intervene and say, yeah, a camera is the easy button.

You can put a camera up there.

Machine learning can tell you how many people are moving.

But we will help you do research to implement a technology that doesn't or can't inadvertently be used to surveil people.

so that it never gets, it never goes through that process, it never has to go through that process.

So that's also part of the work that Ginger's program does and would continue to do even if we never flag another piece of surveillance technology again in the city.

I was thinking of one while our parks folks were here that we worked on a people counter technology they had.

So they needed to know resource requirements at community centers.

And the first version of that not only counted people, it followed them throughout the building, gave them a signed number and had like real-time photo.

I'm like, okay, so that might be surveillance.

We ended up coming up with a version that was just, you know, blobs of either child-sized blob or an adult-sized blob within three feet of the door going in or out.

That would be an example of mitigating a technology that does what you need it to do, tells you how many people are in or out of the building, but does not then put us through a surveillance situation.

And the marketplace is such that over-collecting data is often a feature of technologies that are offered, and it becomes quite a challenge to find technologies or to work with vendors to get technologies to work in a particular way that where it doesn't collect all the data because i mean frankly some of our vendors are shocked that we don't want to collect all the data um and and but we we also have been very successful in finding partners who share our principles and our values here in the city so that's been good too and i want to underscore the point you made about a technology that pretty much doesn't have

surveillance capability, but you have to check all products.

And I remember my first year colleagues, I wanted to get my LA's better earphones with noise canceling capability.

And so I picked them out and I was, you know, told, I said, can you please use my office budget on these?

And no, we cannot do that because there are approved headphones that are on the list so that it didn't have to end up on one of your reports.

I just picked from the list.

So...

That's an example of don't buy things.

Sometimes it can feel a little bit ridiculous when somebody wants to buy a specific kind of printer and we have to ask them, is it surveillance technology?

But we've gotten that down to a few key questions.

It's not too painful of a process for people to answer at that very first level.

Any more questions?

I just want to underscore just the importance of the work that you do, because as more and more technology comes up, I mean, AI, for instance, there are so many issues that have come up, and I think that the work that you all are doing is really important, timely, and it's ever-changing.

So I really appreciate the work that you're doing.

And what I super appreciated about this, as I said earlier, I mean, it's just clear and it's obviously on point because we're having these conversations now.

Obviously, Council President alluded to some package that's coming.

But with IA, it's on everyone's mind.

How do we keep privacy while we have these new technologies that are really exposing us So thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

Awesome thing.

I thought there was a new technology, AI.

I was like, that's new.

Oh, did I say AI?

Yeah, but you're fine.

I thought A was something new.

I'll tell you why, because I speak Spanish and I'm always like transposing.

That's so good to know.

Just to explain why I may do that again, but AI is what I...

You're all good.

We know what you're saying.

I thought it could have been a new technology, but that's good to know about the...

Artificial intelligence.

Yeah, no, you're all good.

Just want to thank Chief Loader and Ginger for your presentation today.

Thank you so much.

And if there's no further issues for the committee, we will adjourn.

The time right now is 3.36 p.m.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Have a great rest of the day.

Thank you.

Thank you.