Public Safety Committee Meeting 2/25/2025

And good morning.

The Public Safety Committee will come to order.

It's 9.34 a.m.

February 25th, 2025. I'm Robert Kettle, chair of the Public Safety Committee.

Will the committee clerk please call the roll?

Council Member Hollingsworth?

Present.

Council Member Moore?

Council President Nelson?

Present.

Council Member Saka?

Here.

Chair Kettle?

Here.

Chair, there are four members present.

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

Hearing and seeing a no objection, the agenda is adopted.

In the interest of time, the chair who sometimes makes some lengthy comments will choose not to do so today.

It's a busy morning.

It's a busy morning outside.

It's a busy morning inside.

So help that process along.

I'm gonna skip right over to opening the hybrid public comment period.

Clerk, can you please call, read the instructions?

Currently, we have one in-person speaker signed up and one remote speaker.

Okay, thank you.

Two minutes each.

We'll begin with Aurelie Smith.

Hi.

Thank you for letting me speak this morning.

The fact that I get to speak means that we live in a free country.

This is not North Korea.

Thank you guys for all your help.

And the fact that you guys are sitting up there means that you want to help Seattle.

You love Seattle, and I love you guys for that.

So I came here to talk about radiobiological weapons.

Daryl Cosme, former CIA third-party company, handed over the reins to Ana Marie Garcia Cosme.

This company uses radiobiological weapons.

I'm being attacked right now through your Wi-Fi.

My 14-year-old autistic son has been attacked.

He did this to a migraine wrap.

They're using government, they're using Wi-Fi in this room to attack me, 2556 25th Avenue, Seattle, and 3764 West Lawton.

I have turned this in to the FBI.

They said it's valid, they will investigate.

Public information acquisition is public.

Google, so I...

I Googled and it's public that he uses broadband.

He has acquired broadband for the use of microwave weapons via the FCC.

The government fundamentally has the same obligation to prosecute.

I'm just a citizen.

Where is the due process?

You have to be clear to people that commit crimes that they have to pay for crimes.

Pam Bondi at CPAC reminded us, no one is above the law.

End weaponization of government?

Are you kidding me?

And this is the government's duty to prosecute way out of my wheelhouse.

I just dated the wrong person.

This happened in 2020. I'm shaking from the microwave weapons.

Do you see this?

That's the microwave weapons.

I've seen therapists for this, and I'm not schizophrenic.

Thank you.

Well, thank you very much for coming.

Our next remote speaker will be David Haynes.

David, please press star.

Please press star six.

Hi, thank you.

David Haynes.

Still no effective laws and leadership to improve public safety, but plenty of money to make ill-trained cops and chiefs happy with retirement packages, signing bonuses, and fat salaries while priority hiring based on skin color, gender, and sexual orientation.

Recently, we learned that a while back, the mayor was busted for brandishing a gun in a casino parking lot.

The same mayor who voted to exempt drug pushers from jail when he was a council member, the same mayor who supported hiring Kathleen O'Toole to shift the paradigm away from improving the war on drugs, sabotaging the integrity of police training, creating an unconstitutional police reform by exempting low-level drug pushers from jail.

Same mayor who's been running interference for his drug-pushing criminal underworld friends of his childhood, which explains why Seattle has continued to implode.

Now we're repeating history with the same ill-fated approach to combating real crime by hiring the same type of police chief who's been influenced by a UW racist world professor painted with George Soros ideas of neighborhood policing where the chief and cops go into law-abiding neighborhoods like politicians to do coffee propaganda outreach, falsely assuring law-abiding community we're safe while suggesting we have to participate in crime prevention, which we do, yet crimes against humanity are ongoing and cops ill-trained only have political excuses for the continued abuses.

It's obvious crime hotspots have repeatedly failed.

All it does is disperse criminals into other parts of the neighborhood and city as cops point to evidence based on data that it was successful.

Yet council continues supporting the idea because they get free press to manipulate and deceive us about the perception of safety.

It makes people question the judgment and leadership of this city government when you defer to the mayor who's created a city government of racist scornment experiences and dumping their racist trauma on the innocent community, justifying a boycott of Seattle economy till we purge the treasonous, unconstitutional, bottom-of-the-barrel progressive Democrats who don't have the best interests of the community at heart, and yet are supported by the businesses cheerleading an easier war on the homeless.

Thank you, Mr. Haynes.

We have one additional in-person.

Our next in-person speaker will be Jared Sluman.

I don't know if I pronounced that correctly.

Please correct me.

Good morning.

Hello?

Hello, good morning.

As far as public safety goes, there are roads in Ballard which I do not feel safe.

The streets are lined with the motor homes and around the motor homes are people doing hard drugs out in public where your kids can be walking by and seeing, imagine If your kids said, mom, can I go to a party?

They're gonna be doing heroin and fentanyl.

You'd say, heck no.

But that's what's going on on our streets.

And our kids and everyone are subject to seeing this stuff.

And so I know it's a sensitive, touchy subject because there are people too.

And the LEAD program was out here a few weeks ago and was really trying to help.

The only thing with that is there's no end date for Seattle streets to be clean and clear of homelessness.

Whereas if we had a treating center for these people, like 20 acres or something outside the city that we could bring them to to get their proper treatment, it would keep the Seattle streets totally clean and people would feel safe again.

Thank you.

Thank you.

The public comment period is complete.

We will now proceed to our items of business.

Members of the public are encouraged to either submit written comment on the sign-up cards available at the podium or email the council at council at seattle.gov.

We will now move on to our first item of business.

Will the clerk please read item one into the record?

Interim Chief Sean Barnes, Introduction.

Good morning, Chief.

Please join us at the table.

Introduce yourself.

Just wanted to highlight with our schedule today and outside that probably want to have an expedited process, so with OEM and emergency management coming up afterwards.

A little tighter on the questions today, if I might add, and we will end up with some I'm not looking at anybody specifically, but chief welcome.

Um, obviously I've had an opportunity to meet you a number of times, but I really welcome this opportunity to welcome you to the committee.

I think it's important.

Um, obviously, you know, this term of the council, we've endeavored to have a strong, positive and engaged relationship with Seattle police department.

And we look to continue, uh, that with under your leadership as well.

So with that, Can you introduce yourself, have your team introduce themselves, and then jump into your presentation?

We look forward to it.

Sure.

Thank you so much, chairperson.

My name is Sean Barnes.

I have the pleasure of being the chief of police, the interim chief of police for the Seattle Police Department.

Good morning, Chair Kettle, council members, Brian Maxey, chief operating officer, Seattle Police Department.

Good morning.

Tricia Fuentes, senior executive assistant to the chief.

Good morning, Angela Soce, Executive Director of Budget and Finance.

Good to see the additional members.

We see Mr. Maxey on a regular basis, so it's good to add to the group.

Absolutely.

Okay, over to you.

Thank you.

I wanna begin by first thanking you for your support.

As you mentioned before, I have had an opportunity to meet with each of you, and it was very apparent to me that you care a lot about the city of Seattle, not just your respective districts, and that public safety certainly is a priority for everyone.

and that we all believe in a collaborative approach to public safety.

I want to thank the men and women of the Seattle Police Department, many of which I've got an opportunity to meet over the past 11 days, and they have been nothing but welcoming to me as well as the public.

I want to share some insights from the public and their support as well of the Seattle Police Department and looking for a more collaborative approach.

And so this presentation will really go into a brief assessment of what we have found thus far as we look into the Seattle Police Department and a direction moving forward.

Next slide.

Next slide, please.

Okay, great.

So I believe that every leader certainly should have a vision of what you want from your organization.

Again, it's important to note that shared visions drive organizations, not individual ones.

And so I'll share with you my individual vision, but as we work together, we'll create a collective vision a vision of what we want from our police department what we want from our public safety and we will do that in consultation with the community which includes you as well but my personal vision is really simple that the seattle police department will be uh excuse me will aim to create a safe and supportive Seattle through our commitment to excellence, selfless public service, resilience, community partnerships, and continuous improvement.

And as I wrote this, as I was thinking about it, I put safe and supportive in there because that's something that I heard not only from individual meetings with the community and yourself, but it was also mentioned in the State of the City address by the mayor, safe and supportive.

And someone asked me recently, how can police departments be supportive of others?

And I believe it's through collaboration.

I believe that is our responsibility to not only provide a community that is safe, that you feel safe, but that you know your police department is supportive of you and what you're doing, because it certainly takes everyone to do that.

Committing to excellence, selfless public service is something I've said for probably 20 years.

It will appear on my challenge coin when that's done because everyone who knows me know that I truly believe that police officers, police departments should not be selfish, but we should put others first.

That is the hallmark, the foundation of what we do.

Resilience is something that I have observed from this police department before I even considered Seattle as a place to call my home.

I know the history of this police department and the officers that are still here working.

They are resilient because they believe in the leadership here.

They believe in the city and they believe in the work that they are doing.

Community partnerships and continuous improvement obviously is really truly the hallmark of any successful police department.

Someone recently asked me what I'm reading.

I read a lot of books, but one that I truly love is a book by Patrick O'Hara entitled Why Law Enforcement Agencies Fail.

People said, why would you read a book about failure?

Because sometimes you can learn a lot from failure.

That's the purpose of failure, is the failing forward.

The first chapter of that book deals with the concept which he calls organizational exceptionalism.

When you don't believe that you can learn anything else, when you don't believe you can grow, when you don't believe you can improve.

That's the first step.

And I don't find that, I don't see that in this police department, which is why I wanted to include continuous improvement.

Next slide, please.

Along those lines, we have...

We're working currently to develop a departmental work plan, something that truly the department should be engaged in.

It's been a while since we've had a departmental work plan which lists our priorities, budgeting items, and how other agencies can be supportive of those.

Those priorities are crime prevention, community partnerships, retention and recruitment of qualified workforce, employee safety and wellness, and then, of course, continuous improvement.

Next slide, please.

Along the lines of continuous improvement, I want to bring your attention to two documents that I discovered and read.

The first was authored by George Mason University and Dr. Cynthia Lum, which is an assessment of the criminal investigations portion of the police department.

And the other is a specific one done by Arizona State, which looks at the sexual assault unit.

And you have those.

These documents were asked in 2023 by the Seattle Police Department.

This was a request following an executive order.

That executive order is 2022-05 by the mayor of Seattle, and the department did comply.

And I want to share with you a little bit about these two documents.

The documents provide some recommendations and assessment of investigations.

As you know, investigations is certainly a big part of what we do in police departments and understanding how to investigate cases.

It's definitely correlated with procedural justice and the perception of fairness and whether or not your cases will be adjudicated.

It's important to know that beginning with the document from George Mason, Dr. Lum's document, many of the recommendations are the same as the sexual assault.

And so I'll talk a little bit about what we found.

Specifically, the slide that you're seeing demonstrates where we were, where we are in regards to those recommendations.

Some of those we have began, and some of those we're continuing, and some of those we have not yet began.

Some of those are a certain contingent of leadership.

some leadership turnover and things of that nature.

But I want to talk a little bit about those in brief.

The first recommendation is to establish a manual.

We have begun that process of establishing a manual so that we know what are best practices and evidence-based practices when it comes to investigations.

The second recommendation has to deal with supervisor and detective training.

Many years ago, when I first was promoted to detective, there was an actual training system similar to what we do with young police officers who are just out of the academy or field training, FTO.

We're in the process of developing that now.

I think there's some work that needs to be done, but we want to make sure that everyone understands exactly what their role is and what is expected of them.

And that includes the supervisors as well, who has the responsibility of assigning cases.

Another recommendation is the strategic communication and planning.

We obviously have something called CSTAT, which you're all aware of.

We'll be changing that up a little bit as we implement stratified policing, something that I certainly hope to talk with you about in length at some time.

The other recommendation is increased non-sworn support.

We have been authorized to hire for that.

I think we've hired six people who will be doing that.

That does not include those who will be hired for a real-time crime center, which we believe will certainly aid in investigations.

As you know, public space cameras, are everywhere and having the opportunity to access those in real time certainly decreases the amount of time it takes to find people and hold them accountable for whatever crime they may be a part of.

I will say I am certainly a big proponent of increasing non-sworn staff, especially in investigations.

Investigative aides often take a lot of burden off of our police officers and detectives in doing some of the work that does not require a badge and a gun.

This is something that I've talked with many people in the police department about and they're certainly supportive about increasing that.

In regards to the sexual assault unit, some things that are a little bit different and specific to them is the forensics lab, making sure that we can track where our sexual assault kits are and making sure that there is a protocol as it regards to where the the victim or survivor if you will will be in the process making sure that they know that they're supportive making sure they can get to medical attention and care and we have revised that and we're training on it now the other recommendation is crime support which is important which may include hiring someone internally for victim support this is something that I certainly support Having a victim advocate within the police department that can make sure that survivors of sexual assault Are being supported they feel supported they know what's going on with their cases and if they have additional information They have someone that they trust that can get that information to a detective and then case assignment This was the same for both making sure we have a checklist of when cases should be assigned and and what are the solvability factors and how to increase those solvability factors will certainly help us tremendously.

We plan to publish these two documents along with a detailed rubric of where we are on the recommendations, and we'll be updating that rubric as we move through these very important recommendations to ensure that we have the best detectives, that they have a supportive unit, and that we're providing them with the resources that they need in order to be successful.

slide another topic is officer retention and recruitment and so I'll start by talking briefly about retention everyone plays a role in retention and some of the things that that I've heard that I want to share with you is the concept of listening and to officers and their feedback.

This is something that I've been doing constantly.

I will continue to do that throughout my tenure here at the Seattle Police Department.

For example, I was in a meeting yesterday and someone talked about capital investments in the police department.

Some of our police departments have not had improvements such as carpet replacement or painting of the walls, just things or parking lot resurfacing, things that signify to people that they're valued and that they can come to work in a place that is certainly conducive to them.

Something we've talked about is the labor contract, something that I'm not intimately involved in, but that is something that I wanted to bring to your attention as well.

Investing in officer safety and wellness certainly comes up a lot.

And what we mean by that is how do we make sure that officers are recharged?

How do we make sure that sworn and non-sworn staff feel supportive?

Because there's a lot of trauma in policing.

This is something that, quite frankly, when I started policing over 25 years ago, no one ever talked about.

And so I'm glad that we're finally addressing this issue and making sure that people feel supportive in their workplace.

Promoting internal procedural justice is certainly important.

I do believe that we cannot expect people to treat people fairly if they are not treated fairly.

And so we're looking at processes around transfers, around promotions and discipline.

these are all areas where police officers see procedural justice and so I'm committed to seeing that process all the way through and then lastly is of course officer development people want to know that they're being invested in and we want to make sure that we're providing training we've partnered with the center I'm sorry, the name just slipped out of my mind, but we're providing leadership training, trust-centered leadership for our officers, and that's been very well received.

They know that we value them, and being in a leadership position doesn't make you a leader.

But having the skills to be a leader, to manage people, and to get the best out of people is a skill, and it can be learned.

And so I'm very happy that we are engaged in that.

Next slide.

So recruitment is on everyone's mind.

I think in all of our meetings, we certainly talked about that.

We're seeing certainly some significant increases in the amount of applications, and so the word is out.

I will tell you that I had an opportunity to swear in a police officer probably on my third day here, and that police officer was actually from Madison, Wisconsin, where I came from.

He had come here to visit, and his wife loved it.

She's a police officer as well, but chose to kind of do something different, and they applied, and we were basically given, you know, the thumbs up at the same time.

And he's a good police officer.

He did good work for me, and he's here.

So the word is out that Seattle is a great place to work, a great place to come.

And so we're seeing people come all the way from Madison, just like me, to be a part.

So you should be very, very proud of that.

I can help recruit the wife.

You're exactly right about that, because she did an excellent job for me.

OK, next slide, please.

Of course, these are only projections, but we are projected to see a net increase in the number of people we hire, as opposed to the number of people who separate from the department.

I want to speak about that just briefly.

A person who has worked 30 years and wants to retire should certainly do that.

And I know sometimes, you know, the community and people kind of want to beat the department up about separations.

But I can tell you that when you've earned the right to retire, you should be able to do that.

So not all separations are created equal.

We want people to enjoy what they've worked for.

But we also want people who want to stay and continue to stay here to do that.

And so these are the projections that we're seeing for 2025. And if these hold steady, we'll see a significant net increase, and we're certainly proud of that.

With that being said, I certainly want to thank everyone who works in recruiting, everyone who is a recruiter.

I checked into, well, not really checked into, but entered my apartment last night, and the person who was doing my paperwork admitted that he had already had an application in and he's scheduled to take the test.

So certainly I think that is good news because, again, people want to be a part of this police department.

They know that we're supported, and this police department is certainly on the rise.

I consider it an honor to be a part.

Okay, next slide, please.

So staffing looking ahead, these are the numbers.

These two lines show the number of officers we have and then the number of deployable officers, the number of officers that are actually on the street versus those who are in training or some other leave.

And so as you can see, we're projected to see those numbers increase as we approach 2020 and 2025. Still a lot of work to be done, but I'm certainly confident in these numbers and we should see police department return to normal soon okay next line the 30 by 30 initiative there's also report authored about that and the report really details the recommendations that the co-founders Maureen McGough who is a close personal friend of mine as well as Yvonne Roman who is also a friend of mine from the lead scholars program recommends for most police departments doing things like looking into child care, how can we support our young mothers and fathers, also continued research as to what are best practices for your particular agency, as well as working with particular unions to see what concessions can be made.

It's also important to note that in my last conversation with Maureen McGough, which was about eight days ago, they've lost all federal funding for this initiative.

And so they're in the process of rebranding just a little bit and kind of clearing up what it is and what it is not.

And so I want to be clear that diverse groups outperform non-diverse groups when they're managed well.

So this program never simply said that having 30% of your department be women would mean something unless there are a lot of other things happen as well.

And so I wanna be clear about that because I really believe in this initiative.

I really believe in what the co-founders are trying to do with this.

We support this and we're gonna continue to make sure that our recruitment materials, as you see, reflect what we want.

Because you don't attract what you want, you attract who you are.

And if you don't show that you are a place that's inviting and welcoming to people, people will not want to apply.

And so we're working on that with our materials.

And I'm certainly thankful for the men and women who work in our recruiting section.

Okay, next.

The consent decree, obviously that's something that the department has been engaged in since 2025. As you can see, these are just some clips from some of the articles about it.

As someone who certainly have been involved in consent decrees, not this one, it is no easy feat to come to the end of a consent decree.

After the tragic killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, the Department of Civil Rights and issued a pattern and practice investigation against the city of Minneapolis.

I was one of two police officers who was asked to be an investigator on that case.

And so I spent about two years looking through videos, documents.

It was a thorough and deep investigation by the Department of Justice Civil Rights that I undertook And so I know what goes into these documents and what they're asking in order to make police departments better for the communities that they serve.

Next slide, please.

And so to reach this point, I am telling you that a lot of work went into this.

And as you can see, all of these pillars really have come to the conclusion with the exception of crowd management, which is a policy that through this committee through this council was able to approve.

I'm fully expecting that we will see the end of our consent decree this year and then we will mark a new phase where we make sure that we're actualizing all of these great recommendations that were made to make sure that we present the type of police department that our community deserves.

Next slide.

And lastly, I want to talk just briefly about the future of our organization and what we have in store.

Again, these are our departmental priorities.

We'll be working on a departmental work plan, and I look forward to being able to share that with you and your staff members so you can see specifically how we're going to accomplish crime prevention.

We'll be implementing stratified policing, which really Takes what police departments do well, which is dividing work and assigning work and making sure that we're working together, that we're breaking down silos and that we're all looking at the community as a partner.

That's going to include a lot of communication.

And so oftentimes we do work and sometimes you don't know that that work is being done.

And so with this particular model, there is a part of the model where we present that work to the community and that will be done through some of our precinct captains that you all know, but they'll be making presentations to you.

You can use that information.

for your personal blogs, excuse me, your professional blogs, or to talk to your constituents about the amount of work that has truly been done in collaboration with others.

Police departments cannot actually achieve crime prevention by themselves.

It must be a holistic approach, and we look forward to being able to demonstrate that to each and every one of you through partnerships.

The retention and recruitment of our officers, we will certainly be providing updates and details about that.

We think this is very important.

Employee safety and wellness and officer wellness, Again, we have some work to do with that.

We do have an employee safety and wellness group, but there are some things that we've uncovered that we can do better.

We want them out in the precincts more.

We want them being able to contact people before, during and after a significant incident.

And then lastly, continuous improvement.

There will be no organizational exceptionalism in the Seattle Police Department under my watch.

We understand that there is room for improvement and all voices matter.

And we will make sure that we can do that in consultation with the mayor's office and consultation with city council and consultation with the men and women of the Seattle Police Department.

But most importantly, in consultation with the people who are most affected by the decisions we make.

And that's the people who call Seattle a place to live and work.

And I am certainly grateful.

for the people that I've met.

I'm certainly grateful for the police department, and I look forward to continuing working with you, and thank you again for your support.

Thank you, Chief, so much for that introduction.

I really appreciate it, particularly because of its focus on leadership.

I think that is, you know, so important division, and I appreciate, you know, the idea of supporting and being supported.

as we mentioned times, a lot of things going on today, but I will note the council president noted to me that, you know, one challenge with your brief is that you only have five pillars.

As Mr. Maxwell explained, you know, the committee's strategic framework plan has six pillars, but we can discuss that at another time.

So thank you.

Roman Doric pair of pillars.

And that's the most important thing.

Yes.

Well, I had to do something with that history degree.

True.

You know, we're partial to Greek.

But I just do want to say one last thing is that it's the taking care of the people.

I have a lot of diplomat, State Department friends, and General Powell, when he became Secretary of State, Dick Armitage was his deputy, and they took care of the little things.

You know what?

Those two are like the most beloved leaders of the State Department over the last 30 years, 40 years.

And it's incredible.

And that's an important piece.

And it's about taking care of the people.

So I really appreciate that.

And one last point, just to close, this committee, this council, this city is 110% in support of 30 by 30. And we understand it because we're not deflected by the disinformation.

It's like the other pieces that are out there.

And so we're supportive because as my Air Force brother knows and others, and my civilian neighborhood colleagues know, having those varied perspectives and bringing those varied perspectives in helps cover all the gaps and helps for better leadership.

So thank you.

And I just wanted to note that we have a group of fifth graders coming in, Chief, from West Seattle, from District 1, from Councilmember Saka's district, but I believe at the introduction or the invitation of Councilmember Hollingsworth.

So as you leave, I just want to welcome the fifth graders to our public safety committee.

Council President.

I'm sorry, Chair Kettle should have the last word, but I'm so appreciative that you're focusing on retention.

There's been so many.

We've passed, I don't know, two or three bills the past year on recruitment, and we have to keep the officers that we have, of course, and show value to them.

Unfortunately, some of the retention tools have to be bargained.

And so not only can we not really talk about it, but we also, it's a really long process.

So I'd be looking forward to any information you have that has worked in Wisconsin or that you've just encountered elsewhere that is really positive to retention, apart from having a welcoming, cooperative, collaborative legislative branch.

Thank you.

Okay.

Thank you.

Anything else good?

Sure, good.

All right, well, thank you, Chief.

Thank you.

I really appreciate it.

Thank you.

We'll follow.

Oh, sorry, Vice Chair.

Mr. Chair, point of order.

You customarily defer to me for first questions.

All good.

I wasn't going to do any questions at all.

Yeah.

All good.

Well, thank you, Chief Barnes.

Really appreciate this insightful presentation.

Appreciate the initial opportunities that we've had in the past month, month and a half now, to collaborate.

Meeting with you, it's very clear to me I had the opportunity to share out my own priorities and also hear yours.

And I was struck by the significant overlap that we have.

Yeah, so again, appreciate your presentation today.

Love the concept of continuous improvement and anti-organizational exceptionalism mentality and mindset directly in lines with where I'm at every day.

No one, no individual organization is perfect.

If so, why the heck are we here?

There's always room for growth and improvement.

So in any event, a couple of questions.

First off, have you...

So brand new, and the benefit, I think, unique benefit of hiring someone externally is that they bring a very fresh perspective.

And I think so far, my impression is we're lucky to have you.

More work to come, but...

You're also figuring out all the systems in the city, like teams and where all the restrooms are and police headquarters there, the little details.

Also understanding the politics of our city and unique relationships that you need to build and grow over time.

Have you had a chance yet to meet with our accountability partners, OYG, CPC, OPA?

And if not, totally understand, it's been a little over a month, but just curious, what's your plan to meet with them?

Yeah, we have meetings scheduled.

I have met with them through my various work.

process meeting uh for discipline so i was able uh to meet during uh with opa director or interim director during that meeting but the plan certainly is to meet with them and talk about how we can work together yes sure and on your so first 30 days month and a half almost i guess but let's just call it 30 days

What is the biggest sort of eye-opening experience for you so far in your tenure here in Seattle in terms of understanding the full weight and gravity of the situation from a public safety standpoint and the opportunity that we have collectively to improve the public safety situation?

So what has been the biggest kind of jarring or eye-opening experience for you?

I think for me, the biggest eye opening and because I'm more optimistic is I really see a department that is certainly poised to do great things.

I think so much has been said about how many officers we don't have and not enough has been said about how many officers we do have.

And because I know that we're 300 short, I prefer to say we're 900 strong.

And I think that the staff, they're looking for direction.

They wanna know what they are accountable for, and they're ready to deliver.

Thank you.

Final question, flip side of the coin.

Hopefully this is a softball.

But in your 30 days, in office now, what has been the most encouraging that gives you the greatest hope and that makes you the most proud in your initial observations after 30 days of the department or the broader public safety situation?

Support from city council.

We didn't rehearse that in advance, just so everyone understands.

All right, well, thank you, Chief, really appreciate you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair, for organizing this introductory conversation for members of the public, and also wanna welcome our students here.

I see many young students out here who are gonna take my job one day, and I welcome that, and I love it.

I represent District 1. I understand you all from West Seattle.

Where are you from, Denny?

You're not from Denny.

Where?

Fifth graders.

OK, what school?

West Adel Elementary, high point, love it.

All right, cool.

Yes, every last one of them are gonna take my job one day and I love it.

All right, no further questions or comments, Mr. Chair, thank you.

All right, Vice Chair, we can't end any better than your comment about the council and the committee, so thank you.

Thank you.

All right, we'll now move on to our second item of business.

Will the clerk please read item two into the record?

Interdepartmental presentations on emergency management and emergency preparedness.

Okay, good morning.

Please join us at the table and introduce yourselves.

And for my colleagues, in the interest of time, we'd like to run through these briefings and hold any comments, questions to the very end.

Thank you.

And we will start with Director Currie Mayer of the Office of Emergency Management.

Director Mayer, you are recognized.

Good morning, go ahead and recognize, I guess introduce the table and I know that we have a series of presentations, but yeah, and then begin.

Good morning, Curry Mayer, Director, Office of Emergency Management.

Good morning, Brittany Barnwell, Emergency Manager for Seattle City Light.

Good morning, Council Chad Buechler, Seattle Public Utilities Emergency Management.

Good morning, Patty Quirk, Seattle Department of Transportation Emergency Management Program Director.

And I just have to say my grandson is a preschooler at West Seattle Elementary, so I am delighted that they are here today.

Excellent.

All right.

Thank you very much.

Really appreciate the opportunity to speak with you today on our citywide emergency management program.

Thank you, Chair Kettle and Council President Nelson and council members.

I'm excited to be here.

I'm also honored to be here with my colleagues in emergency management from different departments, as it really is a citywide program, and we can't do any of this work alone.

It's way bigger than one department.

So.

First, I wanted to kind of set the foundation and talk a little bit about emergency management.

I think emergency management is connected to everything, but sometimes people still are unclear about what actually we do in emergency management.

So it is a managerial function, and it's charged with creating the framework within which communities can reduce their vulnerability to hazards and cope with disasters.

So you might ask, how does that work?

So the Emergency Management Office focuses on preparedness, mitigation, response, and recovery functions.

And we facilitate the development of that program through our work with other city departments.

It is a component of public safety.

However, we are not field responders.

We support those departments that have field responders, but we work mostly in the Emergency Operations Center when there is a disaster.

So I wanted to talk a little bit about the Emergency Operations Center.

And first, I should say an EOC, or Emergency Operations Center, is simply a centrally located facility that allows for the expertise from different departments to come together and work on the impacts of anything that impacts the city.

So it doesn't have to be an earthquake.

It could also be too much snow, windstorms that we seem to have a lot of recently, anything that impacts our ability to do our daily functions.

So from that location, we also have room for That's called the Joint Information Center.

So public information officers from different departments can come together and write a cohesive message so that the public is getting one safety message from all of those departments instead of departments sending out messages separately, which can be confusing.

So when there is a large disaster in which complex problem solving is needed and we need the support and resources of multiple departments, city department representatives and also regional partners send representatives to the EOC Those representatives have to have the authority to be able to make decisions about resource allocation.

They also have to be connected to the field responders from each of those departments to get real-time information.

And then they contribute to the plans of action that we write together.

Not all departments are needed for all activations.

It's dependent on what the disaster is and what the expertise is needed.

It's also important to note that those department and regional representatives, including my colleagues at the table, work on the development of plans with us all the time.

They also train and exercise with us on a regular basis.

Just a quick example of how an incident response may turn into an EOC activation.

So a disaster or impact to the city of some kind occurs.

Departments respond like fire, law enforcement, SCL, SDOT.

And a lot of times, the emergency is handled in that way.

Those departments do their jobs, and then they go home.

And we don't need an EOC activation.

However, if additional resources or help are needed, first departments may activate what's called a department operations center, which are the resources just for that particular department.

So they would get additional support from that.

If then it's determined that they need more resources or expertise than is available from those discipline-specific departments.

They would talk with the OEM staff duty officer and we would make a decision in consultation with the mayor to activate the Emergency Operations Center.

We focus on consequence management, so how do we support those that are in the field with additional either problem solving or resources.

That's also a conduit to either county, state, or federal resources should those be needed.

All right, I wanted to talk a little bit about the bomb cyclone response to give you an example of how we did this work.

It's ironic that we're having an additional windstorm last night and today.

Fortunately, not as bad as the one we experienced in November, but I thought it would be helpful to walk through this a little bit.

First, I wanted to remind you that there was a strong low pressure weather pattern over the Pacific Ocean that resulted in a nine day period of coastal flooding, high winds, and heavy precipitation.

This storm was one of the strongest storms that the region had seen in the past 70 years.

It also produced winds that were equivalent to a category one hurricane.

So Seattle City Light was the lead department as the biggest threat was to the Seattle power structure and how we provide power services to the public.

So Seattle City Light and Seattle Public Utilities began sharing emergency plans and preparations the day before the incident.

We are assisted by the National Weather Service.

We monitor their predictions on a daily basis, and they had let us know that a high wind warning was in effect and that this storm was expected.

The nice thing about a storm is that you do have some warning ahead of time, unlike an earthquake where there might only be seconds of warning.

So that work started before the storm hit.

We also set up a Teams channel that OEM monitored and brought together all city departments and external partners to make sure that all those departments that were working the event had all of the support that they needed.

We also then were able to make sure that our partner agencies from the county were involved and the coordination efforts happened across all of those governmental levels.

There was a sheltering call that was set up pretty quickly and also other power companies were involved like Puget Sound Energy.

So just a little more on the timeline.

The outages jumped dramatically from over 71,000 customer outages to a peak of 113 very rapidly on November 19. SDOT supported SCL for clearing downed power lines from roadways.

SPD assisted with traffic incidents from downed power lines and trees.

And as I mentioned, PSE and then also Sonomish County power grids were also impacted.

Seattle City Light requested mutual aid from the Western Energy Institute to augment their response capacity.

And I note that because there were so many outages and so many people impacted that it really required a big response.

And thank you, kids.

I really appreciate it.

I really like that Gryffindor was represented today.

Thank you very much, Gryffindor.

Thank you.

All right, now go outside and experience the weather emergency.

All right, back.

See the transition?

There we go.

Because there were so many residents impacted, HSD and SPR and the Red Cross did end up opening a shelter at Garfield Community Center that was open for a couple of days.

We were worried that a number of people were out of power for over 10 days, which was quite a while.

So the responding agencies that I mentioned from outside the city also were very helpful with those daily calls and making sure that our city departments were supported.

Whoops.

There we go.

All right.

So I won't read all of the names here, but I wanted to show you how complex this particular response was.

So these are the names of the city departments and regional partners that were engaged in this bomb cyclone response.

It was really quite extraordinary.

And why this works with so many people being involved is the fact that we do that training and exercise together on a regular basis.

All right, I also wanted to talk a little bit about our community engagement with the Office of Emergency Management.

I feel like that's a thing that people ask about a lot.

And it's been shown time and time again that if a community members know the hazards that they're going to face, just having that awareness makes them more prepared because they begin to think about actions that might be needed for those particular hazards.

They also tend to be more engaged in preparedness activities if they know what they're going to face.

So one of the programs that the Office of Emergency Management is engaged in that I'm very proud of is the Community Safety Ambassador Program.

To date, we have reached over 27,000 community members.

These community safety ambassadors are vendors that work for us.

So we have contracts with them.

They provide disaster skills training in over 13 languages.

That program is currently funded by a federal grant that ends in 2025. We also get some money from a county EMS grant, but that grant is very strict about what you can teach.

So the bigger program, we teach preparedness, heat, wildfire, smoke, preparedness as well.

We teach about winter preparedness skills, CPR, stroke education, and so forth.

But the EMS grant requires us to only focus on certain topics.

Those disaster skills training for the public are also taught by my staff.

Currently, we have only two community outreach coordinators.

We lost one in the recent budget exercise.

They do a program called Stop the Bleed, which really goes farther than basic first aid and it's really about trauma.

So we do about disaster preparedness classes in various settings, virtually and in person, and people are able to request those classes directly from us.

We also have a new partnership with Seattle Public Schools that has also been very successful that I'm very excited about.

We're teaching during school breaks, but we hope to also have that at the high school where then high school students could teach younger students about disaster preparedness skills.

So the gaps that we have are really about being able to increase both the number of community safety ambassadors that we have and teach in additional languages and also additional staff for my team so that we're able to reach more residents with additional classes.

And just one additional thing of note about public education and outreach, in addition to supporting those disaster skills training, we do a lot of work on social media and on our website.

We have materials both electronically and on paper.

We have a number of qualified volunteers, including with our auxiliary communication team.

We use Alert Seattle.

And again, just for your information, the gaps are really about having enough people to teach those skills for the entire city and also to have additional resources for marketing and letting people know how they can access that training or to sign up for Alert Seattle.

Thank you.

Happy to take questions.

Oh, you're going to do questions at the end?

Yeah, we're going to press through.

City light, over to city light.

Thank you.

Is it going to show up?

Let's see, let's see.

Okay.

Well, good morning, everybody.

Brittany Barnwell, Seattle City Light.

I'm going to talk about emergency management at the utility.

And it just seems like yesterday I was here doing a presentation on the bomb cyclone, and now I'm back here again, and we're in the midst of a windstorm and restoring our customers.

So I'll make sure I get through it.

Okay, so within emergency management at Seattle City Light, you have myself and you also have Brendan Armstrong, who's the workplace logistics director.

So like for right now, for instance, he's stepping in for me as I'm away, just to have some redundancy as we're currently restoring our customers and rate payers right now.

So I know this is one that everybody wants to know about and I always hear about is the incident response priorities.

So we have three, life safety, emergency services and customers and residents.

So when it comes to our life safety, this entails with crews being dispatched immediately to fixed down powered lines that pose any immediate safety threat to our customers.

For emergency services, crews are dispatched to emergency services and critical facilities to public health and safety, such as hospitals, police, and fire.

And lastly, our customers and residents, crews repair areas that will restore power to the largest number of customers, and they will continue working that until all customers are back in service.

Next slide.

Okay, gotta lag, hold on.

Okay, great.

All right, so training and exercise plan.

How I wanted to approach this was all hazard.

I feel like here in Seattle, I think we always try to prepare for the big earthquake or the big tsunami, but now because of climate change, things are changing.

We've just seen a bomb cyclone, and we just need to prepare for whatever else can come our way.

So as far as training and exercise goes, we all function underneath the incident command system.

That's a unified system that we all use, even OEM and also two of my sister departments on the right-hand side.

So for basic level training, we train all employees.

It's so important for all employees to know the basic level of what ICS is.

And for that, if they're out in the field, they can manage the incident themselves until the right personnel gets there.

So just making sure everybody has that awareness and know what to do on that initial start.

Your incident commander training, along with your section leader and unit leader, we have training such as ICS 100, 200, 700, and 800, along with ICS 300 and 400, which you actually have to come in, sit down, and it's actually like a three-day course.

And then on top of that, we have position-specific training.

So within the incident management team, you have various sections.

And within those sections, you have specific training that is tailored to that specific group.

And that's one thing that I've pushed for and thrived for here at City Light.

And we're going to be delivering that training to our IMT so we can make sure people have the skills and the muscle memory to make sure we restore our customers in a timely fashion.

The next one is functional exercise.

This all builds up within the training and exercise plan.

So your functional exercise is basically everyone sitting down at the table, talking through an event or a scenario, and basically coming up with a plan.

Myself and SPU actually held a functional exercise last year for the Tolt Dam, and it went great.

And I think once we start seeing more collaborations and we start, you know, building these exercises and working together, you'll have an awesome response for the city, how we respond to our customers, citizens, and rate payers.

And then the last one is full-scale exercise, which means all hands on deck, you have boots on the ground, and you're actually going through a scenario, a real-life scenario.

And planning for these functional and full scales take months at a time.

It's not just a quick turnaround to where we do it in a month.

You actually have to have your planning meetings and you have to get your input from your stakeholders and those who are actually participating in the functional and full scale exercise.

So the training and exercise plan is a huge job for multiple people to make sure we're all in line and we can respond how we need.

All right, we're gonna jump into public information and resources.

So what I did was I tailored this around what City Light already has on their information page.

So any citizen can go out and grab this information and create a binder to create their at-home kits and everything.

The first one would be is to take inventory.

Take inventory of what you have at your house, what you may need in order for something catastrophic happens.

I love to tell people if we have something catastrophic here, you may be without power for three to four weeks.

So what can you do to sustain on your own until we're able to get out and restore your power safely?

The next one would be is to stay informed.

As Curry mentioned, we have Alert Seattle.

We try to push it to make sure everyone can sign up for Alert Seattle because once we send that information, it is gonna be important that the public is receiving it and that they know what's going on and what we're currently doing to assess the situation.

And the next one, monitoring weather reports.

As Curry mentioned, we partner with the National Weather Service, so we work with them closely to get the latest information that we need in order to make the correct decisions as we do our restoration prioritization.

Okay, so the third one is stock up or install helpful tools and devices.

This means stocking up on your water, stocking up on your emergency supplies, stocking up on things that you will need that can sustain you for a few days and probably even a couple of weeks.

So just making sure that you're stocked up and that you know where your emergency kit is.

A lot of people have emergency kits and sometimes they don't know where they are.

So are you putting them in your car?

Are you putting them in your closet?

So just knowing where your emergency kit is and just stock up on that stuff.

The next one is check outside of your home.

Do a walk around of your home.

See what's going on.

Do pre and post.

That's how we like to do disasters, pre and post.

So what is there before the disaster?

Make sure you check in.

Make sure your I's are dotted and your T's are crossed.

And then also, too, after the disaster passed, go out and check again.

What's around your home?

What needs to be fixed?

What do you need to tidy up on?

And the last one, which I just kind of took a stab at, was plan ahead, build a kit.

Make sure you build a kit.

It's imperative to have a kit, to have a kit tailored to your family.

Make sure you're looking for your medicines, have your medicines in there, and everything that you need to sustain for a duration of time.

And the last two programs that we have is the Life Support Equipment Program and the Generator Safety Program.

This information can be found on our website, so I encourage everyone to go on the website.

We update this information all the time, and I think it's gonna be imperative to when we are in the midst of an event and we're trying to restore our customers.

And that's it.

Thank you.

All right.

Appreciate the rundown.

And we'll shift over to SPU.

Great.

I'll test this real quick.

And Rebecca, are you doing the slides from up there?

Great.

OK.

Yeah, Rebecca's controlling it.

So I kind of picked up on that.

Great.

So thank you, council, for having us here.

I just wanted to mention briefly how I like being here with Curry, Brittany, and Patty, because this is what it looks like when something bad actually happens with the Public Works partners.

and OEM.

Again, I'm Chad.

I lead the Emergency Management Program at Seattle Public Utilities.

We hit the next slide here.

We have a good-sized team at Seattle Public Utilities.

I'm the program manager, and the foundation of our program is planning.

What that looks like is a big time hazard identification and vulnerability analysis on our system.

So we know the bad things that can happen to our system and then create utility specific emergency response plans and programs so that our staff from the wildland firefighters up in the watersheds to our spill responders down here in town to the flood fighters in South Park know what to do and know that they have our support and the rest of the city's support.

Once we have those plans, we train and exercise them.

And I'll talk a little bit more about what that looks like later.

And then on my team, we also have a telecommunications and logistics program where we manage our communications equipment as well as a lot of different supplies.

Next slide.

So this is going to look similar among the departments.

For any hazard that impacts the city, our priorities are always the same.

Life safety and public health.

Then incident stabilization, which means not letting the incident get any worse.

Can we get a perimeter around it?

Can we put a flood wall up?

can we pump and bypass the sewer overflow?

And then we look at protecting property and the environment as well.

And the fourth one that we add in addition to kind of the national incident management system priorities is public trust, because we know that that has to be maintained throughout our response.

I put some specific priorities up there.

Those are related to a big earthquake, which is a big question for a lot of the response programs with the city.

So if a big catastrophic earthquake happened, Seattle Public Utilities would be looking immediately to find out which of our staff were okay and are they capable of responding.

After that, we work really closely with the fire department because after earthquakes, fire is the greatest risk, and we want to maintain fire flow to those areas that are impacted as quickly as we can and allocate the water that's left to that first.

After that, we're trying to stabilize the incident and maintain as much storage in our system as those pipes are damaged, and then we get our engineers and our crews out to find out exactly what is broken, and we have a A fairly large system, two mountain reservoirs, many miles of pipe coming down into the city, and then, of course, hundreds and hundreds of miles of distribution pipe down here.

So we start upstream and come all the way through.

And depending on the level of damage, we're going to need to repair those things upstream and coming all the way back down to people's faucets and taps in town.

With that, we're looking at critical resource allocation with our drinking water utilities specifically and then what we can do to move employees and resources first from our other sister utilities within SPU and then reaching out to our partners here in the city and outside for help.

Next slide.

I'll go into the logistics and telecommunications program at Seattle Public Utilities.

We manage the inventory of Puget Sound emergency radio network devices.

That's about 650 truck radios and handheld devices.

We also have satellite phones as well as satellite internet capability.

Within the logistics program is also the community sandbag program.

That's four locations throughout the city where we partner for funding with the King County Flood Control District to be able to distribute sandbags in flood-prone areas like South Park or up in the Meadowbrook neighborhood.

We also want to make sure that our crews are prepared so our program keeps caches of emergency supplies, food, cots, emergency toilets, and sanitation in locations up in the watershed all the way down to in town at our reservoirs and in some of our primary dispatch locations.

We have an emergency water distribution system that can contribute to emergency drinking water after a major disaster like an earthquake.

And what that looks like is manifold devices where we can hook that up to a good supply of water and put it in bags for people a gallon or so at a time.

And we have seven of those devices that are deployed throughout the utility.

We do things like create paper or laminated emergency contact cards that are distributed to responders and leadership.

So if the power is out and they need a hard copy, they know that they have an updated list of who they can get a hold of inside and outside the utility.

That's our responders as well as the Seattle EOC duty officer or people in King County.

We also have what's called a GETS, a Government Immunity.

emergency telecommunication service or wireless priority service program.

Almost 100 of our response leadership and staff have access to that.

And what that allows us to do is skip the line if the cell towers are overloaded.

and get ahead during that.

For example, during the Seahawks parade when the cell towers were overloaded.

At the time, I was working kind of as a junior emergency manager in the EEOC and I needed to call my boss and I couldn't get through.

So I dialed star 272 and was able to let my supervisor know what was going on and skip the line.

We also have an emergency logistics plan.

SPU has a really robust logistics capability.

And this plan details how we do everything from get needed supplies like water pipes out to cruise during a large incident to how we house staff during things like snowstorms to make sure we can keep them in the city.

Next slide.

I'll talk about training exercise, outreach and engagement.

Just like Curry's team and the other departments, we use the incident command system.

We also do radio training for our staff and we do preparedness workshops at the work unit level.

And we're talking tailgate level where someone from my team will go out and meet with a crew of water pipe workers or people that work out at Lake Young's in Renton and say, hey, there are these plans that are kind of corporate and big.

Do you know what your role is?

And walk them through what that looks like after an earthquake or even a chlorine shortage or a windstorm.

We do exercises, small-scale ones, like water main breaks, where we work with the Department of Health at the state level, Seattle King County Public Health, and our crews in water quality folks, so they know what to do if we have an incident that requires a boil water advisory or a do not consume warning.

And we do big, large-scale exercises, sometimes regulated, like the one that Brittany mentioned about the shared tolt dam that we both operate and maintain.

And those can be upwards of 35 to 40 agencies and 150 different participants doing that work.

And we have an after action and continuous improvement program where after every significant exercise or event, we look internally at the SPU emergency management team and the people we support to identify a continuous improvement plan.

Outreach and engagement, we try to help Curry's team really know what to do when it comes to specific services that we know a lot about.

For example, emergency drinking water.

The rule is a gallon per person per day for two weeks if you can get there.

That's a lot of water.

So we go out and share that with the community and somebody will say, hey, I've got a family of five and a dog.

And we did the math, it's like 800 pounds of water that you'd be trying to store in your apartment.

not exactly realistic for everybody.

So we talk with people about different things they can do when they know a disaster's coming, storing water out of your bathtub, using a filtration device, and then if people even have questions about that, we can connect them with a water quality inspector to determine the performance of their specific equipment.

We also teach people how to build emergency toilets.

I'm kind of sad that the group behind me from the elementary school isn't here because they like to help do that sometimes and anytime we can talk about poop and pee and how to be ready for that and keep it safe after an earthquake is a good chance for us to save lives actually.

We have a video that we share on that as well that just shows it.

There's no language or anything and it's a two-bucket system that's kind of the state of the art when it comes to emergency toilets.

We have a really close relationship with the Seattle Emergency Communication Hubs.

That's where we deliver a lot of our community programming.

We've done infrastructure webinars through OEM and City Light in the past so people know exactly what's going to happen to the power system or the water system or what it's going to look like for solid waste collection when there's debris in the streets and the trucks aren't coming to pick them up on their regular schedule.

And we do things like engage with our community affairs division to do social media engagement.

And you can kind of see my team and others, our solid waste contractors, talking about how to be safe during the snow.

And my kids like to poke fun at me when they see me on Instagram giving corny tips about how to sign up for Alert Seattle and things like that.

We also do Alert Seattle as well.

Some of you may have received solid waste notifications in the past from us.

We used the same system there.

That would also be the system that we would use to let the community know that they needed to do something different with their drinking water if there was an emergency with that.

And next slide.

That's it.

All right.

Well, thank you very much.

And SDOT to bring us home.

Save the best for last.

Is that right, Director Meyer?

Yes.

I was going to not say that, but thought it, but actually, no.

I'm going to try and do a presentation like we're on the express lane.

I know on the left we really highlight the things that are different in SDOT than my sister agencies, and it's always exciting to hear the work that they're doing.

Next slide.

So yeah, that is me in SDOT.

I am a single proprietor, but I am supported by amazing volunteers in my department who use our incident management team and who help the department shine and deliver for the city on every winter weather event, every time we close a piece of infrastructure, any time.

It's just a privilege to work for them.

So for us, our mission essential functions, and those are things that we have to do regardless if there's a pandemic or an earthquake or winter weather, are maintain key arterial and waterway operations.

Waterway operations aren't something people tend to think of.

And you can see that middle picture is the Spokane Street Bridge.

But our waterways actually have the right of way over road transportation, and particularly the Duwamish, which is critical.

I believe it's like 90% of perishable goods from Alaska go up and down the Duwamish.

So we take that incredibly seriously and work very closely with the Coast Guard on that.

Mitigate hazards in the right-of-way, and that's where we come into things like our winter weather response, removing snow or clearing trees after a wind event.

And also, lesser known, we are responsible, should ash fall in the city from a volcano, to also treat it kind of like snow and get rid of that.

The third one, issuing permits for use of the right-of-way, doesn't necessarily sound right off the bat like it's something critical, but it is something that we have a legal obligation to do.

I will say, during COVID, the city as a whole prioritized on a different level what we would do and not do, and that did come out as a tier two, meaning we had the ability to suspend issuing permits for up to a week if something happened, like a catastrophic earthquake.

And then lastly, to disseminate that critical transportation information.

That's not only just to the public, but it is also to our sister agencies as well.

One of the big things that the public really likes is our winter weather's traveler's maps and our traveler's maps and our traffic cameras in general.

Next slide.

I'm not gonna spend a lot of time on this.

It's very similar to what you heard from Brittany and Chad.

Just wanna say that Yeah, we definitely take that public trust as a public agency very seriously.

And we talk to our transportation partners at WSDOT and King County because the public just sees transportation.

They don't care if it's WSDOT.

They don't care if it's King County.

They don't care if it's SDOT, for example, in winter weather.

And we coordinate very closely so that the public trusts all transportation agencies.

Materials and training, just like we heard from my sister and brother agencies, we use the Incident Command System.

I would say that SDOT has supported me as an individual being loaned to the state for the last 15 years to work on wildfires and disasters like Oso and Katrina so that when I come back in trainer department, we have the best and latest knowledge and skills available.

And I think that is something that has served us very well in the past.

We train to use specific plans, winter weather, post-earthquake damage assessments, and none of those are dependent on technology.

In fact, right now we're working on hiring a consultant to help us in the event that we have a cyber event and we can do everything that we need to do for our mission essential functions without technology.

Public information, on this slide I really wanted to highlight, I'm very proud, the last time I checked, we had translated our information to 14 different languages, and this is a commitment we made as a department with our transportation equity framework, and we're constantly working on improving that.

One of the things we're targeting this year is working towards translating and having that same accessibility to people who are visually impaired or hearing impaired so that it's that same standard of information that we do in these 14 languages.

Some of the messaging, it depends on the event.

Certainly in winter weather, we tell people to check those travel conditions before leaving home.

And if it's really severe enough, we tell people to stay home, stay safe, and let us get those roads clear.

For an earthquake, our messaging would be to stay off the roads and avoid bridges until inspected, and reminding the public that after every aftershock, those inspections need to happen again.

Per cyber event or a powder out, just kind of like what we did on a small scale this morning, reduce travel speeds and treat all intersections as a four-way stop.

And then, of course, the asterisk on the bottom of the Joint Information Center is activated in the EOC.

We would defer messaging through the Joint Information Center.

Actually, can I go back one to, well, we actually don't need to move the slide.

One thing I forgot to mention on the training since Brittany and Shai did a good job talking specifically, one of the things I'm working on right now with the city of Vancouver in Canada, who is a host city for FIFA and also one of our mutual aid partners, is coordinating an event for them to come down this summer where we have club cups to see what we're doing and to kind of build those relationships.

And then, reciprocally, I'm working with bringing Sound Transit, WSDOT, and King County Metro up to Vancouver to do that same sort of relationship building, looking beyond FIFA to those being our partners to the immediate north who are mutual aid partners.

I think that probably might be my last slide.

When they question about emergency programs and management, I completely agree that we need to be prepared and we need to have water and food 100%.

But last week, I had the privilege of hearing former FEMA Administrator Brock Long speak, and he said something I had never heard of.

He said, in the United States, during disasters, people really don't die of thirst and hunger.

What happens is they lose their businesses, they lose their homes, and they never recover.

And he challenged us as emergency managers to really get that message out to our communities to check their insurance.

30% of people in disasters usually have no insurance or underinsured.

And he challenged us also to look at what's called a community credit index score to really look how well your communities are doing.

I did check, and we can get that on a granular level for all of our zip codes in the city.

And so that's something that was a takeaway for me to really think about in that messaging as well.

Well, thank you.

And as Chair of the Public Safety Committee, I am interested in that.

And as Jurisdic Shrevan representative, I'm interested in my District 7 zip codes.

And as somebody who's done a lot of this in the Queen Anne community, I'm also interested.

So we're tight on time, Mr. Vice Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Observations, questions.

And then, Council President, really quick.

We'll be out of quorum in about two minutes.

Okay.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

So, World Cup.

Not Club World Cup.

That's exciting, but World Cup itself will, in 26, will drive about a million net new people to the Seattle area over the course of that two week plus period.

Really exciting opportunity that we have as a city, as a region, as a state, frankly as a country, to make sure it is a successful event.

So in the interest of time, I'm not gonna ask this of everyone.

I will direct this question directly to OEM at the central office level.

Can you talk a little bit about our city's World Cup planning and preparation efforts from an emergency management standpoint?

Understanding and acknowledging the fact that our job is to make sure that we have a safe World Cup experience that we adequately plan to prevent, mitigate, respond to any number of disasters, natural or manmade.

And so World Cup presents a unique scenario, not getting into some of the sensitive, kind of delicate nature of some of the security vulnerabilities and response posture.

Can you talk just at a high level, again, minimal details about how we as a city are planning and preparing for World Cup?

Absolutely.

Happy to.

I'm glad you asked the question.

So OEM is facilitating the development of what we call an event action plan.

So looking at not only safety and security of things that might happen, but also where larger groups of people will be, how it will impact transportation up and down the I-5 corridor from Vancouver all the way to to the Oregon border.

So we have all city departments and regional partners, including state and federal governments, who are working with us on putting together that plan.

The draft will be finished August, September, with a final plan at the end of the year.

So that, as I mentioned, involves multiple partners for that effort, and we're looking at also taking lessons learned from FIFA events that have occurred in the past.

And of course, the local organizing committee here in Seattle is also working with us.

So a number of exercises, a lot of the things that we talked about for emergency management preparedness, we'll also be doing for this event.

Thank you.

All right, thank you, Vice Chair, Council President.

One last word or goodbye?

Okay, we're gonna lose quorum.

But I'm happy to come down and speak because there's a few points that I would like to follow up, particularly with you, Director Mayer.

But we have reached the end of today's agenda, and I believe there's no further business before the committee.

Before we adjourn, checking, checking, hearing, seeing none, we are adjourned.

Thank you.

All right.

Thank you.

Thank you.