SPEAKER_69

Good afternoon, everyone.

The August 6th, 2024 meeting of the Seattle City Council will come to order.

It is 2 0 2. I'm Sarah Nelson, president of the council.

Will the clerk please call the roll?

SPEAKER_66

Councilmember Strauss?

SPEAKER_25

Present.

SPEAKER_66

Councilmember Wu?

Present.

Councilmember Hollingsworth?

Here.

Councilmember Kettle?

SPEAKER_08

Here.

SPEAKER_66

Councilmember Moore?

Present.

Council Member Morales.

Here.

Council Member Rivera.

Council Member Saka.

Here.

And Council President Nelson.

Present.

Eight present.

SPEAKER_69

Thank you very much.

There are no presentations today, so colleagues at this time will open the hybrid public comment period.

I want to note that if you are here to speak to item three, which is regarding floodplains and there is a public hearing later on, please hold your comments until then.

The public comment period is to speak to items on the introduction referral calendar, today's agenda, or the Council's work program.

And it looks like, could you please tell me how many people we've got signed up?

SPEAKER_66

We are at 40 for remote speakers.

And so far signed up, we have 20 and counting.

SPEAKER_69

Okay, so we do have items that are timely on today's agenda, and I did say yesterday that we will need to stop at an hour.

We will give people one minute to speak.

Hopefully, if people are quick in succession, we can get through everybody.

I'll play it a little bit by ear once we hit an hour, but we'll start with 10 in-person public commenters and then move to remote and go back and forth.

SPEAKER_66

Jodi, I'll read the instructions really quick.

The public comment will be moderated in the following manner.

The public comment period is up to one minute per person.

Speakers will be called in order in which they are registered.

Speakers will alternate between the two sets of 10 in person, 10 remote.

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

Speakers will hear a chime when 10 seconds are left to their time.

Speakers' mics will be muted if they do not end their comments within the allotted time to allow us to call on the next speaker.

The first in-person speaker is Dean Kubuda, speaker number one.

SPEAKER_69

Please read three names in succession, and if I could have speakers line up and be ready to talk as soon as the person before you has stopped, that would help save time and get more people talking.

SPEAKER_66

After Dean will be Tiffany and then Ben Furlow.

And then as a reminder, you can use either mics.

And the first speakers will, as requested accommodations, will be double time.

So it'll be two minutes, thank you.

SPEAKER_64

Is that it?

SPEAKER_66

The next speaker is going to be Tiffany McCoy, then Ben Furlow.

SPEAKER_26

I was going to encourage you all to split your vote today so that you're not pitting I-137 against folks that are coming out against us for jail.

But it seems like I don't need to do that anymore because it doesn't seem like you intend to vote to put I-137 on the ballot after all.

Did you all know that?

You're going to kick that vote to later and try to put an alternative measure on the ballot.

So we've been yanked around, told that you're going to vote on this today.

You're not.

You're not telling the public ahead of time that you're not going to vote on this.

and then you're limiting public comment under the auspice that 4.30 p.m.

is your deadline with the I-137 on the November ballot.

So there's a whole lot of crap happening, and it's really unfortunate because people turned out here to comment on a bunch of stuff.

So I hope you do one of the two options.

So, yeah, we know that there are big business polls in the field that are testing out alternatives.

So it seems like maybe some of the wealthiest businesses gave you all a call today and decided to tell you, hold on, wait until we draft our legislation that we're going to hand deliver to you and then place that on the ballot later.

Councilman Morales, I know that you will not go along with that garbage.

So thank you for that.

I-135 that created the Seattle social housing developer passed by a 14 point margin.

It passed in every single council district by a wide margin.

We will be ready for whatever ballot that we are placed on.

We will tax the wealthiest businesses in Seattle to house all Seattle residents.

And housing is too important to leave in the hands of the private market.

So vote yes on I-137 and watch what they're doing here today.

SPEAKER_66

Following Ben will be Ryan.

And then following Ryan is going to be Eric Lee.

SPEAKER_10

Hello, Council.

I'm speaking on I-137.

My name is Ben Furlow.

I'm a renter in income-restricted affordable housing in District 3. And I am asking all of you to respect the Democratic mandate of over 38,000 of your constituents by not delaying our right to vote on I-137.

On the campaign trail, you all spoke about the need for sensible solutions to the housing crisis and the urgency with which you would act.

Well, hundreds of volunteers and thousands of the people that you serve have done the hard work for you by creating I-137.

All you have to do is put this on the November ballot.

It's that simple.

There's no reason to delay this initiative with the last minute backroom alternatives that I know you all have been discussing, except for the express purpose of depriving your constituents of urgently funding the social housing developer that they overwhelmingly support by a 14 point margin in the last special election.

So do not delay.

Do not add unnecessary alternatives.

Respect the Democratic mandate.

Vote to put on the November ballot.

Thank you.

SPEAKER_66

Okay, and Jody, can you double the time, please?

Thank you.

SPEAKER_31

Hi, my name is Dean Kubota.

I live in Chinatown in city council member Tanya Wu's building.

I'm here to speak on SCORE and public housing.

I do not have a voice box.

I will need more time to speak as I am using a speech device.

SCORE affects us all.

It affects everyone who would be shot and killed by cops and uses people who would weaponize the police.

It happens to Asians.

It happens to preschool teachers.

It happened to me.

I was told the EMTs I was transgender.

They stopped the ambulance and refused to touch me because I disclosed I was transgender.

When I refused to leave the ambulance, they called the cops and I was taken to jail right here on Fifth Avenue and held without a phone call for three days.

My crime, grand theft ambulance.

I had a tumor blocking my breathing.

These racist EMTs and racist cops who arrested me didn't care that I said I couldn't breathe.

They assumed I must, assumed I must just be crazy, so they arrested me.

They had to remove my voice box because of the tumors.

SCORE doesn't just criminalize drug users, it criminalizes everyone that looks like a drug user or mentally ill.

I was having a medical emergency caused by Tanya Wu's building management.

Tanya Wu is a slumlord.

I have lived at her building for five years, almost since it reopened.

Her management sprayed a clearly labeled cancer causing pa- Causing pesticide, I wasn't a smoker.

I was 33. I was a singer.

They had to do a total largectomy and remove my voice box because Tanya Wu hires racist, violently incompetent landlords who can't even collect rent checks.

The solution to people doing drugs outside is simple.

House them and fund public no insurance drug rehabs.

Landlords like Tanya would make slums and then criminalize the people in them.

Score affects the tenants of Seattle more than it affects these rich politicians who do more drugs and drink more than all of us combined.

Fund public housing so the thousands of people waiting for public housing on the Seattle Section 8 waiting list can get off the street.

Fund alcohol rehab to be free.

Fund drug rehab and free therapy.

That's what this city needs, not score.

Tanya Wu wants what happened to me to be erased, but I talked to her when this happened, and she didn't understand why the management she hired couldn't let me stay in another unit that I didn't smell the pesticides in.

We need less slumlords.

Unionize your slums.

Tanya Wu's building unionized.

Thank you very much.

Your time has expired.

And as a member of the Louisa Hotel Tenants Union, we say one, two, one, two.

Do not vote for Tanya Wu.

SPEAKER_66

We have now Ryan, and then following Ryan will be Eric Lee, and then Apu Masha, speaker number six.

SPEAKER_06

Hi, all.

My name is Ryan Driscoll.

I'm a long-term renter who lives in District 3. And I'm here to speak to I-137 and encourage you all to put it on the November ballot.

I've spent a lot of my life in this city working in the nonprofit industries.

And one of the most consistent reasons that I've seen people leave the nonprofit world is because they cannot afford to stay in this city.

In fact, the only people who are my coworkers that were able to stay in the city were people who had partners, usually partners that worked in tech.

All of you know that we're facing a housing crisis and we need an all of the above solution.

All of you have talked about all the different ways that you want to bring more housing to this city.

And as Tiffany mentioned, social housing is a proven model that can bring more housing for a wider array of people than we currently have support for.

And as I was out gathering signatures for this initiative, the one thing that always hit me when I would ask people and sit down and talk about this is their excitement.

People are excited for this initiative.

People want to see it on their ballots.

I encourage you to put it in on the November ballot and let people have their voice.

SPEAKER_69

Please refrain from clapping.

You can go as far as snapping, but please refrain so that people can come up and speak as soon as the person in front of them is done.

Go ahead.

SPEAKER_01

Awesome.

Hello, my name is Eric.

I'm speaking on I-137, D3 voter.

Wages have not kept up with the cost of housing.

Eviction filings have surged past pre-pandemic levels, pushing more of our neighbors into homelessness.

All the while, our elected officials are enchanted by the illusion that we can police our way out of this crisis instead of addressing the deteriorating material conditions of working people in Seattle.

We need bold, progressive solutions now to face the crisis head on.

One such solution is I-137, the social housing developer, which aims to build permanently affordable, rent-or-run green housing here in Seattle.

I can't think of a better way to fund the social housing developer and address wealth inequality by taxing businesses who can compensate an individual over a million dollars.

I urge you to pass I-137 outright, as voters have already indicated their desire for social housing, passing I-137 by a 14-point margin.

If that's not enough of a mandate, I urge you to...

ballot, don't suppress voters.

I stand here in solidarity with minimum wage workers, hands off the minimum wage, and vote no on score.

Thank you.

SPEAKER_66

Speaker number six, and then following Apu, will be Alex German, then John Burbank.

SPEAKER_19

Hello, council members.

My name is Apu Mishra.

I'm a tech worker, married to a nurse, living in South Seattle and raising a family.

And you might think we have it good, but I'm still constantly nervous about how we are doing with housing.

For people who are not tech workers, I know my own friends who are nurses, who are teachers, who are bus drivers, who have gotten priced out of the city and have had to move further and further away.

And for other people who are even more unfortunate, we know people have lost their roofs over their heads.

The ones who were temporarily saved by the eviction moratorium were able to keep it as long as that lasted.

That's no more.

We know that the profit maximizing housing market is not working for working families in Seattle.

It's not working.

We know that we can do better.

The social housing model has worked really well.

That's what the voters have asked for.

And that's what we're asking you to fund.

Please act on I-137 now.

SPEAKER_66

Mr. Zimmerman, you're going to speak or do we move on?

SPEAKER_45

It's my number, sir.

Why one minute?

You give to everybody too many.

One minute again, but I see too many.

Ze heil, my dory damn Nazi, fascist, junta, bandita, and killer.

Guys, when you stop and give one minute to this idiot, you know what this mean?

Look, new generation idiot come.

20 year ago, I come here and speak every day about housing, housing, housing.

How can we talk about housing and this idiot for 20 years?

This constitutes abusive language and disruption.

This is a warning.

We'll deal with this next time you speak.

People speak for three minutes.

Housing, you naive idiot.

20 years ago, I listened exactly the same.

20 years something happened there because they make $150,000, no care about you.

You freaking idiot don't understand this because when you understand this, you talk to them, give everybody three minutes like I speak more than 4,000 times everywhere from Tacoma to Everett.

You idiot will be for another 20 years.

I guarantee you this, Alec Zimmerman.

SPEAKER_66

We're now on speaker number seven, John, followed by Naishin, and then Taylor.

SPEAKER_21

My name is John Burbank.

I'm the founder and retired executive director of the Economic Opportunity Institute.

Our city charter mandates that consideration of initiatives shall take precedence over all other business, except appropriation bills or emergency measures.

There are no such bills or measures on today's agenda.

In fact, today's agenda ignores and violates the city charter and exposes the council to legal action.

You have two options.

One is to pass this initiative into law immediately.

The second is to place I-137 on the ballot.

Today is the deadline for the November ballot.

It's time we responded to the housing crisis, which overwhelms the workers we depend upon.

We want a city in which the people who do the work can also live here.

I-137 will create affordable housing.

The funding source helps.

Compensation over $1 million.

That is 38 times the full-time annual minimum.

Thank you very much.

SPEAKER_69

Your time is expired.

SPEAKER_21

passed by 137 today.

SPEAKER_05

Good afternoon.

My name is Naishin.

I am a district six resident, homeowner, landlord, and a public school parent.

A majority of voters in every district voted for I-135 last year, and we must fulfill the will of the people by funding social housing without a competing initiative.

The sooner I-137 is passed, the sooner we can get this much-needed housing to the people.

Are you going to choose your constituents or wealthy businesses asking you to delay?

Every day, Seattleites are being pushed out due to rising housing costs.

Low school enrollment is exacerbated by the exodus of families who are unable to afford to live here, leaving wealthy families, many of whom opt for private schools.

I am seeing this play out in my own neighborhood.

Social housing will build permanently affordable housing, including family-sized units.

We need more tools to address our housing crisis, and we cannot wait.

Vote to vote on the ballot today, and vote no on score.

SPEAKER_66

We have speaker number 10, which is our last in-person speaker for this group, which is, I believe it's Taylor.

Speaker number 10, sorry, it's handwriting.

If you have a speaker number 10 card, then you're up, thank you.

SPEAKER_29

Just wanna make sure that I was the right person.

Thank you, hello, I am Taylor Farley.

I am from Queer Power Alliance.

I am disappointed that I even have to be here today to be reminding our council members that we need community health and housing as a priority over incarceration.

I am asking you to think before you vote and think no on score, soap and soda, and that we have been here in this place before and a reminder of that.

Neither bills will address crime or trafficking.

They didn't do it before and they aren't going to do it now.

These bills are racist, transphobic.

anti-poor and anti-sex work.

I urge you to meet with the community to find solutions instead of funding for more policing that does more harm for those that are already struggling.

Vote no today on SCORE, vote no on SOAP and SOTA and pass I-3.

SPEAKER_66

What they said.

will now go to remote speakers.

SPEAKER_68

Our first remote speaker will be Kate Rubin and Kate will be followed by Joe Kunzler and I'd like to remind the remote speakers when you hear the message that you have been unmuted to please press star six before you begin speaking.

Go ahead Kate Rubin.

SPEAKER_60

My name is Kate Rubin.

I'm the organizing director of Be Seattle and a renter living in Beacon Hill.

I'm to fulfill your duty and take a final vote before today's deadline to send Initiative 137 to the ballot this November.

Voter turnout for general elections is significantly higher than in special elections.

Given that this initiative could have significant impact on Seattle's economy as well as our housing stability and quality of life, it's your responsibility to ensure that a broader segment of our community can have their voices heard on this important issue.

Frankly, it was irresponsible of you to put discussing contracting with SCORE on today's meeting agenda when there is such a tight deadline, but since that's the position we're in, I'm urging you to vote no on that contract.

This performative legislation is costly and does nothing to address the real issues we face.

Criminalizing low-level offenses perpetuates poverty, instability, and homelessness.

We need to invest in services that actually improve public safety, like affordable housing, mental health support, and community programs.

Thank you.

SPEAKER_68

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Joe Kunzler, and Joe will be followed by Erica Lee.

Go ahead, Joe.

SPEAKER_44

Thank you.

Can you hear me now?

Yes.

Okay.

All right.

Good.

Joe Kunzler here.

A lot of thoughts today.

First off, I'm asking that you please put I-137 on the ballot.

It's important to house people who need housing help and for more people to live in the best city in the world, which would be Seattle.

and to keep faithful to the great hero, Heidi Wills.

And this whole, speaking of which, this whole stay out of certain area zones, I know Angel Ann means well as your great city attorney, a legendary city attorney, by the way.

But to stay out of drug zones should be all of Seattle.

You shouldn't deal drugs anywhere, or pimp women.

And frankly, pimps should meet the age 64 Apache and go away.

Same with Alex Zimmerman.

He's a bad person, a filthy dirtbag, and has no business testifying before you with his evil Nazi salutes.

America deserves better than Alex Zimmerman.

And we do need a score.

We need to lock up Alex Zimmerman and throw away the key.

We also need to lock up and throw away the key.

SPEAKER_68

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Erica Lee, and Erica will be followed by Alex Koronsuzki.

Excuse me.

SPEAKER_58

My name is Erica Lee.

Woodland Park Zoo staff has been without a contract for over 200 days.

Zoo President Alejandro Grijal has repeatedly said they are posturing and zoo volunteers are kicked out of the volunteer program for sharing support and now staff are preparing to strike.

The council helped fund the zoo.

They've confirmed what I've reported.

Meanwhile, dedicated volunteers like me are kicked out of the volunteer program for sharing support publicly while Grijal is allowed to freely and publicly denigrate subordinate staff and his social media team removed comments supporting this and then lie on his behalf stating he comes to the table in good faith.

The volunteer office leads Daniel Rother and Maggie Regis tell me I'm not allowed to post negative things about the zoo, kicking me out.

Rother and Regis are holding volunteers to a higher standard of professionalism and leadership.

I would like council to hold Grahal and Head of HR and Dalrymple accountable for the toxic work environment they've created, and I'm demanding to be reinstated as a zoo volunteer.

And I would like an apology from Rother and Regis as a bonus.

Rother and Regis perpetuate the toxic work environment by punching down on volunteers trying to help leadership do the right thing, which helps them as well.

Thank you.

SPEAKER_68

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Alex Krasinski and following Alex will be Alberto Alvarez.

Go ahead, Alex.

SPEAKER_49

My name is Alex Krasinski.

I'm a renter in West Seattle and a professor of social sciences at South Seattle College.

I'm here to say that I-137 belongs on the November ballot.

This is basic democracy stuff.

It is well known that voter turnout is higher, more diverse, more young people, more people of color on presidential elections.

versus random weird elections in February that nobody turns out to.

It is clearly an attempt to suppress turnout and representation to hold the fab vote any other time.

And frankly, it's a shameful move, not the sort of thing I would expect in Seattle.

I also want to say that regarding the minimum wage, restaurants have had 10 years to get ready.

Every time the minimum wage goes up from when it was first introduced, restaurants and other businesses have cried that they're going to go out of business, that it will be impossible.

Social science record is very clear.

These dire predictions do not come to pass.

If you'd like to hear more, come take Sociology 101 at South Seattle College.

SPEAKER_68

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Alberto Alvarez, and following is Erickson.

Go ahead, Alberto.

SPEAKER_16

Point number one, pass I-137 to voters today.

Point number two, no on soda, soap, or score.

Point number three, Seattle workers deserve a living wage, dignity, and safety.

Drop CB 120-775.

Vote no on any reduction or repeal.

DoorDash and Uber inflict pain on local restaurants with $5 junk fees.

Using this money to fund lobby groups and a fake driver's union like Drive Forward.

DoorDash and Uber again reported major gains in their earnings call.

In the report, DoorDash said legislation like Seattle's PayUp does not affect them as much as they say so to justify the $5 junk fee.

Make these apps compete, and they will lower prices.

Do the right thing.

Hold the line.

No reduction.

No repeal.

Thank you, and have a good day.

SPEAKER_68

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Lars Erickson, and following Lars will be Aligarh.

Go ahead, Lars.

SPEAKER_27

Good afternoon.

My name is Lars Erickson.

I'm speaking today on behalf of the Seattle Metro Chamber and our 2,500 members.

We ask you to put Initiative 137 on the February 2025 ballot to ensure there is an opportunity over the next several weeks to have meaningful input on a ballot alternative that will ensure tax dollars are managed appropriately, not by a new and inexperienced bureaucracy who have failed to be responsive to simple records requests and meet basic requirements of the state's Open Public Meetings Act.

I also urge you to pass CD 120825 so the city can utilize misdemeanor jail beds to address ongoing public safety concerns.

Thank you for your time.

SPEAKER_68

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Cleo Gallagher, and following Cleo will be Marshall Bender.

Go ahead, Cleo.

SPEAKER_59

Hey, this is Cleo.

First of all, vote no on the score.

No on score and no to the prostitution littering law.

My God, the idea that this would make anyone safer is a sick joke.

Secondly, in the assault on Seattle's minimum wage, I'm not interested in a stakeholder process with disingenuous lobbyists.

Been there, done that.

Third, pass I-137 or put it on the November ballot.

We need social housing now.

Speaking of, You know who doesn't have to worry about housing?

Our Seattle Restaurant Alliance friends that spoke last week.

Portage Bay owner Amy Gunner, how's that $1.1 million condo treating you?

Carly Anthony of Moshi Moshi Sushi, your property's worth about the same.

Sounds like the last 10 years were a lot harder for some of us than others.

So much respect to the business owners who came out and spoke in defense of their workers and minimum wage last week.

But I hope that the SRA and the mayor understand what kind of fight they've gotten themselves into because we're just fucking getting started.

SPEAKER_68

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Marshall Bender and following Marshall is Natalie Schmidt.

Go ahead, Marshall.

SPEAKER_14

Hello, council members.

I'm here to address I-137.

My name is Marshall Bender and I'm a renter and a resident of District 5. In June, I moved back to Seattle from Vienna, Austria, a beautiful European city where 50% of all housing is owned by the city.

Vienna's housing model is a fantastic model that Seattle can follow.

They don't have the housing crisis that we do because they have abundant, affordable housing.

We live in a serious, real housing crisis, and we see that every day on our streets.

We can fix this with a social housing model, and by passing 137 today, we're setting it to November ballots.

The residents of Seattle want permanently affordable social housing.

We want thriving communities where children, young families, the elderly, and everybody else can thrive.

The City of Seattle has proven that they support 137 by a large margin in every single district.

Listen to your constituents for once and vote yes on I-37.

The council has a chance to actually do something helpful to Seattle's residents.

Let's do it.

Do not suppress voters.

Vote no on score.

Hand off the minimum wage.

Reject CM Moore's racist and effective ordering bill.

And Tanya Wu, I cannot wait for you to be off the council.

You're unelected.

You're unappointed.

Get out of here.

No slumlords in our council.

SPEAKER_68

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Natalie Schmidt.

And following Natalie will be our last remote speaker for this group, Gabrielle Newman.

Go ahead, Natalie.

SPEAKER_53

My name is Natalie Schmidt.

I live in District 3, and I'm calling to oppose the new SCORE contract.

SPEAKER_60

At the Public Safety Committee meeting last week, Councilmember Kettle tried to spin the bill as necessary for public safety, but misdemeanors are not a threat to public safety.

Councilmember Nelson falsely claims that calls to use this money for badly needed housing and social services were demonizing the homeless.

I am here to tell any Councilmember considering voting for this bill that you can steal the language of justice movements and try to hide your right-wing actions under the language of equity, but we see you.

We know that the police target houseless people.

We know that the police target black people.

We know that the police target indigenous people.

We know that the police target queer people.

We know that the police target people with disabilities.

And that's who you'll be putting in score with its obscenely high death rate.

So just admit that you're okay with these people dying for the sake of your business jokes.

Vote no on this contract.

Vote yes on I-137.

and hands off the minimum wage, or we will vote no on you.

SPEAKER_68

Thank you.

Our last speaker, excuse me, our last remote speaker for this group is Gabrielle Newman.

Go ahead, Gabriel.

SPEAKER_38

Good afternoon, Seattle City Council.

I'm Gabriel Newman with Washington's, with GSBA Washington's LGBTQ Plus Chamber of Commerce.

I'm calling in today to ask that you do not place I-137 on November's ballot and instead spend more time working with stakeholders to craft a policy that can make a greater impact on our community.

The current proposal by I-137, frankly, does not provide as much bang for the buck that we'd like to see.

It notes a per unit cost of either $350,000 for acquired housing units or $600,000 for development.

Both estimates are higher than the average cost per unit, $330,000 in King County.

More strikingly, the initiative proposes to raise, over 10 years, a total of $500 million to develop and or acquire only 2,000 units of social housing.

Notably, according to the reports, only 3% of those units will be for homeless folks, people making less than 30% of the median income.

Most, 80% of the units will be available to people making 80% to 120% of the average median income.

Additionally, none of these estimates

SPEAKER_66

Huh?

SPEAKER_36

My name is Castell Hightower and I'm the sister of Herbert Hightower Jr. who was murdered by Seattle police 20 years ago this year.

So I know exactly how deadly the carceral system can be to members of our community and so do you.

Feeding more people into the county's deadliest jail, further criminalizing houselessness and essentially sentencing folks to death for small misdemeanor offenses does absolutely nothing to keep our community safe.

Delaying a vote for social housing, Initiative I-137, which will create more housing stability in a city that seems to rely on ineffective, violent, and traumatizing streets by SPD, leading to higher rates of police brutality, like pushing folks further into the carceral system, perpetuates more violence in already marginalized and underserved communities.

Pouring more money into business as usual?

No!

the same systems of violence that led to my own brother's death and so many more after him.

See us, listen to us, hear us, and make the right choice.

Vote to add social housing to the ballot or vote to pass it now.

SPEAKER_37

Reject the school contract and the soldiers on the app.

Thank you.

SPEAKER_66

If I can ask the next 10 speakers to please line up.

We'll start with Thomas Bernard and then following numbers 12 through 20. Thank you.

SPEAKER_70

My name is Thomas Bernard.

I am a member of the Seattle Social Housing Board, but I speak to you today, not in that capacity, but as a Seattle renter who has faced high rents and housing insecurity.

Rents in this city are skyrocketing, evictions in this city are skyrocketing, and you are playing games.

The fact of the matter is, that this initiative will help a broad swath of Seattle renters, working renters, people like nurses, doctors, bus drivers, that really badly need housing and that can't get it in today's housing environment because of the incredible rents that the corporate sector is imposing.

We realize that you are playing these games in order to put things off.

But we will pass this.

Put it on the ballot.

Thank you.

SPEAKER_66

And just to remind you, there are two microphones if you want to also kind of move around.

Thank you.

SPEAKER_13

Good afternoon, council members.

My name is Hallie Willis, and I'm the community policy manager for the Seattle King County Coalition on Homelessness, and I'm also a renter and voter in District 6. Today, you'll consider whether to send people who've committed misdemeanors to SCORE, a for-profit jail in South King County with a dangerously poor health and safety record.

Sending people to score for a couple days will cost taxpayers millions each year, and it will be destabilizing to people who are jailed, especially for people who are homeless.

They may miss work or medical appointments, and their belongings may be stolen or thrown away while they are gone.

And they will return to homelessness worse off than before their arrest.

All this will make it harder for them to get the services, housing, and treatment they need.

Please vote no today on the score of jail.

SPEAKER_00

Hello, my name is Michaela Romero.

I do communications and digital organizing for Washington CAN.

And when I was five months pregnant, I had to leave Seattle because I couldn't afford to start a family here.

I now work two full-time jobs in Seattle on top of working on my degree.

One job is a neurobiology researcher at the UW studying isolation.

and the other as a community activist for Washington and Canton.

Because I can't afford to live in the city, I drive 20 minutes to a 30-minute train to a 15-minute light rail to a 10-minute walk as a solo parent.

It's stories like mine that help our organization gather almost 5,000 signatures to put I-137 on the November ballot with no alternative.

There were 38,000 signatures gathered with the same demand, funding social housing for Seattle on the November ballot with no alternative.

Now you hold a meeting in the middle of the day, on the primary, on the final day, planning to move forward on, not planning to move forward on the demands of the voters, calling on us to organize people to fight for what they have already voted to pass on 135 and have affirmed with 38 signatures for I-137 on the November ballot with no alternative.

SPEAKER_02

My name is Arianna Riley.

I'm a sex worker here in strong opposition to harassing prostitutes.

My body, my choice includes the right to decide terms of access.

For some people, that means no sex without marriage first.

For other people, that means having their bills paid.

Years and years of arresting prostitutes has not been effective in curbing prostitution.

As well, in recent years, the switch to only arresting clients has not been effective in reducing demand.

Prostitution is the oldest profession alongside farming.

It will not go away, and you cannot arrest prostitutes out of existence.

Domestic violence, kidnapping, and shooting off guns in the city are already illegal.

You say you want to go after these issues, but then propose a policy to harass prostitutes.

We need more domestic violence resources, lower rents, fewer guns.

A policy that proposes going back to harassing sex workers and buyers of street worker services achieves none of these things.

SPEAKER_03

My name is Nora Sandler.

I live in District 3. I'm testifying against the contract with SCORE for more jail beds.

This proposal won't make us safer, but will draw resources away from better solutions.

In 2019, I was the victim of a violent crime in Ballard, where I lived at the time.

Someone randomly punched me in the face.

He broke my nose.

He was not arrested, but if he had been, I wouldn't have felt safer because I had no confidence that the system would be able to stop him from harming other people.

It didn't have the capacity to provide the mental health treatment that he pretty clearly needed.

When our court system and social services are already stretched to the breaking point, arresting more low-level offenders is just throwing people into a pipeline to nowhere.

It's a waste of taxpayer dollars.

It's a waste of public employees' time.

I am begging you to direct those resources toward expanding the capacity of our mental health drug treatment and diversion programs so we have the tools we need to prevent crimes like the one I experienced.

Thanks for your time.

SPEAKER_71

Hi, I'm vegan.

And in completely unrelated news, I'm also a D3 voter and a fed-up working renter who's had his labor rights violated and his housing rights violated, and the city's taken its sweet time to investigate all this.

I told you all this last week.

And look, with Democrats like you, unprincipled as you are, who needs Republicans?

Okay?

Okay?

So no on score, no on soap, no on soda, and yes on I-137 today.

Okay?

Because we're fed up with being lied to.

We're fed up of being abused, forced to work for employers who abuse us and underpay us, and then we go home and overpay our landlords.

And sometimes the landlord and the employer are the same person, just impoverishing us, squeezing us from both sides.

We've had it with this.

Okay?

Remember who pays your salary.

There are more working renters paying your salary than business owners and landlords and employers.

Okay?

Remember which side of your bread is greased.

SPEAKER_04

I get to go?

Hello, my name is Jeff.

I'm a special education paraprofessional in Seattle Public Schools.

I'm here to advocate for I-137 to be placed on the November ballot.

As an educator, it's clear to me that we can't move fast enough to address our housing affordability crisis in Seattle.

Seattle Public Schools is considering closing about 20 elementary schools, which would be one of the largest school closures in our nation's history.

You can't talk about this without talking about how hostile Seattle has become to families and working people.

This is an enrollment issue and people are leaving the city because they can't afford to live here.

It's pretty crazy.

And this also includes school staff who simply can't afford to live in this expensive city.

We barely find two or three bedroom apartments in our city, let alone ones that working families can afford.

We have to change this.

Families are leaving in search of housing they can raise a family in.

Paraeducators like me are priced out of the city and therefore essential services and special education are going unmet because we don't have the staff to perform it.

We can change this if the government would get behind social housing and actually do something about this housing crisis long term.

So I urge you to put I-137 on the November ballot.

Thank you very much.

SPEAKER_66

We're at speaker number 18.

SPEAKER_67

My name is Alan Francis, speaking on behalf of SHARE.

I'm formerly homeless, classified as chronically homeless, and I'm on a fixed income.

I'm a Seattle renter in the Roosevelt neighborhood.

Hello, council member Rivera.

I'm asking the city council to address Seattle's housing crisis now by placing initiative I-137 on the November ballot without delay.

Over 38,000 Seattleites signed to support I-137, which proposes funding social housing as a solution to unaffordable housing.

Delaying works as a crisis leads to higher rents, increased homelessness, and displacement of marginalized communities.

Social housing is desired for several key reasons.

Affordability.

Social housing provides housing options that are within reach for low- and middle-income individuals and families, helping to address the challenge of escalating rent costs.

Remember I said I was chronically homeless?

Not with social housing.

It offers long-term, secure living arrangements, minimizing the risk of eviction and homelessness.

Inclusivity.

Social housing guarantees access to safe and dependable homes, fostering social equity.

Poorer people want to live and thrive with the rest of society.

Respect the Department's demand for immediate reaction by placing I-137 on the new...

Your time has expired.

SPEAKER_69

Please have a seat.

SPEAKER_39

My name is Anitra Freeman.

I'm here on behalf of the homeless and formerly homeless women of Weill.

Weill and Cher support social housing for three reasons.

Community, community, and community.

It doesn't help to get people out of homelessness when more and more people are becoming homeless.

Working people priced out of their housing.

People making $120,000 a year are getting a severe car accident or a medical crisis.

A real solution to homelessness has to address the needs of the whole community.

And Seattle cannot be a whole community while it's segregated by economics and class.

And voice is a part of community.

Tenants govern their own housing.

We want that.

SPEAKER_69

Time is expired.

Please have your seat.

Thank you.

SPEAKER_39

Increase the voice of Seattle by...

SPEAKER_68

Are we ready to move on to remote speakers now?

SPEAKER_69

I remind people, please do not yell, clap, et cetera, snap, or silence.

Please go ahead.

SPEAKER_66

We're at our last in-person speaker for the set.

SPEAKER_32

Go ahead.

Thank you.

Thanks.

My name is Lexi Bovee and I live in District 2. I'm asking you to vote yes on I-137 and vote no on SCORE, SODA, and SOPA, the drug and prostitution loitering laws put forth by council members Nelson, Kettle, Riviera, and Moore.

All of these issues are intertwined.

I am a sex worker and organize with and for the people in the sex industry here in Seattle.

Score, soda, and SOPA bills directly target marginalized communities like queer youth, disabled people, and people of color who are just trying to survive.

Poverty is at an all-time high, partially thanks to you.

Instead of creating resources that could actually help them like housing, jobs, and social care, you are just making it easier for our cops to arrest them, which makes it harder for them to access the very resources they need.

These are our neighbors.

We need resources, not jail.

I am begging you to vote yes on I-137 and no on SCORE, SOPA, and SOPA for the safety of our community.

SPEAKER_68

Thank you.

We'll now move on to remote speakers.

And a reminder to remote speakers, once you hear the message, you've been unmuted.

Please press star six.

Our next remote speaker is Flora Wright.

Following Flora will be Alice Lockhart.

Go ahead, Flora.

SPEAKER_54

Hello, I'm Flora Wright, a Seattle resident calling in to oppose CB 120825. The SCORE Jail Pilot Program is a covert plan by the mayor to criminalize homelessness in line with the conservative grants passed Supreme Court decision.

At least six people, including McKenna Buckland, Angela Major, and Lauren Renfer, have died at SCORE since March 2023 due to malnutrition, dehydration, renal failure, lack of detox care, and injury.

SCORE has still not filed reports with the Department of Health on two of the deaths last year, even though it's required within 120 days.

And SCORE's partner, WellPath, has come under congressional scrutiny for use of restraints on inmates and denying life-saving treatments.

Public Defenders Union described violations of the right to an attorney at SCORE, including a lack of phone services and a lack of transportation to court appearances.

Reporting yes to this contract would suggest that you believe the punishment for being accused of a low-level misdemeanor in Seattle should be medical neglect, violation of rights, or even death.

The seat doesn't have the money for a $2-3 million contract while essential services are facing cuts.

Vote no on this bill and reject the cruel and rushed contract with SCORE, which would be deadly for the predominantly poor and housed and disproportionately black folks in Carson.

I also want social housing on the November ballot and support maintaining minimum wage for TIP workers.

SPEAKER_68

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Alice Lockhart, and following Alice will be Ammar Hussain.

Go ahead, Alice.

SPEAKER_60

Good afternoon, Council.

I'm Alice Lockhart, speaking for 350 Seattle and also, I think, for Seattle voters.

Today's agenda includes two items that are all about respecting the will of the voters.

Agenda item two, getting Initiative 137 on the ballot, is clearly a democracy issue.

Seattle voted for social housing by a wide margin and respect for the initiative process and the over 38,000 voters who signed to get I-137 on the ballot dictate sending it to the voters in November, not holding it for a lower turnout election.

That would subvert the process.

Second, you were all elected on a theme of fiscal responsibility.

Voters sent you to be fiscally responsible.

The SCORE jail contract.

at $275 per day, plus police and public defender travel to and from score, plus prisoner transport to and from court will cost literally thousands per misdemeanor offense.

We taxpayers say no.

Thank you.

SPEAKER_68

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Ammar Hussain, and following Ammar will be Josh Martinez.

Go ahead, Ammar.

SPEAKER_41

My name is Ammar, and I live in District 2. I'm asking you to vote yes on putting I-137 on November pallets without a competing measure, and I'm also asking you to vote no on the school jail contract.

There is a true public safety crisis in Seattle.

It's not due to a shortage of jails.

It's due to the lack of affordable housing and public services.

The city is facing a major budget deficit.

A proposal to spend more money on incarceration is shameful.

We need housing schools, parks, gardens, and community centers.

This is how we feel safe in the city.

Thank you.

SPEAKER_68

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Josh Martinez, and following Josh will be Acacia Potschmidt.

Go ahead, Josh.

SPEAKER_46

My name is Josh.

I'm a small business owner, and I live in District 2. I'm asking you to vote no on the prostitution loitering law submitted by Councilmember Moore.

I'm also asking you to vote no on the SCORE soda and soap bills.

I've worked for years with communities that people in power have marginalized through their actions and inactions.

The anti-prostitution and anti-loitering laws weren't repealed back in 2020 because they worked too well.

They were repealed because countless experts and community members said they were doing more harm than good.

The so-called anti-prostitution bill and funding for SCORE will not reduce crime.

They will not make us safer.

Loitering laws have always discriminated against trans people and black and brown people.

This one will be no different.

It won't stop sex trafficking or find places for people with nowhere to go.

People in Seattle are struggling.

Criminalizing people's existence will not help our city.

If you want to do something, push for solutions that will help, not hurt.

Trying to hide people away in jails or push them from street to street wastes money and doesn't help anyone.

Please vote no on these bills.

Thank you.

SPEAKER_68

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Acacia Pottschmidt.

And following Acacia is Amy Merrill.

Go ahead, Acacia.

SPEAKER_55

Hello.

My name is Acacia Potchman and I live in council member Rivera's district.

I'm calling to add my voice to the many folks here today, both opposing the city contracting with score and demanding that the council either pass I one 37 outright, or I'll get this, get this important social housing initiative onto the ballot in front of voters in November.

The council does not need to be allocating $20 million in funds to further criminalize some of the most vulnerable members of our community in a facility where six, six individuals died in police custody alone just last year.

Expanding the carceral system to the tune of millions of dollars is not the solution to a struggling downtown corridor when the proposed solution will do nothing to improve public safety.

That goes for both drug offenses and criminalizing sex work.

As much as the council may love to endlessly gesture at how much homelessness is a key issue for their constituencies, myself and others commenting recommend that the council actually put their money where their mouth is and get I-137 in front of the voters so that they can fulfill their commitment to democracy and their own electorate.

No on score, no on soap, yes on I-137, Remember that you work for us, council members.

SPEAKER_68

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Amy Merrill, and following Amy will be Amber Bergstrom.

SPEAKER_53

Hi, my name is Amy Marie Merrill.

I'm the executive director of the Cupcake Girls, an anti-trafficking organization that is currently serving 137 people that are all BIPOC in the Seattle area.

We are asking you to vote no on score, vote no on soap.

We are completely surprised that this is even an opportunity for us to come in and ask you to vote no.

This is the truth.

The law doesn't just impact women, putting them in jail.

It's not going to stop sex work.

It's not going to stop sex trafficking.

And most importantly, it's not going to help us as an anti-trafficking organization that is completely underfunded.

As of today we had absolutely no beds in any domestic violence shelter in the entire state of Washington and there are only seven beds available for people that aren't all in use for folks who are being trafficked in Seattle.

You need to put your money where it needs to be and stop putting people in prison.

We are asking for your help.

We're not asking for you to cause us more.

SPEAKER_68

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Amber Bergstrom and following Amber will be David Thomas Paris.

Go ahead Amber.

SPEAKER_60

Hi, my name is Amber Bergstrom.

I live in Councilmember Morris District, just a few blocks off of Aurora Avenue North.

My home is in the proposed SOAP area.

I've been volunteering with Greenlight Project since 2019. We do outreach on Aurora two times a week for street news, sex workers, drug users, and people who are houseless.

Through my five years experience of doing outreach with Greenlight, I have built personal relationships with many of the people that this law will negatively impact.

I'm asking city council to vote no on score, soap, soda.

The prostitution loitering and drug loitering laws were unanimously repealed in 2020 for being violently racist and exposing primarily QB BIPOC people to more harm from police brutality, incarceration, and the risk of violence from predators who are looking for an isolated, easy victim.

Has Seattle already forgotten, the Green River killer.

Do we really want to go back to having people who are already multiply marginalized?

SPEAKER_68

Thank you.

Our next speaker is David Tamash-Parris, followed by James Wu.

Go ahead, David.

SPEAKER_50

Hi, my name is David Tamash-Parris, and I'm going to break with some of my friends here and say that I have faith that you're going to do the sensible thing and place I-137 on the November ballot without a half-baked competing alternative.

You all saw that I-135 passed an landslide election in February showing Seattle believes in a model of permanently affordable mixed-income social housing.

You saw how their neighbors worked tirelessly for months to follow this up with a well-researched, well-modeled piece of legislation that implemented funding.

You've had since January to research your own competing funding, and you've passed on the opportunity, which I and the rest of your competent, well-informed constituents, 38,000 of whom signed the initiative, can only pick me that you like the funding model that was put forth in the initiative.

Because you left no time to study an alternative that won't delay the initiative to a February ballot.

And it's important to get this on the November ballot.

Council Member Wu, in particular, has been bravely outspoken about the marginalizing effect of off-cycle elections, even maintaining her personal name in the mailbox.

But her suppression is a Republican thing.

There's no way any of you would do that.

Do the right thing, fund social housing, not jail them.

SPEAKER_68

Thank you.

Our next speaker is James Wu, and following James will be Kyle Theringer.

Go ahead, James.

SPEAKER_47

Hi, my name is James.

I'm fortunate to be a homeowner in District 5. But I'm sad to say we're also friends with so many neighbors who are struggling to get by, working multiple jobs, big jobs, while trying to raise their family stably in the same neighborhood and in place.

the difference between my neighbors and us is that we're homeowners and have 30 years of housing stability in our mortgage that no renter has access to we pay lower mortgages than any of our neighbors rent often by half my hard-working neighbors and friends also deserve that housing stability you all got on the city council because i can only imagine that you want to improve the lives of regular people and i-137 is the best way to do that if you pass i-137 immediately You will go down in history as a council that established a social housing collective in this country.

We love our neighbors and we want to be in community with them.

Please listen to people like us and not to wealthy interests who hate their neighbors.

Thank you.

SPEAKER_68

Thank you.

Our last remote speaker for this group and hour will be Kyle Theringer.

Go ahead, Kyle.

SPEAKER_51

Hello, my name is Kyle and I'm a member of the UAW Local 4121, the union of 8,000 academic workers at the University of Washington.

Today I'm speaking as a renter in District 3 and a member of our union's housing justice work group.

I'm calling to ask the City Council to pass I-137 immediately or place it on the November ballot.

Currently I'm renting in a house shared with three other roommates and about half of my paycheck goes towards my rent.

I'm in one of the highest paid programs at the University of Washington.

My story is not unique.

Thousands of us devote a majority of our paychecks to rent and are struggling to find affordable housing.

On top of that, student workers do not qualify for the MFT program due to language changes in the 2023 Affordable Housing Initiative program, which further restricts our access to affordable housing.

Without access to affordable housing, my coworkers and I are facing rent increases that lead to evictions and unsafe, dangerous situations.

This is not a potential issue in the future.

This is an urgent and present issue.

This is why our union endorsed I-135 and I-137.

For me and my coworkers, having access to affordable housing is crucial.

Please pass I-137 on the November ballot now without an alternative.

Thank you.

SPEAKER_68

Thank you.

That brings us to at least half of our remote speakers have spoken.

Take it over, Amelia, for in-person.

SPEAKER_66

Thank you.

And we're going to start with speaker numbers 21 through 30. Please note speaker number 22, which is Madison.

Zach Wu, you didn't get a card, so I just want to make sure that you come up, please.

Thank you.

SPEAKER_30

Ms. L, I live and work in District 5. I urge you to vote no on all three racist, harmful criminalization bills, particularly SOAP.

I volunteer with a harm reduction organization that does outreach handing out safety supplies and food to sex workers and drug users on Aurora.

I can tell you from experience that more arrests will only serve to push these community members further into the margins of society and into the criminal justice system that's inherently structured to harm them by perpetuating the cycle of poverty.

Criminalizing sex work and drug use does not stop either, nor does it stop related violence.

It only puts our neighbors in even more danger and desperation than they are already in.

Many of the sex workers we serve are single parents.

Many are in or escaping violent situations with a partner or pimp.

Most of them are people of color.

If you wish to give them the best possible chance at supporting themselves and their families, the best way to do that is to provide social services like housing and health care, not to arrest them.

I believe elected officials should be judged by how they treat their most marginalized constituents.

I hope you don't forget that the sex workers and drug users on Aurora are your constituents, too.

Vote no on soda, soap, and score.

Thank you.

SPEAKER_12

I'm Madison Zakwu with Strippers or Workers, here opposing SOAP, SODA, SCORE, and asking you to support I-137.

Criminalizing sex workers does not help address the core issues that you claim to address.

Arresting them creates barriers to housing and work, making them more vulnerable to trafficking, not less.

And targeting them to stop gun violence when they have not committed violence or used guns is nonsense.

Rather than investing resources into measures that would actually help these workers make their own choices, this bill creates subgroups of already marginalized people for police to sweep and segregate.

In this way, this bill aims to do nothing but control people, control their bodies, where they work, where they walk, where they find safety.

You are sacrificing these people to show businesses and donors that you're doing something, but all you're doing is bringing back a very old idea, the idea that controlling our bodies is the only way to save us.

It is not.

Please pull the...

SPEAKER_34

Hi, my name is Hope Friji, Capitol Hill resident, urging you not to contract with SCORE.

As an urban planner, I am well aware of the pressure this council is under to respond to public calls for increased safety.

I am disheartened that this council has consistently responded to these calls by escalating the presence and power of police while chipping away at the resources that help people avoid the dire circumstances that increase crime.

You have reduced library hours, proposed cuts to minimum wage, and spent over $26 million yearly to to remove people seeking shelter in public space and destroy their property.

You are exacerbating this problem and trying to use police violence to solve it.

Contracting with SCORE is the city's solution for cracking down on misdemeanors, petty theft, public substance use, protesting.

The mayor has stated that the current permissive environment is impacting the morale of police officers.

I'm hoping that moving forward, we can prioritize human lives over the moods of police officers because people aren't safe when they're in jail.

In the past year, four people have died at SCORE.

This is just the death we know of.

The jail hasn't been complying with state orders to report on deaths while in custody in a timely manner.

In 2018, the husband of Damaris Rodriguez called 911 because she was having a mental health episode.

Officers came, took her to SCORE, didn't book her for a crime.

She died four days later.

Please don't contract with SCORE.

SPEAKER_23

Hi, I'm David Levinson.

I'm a resident of Belltown.

I'm asking you to vote in favor of CB 12825. I'm aware our city continues to spend a lot of money trying to get the county to give us some jail cells.

And I never thought that I would ask you to buy some more jail cells, but here I am, I'm asking you to.

I think without the jail cells and having the necessary capacity, I just think that the city is failing at a charter responsibility for public safety.

regardless of the cause that King County can't give us the jail cells we need.

We do need them, and we need them badly in Belltown to try to break up what is happening there.

I ask you and I urge you, buy these jail cells.

SPEAKER_69

There will be no disruption or attacks on speakers.

Please continue.

SPEAKER_17

My name is Rose.

I'm here on behalf of workers.

SPEAKER_45

Pardon me.

SPEAKER_17

My name is Rose.

I'm a service, oh wow, time.

I'm in the service workers industry.

As workers, the exploiters of our labor are simply asking to keep the system as is.

Business owners also own multiple properties and homes.

They have money for brand new Tesla toys and boats for their families, money for remodeling within the workspace, all in the system as is.

But it ain't that way for everybody.

Workers on average don't make a livable wage.

Personally, I have three jobs, I'm in school, and I take care of my chronically ill father.

Rent for workers is increasing year after year after year, and we're getting pushed further and further out of the city.

Workers fight over hours, shifts, and tables.

We're stretched thin and pitted against each other.

Tips.

The tipping system subjects workers to racism, sexism, ableism, and classism.

All of that is under the system as is.

If you ask me, if you ask us, the workers, the workers who generate the money...

Thank you very much.

SPEAKER_69

Please take your seat.

The next speaker will come up, please.

SPEAKER_17

...are asking too damn much, and they ain't paying what they owe.

So today we come correct.

Tomorrow we come to collect.

Thank you.

SPEAKER_66

We're at number speaker 24.

SPEAKER_69

And we are also at an hour we will get through this batch and then go ahead, please.

SPEAKER_65

Good afternoon, council members.

My name is Rebecca Levine and I'm addressing initiative 137. I'm a voter in district four and I'm here representing Seattle neighborhood greenways where I work.

With our coalition of volunteer-led neighborhood groups, we advocate for a more walkable, bikeable city where everyone can thrive.

Our day-to-day work focuses on Seattle streets, but we know that housing policy has a big influence on where people can afford to live in the city and on how we get around.

Social housing for low and middle income residents is a proven solution to our affordability crisis that is pushing people like Michaela and so many others we've heard from today out of the city.

That's why 137 has strong support from Seattle Neighborhood Greenways, strong support from 38,000 Seattle residents who signed to put it on the ballot.

And as we've heard from today, a lot of Seattle voters...

Thank you for acting swiftly to place 137 on today's agenda.

Now Seattle Greenways asks you to follow through.

Place 137 on the...

SPEAKER_56

I'm Lexi, Capitol Hill District 3. This council is using our resources to attack the most marginalized workers in our city.

First, y'all attempted to slash gig workers' minimum wage to appease corporations.

Now y'all want to slash tipped workers' wages and go back on an agreement made 10 years ago to phase out the sub-minimum wage.

I've talked to so many workers who've had tips stolen, paychecks late, compensation falsely advertised, time stolen, and faced many forms of discrimination and abuse.

people are working multiple jobs and still getting evicted from their homes council member kettle would rather fund incarceration through score council member moore would rather introduce a racist transphobic anti-porn anti-sex worker loitering bill and stay out orders to target and displace the most marginalized people in our communities hands off workers wages yes to 137 no to score no to the prostitution wearing loitering law and notice An injury to one is an injury to all.

When we fight, we win.

When we fight, we win!

When we fight, we win!

SPEAKER_11

Good afternoon, my name is Elizabeth Hendren, and I'm a victim's rights attorney with Sexual Violence Law Center.

We're a statewide nonprofit law firm based here in Seattle, and we work with survivors of sexual and gender-based violence.

I'm here to please ask you to vote no on the prostitution, loitering, and soap bill.

At SVLC, we work with all survivors, including criminalized survivors and survivors charged with prostitution.

As attorneys with expertise in gender-based violence, we frequently see the ways that criminalization further marginalizes survivors, making them even more susceptible to the power imbalances that lead to sexual coercion, abuse, and trafficking.

We are disappointed to see the city choosing to reintroduce in ordinance criminalizing sex work, ignoring evidence-based research, community relationship building, and a basic understanding of gender-based violence and racial dynamics.

This is a significantly regressive step that advocates working on sexual violence issues see as significantly harmful.

Please vote no on the prostitution loitering ordinance.

SPEAKER_66

I believe we're at the end of the last speakers.

That was Elizabeth, correct?

Is that the last person who spoke?

What number were you, I'm sorry?

29, okay, so we just have number 30, that's what I thought.

Jay?

Number 30?

Okay, thank you.

After Jay, this will be the last person in this set.

SPEAKER_15

A woman walking along Aurora Avenue with parts of her body that are exposed, that are rarely exposed outside of her bathroom or beach.

It's such bad taste.

Oh, I'm sorry.

Perhaps I wasn't clear.

What I meant was it's such bad taste that Aurora Avenue North accounts for 20% of our record high traffic fatality.

SPEAKER_69

Stop.

Do not interrupt the speaker.

SPEAKER_15

It's such bad because the speed limit on Aurora is 60 to 100% higher than most of Seattle streets, while there are large swaths of Aurora with no sidewalks, and most Aurora's intersections have neither traffic lights nor crosswalks.

But y'all have the good taste to take on prostitution again.

Instead, I'm sorry.

That would be a lot easier because they're mostly poor women of color.

And you can solve that problem just so well, just like you did with drug use, homelessness, and mental health issues.

Just move them and arrest them.

That always works so well.

It's good to know our Seattle City Council has such good taste.

SPEAKER_69

I will we will go with 10 more people on the remote and then we are at our deadline to be able to consider items on the agenda.

SPEAKER_68

Thank you very much.

Our next remote speaker will be Eric Kitto and following Eric will be Brianna Martinez.

Go ahead Eric and a reminder to press star 6 after you hear the message that you have been unmuted.

Eric.

SPEAKER_52

Hi my name is Eric Kitto from District 4. I'm calling on all council members and my representative, Council Member Rivera, to place I-137 on the ballot today.

We are in a housing crisis right now.

Seattle needs more housing.

This includes housing for working people.

Over 38,000 Seattleites signed to put I-137 on the ballot, and I'm calling on council members to heed this demand and get it on the ballot today.

Also, vote no on the score contract.

Thank you.

SPEAKER_68

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Brianna Martinez and following Brianna will be Amelia Grant.

Go ahead, Brianna.

SPEAKER_40

Hello.

My name is Brian Martinez and I am advocating today that council member Moore dropped this bill.

It is very clear that almost everyone unanimously there today is agreeing that this would only further harm people that are already vulnerable.

If your goal is to end gun violence, this bill does nothing to address that.

It's only harming sex workers.

And this bill just further confirms that you are in the position or like you believe that sex workers aren't people and that they don't deserve rights.

A bill comes from someone who thinks those things.

So if you feel like you should represent, better represent the people of Seattle, I urge you not only to drop this bill, but also to just do your jobs and do things that benefit people instead of putting them in jail and fining them.

It doesn't help anyone.

SPEAKER_68

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Amelia Brandt, and following Amelia will be Oliver Misca.

Go ahead, Amelia.

SPEAKER_57

My husband and I are renters in District 1, and we are among the 38,000 Seattleites supporting I-137 on the ballot in November.

As residents of Pioneer Square, we believe that one of the best ways to revitalize downtown is to have people living here.

In the three years we have lived here, our rent has raised by 10%.

Our landlord is an individual who owns our building outright, so it's not just the corporate lenders who are a problem.

We have seen firsthand as residents of Pioneer Square the city's housing challenges.

We live across the alley from city funded housing, Salmonberry Law.

Before it officially opened, we saw empty apartments for two winters as people suffered on the streets.

With every delay to build affordable housing, low and middle income workers are priced out of our city.

My household has recently become higher income and our commitment to social housing remains.

We would have previously been eligible for social housing and we want it to benefit everyone who is eligible today.

We want to live in vibrant neighborhoods with social housing.

SPEAKER_68

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Oliver Misca and following Oliver will be Jasara Schroeder.

Go ahead Oliver.

SPEAKER_43

Hi my name is Oliver Misca.

I'm an educator within Seattle Public Schools and a community organizer interested in restorative justice practices and non-carceral practices that ultimately are the social fabric of our society.

What we know about the proposed legislation, SOAP, SODAS, and SCORE contracts, which what we know about them is that they exclude folks from our communities and use laws of exclusion, which we know, especially as a teacher, when we just push a student out of the classroom, what happens is issues outside of the classroom then get exacerbated.

All of these policies are the same type of policies we were fighting against in our schools.

And it's devastating that we can't pass this kind of legislation that's backed by science.

And what we also the one thing that we can do is a People's Initiative I-137.

We can support that.

So I urge you to put that.

SPEAKER_68

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Jasara Schroeder and following Jasara will be Kimberly Chen.

Go ahead Jasara.

Sorry, you may need to press star six.

Okay, she is not, she's not popping up.

We're going to move on to Kimberly Chin and following Kimberly will be Gianni Ayo.

Go ahead, Kimberly Chin.

SPEAKER_60

My name is Kimberly, and I'm representing Massage Parlor Outreach Project, supporting migrant Asian massage and sex workers in Chinatown and the greater Seattle area.

Vote no on soap, gore, and soda, and support I-137.

Soap uses anti-trafficking and anti-violence as excuses to scapegoat and harm survivors of gun violence, the very group it claims to protect.

Not all sex workers are trafficking victims.

Massage workers and street-based sex workers have shared experience of police and state violence in the name of quote-unquote rescue.

The best way to support sex workers experiencing interpersonal violence is to provide them with resources and decriminalize their jobs.

Instead, Moore's racist and classist bill targets and displaces working people of color.

We also oppose the SCORE bill that will lead to people being picked up on suspicion of loitering for prostitution or drugs and ship them to one of the deadliest jails in the country regardless of whether they're charged six.

Davidson and Kettle's soda bill criminalizes black, brown, and poor people while definitely claiming that Asian and immigrant communities do not use this as your excuse.

Vote no on soap, score, and soda.

Yes on I-37.

We demand the city invest.

SPEAKER_68

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Gianni Aiello.

Following Gianni will be Sonatina Sanchez.

Excuse me.

Go ahead, Gianni.

Oh, Gianni may not be.

here now.

Okay, we're going to move on to Sonatina Sanchez.

Following Sonatina will be Carter Yee.

SPEAKER_60

Hello.

My name is Sonatina Sanchez.

I am in District 3, and I'm calling to oppose the SCORE contract and to support I-137 being passed.

It would be most efficient to pass I-137 today, but if you are not going to, I would like you to put it on the November ballot so we can pass it as quickly as possible and get the construction process started.

As a board member of Community Roots Housing, though I'm speaking for myself, as a resident of Community Roots Housing, I know how long it takes to develop social housing.

We have projects that are in the works for over four or five years, and we need to start now if we are going to make progress on our housing crisis.

I have been a part of developing real affordable housing, and I know that we need to put people into homes, not cages.

Reject SOAR, reject SOAP, and reject any other carceral punishment-based solutions because they do not actually work in the long term.

We need to put homes and care into our communities.

SPEAKER_68

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Carter Yee, and then we will go back and try Gianni Aiello again.

Go ahead, Carter Yee.

SPEAKER_09

My name is Carter Yee, and I'm a renter in District 3, and I'm here to ask you to vote no on the prostitution loitering law put forth by Council Member Moore and the SCORE and SODA bills.

This law will only result in further marginalizing groups who already face disproportionate violence at the hands of the police, namely black, brown, and trans women.

The city cannot claim to care about racial justice and declare racism a public health crisis while also attempting to pass laws that have a proven history of arbitrary and discriminatory enforcement.

If the council wants to address the prevalence of gun violence, there should be a focus on passing laws which are actually effective instead of more partially targeting and criminalizing already vulnerable populations.

Arresting people for loitering will not result in anyone being safer and will only result in marginalized groups being further harmed.

Vote no on these racist and discriminatory laws.

Solidarity forever.

SPEAKER_68

Thank you.

Our next speaker, if they are available now, Gianni Aiello, and following Gianni will be Iman Haseem.

Go ahead, Gianni.

You may need to press star six.

Okay, I'm sorry, Gianni.

We are moving on to Iman Haseem and following Iham.

Iman Haseem will be BJ last.

Go ahead, Iman.

There you go.

You should be able to speak now.

Okay, we are not able to hear Iman.

We're going to move on to BJ Last.

BJ, go ahead, please.

SPEAKER_48

Hi, my name is BJ Last.

I'm a Ballard homeowner.

I'm calling to ask council to pass I-137 today, or at least put it on the ballot in November, and to reject the SCORE contract.

Today's show is who council actually listens to.

Score hit the IRC, the introduction referral calendar, on July 30th.

So the public has had exactly eight days to look at this and review it and give feedback.

And y'all want to say that's fine, brush it forward.

In fact, even cut off public comment before the people that make it out have a chance to speak.

I-137 has been around for months gathering momentum, but y'all want to push that one off to make sure your friends at the Metro Chamber of Commerce can go in and write an alternate proposal for you.

Really shows who you listen to.

In addition to rejecting score, it should also address soda and soap legislation.

All three of these bills are about punishing people without actually having to get that whole unnecessary thing of an actual conviction.

So this way, SPD can continue to arrest people that aren't actually.

Ann Davidson doesn't have to worry about the fact she can't get a conviction to save her life.

She's completely incompetent, but you can still punish people.

You can still exclude people your Metro friends find undesirable from the areas where they.

SPEAKER_68

Thank you.

Our last two speakers will be Aiden Carroll, followed by Devin Watts.

Go ahead, Aiden.

SPEAKER_42

I'm starting to think that a good rule of thumb is to do whatever the opposite of the chamber wants.

So many of the opponents of social housing do not know what social housing is.

The whole point is class desegregation.

It's integrating across income to make it more efficient for the taxpayer.

And politically, housing right now is like food stamps.

When stigmatized, It's viewed as for those people, it's deprioritized.

We want public housing to be like social security.

It's for everyone.

Everyone pays what they can and everyone is eligible with the right proportion.

Tanya, you told me yesterday at 85th and Aurora, you would love to meet with Care Real about expanding Nicholsville.

They've been trying to meet with the mayor for like two and a half years about opening even the Red Door Shelter downstairs.

PREVENTING PREVENTABLE DEBT IS THE MOST BASIC THING.

SPEAKER_68

THANK YOU.

OUR LAST SPEAKER TODAY WILL BE DEVIN WATTS.

GO AHEAD, DEVIN.

YES, GO AHEAD.

SPEAKER_18

SO I REMEMBER WHEN YOU GUYS VOTED DOWN RENT CONTROL BY TWO TO SIX WITH ONE ABSTENTION.

NOW OUR RENT AT MY APARTMENT IS $5,000, AND SOMEONE I KNOW can hardly afford anything at the store that he works at.

How is that relevant to I-137?

Well, high prices increases homelessness.

And this corrupt, um, incarceration system takes homeless people off the streets and puts them in these horrific conditions, like with SOAR, which I encourage to vote no on.

So social housing will solve crime because the major cause of crime is poverty, not increased system.

Thank you.

SPEAKER_68

Thank you.

And that is our last speaker, Council President.

SPEAKER_69

Thank you very much.

We've reached the end of our allotted time for public comment today, actually 20 minutes over.

So the public comment period is now closed, and we'll move on to the items on our agenda.

Thank you very much, everybody.

If there's no objection, the introduction and referral calendar will be adopted.

Seeing no objection, the introduction and referral calendar is adopted.

I move to adopt the agenda.

Is there a second?

Second.

MOVED AND SECONDED TO ADOPT THE AGENDA.

ARE THERE ANY COMMENTS?

SPEAKER_08

COUNCIL PRESIDENT.

SPEAKER_69

COUNCIL MEMBER KETTLE.

SPEAKER_08

I MOVE TO REMOVE ITEM 2, RESOLUTION 32142 FROM TODAY'S AGENDA.

SPEAKER_69

IS THERE A SECOND?

SPEAKER_08

SECOND.

SPEAKER_69

IT'S BEEN MOVED AND SECONDED TO REMOVE ITEM 2, RESOLUTION 32142 FROM TODAY'S AGENDA.

COUNCIL MEMBER KETTLE, YOU ARE RECOGNIZED IN ORDER TO ADDRESS THE MOTION.

SPEAKER_08

Thank you, Council President.

I appreciate that.

We received notification from the city clerk last Friday on agenda items CF314533 and Resolution 32142. Legal issues have been raised but not addressed in our standard council briefing executive session as is with our protocols.

Good governance requires us to do our due diligence on these legal questions and is the basis of my motion to remove resolution 32142 from the agenda.

And I ask for my colleague's support.

Thank you.

SPEAKER_69

Thank you very much.

Are there any comments on the motion?

Council Member Morales.

SPEAKER_28

So, as was stated earlier, Article 4, Section B of the City Charter says, and I'm quoting, "...consideration of such initiative petition shall take precedence over all other business before the City Council except appropriation bills and emergency measures." End quote.

So we should not be doing any other business until we weigh in on this initiative.

And if we do delay this vote and are found to be in violation of the city charter, we open ourselves up to legal liability, including potential recall.

So we have to vote today, and voting to remove this from the agenda doesn't count as voting on it.

If people don't like the initiative, they don't have to vote for it in November.

But we're obligated to give the rest of Seattle voters a chance to weigh in.

This council's role is to take a procedural vote to put this on the ballot.

That's all we are required to do, is take that vote before we do any other business.

As far as the chamber goes, if the chamber wants to have an alternative placed on the ballot, then they can go get 25,000 signatures to do that too.

Our job is not to weigh in on the legality of the initiative.

That's for the courts to decide.

Our job is to put this measure on the ballot.

Thank you.

SPEAKER_69

Are there any other comments?

Seeing none, will the clerk please call the roll on the motions?

SPEAKER_68

Council Member Strauss.

Yes.

Council Member Wu.

Yes.

Council Member Hollingsworth.

SPEAKER_56

Aye.

SPEAKER_68

Council Member Kettle.

SPEAKER_08

Aye.

SPEAKER_68

Council Member Moore.

SPEAKER_07

Abstain.

SPEAKER_68

Council Member Morales.

SPEAKER_07

No.

SPEAKER_68

Council Member Rivera.

SPEAKER_99

Aye.

SPEAKER_68

Council Member Saka.

SPEAKER_69

Aye.

SPEAKER_68

Council President Nelson.

SPEAKER_69

Aye.

SPEAKER_68

That is seven in favor, one opposed and one abstention.

SPEAKER_69

The motion carries and the agenda is amended with removal.

SPEAKER_26

Have your seat.

Please be seated.

Please be seated.

SPEAKER_69

The motion carries.

And the agenda is amended.

You are disrupting the council meeting.

I am asking you to please be quiet so that we can move on.

We will take a 10-minute recess until 3.40.

Thank you very much.

We are now in council recess.

SPEAKER_99

you you

SPEAKER_64

you

SPEAKER_69

Will the clerk please call the roll?

It is now 3.41 and the council will reconvene.

Will the clerk please call the roll?

SPEAKER_68

Council Member Strauss.

Present.

Council Member Wu.

Present.

Council Member Hollingsworth.

Here.

Council Member Kettle.

SPEAKER_64

Here.

SPEAKER_68

Council Member Moore.

Present.

Council Member Morales.

Here.

Council Member Rivera.

Present.

Council Member Saka.

Council President Nelson.

SPEAKER_69

Present.

SPEAKER_68

Eight present.

Thank you very much.

SPEAKER_69

As I was saying, the motion to amend the agenda carries and the agenda is amended.

Are there any further comments on the amended agenda from my colleagues?

Seeing none, we'll move on to item one.

No, we will move on to the consent agenda.

Okay.

All right.

Seeing no objection, I move to adopt the agenda as amended.

Second.

Thank you very much.

Do we need a roll call on the amended agenda?

There is no objection.

Okay.

Hearing no objection, the agenda is adopted as amended.

All right.

Moving on.

We will now consider the proposed consent calendar.

Items on the consent calendar include the minutes of July 30th, 2024, Council Bill 120829, payment of bills, Resolution 32141. and resolution 32143. Are there any items council members would like to remove from today's consent calendar?

Hearing none, I move to adopt the consent calendar.

Is there a second?

SPEAKER_24

Second.

SPEAKER_69

Thank you.

It's been moved and seconded to adopt the consent calendar.

Will the clerk please call the roll on the adoption of the consent calendar?

SPEAKER_68

Council Member Strauss?

SPEAKER_69

Yes.

SPEAKER_68

Council Member Wu?

Yes.

Council Member Hollingsworth?

Council Member Kettle.

SPEAKER_99

Aye.

SPEAKER_68

Council Member Moore.

Aye.

Council Member Morales.

Yes.

Council Member Rivera.

Aye.

Council Member Succa.

SPEAKER_15

Aye.

SPEAKER_68

Council President Nelson.

Aye.

Nine in favor, none opposed.

SPEAKER_69

Thank you.

The consent calendar items are adopted.

Will the clerk please affix my signature to the minutes and legislation on the consent calendar on my behalf.

All right, will the clerk please read item one into the record?

SPEAKER_66

The report of the city council, agenda item one, clerk file 314-533, report of the city clerk on the certificate of sufficiency for initiative measure number 137 regarding enact a levy and excess compensation payroll tax to fund the Seattle social housing developer.

SPEAKER_69

Thank you very much.

It's I move clerk file 314533 to be filed.

Is there a second?

SPEAKER_24

Second.

SPEAKER_69

Thank you.

It's been moved and seconded to file that clerk file.

I'll address this item and then open the floor for comments.

So, regardless of when we bring Council Resolution 32142 up for a vote, we still have to approve the filing of this clerk file.

And here's what it says.

Quote, on July 26, 2024, King County Department of Elections transmitted to the Office of the City Clerk a Certificate of Sufficiency Notification for Initiative Measure 1...

an act to levy an excess compensation payroll expense tax to fund the Seattle social housing developer.

Upon completion of the petition signature verification process, in accordance with the provisions of the revised code of Washington 3521005, King County Elections determined the required number of 26,521 signatures to be registered voters, and the petition was determined to be sufficient.

The certificate of sufficiency is attached herewith, and the petition is filed under clerk file number 322. It goes on to say, pursuant to Article 418 of the Seattle City Charter, the city clerk is required to transmit the verification of sufficiency together with her report thereon to the city council at a regular council meeting not more than 20 days after the city clerk has received verification of the sufficiency of such petition signatures.

And such transmission shall be the introduction of the initiative bill or measure to the city council.

And then it has two attachments.

One is the certificate of sufficiency and the other is the petition, clerk file 322950. And they're both attached to the legislation which is linked to the agenda.

So council members, are there any comments or questions on the clerk file?

All right, seeing none, will the clerk please call the roll on the filing of the clerk file?

SPEAKER_68

Council Member Strauss?

Yes.

Council Member Wu?

Yes.

Sorry, Council Member Wu?

Yes.

Council Member Hollingsworth?

Yes.

Council Member Kettle?

SPEAKER_09

Aye.

SPEAKER_68

Council Member Moore?

Aye.

Council Member Morales?

Yes.

Council Member Rivera?

Aye.

Council Member Saka?

SPEAKER_64

Aye.

SPEAKER_68

Council President Nelson?

SPEAKER_99

Aye.

SPEAKER_68

Nine in favor, none opposed.

SPEAKER_69

The motion carries and the clerk file is placed on file.

All right, will the clerk please read item three into the record.

SPEAKER_66

Agenda Item 3, Council Bill 120808, relating to floodplain's seventh extension of interim regulations established by Ordinance 126113 and as amended by Ordinance 126536 for an additional six months to allow individuals to rely on updated national flood insurance rate maps to obtain flood insurance through the Federal Emergency Management Agency's Flood Insurance Program.

For public hearing and possible vote.

SPEAKER_69

All right, this item does have a public hearing, but before I open the public hearing, I'm going to turn this over to the sponsor to address it.

Council Member Morales, you are recognized to address the bill.

SPEAKER_28

Thank you.

In July 2020, the council passed and the mayor signed Ordinance 126113 that establishes interim floodplain development regulations, including updated floodplain maps.

FEMA produced the updated maps and established the minimum required standards for regulations, and the maps include properties along the Puget Sound, the Duwamish River, and areas adjacent to creeks throughout the city.

The floodplain regulations contain building codes and other standards that make homes, businesses, and people safer from flooding and apply to permit applications for construction on property within those floodplain areas.

This bill would extend the interim standards to allow property owners in FEMA floodplain areas to purchase new flood insurance, renew existing policies, or obtain federally-backed loans.

And we are extending these interim standards for the seventh time.

On August 1st, SDCI did issue new SEPA decisions on the updated proposals, and they will be evaluating comments received on the proposal and provide permanent regulations THROUGH THE LAND USE COMMITTEE PRIOR TO THE EXPIRATION OF THIS SEVENTH EXTENSION.

AND THAT SHOULD HAPPEN IN LAND USE BEFORE FEBRUARY 2025. I RECOMMEND PASSAGE.

SPEAKER_69

THANK YOU VERY MUCH.

THIS PUBLIC HEARING IS REQUIRED And so I will now open the public hearing on this item as the presiding officer.

So Madam Clerk, how many speakers are signed up for this public hearing?

SPEAKER_66

Council President, at this point, no one has signed up for public comment for this public hearing.

SPEAKER_69

Thank you very much.

I will now officially close the public hearing for this item, and we will proceed to questions if my colleagues have any questions or comments about this legislation.

We've had this before us many times, so moving on.

All right, I move to pass Council Bill 120808. Is there a second?

Second.

Second.

It's been moved and seconded to pass the bill.

Any additional comments from the sponsor?

None.

All right.

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

SPEAKER_68

Council Member Strauss.

Yes.

Council Member Wu.

Yes.

Council Member Hollingsworth.

SPEAKER_99

Yes.

SPEAKER_68

Council Member Kettle.

Aye.

Moore.

Aye.

Council Member Morales.

Yes.

Council Member Rivera.

SPEAKER_99

Aye.

SPEAKER_68

Council Member Saka.

SPEAKER_64

Aye.

SPEAKER_68

Council President Nelson.

Aye.

Nine in favor, none opposed.

SPEAKER_69

Thank you very much.

The bill passes and the chair will sign it.

Will the clerk please affix my signature to the legislation on my behalf?

Thank you very much.

Will the clerk please read item four into the record?

SPEAKER_66

Agenda item four, the report of the Public Safety Committee, Council Bill 120825 relating to jail services authorizing the Mayor to execute an interlocal agreement with South Correctional Entity for the provision of jail services and ratifying confirming search and prior acts.

The committee recommends the bill pass with Council Members Kettle, Saka, Moore and Nelson in favor.

None opposed and one abstention from Council Member Hollingsworth.

SPEAKER_69

Thank you very much.

Council Member Kettle is chair of the committee.

You are recognized to provide the committee report.

SPEAKER_08

COUNCIL PRESIDENT, THANK YOU VERY MUCH FOR THE OPPORTUNITY TO SPEAK ON THIS IMPORTANT BILL.

I WANT TO START BY SAYING I REALLY WANT TO STATE THAT THERE'S BEEN A VERY GREAT AMOUNT OF STAKEHOLDERING ACROSS THE PUBLIC SAFETY AND CRIMINAL JUSTICE SPECTRUM ON THE SCORE ILA, AND IT CONTINUES.

AND I WANT TO THANK ALL THOSE INVOLVED, TO INCLUDE FROM THE EXECUTIVE, FROM THE MAYOR'S OFFICE, SBD AND OTHERS, FOR THEIR WORK IN THIS, AND LIKE I SAID, IT CONTINUES.

I have visited SCORE, but also the King County Correctional Facility and the Issaquah Jail, all government entities.

All were very professional.

And importantly, all are accredited by the Washington State.

Again, accredited by Washington State.

And the visits were very insightful and gave great insights.

There's been a lot of discussion regarding meetings.

I want to state for the record that we did have a jail-specific meeting with King County that was included the King County Deputy Executive Braddock, King County Council Member Dembowski, the Director Nance, and Deputy Larson from DAJD, the Department of Adult and Juvenile Detention, along with King County Sheriff Cole Lindell.

And we had council members, Maura and myself, representing the Seattle Council, along with City Attorney Davison and Deputy Scott Lindsey, along with Mr. Meyerberg from the Mayor's Office and Chief Rohrer.

So that was a very informational meeting.

We talked about updating the governing memo and other paths forward that we could do in terms of working together.

And following that meeting, particularly because the King County Council Member and Law and Justice Chair, Horry Barone, was not in attendance for that meeting, I did have a meeting with him one-on-one in my office on the topic of the jails and really about the question of long-term, you know, the issues that relate as raised by Council Member Moore.

during committee, but also some of the budget pieces that relate to that in terms of some of the fiscal constraints that all levels of government are facing.

So I thought it was very important to note this baseline because there's been much commentary on it.

I also wanted to note, too, the situation with jail and the booking restrictions is critical to our strategic framework plan as we look to tackle the permissive environment underlying our public safety challenges.

If we cannot book those who need to be in jail for misdemeanor crimes, it often leads to continual challenges in our neighborhoods and throughout all our communities.

And to be clear, we believe in and support diversion first.

And this comes across in many forms to include drugs and also in terms of the trafficking situation.

And I understand that the King County staffing challenges, much like SPD staffing challenges, are present, but both have an impact on our public safety posture.

And I also wanted to know...

Can you please pause?

I also understand...

I will...

SPEAKER_69

Please stop engaging in the disruptive behavior of speaking over these speakers.

SPEAKER_08

I understand that emphasis zones do allow bookings, and I'm thankful for the county acting on Chief Rohrer's recent requests.

Increased bookings is key, and key areas of West Precinct and D7 will help.

But I should also note, conversely, that the lack of booking emphasis zones for districts one, two, three, four, five, and six remain a problematic situation that we have.

And I just wanted to close by noting, because as during the process of the committee, there was a lot of comments that said that SCORE was a private jail.

It is not a private jail.

It is a government entity and one that I have visited and I can speak to in terms of its professionalism.

I noted that the, you know, deaths, it's very tragic and very concerning, but the numbers are wrong, and the context is off, too, as it doesn't refer to in context like what's happening in Snohomish.

Regarding medical care, when I visited SCORE, it had a full-up clinic, professional nurses and other medical officers, and that was...

SPEAKER_69

Multiple individuals are engaging in behavior that is out of order and this meeting cannot proceed until order is restored.

If the order is not restored and people do not stop speaking while counsel is speaking, the room will be either cleared to continue this meeting or will adjourn to meet at another location with only media not engaged in the disruption.

SPEAKER_99

You didn't let us speak!

You didn't let us speak!

You didn't let us speak!

You didn't let us speak!

You didn't let us speak!

You didn't let us speak!

SPEAKER_69

We will now proceed to another 10-minute recess.

It is now 3.57.

We will reconvene at 4.07.

SPEAKER_99

music music you

SPEAKER_64

you

SPEAKER_69

It is now 4.09, and this council will come back to order.

Will the clerk please call the roll?

SPEAKER_68

Council Member Strauss?

SPEAKER_99

Present.

SPEAKER_68

Council Member Wu?

SPEAKER_71

Present.

SPEAKER_68

Council Member Hollingsworth?

Present.

Council Member Kettle?

SPEAKER_08

Here.

SPEAKER_68

Council Member Moore?

SPEAKER_08

Present.

SPEAKER_68

Council Member Morales?

Here.

Council Member Rivera.

Council Member Saka here.

Council President Nelson present.

SPEAKER_69

8 present.

Thank you very much.

I want to make something clear that I limited count the public comment to a specific amount of time because no one knew the outcome of the motion to remove an item from the agenda and.

We had to prepare for all eventualities.

We are moving on.

We had an hour and 20 minutes of public comment, and our council rules require 20 minutes.

We were on item four.

Let's try to proceed and get through this item with order.

Continue, please.

SPEAKER_08

Thank you, Council President.

Just to sum up this concluding section, I have 10 points to make.

One is, oftentimes SCORE is called a private jail.

It is not.

It is a public entity that is accredited by Washington State.

Two, it's really important to bring up the deaths, which are tragic, and they need to be investigated.

But the context here is it's often misdone with the numbers, and the context also is not given in terms of what's happening in Snohomish and the like.

And so, yes, they're tragic.

We need to look at them and have investigated.

but they have to have that context.

Along with that context is the question of medical.

When I visited SCORE, it has a full medical clinic.

It was fully staffed, which was fantastic, in providing care at SCORE.

The fourth thing, back to the stakeholdering.

We're engaging with all the various stakeholders that relate to this.

And that includes the public defender world.

So, for example, DPD, the Department of Public Defense, may have left, but SEIU 925 is still participating in the stakeholding.

SPEAKER_69

Okay, pause.

Council Member Kettle.

Unfortunately, this is not working repeatedly.

We have now taken two recesses and multiple individuals are engaging in behavior that is out of order and this meeting cannot proceed.

We will now clear chambers again and continue this meeting in a remote location.

The members of the media are free to join.

You can continue the meeting in Sam Smith.

and we will continue the meeting remotely from our computers.

I am now asking security to please clear chambers.

I need to vote on proceeding in this manner.

Would you please call the roll on moving the location of the meeting to our offices so that we can get through this item?

SPEAKER_68

Council Member Strauss.

SPEAKER_25

I don't understand what the motion on the table is.

SPEAKER_69

Oh, I'm sorry.

Council Member Strauss, the motion is we have to vote on the relocation of the meeting to remote.

SPEAKER_68

Why can't we just meet here?

SPEAKER_69

If they're leaving.

SPEAKER_71

We're clearing the room.

Why not just stay here and do it?

SPEAKER_25

Point of information, Council President.

I need more information before I vote on this order.

SPEAKER_69

Okay.

We will wait until...

We will wait until we can see if we can clear the room.

SPEAKER_64

Go somewhere else.

The disruptive people are leaving.

I don't know where the hell this is coming from.

SPEAKER_35

You're getting caught by the police station.

SPEAKER_71

You're getting caught by the police station.

You're getting caught by the police station.

SPEAKER_64

No.

No.

If there is no objection, we are asking

SPEAKER_69

that if the chambers cannot be cleared, we can continue the meeting in a remote location.

With members of the media...

And the members of the media will be able to join the meeting in the Sam Smith room.

SPEAKER_64

You all are embracing a policy of eugenics against the poor!

SPEAKER_69

I am not seeing that we are able to clear the chambers.

Council members, we will take, is it a vote?

SPEAKER_66

Any objections, no objections?

SPEAKER_69

I see no objections to continuing the meeting in remote location.

Okay, we will now.

Proceed with the meeting in a remote location that I described, and we will continue the meeting at 4.30.

SPEAKER_99

So,

SPEAKER_61

Councilmember Rue and Rivera, would you like to do a mic check?

SPEAKER_62

That's us.

SPEAKER_61

Okay, heard that.

Councilmember Rivera?

SPEAKER_99

Nope.

SPEAKER_25

There, mic check, one, two, three, three, two, one.

SPEAKER_62

Councilmember Strauss, we can hear you.

Councilmember Kettle, go ahead with the mic check.

Here we are.

One, two, two, one.

Thank you, Council Member Kettle.

Looks like Council Member Rivera is still having audio issues.

And somebody, one of us will come down there and assist.

SPEAKER_61

Council Member Rivera, make sure your source is on my page as well on audio on the Zoom.

SPEAKER_14

options eric doing a mind check we can hear you thank you hello everyone this is seattle channel we are ready when you are thank you

SPEAKER_64

Anyway, we can get eyes.

SPEAKER_66

on attendance right now council council president nelson um i apologize for the interruption i'm going to be heading back into chambers chambers has been cleared i'm going to head back in there and conduct that meeting in chambers to allow any opportunity for them

SPEAKER_50

Hi, everyone.

Journalists from Sam Smith are on the line, by the way.

SPEAKER_69

Thank you very much.

Will the clerk please call the roll?

It is now 4.30.

We are reconvening remotely.

SPEAKER_66

Council Member Strauss.

SPEAKER_25

Present.

SPEAKER_66

Council Member Wu.

Present.

Council Member Hollingsworth.

Present.

Council Member Kettle.

SPEAKER_08

Here.

SPEAKER_66

Council Member Moore.

Present.

Council Member Morales.

SPEAKER_28

Here.

SPEAKER_66

Council Member Rivera.

Present.

Council Member Saca.

SPEAKER_47

Here.

SPEAKER_66

And Council President Nelson.

Present.

Eight present.

SPEAKER_69

Thank you very much.

So for the viewing public, to bring you back up to speed, I close public comment after an hour and 20 minutes because I had said that we would have an hour for public comment, not knowing whether or not the motion to remove item two from the agenda would succeed.

we are now proceeding with the items that are on the last item on our agenda i will note that as mentioned in in chambers per city charter article 4 section 1b consideration of initiative petitions south take shall take precedence over other business before the city council except appropriation bills and emergency measures that means that the resolution on i-137 will be On each city council meeting agenda during the, for the duration of the 45 day window, we have to send it to King county.

So that will be scheduled at a future meeting after we have had a, an executive session.

We are now moving on to item to continuing item 4 on our agenda.

So, council member kettle was in the middle of of of explaining his 10 points for his for this item.

And I am sorry after 2 recesses, I will ask you again to.

To restart what you were saying, so that we can get to the vote.

SPEAKER_08

Okay, 1st is well, I will start.

Thank you council president.

1st, I will say, um.

Number 1, the assertion that score is a private jail.

I just wanted to correct that for the record and it's not it is a public entity that falls under Washington state and has been accredited by Washington state.

Two is the deaths, which tragic do need to be investigated and to be understood what's going on.

But also the context behind those also needs to be understood.

Three, there's a lot of talk about medical.

And as I stated, I have been to SCORE, also King County Correctional Facility and the Issaquah Jail and the medical facility there.

At score is accredited and fully staff.

In fact, the day that I was there, the director of the of the facility of that clinic stated that they're actually won over their, their staffing level for going to the stakeholder piece.

Again, just as I mentioned it earlier on, there's been a great amount of stakeholder that continues.

Granted, one, the Director of Public Defense has come out, although SEIU 925 remains.

And regarding SEIU 925, I received a letter from them, and I actually took it to SCORE.

And the second page of the letter had about six questions.

I asked each question to the Director of SCORE, and I got very solid answers, things that I believe that could be worked through regarding systems, you know, Wifi all those kinds of things to interoperability kind of questions and all of which seem to be.

Practical things that could be worked through in terms of the stake holding process.

5, I understand on the budgeting point, uh, 2Million dollars is a lot of money and it's something that we should be mindful of.

Um, but.

I want to state based on my sole experience of this last 7 months is that.

The economic impact of lost revenue due to our public safety posture is immense.

I have discussions with all throughout District 7. When we lose that second and north Starbucks, that is an economic impact on the neighborhood.

But it's also, it hurts the neighborhood itself because it goes to the other businesses being lose.

We just lost First and Pike Starbucks.

I just use those two because they've been in the news, they've been reported on sale times, but there's been so many others and they have an impact.

And that economic impact worse.

The 2M dollars that we're talking loss revenue.

It dwarfs the 2M dollars.

Oftentimes people talk about evidence based.

Uh, you know, information and so forth and positions, but I just wanted to note that.

Um, the city attorney's office, the police department, even the and others, their heat maps to show what the challenges that we're facing and regarding the issues that we're facing in terms of our public safety posture.

I've done ride alongs walk alongs with health 1. Unified care team, many providers, you know, we deliver care.

Many of them, and also nonprofits, and I've walked the streets in terms of the issues that we're dealing with both D7 and broader regarding the booking restrictions.

and the like with guarding King County Correctional Facility.

That is an issue for our Seattle Police Department.

The officers have, it is a challenge.

But as I noted in our King County meeting, it's not just Seattle PD.

King County Sheriff's deputies are also frustrated, you know, with some of the challenges that they're facing with their own correctional facility.

And I say this is just a matter of fact.

You know, they're down on their staffing, just like, again, as I said, we're down on our SPD staffing and in other areas too.

And it creates a situation where they can't take and what we need, you know, the need from the city is here.

King county can only come up to a certain point.

We have a delta and this is what's driving what we're looking to do with score.

Um.

The impact of doing nothing is massive.

And I appreciate the public comment, but the impact of doing nothing is massive because the neighborhoods are being affected.

And I know some will say, hey, you know, a felony is very important, but, you know, misdemeanor is not important.

Challenge is the avalanche.

Just the sheer scale of the misdemeanors that are happening in these neighborhoods and the impact of them is unbelievable.

You know, it's the saying that a colony has a quality of its own.

We cannot forget that point.

Um, point 9, uh, public comment.

I really appreciate it.

Like, during committee, you know, different members coming out clearly today.

We did not have the same.

But the number of public commenters that are out there speaking to the challenges that they're facing in their neighborhoods is immense.

And, uh, and in large, and I recognize there's others that feel differently as we heard today.

But the voices of those that are impacted the neighborhoods have been heard by myself, my colleagues here on the city council and staff as well.

Um.

Regarding public comment, I do appreciate everybody that's come out, you know, and the number 10 was oversight.

We're not going to aggregate our responsibilities on this council.

We're definitely not going to aggregate our responsibilities on the public safety committee.

We will do the oversight that's needed.

Just like working on the accountability pieces.

We will do the same thing as it relates to score.

As well, we're not going to in terms of budget and operational aspects of that.

So, to close, I just wanted to say council president that we need to lead with compassion.

And wisdom, yes, we need to lead with empathy, but also understand that the impacts of the staggering amount of misdemeanor crime on our neighborhoods.

Because it is massive and it is direct and it's impacting the lives of our, our neighbors.

Our community members, and so I asked for your support.

Thank you very much.

SPEAKER_69

Thank you very much for speaking to that.

Are there any comments from colleagues?

SPEAKER_25

Council President?

SPEAKER_69

Council Member Strauss?

SPEAKER_25

Sorry, it's been so long I forgot to raise my hand on this.

I do have an amendment.

Would you like me to hold that amendment, move it now?

How would you like to proceed?

SPEAKER_69

Please go ahead and move your amendment.

We will have a vote and then we will address the base legislation as amended.

SPEAKER_25

Thank you.

I would like to move Amendment A, Version 1 to Council Bill 120825. Is there a second?

SPEAKER_24

Second.

Second.

SPEAKER_25

Thank you.

Thank you, colleagues, for the opportunity to bring this amendment to you and to Councilmember Moore for your co-sponsorship.

In short, I will keep my remarks brief.

I do have a number of concerns with contracting with SCORE.

Specifically, we need to meet the needs of the Seattle municipal court as they shared in public with the memorandum from Josh, the court administrator as part of the stakeholder process in which council member kettle.

Discussed just a moment ago, those.

That memo specifically brought up ensuring that we have the correct resources and operational considerations ironed out regarding transports, martial staffing facilities, martial staffing and facilities, calendar space, access to mental health courts, assistance during remote appearances and data exchanges.

This is why I've brought the amendment before us, which requires the mayor's office to submit to the clerk of the council a report on issues identified by the stakeholder work group.

and making the authorization to execute the interlocal agreement conditioned on the submittal of that report.

in short i would prefer to fully utilize the current contract with king county jail across the street from our municipal court rather than having to travel to another part of our county and at this time i'm not seeing a pathway to doing so which is why i would will be voting in favor of the underlying bill if this accountability measure within my amendment is added to the legislation thank you colleagues i urge your support of this amendment

SPEAKER_69

Thank you very much.

Are there any comments on the amendment?

Council Member Moore?

SPEAKER_07

You are on mute.

Thank you very much, Council President.

I wanted to thank Council Member Strauss for allowing me to co-sponsor this.

After the presentation, I too shared a number of the current concerns that Council Member Strauss has articulated and also the ones that were raised in the the mayor's work group.

So I appreciate the opportunity to know that we're going to have this kind of follow-through oversight and accountability, basically.

And I too share the concerns about, I wish that we also could utilize the bed spaces that we have previously and currently contracted for.

And I just wanted to note that this is not expanding our jail capacity.

It's simply shifting it from one institution to another because we have not, for a variety of reasons, been able to access it where we are currently contracted to do so.

But I think with this agreement and the presentation that we received, the very, I think, robust medication management program and an active reentry program are two things, as well as the True Blood, a specific True Blood program, which doesn't exist in King County, are all things that really, in my book, put my mind at ease and also give me some confidence that this can be more of a positive, that we can minimize the harm rather than exacerbate it.

So for those reasons, I am going to be supportive of this.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Council Member Kettle.

SPEAKER_08

Thank you, Council President.

As chair of the committee and sponsor of this bill, I just wanted to note that the amendment and the comments is a friendly amendment, and I support Council Member Strauss in his amendment, and I also thank Council Member Moore for co-sponsoring it.

SPEAKER_69

All right.

I don't see any other hands raised, so will the clerk please call the roll on the adoption of Amendment A?

Council Member Strauss.

SPEAKER_25

Yes.

SPEAKER_68

Council Member Wu.

Yes.

Council Member Hollingsworth.

Yes.

Council Member Kettle.

SPEAKER_28

Yes.

SPEAKER_68

Council Member Moore.

SPEAKER_28

Aye.

SPEAKER_68

Council Member Morales.

SPEAKER_28

Abstain.

SPEAKER_68

Council Member Rivera.

SPEAKER_28

Aye.

SPEAKER_68

Council Member Saka.

SPEAKER_29

Aye.

SPEAKER_68

Council President Nelson.

SPEAKER_66

Aye.

Please pause.

Eight in favor.

Jodi, I apologize.

Council Member Morales, unfortunately, the council rules don't provide an abstention on council bill votes.

SPEAKER_28

Right.

We're already moving this to full council.

I vote no.

SPEAKER_69

Thank you.

Eight in favor, one opposed.

Okay.

The motion carries and Amendment A is adopted and the amended bill is now before us.

Are there further comments on the amended bill?

Council Member Morales.

SPEAKER_28

Thank you, Council President.

Time and time again, we hear from our own city staffers, whether it's the Unified Care Team or folks at HSD or even SPD, who say that there is no safe place for people to go who are clearly having behavioral, mental health, and addiction traumas.

We hear that from city workers.

We hear that from county workers.

I agree that we have to truly address our public safety concerns, but we have to do so with the public health tools that our own city reports tell us we need.

So we have the 2023 auditor's report on organized retail crime that finds that we don't have the capacity to use the SPD for responding to all of the retail crime that we have, and they're focusing on low-level actors instead.

of the organized criminal ranks.

We have the Seattle Women's Commission report, Losing Home, that shows that black women are evicted more often than any other folks.

We know that black residents are more likely to experience health disparities, as noted in the Seattle Health Disparities, Race and Social Justice research page.

Our own city research is telling us that public health measures, not reliance and investment in punishment, is the way that we truly address the crises that we're facing.

And we know that our police should not be spending their limited time chauffeuring people back and forth across the county.

But even if you disagree that a public health approach is more effective than a carceral approach, there are still enormous operational issues that are unresolved in the mayor's proposal.

Many of them were just outlined by Councilmember Strauss.

We have the travel time and the time management of attorneys.

We have jurisdictional custody issues that are unresolved.

We have a need for municipal court to accommodate additional hearings.

Not to mention the lack of clarity on the true cost of this measure.

It's not just $2 million to contract with SCORE itself.

There are the health care services that are going to be billed back to the city for any detainees who require hospitalization.

There's the cost of competency evaluations.

There's the overtime to SPD for transporting detainees back and forth to Des Moines twice a day.

Not to mention the new data management system that's going to be needed to integrate these various systems that we have.

It's not clear what all these additional services and costs will total up to, but it is clear that it's gonna be more than $2 million.

And it is also clear that so far the mayor has only identified $600,000 to pay for this.

So where does the balance come from?

on top of the seven to eight million dollars in ongoing costs for the 48 new positions that are included in the mid-year supplemental budget for which the mayor has also not identified a funding source we're pushing our budget deficit we just learned this week close to 260 million dollars without asking the hard questions of how we're going to pay for this And for a council that ran on fiscal responsibility, it's curious to me that we are not demanding answers to these questions before rushing this bill to a vote.

It is not fiscally responsible to approve this agreement without knowing how we're going to pay for it and without having basic operational issues resolved.

This council also ran on good governance, I might remind.

the viewing public.

This doesn't accommodate either of those priorities.

I cannot support a significant policy change that's going to add to our deficit with so many questions unanswered.

And I urge my colleagues to consider all of the operational issues that are compounded with our deficit issues and ask if this is really good governance.

I will be voting no on this bill.

SPEAKER_69

Thank you.

I don't see anybody's hands up.

I'll take them.

Council Member Wu, go ahead.

SPEAKER_33

Thank you.

So I have a question for Council Member Kettle.

Can you tell us more about the release program and how it differs from King County's release program and the stakeholders involved?

SPEAKER_08

Thank you, Council Member Wu.

You know, as I mentioned earlier, the stakeholder processes is working through all these dynamics across the board to include some of those that were mentioned by council member Morales.

And so through those, they're working closely with lead the PDA.

I've had conversations with PDA reach to ensure a.

You know, culturally competent and effective operationally detailed to ensure.

That upon release, there is support resources and effective coordination.

That is something that we need to do.

You know, and this goes to the handoff and, you know, separately, I would note.

Particularly those that are suffering, you know, we do need, as I mentioned previously, not in this context that.

You know, regarding public safety, you know, public health is so key.

And we cannot succeed in public safety.

We don't succeed in public health and that's where the capacity pieces come in and to assure that, you know, these kinds of, you know, handoffs and, you know, are done properly.

So this is done throughout the, uh, the stake holding process as, uh, by Mr.

SPEAKER_33

Thank you.

And so I have a quick comment really quickly.

So this is not a question directed at anybody, but we've seen young people, teenagers who've been sent to jail.

I'm just curious to see where are they now and ask this because we don't know.

So contrary to what some may say about me, I don't actually love jails.

I recognize how complex this issue is.

I understand the challenges.

But in many communities, in my community, there was a person who was attacking seniors.

And this person would be sent to jail overnight, released the next morning, then returned and has hurt several senior members of our community because this man was simply held and released.

And just many of our elders, a very close-knit community, we have about 2,000 seniors in this community, were terrorized.

They were afraid to walk outside.

Because of one person.

And so we made sure we kept an eye on our seniors and this person and tried to separate them as much as we can.

I also have a family member that was sent to jail as a teenager, and I was a teenager.

They were found with friends who had guns, drugs, and cash in a car.

They spent a night in jail.

And one of their friends was engaged in child prostitution And this event served as a catalyst for my family member to get help.

And I know as an Asian-American, Chinese-American, I understand the privilege when it comes to going to jail.

And not many others are as fortunate.

So it's clear that the status quo of these current release programs are not working, especially with the county.

I've seen people who released at 6 p.m.

in shorts in the middle of winter on a Friday night with a $6 check in their pocket with nowhere to cash it.

And I'm really focused on reentry programs because I feel like at least SCORE has a program, whereas I'm not totally sure that King County has one.

So I believe there is...

It is a way to solve public safety and accountability, but we know housing assistance is a proven way to lower rates of criminal recidivism.

And we have a real opportunity to reach people with assistance to housing, treatment, and case management.

Having somebody have referral to lead, to reach in those groups, I think, is really important.

And knowing that this particular SCORE contract can be ended at any time with no penalty, as I understand, I will vote yesterday and I'll be paying very close attention to the assessments, especially when it comes for detainees at the point of release.

Thank you to our Chair Kettle for your work and for partnering with organizations such as LEAD, PD, and REACH.

SPEAKER_69

So, I, I appreciate the, uh, the amendment that was brought in the comments that have been made that we do have operational challenges with, um, with transport, et cetera.

It's not ideal, I admit, but.

but we have a charter responsibility to protect the health and well-being of the people of Seattle and we have heard from week after week our residents and businesses saying that they want us to be able to keep their communities safer and address repeat break-ins and repeat crimes that are perpetrated upon them.

In an ideal world we would not have to be doing this in addition to The contract that we already have with King County jail that is that is unfortunate, but it's what we've got right now.

Nobody so recognizing that this is that.

It would be far better to be able to use the facility across the street if it were well staffed and in in better physical condition.

This is a way to plug a hole in our public safety system.

I mean, we, if we don't do this, then.

And this facility does have a lot more resources than the facility across the street from us.

If we don't do that, then we've got status quo.

We've got officers not able to enforce the laws on the books because they are not able to bring perpetrators to the county for booking.

And we're not able to bring people that have...

that are on the high-utilizer list that the city attorney has compiled, and they're out there over and over again committing the same crime.

So we have a responsibility to ensure that our law enforcement system is working properly, and this is one piece of it.

This is a pilot project, and I am optimistic that some of these operational challenges will be resolved to the satisfaction of the people that have spoken.

And I do believe that other cities in King County that also have contracts with the jail have some of the same challenges.

problems with lack of capacity that we do.

So we're all trying to do the best we can with the limited resources that we have.

So thank you very much, Council Member Kettle, for bringing this forward.

People are saying that this is rushed.

However, it has been noted for a long time that this is a primary barrier to our officers being able to do their jobs.

And hopefully the negotiations between the city and the county can be resolved soon.

Are there any other?

I see that Council Member Rivera does have her hand up.

So go ahead, Council Member Rivera.

SPEAKER_22

Thank you, Council President.

I just want to thank Council Member Strauss and Council Member Moore for bringing the amendment.

I, as you know, care very much about accountability and making sure that as we are contracting with these entities that We are evaluating that the work that these entities are doing are to the quality and the standards that they should be.

And also, I want to say that I will be supporting this.

It's not in lieu of the public safety responses that the city takes.

I know that we do have public safety responses that we support financially, and I am supportive of those.

But we do know that City's need an ability to book certain people and in the absence of being able to fully you know engage with the county on.

the number of beds we actually need that we know we have to go elsewhere.

And I agree, this is not ideal.

We would much rather stay in the city and be able to continue our contract with the county for that number of beds.

I understand the county's having staffing issues as well.

So we're just trying to do the best we can at the moment that we have with the resources we have.

But I want to make it very clear that my support is in no way meaning that I don't care about accountability as we're entering into those ILA's with these entities for these services, because I very much do and also very much support the public, excuse me, public health responses that we take to help folks in the city who are experiencing challenges Like we said, for instance, by way of example, the drug possession law, being able to make sure that we divert folks into services, but then we have the ability to book people that are causing the most harm and taking advantage of our most vulnerable people in the city, including folks who are suffering from addiction.

So I want to make that very clear as I vote to support this.

I mean, both the amendment and the underlying legislation.

I want to thank Council Member Kettle for your leadership on this.

Thank you.

Vice Chair Saka.

SPEAKER_20

Thank you, Madam Council President.

And so, colleagues, today we have another opportunity to once again show true leadership and address the public safety crisis in our city.

This council, in just a few short months, has taken great strides in working to shut down and combat crime in our community, from addressing officer shortages to curbing illegal street racing in our communities, the like.

I, too, want to thank our colleagues Chair Kettle for his leadership on these issues and particularly the issue that's before us today, right now.

While we're talking about detention today, I want to be very clear.

We need a thoughtful, balanced, holistic approach to public safety that recognizes the importance of diversion, treatment, and yes, enforcement and detention in some cases.

Seattle has recognized this need for a multi-faceted approach for a long time and will continue to do that.

We've developed new treatment and diversion services and have invested in things, cool innovations like lead and care teams that directly help individuals in our community suffering from debilitating addiction or mental health challenges.

Fact remains that when an individual engages in certain criminal and lawlessness behavior.

Sometimes, sometimes we need to place the whole folks while they await trial in order to keep our community safe.

So we need to move beyond these ideological policy decisions, ultimately rooted in purity tests and based in false choice.

Rehabilitate or incarcerate.

services or detention, a public health approach or a carceral only approach.

This vote today allows us to affirmatively check all of the above.

As one public commenter last week in our public safety committee hearing where we heard this said, I quote, we need a balanced approach that gives police the authority power and capacity to act end quote colleagues this is just another arrow in the quiver for us today we know however that our detention tool is lacking we simply lack the necessary detention capacity under our current arrangement to address the scope of the challenges facing the broader city personally i'm not interested in playing the blame game he said she said pointing fingers on on how or why we got here I assume good faith on the part of our governing partners at King County.

I know that we need some capacity and people are counting on us to take action.

So I strongly believe that the score agreement is a good overall deal for the city.

We learned through this process that there is strong historical precedent for this.

This was somewhat common occurrence before COVID.

Great to learn, as Chair Kettle aptly pointed out earlier in his comments, one of them, that before was interrupted, but SCORE is an accredited and a compliant facility.

It's compliant with the American Correctional Association standards.

It's accredited by both the National Commission on Correctional Healthcare, excuse me, and the Washington State Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs.

some really important unique features associated with this facility.

There's two embedded competency evaluation experts directly on site.

And as amended, by the great amendment.

So thank you, Council Member Strauss and more for your thoughtful amendments.

We now have a guaranteed number of beds and enhanced accountability and reporting mechanisms built in to make sure that we're able to meaningfully address and deliver upon these commitments.

So I appreciate everyone who has participated and testified and engaged on this topic.

This is really hard work and these problems are complex and highly nuanced.

There are a few unknowns, and that's the same fact pattern is true for principally all policy decisions.

And I know and I'm confident that this Council will continue to provide oversight to ensure that this agreement is properly executed.

But today, colleagues, agreement before us today will allow us collectively as a city to move towards a fully functioning justice system that has been sorely lacking in recent years.

That's why I'm going to be supporting it, and I urge everyone else to support it as well.

Thank you, Madam Council President.

SPEAKER_69

Thank you for the comments.

Council Member Kettle, would you like to close us out for the vote?

SPEAKER_08

Yes, thank you, Council President.

You know, I just wanted to note, you know, we do have our strategic framework that, you know, underlines two things.

One, that we cannot be resigned nor accept the, you know, the public safety posture that we're facing and that we do not accept the permissive environment that underlines our public safety challenges.

Um, another point is, and I think council member move for her question is, is the reminder to highlight that we cannot succeed in public safety.

We don't also succeed in public health.

We have to build the capacity.

We need the state to do its part on mental health.

We need the county to do its part related to public health responsibilities and we have to do our.

Our part as well with the various programs that we have.

Um, I think, uh.

Council Member Saka for his point look backs.

And I think, and also Council Member Moore during the committee meeting highlighting that, you know, in previous councils, the baseline was 180 beds.

The King County Correctional Facility score combination that we're looking at now doesn't even reach 60% of that 180 bed number that was done by previous council as a benchmark.

And so we're over 40% lower than that.

And I think that's a good thing in terms again, framing and context is so important.

Um, and I just wanted to end on 2 things.

1 is, I believe it's fiscally irresponsible to ignore what is happening downtown in in our neighborhoods economically.

Because this is going to hurt us long term with the lost revenue that we've that we're suffering and then on the issue of good governance.

The effort that's undertaken by Mr Meyerberg and the executive is incredible in terms of its breadth and it's in depth and it's been ongoing for a long time.

And it's also been ongoing with us on the committee side with me as the chair long before that.

And so that's engaging all stakeholders is so key and I'm thankful for the executive side for their work on that point.

and we're doing it on ours too in terms of my role as chair.

We are engaged on a regular basis with the executive, the mayor's office, SPD in this case, but other departments as relates, city attorney's office, the central staff that has been very helpful and supportive as we try to do our work here.

And so with this good governance model, I'm thankful for all those that are engaged and participating.

And again, just to close, I urge your support and thank you very much.

SPEAKER_69

Thank you.

I don't see any other hands up.

So I will ask the clerk to please call the roll on the adoption of the amended bill.

SPEAKER_68

Council member Strauss.

SPEAKER_25

Yes.

SPEAKER_68

Council member Wu.

Yes.

Council member Hollingsworth.

Yes.

Council member Kettle.

SPEAKER_46

Aye.

SPEAKER_68

Council member Moore.

SPEAKER_22

Aye.

SPEAKER_68

Council member Morales.

No.

Council member Rivera.

SPEAKER_22

Aye.

SPEAKER_68

Council member Saka.

Aye.

SPEAKER_25

Aye.

SPEAKER_68

Council President Nelson.

Aye.

Eight in favor, one opposed.

SPEAKER_69

The bill passes and the chair will sign it.

Will the clerk please affix my signature to the legislation on my behalf?

And congratulations, Council Member Kettle.

All right, folks, unless there is no further business, we did not remove any items from the consent calendar, and there is no resolution for introduction and adoption today.

So with that, it is, I don't have my digital clock before me.

It looks like it's about 5.05.

So with that, the meeting is adjourned.