Public Safety & Human Services Committee 91322

Council Member Matsuda?

Present.

Councilor Peterson?

Vice Chair Lewis?

Newell, you haven't unmuted the mic, so you may need to start over and redo that whole bit there.

You need to unmute the mics.

Councilor Mosqueda?

Present.

Councilor Nelson?

Present.

Councilor Peterson?

You may need to unmute the mics, Newell.

You need to start over.

on the Crestron, unmute the mics.

You may want to do the mic checks for the council members.

Okay, there you go.

You may want to start over.

We need to catch anything you guys say.

Thank you.

Got it.

Good morning.

The September 13th, 2022 meeting of the Public Safety and Human Services Committee will come to order.

It is 9.34 a.m.

I'm Lisa Herbold.

I'm the chair of the committee.

Will the clerk please call the roll?

Council Member Mosqueda?

Present.

Council Member Nelson?

Present.

Council Member Peterson?

Present.

Vice Chair Lewis?

Present.

Council Member Herbold?

Here.

Five present.

Thank you so much.

I appreciate everybody's patience getting started.

We have a new clerk with us this morning on a new system.

So on today's agenda, we will hear appointment of Dr. Faisal Khan as Director of Public Health, Seattle and King County, listed for briefing and discussion.

We'll also be hearing and voting on the appointment of Gino Betts as the Permanent Director of the Office of Police Accountability.

again for discussion and possible vote.

And we'll be receiving a short update from Council Central staff on 9-1-1 alternative response in the agreement with the executive for a path moving forward in collaboration on an effort that we'll hear more about in a moment.

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

There's no objection.

Today's agenda will be adopted.

Seeing no objection, today's agenda is adopted.

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

I'll moderate the public comment period in the following manner.

Each speaker gets two minutes to speak.

I will Strive to alternate between virtual and in-person public commenters, recognizing that there aren't an equal number of commenters each.

I will call on each speaker by name and in the order which they've registered on the website and the sign-in form.

If you've not yet registered to speak, but you would like to do so, you can sign up before the end of the public comment session.

Once I call a speaker's name, if you are using the virtual option, you'll hear a prompt.

And once you've heard that prompt, you need to press star six to unmute yourself.

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

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

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

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

Once you've completed your public comment, we ask that you disconnect from the line if you're calling in.

And if you plan to continue following the meeting remotely, you can do so via the Seattle Channel or the listening options that are listed on the printed agenda.

We have nine people signed up for public comment, nine speakers who are with us virtually, and one speaker who is with us in chambers in person.

I will begin with the speaker in person, Ms. Carolyn Malone.

And after Ms. Malone, we will hear from Howard Gale.

Thank you.

Good morning.

I'm Carolyn Malone.

and I'm going to address the issue of police hostility, brutality, and others they get to come into the chambers to give me a bad time.

I have a legitimate right to speak before the council about issues about racist, rogue Seattle cops living in my apartment building at Chancery Place apartment.

This saboteur, the guy here, he works for the city, but he also comes in and stands in the back and causes my voice to tremble and shake and my body to shake.

I'm a confident speaker.

I do not tremble unless something different is going on.

But I have a right to speak about police brutality.

I've been speaking about it for quite some time without discomfort to myself.

This is illegal to interfere with my ability to voice my complaints about my housing issues and police brutality issues.

So I do not know this person's name.

but he should not be allowed to come in holding his device.

And I carry a camera and take a picture.

And sometimes the pictures that I take of people violating me are blurred.

So I intend to come back to the chambers and speak about issues that affect my housing rights, my privacy rights, my civil rights, my constitutional rights.

Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Malone, and you're always welcome in these chambers.

Our next speaker is Mr. Howard Gale, and Mr. Gale will be followed by Penny O'Grady.

Dr. Gale, my apologies.

Good morning.

Howard Gale with seattlestop.org commenting on our failed police accountability system.

Today, you will vote on the appointment of Gino Betz Jr. as the new director of the OPA.

Mr. Betz has, after meeting with community last month, expressed support for a consistent community demand that all OPA investigators be civilian, stating, quote, I believe OPA should consist of 100% civilian investigators, unquote.

What Mr. Betz may be unaware of is that this is not something that our current mayor, council member Herbold, the city council, or the CPC supports, and is willing to demand during the current police union bargaining.

It is concerning that Mr. Betts has stated, quote, historically, OPA has done well producing timely, thorough and objective OIG certified investigations, unquote.

Is Mr. Betts unaware that Seattle police have escaped any consequential sanction or discipline for the violence and abuse of 2020 with the vast majority of abuse claims rejected by the OPA?

Is Mr. Betts unaware that the OPA finds it acceptable for officers to grossly violate policy and training on de-escalation and not then be held culpable for killing folks, as has recently happened with Derek Hayden, Terry Kaver, and with many others before them.

This September marks the anniversaries of the SBD killings of Herbert Hightower, whose sister is still fighting for recognition and justice, Mike Kuan Yew Chen, and Henry Frankie Lee Sr.

These are all people experiencing, who were experiencing a behavioral health crisis, all killed by the SPD.

We don't need a new director for a broken system.

We need the kind of police accountability that dozens of other U.S. cities have embraced post-George Floyd by creating direct community control of police abuse investigations, police discipline, and most importantly, police policy.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Penny O'Grady and Penny will be followed by Elyse Bias.

Penny.

Hi, I'm Penny in District Six and I'm speaking regarding police expansion in parks.

Roughly 20 years ago, Council Member Nick Licata fought an ordinance in city parks that essentially criminalized poverty and therefore unfairly targeted black and brown people disproportionately.

The law allowed officials to ban anyone from parks for nuisance violations.

Lakata's aide, Lisa Herbold, was quoted as saying, this has had a devastating impact on people of little means.

In 2022, Mayor Harrell wants to create an arm of Seattle police called Parks Rangers with the authority to trespass folks who rely on these public spaces.

In 2022, when the wealth gap is growing and homelessness abounds.

In contrast, I support true public safety for all.

New parks levy dollars should be invested in transforming our community centers into climate resilience hubs to keep us all safe in severe weather events ahead.

Adding full-time staff in these hubs would do more to protect vulnerable community members than expanding policing infrastructure that only exacerbates harm.

Council members, your upcoming vote on the levy sends an essential message about who we are as a city.

I urge you to vote in line with a commitment to all of us, including marginalized residents.

Stop wasting your time.

Stop the expansion of policing in parks and encampment removals with our parks levy dollars.

I cede my time.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Elise Bias, followed by Cody Zielinski.

Zielinski, sorry.

Elise?

Good morning, members of the Public Safety and Health Committee.

My name is Elise Bias, and I'm here today as a resident of District 3 and as an advocate for psychedelic plant medicine.

And I wanted to thank you all so much for passing last year's resolution to decriminalize psychedelics in Seattle.

And doing that really showed us that you're listening and that you see the potential for psychedelic plant medicines to help so many members of the community who are affected by mental health conditions like depression, PTSD, anxiety, and substance use disorder.

And although the resolution is such a huge step in the right direction, we'd like to see decriminalization codified into an ordinance to further establish city council stance and provide more legal protection for community members of Seattle.

And last year, the council mentioned that passing an ordinance would be the next step.

And so I'm wondering, with my remaining time, if it's possible to receive an update on the progress of the ordinance from the council.

At least feel free to contact my office as well as Councilmember Lewis, as co-sponsors of the earlier action, and we'll give you an update.

Our next speaker is Cody Zalewski, followed by Michael Malini.

Cody?

Hi, can you hear me?

Yes.

Hello?

Okay.

Hello.

Yes, we can hear you.

Hello, Seattle City Council.

My name is Cody.

Okay, great.

Hello, Seattle City Council.

My name is Cody Zaleski from District 4 and the co-director of the Psychedelic Medicine Alliance of Washington.

First off, thank you for passing the natural psychedelic decriminalization resolution last year.

It was refreshing to see the Seattle City Council take such a step in making us the largest city in the country at the time to do this.

I'd like to ask the city council and the subcommittee to perform the simple step of codifying this resolution as a city ordinance.

This would give city protections and natural psychedelic medicine more strength and perpetuity as a result of your actions.

Thousands of people have found relief from depression, addiction, PTSD, amongst others with natural psychedelics.

Passing an ordinance would reaffirm support for natural psychedelics as this gains momentum, both in Washington State and across the country.

Thank you for listening, and I feed my dime.

Thank you, Cody.

Our next speaker is Michael Malini, and Michael will be followed by Peter Condit.

Hello, my name is Michael Mulaney.

I'm a resident in district three who uses parks regularly.

Please invest funds in making our parks more accessible and not threatening to all residents.

I urge the council to vote no on any version of the parks levy that includes the expansion of park rangers and these positions ability to issue trespass orders.

These new park cops would further criminalize people experiencing homelessness and poverty lead to increased trauma and arrests and create permanent suite positions.

In addition, I urge you to look closely at the proposal to create permanent positions to clean areas around encampments in the parks.

There's a real danger these positions will be used to create a permanent crew devoted to displacing our houseless neighbors and discarding their belongings.

As our city recalibrates the role of the Seattle Police Department, it's vital that we do not inadvertently create another version of the police specifically focused on targeting poor and or by park users.

Please vote in the line with the commitment to the survival of our most marginalized residents.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Peter Condit, followed by Roxanne Robles.

Hello, this is Peter Condit in District 6. I'm calling as a survivor of police assault to ask that you use park's levy dollars to make our public spaces more accessible and less threatening to all park users.

I urge you to vote no on any version of the levy that includes the expansion of park rangers and these positions' ability to issue trespass orders.

As currently proposed, these new rangers would function as cops with the authority to further criminalize people experiencing homelessness and poverty.

Funding them would lead to increased trauma, arrests, harm, and violence in our city.

In addition, I urge you to look closely at the proposal to create permanent positions to clean areas around encampments in the parks.

There is a real danger these positions will be used to create a permanent crew devoted to displacing our houseless neighbors and discarding their belongings.

As our city focuses on shrinking the footprint of the Seattle Police Department and the unaccountable violence they bring, including against myself in 2020, 2021, and 2022, it is vital that we do not inadvertently create another version of the police in other departments.

If you believe Black Lives Matter, do not authorize $3.6 million for new park rangers who would specifically target poor and or BIPOC park users.

Please vote in line with the commitment to the survival of our most marginalized residents.

This means stopping the expansion of policing in our parks.

Do not fund more cops.

Thank you for listening.

Our last speaker that we have signed up is Roxanne Robles.

Roxanne.

Good morning, council members.

My name is Roxanne Robles.

I live in District 3. I'm really concerned about the proposal to use parks levy funds to create park ranger positions and the ability of these positions to use trespass orders.

It's cops by another name, and I don't think this will make our parks any safer.

I would urge you to use city funding for real housing, real services that include the include the experience of people who are experiencing homelessness.

Black Lives Matter and black people are disproportionately affected by sweeps and the discarding of their belongings during these sweeps.

Please, please both know on any part of the parks that includes the expansion of parks rangers.

Thank you.

Thank you.

That concludes our public comment period for the Public Safety and Human Services Committee meeting.

For the public record, I do want to alert folks that discussions about the parks levy, as well as the inclusion of the parks rangers in the parks, I should say, FPD proposal, is not half public services and human services.

Committee.

It is happening in the Seattle Parks Board and that body is the body of the City Council and the next meeting for that body is on Thursday at I believe It's 2.30 p.m.

So it would be good to direct your testimony in the future to the committee that is hearing that legislation.

With that, we'll move on to the items on our agenda today.

The clerk, please read in agenda number one.

Agenda item one, appointment of Afaisal Khan as Director of Public Health, Seattle and King County.

Thank you, Noel.

Good morning.

I appreciate you being with us this morning.

We're joined by Dr. Kahn and Senior Deputy Mayor Harrell.

Senior Deputy Mayor Harrell, could you please introduce Dr. Kahn?

It would be my honor and definitely my pleasure.

Council Member Verbold and members of the Public Safety and Human Services Committee, thank you for allowing me to join you today to introduce Mayor Harrell and Executive Dow Constantine's jointly appointed nominee for the director of Seattle and King County's Department of Public Health.

The last two and a half years have put our public health department in the spotlight, and we've collectively recognized what an impressive agency the public has working in their service.

Our top-notch health department deserves a top-notch leader, which we have found in Dr. Khan.

Both the mayor and executive, Constantine, have identified this capable and proven leader and manager for our critical King County Department of Public Health.

Dr. Khan brings a depth and breadth of experience working in public health systems, both across the United States and across the world.

He knows what works and what doesn't.

And not only can Dr. Khan effectively manage a large high profile organization like Seattle King County Public Health, He does it while caring deeply about the people in his department and in the community and doing the tireless work.

Dr. Khan was nominated after an extensive county-run national search process, as described in the mayor's cover letter to you.

An impressive 15-person selection committee helped guide the search, including community advocates, public health leaders, and our very own council member, Teresa Mosqueda.

We're thankful to this group for the work, which helped identify the nominee before you today, and that this has been a jointly made appointment by both the King County Council, it will be by the King County Council, and also, of course, you as the city council will also consider Dr. Khan's nomination.

The King County Council's nomination will occur in just a matter of weeks as well as here.

Our public health department manages a gamut of issues from communicable diseases to overdose prevention to violence intervention, which also includes the work that we will all be doing jointly around gun violence.

And it's a department that deserves strong leadership, which we, again, have found in Dr. Khan.

With that, it is my pleasure and my honor to turn things over directly to Dr. Faisal Khan for introduction to the Seattle City Council today.

Thank you so much, Senior Deputy Mayor Howell.

Dr. Khan, please.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Deputy Mayor Harrell.

Thank you, honourable members of the City Council.

It is an honour to be here.

It is an honour to join the ranks of the premier public health agency in this country.

I bring to the table extensive leadership experience and direct public health service delivery experience, including the most challenging crisis that we've faced in the last 100 years, in the form of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The list of public health issues to deal with is a long one, and I've hit the ground running.

I look forward to learning more about the specific issues in various parts of this region.

I'm privileged to work with an amazing team here at the department, and I can only promise you diligent hard work and availability to have conversations in the future.

as we seek to tackle this long list of issues that we are confronted with.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

So as I brought to the attention of colleagues on the Council yesterday during Council briefings, normally an appointment like this we would do over two meetings.

The first meeting just being a brief introduction and the second meeting being a more comprehensive delving into the responses received by the appointment to questions the council put together because of the short amount of time that we have before going into the budget process.

And in recognition that this is a dual body confirmation, the Seattle City Council confirms the appointee as the mayor's nomination, and the King County Council does the same.

And because I did not want to lose any time in this process, we are compressing the two steps into a single meeting.

Dr. Khan was so good to quickly respond to the questions that Council pulled together, and those are attached to the agenda.

And I do want to, before we dig into those questions, I want to note that there was an oversight when this particular item as a piece of legislation was entered and updated into our legislative database.

And a result, this appointment was not added to the introduction and referral calendar to allow for a committee level vote this morning.

And so when I say won't allow for a committee-level vote this morning, that is a technical vote.

I'm hoping that we can express our, should we decide to do so, express our non-official support for the nomination moving on to full council on September 20th.

I know committee members have put a lot of care and time into reviewing materials, proposing questions, and considering this nomination as part of our oversight responsibility.

So I'm intending to call for a voice, maybe not call it a vote, but a voice of support at the end of this agenda item, which again, though unofficial, will be made known publicly and will constitute an informal recommendation for the committee.

So just wanted to get that out there.

This anomaly has been discussed with the mayor's office and we together decided this would be the best course forward.

I so enjoyed meeting with Dr. Khan and the mayor's office to discuss Dr. Khan's interests and passions.

in serving in this capacity.

We, like I said, we reviewed this plan and his interest in joining our community, his professional history, his accomplishments.

And I'm again, so glad that you could join us here this morning.

Dr. Khan, I appreciate your open remarks.

I'm wondering if you could tell us a little bit more about yourself, what motivates you to work in public health and why you are interested in joining us here in Seattle.

Public health to me is a personal and professional mission in life.

Public service is a calling.

I recall my days in med school when my colleagues were choosing exciting careers in clinical medicine.

And I was the nerd who wanted to focus on preventing disease and finding out why it is that individuals and communities and populations end up with decreasing health status indicators to begin with.

Over the last 26 years, I've built a career in public health that has taken me to many different countries, Australia, Vietnam, Pakistan, which is my native country, Sub-Saharan Africa, specifically Botswana and South Africa, and then finally to the United States some 25 years ago.

And I've lived and worked in West Virginia, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and lately in Missouri.

All different public health systems, which have grounded me well in the way public health actually works in the United States and how it delivers services.

I am an infectious disease epidemiologist by training, and I could not have imagined the scale of the worst public health crisis to have hit the world in 100 years when it finally hit us in early 2020. Throughout the last two and a half years, as we've dealt with the pandemic, we have also focused on trying to retain and empower the public health workforce that we rely on heavily.

That has been an entirely new mission in life.

And so I place a very high premium on those efforts looking into the next five years or 10 years.

I approach my job with humility and openness.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Sorry.

Is there more?

No, that's it.

Thank you.

My apologies.

And I am watching to see if any of my colleagues have questions.

But if IT is listening or perhaps it's the clerk who needs to do this, I need to be added as a panelist so I can see the non participating or the non present participating.

Thank you very much.

Really appreciate it.

So I can see whether or not my colleagues are raising their hand.

Council Member Nelson.

Thank you very much.

I'll do one of those delving into questions here since we're on a compressed timescale, so excuse me because this might be a long question.

So Dr. Kahn, in a couple of your answers you spoke in favor of injection sites, noting that efforts in King County fizzled out because of public safety impact and legal statutory concerns.

And you also said that in New York City, initial reports indicate only minor operational issues.

And I did a little bit of research on New York City's initiative and found that it has no public funding.

And that raises questions to me.

But in California, Governor Gavin Newsom vetoed legislation that would have piloted safe injection sites in a few cities, including San Francisco, where one site was estimated to cost about $2.6 million.

So I'm always thinking about funding tradeoffs.

And when it comes to drug dependency, treatment is my priority.

In fact, cost was a big concern when they were debated, when safe injection sites were debated in King County.

It wasn't only about public safety and legal concerns.

Cost was an issue as well.

In one of my questions, I asked about treatment and, like, how can we better incorporate treatment into our our response to chronic homelessness and you identified funding as a major barrier to treatment.

But that entities such as Seattle King County Public Health ought to look toward investing in treatment.

So it comes back to limited resources and I'm just wondering how you balance that.

You talked just a moment ago about prevention and overdose prevention and I think The reason I'm focused on treatment is because it goes even farther upstream in preventing overdoses by helping people overcome addiction.

So how do you balance those two policy issues, safe injection sites and inpatient or outpatient treatment?

Thank you, Councillor Melton.

This is not an issue that I think is going to be resolved in the short term.

And I say that only because you're absolutely right.

Long-term funding and sustainability remain key unanswered questions.

Resources are limited.

The federal government's resources made available through the Substance Use and Mental Health Services Administration are fairly limited and come with strict restrictions on what those funds are usable for.

Just switching tracks a little, the New York City initiative is something that I'm keeping a close eye on in terms of finding out what their evaluation reports and data reveal six months from now, a year from now.

Their challenge will be long-term sustainability in funding.

I'm encouraged to see that there is a fair degree of unofficial, if not official, cooperation between law enforcement, prosecuting attorney's office, different boroughs, et cetera, and public health.

It is an experiment that is worth watching and keeping an eye on and learning from.

What lessons will come through six to 11 months from now, 12 months from now, we simply don't know yet.

On the treatment front, availability and accessibility of treatment options throughout the community is a major challenge.

And unless we get to that point, we will struggle to deal with this issue.

There isn't enough funding in the public sector, given the wide variety of competing priorities within public health, to sustain any such effort over time.

And so, Whether it's a combination of public sector, private sector combined effort, whether it's private foundational funds or a combination of private foundational public sector funds and federal funds made available specifically for this purpose, that remains to be seen.

But I'm encouraged to see what the Office of National Drug Control Policy at the White House is now beginning to talk about.

I don't know what stage of the process they're at, but they're beginning to roll out their plans in terms of addressing treatment options and availability in major metro areas.

That's been one of the major discussion items there.

And I'm excited to see what that looks like.

My fear remains that they will take a one solution fits all approach, which may not have the desired results.

But I look forward to having further conversations about this.

Thank you.

Thank you.

As it relates specifically to that issue, two things I want to say.

Although we have not built a bricks and mortar safe injection, or I prefer to use the term overdose prevention facility, here in King County, the city of Seattle did provide, under the leadership of Council Member Rob Johnson, did provide $1.5 million for Initially, it was for a bricks and mortar facility.

The dollars were sent to King County Public Health and under their guidance and leadership, rather than investing in a bricks and mortar facility, we instead invested in those services in existing facilities that provide treatment and see this population of folks with substance use disorder.

So just want to clarify the outcome of our investments in these life-saving services.

As it relates to funding for treatment, I want to bring to your attention, Dr. Khan, the opioid distributor settlement and the fact that we have 11 days until the sign-on deadline for that settlement.

I understand from the state AG that if we don't have 116 of the 125 eligible local governments return a participation form, neither the state nor local governments will receive any of the 518 million dollar settlement.

40 eligible jurisdictions are from King County.

I do not know if any of those 40 eligible jurisdictions have not sent in their participation form yet.

And I will not ask you, given your freshness on the job, if you have determined whether or not any King County jurisdictions are not doing so or have not yet done so.

But I am requesting that if you haven't already or if somebody else at King County Board of Health hasn't already looked further into the issue so that we don't lose $518 million in state funding because of lack of participation of a King County Public Health Board of Health jurisdiction.

Just want to put that plug out there.

One question.

It's an important plug, right?

Thank you.

One question I did want to ask relates to the statement I made earlier about the fact that the nomination is put forward by both the mayor and the county executive and must be confirmed by both the Seattle City Council and the King County Council.

and clearly public health is a department at the county, but the city of Seattle also has oversight of the work.

I'm wondering, as the director, Dr. Khan, you'll have responsibilities to both entities, and I'm hoping you can speak a little to how you will manage the nuance of having responsibility both to the city and to the county, and how you'll handle it in cases where there is a conflict or a difference between the two.

Thank you, Council Member Herbold.

Diplomacy is a skill that I've practiced and polished over the last 25 years.

I would expect to deploy it in generous amounts in negotiating any such points of conflict.

Clarity of communication and managing expectations is part of my job.

I would expect to maintain clear channels of communication with both the city and the county to make sure that the public health agenda remains something that we continue to discuss out in greater detail.

And yes, the bandwidth of the public health workforce and the resources available to us are finite.

It is true that public health cannot take on endless work or every new issue that comes along.

And so we've got to figure out how to distribute the workload and how to manage expectations.

In those instances, my hope would be to reach out and to have meaningful conversations and build a rapport where council members, their aides, the mayor's office, the senior staff are comfortable in communicating.

And wherever the answer is yes, you know, we really have agreement, or no, we will have to put this on the back burner for now, and here's the rationale for it.

There needs to be clear communication about that, and a clear understanding across all parties involved.

Easier said than done, I know.

I'm sure there will be points of confusion and tension, but I hope to negotiate those individually as they develop.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I'm looking to see whether or not my colleagues have any additional questions that they want to want to include here.

Let's see, I think maybe 1 other.

One other, I think, important question I want to put on the table.

As we know, the past two and a half years have been incredibly difficult for public health workforce, which was depleted before the pandemic and then asked to step up.

very quickly to lead a response, save lives, which they've done very effectively here in King County, and for which we really owe them a debt of gratitude.

I'm wondering if you could say a few words about how you would approach leading an organization with an exhausted workforce for which we are very grateful.

Thank you, Council Member.

That is priority A1 for me, personally and professionally.

having experienced the energy sapping exercise that was dealing with the pandemic over the last two and a half years.

I stated earlier that you are fortunate to have at your service one of the best public health agencies in the country.

And that means one of the best workforces in the country.

That workforce is hemorrhaging good people, qualified staff, experienced staff.

We need to stop that to the best of our ability, do whatever we can to take care of those people.

Our teams are exhausted.

They are mentally, physically, socially and emotionally drained as a result of what they've had to do during the pandemic.

They are mostly underpaid and underappreciated on the best of days.

And that is the loss of public health nationwide.

My personal goal is to make sure that we offer them flexible work schedules, make their jobs as enjoyable as possible by re-engaging them in meaningful developmental work, personally and professionally, by linkages with the world of academia and research, think tanks, et cetera, to give them the opportunity to grow as professionals.

That will be a long-term prospect.

The pipeline of new talent coming into the public sector workforce is drying up.

Opening up that spigot once again, nurturing those individuals into entry-level jobs or mid-career jobs so that they are ready to take over the reins of public health 20 years, 25 years into the future, will be the most seemingly insurmountable challenge ahead of us.

committed to making that a possibility and a reality in the future.

I look forward to engaging all council members and entertaining all ideas that you might have.

But to put it succinctly for you, in the words of management guru Simon Sinek, my primary job is to take care of the people that take care of the people.

to help them recover, to help them recharge and become more resilient in facing all the public health challenges that lie ahead.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Really appreciate both your thorough written questions and your sincere and frank responses today.

Not seeing one more look at the screen.

Oh, Councilor Mosqueda.

Thank you very much, Madam Chair and Dr. Khan.

Very nice to meet you.

I am really excited about the experience and the perspective that you bring from your past work and come highly recommended and regarded.

So excited to have someone of your caliber in Public Health Seattle King County.

Obviously, big shoes to fill.

My former mentor was Patty Hayes, and I worked with her at the State Department of Health and still very much follow anything she says.

So as you get into this new role, I hope the entire community follows everything you say as well.

We are in such a critical time to make sure that people can hear the message from public health.

And as your earlier comment said, that we work in tandem with you, both with the state, federal, and our regional partners to make sure that public health continues to receive the funding needed in these times.

You know, as Patty has said in the past when I worked with her, was Public health is done best when nobody knows about it.

It's only when public health systems fail that people start to wonder, why is my water brown?

Why aren't systems working?

And you are coming into, yes, one of the best, let's say the best public health system in the country, and yet we've been chronically under-resourced as well.

So I look forward to working with you to make sure that you have the support that you have the platform to get your message out and that you have the resources to do your job well.

And just want to thank you and your team who has been there, Mr. Worsman and others who have been holding down the fort to make sure that in this transition, in the midst of a pandemic, we continue to have strong leadership.

So strongly support your nomination and greatly appreciate Mayor Harrell and Executive Constantine for their leadership in selecting you and the entire nomination team that senior deputy Mayor Harrell noted in her opening remarks.

You have a lot of people who are already supportive of you, and we're very thankful that you choose Seattle as well to call your new home.

Thank you, Councilmember.

Thank you again, Dr. Khan, and thank you, Councilmember Esqueda, for your participation in the selection process as well.

So at this time, there are no objections.

I'd like to request that informal recommendation from committee members by voice vote.

I'm wondering if committee members in support of Dr. Khan's nomination as director of Seattle King County Public Health can please say support.

Support.

Support.

Support.

Support.

So far.

Excellent.

Thank you so much.

None opposed.

No abstentions.

Thank you so much for your participation in this nomination process, Dr. Khan, and for bringing your passion for public health to benefit the people of Seattle and King County.

I'm so looking forward to working with you on the Board of Health and Senior Deputy Mayor Harrell.

Thank you as well for joining us this morning to introduce Dr. Khan.

Thank you.

Moving on, will the clerk please read in agenda item number two.

Agenda item two is appointment 02332, appointment of Gino Betz Jr. as Director of the Office of Police Accountability for a term to December 31, 2022.

Thank you so much, Noel.

Senior Deputy Mayor Harrell, I would love if you could introduce Gina Betts, and if you could also just say a little bit about the selection process moving forward, that would be very helpful as well.

Yes, wonderful.

Thank you so much.

Again, thank you, Council Member Herbold and members of the Public Safety and Human Services Committee.

It is my pleasure to be before you today to introduce Mayor Harrell's nominee for the Director of Seattle's Office of Police Accountability, Gino Betts Jr.

You'll recall that our office's legal counsel introduced Gino to you at your last committee, sharing his impressive credentials and information about the candidate search process.

I can answer any additional questions if you need.

With Gino, we have someone dedicated to fairness, transparency, and accountability, all characteristics Seattleites deserve in an accountability leader.

In the time Gino has served as interim director, he's been meeting with community groups, including ACLU People Power, accountability partners, getting to know his office staff.

And also in the time since his last committee appearance, he's reached out and offered to meet individually with each of you.

Hopefully, some of you had an opportunity to take him up on that offer.

And for those fortunate enough to have the opportunity to connect with him, I'm hoping that you have been as impressed with him as I am.

in his lived experience, his professional record, and his vision for accountability in our city.

I know all of you aren't here to hear from me, and I thank you for allowing our legal counsel to present Gino as I took a couple days vacation, which are rare in city government.

But let me just say that in the two short months on the job, Gino has impressed me.

He's brought a renewed sense of energy and change to OPA, and I trust you will find that he will make an excellent director.

I'll note that ensuring a tested and trusted accountability system is the only way that we are going to achieve full and effective compliance with the federal consent decree, which is why Mayor Harrell did not make his decision to appoint Gino Betz Jr. lightly.

And with that, I would love to allow me to present Gino to you.

to offer some introductory remarks and then take questions.

I will also add that I heard yesterday that it should be a good time to be named Gino in the City of Seattle.

So hopefully that follows you Gino and I'll turn it over to you.

Thank you Senior Deputy Mayor Harrell.

Take it away.

Good morning.

It is indeed a good morning coming off a Seahawks victory last night.

My name is Gino Betts Jr.

Thank you, Senior Deputy Mayor Harrell for your comments.

Thank you, council members for your consideration of me, OPA director.

I also want to thank you for the second opportunity to appear before your committee.

My last appearance, I got a chance to outline my personal experience and my professional experiences and how both have prepared me for this opportunity.

How as a boy in Chicago's inner city, I was routinely subjected to unconstitutional police practices.

How I grew up to fight against police misconduct as an attorney at Chicago's Office of Police Accountability.

how I served as a Community Justice Assistant State's Attorney, where I worked side by side with community leaders and local stakeholders to reduce violence and problem solve concerns on Chicago's South Side.

Last time I also left you with several commitments.

I committed to availing myself for one-on-one conversations with each of you.

I want to thank you who were available for those meetings.

I really appreciated your insight and your questions, and I look forward to working with any of those who were unable to or unavailable for those meetings.

I further committed to bringing OPA closer to the community.

Since then, I have started reaching out for meaningful and valued community input.

Specifically, I met with the local NAACP officials, People Power Washington, the CPC, and others to understand the public expectations for the OPA director.

I also committed to working closely with oversight partners to increase public confidence in the police accountability system.

To that end, I have met with all stakeholders and left encouraged by their hard work and dedication to making Seattle a national model for police oversight.

I appreciate that these are just the beginning steps of a very long journey toward healing, unity, and reconciliation.

If confirmed, I further commit to take this journey with you each step of the way.

Again, I want to thank you and I look forward to any questions you may have.

Thank you so much and really appreciate everything that you have been doing in this role since you have taken on the position as of August 1st, you have fulfilled your commitments to us and began the important engagement that will be so successful for you to build trust.

And as you say, the most important measure of success in this role is community trust in the police accountability system.

I really enjoyed reading your remarks in the written questionnaire.

I have enjoyed meeting with you both here in committee and also in the selection process interviews.

I really appreciate how how clear you are about your positions.

Often answers that we receive to these confirmation questions are answers that are designed to please everyone.

But I really appreciate two issues in particular that I think Seattle has had different experiences with in our leadership of the OPA.

Your steadfast commitment to rule on OPA cases based on the merits of the case rather than concern about how they might fare in the outcome of an appeal, I think is very, very important to the integrity of the OPA investigation system.

If there are other problems in the discipline system, they should be dealt with there, but by ensuring that you are making your decisions, not based on a fear or concern that a case might be overturned in appeal.

You are allowing a bright light on the success of the OPA system and also a bright light on areas of concern.

I also appreciate knowing of your background coming from an accountability system that has a civilianized investigation and appreciate your strong support for a fully civilianized OPA investigation system.

And that is a really important issue to the community, as you probably heard in public comment today.

One thing that I do want to make clear for the public is that the 2017 accountability ordinance does require 100% civilianization, and that ordinance was in 2017 fully supported by the council, included by myself.

So this is a move that historically there's been strong support for.

We do recognize that those are items that need to be bargained and would think it would be really important and valuable to have your partnership in that in the role that we have carved out for our accountability partners in the bargaining process.

So I'm really impressed with your experience, your passion for the work, and your strong vision for what accountability means in what success for accountability system would look like.

I do want to ask a question.

You use the word radical transparency in one of your questions.

And I'm wondering, are there things that you think of as radical transparency that historically we haven't been doing that we should be doing.

We talk about transparency and there is a lot of good transparency with OPA, with getting out information about the status of cases, with having an advocate who communicates with complainants about the status of cases, and also about putting information out about policy recommendations and the outcome of cases.

But what do you see as radical transparency that might be something new that we should be doing?

I think the next steps in transparency would be to release all police video.

So body-worn video, in-car video, police reports, anything that we have on hand that the public can scrutinize and say, hey, well, how did you assess this?

We saw this ourselves, right?

So they can take us to task and we can justify our DCM at that point.

I don't know if the CBA will allow for that, but that's my position, uh, that we should be headed in that direction.

And specifically, I would like to see that done, um, expeditiously.

I would like to see it within 30 days of the complaint being filed.

Thank you.

Councilman Mosqueda.

Thank you Madam Chair, I didn't want to interrupt your flow if you've had other questions as well, but I didn't get the chance to meet you Mr beds at the last meeting so I wanted to say thank you for your interest in this position.

I do like the term radical transparency I consider myself aggressively collaborative so maybe there's some combination there.

I like the merging of those two words.

And I will also note I have some outstanding questions to some of our community members as well.

But I wanted to ask you a few questions.

And Madam Chair, if you need to go to other council members, please, of course, feel free to cut me off.

But maybe I can start with two.

The first one would be in the Q&A multi-part question.

One of the questions was, what extra steps could you take to make sure that SPD's suggested policy change actually result in harm reduction or bias-free policing?

And I didn't quite see an answer that specifically spoke to harm reduction or bias-free policing.

Could you elaborate a little bit more about what you would like to do in this position, especially on bias-free policing?

Right, so we do review allegations of bias.

We investigate those matters thoroughly, objectively, and completely.

I think the part of the question that I kind of focused on was what steps would I take if SPD was resistant to the reforms that we recommended?

So specifically, I do believe in engaging our oversight partners, so CPC, OIG, and so forth.

If that is insufficient to get the job done, I also believe in making the case directly to the people.

People in Seattle have not been shy about demanding what they deem to be appropriate and community-based policing.

So I believe in making that case directly to the people and people have demonstrated that they can take it from there and making their voice heard and their demands clear.

I might do a quick follow up.

Yeah, I think you are touching on some of the restrictions on this position, right?

The fact that the OPA has no enforcement authority is a challenge and just being in a position to make recommendations to SPD for potential disciplinary action or disciplinary policy changes might not actually be implemented.

Do you have thoughts about how to strengthen your role or how to ensure that the OPA's recommendations are consistently heeded or responded to if they're disregarded?

So what I will say is that I'm encouraged by our past relationship with SPD.

The gross majority of our recommendations have been fully implemented.

Some of them partially implemented.

There are circumstances where none of them have been implemented.

But when that happens, again, I believe that there are alternative responses that we can make, including engaging our partner stakeholders.

I believe there are five that weren't implemented in 2021 of probably around 26. And so those are all on a dashboard.

And I think one of the points that I'm hearing is there have been efforts to push out the progress or lack thereof of implementation of SPD management action recommendations from the OPA and to make that public.

I hear Mr. Betz saying that simply being transparent about those recommendations and the status of them is insufficient.

And I think I'm hearing this concept of radical transparency and maybe going out to community to engage with community about in a more proactive way about the status of unimplemented management action recommendations might be warranted in some cases, depending on whether or not they are minor or.

uh, very critical, um, recommendations.

I think of the five that have not been implemented, um, they aren't, they aren't all of the same, um, same nature.

Right.

And I do agree that the community should have input on any record policy recommendation that we are making to SPD.

We want to make sure any policy, uh, meets the needs of the community.

That's top priority.

So that's that front-end accountability portion.

When it comes to the back-end accountability of investigating individual cases, I do believe that I need autonomy and space to evaluate each case on a case-by-case basis without any external influences, whether it's SPD, SPOG, or even the community for that matter.

I have a question about your question.

Can we switch over to Council Member Nelson?

That sounds good.

I'll hold a few questions for after other colleagues.

Excuse me, Madam Chair.

Appreciate it.

Thank you.

Council Member Nelson.

Yeah, I don't know enough about the division of labor between OPA and the other bodies of our accountability system, but when you said that more transparency, that OPA should be going out into community to talk about unaccepted recommendations, is that within their, are they supposed to do that?

I mean, isn't that, or does OPA work with CPC to engage community, or what are the bodies?

I ask because, I'm sure that the investigatory body of work is gonna be taking up most of their time.

Can you just, no.

It was a question.

No, it was a question to Council Member Herbold.

Sure.

So again, it is within OPA's wheelhouse to make policy recommendations and to work with SPD to implement them, as well as to notify members of the public of what those recommendations are.

So I think that's what we were talking about.

Okay.

And to that end, thank you, Council Member Nelson.

What my plan is to do is to have something called a closeout meeting after each investigation is fully investigated, invite the complainant to come to OPA so we can outline everything that we considered, how we reached our findings, how we got there.

Now, I'm not we're not.

Expecting us to agree on each outcome, but I think that level of transparency will add towards community confidence in the overall system.

So that's what my ultimate goal is.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Um Senior Deputy Mayor Harold.

Thank you and thanks for allowing me to jump Um, what council member Nelson, uh, was asking, and that is.

That there is a responsibility, uh, for each of the accountability partners to kind of play their role within this process.

And the community police commission is, um, is a key partner in the community engagement and community outreach.

Uh, they are, um, and, and it should be, you know, uh, part of the entire process that each of the legs of the stool.

of the accountability fabric is working together, is doing the roles that they're supposed to do, but is also informing each other as to the parts that they will play in the process.

I think it is really critical for the CPC to be involved and engaged in community and making communities voice heard through the process, but also being able to take the information they learn from OPA, from OIG, translate that out to community and then get that feedback and translate that back out to the community partners.

So I recognize that we've all kind of somewhat inherited a process that, you know, like any good house foundation, you wanna shore it up.

You wanna make sure that it's in good shape.

We've built a house.

There've been a couple of years where the foundation is settled.

may need to be shored up so that we can remain sturdy.

And I think that having a really strong OPA director allows us to shore up part of the foundation and also ensure that we're working with our other partners to ensure that they have solid foundation too.

So I wanna thank council member Nelson for that question.

And it is received in terms of all of the work we have to do with our accountability, the entire accountability system.

Thank you.

I have one more question, but Councilmember Mosqueda, if you want to go ahead, I'll hold mine.

Sure.

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

And this is a question a little bit about process.

And so, senior deputy mayor, you know, I know the process is more on your end, but the question is really more about like follow through, given some of the concerns around the process for the appointment.

We know that there's been some discomfort expressed from community members that the process didn't have adequate time built in for engagement via public forums.

We know that there was one public forum that was moving forward two weeks.

because of some of the real change reporting.

At the end of July, we saw that the publication of that new form coincided with some media requests.

So I think that it just raises, again, the question of building trust with community and making sure people feel like their feedback was included.

How would you, in this position as OPA director, work to bring Seattleites into the process, given that some folks might feel still that their voice wasn't heard?

what is your first step that you're going to do towards building trust?

You mentioned that you reached out to a number of stakeholders, specifically, you know, how did the conversations, for example, go with the People Power Washington, the grassroots branch of the ACLU?

So I hope that that, you know, is more of a question for the incoming appointee about how you really try to build trust, given some of the discomfort that's been expressed by community members.

Gina, before you start, let me just first acknowledge that, yes, the process fell short of what is ideal.

And I've also personally reached out to some of the stakeholders and expressed that.

One of the things that I think is a little bit unfair is that, yes, the process fell short.

The executive branch has agreed, has identified that we commit to doing better.

There were some decisions made Um, that certainly the candidate, uh, had no input or bearing on, and it is unfortunate that those decisions then have to follow the candidate through, um, the intro of, um, of their, of their time with the city.

Uh, we found an excellent candidate.

Um, we, we fell short.

The executive branch fell short.

Uh, we have made internal corrections, uh, and adjustments based on that.

and we have also worked with the candidate to let them know the process that they walked in on, Mr. Betz has walked in on, and he's made a strong commitment to help us regain that trust and support within community.

And I'll let Mr. Betz speak directly to that, but I will say that, you know, we have identified where we had some shortcomings and we have been working to fix that.

that the public doesn't hold the process which selected an excellent candidate against the candidate who is one of the best that we could possibly ask for.

I have been extremely impressed with not only Gino's experience and breadth of knowledge, but also heart and commitment.

You just cannot, you cannot find those things Um, in every individual, we asked for a unicorn and quite candidly, we got one.

So, um, there's work that we will do to, uh, to support earning the public's trust around this.

Uh, but certainly I don't want it to follow, um, an excellent, uh, candidates, uh, for a position that is extremely hard to deliver on, but I believe can, can deliver for the city of Seattle.

And Gina, I'll direct it to you now.

Yeah, so I do appreciate that each stakeholder has a role when it comes to police accountability, CPC, OIG, and so forth.

I do believe, nevertheless, that there is a role for OPA to work directly with the community, specifically when it comes to I think we've done a great job when it comes to making the complaint filing process accessible to the community, right?

You can do it in person, you can do it online, you can mail in your complaint.

I think we can do a better job of spreading the awareness of OPA.

I don't think enough people know about the function of OPA, that if you have this, a bad encounter with the police officer, that there is an agency tasked with investigating that situation.

So that's one part, just being visible in the community.

Another component is, meaningfully and valuing the input of the community.

So the police, I mean, the community historically, they feel like they haven't been heard.

So I think having that meaningful integration in the community, that will go a long way towards building that public trust that I'm pursuing.

And Madam Chair, I have one last question, if you are still seeking questions.

Go ahead and ask it I think I can't hear you Madam Chair but cut me off if that's not okay.

I'm sorry I don't.

I said go for it.

Okay, great.

I'll go for it.

Thank you.

Um, I love.

I really love that the chair has been so generous with being able to have you in committee twice.

And I apologize as well that I wasn't able to ask some of these questions at first go around.

So this one is related to some of the OPA's past work and in terms of building trust with community, not only in the engagement process, but in the past practices of OPA.

And just one last question on this.

There's been some recent media coverage in July of the OPA's apparent misclassification of, and I'm going to quote, what appear to be serious investigation worthy allegations as contact log complaints.

And as we know, contacts designated as context logs are not subject to investigation and are effectively closed, according to the OPA manual.

including complaints in this category that relate to officer sexual misconduct, excuse me, officer sexual misconduct, retaliation and bias, as well as 40 other complaints against SPOG President Mike Solon, grouped together as one complaint and classified as a contact log.

So my question for you is given your responsibility and given the work of the OPA director to oversee classification of the complaints, How do you plan to address these concerns that have been apparently well documented and also future efforts to make sure that we are not misclassifying contacts?

So I am aware of those concerns and allegations.

I will say that there is a mechanism currently in place to deal with it.

OIG, they do audit our contact logs and our classifications.

I am coming in as a new director, so I will be taking a look at our classification process and how we can improve that going forward.

Just as a little bit more texture for the viewing public for the OIG's role, they review investigations.

I'm not sure if they can, as an audit function, I believe they can audit the use of contact logs, but I don't believe, typically, things that are identified as complaints for investigation, they review each one of those for thoroughness, timeliness, and objectivity, and they issue memos, certification memos.

but it is not clear to me that they do that with contact logs, which I think is the point that Councilmember Mosqueda is raising.

But this is still more broadly an area not only for incoming Director Betz, as he says, to take a look at what the current practices are, but it's also an area that the OIG can take a look at as a system-wide area.

I'm wanting to move on to one more question I have in your written answers, about your written answers.

You talk about the New Orleans Office of the Independent Monitor being nationally lauded for its mediation program.

And you note that post-mediation surveys show 100% complainant officer participants found the process was unbiased and appreciated the opportunity to talk out their differences.

Our most recent public survey of complainants that I recall seeing last year, or perhaps it was early this year, does show a high level of dissatisfaction with the process.

I don't believe the survey was focused on folks who go through mediation alone, but I would like to know from you whether or not there are differences that You're aware of in between our mediation system and the, the New Orleans mediation approach that we should consider adopting.

So I do know that mediation and OPA has plummeted in the recent years since about 2020. We stopped doing mediations pretty much totally, and then we've done a few recently.

So I'm not familiar with the surveys that you're referencing, but I would love to take a look at that and compare that to the data that's collected by New Orleans and see how we can adapt going forward.

Fantastic, thank you.

Again, I think the OPA service that I'm referencing did not focus on mediation per se, but focused on users of the OPA complaint system.

So would love to talk to you more about the strengths that you see in the New Orleans mediation approach.

Absolutely.

And I will say that I do know that complainants in the past, they have complained about the process of dealing with OPA, specifically the infrequency of communications with OPA and the impersonality, the impersonalness of those communications.

So what would happen is In the past, they would just get a letter telling them what happened with their case.

So in response, we hired a complaint navigator to have frequent communication with the complainants as also personal communication.

So phone calls, emails, and so forth, really just making himself available to the complainants throughout the process and making sure that they understand the process from the beginning all the way through disposition.

Perfect.

And I just got a note that I want to, again, go back to the contact log issue.

Although they don't, OIG does not do certification memos for contact logs, they started reviewing all contact logs about six months ago.

because of precisely some of the issues that you raised, Council Member Mosqueda, except for staffer Greg Doss, the person I got the note from.

Thanks, Council Member.

I was just going to say that Greg Doss, Central Staff, that they did six months ago start reviewing all contact logs.

They brought on a couple new staff in their investigations unit, and they are reviewing every single one now.

They prior had been doing spot checks, but now every single one that passes through gets reviewed.

Thank you for clarifying that they aren't doing spot checks anymore and that they're doing all of them in real time, really.

appreciate that important change.

And again, this shows just how this entire system, whether or not you're talking about the OPA, the OIG, or the CPC, is an ever-evolving system that is designed to be constantly reviewing itself and making improvements based on its past prior practices that are identified for improvement.

It's a great, great example.

Looking to see whether or not any of our other colleagues on the line here have any additional questions for Gino or for Senior Deputy Mayor Harrell.

not seeing any.

Again, really appreciate that you've been here with us twice now.

And this appointment again is being done in line with the process that the Council established at the March 22nd committee meeting when we voted to approve the process as developed by the Mayor's Office.

I do, along with Senior Deputy Mayor Harrell, acknowledge that we did not give enough public notice for the public forum, but I know that in that So I'm really pleased that the public in sending questions on for consideration in the public forum and also really appreciate Gino making such an effort to meet with community stakeholders who had concerns about the public forum in his month and a half that he's been here with us on the job.

So, hearing and seeing no further questions, I'd like to move that the committee confirm appointment 02332, the appointment of Gina Betz as Director of the Office of Police Accountability.

Is there a second?

Second.

Thank you so much.

Will the clerk please call the roll?

Madam Chair.

Sorry, if there are questions?

No, this is not a question because I'm a statement time.

Do you know, and I had a long conversation on the phone, as I noted in briefings yesterday, which is where I asked all my questions in case you were wondering why no questions.

And I just have to say, I really like how Senior Deputy Mayor Harrell characterized our candidate as a unicorn because I did speak with members of CPC and I know that he's got strong support from that body.

And when we spoke, we focused on trust building.

And I think that is, key to improving and re-imagining and accountability of our police and public safety system.

And so I feel very confident that we've got the right person for the job.

And so, and I thank you very much for the extensive search for in the process that came before today.

Thank you, Council Member Nelson.

Council Member Mosqueda.

Thank you very much.

I also want to thank Mr. Betts for his interest in this position.

This is a really important time in our local history and national history to be stepping into this role.

So appreciate your interest.

And to senior deputy mayor and to our mayor for the process that they've brought forward and for us the senior deputy mayor noted really taking responsibility or ownership over some of the places where We know we will do better in the future.

I also want to thank you, Mr bets for some of the words that the chair lifted up at the beginning were in your Q amp a you said the unfettered power of collective bargaining agreements affords arbitration hearings.

hearing police misconduct appeals behind closed doors must be addressed, but will not impact my decision making.

I really appreciate that you're calling out the different roles that you still have, even though there's some areas that still need additional improvement and your commitment to transparency.

the process for reaching perhaps radical transparency is something I look forward to hearing more about.

I mentioned that I have a few outstanding questions to some additional stakeholders as well.

And since I'm just getting the chance to ask some of these initial questions today, I would love to get the chance to chat with you.

So I'll be reaching out to you before the vote in full council to hear a little bit more about maybe what some additional policy within OPA that you might want to advance to complement some of the improvements that Greg Doss and the chair noted as it relates to OIG's role, but making sure that we're looking at that misclassification of complaints.

I am going to abstain today, but that gives me the ability to vote at the full council.

And I think that with additional feedback from you and the stakeholders that we've reached out to, we will have a great conversation to come in the next week here and look forward to that final vote.

But today I'll be abstaining, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Council Member Mosqueda.

And my apologies for not pausing before requesting the roll call.

Just shows how confident and excited I am for Gino's appointment.

Will the clerk please call the roll?

Council Member Mosqueda.

Abstain.

Council Member Nelson.

Aye.

Council Member Peterson.

Yes.

Vice Chair Lewis.

Yes.

Chair Herbold.

Yes.

foreign support, one abstention.

Thank you so much.

The motion carries and the committee confirms the appointment and the committee's action will be forwarded to the City Council for introduction and confirmation at a date to be determined likely next Tuesday, the 20th.

You are not required to attend, but we might need to discuss whether or not we need to deliver an oath of office.

So, and that might actually be better in person.

So we'll take that up with the mayor's office between now and Tuesday and be sure to keep you in touch.

All right, thank you all, really appreciate your time.

Thank you so much.

Bye.

Will the clerk please read in agenda item three.

Agenda item three is alternative 911 responses update.

Thank you.

So this is an update not on the risk management demand study that SPD is doing.

Although I understand that that study is near complete and we're aiming for a briefing from SPD on the 27th on that study.

Our last committee meeting of the year, but this is a briefing on.

It's a, I think we could consider it a precursor to the risk management demand analysis, but it is really focused on the work that I keep referring to in committee.

between the council and the executive that keep promising that it's about to start.

And we've had some agreement on, we were working towards agreement on goals and timeline, but finally we are there.

And we have an agreement, we're referring to it for lack of better term as a term sheet with the mayor's office.

And I really wanna thank the mayor's office for their work on this.

In particular, Senior Deputy Mayor Harrell and Sarah Smith and Brianna Thomas really, really appreciate folks pushing up their sleeves and identifying a couple of areas that we can move more quickly on while we are also analyzing the risk-managed demand analysis.

So just want to turn it over to you, Esther.

Could you speak to what the term sheet says about the establishment of pilot programs?

I can.

Thank you, Chair Herbold, members of the committee.

For the record, Esther Handy, Central Staff Director.

I'm here today to provide an update on the partnership that we've been building between Council and the mayor's office to advance alternative 911 response.

We have memorialized that partnership in a term sheet that outlines our work together.

This is a staff to staff document that's awaiting signature.

It's not a piece of legislation the council will take formal action on.

And in a moment, I'll walk through those highlights and some of the expected work products that will come of this that will be before your committee and inform the council's policymaking.

I'll note that also from the central staff team, I have subject matter experts and Gorman and Greg Doss on the line.

They are working closely with me and available if specific questions about policy work comes up.

This work is done.

And Senior Deputy Mayor Harrell, who is the executive sponsor on this work on the mayor's office site is also present and just a deep appreciation to you, Senior Deputy Mayor for moving this work along.

The work sits in the context of the broad body of work that the council has been doing for several, several years to reimagine and improve parts of our public safety system, and to build the infrastructure for a more diverse set of 911 responses that meets all the needs of folks calling the city's emergency lines.

That work is included standing up the Community Safety Communication Center that houses our 911 dispatch system.

Our working group is doing a site visit later today to talk with dispatchers to inform the solutions that come in front of the council.

It is also informed by the existing emergency response options, including Health One for medical response that pairs a firefighter EMT with an HSD case manager, SPD's crisis response unit that pairs an SPD officer with a DESC mental health professional, and secondary behavioral response programs like the King County Emergency Services Patrol and the King County Mobile Crisis Team.

So I'm going to pull up the term sheet and show you a few of the highlights.

Give me one moment while I put that screen.

Great.

So, this document starts with a conversation around partnership and recognizing that this partnership is really key to advancing new solutions.

Working together means we will strive to avoid surprises so to the extent possible we share policy work before public announcements.

We will cooperate to achieve our shared goals.

I'll walk through those goals in a moment.

We recognize this is complex and evolving work, and that most of our public safety system is executed through union represented workers.

And as such, we will continue to partner with the Labor Relations Policy Committee to advance these projects.

There are two core goals for the work.

The first is that we develop a strategy, a comprehensive look at the city's 911 response system, and that the goals of that system are to diversify the city's emergency response options, two, to reduce harm and provide an equitable system of emergency response that serves the city's BIPOC communities and vulnerable underserved populations, that we preserve first responder capacity where it is most needed, and we increase the city's current response to priority three and four calls.

The second goal is to develop a response in the near term that enables the city to test some of these solutions and learn from experience in the field that can be implemented in 2023. To achieve these goals, we will produce four work products.

Again, most of these will come to this committee.

The first is an executive drafted policy document that outlines the framework for permanent alternative response models.

We call this the comprehensive work.

It will look at all call types and potential response models.

This framework is to completed by the end of the year so that operational and funding work can happen in 2023 and we can have new response options in the field by 2024. The second is a policy proposal for alternative response in the near term that can be designed and stood up next year.

The third, and for that, we're looking at sort of all the major models around the country for mental and behavioral health response, like Eugene's Hoots and Denver STAR program, and also taking sort of a specific look at our local system.

The third is, Developing a policy proposal on special events staffing for stadium and community events.

We recognize that this is not directly related to alternative 911 response, but we believe there are opportunities to free up scarce sworn staffing resources by doing so.

So last night Seahawks kickoff game, a typical game has 60 sworn police officers directing traffic and doing security alongside about 20 parking enforcement officers with the opening of Climate Pledge, Seahawks Mariners Sounders, as well as citywide festivals.

Our sworn officers are working around the clock and with a smaller force, our goal is to preserve officer hours for the work that only they can do.

And then finally, thinking about a communication strategy that informs the public how to engage with the city's emergency response system as it evolves, so people know who to call and what response to accept when they make that call.

I'm not going to walk through all the details of the rest of the document, but I would like to just show that there is a timeline laid out in broad strokes for each of the bodies of work.

And I want to point out a couple of work products that are coming your way.

So the first is this comprehensive emergency response work.

That policy paper is expected at year end.

The first work product is the risk management demand analysis being done by SPD.

We understand that is freshly done.

Staff will get a briefing next week and this committee will be briefed on it the morning of September 27th before you all break for budget.

External stakeholder work is expected to happen in November, December.

Brianna Thomas in the mayor's office who is lead on this project will be developing a more detailed stakeholder engagement plan and we will update you as that is developed.

The near term response program, we are working there to have a proposal recommendation ready for the council by October 14th.

so the council can consider it during your budget process.

I'll note that in the mid-year supplemental, Council Member Herbold and Lewis sponsored an amendment that moved $1.2 million of 2022 funding originally designated for the triage one program that is not advancing and placed it in finance general.

That is one resource that could be considered to get a near-term program off the ground.

And finally, the special events staffing work group is meeting in hopes to have a proposal ready for analysis and considered later this year.

Those are my sort of high level updates on the partnership.

I'll hand it back to you, Madam Chair, and available to answer questions.

Thank you, Esther.

So, I appreciate as we are entering into the budget process, it appears that we are weaving this collaboration with the executive in such a way that recommendations coming forward can be realized for 2023 in the budget process.

Is that more or less the case?

That's correct on this.

We're committed to having at least one program that is ready to assign funding for that could be operational in 2023. Thank you.

I'm just looking for questions from my colleagues.

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

I want to thank you for your leadership in making sure that this issue remains front burner and front and center in our discussions and deliberations headed into the budget.

Obviously, many of the implementation strategies that we all had hoped for last year and this year need to occur so that we can do the right sizing or the balancing as we seek to create more publicly oriented public safety models.

I wanted to also thank the mayor's office for what appears to be a collaborative effort in this document to move forward with joint understanding almost a memorandum of understanding of what will occur in the future okay I'm seeing nods because I wasn't quite sure how to read.

what it meant to have a term sheet.

And so if we kind of see this as a memorandum of understanding or a memorandum of agreement between both branches, that's very helpful.

I just wanted to ask a quick question, and I'm sorry to surprise central staff or the chair with this question, but Have we done something similar to this in the past or is this really an innovative way and a way to move forward collectively, like recognizing there's joint interests in collaboration from the executive and the legislative branch?

Is this something new that we're trying together to really concretize a shared vision on some of these items so that we have a timeline and accountability for the implementation actions?

Andy is a great prior example that she professionally worked with that I think you'll really like, Council Member Mosqueda.

Yeah, I think the answer is both.

Part of what we modeled this off was a project a couple of years ago, writing and designing the legislation for backyard cottages, very different subject matter, in which central staff was gonna work collaboratively with the executive, central staff was gonna do more analytical work than might be typical on an executive-led proposal.

And so an MOU, I'm not sure what the, I don't remember the exact title of that document was created that said, here's our joint goals, here's our shared responsibilities, here's who will do X and Y.

Um, so, you know, we have made sort of several rounds at collaboration on this particular project, and the Council has been working on it for several years, recognizing that this body of work requires, um, so very much, um, um, sort of implementation operational design by the executive branch, but there's deep sort of policy interest by the Council.

Um, we said, uh, why don't we try to form a more formal partnership that has shared agreement about deliverables and outcomes on this project so giving it a try and so far the work group is making good progress and I'm feeling hopeful about the approach.

Great.

And I'm sure if I might, it's it's deep policy interest by the council but I think it's important to also underscore it's codified in statute by the council's interests.

And so those past efforts under the previous administration did not get implemented.

And due to the lack of implementation under the previous administration and the joint interest that I think that this term sheet or memorandum of understanding really underscores is that there is movement now.

So again, I wanna thank senior deputy mayor Harrell, who I see on the line here, I know has leadership over this area, and the executive branch for this effort here today, this sort of innovative effort to really move forward on some shared priorities so that we can all see some action.

Looking forward to movement after a much delay.

Thank you.

Senior Deputy Mayor Harrell, I see you coming on the screen.

Did you have anything you wanted to add?

Yeah, I just wanted to add that, you know, we recognize that we enter a we enter a relationship where the executive already had a prior relationship, not the current executive, but where the executive and legislative branches have had a prior relationship.

And so, you know, there are a couple of things that we're wanting to do here.

One of which is, we have a few new folks at the table and ensuring that we have a shared commitment and a shared understanding for how we'll come to the table together, which is really important because, you know, not understanding what, like, fully how that working relationship might have occurred before, making sure that we have some similarity in our language and our values doesn't mean that we don't have the, we don't all retain the right to, you know, potentially disagree and not have 100% alignment but that we're working towards the same goals and the same vision, which I think we are doing.

And to set some ground rules for what our shared understandings are together, this term sheet and the reason we're kind of calling it a term sheet versus, you know, an MOU or an MOA is really because we do all still retain the autonomy of the positions that we hold, right?

We wouldn't wanna say, council, you can't speak out about this.

and the executive always, again, retains the ability to say, we might see things a little bit differently.

But the fact is we want to be able to have a collaborative environment where we work together to move things forward because the stalemates actually don't help the communities that I think we're all trying to serve.

So that's really what we're trying to express with this kind of codification of the relationship is one, setting better um setting a better relationship for the executive and legislative branches regardless of who's in those positions and also making sure that we're doing the right work to move uh to move the city forward um and not getting stuck on um you know not getting stuck on small disagreements and then and then holding the rest of the city back so hopefully uh it's received with that spirit and that we can continue a really positive working relationship together.

Excellent.

Thank you.

Council Member Nelson.

Thank you.

I have some questions about the separate work product numbers.

So do you want me to ask them all at once or just have ask and then have a question or what?

Well, go ahead, ask them all at once.

Okay.

So for work product one, there is a call analysis.

Let me see.

I am looking at the how it's worded.

Let's see.

Anyway, an analysis of 911 calls is going to be conducted.

But I just want to make sure that is this a new analysis?

Because we already have the Nick Jr.

So is this different from that?

Or is it going to be conducted by a different?

Body of experts or can just clarify that.

And then, okay, so that's 1 question for product 1. And for product 2, I.

There's going to be in September a report on our existing programs that we've got to respond to people in crisis.

And we do have LEAD.

We are spending $8.6 million on LEAD, which seems like a program that does exactly what we're calling for.

And so hopefully that will be incorporated into this report and specifically, I'm asking and also saying that consideration of how 911 dispatchers might work with lead case managers or people on the ground, I think would be good and hopefully that's incorporated.

Let's see.

Regarding the 9-1-1 operations there, at a CPC meeting in July, SFD Deputy Chief Christopher Lombard gave a presentation on 9-1-1 operations and described the move of dispatch from SPD to the CSCC as not a smooth transition.

And so I'm thinking that we need to make sure that we shore up this new service or this new body of work since it's been moved out of SPD.

And I hope that This, what we're looking at right now, the term sheet is not going to call for a diversion of resources to making sure that what we've got right now runs smoother.

And then, let's see.

Oh yeah, finally, in work product four, we don't really want, if we're trying to get SF officers removed from responding to crisis, people experiencing behavioral health crises, et cetera.

Why are we, why is this item in here?

Because why is looking at how SFD, I mean, SPD staff special events that seems like that's a, is that just in here because it, because council has expressed an interest in that, but, or is, is it contemplated that police who are not responding to the working in special events are going to be engaged in this body of work.

And if so, then doesn't that undermine the idea that officers are not going to be doing this?

That's all my questions.

Great, I'm happy to walk through those and then Senior Deputy Mayor Harrell, if you have pieces to add, please feel free to chime in.

So your first question, Council Member Nelsis, was about the call analysis.

The call analysis essentially builds on the risk management demand analysis that SPD is doing.

So that demand analysis is essentially by call type.

With that additional information and the data we have to date, we'll have an opportunity to further break down a look at all the various calls and the specific alternative responses that we are considering.

So it's not a external party.

The call analysis is meant to be the sort of deeper dive once we have the risk management demand work to start parsing out categories of calls against potential alternative response solutions.

And of course, those that should stay with existing responses.

The second, the conversation about LEAD, I think that this work is intending to encompass and look at how all of these programs interact with each other.

LEAD is currently not directly dispatched by 911. It is a community dispatched and referral network.

So a direct dispatch of lead officers is not currently something we're considering, but we can certainly consider sort of where they fit into the fabric of community case management, mental behavioral health response fabric that interact, you know, of course, shapes who is calling 911 and needing a direct response.

Um, third, you asked about 911, um, operations.

Um, as I mentioned, we are visiting the dispatch center today.

The, um, the success and stability of the CSCC is, um, front and center for our team.

And I want to say that the mayor's office, um, certainly has been bringing that as a top priority for the table.

The idea with doing this in two phases of being able to choose sort of one pilot One program to stand up in 2023 is not adding a huge amount of complexity next year, but starting one additional form of dispatch that can be deployed.

The more comprehensive work, which we'll have a framework for by the end of the year, we've got all of next year to do operational work, budget, staffing sort of analysis.

So those dispatches will be available in 2024. So I think that that is working on a timeline that gives us time to onboard a permanent, um, director of CSCC, um, and do the protocol work, um, that is, um, currently underway, I believe with an external vendor.

Um, so that by the time we're ready to deploy some, some responses that dispatch center is ready.

And then your fourth question was about the special events work.

And I think the answer to this is sort of a yes and all of it.

We know that with the reduced police force that we have right now, our officers are working overtime on multiple fronts.

That includes overtime on their core work, as well as an incredible number of hours staffing these special events.

So one of the goals of the overall project is, you know, we're trying to diversify the response system.

We're also trying to increase our response time and ability to those priority three and four calls.

And so that we think that there is an opportunity to ensure that the time our sworn officers are spending on special events is limited to only what they can and need to be doing so that they are able to, in today's current system, increase response time to priority three and four calls, as well as the sworn officer savings that may come as we deploy alternatives.

Happy to take follow-ups.

Senior Deputy Mayor Harrell, do you have anything to add before we go there?

Thank you for covering that.

I think that covers a lot of it.

I will say just to kind of put an underline under it, that the existing programs that we have, they're not eliminated from being utilized as resources.

So we are in programs like LEAD and others, there may be a clear utilization or a slightly different utilization of those resources that we have available.

Um, we're not gonna, you know, invent new things out of whole cloth if not needed, there might be an alignment of resources that actually help us towards some goals.

The other, um, the other thing I'll just add is that we know that there needs to be more support in and around, uh, CSCC.

And that does begin with, um, ensuring that, um, we have, uh, a permanent director, um, in place going forward.

So you'll see us announcing a plan for the search for the permanent CSCC director.

The interim director has been extremely gracious in helping us to get that department off the ground.

And we know that there's still a lot of work to do that, but that does begin with finding their new leadership and making sure that we have the right resources in place.

And I just want to add a couple of additions here.

As it relates to a couple of things, as it relates to the RMD analysis, Council Member Nelson, I heard you ask about how it relates to the Nick Jr. report.

The Nick Jr. report only looked at how calls were classified as they came in.

The RMD analysis is going to look at how they were closed out so that they can determine whether or not there's any risk associated with how we might think a call will present itself and the risk that a person going out to engage in that call.

And so I think that's an important amount, important bit of texture for why this analysis will be helpful.

I also wanna sort of make a little brighter distinction between that comprehensive work as Director Handy referenced, which will take, which the outcomes for that more comprehensive work might take more time.

As opposed to this particular pilot program, the executive SPD in particular has been really helpful in level setting the work of the work product of the RMD.

And I just want to take this opportunity to address their concerns that many in the city believe that the RMD analysis will result in a list of discrete calls that they will then work to divert.

That's not the nature of the product.

Instead, this more comprehensive work, as opposed to the pilot effort that we're talking about now, we'll receive a staffing model and risk analysis for all the different call types.

And this will project the risks associated with call types based on a perfect understanding of the outcome of prior calls.

in order to predict the staffing needs to provide a diversified response across different call types.

So, what we're doing, what we're talking about now might result in the diverting of a couple of particular call types.

In the past, we've talked about person down and wellness checks.

We'll see what this analysis results in.

But the RMD analysis is intended to allow for the possibility of a diversified response across a number of call types.

Some of those calls may be diverted and some of them might not.

I want to clarify that for the viewing public because it can be confusing for myself as well.

That really helped.

I know that a lot of people say, how do we know what kind of call people are going to be going into?

So thank you very much.

Yeah, absolutely.

And then the other point I wanted to make as it relates to the challenges of the CSCC, I just want to acknowledge that many of the challenges that we've heard about as it relates to call response time, the non-emergency line not always being answered, is at its foundation a staffing issue, much like our first responders in the police department and in the fire department.

We added funding beyond what was proposed in the mayor's budget last year.

They are working on hiring, And we are seeing great improvement in call response time, as well as fewer periods of time where the non-emergency line is being answered, and that's really important.

I also wanna flag that they are diligently working to make sure develop and implement the protocol system which will allow for 911 call takers to do this diversified response that the council funded in last year's budget.

So even though we're not everywhere that maybe we want to be at this time in the year, there is a lot of behind the scenes work that is necessary, that has been happening sort of on a parallel track to the development of the collaboration with the mayor.

So I just want to acknowledge that really important and necessary behind the scenes work.

I'm looking to see if there are other questions or comments from council members.

Not seeing any.

Really, again, appreciate this important work that Council Central staff are working on as a team with the executive staff and also to our friends at SPD who may be listening along, looking forward to a briefing on the RMD analysis later this month.

So thank you very, very much.

I'm really encouraged by this progress.

And with that, the next Public Safety and Human Services Committee is scheduled for September 27, 2022. That is the day the budget is announced.

But since we meet in the morning, we are allowed to go ahead and have our last committee meeting of the fall.

So if any committee members anticipate being absent from that meeting, appreciate being notified.

I think we did do a A survey of committee members between this date and a potential alternative date that we were looking at having a special meeting and people seem to prefer this date.

But if anything changes, please, please do let me know before we adjourn.

Are there any other comments from my colleagues?

Seeing none, it is eleven thirty one and we are adjourned.

Thank you.

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