Governance and Utilities Committee 10-8-2026

I was talking to everyone.

Okay.

Good morning.

My script says good afternoon.

Good morning.

The October 8th meeting of the Governance Utilities Committee will come to order.

It is 9.38 PM.

I'm council president.

Will the clerk please call the roll?

Councilmember Kettle?

Here.

Councilmember Rivera?

Present.

Councilmember Strauss?

Vice Chair Juarez?

Here.

Chair Hollingsworth?

Here.

Chair, there are four present.

Awesome.

Councilmember Strauss is excused.

Colleagues, I wanna thank you all.

I know this is a special meeting during budget season and we all have tight schedules.

So I really appreciate you all filling this in because we have two appointments that we wanted to continue down the process so we can get it going.

One with our chief technology officer and also with our auditor as well.

So we will now consider the agenda and if there's no objection, the agenda will be adopted.

Hearing no objection, the agenda is adopted.

With that, we're gonna open the hybrid public comment period.

Public comment should be related to items on today's agenda.

Clerk, do we have any speakers signed up?

Chair, we have one speaker.

Awesome.

Two minutes.

I'll read the public comment period instructions.

Public comment period will be moderated in the following manner.

Speakers will be called in order in which they are registered on the council's website.

If you have not registered to speak but would like to, you can sign up before the end of the public comment period or on council's website.

The link is listed on today's agenda or you can do the signup sheet in front of us.

When speaking, please begin by stating your name and the item that you are addressing.

Speakers will then hear a chime 10 seconds later before, excuse me, chime 10 seconds are left on the allotted time.

If speakers do not end their comment at the end of the allotted time period, the speaker's microphone will be muted to allow us to call the next person.

The first person will start with in-person speakers.

I don't know if we have any online.

We have zero online.

Zero in person.

Ms. Roberts, did you want to speak?

You can for governance.

Are you sure?

All right.

Awesome.

And then we have one online.

So we'll go ahead and start with our online person.

Please press star six to unmute yourself.

Good morning.

Hi.

Good morning.

David Haynes.

Members of the Council, advancing a top official from Baltimore to be Seattle's next auditor is a dangerous mistake that threatens what little public trust we have left.

Baltimore is an administrative warning sign, not a model to replicate.

It is a city defined by systemic financial mismanagement, unchecked non-profit spending, and a failed public safety strategy that continuously circumvents law enforcement, accountability, in favor of unmonitored social services.

by importing leadership from that broken bureaucracy.

This council appears to be legitimizing and repackaging those same exact disastrous policies right here in Seattle.

We do not need a rubber stamp from an embattled East Coast system to shield our bloated social services contracts from genuine scrutiny.

We need an independent watchdog who will aggressively audit where our tax dollars are going, enforce strict accountability, and put an end to the open vault policies that have cost the region billions.

Reject disappointment and find an order who answers to Seattle taxpayers, not a political playbook.

And we need to put an end to the racial practices within the public health department where they use technology to weaponize philosophies of racist, woke, bottom of the barrel misinterpretations of why people are inconsiderately spit-spraying and violating people's personal space.

but instead Seattle always wants to play the race card and blame the wrong people for other people's problems.

It's become untenable in this city.

Furthermore, the predictive algorithms that are with broad data sets and surveillance tools do not stop the physical spread of disease, but it enforces an ideological agenda and divides the population.

Thank you, Mr. Haynes.

Are there any more registered speakers?

Awesome.

Public comment period is now closed.

I actually like Baltimore and people give Detroit a lot of headache.

Detroit's actually really nice.

It's really clean.

It's really making a great comeback.

All right.

So will the clerk please read item number one and two, the record.

Agenda Item 1, Appointment 3594, Appointment of Shannon Smith as Chief Technology Officer of the Seattle Information Technology Department.

For briefing, discussion, and possible vote.

Awesome.

It's like welcome to Seattle with our comments.

Thank you for joining the table.

We'll wait till we get set up.

Councilmember Warriors, you're still my favorite, okay?

I just want to state that for the record so everyone hears it.

You are too.

She's mad at me.

All right, so thank you all.

Are we all good for everything?

Awesome.

Please introduce yourself, and you can just jump right into your presentation.

Sorry.

You're okay.

Okay, I'm sorry.

My computer is not...

My computer is not connecting with the Zoom microphone.

I got it now.

Apologies.

No worries.

That's why we're in the IT committee, so it's perfect.

All right.

Will you please go ahead and introduce yourself, and we'll jump right into the presentation.

Council Member Juarez, I might have someone who can help you with that.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council President Hollingsworth, Vice Chair Juarez, Council Members Kettle and Rivera, for the opportunity to serve the City of Seattle as the Chief Technology Officer.

My name is Shannon Smith.

Public service and mission-driven work remains at the core of all I do as the Director of IT.

As I continue to build up my approach to the technology investments in the city, I am energized in many ways.

First, the responsiveness of our council to our work with talent modernization, AI surveillance and privacy reporting, and digital equity is much appreciated.

Second, the alignment with the council and the mayor on key initiatives to shore up our foundational services and address critical community needs is incredibly important.

Finally, the collaboration and thought leadership I've experienced with Seattle's departmental leadership is inspiring.

We have so many ideas to improve, accelerate, and innovate the way we deliver services to residents and businesses.

I'm excited to dig deeper and continue to uplift our work.

I'm putting all my chips in and I'm ready to go.

So please, I look forward to your questions.

Awesome.

Thank you so much.

And Amanda Pleasant-Brown here from our mayor's office, who is our council liaison.

Do you have any comments?

Thank you so much, Chair Hollingsworth and Vice Chair Juarez, just really here and happy to support CTO Smith and thank you so much for having us today.

Awesome, thank you both for being here.

Colleagues, we submitted questions to CTO Smith.

We got those questions back.

I was very pleased to read a lot of the answers, but wanted to give you all time to see if you had any comments or questions regarding this appointment.

And I'll pause here.

Easy peasy.

Oh, I'm sorry, Councilmember Kettle.

Yes.

Still easy peasy, lemon squeezy.

Cheddar cheesy.

Dad joke day.

Sorry.

Dad joke.

I'm here for it.

No questions.

Thank you.

I appreciate the engagement that we've had and the materials, the responses, and the background.

and I really enjoyed our conversation to include the families and that, and so it was good to get that background.

But so please, well thank you, and also please pass a thanks to the team, the entire department for their work, because it shows up in so many ways.

Even helping with Council Member Juarez and her Zoom system, it's the little things that make a difference, so thank you.

You're welcome, and they're all here, so they're hearing it directly.

Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you.

Especially the guy in the blue shirt.

I like that blue shirt.

Oh, wait a minute.

And the gentleman in front with the blue tie.

You guys are matchy-matchy between shirt and tie there, so I like the look.

Thank you.

Awesome.

Thank you, Councilmember Kettle.

Those were great jokes as well.

Colleagues, is there any other questions regarding CTO Smith?

Vice Chair Juarez?

I'm good.

Thank you.

We had a really good exchange last time that Ms. Smith Shannon was in front of us.

So I'm good.

Thank you.

Thank you, Chair.

Awesome.

Okay.

Councilmember Rivera?

Yeah, Chair, thank you.

I'll just say plus one to our colleague, Councilmember Juarez, and also want to thank you, Shannon, for making yourself Interim Director Smith, actually, for taking the time to meet with me.

Folks don't always know that we do do our due diligence, our Rivera due diligence, and we did meet in between meetings, and I really appreciated our conversation and your commitment to the work and I look forward to working with you and your team.

Thank you, Chair.

I'm always available and I appreciate the collaboration.

Awesome, thank you.

One of the things, and we've had many conversations, CTO Smith, and so I don't have any questions here for the public, but would like for you to share really quickly, and I didn't ask you this in advance, but I know you can do it off the top of your head, You're all good.

If you could share to the public, what do you think are our best opportunities to grow with information technology externally?

So not internally, with staff or better laptops or any of that nature or better systems, but what externally, what are like two to three growth edges that you think the public in your term will see improvement on as they are accessing city services, they're trying to navigate the website or interact with city departments in which you will be, they'll see a difference for technology.

Thank you, I think that might be one of my most favorite questions and topics, so I will try to, can I have three?

Yeah, yeah, you can have three, you can have five, whatever you want.

Oh, don't, don't, yeah, that's dangerous.

So I think when I think about our community, one of the most exciting things that we're doing is really looking at the ways that we can make our services accessible and there's a lot of digital opportunity there because as I spoke in my previous meeting with you, there is such a digital divide.

So understanding how we can meet people where we are, that we can make it easy and intuitive and combine services.

I'm incredibly proud of the work we've done, for example, with the different benefits, so the discounts page where you're able to look and there is basically a system there that when you put in the information once, it will say, hey, there's these other discounts you might want to take advantage of.

That's the kind of thing that makes a real difference in people's lives and it makes it much easier for them to access them.

I think there's a lot more opportunity to do that where, you know, one of the things that I observed is that when you come to city services, you don't want to give more information that you need, but it is exhausting when you have to go to three, you know, four different places for all of the services the city provides.

So, you know, whether you are unserved or underserved or whether you are a top technology kind of user, having that ability to easily switch between the tasks that you'd like to do gives us a huge efficiency and allows us to accelerate the services because we will never be able to provide everything that our constituents want, right?

We will never have the resources to do that.

The second thing is really around access and really making folks digitally fluent.

We talk a lot about AI upskilling, but we also need AI fluency.

And I think it goes beyond that to digital fluency.

So yesterday I spoke at the Digital Equity Learning Network and it was just so heartening to see all of the folks that benefit from our technology matching fund there to have that day to learn and collaborate and get re-energized for this work.

so this is something that I think we can continue hopefully to invest in where we are providing that knowledge to our residents.

There are things that we are looking at with the mayor's office in terms of how do we provide that information whether it's direct education or partnering with the library or with King County, with our digital navigators, how do we provide those services so that people are getting the...

It's not just about having good broadband, right?

It's not just about Wi-Fi.

It's about having the skills having the equipment, having the tools they need in order to be successful in today's workforce, which is basically digital.

There are very few roles, especially when you look at city employees or even in the roles that the businesses have here today that don't require technology.

Even your time cards, you have to do on your phone, right?

There are no punch cards anymore.

And then I think the third thing, which of course I've forgotten at this point, When we think about how we can reach the public, it's about having that co-development and that technology where we're really thinking about how do we modernize and upskill, how we modernize our systems so that we are able to be much more efficient in terms of reaching the community.

Nice.

That's great.

And one of the things, before we take a vote, one of the things that I've heard from a lot of people is you have this demographic that has been accustomed to convenience and, you know, everything's convenient now.

You can order food on an app, you can get packages delivered to your house within minutes, and oftentimes they expect that from government as well, which, you know, sometimes you can be able to deliver, respond to an email quickly, but I also know that there's, in government, things move a little bit slower, which is good at times because we're really drastically affecting people's lives when we make decisions, but there's other times just like a simple response so people know that the work is moving and going can be more convenient and accessing information that's accessible and easy for people, that is palatable, I think is really, really important and clear.

So looking forward to that, because some of our city's websites and information, it can be very confusing.

I get confused.

So anywho, I'm looking forward to that improved process on that.

So thank you for that.

Colleagues, if there's no more questions, I'm gonna move that the committee, and give me one second, I gotta get my notes.

My apologies.

Ready to go for a second.

Okay.

I'm sorry, Councilman Boers.

I got you.

She's on me today.

Okay.

I just want to say she's on me.

Okay.

We're going to go ahead.

Yeah, it's all over the place.

Okay.

I move the committee recommend confirmation referral to the appointment to City Council for...

Second.

Shannon Smith.

Page four.

Page four.

Weakman 03594.

Okay.

Councilmember Ward.

Oh, found it.

Okay.

Thank you.

Okay.

Colleagues.

At this time, I move the committee recommends confirmation of the appointment.

Is there a second?

Second.

Second.

Awesome.

It's been moved and second to recommend confirmation of the appointment.

Are there any final comments?

Councilmember Warriors.

No, I'm good.

Thank you.

Okay.

It's been moved in second to recommend confirmation of the appointment.

Will the clerk please call the roll on the recommendation to confirm the appointment?

It's 930 a.m.

on a Thursday.

We've been in budget meetings for the last two weeks, so we're just rolling with it.

Go ahead.

Councilmember Kettle?

Aye.

Councilmember Rivera?

Aye.

Vice Chair Juarez?

Aye.

Chair Hollingsworth?

Yes.

Chair, there are four in favor and none opposed.

Awesome.

Motion carries.

The committee recommendation will be sent to October 20th City Council meeting.

Congratulations CTO Smith.

Looking forward to confirmation.

Congratulations.

Awesome.

Thank you.

Congratulations.

Good job.

Thank you so much.

Okay, we're gonna now do agenda item number two.

And for the public that is watching, this is how we roll in our governance meeting.

Will the clerk please read item number two into the record?

Agenda item two, information item 2953, introduction to appointment of city auditor Thandi Mong for briefing discussion and possible vote.

Awesome, thank you.

And I believe we have, if I can see, yeah, online, we have Thandi Meng, and I know you go by D, but thank you all, we're transitioning.

We have our information technology people, staff in the audience, others making that transition.

Thank you all for being here, for all the work that you do.

Thank you mayor's office.

Thank you CTO Smith as well.

Thank you so much.

And so now we have introduction to the appointment of the city auditor, Thandi Meng, and this is gonna be for briefing and discussion, colleagues.

Thandi, I believe you're online and you wanna just go open up with some comments and then we'll just jump into some questions.

Thank you, Chair.

I just wanted to do a sound check.

Can you hear me well?

Yes.

We can hear you well, loud and clear.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Good morning, Chair and Honourable Members of the Governance and Utilities Committee.

My name is Thandi Mao, candidate for the City Auditor position.

Thank you very much for having me today.

I have been very grateful for the transparent and streamlined process, and I want to publicly thank Director Maribel Centino, HRT, and everyone who was involved in this process along the way.

Also, I appreciate the Acting City Auditor Arushi Fakulo for her leadership and support for the City Auditor's Office while finding the next City Auditor.

I am incredibly excited to have the opportunity to serve you and the residents of this amazing Emerald City.

I am attracted to the nature, lush evergreen forests, excellent green spaces and crisp and clean air, as well as the innovative community and culture that Seattle offers.

I'm very impressed by the reputation, high standards, a team with talented auditors that the Office of the City Auditor holds.

Seattle will be the third major city that I serve and this will give me the opportunity to continue my public service in the local government.

I chose my career in government because I wanted to give back to the country that adopted me.

And I chose public service in local government as I want to be closer to the public.

As you all know, a lot of service delivery points are at the local government level.

I am passionate about performance auditing.

It allows us to look at the bigger picture, evaluating whether programs are actually achieving their intended goals and identifying systematic ways to improve public services.

I am aware of the holistic challenges that the city is currently facing, and I want to be part of finding sustainable solutions.

I can bring nearly 20 years of local government auditing experience in two major cities, Dallas and Baltimore, to improve public accountability, helping Seattle ensure the city is using resources with economy, efficiency and effectiveness.

My role is to serve the public objectively, while serving city council members equally and supporting and developing city auditors office staff.

I cannot do this job alone.

My approach has always been and always will be a collaborative approach, working together with all stakeholders, including management and administration, to find solutions.

Throughout each of our conversations and meetings, I hope you have seen my experience, knowledge and skills.

I am confident that I can meaningfully contribute in building the thriving communities.

I am enthusiastic about all opportunities that the position will offer.

With that, I thank you for your consideration.

Awesome.

Thank you, Fandy.

Really appreciate your time.

You know, for the viewing public, we've spent a lot of time during the search process for this city auditor.

And I want to thank my colleagues who engaged on this process.

I know you've met with, I believe, all council members as well.

Thank you so much for that.

And then some council members also served on the search committee as well.

and I feel really good about this, but I wanna pause here to see if my colleagues have any questions for you.

This is the second of two meetings on this appointment.

Prior to this meeting, written questions were sent to Ms. Meng and she shared her written responses, which have been attached to this agenda.

And so just wanted to pause here to see if anyone had any questions.

Council Member Kettle or comments.

Thank you, Chair, and thank you, Ms. Meng, for being here and for starting this process, this journey that has got us to this point.

I happen to be part of the review process early on, so I have my packet.

I reviewed all the candidates, to include yourself, so I'm not coming in at the end.

I was there at the beginning of this process, a fascinating look into the auditor, inspector general kind of world and so I really appreciated that opportunity and clearly you have a very strong background, multiple cities as you noted, looking at how each is different and how that helps in terms of broadening your experience and so forth, and then helping set up for this opportunity here in Seattle.

And we had a very good conversation in my office, so thank you for that.

I just have one thing, and it's come up just recently, and I was reviewing the questions.

For those listening in, we do have all these questions.

the ones for Ms. Smith that we just voted on, and then I have yours as well.

And I was reviewing them, and I just wanted to highlight one thing.

and this goes to communications and like there's one question about how can you improve collaboration among the city council, city departments, OCA while preserving independence and by the way that is the most important thing and we're doing that on some other fronts as well here in council but I just wanted to speak to communications and make an ask that, you know, to be, to have the team be proactive in its communications with the council.

And so I bring this up because their city auditor report was done recently and released, and it related to our technology program in public safety, and specifically it was primarily focus on the S-dot cameras and their tie-in to the Real-Time Crime Center.

It was a good report, I appreciate very much.

The challenge is it was released on a Friday afternoon at which time as it happens I was on an airplane to San Diego and so it came out and then it was going to go public on Monday afternoon.

Somehow by Monday or Tuesday, Seattle Times had a full article on it.

They had quotes from the ACLU but there was no quotes or background on this from the council or from other departments like Seattle Police Department.

and this is an issue because when people read these articles they can think different things based on how it's written without the context.

So for example, there's issues with the non-public cameras that SDOT has.

So they're using, SPD is using the public cameras because as it turns out, there's some technical issues with the type of camera that are associated with the non-public SDOT cameras.

And also, and this goes to another article talking about the number of cameras, the entire set of s-dot cameras hasn't been connected in.

There's some technological issues.

Each one, there's some unique pieces to each, and there's only about 100 that are connected.

And I raise this because if, for example, the report was released to us on Monday afternoon and then was going to the public on Wednesday afternoon, all these pieces could have been brought up, whereas if it comes out on a Friday afternoon, next thing you know it, or in a situation where information is being put out, comments are made from a selected source of stakeholders, and that creates some challenges.

So I just bring this up in a sense of, in terms of communications and release, if it does go out Friday be proactive in terms of engaging specific offices and departments and to council offices saying hey this is here and then or to maybe have it in such a way that it's not being released on a Friday afternoon before the weekend that would be helpful so I just wanted to bring this up because At the same time, let me add, just to be clear, it was a great report and it highlighted an issue where SDOT is not one of the entities that report to my committee directly.

It's through the Transportation Committee.

And so it's kind of like a different type of seam issue in the sense of, It's not one of those committees, but it's tying into the police department, which is part of my purview as Chair of Public Safety.

And this is something that I should have been working with Chair Saka of the Transportation Committee to ensure all T's are crossed and I's are dotted.

and the City Auditor's report did a great job in doing that.

So at the end of the day, great job on the report, we're gonna use it, we'll follow up on it, plus other reports.

And the IG, for example, the OIG did an entire set for the technology programs and so we'll have that.

But I just wanted to highlight that from like a communications piece and just for the team there to be mindful about how things are used, how the report is used, and so forth.

So thank you, Ms. Meng.

I really appreciate you being here and all the work you've done to get to this point.

Thank you, Chair.

Awesome, great comments, Councilmember Kettle.

Are there other?

I see Councilmember Rivera.

Thank you, Chair.

I want to thank you, Ms. Monk, for having a conversation.

Really enjoyed meeting you.

And I really appreciate our conversation about the importance of and you mentioned today in your comments the importance of audits so that our constituents can feel confident in the work that we're doing, the fiscal work that we're doing in providing the services to them.

That is a really important piece that obviously the auditor's office, it is their function.

And I very much appreciate it that you feel as strongly as I do that audits provide us the opportunity.

I see it as an opportunity to be able to right size things that are not going well and to really give the public the confidence that we really are taking our work seriously, all of us collectively at the city.

and I will say that sometimes I find that folks might be resistant to audits but I do see them as opportunities and we talked about this too because if things aren't going well and it gets too far down a path it really inhibits our ability to provide services for folks and to do those corrections.

And so, you know, to me, it is one.

And in fact, audits are a chartered responsibility.

It's part of our chartered responsibility to really do audits and provide that fiscal oversight in that way.

And I actually recently looked this up.

So it is part of our chartered responsibility and one that I take very seriously.

And, you know, we've seen at the county level more recently and you and I talked about, I believe we talked about the, they had some human services contracts that were audited and unfortunately some of those did not come back well and so really now the county will have the opportunity to right size those contracts.

Similarly, as we also talked about, I've called for an HSD audit here at the city because we have similar providers that we work with and you know it is something that cities should really embrace and counties and just government in general because as I said it really does afford us the opportunity to ensure that we are providing the services to the folks that really need it and if providers are not doing what they need to be doing those services aren't going to get to the people that we want to help.

and so that is another reason why these audits are so important and also because you know it's important to show our work and if we're doing great then we should show that too because that does inspire the confidence and if we're not then we shouldn't be afraid to to you know pull the curtain back and say you know that did not go well and we're gonna fix this and that is really important.

So you really appreciate that you shared, you know, the same feelings and thoughts and I really look forward to working with you on just not only the HSD audit but other audits that we're calling for at the city to make sure that we are actually helping the folks that we're setting out to help and that we can inspire confidence with our constituents.

Thank you, Chair.

Awesome, thank you Councilmember Rivera for that.

Did you have any response, Thandi?

I don't want to interject.

Well, thank you very much.

I think that I answered similar things in question number three.

So yes, one of the opportunity that we have is we can increase the revenue and we can decrease the expenditure.

What I mean by that is we can look at state or federal funded programs or city funded programs and we can make sure that we are spending in accordance with the contracts and make sure that we are spending wisely.

Awesome, thank you so much for that.

Any more comments?

Number one, I really appreciate the answers to your questions.

One thing that really stood out to me is that our Auditor's Office compared to other major cities is a little bit smaller.

and our budget is a little bit smaller as well.

And that was brought to our attention when we were doing a lot of the interviews with other people and that was brought up about kind of our capacity and wanting to continue to invest in our auditor's office because I think as we continue to get bigger as a city and we have more contracts and there's just a lot going on.

The public wants to know and have information, knowing that we are using tax dollars wisely and not only wisely, but they're having the impact that they should.

It's not about the amount, but the impact that that they should.

So I really appreciated you identifying that and naming that as well.

Is there any more other comments, Council Member Juarez, Vice Chair?

No, thank you.

I'm good.

Thank you, Chair.

Okay, thank you.

I appreciate you, Vice Chair.

Okay, colleagues.

Well, with that, are there any other final comments, Ms. Meng, before we recommend or before we take a vote to recommend to full council?

Well, I just wanted to thank again to everyone who got involved in this process.

Serving as the city auditor in the city that, you know, I will love and thrive.

It has been my dream and we are now in the finishing line and I really am very grateful for the opportunity and I'm very thankful for all the support that given to me during this process.

Thank you.

Awesome, thank you.

And one thing, I know there was a public comment talking about Baltimore.

I do want to say the one thing that stood out to me about your resume was your extensive time in Dallas for a long period of time.

I don't know how long you were there, like 15 years?

Correct, 15 years.

15, okay, 15 years.

And then your work that you did in Baltimore as well.

You have been there for eight years?

Almost eight, seven and a half.

Okay, I got seven.

Okay, I got my numbers right.

15 and eight years and your experience in that.

So I think you're gonna be a great addition to our city.

So thank you.

And now that brings us to, I'm gonna move that the committee recommends confirmation and referral of the appointment to the city council for confirmation at the December 8th city council meeting.

Is there a second?

Second.

Second.

It's been moved and second to confirm and refer the appointment to the December 8th City Council meeting.

Are there any other final comments?

Will the clerk please call the roll on the recommendation?

Council Member Kettle?

Aye.

Council Member Rivera?

Aye.

Vice Chair Juarez?

Chair Hollingsworth.

Yes.

Four in favor and not opposed.

Motion carries.

Committee's action will be forwarded to the City Council for recommendation to refer the appointment to the City Council with a December 8th confirmation vote.

And I know that Ms. Meng, you'll be here in person as well for that meeting.

So we're looking forward to seeing you on December the 8th.

Thank you so much.

Really appreciate you being here and we'll see you in December.

Congratulations.

Thank you very much.

I look forward to the next.

Thank you.

Awesome.

Colleagues, this brings us to the end of our October 8th governance and utilities meeting.

This is our fastest meeting.

You're welcome, colleagues.

I'm just playing.

So I think thank you all for being here.

I do.

I do want to say, and I actually am also going to say this on October the 20th when we have a full council meeting as well.

I have been reading signs and this has nothing to do with you, Thandi.

This is something else.

So you're all good.

But I've been reading just information or people's comments or we had the public hearing and some remarks have been made towards my colleague, Councilmember Kettle, KKK Kettle.

And I want to name that and just really push back on that and I'll say this on October the 20th because I do think those are very hurtful and very disrespectful.

and we have freedom of speech, but I'm just going to push back on it because everyone can have freedom of speech.

But I do want to say that publicly I have appreciated Councilmember Kettles.

We might not all agree on the same things, but there are some things that Councilmember Kettle has stood up stood up for, for me personally and black community, people of color community, especially when it comes to economic mobility.

And that is the one thing that I think has always been missed in this conversation is about the economic mobility in our community and the wealth gap.

and every single time I have brought to this body of redistribution of wealth, making sure that people of color or women had opportunities for that equal distribution of economic mobility, whether it's in contracts, whether it's investment in our community, Councilmember Kettle has always voted yes.

He has always supported that movement.

He has always said, what can I do?

How can I, you know, support this?

And I just wanted to say, Councilor Mercado, I appreciate that.

And I'll say that today.

And I'll say that on October the 20th as well, because that's the one thing that has been missed in this conversation.

And I, whether it's been on reparations, whether it's been on the CD Southend Central District Fund, whether it's been on participatory budgeting, I can go down the line and I cannot wait to talk about the investments that the last two and a half, three years that this council has made towards different communities and all the times that you have stood up for that and have voted yes on that, okay?

So I just wanted to name that and I will say that on October the 20th as well because a lot of those signs, people can have freedom of speech, but I'm gonna stand up and say what I believe to be true, so.

Madam Chair, Madam Chair, I have a point of- Thank you.

Thank you for allowing me to begin.

Again, Council President, this is why your leadership is so important.

I too was disturbed by that sign with people with such a dark chapter in our history of the KKK and to use it so, I don't know, just so hatefully.

It's beyond not just triggering, but it doesn't speak to the morality and the values and the sensibilities of Seattle.

And if you're using that to be demonstrative, you're not getting your point across, all I see is hate.

Councilman Rakettle has been phenomenal in working.

We don't always agree, but on public safety, Indigenous communities, Indigenous led nonprofits, also in public safety, our issue with people dying on the streets from fentanyl and overdoses, working with Council Member Kettle on sex trafficking on North Aurora, also the shooting at the Bight of Seattle, I could rattle off like you did, Council President.

And I think that's the sign of a good leader, that they're willing to take a stand.

And I guess it's, and I don't normally like to use this word, but unfortunate, that people show up at City Hall with the most vile signs, not knowing that the power behind those kind of words in the history is incredibly dense with hate.

And, you know, I've been at this job long enough to see a lot of ugly stuff.

So I'm glad, Council President, and I want to thank Council Member Kettle, but particularly you, Council President, for stepping up and showing the leadership that you have as council president to call this stuff out because it's not easy and obviously it is not lost on anyone as an African American woman leader in the community and in business it speaks volumes so thank you for that and thank you for your leadership.

Thank you, Councilmember Juarez.

Councilmember Rivera.

Thank you.

Agreed.

Thank you, Councilmember Hollingsworth, for your leadership.

And, you know, yes, freedom of speech is really important.

It's why so many people have come to this country, because there are a lot of other countries where freedom of speech is not allowed.

However, there is hate speech.

and that kind of rhetoric is hate speech.

And it is really disturbing when people hide behind hate speech to really, To me, if you don't like what counsel is doing, of course you have every right to say so, but to attack someone personally with what I consider to be hate speech.

It is not necessary and in this case is also not true.

So I wanna thank you for taking time this morning to actually for the record state that I agree with what's been said.

I too support my colleague, council member Kettle.

I have found him to be very supportive of certainly my community as well.

and so thank you for taking the time.

And I also wanna say across our city, I'm seeing a lot of hateful rhetoric and I don't think that is healthy for our city.

It is really disturbing to see.

I'm seeing a lot of antisemitism and rise of, and I think that is also hateful.

I think people can disagree, and I think when you start to in very aggressive, violent ways attack people for who they are, that's not what this country was built on.

And that makes me really sad for our city, and I just think people need to think about the things that they are saying because we do have freedom of speech and I've worked at the ACLU, so super support freedom of speech and also some of that speech can cross over to hate speech and that's not okay.

So thank you for raising that.

Council Member Kettle, you have my support always.

I really wanna thank you.

and thank you council member Hollingsworth for having the courage to really stand up this morning and say so for the record, I really appreciate your leadership on that.

And thank you council member Juarez for always saying the things that need to be said.

Thank you colleagues.

Thank you council member Rivera.

And I will be sure to share my comments on October the 20th at full council meeting, because I have more detailed information that I would like to express as well about my feelings towards a lot of a lot of other things.

All right.

So thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you, colleagues.

Thank you, Ms. Meng.

Really appreciate you as well.

We'll see you in December as well.

And if there's no further business, guess what?

That is gonna be the end of our meeting.

It is 1024 AM.

Appreciate you all.