Public Safety Committee 3/24/2026

So good morning.

The Public Safety Committee will come to order.

It's 9.33 a.m.

March 24, 2026. I'm Robert Kettle, Chair of the Public Safety Committee.

Will the Committee Clerk please call the roll?

Council Member Juarez.

Here, thank you.

Councilmember Lin.

Present.

Councilmember Rivera.

Present.

Councilmember Saka.

Here.

Chair Kettle.

Here.

Chair, there are five members present.

Five members present, and we're joined this morning by Councilmember Rink.

Thank you.

Okay, starting off with chair comment.

I wanted to speak- obviously on today's agenda we have AOPR and the issues of surveillance have been front and center in the city across the board to include with the mayor's recent announcement that she made her remarks in her press conference that she had.

I wanted to, as Chair of Public Safety, to speak to the remarks, starting off with privacy and data governance audits.

You know, I support this.

But it's important to note, too, that the SUR process, the Surveillance Impact Report process, is very detailed, as was the legislative process over four bills for ALPR, automatic license plate reader, CCTV and the Real Time Crime Center, not to mention the budget bill that we had in respect to this program as well.

Key to this audit is the fact that it needs to be complete by the FIFA World Cup.

It is so important to have this done.

So in the end, I welcome the review but the program, in addition to above, is also being reviewed by the University of Pennsylvania.

So I think it's important to note that, yes, the mayor can do her due diligence, particularly from the policy side, but this program has been looked through again and again through the surveillance impact reports, the legislative process, and it's going to be done through this UPenn program.

On the expansion pause, I think it's really important to note and, you know, I support the installation of the cameras in the stadium districts, but this is something that has to happen and it needs to be turned on in support of FIFA World Cup.

You know, my question regarding credible threat warnings is how do you define a credible threat warning?

It's not best practice to have the system and just have it turned off and, you know, say, hey, if we get a credible threat, we're just going to turn it on quickly.

As somebody who worked in the intelligence security world, I think about 9-11.

I think about being in European command in Germany during the East Africa bombings.

We were well aware of Al-Qaeda and Bin Laden.

And after the coal bombing in 2000, when I was at Sixth Fleet based out of Italy, we were on that 100%.

And we were working it hard.

I was one of those people that read the chatter in the lead up to 9-11.

And on 9-11, was there a credible threat warning that Al-Qaeda was going to use planes as weapons to go into buildings?

No.

That's personal experience, but let's think about it from the context of a, you know, municipal.

Let's think about 1996 and the Summer Olympics in Atlanta.

Was there a credible threat warning that there was going to be a bombing at that Olympics?

No, there wasn't.

And it should be noted too that we're in a heightened threat environment because of, especially because of the Iran war.

And it's important to note that Iran was scheduled to play here on Pride weekend.

And I think it's important among different other reasons to also look out for LGBTQ plus community.

You know, if you look at how countries or organizations target, they look for soft targets.

We should be thinking about these things as we, you know, go through.

And again, how do you define credible threat warning?

I'm concerned about that.

Also, I support the adjustment of the installed camera that is nearby a reproductive health facility.

I understand.

that there was masking and that is part of the system.

But I appreciate, you know, this additional quality control check and I understand that the blurring approach is one piece, but we can go further with this adjustment.

And this is an opportunity to note too that our system does not have any facial recognition built into it.

That was a purposeful choice on our part, not to include facial recognition to our system.

I say this out loud because different people say different things and they think they know the program, they think they know the protocols of the program, they think they know all the decisions that went into the program to include incorporating Seattle values, incorporating the idea that we're not going to include facial recognition.

It's important to highlight this because it gets lost sometimes in the discussion on the topic.

on the idea of stopping in a federal law enforcement surge.

If there was to be a surge here like in Minneapolis, first thing is I want to note that our ALPR system, CCTV and real-time crime center system, has not been abused.

There have been no subpoenas received.

ALPR started in the end of 24, 25 with CCTV.

There's been no subpoenas.

But here's the key thing.

We already have protocols in place in the event of an intrusion or a subpoena.

In fact, we're gonna build on that today with ALPR.

We have it with CCTV, and in fact, we would have it for the entire system, but we're gonna go forward today and have that 60-day pause if there was an intrusion, if it was to be, quote, unquote, abused.

And it's important when there's crises to not just have a quick reaction.

Again, we have protocols, we have a checklist on this.

But importantly, our system could help us.

We just passed a bill on staging.

Cameras, the systems could be very helpful in terms of documenting that, if that was to happen.

And then we could assist the city attorney in terms of getting injunctive relief.

the system could be documenting actions that we saw in Minneapolis where we had ill-disciplined operations, we had law enforcement that was not following its policy and directives and had poor leadership.

If we had that here, our system could be helping us document that, which is a key thing in terms of our approach to federal law enforcement as we know regarding our Seattle Police Department in terms of engaging and confirming and documenting.

So this is something that we need to be thinking about.

And I would add, by the way, with the massive plus-up of dollars for the DHS, the Department of Homeland Security, they have their own systems.

They're working with different contractors and they have their own systems.

And so it is possible that they would come to our, you know, look to intrude or, you know, work their way into our system.

but I'd argue most likely it's going to be a situation where they already have their system because if you think about the dollars that are being spent right now in DHS and federal law enforcement, it's incredible.

And I saw the first round of this 20 years ago and, you know, post 9-11 and the lead up to the Iraq war.

And the last thing I wanted to say, I think it's important to have the concept of operational risk management be in play here.

Operational risk management is the idea that you look at the different pieces and you you take in account the probabilities, you look at the different pieces, and I would say relative to federal law enforcement with the attributes of our systems, we've mitigated that to such a large degree, and now it's being augmented by what's happening in Olympia on the state level.

So we're addressing that, and if something does go sideways, we have again the protocol for the 60-day pause.

Now on the other side, the system is creating benefits in terms of improving our public safety posture.

So this is key with operational risk management is to look at this and look at it holistically and say, hey, what are we doing here and when do we do it?

On the ALPR pause that the mayor called for, yes, we have to do that, state law.

You know, states coming in, we have to look at our system particularly in the area of mobility as it relates to areas that, you know, that's prohibited in respect to ALPR and we have to adjust our system.

We have to fix our system and that's legally required to ensure compliance.

And so I agree with the ALPAR piece.

We have to look at it.

We have to understand the state law.

We're going to speak to that today and then we can move forward.

But here's the thing.

If you look at all the protections that we have with our automatic license plate reader program, With all those amendments done by people like my colleague, Councilmember Rivera, our former colleague, Councilmember Moore, all of the above, and additional amendments that we've gotten on our systems from everybody on our Council, that we're, again, we're improving on today, item one.

If you combine that with the state law, the 21-day piece, the PDR exemption, the public disclosure request exemption, that combination between our system, our protocols, and what the state has done, essentially has addressed the issue of ALPR, and so that we can just move forward.

We just need to adjust our program to fit state law, and we are good to go.

You know, in Mayor Wilson's comments at the end, towards the end, she says, hey, let's work together.

And I agree.

And I've been working with her team on various public safety issues and, you know, discussions with her to include on federal law enforcement.

And so I agree.

And to include doing the due diligence on the privacy and the data governance audit.

You know, this is good governance.

And, you know, I support, you know, reviewing and working together.

And I think that is important.

and we need to set up our public safety for success.

And I think we have the chance to do that.

The one last thing I'd say is that, you know, the mayor, Mayor Wilson and I, in fact, everybody on this dais plus Mayor Wilson took an oath.

We took an oath to the Constitution, the State of Washington Constitution.

We also took an oath to the charter, city charter, and the ordinances of the City of Seattle.

And as I noted, we had four ordinances.

on surveillance that built on the original surveillance ordinance that were augmented by our budget ordinance where we put a proviso on these technology programs in terms of the money.

So I think we should look at that oath, reflect on it, and then go to the point about let's working together.

I, as chair of this committee, have been working with stakeholders across the board, my colleagues on the dais and in the council, working with the city attorney, you know, the mayor's office, previous mayor, the departments to get us where we are right now with this technology programs.

And I think we can move forward.

I think we can do that in partnership with Mayor Wilson.

And so I say, hey, let's live our oath.

Let's live the point that you said in terms of let's working together and let's do so related to this program of surveillance.

Colleagues, that's my chair comment for this morning.

So we'll move We'll move after asking if there's no objection, the agenda will be adopted.

Hearing and seeing no objection, the agenda is adopted.

So we'll move to public comment.

And by the way, I'd like to thank everybody for being here given how dark and stormy it is outside.

I really appreciate it.

So Clerk, we will now open the hybrid public comment period.

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

Clerk, how many speakers are signed up for today?

Currently we have six in-person speakers and two remote.

Okay, each speaker will have two minutes and we'll start with the in-person speakers and do all six and then go to remote.

Clerk, can you please read the public comment instructions?

The public comment period will be moderated in the following manner.

The public comment period is up to 60 minutes.

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

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

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

The public comment period is now open and we'll begin with the first speaker on the list.

We'll be going recognizing a previous service on the council and going with the first in-person speaker, Tanya Wu.

Welcome former council member, Tanya Wu.

Hi, thank you.

I'm a little sick today, so hopefully I'm understandable.

So my name is Tonya Wu, and I'm not coming to you today as a former council member.

I'm coming to you today as a community member, affordable housing provider, as well as an organizer for a mutual aid group.

and I am here to talk about public safety with how it pertains to the Chinatown International District.

So later today, I along with a couple of community members will be here during the regular council meeting presenting to you a petition regarding our cameras.

I believe it's up to the council and the state to protect our most marginalized populations.

We have 2,500 seniors and community elders who appreciate and support what this Public Safety Council is doing.

We trust Council Chair Bob Kettle and all the work that he's putting out there.

During the summer, and as you can see on the SPD safety dashboard, A lot of crime in the city went down, but in the Chinatown International District, it went up.

And there are a lot of drug use, especially at 12th and Jackson, where we do have cameras.

During the summer, there were some stabbings, there were shootings in that area, and I immediately ran up there because I want to make sure our elders are safe.

I want to make sure if there is a subject description that we get that out there so our elders are aware and they could watch out.

It's great to hear from officers that, hey, we caught this shooting on CCTV and we know who this person is.

We're gonna pick them up right now.

We checked the park.

We checked all the major areas and we don't see him.

That is a lot of relief for many of our community elders to be able to not be part of that fear.

As you remember a couple years ago there was somebody who came through the CID and was stabbing our elders and that was very scary.

And so I hope you will listen when they come today and I hope you will really consider what they're saying.

Thank you.

Next up we have Lawrence Evans to be followed by Tom Graff.

Good morning.

I live in District 7, and I have grave concerns about Katie's decision on the activation of the additional cameras.

Honestly, my biggest fear is it's going to lead to her shutting off others in the city.

A week ago, I was walking back from a PT therapy session on the corner of Fifth and Blanchard.

I live First in Virginia.

As I was walking, I noticed that there were several tents.

set up on Blanchard, and I decided to take my camera out and photograph them so that I could use the find it, fix it application.

And as I continued my walk down Blanchard past one of the tents, one of the homeless people threatened me obscenities were watching you.

I called the police the following day and filed a report, still submitted the Find It, Fix It to hopefully address the situation.

But reality is we need these cameras all over the city, not just in my neighborhood, especially with the World Cup coming.

I just want to state my case as a resident, as a senior citizen, and I live amongst many others that have the same feelings and concerns.

So from my perspective, I'm hoping that you guys can influence Katie's decision to change her decision and reinstate these, activate the new cameras, as well as keep the ones in place.

Thank you.

Good morning.

I'm Tom Graff.

I chair Belltown United.

I am a member of the Belltown Business Association.

I manage a commercial real estate company.

I live and work in Belltown.

If anyone thinks that the small businesses in our communities are having a great time with property crime, you've got it wrong.

we have a lot of problems on our streets, and these cameras help the situation with the small business owners.

I walked Belltown with the West Precinct captain, and I assure you the police use these cameras to help them with their understaffing, and it helps the situation on the street.

I want the program expanded, not contracted, and certainly with FIFA around the corner and Pioneer Square.

We must activate these cameras for Pioneer Square.

There's a lot of small businesses down there that are struggling with crime and certainly with FIFA.

we can't wait for this credible threat.

We know there could be a threat during FIFA in Seattle, and I encourage you to work with the mayor, and I would ask the mayor to work with the small business owners if we're going to work together and get this program expanded in time for FIFA.

Thank you.

Next up, we have Jeffrey Silverman to be followed by Craig Thompson.

I am Jeff Silverman and I propose that the city conduct an extensive earthquake drill soon.

I'm an old Boy Scout and old Explorer Search and Rescue member.

I am the hub captain of the Hallow Lake Emergency Hub.

I aspire to join Seattle ACS and I'm currently in training with the requisite FEMA classes and will take the required training this weekend.

At the meeting commemorating the 2001 Nisqually earthquake, Amanda Hemholtz called me a disaster nerd, and I think she's right.

While my experience as a hub captain informs my thinking about disasters, I want to emphasize that I'm speaking for myself and nobody else.

I'm not authorized to make any agreement or offer any assistance other than my own blood, sweat, and tears.

And full disclosure, I've donated 110 units of blood in my lifetime, so I'm all in.

Sometime soon, I'd like to see the city practice an earthquake drill involving all the government agencies, FEMA, Washington State Emergency Management, King County Emergency Management, the Seattle OEM, SPD, FFD, and the Seattle Public Schools, and non-government agencies such as Seattle Emergency Hubs, the Auxiliary Communications Service, the Red Cross, WA-SAFE, et cetera.

I would like the OEM and Seattle ACS to staff the EOC at 5th and Washington.

I would like to use our radios to test how well our emergency communications work at large scale.

I've participated in large hub drills and small hub drills, and I believe in that concept of having small autonomous units, that's a recipe for resilience.

But we can't ignore the fact there are three quarters of a million people in this city, some of whom do not speak English, some of whom are children, and some of whom, I'm sorry to say, are stupid.

So those of us who think about disasters have to think about these things at large scale.

I'm happy to work with anybody in this committee who wants me to work with in order to make this happen.

I have to assume that the Public Safety Committee has the requisite knowledge to tell me where to go and who to talk to and perhaps make an introduction for me.

Thank you.

I am Craig Thompson.

I have tree allergies.

This is not my Bill Clinton impersonation.

For 23 years, I've been a steward in what is called the jungle.

The jungle is not really a place.

It is a social condition in Seattle.

I live on the northern tip of Beacon Hill.

Today, we have four parks that are in effect, no longer in the control of the city of Seattle.

It is not just that there are lots of homeless people who are camping there.

Instead, a group that is associated with organized crime has taken over the area and is moving large amounts of fentanyl, not only into District 2, but also into 1, 3, 5, and 7. I know this because I have tracked vehicles, cars, electric bikes that runners use to come to my neighborhood and then to take it away.

In 2016, then Council President Bruce Harrell asked me to put together a proposal that would solve the various issues that affect my particular stewardship.

Even though I do not believe that that proposal was enacted, many of the points that I had made then were indeed put into place independently.

I believe what is needed now is the formation of an interagency task force between the state, city, and county in order to address the myriad situations that we face.

I've been a liaison in the past for such a task force under Greg Nichols' administration, and I worked very closely with the mayor of the administration too.

I believe now is the time that we can put together that task force.

We do not need any more of the Seattle salute.

What we need instead is to come together and to work and solve these issues, and we can do it together now.

Thank you very much.

Next up we have Andrea Suarez.

Perfect, thank you.

I'll stay on topic with the camera first and foremost.

Tulsa, Oklahoma had 100% homicide clearance rate in 2023, 24 and five because the criminals knew there were cameras all over that state.

In fact, they stopped shooting cops and robbers film because there was nothing left to film.

Crime went completely down in terms of homicide there.

So I'm pro-camera, solving hate crimes and kidnappings and murders, crimes against seniors, and also this illegal dumping thing that we see in our parks, tires, propane tanks, copper wire stripping.

stolen line bike batteries.

In District 2, we cleared 50,000 pounds of trash in three 40-yard dumpsters a couple weeks ago, spending $50,000 of private donations on staff, safety, trucks, gas, and dump fees to clear south end of Chiesty Park.

And so we know these areas could use cameras to deter, deter, deter, and then prevent.

So pro camera here from Camp WeHeart Seattle.

Also just from a cultural standpoint, I guess I'll go and kind of piggyback on what I'm seeing in District 2 as well.

I'm kind of getting famous for carrying around my bag of fentanyl foils.

Often some of these are still loaded with drugs.

This was picked up in Sturgis, Lewis, Dr. Jose, and Dijon Park.

These are playgrounds, these are for dogs, these are for kids, these are for families.

The foil is rampant.

I just got back from San Francisco last weekend and saw no foil.

Why?

Because they stopped handing it out.

So these are some things we can do.

Also from a cultural standpoint, why is 12th and Jackson a hot spot?

Why is 3rd and Pine, 1st and Blanchard, 2nd and Lenora?

The commonality of each of those corners are smoke shops.

What do the smoke shops sell?

meth pipes, fentanyl tutors, little drug paraphernalia so you can be the perfect drug dealer.

So we encourage this culture.

So until we start passing legislation that zones out the ability to sell, Dan's Market sells the pipes, the Smoke Shop on First and Bell, this is how we can start to create legislation to stop this type of distribution of these enablement paraphernalia.

Thank you.

Yeah, thank you.

The first remote speaker will be Gary Lee followed by David Haynes.

Please press star six when you hear the prompt, you have been unmuted.

Hello, I'm Gary Lee from the CAD and I'm a member of the Public Safety Council.

in the CAD and I'd like to thank CM Kettle for his opening remarks.

They were right on and they were so accurate and hopefully they'll bring memory and knowledge to those new members of the council.

And I want to thank Andrea Suarez for her just recent remarks just now.

She is so right on.

I'm against the CB 121180 as I believe that the pauses will just most likely create 60 days of crime, unmitigated, and they will mostly add to the problems with 12th and Jackson and third Pike.

So I am totally for the cameras and the technology, and we need to keep it up and we need to not put on these strange and weird pauses.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Alright, next up we have David Haynes.

Alright, thank you David Haynes.

If this council put half the effort into combating the drug pushers that you all put into acting like the federal government is your biggest threat, perhaps you could solve the problem of bodies dropping dead on 3rd Avenue.

Yet, with the facial recognition, all these people overreacted to make it more difficult to get advanced technology like a drone to follow back the predatory drug pusher that keeps supplying the open drug markets in and around third.

But we see people overreacting because they're concerned about surveillance cameras, yet they don't see anything about it inside the corridor.

when it comes to running interference for drug pushers in downtown and all around Seattle, it seems to be baked into the budget and the training of the police where they'd rather come up with excuses of staffing and wrap fences around the alleyways in downtown to appease the Chamber of Commerce and sweep a whole bunch of evil predatory customs violators who never would trespass and put on a proper path of punishment and behavioral crisis and drug treatment.

And they came up to Belltown and to Chinatown and made it worse.

And the same bad policies that Bruce Harrell created when he started running interference is still being followed.

And nobody wants to address that.

They want a virtue signal about how much their data concerned about surveillance by the police state of the federal government like all these people are living vicariously through the past and they're getting in the way of proper policy and you all are nowhere near close, you're nowhere near close being prepared for FIFA and just the general stinks of any innocent resident going downtown, it's unsafe because you all have bad policy.

Okay, public comment period has expired.

We'll now proceed to our items of business.

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

Before moving on, I do want to thank former Councilmember Wu for being here.

And I also wanted to note, I have an email from Mr. Craig Thompson and also Genevieve Courtney.

related to this and it reminds me of a recent public safety walk that Councilmember Lin and I had in North Beacon Hill that then went into Little Saigon and basically the CID and it was really illuminating and the points made by pretty much every speaker really backed up what we saw in our public safety walk and what's documented here in this email from Mr. Thompson and Ms. Courtney.

So thank you, I actually have it here.

But I want to close by saying I have a soft spot for all disaster nerds.

I was at the meeting with Amanda and yes, we need to do more on earthquake drills and we need SNAP captains and all the arrests plus hub captains.

So thank you for your service in terms of that.

and again, we need more disaster nerds.

Okay, with that set, we'll now move on to our first item of business.

Will the clerk please read item one into the record?

Council Bill 121180, an ordinance relating to inquiries into immigration status changing the requirements for circumstances where police, Seattle Police Department personnel may inquire into a person's citizenship or immigration status to align with Seattle Municipal Code with state law.

and amending section 4.18.015 of the Seattle Municipal Code.

Okay, Mr. Johnson from Central Staff.

A, you've already joined us at the table, but introduce yourself for the record and then give a background on Council Bill 121180. Thank you.

Thank you, Chair Kettle.

Members of the committee, Tommaso Johnson from your Council Central Staff.

I'm going to provide a brief summary and some context of Council Bill 121180. on immigration status inquiries.

Just as general background, administration enforcement of U.S. immigration law is exclusively a function of the federal government.

federal law prohibits states or municipalities from enacting laws that would restrict sharing of immigration status from the municipalities back to the federal government, but it does not restrict our ability to change how we collect that information.

In 2019, the Washington State Legislature passed the Keep Washington Working Act, as applied to Washington cities.

Keep Washington Working does several things, but most germane to this conversation is it imposes certain restrictions on the collection of immigration status information, including those that specifically apply to state and local law enforcement.

That state law provision restricts local law enforcement from inquiring into immigration status unless there is a connection between this information and an investigation into a violation of state or local criminal law.

So I would say the important pieces there are both that connection between and the fact that this restriction specifies that immigration status must have a connection to state or local law as opposed to a federal law immigration violation.

As a general matter, when Washington State has authority over an area of law and chooses to regulate in a specific and controlled way, state law is considered to supersede any conflicting local law and be the dispositive legal authority.

In terms of the City of Seattle current law environment, the current policy in Seattle was created in 2003. There's an ordinance that people may be familiar with, which is generally referred to as the Don't Ask Ordinance, that imposes a general prohibition for city employees to ask about immigration status.

In the Seattle Municipal Code, there is a current city law exception to that describing the circumstances under which SPD officers are allowed to ask.

The criteria for that, as I'm going to describe, are slightly different from those that exist in state law.

So this current city criteria are three-part test.

Number one, that person that the SPD is interacting with has- they have reasonable suspicion to believe that, number one, they've previously been deported from the United States.

Two, that this person is again present in the United States.

And three, that the person is committing or has committed a felony criminal law violation.

So, as I mentioned before, current SMC criteria differ, both in the fact that they relate to presence in the United States, prior deportation and current presence.

Those are not city or state law criteria.

Those are federal immigration law criteria.

And the committing or has committed a felony doesn't specify that it needs to be a state law felony.

It's agnostic on that.

From a practical perspective, this city law and any other laws that govern operational policy of SPD are effectuated through the issuance of departmental policies or directives.

So what officers do or don't do on the ground level is dictated less so often by the exact letter of SMC and more so by the departmental policy, which adheres to applicable law.

I think it's important to note this just because current SPD policy, um, doesn't invoke the options contemplated by Keep Washington and Working or City Code that would allow officers to make immigration status inquiries under those circumstances I described.

Rather, it simply states that officers will not inquire about anyone's citizenship or immigration status, uh, unless, uh, exception or directive has been issued by the chief of police.

As of this time, there has not been any such directive.

So the operational policy of SPD already is to never inquire into immigration status.

So with that summary, what this bill would do, in some ways you can consider it a technical change.

It would conform Seattle Municipal Code to the 2019 changes to state law, Keep Washington Working Act, just to bring those two into alignment.

As I said before, The operational effect on what SPD will and won't do in current state is going to be non-existent, essentially, since SPD already has a policy that requires them to never ask.

But this is an important change nonetheless to ensure that city law and state law are aligned in that way.

Happy to answer any questions.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Johnson.

Yes, we have to align our city law with state law, which was in my public comment, my chair comment this morning.

Before moving on, I do want to move to recommend passage of Council Bill 121180. Is there a second?

Second.

It is moved and seconded to recommend passage of the bill.

Council member Lynn, as sponsor of the bill, thank you for that.

Would you like to address it?

Yes, thank you Chair Kettle and thank you to central staff for your work on this.

Also would like to thank Council Member Rivera for your prior bill updating Section 418 or Chapter 418 of our Seattle Municipal Code to be more in line with our current values and also to be more in line with the Keep Washington Working Act and to go further.

This update we had discussed previously.

We did not have the time at the moment to do the work, to update the prior bill and didn't want to delay that prior bill.

So we took the time to work with law and SPD to update this section and really just to align our current code with, again, with state code.

and Chair Kettle, thank you for earlier for mentioning doing the public safety walk on North Beacon.

I wanna thank the public commenters for being here today.

And just to say that we have some issues where we have tough public policy questions around how to balance things like public safety and criminal investigations and privacy.

and we can talk about those difficult discussions later, but this bill, I feel like, is sort of more of an easy one.

It is one, just to align us with the Keep Washington Working Act, but also when we think about the values of the Keep Washington Working Act, not only does it protect our neighbors, including folks who might be, you know, there might be a civil infraction related to, you know, their immigration status.

You know, that's a civil matter, not a criminal matter.

But not only it encourages people who may be undocumented to feel comfortable with local law enforcement, and so it actually, not only is it, you know, protects privacy, it also helps with public safety.

And so in that case, this should be one obviously needed to support the Keep Washington Working Act, but I think our values are in alignment there and hopefully would love your support.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Council Member Lin.

And that last point is really important.

It's about having that relationship between community and SPD and the city more generally because that communication really makes a difference.

And again, You see this, like this public safety walk that we had in North Beacon Hill and down into Little Saigon and CID is so crucial.

And these little pieces are so important.

You know, just having the lieutenant there, the precinct lieutenant from West Precinct, you know, to see and have that communication is very important.

So thank you.

All right.

So as always, I always go, before I have my hand that's up, I always go to my vice chair, Councilmember Saka.

Vice Chair Saka, do you have anything?

Otherwise, I'll go to Councilmember Rivera.

No, thank you, Chair.

Just want to thank Councilmember Lynn and you for your leadership in bringing this forward.

So thank you.

Okay, Councilmember Rivera.

Thank you, Chair.

And thank you, Council Member Lynn for allowing the time to do the due diligence on being able to move forward the bill that I brought that really had to do with ensuring that we were aligned with Keep Washington Working, but also adding what Washington Working with silent on which is other city departments also not sharing information so that we can move that forward then and then allowing the time to do the due diligence to do more work on this bill, which I see is having read keep Washington working the state law, this just aligns with state law.

And at the end of the day, state law is what prevails, whether or not we bring the SMC in compliance with state law, we should bring the SMC in compliance with state law, because that is the law of the land, whether we do that or not.

And it's always advantageous to ensure that our SMC actually reflects what is the law of the land.

So thank you for bringing this to make that change to SMC to align with the state law, which is what we're required to do.

Appreciate that.

Thank you, Chair.

Any other comments?

I will say as Chair, I think it's really important that we do this.

I think this is, again, the due diligence word.

It's also good governance and it's also signaling A, the professionalism and ensuring that these pieces are in place, but that we are responsible for our duties here in the city.

And so, Council Member Lynn, I thank you for this bill.

Also, it pairs nicely with Council Member Rivera's bill as it relates to state law.

on the two bills that I sponsored, the staging bill and then the professionalism and standards bill.

We have data privacy by Council Member Foster and then Council Member Rink here with detention centers and now with the 60-day pause on ALPR.

As I said in a recent show, City Inside Out Council Edition, the cumulative, the combination is greater than the sum of its parts because it shows the values piece that council member was talking about but there's also the practical pieces and it shows leadership.

So I want to thank everyone involved as I mentioned and across the council for these bills and this work that's been done.

So with that said, and again, straightforward, clean, tightly done, Council Member Lynn, so comfortable with pushing forward.

Will the clerk please call the roll, the committee recommendation to pass Council Bill 121180.

Council Member Juarez.

Aye.

Council Member Lynn.

Yes.

Council Member Rivera.

Aye.

Council Member Saka.

Sorry, could you repeat that?

Chair Kettle?

Aye.

There are five in favor and none opposed.

Okay, the motion carries and the committee recommendation that the council bill be sent to the March 31st City Council meeting.

Thank you everyone.

And so now we'll shift to our second item of this business.

Will the clerk please read item two into the record?

Council Bill 121179, an ordinance relating to collection of surveillance data, specifying conditions for a mandatory 60-day pause in data collection for the Seattle Police Department closed circuit television, CCTV, and automated license plate recognition systems, ALPR, and amending ordinances 127044 and 127297. Okay.

Mr. Doss, thank you.

Can you please introduce yourself for the record?

Greg Doss, Council Central Staff.

All right.

Tell you what, let's go with the summary first, because I know there's a second part, and you can go straight into the Olympia piece, but can you give a summary of the bill?

Yes, thank you, Mr. Chair, and good morning, committee members.

As I said, Greg Doss, Council Central Staff here to talk about Council Bill 121-179, which would specify conditions for a mandatory 60-day pause in data collection for Seattle Police Department CCTV and automated license plate recognition systems.

This bill was first heard on March 10th in draft form and has subsequently been introduced by the Council on March 17th.

There was one pre-introductory change that was made last Tuesday, before introduction last Tuesday.

The bill would now trigger a system pause if there is data released pursuant to a gender affirming care matter.

So a brief high-level summary of the bill again as a reminder for members and for the public.

Council Bill 121-179 would do four things.

It would extend SPD's patrol vehicle, extend to SPD's patrol ALPR system the very same 60-day pause provisions that now apply to SPD's CCTV network and that pause will come when the system's data has been requested under a warrant court order or pursuant to law for the purpose of civil immigration.

The second thing it does is add a couple additional triggers that could create a pause and such that the pause would apply to CZTV and ALPR footage when a reproductive health care or a gender affirming care matter are in question.

Third, it would require a 60-day pause of the CCTV or ALPR data collection if the mayor and police chief have jointly determined that the data may be at risk of disclosure for, again, civil immigration, reproductive health, or gender-affirming care, and that such disclosure may occur concurrently with increased presence of civil immigration enforcement personnel in Seattle.

Lastly, it would authorize the mayor, when necessary, to issue an executive order that would temporarily resume data collection, if necessary, to gather and transmit to prosecutors evidence of potentially unlawful acts that occur during civil immigration, reproductive health care, or gender-affirming care enforcement.

That's a brief summary.

One other thing I want to add, on March 10th, Councilmember Juarez asked a question about whether the bill's use of the word warrant could be interpreted as an administrative warrant or a judicial warrant.

After talking with the code advisor and central staff counsel, I would note that the use of the word in the context of other bill language could invite an interpretation of either an administrative warrant or a judicial warrant, and that such an interpretation would need to be made by the mayor's staff when they are determining whether the system may be compromised.

or put another way, it's the mayor's office who would interpret the term warrant, whether it's admin or judicial.

They could interpret it to mean any kind of warrant and subsequently pause the system.

And so with that as a high level overview, I'll pause and ask if there's any questions.

And then as the chair mentioned, he did ask me to prepare a brief summary of session law, ESSB 6002, which just passed at the end of session.

is awaiting the governor's signature and would affect Seattle's ALPR systems.

Why don't you go ahead and do that right now?

Okay.

So ESB 6002 would authorize ALPR systems only for use by law enforcement, parking enforcement, and transportation studies.

It would prohibit any agency from using ALPR systems for immigration investigations, or collecting data near sensitive facilities such as schools, places of worship, court or food banks.

Agencies that use ALPR technology must register their system with the Attorney General and delete all collected data within 21 days except for data related to criminal warrants or subpoenas or necessary to retain for evidence of specified unlawful purposes.

Parking enforcement data must be deleted within 12 hours after final disposition.

Agencies may not disclose, share, or permit access to ALPR data and the data is exempted from the state's Public Disclosure Act.

The effect on SPD, as you all know, the mayor's office as of last Friday paused all ALPR systems while there is a review of data security on those systems.

So the systems are in pause right now anyway.

Should the mayor reactivate those systems, there would be implications for the SPD patrol fleet and the PEO fleet.

The patrol fleet receives ALPR services from the vendor Axon, and it's in all of SPD's patrol vehicles.

The patrol uses ALPR to locate missing persons, stolen vehicles, and fugitives on local and federal wanted lists.

SPD is working with Axon to implement a geofencing software that will automatically shut off and reactivate the ALPR whenever it's near any of the sensitive sites that are specified in the bill.

6002. So that, again, is food banks or immigration-oriented service providers or healthcare providers, etc.

SPD is currently assuming that Axon will develop geofencing software and that it will be provided to Seattle at no additional cost.

This assumption is based on the fact that Axon provides ALPR services across the state and Seattle is not the only one that's going to be affected by this legislation.

And then lastly, our PEO fleet is on a system called Gentek.

Gentek provides ALPR services in 15 PEO vehicles, and those vehicles are used for residential parking zone enforcement.

It is the case that they are not going to be used for RPZ enforcement while the system's down or when the system comes back on.

before they can implement some sort of geofencing solution themselves.

In this case, SPD expects that Gentech will not be able to implement a geofencing solution until potentially later this year.

There will be some revenue implications because it's far less efficient for PEOs to chalk vehicles than to do it electronically, and CBO and SPD are working on those fiscal implication estimates now.

and that Mr. Chair is all I have and I'm open to questions on either this bill or 6002.

Thank you, thank you for that summary and I would note the Mayor said we will pause the use of this tool in Seattle until we ensure that our practices are inconsistent with the new state law.

That should be, takes effort, that would be straightforward.

and reflect the best safety and security policies, which we have.

So once that's done, as noted in terms of my comments related to our oath to ordinances and the fact that we address those issues, then ALPR will be restarted.

Okay.

I move to recommend passage of Council Bill 121-179.

Is there a second?

It is moved and seconded to recommend passage of the bill.

Councilmember Rink, as sponsor, would you like to address it?

I will.

Thank you, Chair, and thank you again for your support in bringing this to committee, and thank you, Mr. Doss, for the overview today.

Colleagues, since we last met two weeks ago in the Public Safety Committee to discuss this, a few things have changed, and as have discussed, the mayor announcing a temporary pause on ALPR technology, primarily necessitated by the passage of Senate Bill 6002 and pausing the program in order to bring us in alignment with state law.

That being said, I do believe as a separate branch of government, it's essential that we also build in our own guardrails through this legislation.

As mentioned last time we met in committee, and as Mr. Doss reiterated here, this legislation is similar to the amendment that Councilmember Kettle, pardon me, Chair Kettle, and I co-sponsored to this CCTV program This 60-day pause being applied when there's any warrants or subpoenas for civil immigration, reproductive healthcare, or gender-affirming care matters.

I know we all agree that we do not want data that is collected through ALPR to be used against our residents for immigration action, reproductive healthcare, or gender-affirming care.

That is not the intended use of this technology, but these have been concerns raised by the ACLU in a number of of impacted communities.

And we've seen issues with data sharing with ALPR systems around the country.

And I believe that fact warrants us taking this action today.

So I ask for your support on this bill.

Thank you.

Vice Chair.

Nothing from me.

Thank you, Chair.

Okay, thank you.

Councilmember Lin.

Thank you, Chair, and thank you to Councilmember Rank.

And I just want to...

Thank you all for having the flexibility in this bill.

I think as we regulate in these public policy areas, as we work to balance public safety and privacy, the difficult part is that facts are changing on the ground so rapidly, and those can affect that balance.

five years ago, we never would have imagined Roe v. Wade being overturned, but it was.

And I don't think any of us could have imagined two years ago what we've seen from this administration in terms of not having reliable partners at the federal level.

And so I think this bill strikes the right balance to protect our residents, to protect our community, and I appreciate you bringing this forward.

Also appreciate the provision that during a pause that there is flexibility for the mayor to issue an executive order to temporarily resume for transmitting evidence of potentially unflawful acts, including by the federal government.

And so I appreciate having that potential flexibility in there, just because it is hard to to be prescriptive in all the circumstances when we don't know what might be coming our way.

And so having a little bit of flexibility there makes sense to me.

So thank you again, colleagues, for bringing this forward.

Thank you, Councilmember Lin.

Any additional comments?

Councilmember Rivera.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Councilmember Rink, for bringing this bill.

It's, in essence, aligns, as has been said, with our CCTV trigger law.

It's important if we know that we are getting any warrants from the Feds on information related to reproductive care or gender-affirming care, civil immigration, enforcement that we have a trigger in order to protect our residents here in Seattle.

I will say, so I will be supporting this particular bill.

I will say, I'll take the opportunity to say something broader about this ALPR and other cameras across the city.

and to the Chair's comments at his report at the top of the meeting is I support all of the Chair's comments related to cameras and the use of cameras in a city, in this city.

It really, if you look at data from SPD's data dashboard as well as the Chief's year in review comments that he made and you can and watch on the Seattle Channel, the technology has been used in order to resolve homicide cases.

So there is a place for cameras in being able to investigate and resolve really heinous crimes in our city for the protection of our residents.

You all know I care very much about gun violence and gun violence that impacts our youth in the city and having the ability to use technology that will help investigate crime related to gun violence in the city is important.

So there is both a place for cameras in the city as well as obviously the protections that we've all worked together and very hard on to put in place so that the technology is not being used in an inappropriate and egregious manner.

And so both of those things can, you know, they coexist and they're true.

So I do believe also in ensuring that, you know, when we decided to, as a council, expand the use of cameras, we did look at the surveillance impact reports and I will also note that there was a working group related to to the surveillance impact reports that weighed in and that working group had both external and internal partners.

It wasn't just internal partners.

These things are important because what I want the public to know is when this council expanded the use of cameras across the city, It did so taking all of these privacy pieces and important pieces into account.

We did not do that lightly.

We did not take that action lightly.

And I want to bring that to the surface again as we are working on these issues related to cameras across the city.

And we understand the privacy pieces to this.

At the same time, we know that this technology, as I said earlier, has enabled us to solve some important crime in order to safeguard our folks in the city.

So these are not easy actions or conversations, but this is not a cut and dry issue that way.

and so it is important to recognize as we're taking all these important actions to protect the data that the cameras are important and I too believe that these cameras need to not only be in place at the stadium district which was the next place where we were going to install cameras.

I appreciate that the mayor will be installing those cameras and those cameras need to be operational in time for FIFA.

This is a huge event in our city and we need the ability to if a crime is committed near the stadiums in order to look at footage in investigating and resolving crimes.

To me, cameras are important in the investigation process.

And I believe we need to safeguard information, absolutely.

Do I support that?

Absolutely.

And as I said earlier, both are true.

So I support an audit.

I also wanna say, as the chair said earlier, we did do things or take action rather We took action and reviewed the surveillance impact reports when we took that action because we take all these things very seriously.

At the end of the day, I want to ensure that we have cameras in order to be able to protect our folks, including the camera that's supposed to be going near Garfield High School, that we've had folks come to chambers, parents of kids who go to Garfield and our other schools across the city have been in support of.

So we need to be responsive to community members as well.

And I believe that we can do both.

We can have the cameras and put the privacy protections in place.

so that we can use it as a tool in investigating crimes to protect our citizens while at the same time protecting citizens' privacy.

So thank you, Chair, for the opportunity to more broadly discuss the cameras in light of this ALPR trigger law that we're also gonna be voting on today.

Thank you, Councilmember Rivera.

Any other comments from the committee?

hearing, seeing no other, I will go to my comments.

First, I want to thank Mr. Doss, and I apologize, I also want to thank Mr. Johnson for the central staff memos.

We have two on this one.

Thank you, Mr. Doss.

And thank Councilmember Rink for bringing this bill forward in partnership.

I will say that what we're doing today just builds on what we've done already.

and again to the Mayor's point that we have to ensure that our practices are consistent with the new state law.

I have no doubt that we will do that and reflect the best safety and security policies.

Well, the fact that we're the only ones until the law was passed that we're still operating ALPR in itself shows that we had the best and safety and security policies in place because all the other jurisdictions have to shut theirs off.

And that's because of the work that we've done as a body and as a city government overall in partnership.

and so I think it is important to align ALPR with CCTV in this sense and then also I've been calling this the ALPR bill, it's really ALPR CCTV bill because I thank Council Member Ring for then bringing back the, in addition to the civil immigration, the healthcare pieces to the CCTV law and And I think this is just, you know, good governance and, you know, it's consistency.

And it's important to be consistent in what we're doing.

And again, this builds on all the things that we've had.

You know, for example, I don't think most people realize if a person did a PDR and ALPR data, it's disaggregated.

They could never use it.

That was purposely done that way.

If there was a subpoena, they would be able to do it, you know, get the data properly.

but unless it was a subpoena, they would have been disaggregated.

I just throw that out because there's so many little pieces that are not understood about these bills.

I continue to get emails on ALPR.

I'm sure that person who sent me that email did not know that PDR requests would be disaggregated and it would be useless essentially.

But now we're building on it and we will continue to build on it.

and so any event that we did have an intrusion subpoena to close, and I say this to full partnership with the committee members, but full council and the mayor, work together, let's work together.

I like that phrase and yes, and we can work on this including ALPR and CCTV in the case that we had a 60-day pause so then we're ready to go as a city on day 61. So with that, I would like to clerk, please call the roll and committee recommendation to pass Council Bill 121-179.

Council Member Juarez.

I think we lost her.

Oh, I'm here.

I said aye.

Oh, sorry.

I missed that.

Thank you.

Council member Lynn.

Yes.

Council member Rivera.

Aye.

Council member Saka.

Aye.

Chair Kettle.

Aye.

There are five in favor and none opposed.

Okay.

The motion carries and the committee recommendation that the council bill pass will be sent to the March 31st city council meeting.

Thank you.

Council member Rank.

Okay.

We've reached the end of today's meeting agenda.

Is there any further business to come before the committee before you adjourn?

Looking, hearing, seeing, all the above, none.

We are adjourned.

Thank you.