Seattle City Council Transportation & Utilities Committee 4721

time is 933 a.m.

I'm Alex Peterson chair of the committee.

Will the clerk please call the roll?

Council President Gonzalez?

Here.

Councilmember Herbold?

Here.

Councilmember Morales?

Here.

Councilmember Strauss?

Chair Peterson?

Here.

Floor present.

Thank you.

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

Hearing no objection, the agenda is adopted.

Chair's report.

We have another packed agenda today, so we may go all the way up until noontime, but I'll try to keep it moving at a quick clip.

The first item on our agenda is legislation to authorize a donation from the Seattle Parks Foundation to the Seattle Department of Transportation for the Lake City Living Memorial Triangle.

And we've invited Council Member Deborah Juarez here to join in on that discussion for that item number one.

We also have three reappointments to the Seattle Pedestrian Advisory Board.

We'll hear from Seattle Public Utilities on their strategic business plan.

We'll have three committee meetings on the strategic business plan, which will go into discussion quickly on the rates for Seattle Public Utilities.

for and that the business did various different business lines for Seattle Public Utilities.

The Seattle IT department will present the 2021 technology matching fund report.

And finally, we will return to the surveillance impact reports for police technologies that we discussed during our two previous committee meetings.

At this time, we'll open the remote general public comment period.

I ask that everyone please be patient as we operate this online system.

We are continuously looking for ways to fine tune this process for public participation.

It remains with a strong intent of the city council to have public comment regularly included on meeting agendas.

However, the city council reserves the right to modify these public comment periods at any point if we deem that the system's being abused or is unsustainable for allowing our meetings to be conducted efficiently.

and in a manner in which we are able to conduct our necessary business.

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

We'll have up to 20 minutes, although I don't think we're going to need that.

Each speaker will be given two minutes to speak.

Call on two speakers at a time.

If you've not registered to speak but would like to, you can sign up before the end of this public comment period by going to the council's website at seattle.gov forward slash council.

The public comment link is also listed on today's agenda.

Once I call a speaker's name, staff will unmute the appropriate microphone and an automatic prompt of, you have been unmuted, will be the speaker's cue that it is their turn to speak and the speaker must press star six to begin speaking.

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

As a reminder, public comment should relate to an item on today's agenda.

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

Once you hear the chime, we ask you begin to wrap up your public comment.

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

Once you've completed your public comment, we ask that you please disconnect from the line.

And if you plan to continue following this meeting, please do so via Seattle Channel or the listening options listed on the agenda.

The regular public comment period for this committee meeting is now open.

And I will begin with the first speaker on the list.

Please remember to press star six before speaking.

OK, good morning.

Cynthia Speeds.

Go ahead.

Hi I'm Cynthia Spees an independent.

Sorry.

Go ahead.

Can I go.

Yes.

Sorry.

OK.

Hi I'm Cynthia Spees an independent security researcher and District 6 resident.

My comments are on the five surveillance technologies.

I support all the previously proposed amendments.

Multiple of them though could be strengthened and there are still unaddressed gaps.

I'll focus on automated license plate readers or ALPR and cop logic.

The vast majority of license plates scanned and retained in SPD's ALPR database are innocent individuals just going about their day.

Less than 1% of all plates retained by SPD match a hit.

This is mass location surveillance.

This is dragnet, bulk collection of residents' whereabouts, and it is uncalled for.

We have a right to go about our day without the police tracking us.

We don't belong in a police database.

While I appreciate the effort in reducing the retention to seven days, that is still far too long to retain location data of innocent people.

Even the Seattle Community Surveillance Working Group, which represents marginalized communities, advised city council to use a shorter retention of at most 48 hours.

California Senate Bill 210 would retain non-hits for 24 hours.

Please look to New Hampshire, which only retains non-hits for three minutes.

Since the amendment reducing the data retention was only proposed on the bill on ALPR for patrol, this means that ALPR for parking enforcement would be permitted to have a separate and longer retention of 90 days.

Also, with parking enforcement moving out of SPD, there should be no sharing of non-hits and non-citations from parking enforcement to SPD.

These massive loopholes need to be closed.

CopLogic's retail theft track exacerbates racial profiling.

If Washington House Bill 1140 passes, then the retail theft track would be enabling all cops to circumvent a state requirement for minors to have legal counsel before communicating with the police.

CopLogic is hosted on a merger of three data brokers.

All of them have been security breached, in some cases multiple times, and undetected by them.

This identity theft can have cascading negative consequences.

Amendment number three should require the OIG report to be reviewed by city council, not just filed with the clerk.

Stop retaining ALPARE data for non-hits.

Move CopLogic on-prem now and remove the retail theft track.

Please see my emails.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

That concludes our list of public speakers.

I just want to confirm that with our information technology folks from city council.

Do you see that we have no more speakers as well?

Affirmative.

There are no more public comment registrants.

Okay.

Thank you.

So we will go ahead and close the public comment period.

Now we'll move on to the first legislative item.

I'd also like to acknowledge Council Member Deborah Juarez is here for the first item.

Will the clerk please read the short title of the first agenda item into the record?

agenda item one, council bill 120013, an ordinance relating to the Department of Transportation, authorizing the director of the Department of Transportation to accept the donation of real property via quick claim deed from the Seattle Parks Foundation, a Washington nonprofit corporation, situated in a portion in lot four, block 13, University Lakeshore addition divisions one, two, and three, for briefing, discussion, and possible vote.

Thank you.

This legislation will authorize a donation from the Seattle Parks Foundation to the Seattle Department of Transportation for the Lake City Living Memorial Triangle.

I know this project is important to Council Member Juarez, who is located in her district.

I'm grateful to have her here today and some members of the Lake City community here today as well.

We also have SDOT staff and our own central staff personal transportation, Calvin Chow.

Councilmember Juarez, would you like to make any introductory remarks?

Yes, let me do something here, Miss Technology Challenged.

Good to see Deb here and Chuck.

Good to see you folks.

Thank you, Councilmember Peterson.

I actually have a prepared statement, if you don't mind, if I could read that into the record.

Of course.

Great, thank you.

First of all, I want to thank everybody for being here today and for Councilmember Peterson for inviting me.

The Lake City, where I have lived for well over 30 years, was struck by senseless violence on March 27, 2019. On this day, one man with a gun shot four people, murdered two, and impacted the entire neighborhood and community.

When we talk about ending gun violence on the national stage, we're talking about places like Lake City.

In the aftermath, many neighborhood residents came together to heal and begin the process of memorializing those that we have lost.

Our office worked with the Lake City Neighborhood Alliance and other community partners to coordinate two events, a memorial event at the Lake City Mini Park and a meeting to plan what we were going to do and what we've done and what they've done, the Living Memorial Triangle.

in the city's right-of-way at Sandpoint and Bartlett Avenue Northeast.

We contacted several city departments to attend this meeting to offer resources.

The Department of Neighborhoods, Seattle Department of Transportation, King County Metro, and the Mayor's Office all attended and provided guidance, including County Executive Dow Constantine.

Since this initial meeting, the Lake City Living Memorial Triangle Committee volunteers meet regularly And of course, our presenters are going to speak more about what they have accomplished is their wonderful actions that they've done for this community that have not gone unnoticed.

I do want to highlight that we did have the corporate sponsor of Amazon who provided the funding to purchase this plot of land and generously donated to the community.

I also want to thank the Parks Department for its contribution to this effort as well.

And finally, a big thank you to our Lake City presenters, Chuck, Debbie and I think Jen is going to join us.

There she is.

There's Jen.

Yes.

OK, great.

And so I'm going to leave it at that and I'm going to let these good folks share with us what they've been doing.

Thank you.

Thank you, council member Peterson.

And you can go ahead and share your screen check.

Sorry, still technical glitch here.

There we go.

Sorry for the technical problems.

My name is Chuck Keene, and I'm a member of the Lake City Living Memorial Triangle Steering Committee.

Here with me is Jen Seva and Debbie Judd to help with the presentation.

Thank you, Councilman Juarez, for your support.

The story of our group began, as she said, on March 27, 2019, when a drunk man stepped out of his apartment on Lake City Way, I'm sorry, on Sandpoint Way, and began shooting a gun.

As Councilmember Juarez indicated, two people were killed and two people were injured, and the neighborhood honestly was terrorized by what happened.

Following the shooting in a community meeting with the mayor and the city council, a group decided to create a memorial near the location.

What you see in the first pictures are a group of volunteers clearing the site, which had pretty much been abandoned around the metro site that you can see there.

With SDOT's approval and their donation from the city arborist, we've planted the first tree in May of 2019, a swamp oak.

Participants in the first tree planting included neighbors and those affected, family members and those who had in fact been shot.

Ashes from one of the victims was actually planted under the first tree.

The Lake City Memorial Triangle Steering Committee was then formed and through a sponsorship with Lake City Neighborhood Alliance and fiscal support from Seattle Parks Foundation, the group applied for a City of Seattle grant to expand the memorial.

We received $5,000 and over 30 neighbors showed up on a workday, which resulted in the planting of seven new trees and a bed of lavender.

In addition to the plantings, the group was honored to have a poem written by Raul Sanchez about the events of March 27, which is now impaneled on the Metro bus stop with support from Metro.

Another local artist, Kendra Azari, was commissioned to paint the lower panels of the bus, which will be installed this summer.

As a result of the ongoing support from Councilperson Deborah Juarez and her staff, a corporate sponsor emerged to our surprise in late 2020. An Amazon rep met with the Steering Committee and offered a donation to expand the memorial.

With those funds, a small privately owned parcel of land that was within the site was purchased, giving the Steering Committee full control and management of the Triangle site.

Besides the land purchase, additional money is now available to further develop the plan.

Um.

So we had a professional site survey done, which has been completed and has been forward to SDOT, and with the help of professional landscape architect, the design plan was drawn up.

And with the support of Seattle Parks Foundation and SDOT, the plan is now in place, as is proposed at this meeting, to donate the purchased land to SDOT.

The neighborhood group will provide donated labor for the continued development of the site and will maintain the triangle with watering, monthly work parties, and mowing.

The photo that you see below is the depiction of the plan that we have that we hope to develop starting this summer.

It includes additional trees, some pathways, some benches, and in the middle of that circle will be a piece of public art.

So essentially it will be developed out almost as a small mini park for the whole neighborhood to enjoy and for us to have the opportunity to memorialize the events of that day.

So in conclusion, we ask that the committee accept the recommendation to transfer this land to SDOT on behalf of the Lake City Living Memorial Triangle volunteers.

To complete this presentation, we'd like the committee to hear from Debbie, who was one of the people who were most affected by the events of March 27th.

She'll tell her story and about the importance of the memorial.

Debbie?

Hello?

Yes, we can hear you.

OK, thank you.

Um, I'll be brief because I think my story's been told a lot, but yes, I was driving home from work and, um, a man was in the middle of the street and he shot at me three times.

Um, he missed the first time it went over my arm, but I have a bullet in my arm and my bullet in my back.

Um, the story is so.

put together with the community, it could never be separated down to the officers that were the first ones there, the officer that was the first one there.

And this whole incident occurred in like five minutes.

And I heard, I heard the man get shot and I early on found out that someone had died very close.

And The community was there from the beginning too.

So this is important to the community to have this positive spot instead of always looking at that bus stop and remembering that three people were shot there and one person died there.

So I totally support the memorial and look forward to seeing it continue to grow being a place where people can have calm thoughts.

And they've been working on this practically since the day it happened.

Thank you.

Thank you, Debbie.

Thanks for sharing your story with us today.

Yes, this is Jen Seva.

I would like to thank Debbie again for being willing to share your story.

We know it's difficult.

And I'll add something in the chat room for those who want a little more information.

And in general, this is a story of community healing and trust building in the larger context of gun violence around our country.

Now this event and this Living Memorial Garden has brought together neighbors, not just in the adjacent area there in the photos that Chuck shared, but in the wider Seattle community, people who had been strangers, are now building trust and healing together where before we were just totally unconnected strangers.

And we would like to welcome more people into this memorial garden as the days warm up and the plans keep coming together.

Yeah, and I'll forever be tied to that spot.

That's part of who I am now.

Thank you, Jen and Chuck and Debbie for this healing and for coming together.

And our committee will have the easy part of taking care of this legislation and moving ahead with this.

You've already done so much.

Thank you.

Council Member Juarez, did you want to close us out before we turn it over to Estat?

Again, I didn't want to dwell, because I know that Debbie has had her story.

And when it happened, it was so horrific.

And we immediately were all at the Lake City Community Center with the mayor and chief of police and the officers involved.

But as we say, or we like to say, in Indian country, when you have spaces like this, you've now made a sacred space.

And as Deb said, she will always be tied to that.

So will we?

I saw Shanda in the picture.

I know she was out there, our former district director.

and securing the money, you know, asking, just picking up the phone and saying, hey, you know, you need to do this for the community and they do need more, but this is a good start.

There's a lot more I'd like to share.

We can also talk offline, but just the Lake City folk and Chuck and Jen and Deb and everyone at Lake City Neighborhood Alliance, you know, kind of putting aside and talking about how we lost people, but also particularly what Jen was saying, There are people that just hundreds of people showed up at the Lake City in the summer when the mayor spoke, I spoke and the chief of police spoke and Constantine spoke.

And, you know, it doesn't happen a lot in Seattle.

Sometimes we're not all in the end zone together.

But that day we were and people were crying and hugging each other.

And the family of the people that were shot and the bus driver were all there.

And it was so nice to just meet the daughters and the husband and the spouse and the wife and just talk to people and not make it political.

So that doesn't happen a whole lot in this job.

So I want to thank Jen and Chuck and particularly Deb.

And I forgot the name of the bus driver.

I'm sorry.

You're on mute, Deb.

His name is Eric Stark.

Eric Stark.

Eric was there with his family.

And you know, what we say when we close is that's the kind of good medicine you need in a community.

So thank you guys.

Thank you, Council Member Peterson, for inviting me.

Thank you.

We can now hear from SDOT about the legislation.

And we also have our central staff person, Calvin Chow, on the line.

Calvin, if you want to go first, go ahead.

Otherwise, we can turn it over to SDOT.

I don't have anything to add, Council Member.

OK.

Thank you.

Estat.

Go ahead.

Good morning.

Hello, council members.

This is Shana Larson with the Seattle Department of Transportation.

I'm just here to provide you with the technical legislation that will give this donated land property to Estat for right of way.

So I won't repeat what has already been discussed.

This is just our mission, vision, and core values.

Presentation overview.

We've already received a thorough background of why we're doing this particular project.

I'll show you where the project area is, talk about the legislation, and show you some pictures of the existing conditions.

We've already gone through most of this already, so I won't go through that.

The project area is at Sandpoint Way and 123rd and intersects with Bartlett Avenue.

So you can see on this map or on this aerial where the actual property is that is being transferred from the Parks Foundation to SDOT.

So what the legislation is going to do is going to authorize the director to accept the donation of the real property from the Parks Foundation.

And then we'll replace the real property rights under our jurisdiction to be used for the memorial and we'll lay off the property as right of way.

So here's just some pictures of the existing conditions.

I will note that now this speed limit sign says 25 miles per hour as a part of our Vision Zero safety program that we've been implementing over the past year and a half.

And then some more pictures of the existing conditions which you've already seen.

So I thought it's happy and pleased to partner with the Lake City Living Memorial Community Group to work on this property, and we'll continue to partner with them over the coming years.

So that's it.

Thank you, Shauna, from SDOT.

And thanks for presenting and for Gretchen for her work on this.

Yes, of course.

So regarding the legislation, are there any questions?

Before I make a motion, are there any questions about it for community, SDOT, Calvin.

It's pretty straightforward, so.

Okay, well, council members, I now move that the committee recommends approval of Council Bill 12013, item one on today's agenda.

Is there a second?

Second.

Thank you.

It's been moved and seconded to recommend passage of this bill.

Any final comments?

Again, thank you to everybody for being here and all your work.

I know we all share this concern for this.

Thank you.

Will the clerk please call the roll on the committee recommendation that Council Bill 12013 be approved for forwarding to the full council?

Gonzales?

Aye.

Herbold?

Yes.

Morales?

Yes.

Chair Peterson?

Yes.

All in favor, none opposed.

Thank you.

The motion carries.

And the committee recommendation is that the council bill be sent for approval to the April 12th city council meeting.

Thank you, everybody, for being here today.

Will the clerk please read the title of the next agenda item into the record?

Thank you.

Thank you.

Agenda items two through four.

Appointments 1847 through 1849. Reappointment of Akshali Gandhi as member Seattle Pedestrian Advisory Board for a term to March 31st, 2022. And reappointments of Han Jung Ko and Maria Sumner as members Seattle Pedestrian Advisory Board for terms to March 31st, 2023 for briefing discussion and possible vote.

Thank you.

And these are all reappointments.

And so I want to thank the appointees are not here because they are reappointments.

And I want to just thank them for their willingness to continue their ongoing service to our city.

Polly Mambrino is here from SDOT to tell us a little bit about the pedestrian advisory board and these reappointments.

Hi, Polly.

Thank you, Council Member Peterson.

So the Seattle Pedestrian Advisory Board is an all-volunteer board.

When it's at capacity, it's 12 members of the public from across the city, and they help advise SDOT on pedestrian master plan projects and other programs and policies that we have.

And as it was mentioned, we are here for the reappointment of three of our members, all of whom who have been very active There.

They've contributed to the board a lot, and two of them, Akshali Gandhi and Maria Sumner, were appointed to fill terms that had not yet been completed.

So they have not served for an entire term yet, and they're looking forward to continuing their service.

And then Han Jung Ko, Coco, as she goes by, has served for two years, and she's been an excellent member and would like to continue her service on the board as well.

And I'm happy to answer any questions about these members if you'd like.

Thank you, council members.

If there are any questions about the reappointments.

Council Member Herbold.

Thank you.

I just want to make note of what looks like, it might be an inconsistency on some of the paperwork.

One of the documents shows that, let's see here, it shows that Aishwarya Gandhi is in D1, that's on the chart, but then the appointment file shows a Capitol Hill residency.

I believe she lives in Capitol Hill, but I can work with our team and make sure that paperwork is all squared away.

Thank you.

Fantastic.

Everybody wants to live in district one, but we can't all.

Oh, well.

I was going to say that too.

I was just thinking the same thing.

Okay, council members, I now move that the committee recommends approval of the reappointments, 1-847 through 1-849, item two on our agenda.

Is there a second?

Second.

Thank you.

It's been moved and seconded to recommend passage of these reappointments.

Will the clerk please call the roll on the committee recommendation that these three appointments be approved?

Gonzalez?

Aye.

Herbold?

Yes.

Morales?

Chair Peterson?

Yes.

Four in favor, none opposed.

Thank you.

The motion carries, and the item will move on to the April 12 City Council meeting for final consideration.

OK, will the clerk?

Thank you, Polly.

Will the clerk please read the title of the next agenda item into the record?

Agenda item 3, Council Bill 120014. An ordinance relating to the City Light Department and Seattle Public Utilities transferring partial jurisdiction of a portion of City Light's Georgetown Steam Plant flume property to Seattle Public Utilities for maintenance, repair, replacement, and operation of public stormwater drainage infrastructure for briefing, discussion, and possible vote.

Thank you.

So Council Bill 120014 is a step toward completion of the Georgetown to South Park Trail.

The need for and importance of that non-motorized connection has been highlighted by the traffic impacts in the area due to the closure of the West Seattle High Bridge.

In 2012, Seattle Public Utilities built a storm drain in part of the Flume property, but Seattle City Light retained ownership.

Council Bill 12014 transfers ownership so that Seattle Public Utilities can continue to maintain the storm drain as well as providing the public with a dog park eventually.

We will be seeing a few more steps in committee to complete this trail construction.

We do have, you know, we do have our City Council Central staff here with us, Eric McConaughey.

We also have representatives from Seattle City Light here.

Eric, did you have any opening remarks for this item?

No, thank you.

Other than just to reiterate that, yeah, there are several pieces that move stepwise toward the eventual outcome.

And the first two pieces the committee will see are kind of foundational or sort of groundwork to sort of straighten things up and kind of prep for the sort of the show later.

So with that, I'll step out of the way.

And as these pieces come through, your central staff will be reviewing them.

But really, it's not my show.

Thanks very much.

Thank you, Eric.

So our folks welcome Seattle City Light and you can go ahead and share if you're I think you're giving a presentation.

Go ahead.

Mr. Chair, the Deborah Smith, the general manager was not available this morning, but we have Tom DeBoer, our environmental officer to to lead off the group.

Thank you.

Morning, Chair Peterson and members of the committee.

I won't add much to what the introduction that the Chair Peterson gave.

I'll just turn it over to Tim Crow, who will actually be walking through the presentation.

But just recall that this is just the first step in a multi-stage process to transfer some vacated land near our South Service Center to create this dog park in Georgetown.

And this is just the first step in that process.

Tim, take it away.

All right, thank you.

Thank you, council members.

Get going with this.

All right, so move along.

So in summary, ultimately, the goal for City Light is to get a street vacation approved by the city council later this year for a property next to our South Service Center.

And as you well know, Any community, any street vacation request requires an offsetting public benefit.

And City Light's plan is to propose the transfer of a piece of property to parks in SDOT to develop an off-leash dog park and a trail segment, a segment of the Georgetown South Park connection, and help fund that.

as a public benefit for that street vacation.

So today's action, though, is removing an encumbrance on the property prior to the transfer to parks and SDOT.

And that's to grant SPU a partial transfer of jurisdiction for a storm drain that's on that property.

So a bit more background.

This is where the street vacation is.

We are hoping it will happen.

This is our South Service Center.

If you can follow my cursor there, it's the big warehouse-like building with the City Light neon sign on the top near the West Seattle Freeway and Fourth Avenue.

And down here by Costco, there's the segment of presently unused street.

It's not an open street that we're hoping to get in the vacation.

So the public benefit would be occurring up in Georgetown.

So here's a Georgetown neighborhood.

Here's Boeing Field and Boeing.

And this segment here is a piece of City Light, a presently unused City Light property that we're looking to donate.

And the donation of that combined with other City Light financial support would lead to the development of the off-leash area and the trail segment.

And here's an SDOT picture showing you know, the overall South Park, Georgetown South Park connection, and this segment would be more or less in the middle of that.

Okay, so what's going on on the property that we have to take care of?

SPU has a 24-inch storm drain.

It was built in 2012. That was part of a joint SPU city light cleanup for the Duwamish River.

No SPU rights were created at that time.

Typically, we would have Created a, you know, in effect, an easement, but they're another city department department.

So we call it a partial transfer of jurisdiction to allow them access to maintain to operate and maintain this piece of infrastructure.

But we're proposing to take care of that now.

And the timeline, the city attorney's office recommends that this be taken care of prior to the transfer to parks and SDOT.

Things can get a little bit more complicated if we try to create utility rights on parks property once it's parks property.

It's better to do that beforehand.

And then the future property transfers would be subject to the terms of this partial transfer of jurisdiction.

And the big show, as Eric says, of the street vacation and the larger property transfer ordinance is expected to be in front of council this coming summer.

And any questions?

Be glad to take any questions.

Committee members, any questions?

Council Member Morales, please.

Thank you.

I don't have any questions.

I just want to thank the departments for this work.

I know the community has been talking about this transfer and what it means for the neighborhood for quite some time, a couple of years now.

And I know folks are also excited about the eventual dog park and getting the trail done.

So thanks for walking us through the steps that are needed to get us there.

Thank you.

All right, well, let's go ahead and vote on this item.

Council members, I now move that the committee recommends approval of Council Bill 120014, item five on our agenda.

Is there a second?

Second.

It's been moved and seconded to recommend passage of the bill.

Any final comments?

Will the clerk please call the roll on the committee recommendation that Council Bill 120014 be approved for forwarding to the full city council?

motion carries and the committee recommendation is that the bill be Agenda item 6, resolution 32000, a resolution relating to Seattle Public Utilities adopting a 2021 to 2026 strategic business plan for Seattle Public Utilities and endorsing a three-year rate path and a subsequent three-year rate forecast to support the strategic business plan update for briefing and discussion.

Thank you.

So this is a resolution.

We will have multiple committee meetings on this.

Resolution 32000 is our committee's first consideration of Seattle Public Utilities updated strategic business plan.

The plan was last updated in 2017 for the years 2018 through 2023. SPU's plans adopted by council resolution concern rates for each of the utilities four lines of business, water, sewer, drainage, and solid waste.

A rate path is set for three years together with a rate projection for another three years.

The council's actual rate adoption for each line of business is done with separate ordinances.

The utility updates the plan every three years.

Due to the COVID pandemic and the lack of committee meetings much of last year, SPU took an additional year to prepare this update for the years 2021 through 2026. As chair of the committee, my hope is that we keep SPU's rate increases as low as possible while producing sufficient revenue to ensure SPU infrastructure and operations are adequate to provide and maintain the needed services, clean water, sewer, drainage, solid waste removal.

we will hear the presentation on the proposed 2021-2026 plan and discuss the implications and possible changes.

at the next meeting, April 21, we can consider the matter further including an analysis by city Council central staff and comments from the customer review panel.

The customer review panel did issue a letter about this.

They have endorsed this plan, so that's good news.

Then we'll conclude with a vote on this important SPU resolution at a third meeting.

So we do have our central staff expert with us, Brian Goodnight.

Brian, did you have anything you wanted to introduce before we turn it over to SPU?

Thank you, Chair Peterson.

I don't.

I was going to quickly run over the timeline, but you've already done that sufficiently.

So thank you.

Okay, great.

Well, we do have our general manager with us, Mami Hara.

Welcome and your team.

So please, you can introduce your team and take it away.

Thank you very much for this opportunity to present our strategic business plan and to answer any questions.

I'm joined by Paula Lashober, our CFO.

Paula, could you raise your hand so everyone can see you?

And as well as Bob Hennessey, our council liaison.

And so we are happy to take questions throughout the presentation or afterward.

So would it be appropriate to embark on the presentation?

Yes, please.

Thank you very much.

We'll start sharing the screen in a second.

Thank you.

Okay, great.

So you can see the screen now.

So our strategic business plan is a framework.

It's not a full detailed plan of every aspect of our work, but it's a framework for how we'll provide our community with essential water and waste services and the investments that we aim to make over the next six years.

As you mentioned, the plan proposes a three-year rate path with an additional three-year forecast, which is an important distinction to make.

You know, we couldn't possibly project out for an entire six years what all of the kinds of contingencies and events that we might have to plan for, but we are aiming to solidly create a commitment for the next three years.

And so when we go to slide two.

Thank you.

The plan aims to be a community-centered plan, focusing on what's important to our community and our community's values of continuous, reliable service delivery, environmental sustainability, greater equity, and a responsibility to ensure that our rates are as affordable as possible.

And so we developed the plan based on input from our customer review panel, who put in a great deal of work, as well as community survey research input from SPU employees, community members, and key stakeholders.

Can we go to the next slide, please?

Thank you.

The plan focuses on on several aspects of essential service delivery.

And so it supports uninterrupted delivery of equitable essential services that are really the core of what we do.

And as Council Member Peterson mentioned, these services include drinking water, sewer and drainage, solid waste, recycling, and a clean city operations effort, and then capital project delivery and infrastructure maintenance.

So it is a big portfolio of work.

Our services are often very invisible to people and it's hard for them to see what they're supporting through their rates.

Yet we were really moved when we saw a poem that was written during COVID that really highlighted that the assurance that came from the rhythm of our essential service delivery that our employees provide for.

And so I'm just going to, if you don't mind, if I read a little line of poetry, in her pandemic poem called Essential, Seattle civic poet Jordan Keith wrote, in the dayless days of quarantine, it's not the pale gray wisps and fuchsia sunsets that let me know the human world is okay.

It is the morning, it is Tuesday, when the blue bin rumbles.

And the rest of the poem makes you just want to weep with being a scene.

I think of our employees to be seen as a new thing, at least by the general public, certainly not by our civic leaders.

So our plan supports Continuous improvement in the delivery of our services as we strive to be the best in class and customer assistance.

This is really a key issue for us and that includes our customer service, you know, as, for example, with our call center response satisfaction, but also customer assistance in the sense of helping our low income customers through expanding UDP enrollment and other kinds of financial assistance.

It also means to us ensuring reliability of service, you know, things like our transfer station operations, fire hydrant repair, and meeting regulatory requirements, which are critical in terms of the quality of our source waters, of the water we provide, and also, you know, all of our testing and monitoring.

May we go to the next slide, please?

Thank you.

Our plan, we hope, helps to significantly grow Seattle's sustainability and resilience.

and centers on those most impacted.

And we mean by that people and other species and planning for current and future generations.

Our water responsibilities range from managing the pristine watersheds, such as the one behind me, that we manage, the Cedar and the Tolt drinking watersheds, to ensuring the best water quality that we can in the Puget Sound.

Our employees and customers are stewards of a one water cycle, something we call a one water cycle and that the industry is increasingly recognizing, which values water in all its forms.

And so our plan supports investments in that work, which include blue-green infrastructure, and environmental restoration.

And examples of that kind of work include water quality investments, like the very large Ship Canal water quality project that is currently under construction, our hatchery, green infrastructure in the city itself, tree planting, that we are working on.

The list goes on and on.

It also includes water climate adaptation and our work around environmental justice.

Which we are both investing in in real-time but also that we are planning for for the future in Likewise, our responsibility to provide waste management services allows us to be partners with residents and businesses for a greener life by supporting a circular economy that moves us towards zero waste and reduce carbon, air and water pollution.

And this is a really key kind of when I talk about things like zero waste and all of the work that our community does, you know, it really highlights the partnered nature of the work that we have to do.

We can't do it just as a utility alone.

You know, this is something that we aim to try to figure out how to best partner with everybody in our community on in all of our environmental work.

Our plan supports a pivotal effort to move upstream to address pollution through waste prevention and increased waste diversion.

And that includes things like reducing food waste, the use of single-use plastics, and also significant work to try to promote extended producer responsibility.

You know, trying to really move upstream and not have our customers and community have to deal with poor decisions upstream with respect to the kinds of waste that they have to – packaging and things like that they have to manage.

It also includes carbon mitigation.

We've done a lot to try to manage our carbon, and we have a lot more to do.

But we are the first fully carbon – net carbon zero fleet for solid waste, and we are aiming to reduce our waste in many other aspects of our work.

So I would like to go to the next.

Thank you.

Our plan absolutely prioritizes equity and empowerment, both inside and outside of our organization.

This is part of our community center vision to put people at the heart of everything that we do.

And our plan supports that goal by making investments that seek to remove barriers to access, such as our side sewer assistance pilot for low-income folks, and also our work trying to create services for unsheltered neighbors.

It also includes creating greater opportunity within and into our organization, especially for underrepresented populations.

And so we have a concerted effort going on around apprenticeships and workforce development partnerships with community colleges.

And, you know, we have a long list of those kinds of efforts, but you may be aware of our Rainwise Academy and, you know, and other kinds of programs that we have underway.

I'll go ahead and ask this, but then I'm happy to wait until the end of the presentation.

Thank you.

In the previous slide, you mentioned with regards to trying to prevent wastes upstream.

I know it is a huge issue, trying to deal with all the plastic packaging we get.

That is making me wonder what we could do as a city in working with businesses on not just plastic film and other items I know we have in the past, you know, illuminated styrofoam and those sorts of things.

So are there issues or things that you're working on already to try to get some of that waste packaging out of the system?

Yes, absolutely.

Our staff works very hard on the national political side, trying to push extended producer responsibility in packaging and also the use of contaminants of concern in different kinds of products.

There are different forms of pollution, not just the physical stuff that you see.

Even more dangerous sometimes is the invisible stuff that you don't see.

And so, you know, they work in terms of advancing legislation, producer education, coalition building, you know, by communities across the country.

you know, trying to figure out what are the right systems of carrots and sticks, you know, in order to try to get manufacturers to reduce the amount of negative externalities, really, that utilities around the country have to manage and consumers, right?

You know, a lot of the work that we do is managing the host of negative externalities that come from decisions that are made across industry and consumption.

And so this is something that our staff is very dedicated to.

And we would be happy to follow up with you with further information if you're interested.

I am interested.

Thank you.

I just signed our family up with Ridwell.

And I can tell you that we fill up the plastic film canvas bag far quicker than I ever expected we would.

So in the past, we were just throwing that in recycling.

So I apologize to your team for having to deal with that.

We're trying to stop doing that.

But there's a lot of waste out there.

And it's hard to avoid it because of the upstream decisions, as you said, that are being made.

like the convenience of that kind of service, but if I may make a pitch for a way to save families money on the management of those kinds of products, Seattle Public Utilities also has an approach where now you can, you know, just put every kind of that kind of mysterious waste that you don't want to put into the regular recycling or waste stream, you know, batteries, you know, those kinds of things, plastic film, you know, you can put it all into a box, you know, and there's a size, you know, a designated size.

I believe it's two by two by two.

And, you know, and then, you know, we will come and get that box of for a for a fee that is much less.

than RIDWELL, so.

Good to know, thank you.

Yeah, of course.

We're excited about that program.

It's not as cute as the RIDWELL box, but a cardboard box that's a lot less is a good thing.

Appreciate it, thank you.

Sure.

Thank you, Council Member Peterson.

Okay.

Are we on slide six?

Affordability.

Great.

Um, I just want to make sure that we – yes, okay.

Our plan manages affordability by lowering our rate path while meeting all regulatory requirements, managing inflation, improving affordability assistance to low-income customers.

And I will cover our customer assistance programs at the end of this presentation, but for now, some specific ways that we're actively working to lower rates.

and to address both affordability and accountability and strengthen our utility practices include our capital project budgeting and delivery improvements.

I think that Council Member Herbold will be happy to know that we now assume an 85% accomplishment rate, which saves our customers $200 million over six years.

It also improves our cost confidence in our capital program and our performance tracking.

We are pursuing low interest loans, such as WIFIA funding for our Ship Canal Water Quality Project, which will save our ratepayers $60 million.

And we're continuing to advocate for greater federal funding beyond the funding that we have already achieved for that project.

We aim to, you know, try to get funding for other projects as well.

And we're also investing in long-term seismic resilience and addressing aging infrastructure.

through our asset management programs and opportunity work that arises in partnership with other departments.

We also understand that a key aspect of managing affordability is developing strong partnerships with our community.

with residents and with businesses through trying to engage them in making individual choices and efforts that reduce landfilling, water quality pollution, and that help us to capture rainwater, among the many other things like managing fats, oil, and grease.

There's so many things that we can better partner on in order to reduce our costs.

Thank you, General Manager Herrera.

I just, I wanted to give a special thanks to you and your team when, when I was, when I had just been elected and it looked like utilities might be something, something that I was interested in working on and you and I met and We got right to a discussion on affordability.

And as our city has been facing an affordability crisis and recognizing that everybody has to pay these bills, and by their very nature, they are regressive in that a lower income household is going to be paying a greater proportion of their household income to pay these bills.

And so it was great.

that there was alignment in wanting to look at all sorts of different cost drivers and how they could be managed to keep rates low and looking at the previously promised rate path as a foundation of how, you know, is there a way to do better than that going forward and really just appreciate the dedication that it took to make that happen in this strategic plan, which which earned the endorsement of the customer review panel.

So I just want to thank you for all of your efforts and your team.

Yes, and we would like to thank you and the other council members who have been involved in this really arduous work of bending our rate path down.

It has been, you know, it is a continuous dialogue and requires significant analysis and effort.

and so thank you very much.

So.

Council Member Herbold.

And thank you, Council Member Herbold, because you got this all started.

Sure.

I just want to, I want to just give a shout out since Director Hara, you mentioned the concept of the completion rate as being a driver, and that was a concept that was introduced in the late, the last Strategic Business Plan update.

I want to give a shout out to Peter Lindsay.

He's no longer with us on Central Staff, but he was really the person who introduced that concept a few years back, and I'm really glad to see that you have been able to expand on its use without reducing the accomplishment rate, we're not saying we're going to have any less investment in our capital needs.

We're just being realistic about what our experience is in actually bringing those projects home exactly according to our schedule.

And so it's a really good balance that strives to recognize what our capital goals are with an understanding of how having unrealistic expectations about those goals affects affordability rates.

So really, really appreciate that you've kind of taken this conversation to the next level.

In the intervening years, we've been able to do substantial verification, you know, of the efficacy of this approach by looking at data from kind of the peer cities and programs and also looking at our historical data to understand if we were creating any risk.

And, you know, we feel we feel relatively confident, you know, you know, in this in this approach.

And, you know, we're excited to to see how it works out.

And I think that we can absolutely deliver this balance.

that you spoke of.

And I really hope that we can carry over the lessons learned that we have with Seattle Public Utilities to some of our conversations with King County around wastewater capital investments as well.

Because as Chair Peterson and I are all too aware, that is also a big affordability driver over there.

I would like to thank you both for your many, many hours of work in this area and your stewardship of the impacts to Seattle's ratepayers on the kinds of decisions that drive our rates because of those decisions.

Thank you very much.

So I am super excited to say that we have been able, again, to lower our plan six-year average rate path.

And this slide goes into some detail.

It shows our strategic business plan proposed rate path of 4.2%.

and how it is 20% lower than the previous plan's growth rate of 5.2%.

You can see that through the dark line at the top and the red line below it.

And we've lowered our rate proposal while significantly increasing customer financial assistance.

And some of the ways that we've done that have been through self-enrollment, which is a much lower barrier approach than has been previously used.

increased emergency assistance, donation opportunities, payment flexibility, and improved and more kind of aggressive methods of reaching customers, which has absolutely enhanced, I think, our impact in this work during the pandemic.

To address inflationary pressures and to continue to meet current and future utility challenges and obligations, such as our regulatory requirements and taxes, we have to, as modestly as possible, raise rates, though.

It is something that we have to do.

And this slide shows our rate proposal compared to CBO's anticipated or projected 2.6 percent inflationary benchmark.

And I wanted to note that, you know, what drives our rate of inflation as a utility is very different than what the 2.6 percent is based on, which is closer to the consumer price index.

The things that we buy, such as construction materials and labor, professional services and healthcare costs, can be significantly higher, sometimes as high in terms of year-after-year growth of 5%.

in this current market.

So it is very difficult for us to hew extremely close to CIP.

Part of our affordability practice requires achieving balanced rate growth and avoiding precarious future spikes in rates, as well as significant increases in deferral of utility infrastructure replacement and, of course, long-term financial instability.

So those concerns are also balanced in terms of the rate increases.

Still, though, despite emphasizing the things that we need to attend to, we are focused on lowering costs where we can, even in areas that are traditionally not considered to be something that can be moved.

very easily, such as the cost of debt, the cost of contracts, and even getting federal funding.

We have had a significant push in terms of both advocacy and applications for federal funding.

So I'm going to go into even more detail on our rate path.

And this breaks our composite 4.2% into separate utility fund details and drivers.

Our water line of business, the six-year rate path for that is proposed at an annual growth of 3.4%.

which is just above standard inflationary levels, and it increases our focus on targeted capital investment for maintaining and seismically strengthening our water infrastructure.

So the water line of business is aiming to hew as close as it can to CIP while making sure that we're managing our risks.

Our solid waste line of business rate increases are proposed at an average of 2.4%, which is actually below anticipated inflationary levels with contract payments.

and remediating historic landfill in the South Park neighborhood being the most significant rate drivers for this line of business.

But you can see by looking at the two middle lines on this chart that the impact of regulatory compliance on our drainage and wastewater rate path can't be underestimated.

And along with this are the unplanned rate increases associated with King County's wastewater treatment contract, which has resulted in higher than inflation rate increases, as well as not desired year-to-year variability.

And just to get into a little bit more detail on our regulatory compliance, Our Ship Canal Water Quality Project, which is the largest capital project ever undertaken by the City of Seattle, is just one example of the many projects that are mandated by our Consent Decree, by our Combined Sewer Overflow Consent Decree, to clean up a legacy of past pollution emitted into our waterways.

So given that we must comply, we are working to extract the utmost community value from our mandated drainage and wastewater expenditures.

And we're trying to do that by planning, really having a roadmap for how we're going to do that.

from community partnerships, and both of those you can see in our Shape Our Water planning, which I hope that you engage with, because it would be great to have you and your staff's voices included.

And also participating in national conversations to ensure that our regulatory solutions are not unfunded mandates, that regulation is well aligned with community and environmental needs.

And part of our work is also to emphasize nature-based and climate-adaptive solutions, such as green infrastructure.

And also, as we do our work, we aim to focus on the greatest need and the equity benefits to our local community.

I would like to echo a point Councilmember Herbold made earlier which is on that wastewater line in the previous slide.

One of the reasons it is so high is a decision made by King County Council.

there is a concern about the age of all the assets in the system.

At the same time, we're hoping that King County will be mindful of that rate being passed directly through to Seattle rate payers to manage their costs as well, as well as you're managing your costs so that our rate payers are not negatively impacted by through rates.

So we're going to continue discussions with King County Council if there's a way to strike a balance with taking care of asset management, but also mitigating the other cost drivers coming from King County.

Maybe there are other sources of revenues.

There's a lot of real estate development happening out in rural and suburban areas.

We want to you know, make growth pay for growth in those areas especially.

So there's lots of discussion that will happen.

So we'll do our best to be communicating with King County Council on those costs being passed directly through.

Thank you so much.

It's just wonderful to have council members that advocate and are knowledgeable about these really important issues that directly impact the bottom line for our customers.

So thank you very much.

So we're going to go just to talk a little bit just about, you know, what's driving the rates?

I've mentioned some of these things already, right?

You can think of our rate drivers in three main categories, inflation and our operational expenses like labor and healthcare.

Also, regulatory compliance in our capital program, also coupled with the need to replace aging infrastructure.

And then lastly, the last category is increased costs associated with required contracts, such as the King County Treatment Services contract that we have.

And this pie chart, shows how much Seattle Public Utilities will spend proportionally over the next three years on the largest drivers of cost.

And it reflects the aggregate anticipated spending for all three of our funds.

And then you can see, if you look at the detail, that even though the overall budget is large, Much of it is based on fixed expenses, contracts, regulatory requirements, taxes, or growing beyond the influence of the utility and typical inflationary rates, such as construction materials and healthcare.

You can see that, you know, from the, just to highlight, right, what the operations and maintenance component of our work is the gray area is just a very small percentage of our overall budget.

So when we mentioned taxes, we wanted to give you a little bit more detail about what does that look like for each line of business.

And this slide shows the breadth of the different taxes that the utility and its rate payers pay from city to state taxes.

And in 2021, we anticipate paying 123 million in city taxes and an additional amount in state taxes.

I had asked about utility taxes previously, so it's a concept that sometimes gets lost in the minutiae of the budgeting process, but the utility tax is something that basically the city government charges And I think the state government has a cap on how much can be charged to Seattle City Light, but there is no cap on what can be charged to the different lines of business from SPU.

There's also a small amount, I think, that goes to cable operators.

But I've been doing some calculations, and it looks like from SPU, and maybe this is in a different slide, but I think it's about $100 million a year.

It's basically taken from SPU's budget and moved over to the rest of the city budget for good purposes, but it is something that it's a cost driver.

It's something that, you know, just to put it out there that, you know, because utility rates are regressive, the more we increase utility taxes, it's really a pass through to utility customers.

And so it's really an increasing a regressive fee on rate payers.

And so just being mindful of this and intentional about how we treat this utility tax, it does have an impact on Seattle residents.

And it's something to be very careful about how it's used.

There's no free lunch, so if we increase utility taxes to get something for the general fund, we're actually passing that fee, regressive fee, on to rate payers.

And I think Brian Goodnight will be doing a memo to analyze this whole strategic plan, and I'm hoping it'll touch on the utility taxes a little bit, just for those who aren't as familiar with it.

Thank you.

The specific number for this year for the city taxes, not including the state taxes, is $123 million.

Thank you.

Sure.

Thank you.

So we'll go to the next slide on customer bill impacts, because percentages of increase are somewhat elusive.

So we wanted to make sure that it was really concrete what the impacts are to people's pocketbooks and wallets.

This slide shows the changes to customer bills over the rate path period.

and it's based on a typical bill for a few different categories of customers.

So for example, if you look at for 2021, a single family home will see a monthly charge of about, or in the following year, a monthly charge of about $15 more a month.

A multifamily unit will see a monthly charge change of about $4 a month and a small business Like a convenience store, we'll see a monthly change of $38 a month.

So where does the money go from the customer's perspective?

You know, this shows what a typical single family house monthly bill is and what their bill pays for.

So you can see that they are also helping, you know, and this is just giving you the kind of the dollar breakdown of what they would be contributing to the capital program, to King County treatment costs and the solid waste contracts, taxes, and then what they're paying for with respect to Seattle Public Utilities operations and maintenance, which is about a quarter of all of that.

And this is to discuss in a little bit more detail this issue of the lower accomplishment rate assumptions.

Before, and this is, you know, I just wanted to highlight, you know, just one aspect of the work that we did to bring down the overall rate by talking about this accomplishment rate.

You know, as everyone has heard, we used to assume 100% accomplishment rate.

And we would budget for that amount and set rates in order to support that amount to collect the, you know, the revenue needed to support 100% accomplishment rate.

And during our strategic business plan effort, we received guidance from Council Member Herbold about reducing this assumption to a more realistic level.

And so we came down to what we thought was going to be a very difficult 97.5%.

And that was a lot of work for the council.

But as I said before, we did a lot of analysis.

And we also looked at industry standards and practices.

And our proposed plan is to lower it to 85% to 90%, depending on the area of work.

estimated that this lower assumption will save ratepayers approximately $222 million over the rate period in potential cost avoidance.

And we can pass that savings on through the rates.

So now we can talk about something that I know is very important to all of you.

All of you have been advocates for affordability for low-income customers.

And so I just want to rest on this issue a little bit about what are we doing to make sure that we do well in this area.

We are ensuring equitable access is a priority across the utility.

And we're providing significant support through the programs on this slide.

that are especially important during this difficult time for everyone.

SPU's financial assistance is about 22 million per year, one of the most generous in the country.

And with COVID payment deferrals included, that brings our assistance overall to the range of about $35 million.

In 2020, we increased UDP enrollment by over 5,400 customers.

And through our business plan, we will continue to seek ways to lower both the rate increases and to ensure affordability and assistance.

So the ways that we provide assistance are also expanding.

And that includes focusing on side sewer assistance, helping our unsheltered neighbors, and also looking for ways to fund our programs that we have not previously tapped into.

And as I mentioned before, our ultimate goal is to build a partnership with everyone that we serve to find and achieve the most reasonable balance for the economic impact of our work, as well as sustainability of our infrastructure, public health, and the environment that we all share.

So, you know, it's really important, you know, for us to continually find ways to partner with and to continue to rely on our customers to do their part in keeping environmental costs low by conserving, minimizing pollution, and reducing or upcycling waste.

And so, you know, all of that helps us to deliver the best quality service that we can at the lowest possible predictable rate.

And that is it for the presentation component of the discussion.

And we're happy to take any questions at all.

Councilmembers, as I mentioned, there'll be three committee meetings.

This is our first.

The next one, we'll hear a lot more from central staff, who's going to take any questions and expand on the answers in his memo.

And then the third committee meeting, we'll actually vote on the resolution.

But happy to take questions while we've got General Manager Hera and her team here.

Councilmember Herbold?

Thank you.

Reflecting back again on the council resolution that adopted the last strategic business plan, in the resolution, one of the things that we flagged is the need to revise the water connection charge calculation methodology, and I My recollection is the water connection charge calculation was updated, and that element was fulfilled.

But the other request was to develop an implementation plan for sewage and drainage connection charges as well.

These are systems development charges.

They're sort of like I know that SPU did a lot of work in My recollection is we're one of the only jurisdictions in the state that don't have sewer and drainage connection charges.

There is a King County charge, but many other cities within King County both have a county and a city charge.

And this is another way of ensuring that rates are are low, and this is also an issue that has been flagged by the review panel in previous years, and just wondering, appreciating all the work that Seattle Public Utilities has put into the development of options and just wondering where that might be now.

Thank you for bringing up that topic.

You know, the The point of such connection service charges is that new development then pays for, helps to pay for the investment, their fair share of the investments that have already been made in the existing infrastructure, you know, of the city, you know, rather than the previous investors, you know, have paid for it to bear the full cost.

It's really allowing for growth to pay for its fair share.

And, but the main concern right now from many parties is that if the cost of development increases in Seattle, that there would be further inhibition of development, residential development, much needed housing for folks.

And so, you know, there is, pressure for, you know, on all kinds of potential charges to be withheld, you know, in order to promote the best rate of housing development in Seattle as possible.

There is an approach I believe that you work to develop that allowed for additional, I believe, FAR for housing providers, particularly affordable housing providers, so that they would get a benefit in exchange for the system development charge that would make it sort of cost neutral.

So my recollection is that the The direction was to develop a system development charge proposal that minimized the negative cost impacts to the development of affordable housing.

But I can talk more about this with Chair Peterson and with yourself offline, but just wanted to flag that it was still a continuing interest of mine.

Thank you for your interest and advocacy in this area of work.

We stand ready with very full analyses and the ability to implement.

Thank you for raising that, Council Member Hobart.

I also share an interest in that, and I think the COVID pandemic just delayed things on so many different fronts.

Councilmembers, any other questions in our first meeting here about the strategic plan for Seattle Public Utilities?

Councilmember Morales, I see your hand raised, but that might be from the original question.

Indeed.

Thank you.

So just some final comments from me.

I just want to thank Seattle Public Utilities.

After my initial review and subject to what we're going to hear from City Council Central staff, the strategic plan from Seattle Public Utilities, I believe, appropriately focuses on keeping utility bills affordable, has earned the support of the customer review panel, and serves as a strong foundation for our City Council's consideration of utility rates for the next several years.

I want to thank all the work that's been put into this, and we'll keep digging into it before our next committee meeting as well.

So thank you, General Manager Heron.

Thank you to your team.

Thank you very much for your attention and shared stewardship on all the issues that are embedded in the strategic business plan to you and all of the other council members.

Thank you.

Thank you, Paula.

Nice to see you.

Bye, Bob.

Okay, thank you very much.

Will the clerk please read the next agenda item into the record?

Agenda item seven, 2021 technology matching fund report for briefing and discussion.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Council members, I've said this before on other occasions, the COVID crisis has laid bare the disparities in our communities and magnified the need to bridge the digital divide, as we've called for in our city's ambitious Internet for All action plan.

And even as we strive to expand access to the internet throughout Seattle, our Technology Matching Fund continues as a cornerstone of our efforts to connect all our city's residents to education, jobs, and vital services.

And our Information Technology Department is here today to talk about the Technology Matching Fund.

So welcome.

Thank you, Councilmember Peterson, and good morning, everyone else on this committee.

I'm just going to say a couple of things, and then I'm going to pass it on to my colleague, Vicky Ukid, also joined by Tracy Cantrell, as well as Wyn Tang.

from the office.

You know, we take pride in calling a good day when nobody hears about Seattle IT.

When everything works according to plan, that's a good day for IT.

Except for today, when for the last 24 years we have been coming and making a little bit of a show in terms of what Seattle IT has been up to when it comes to digital equity.

Vicky is going to talk about the recipients for this year's grant.

She may also talk about the improvements we have made in terms of how quickly we're able to process this application, which was a direct result of the feedback we were getting from the community.

And today, what you hear about TMF is really just one of a few other things that the digital equity team at the city does, including help with broadband.

And the last thing I would mention, and this is more a shout out to a number of different departments who have come together for the last several months, led by both Seattle IT as well as the Office of Immigration and Refugees, my colleague Kou over there.

to talk about digital equity as a cross-departmental item.

And so there's some really good thinking that is emerging from it that I'm sure that one of these days City Council is going to be hearing about as well.

So without any further delay, Vicky, take it away.

Thank you.

Great.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And we really appreciate this opportunity to share our technology matching fund program with the council.

You know, this is an annual thing that we've done in the past since 1997, and it's very exciting to be able to share all the efforts that went into making this a reality this year, especially during this challenging time of everything being remote.

So I just wanted to kind of share a little bit about the tech matching fund to those who may not know all the details.

Since 1997, we've put about $6 million in awards to 365 community-based organization projects.

These are all, the wonderful thing about the TechMatching Fund is that it is community, they are community-driven efforts.

The community themselves come up with ideas of projects that they would like to see implemented in their geographic areas or among certain populations, demographic populations.

The $6 million has generated $9 million in community match, which is amazing, which is amazing.

That just goes to show the heart that goes into, the heart and hard work that goes into making these projects successful.

So we can move on to the next slide, Vin.

And thank you, Vin, for driving.

I appreciate it.

Okay, so this year's Technology Matching Fund Awards, were awarded up to, we had $320,000 available to award.

These are the actual projects.

And if you look to the right, you'll see the geographic map of where they're located.

On our website, on seattle.gov slash tech slash TMF, you can actually go to the map and you can hit on the points and you'll be able to see what these points actually connect to.

So as you can see, they cover a wide geographic area.

They cover almost all of Seattle.

While the project locations here are noted, these are where they're actually located.

The programs themselves are serving the entire, many of the programs serve areas that they're not even located in.

So this is also a great opportunity to show how they partner with other organizations in different areas to make these projects happen.

Can you move on to the next slide, please?

OK.

So I just wanted to kind of share a little bit more about this year's process.

And so we did have 55 applicants.

OK.

So we had 55 applicants that were that applied for the Tech Matching Fund, and they totaled $1.2 million in asks.

We had 320,000 to provide, and while we did have 55 applications, we had a review panel of 19 folks from the community, from our Community Technology Advisory Board, which plays a huge role in ensuring that we have great representation in terms of the people who review the applications.

The application reviewers all go through unconscious bias training.

And so they do have the opportunity to understand that many of these applications are not coming from large organizations with development departments.

They do come from community groups and organizations who are able to really pull together and, you know, and really demonstrate what it is that they are wanting to provide in their community.

I'm sorry.

I feel like there's a slide missing.

So that's why I keep jumping back and my eyes are darting back and forth to the presentation.

So I apologize.

We did have 55 applicants though.

And so we were able to fund 14 of those.

And also I wanted to put a shout out to The Verizon Foundation, who funded an additional tech matching fund applicant, Equity and Education Coalition, they'll be funding them directly with $25,000.

That's the type of support that we want to show and demonstrate to the council that we are exploring, because we feel like even though we were able to fund these wonderful 14 applicants, and now this 15th applicant, we could have easily funded 30 of them.

They were all ranked very high and I have met with them to explain to them where it is that they could, what it was about their application that maybe did not have it rise and we're very excited to apply for future opportunities.

I wanted to also just kind of touch on our COVID-19 response.

you know, what we really loved about this year is that, you know, there was just so many applicants that really came up with creative solutions for kind of transitioning back to in-person instruction.

So while they are providing, coming in with these ideas of these projects that would be in-person, they also will be doing hybrid models themselves, similar to what you would see in schools.

So while they will have those who are comfortable in in-person settings, many of them asked for cameras and such so that they could make their labs more conducive to hybrid opportunities.

Additionally, you know, lending libraries have been very popular through the Tech Matching Fund.

We saw real increase in the number of projects that wanted to do lending libraries because so many folks at home don't have access to technology.

They don't have access to laptops, devices.

and such, but the really exciting part of it was the implementation and also request for digital media equipment and storytelling software, different types of devices that could be lent out to folks in the community as well as so that they could then do some hands-on practicing remotely.

There's also an increased number of hardware purchases for individual home use as loaners, as well as for them to keep.

And so we really wanted to encourage, see a model where they could, where people were adopting technology.

So they would receive a device perhaps for training, but then are able to keep that so they can continue using it into the future once their classes and workshops and their education program has ended.

And then also, I wanted to share that, you know, there's a lot of support for digital navigator services.

So digital navigators, for those who may not know what that is, is there are folks in the community often working for community-based organizations who have had to really spend a lot of time that's been diverted from their regular work to be able to help walk folks through how to use their devices.

So for instance, this meeting is conducted on Zoom.

If a workshop takes place on Zoom for a participant, a student who doesn't understand how to participate virtually, these community-based organization staff have had to kind of walk people through that.

And that takes an enormous amount of time.

And then we also saw an increase in the number of folks who were really wanting to have home internet connectivity.

And so digital navigators would help provide that information and support to get them signed up.

And so we're really pleased by that as well.

And so I think that this is the end of my presentation.

If you have any questions, we're totally open for questions.

Thank you very much, Vicky.

And thanks to everybody who reviewed those applications and had to make those tough decisions.

You know, we will be hearing from the technology department in a couple of weeks about the Internet for All action plan.

And the number of applications you mentioned, those who applied but only being able to grant 15 of those, just as we consider how to invest funds coming from the federal government, from new sources such as the American Rescue Plan Act or ARPA, we can be mindful of the digital divide that persists.

I'm not sure if that's a good idea.

I'm not sure if that's a good idea.

I'm not sure if that's a good idea.

I'm not sure if that's a good idea.

I'm not sure if that's a good idea.

I'm not sure if that's a good idea.

I'm not sure if that's a good idea.

I'm not sure if that's a good idea.

I'm not sure if that's a good idea.

I'm not sure if that's a good idea.

I'm not sure if that's a good idea.

I'm not sure if that's a good idea.

in two weeks and also to think about ARPA funding.

So thank you for all the hard work.

Councilmembers, any questions about this report on the information, the technology matching fund?

Okay, we'll, we'll, oh, Councilmember, Council President Gonzalez, please.

Thank you, Chair Peterson.

No questions about the report.

I just want to thank you all for continuing the important work in this In this in this space and in the sort of city effort to address this issue.

I also wanted to make note and appreciate Seattle it's involvement in the mass vaccination site efforts happening at lumen field.

I had an opportunity to tour that.

operation on Saturday and was surprised to hear that the Seattle IT has is providing a lot of technical support in that operation.

And I think, you know, it's one thing It's really important for us to sort of improve the technology infrastructure and the access to Internet outside of City Hall, but to also be able to be nimble enough to leverage our own resources, both in expertise, but also in equipment to to do this really important.

community work is really is, is just really admirable.

And, you know, one of the ways that I know that you all are supporting is, you know, they have all these iPads at the mass vaccination site, and there's like on demand interpretation happening on the other side of the screen.

There's, you know, there's There's just so many technology needs that make that mass vaccination site run really smoothly.

And I just want to appreciate the work of you, Director Beshear, and all of all of your staff who are doing tremendous work on that effort.

Thank you, Council President.

All right.

And Eric McConaghy from Central Staff is the point person on this issue and will also be for the Internet for All Action Plan in the next couple of weeks.

So thank you, everybody, from IT for being here.

Appreciate it.

Good to see you.

We'll see you in a couple of weeks, if not sooner.

We have more IT stuff coming up, though, on this agenda.

All right, so will the clerk please read the title of the next agenda item into the record?

Agenda item 8, Council Bill 120024, an ordinance relating to surveillance technology implementation, authorizing approval of uses and accepting the surveillance impact report for the Seattle Police Department's use of 911 logging recorder technology for briefing, discussion, and possible vote.

Thank you.

Council members, as you may recall, there was a single bill for the existing police technologies that was introduced on February 22nd, and we heard it in the March.

and March 17th committee, we just broke it into five pieces.

So those are the five bills.

It's the same content.

It's just spread out into five bills.

Just to set the table for the viewing public, to implement our city's cutting edge surveillance ordinance, which was adopted in 2017 and refined in 2018. Our existing technology and computer programs undergo an extensive review process by the executive departments, a community-led surveillance working group, and other stakeholders.

And while technology is vital to enable local government to provide services more efficiently to the public, some technology can also have surveillance capabilities or privacy concerns that need to be evaluated with surveillance impact reports.

So thanks to everybody for approving the surveillance impact reports for Seattle City Light and the Seattle Fire Department previously.

And again, we took these existing police technology items, broke them into five bills.

Because we've heard them twice already, March 3rd, March 17th, the idea is to vote on the amendments and vote these bills.

We will, however, provide a little bit of extra runway for full Council deliberation on these.

So instead of going straight to Council this coming Monday, it would skip a week and go the next Monday.

So this is the first bill that was read to the record, which is the 9-1-1 logging recorder technology.

I do want to thank Councilmembers for getting their amendments in as well.

It enabled the City Attorney's I want to say thank you to all of you for your hard work on this.

I want to give a more thorough legal review of these amendments so we can get them published on the agenda last week and get them before us today.

Thanks to everybody for your hard work on this.

And especially to our esteemed central staff person who is keeping it all together for us, Lisa Kay and my staff and the IT folks.

And each department also does Lisa Kay, would you like to have some opening remarks or kick things off for us here?

I was going to check in with you.

I think I can walk through, if you'd like, for each item, I can introduce the bill just very briefly and then walk through the amendments either one at a time or I'll talk about all amendments and then come back to each one.

Do you have a preference about doing the amendments one at a time or

Thank you.

I think, I think introducing or mentioning them all at the same time is fine because they're all very workable and I'm supportive of all of them and hearing the big picture will be helpful, I think.

Okay, I'll go ahead with your permission and share my screen, then, where I will be able to show you the amendments as I'm speaking to them, if that works.

So, is the screen sharing working?

Excellent.

Okay, so item eight is Council Bill 120-024.

This bill would approve the police department's continued use of its 911 logging recorder, and it would accept the surveillance impact report and executive overview for that technology.

As you have previously heard, the 911 logging recorder automatically records all calls to SPD's Dispatch Center and also records all the radio traffic between the dispatchers and the patrol officers.

There is one amendment before the committee today.

This is sponsored by council member Peterson.

This amendment would request a report from the police department on the metrics to be used in the chief technology officer's annual equity assessments of this technology.

You'll recall that none of the group two SIRs had provided these metrics in advance of council consideration.

So that's the only amendment before you today on 120024.

Thank you.

And so, council members, this amendment is what we approved for Seattle City Light.

It's what we approved for the Seattle Fire Department, and it is the first amendment for all five of these bills on the existing police technologies today.

And why don't we go ahead?

Let me first go ahead and make a motion to get this council bill on the table, and then we can have a discussion, a formal discussion on it, and I'll make a motion to amend it with this amendment.

If that's okay with everybody.

Okay, I'd like to now move that the committee recommend approval of the Council Bill 12024, item eight on our agenda.

Is there a second?

Thank you, it's been moved and seconded to recommend passage of the bill.

Now I'd like to move to amend Council Bill 12024 as presented in Amendment 1 on the agenda.

Is there a second?

Thank you.

It's been moved and seconded to amend the bill as presented on Amendment 1. And so Lisa's already gone through the rationale for this.

This is something we voted on previously, basically requiring this of the police department.

Are there any comments or questions about this amendment?

Okay.

Will the clerk please call the roll on the adoption of Amendment 1?

Isn't he?

Gonzales?

Aye.

Herbold?

Yes.

Morales?

Council Member Morales?

Yes.

Chair Peterson?

Yes.

Four in favor, none opposed.

Okay, the motion, the amendment is adopted and incorporated in the bill.

Are there any other comments on the bill as amended for the 911 logging recorder technology?

Council Member Herbold.

Thank you.

I have some amendments that recognize that the 911 is moving from SPD to the Community Safety and Communication Center.

And I'm just wondering whether or not, Lisa, we should consider between now and full council an amendment to this bill as well, similar to Amendment 2 for Council Bill 12026.

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Thank you, Councilmember Herbold.

And with that guidance to central staff, we can go ahead.

Any other final questions on this bill as amended?

OK, will the clerk please call the roll on the council bill as amended?

Gonzales?

Aye.

Herbold?

Yes.

Morales?

Yes.

Chair Peterson?

Yes.

Four in favor, none opposed.

Thank you.

The motion carries and the committee recommendation that the amended bill be sent to the April 19th city council meeting for final consideration.

So again, that's gonna give it a little bit of extra time here and be on the April 19th full council meeting.

And I'll be recommending that for all four, the remaining four of these SPD existing technology bills as well.

Will the clerk please read the title of the next agenda item into the record.

Agenda item 9, Council Bill 120025, an ordinance relating to surveillance technology implementation, authorizing approval of uses and accepting the surveillance impact report for the Seattle Police Department's use of automated license plate reader technology for briefing, discussion, and possible vote.

Thank you, and go ahead, Lisa, to introduce this amendment, and there are other amendments for this one.

Thank you, Council Member.

Council Bill 120.025 would approve the police department's continued use of automated license plate readers, and it would accept the surveillance impact report and executive overview for that technology.

The police department uses this, the license plate readers to help identify stolen vehicles and vehicles wanted in conjunction with felonies.

They're also used to help find wanted persons and to support amber and silver alerts for abducted children and other missing people.

The committee has three amendments before you today.

The first one is Council Member Peterson's equity metrics amendment, identical to what you just approved for the 911 logging recorder.

The second one is sponsored by Council Member Herbold, amendment number two, would ask the police department to report back to council on the feasibility of setting the retention period for license plate reader data at seven days instead of 90 days.

And it would add related recitals that provide context for that request.

It also adds a recital noting that the transfer of the parking enforcement unit out of SBD will require an update to the surveillance impact report.

Amendment third, I'm sorry, the third amendment for this bill is sponsored by Council Member Morales.

This would ask the Office of Inspector General to include two analyses in its first annual surveillance usage review.

The first request would be for a demographic analysis of the police department's use of the license plate data.

And the second would be a review of whether shared data from license plate readers between parking enforcement and patrol could potentially disproportionately impact vulnerable and historically targeted communities.

Those are the three amendments.

Thank you, Lisa.

Would you display amendment number two, if you can?

Thank you.

great.

Council members, there's a couple of different ways we could do this.

I think I'll go ahead and make a motion, get the bill on the table.

We'll go ahead and amend it with the first amendment, which is the one we've done for all the others.

And then we can make a motion to, for the second amendment, and then we can talk about it and then do the same for the third amendment.

So I'll go ahead and make some motions just to get the ball rolling, if that's okay with everybody.

Okay, so Council Members, I now move that the committee recommend approval of Council Bill 12025, Item 9 on our agenda.

Is there a second?

Second.

Thank you.

It's been moved and seconded to recommend passage of the bill.

I move to amend Council Bill 12025 as presented in Amendment 1 on the agenda.

Second.

Thank you.

It's been moved and seconded to amend the bill as presented as Amendment 1. I'm the sponsor of this item.

Again, that's the same repeating amendment to have SPD take care of the of equity assessments, their annual equity assessments.

Let's go ahead and amend the bill for that.

So I think it's been moved and seconded for Amendment 1. So are there any comments before we vote on Amendment 1?

OK, will the clerk please call the roll on the adoption of Amendment 1?

Gonzalez?

Aye.

Herbold?

Yes.

Morales?

the motion carries and amendment one is adopted.

Councilmember Herbold, would you like to move amendment two for discussion?

Thank you for the opportunity.

Basically, the amendment requests that the police department report no later than the end of the third quarter of 2021 on the feasibility of retaining records of nonspecific automated license plate reader data for no more than seven days.

Add some recitals.

data that SPD uses for enforcement is deleted after 90 days unless it's related to a criminal investigation.

The amendment would ask SPD to report back to council later this year on deleting that data after no more than seven days.

The surveillance working groups privacy and civil liberties impact assessment identified over retention of data as a problem area and recommended that data retention should be limited to the time needed to effectuate the purpose defined.

And so the amendment is intended to reflect this recommendation.

I think I'll hold my question.

I do have a question that was brought up in public comment, but I'll hold it until we're maybe done considering the amendments.

Thank you, Council Member Herbold.

As the sponsor of Amendment 2, I support your amendment.

Are there any other comments on Amendment 2?

Council Member Herbold, did you want to go ahead and vote on this and amend the bill, and then you can ask your question?

Okay, so it's been moved and seconded, and we've had comments from the sponsor.

Will the clerk please call the roll on the adoption of Amendment 2?

Gonzales?

Aye.

Herbold?

Yes.

Morales?

Yes.

Chair Peterson?

Yes.

Four in favor, none opposed.

great, the motion carries, and amendment number two is adopted.

Before we get on to amendment three, Council Member Herbold, did you want to ask your question now?

Sure, thank you.

So one of the points raised in public comment is the desire expressed by this amendment as it relates to limiting records retention.

I think it's important to note that the testifier suggested a non-case-specific reader data and significantly limiting it over what I understand to be the current practice.

We're not addressing parking.

We're not addressing parking.

Lisa, can you give me a little bit of direction here on the scope of this amendment and whether or not I might be inadvertently leaving a gap in my intent?

I think the speaker had, and in her written comments, it also was assuming that the parking enforcement had been moved out of police already, and they haven't been moved out of police.

The new agency hasn't been stood up, so I don't believe that your amendment is leaving anything out.

Thank you very much.

Okay, thank you for that.

So we're going to move on to Amendment 3. Let's get that on the table.

Council Member Morales, would you like to move Amendment 3?

Sure.

I move Amendment 3 to Council Bill 120025. Second.

It's been moved and seconded to amend the council bill with Amendment 3. And Council Member Morales, would you like to go ahead and describe this amendment for us?

Sure.

So this is asking for two separate analyses from the Office of Inspector General, I think, You know, we all know that there are some communities who feel like they are sort of surveilled more than other communities.

And so I'm looking for some data just to verify whether or not that's happening.

And so the first would require or would request the OIG do a demographic analysis on the use of the license plate reader technology by neighborhood.

as well as the sharing of data between parking enforcement and patrol.

And really just trying to demonstrate or have sort of a baseline of information so that we can make any future decisions that we might need to make on how that technology is being used.

Thank you, Council Member Morales.

I support this amendment too.

Colleagues, any questions or comments on Amendment 3?

Great, thank you for putting this forward.

Let's go ahead and vote on Amendment 3. Will the clerk please call the roll on the adoption of Amendment 3?

Gonzales?

Yes.

Herbold?

Morales?

Yes.

Chair Peterson?

Yes.

Four in favor, none opposed.

Thank you.

The motion carries, and Amendment 3 is adopted.

Any final comments before we call the roll on the amended bill?

Will the clerk please call the roll on the committee recommendations and Council Bill 12025, pass as amended.

Gonzales?

Yes.

Herbold?

Yes.

Morales?

Yes.

Chair Peterson?

Yes.

Four in favor, none opposed.

Thank you.

The motion carries, and the committee recommendation that the bill pass as amended be sent to the April 19 City Council meeting for final consideration.

So that's two down and three to go.

Will the clerk please read the title of the next agenda item into the record?

Agenda item 10. Council Bill 120026, an ordinance relating to surveillance technology implementation, authorizing approval of uses and accepting the surveillance impact report for the Seattle Police Department's use of parking enforcement systems, including automated license plate reader technology, for briefing, discussion, and possible vote.

Thank you.

And Lisa Kay, if you don't mind going through the amendments quickly, and then I'll make a few motions to get the ball rolling.

Okay, so the amendment, the first amendment to this bill.

What would you like, let me give just a brief overview of the parking enforcement systems technology.

as you know, is used to identify vehicles that have multiple outstanding tickets, scofflaws, and to digitally mark vehicles in time-restricted zones, what used to be done manually with chalk, and to issue citations.

So the two amendments before you today to this bill, the first one is the equity metrics amendment, sponsored by Council Member Peterson, requesting the report from the Police Department on the metrics provided to the CTO for use in the annual equity assessments.

Amendment 2 is sponsored by Council Member Herbold, and this amendment would add a recital about the need to update the surveillance impact report once the parking enforcement unit is transferred out of SPD.

Thank you.

Council members, I'll just get the item on the table officially here.

Council members, I now move that committee recommends approval of Council Bill 12026, item 10 on our agenda.

Is there a second?

Second.

Thank you.

It's been moved and seconded to recommend passage of this bill.

I move to amend Council Bill 12025 as presented in amendment one on the agenda.

Is there a second?

Second.

Thank you.

It's been moved and seconded to amend the bill as presented on Amendment 1. Again, this is the same equity metrics amendment for the other bills.

And it will also apply to the last two bills we'll be voting on today.

Any questions before we vote on Amendment 1?

OK.

Will the clerk please call the roll on adoption of Amendment 1?

Gonzalez?

Aye.

Herbold?

Yes.

Morales?

Yes.

Chair Peterson?

Yes.

Four in favor, none opposed.

Thank you.

The motion carries and the amendment is adopted.

Council Member Herbold, would you like to move amendment number two?

Thank you.

Sorry about that.

Yes, please.

I move amendment two as listed on the agenda.

Second.

It's been moved and seconded to amend the bill as presented on amendment two.

Councilor Herbold, would you like to speak to this amendment?

Pretty straightforward.

Not much to add to what Lisa already described.

Simply adds a recital to the council bill, recognizing it's the council's intent to transfer SPD's parking enforcement unit to the new community safety and communication center and the need for an updated SIR to align with the new organizational structure.

Thank you.

And to clarify, that's the type of amendment you're thinking about incorporating for the first bill?

Okay, great.

Exactly.

Thank you.

Council members, any questions about Amendment 2 for this bill?

Will the clerk please call the roll on the adoption of Amendment 2?

Gonzales?

No.

Herbold?

Yes.

Morales?

Yes.

Chair Peterson?

Yes.

Three in favor, one opposed.

Thank you.

The motion carries and the amendment is adopted.

Any final comments before we vote on the amended bill?

One moment.

the clerk will call the roll.

Will the clerk please call the roll on the committee recommendation that council bill 12026 pass as amended.

Yes.

Four in favor, none opposed.

Thank you.

The motion carries and the committee recommendation that this bill pass as amended will be sent to the April 19 City Council meeting for final consideration.

Okay, Council Members, we've got two more of these bills.

Saving the best for last.

Council Bill, will the clerk please read the title of the next agenda item into the record?

agenda item 11, council bill 120027, an ordinance relating to surveillance technology implementation, authorizing approval of uses and accepting the surveillance impact report for the Seattle Police Department's use of computer-aided dispatch technology, for briefing, discussion, and possible vote.

Thank you.

And Lisa, as with the last two bills, if you could give a quick overview and then discuss the amendments, and I'll make some motions.

Sure, sorry about the, my computer decided not to show my PDF for a while.

I'm not quite sure why.

I think it's back on.

So Council Bill 120-027 would approve the police department's continued use of computer-aided dispatch technology, and it would accept the surveillance impact report and executive overview for that technology.

The computer-aided dispatch system supports the personnel in SPD's 911 call center who receive the calls and then dispatch police units in emergency situations.

We have, the committee only has one amendment before you today, that's Councilmember Peterson's equity metrics amendment that was approved for the previous three technologies.

Thank you very much.

Council members, I now move that the committee recommend approval of Council Bill 120027, which is item 11 on our agenda.

Is there a second?

Thank you.

It's been moved and seconded to recommend passage of the bill.

I now move to amend Council Bill 120027 as presented in Amendment 1 on the agenda.

Is there a second?

second.

second.

thank you.

it's been moved and seconded to amend the bill as presented on amendment one.

and lisa k presented it.

this is the exact same equity metrics assessment amendment that we had on the previous bills.

are there any comments or questions before we vote on the amendment?

will the clerk please call the roll on the adoption of amendment one.

Morales?

Yes.

Chair Peterson?

Yes.

Four in favor, none opposed.

Thank you.

The motion carries and the amendment is adopted.

Any additional comments on the bill as amended?

Will the clerk please call the roll on the committee recommendation that Council Bill 12007 pass as amended.

Gonzales?

Aye.

Herbold?

Yes.

Morales?

Yes.

Chair Peterson?

Yes.

Four in favor, none opposed.

Thank you.

The motion carries and the committee recommendation that the bill pass as amended will be sent to the April 19 City Council meeting for final consideration.

Will the clerk please read the title of the next agenda item into the record, which is the final item on our agenda.

Agenda Item 12, Council Bill 120028, an ordinance relating to surveillance technology implementation, authorizing approval of uses and accepting the surveillance impact report for the Seattle Police Department's use of the CopLogic technology.

For briefing, discussion, and possible vote.

Thank you.

And Lisa Clay, if you could give us an overview of this and discuss the amendments.

And we might have an amendment to one of the amendments as well.

So we'll work our parliamentary procedure magic to make that happen.

Okay.

Council Bill 120-028 would approve the police department's continued use of CopLogic technology, and it would accept the surveillance impact report and executive overview for that technology.

CopLogic is a crime reporting software with two applications.

The first is used by members of the public for reporting low-level crimes, and the second is used by businesses to report retail theft.

You have three amendments before you today.

The first is Councilmember Peterson's equity metrics amendments requesting the report from the Police Department on the metrics developed for the use in the Chief Technology Officer's annual equity assessments.

Amendment number two is sponsored by Councilmember Herbold.

This amendment would ask the police department to provide a racial disparity analysis of the retail theft reports received through CopLogic over the past three years and also for the next three years.

Amendment number three is sponsored by Council Member Morales.

This amendment would ask the Office of Inspector General to include two specific areas in its first annual surveillance usage review of the CopLogic technology.

First, it would ask the Office of Inspector General to review the Police Department's contract with LexisNexis, particularly regarding records retention and data sharing.

The second request is for the Inspector General, together with the Information Technology Department, to evaluate the trade-offs of using an internal server instead of LexisNexis' server to store this data.

Those are the three amendments.

Council Member.

Thank you.

And would you mind displaying Amendment 2

I would be happy to.

Thank you.

So this is the last bill on our agenda today and there are three amendments.

Council Member Morales, did you have anything, did you want to introduce any sort of potential refinement or change to your amendment?

Conceptually and then we can.

Sure.

Well, I was listening to public comment and realized that in Amendment 3, what I would like to add is a request for OIG to report to council what they found about the server issue.

So I'm wondering how we do that.

Would you like me to suggest some language?

That would be awesome.

I would possibly just suggest that, let's move to this amendment, that after the period after city server, just say comma and report the usage review to the city council.

If that meets your...

That would be great.

Okay.

Thank you.

Okay, one moment.

This is fine.

Yeah, I'm glad we're bringing this up now and we'll take care of this at committee here.

And the language is clear and simple and so it's easy for us to do this here at committee.

Why don't we go ahead and move the first two amendments, and then when we get to Amendment 3, we'll go ahead and orally make that change to Amendment 3, which is what we're talking about, right?

Amendment 3?

Yeah.

Okay.

So let me go ahead.

Amendment 1 is, again, the equity metrics assessment amendment for all the bills.

Let me get this bill on the table here.

Council members, I now move that the committee recommend approval of Council Bill 120028 item 12 on our agenda.

Is there a second?

Thank you.

It's been moved and seconded to recommend passage of the bill.

I move to amend Council Bill 120028 as presented in Amendment 1 on the agenda.

Is there a second?

Second.

Thank you.

It's been moved and seconded to amend the bill as presented on Amendment 1. Again, this is the same amendment we've done for all the bills.

Are there any final comments on Amendment 1?

Will the clerk please call the roll on the adoption of Amendment 1?

Gonzales?

Council President Gonzales?

Aye.

Herbold?

Yes.

Morales?

Yes.

Chair Peterson?

Yes.

Four in favor, none opposed.

Thank you.

The motion carries and the amendment number one is adopted.

Council Member Herbold, would you like to speak to amendment, would you like to move amendment two?

Thank you.

Yes, please.

Appreciate it.

I would like to move Amendment 2 to Council Bill 120028 as listed on the agenda.

Second.

It's been moved and seconded to amend the bill as presented on Amendment 2. Council Member Herbold, as a sponsor, would you like to speak to the amendment?

Thank you.

So this amendment requests racial equity disparity data analysis on the merchant side of this particular program, COPLOGIC, which is a way for folks to self-report crimes.

where an immediate police response may not be necessary.

It's an online reporting tool, but there is a merchant side for CopLogic, and this request for a report is intended to address one of the issues flagged by the Surveillance Working Group, where they rights that COPLOGIC raises significant civil liberties concerns, including the potential for retailers to obtain and enter identifying information into COPLOGIC on the basis of mere suspicion of criminality without conviction or due process.

And so this, they go on to say this raises civil liberties concerns around due process because individuals merely suspected of committing a crime or infraction will be entered into a law enforcement database with no application of any legal standard by a private entity and with no due process or even notice.

And so this amendment is intended to to get more information from the police department, how cop logic is being used and to what effect and what impact, particularly as it relates to the civil liberties concerns and disparate impacts on particular groups of people.

Thank you, Council Member Havald.

I support this amendment.

Council Members, any questions I'm interested in this but I'm wondering to what degree we

My recollection, and Lisa, correct me if I'm wrong, my recollection is when we inquired with SPD when they were at the table with us, they did not indicate that they had it, but that they could, much like they do for their enforcement data that they collect, that they could produce a report from the COPLogic data as well.

That was my understanding also.

I don't know if Captain McDonough has anything else that he wanted to add.

My apologies, Captain.

I forgot you're with us.

Captain McDonough, you're on mute.

Thank you again for joining us.

Yep.

Yeah, I believe we can pull up the data.

It might take a little cross back and forth, but the information is there.

The only point I do want to point out is If a business does, in fact, report someone and there's no evidence to support the crime, the case detective reviews that and sends it back to the store to provide supporting evidence.

And if it doesn't reach the threshold, then we don't accept the report.

And we'll be getting this information this year per this amendment?

Yes.

no later than the third quarter of 2021, for the past three years, is what the amendment would request.

OK, thank you.

Thank you, council members.

Council President Gonzalez.

And you're on mute, Council President.

I lowered the raise the hand feature, and I thought I unmuted.

Sorry about that.

So a couple of questions.

One as a follow-up to Captain Madonna's comment.

So this amendment as written would not capture any racial disparity data related to referrals.

I'll call them for a lack of better term.

I'm sure Captain can correct me if I'm using the wrong terminology.

So this amendment wouldn't capture referrals that were sent back, right?

So just sort of contacts.

But if SPD rejects the report, then that is not going to be included in this racial disparity analysis based on how this amendment is written.

Is that correct, Lisa?

That's correct.

And Captain, am I characterizing that correctly, the sort of nomenclature?

Sort of, yes.

It's just like a regular report.

If someone were to file the report in person, the officer would take the report.

It would be in the system, but then it would be deactivated by the case detective on a regular recording where you do it in person.

Here, the case detective sends it back, and in discussion with him, he says, look, either provide me the evidence or I don't do anything with the case, and it's automatically deleted.

So some of that data may, in fact, be in there, but I think the ones that they're actually reporting a crime that goes through and is retained by SPD, that information should be in there.

Okay.

So it's the one, it's the reports that, that your folks determine are, is insufficient in terms of the underlying claims will be sent back, rejected and therefore not generally included in the database.

Yeah, and I say generally because obviously, theoretically, it's in the system.

We haven't accepted it to be able to put it into the record management system.

It's only in CAC logic, but there's an auto delete after, I think we give the citizens about 120 days to clean it up because oftentimes it's back and forth.

Oh, you didn't have this or that.

But if we don't accept it, then we don't have a record retained in our system, long-term record management system.

Yeah, OK, and then the the the second question I had was.

So this amendment asked that the that the Department do the racial disparity analysis and then some of the other amendments we've considered.

We've asked that OIG do the analysis, and so I'm just wondering.

Um?

I'm wondering why in this amendment SPD is the analyzer, if you will, or the, the, the producer of the report, as opposed to the.

Thanks.

The city inspector general is not responsible for the production of all racial disparity impact reports, although I think as it relates specific, I mean, for instance, SPD reports on racial disparity in a large the OIG has authority in this area.

there's a number of different types of contacts that they have because of reporting requirements that this council has required legislatively and also because of obligations under the consent decree.

sensitive to the fact that the OIG has a process for developing her annual work plan every year, and this is not something that I feel I can ask her to do after already submitting sort of my request for her work plan.

And again, I'm saying this is just a I'm open to that.

I'm open to the fact that this is sort of a raw data dump, and that we couldn't do with it what we want, whether or not that is asking the OIG at a later date to take another look.

But I'm open to, I'm just explaining my thought process in

That's really helpful.

I just wanted to sort of get a clearer understanding of.

The decision making process there, but I think I understand that this is truly a report as opposed to an analysis.

Of the data in terms of like trends or or top lines so.

Um.

So I understand why SPD would be the ones to generate the report with the data and would sort of signal interest in determining how to evaluate the data once we have it so that so that we aren't drawing conclusions from it from the data that.

You know, may not be as well informed as as it could be.

data can paint a lot of different pictures, and I just want to make sure that we have sort of an accurate sense of what the data is telling us once we do have it so that it has some utility to us as policymakers in the future.

Thank you, Council President.

Council Member Morales.

Well, to that last point, I'm wondering if there is a way before records get deleted to capture the information we're interested in.

Otherwise, it seems to me it would be very skewed and not serve its purpose if we're not capturing the information because there wasn't enough of a case built and the information was dismissed.

The fact that somebody was reported on still needs to be part of this if this evaluation or this analysis is going to be useful.

I'd be interested in hearing if that's a possibility.

before we vote on this.

Captain McDonough, are you able to address that question, whether you can retain some of that data?

Yeah, only partly.

I'd have to look into seeing if we could actually grab it and then store it, which is counterproductive to what we're talking about here.

One of the things under COPLogic, the detector that runs that program, If a business does, in fact, continually try to abuse it in violation of the rules, right, there has to be a crime committed and you have to have the evidence to support the crime.

They try to do it, then they can be taken off the program itself.

And he's very vigilant about that.

But in terms of trying to see if, you know, someone tried to do that and they kicked it back, and trying to capture that information requested here in the amendment, I'd actually have to look and talk to CopLogic, the program, or look at the CopLogic program and then talk to IT to see if we could get it, but then we end up having a problem.

I now have data that I can't legally possess, right?

Because we've kicked it back because we don't have a crime committed yet.

We're trying to work through that.

So I'd have to figure out a way to actually do that.

Because again, it's not getting past the detective, therefore it's not in our record management to be used against anybody in a disparate manner.

So I would have to actually look at that to try to determine that.

Thank you.

Yeah, I'm certainly not advocating for keeping more data than we need to have, but it just seems to me like a sort of a flaw in this particular effort if we don't actually have

I'm sorry.

I think the only good thing is that if they do try to do that without evidence of crime, that we're not capturing it.

And that's probably the best light in terms of looking at that.

But like you, we don't want to retain any data that's not necessary.

So in that regard, I would agree with you.

I was just going to say really quickly that I think in terms of the policy choices before us presented by just sort of how the cop logic technology works and what Captain Dunn just said, I think that while it may have some use to understand if there are racial disparities in the sort of referral portion of this, as opposed to the sort of who was accepted and how did that play out, I feel like the cost-benefit analysis there is pretty high in terms of potentially retaining folks' very personal data for longer than what we would like to.

And so I think maybe the better option here is to pursue, is to proceed as suggested, which is let's focus on those cases that we know were accepted and made their way through the COP logic system and are being retained to best evaluate whether or not there are racial disparities related to the underlying program.

So, tough choice, but I certainly don't want to cut against the bigger intent, which is to limit the retention overall of personally identifiable information by these technologies.

So, appreciate the fact to sort of head down that line of questioning and realizing that it may have an unintended consequence of broadening the scope and the time of retention of personally identifiable information that we don't currently retain.

Thank you.

Thank you for that discussion on Amendment 2. That was very helpful.

I'm supporting it.

And if we don't have any other questions or comments on it, we can go ahead and vote on it.

Amendment 2. Will the clerk please call the roll on adoption of Amendment 2?

Gonzalez?

Council President Gonzalez?

Aye.

Can you hear me?

Aye.

Yes.

Thank you.

Herbold?

Yes.

Morales?

Yes.

Chair Peterson?

Yes.

Four in favor, none opposed.

Thank you.

The motion carries.

And amendment number two is adopted.

And Council Member Morales, would you like to move an amendment?

There are a couple of different ways we can do this with amendment three.

Because we're a committee, we have a little bit more flexibility with our parliamentary procedure.

I think that we could We could either get the amendment out there, move it, second it, talk about it, and then amend the amendment.

Or we could just immediately have the amended amendment before us and vote on that as amendment number three.

So with amendment three, Lisa Kay, the additional language, is there a way to display that or read that aloud again, what that language would be, Lisa K to.

Right, that's what I'm looking at that right now.

I think I can probably read it to you more.

So I would suggest where the cursor is after section X and the second line where it says 2022. It would add, it would be surveillance usage review for 2022 and report to council an analysis of.

So you would just add after 2022 and report to council.

Okay, so then amendment three as presented on the agenda is being modified to add the words and report to council.

and those words and report to council would appear after 2022. So it'll read, the council requests the Office of Inspector General to include in its annual surveillance usage review for 2022 and report to council an analysis of, and then the two items, the contractual relationship and the costs and benefits.

So that is, Council Member Morales, you'd like to move that amendment?

Councilmember Morales?

Councilmember Morales?

I move amendment 3 to Council Bill 120028. Am I muted?

No.

Thank you.

Yes.

So we have heard from public comment and from constituents that there is an interest or concern about the fact that COPLOGIC is that the information that is collected by it is held in the cloud, and this could create some risk for hacking and cyber attack.

And so there was interest in trying to move that information onto an internal server.

At the last committee, when I raised this, there was a concern expressed from I think it was somebody from SPD, that that would be very expensive.

And so this amendment is requesting the inspector general to include in the next surveillance review an analysis of the relationship between LexisNexis and the cost between, just to provide an analysis of how much it would cost to continue to do that versus bringing that into a city server.

And so that's what we're requesting to do and are now also requesting that that report be submitted to council or presented to council.

Thank you.

I support this amendment.

Council members, any other comments or questions on Amendment 3?

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Morales, for putting that forward for us.

Will the clerk please call the roll on the adoption of Amendment 3 as we modified orally by adding the words and report to Council?

Gonzales?

Aye.

Herbold?

Aye.

Morales?

Yes.

Chair Peterson?

Yes.

Four in favor, none opposed.

The motion carries, and the amendment is adopted.

amendment number three.

Are there any final comments on this bill as amended before we vote on the amended bill?

And again, this will be heard on the April 19th council meeting if it passes here.

Will the clerk please call the roll on the committee recommendation that council bill 120028 pass as amended.

Gonzales?

Aye.

Herbold?

I'm going to call the roll on this one.

I'm going to call the roll on this one.

I'm going to call the roll on this one.

I'm going to call the roll on this one.

I'm going to call the roll on this one.

I'm going to call the roll on this one.

I'm going to call the roll on this one.

I'm going to call the roll on this one.

I'm going to call the roll on this one.

I'm going to call the roll on this one.

All right, well, thank you.

This concludes the April 7, 2021 meeting of the Transportation Utilities Committee.

We will meet again on April 21. Thank you for attending.

We are adjourned.