Seattle City Council Public Safety Committee Meeting 1/28/2025

Will the committee clerk please call the roll.

Council member Hollingsworth is excused.

Council member Moore.

Present.

Council President Nelson.

Present.

Council member Saka.

Here.

Chair Kettle.

Here.

Chair, there are four members present.

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

Seeing and hearing no objection, the agenda is adopted.

I want to welcome everyone here this morning.

We do have one council member remote.

We had some technical difficulties yesterday, so I'm hoping everything will be good with that and call in and everything else.

But with the team, if there is anything that comes up, we will adjust.

I just want to say thank you again starting the new year.

And I know council public safety committee meetings have had a tendency of running long, but this morning I don't think that will happen.

And please remember to silence your phones.

Okay, we'll now open the hybrid public comment period.

Clerk?

Currently, we have one person signed up remotely and zero in-person speakers signed up.

Well, in that case, that person will have two minutes and then we'll start the rest of our business.

Please go ahead.

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

The public comment period is up to 60 minutes.

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

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

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

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

Please remember to press star six and give me one second to share it.

All right, David, go ahead.

Hi.

The Community Police Commission have people who think that the threat is the cops.

I'm concerned about that.

Anyway, luckily, we didn't have a lot of innocent residents living in the area where all this gunshots took place.

I think that there's a real concern about the training of the police department and their policies that seem to get it wrong.

And I'm wondering where the laws are that help guide the cops to fight the crime that's associated with all the low-level drug pushers and pimps who escalate most of the crime and gun violence.

Maybe if we had better laws and better training that require cops to trespass all these junky thieves and send them to the jailhouse to make those other non-deployed cops hanging out at the police station to actually require them to question civilly in the interrogation room all the repeat offenders to find out where they keep getting the drugs to shut it down before they put them on a get-out-of-jail-free lead list.

Because it doesn't matter how much money you give cops.

If you convince them to go pick on and conduct a war on the homeless, they're going to do that for an easier payday.

But they're not trained properly because the police chiefs have been following unconstitutional police reform that exempts low-level drug pushers from jail.

They're not going to have the success to combat the crimes to make it safe.

Yet all we're getting from the police is more propaganda outreach, showing law-abiding citizens how nice they are, not combating crime, but falsely assuring us about how safe we are because the cops are around, yet not to be found when things hit the fan.

Maybe if we didn't have as much political propaganda excuses of not having enough resources, and I think it's also because we've had mismanagement at the highest level because we've You all are choosing chiefs and cops based on gender, skin color, and sexual orientation, and not the qualifications of noble crime properly trained.

Yet you've managed to manipulate the media to help message your crime hotspots, which have repeatedly failed to help keep the community safe.

Yet we got hot chicks in uniforms falsely assuring us

Okay, that concludes our public comments.

Thank you, Mr. Haynes.

At this point, we will now move on to our four items of business, which will be done as a collective.

Will the clerk please read items one through four into the record?

Appointments 3066 through 3069. Appointment and reappointment of David Benchlauch and Joel C. Merkel as members of the Community Police Commission for a term to December 31, 2027. Appointment of Arlissier West as member Community Police Commission for a term to December 31, 2026. And reappointment of Joseph Seah as member of the Community Police Commission for a term to December 31, 2025. Please all join us at the table.

Thank you very much for everyone joining us this morning.

We will have one more joining us, so give some time for him to arrive.

And by way of explanation, and this could be a lead-in, we did the appointment and reappointment first.

They're of the two city council appointees to the CPC, the Community Police Commission, and the next two are mayoral appointments.

Just teeing off a potential talking point as we turn it over to you, Mr. Merkel.

Can you have everybody introduce themselves and then begin your presentation?

Yes.

Good morning, Chair Kettle.

Thank you for making time for CPC appointment confirmation hearing.

My name is Joel Merkel.

I am a CPC commissioner, and I'm currently a co-chair.

I'm here to present the nominees, of which I am one.

So thank you.

Happy to go into that more.

I'll turn it over to the current interim ED and let her introduce herself.

Good morning, council members.

My name is Isia May.

You can bring the mic to yours.

It moves.

Good morning, council members.

My name is Isia May.

I'm interim executive director of the Office of the Community Police Commission.

Good morning.

My name is Arlicia Ladoy-Nickel-West, and I am one of the nominees for the CPC commissioners.

Thank you.

So I'd like to just provide a general introduction to the CPC and the nomination process for commissioners and then turn it over to our interim executive director, Isi Ame, to provide a little more details on each nominee.

Just as a general matter, the CPC has under the ordinance, the police accountability ordinance has 15 positions, five of which are appointed by three different appointing authorities, the mayor, city council, and the CPC.

Just a slight correction, Chair Kettle, I believe one of the nominees is a CPC nominee.

I think that's Joseph Sayah is a CPC nominee.

Ms. West is a mayoral appointee.

Corrected.

Thank you.

Ms. West is a mayoral appointee.

And then I, of course, am a city council appointee.

Thank you very much.

One of the things that I'd like to just kind of identify in this moment is we're kind of in a period of Maybe transition might be the right word, but the CPC has been very active in the consent decree litigation from the very beginning.

In fact, we are a creature of the consent decree.

We were created out of an MOU from the consent decree back in 2012. And then in 2017, we were made a permanent accountability entity within the city of Seattle under the accountability ordinance, along with OIG and OPA.

A lot of the work we do now is kind of outside the consent decree, but we're still very involved in the consent decree litigation.

The city, as you know, is moving towards ending the consent decree.

That's part of what's going on right now with the crowd control ordinance that the CPC has been deeply involved with.

And so there will be a time soon when we will be in a post-consent decree world And that is something the CPC has taken a position on in court of supporting in large measure because the CPC has taken the position that it's better for the city at this time to return a lot of the authority and autonomy over policing policy to local city leaders.

Under the consent decree, a lot of that has to go through the federal judge.

And we think it's time to have it returned to the city.

So that's the position we've taken in court filings.

that's what we are seeing on the horizon.

So that's going to define not only our work, but how the accountability partners work together with city leaders and police leaders.

So in that vein, we would really benefit from having the 15 positions that are outlined in the ordinance filled.

And so, I've been working with our staff and other commissioners to identify members of the community who have enthusiasm and talent and an interest in the subject matter and have the ability to provide that work.

The CPC has always been a working commission.

Commissioners are generally expected to contribute at least 10 hours per month of their time.

We have multiple public meetings, we have work group meetings, and there's a lot of emailing, phone calls, other such meetings, and research and preparation that go into being prepared and doing the work.

So we're very much a working commission And it does take a lot of sacrifice from members of the community to do the work.

And so we're grateful for the nominees that are here today volunteering themselves for this work.

And I look forward to working with all of them.

And again, thank the committee for making time for this.

Happy to answer any additional questions, but thank you.

Since you did bring up some general points, any questions, Vice Chair, other members of the committee?

I do appreciate that point about the consent decree and that is something that we're working on and it's very important and obviously the crowd management piece is important, less lethal weapons and I will say now there will be an amendment offered for at full council which incorporates CPC items.

So I just want to tell you that details later.

You won't be able to see it until the end of the week, but we can discuss that later.

And it's really important to have that voice.

And that's really a segue for me, which is a point that I have been saying on a regular basis is that, you know, we have our three accountability partners in this process.

And one of my goals in a very general way is to help our accountability partners by setting them up for success.

Because sometimes inadvertently or maybe not so inadvertently, we kind of set them up for failure.

And so we need to identify those pieces and what we can do.

And that will be a topic of a future committee meeting as we move into the new year.

But with that, I just wanted to say, because those are general pieces.

And by the way, we do have one, and I'm working.

on that too, but we'll get into that later as well.

So over to you.

Council members, .

I've just greeted you in the Edoma language of Nigeria.

If you want to say that you are all fine, you can say .

And if you wanna say that you are not fine and you wanna share more about that, you should probably consult with my mother.

But I wanted to greet you in my language today.

Thank you, Councilmember Kettle.

Again, I'm the interim ED of the Office of the Community Police Commission, and I wanted to talk to you about the recruitment process.

We're so excited to present to you today four commissioners, two for reappointment and two seeking an initial term on the commission.

These are volunteers looking to serve their communities in this way, and so that is a very exciting thing to bring to you today.

Also, the involvement of all of the accountability partners in that process.

Per the accountability ordinance, which is 125315, Commissioner shall be representative of Seattle's diverse population, drawn from different socioeconomic backgrounds and racial and ethnic groups, including immigrant, American, LGBTQ, youth, faith, business, and other communities reflecting the overall demographics of Seattle residents.

Commissioners must have the ability to relate, communicate, and engage effectively with all communities, and particularly with those communities that are disproportionately impacted by policing.

And so to that end, a gap analysis was conducted by the CPC last fall to identify where representation from those communities and groups was lacking on the CPC.

And you'll see that coming in just a moment here on the screen.

We shared that gap analysis with appointing authorities, the mayor's office, the city council, and the commission.

And this gap analysis was used to guide our recruitment efforts.

When we performed that gap analysis, we identified several groups that were currently not represented on the CPC.

And I won't read them all, but I want to call out black men, formerly incarcerated people, Pacific Islander people, South Asian people, East Asian people, people with disabilities.

There was also a lack of representation from different expertise groups, and that includes housing, Seattle Public School System, K through 12, Department of Public Defense, behavioral health, and expertise in an analysis of disparate impact and strategies to improve racially disparate impact.

We also saw some geographic gaps.

District 2, 4, and 5 were also missing in terms of representation on the commission.

Co-Chair Merkel shared the expectations of commissioners with you earlier, but I wanted to share that because this gap analysis really drove our outreach to the volunteers that we're presenting to you today.

Joel Merkel is an assistant attorney general with the Washington Attorney General's Office.

He has served as a co-chair since 2022, and we are grateful for his continued dedication to the commission.

As you heard earlier, co-chair Merkel is a council appointee.

Arlysia West is a senior human resources business partner from the King County Council's central staff.

Arlysia West is a mayoral appointee.

And I will turn it over to her in just a moment to say a little bit more about her interest in joining the commission.

Joseph Sayah is the executive director of Oceana Northwest, and he's previously served as a commissioner.

Joseph is a CPC appointee.

Joseph could not join us today, but he expresses his enthusiasm for the opportunity to continue to represent his community on the CPC.

Arlisi or West, would you like to say a little bit more about your interest in joining the commission?

I would, and thank you, Lisi, for that.

What interested me about this position specifically is that it encompasses so much of my care for the community.

I work as a senior HR business partner with the King County Council.

I first started my career as a family support worker for a Head Start program here in Seattle.

There I served on a committee and in my position as a person who took care of the most vulnerable in our community.

It's the Young Head Start Program families.

From there, I learned that if I wanted to make a bigger difference, I needed to have more education.

So I went back to school, to WSU, to study strategic communications, and there I went into public relations, and now I'm in human resources.

my heart is to serve people.

And in this position, some of the most vulnerable populations are those people who are BIPOC and do have that need for people around them to protect them.

And I also serve in many roles, part of my sorority, as part liaison for my Girl Scout group, different things where I have responsibilities to serve people in a capacity where they sometimes aren't seen.

They need support.

And coming into the commission, hearing what the commissioners do, being that liaison point, that public relations voice for both sides, I thought was a great opportunity for me to lend my love, my knowledge, and my expertise and experience.

So that was one of the reasons why I was interested in this position.

I come from education, WSU and University of Washington.

I learned so much in both of these institutions of why it's important for people be educated so they can become a voice for those who sometimes aren't able to do that.

And then also working with heavily unionized groups with King County and working with facilities management division, Some of our groups that I serve specifically were those who are ESL learners.

A lot of our custodians are people who really didn't get an opportunity to have a voice, and they were feeling like they were coming into a place where this is such a great opportunity.

And from there, I was able to help them to get the skills they needed to apply for higher positions.

So these type of groups I've worked with was so much, and I wanted to continue to do that.

And then also with the safety portion of what the CPC does, I'm just excited to be that voice, that in between for both groups, for the police guild, also for the community.

I'm just excited to be here.

And this is really one of the reasons why I accepted the nomination.

Thank you very much.

Some questions or comments, Vice Chair?

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you.

That means good morning in Yoruba, my father's mother tongue.

So thank you for sharing a greeting.

Hidoma.

Hidoma, okay.

Over 250 ethnic groups in Nigeria and many, many, many tribes as well.

More than just the three dominant tribes, but it is actually one of the world's most diverse countries.

And Africa itself is like the most diverse continent in the world.

So it's great to see a fellow Nigerian.

Yes, it is.

And separately, I know you're on an interim basis, but would love to connect offline with you and the co-chairs that are available to just reconnect.

But I appreciate all of your work.

I was looking at your presentation on some of the known gaps and how that kind of guided your decision making in terms of outreach and filling those gaps and addressing those opportunities, if you will.

Just curious to, because the commission is a volunteer commission, there's a finite amount of slots, and so there's always going to be some sort of gaps.

And just curious to better understand from your perspective, these are the gaps that exist today.

And with some new expertise, hopefully we'll help address some of those gaps.

But on a more durable, sustained basis, how are you all kind of thinking about addressing those gaps of the moment, whatever they might be?

Thank you so much for that question, Councilmember, and so excited to see a fellow Nigerian on the dais.

I just wanted to share a little bit about our strategy in response to your question around community engagement of these groups, because as you noted, this is not a static situation.

The importance of engaging with communities waxes and wanes based on the needs of communities and based on emerging issues that come up in public safety.

The strategy that we're using at the CPC involves a very simple decision tree.

We look at communities most impacted by policing, and that is something that is data shown, right?

So we can use that to guide where those communities are.

We look at, do we have current relationships with those communities on the CPC, yes or no?

If yes, we maintain, we continue the relationships that we have.

If no, we identify community-based organizations, community leaders, and others that we can reach out to to establish those relationships.

We have an engagement spectrum that we've created.

It goes from one to five.

An engagement at a level of one is something like a one-time interaction.

It could involve tabling at a community event, a festival, or some sort of gathering for that community or for that organization.

Engagement at a level five is serving actively on the commission.

And an engagement at a three is a regular presence at those community meetings.

Often we are presenting and we have a regular standing engagement with that particular community group.

We develop a community engagement matrix that puts all of these different organizations at different engagement levels, and we use that as our working plan to work with groups.

We are continually assessing that, so the idea is to assess that on a quarterly basis, and that is staff from the community engagement team along with commissioners that serve on a subcommittee of the commission, the community engagement committee.

It's actually one of the standing committees in the commission's bylaws.

They reassess that in matrix and they make changes.

And so if we have an emerging incident that happens in a particular community, for instance, an officer involved shooting in a particular community, we may decide to ramp up the engagement with those community groups, either for a temporary or an ongoing period based on need.

And so this is an ongoing assessment that we make because, as you noted, we've got a finite number of seats, but our mission is to serve all communities and those most disproportionately impacted by policing.

And so we have to think even beyond those seats on the commission in terms of how we're going to engage with communities.

Love it, thank you so much for your response there and glad you all are hard at work thinking about these challenging issues in terms of the governance structure and the opportunities there and then the underlying work as well.

It's all equally important in my view.

And other question, more of a comment.

Miss Arlicia West, hello.

Hello.

So good to see you.

Yes, it's so good to see you.

Full disclosure, I know Miss West.

I grew up with Miss West and a fellow alum of Kent Meridian High School in Kent.

Go Royals.

Go Royals.

Royal power over here with ours.

We out here.

Me, Vice Chair, I have to say go Chargers on behalf of my wife, Kent Ridge.

Mr. Chair, no one cares about the chargers.

But in any event, so good to see you in this capacity.

It's been decades, but I have a lot of respect for you and your family.

And I'm so honored to be in a position to help now support in your work in various capacities.

And good to see you at the King County Council as well.

I'm gonna make some calls and make sure they're treating you right over there.

But in any event, let me just ask, I guess this is for all the committee members up for appointment that are present, so I think it's just two, right?

What is the thing that excites you most about this work?

What is the thing that excites you the most about this work, particularly on a going forward basis?

I suppose I shall start with the co-chair.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Uh, council member Saka, thank you for the question.

And you kind of get to the heart of what draws commissioners to be self-selecting community volunteers to do this work.

And, and, and what is people ask, you know, in any work you're doing and my why is, is pretty basic.

I, um, it kind of goes, it look, you look at my, my resume and my background, which is part of my appointment packet, I'm sure.

And, you know, I started my legal career working in the United States Senate as a policy advisor to U.S.

Senator Maria Cantwell.

In doing that, I did a lot of federal oversight.

I was working in Congress when President George W. Bush was president.

The Democrats were a minority party.

I also worked when President Obama was president.

The Democrats were a majority party.

So I've worked on both sides, and I did a lot of oversight.

And I saw firsthand how impactful a lot of these policies are in people's everyday lives.

And then when I came back home to Seattle, I worked in the King County Prosecutor's Office for about 10 years, predominantly doing gender-based violence in child abuse cases.

And I saw how the system that we have, the criminal justice system we have, and policing impacts people all over the community, including victims of many crimes who are thrust into the criminal legal system through no choice of their own.

And it's a very uncomfortable place.

And a lot of those folks are from very vulnerable communities.

And then as a prosecutor, I was expected to go into court and be held to the highest ethical standards.

And that's right, that's just, because if, if the system has the power to take away people's liberty, then the process to achieve that must be held to the highest standard.

And so accountability from my days in Senator Campbell's office to my days in the prosecutor's office was always like paramount to me.

And so seeing a lot of the discussion and the debate in Seattle policing around accountability issues, Seeing what I saw as perceived resistance to accountability from those officers, some officers that I worked with in my cases kind of confused me.

And so I thought given my experience in the work and working with a lot of these communities through my work and my background in policy and oversight, I was really excited to get involved in not only a policy issue, policing policy issues, something that I felt like I developed some expertise in, but also accountability that was also like paramount to me like the system has to be accountable to the public to the highest level for it to have for the community to have confidence in it so that's my why that's why i got involved um and i'm really excited to continue this work i'm honored that the commission has chose me as a co-chair um and if i can just say one thing um about miss west before turning it over to her um when i became a co-chair i was the only attorney on the commission.

And being an attorney and having that kind of background, I think, has really helped my service as a co-chair.

But the other thing that the ordinance does is it makes the co-chairs of the CPC the actual employee supervisor of the executive director.

And there's specifics in the ordinance and the bylaws that we have that outline how to do that work.

And as an attorney, it's been really helpful to kind of have that background as I do that work.

But one thing that has been lacking, I think, that I didn't even know about until I met Miss West recently, was a background in HR.

She's a senior HR business partner at the King County Council Central Staff.

And she's also expressed interest to me in becoming a co-chair once she's confirmed and joins the commission, which I'm ecstatic about.

Having the opportunity to work with her as a co-chair would be amazing, especially with her bringing HR background and expertise to the job as co-chair is something that's really exciting to me.

So we have a gap analysis identifying communities that need to be represented, that are underrepresented, but also having that background and experience and diversity there is something that's really important to me as a commissioner and a co-chair.

So I'm really excited about her nomination.

Awesome.

Thank you so much.

Yes.

And what excites me about this position is that I get to care for the community and the people that I love.

I have officers that are part of the SPD, one that's here today, that need to know that there are people out there that are working on their behalf.

The community needs to know that there's someone that's gonna listen and they're gonna care and they're gonna be excited to wanna bridge the gap.

There are policies that need to be explained when we go to community events.

There are times where people just sometimes need to be heard And I'm excited for the opportunity to be that face, that voice, that heart that they have there to be able to know that there's a team that's dedicated to working on bringing the two together.

I'm not going to say it's a peacemaker position, but it is a position that someone needs to know that there's an investment.

And I'm invested into making this CPC program.

appointment worth their while.

Awesome.

Thank you so much.

Vice Chair, can I jump in really quick and have an opportunity to invite Rabbi Benchlaus to the table, too?

Sure.

Because I was trying to find that right timing, and now it's probably good.

And Rabbi, if you can come up through that way and then introduce yourself, and then you can also answer the vice chair's question as he continues on.

So if you could do, and by the way, I apologize on behalf of the, in terms of the miscommunication about the meeting.

So, you know, the arrival time was on my side.

Not at all.

I'm happy to be here.

Thank you so much.

And pull the mic clips to you, too.

Pull the mic.

Oh, there we go.

Good morning.

What am I talking about?

My inspiration?

Well, an introduction of yourself first, and then kind of going to the vice chair Saka's question, like, you know, what's driving your desire to serve on the commission?

Absolutely.

What excites you the most about this work, particularly on a go and forward basis?

Putting aside the look back.

It's very exciting to be in this forum.

The first type of forum for myself as a disclosure.

I am new to Seattle, less than three years, almost three years now.

But not that new that my children have not fallen in love with the Mariners and Seahawks.

So that's a good start.

I'm a rabbi.

in a community here.

The Seattle Jewish community has 70,000 Jews that call themselves Jewish, but many more, probably about 100,000, with more than 50 Jewish installations throughout the greater Seattle area.

Our community is very dynamic, diverse, diversified, and it has many types of Jews, and they have many types of needs, and they're in many parts of town.

And it excites me and inspires me to be here, to be the voice of that community with the many needs that arise.

There's an influx of Jewish people moving to Seattle continuously every single year for a myriad of reasons, but predominantly vocational reasons.

There's a lot of high tech here, a lot of people coming in from other states, from other countries, and so there's a lot of people to represent.

and to bridge their needs and also for the community.

The Jewish community very much believes in policies and in the the strength and the stamina of the police department.

We believe in that ethically, religiously, historically, and also, of course, there's a great need for us to have that in order.

When Moses went out from the house of Pharaoh, and we're just reading about it now in the weekly Torah portion, he went out, we only know twice that he went out of the house, and every single time he went out of the palace of Pharaoh, it says that he saw something was not right, and he responded to it.

And that is something that we carry with us.

We want to be alert, aware, and responsive to what goes on around us in the communities, not only to ourselves, but to anything that we may see, and we need to have the proper functionality.

of the police department to do that and so we support we support that wherever we are historically and certainly now and now in our days and so it inspires me very much it also inspires me to know that you're from a part of africa that's not so far away from where i lived in south africa for five years and that's very cool but uh either way i'm a rabbi here i'm also a clinical psychotherapist that has um exposure to many different parts of the community and sees and hears and understands the many various different types of needs and I'm inspired by those needs and by the need to bridge and connect.

Awesome.

Well, I'll just say, Mr. Co-Chair, Ms. West, Rabbi, thank you so much for your dedication and devotion to this work and your willingness to serve in this way and serve again in this way.

And I'm inspired, Ms. West, by your bravery and willingness and courage to potentially step up and serve in a more...

and a stronger, even stronger leadership capacity.

Everyone, every member of this committee is a leader and look forward to continuing to support, amplify and uplift your work in any way I can.

And I've, as someone who has served on multiple boards and commissions and nonprofit boards before I ran for office, I know firsthand the impact that your work has and I, regularly read reports that come from the various committees and like citizen commissions like this one.

So just wanna say thank you for your willingness to serve and honored to be able to support you all today.

And let's touch base offline if you're so willing and get a intro sync scheduled.

No further questions, Mr. Chair, or comments besides go Royals.

Yes, go Royals.

Royal power, thank you.

Well, thank you, Vice Chair.

To Council President, Council Member Moore, any questions?

Council President?

Yeah, I have comments, but first a question.

On the greetings, thank you very much for stepping up to serve.

It is, you give up your time and expertise, and you're your heart and soul to this work, and I know that it's a big responsibility and it's a big thing to take on, so thank you very much for this commission, perhaps more than other commissions, because of the nature of the work.

One question first, Ms. West, I see that your appointment started on, well, the matrix says 1-1-24, And I am assuming that that's because, is that a mistake or is that because, oh, okay.

Do you want me to take that?

Sure.

That's a very good question.

So the answer to that is in the spring of 2023, the city council did some technical changes to the accountability ordinance that tweaked some of the provisions that related to the CPC.

One of those was to reduce the size of the commission from 21 commissioners to 15 commissioners.

When the CPC was initially created out of the consent decree, we had 15 commissioners.

The accountability ordinance in 2017 expanded it to 21, and then the technical changes in 2023 reduced it back to 15. As part of that, there was a need to ensure that the same amount of terms expired per year, so that wasn't an overload of terms that expired in one year.

So they had to reset the beginning and end of each three-year term for each appointing authority.

That was done with the assistance of the city attorney's office.

And so the term that Ms. West is being appointed to is already halfway through at this point, or at least one year into it.

It's just a matter of staggering the expirations of terms and spots.

I'd just like to add that she is eligible under the ordinance for reappointment following this term for up to three three-year terms.

Got it.

Thank you.

That was a more complicated response than I thought.

Besides, oh, is that a typo?

But what I thought it was getting at was that it just is very difficult to recruit because you had started talking about that.

So I was just noting that that that is, that's a, that's an issue for many of the commissions, but I understand that you are really focused on focusing on it.

And I was going to put in a, shameless plug to outreach to neighborhood BIAs or chambers because I remember that there was one meeting where the issues of small businesses were focused on and so I know that they could be engaged as well.

Just a suggestion, not a criticism or anything, just came into my mind.

But anyway, so thank you very much for being here and I'm glad that you can be renewed.

because clearly you, as an HR specialist, first and foremost, you understand organizations and you also understand the perspective.

You're trained to understand and respect the perspectives of everyone in that organization, so those are always good skills for any commission, especially this one, so thank you.

And then Rabbi, thank you for coming to the table and sharing briefly a little bit about your background.

I have to admit that when you said the words, and given the influx, I thought you were going to talk about a rise in anti-Semitism in the community and the need for more maybe collaboration, or not necessarily more collaboration, but I thought that you were going to make the point that there is an increased vulnerability that you were representing, and then you didn't say that.

But I do want to say that I have been in conversation with leaders of the Jewish community and with the public safety apparatus here, and so I recognize that.

But above and beyond that, as a therapist, your skills as well would be very much appreciated.

So thank you very much for being willing.

Thank you for that.

Okay.

Thank you.

Um, okay.

I see a hand up, but that's for council president.

Um, council member Moore, anything going once, twice.

Well, thank you.

Okay.

Um, as chair, I just want to say, uh, thank you again.

Um, I recognize this process cause I actually went through it.

Um, at the request of the mayor's office, seemingly two and a half years ago.

Um, And I recognize what the work and the due diligence that I was doing, the amount of work that plays into what the CPC does, and particularly for the co-chairs.

We often talk up here on the dais of thanking for those that come, because there's various types of commissions, and for the level of effort in terms of time, energy, and everything.

And that's across the board, but I do know some have more than others.

And particularly when you're leading as a co-chair, in terms of talking to past co-chairs, it is definitely higher order in terms of the level of effort.

So I just wanted to give a special thank you to Mr. Merkel for that and for his service to the commission thus far.

But I also want to give a big welcome and I don't want to intimidate you with saying that there's a lot of work, but there is a lot of work, even hopefully maybe as a co-chair, for you two coming into the CPC.

And it's very important to bring your perspectives, bring your backgrounds for all the reasons that were documented in the memo.

But just to...

Add those pieces that may not be thought of.

I often talk about be present, be mindful, be prepared.

Be present is like being there, not doom scrolling on your phone or whatever.

But being mindful is actually taking an extra step in terms of putting yourself in somebody else's shoes.

And then also bringing specifically those kind of inputs that really make a difference.

And in doing so, I think you're prepared to really make a difference.

And I think that all three of you, plus Mr. Seah, who couldn't be here today, so the four of you in terms of inbound or reappointment, will make a difference on the CPC.

So thank you very much.

And the same on the staff as well.

you'll find that I love languages, not that I could speak them very well, but I love bringing in those pieces, and I love learning the history.

That goes to the point about being present, but being mindful.

And that's something that I draw from my experience when I was at European Command Headquarters, which at the time had responsibilities for, except for the Horn of Africa, the All of Africa.

So knowing the history of Nigeria and the challenges, but really the challenges in its neighborhood, both at sea, but also in West Africa generally.

And those pieces are really helpful, but I think it's helpful for us to know as Seattleites to know all the different communities and where they come from the world and the challenges faced and what they bring.

So these are great points and I'm just very thankful as now everybody knows, son of two immigrants and the like.

And so I just want to say thank you.

And we'll continue to work on the issues that are facing the CPC and the accountability partners more generally.

Any last questions?

I always hesitate to look as I look over at my vice chair, but I think we're good.

In that case, I would like to move that the committee recommends confirmation of appointments 3066 through 3069. Is there a second?

Second.

Thank you, vice chair.

It is moved and seconded to recommend confirmation of appointments.

And any additional comments?

I'm hearing and seeing none cross my screen.

Will the clerk please call the roll and the recommendation to confirm the appointments.

Council member Moore.

Aye.

Council President Nelson.

Aye.

Council member Saka.

Aye.

Chair Kettle.

Aye.

There are four in favor and none opposed.

The committee recommends confirmation of appointments 3066 through 3069. Congratulations to the three of you plus Mr. Say who can join us today.

The motion carries and the committee recommendation that the appointments be confirmed will be sent to the February 4th city council meeting.

On top of that clerk, any additional items?

Okay.

My policy director and clerk of the committee always got some good ideas.

I noted here that this will go to the full council on February 4th.

And as the public safety committee, that is also the day that our less lethal weapons, crowd management bill will go.

And as I've already hinted, there will be some amendments to include a couple from me and one which is...

taking in the input from the Community Police Commission.

So thank you, the head of that.

And obviously we'll follow up between now and the February 4th.

So with that, we have reached the end of today's agenda.

And I have to say, this is like the shortest public safety committee meeting ever.

For those that don't know, and I apologize to my colleagues on the committee, usually it goes much longer and sometimes could be a little bit testy, a little bit exciting.

And so, but you know, every now and again, you have to have, a committee meeting that balances that out a bit.

So thank you for today.

And so in saying we have reached the end of today's agenda and there is no committee business to come before us.

So hearing and seeing no further business to come before the committee, we are adjourned.