SPD staffing

SPD wants to stop calling its surveillance program a “pilot” 3 weeks after implementation

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We have more news than usual in this edition because I took a vacation, and then it’s taken a long time to catch up from being on vacation. So let’s get to it!

Surveillance News:

First off, I have a new story out this week about the expansion of Flock license plate readers (ALPRs) in WA state…and how the data is being used to assist ICE/DHS and search for people who have received abortions. I received a tip last week about an audit of the King County Housing Authority’s Flock data that shows it’s likely been accessed for both purposes. I know this is a somewhat technical story, but in my opinion it’s also one of the bigger stories I’ve reported on. 

In important and actionable news, SPD has proposed material updates to its SIRs on CCTV cameras and its real time crime center. You might remember that these cameras and the crime center went live on May 20th of this year. SPD asked for permission to stop calling this program a “pilot” three weeks after everything went live. I don’t know about you, but when I think pilot, I don’t think three weeks of testing is sufficient. 

SPD is asking to add more CCTV cameras to the network in three NEW locations:

  1. Areas around Lumen and T-Mobile Field, including parts of the southern portions of Pioneer Square. 
  2. Areas surrounding Garfield High School between S Jackson St. to the South, E Cherry St. to the North, 20th Ave. S to the West, and MLK Jr. Way to the East.
  3. The Capitol Hill Nightlife District – E Union St. to the South, E Pine St. to the North, Broadway to the West, and 12th Ave. to the East. In addition, Neagle Pl. between E Pine and E Denny Way.

SPD is also asking to integrate SDOT’s traffic-monitoring cameras into its real time crime center, expanding its surveillance scope yet again.

Comments on the two surveillance impact reports (SIRs) for these changes are due on Monday, June 23. To comment on the addition of more CCTV cameras and making the surveillance program permanent after 21 days, click here. To comment on the addition of SDOT traffic cameras to the real time crime center, click here. 

In other surveillance news, the Seattle City Council approved Starchase for SPD use. Washington State Patrol has started using cell phone data to predict where people will practice unsafe driving habits, such as speeding and texting while driving, to increase patrols in those areas. Florida Highway Patrol appears to be taking advantage of Flock’s database to hunt immigrants, and law enforcement agencies in southern California have been breaking the law and sharing license plate reader data with out-of-state and federal agencies.

And when it comes to data privacy, I’d be remiss not to highlight reporting that federal Medicare and Medicaid data, including immigration status of patients, has been shared with the Department of Homeland Security. As the Seattle Times wrote, “The shared information includes protected health data from every Apple Health enrollee in Washington, state officials said, totaling about 1.7 million people. Among them are tens of thousands of immigrants, including undocumented immigrants and lawful permanent residents, who receive state-covered health services.”

Seattle News:

The big news as I was leaving on vacation at the beginning of the month was that Cathy Moore is resigning from Seattle City Council. Her last day will be July 7, and the council will be appointing a replacement to serve until the November 2026 election. Applications for the appointment will be open July 2 through July 9, with a public forum scheduled for July 21 and a final council vote scheduled for July 28. 

The tentative budget season calendar has been released, with Harrell’s budget proposal expected on Tuesday, September 23 and a final vote expected on November 21. That final vote is scheduled a little earlier than usual because the general election results are expected to be certified on November 25, meaning Councilmember Mark Solomon will be replaced by whoever wins the D2 general election. 

There are two public hearings for the budget, one on October 7 and one on November 6. The one on November 6 seems a bit tenuous, since the public will only have 48 hours (at most) to review Budget Chair Dan Strauss’s balancing package, and then councilmember amendments are due at noon the very next day. Such a tight turnaround makes it seem unlikely that anything new councilmembers hear during the second public hearing could make it into a proposed amendment unless something similar were already in the works. 

Interim Budget Director Dan Eder also presented to council, saying there is currently a $150 million budget deficit for 2026. That could well get worse, depending on the economy and actions of the federal government. Departments supported by General Fund and JumpStart dollars have been asked to suggest 8% departmental cuts for 2026, except for homelessness and public safety-related departments, which have been asked to suggest 2% cuts. Interestingly the Seattle City Attorney’s Office has been asked to suggest 8% worth of cuts, about which Council President Sara Nelson wasn’t happy. 

One topic of interest that came up was Councilmember Bob Kettle asking if the City is looking into using AI in order to improve city operations. Eder replied that the city budget office and Central Staff started working on this at the end of last year, considering using AI as a tool to compare and contrast some of the support departments as a pilot project to see how efficient the City’s staffing and budgets are for various duties that are common among peer cities. Eder couldn’t share more about a potential timeframe for this effort. 

Interim SPD Chief Shon Barnes is in the process of receiving his council confirmation. You can read his council confirmation packet and his answers to councilmember questions. There’s some interesting stuff in there! He presented before the public safety committee on June 10, making headlines when he said he expected to be jailed under the Trump administration. 

However, later that same day SPD used pepper spray on protesters at the downtown federal building when protesters were trying to prevent ICE from removing immigrants from the building. 

Against the backdrop of the $150 million 2026 Seattle budget deficit discussed above, Barnes has decided to spend $1.38 million annually to hire five new SPD high level staffers from outside the department, including a second deputy chief, another assistant chief, a chief of staff, a chief communications officer, and executive director of crime and community harm reduction. Whew! Thanks to PubliCola for their reporting on this pricey decision.

SPD will also be spending $30,000 for a department-wide training on stratified policing, about which I’ve written here. 

Former SPD Chief Adrian Diaz is suing the City and Mayor Harrell, alleging wrongful termination, retaliation, and wage theft, among other charges. PubliCola and KUOW also received new records about the investigation that led to Diaz’s termination, showing that involved officers feared retaliation (this was also included in the original write-up of the investigation). 

Finally, I interviewed Jeanie Chunn, who is running for the D2 city council seat. 

King County and WA State News:

I wrote a piece last week giving a rundown of the newly released 2024 data for King County’s Health through Housing initiative, which provides permanent supportive and emergency housing. 

The Washington state Supreme Court finally weighed in on caseload standards for public defenders. The new caseload limits take effect on January 1, 2026 and should be implemented as soon as possible, within 10 years. I can’t overstate what a big deal this decision is, and I hope I’ll have time to write a full piece about it sooner rather than later. 

Over at The Stranger, Marcus Harrison Green sat down with state attorney general Nick Brown in an interview that is well worth the read. 

Finally, Jeff Asher ponders why the US murder rate might be falling so much this year, and I want to share his conclusions: “With all of those caveats in mind, when I think about the main factors behind declining murder, a strong investment in communities from private and public sources after the shock of the pandemic stands out as a major cause. There is a wide array of types of support that I would put into the “community investment” basket, including jobs, infrastructure, and programming, but it could be summed up as “we spent a lot of money everywhere on stuff.””

Recent Headlines:

 

SPD wants to stop calling its surveillance program a “pilot” 3 weeks after implementation Read More »

Yes, surveillance technology IS helping ICE and allowing law enforcement to hunt abortion seekers

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Seattle News:

First up, I published an article this week on the debate over bringing police officers back to Seattle Public Schools…and the related debate as to whether the forthcoming FEPP levy should help pay for it. The next school board meeting to discuss the district’s proposal around police in schools, including a potential new Memorandum of Understanding between the district and SPD, will take place on Wednesday, June 4 at 4:15pm at the John Stanford Center. There will be a rally ahead of time at 3:45pm. 

Meanwhile, the City Council’s Select Committee on the FEPP Levy met on Thursday morning and discussed many possible amendments. Several councilmembers signaled that they would like to see police back in schools. 

There has been lots of concern over what data ICE may be accessing in its quest to deport people. Recent record requests show that data collected from Flock’s license plate readers has been shared with ICE for immigration purposes. Uncovered data also shows police in Texas used Flock data to perform a nationwide search for a person who had an abortion. 

Many local municipalities are giving information to ICE in return for funding from the State Criminal Alien Assistance Program (SCAAP). The United States government has collected the DNA from 133,000 migrant children and stores the data in a criminal database.

Locally, Mountlake Terrace City Council is deciding next week whether they should sign onto purchasing Flock’s surveillance services as well. One can only hope someone shares the news of Flock’s data being used to assist ICE and hunt down people who received abortions with the councilmembers prior to the vote on June 5.

The Northwest Progressive Institute released a couple of widely discussed polls this week and last week. One poll showed the mayoral race, and Katie Wilson’s candidacy in particular, is more competitive than some people assumed. Another poll showed how unpopular Seattle’s elected officials currently are. 

Perhaps recognizing the especial unpopularity of the recent proposal to weaken the city council’s Code of Ethics, Councilmember Cathy Moore announced this morning that she withdrew the bill. However, she signaled that she might well revisit the issue again in the future.  

There were a few great investigative pieces this week. Real Change discovered that both SPD and the FBI used confidential informants during the George Floyd protests of 2020. The FBI was also conducting surveillance during that period. As the article says, “Technologies used by the FBI to surveil Seattle protesters could be seen as a way to circumvent Seattle’s surveillance ordinance if the output of that surveillance was fed directly to SPD.”

And in reporting at The Urbanist, it appears that the City was trying to bury an independent report on allegations raised against the OPA and OIG about obtaining and disclosing a protester’s private medical records. According to the Urbanist, the report found that Andrew Myerberg, who was the head of the OPA at the time and now works for the Mayor’s Office, “improperly disclosed the protester’s private medical information, and improperly interpreted the meaning of those medical records, despite not being trained to do so. Improper disclosure means that Myerberg violated state medical privacy laws, and therefore violated City policy.”

However, Jeremy Racca, who works as Mayor Bruce Harrell’s chief of staff and general counsel, in consultation with Pacifica Law Group, LLC, as outside counsel, formed a second opinion that actually what Myerberg did was fine.

Finally, SPD delivered its quarterly sworn staffing, overtime, and performance metrics report to city council this week. SPD is estimating it will need an additional $6.8 million to $10 million by the end of the year to pay for all the extra police officers they are hiring. 911 call response times have gone down because last year CARE and SPD had a project to re-prioritize call types, which moved a bunch of Priority 1 call types down to Priority 2. 

Recent Headlines:

Yes, surveillance technology IS helping ICE and allowing law enforcement to hunt abortion seekers Read More »

New Seattle councilmembers want to weaken their ethics code as the US is sliding into authoritarianism

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Seattle News:

Well, Seattle has been buzzing with news these last two weeks! Let’s dive right in.

On April 28, SPD and the Mayor’s Office held a press conference to tout how many officers SPD has hired so far this year. The Mayor’s Office claims the number is 60, with another 160 they say are going through background checks. 

At the press conference, which featured a few rows of the new recruits, there appeared to be one woman recruit present, while all the others were men. As PubliCola reported, 5 of the 60 new hires in 2025 are women, while last year SPD hired 12 women. PubliCola also reported that of the 24 officers who have left so far in 2025, five of those were women, meaning a net gain of zero women officers since the beginning of the year. 

SPD still doesn’t appear to be a good place to work if you’re a woman, an issue I cover in my story about former SPD Chief of Staff Jamie Tompkins, who alleges SPD was a sexually hostile work environment. 

President of the police union SPOG, Mike Solan, isn’t happy either, saying the higher SPD hiring numbers represent a “lessening of standards.” About SPD, Jason Rantz wrote, “nearly 30% of the department is over 50 years old. Nearly 26% are 51 years old or older. At 53, depending on the length of service, officers are eligible for retirement.”

Meanwhile, two more Black SPD officers are suing the department for racial discrimination. And attorney James Bible told the Seattle Times that “there are more cases coming.”

PubliCola has been doing a huge amount of helpful reporting in the public safety space recently, including covering Seattle City Attorney Ann Davison’s new “drug prosecution alternative,” which appears to be a less good version of the community court she shut down a couple years ago; SPOG suing SPD over SPD’s inability to fulfill public records requests; and Seattle Municipal Court Judge Pooja Vaddadi filing a formal complaint with the Washington State Bar Association against Davison and former criminal division chief (and now the Mayor’s Chief Public Safety Officer) Natalie Walton-Anderson for deciding to use a procedural loophole to disqualify Vaddadi from hearing criminal cases in her courtroom.

Meanwhile, Councilmember Cathy Moore has introduced an ethics bill that would weaken the ethics rules for city councilmembers. If passed, councilmembers would no longer be required to recuse themselves if they have a possible financial conflict of interest. Instead they would be required to simply disclose the possible conflict. 

The City’s head of ethics, Wayne Barnett, supports the change. Interestingly, rumor has it that this ethics change is a precursor to Moore introducing new legislation that would gut renters rights protections that are currently in place in the city. Both Councilmember Martiza Rivera and Councilmember Mark Solomon are currently landlords who would have to recuse themselves from a vote on that legislation should the ethics rules not be changed. It is possible Moore would still have the votes to strip renters of protections just as the Trump administration is making cuts that are likely to increase the rate of homelessness in Seattle, even with the two recusals, but it would make for a tighter vote. 

Why a sitting councilmember would want to join Trump in worsening the city’s homelessness crisis in the first place is an interesting question. Why she would choose to weaken the longstanding ethics rules governing city council (in place since 1980) right when many political scientists believe the United States is moving into some form of authoritarianism is another good question. 

Mayoral candidate Katie Wilson wrote an op-ed about what a bad idea weakening the ethics rules is, and it sounds like most, if not all, current D2 city council candidates oppose the bill as well. Solomon was appointed to his position representing D2 until an election can be held this November.

Council President Sara Nelson’s Governance, Accountability, and Economic Development Committee first took up this ethics bill on Thursday afternoon, although no vote was taken at that time.

Finally, to end on some promising news, the Downtown Emergency Service Center (DESC) has been trying a new, less painful method of administering buprenorphine to help people addicted to fentanyl. Early results show that more than 70% of people trying this new course of treatment are making it to their second month of treatment, which is more than triple DESC’s previous numbers. More studies are needed, and cost could be a limiting factor, but this could mark a really helpful breakthrough in treating fentanyl addiction.

King County News:

Shannon Braddock is now officially the King County Executive until the elections in November, and she has rolled out a “200 Day Plan.” Top of the list is enacting the 0.1% “public safety” sales tax just approved by the state legislature and establishing an emergency reserves fund to help the county deal with continued federal shenanigans. 

At a Health, Housing, and Human Services committee meeting on Tuesday, county budget director Dwight Dively gave another of his updates on said federal shenanigans. He said one of the things we’re seeing now is an inability to move projects forward because the federal government employees and/or infrastructure no longer exist to do so. The county is also losing federal workers at various of its agencies. 

King County filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration for adding “unlawful” conditions to previously approved federal grants, which has generally meant insisting the grantee follow every single one of Trump’s executive orders, many of which are probably illegal. A federal judge issued a temporary restraining order against the Trump administration in the case on Wednesday.

Also at the committee meeting was a presentation on an old 2022 report on wage theft that somehow never received a committee presentation until now,  as well as an analysis of impediments to fair housing choice. 

At the Law and Justice committee meeting on Wednesday, the committee received presentations on an audit of asset forfeitures by the King County Sheriff’s Office (summary: the the records of said asset forfeitures are a mess, the electronic system is incomplete and so the office is basically relying on paper records, and the seizure notices are both hard to understand and only offered in English.) You can read the entire report here. 

Also presented at the meeting were the Department of Public Defense’s annual report for 2024 and a briefing about the inquest program. 

WA State News:

I wrote a wrap-up piece about the Washington state legislative session in which I primarily focused on the state’s 2025-2027 operating budget, including which new taxes and which new cuts were included. Governor Bob Ferguson has until May 17 to sign or veto the budget. 

Meanwhile, Ferguson is being pressured to veto an estimated $1.86 billion of new tax revenue passed in the Democrat’s package.

The Washington state Supreme Court upheld the legislature’s ban on high capacity magazines this week. 

We also got a piece from the Washington State Standard about why police accountability didn’t have a good year in the state legislature, which basically boils down to this: because it didn’t suit the people in power to move anything. 

In the article, we receive this confusing gem: “Meanwhile, fears of rising crime have emboldened opposition to policies believed to hinder officers trying to do their jobs. In 2023, the last year with available statewide data, the state saw a significant decrease in year-over-year violent crimes after years of increases, according to the Washington Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs.”

So fears of rising crime, which the data shows is not happening, is what is keeping the legislature from wanting to pass police accountability legislation. Gotcha. 

Recent Headlines:

New Seattle councilmembers want to weaken their ethics code as the US is sliding into authoritarianism Read More »

Seattle City Council to decide whether to keep promise to students

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Seattle News:

Interim SPD Chief Sue Rahr announced she decided to fire Officer Daniel Auderer, who infamously laughed and mocked the death of student Jaahnavi Kandula last year. 

At this week’s public safety committee meeting, councilmembers unanimously voted to confirm Amy Smith as permanent Chief of the CARE department. Her confirmation will now move forward for a full vote from Council. 

Also at the meeting, Rahr gave a presentation about her first two months as interim police Chief, focusing on staffing, technology, accountability, and criminal justice partners. She mentioned SPD would need additional funds for their new proposed Real Time Crime Center (RTCC) software. She spoke of the need to differentiate between minor and major misconduct in the service of changing SPD’s culture because of how slow the OPA is to process cases. She also wants to make the officer entrance exam “much more low barrier and faster” and spoke about the department still being 400 officers down. 

I wrote more about Rahr’s decision to fire Dave and her remarks at the public safety committee meeting in an article for The Urbanist, coming out soon, so keep an eye open for that!

Following this presentation was a discussion led by City Attorney Ann Davison, Rahr, and Smith about the criminal justice ecosystem. As Publicola reported, “members of the Seattle City Council outdid each other calling for more police, more jail, and harsher punishments for people, like those who sell drugs, who “need to be contained,” as Councilmember Bob Kettle put it.”

There were also a few fact checks necessary for statements made by Rahr during her brief tenure. Axios reported that Rahr issued a directive this month explaining that a 2021 state law doesn’t prevent police from questioning juvenile witnesses after saying the law was impeding SPD’s investigation of the June 6 shooting at Garfield High School. PubliCola clarified that in spite of a statement by Rahr on Tuesday that “it takes multiple convictions of firearms laws before juveniles are held in detention and held accountable,” juveniles are in fact held in detention for firearms offenses, even without a conviction. Whether they are held in detention is at the discretion of the judges.

Mayor Bruce Harrell announced some new public safety investments in his proposed mid-year supplemental budget, including an additional $800,000 for police recruitment marketing.

Harrell also announced the new SCORE jail pilot program that will allow Seattle to send a limited number of misdemeanor offenders to the Des Moines jail, which has an unusually high inmate death rate. The agreement would authorize Seattle’s use of at least 20 beds at the facility at a cost of between $1.5 million to $3 million. The legislation will need to be approved by the Council before being enacted.

Less than a week before this announcement, Department of Public Defense Director Anita Khandelwal withdrew from the stakeholdering process around this new pilot, saying it didn’t feel like anything she said in those meetings would have any impact on the decision-making process. Khandelwal raised several concerns about the city contracting with SCORE in this way.

A day after the SCORE pilot was announced, the news broke that the King County Jail is lifting some of its booking restrictions for people arrested in a specific geographical zone called the Downtown Activation Zone, which includes parts of downtown, the CID, and Belltown. It will accept bookings for some simple misdemeanors such as public drug use and possession. Thus far it doesn’t appear this change will impact Harrell’s decision to contract with SCORE, which could be used to book people who are arrested for misdemeanors outside of the designated zone. 

Tensions between the city of Seattle and King County continue to grow, with Executive Dow Constantine pushing back against Davison’s claim that the King County Jail booking restrictions are compromising public safety in Seattle, reported by The Seattle Times:

“In a message to Metropolitan King County Council members, sent on behalf of Constantine Wednesday, Penny Lipsou, director of council relations, said Davison’s claims are misguided. The jail makes exceptions to booking restrictions when there is a compelling reason, the message said, and Davison’s office has been ineffective at making those arguments in court.

“Rather than attacking the jail (and in past months, the judges), she should first get her own shop in order,” the message said.

The message goes on to invite Seattle to cancel its contract with the county for jail space.”

The invitation for Seattle to cancel the jail contract is particularly spicy, perhaps reflecting the growing frustration between the two municipalities. The message also mentions that the County is currently subsidizing misdemeanor bookings, meaning Seattle is already not paying their full cost.

Following up on last week’s news, Pierce County will not be charging SPD Deputy Police Chief Eric Barden in a domestic violence criminal case. Barden is still at least temporarily on Pierce County’s Brady list and currently being investigated by the OPA for allegedly asking a Pierce County deputy to lie on a police report.

Gun Violence Initiative:

King County recently kicked off their 100 Days of Action against gun violence, and Councilmember Girmay Zahilay introduced $1 million of funding in the county’s supplemental budget to assist in developing a comprehensive strategic plan for combating gun violence. I wrote about this over at The Urbanist, as well as giving an update on the $20 million allocated in Seattle’s budget process last year for student mental health. (Spoiler: Mayor Bruce Harrell only wants to invest half of it this year.)

Councilmember Tammy Morales pushed back on the plan to only spend half the allocated money on youth mental health, suggesting the council contract directly with schools and community organizations on programs that would help youth in the city thrive, including investing in free third spaces, skill building, jobs and apprenticeships. The council will have to decide whether to pursue this investment strategy when they vote on amendments to the supplemental budget in early August. 

King County News:

King County recently won a $450,000 federal grant to improve youth outcomes and expand alternatives for secure detention in King County. Next month, the King County Council will be considering legislation introduced by Councilmember Reagan Dunn that would declare their intention to keep the youth detention center open. Meanwhile, the youth jail is already understaffed, and the recent move to halt intakes at two of the major long-term state-run youth detention facilities is likely to add more pressure to the population of King County’s youth jail, which isn’t designed for longer-term stays.

Recent Headlines:

 

Seattle City Council to decide whether to keep promise to students Read More »

SPD Expects More Separations than Hires for Another Year, in Spite of Huge Raises

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Seattle News:

First off, my piece on gun violence, student mental health, and the debate on whether student resource officers should return to Seattle schools was published in The Urbanist this week. The Seattle Times also ran an interesting piece reviewing ideas for improving safety in schools.

Last Friday Councilmember Cathy Moore asked interim SPD Chief Sue Rahr to place two members of SPD command staff currently under criminal investigation on leave: Assistant Chief Tyrone Davis and Deputy Chief Eric Barden. Davis is under investigation for alleged sexual assault and Barden is under investigation for alleged domestic violence. As King 5 reported: “Multiple law enforcement experts who spoke with KING 5 called it unusual for an officer under criminal investigation not to be placed on leave.” However, Rahr has said she hasn’t seen substantiated evidence to justify placing either man on leave at this time.

SPD has announced it will end the year with a net loss of officers once again. So far this year, SPD has experienced 40 departures and hired 15 new officers. Their revised projection says there will be 918 deployable officers at the end of 2024. 

Harrell’s office released an interesting statement to KOMO regarding this news: “It is incredibly disappointing that the PSCSC concluded that [the] Public Safety Test (PST) is not a valid exam option for the City of Seattle and did not complete an independent validation study to determine if another entry-level exam would meet our needs and maintain high standards. The PSCSC report indicates that PST declined to participate in their review, yet the PSCSC report also concludes that the PST test is flawed despite this information gap and despite PST expressing interest in partnering with Seattle. We reject PSCSC’s unsubstantiated conclusions.”

This statement appears to exhibit a fundamental misunderstanding of the report PSCSC released last week, which stated that PST asked not to be considered as a testing vendor for Seattle. Furthermore, the PST did participate in some preliminary parts of the review.. And the reasons why the PSCSC recommends against the PST test are clear-cut: a different custom PST test would have to be developed for SPD specifically, which would mean officer candidates would still not be able to submit the results of the same PST they would be taking for smaller jurisdictions. In addition, there are significant legal difficulties with Seattle offering two different tests with such different pass rates. 

That being said, Public Safety Chair Bob Kettle is also upset about the PSCSC report, beginning this week’s public safety committee meeting with remarks about “misleading media reports” regarding the council’s attempts to replace the current police entrance exam with a different exam with a higher pass rate. As reported by PubliCola, “Kettle said he liked the idea of ranking applicants by their test scores and hiring only highly ranked applicants, but added that the city no longer has that luxury because the previous council drove down police applications.”

PubliCola goes on to point out the lower staffing at police departments is a nationwide trend. The Seattle community needs to consider whether we are willing to significantly lower standards for police officers because of this trend.

At the public safety committee meeting this week, councilmembers also discussed Seattle waterways safety and City Attorney Ann Davison’s proposed legislation instituting a $500 fine for street racing.

In legal news, Auburn officer Jeffrey Nelson was found guilty of murder and assault for shooting Jesse Sarey. He is the first police officer in Washington state to be found guilty of murder for on-duty actions. And the city of Seattle must pay $680,000 to four people arrested for writing chalk graffiti onto temporary concrete barricades outside SPD’s Western Precinct. As PubliCola reported:

 ““Based on the evidence presented at trial, the jury found the defendants arrested and booked the plaintiffs because of the content or viewpoint of their speech,” an attorney for the four plaintiffs, Braden Pence, said in a statement. “We hope this verdict will be a warning and a lesson to police officers and other government officials across the country who violate the First Amendment—that they are and will be held accountable when they arrest and jail people for protected speech.””

On Wednesday, Mayor Bruce Harrell announced the CARE pilot program of dual dispatch alternative response will expand, with plans to hire 18 new responders and 3 supervisors. This expansion is being partially paid for by a federal grant. More on this soon. 

Erica C. Barnett of PubliCola wrote about how the new council hasn’t passed a single substantial piece of legislation since taking office at the beginning of January. 

King County and Washington State News:

King County’s Law and Justice committee met on Wednesday to discuss Councilmember Reagan Dunn’s motion declaring the King County Council’s intention to maintain operations at the county’s youth jail. Councilmember Jorge Barón proposed a striking amendment that states the King County Council intends to maintain operations of the youth jail until viable alternatives become operational, supports priorities that emerged from the Care & Closure work, and supports continued engagement with Executive Dow Constantine around this work. 

The committee didn’t have three votes to move anything forward. Councilmember Dunn opposed the motion to table, but Councilmember Claudia Balducci said it was important to be deliberate. Councilmembers Balducci, Barón, and Dembowski voted to table this discussion until the next meeting. 

Also at the meeting, the Office of Law Enforcement (OLEO) presented on their 2023 annual report.

After being rolled out almost two years ago, Washington State’s 988 is answering 91% of calls received. This is slightly better than the national average of 88%.

Recent Headlines:

SPD Expects More Separations than Hires for Another Year, in Spite of Huge Raises Read More »

ShotSpotter and Diaz are out, Equitable Development funds for BIPOC communities are at risk

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Surveillance Tech:

Hot off the presses: Seattle will not be adopting ShotSpotter or other acoustic gunshot location system (AGLS) technology at this time. 

A two-year pilot announced by the Mayor’s Office will adopt new real time crime center (RTCC) software as well as CCTV cameras in three neighborhoods: Aurora Avenue North, the downtown Third Avenue corridor, and the Chinatown-International District (CID). The Office of the Inspector General (OIG) will manage an evaluation plan for these new technologies to evaluate effectiveness. No mention was made as to whether potential disparate impacts will also be analyzed. 

The Public Safety committee is currently reviewing the expansion of automated license plate readers (ALPR). The City Council will also get a chance to weigh in on the new CCTV and RTCC technologies before they are purchased and implemented. 

More on this soon! 

Diaz Ouster:

SPD Chief Adrian Diaz is out and interim Chief Sue Rahr is in! This news was broken by Ashley Nerbovig late on Tuesday evening, followed by a press conference on Wednesday afternoon. 

It seemed clear from the press conference that it was Mayor Bruce Harrell and his executive team who made the call to oust Diaz and bring in Rahr. However, they are keeping Diaz on to do unspecified “special projects” at an unspecified salary. Harrell mentioned the multiple lawsuits and the independent investigation many times, as well as his concern that those remaining at SPD might be afraid of retaliation for coming forward with allegations of discrimination and harassment were Diaz to remain as Chief.

Rahr was the King County Sheriff for many years, followed by a stint as the Executive Director of the Washington State Criminal Justice Training Commission. She has come out of retirement to take on this job and stated she doesn’t wish to be considered as the next permanent Chief of Police. She is known for being good on accountability issues and for her work on the 30×30 Initiative encouraging women in policing.

Rahr has said she has no plans to make personnel moves, especially of command staff and her focus will be to increase SPD staffing.

The search for the next Chief will start right away, and Harrell said he expected it would take 4-6 months. Both Rahr and former SPD Chief Katherine O’Toole will be involved in the search, and Harrell strongly suggested he was most interested in an external candidate to change the culture of SPD. 

SPD Q1 Staffing Update:

Tuesday was also a busy day at City Hall. At the morning’s Public Safety committee meeting, councilmembers heard presentations on SPD’s Q1 staffing, overtime, and response times and the 30×30 Initiative.

For Quarter 1 of 2024, SPD’s staffing plan called for 31 new hires, but they only achieved 11 new hires. They had planned for 27 separations and only realized 22, a number that caused everyone real excitement as it was the first time since 2020 estimated separations came in fewer than projected. However, it’s important to remember it was common knowledge at the beginning of this year that the new SPOG contract would likely be completed soon, so it seems likely some officers contemplating leaving would have decided to hold on the extra few months to receive the lump sum of backpay the new contract was known to be coming with. SPD now projects hiring 100 officers and having 100 separations in total in 2024.

Council Central Staff member Greg Doss concluded from this data that SPD retention is completely shifting but hiring is still difficult. Out of the original goal of SPD hiring 120 new officers this year, he expects them to in reality hire fewer than 61.

70 officers are currently on long-term leave, which can be contrasted to the 140-180 officers on long-term leave in 2021. 

At the end of Q1, there were 1053 FTE (full time employees) as sworn members of SPD and 23 additional vacant FTE, creating salary savings of around $3 million for the year. It looks like SPD will probably run over their budget paying overtime. 

After the MOU signed last year giving special event pay bonuses to officers, the number of officers working events is up and the number of parking enforcement officers (PEOs) working events has fallen, which is more expensive for the city. 90 of the 105 PEO positions are currently filled. Citywide, event spending is up 23% over last year, probably because of the double time overtime pay given to officers with the new MOU. Council Central Staff member Greg Doss said if this trend continues, then overtime spending in this event category could be up a great deal by the end of the year. 

Priority 1 call times sit at a median of 7.9 minutes; SPD’s goal is 7 minutes. Council President Sara Nelson asked if the CARE team might reduce these response times, which seems unlikely due to the continuing dual dispatch nature of the pilot and how few responders the CARE team currently employs. 

Councilmember Cathy Moore called for expanding the Community Service Officers further since they can’t hire officers quickly enough. Councilmember Rob Saka wondered if the Chief of Police really requires his or her own security and also wanted hiring laterals to be more of a priority. Councilmember Bob Kettle pleaded with current SPD officers who might be thinking of retiring once they receive their backpay to stay longer. Councilmember Joy Hollingsworth critiqued SPD’s recruitment website. 

During the 30×30 Initiative presentation, SPD General Counsel and Executive Director of Analytics and Research Rebecca Boatwright said SPD had been receiving 5.3 applications per day, which had increased to. 9-10 per day in the run-up to the new SPOG contract being signed. She said in the two weeks since the contract was approved, there had been 15.29 applications per day. In his comments at the press conference announcing the departure of Diaz, Harrell agreed that last year the department had been receiving 5-6 applications per day, but said since the signing of the SPOG contract (only two weeks prior) that number had been 17-19 applications per day. 

Tanya Meisenholder, a member of the 30×30 steering committee, said police department culture change comes from first understanding the culture you already have. Components of culture change she cited included messaging from the top, what the department allows to fester and be tolerated within the organization, how officers are held accountable for their actions, understanding and engaging with employees, and thinking about what you can do to make changes. She said when a new administrative team comes into a department (by hiring an external Chief of Police) there is more of an opportunity to make change.

Kettle said it was important for the city to acknowledge the 30×30 report and not try to explain it away. Hollingsworth gave a shout-out to Detective “Cookie” Boudin’s efforts in the community without mentioning that Boudin filed a lawsuit against the department last year alleging decades of gender and racial discrimination. Moore expressed a wish to change SPD’s culture from warrior to guardian mentality.

Rivera’s EDI Amendment:

Then on Tuesday afternoon, the full Council was set to vote on a technical budget bill, to which Councilmember Maritza Rivera had added a last minute amendment on Friday afternoon before the long weekend. This amendment would freeze around $25 million of 2024 funds for the Equitable Development Initiative (EDI), and unless certain impossible conditions were met by the end of September, it seemed likely the money would get rolled back into the city’s general balance. Although these funds are currently restricted by statute to go to only specific purposes, there is both a reasonable chance this statute could be changed by the Council this fall and even if not, the community would still lose out on the $25 million investment this year. You can read my op-ed on this issue for more details.

Between the attack on the EDI funds and a last minute deletion of the Pay Up ordinance from the agenda, the meeting’s public comment ran over three hours, with numerous community members speaking out against the surprise amendment and speaking in frank terms about their disappointment with Councilmember Rivera. As The Seattle Times reported, “Advocacy organizations and several of Rivera’s colleagues seized on the bill as a betrayal of the city’s promises to uplift communities facing displacement because of the high cost of living in the city.”

After Rivera left in the middle of public comment along with colleagues Councilmember Moore and Council President Nelson in what was clearly a move to figure out their response in private, Rivera moved for the entire budget bill to be removed from the agenda to be taken up again next week on June 4. 

The Council vote to delay this agenda item passed 6-3, with all but Councilmembers Tammy Morales, Dan Strauss, and Joy Hollingsworth voting in favor. 

Both at the meeting and in a statement, Rivera stated that she desired the delay in order to “have time to correct disinformation that was irresponsibly given to community about the proposed amendment.” 

This may prove difficult for Rivera to accomplish, however, given that there don’t appear to be any media reports that claim the EDI program would be cut in its totality, which is the disinformation she appears to be trying to correct. There was an email to constituents from Morales saying, “On Friday afternoon, our office discovered that an amendment is being introduced to freeze funding for ongoing Equitable Development Initiative projects,” and it is perhaps this slightly vague statement that the Councilmember objected to. However, given she has provided no details, it is hard to say.

Rivera first complained that the Office of Planning and Community Development (OPCD) was taking too long in executing EDI projects. When this objection was answered with examples of reasonable timelines for some of these capital projects and the explanation that many of these projects are deliberately being taken on by community organizations who are slower due to their small size and lack of expertise, she wanted to hear more from the OPCD about how they are helping community get the expertise and assistance they need for these types of EDI projects. How freezing all 2024 funds would help community get more assistance with their projects is a mystery that has not been adequately answered.

We also know from the public login sheet that Rivera met with the OPCD on May 8, May 17, and May 20.

Councilmember Cathy Moore added from the dais that there had been misinformation and fearmongering spread about this amendment. There were reports that those who had come to speak felt gaslit by the response of Councilmembers to their heartfelt comments.

Recent Headlines:

ShotSpotter and Diaz are out, Equitable Development funds for BIPOC communities are at risk Read More »

A Day in the Life of Seattle City Council

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A Day in the Life of Seattle City Council:

The day: Thursday, April 25, 2024

In the morning, Councilmember Martiza Rivera led the Librairies, Education, and Neighborhoods committee meeting, where she blamed the recently announced rotating library closings and reduced hours on the benefits librarians won in their most recent contract. The expense of ebooks were also mentioned as a culprit. Downplayed was the impact of this year’s hiring freeze.

In the afternoon, Council President Sara Nelson led the Governance, Accountability, and Economic Development committee meeting. During public comment, a commenter brought attention to a possible conflict of interest Nelson has with the new gig worker minimum wage rollback legislation, and she interrupted him, attempting to derail his request for her to recuse herself by asking which item on the agenda he was referencing. (It was obvious which item he was referencing.)

During the discussion on the police officer recruitment bill, Nelson brought up the overwhelming nature of climate change, saying because there is no magical solution to climate change, we do nothing. But apparently hiring new police officers is not tough like climate change, hence this new bill, which seems unlikely to have a strong impact on hiring numbers, although it will give the Council someone to yell at if numbers don’t get better of their own accord. 

In the evening, two councilmembers held town halls in their district: Robert Kettle in District 7 and Cathy Moore in District 5. Kettle had friends Council President Sara Nelson and Councilmember Tanya Woo in tow. 

At Kettle’s event, he once again stated his belief that the SPD is the best police force in the nation. A few hours later, the news broke that four more women officers at SPD have filed a tort claim alleging sexual harassment and sexual discrimination by Chief Adrian Diaz, Lt. John O’Neil, and human resource manager Rebecca McKechnie. This is the third suit brought against the SPD for gender discrimination in the last six months. Meanwhile, SPD has been under a federal consent decree for twelve years and the new proposed SPOG contract does not make the accountability changes the presiding judge has indicated he wanted to see before fully ending the decree. And this is the best police force in the nation?

Worse yet, when asked whether the city has ever discussed bringing in the National Guard for “the most dire parts of this community,” Nelson said, “The short answer is yes.” She referenced Gavin Newsom calling in the National Guard in San Francisco. 

Meanwhile, at Moore’s event, she announced she’ll be introducing legislation reinstating the old law against “prostitution loitering” that was unanimously repealed by the Council back in 2020. Yes, even Alex Pedersen voted to repeal this law. 

As PubliCola reports, “The council repealed the laws against prostitution loitering and drug loitering after the Seattle Reentry Workgroup, established to come up with recommendations to help formerly incarcerated people reenter their communities, recommended repealing both laws on the grounds that they disproportionately harm people of color and amount to “criminalization of poverty.””

Moore says she hopes the law will allow officers to approach prostitutes, look for diversion opportunities, and see if they’re being trafficked or not. It is not clear whether this law is actually needed in order for officers to do these things.

Moore also said she’d be voting to approve the new SPOG contract that gives 23% raises to police officers while making few improvements to accountability.

Other News:

The first SPD killing of the year happened last week. 

The King County Law and Justice committee met this Tuesday to discuss the Superior Court’s Jury Participation and Diversity Report and to hear from the Auditor’s Office on the audit they recently performed on the Judge Patricia H. Clark Children and Family Justice Center (CCFJC), otherwise known as the youth jail. They also got an update on implementation of recommendations for all criminal legal system audits since 2020. 

The main findings from the audit on the youth jail were that while the facility was designed for short stays of 30 days or less in mind, most of the youth now held in the jail are staying for longer. 84% of youth have stays of more than 30 days, more than half are there for at least 3 months, and about a third are there for six months. The youth are housed in the CCFJC while waiting for the resolution of their cases.

This is a problem because the facility is not designed with ample green spaces, a big enough gymnasium, and flexible programming space, all of which are needed if youth are staying there longer. Youth staying longer tend to have greater needs as well, and CCFJC doesn’t offer all the appropriate programming. Longer stays in the youth jail have also been shown to increase recidivism. 

The other issue uncovered by the audit was the impact of staff shortages on the care of the youth staying at the facility, as well as on staff morale. Staff shortages lead to modified staffing schedules, which means more time the youth are spending in their cells. During a normal schedule, a youth will spend 11-13 hours in their cell, whereas they will spend at least 14.5 hours in their cell during a modified schedule. 

There have been times when educational class time has been so shortened teachers have worried about meeting state educational requirements. Short staffing can also cause recreation programs to be canceled and make it difficult for youth to meet with mental health counselors. Both teachers and juvenile detention officers end up being stretched thin. 

Right now 79 out of 91 total positions for juvenile detention officer are filled. The low staffing point thus far was in March of 2023, when there were only 68 juvenile detention officers. 

Recent Headlines:

A Day in the Life of Seattle City Council Read More »

Are $230 Million in Seattle Budget Cuts Even Possible? Budget Director Says No.

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Seattle News:

This week at Seattle’s Public Safety committee meeting, the committee discussed SPD testing, recruiting, and retention. Then on Thursday night, Mayor Harrell hosted a public safety forum at the Seattle Public Library. He plans to hold more informal public safety forums by precinct in the month of April.

Fascinating things were said at both of these meetings, and I’m currently working on a longer piece analyzing them more thoroughly. More on this, hopefully next week! 

City Council is teed up to vote on a resolution at next week’s 3/19 meeting that appear to eliminate several Statements of Legislative Intent (SLI) passed by last year’s Council. One of the SLIs not appearing on the new list is the request for an evaluation of Seattle’s current gun violence prevention programs. More specifically, the SLI requested that “HSD and CSCC/CARE perform a gap analysis of the City’s current and priority investments in gun violence prevention as compared to the recommendations in the King County Regional Community Safety and Wellbeing (RCSWB) Plan, and identify complementary, duplicative, or gaps in services provided by the City and King County.” 

It is ironic that at a time when the city is trying to pressure through three concerning surveillance technologies with the justification that the city is struggling with gun violence, they are not willing to even finish a basic evaluation of already existing investments that won’t cost a penny.

Following up on the news about the City Attorney trying to disqualify Judge Vaddadi from hearing cases, the Seattle Times reports that certain defense attorneys are independently trying to find a way to fight back by having Vaddadi sign subpoenas and then arguing her signature on these documents means she shouldn’t be unilaterally removed from hearing the cases:

“In an interview, Vaddadi confirmed attorneys had sent her “fewer than a hundred” subpoenas to sign, which she did, but said she was unaware of any strategy by attorneys to get her back on the calendar. She, and at least some of her colleagues, interpret the court’s rules to mean that any judge can sign any subpoena sent to them.

“I would never strategize with one party or another, that would be incredibly unethical,” she said.”

Regarding Seattle’s upcoming enormous budget deficit, Crosscut recently reported that Julie Dingley, the city’s budget director, had said they will not be able to make $230 million worth of cuts by the beginning of 2025, and has suggested they will have to come up with one-time strategies to stagger implementation of such a large amount of cuts. It’s worth noting that Seattle is required by law to have a balanced budget. 

The same article reports that Councilmember Kettle supports having JumpStart tax funds go directly to the general fund to help balance it instead of honoring the spending plan for the tax that is currently in city statute. The JumpStart tax is currently the top source of funding for affordable housing in the city, so redirecting it in such a way would have consequences to the already meager store of affordable housing. 

Election News:

Tanya Woo has officially declared her candidacy for the Seattle City Council seat that she currently holds as an interim appointee. No other candidates for the seat have yet filed.

Perennial state lawmaker Frank Chopp has announced his retirement, and Shaun Scott has announced his candidacy to take over the 43rd Legislative District seat. And he is coming out swinging! Here is the first paragraph of his press release announcing his candidacy:

“The past four years have dealt a lifetime of challenges to residents of the 43rd Legislative District. The working class has seen costs of living increase, while major corporations dominate local elections and evade taxes. Renters can’t afford rent. For young people, the reality of a permanently altered climate lingers like smoke. Students are punished for attending state universities with a life sentence of debt. Disabled and immunocompromised Washingtonians enjoy few public accommodations, and Long COVID looms as a public health emergency. While Washingtonians hope a Democrat-controlled State Legislature and Governor’s office will support staple programs such as special education funding and the resumption of free meals in public schools, MAGA Republicans in cahoots with the billionaire class have launched initiatives to rollback recent state-level wins on climate sustainability and fair taxes.”

Scott is the Policy Lead at the Statewide Poverty Action Network, which is the advocacy arm of Solid Ground, which was founded by his predecessor Chopp. He is known for his run for City Council for D4 in 2019, a race he lost to Alex Pedersen by 4 points while being wildly outspent. Scott also authored the state-level guaranteed basic income (GBI) pilot in 2022.

King County News:

The Washington State Bar Association recently passed new standards for public defenders that will reduce their caseloads. While these standards will affect the entire state, they particularly impact King County because attorneys in King County are required to follow standards that the WSBA adopts.

Publicola reported that Executive Constantine was “alarmed enough” about this possibility that he had his general counsel send a letter to the WSBA asking them not to adopt these new standards. It is likely he is concerned about how this will impact funding for public defense, given the County is currently facing a two-year $100 million budget deficit. 

Publicola said: “According to DPD director Anita Khandelwal, that means the county must either hire enough attorneys—along with support staff like paralegals, social workers, and investigators—to meet the new standards or invest in alternatives to prosecution and incarceration, reducing caseloads by reducing the number of cases.” But Khandelwal argues it doesn’t have to be a budget question, as the County has three years to potentially ramp up alternative programming that would reduce their dependence on the traditional criminal legal system.

Recent Headlines:

 

Are $230 Million in Seattle Budget Cuts Even Possible? Budget Director Says No. Read More »

City Council Talks SPD Staffing While Ignoring Damning Report on the Department’s Treatment of Women

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Seattle News

My article on the three new surveillance technologies currently undergoing impact reports is up now at The Urbanist: Harrell Plans Hasty Rollout of Massive Surveillance Expansion. And here’s another great resource for learning more about these technologies.

I strongly encourage you to get involved in this conversation by doing one or more of the following:

  • You can sign on as a group or individual to this letter.
  • You can attend a public meeting that is part of the SIR process and give public comment on Tuesday, February 27, from 6-7pm at Bitter Lake Community Center (or remotely)
  • You can fill out survey forms for each of the three technologies. More possible talking points are here.

Last year SPD commissioned a report that describes the harassment and discrimination faced by their women officers. The report describes womens’ difficulties being promoted, discrimination about getting pregnant, sexist behaviors and comments, being excluded, and sexual harassment, among other issues. 14.4% of SPD sworn officers are women, down 1% since 2017. 

Publicola reported that in 2023, out of 61 new officers hired, just five were women, according to Jamie Housen. One of the talking points of the Executive’s Office seems to be that “almost half” of SPD’s command staff is women, but actually only 5 out of 13 are women, with only one being a sworn officer. The other 4 hold civilian positions that are typically held by women. 

In addition to last year’s lawsuit brought by Detective Cookie Boudine, another lawsuit was brought against SPD last month by Deanna Nollette alleging gender discrimination.

The Seattle Times reported: “Most of the report’s interviewees would not tell other women to join the department, James wrote.

“Well, if I were to tell my daughters or, you know, my friends, I tell them to run in the opposite direction, you know, because of the experiences that I’ve had,” one participant said.”

While SPD’s Chief Diaz mentioned wanting to specifically recruit more women at the year’s first Public Safety committee meeting this week, not one council member saw fit to ask him about this report. This lack of oversight fit nicely with the committee’s new attitude of bending over backwards to support SPD.

New Public Safety Chair Robert Kettle emphasized how the problems in Seattle stem from a “permissive environment” and named 6 pillars to address this: police staffing, legal tools, unsecured vacant buildings and lots, graffiti, public health, and “One Seattle engagement with the County and the State.” As Publicola points out, this is in stark contrast to the previous mission of this committee, which “previously highlighted police accountability, alternatives to arrest and jail, and “programs to reduce the public’s involvement with law enforcement and decrease involvement with the Criminal Legal System.”

In other words, it’s all about deterrence and punishment now, with strains of broken windows theory coming round yet again to haunt us.

CARE department head Amy Smith, who everyone called Chief, said that she’d like to expand the hours of the alternate responders. They now cover from 11am-11pm, and she’d like to cover the 11pm-2am window as well. She also mentioned that the responders sometimes have joint trainings with SPD officers.

SPD gave an update on 2023 crime numbers and staffing. In 2023, there was a 9% reduction in overall crime, a 10% reduction in property crime, and a 6% reduction in violent crime. There was a 1% decrease in total shots fired and shooting events, a 23% increase in homicides (although apparently some of these were delayed deaths, the Chief said), and a 3% increase in shooting events alone. The first month of 2024 saw a large reduction in homicides from previous Januaries. The number of rounds fired has increased recently due to high capacity magazines that hold many more rounds.

SPD lost 36 more officers than they were able to hire in 2023. This is a smaller decrease in staffing than any year since 2019, when they had a net gain of 16 officers. Over the last five years, they have lost 715 personnel. For January of this year, they are breaking even in terms of officers leaving vs officers being hired.

The average response time to a Priority 1 911 call is seven and a half minutes; their goal is seven minutes even.

He mentioned they want to close out the consent decree in 2024 and expressed pride that SPD would be one of the first departments to be able to do that. 

There was a lot of discussion of how to increase officer morale, make them feel more supported, increase staffing, and help them recover from the trauma they endured after George Floyd. There was also talk about how not having a new contract is harming SPD in terms of recruiting since officers aren’t being paid enough compared to other agencies. Chief Diaz mentioned doing a lot of recruiting from nearby military bases, citing Portland’s success in increasing staffing in this way. 

CM Moore said they were going to allow police to police and not engage in the micromanagement of the past. She complained that the city is paying for jail space it’s not getting, saying they are paying for 190 jail beds per night but only getting 40, which is a problem, as she wants to send a message of holding people accountable. She suggested the idea of the city looking elsewhere for jail space, which could mean another spotlight on the SCORE jail in Des Moines. As of October 2023, 4 people had died in the SCORE jail in 2023, a very high number.

Publicola ran an article about SPD and the City Attorney’s Office continuing to crack down on sex work:

“Criminalizing sex work is broadly unpopular; during jury selection, echoing national sentiment, 23 of 25 potential jurors said they didn’t think sex work should be illegal. But the city remains deeply invested in penalizing the practice—and pouring resources into prosecuting men who patronize sex workers.

Like James, most of the people prosecuted for patronizing prostitutes are men of color, and defense attorneys say many are immigrants—mostly Latino—who don’t speak English fluently or at all.”

The article also explores what a huge amount of resources these stings and trials take (a single sting can involve as many as 20 officers), and how in City law and SPD policy, sex work and human trafficking are practically the same thing. 

WA State Legislature:

A quick update here. HB 1579–the independent prosecutor bill–and SB 6009–a bill banning hog tying–both passed their houses of origin. Unfortunately, the traffic safety bill HB 1513 has died. HB 1445–the bill giving the Attorney General investigatory power over systemic practices of police agencies–is also dead. HB 2065–the bill about juvenile points–passed out of its house of origin and has a hearing and an executive session scheduled for next week. 

HB 1932 –the bill to allow even year elections–has passed from its house of origin.

Housekeeping:

I’m on vacation next week, so you’ll be hearing from me next in early March. 

Recent Headlines:

City Council Talks SPD Staffing While Ignoring Damning Report on the Department’s Treatment of Women Read More »

Will ShotSpotter CCTV Cameras Roam Seattle’s Streets Next Year?

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Seattle Budget News

Budget-Associated Events

If you’re interested in learning more about Guaranteed Basic Income (GBI), you can view the presentation and panel of local experts from this week here. If you’d like to contact your councilmembers in support of a publicly funded GBI program in Seattle, you can find talking points here.

If you’d like to read talking points from the Seattle Solidarity Budget, you can read them here. These should be updated to reflect new information learned during issue identification by the end of the day Monday.

Seattle Solidarity Budget is also hosting a virtual public comment workshop on Monday, October 16 from 6-7:30pm. An overview of Solidarity Budget’s call to action will be provided, as well as help writing up and giving public comment. You can register here.

There are two chances to give public comment related to the budget next week. A public hearing for public comment will be held on Wednesday, October 18 at 5pm. CM Nelson also pushed strongly for a public comment period to be added to the budget meeting on Monday, October 16 at 10am. As always, you can also email or call your councilmembers and share your budget priorities and concerns with them.

Investments associated with the New War on Drugs Bill

I finally have a breakdown on the plan for the $7 million for capital costs and $1.4 million for services that Mayor Harrell promised during the discussion of the New War on Drugs bill. 

The $7 million will be spent on two facilities; we’ve already spoken about the post-overdose site at some length, but the other facility will be an outpatient treatment center for individuals with opioid use disorder and/or other drug dependencies that will offer low-barrier access.

As for the $1.4 million, it will be spent for the following:

  • $470k for existing programs for drug user health and harm reduction
  • $325k for 2 new positions at Health One as well as relevant supplies
  • $582k one-time investment to support service delivery at the post-overdose stabilization center
  • $516k for ongoing costs at the post-overdose stabilization center
  • $164k administrative costs
  • $164k for a planning & development specialist to oversee the work supported by these monies

It is unclear where the money needed to operate the low-barrier access outpatient treatment center will come from.

CM Nelson objected to the use of the funds for harm reduction programs.

Meanwhile, SPD has estimated the requirements from this new legislation will result in it making 700-800 new diversion referrals every year. Right now LEAD is funded with $9.9 million, which allows it to serve 750 program participants. HSD believes this funding level will be sufficient, but how this can be the case when LEAD might not even have enough funding to serve all the new SPD drug referrals, let alone their normal caseload, is something of a mystery at present. Pre-filing diversion programs are also not receiving any increase in funding. 

SPD Budget Issues

The budget issue identification pertaining to SPD was discussed by City Council on Friday afternoon. You can see the presentation and the associated memo. 

Between January and September of 2023, SPD missed its hiring goals by 36, only hiring 46 officers and only 6 of those being lateral hires (meaning those officers are experienced and can be deployed quickly). They had 77 officer separations during that same time period (the projection was 72). Therefore, they experienced a net decrease of officers of 27.

At best, SPD’s staffing will remain flat for 2024, but this depends on an ambitious plan to hire 120 officers next year, with a full 30 being lateral hires. Unless something changes vastly in the next few months, this projection appears to be removed from reality. Iin 2024, SPD is proposing to fund 1,131 sworn FTEs.

SPD expects to exceed their overtime budget by $9.3 million for 2023, reaching a total of $40.6 million for overtime. The total number of events worked by SPD in 2023 was greater than that in 2019 before the pandemic began. Interestingly, Chief Diaz reported the department uses a combination of sworn officers and parking enforcement officers (PEOs) to staff events. 

SPD has been having trouble staying ahead of attrition while hiring new parking enforcement officers (PEOs) this year, so there might be as much as $1.5 million in PEO salary savings to help plug this overtime spending gap. Yes, now that the PEOs have moved back to SPD, it gets to use PEO salary savings as well as sworn officer salary savings. There are 22 open PEO positions right now, and these are planned to be filled by April 2024. 

Finally there was much discussion of the crime prevention pilot, for which the Mayor is asking for a $1.8 million investment that is being paid for by salary savings (the rest of the $8.1 million in projected salary savings for 2024 is being proposed to be spent on additional SPD overtime). $280k would be spent on additional automatic license plate reader technology. The remainder, $1.5 million, would be spent on deploying CCTV cameras with acoustic gunshot locator capabilities (aka ShotSpotter with cameras). 

The Mayor’s Office has chosen the 3rd Avenue corridor, Belltown, and/or Aurora Ave N as potential locations to deploy this new technology, although they are not yet sure how many locations they will be able to cover with the money available. These locations were chosen from SPD data, looking for places where gun violence, human trafficking, and high felony crime concentration are present. There is also no information available on what a scaled up version of this pilot might look like or how much it would cost. 

The Mayor has suggested this new technology would be deployable by March of 2024, even though it would first need to undergo a surveillance technology review and a racial equity analysis. 

A particularly disturbing detail of the plan is the desire to develop an omnibus surveillance policy. This policy would allow any CCTV cameras in the pilot to be moved around the city at will, without having to undergo any oversight from the City Council. The Mayor has said he will engage with each community to which the cameras are moved, but given some of the community engagement efforts we’ve seen in the past from this administration, this loose commitment doesn’t exactly ease fears of potential issues with this policy.

Several councilmembers, including CMs Nelson, Pedersen, Lewis, and Strauss signaled their potential support for this Shotspotter CCTV pilot. 

I will try to cover the new CARE department budgetary issues next week, but in the meantime, you can see their presentation and memo.

Overall Budget Issue

The critical conversation about potential new progressive revenue sources for 2025 and beyond has yet to truly begin, but Pubicola reports the Mayor’s proposed 2024 budget increases the projected 2025 deficit from $212 million to $247 million. 

And what about the JumpStart tax revenues? “Harrell’s budget transfers $27 million from the Jumpstart tax fund to the general fund, an ongoing practice that the council has approved every year for the past several years to keep COVID-era programs going. Much of that includes new spending beyond what the council approved last year in the “endorsed” 2024 budget.”

Other News

The City of Seattle settled with the estate of Derek Hayden, a man killed by SPD in January of 2022. To resolve this wrongful death claim, they paid $1.5 million. 

The trial of the police who killed Manuel Ellis continues in Tacoma. Before she testified on Monday, Ellis’s mother says she found an AirTag tracking device on her car, as well as having her tires slashed earlier on the weekend. As a result, Ellis’s sister alleged witness intimidation.

Recent Headlines

 

Will ShotSpotter CCTV Cameras Roam Seattle’s Streets Next Year? Read More »