At a public safety forum this past spring, moderator Enrique Cerna started his conversation with Mayor Harrell by stating how he was struck while watching a news report on two recent shootings in the Central District. A resident in the report said, “I hate to say this but it’s just another day here in the Central District.”
Cerna said the comment implied, “This is going to happen, and there’s nothing we can do about it.”
We can do something about it, we must and are doing something about it, and we will continue to do something about it. We cannot allow resignation or acceptance of our public safety challenges.
The comment reflects the fact that a normalized permissive environment has been built over time, aided at times by the previous City Council, and still enabled by various factors. Further, the permissive environment has enabled people involved in crime to operate without fear of accountability and has allowed random acts of violence to strike our neighborhoods, suddenly and tragically. We cannot allow this to stand.
Our mandate from the voters at the Seattle City Council, especially within the Public Safety Committee, is to help keep Seattle safe. We envision a future where families feel safe sending their children on the bus to school, businesses can operate without paying for private security, and the city can respond in a timely and appropriate manner to people experiencing acute crises.
Our action plan is to use our Strategic Framework to accomplish that vision. This framework is the lens through which we make decisions to better enhance Seattle’s public safety posture, whether it be through leadership, legislation, or innovative ideas. It will also provide us with a path towards the future, so that we can help ensure that each of us is doing our best to make Seattle’s future a safe one.
We have already begun our pursuit of that vision. Yet importantly, this is not just about our police, fire, and CARE departments, but also the criminal justice system, our police accountability partners, our emergency preparedness office, and our county government partners.
In the end, we cannot do this by ourselves – this endeavor to make our city a safe place to live, work, and play, cannot just be a government focused undertaking. We need an all-hands-on-deck approach and effort including non-profit organizations, businesses, neighbors, and our families. Each of us plays a key role. Whether it’s volunteering on your local Block Watch, actively getting to know members of your community, calling 9-1-1 or filing a report with a first responder agency or with Find It, Fix It, with your help, we can turn the tide and no longer be by-standers, resigned to current circumstances.
Strategic Framework Update:
Pillar 1: SPD Staffing & Retention
We have made strides on increasing SPD hiring and retention efforts. First, we passed a SPD Hiring Incentive bill, which reduces the administrative lag on officer hiring timelines. Second, the Council negotiated and passed a SPOG (Seattle Police Officer’s Guild) contract that implements more accountability measures as well as retroactively pays the officers for their work during a time with an expired contract. Now, SPD officers are the highest paid in the region as compared to previously, where SPD officers were the 15th highest paid in the region. I have also worked to build relationships with SPD officers by visiting all 5 precincts during morning rollcall. I have continued to ask them to give this new Council a year before they make any major decisions that might result in them leaving public service in Seattle, and I have been working to keep my side of the bargain. These combined efforts are already bearing fruit: SPD has reported to Council that applications have increased three-fold when juxtaposed with the previous few years.
Pillar 2: Legal Tools
In the past three months, the Council has passed:
- The Seattle Police Officer’s Guild (SPOG) contract.
- A bill to increase recruitment and retention of Seattle Police officers.
- A bill that allows SFD to demolish dangerous vacant buildings and recoup the costs.
- An ordinance that allows SPD to use Automated License Plate Readers to find stolen vehicles and solve violent crimes that utilize stolen vehicles.
- A bill that allows SPD to ticket cars that are involved with street racing and to use video evidence to do so.
- SCORE Jail Inter-local Agreement (ILA) — this will give us 20 beds at SCORE in Des Moines.
My office has been working hand-in-glove with the City Attorney’s Office and the SPD on the so-called “Belltown Hellcat” and the pervasiveness of the street racing events happening across the region. My office has been navigating all the constituent communications and the longer the issue persisted, the clearer it became that the SPD needs additional tools, especially given their short staffing.
Before the Council takes up the budget, the Public Safety Committee is going to be taking up three pieces of legislation:
- SODA (Stay Out of Drug Area) zones in Little Saigon and 3rd Ave & Pike
- An Anti-Trafficking Zone on Aurora
- An Ordinance that authorizes SPD to utilize Real Time Crime Center & CCTV technologies
Pillar 3: Vacant Buildings
Mayor Harrell, Fire Chief Scoggins, Councilmember Morales and I all worked on the dangerous vacant building abatement legislation. It was particularly critical for the Seattle Fire Department; vacant buildings have been the site of fires for the past several years, and these fires are particularly dangerous for firefighters and any occupants.
The vacant buildings abatement legislation empowers SFD to decide when to demolish or fence off dangerous vacant buildings, as well as enables them to recoup the cost of the demolition or other abatement actions.
Pillar 4: Graffiti Remediation
My office has worked on issues like the demolition of the Hillside Motel, as well as multiple public safety walks along 2nd & 3rd Avenue, but Pillar 4 remains an area where we will be doing more work in the future.
Pillar 5: Public Health
I will always stand by the point that we can’t succeed in public safety without also succeeding in public health. Many of our public safety challenges are rooted in public health, and that’s why I’m proud to support the expansion of the Community Assisted Response and Engagement Team. CARE does critical work to supplement the first responders like Fire, Medics, and Police by co-responding to low-acuity mental health crises. With the expansion of the CARE Team, I am hoping to have their efforts reach into every district and on the weekend.
On a separate note, the City Auditor recently presented a report on drug overdoses and crime locations in Seattle. This is a report that can be a source of legislative action after the upcoming budget season concludes.
As part of my relationship building with Seattle’s public health providers, I’ve gone on a few ride-along with Health One and the Unified Care Team, and I’ve visited Fire Stations 10, 25 and 5.
Pillar 6: Collaborating with King County and Washington State
A few weeks ago, my staff and I visited King County Jail. I have been hearing reports from officers and prosecutors about the current challenges by King County Jail, and I decided that I should visit the Jail and see for myself what sort of state the Jail is in.
What I found is that King County Jail has an incredibly low level of staff. Due to the lack of staff, the Jail can’t take in many bookings, which leads us to the place we are at now, where someone has committed a crime but can’t be booked, so they’re released back into the Seattle population.
That’s why, along with the Mayor’s office, we have been looking at SCORE Jail in Des Moines. Our public safety challenges cannot wait to be met until King County Jail is back at full staffing.
One last update on Accountability, which is a key priority of my office:
- The reappointment of the Inspector General, Lisa Judge, a crucial partner in our police accountability system
- The Community Police Commission is seeking new commissioners! Apply here
My fellow Councilmembers and I are seeing the emails, hearing the phone messages, and “meeting with constituents. Please keep engaging, informing, and working with us to make District 7 a more safe, thriving, and vibrant place to live!