AN ORDINANCE naming the Children and Family Justice Center Building the Judge Patricia H. Clark Children Family Justice Center Building, in honor of the late Patricia H. Clark, Superior Court Judge and revered community member; and naming the new building's resource center the Justice Bobbe J. Bridge Resource Center, in honor of Washington State Supreme Court Justice (retired) Bobbe J. Bridge, courageous juvenile justice services leader.
Thank you. I believe that concludes public testimony for today's meeting. Is there anyone else who would like to offer public testimony? Yeah. Anyone else. Then we'll close the public hearing and we'll move to item seven on today's agenda. The county's Children and Family Justice Center will be opening later this year. This ordinance, ordinance 2019, 210 would name the building itself and the resource center within the building after two prominent local jurists, Patricia Clarke and Bobby Bridge, both of whom had a tremendous impact on the improvement of services provided to juveniles within the juvenile justice system . Here to brief the committee on the legislation is Patrick Hamacher. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Council members, for the record. Patrick Hamacher, council staff. The discussion of this ordinance begins on page 28 in your packets today. And as you noted in your introduction, Mr. Chair, this ordinance would name the facility, the Children and Family Justice facility after Judge Patricia Clark. It would name the resource center within the facility after Justice Bobby Ridge. Just by way of background towards the bottom of page 28. Patricia Clark served as a King County Superior Court judge from 1998 until 2015, and she served as the chief judge of the Juvenile Division from 2000 to 227. During her time on the court, Judge Clark received many awards, some of which are the Vanguard Award from the King County Women's League, Women's Women Lawyers, the 2005 Voices for Children Award from the Washington State Children's Alliance and the Trailblazer Award from the National Black Prosecutors Association. She also served as a member of the Superior Court Judges Association, Board of Trustees and the Superior Court Judges Association, Family Juvenile Law Committee. Moving to page 29, in your staff reports, she chaired King County's disproportionality committee and the State of Washington's Committee on Racial Disproportionality. Judge Clarke also led the county's implementation of Dependency Family Treatment Court, and it was instrumental in the Reclaiming Futures Treatment Court and Family Treatment Court. The ordinance would name the facility formerly would formally name the facility. The judge, Patricia H. Clark Children and Family Justice Center Justice Bobby Bridge served as a superior court judge for ten years. Four of those were as the chief judge of the juvenile court and two years as a presiding judge of the King County Superior Court. In 1999, she was appointed to the Washington State Supreme Court, where she served until 2007. After leaving the bench, she served as the founding president and CEO of the Children for excuse me, as a Center for Children and Youth Justice. As with Judge Clarke, Justice Bridge also received many awards throughout her career, a sampling of which is the David W suck up Speak Up for a child from the Washington State Association of Court Appointed Special Advocates and Guardian Ad Litem. Jurist of the Year from the Washington State Bar Association and Judge of the Year from the King County Bar Association. Justice Bridge also served as co-chair for the Supreme Court Commission on Children in Foster Care. The chair of the Domestic Violence Child Maltreatment Statewide Protocol Project and chair of the State, a task force. Judge Britt Justice Bridge contributed to the establishment of a Unified Family Court in King County and in establishing a child care facility at the Mailing Regional Justice Center. Moving to the very bottom of page 29, the proposed ordinance would name the Resource Center after Justice Bobby Bridge and just four by way of further information. The Resource Center at the Children and Family Justice Center actually includes a large number of services, including a full list that's on page 29 and 30. Some of the more important of which are the housing coordinators, transportation support, legal resources, community based services, and behavioral health services for the families and the children involved with the criminal justice system and having interactions at the Children and Family Justice Center. As I noted, the ordinance would name the Resource Center as the Justice Bobby Jay Bridge Resource Center. That concludes my staff report, and I'd be happy to answer any questions you may have. Thank you. See? No questions of Mr. Hamacher. I would invite Judge Bill Bowman and Michelle Clarke to join the presentation table. Councilmember Lambert, you want to speak from there or during the presentation table? Well, it's okay. Of course. Put the ordinance before us first. Yes, please. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'd like to move. Proposed Artist 3019 020210. Councilmember Lambert has moved adoption of Ordinance 2019 210. Councilmember Lambert. Thank you. I'm very excited about this day that we're getting. We've gotten here when I actually thought at this point we would already be in this courthouse. So took a little longer than. We had expected. And I'm very excited that today we're talking about naming it for these two wonderful women. Judge Patricia Clark used the power of hope, compassion and seized opportunities to improve the lives of youth in their families. She was a strong advocate for prevention programs to help young people out of the detention system. She was truly a pioneer for change. I went with her on a trip to Illinois to look at juvenile justice best practices. She was truly a leader, and then during her time, the number of incarcerated youth dropped dramatically. New children in Justice Center will soon be a place where children and families will be treated with them utmost respect and access to a wide range of services, as Pat just talked about. The facility will include child care for families on court business, additional space for youth and family services, and a resource center connecting youth and family with the services in their communities. And I just like to tell you three times that stick out in my mind with Justice Clark. I met her when I was the legislator and we were doing a project. We went across the state looking at different courtrooms and trying to decide what made the best judges the best judges. And she was one of the three judges in the state that I chose as being the best judge. And the reason for that was she had great interaction with the people before her. She had great compassion, and she expected the best out of people. And when I was giving a report in front of a clear continuing education for justice guy in front of members of the bar, she was in the audience when I was talking about this wonderful judge, and everybody started looking at her and I went, Oh, there she is. So that was fun. And it was fun to have her peers hear all the different things that she had done because some of them they hadn't heard of. One of my favorite meetings with her was where we were going out to lunch and she was wearing a a pink outfit. It was not my favorite pink outfit. And when Blackman was waiting in the waiting room and he was there by himself, and she went up to him and she said, Can I help you? And he said, No, you can't help me. And she said, Well, why not? And he said, Well, that lady of there supposed to have helped me an hour ago, and she isn't doing anything to help. And so she said, Now tell me what the problem is. And so the boy told her, and she called clear across the room to the clerk and said, Hey, when is that going to be ready? And she goes, Oh, Judge. Just a minute. And the boy looked up at her. His eyes were like saucers. And he said, You're the judge. And she looked over at him. She said, not only mad, the judge, I am the presiding judge. And yes, we will get this. And I have one more thing to tell you. Never underestimate the power of a black woman. And I just thought that was so amazing. He was very impressed that and that she was there to help him. And she truly did. And she also got the law and the Bar Association Award. And it was really nice to be there that night and hear all the wonderful things and compliments that other judges and attorney had to say about her. The other part of this is that the resource center is going to be named after Justice Bobby Bridge. And we just heard her background. She also is the woman who's the visionary. And not only did she help establish the first court based child care center in the Pacific Northwest at our center, and if you haven't been able to get in and see that it is so child friendly and appropriate and has all these great safety precautions. She also most people don't know this, but she was the guiding force between the on the legislation and the family unification law. And she and I worked on that when we were I was in the legislature. So she had a guiding force in family unification to make it even possible that you could unite those kinds of cases. So I'm very excited that this court is going to be named after these two amazing pioneer women. And as soon as we hear from two other great speakers, I'd like to that we have a yes vote on this ordinance and to thank the many co-sponsors who have made this possible. And so with that, I would like to introduce as to the listening audience, because we all know and love her, Michelle Clark, her daughter, followed by our assistant presiding judge, Judge Bowman. Michelle, if you don't mind, Councilmember, we're going to flip that order. Oh, okay. Judge by members. Okay. Thank you, Judge. Good afternoon, everybody. Judge Bill Bowman. I'm the assistant presiding judge for the King County Superior Court. In behalf of the King County Superior Court, I want to thank all of you for the opportunity to speak in favor of this ordinance. I actually had the honor of appearing in front of a judge, Patricia Hall Clark, when I was a lawyer and then working with her as a colleague for a number of years. And I think everybody here knows that she was a fierce advocate for the kids in our community. Some may not know that she had a career in social work and youth services before she ever attended law school. In fact, it was at age 40 when she obtained her J.D. and her master's in public administration from the University of Washington. And then she had another career with the King County prosecutor's office, where she was a deputy prosecutor and worked her way up to be a senior deputy prosecutor in 1996. She brought all of her passion and experience from decades of working with youth to our bench as a commissioner. At first, her focus then was on at risk youth and children in need of services cases. She became a Superior Court judge in 1998 and continued working as a champion for families in our dependency and juvenile offender cases. She served among her many roles in our court as chief juvenile court judge for many years, and I'll use the same word that Councilmember Lambert did. She was truly a pioneer in juvenile justice reform. She was committed to collaborating with the community in an effort to approach juvenile justice issues as a team. She was acutely aware of and worked hard to address the disproportionality of kids of color in our system and was in fact one of the earliest voices to advocate for incarceration of youth and to and worked to provide viable alternatives to detention. And finally, she was a proponent of examining the juvenile justice process from the child's point of view. Her vision has served as a driving force behind our current approach to restorative justice. Justice Bobby Bridge has spent an entire career in and out of the courtroom advocating for kids as well. In her ten years, a superior court judge, four of which I think, as you mentioned, she served as our chief juvenile court. She led the creation of the Juvenile Justice Operation Master Plan, which many of you know is Jay Jump, which effected significant changes in juvenile offender court practices and led to a significant reduction in the number of kids in detention. She also led the effort to create juvenile drug court and chaired the Oversight Committee for the Parents Representation Project, which improved representation for parents in abuse and neglect cases. And as a Supreme Court justice, she was co-chair of the Commission on Children in Foster Care and chaired the Beckett State Task Force and led the Committee on Adolescents in need of long term placement. When she retired from the Supreme Court. She founded the Center for Children and Youth Justice, an organization that advocates for system reform to benefit kids. On behalf of the King County Superior Court. We can't think of two more appropriate namesakes for the Children Family Justice Center, where we will continue to collaborate with our communities and partners to provide the therapeutic and culturally responsive services to all youths and families. Thank you. Thank you. So I think that it would be appropriate not to speak of my mother as a judge, but as a mother. She spent her life fighting for children that other people didn't think were worth it. So as a social worker, as a prosecutor, as a judge, she served as a mentor to young women, young lawyers of color, new judges on the bench. But she never lost her focus for her kids. And they want me and my brother. Her kids are the kids, actually. So some of her innovative sentences were to sentence kids to book reports the book or to sends them to book reports to have them come back and share with her the times that they went to the library, what their reports were, and whether or not the kids wrote the reports. It was a success for going to the library, doing the research, coming back, and then she would serve as their cheerleader. The other thing that she thought about children were when kids end up in juvie, it's not because they have failed. We have failed them. And so she would be greatly honored to see that the county is now working toward zero youth detention and recognizing that with the Unified Family Court, that when your kid is in crisis, your whole family is in crisis. And so we need to look at it from a family systems if we're going to do so. This is a great honor for my family and my mother would be proud. Thank you. Thank you, Michelle. Can I ask Michelle, will you tell us about the picture in front of you? Maybe I can. Maybe. Okay. So this is a picture that the kids at end juvenile detention is a mural that they made for her when they found out that she was retiring. So in this picture is a kid with a backpack in the rain and a woman in robes. That's my mother in the rain. And she is holding the umbrella over the little boy. She is getting wet, but she is protecting him. So that's what they did for her when she retired. A fitting tribute. Thank you. Thank you for the discussion. Councilmember Gossett. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I had the pleasure of working very closely with both of these women. Even though Bobby Bridge shared, I was the chairperson of the Juvenile Justice Operation Master Plan. I was one of the lead county council members that worked to figure out a creative way based on best practices, that we could dramatically reduce the number of kids in juvie because we were very fearful that we would have to build another youth. Yeah, we had just been told that if we did not do anything at the adult novel, that we would have to build another new jail by 2008. That was the nature of growth in both our adopting the youth populations. Bobby Bridge and Patricia Clark both served and played leadership and innovative roles. So I think it was appropriate that some of my colleagues and the judge earlier mentioned, I referenced these women as pioneering because they were indeed pioneering. I also had the pleasure of going to college in the mid 1960s at the University of Washington, where Patricia and a couple quarters I had classes with her and she noted that I like to play with her maybe a little too much. So she just took it upon herself to holler. And I'm glad, Larry, it's time to go to class. And, you know, I had to get on that and go to class. But that showed me that she cared about me being successful at the university. And when Bobby Bridge left the court, she was so committed to youth services that she served on some of the broader youth justice conferences and commissions and committees that we set up here in King County. And some that the state set up. And Olympian always played a leadership role based on her judicial experience. Our commitment to you and I cannot name the number of African-American youth and Latino youth and just poor white youth who have come to my office with stories about Patricia Clarke, Judge Clark, and how she handled down in court. And half of those stories came from their parents who just observed her interaction with their kids and with them. And I think that's an example when Margaret and Patricia Clarke, one of the most difficult cases that we ever had to handle here. Martin Luther King, Jr. Connie was the killing of Mr. Robert Thomas senior, and it was extremely controversial. And the alleged shooter was a King County sheriff's deputy, and the African-American community was extremely upset. Rod Sims was the executor. He couldn't he couldn't pay a judge to handle this case. And finally, Patricia Tarrant I will handle it. And she and earning the respect of the families involved, the police involved, you know, judicial leadership and our government and our extremely hard manner, a difficult situation to earn respect from all these parties because three or 400 black people took over the freeways one day, but she stayed calm. How about the inquest? So I want to invite them. Both of these women's extraordinary leadership as judges and as human beings absolutely warrant our support for them. Judge Clarke, having a whole facility named after her and Judge Bobby Bridge having the learning center, which is going to be used a lot named after her. And I genuinely hope that we follow through and support both of these nominees for these extremely important and symbolic and inspirational positions at our new children at Valley Justice Center. Thank you. Thank you. With that, I'd ask the court to please call the role. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Councilmember Baldacci. Councilmember Dombrowski. Councilmember Dunn. All right. Councilmember Garcia. Councilmember Colwell. Councilmember Lambert. Councilmember of the crowd. Councilmember one right there. Hi, Mr. Chair. Hi, Mr. Chair. The vote is a 99 zero no's. Thank you. Haven't received the required majority. We have. We've given ordinance 2019 210 a do pass recommendation. We will send that to full council and I would suggest we could put it on consented for council. We expedite and we'll expedite to Monday to Wednesday's agenda. We can't expedite to tomorrow's because there is an ordinance and needs are to Wednesday. It needs a public hearing and hasn't been recognized. So we can do it next week, though. Then we'll do it regular course and we'll put it on consent. Thank you. Thank you very much. That takes us to items five and six. The King County District Court, Northeast Division currently has two openings to the incumbents being appointed to the Superior Court by Governor Inslee. Pursuant to King County Code, I instructed staff to coordinate interviews with all of the eligible applicants, and that subcommittee consisted of myself