A RESOLUTION relating to policing and public safety; establishing the Council’s intent to create a civilian-led Department of Community Safety & Violence Prevention; identifying actions in 2020 to remove certain functions from the Seattle Police Department and provide funding for a community-led process to inform the structure and function of the new department; requesting modifications to policing practices; requesting reporting to the Council; providing guidance on layoff decisions; and establishing a work program and timeline for creating a new department.
Thank you, Madam Clerk. The resolution is adopted and the chair will sign it. And as a Kirklees affixed my signature to the legislation OC committee reports of the City Council. We are going to continue now with new item 12. So I will move to adopt resolution 31962. Is there a second? Second. It's been moved and seconded to adopt Resolution 31962. Councilmember Lewis, you are the prime sponsor and are recognized in order to address this item. Thank you, Madam Chair. Having discussed this extensively during a briefing and a little bit during the Budget Committee meeting, I'll just say that this is a. Critical part of the next actions this Council will take on the additive portion of our process of right sizing. Our first response that says this Department of Public Safety, which is envisioned to be created by this resolution and a lot of the other attended parts of this resolution are critical to really laying out a roadmap to show what a successor system can look like and how we can put some of these things that are currently done by sworn officers into the responsibility of different types of first responders. I look forward to continuing this work next year and getting a department like this underway. I really think it's at the crux of showing to the people of the city who we've been working with throughout this process and really what the future could look like and really challenging the imagination of people in the city to think about the impact of the successor system. So I want to thank Camille Brown in my office for all the work that she's done in putting this together. I want to thank I wish on central staff for I'm really doing a lot of work cobbling this together of the last couple of days and particularly over the weekend where there were a couple of last minute changes. I want to thank Councilmember Herbold and Councilmember Suarez for co-sponsoring and providing a lot of the context of this. And with that, I'll just leave it there. Thank you. I thank you, Councilmember Lewis. And actually, before we move on, I just realized I didn't have the clear agenda. I knew agenda item 12 into the record. So I'm going to ask the court to read item 12 into the record and then we'll continue to take comments. Agenda item 12, Resolution 3196 to a resolution relating to. Policing and public safety. Establishing the Council's. Intent. To create a civilian led Department of Community Safety and Violence Prevention. Identifying actions in 2020 to remove certain functions from the Seattle Police Department and provide funding. For a community led. Process to inform the structure and function of the new department. Requesting modifications to policing practices, requesting reporting to the Council, providing guidance on layoff decisions, and establishing a work program and timeline for creating a new department. Thank you, Madam Clerk. Apologize for that procedural oversight. Okay. So this motion has been moved in, seconded. This resolution has been moved and seconded, and it is now subject to additional debate. Councilor Lewis, thank you so much for doing the initial comments and description of the resolution. Colleagues, are there any other comments on the resolution? Councilmember Herbert, please. Thank you. So we've talked a lot about this resolution over the last several weeks. I really appreciate Councilmember Lewis's leadership in proposing it and his willingness to work collaboratively, collaboratively on crafting a resolution that expresses council's intent around rebuilding community safety. And also, I appreciate the contributions by Councilmember Suarez, who was also a co-sponsor. And Councilmember Peterson. We've taken a large number of votes around the 2020 budget and the SPD budget in particular. In the last week or so, we've spent a lot of time hashing out the important details with the help of our central staff and our legislative staff. Sometimes it's easy to lose the forest for the trees, which is why this resolution is so important. This is our opportunity to begin to lay out Council's vision for what true community safety can look like in Seattle. With this resolution, Council is starting to define our ideas informed by our constituents, by community, by advocates and activists, and yes, even the mayor's office and the police department. This resolution itself does not transfer services to a civilian led department, but it says it's our goal and that really matters. It gives community members a way to hold us accountable for that continued progress that they are insisting on. And it invites the executive into further conversation with the Council on the best path forward to realize this vision. The resolution contains specific, actionable changes, and we've talked twice about the content of those changes already today. I'm not going to go over them again, but I'm going to say that they are profound changes. And that's not about congratulating ourselves, that we've accomplished a mission that is still way far off and there are many votes ahead of us. But to mark the moment at which the council begins the journey. A poll that was taken between July 22nd and July 27 found that 53% of likely voters supported the general idea of a plan that would permanently cut the police department's budget by 50% and shift that money to social services and community based programs. 32% expressed support for what was described as the council's approach. Ostensibly, that meant an immediate 50% cut. 43% expressed support for what was described as the mayor's approach, which was a cut with the plan we have before us today a budget and a resolution that when SPD cuts are annualized and transfers accomplished in 2021 represents a plan forward for our future decisions for a goal that a majority of Seattle residents support. Again, this is a starting point, and of course, there's much more work to be done to realize this visit, this vision. Starting in just a handful weeks, when the council begins its full budget process, looking at the 2021 budget, our work is far from done. But with our vote today, we start the journey. I want to thank the incredibly detailed and thoughtful work of decriminalize Seattle and King County Equity now, whose ideas have informed this resolution and much of my work on the 2020 balanced budget rebalancing. And I want to thank the tens of thousands of people who have written, called, provided comment and marched tireless tirelessly. And at times at great personal risk to keep the pressure on us. Thank you. Thank you, Councilmember Robles, for those remarks. Are there any other comments on the resolution? Councilor, Arsalan. Thank you. As I mentioned earlier today in the Budget Committee, I will be voting yes on this resolution stating the council's intent and hopes to defund the police in the future. However, our movement has to be clear that a non-binding resolution stating the intent to hope to study the defunding the police in the future is simply not a substitute for actually defunding the police. Our movement is clearly expected to accept these nice words about the future intentions as accomplished fact. But unfortunately, I believe that would be a serious mistake. As we have seen over and over again in Minneapolis, the Democratic Party led city council promised to change a city charter to totally reorganize their police department and a socialist alternative in Minnesota had predicted, rather than take any action as the city's highest legislative body. The Minneapolis City Council punted the question to the charter commission and again, as Socialist Alternative, I predicted the charter commission has said this is not possible. So after all the pomp and circumstance of defunding promises, the Minneapolis Democrats are not defunding the police. And yet in Seattle, three weeks ago, after my office had pledged to fight to defund the police by at least 50%, six Democrats on the council also promised 50% defund. What do they have voted to reduce the police budget by less than $3 million and then have added $3 million to the police budget through the second quarter supplemental budget. Last Wednesday, I proposed defunding the police by 50%. Now every other council member voted no, saying the budget cuts would not be done until November. And then I proposed defunding the police by 50% starting on November 1st, and no other council member would even second that proposal. To be clear, defunding the police cannot be an accounting trick. Moving traffic and parking enforcement out of the Seattle Police Department. But keeping its operations unchanged is not what our movement meant by defunding the police. By defunding the police, we need ending the repression of our communities. I want to point out that the resolution states, and I quote, quote, Section seven, the city council will not support any budget amendment to increase the city's budget to offset over time expenditures above the funds budgeted in 2020 or 2021. End quote. But in practice today, the same day this council is making this promise to this resolution, the majority, which is seven of the eight councilmembers present, also voted to pass agenda item number one. The second quarter supplemental budget, which adds in-line 1.11 $1.3 million to the police department for, among other things, overtime. This is a small thing and in large build that includes many other budget changes that are not objectionable. But it is also the only way that these fine words can be violated. That is also not the only way that these fine words can be violated. And I raise this example to illustrate the point that the City Council needs to be held accountable for what they actually do, not for the promises they make. And today, what the council has done is failed to defund the police. Again, as I said, I will vote yes because I fully support the intentions of this resolution. But at the end of the day, genuinely willing, defund the police and an end to police violence will require a sustained movement that is democratically organized and is independently organized of the political establishment. Thank you. Thank you, colleagues. Any other question? Excuse me. Any other comments on the resolution? Having no additional comments, will the clerk please call the role on the adoption of the resolution? Peterson I want. Yes. Strouse Yes. Herbold Yes. Lewis. Yes. Morales. Yeah. Mosquera. Yes. President Gonzalez. Yes. Eight in favor and unopposed. Thank you, Madam Clerk. The resolution is adopted and the chair will sign it with the clerk. Please affix my signature to the legislation on my behalf. Okay, colleagues, we're going to move along to other items of business here. We are now going to take up item number two. I think it's item number 30 teen. Item number 12 from the regular agenda. I'm sorry. You're correct. Thank you, Madam Clerk. The previous item was new item 12. We are now at old item 12. So will the clerk please read item 12 into the record? Agenda Item 12 Council Bill 119839 Relating to Appropriations for the Office for Civil Rights amending Ordinance 126000, which adopted the 2020 budget and lifting provisos. Thank you, Madam Clerk.