-I want to thank everyone for being here tonight
and taking time out of your busy schedule to come
and to be engaged.
Many of you have voiced concerns to me directly
or via phone calls or emails to my office
and to other offices at city departments
expressing your concerns about issues in the D4.
Recent crimes have understandably left folks
feeling unsettled
and wondering what the city is doing to address these issues.
We have representatives here from the city
who are going to try to answer your questions.
We'll start this evening by introducing
the panelists up here.
Then I will share questions for their response and discussion.
If we have time,
we'll try to take some audience questions via the note cards
that were up by the desk when you first came in.
I want to mention the questions for this evening
were gathered from RSVPs for this event
and from emails and calls to my office.
We compiled the most frequently asked questions for the panel.
These questions are also similar to concerns
we've heard from folks across the city.
Public safety is obviously top of mind for many people
and all of us here.
And I know all of you.
I've had conversations, as I said earlier,
with many of you about public safety here in the D4.
I'd like to acknowledge and thank my colleagues,
Councilmember Sara Nelson and Councilmember Tanya Woo
for being here this evening.
Many of you know Councilmembers Nelson and Woo
are our at-large representatives on the Seattle City Council,
and public safety is top of mind for them as well,
as well as many of our other colleagues on the City Council.
I also want to welcome and thank the members of the panel
for being here tonight.
I know all of you want to solve these problems,
just like everyone else here.
We have Deputy Mayor Tim Burgess.
We will have, a little later,
City Attorney Ann Davison joining us.
We have Captain Lori Aagard here,
who oversees the Seattle Police Department's North Precinct,
and she does deserve a big round of applause
for her partnership with --
I know my office and with so many of you
have had the opportunity to meet her
as her team is really trying so hard
to address the issues on the north end of Seattle.
We also have Seattle Parks and Recreation
Deputy Superintendent Christopher Williams.
And Lee Momon,
Division Director for Seattle Public Utilities'
Clean City Initiative.
And last but not least, my friend, Bill LaBorde,
Counsel and Government Relations Manager
with the Seattle Department of Transportation.
I'd also like to thank the Seattle Channel
for taping the event so that community members can watch
if they could not be here tonight.
The video will be posted on the Seattle Channel's
website this Friday.
And thank you to the staff from the City Council offices
for being here tonight,
including my staff,
Councilmembers Nelson and Woo staff members,
and a staff member from Councilmember Cathy Moore
from the D5, who is here with us tonight.
Staff from city departments are here tonight as well.
Thank you for coming.
And panelists, please feel free to introduce members
of your team as we get going.
All right, before we get to the questions,
I do want to briefly explain the role of the City Council
in the context of public safety,
because I get this question a lot.
The legislative branch enacts the laws that govern the city,
and it oversees the budget
that allows the city departments to implement these laws
and provide the city services such as those provided
by our public safety departments.
While Council partners with
and requests support from these city departments,
we do not have authority over them.
That role is delegated to the executive, who is the mayor,
Mayor Bruce Harrell,
who's been a great partner throughout this --
my time in office here since I've been here in January.
As per the city charter,
public safety is one of our collective primary mandates.
The Council has passed to date
11 pieces of public safety legislation since January.
We partnered with the mayor and SPD on many of these.
Briefly, they include supporting the recruitment of
and accelerating the hiring of SPD officers
to relieve the staffing shortage,
expanding or allowing the use of tools
like automated license plate readers, CCTV,
and the Real-Time Crime Center to help police detect
and deter crime, both in hotspots and across the city,
areas of emphasis for both police and prosecutors
to combat rampant drug dealing.
The Ave and the U District was included
in the Stay Out of Drug Area legislation known as SODA.
There's also a Stay Out of Area Prostitution,
known as SOAP, legislation,
that addresses the gun violence associated
with the trafficking of women and young girls on Aurora.
Both SODA and SOAP can be expanded in the future
if proven successful.
And we also gave the city new tools
to fight illegal street racing,
which is an issue I know on Sand Point Way,
right outside of our doors, actually here.
I supported all 11 of these bills
because public safety is a priority for me,
as I know it is for you.
And we're trying as hard as we can
to address all the public safety issues in the city
and we know we can't do it without tools.
And as we've often -- I have said,
and my colleagues have said on the dais,
if these tools don't work, then we can --
we will pivot to something else.
But we got to try all these different avenues and ways
that we can think of in order to address the situation
that we're experiencing in the district here
and all across the city.
I want to say, I very much appreciate,
as I said earlier,
the partnership with the Mayor's Office and the city departments.
As I've brought your concerns and needs to their attention,
I've seen their responsiveness to the issues at Magnuson
and across the district,
and you will hear how they're taking action
on your public safety concerns.
So let's get to your questions.
Deputy Mayor Burgess, I'm going to start with you.
Folks -- -Oh, thank you very much.
-And I'll hand you the mic
after I ask the question. Folks are wondering
how the Mayor's Office has responded to residents' emails
and calls about violence, crime,
and noise in Magnuson Park and Sand Point on the weekends.
-So I'm going to try my mic...
-No! -Okay.
Thanks for that. And thank you to all of you
for obviously caring about your city,
about your neighborhood,
and for coming out tonight to share your views
and to listen to us. So the question is,
how do we handle emails or phone calls or letters
that we get in the Mayor's Office
about crime problems or concerns about public disorder?
I can tell you that we receive hundreds of those
every week from all over the city,
and they come into our communication system triage,
and we either respond to them directly from the Mayor's Office
to whoever sent us the message or made the phone call
or sent the letter.
We don't get very many letters, by the way.
We get lots of emails.
Or we send them to the department
that deals with the topic that was raised by the resident
or by the business or whoever is sending it to us,
and then they respond as well.
So it depends on what the topic is.
It depends on the urgency of the message.
But we try to respond either directly ourselves
or from a city department to each complaint
or each question or issue that's raised with us.
The volume is overwhelming. And you know,
that's understandable in some situations.
We have certainly heard from a lot of you here in District 4,
especially related to Magnuson Park
or to activities in the U District on University Way
or some in the Roosevelt-Ravenna neighborhood as well.
-And I know you have a staffer here tonight.
You want to introduce her?
-Yeah. Thank you very much.
Natalie, who's -- yes,
who's down here in the first row.
Natalie Walton-Anderson is -- thank you.
She's the Director of Public Safety in our office.
Natalie has a long history in criminal justice affairs.
She's a former King County Deputy Prosecuting Attorney.
She also worked at
the U.S. Attorney's Office for Western Washington
and also for a while at the City Attorney's Office.
So she's not leaping and jumping from job to job.
She's actually being recruited.
We recruited her to come to the Mayor's Office
because of her expertise
because of her sensitivity to criminal justice issues
and the need for reform in those areas,
but also her keen understanding of policing
and the role that the police play in our community
to help with crime and disorder.
-Thank you, Deputy Mayor.
And folks also want to know,
and I think you can answer this question as well,
they've been told, folks have been told to call 911,
but the call takers are transferring them
to the non-emergency number where no one answers.
Can you please clarify where residents should be calling?
Also, 911 says they will only dispatch
if residents report hearing gunshots
or if they're being shot at.
Is this true?
-So, when you call 911, that call is answered
by call takers at the 911 Center,
and they go through a triage protocol
to determine how best to respond to your call.
This is City Attorney Ann Davison.
I'm pleased to introduce her.
-Hi.
-And Ann was at another event.
That's why she's a little late here.
But thank you -- -Well, being a mom.
-Oh.
Well, that's a good responsibility too.
So thanks for joining us. So when you call 911,
that call is received at the 911 call center,
and they go through a protocol of triage
to determine how best to respond to that call.
Sometimes if it's a fire or a medical emergency,
they will transfer the caller to the Fire Alarm Center,
and then they go through their process there.
If it's a crime,
then they go through a prioritization
that classifies that call as a Priority 1 response,
Priority 2, 3, 4, et cetera.
Priority 1 calls are the most urgent.
They involve threats to human life
or other very serious crimes in progress
or other events that require an immediate police response.
Those are dispatched first.
That's the highest priority in the city.
Priority 2 calls are also important,
but maybe not quite as risky or as urgent.
And it goes down that prioritization ladder.
I think it actually goes to Priority 9,
but those are rarely dispatched.
Sometimes when someone calls 911,
it's not Priority 1 or 2 or 3, it's a non-emergency type call.
Still important.
And they will transfer to the non-emergency number,
which is also answered at the same place by the same people.
So when you call 911,
a call taker is receiving that call,
making a judgment based on various protocols
as to how best to respond to that call.
Sometimes it'll transfer to a person at the 911 Center
that's taking non-emergency calls.
The non-emergency number is never turned off.
It's always active.
We just checked two days ago,
what is the current average wait time
when a call is transferred to the non-emergency number?
It's running about nine minutes right now.
That means sometimes it's answered more quickly,
sometimes not so quickly.
But that's the average that's running right now.
And it's fluctuated this year in 2024
between 7 minutes and 11 minutes.
-Thank you, Deputy Mayor,
and welcome, City Attorney Ann Davison.
Thank you for that, Deputy Mayor.
So, what people really want to know is,
where should they be calling and when?
When should they be calling for 911
and when they should they be calling the non-emergency line?
We understand that right now,
the non-emergency line has a 7 to 11-minute wait time.
Would love to hear from you
or maybe even, I know Natalie's been working on this too,
you know, where should people be calling, really, and why?
-So when I'm asked this question,
I always tell people, call 911. And here's why.
Sometimes when citizens or small shop owners or whoever,
myself or anyone sees something
that they think needs a police response,
we might not know all the characteristics,
all the things
that are happening around that particular incident.
So rather than make a judgment myself as to
where I should call,
I'll call 911 and let them decide.
A lot of times people will say,
"Well, I don't want to bother the police."
Well, you might have a piece of information
that you think is insignificant,
but when you call 911, they'll say,
"Gosh, this is really important.
I'm going to transfer you right now to X or to Y or Z,"
or whatever's appropriate.
So rather than make that judgment yourself,
I would just encourage you to call 911,
let them decide, and then steer you to the appropriate place,
whether that's the non-emergency number
or to transfer you to fire
or whatever is appropriate for that call.
So you ask earlier, and I forgot to answer,
if someone calls and says, "Someone's shooting at me,
or I hear gunshots, are the police going to respond?"
They're going to go through the same triage
they do for every call to determine
whether or not there should be an immediate response
or a secondary response or whatever's appropriate.
But I guarantee you, if you call 911 and say,
"Someone is shooting at me right now,"
you are going to get an immediate response.
In fact, your call will probably be transferred
to the radio dispatcher for your district
who wants to hear that call
as you are talking to the call taker
because they're in turn talking to officers
who are responding to the scene.
So shooting incidents
where you're a victim
or you're watching somebody shooting at somebody else,
is obviously going to get an immediate response.
Now, if you call in and say,
"Hey, I'm in my apartment and I just heard three gunshots,"
the call taker is going to say, "Do you know who's shooting?
Do you know where those shots are occurring?"
And depending on your response,
then their response will be appropriate
to whatever you are telling them.
-Thank you.
And going from the 911 call center,
where they're making the judgment calls on
who needs to respond,
we're going to go to Captain Aagard because
it's her team who's actually responding to these calls.
And so, Captain Aagard, I'm going to let you answer --
someone asked or multiple people ask,
"How many officers and patrol cars routinely patrol the D4,
or are assigned to the D4?
Why isn't there a more reliable
and consistent presence of officers day and night?"
-Okay.
Yeah. So for D4, we have two sectors.
One sector is called Lincoln Sector,
and then the other sector is called Union Sector.
And in the front row here,
we have the Union Night Sergeant Sector,
Stephanie Marks, has come.
[ Applause ]
Yeah.
And then we also have the Night Watch Commander,
Lieutenant Mike Tietjen, and he's in charge at night.
[ Applause ]
And I'll just introduce everyone since I'm going.
And then we have Lieutenant Sean Moore,
and he is the Lieutenant of Robbery
and our Gun Violence Unit for Seattle.
And then we have our project officer who will contact
and follow up on certain things that need ongoing attention.
And this is Officer Mike Cruzan.
[ Applause ]
Okay. So precinct-wide, looking at numbers for third watch,
that's our night watch,
it starts at 7:00 PM and it goes till 4:00 in the morning.
Citywide, if you're looking all -- not citywide, sorry.
North Precinct we have --
our perfect staffing would be 20 officers.
And for Lincoln Sector and Union Sector D4 area,
you would have two squads of about four each
on a perfect night. So you would have eight.
I want to give you an example though,
for our staffing because we rarely have those numbers.
So I looked it up for last weekend on, let's see,
on Friday night we had 14,
and that's for all of North Precinct,
and that includes Ballard, over on Greenwood, Golden Gardens,
the whole west side and east side of the freeway.
And then on Saturday night, we had 13 working,
and Sunday night, we had 15.
So starting out, we're always below what we want.
We have officers on vacation,
baby leave, light duty, sick time.
So we're always dealing with these staffing shortages.
We are getting new officers in.
We had a couple of new officers last month
and I know Chief Rahr,
her priority is to get more officers hired and trained.
But that's going to take some time to get them.
Takes an officer about a year
to be fully trained where they're working by themselves
out in a patrol car.
So we're working on that,
and I know it's going to get better,
but right now we're dealing with staffing shortages.
Yeah. -Thank you, Captain.
And just to underscore, ideally, you would have 20,
you never have 20 right now.
And I assume that 20 would be the minimum
as an ideal situation.
More would be better, obviously, because --
-Yes, yes. More would be better, yes.
-And then I'm going to ask you specifically
what SPD investigations,
what have they revealed about the two recent homicides,
one here at the park, one across the street behind the 7-Eleven.
Were they in any way related to the problem
with the excessive noise coming from the boat launch area
at the park, and what is being done
and can be done to stop the loud parties at the park?
And I know that you've worked a lot on this
since the beginning of the summer, late spring.
-Right. Yes. We had the two homicides.
We had the one on the 13th of August,
and then the one on September 8th.
And I know both of those
make all of you fearful,
and no one ever wants to have that in your community.
Our follow-up units did a really good job,
and they have made arrests in both of the homicides.
So they're in custody.
Are they directly related to the park?
We can't say that.
We don't see any direct connection to Magnuson Park,
even though they're in the vicinity.
There's no direct connection that we're seeing to the park.
So when all these complaints started coming in,
Councilmember Rivera and I met with Parks
and we discussed the issue
and we were able to get the Parks to close the park
at 10:00 at night.
And then to hire --
they hired one security guard to lock the gate up.
When they did that, they started just driving around,
they were cutting the gates
and just pushing their way back into the park.
So I put the mobile precinct down there for one week,
I don't know if any of you saw that,
24 hours a day just for that added presence.
And I assigned two officers to be in there
to talk to the community
and just show their presence down there.
In addition to that,
every weekend I have been having an overtime operation there
on Friday and Saturday,
and Sunday nights from 8:00 in the afternoon till --
or 8:00 at night till 4:00 in the morning.
So they go down and they have seen, I'm sure,
as you have all seen like 100 to 200 people in there.
And they're opening up the backs of their cars,
playing this very loud amplified music.
And even Kirkland, we get 911 calls from Kirkland
because they can hear it across the water too.
And beer -- they're drinking, beer cans all over, littering.
I know I talked to Parks. They have to clean it all up.
The next day litter, there's been some road racing,
there's been some reports of shots fired.
So this emphasis -- this operation,
their only job is to be there
and to remove the people in there that are drinking
and creating chaos in your parks.
And once they kick them out,
they literally have to stay there
because they try to get back in.
So Lieutenant Tietjen here can tell you
that they have to post cars there to get them
to not reenter the park.
So going forward next year,
I've talked to Councilmember Rivera and Parks,
I really want to get a -- I don't know if any of you
are familiar with Golden Gardens on the west side.
We had very similar problems in Golden Gardens,
and we were able to model an operation that was permanent
and ongoing, starting in the late spring,
all through the summer where we have Parks there and SPD
and it's a regular ongoing patrol there every Friday,
Saturday, and Sunday.
And we started doing that in Golden Gardens,
and we haven't had any issues since then.
So we're going to be planning this winter and hopefully,
by Memorial Day weekend,
we'll have that completed so we don't have this happen again.
And the word will get out -- yeah.
Thank you.
And the word will get out that this is being patrolled
and it's not going to be allowed,
and that way they won't get embedded in there again.
Because I know how upsetting it is hearing all that loud music,
you can't sleep, it's, you know --
it does bring crime to your neighborhoods
when you have large groups of people being lawless like that.
So that is my plan for next year.
-Thank you, Captain.
And I know that we've talked a lot about the fact
that there's a lot that you're trying to do.
And again, not to -- I mean,
I often feel like when I talk to constituents,
a little bit of a broken record about the,
you know, low staffing numbers,
but it is real and it is something
that you are dealing with.
-Yeah. -And the more police patrol,
because we talk a lot about the number of officers
that we have at the department,
but not all of those are actually patrol officers.
Can you talk a little bit about how that works?
Like a thousand but not all of them are patrol.
-Oh, yeah.
When we hear about deployable officers
on the police department you're looking at -- you're --
those numbers include detectives and outreach and special units.
So when you're actually looking at patrol officers,
that number goes down.
It's a priority though.
Our officers are also dealing with demonstrations.
So every time there's a demo,
like if you hear of a demo downtown,
North officers are called in early,
held over, drafted on their days off.
So they're responding downtown
to deal with these other events all across the city.
So our patrol officers are doing like triple duties.
So yeah. -Thank you, Captain.
And then there's another issue
that has been raised a lot for the last few months,
and that is the robberies
that small businesses have had to deal with on 35th.
And that's one of the first things when I came on
that you and I had many conversations about
and with constituents.
So can you talk a little bit about what you did
to address that and are continuing to --
how you can continue to address it
and what's being done to support the small businesses there?
-Yeah.
Yeah, I think they're not actually robberies,
they're burglaries. Yeah.
If you don't know the difference between a -- a lot of people,
even on TV they say robberies,
but a robbery is when something is taken by force.
You know, a weapon or strong or someone hits you
and takes your stuff.
Burglaries are when they break in and steal things,
but there's no force or threat to doing that.
And along 35th there is some burglaries.
It's citywide.
I wouldn't say it's a more of a problem there
than some other places,
but it -- there was at one time there some cars
that were bashing into the storefronts as well.
So I did deploy the mobile precinct
to the Safeway parking lot there for a week
to try to just -- it's kind of like a force multiplier,
just more presence in the area.
Our Crime Prevention Sarah Lawson went out
and met with the businesses
and did CPTED to kind of look to say,
"Hey, you should do this to try to prevent future break-ins."
And I know Officer Mike Cruzan went out there,
made contact with the businesses there as well.
And Lieutenant Mike Tietjen was aware of it,
and he had some officers out there assigned
in the early mornings when it was happening.
And his officers are there patrolling whatever they can
when they're not answering calls.
So we know it's happening.
We try to be there as much as possible.
Yeah. -Thank you, Captain.
And Officer Cruzan, I don't know if would you mind standing?
Because this is the person that's doing the outreach
and outreach with the small businesses.
And I've been trying to do these small business
public safety walks.
We did one on 55th not far from here,
and then we did one in Wallingford.
And Officer Cruzan and Captain Aagard and Chief Rahr
have joined us and representatives
from the Mayor's Office and city attorney have joined us too,
so they can hear from the small businesses themselves
on what they're experiencing.
And I also know that Sarah Lawson,
can you explain a little bit about the work that she does?
Because I think a lot of constituents are not aware,
this is something she could provide to also,
if you -- if neighborhood streets have a block watch,
Sarah can also come and meet with your block watch
to talk about how to prevent being the victim of a crime.
[inaudible] that she has.
-Yeah, Sarah Lawson is our Crime Prevention Officer,
and she works on the east side of the Freeway.
And she didn't used to be assigned to the precinct,
but now she does work for me and she's assigned to the precinct.
And now we have our -- on a side note also,
our CSOs now are assigned to the precinct.
So they are -- yeah, that just happened.
They've moved into the precinct and they work for me now,
so you'll probably see them out there more as well.
But Sarah Lawson can come out and work with any block watches.
She does personal safety classes.
She'll come out and, you know, look at your business
and give you tips on how to prevent future break-ins.
She's an all-around good person resource,
if you're having any crime problems
that can be fixed by removing brush or trees
or looking at locks, alarms.
And so she's an excellent resource.
Yeah. -Actually can I say something?
-Yes, of course.
But I'll say you don't mean the old-growth trees
because we love our trees here on the north end.
I think Captain Aagard means the small brush and things
that you can do, smart things you can do in your homes
to really prevent crime for --
from being the victim of a crime, like I said.
Deputy Mayor?
-Yeah, I just want to jump in here.
And you guys are very fortunate to have Lori Aagard
as the captain of the North Precinct.
She does an amazing job.
And the two homicides that she referred to, our detectives
were able to identify those offenders and arrest them
and get them in custody fairly quickly.
So they've done an amazing job,
and that actually happens all over the city.
Our police officers and the mayor says this all the time,
how proud he is of the effectiveness
of our police officers.
Yes, we have too few and maybe we'll talk about why that is,
that goes back several years to why we have so few officers.
But the officers we do have are working very, very hard.
They're doing very good work. They're exceptional.
We are very proud of our police officers and Lori
and the officers that are here deserve our appreciation.
-Thank you, Deputy Mayor.
And I -- the Office of Economic Development is not here,
but they're another great partner.
And I did want to mention, in terms of the support
to businesses experiencing the burglaries,
there was the Storefront Repair Fund,
and that was a fund that businesses could apply to
if they needed a window fix because it was broken
when they got burglarized or a store.
That was a fund that was established with federal funds.
Federal funds came with less,
because of COVID, this was during COVID,
less I will say strings attached.
Normally because of the gift of public funds,
there's certain things that the city cannot fund.
And providing this kind of funding to businesses
is one thing that we can't do.
But I will say that I have heard from the director,
Director McIntyre from the Office of Economic Development,
where he's looking into what can we do,
what -- now that this fund at the end of the year
will be expiring.
So just know that he is working on ways
that he's able to support businesses
who are being impacted by public safety issues,
and I did want to say that.
All right.
And then lastly, Captain,
can you talk a bit about another huge issue
is the car prowls and thefts and there's juvenile crime.
You know, what are you working on?
What has that looked like, your efforts there?
And actually, a second piece also that we're --
folks want to know about is the drug problem
in the University District. So those are two things,
but if you wouldn't mind quickly touching on each of those.
-Okay.
Yeah, I'd like our Lieutenant Sean Moore
to quickly talk about his excellent follow-up
and arrest that he has made on.
There was a group that was doing carjackings
and armed robberies in the area.
One where a lady was coming out was pistol-whipped,
put in the hospital, stole her car,
and robbery unit was able to track down
this person and arrest them.
So I would like you to talk a little bit about that.
-Oh, thank you so much. Good evening.
Thank you very much for giving me this opportunity
to talk to everybody. Chief Mahaffey was --
is the Investigations Bureau Chief,
and unfortunately, he was not able to be here today.
He wanted to but he wasn't able to.
Captain Aagard mentioned it.
We had a string of robberies,
a rash of robberies in the North Precinct area.
The robbery detectives were able to get information
to figure out who the suspects were.
And I'm going to take this opportunity to give a plug
for the Crime Stoppers. So some of the information
that we got for this investigation
came from the Crime Stoppers tip line, and that tip line,
if you didn't know, is 800-222-TIPS.
And so we got some bits of information from that
that were very small on the surface,
but we were able to put those together with other bits
of information and figure out who the suspects were.
The suspects were fairly local, they were juveniles.
They were all arrested,
and the majority of them are still in custody
as of this moment, as far as I know.
But I can't stress enough to everybody
how important it is for you to be involved.
And everybody in here obviously cares,
and that's why you're here.
And we -- the detectives and the detectives' bureau
truly appreciate that.
Anybody who has a Ring camera or a Blink camera
or an external camera, believe it or not,
sometimes the suspects are smart enough
not to leave their masks off right at the point of
where the problem is.
But they're not so industrious
that they'll come from 10 blocks.
So you may be a block away from where this happened,
and your Ring camera,
your Blink camera may pick up the suspects
before they put a mask on or the car that they were in.
And those little bits of information,
all those small pieces of that puzzle
are what the detectives used to put together a case
against the suspects.
So I really appreciate all of the information
that we got from the TIPS line.
If you have a tip, please pass that on.
And if you're tech savvy, which I'm not very tech savvy,
there's actually an app that you can put on there
and it's completely anonymous.
And that's -- we appreciate the fact
that not everybody wants to get involved
because they don't want to become the target
of somebody's problem.
So please continue to use the tip line.
Call 911.
I can -- well, I'll say the same thing.
Please call 911, and we can't do it without you guys.
Thank you.
-Thank you. -Okay.
To talk a little bit about the U District,
we're fortunate to have an excellent relationship
with Don Blakeney and Marcus Johnson,
with the university partnership there.
They're awesome.
We did a big safety walk there with all --
a lot of the partners up here. Yeah.
And went around to all the businesses talking
about their issues
and then doing follow-up problems
and trying to come up with solutions to that.
We're doing --
we've been doing ongoing operations in the U District.
We will continue to do that for narcotics.
One thing that is really going to assist us,
I don't know if this has been announced yet,
but starting on November 1st,
we're going to be able to once again book misdemeanors
into the King County Jail, So that's going to be huge.
[ Person shouting indistinctly ]
Yes.
So that is going to help with, like,
if there's an arrest instead of
just releasing them back the same day
and have them to continue selling drugs
or committing car prowls,
like I think that was another issue, is car prowls.
We're going to be able to unplug them and book them.
So that's going to assist us a lot.
-Thank you, Captain.
And I know that City Attorney Ann Davison was,
you know, working on this.
And Ann, do you want to talk a little bit about municipal --
there was a question on the status of staffing capacity
at the Municipal Court and the jail
and what we've been able to do since.
And then you can talk about the drug possession law,
because I think most people understand we passed a law,
but then people don't understand
how we go about being able to implement the law,
especially with the low staffing numbers
and the challenges with being able to book folks.
And folks we're talking about drug dealers.
The drug possession law was meant to have a vehicle
for booking folks that were doing the most harm,
the drug dealers,
and then having a mechanism for being able to divert folks
that were addicted and using into treatment
because really that's what we want to do.
We want to be able to have those folks go into treatment,
but for the people that are dealing the drugs
and really committing and preying on these people,
on the folks that are addicted, those are the folks
that we're trying to get booked into the jails.
-Thank you and apologies for my tardiness,
and thanks for having me here
and for all of you
for spending your evening hours listening to us up here.
So I really do appreciate it.
The drug law that we have is a -- it's complicated item.
It does move drug use and possession
from what used to be a felony down into misdemeanor area,
which is my area.
So we have changed statewide this --
where the -- where that criminal activity resides.
And so prior to this law,
it was prosecuted by the county prosecutors across our state.
So again, it was at the felony level.
There were no drug crimes
that were coming through at the municipal level.
So we are shifting down an entire work area down
into the municipal area for the first time.
And that's happening across our city
and then in all the other municipalities across the state.
And so when there are still significant issues going on,
like dealing in -- that's going to still be in the felony area,
but what we're talking about is use and possession
in public specifically.
When we're talking about street disorder,
a lot of the issues that are coming about,
a lot of the unpredictability,
a lot of the sense of do you feel safe
when you go to the bus, to this place or that
is some of the issues that we're talking about.
The booking restrictions were there
and Deputy Mayor Burgess and his office --
the Mayor's Office
was significant in getting that resolved for us.
Because when it comes to my office
and the prosecution of referrals
we get from Seattle police officers it was difficult
because we were not able to quickly deal with somebody
that was maybe being held at the moment,
and deal with it from an arraignment standpoint.
They were being released or unable
for officers to do anything.
And so we were at a place where we might charge it,
but we wouldn't have the person there at the time.
So now we have the drug law,
but we also now have the Stay Out of the Drug Area zone
of which Councilmember Rivera was instrumental
in making sure that was added in
at the University District location.
And so that will be a different criminal violation,
so that would be a separate item.
So just to make sure
that people can understand what we're talking about,
if there's an underlying drug-related crime
and that is referred to my office, we can --
if the evidence is there,
we can request to a Seattle Municipal Court judge
for them to issue a pretrial
Stay Out of a Drug Area condition of release.
And so we have to convince the judge we -- it's not automatic,
so this isn't just suddenly going to happen to everybody.
This is something
that we have to first have an underlying crime
that is connected to drug use of some sort.
And then we have to request that
and be persuasive with the evidence
and the judge issues that.
So that's the -- that's when those SODAs --
SODA orders can come into place.
There's multiple locations around the city.
The first two zones that I proposed for that
was the Downtown area and the International District.
And just to give you a sense of the size of those areas,
the two areas I proposed were less than 1/4 of 1%
of the 83 square miles of our city.
And with the additional areas that the councilmembers
have proposed, it's still less than 1/2 of 1%
of the 83 square miles of our city.
So this is not large swaths of areas
that we are looking to say people cannot access.
We also were very deliberate in making sure we analyzed
where services were, where supportive housing was,
to make sure that those zones did not include those
to the best of our ability
and looking at the topography of things.
And so we weren't trying to make it difficult
for somebody to access things that they need,
the treatment that we're talking about,
but we are looking to disrupt those locations
that are known for that open-air drug use
so that we can make those public spaces accessible for everybody
so that we can just do the coming and going
that it's intended for.
And so that's kind of the overlay of that.
So the lifting of the booking restrictions
is significant because again,
if we can address things at the misdemeanor level
then we don't hopefully are looking at waiting
unless and until there's a felony, right?
And so there might have been some that were here
that were not liking what your announcement was,
but I really do see that if we are responsive
to the misdemeanor level, we are saying our laws matter,
we don't want this criminal activity to increase,
we would like people to get the help that they need
and to get on with some other things.
But harming one another in society is not what we want.
And so that's kind of where we come in with that.
And so to me,
having those booking restrictions lifted
supports the officers that we do have
so that they can be responsive in the moment,
should that be what they think is necessary.
And then if they refer it to me,
then we will look at that evidence
and proceed as we are supposed to and file a charge
if that's what the evidence supports.
I'm hopeful that now we are all kind of headed
in the same direction of understanding what we each
do within the city.
Hopefully, you all feel that way.
And I think it's really a great day that we have now
for the city because I see a lot of progress and patience
with one another as we improve the sectors
that we're responsible for.
-Thank you, Ann. And thank you for, you know --
I understand that the drug dealing is at the felony level,
but my understanding was there
were booking restrictions even for that.
Maybe, am I -- do I have -- no?
Not for felonies. It was just misdemeanor.
Okay. Well, thank you for explaining that.
I've learned something today too.
And so that is the point of this,
so we can learn about how these laws
and what the efforts are looking like.
But to your last point,
there is more partnership amongst, you know,
city councilmembers, the Mayor's Office,
the city departments, the City Attorney's Office,
and that really has served as, you know,
conduit to get some things done to try
to effectuate positive change in Seattle.
So thank you for doing your part and for explaining that.
I want to shift over to my friend Christopher Williams,
Deputy Superintendent of Seattle Parks and Recreation,
to talk a bit about what Parks and Recreation
has done here at the park to address the criminal
and nuisance behaviors here at the park
that Captain Aagard talked a little bit about earlier.
What steps has Seattle Parks and Recreation
taken to address both the criminal
and nuisance behaviors in the park?
Can you explain the gate closures, times logistic?
Has it worked or not? -Thank you.
And maybe I'll start out with an introduction
of our team who is here.
We have Daisy Catague,
who literally has worked at the Park Department
since she was 14.
Daisy serves as our Deputy Superintendent
of Park and Recreation Operations.
She's responsible for the grounds maintenance crews
who maintain this park, who maintain the athletic fields,
who are responsible for --
[ Audio drop ]
Sorry about that.
Daisy is responsible for all of the facility maintenance staff
and for just basically all the park operations
across the system, including the Park Ranger program.
Next to Daisy, we have Jasmine Ridal,
who is a recent hired manager of our Park Ranger program.
We were fortunate to have Jasmine choose to work at Parks,
and she's doing a great job at managing the renewed
Park Ranger program across the system.
And then we have Joanne Orsucci,
who is a long-term Seattle Park and Recreation employee as well.
Let's give Joanne a hand.
Joanne is the site manager extraordinaire
for Magnuson Park.
She manages all of the tenant relationships.
She facilitates the Magnuson Park Advisory Council.
There's literally nothing
Joanne doesn't know about Magnuson Park.
If it is happening here, Joanne is the right person to know.
So Councilmember Rivera asked about some of the steps
we were taking to respond to a whole range
of illegal behavior here in the park and nuisance behavior.
And I think that's a good distinction
because sometimes behaviors aren't illegal,
but they are a nuisance.
And we try to have strategies and interventions for both.
So thank you, Councilmember Rivera,
for pulling us all together here.
The first intervention we have piloted our gate closures.
So on 65th Street entrance,
you go about 90% of the way down to the boat ramp,
and there's a gate there that gets cleared out at about 9:30.
We've invested in hiring private security firm
that clears out the parking lot
so that no cars get locked behind the gate at 10:00.
That gate gets closed at 10:00.
And that was in response to a lot of the feedback
we were hearing from you.
In fact, we did a walkthrough of this park
with Councilmember Rivera in the summer.
And thank you for your leadership.
It really help uncover some opportunities we had for change,
such as the gates.
The other change that we have implemented
is expanded programs for youth at our community centers.
We are implementing a teen night program,
which occurs on Friday nights.
We're serving between 25 and 35 youth every Friday night.
They show up, they have a good time,
and by 9:15 there are no youth left in the building,
everybody's gone.
And we think we'd like to make that program permanent.
It's continuing to do its thing
and is being well received by the youth
that come to that program.
The other thing we're doing is we want to engage
in deeper conversations with the Police Captain
about deepening our partnership at this location
so we can have expanded SPD services here in the same model
that is being practiced at Golden Gardens.
We have a commitment to continuous performance
and improvement and practicing innovations
that help the public better enjoy your parks.
So we really look forward to rolling up our sleeves
over the winter
and coming up with the design of a model
that replicates the success at Golden Gardens.
The fourth thing we're doing is just today we were on the phone
with the Unified Care Team that is the unit within the city
that manages RV camping.
They manage encampments across the city.
And as part of our conversation today we will be posting signage
that prohibits the parking of RVs
at the parking lot just south of The Mountaineers.
And then there is...
[ Applause ]
There is another location just south of here
where RVs are known to congregate.
So you'll see those signs go up on the 14th.
Our goal is to place ecology blocks around those areas
to just reduce the number of opportunities
where people are illegally camping in RVs.
And then the other strategy we're implementing here
is probably maybe one of our most innovative,
and it is an expanded Park Ranger program.
So I mentioned nuisance behaviors,
and I think the first message about park rangers,
they are not police. We have a police force
and what rangers do is practice interventions
that gain willful compliance for people,
largely around a whole range of nuisance behaviors.
Even our park rangers sometimes
when the behaviors become too disruptive,
have to call the police.
They aren't necessarily seeing that kind of behavior
during the daytime hours that they work.
They are here in the park pretty regularly
with their new fall-winter hours,
they're working until 8:30 every day.
So those are some of the interventions and strategies
that the Seattle Park and Recreation Department is trying.
And I would just challenge anybody here
that has an idea that you want to suggest to us
that you think we should try,
shoot us an email and I'll bet you,
we'll think about it and consider it,
because we want, rightfully the neighbors
that live near this park to enjoy your park experience here.
So thank you.
-Thank you.
And I know we're going a little bit over time,
so I'll just try to get, if you all are okay with it,
a couple of more questions.
Because I do want to hear from our person Lee Momon,
who's with Seattle Public Utilities
and the Clean Cities Initiative
to talk a little bit about needles
and clean up of needles,
because I know that's another question that was asked.
And then we'll give Bill an opportunity just
to talk about mitigation of speed racing on Sand Point Way.
If we can quickly address that, that'd be great.
Oh, I think you've got one.
Yeah. -Yes, test. Whoa!
Sorry about that.
So we -- Councilmember Rivera brought to our attention
that there was a needle exchange
and that there were a lot of people hanging out
outside of this needle exchange,
and that there were needles around the neighborhood.
And so what we decided to do
was we have what we call as a Litter Abatement Program.
And so -- and in --
a Litter Abatement Program as well as our sharps program,
disposal program.
So the combination of those,
we have a sharps disposal box that's on the corner
and it collects so far this year, over 35,000 needles.
And then we have our sharps pickup, 24-hour --
well, 7 days a week.
And within 24 hours, if you use what --
hopefully, most of you are aware of the Find It, Fix It app,
if you use the Find It, Fix It app, we will guarantee
that we will get that needle picked up in 24 hours.
I looked at our numbers
and there's not a whole lot of folks reporting needles
in that area,
but that's not stopping us from doing something about it.
So we instituted a route
after Councilman Rivera brought it to our attention,
where six days a week, five hours a day,
we have our Litter Abatement Program
where they go around and they're going to clean up needles,
clean up litter, pick up all that.
And the only reason
why we're not doing it seven days a week is
because there's a -- the Farmers Market, I believe that's there.
So we're not trying to interrupt all that.
So we will continue to clean up needles as best we can.
We'll continue to pick up litter.
If you see garbage and debris,
illegal dumping, sharps, needles,
please use the Find It, Fix It app.
And we have a 99.9% success rate of getting illegal dumping
cleaned up within two to five days.
Ninety-nine point nine percent of sharps
are picked up within 24 hours if you use the Find It, Fix It app.
-Thanks.
And I know there's a lot of concern about speeding
and racing on Sand Point Way.
You know, racing is I believe it's a form of reckless driving
that's a misdemeanor level crime.
So there's definitely an enforcement
aspect to that as well.
We're also trying to make changes to the streets
that make it harder for people to drive too fast
or make it less attractive to drive too fast.
So we're making some improvements early next year
on Sand Point Way, first between 110th and 125th,
that'll help narrow the street and make it
so that drivers need to concentrate more
and slow down more to maneuver through there.
We're also looking at speed cushions
and other kinds of low-cost, fairly easy to implement,
traffic calming on Sand Point Way as well.
And then I know several of you
lived through a fair amount of construction
two or three years ago when we added sidewalks
and made some improvements
to the intersection here at 74th and Sand Point Way.
So you know, it's sort of an iterative process
to make these improvements,
but we're making more and more over time
and we'll continue making more
as we go along to try to really calm that traffic down.
-Thank you, Lee,
for Seattle Public Utilities' efforts
and Bill for SDOT's efforts
on the traffic calming specifically.
And I will say Deputy Mayor Adiam Emery oversees
the Seattle Department of Transportation.
I spoke with her today.
She's very supportive of the traffic calming measures
that Bill just talked about.
And so you can look forward to seeing
something happening there soon.
I did want to -- we're going to close out.
I did want to clarify though on the booking restrictions
and I want to appreciate City Attorney Davison's
clarity on the felonies piece.
I do know we had booking restrictions
on the misdemeanor piece,
which is what led the City Council in partnership
with the Mayor
to go to score to get more booking capability there.
And then my understanding now is that at King County,
there is no longer the booking restrictions for misdemeanors.
That is what City Council had been focused on.
Such as to Bill's point,
street racing and some other gun-related activity
that don't rise to the level of felonies,
but that are misdemeanors related to guns.
And so having the ability to have capacity for booking there.
So I did want to clarify that in some of the work
that we had been working on at the City Council level.
So with that, I know we didn't get to all of your questions.
There will be cards for each of the city departments
and my office as well as the city councilmembers
who've joined us today, Councilmember Nelson again,
Councilmember Woo.
And there was some cards for Councilmember Moore.
I know she wanted to be here tonight but was not able to.
Because though she served -- she's my neighbor on the D5
and we work very closely together,
I know her constituents have concerns as well.
And we recognize that Magnuson Park,
we have constituents from all across the city
that utilize the park.
There may be some of you here that don't live in the D4,
but utilize the park and care about the park.
So wanted to say that.
So with that,
I want to thank all of the panelists and guests
who came here tonight to address everyone's concerns.
Thank you for your consistent partnership,
your time, and your efforts.
I know we all want the same thing,
to ensure that our residents feel safe and peaceful
in our communities.
I'd like to also thank the Magnuson Park Theater
for having us in this lovely space tonight.
And I especially want to thank all of you for your engagement,
for sending in your questions, for showing up tonight
and listening to the city departments about the work
that they're doing to address the public safety issues
that you're all concerned about,
and that I am concerned about as well.
I want to thank you for your patience
as we continue to all work together on these issues.
And as I said earlier,
we're all committed and unified to making Seattle a safe
and vibrant city for everyone.
And I will readily acknowledge, you know, we --
and I will say, Captain Aagard and I
have very frequent conversations
because we both share a frustration.
We want to effectuate more change.
Obviously, like I said,
I can't do that at the City Council level.
The city departments and SPD
and the Mayor have that responsibility.
But I care and we're in constant partnership
and I am frustrated that we can't do more faster.
And the reality still remains
that we don't have enough police officers,
but we're working on that.
And so you know, in 2020
when decisions were made that had an impact
on police and police leaving the force,
it -- we're suffering the consequences of that.
But the City Council is working, like I said,
in partnership with the Mayor's Office to pass laws
to be able to hire more officers.
It's going to take some time,
but we're getting there.
And it is encouraging
as you hear Captain Aagard talking about
they've hired two more officers.
That might not seem a lot, but it is a lot right now.
It's two more folks that can help address this issue.
And I know that since we've passed some of the incentives,
hiring bonuses that we've done at the City Council level,
we've seen applications to SPD really rise significantly.
So that is all very encouraging. And so again, thank you tonight.
If we didn't get to your question
then please do contact my office
and the other city department offices.
Thank you so much. Thanks for sticking with us.