[ Cheers and applause ]
-Thank you,
everybody for being here at Garfield High School.
Thank you, Principal Hart.
I think you're in the back there somewhere.
Thank you for having us here.
Appreciate having this session here tonight.
I wanted to welcome everybody.
My name is Brian Callanan.
I am a host for the Seattle Channel.
Let's keep those discussions to a little bit of a lower roar,
please, if we could, as we get going here.
Thank you. Brian Callanan here with you.
I'm a host for the Seattle Channel,
and I'm here at the request of the mayor's office.
I wanted to thank everyone for being here.
It's very much an honor for me to be here tonight
with all of you
to engage in some very important conversations
about the safety of our communities.
And since this is a community event,
I want to take about 30 seconds to a minute if I could.
Let's try to get to know each other a little bit better.
If you would do this, take a moment,
introduce yourself to someone at your table
or maybe at the table next to you, someone you don't know.
Let's give this a shot here for 30 seconds.
Let's give it an outreach, see what we do.
Thank you for engaging on that,
and thank you for being here at this community event.
Now that we're feeling that community connection,
I wanted to jump right to it.
So tonight, we are here to work together
on finding solutions to public safety concerns in our city.
And I'm here specifically to help us all
focus on listening to each other,
and again, talking about solutions.
So with that in mind,
as you can see, this is set up a little bit different.
We have this forum set up in an open dialogue style.
So each of you are going to be invited
to connect directly with the many departments
that work on public safety in Seattle
to discuss your concerns and ideas.
So the ultimate hope here
is that you can make a connection with all
of the departments here.
You can learn more about the important roles
they play in the work of public safety,
discuss your concerns,
and also share your ideas on
how we can all foster safe communities.
I wanted to point out that there are 14 city departments
represented here tonight.
I don't know if we've ever done that
at a senior forum like this.
I think it's a big deal, and I'm glad to see them here.
[ Applause ]
All right, so here's how this is going to go.
First, we're going to introduce all of our guests.
They will briefly explain the work they do.
Following these remarks, we'll have a brief live poll.
And next, we'll invite you all to stay at your current table,
or you can move to another table,
hopefully an open table, for this first round
of small group discussion.
So at that point,
you'll be bringing your questions,
your ideas to that conversation.
But I also want to make sure
that people are intentional on taking a step back,
listening to other questions that people might have as well.
For the second round of discussions,
you're going to be welcomed to stay in your group,
but we'd like to encourage you to maybe move
to a different table, too.
So after each about 15, 20 minute period,
you'll hear some music being played here,
a gentle reminder that you might consider moving to another table
if you would like.
We want to try to encourage that.
Very importantly, each table will have a note taker
to be capturing your feedback.
This is a very important part of the evening.
Each table will also have note cards and pens
for you to write down questions, comments, and ideas.
If you are not able to share during the conversations tonight
for whatever reason, we will collect your note cards.
They will be reviewed by the mayor's office
as part of this engagement process.
I do want to put out one very important quick reminder here.
Public safety, I know is important to all of us.
That's why we're all here tonight.
As we engage in these conversations,
let's please be respectful of everybody's thoughts,
everybody's ideas, everybody's experiences.
We want to have a productive and civil conversation tonight,
and we need everybody's help to do that.
Thank you very much. All right. Yeah.
How about that? I like that.
I know you've got some questions.
We'll get to him in just a second.
But first off, I want to make sure
that we welcomed Garfield High School alumnus
and our 57th mayor, Bruce Harrell.
Mayor Harrell, come on down.
-First of all, I need to thank all of you for being here.
I am assuming you're here
because safety is one of your highest priorities in life.
Safety for yourself, safety for your families,
for your loved ones, just safety in your community.
You can't hear me? Thank you.
I got to almost kiss this microphone.
Okay. I'll speak like this.
I want to recognize Councilmember
Joy Hollingsworth right here. Let's give her a hand.
[ Cheers and applause ]
So, you know, I don't see a lot of strangers out here.
I've seen many of you
that I've dealt with and befriended
for the last ten years or so, 15 years.
I'm looking up here.
I see my name, Harrell, Harrell, Clayton Harrell,
Keith Harrell, my brother and my cousin,
both of whom were called a little early.
They never lived to see me become mayor.
But, you know, this is hallowed ground for me.
And we wanted to start this first public safety
right here at Garfield,
because right now -- I'm going to have a few statistics --
unfortunately, in this neighborhood,
911 calls have increased 13%.
That means we've had more than 13,000 911 calls
from this neighborhood so far this year.
Now, I'll be very candid with you.
I ran on a public safety platform.
I take public safety very seriously.
I will do everything within my power.
I have an $8 billion budget. I have 14,000 employees.
I'll do everything within my power to protect you.
And I'm not afraid of anyone or anything to do that.
I'll look anyone in the eye and say that.
I'm committed to you.
And is my administration.
You got to show some patience, there, sister.
You got to show some patience. It's my turn to talk.
I'm here to listen to you,
and I've asked our department heads to listen to you,
to collaborate with you.
I could now talk about our six strategies.
But I think you know some of our strategies.
Reducing gun violence. Gun violence,
gun regulation is governed by RCW 9419290 in Olympia.
I can't prohibit guns in parks.
I do not have the legal authority.
So we've spent a lot of time
trying to get as many aggressive gun laws passed.
We seized over 1,500 guns last year, and in our homicides,
over 80% of homicides, there's guns used in them.
That's why I'm bullish on making sure we have reasonable laws.
911 calls, efficient and appropriate resources.
That's why we have Chief Smith here
to look at how we could relieve priority
one calls with a non police response
because our responses can't be all centered around police.
Chief Amy Smith is a superstar here.
She runs at 911 center.
Our second pillar is around making sure we improve that.
Invest in the community
to address the root causes and impacts of violence
and related harm.
We know there's institutional trauma.
Particularly -- I say as a biracial black man,
particularly in black and brown communities,
we have folks walking around with untreated trauma.
So how do we go upstream, not a police response,
but treat them? And we are spending over 4.3 million
in a Seattle community safety net to address that.
We believe in a public health and trauma informed approach.
The reason why -- when we see people downtown
huddled around tin foil,
if I arrest them, they spin in and out of jail.
I'm not getting to the root cause.
We have to treat sick people.
That is one of our pillars of our approach.
We have to coordinate safety efforts
to avoid duplication inefficiencies.
I said we have a $8 billion budget.
We should be able to fix this together.
So we're looking at who we invest in,
who the city is historically invested in,
to make sure we are efficient,
you are getting your hard earned public tax dollars,
and trust me, I know they are hard earned.
I work seven days a week at this gig.
I didn't read the fine print when I signed up for this thing.
I know how hard you work.
We got to make sure we're using your money efficiently.
Money is hard to come by.
And last, we have to build and maintain trust.
You laugh at that.
Why do you laugh at that? You want to -- Here.
Why don't you take the mic?
No, I'm not going to give you.
Now, just so you know, this is a dear friend of mine,
so I can -- She's been a friend -- No, no.
I'm going to ask you question.
-I'll take the mic.
-Yeah, yeah, I know you will, for sure.
Now, we have to disclose our friendships.
We've been friends for I don't know how many years now.
20 years, and so she's -- And you've been a big friend.
-And I gave you a big donation.
-Where?
[ Laughter ]
We love Helen.
I'll answer your question in a minute.
Okay? Just a second.
The purpose of this forum is to listen.
And we have put resources around you
because we realized some of our best answers
can come from impacted communities,
and you are indeed impacted.
So we come with a spirit of humility
and listening on what we can do better.
That's why we are here.
-Thank you, mayor. I apologize.
I've been limping around for the last month.
I tore my calf muscle.
I was crossing over the mayor in a one on one game.
-Uh-huh. -I actually won.
So thank you all for being here.
It's really important. Since day one, I've been on the ground.
The biggest thing that we've been hearing in our office,
from e-mails, from phone calls,
to listening community is public safety.
That is our number one priority in our office.
We understand it.
We are here with a sense of urgency.
For the first hundred days,
I have been understanding what resources are available.
I'm really happy that there are 14 city departments here
because there are resources available at the city.
And I'm asking District 3 to give me some grace
and a little bit of patience
as we are reconnecting our district
to the city services and neighborhood services.
That's our number one priority for our office.
We've been very, very vocal about that,
from the e-mail address
that people can e-mail if they have an issue.
It's called d3help@seattle.gov.
I have papers at the front that has our contact information,
whether you want a meeting with us,
whether it's as simple as, you know,
what's going on in your neighborhood,
whether it's graffiti removal,
or if it's garbage pickup,
or it's a sidewalk repair with SDOT.
We are reconnecting District 3
to all the neighborhood services throughout.
And so that's my main priority.
The second piece is keeping our kids safe.
I know there's a lot of things with that,
but if you can keep your kids safe,
you can keep families safe.
And so that's our number one
priority, is our North Star for our kids,
make sure that they have a safe place to go,
stuff to do, after school activities,
in school mentorship.
We're looking forward to partnering
with our school district, the principal here,
Dr. Hart, and our mayor's office.
I know that is close to their heart with our youth.
So I want to thank everyone for being here
and thank you, Mayor, for allowing me to speak.
Thank you. -All right. Thank you.
[ Applause ]
-Thank you, Council Member Hollingsworth.
And I'm going to go around the room just because, again,
we are encouraging people to visit
with all these different tables if we can.
I want to let you know the different departments that are
here and some of the different people you can talk to.
I know we have the East Precinct Seattle Police Department team.
Where's that group? Right here.
Could you explain a little bit
about who you are and what you do?
-Hi. My name is James Sather.
I'm the East Precinct operations lieutenant.
So I handle all the officers
and supervise them to handle in the area between 520,
I-95 and east to the water.
So that's our big area. So I'm here to engage
and listen to the community members of what we can do
to improve ourselves
and how we can work together to solve the problems
that are being listed.
So thank you. -Thank you, Lieutenant.
Give him a round of applause. Thank you, SPD, for being here.
Who do we have from the Seattle Fire Department?
I know they're around here somewhere.
There they are.
Here you go, Chief. -Hi.
My name is Deputy Chief Chris Dahline
With the Seattle Fire Department.
I am in charge of mitigating fire and EMS emergencies
citywide.
Our city is divided up, in the fire department sense,
into five battalions.
This is Battalion 2, downtown core.
The University District is Battalion 6,
Ballard and Northwest Seattle is Battalion 4,
West Seattle is Battalion 7,
and Rainier Valley is Battalion 5.
And with me today,
I have the chief of Battalion 5, Andy Collins.
-All right, Andy. What do you got?
-Andy Collins, Beta Chief, Battalion 5.
-All right. Thanks for keeping it brief.
All right. Let me go around the room.
Thanks, SFD for being here.
How about our transportation safety folks
from the Seattle Department of Transportation?
Who do we have here?
Please. -Hello, everyone.
My name is Venu Nemani.
I'm the chief safety officer and city traffic engineer
with Seattle Department of Transportation.
I also see our Vision Zero program,
which is an effort to eliminate fatal
and serious injury collisions on our streets.
I directly work to improve the safety of all our road users
who are using our streets to access opportunities in places.
-Thank you.
Big round of applause for the DOT.
All right.
From the community group here,
we've got Human Services,
the Office of Immigrant and Refuge Affairs.
Who wants to say what here?
Glad to have you speak about anything you'd like.
Hamdi, please.
-Sure.
Hello, everyone. My name is Hamdi Mohamed.
I am the director
of the Office of Immigrant and Refugee Affairs.
We have about 140,000 people
who identify as foreign born in our city.
There is about 154 languages spoken
in Seattle public schools.
Our office is really about making sure
that our region is welcoming for our immigrant and refugee
communities, and we do that through policy initiatives
that the city is introducing through programs
that we tailor specifically
for our immigrant refugee communities,
whether that's workforce development,
citizenship programs,
and then engaging with the community
is another area of focus.
Thank you for the time.
[ Applause ]
-Good evening.
I'm Tanya Kim.
I'm the director of the Seattle Human Services Department.
Please come visit our table.
We have investments, speaking of which, the mayor mentioned,
investing in community based solutions and upstream.
So some of you know services
like the Seattle Youth Employment Program,
or we have our aging and disability services.
We invest in community based organizations
like community passageways and many others
that are probably in this space.
And so we are here for you,
and we want to connect you with the resources
that you or your neighbor needs in order to thrive.
Thanks. -Thank you. All right.
Big round of applause for HSD.
A lot of different agencies connected to public safety here.
Maybe I can talk with the diversified response group here.
I know we've got some park rangers.
We've got CARE,
which is the Community Assisted Response and Engagement.
Who wants to say what? Park ranger?
-Good evening, everybody.
I'm John Jainga with Seattle Parks & Recreation.
I'm in charge of the park rangers, emergency management,
activation, and park security.
We'd love to have you guys come over
and meet some of our new park rangers.
[ Applause ]
-Good evening, everyone.
My name is Jeff Geohagan.
I'm a lieutenant with the Seattle Police Department.
I am responsible for two teams,
one of which is the crisis response team,
and the second which is the alternative response team.
The alternative response team is
the Seattle Police Department's contribution to the UCT,
which is a Unified Care Team, dealing with
chronic homelessness in the city.
And CRT, the Crisis Response Team, deals with people
that are -- or tries to assist people
in constant behavioral crisis.
So please do come and see us here at the table.
-Thank you very much. Thanks. Anyone else here?
Okay. I'll keep moving on. All right.
Now, we got the CARE team in the house.
Thanks.
I want to make sure we talked with this group
from Community Assisted Response and Engagement, please.
-I'm Cat Hernandez.
I'm with the CARE team, part of the CARE department,
but it's also shared with Seattle 911.
We have behavioral health responders that go out
and respond to calls for 9111 service
with a behavioral health nexus,
including those that co-occur with houselessness,
substance use, issues like that in community.
We currently operate predominantly in West Precinct,
but we're moving toward expansion
throughout the rest of the city.
And also, of course,
we support officers by phone with care navigation
and trying to solve underlying issues
that are leading to those 911 calls
that aren't just enforcement based.
-Okay. Round applause for CARE.
Everyone's pointing at Dwane over here.
I don't know what's going on,
but we've got the Department of Education and Early Learning,
and we've got some people helping out our youth
in other ways, too.
Director Dwane, what do you want to do?
Here we go. -Yeah. Good evening, everyone.
I'm Dwane Chappelle,
the proud director at the Department of Education
and Early Learning,
where I have the pleasure of providing free,
or should I say preschool services for those families,
making sure that each and every child
has access to high quality preschool.
We also have multiple investments partnering
with our Seattle public school partners.
And we also make sure that when each
and every kid graduates from Seattle public school,
they can attend the Seattle Promise
at the three colleges north south of Central.
So looking forward to partnering and listening.
[ Applause ]
-Hey, it's Matthew Roberson with the Seattle Police Department.
I'm a sergeant in our relational policing unit,
which we kind of say is our short for community outreach.
I do a lot of our youth engagement and
prevention programs.
So just looking to talk with folks,
look for potential partnerships,
see what we can do to supplement things
that you might already have going on,
and I think just make sure,
you know, we're supporting the community.
So thank you. -Thank you very much.
I know I have a few more youth related tables here.
Does anyone else want to -- This is the group
that's kind of working off this.
Who else do we have? Jimmy. Excuse me.
-Good evening, everyone.
My name is Jimmy Hung.
I'm the chief deputy prosecutor for the juvenile division
of the King County Prosecutor's Office.
So our team handles every instance of juvenile crime
that's referred to our office by the Seattle Police Department.
I brought our senior management team here.
This is our assistant chief, Ben Santos,
senior deputy prosecutor Jamie Kvistad,
who is actively working with all of the schools.
She's partnering with Garfield High School
as we speak,
and then our restored services manager, Stephanie Trollen.
-Okay. Just looking on through here.
We will be able to see most of the results here.
I should point out that the poll, when we see it here,
it'll only display the ranking questions.
Any of the open ended questions
can't be displayed due to the program function here,
but we still do have some information
to help guide the public safety framework
that we're going to be talking about here.
So we can see that, yeah,
we've got a good demographic worth of people
here this evening. We'll keep on moving through.
Keep on moving through these responses here.
Which neighborhood? A lot of Capitol Hill residents. Okay.
Makes sense. Central area as well.
Okay. See that.
Bring the mayor back up here in just a little bit.
It looks like we've got a lot of people from Capitol Hill
and the Central District here, Mayor.
Downtown Commercial Core as well.
First Hill. Okay.
Maybe we can move on to that next piece here.
How long have you lived here?
All right.
We've got some people who've lived here a while.
More than half of you have lived here a decade plus.
So that's interesting to see.
Mayor, I'll give you this, and I'll talk over here,
if you'd like.
I can move on to the next slide here.
Do you rent or own your home?
Looks like we've got 62% of you, just about -- yeah,
six out of ten, three out of five own,
and then a number of you rent as well.
Thank you. All right. Let's move to the next one.
Common mode of transportation? Drivers --
-I do want to point out that -- -Please. Yeah.
-When we go to different forums,
we're going to try to do this to just get a good sketch
of who we're talking to.
That home versus rent is a little inconsistent
with the general demographic in Seattle.
I think about --
-52% rent. -Yeah, rent right now.
So we have more homeowners in this particular group.
I just want to point that out.
-Yeah. That's a good observation.
And then, yeah, we need to work on the carpooling here, folks.
That's a number of people driving alone.
That happens.
-Let's talk about that for a minute.
-Oh, please.
-I have to put a little plug into something
you're going to see on the ballot this year.
It's going to be our transportation levee,
and it's pretty heavy on transit.
You don't understand. The city of Seattle,
we have our street car, but other than that,
Metro runs the transit.
And part of our concern are safety on buses,
safety at bus stops.
And so you're going to hear some talk about ambassadorships
we're trying to do, and that could be a retired bus driver,
it could be someone in Chief Smith's care shop,
someone to make sure that the rider
experience of safety --
We know the synthetic drug crisis we're facing right now.
It gets on everything.
It gets on seats, get on your clothing, and this is poison.
And so as we move toward transit,
people are really hungry for transit in the city,
not 62% -- 57% of you, by the way,
but a lot of people
and we study this stuff at the City of Seattle,
as many folks are still very car dependent.
You have to be.
Maybe you have to be at a job at a certain time,
and it could be just part of your vibe, your individual vibe.
We respect that, fully respect that.
But you're going to see that even our transportation levee,
our transportation plant is centered around safety.
So we did a deep dive at where did traffics occur,
where did pedestrians get hit,
why do we need to stop a free right in certain areas?
Because a lot of times if people are taking a free right,
that's one of the most common accidents
because the pedestrians come out
and the car is taking a free right.
So again, as you continue to drive,
realize we're trying to make it safer even from
a transportation infrastructure standpoint.
-Thank you. Moving on. Employment status.
Looks like a number of people are employed here.
That's good to see. Some retired folks here as well.
All right, pretty good cross section there.
How safe do you feel in your neighborhood?
This is always an important question to ask.
I think we're going to see some of those numbers popping
up here, hopefully, any second now.
It looks like the bulk of people are feeling somewhat safe.
Somewhat safe to very safe seems to be the going rate there,
but there are some people who are unsure
or feel somewhat unsafe.
Do you want to speak to this at all, Mayor Harrell?
-So, somewhat safe, very safe, unsure,
somewhat unsafe, very unsafe. -Yeah.
Looks like somewhat safe is leading the day.
Would you like to be the neighborhood block watch?
Okay, this is an interesting one.
Looks like yes, 38%, no.
But 17%, already part of one.
That's really good to see. Okay.
Some interesting part of the neighborhood block there.
I know there's some different people here
from neighborhoods and SPD that can tell you more about this.
Let's move on to our next slide here if we could.
Occupation.
We've got a lot of different things here,
from retired to student, to professor, consultant, attorney.
Well, we've got a number of different ones there.
Thanks for scrolling through.
We'll just kind of take a quick look at that.
Police Department.
Okay. Director of Government Affairs.
I think we know where we are here.
Moving right along. Pastor, volunteer.
Great. A good cross section here, for sure.
Stay at home mom, dance instructor.
Okay. Good to see all these different things.
I'm going to ask you to move on to that next slide
so we can keep on rolling here.
What makes you feel safe in your neighborhood?
Some different thoughts here.
Community working together for peace. Okay?
Some eyes on the street, police,
aware neighbors, some street activation,
low gun violence levels. Okay.
Community members who acknowledge one another.
That's good. My family, a friendly officer.
That's always good to hear. Police presence.
I'm going to have you scroll through those.
Any further thoughts here, Mayor,
as we look at this piece of it?
-Consistent with what we hear throughout the city.
-Yeah.
Yeah, I think this message is one
we're hearing in a lot of different neighborhoods.
And thank you for all these different comments, folks.
These are great to hear.
So let's move on to next on down the line.
And then we'll move on to our interaction
just a little bit because I know the mayor has a number
of different things going on here this evening.
So what makes you feel unsafe?
Gunshots, of course. Crime. General thoughts there.
Guns. We're hearing that a lot.
Gun violence.
This is something that we're hearing.
Yeah, looks like guns, gun violence are a big part of this.
And I just want you to remember, folks, as we look through these,
again, police are definitely going to have some answers
to this, some thoughts about this,
and I hope you have some solutions to share, too,
but I do urge you to talk with as many different departments
as you can here because they all
have a different connection here to public safety.
So just talking about what makes people feel unsafe
in their neighborhood, Mayor,
and there are a few different things here,
and a lot of them were connected to gun violence,
which I know you're concerned about as well.
So that was something we'll be talking about here this evening
and we'll be talking about in these small groups.
Let's move on to our next slide, please.
And the reason I'm hustling through these, folks,
is I really want you to interact with these different agencies.
So here we go.
What has improved or not improved?
Okay, less police officers, fewer buses. Okay.
Remote police station has helped with crime.
That's good to see. See the effort. Need so much,
but we see the effort. Okay.
Too much gun violence.
Definitely seeing that. Remain the same.
Community passageways.
That's a great program around here at Garfield.
Yeah. Saw that. Yeah. Keep up the good work.
That's a great group.
Boy, we're seeing so much on gun violence and shootings.
That's definitely a theme running through here.
Let's keep on running through.
We could change more things,
more police officers, make some arrested.
More accountability for police, more police, drive-thrus.
Okay. A street activation plan. All right.
I think we're seeing some of these different themes here.
Reducing homelessness. Okay. Great.
Let's keep on cruising through here
because I want to make sure that we get through the part
where we're connecting with different people.
Things the city needs to do.
Holding cops accountable,
more coordination of city departments.
I know these are parts of the pillars that the mayor
has been talking about in his six pronged plan here today,
he'll be talking about over the next couple of weeks.
So, yep, appreciating the conversation.
Okay. Let's keep on cruising through here.
Any additional feedback?
Okay, these are some detailed things here
about homelessness.
Okay.
And again, these are comments
that are going to be passed along to the mayor's office
so they can collect this a little bit further
and make sure they get some responses to those.
But right now, I wanted to do this.
I think you've been doing some of this already.
Let's bring those lights back up, if we could.
What I'm going to ask people to do is stay at the table
where you are, if you could, for the next 15 minutes,
and have yourselves a good discussion.
You've got a number of different agencies there
that want to talk to you,
that want to talk about solutions to public safety.
Please do engage with them.
And then in about 15 minutes,
you'll hear a little bit of music,
and we'll urge you very gently to maybe move on
to another table, so you can hear some other voices
and some other agencies, too. Mayor, what am I missing?
-Nothing.
Let's get to work. Thank you.
[ Cheers and applause ]