-Thank you for being here.
And thank you, Council President Nelson,
Councilmember Kettle, Councilmember Rivera,
and CEO Scholes for being here in support.
I appreciate everyone who's been a part of this,
as we talk about the introduction of legislation
that is aimed at helping to protect our public spaces
from areas that have sadly become established --
to established known drug use
and illegal criminal activity locations.
We know this as our downtown core
and our international district area.
So we are introducing today legislation
that will create an area legislatively as a stay out
of drug area zone.
We need to be providing mechanisms
that all actors in this public safety space
can help disrupt criminal enterprise
that has taken ahold in locations
that are too established in our city,
and from that flows other criminal activity.
We want to protect our residents, our workers,
our visitors, all who come to the city of Seattle.
And it is time that we do some action
that will help to disrupt those who want to come
and create criminal enterprise in the form
of drug use and possession
and all the activity that is associated with it.
I am very grateful for the support,
as I mentioned, of the legislative branch that is here.
I appreciate those
who will be involved in the application of this law
that is involving all of our public safety partners.
That will be the police.
That would be me as the prosecutor in our court system.
This legislation will provide a way
for a judge to issue an order that will then help to disrupt,
again, that criminal activity
that is associated with drug possession.
Our stay out of drug area locations,
as I said, are strategically created.
They exclude locations for substance abuse treatment
and permanent supportive housing.
They are not to be things that are intended to be unhealthy
and unhelpful for those that are battling addiction
and are looking for the road to recovery.
These are ways to protect public spaces,
and I believe we can do both at the same time.
Our residents have demanded more,
and I believe we are stepping up to provide that.
Again, with the aim to protect public spaces to improve
where we can public safety and the public spaces
for everybody to have a safer accessible location
for all of our public spaces together,
that is the goal of what we're doing today.
And I really appreciate your support being here.
And now I'll turn it over to Council President Nelson.
-Thank you, City Attorney Davison,
and thank you all for coming today.
I applaud the City Attorney's office and City Attorney Davison
and also Councilmember Kettle for working together
to put this initiative before us today because enough is enough.
We have got to do more. We have to have more tools
on the books to focus on concentrations
of drug-related activity in our city.
Plain enough.
And this is exactly the sort of approach
that the city auditor says we should be taking,
a place-based approach to the problems at hand,
the problems of the overlapping fentanyl epidemic and crime
that we witness downtown every day.
So, you know, we -- one might ask why place-based?
Well, because we have to understand the conditions
that are leading to the criminal and antisocial behavior
that we see playing out every single day.
And we've also heard Interim Chief Rahr say
that we have to interrupt the business model
that is supporting that behavior.
And, frankly, the business is drugs.
And these are crimes of opportunity.
And so this is going to give us an additional tool to say,
no, you cannot be here.
You cannot be on the 50 yard line of our city
where the major north/south transit corridor intersects
with the east/west corridor,
bringing people from Capitol Hill to the waterfront
through our retail core, past our convention center.
We have to be mindful of the fact
that we don't have unlimited police resources.
And so, therefore, we have to focus them
where they will make the most good and be strategic about --
about our deployment of not just police
but also social service resources.
So that's what this legislation is about.
You'll hear more from the -- from the folks
that have spent months and months working on this.
I mean, I do have to say that,
while this audit report came out in my committee in --
on the 25th it was presented,
this work to produce this legislation
has been going on a long time.
And so this is a big team effort.
And thank you very much for the folks that brought it forward.
And we'll hear from the next speaker on the list.
Thanks.
-Thank you, everyone, for coming.
Also, thank you, Council President Nelson,
Councilmember Rivera, City Attorney Davidson.
And good to have DSA CEO John Scholes with us today.
I wanted to start off by saying our neighborhoods
that are impacted by the drug trade are hurting.
They are hurting.
Our downtown is impacted and is hurting.
And, as seen in other neighborhoods
struck by gun violence,
a sense of this is how it is can settle in.
We need to fight back. They and we are not resigned.
We are not resigned to our fate with this challenge.
We will not accept the status quo.
We cannot.
It is clear that, once we have a drug market,
we then have a stolen goods market and then, oftentimes,
prostitution possibly and sex trafficking.
The harm is undeniable.
Our strategic framework plan to --
is our guide, and this soda bill is key to it
for it shows intent.
And it gives a tool to not just SPD but also
to the prosecutors and the court across the street from us today.
We cannot solve the drug trade crisis with just this bill,
but it does add a comp --
to the comprehensive approach that we're advocating for
and carrying out and, importantly, carrying out.
As I mentioned yesterday, in 2022 and 2023,
we had City Attorney Davidson.
We had Mayor Harrell working hard
on the public safety challenges that we face.
In 2024, the differences that we have a new council
under leadership of Council President Nelson
and a new Public Safety Committee
that is working collaboratively,
collaboratively with both the executive
and judicial branches in a One Seattle way
to meet our public safety challenges head on.
To close, I also want to say thank you to my constituents
in District 7
but also to all those across the city
who have told me their stories of how their lives,
their homes, their neighborhoods, their schools,
their businesses have been impacted by the drug trade.
It is unbelievable and oftentimes horrific.
We need to lead with compassion.
Yes, we need to lead with compassion
and start with empathy for those that are in crisis.
But we also have to lead with wisdom to know
that we have to look for the whole of community.
We have to look out for our residents.
We have to look out for our businesses
and to look out for our communities,
and that's what we're going to do.
Thank you.
And now, come on.
-Thank you, Councilmember Kettle.
And I'm just here to lend my support to my colleagues
who sit on the Public Safety Committee
on this piece of legislation.
I want to thank Councilmember Kettle as chair
of the committee and City Attorney Davison
for bringing this forward.
Public safety is something that residents in the D4
very much care a lot about and this particular laws
to address those that are creating the most harm
and taking advantage of our residents
who are struggling with addiction
and who are trying to recover.
And these types of tools help us keep people safe.
And so, again, I don't sit on the Public Safety Committee;
but I am here to lend support to my colleagues.
And I really thank DSA for being a good partner.
And John. -Thank you, Councilmember.
Good morning, everybody.
I'm John Scholes, President,
CEO of the Downtown Seattle Association.
We represent about 700 companies and organizations downtown
and 1300 property owners.
The first paragraph of the city charter says
that it's the paramount duty of the city to protect the health,
safety, environment, and welfare of the people of Seattle.
Collectively as a community, we're failing in that regard,
particularly in a number of places in our community,
at 3rd and Pike downtown, at 12th and Jackson,
in the International District, and in other parts of our city.
That's confirmed by the report of our own city auditor
that Council President Nelson referenced a moment ago
that says where we've got a high concentration of drug use,
we've got a high concentration of crime.
It's the worst kept secret in Seattle,
but our auditor confirms it.
I appreciate the action being proposed today
by our city attorney and council members that stand behind me.
The neighborhoods of downtown
where we've got a high concentration
of drug use and crime are demanding action.
I've no doubt that they're going to be folks
who come out against this legislation.
Some of the same folks
who said it was a good idea to defund our police department
are going to say this is completely the wrong approach
to dealing with this crisis in our community.
They're going to say it's not nice or fair
to the folks that are going to be impacted,
to the people being arrested.
They'll say very little about what is nice and fair
to the barista that just quit her job at 1st and Pike
because it's too unsafe to work there
or the small businesses that are spending thousands of dollars
every month on security,
for the residents
that have to wade through a fentanyl marketplace
with folks that are aggressive
or folks lighting fires in their alleys behind apartments.
They'll say very little about what is nice and fair
to the folks that are dealing with that reality
on a daily basis.
The folks that suggested defunding the police will --
was a good idea for our city
or would be a good idea will also say that, instead of this,
we should be investing in alternatives
and more treatment and housing.
On that point, they're right.
And we are.
We created a care department, an alternative to policing.
We tripled the housing levy last November,
something our organizations strongly supported.
We've pioneered
in this community alternatives to arrest.
The LEAD Program was started in Belltown in 2011.
We supported that pilot as an organization.
We've supported its expansion.
We absolutely must invest in treatment;
alternative services; more housing,
transitional and permanent.
And we are doing that.
And we also must keep people from continuing
to come back to the same place committing the same crimes
and impacting residents, visitors,
those who work downtown, those who own small businesses,
and those who own property. It's not right.
The neighborhoods in these areas
are demanding a restraining order against this behavior
and these actions.
And I appreciate the action being taken today
to propose this legislation
to give our judicial branch another tool
to interrupt this dangerous cycle,
this collision of the most deadly drug in our community,
crime, and suffering.
Too many people are suffering on our streets.
It's time for more action to disrupt this.
The neighborhoods downtown are demanding this
and appreciate the action being taken today.
-So that concludes this part of the news conference.
Right now we can open it up to questions.
If you have a specific question for a specific person,
please let us know. If it's just a general question,
the team will huddle real quickly
and decide who can field it.
-For those too -- wanted to hear the question is,
is there a difference between what was used before
and this one in regards to pretrial release?
And, again, before, there was not a legislative tool for it.
So this is one where we are providing it legislatively.
And so conditions of release
within designate the location of that.
And so, to me,
that is what we're talking about
is what is the conditions of release.
So that's where we put this forward with the map
that is located of that specific location,
and that would be the one place that is designated.
There's -- municipalities have similar things.
So it is around.
But we have just decided to put this forward legislatively as,
in the past,
it was just a function of a prosecutor requesting it
and a judge issuing that.
-I just want to ask about enforceability here.
I mean, there are many opportunities
for police to enforce failure to appears or warrants.
Obviously, those are certain -- those are difficult to enforce.
How do you expect police to actually act on this
when we don't necessarily see them acting
on outstanding warrants or failure to appear
[indistinct] those people in the first place?
-I'm not sure if your data is correct, David,
on that they don't act on failure to appear or warrants.
I do know we have restrictions on booking
that are related to that on warrants,
and so that's a significant issue, in my opinion.
But related to what we're doing
is to provide an additional mechanism to supplement.
That's what we're trying to do.
If this is something that can also help,
as John notably said,
the disruption of the criminal enterprise of the drug market
that is established on 3rd and Pike and Pine and 12th
and Jackson,
then I think this is something that we should pursue.
That's why I brought it forward.
If it's something that helps occasionally,
I'm okay with that
because it really does need to have the additional action
so that we can see the disruption of this market
because it is a problematic location
that is established in both of these areas
that I've put forward.
And, as John has said, workers and residents and visitors
are having to go through these established drug markets,
and we need to see the revival of economic activities
so we can see the longevity of our city
and the livelihood of our neighborhoods be established
and strengthened. -Can I speak to that too?
-Yes.
-David, I just wanted to speak to that too.
I think an important piece to this
is that I've had conversations with Chief Rahr,
and Chief was looking to engage and push forward.
You know, and to my point about 2024,
the officers of SPD know that they have senior --
the upper management,
if you will, of city government has their back
and their support in terms of pushing out.
I think that's going to make a major difference,
that and Chief Rahr's leadership
because we know we need to take action.
She knows that we need to take action.
And the men and women
of the Seattle Police Department does too.
Now, is there challenges to that?
Is there, you know, difficulties?
Yes.
But I think you'll see more engaged effort on this
as we bring all these different pieces together,
like I was talking about, our comprehensive approach.
The police officers feel that. They feel it,
and they're going to be acting forward in terms
of addressing these drug places that we have.
-Thank you. Guy. -Guy with Real Change.
This country has tried five decades
of carceral punitive war-on-drugs policies.
Why do you think this will work
if it's the exact same thing the city, the state,
and the country have tried?
-Hi, Guy. Nice to see you.
As we had shown last week
and as Councilmember Moore smartly showed in her comments,
we showed what the average daily population is
for our misdemeanor defendants.
And we are not anywhere near what the description
that you just provided,
which is a large amount of incarcerated people.
The goal is not that.
The goal, again, is to protect public spaces.
And hopefully we are getting people, again, into treatment.
This is an additional way
that we can protect the public spaces,
make them accessible and safer for everyone to use them
and to move through them to where they need to go.
And then, also, as we have all said,
the goal is we're trying to get people into recovery.
And we're trying to support people in recovery.
But we have to simultaneously protect the public spaces
so everybody can access them.
-You know, I understand the argument and 110%.
And, as mentioned before,
you know, the first thing here is leading with compassion.
It's the diversion pieces. We have to do that.
But it's also clear, if you go to the neighborhoods,
you talk to the neighbors, they knew who the drug dealers are.
This is about disruption of the process of the drug trade.
And, by doing that,
we can really make a difference in terms
of what's happening on the ground in these neighborhoods.
Because it is so specific and the impacts are so specific,
we have an opportunity to disrupt that.
And, again, it's one piece of an overall comprehensive plan.
-And I -- I do want to take this opportunity,
because this conversation happened
when we were deliberating on the bill that would have made --
the drug bill, let's say, that failed in June of last year
and then was ultimately passed.
This is not the war on drugs.
And analogies between efforts to address
what's going on right now, we're talking about misdemeanor.
We're talking about gross misdemeanor.
And the drug --
the war on drugs threw people in jail
on trumped up felonies for years and years and years.
And so efforts to conflate the two,
I believe that that is a -- that's a false equivalency,
and we really do have to break out of that --
that tendency to go there
and really focus on what is happening
and look around what is happening in our city
and chart a path forward
that's really going to layer on different legislative
and policy efforts to make a difference.
-Okay.
So the question is,
what is the consequence for violation of the order?
And then what --
how are we tracking the impact on the people?
And I appreciate the questions, Amy, because, again,
this is within discretion of what is recommended.
This is -- we look at things
on a case-by-case basis as they come in.
And to look at the impact again, we will look at --
are we seeing people with repeat referrals?
Are we starting to see that it's not actually making an impact?
That's significant to me
because that means somebody is very entrenched, sadly,
in their substance use disorder.
And we are trying to disrupt that.
We also want to make it difficult,
as Councilmember Kettle said,
for those who are looking to target
and take advantage of people
who are in that vulnerable situation,
who know where they stay and know
where they congregate in locations to come
and easily sell to them.
We do -- we want to make it hard
for people to find their customers to do that
because we think that they are harming their life and,
again, their longevity of life.
We are looking to disrupt that criminal enterprise
because it is unhealthy for those individuals.
And this, again, is an additional mechanism
that we hope we can intervene in that.
-Joel. -Business owners in Belltown
concerned about predatory drug dealer hanging outside
of social service centers.
It sounds like you can exclude [indistinct]
any legitimate reasons to be within [indistinct] under this.
There's no other social services within these zones
or reasonable [indistinct]
-We have made sure to exclude social services,
as I noted earlier,
within the two proposed zones that I put forward
that are located in --
downtown and in the international district
so that they are not there. But a judge can listen to,
if somebody has a family member in those locations, etc.
That, again, is within a judicial discretion as
how that functions.
But it is to just basically say this is --
we don't want this activity going on in these locations.
You've been found to be doing that,
and we want to disrupt that. Again, that's -- that is part of
how the process will unfold on a case-by-case basis
there as we look at that.
-I've had so many discussions with the residents of Belltown.
And, you know, their input is feeding into the soda bill
and in terms of the zones themselves,
along with coordinating across the branches,
to be smart about this,
to avoid having service providers within the zone.
And the team has done a great effort to do so.
And in Belltown, you know, 2nd and Bell,
it's a problematic area
that the Catholic community service providers are
just outside of it, you know.
So 2nd and Bell up to Lenore over to 3rd,
that's a challenging area. And we look to avoid having,
you know, service providers in these zones
that have been produced. -Right here in the front.
-Is there a timeline that -- [indistinct] this morning,
and it's worse than ever.
Is there a timeline now
where these people will actually be moved?
What can we see the beginning of August right now.
And, also, I've noticed a couple fences now
that have gone up in alleyways near the Ross store
and closer to Pike Market.
Is that all part of your plan right now?
-Yes.
And these are the conversations that we had with SPD,
with the mayor's office
and those responsible for public safety,
you know, in terms of what can we do.
And it's -- you know,
sometimes it's working with We Deliver Care.
They do a fantastic job in terms of helping those on the street.
But it's also engaging, you know, with SPD to -- you know,
to affect what's happening on the streets,
particularly on 3rd and Pike particularly, so yes.
-Is there a timeline? I think back in September [indistinct]
-I don't have a timeline for that.
This is something that we're engaging, you know,
with the executive side.
And -- but, no, there's no timeline.
Obviously, sooner is better.
But I don't have a specific timeline.
-I'll just -- I'll just mention that,
when it comes to the implementation of the laws
we pass, obviously that is the -- that falls to the executive.
And there's no one from the mayor's office right here.
My understanding is that the mayor's office
and the mayor are in support of this but that --
but, really, we're not the boss of the police.
And so it really depends on what all three branches of government
are doing to work together to improve the situation.
-All right. Any other questions?
Let's go -- do you have a question?
Oh, go ahead. Yeah.
-Hearing all of them speak about this,
how does it make you feel?
And do you think, in your opinion, that'll really work?
-I appreciate the action that's being taken.
The status quo is expensive. It's costing a lot of lives.
It's not working.
We're going to have another store
that closes later today in this soda area in downtown,
another store front that closes.
So the current course and speed is failing.
It's failing from a moral perspective,
a health perspective, from a public safety perspective.
And there's significant risks to the city's economic base.
So I'm grateful for the action today.
We need a lot of tools at our disposal
to address this crisis that's costing a lot of lives
and costing a lot of money.
-So the question is, how would someone get an exception?
And that is what is presented to the judge.
And that would be then within the judge's discretion
as they're reviewing that.
Well, they could have a public defender.
Right.
Like, there's always the process to do that
because that's the way it's established.
-I would just add, you know,
if you're in this part of town
and you are looking for economic opportunity,
if you want a job,
if you want housing support, we're ready to help you.
We hired 40 folks in the last three months off the streets,
folks in drug court, folks with substance use disorder,
folks with criminal records,
folks that have come out of the prison system.
So, if you are looking for work,
we are here to employ you and to invest in your housing
and your recovery.
So that shouldn't be a barrier.
We'd love to have you working on our team.
-So we have time for one more question.
I'll go to David. -I guess my question is,
so an officer sees somebody in an area that they couldn't be --
they make an arrest. Then what?
I mean, we've seen a lot of people
who cycle through the jail system and continue to do so.
What are the expectations
that it'll actually disrupt that cycle?
-Again, David, as we talked about,
like, it is an additional way
to send the message of this is not activity
that is okay with us societally. We do not want somebody
who is there with the legal possession and selling of drugs
and having a known drug market.
So if this is an additional way to disrupt that,
that those are established areas that we all know,
as John said, the worst kept secret in Seattle.
We all know this is happening.
And people walk by.
People come to visit Seattle,
and they don't understand why the rest of us are walking by.
We are not walking by anymore.
We are saying, this is not -- okay.
We want to give attention to people that have been
otherwise invisible and neglected and overlooked.
And, in my opinion, it's people that are there
that are in the throes of addiction and substance use
disorder
that we have just walked around and stepped over
and not paid attention to.
And we're not doing that anymore
because we say we think you're worth the effort.
And we're going to make the effort.
And if this means that this is an exit ramp for you,
we're really glad.
If there's a different one
that doesn't make us get to this point,
that's even better.
But we have to have this available as an additional way.
And so, to me, that's what we're doing.
-Before you go to Council President Nelson,
I just wanted to jump in
and say I appreciate the acknowledgement
of people cycling through the system
because that's what's happening.
That's what I hear from the residents.
You know, there's something happened on the corner of 2nd
and Bell, for example.
Next thing you know, they go away for 24 hours,
but then they're back doing the same crimes.
So this is the cycling point
that you noted in your question is what we need to tackle
because that drives, you know,
what's happening on the ground in each of these neighborhoods
that we're seeing the drug trade impacting so severely.
So I really appreciate, you know, the highlighting,
you know, because, obviously, this is a big issue.
We've had meetings with King County regarding the jail,
booking restrictions and so forth.
The cycling through
is a key part of this problem that we have.
So thank you.
-And we will conclude with this question,
this follow-up question.
And if you have any other questions,
feel free to email me or the councilmembers' offices.
David.
-And on this cycling through issue,
why are they cycling through?
We need to do more to help people stop cycling through
and put their lives together,
recover from fentanyl substance use disorder and other things
and move on to -- on a different path.
And that is something that I've been working on for a long time.
We should not accept that we're just going to allow
for people to lack the resources to actually take the step
to get over a dependency and get their lives back together.
The cycling through is unacceptable.
That should not be happening.
-I want to ask about the timing here which is you are six weeks
out or so from when budgeting certainly started happening.
You've got a lot of really significant legislation
suddenly at the table [indistinct]
-That's what I hinted at before.
I said, you know, we've got a lot going on before
not just budget but recess,
which starts in a couple of weeks.
And so this will be heard -- excuse me if I'm wrong.
I might need to have the chair address this,
but this will be in committee on September 13 and then what?
-August 13.
-What?
-August 13. -August 13. Here.
Why don't you talk about when this is going to happen.
-Yes, David.
This will be heard in committee on August 13,
and it'll be working.
As I mentioned in our interview,
we're pressing through the tape of September 24.
We're pressing through on all these public safety challenges.
So it'll be heard on August 13.
And we'll have the schedule out one, two and then to council.
-And just to let you all know,
that next steps is in the news release,
which there are a few hard copies there.
And all of your newsrooms have that also.
If you didn't get it or if you want to be on our list,
please feel free to contact me. This wraps it up.
Thank you all very much for coming.
We really appreciate it.