City Council Regular Meeting · Monday, June 15, 2020 · City Council Digest

6. CONSENT CALENDAR

Confluence Park Turf & Irrigation Project AB 7868

Carried 7-0

Accept Project · packet pp.39–40

Topics: Parks

▶ Watch from 1:23:39 Open packet at p.39 ↗

Staff report:

On Aug. 5, 2019 via AB 7804, City Council awarded the construction contract for the Confluence Park Turf and Irrigation Project to Green Slate Landscaping, Inc. for $451,562.01 (including sales tax).

Roll call:

Moved by HUNT · seconded by REH

In favor: Barbara de Michele, Stacy Goodman, Zach Hall, Victoria Hunt, Tola Marts, Chris Reh, Lindsey Walsh

King County COVID-19 Funding for Housing Stability AB 7983

Carried 7-0

Authorize · packet pp.41–46

Topics: HousingBudget

▶ Watch from 1:23:46 Open packet at p.41 ↗

Staff report:

Metropolitan King County Councilmember Lambert, District 3 awarded the City one-time County funding totaling $2,000 to support City programs that provide food assistance, rent assistance, utility assistance, mortgage assistance or other programs to help provide housing stability during COVID response and recovery.

Roll call:

Moved by HUNT · seconded by REH

In favor: Barbara de Michele, Stacy Goodman, Zach Hall, Victoria Hunt, Tola Marts, Chris Reh, Lindsey Walsh

Hazard Mitigation Plan Update AB 7975

Carried 7-0

Approve Resolution · packet pp.47–358

▶ Watch from 1:23:54 Open packet at p.47 ↗

Staff report:

The Federal Disaster Mitigation Act of 2000 (DMA) requires local governments to have current and approved hazard mitigation plans in order to receive disaster mitigation project funding. The plans must be updated every five years. The City of Issaquah participated with King County and other governments in the development of the original Regional Hazard Mitigation Plan (RHMP), on a limited basis with the 2009 plan update (AB 6004; Res. 2009-14), the 2015 plan update (AB 6840; Res. 2014-12) and again for the current plan update.

Roll call:

Moved by HUNT · seconded by REH

In favor: Barbara de Michele, Stacy Goodman, Zach Hall, Victoria Hunt, Tola Marts, Chris Reh, Lindsey Walsh

7. REGULAR BUSINESS

Racial Equity: City Initiatives & Procedures Hear Presentation; Direct Administration AB 7987

packet pp.359–386

Topics: Equity

▶ Watch from 1:24:01 Open packet at p.359 ↗

Staff report:

Following the tragic death of George Floyd in Minneapolis, people across our country – including on the steps of Issaquah City Hall – have rightfully demonstrated against racial injustice throughout our country. The Black Lives Matters demonstrators are asking that we take this moment to talk about what we need to do as a community to recognize racial bias, and make changes to eliminate the disproportionate damage it is doing to community members of color.

8. GOOD OF THE ORDER

Upcoming Council Meetings

▶ Watch from 4:00:06

2699 segments .txt ↗

0:07 ↗ Welcome everyone. This is Mary Lou Polly, the mayor of Issacole, and I'm calling the

0:11 ↗ June 15th city council meeting to order. And you just heard my fake gavel calling

0:16 ↗ us together. Before we start our meeting tonight and move on our agenda items, I'd

0:21 ↗ like to acknowledge that we're using a remote meeting format. On March 6th, I issued

0:27 ↗ an emergency proclamation declaring a civil emergency in the city due to the COVID-19 outbreak.

0:33 ↗ On March 24th, the governor issued Proclamation 20-28 prohibiting meetings that fall under the

0:39 ↗ Open Public Meetings Act, such as our city council meetings, from being conducted in person.

0:44 ↗ The prohibition has been extended through June 17th, so thank you very much for joining

0:49 ↗ us online today. Tonight's meeting will be held entirely remotely. This meeting will be recorded,

0:55 ↗ streamed live, and available for later viewing on the city's YouTube channel. A call-in number

1:00 ↗ was provided on the meeting agenda for members of the public who wish to call

1:04 ↗ in by phone to listen live to the meeting. Before proceeding through our agenda this

1:09 ↗ evening, I'd like to take a few minutes to just share some of my thoughts.

1:14 ↗ I feel heartbreak and anger over the murder of George Floyd, the wave of racist

1:19 ↗ events and treatment of protesters across the country, and the systemic racism that continues to

1:25 ↗ exist in our country. The council and I are committed to take action for change

1:30 ↗ in Issaquah. In these last few weeks, demonstrators on the steps of Issaquah City Hall

1:35 ↗ have been asking for change and accountability. Informal conversations with council members, the

1:41 ↗ police chief and I on the steps have been positive and informative. There have also

1:47 ↗ been emails to council and the mayor with questions and thoughts. What we are hearing

1:51 ↗ so far includes the following requests, reviewing policing policies, in particular the use of

1:57 ↗ force, review our approach to community policing and redirect funding from enforcement to

2:02 ↗ social services, to use the principles of eight can wait in our policy review,

2:08 ↗ to sign on to the Obama pledge, to incorporate body cameras into our policing policies,

2:14 ↗ and to listen, to review, and to reform. I would like to share with our

2:20 ↗ audience how tonight's meeting will flow. The Council and I have pushed out topics that

2:25 ↗ were scheduled for tonight's regular meeting to provide an opportunity for our community to address

2:29 ↗ their Council about the Black Lives Matters movement and ongoing demonstrations throughout the region,

2:35 ↗ including in our own town. The City Council will hear from the community this evening

2:40 ↗ on the events of the last few weeks that have focused our nation's attention on

2:44 ↗ issues of race, equity, and how we police our communities. We have changed tonight's

2:50 ↗ agenda to focus on listening to members of our community share their feelings and concerns.

2:55 ↗ The first portion of tonight's meeting will be audience comments, which is the time for

2:59 ↗ the public to address the council. I will provide some additional guidance just before this

3:04 ↗ section, but wanted to let speakers know that we anticipate more community participation tonight

3:10 ↗ since our signup list is fairly long. For those who have joined us tonight and

3:14 ↗ would like to speak, but did not sign up in advance, Can you please text

3:19 ↗ 410-941-9377 410-941-9377

3:28 ↗ and state your name and desire to be added to the speakers list. For those

3:32 ↗ who would like to send comments in this evening, please send them to citycouncil at

3:37 ↗ isquellwa.gov, citycouncil at isquellwa.gov. We will

3:43 ↗ summarize the comments we received this evening and include comments submitted to the Council email

3:47 ↗ throughout the meeting. Following community comments, City staff will detail current work on racial equity

3:53 ↗ issues within our organization and in the community. Chief Baerbaum will discuss current policing policies

4:00 ↗ and plans for changes in the future. We know that mayors and City Council members

4:05 ↗ are uniquely positioned to introduce common sense limits on the police use of force. The

4:10 ↗ City's recommended approach for moving forward will mirror the key elements of the Obama Pledge.

4:16 ↗ Review our police use of force policies. Engage our community by including a diverse range

4:21 ↗ of input, experiences, and stories in our review. Report the findings of our review to

4:27 ↗ the community and seek feedback. And reform the community's police use of force policies.

4:34 ↗ As we begin discussions of our fiscal year 2021 budget, The administration will take a

4:39 ↗ close look at the police department budget and determine what changes make sense to better

4:44 ↗ align our law enforcement services to serve this community. The last part of our meeting

4:49 ↗ this evening will be a council conversation to provide direction to the city administration on

4:54 ↗ some next community steps. So at this point in time, I'd like to take a

4:59 ↗ moment to do the roll call of council members in attendance. Please say here when

5:03 ↗ I call your name. Council member D. Michelle. Here. Council member Goodman. Here.

5:11 ↗ Council member Hall. Here. Council President Hunt. Here. Council member

5:17 ↗ Martz. Here. Deputy Council President Wray. Here.

5:23 ↗ And Council member Walsh. Here. All seven council members are here this evening.

5:29 ↗ There are various staff that are also participating in tonight's meeting and you should be

5:33 ↗ able to recognize them if you're watching us on channel 21 or the streaming channel.

5:37 ↗ We have city administrator Bob Kowitz and staff is identified by comments in

5:43 ↗ brackets beside their name. We have police chief Scott Baerbaum. We have judge Scott Stewart.

5:49 ↗ We have our human services coordinator Monica Negrela. We have our senior human resources analyst,

5:55 ↗ Lauren Knox, our deputy city administrator, Andrea Snyder. our city attorney, Jim Haney, our city

6:01 ↗ clerk, Tina Eggers, and our deputy city clerk, Tisha Gieser. Other city staff may also

6:07 ↗ be in attendance this evening. For those members of the public on the call, welcome.

6:12 ↗ The clerk or I will call on you to make comments when we reach that

6:15 ↗ portion of the meeting. So some meeting guidelines. For all meeting

6:21 ↗ attendees, please speak clearly and pause frequently. State your

6:27 ↗ name each time before speaking. Mute your microphone when not speaking.

6:33 ↗ And if you are also streaming the live video feed and you have phoned in,

6:37 ↗ please turn the sound off as there is a delay. For council members, please continue

6:41 ↗ to use the chat to indicate when you wish to speak. Please identify yourself before

6:46 ↗ you ask a question, make a motion, or second a motion, or participate in debate.

6:52 ↗ The next item on the agenda this evening is the Pledge of Allegiance, and I

6:55 ↗ would ask that everyone keep their microphones muted, but I do welcome you to join

7:00 ↗ me in the pledge. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of

7:05 ↗ America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God,

7:12 ↗ indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. We will now move into the audience

7:18 ↗ comments portion. When you are addressing your council this evening, please direct your comments

7:23 ↗ to the whole council and not individual. While this is not a question and answer

7:28 ↗ session, we will contact you to follow up if needed. When you are recognized, please

7:34 ↗ unmute your microphone, star six, maybe an option on your phone, maybe not. State your

7:39 ↗ name, address and relationship to the city. Speak clearly and pause

7:45 ↗ frequently. Please limit your comments to five minutes. And when you're done, re-mute your

7:51 ↗ microphone, please. If you do not respond after your name or phone number is called,

7:56 ↗ or if your connection is lost unexpectedly, the meeting will need to proceed. So you

8:01 ↗ are encouraged to rejoin the meeting if able. And again, if those who have joined

8:05 ↗ us tonight and would like to speak but did not sign up in advance, please

8:09 ↗ text 410-941-9377 and include your name

8:15 ↗ and desire to be added to the list. Also, a second reminder, you can also

8:19 ↗ send written comments anytime tonight to citycouncil at iskowa.gov and all of your council members

8:25 ↗ will see them. Personal attacks, obscene language, derogatory remarks, and

8:31 ↗ disruptive behavior will not be permitted. If a speaker is out of order, I will

8:34 ↗ ask them to stop and mute their microphone. If a speaker does not comply, I

8:38 ↗ may direct staff to mute their microphone. If a disruption to the meeting occurs and

8:43 ↗ order cannot be restored, I may direct staff to remove you from the call. The

8:48 ↗ council appreciates citizen comments, whether they're written and verbal, and it's an important aspect of

8:53 ↗ the public process. The city council takes these comments seriously, and we thank all of

8:59 ↗ you for coming tonight and taking the time to address us. City clerk, can you

9:04 ↗ please identify the first person who has signed up to speak? Yes, Rebecca Jane. Hello.

9:09 ↗ Hello.

9:17 ↗ So my name is Rebecca Jane. I have been a resident of Issaquah for a

9:22 ↗ little over three years now. You may know me. I recently emailed all the

9:28 ↗ members of the City Council the justice, path to justice pledge that was created by

9:33 ↗ the grassroots law project. So I'm heartened to see

9:39 ↗ a commitment to the Obama pledge and the City Council and the mayor at the

9:43 ↗ protests in our city. I'm a little confused to the hesitation to sign on

9:49 ↗ to the pledge from the grassroots project, which has a much more

9:55 ↗ complete set of kind of guidelines. Not that all of them need to be made

10:01 ↗ to fit to our community. They're not meant for every space, but yeah. So, I

10:07 ↗ mean, if you're going to reach back out to me, that would be something I'd

10:09 ↗ be curious about. And then just also as a comment, I've been looking

10:15 ↗ at the city budget and we're spending 11.5 million dollars on

10:21 ↗ our police force for the year 2020. They have the highest budget of any city

10:26 ↗ department included in the general fund, yet our crime statistics have about 30

10:32 ↗ violent crimes and 1,357 property crimes.

10:39 ↗ To me, I guess I feel like that money could be better spent on our

10:43 ↗ community rather than protecting people's property. We

10:49 ↗ have $11 million going to the police, yet we still charge children to play at

10:54 ↗ the community center. And if they're not residents of Issaquah, they pay even

11:00 ↗ more, which is another problem in that on the government, the city of

11:06 ↗ Issaquah government website, when looking at the demographics of our community. You have

11:12 ↗ it listed as 64.7% white, 20.3% Asian,

11:18 ↗ and 8.54% Hispanic or Latino. So my question to the council is

11:24 ↗ who are the other 6.46% of people living in our community and why are they

11:29 ↗ not mentioned on our website? Why is there no mention of any African American population?

11:35 ↗ There are people here. I think that we really need to

11:41 ↗ do a lot of self-reflection as a community and see how we are actually welcoming

11:47 ↗ all people here and not just certain people. And also, I

11:53 ↗ think we also need to take a deep look at our history. There's been a

11:56 ↗ lot of racial covenants in properties in this area that while they're illegal to enforce

12:02 ↗ now, we can't deny that they've taken it. been a huge part in the history

12:07 ↗ of this community and the people who are and have been allowed to live here.

12:13 ↗ And I just think that there's a lot of actions and a lot of work

12:16 ↗ that we need to do. Thank you so much for your time. That's all. Thank

12:20 ↗ you, Rebecca. City Clerk, who is our next speaker this evening? Christy Girard.

12:27 ↗ Christy, go ahead. Good evening, Mayor Pauly and members of the City Council.

12:35 ↗ On behalf of the Issaquah Highlands Council, I want to share that we believe Black

12:41 ↗ Lives Matter. The mission of Highlands Council is to foster the development of a

12:47 ↗ vibrant and caring community committed to service, diversity,

12:53 ↗ stewardship, and well-being. The Highlands Council's assurances to the

12:58 ↗ community include providing opportunities for collaboration between public and private interests,

13:05 ↗ providing all stakeholders with a voice in community matters, being proactive in

13:11 ↗ addressing community needs, and valuing and promoting diversity and

13:17 ↗ fostering a sense of inclusiveness in Issaquah Highlands.

13:22 ↗ Highlands Council stands with the citizens of Issaquah who have experienced marginalization and

13:28 ↗ discrimination. In recent days, we have been made aware of overt acts of

13:34 ↗ racism in our community, dog waste thrown at the doors of our Chinese neighbors,

13:40 ↗ violence and racial slurs used against black community members. Highlands

13:46 ↗ Council denounces these actions and is committed to work against racism and

13:52 ↗ injustice not only in this moment, but ongoing in partnership with

13:58 ↗ the many Issaquah Highlands neighbors that share the same position and with community partner

14:04 ↗ organizations who have experience promoting social justice and combating racism.

14:12 ↗ This year, Highlands Council will launch our first celebration of Juneteenth,

14:17 ↗ Emancipation Day. Juneteenth recognizes the

14:23 ↗ emancipation of the last remaining enslaved African Americans in the Confederacy two

14:29 ↗ years after President Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation. Our efforts

14:35 ↗ are small, but sincerely heartfelt. We have created a webpage at

14:41 ↗ issaquahighlands.com with a downloadable Black Lives Matter image for our

14:47 ↗ community to print and place in the window of their home or place of business

14:52 ↗ in solidarity. We have a link to resources about Juneteenth

14:58 ↗ for citizens to learn more about this moment in our nation's history. And we have

15:02 ↗ also provided the link for neighbors to share their stories, good and bad, related to

15:07 ↗ race relations in Issaquah Highlands, and make suggestions about how Highlands Council

15:13 ↗ can best support our neighbors and contribute to bringing social justice to the greater community

15:19 ↗ of which we are a part. We are stronger together.

15:26 ↗ Thank you for your time. Thank you very much, Christy. City Clerk, next on the

15:31 ↗ signup list, Christy Derringer.

15:39 ↗ Christy, are you able to proceed? Sorry, I was on mute,

15:46 ↗ which sometimes is where I belong. You have the floor.

15:52 ↗ Thank you. I'm a resident of the Highlands. My family used to own a business

15:58 ↗ here in Issaquah. And I have a very unique perspective having law enforcement

16:04 ↗ as family and friends for many years. But that has allowed me to see

16:10 ↗ some systemic issues. And that's why I'm speaking today. And this is very difficult

16:16 ↗ for me to do. But I'm doing it because I believe that it's very important

16:22 ↗ to speak up now because I have not in the past. I don't

16:27 ↗ believe in complete defunding of every police department in every city and state in our

16:32 ↗ country. I do believe that our police department can be the start of something much

16:37 ↗ more positive that could influence and be a model for other departments in our state.

16:43 ↗ It's shocking for some to hear from people who don't want defunding right now.

16:49 ↗ But I don't believe that when a system is broken that you just abandon it,

16:53 ↗ even when that system was broken from the start. There are officers of color all

17:00 ↗ over our country who got into law enforcement for the right reasons, and many that

17:04 ↗ still want to. Further, we still have murder, theft, car accidents, fights, et

17:10 ↗ cetera, that social workers and other government workers are completely unequipped to

17:16 ↗ handle. I understand the argument that defunding police and funding the

17:22 ↗ community improves crime, and it improves everyone's outlook.

17:28 ↗ The reality is that there's still psychopaths being raised and people who will not be

17:34 ↗ using good judgment and are out there to commit crime. And as long as there

17:39 ↗ are people with bad intentions, we have a need for some type of law enforcement.

17:43 ↗ And perhaps that need evolves and looks differently a year from now. I am 100%

17:50 ↗ in agreement with the outrage at police brutality, abuse of force and power.

17:56 ↗ I've watched it for too long. and it has to stop now. I feel that

18:02 ↗ there are ways to solve these types of issues and I won't have all the

18:07 ↗ answers and maybe I don't even have a single one right, but I have some

18:11 ↗ idea of how it can improve based on my vast knowledge and experience with police

18:16 ↗ officers and the system under which they operate. Every police department has issues,

18:22 ↗ but not every department has the exact same issue. Issaquah PDs

18:28 ↗ should make available to the people of Issaquah a report showing the number of

18:34 ↗ lawsuits, use of force cases, shootings year by year for

18:40 ↗ the past 20 years. This data can help locals understand

18:47 ↗ what our specific department is experiencing. The crime rate, clearance rate, and

18:52 ↗ arrest rates don't matter. that's not an accurate representation of what

18:58 ↗ the issues would be in a specific department. Also, I believe

19:04 ↗ that Issaquah Police should publish all of their policies for the community to

19:10 ↗ review and comment. The more information everyone has, the more they can make

19:16 ↗ educated requests about whether or not to defund now or in the future.

19:25 ↗ I believe that there's some control measures that should be put into play within the

19:31 ↗ third quarter of 2020. And I think that this department has the resources to manage

19:36 ↗ this. Psychological and personality tests and assessments are

19:42 ↗ administered by licensed psychologists on a panel. And I think that this should happen

19:48 ↗ immediately for all officers. Any that don't fall into the know

19:54 ↗ to low risk category, which is how they are assessed, should be removed from their

20:00 ↗ positions immediately. Tests and assessments should be repeated every 12 months at

20:06 ↗ least in a low crime city or low use of force.

20:12 ↗ Any officer who has had an abuse of force or violence complaint against them should

20:16 ↗ be discharged immediately. The funding that the department

20:22 ↗ has saved from that should go directly into public funding. I also

20:28 ↗ believe that the police department funding should be cut by approximately 25% as a start.

20:35 ↗ Also to go immediately into publicly funded programs. There should be a civilian

20:41 ↗ review board of the police, control of police shootings,

20:47 ↗ actively reducing, well, I think abolishing police brutality.

20:53 ↗ There should be complete oversight of police policy, improved training,

20:59 ↗ equal employment opportunity,

21:06 ↗ certification and licensing of police officers. And while

21:12 ↗ accreditation of the police department is voluntary. Excuse me, Kristi. Yes, ma'am? Excuse me, you've

21:17 ↗ reached the end of your comment time. Please summarize. Thank you so much.

21:22 ↗ Basically, I just feel there needs to be a lot more in-depth training and

21:28 ↗ oversight of the police department so that we can put an end to this and

21:32 ↗ be a positive model for other cities in our state moving forward, including

21:37 ↗ sensitivity training and anti-bias training needs to happen more than annually. Thank you so much.

21:44 ↗ Thank you, Christy. City Clerk, who's next on the list this evening? Tina Proctor.

21:51 ↗ Tina, you have the floor. I'm

21:57 ↗ not finding the phone number. Let me try again.

22:05 ↗ And I don't see that we have that phone number on display. We can certainly

22:10 ↗ come back to that number later in the meeting. Thank you. Who is

22:16 ↗ on the list after Tina? Next, we have Marina Breidenbaugh.

22:22 ↗ Marina, you have the floor. I have unmuted you and you're ready to go. Thank

22:28 ↗ you. Great. Thank you so much. Hello, I'm Marina. I'm a lifelong resident of Issaquah

22:34 ↗ and I'm feeling really energized after silently marching with over 750 members of my

22:40 ↗ community on Friday. Feeling the collective grief that was present was deeply moving and brought

22:45 ↗ tears to my eyes and goosebumps more than a few times. I appreciate that the

22:49 ↗ city council the mayor and other local representatives are coming out to listen and be

22:53 ↗ part of the biggest civil rights movement in the history of our country. To quote

22:57 ↗ Ram Dass, at this moment, we feel the potential for change. Whether things are ending

23:02 ↗ or beginning, the best I can do is sit quiet with my mind so I

23:05 ↗ can hear. The opportunity you and I have here is to listen, is to open

23:10 ↗ our hearts to grieving with each other. Before we can hear each other, we have

23:13 ↗ to be able to grieve with one another. We must stay wide open to what

23:17 ↗ is and listen your way into hearing your part in the game. When I quiet

23:21 ↗ my mind and I'm hearing the call for change and I'm being intuitively driven into

23:25 ↗ action, I love this community and admit that I've never felt the pull or desire

23:30 ↗ to ever get involved in the process of change until now. We've been presented with

23:35 ↗ the civil rights movement and have seen our community come together who are clearly seeking

23:39 ↗ change. I heard a neighbor say that I've been waiting to see Issaquah energized like

23:43 ↗ this for 30 years and I understand where they're coming from. Many of us feel

23:47 ↗ that finally the moment has come where the people who have quietly prayed for systemic

23:51 ↗ change have found each other. Sadly, it's in the wake of yet another tragedy in

23:55 ↗ our country with the death of George Floyd and the continued violence that's happening around

23:59 ↗ us being perpetuated by police. Over 40 years ago, budgets all across this country were

24:05 ↗ more evenly split between police and community services. When Ronald Reagan declared the false war

24:11 ↗ on drugs, the budgets of those communities, services, were slashed and reallegated to police forces,

24:17 ↗ and again in 1994 with Bill Clinton's Crime Act. Those laws were modernized ways to

24:22 ↗ perpetuate systemic racism, and its effects in communities all over the country are still felt

24:26 ↗ today, even here in Issaquah, as reflected in the militarization of our police with the

24:31 ↗ weapons, materials, and vehicles that we see. The police are allocated over $11.5 million,

24:37 ↗ while community services are given less than $1 million. I'm calling for you to reduce

24:42 ↗ the amount of police on the force, starting with firing the two police officers being

24:47 ↗ sued for excessive force in the death of Mr. Lange. I want police with domestic

24:52 ↗ violence charges on their records to be ineligible for duty and employment. We must hold

24:57 ↗ all officers accountable for their actions and potential future actions with predicted policing measures.

25:04 ↗ I am okay with fewer cops and slower response times. I want police officers out

25:08 ↗ of schools like have been done in Seattle, Minneapolis, Portland, and Denver. After Columbine, over

25:14 ↗ 10,000 school police officers were hired just in case there was a school shooting. And

25:19 ↗ two decades later, they haven't stopped a single one and instead have arrested over 1

25:24 ↗ million children, mostly students of color, for routine behavior violations. I

25:30 ↗ do not support giving more money and power to our local police department. Police in

25:35 ↗ our city are taking on tasks not intended for them. Our main community service, the

25:39 ↗ food bank, is being stretched too thin with our budget reductions over the years in

25:43 ↗ this era of COVID-19. The city and police rely heavily on the number of services

25:49 ↗ they provide. Unarmed professionals are needed more than ever to create bridges in the community

25:54 ↗ and ensure a sense of safety as the mental health crisis worsens with job losses,

25:58 ↗ higher abuse rates, and overall lack of human contact with the ongoing threats and potential

26:03 ↗ of COVID. Reinvesting in our communities will drive down crime It will provide much needed

26:09 ↗ support for our neighbors. It will aid in homelessness and public health, and it will

26:13 ↗ help educate our children about diversity and recognizing that our differences are to be celebrated.

26:19 ↗ I want to raise my children in a community that is at the forefront of

26:22 ↗ change that supports anti-racist education. I want them to see that we must stand up

26:27 ↗ for what is right, even if the institution is resistant to that change. It is

26:31 ↗ essential for our city's economy and overall well-being of the community to greatly reduce the

26:36 ↗ police budget and reinvest it into services that will have greater effects on the citizens

26:41 ↗ of the city. That is what the Black Lives Matter movement is calling for and

26:44 ↗ what I am calling on the city to enact. The ripple effects of kindness and

26:48 ↗ compassion have the potential to make big waves. The information age has shown us what

26:54 ↗ it's like in communities all over the world, yet not anywhere in America. What are

26:58 ↗ our priorities as human beings? Let Issaquah be an example of the change that needs

27:02 ↗ to happen in cities all over this country and show the world that we can

27:06 ↗ rise up to the occasion and focus on what matters most, equality for our friends

27:11 ↗ and family and neighbors. Thank you.

27:18 ↗ Can never find that unmute button. Thank you, Marina. City Clerk, who is next on

27:23 ↗ our speakers list tonight? Rachel Benick. Thank you, Rachel, you have the floor.

27:30 ↗ Thank you very much. Before this meeting, I have sent a list of references to

27:34 ↗ the City Council highlighting some of the actions of the police department of our neighbors

27:38 ↗ to the West. I think it is important to see why those of us in

27:41 ↗ Issaquah are demonstrating, marching, and calling for the changes that we are. I know that

27:46 ↗ Issaquah is not facing the same challenges that many cities in the nation are. However,

27:51 ↗ one of our closest neighboring cities is a hotspot for police brutality and misconduct. Seattle

27:55 ↗ is a city that almost everyone in Issaquah visits regularly. Many of our citizens work

28:00 ↗ there or have friends there. We cannot ignore what is going on, nor are we

28:03 ↗ exempt from the issues and the conversation. We have room for growth and change along

28:08 ↗ with the rest of King County and the nation. This starts with holding Seattle accountable,

28:12 ↗ not just to its citizens, but to its neighboring governments. We need to condemn what

28:17 ↗ is being done to the peaceful protesters, to the medics and to the journalists. But

28:21 ↗ asking for change outside of our own city won't be enough. We as a city

28:25 ↗ spend over $11.5 million on the police department and less than $1 million on community

28:30 ↗ service office. In fact, it appears from my initial review of the city budget that

28:34 ↗ the police department receives the highest percentage of the city's funds of any single line

28:38 ↗ item on the budget. This is a system in which the police are asked to

28:42 ↗ do too much. They are expected to be marriage counselors, mental health crisis professionals, conflict

28:47 ↗ negotiators, social workers, child advocates, traffic safety experts, sexual assault specialists,

28:54 ↗ social workers, and every once in a while, public safety officers authorized to use force.

28:59 ↗ And while I hold the utmost respect for our police department, I would like to

29:03 ↗ see a world in which they are able to be just police officers. I was

29:06 ↗ speaking with a coworker recently, and she relayed a story of her interaction with the

29:10 ↗ Issaquah PD. Late one evening, she called on their services because there was a woman

29:15 ↗ on her front porch in desperate need of help. The woman was cold, wet, incapable

29:19 ↗ of coherent speech and weeping. My coworker brought her into her home to get warm

29:24 ↗ and called 911. Two officers came up and when the woman finally said her name,

29:28 ↗ they knew who she was and took her to where she would be safe. Now

29:32 ↗ I'd like you all to come with me for a moment as I paint you

29:34 ↗ a picture of how things could be with a different set of priorities. Imagine it's

29:40 ↗ 2025, someone approaches you as you park your car. It's not a cop, it's a

29:44 ↗ community representative telling you that you have a tail light out. They don't write you

29:48 ↗ a fix it ticket because you're not in trouble. but now you know, so you

29:51 ↗ can fix it. Your neighbors got into a loud spat a few weeks ago and

29:55 ↗ without fear or hesitation, you called a domestic assistance number. The counselor arrives and was

29:59 ↗ able to talk to the couple down and suggest solutions for their disagreement. No one

30:03 ↗ showed up with a gun and the situation did not escalate. Your friend has been

30:07 ↗ struggling with addiction and you fear they may be in danger to themselves or others.

30:12 ↗ You call a substance abuse specialist and they talk you through ways to help your

30:16 ↗ friend get treatment. They offer to send an agent out to speak with your friend

30:19 ↗ directly and provide information about resources in your area. In this universe, those who felt

30:24 ↗ fear when they saw police officers on the street maybe don't anymore. The police don't

30:29 ↗ show up if no crime is being committed and those who are found to have

30:32 ↗ acted wrongfully are held to account. Under the system, teachers are being paid a living

30:37 ↗ wage and students are being given more time, attention and education. Books are up to

30:41 ↗ date and classrooms are optimized to keep up with technology. The food bank, affordable housing

30:45 ↗ and job programs are all there when they are needed and the crime rate has

30:49 ↗ dropped dramatically as many no longer feel so helpless that they feel the need to

30:53 ↗ turn to crime or to lash out against others. In this world, the woman in

30:56 ↗ the story related above has the resources she needs. She has housing options, food options

31:01 ↗ and health options. And if she were to find herself on someone's porch crying out

31:05 ↗ for help, there would be a mental health counselor or social worker ready to respond

31:10 ↗ to the call and connect her to the community resources she needs. This is the

31:14 ↗ world I want to live in, not one of fear and punishment, but one of

31:17 ↗ compassion and community. It will not be an easy road and it will take perseverance

31:21 ↗ and hard work over years of effort, but it will be worth it. We are

31:24 ↗ ready to invest in the community and we are ready to work towards a more

31:27 ↗ equitable future for all of Issaquah. We are standing in a moment in history right

31:31 ↗ now. All of humanity will look back at this, the biggest civil rights movement in

31:36 ↗ world history, and look at the actions that were taken at every level of government.

31:40 ↗ I implore you to be on the right side of history and to help move

31:43 ↗ us towards a brighter tomorrow I know we are all capable of entering into.

31:50 ↗ Thank you. Thank you, Rachel. City Clerk, who is our next speaker? Lena

31:55 ↗ Palladina. Lena. Lena, you have the floor. Thank you.

32:01 ↗ My name is Lena Palladina, and I have been a resident of Issaquah for two

32:05 ↗ years. I'd like to begin by addressing the nature of the national movement to defund

32:10 ↗ the police. Black scholars and organizers have been writing about the racist history and systemic

32:15 ↗ inequalities of policing for decades. Redistributing funds from the police to community services

32:22 ↗ is what Black activists around the nation call for as the first step in addressing

32:26 ↗ these inequalities. I want to acknowledge how challenging a concept like this can be to

32:32 ↗ understand And that is because it asks us to imagine a new system of community

32:37 ↗ safety that is radically different from the system we have lived our whole lives in.

32:42 ↗ You may already know that the Minneapolis City Council recently announced that they will be

32:46 ↗ moving to disband the Minneapolis Police Department and replacing it with a new community safety

32:51 ↗ model. What you may not know is that grassroots groups in Minneapolis have been

32:56 ↗ petitioning the city to reallocate police funding into underfunded community anti-violence work since 2018.

33:04 ↗ The road to change is incremental and we're likely facing years of work ahead of

33:08 ↗ us to make lasting change. I am not calling for the police department budget to

33:13 ↗ be drained overnight or for officers to immediately lose their jobs. I'm asking that we

33:18 ↗ seriously consider how we can support the community not only theoretically but also tangibly with

33:24 ↗ some of the police budget being redistributed to human service programs. and that the decisions

33:30 ↗ on where the funding should go be informed by the community, especially our marginalized neighbors.

33:36 ↗ I often see a patrol car slowly circling my apartment complex, which is home to

33:40 ↗ many lower income people of color. I feel that the resources spent on looking for

33:44 ↗ crime where none exists would be much better spent on crisis counselors and other non-police

33:48 ↗ safety officers instead. We should focus on reducing the occurrence of crime in the first

33:53 ↗ place rather than simply being on the lookout for it. I ask that you imagine

33:58 ↗ for one second a world where 911 calls can be redirected to trained mental health

34:04 ↗ counselors, addiction specialists, and domestic violence counselors, to name a few. I ask that we

34:09 ↗ look to programs already in place in Eugene, Kansas City, and Camden, New Jersey, which

34:14 ↗ is a city that rebuilt their police department from scratch as a framework of success

34:18 ↗ and community safety. Anti-racist work can be uncomfortable because it asks us to place the

34:23 ↗ needs of our Black, Indigenous, and POC neighbors ahead of our own comfort as their

34:27 ↗ white peers. To bring true racial, economic, and cultural equity to Issaquah requires all of

34:33 ↗ us to question the status quo and challenge each other to continue to do better

34:37 ↗ by our neighbors. We cannot let the momentum pass us by. It absolutely cannot stop

34:42 ↗ at a few weeks of demonstrations, one community march, some social media posts, We have

34:48 ↗ a responsibility to ask ourselves how we are actively fighting against a system that discriminates

34:53 ↗ against our most marginalized neighbors. I urge the city council to use their positions of

34:58 ↗ power to advocate for community needs, the mayor to continue to use her platform to

35:02 ↗ bring these issues to light, and the police chief to aid in the gradual redistribution

35:07 ↗ of the police budget towards human services. Black Lives Matter, thank you.

35:16 ↗ Thank you, Lena. City Clerk, who is next on our speakers list? Camille Kelling.

35:22 ↗ And this caller I cannot find through either phone numbers provided. So we can make

35:28 ↗ a note and check back later before we conclude audience comments and see if they've

35:33 ↗ joined us later on the agenda. Can we proceed to the next caller? Yes, Leslie

35:39 ↗ Hewlett. All right, give me a moment. Leslie, if you're with us.

35:47 ↗ You have the floor. Hi, my name is Leslie Hewlett and my

35:53 ↗ family and I have lived at Issa Claw for six years. I keep odd hours

35:57 ↗ and I'm usually up around 4 or 4.30 in the morning. I throw in some

36:01 ↗ sweats, feed my pets, grab a flashlight and take the dog out for a walk.

36:06 ↗ At that moment, every morning while I'm walking my dog, I put my life at

36:11 ↗ risk. I'm sure that if a cop comes down the street and sees a black

36:15 ↗ person in a hoodie, carrying a flashlight, they will shoot first and ask questions later.

36:22 ↗ I believe the biggest threat to my life in Issaquah involves an encounter with police

36:27 ↗ at my home. I am originally from New York City. My dad, uncles, brothers and

36:32 ↗ cousins are police officers. I come from a family of proud members of the NYPD,

36:38 ↗ and I am intimately familiar with how racist the police are. I grew up listening

36:43 ↗ to countless stories of racist abuse black cops are subjected to from their white colleagues.

36:49 ↗ And it should be no surprise that my family members are as likely to have

36:52 ↗ been under that cop's knee as any other black person. We keep hearing about the

36:58 ↗ bad apples and how getting rid of them will fix the problem. Policing in America

37:03 ↗ evolved from the slave catchers. They were law enforcement groups

37:09 ↗ that were to maintain order among enslaved Americans. or they're in slavery. It should be

37:15 ↗ no surprise that the system has evolved to the point where racism is institutionalized in

37:20 ↗ American policing. These are not a few bad apples. These individuals are the expected outcome

37:26 ↗ from a policing system that evolved from slavery and is racist at its core.

37:32 ↗ Policies and procedures developed within the current system of American policing tend to end with

37:37 ↗ different forms of racism. What chance do a few rule changes and a sensitivity training

37:42 ↗ session have against generations of individual and institutional racism? That's why I

37:48 ↗ support the movement for defunding the police. This does not mean eliminating the police.

37:54 ↗ This approach means creating a more equitable system based on public safety as opposed to

37:59 ↗ racism. The goal is to use the resources to address all of the issues that

38:03 ↗ contribute to public safety. This approach would make all stakeholders accountable for their roles in

38:09 ↗ the health and safety of our community. This would shift social issues to train professionals

38:14 ↗ and away from the police. Then we can define what policing in America looks like

38:19 ↗ when the goal is to truly protect all of its people. I would like to

38:23 ↗ see the city of Issaquah to use the defund the police as the approach to

38:27 ↗ reinventing policing in Issaquah as we move forward.

38:36 ↗ making change. Thank you. Leslie, thank you so much for sharing your story and

38:41 ↗ your information tonight. City Clerk, who's next on our list of speakers this evening? Elena

38:48 ↗ Sivadasen. Elena, if you are on, you have the floor. And

38:54 ↗ that phone number that was provided is not on our list. So we'll mark it

38:59 ↗ and we can return to that one. Let's proceed to the next caller signed up.

39:05 ↗ That would be Alla Zaremba. Alla, you have the floor.

39:16 ↗ City Clerk, are you seeing her phone number? I do, and it has been unmuted

39:20 ↗ on my end. Great. You may need to unmute your personal phone. You can try

39:26 ↗ pressing star six and see if we can hear your voice.

39:38 ↗ Ella? Okay, I think we will move to the next speaker

39:44 ↗ and if Ella is able to join us later, we'll get her back on. Next,

39:49 ↗ we have Wes Howard-Brooke. Wes, you have the floor.

39:56 ↗ Give me just a moment, please. Pardon me.

40:05 ↗ I don't see that Wes is on the line. Let me see if there's a

40:10 ↗ secondary phone.

40:19 ↗ One more moment. Thank you for your patience. No, I do not

40:25 ↗ see that caller. Thank you. And thank you for all you're doing, city clerk. This

40:30 ↗ is a lot harder to do than when somebody is sitting in a chair and

40:33 ↗ is able to step up to a microphone. So thank you for what you're doing

40:36 ↗ and we will come back at check in at the end to see who we've

40:39 ↗ missed. Who else has signed up this evening? The next speaker would be Lorna

40:45 ↗ Gilmore. And I do not have that caller on our line.

40:52 ↗ Let me see if there's a secondary phone and there is not. And who else

40:57 ↗ do we have? Next would be Matt Brackell. Give me a moment here.

41:11 ↗ Yes, I have found the caller. I have unmuted you. Matt, you have the floor.

41:17 ↗ Great. Hi, everyone. My name is Dr. Matt Raquel, and I'm a resident, a property

41:21 ↗ owner, a business owner, a renter, and the landlord here in Issaquah. It's because my

41:26 ↗ privilege as a straight, white, cisgendered male doctor that I was able to move to

41:30 ↗ Issaquah, buy my own home, and start my own business as a psychologist in this

41:33 ↗ community. And my goal tonight is to use my privilege and my education to amplify

41:37 ↗ the voices of Black, Indigenous, and people of color leaders and community members across the

41:41 ↗ country that are asking for support with changing the police and the justice system in

41:45 ↗ America. We've all been hearing calls to reform, defund or abolish the police. And I'm

41:51 ↗ speaking to all of you right now to ask for your support and re-imagine the

41:54 ↗ police. I'd like us to imagine a police force comprised of social workers, of resource

41:59 ↗ coordinators, of housing experts, mediators, crisis workers, investigators and traffic controllers,

42:06 ↗ a police force that relies on human connection and providing for those in need, as

42:10 ↗ many police forces currently do, but one with the education and support necessary to do

42:14 ↗ this very challenging work. Right now, the police in Washington state receive a 40-hour mental

42:20 ↗ health and de-escalation training every three years. That's exceptional compared to many other states in

42:25 ↗ the United States. However, that's like giving me, a psychologist, a week of firearm training

42:29 ↗ at the gun range and asking me to respond to an active shooter scenario. I

42:33 ↗ would not be the best choice for that situation and someone would likely get hurt.

42:37 ↗ Just like right now, people are being hurt and killed because we're not responding to

42:41 ↗ certain situations in the best way possible. What I'm proposing with reimagining the police force

42:46 ↗ isn't impossible. It's been done in cities across the nation and countries across the world,

42:50 ↗ as has been noted by previous speakers. I have personal and professional experience with a

42:55 ↗ city that had a diverse police force comprised of a variety of professionals. My job

42:59 ↗ was to respond to 911 calls from people thinking about killing themselves or considering hurting

43:04 ↗ or killing somebody else. I responded without police presence, except in the rarest of situations,

43:09 ↗ because that was my specialty and bringing a weapon into those situations almost always makes

43:12 ↗ them much worse. That community saw great success with that program, and I think our

43:16 ↗ community would greatly benefit from reimagining our police force and what we're asking them to

43:21 ↗ do, because the current situation is unfair to both the police and our community. I'm

43:26 ↗ a psychologist, so I could really talk about this subject for hours, That being said,

43:30 ↗ I can be reached at email via Dr. Brackell at brackellpsychological.com if anyone has questions

43:35 ↗ or would like to engage in further discussion, and I yield the remainder of my

43:38 ↗ time. Thank you, Dr. Brackell.

43:44 ↗ City Clerk, who else do we have on our list this evening? I understand that

43:49 ↗ our next caller, Dane Chaney, is not currently on the call, so we'll move to

43:54 ↗ Daniel Gold. Daniel. You have four.

44:01 ↗ Hello. Hello. Hi, my name is Dan Gold.

44:07 ↗ I live in Old Town Issaquah and I appreciate you all taking the time to

44:11 ↗ listen tonight. Some will say that yes, our country has

44:16 ↗ problems, but not Issaquah, not the Issaquah Police Department. I say yes

44:22 ↗ here. Yes, our police department, because nowhere in this country is exempt. Now, I'm not

44:28 ↗ here to vilify IPD. I don't think they're evil, and I do think they've been

44:34 ↗ doing their best in a system that asks them to handle situations way outside the

44:38 ↗ scope of their training. It is their job to protect the community, but what we

44:44 ↗ very often need isn't protection, it's help. When a homeless person is sleeping on a

44:49 ↗ bench in the park, they don't need the police, they need a place to stay.

44:54 ↗ When the food bank wants to reach more of those in need within our community,

44:59 ↗ police officers handing out food packs may be helpful, but what they really need is

45:04 ↗ more funding for the food bank. And when a man with Alzheimer's disease yells incoherently

45:09 ↗ at his wife during an episode, what he needs isn't the police, it's a social

45:14 ↗ worker. That's why I'm calling on the council today to redirect some portion

45:20 ↗ of the $11 million that currently goes to our police force to instead hire social

45:26 ↗ workers, give more assistance to our local food bank, and to further explore other unmet

45:31 ↗ needs amongst our most vulnerable citizens. I'm not calling for the abolition of our police

45:37 ↗ department, but I'm here to tell you that our police officers are not, cannot be,

45:43 ↗ and from my conversations with them, do not want to be a panacea. When my

45:48 ↗ colleagues and I call for defunding the police, this is what we mean. Let's take

45:53 ↗ some things off the police's plate that never should have been there to begin with.

45:57 ↗ I asked the council today to stop asking our police officers to act as social

46:01 ↗ workers and let's hire social workers to act as social workers. I know that

46:07 ↗ in light of a looming budget shortfall, many will say now is simply not the

46:11 ↗ time for new programs and new investments. They'll say that our police department is already

46:16 ↗ running as lean as possible, that it can't sustain further cuts, There will be a

46:21 ↗ laundry list of reasons why, while we agree that these issues need to be addressed,

46:26 ↗ action cannot be taken this time. Later, yes, but not now. And I say to

46:32 ↗ all of you that the only time better than today to take action was yesterday,

46:36 ↗ and that later all too often ends up being never. I implore the council to

46:41 ↗ take immediate action in directing city funds towards social workers and other non-law enforcement personnel

46:47 ↗ who can respond to the needs of this community in the many situations where a

46:51 ↗ person with a gun is not what is needed. Further, and especially as we are

46:56 ↗ experiencing a budget shortfall, I urge the council to take a serious look at taking

47:01 ↗ the money needed for these new programs out of the current policing budget. In closing,

47:08 ↗ Let us not think that we are exempt from this moment in history and let

47:13 ↗ us not think that we're powerless to be part of the change that this country

47:16 ↗ so desperately needs. It's time for us to write our page in the history book

47:20 ↗ council. Let's make it a good one. Thank you. Thank you, Dan. City Clerk, do

47:26 ↗ we have anyone else on our list of speakers? Before we move to the next

47:31 ↗ caller, I'd like to remind anyone on the line that if you're interested in making

47:35 ↗ comments tonight, you can text

47:43 ↗ That's 410-941-9377. That's 410-941-9377 and include your name

47:49 ↗ and desire to speak. The next phone-in caller is Brian Weinstein.

47:56 ↗ Brian, you have the floor. Good evening. My name is Brian Weinstein.

48:02 ↗ I've been a resident in Issa Cloud for about 20 years now. I'm a public

48:07 ↗ school teacher. When school is in session, I teach not just my subjects, but I

48:12 ↗ infuse my lessons with equality and work to teach with equity. I

48:18 ↗ teach in Auburn at Cascade Middle School, a primarily minority-majority school.

48:24 ↗ Each time there is a police incident with a person of color, my students live

48:29 ↗ through yet another act of racism, relive another murder. are

48:34 ↗ traumatized with another message that says they are not valued as human beings, all because

48:40 ↗ of the color of their skin. My work and the work of all teachers is

48:45 ↗ eroded again and again by what our children are living through and what they see

48:51 ↗ our police do. Everywhere in the United States, and at some point, like all

48:56 ↗ things that are eroded, eventually there is nothing left. I've read

49:02 ↗ the presentation as advanced reading material for today's council meeting. I must say

49:09 ↗ they all seem very thorough with existing and new education, training, policies, and

49:14 ↗ procedures for all to follow. But that's the problem. We keep putting Band-Aids

49:20 ↗ on what is a systemically broken and flawed at the foundation function, policing.

49:26 ↗ At some point, we as human beings have to look deep within the organization that

49:32 ↗ are designed to serve us and inquire if they serve all. We have 400

49:38 ↗ years of history to review that informs us that not all of us are being

49:43 ↗ well served. And in fact, some of us are being murdered. I urge you to

49:49 ↗ look beyond community engagement here in Issaquah towards the broader society of

49:55 ↗ Washington and the USA. What is equitable for all? Where is

50:01 ↗ justice for all? How will all be served? I ask you to look

50:06 ↗ beyond this because as I look at our municipal board and commissions, I do not

50:12 ↗ see a cross section of our nation. I do not see people of color, although

50:18 ↗ I know they live in Issaquah. And in reality, it's not me you should be

50:22 ↗ listening to, it's black people we should be addressing. And if there are problems

50:28 ↗ finding black people who live in Issaquah to inquire of them, how our municipal services

50:34 ↗ can best serve them in a systemically new way without 400 years of bias,

50:41 ↗ then perhaps that's one of the bigger problems that needs to be solved as well.

50:46 ↗ Thank you. Ryan, thank you for your comments. City Clerk, who else do we have

50:52 ↗ on our list? Jacob Lessing.

50:58 ↗ Jacob, you have the floor. Thank you for having me here tonight. My

51:04 ↗ name is Jacob Lessing. As of this past Friday, I am a graduate of Issaquah

51:09 ↗ High School. I appreciate the City Council's commitment to substantial change on issues of

51:15 ↗ racial justice, both by working to prevent incidences of discrimination and to

51:21 ↗ mitigate racial disparities in our city. Thank you. That is all.

51:27 ↗ Thank you for joining us tonight, Jacob. City Clerk, who else is on our list

51:31 ↗ this evening? Next is Chris Petzold.

51:37 ↗ Yes. Great. Thank you, Chris. You have the floor. Excuse me. This is

51:43 ↗ Clerk Gaggers. The phone number identified with that individual is not present.

51:50 ↗ Okay. City Clerk, do we have anyone after Chris? Yes.

51:56 ↗ Anusha Minaj. Anusha, you have the floor.

52:04 ↗ Let me find that caller for us. And let

52:10 ↗ me try again.

52:17 ↗ And no, I'm not locating that phone number. Thank you. City Clerk, is

52:23 ↗ there someone after or still on the list? Yes, Bob

52:27 ↗ Swanson. I was able to locate that number

52:33 ↗ and you are unmuted. Thank you, Bob. You have the floor. Thank you very much.

52:38 ↗ This is Bob Swanson. I live in Issaquah, up in the Issaquah Highlands. And I

52:44 ↗ just want to personally say I'm grateful to the police here in

52:50 ↗ Issaquah. I think I've lived here for 18 years and I can say,

52:56 ↗ I have a lot of friends in Issaquah and of many, many different nationalities,

53:02 ↗ backgrounds, and I just haven't run into anybody that has said anything bad except

53:08 ↗ they give me a traffic ticket once. And other than that, but I am grateful

53:13 ↗ that I've been able to have a sit down on the phone with the chief

53:17 ↗ police for an hour, and we were able to go over a lot of his

53:23 ↗ hiring practices, the policing policies,

53:29 ↗ the policing biasing, or the ways they do not want to have

53:35 ↗ police biasing in Issaquah. And I brought up

53:41 ↗ the gentleman laying. I realized that there is a lawsuit going on, so we really

53:45 ↗ couldn't talk too much about that. I found that on the news

53:51 ↗ when I did a search. So I haven't found out as much detail as I

53:54 ↗ would like at this moment, but I know there's definitely two sides on the story

53:59 ↗ there. And just to let you know, I know police are put in horrible

54:05 ↗ situations all the time. Just one is my mother is schizophrenic and she used to

54:10 ↗ come out with people with knives and so forth and police would have to be

54:14 ↗ called. And so it was a very difficult situation. And thank goodness she was, the

54:19 ↗ police were very professional and they were, They never harmed my mother in any way,

54:24 ↗ but she definitely had issues throughout her life.

54:30 ↗ So I am appreciative of the police that were able to do that. Now,

54:38 ↗ when all this hit, friends of ours from the church go to, we had

54:44 ↗ about 600 people. We did a Zoom call because we have people from way

54:50 ↗ different backgrounds, black and white in every country under the sun, definitely

54:56 ↗ multi-international cultural. And so we had an opportunity to let the

55:02 ↗ black members be able to express what they're feeling. And I didn't realize how many

55:07 ↗ times that people have been pulled over, not in Issaquah, I just want to let

55:11 ↗ you know, not one person has ever mentioned being pulled over in Issaquah, but

55:18 ↗ one person particularly I want to mention, his name is Derek Morrell. He just

55:24 ↗ was named last year as Tacoma Fireman of the Year. He's on Facebook, on the

55:29 ↗ Tacoma Fireman Facebook page. He's a chief of

55:35 ↗ his firehouse, excellent man, raising four kids, excellent wife, man of character. His wife

55:41 ↗ has actually helped out my daughter when she was younger. But he's pulled over on

55:46 ↗ the highway because they were looking for someone who, that fit his description.

55:53 ↗ And they had him face down on the highway, handcuffed off the side, obviously not

55:58 ↗ on the highway, but handcuffed, checking his car, so forth. Ended up, obviously, the man

56:04 ↗ has got extremely high character. He had never done anything wrong in any way, shape

56:08 ↗ or form. But long story short, it was because they wanted to pull him over.

56:14 ↗ There was no real description. that they were looking for, they just saw a black

56:18 ↗ man in a car and they wanted to pull him over and they wanted to

56:21 ↗ talk to him. And so I got a chance to email this to both the

56:26 ↗ mayor and to the chief of police, not to the city council as a whole.

56:31 ↗ That's something I should do. But I think an excellent idea is that if somebody

56:34 ↗ is stopped by a 9-1, somebody called a 9-1-1, said, hey, there's somebody walking around

56:40 ↗ or a police officer pulls somebody over, they stop them on the street because they

56:45 ↗ look like somebody, they should be able to give them a form immediately saying here's

56:48 ↗ the reference to the 911 call, here's the reference to the case number, here's the

56:53 ↗ description of the card, the description of the person. So the person can actually go

56:58 ↗ back and take a look to see if that truly fits. Or are they just

57:02 ↗ pulling them over for, because they wanna stop, talk to them, they quote unquote look

57:07 ↗ suspicious. I've just, in that Zoom call that we were on,

57:14 ↗ It is amazing how many people were stopped by the police and stopped outside their

57:19 ↗ own apartment and asked multiple, multiple, multiple times, do you live here? And all of

57:24 ↗ them that were saying this were all black. And I can tell you, I asked

57:28 ↗ friends of mine that are white, none of my friends outside their apartment building have

57:32 ↗ ever been stopped and asked, hey, do you live here? Or they had been pulled

57:36 ↗ over and handcuffed and put on the side of the street or stopped by the

57:39 ↗ police over and over again. because they live in a nice neighborhood. Now, another friend

57:44 ↗ of mine in Issaquah, he has to go, he has another business. He has a

57:47 ↗ business where he goes, has high-end clients, so he has to go to Redmond and

57:51 ↗ so forth, areas like that. And he has to park outside their place and wait

57:56 ↗ until he gets there early, so for a four o'clock meeting. He talked about how

58:01 ↗ many times a police officer stopped and said, why are you here? Can I help

58:05 ↗ you, sir? That kind of thing. And not one of my white friends, I never

58:09 ↗ have, I have been stopped, never, I've stopped in front of houses waiting for my

58:14 ↗ daughter to come out. Never once has I ever been stopped by police and asked,

58:18 ↗ hey, what are you doing here? Or why are you here? So that's one thing

58:24 ↗ I think would really help out. Excuse me, Bob, you have reached the end of

58:29 ↗ your comment time. Please summarize. Long story short, the June 19th, I'm looking

58:35 ↗ forward to being a part of that, the Juneteenth. Thank you, Issaquah, and I appreciate

58:40 ↗ you listening. Thank you. Thank you, Bob. I believe we have one more

58:47 ↗ speaker tonight. City Clerk? Yes, we have one more caller and we have one caller

58:52 ↗ who has joined us on the line, Chris Petzold. Great. And who is our next

58:58 ↗ speaker? Is it Chris or someone else on the list? Yes, we can move to

59:01 ↗ Chris Petzold. Oh, Chris, you have the floor. Give me

59:07 ↗ just a moment. Thank you.

59:13 ↗ Chris, you are unmuted. Hi, thank you. My name is Chris Petzold and I am

59:19 ↗ a 13-year resident of Issaquah. I live in the Highlands. Thank you so much for

59:24 ↗ proactively addressing social justice, equity, and policing. You're definitely a role

59:30 ↗ model for other cities in our area. And I really appreciate the opportunity to speak

59:35 ↗ here. I'll be very brief. I sent an email earlier today with some specific recommendations

59:41 ↗ on improved policing called for by people of color and social justice leaders. Please

59:46 ↗ consider these proposals, which include de-escalation, accountability, and use of force restrictions.

59:53 ↗ This is just a start. I'd like to call for all citizens and employees of

59:57 ↗ the city of Issaquah to embark on a journey of education and soul searching about

1:00:02 ↗ racism. Please also consider the city's budget as has been mentioned before on this

1:00:08 ↗ call. An organization's budget reflects their values. The city's police budget

1:00:14 ↗ starves other resources like schools and housing. With the expected budget

1:00:19 ↗ impact of COVID-19, I ask you to please consider cutting the police force first and

1:00:25 ↗ leave other services intact for the people of Issaquah. George Floyd's last words

1:00:31 ↗ were, I can't breathe as he lost consciousness under the knee of a police officer.

1:00:37 ↗ His last breath was our rallying cry to finally close the door on systemic racism,

1:00:43 ↗ the original sin of our country. George also cried for his mama.

1:00:49 ↗ Some of the protest signs I saw in Seattle said that when George Floyd called

1:00:53 ↗ for his mama, he summoned all mamas and that's why I'm here. The times call

1:00:59 ↗ for a fundamental reevaluation of our systems. This is important work. We are

1:01:05 ↗ living in historic times. Please do the right thing. Thank you very much.

1:01:11 ↗ Thank you, Chris. I'm going to go back to City Clerk and see if there

1:01:15 ↗ were any other callers that joined us later. Yes, Zoe

1:01:21 ↗ Kapusinski.

1:01:27 ↗ Thank you, Zoe. You can be here. We can hear you. Go ahead, Zoe. Hi,

1:01:32 ↗ my name is Zoe Kapuzinski. I grew up in the Issaquah Highlands. And while I've

1:01:36 ↗ moved away, I've come back to visit my mom who still lives in Issaquah Highlands.

1:01:41 ↗ I'd just like to give a little bit of context and story. So I am

1:01:46 ↗ an Asian person. I grew up with white parents. When we moved into the Issaquah

1:01:52 ↗ Highlands in 1999, it was a very small community. mostly a white

1:01:57 ↗ community with a few other Asian families. And a couple of things that I've

1:02:03 ↗ noticed since coming back here during this time and comparing it to where I currently

1:02:07 ↗ live, which is Oklahoma City. One thing is that when I attended the Issaquah

1:02:13 ↗ March on Friday, I really appreciated seeing so many members of our community coming out.

1:02:17 ↗ And I posted on social media about it. And one of my friends who also

1:02:20 ↗ grew up in Issaquah replied about time. I know that as a student who

1:02:26 ↗ I grew up in the Issaquah School District, especially in elementary school.

1:02:33 ↗ I remember growing up specifically with a colorblind ideology where we don't really see color

1:02:38 ↗ because it doesn't matter, right? Everyone is equal. I remember every year when we had

1:02:43 ↗ Martin Luther King Junior Day assemblies, because we always had an assembly to commemorate Dr.

1:02:48 ↗ King. This assembly without fail was about anti-bullying. There was no discussion, no

1:02:55 ↗ history or context really truly given about the racial dynamics of,

1:03:01 ↗ or really any mention of the civil rights era. It was just about anti-bullying. This

1:03:07 ↗ lack of inclusion and

1:03:13 ↗ colorblindness ideology really impacted the way that I

1:03:19 ↗ experienced the world. And I had to do a lot of unlearning and learning of

1:03:24 ↗ new things once I left this community. Since getting to college, as I think many

1:03:29 ↗ students did, like me, I've seen so many people, mostly my friends of color,

1:03:37 ↗ comment about all the microaggressions they faced while attending Issaquah

1:03:43 ↗ schools, like Issaquah High School, and how we didn't realize at the time, like maybe

1:03:47 ↗ we felt a little icky about it, but we didn't realize at the time what

1:03:49 ↗ was going on. So I would really urge the

1:03:55 ↗ council to also put out a strong statement related to our education system and the

1:03:58 ↗ importance of including explicitly anti-racist education in our curricula.

1:04:05 ↗ The other thing that I'd like to mention is that where I'm currently living,

1:04:11 ↗ Oklahoma City, the budget, I mean the city is obviously much larger than it is

1:04:16 ↗ a club, but the budget is over $200 million for the police. I thought, wow,

1:04:21 ↗ that seems like a huge number. Let me compare how that fits with just like

1:04:26 ↗ kind of a population versus budget comparison with Issaquah. Well, the percentage of money

1:04:33 ↗ spent on the police department in OKC based on its population versus that same figure

1:04:38 ↗ for Issaquah doesn't really, it's not really different. The amount

1:04:44 ↗ of dollars spent on the police department here is only marginally less than the amount

1:04:50 ↗ of dollars spent person in Oklahoma City.

1:04:57 ↗ One of the callers before said that the budget is an indicator of the morals

1:05:02 ↗ of our city and I would agree with that and I think that we can

1:05:07 ↗ really reallocate the funding from our police department into new programs that are much

1:05:13 ↗ more helpful in meeting the needs of all of the people in our community.

1:05:19 ↗ is what we're talking about when we say defund police. It doesn't mean we snap

1:05:23 ↗ our fingers and nothing exists the next day. The last thing I'm going to say

1:05:28 ↗ before I leave is a story, which is in 2015,

1:05:36 ↗ my mother called the Issaquah police because my father, who

1:05:43 ↗ suffers from addiction and alcoholism, was acting very erratically

1:05:49 ↗ and holding a knife and threatening himself and my mother.

1:05:55 ↗ And the police came screaming into, their squad

1:06:01 ↗ cars came roaring into the highlands. They surrounded my house and

1:06:07 ↗ they came out in their full gear, guns out.

1:06:18 ↗ Ultimately, they put him in the back of a police car. He's a middle-aged white

1:06:23 ↗ man. And they took him to Swedish hospital and they left him at the emergency

1:06:28 ↗ room. No police report was filed. Nothing related to

1:06:34 ↗ domestic violence. Before the police left,

1:06:41 ↗ I had found something odd in the house. A little baggie with something in it.

1:06:48 ↗ We showed it to police officers and, you know, he said, we think this is

1:06:54 ↗ some of his heroin. And the police officer said, you can just throw it away.

1:07:00 ↗ And I just remember being surprised and confused and shocked. And I was kind of

1:07:04 ↗ shocked anyway. I said, like in the trash? And he's like, sure. Excuse me,

1:07:10 ↗ Zoe. Zoe, you've reached the end of your comment time. Please summarize. Yeah, my point

1:07:13 ↗ is, The response to the police in that situation

1:07:20 ↗ probably would have been a lot different if my father had been black. But regardless,

1:07:25 ↗ there are better alternatives to meeting somebody with addiction or mental health issues

1:07:32 ↗ than coming in with blaring police sirens and outstretched guns.

1:07:38 ↗ Thank you for the time. Zoe, thank you so much for sharing your personal story.

1:07:43 ↗ Very impactful. I do not believe we have any speakers this evening, but I'm just

1:07:48 ↗ going to check back with the city clerk. We do not have any other speakers

1:07:53 ↗ on our list. I did loop back on the calls. We do have three unidentified

1:07:58 ↗ callers on the line that I could unmute and see if they'd like to make

1:08:02 ↗ a comment. Sure. Let's do that. Thank you. All right. We have a 612-308.

1:08:10 ↗ I've unmuted you. If you would like to make a comment, please let me know.

1:08:18 ↗ Calling once, calling twice. No, thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much.

1:08:25 ↗ Moving on to the next line, 206-330. If you'd like to make a comment, now

1:08:30 ↗ would be the time. Would you like to speak? No, thank you. Thank you.

1:08:38 ↗ And the third caller, it's a 206-619 number. If you'd like to make a comment,

1:08:43 ↗ please identify. Calling once.

1:08:50 ↗ Thank you. I would like to thank everyone who came and spoke this

1:08:56 ↗ evening and those that have come to the meeting to attend. There were some themes

1:09:02 ↗ that carried through the majority of our speakers tonight. I heard review your policing

1:09:07 ↗ policies, provide more transparency, create some community reporting on an annual

1:09:13 ↗ basis, reallocate police budget for social services, Listen

1:09:19 ↗ to the community voices that are here. Consider removing officers from schools. Reimagine

1:09:25 ↗ safety in our town. Every city in this country has to participate in this movement

1:09:30 ↗ to change racial bias and injustice in policing. Many, many comments about

1:09:36 ↗ how we have asked our police department and our police officers to do everything due

1:09:41 ↗ to a lack of investment in social services. we should be having community conversations about

1:09:46 ↗ recognizing and addressing biases in our community and in ourselves. That the community

1:09:52 ↗ values can be embedded in the budget and the way you allocate your resources. I

1:09:56 ↗ want to thank you all for sharing your thoughts, your ideas, your personal stories.

1:10:02 ↗ Very, very compelling information and probably one of our best attended council meeting in an

1:10:08 ↗ awfully long time. So thank you all. Please stay with us for the rest of

1:10:12 ↗ the meeting. I wanted to also say one more time that as you are listening

1:10:18 ↗ to the additional information presented tonight, you can still email the City Council at

1:10:24 ↗ citycouncil.isqalawa.gov with any other thoughts that you have or questions. Please

1:10:30 ↗ do that at any time this evening or tomorrow. And comments received by

1:10:37 ↗ email this week on tonight's agenda topics will be acknowledged by our council president under

1:10:43 ↗ the relevant agenda items. So the next item of business is committee and regional reports.

1:10:49 ↗ Let's start with Councilmember Hall. Thank you, Mayor Pauly. This is Zach

1:10:55 ↗ Hall. I have just a short report. Last Thursday,

1:11:00 ↗ June 11th, I attended the cascade water alliance resource management committee meeting of which I'm

1:11:06 ↗ a member. We met to discuss several topics for future board meetings,

1:11:12 ↗ including the treatment and control of aquatic vegetation. So largely milfoil in like tops

1:11:18 ↗ reservoir, a feasibility study to explore the use of solar energy at the lake taps

1:11:23 ↗ reservoir for the purpose of either offsetting our own loads or selling into the grid.

1:11:29 ↗ ongoing efforts to foster good relationships with Pierce County in the surrounding communities on stormwater

1:11:34 ↗ management policy and point non point source pollution prevention. Our ongoing

1:11:40 ↗ efforts to foster good relationships with the residents and property owners that also live on

1:11:44 ↗ lake taps. And then the temporary sale of surplus water to our member cities, which

1:11:50 ↗ we may be considering soon here in Issaquah. So I'm happy to debrief further or

1:11:55 ↗ answer anyone's questions here on council or for you, Mayor Polly, as the voting member

1:11:59 ↗ on the board in the next regularly scheduled meeting of the board will be later

1:12:05 ↗ this month on Wednesday, June 24th at 3.30 p.m. And that concludes my report.

1:12:11 ↗ Thank you, Council Member Hall. Council Member DeMichelle. Thank you, Mayor Pauly.

1:12:17 ↗ This is Council Member DeMichelle. I attended the Healthier Here Governing Board meeting, which was

1:12:23 ↗ held virtually on June the 4th. We heard status reports on several Healthier Here

1:12:28 ↗ initiatives, but the primary business centered around small group discussions as members debriefed

1:12:34 ↗ on lessons learned to date from COVID-19. And just a reminder that

1:12:41 ↗ most of the members of the Healthier Here Governing Board represent major health care providers

1:12:46 ↗ in our region. So some of the highlights of that debriefing were that

1:12:55 ↗ There was a general agreement that the major project that

1:13:00 ↗ Healthier Here is pursuing is a central information exchange for medical and behavioral health

1:13:06 ↗ patient records and general agreement that the COVID-19 has just

1:13:12 ↗ highlighted an urgent need for that exchange and that they need to go forward

1:13:18 ↗ with that as quickly as they can. General consensus that a large and

1:13:24 ↗ increasing number of homeless people is putting the entire region at risk and high

1:13:30 ↗ hopes that this realization will accelerate government and private responses to get more people housed.

1:13:37 ↗ Another issue that was surfaced by COVID-19 is a digital divide. And questions were

1:13:43 ↗ asked about should access to broadband and internet become a right as it is in

1:13:48 ↗ Europe? because the access to broadband

1:13:54 ↗ and internet is becoming a public health issue. And

1:14:00 ↗ because another thing that's surfaced from COVID-19 is the introduction of telehealth conferences.

1:14:06 ↗ Those have been deemed very, very successful and will most likely continue and expand in

1:14:11 ↗ the future. But there was a lot of discussion about how we increase broadband

1:14:17 ↗ access in rural areas to make that really Again, there was a

1:14:23 ↗ discussion about how COVID-19 has had a disproportionate impact in communities of color.

1:14:30 ↗ And of course, Healthier Here has had a major focus on equity since its beginning

1:14:35 ↗ four years ago. So those are some of the highlights from that discussion. It was

1:14:41 ↗ an excellent opportunity to hear from some of the major healthcare providers

1:14:47 ↗ in our region. My other report is that I'll be attending the Eastside Transportation

1:14:52 ↗ Partnership Meeting tomorrow morning at 9 o'clock, and that concludes my report. Thank you,

1:14:58 ↗ Councilmember DeMichelle. Councilmember Walsh? Thank you, Madam Mayor. This is Councilmember Walsh.

1:15:05 ↗ I have been trying to stay very connected with the Economic Development and Business Community,

1:15:11 ↗ though it has not been regular meetings. It's been one-offs and as much as possible

1:15:17 ↗ there. I did attend the Puget

1:15:23 ↗ Sound Regional Center, or excuse me, the Sound Cities Association webinar this morning on how

1:15:29 ↗ cities can help businesses in phase one and phase two recovery. That was an

1:15:35 ↗ amazing webinar that really focused on a lot of things, particularly that Redmond is doing.

1:15:40 ↗ I am going to share that with all of you when the recording comes through.

1:15:45 ↗ There were some very specific examples of things that we can do, and I can't

1:15:49 ↗ wait to talk to Jen Davis-Hayes all about it so that we can find ways

1:15:55 ↗ to do the same. And then the next meeting of the Puget Sound Regional Council's

1:16:01 ↗ Economic Development District Board is on July 1st. We have not had a meeting since

1:16:06 ↗ the pandemic and quarantine has happened. I'm hopeful that this one will occur, but I'm

1:16:12 ↗ crossing fingers at this point. I don't know. And that concludes my report. Thank you,

1:16:18 ↗ Council Member Walsh. Council Member Goodman. Thank you, Madam Mayor. Council Member Goodman here. Eastside

1:16:24 ↗ Fire and Rescue Board of Directors met last Thursday, and two items of note.

1:16:30 ↗ One was the budget was in the packet for referral to the Finance and Administration

1:16:34 ↗ Committee, which we did, the Board did refer to that committee. So that review will

1:16:39 ↗ begin soon. Second, at the board's request, the

1:16:45 ↗ chief put out a statement, which is on the front page of Eastside Fire and

1:16:50 ↗ Rescue's website in response to

1:16:56 ↗ the George Floyd death and the events since then. And the

1:17:02 ↗ statement talks about Eastside Fire being committed to protecting the dignity and well people

1:17:08 ↗ well-being of all people and doing their part to make sure people of all backgrounds

1:17:13 ↗ feel valued, safeguarded, and respected. Those are just two phrases. And

1:17:20 ↗ again, it's on the front page of Eastside Fire and Rescue's website. The Finance and

1:17:25 ↗ Administration Committee meets this Wednesday, a different time. It's from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m.

1:17:31 ↗ And we will be taking up, continuing our conversation on some...

1:17:37 ↗ revenues, some fees, and a collection of those fees, and may even

1:17:43 ↗ start reviewing the budget. And that concludes my report. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member

1:17:48 ↗ Goodman. Council Member Martz. Thank you, Madam Mayor. This is Council Member Martz. The Sound

1:17:54 ↗ Cities Association Public Issues Committee met at 7 p.m. on Wednesday, June 10th. And

1:18:00 ↗ we had three issues that would be of interest to Council. One is that on

1:18:04 ↗ the proposed King County rates and fees, action. A strong majority

1:18:10 ↗ of cities chose to move forward with that resolution for sending it

1:18:16 ↗ forward to the Sound City's Board of Directors for proposed

1:18:22 ↗ action. Having heard our council and having not gotten strong unanimity

1:18:28 ↗ on the issue, and in fact having seen our council as somewhat split on the

1:18:32 ↗ issue, I wound up voting no. I listened to the arguments and didn't hear A

1:18:37 ↗ compelling reason to go with yes, because we didn't have a majority, I didn't really

1:18:41 ↗ feel strong about it, but it passed anyhow. On COVID-19

1:18:47 ↗ legislative priorities action item that passed, I think unanimously, there might have been one or

1:18:53 ↗ two cities that had to abstain from the vote, but there

1:18:59 ↗ was essentially universal support. And then there was also a discussion on King County Emergency

1:19:04 ↗ Management Coordination. And I mentioned that our city had wrote a letter in support of

1:19:10 ↗ extending the current contract and having more meaningful conversations with the county about

1:19:19 ↗ positions that the county had been considering doing away with. They've

1:19:25 ↗ extended those through the end of the year. And I mentioned that we thought it'd

1:19:28 ↗ be nice to know what the dialogue may look like. And there was general support

1:19:32 ↗ from cities, both large and small, cities that had emergency directors that

1:19:38 ↗ nonetheless said these folks were performing an important task and they were supporting the

1:19:44 ↗ small cities that didn't have their own emergency directors. And so these positions were

1:19:50 ↗ absolutely critical. So that concludes my report. Thank you very much. Thank you, Council Member

1:19:55 ↗ Martz. Deputy Council President Wray. Hi, this is Chris Wray. Thank you, Mayor Pauly.

1:20:01 ↗ The King County Growth Management Planning Council will meet on June 24th at 4 p.m.

1:20:08 ↗ The agenda has not been set and the meeting format is still unclear. Updates later,

1:20:14 ↗ and that concludes my report. Thank you, Deputy Council President. Council President Hunt.

1:20:21 ↗ Thank you, Madam Mayor. The Management Committee of the YRA 8 Salmon Recovery Council will

1:20:26 ↗ be meeting likely this week, although the date and time has not yet been set.

1:20:31 ↗ And this is a subcommittee of the Salmon Recovery Council. We are tasked with

1:20:38 ↗ oversight of the cost share service provider team and of the budget. And so I

1:20:44 ↗ will report back on that meeting once we have it. That concludes my report. Thank

1:20:49 ↗ you, Council President. Just for those that have not been observing our council

1:20:55 ↗ meetings through COVID, it does sound like the council members are getting back into some

1:20:59 ↗ of their regular meeting modes. I'm hearing a lot more report outs, which is great.

1:21:04 ↗ For the mayor's report, I just have one item today, and it's a Juneteenth Day

1:21:09 ↗ proclamation. Cities around the country are talking about racial equity and social justice as

1:21:15 ↗ community members take to the streets to demonstrate for changes to policing and societal systems

1:21:20 ↗ that are biased towards people of color. Highlands Council has requested our city recognize the

1:21:25 ↗ significance of Juneteenth as part of our ongoing dialogues this year. With most other cities

1:21:31 ↗ around the region, I am pleased to provide the following proclamation this evening. Whereas we

1:21:36 ↗ acknowledge the notice of freedom given to the slaves of the state of Texas on

1:21:41 ↗ June 19th, 1865, and whereas we give honor and respect on this day to the

1:21:46 ↗ suffering of our ancestors and we acknowledge the evils of slavery and its aftermath, and

1:21:52 ↗ whereas we think about the moment in 1888 when 300 black men from Virginia, North

1:21:57 ↗ Carolina, and Kentucky were determined to escape the terrorism of the post-Civil War South

1:22:03 ↗ as they boarded trains for the Washington Territory and settled in King County mining camps.

1:22:08 ↗ And whereas the story and outspokenness of James Shepperson, an educated Black man who

1:22:14 ↗ settled in Roslyn, Washington in 1888, inspired many other Blacks to flee the South at

1:22:19 ↗ great risk and pursue new opportunities in Washington State as miners. And whereas we

1:22:25 ↗ acknowledge African-American freedom contributions and achievements within this community, past and present,

1:22:32 ↗ and whereas during this Juneteenth event we appreciate the African American experience and celebrate the

1:22:37 ↗ inclusion of all races, ethnicities, and nationalities, and whereas we commit to working

1:22:43 ↗ together toward equity for all in expanding economic, educational, and career

1:22:49 ↗ opportunities for all those in our community, Now therefore I, Mary Lou Polly, Mayor of

1:22:55 ↗ the City of Issaquah, do hereby proclaim June 19th to be the Juneteenth Day in

1:23:00 ↗ the City of Issaquah, and I encourage all citizens to eliminate prejudice everywhere and join

1:23:06 ↗ me in this celebration. In witness thereof, I here unto set my hand in steel

1:23:11 ↗ of the City of Issaquah this fifteenth day of June 2020. We also want to

1:23:16 ↗ let the Council know that I have issued a second version of the City Proclamation

1:23:20 ↗ for the Issaquah Highlands Council so that they can display it in Blakely Hall and

1:23:24 ↗ highlight the values of their Issaquah community in support of the recognition of Juneteenth in

1:23:30 ↗ the Highlands. I really wanted to thank Christy Gerard for working on this last week

1:23:34 ↗ with the Mayor's Office. The next item of business on our agenda this evening is

1:23:39 ↗ the consent calendar, which was distributed to Council in advance. And if authorized, the items

1:23:44 ↗ on this consent calendar will be considered together and approved by one motion. Have the

1:23:50 ↗ payables and payroll been reviewed? This is Council Member DeMichelle. Yes.

1:23:56 ↗ This is Council Member Walsh. They have. Thank you. Does any Council Member desire to

1:24:01 ↗ remove any item from the consent calendar and consider it under regular business?

1:24:08 ↗ Before we move to the motion on the consent calendar, I want to check in

1:24:11 ↗ with Council President Hunt and find out if you had any email contents that you

1:24:15 ↗ wanted to share on the consent calendar this evening. Thank you. This is Council President

1:24:20 ↗ Hunt. We did receive one email on consent items, which I will summarize.

1:24:27 ↗ The email, the Residents disagreed with the

1:24:33 ↗ funding of the turf project, which refers to a irrigation project that complement park and

1:24:39 ↗ felt that this was not a pressing need. And also that was concerned about additional

1:24:43 ↗ water that would be needed for the irrigation. And this resident also recommended

1:24:49 ↗ approval of the King County, COVID 19 funding for housing stability, which is also on

1:24:54 ↗ consent. That concludes the summary of our correspondence on consent items. Thank you very much.

1:25:00 ↗ And for those that are watching, this has been a practice that Council President has

1:25:04 ↗ been using during COVID when access to our meetings and to your council has been

1:25:09 ↗ more restricted. Is there a motion to approve the consent calendar?

1:25:16 ↗ This is Council President Hunt. I move to adopt the consent agenda as presented in

1:25:20 ↗ this evening's agenda. Hi, this is Chris Ray. I'll second the motion.

1:25:26 ↗ It's been moved and seconded. City Clerk, can you please call the roll?

1:25:33 ↗ Yes, Council Member DeMichel? Aye. Council Member Goodman? Aye.

1:25:39 ↗ Council Member Hall? Aye. Council President Hunt? Aye.

1:25:46 ↗ Council Member Martz? Aye. Deputy Council President Wray?

1:25:52 ↗ Aye. Council Member Walsh? Aye. That's seven ayes, zero nays.

1:25:58 ↗ Thank you very much. That passes unanimously. We're now going to move on to our

1:26:03 ↗ regular business. And the item we have this evening is AB 7987, Racial Equity,

1:26:10 ↗ City Initiatives and Procedures. This evening, council is going to be hearing the

1:26:15 ↗ presentation and after questions and answers, providing some direction to the administration.

1:26:21 ↗ There are multiple staff contributing to tonight's presentation. And I'd like to ask City Administrator

1:26:26 ↗ Wally Bobkiewicz to start us off tonight.

1:26:33 ↗ Yes, thank you, Madam Mayor, members of the Council. Good evening. As the Mayor has

1:26:37 ↗ mentioned, we do have a variety of things that we would like to discuss. The

1:26:42 ↗ Mayor's comments at the beginning of the meeting plus the comments of the members of

1:26:46 ↗ the public really are sobering. And our intent this evening is to try to provide

1:26:51 ↗ some background, not to provide solutions, not to provide end results, but really to provide

1:26:56 ↗ some background as the Council and the community continue discussions over the

1:27:02 ↗ next period of time. Next slide, please.

1:27:08 ↗ We have several component parts to the presentation. First, I'm going to be

1:27:14 ↗ asking Police Chief Scott Bierbaum to give an overview of some of the pertinent policies

1:27:20 ↗ and procedures that we currently are using at the police department. We think that this

1:27:25 ↗ is a good base. for the issues that we're facing and we wanted to give

1:27:29 ↗ the City Council this evening and members of the community an opportunity to hear from

1:27:33 ↗ the Chief on the work that we have been doing. Next, we're going to have

1:27:39 ↗ Judge Scott Stewart, the judge of the Issaquah Municipal Court, speak about

1:27:45 ↗ some of the work that the Issaquah Municipal Court has been doing. Next, we'll be

1:27:50 ↗ talking about initiatives that we have been doing within the City of Issaquah Municipal Government

1:27:54 ↗ Organization on equity. as well as discuss some of the community

1:28:00 ↗ initiatives that we have been involved in. Again, it's our hope that these discussions this

1:28:05 ↗ evening will provide some context and some basis for further discussion and direction. And then

1:28:11 ↗ we'll talk about what the administration sees are some proposed next steps as we move

1:28:16 ↗ forward. So Madam Mayor, members of the council, unless there's any initial questions, I'd like

1:28:21 ↗ to ask Police Chief Scott Beerbaum to move forward with his portion of the presentation.

1:28:31 ↗ Thank you, City Administrator Bobquitz, and thank you, Council Members and Mayor Pawley. Good evening.

1:28:36 ↗ I am Chief Scott Beerbaum. Over the past two weeks, we've been working to answer

1:28:40 ↗ our community members' questions. As part of our racial equity conversation, some community members have

1:28:46 ↗ expressed a desire to learn more about the Issaquah Police Department's policies, procedures, and training.

1:28:51 ↗ Tonight's presentation, again, to echo City Administrator Bobquitz, information is

1:28:57 ↗ about providing information to the council and our community on how our department approaches law

1:29:02 ↗ enforcement in Issaquah and on where to learn more about those approaches.

1:29:09 ↗ Tonight I will begin by outlining two national frameworks that guide how we approach policing

1:29:13 ↗ in our community. Then I'll discuss several state factors that have influences on our current

1:29:18 ↗ law enforcement environment, followed by our local factors such as our policy manual. And finally,

1:29:23 ↗ I will discuss our ongoing training that our department members go through. Next slide, please.

1:29:32 ↗ I'll start with more of the national policing initiatives that we use to guide how

1:29:37 ↗ we approach law enforcement. In 2015, the president established the 21st Century Policing Task Force.

1:29:44 ↗ It basically created a national guiding document establishing best practices and recommendations on how policing

1:29:50 ↗ practices can address effective crime reduction while building public trust. One of our state,

1:29:56 ↗ our executive director of the Washington State Criminal Justice Training Commission, Sue Rahr, was a

1:30:00 ↗ member of that task force and helped in the development of that final report. Essentially,

1:30:04 ↗ the task force identified six areas or pillars that law enforcement agencies could act on.

1:30:12 ↗ Seeing on our slide, they focus on trust, which is the building of relationships within

1:30:16 ↗ the community. Policy and oversight, ensuring that policies reflect community values, establish

1:30:22 ↗ clear and comprehensive policies on how the police department interacts with the community to include

1:30:27 ↗ use of force. Third pillar is technology and social media. Basically

1:30:33 ↗ claiming that law enforcement agencies should adopt model policies and best practices for technology-based community

1:30:38 ↗ engagement that increases community trust and access. This would include the possibility of

1:30:44 ↗ utilization of body cameras or in-car video. The next pillar is community

1:30:49 ↗ policing. This really means working with neighborhoods and residents and communities to collaborate on public

1:30:55 ↗ safety, working alongside with, coming up with solutions that best fit what the community needs

1:31:01 ↗ to address public safety. Training and education. This

1:31:07 ↗ is really focusing on the scope issue that scope of policing in the United States

1:31:12 ↗ is widening and the agency should focus on quality training and education to ensure that

1:31:17 ↗ police officers are able to effectively respond to the community needs. And then finally is

1:31:23 ↗ safety and wellness. This is not just about equipment to save lives. This is also

1:31:28 ↗ expanded in recent time to help support the emotional well-being of officers to ensure that

1:31:33 ↗ they are able to serve the community.

1:31:40 ↗ The other national policing initiative is the Police Executive Research Forum, or PERF. PERF is

1:31:45 ↗ an independent research organization that focuses on critical issues in policing. In 2016,

1:31:51 ↗ they released the 30 guiding principles on use of force. In this, one of the

1:31:56 ↗ first principles that was identified was the sanctity of human life. You can see it.

1:32:02 ↗ The sanctity of human life should be at the heart of everything an agency does.

1:32:06 ↗ It is ensuring that that is the first and foremost focus of what a police

1:32:09 ↗ department is, how they respond to their community needs. Additional

1:32:15 ↗ principles that are covered in this perf are minimum requirements related to use of force,

1:32:20 ↗ recommendation for de-escalation, crisis intervention, training your officers on decision making,

1:32:27 ↗ the duty to intervene if an officer is seen to be using excessive force, the

1:32:31 ↗ duty to render first aid, prohibition of shooting at moving vehicles and the documentation of

1:32:37 ↗ use of force. Next slide, please.

1:32:47 ↗ Law enforcement is not equal across our country. Although there are national initiatives, policing is

1:32:52 ↗ different in each state as there are differences in state constitutions, government structures, training standards,

1:32:58 ↗ etc. Additionally, policing is different city to city due to community expectations and funding. I'd

1:33:03 ↗ like now to highlight a few steps the state of Washington has taken to address

1:33:07 ↗ expectations of law enforcement. They've established the certification of peace officers in 2001

1:33:13 ↗ and just recently the certifications for corrections officers in this year 2020.

1:33:19 ↗ Prior to even getting into law enforcement, there's an expectation in per Washington administrative

1:33:25 ↗ code that background investigations into candidates for policing conducted that would include a

1:33:31 ↗ full background a psychological testing and polygraph examinations

1:33:37 ↗ officers are required to attend the basic law enforcement academy which is 720 hours of

1:33:43 ↗ training or corrections officers are also required to attend at least 160 hour

1:33:48 ↗ training course through the Washington State Criminal Justice Training Center

1:33:55 ↗ as part of in part of additional training mandates mandatory annual

1:34:01 ↗ crisis intervention or de-escalation or and implicit bias.

1:34:07 ↗ The Douglas Ostling Act requires eight hours of crisis intervention training for officers

1:34:13 ↗ and recently I-940 in 2018 now currently known as the Law Enforcement Training and Community

1:34:19 ↗ Safety Act requires de-escalation and implicit bias training to be included for

1:34:25 ↗ police agencies. Next slide please.

1:34:35 ↗ Also as part of the Law Enforcement Training Community Safety Act was the update to

1:34:40 ↗ officers' responsibility for rendering first aid if use of force is used on someone. It

1:34:46 ↗ also requires independent investigations by an outside police agency to investigate the

1:34:51 ↗ actions of the police officers who use deadly force or significant force. Our agency has

1:34:57 ↗ utilized the King County Sheriff's Office for any of our significant force investigations.

1:35:06 ↗ The act also repealed the requirement that an officer act with malice to be subject

1:35:10 ↗ to criminal charges for the unlawful use of deadly force and replace it with an

1:35:14 ↗ objective good faith standard. Essentially, the officer must have been found to have acted within

1:35:18 ↗ good faith. And it would be clear, this is not 20-20 hindsight, but was known

1:35:23 ↗ to the officer at the time. Additionally, The

1:35:29 ↗ state has established process for revocation of peace officers or corrections officer certifications who have

1:35:34 ↗ either violated the law or have committed criminal acts or have violated certain policies

1:35:40 ↗ within the profession. Next slide,

1:35:44 ↗ please. I'm going to now focus more on

1:35:50 ↗ our police department policies and standards. Our agency uses Lexapol policy manual It is a

1:35:56 ↗ risk management based best practices policy manual. It's essentially an active living, breathing, guiding

1:36:02 ↗ document that is updated regular due to case law or best practices. In

1:36:07 ↗ addition to the policy manual, it is associated with, I'll cover later in our training

1:36:12 ↗ aspect with daily training bulletins where our officers are required to review a policy,

1:36:18 ↗ compare it to a scenario based training and then answer a quiz. This is daily.

1:36:22 ↗ Our officer Our police department also subscribes to state

1:36:27 ↗ accreditation through the Washington Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs. This is the outside

1:36:33 ↗ audit of our policies, our practices and procedures to confirm that we are adhering to

1:36:38 ↗ the industry best practices and standards. This includes our use of force reporting, our training,

1:36:44 ↗ hiring processes, our standards and our supervision responsibilities as well.

1:36:51 ↗ Next slide, please.

1:37:06 ↗ A lot of questions have come from our community specifically about the

1:37:10 ↗ eightcantwait.org. And those are focused on the eight

1:37:16 ↗ initiatives or eight concerns that have been identified. Our policy manual in Lexapol does

1:37:22 ↗ identify all of these that are identified in the eightcantwait.

1:37:28 ↗ Our policy manual currently does not allow for the use of choke holds or strangle

1:37:33 ↗ holds. We do require de-escalation. We do require warnings before shooting if

1:37:39 ↗ possible. We do require that our officers do use only the necessary force

1:37:45 ↗ and attempt to exhaust alternatives before using deadly force. Our use of force

1:37:51 ↗ policy does contain a section that states it's a duty of an officer to intervene

1:37:56 ↗ if they observe what they believe is excessive force. We do ban shooting at moving

1:38:01 ↗ vehicles. Our use of force policy does require a use of force continuum

1:38:07 ↗ or elevated force only necessary to that to achieve the lawful

1:38:12 ↗ purpose intended. And our policy manual also includes the requirements to have

1:38:18 ↗ documented use of force for when our officers use force or potentially could use force

1:38:24 ↗ as well. Next slide, please. I just want to check in with

1:38:30 ↗ Council Member Goodman. She did indicate she had a question. I'm just not sure if

1:38:34 ↗ it's a quick one and she wants to ask it now or she wants to

1:38:36 ↗ wait till the end of your presentation. Council Member Goodman, what's your preference? I think

1:38:42 ↗ maybe before we get too far down, the Chief was talking about Lexi Paul

1:38:48 ↗ and the policies that we have

1:38:54 ↗ in response to some of the questions that the community has raised, those policies all

1:38:59 ↗ at the bottom say draft. And so I wondered, Chief, I think you

1:39:05 ↗ maybe had addressed this earlier, maybe in an implied way. And I wondered if you

1:39:11 ↗ could speak to why the policies that we have are at the bottom stamped draft.

1:39:19 ↗ Thank you. The policies that we had sent out to

1:39:25 ↗ Council prior to the meeting were plucked from the

1:39:31 ↗ document in total. So the actual separate policies that were sent to

1:39:36 ↗ Council ahead of time were only the individual policies. We currently have our

1:39:42 ↗ entire policy manual posted on our website that has everything. When we

1:39:50 ↗ the policy out of LexPol directly as opposed to the entire in its entirety it

1:39:55 ↗ will pull it out as a draft PDF. Thank you. Thank you

1:40:01 ↗ Councilmember Goodman. Chief continue. So

1:40:07 ↗ I want to talk a little bit about our department training. So as part of

1:40:11 ↗ the state requirements additionally the state requires 24 hours of minimum hours of in-service training.

1:40:18 ↗ agency is committed to that ongoing training in all aspects of the profession and we

1:40:23 ↗ average well above that as an organization. In addition to the crisis intervention

1:40:28 ↗ requirements, it does state that an officer is required to attend a basic

1:40:34 ↗ eight-hour and annual two-hour refresher. Not only do we require our officers to attend, but

1:40:40 ↗ we require all of our police department employees, so our corrections officers, our dispatchers, our

1:40:45 ↗ records employees, and our administrative assistants as well. We feel that it's important that all

1:40:50 ↗ members of our agency are engaged in the crisis intervention. Additionally, the state

1:40:55 ↗ recommends 25% of your department attend a 40-hour course, and we are well above

1:41:01 ↗ that on how many of our officers have attended the 40-hour course with a goal

1:41:04 ↗ of 100% of our employees to have that

1:41:11 ↗ 40-hour course as well. That is a priority for us as an organization. In regards

1:41:16 ↗ to diversity and equity training, throughout the last several

1:41:22 ↗ years, we required our officers to attend trainings, not only sponsored by

1:41:28 ↗ the state criminal justice training center, but also we've brought in community members to help

1:41:32 ↗ provide additional training. 2015, we actually brought in Captain john Hayes from

1:41:38 ↗ Seattle Police Department as part of who was part of their community outreach team and

1:41:42 ↗ he brought in community members from different communities within the region to have conversations

1:41:48 ↗ with our officers to talk about equity to talk about bias and to talk about.

1:41:53 ↗ It will implicit bias and how to communicate and how to partner with our communities

1:41:57 ↗ 2016 we brought in Reverend Wayne Perryman from Mercer Island, who has been

1:42:03 ↗ active in the region regarding diversity as well. We've had additional anti-harassment

1:42:09 ↗ training. We've been a part of the city equity training as well that you hear

1:42:12 ↗ more about tonight. And then in the past year, we've been focusing on another course

1:42:19 ↗ put on by Dr. Bryant Martz from Morehouse College called Acknowledging and Managing Hidden Bias

1:42:24 ↗ in Good People. This is again talking about implicit bias,

1:42:29 ↗ recognizing that, and then being able to understand that everyone has is

1:42:35 ↗ impacted by bias or implicit bias, and they have to recognize it and then be

1:42:40 ↗ able to use tips and tools to be able to overcome that to make sure

1:42:43 ↗ that you're providing effective services for our community. I already did mention about our Lexapol

1:42:48 ↗ daily training bulletins as well. So each one of our employees daily reviews a policy,

1:42:53 ↗ applies it to a scenario-based training, and then takes a test on it as well.

1:42:59 ↗ Next slide, please. So next steps

1:43:05 ↗ for the police department. We've been having continuous conversations with a lot of our community

1:43:09 ↗ members and our community groups, and we're looking forward to having more of those. We're

1:43:13 ↗ in this learning period of trying to understand some of our community's concerns and trying

1:43:19 ↗ to make sure that as many voices are heard as well. We're going to continue

1:43:23 ↗ to review our policies and procedures. Again, they're updated on a regular basis based on

1:43:28 ↗ case law and recent activities in the police profession.

1:43:34 ↗ Our policy manual is available on the website, so please, we encourage our community members

1:43:38 ↗ to review it and provide any feedback that they have as well.

1:43:45 ↗ And then I want to talk about state-level conversations. We're already having a lot of

1:43:48 ↗ conversations at the state level with other police chiefs, with legislatures as well. Some of

1:43:53 ↗ the conversations that are going on currently are talking about maybe a statewide use of

1:43:59 ↗ force standard. They want to look at arbitration reform. What they mean by that is

1:44:04 ↗ being able to look at how agencies are able to hold officers accountable and to

1:44:09 ↗ make sure that maybe sometimes officers that have demonstrated certain

1:44:15 ↗ aspects are held accountable for their actions. And there's also discussion about having a state

1:44:21 ↗ level outside investigation into officer use of force. Currently, it just requires another

1:44:26 ↗ police agency to, but we are having conversations at a statewide level to have investigations

1:44:31 ↗ into officer of force. Additionally, they are looking into

1:44:36 ↗ implementing peer intervention training to again have at the officer level intervene

1:44:42 ↗ if there's issues that they're seeing on how officers are acting within their own agencies.

1:44:48 ↗ And they want to increase the transparency into investigations and ensure that the proper investigations

1:44:53 ↗ occur. So again, having another oversight group to look into those outside agency investigations. Our

1:44:58 ↗ goal again, going back to the whole reason for the 21st century policing is to

1:45:04 ↗ enhance public trust. So as we move forward, we're going to continue to listen to

1:45:08 ↗ our agency to our community members. We want to hear more from them. I appreciate

1:45:13 ↗ the public comments tonight. I'm looking forward to our next steps and I'm opening the

1:45:18 ↗ floor for any questions. Thank you, Chief. I am keeping my eye on the chat

1:45:23 ↗ box to see if there are any council members who would like to ask any

1:45:28 ↗ questions now. And we have a couple of comments and questions showing up. So I'll

1:45:33 ↗ go first to Council Member Goodman for a comment.

1:45:39 ↗ And a question. It's actually a question. I'm sorry, but I've already spoken. So I

1:45:44 ↗ can let Council President Hunt and Council Member Walsh go before me. Thank you very

1:45:48 ↗ much. Council President Hunt for a question followed by Council Member Walsh. Thank you. This

1:45:53 ↗ is Council President Hunt. In the information that you provided, Chief Beerbohm, about

1:45:59 ↗ the policies that relate to the 8 Can't Wait initiative,

1:46:06 ↗ there seems like, and also when you were speaking to it, it seems like there

1:46:10 ↗ are some potential, there's more information there in the policies than

1:46:16 ↗ For instance, one is require warnings before shooting, and I think our policy is when

1:46:21 ↗ possible. And so I wondered if there can be a review of

1:46:27 ↗ other code that does comply completely with 8 Can't Waits and then see if we

1:46:32 ↗ can clarify those components where ours

1:46:38 ↗ is different than 8 Can't Wait. Thank you. Chief?

1:46:46 ↗ I just want to make sure I have clarity on that question. Thank you. You

1:46:50 ↗ want to make sure that our policies are

1:46:57 ↗ matching the 8 Can't Wait concerns through either ensuring the

1:47:03 ↗ language is matching or identifies and

1:47:08 ↗ addresses those concerns directly.

1:47:14 ↗ Yes, I think So the example I gave is that in the eight can't wait

1:47:20 ↗ policies, it has require warning before shooting. And then

1:47:26 ↗ in the example that we gave as our policy, it has when possible. And so

1:47:32 ↗ I wonder if there are other situations like that where we

1:47:38 ↗ could do a review to make sure that it's exactly aligned and as closely aligned

1:47:42 ↗ as possible. Yes, absolutely. We

1:47:48 ↗ can take a look at and have a further review of those. Thank you.

1:47:54 ↗ Looks like City Administrator Bobquist would like to add something. Yes, Madam Mayor, Council President

1:48:00 ↗ Hunt, as we're going through the various questions with speakers, what I'm going to

1:48:06 ↗ do is keep a good list of these. And so at the end of the

1:48:10 ↗ discussion, we can come back to that. We have as far as this question regarding

1:48:15 ↗ the policies for the 8 Can't Wait, one of the things we would like to

1:48:18 ↗ do and come back to the Council is review all of the policies that we

1:48:23 ↗ currently have with the 8 Can't Wait, and if there are revisions, evaluate those revisions

1:48:28 ↗ and report back to the City Council. Thank you, City Administrator. Council President Hunt, does

1:48:33 ↗ that answer your question? Yes, thank you. Council Member Walsh. Thank

1:48:39 ↗ you. I have a bunch of questions, but I save some of them but

1:48:45 ↗ one of the things I wanted to ask the chief was whether or not we

1:48:48 ↗ record measure and publish any statistics on race related

1:48:54 ↗ to interactions or arrests or acts of violence or use

1:49:00 ↗ of force or weapons pulled whether or not there are any measurements of that

1:49:06 ↗ that we could help both and you making decisions about future use

1:49:12 ↗ but then also community transparency. Chief? Yes, that's a

1:49:18 ↗ great question. We've been looking at our use of force reports and we want to

1:49:23 ↗ try and figure out a way to make those public and increase that transparency as

1:49:29 ↗ well. We do a bias-based policing review each year

1:49:36 ↗ to take a look at our arrests and take a look at all complaints, everything

1:49:41 ↗ that we have to evaluate what sort of changes need to occur or if there

1:49:46 ↗ are any trends or if there are any concerns related to that. So we are

1:49:50 ↗ currently working at saying how can we provide those to the public?

1:49:57 ↗ Thank you. Councilmember Walsh, some additional questions, I assume. Yeah, and just pushing a little

1:50:03 ↗ bit on that, Chief. It sounds like that's data that some of which you may

1:50:09 ↗ have, some of which you are looking at how you can have, but which is

1:50:13 ↗ reviewed internally. I'm wondering if there is a way that we can look at that

1:50:18 ↗ either from a semi-external source, such as council or other parts of the administration,

1:50:25 ↗ or with the public or with an outside agency. What are options are there for

1:50:30 ↗ oversight so that it's not a situation where police are policing themselves, which doesn't

1:50:36 ↗ necessarily lead to transparency and community trust.

1:50:41 ↗ Chief? Yeah, we're looking at all aspects, and we recognize that that is a

1:50:47 ↗ concern of policing, policing the police, and we want to make sure that we have

1:50:51 ↗ those availabilities. Some of the concerns or some of the options that we're looking at

1:50:56 ↗ is, again, having an outside entity review our policies and take a look at some

1:51:01 ↗ of our data just to have that outside source make that review and again

1:51:07 ↗ making it available to the public on our website as well so people can see

1:51:12 ↗ for themselves. Council member Walsh another question? Yeah I'm going to

1:51:19 ↗ kind of give a list of my questions because I think some of these are

1:51:22 ↗ going to be things that need research and come back to us. That's great. I'd

1:51:27 ↗ like to get metrics on our use of force number of times weapons are pulled

1:51:33 ↗ and the number of times weapons are used. I would like information about

1:51:39 ↗ the kind of militarized equipment that we might have and what

1:51:45 ↗ budget has been spent on that. I'd like to know what our approach is to

1:51:50 ↗ asset seizure and whether or not we do any asset seizure when there isn't an

1:51:55 ↗ arrest or crime that is involved. I'd like to know if we have

1:52:01 ↗ information about discipline and firing stats, whether how we're

1:52:07 ↗ approaching those things, whether or not we have a percentage of, you know, a number

1:52:12 ↗ of discipline acts before someone is fired, what our opportunities are there. I'd like to

1:52:17 ↗ know if we've ever considered having some portion of our police service be done without

1:52:23 ↗ firearms, whether or not there is a possibility of looking at something where we do

1:52:29 ↗ not have lethal force weapons on hand or only have them on hand when there

1:52:34 ↗ is a violent encounter involved and whether or not that's something we've ever

1:52:40 ↗ considered. I know we have a community dashboard that shows the number

1:52:46 ↗ of police calls by subject area and that the

1:52:52 ↗ large majority of our calls are either for theft or non-injury

1:52:57 ↗ car collisions. And I'm wondering if there are other opportunities for things like

1:53:03 ↗ that that are really just making reports for

1:53:10 ↗ someone else to do that type of response, because I'm sure there is no police

1:53:16 ↗ officer who loves writing reports. And I'd like the information included

1:53:22 ↗ in the next time that we touch this on that community dashboard so that we

1:53:27 ↗ can give the community a sense of what those police calls are usually about.

1:53:33 ↗ And then for any of the disciplinary firing or

1:53:39 ↗ hiring, I'm wondering if there are opportunities for civilian oversight or review

1:53:45 ↗ outside of what we do in the case of lethal force

1:53:51 ↗ where King County sheriffs currently does the review whether or not there's an opportunity for

1:53:56 ↗ that to be something that's civilian related. And that is my list of questions,

1:54:02 ↗ which Wally, I will also email so that you have them down on hand. Thank

1:54:07 ↗ you. Thank you, Council Member Walsh. I'm going to go to Council Member DeMiselle next.

1:54:14 ↗ Thank you. Chief Beerbohm and And I have

1:54:19 ↗ talked earlier about, in fact, when I came on board,

1:54:25 ↗ we talked about how the Redmond City Police do have a full-time mental health

1:54:31 ↗ counselor. And of course, that has been a real interest of mine to

1:54:37 ↗ integrate mental health counseling or having that available for the police.

1:54:44 ↗ I did a little research into how that operates.

1:54:50 ↗ It is a woman that is their mental health counselor. It is a full-time position.

1:54:56 ↗ She does wear a police uniform and she has been trained in some aspects of

1:55:01 ↗ the police procedures, but she is there specifically to go on

1:55:07 ↗ call for, as it was pointed out by one of our members,

1:55:14 ↗ People who commented, the police usually know or often have a good idea that there's

1:55:19 ↗ a mental health issue on particular calls and she is available to go on those

1:55:24 ↗ calls. So that's one model. That's one model that city of Redmond has been

1:55:30 ↗ employing and I think has had success at. And so

1:55:36 ↗ I'm wondering if there is any discussion either regionally or at the state level

1:55:42 ↗ about what would be best practices in terms of integrating mental health counselors

1:55:48 ↗ with our police department, making sure that on those calls where that would be

1:55:55 ↗ really appropriate, how that might work in practice

1:56:03 ↗ with policing. And Chief Beerbaum, would you have any comments on that or is that

1:56:08 ↗ something need to know more work on? There

1:56:14 ↗ actually has been an increased focus on having embedded mental health

1:56:20 ↗ counselors in policing in police departments. There's been support at the state level for

1:56:26 ↗ certain grant opportunities for embedding a mental health social worker as well

1:56:33 ↗ and some agencies you know have been working towards that It is definitely

1:56:39 ↗ important that those services would be available 24 hours a day

1:56:45 ↗ to be able to have that intended purpose or that intended outcome. So,

1:56:52 ↗ but there is more information out there, but there has been a move and support

1:56:56 ↗ at the state level for that program. Thank you.

1:57:02 ↗ And just to follow up, I will say that I like a lot of the

1:57:07 ↗ ideas in the Redmond City model. I like the idea of integrating

1:57:13 ↗ the two services together so that they're working cooperatively rather than setting up a system

1:57:19 ↗ where those are siloed and not talking to each other. So just a

1:57:25 ↗ follow-up comment. Thank you very much. Thank you, Council Member DeMichelle.

1:57:31 ↗ Going to Council Member Goodman. Thank you, Council Member

1:57:36 ↗ Goodman here. Following up

1:57:42 ↗ on Council Member DeMichelle's comment, it's a question

1:57:49 ↗ just to write down as we're looking at potential other models for the police department

1:57:55 ↗ and embedded social workers, mental health workers, et cetera, et cetera. I would like

1:58:02 ↗ to put on there not so much a question as a comment, but looking at

1:58:06 ↗ integrating our resources so that, to use the word that was used

1:58:12 ↗ already and we've used before and tried to get away from, I'm working in silos.

1:58:17 ↗ So including resources from Eastside Fire and Rescue and their newer integrated

1:58:24 ↗ mobile services. I can't remember what it's called specifically, but Monica and the Gorilla up

1:58:30 ↗ to speed on that, looking at those. So it's embedding folks, but then what?

1:58:36 ↗ And also helping use all of our resources so we can spread this

1:58:41 ↗ workload around and help respond the best way we can.

1:58:48 ↗ Questions I have. Policy 302 talks about the use of

1:58:54 ↗ force and the review boards, and I'm not exactly sure that this is what Council

1:58:58 ↗ Member Walsh would talking about, but the policy 302

1:59:04 ↗ specifically has a composition of a review board that is internal members only, internal to

1:59:10 ↗ the police department. And so I would like us to look at

1:59:16 ↗ broadening that to include folks that are not solely within that department.

1:59:22 ↗ The Lexapol, I realize it's a risk

1:59:27 ↗ management service. I'm not sure how that dovetails with

1:59:34 ↗ insurance. We already had one question tonight about whether or

1:59:40 ↗ not we can have different language. And I know that's not exactly what Council

1:59:46 ↗ President Hutton said, but that's one interpretation of that question that I had. And so

1:59:51 ↗ one question I have is, if we subscribe to LexiPol, can we

1:59:58 ↗ from the standard language that Lexapol provides and what's the effect of

2:00:04 ↗ that? Chief Birbam, you talked about,

2:00:12 ↗ let's see, in an email we received, it had about the

2:00:20 ↗ policies requiring de-escalation, policy 209.4,

2:00:28 ↗ that identifies that officers are required to complete a minimum of 40 hours of continuing

2:00:33 ↗ de-escalation and mental health training every three years per WAC 139-11-020.

2:00:43 ↗ In that WAC section, it also refers to

2:00:50 ↗ a new There's a piece of paper I had. It refers to requirements of

2:00:55 ↗ training for law enforcement that became effective February, I

2:01:01 ↗ believe, February 2019. So if you

2:01:07 ↗ subtract out the months of COVID, that's really about a year. So I wanted some

2:01:13 ↗ more information on, and maybe Chief Behrbaum knows this off the top of his head,

2:01:18 ↗ but when we're talking about whether or not that officers are required to go through

2:01:24 ↗ de-escalation and mental health training every three years per that section of the WAC, has

2:01:30 ↗ that been ongoing? Because that WAC is new and the law is new.

2:01:36 ↗ And I'm just wanting to be clear on whether that's a new requirement, because if

2:01:42 ↗ it is, I think we should be clear about that. Or if it's ongoing and

2:01:46 ↗ it's just changed a little bit, I think that's different. That may be something that

2:01:51 ↗ Chief Baerbaum knows the answer to right now. If not, I can wait. Yes. Yeah,

2:01:57 ↗ thank you for that question. We have been working already on training for de-escalation in

2:02:02 ↗ the department prior to the enactment of the result of

2:02:09 ↗ I 940. I 940 is what established that new WAC and that actually 40 hours

2:02:13 ↗ I believe needs to be accomplished by 2021. We've already been engaging in the de-escalation

2:02:19 ↗ training for the police department as it was so that was already part of our

2:02:24 ↗ normal training plan the state now as part of I 940 has then

2:02:29 ↗ increased it to de-escalation mandated for all

2:02:37 ↗ the Law Enforcement Training and Community Safety Act, that is part of the new requirements.

2:02:41 ↗ So that is the official state requirement. Our department has already been working on the

2:02:46 ↗ training for de-escalation. Great, wonderful, thank you. Are we gonna have a

2:02:52 ↗ separate time for comments? Or should we, not that we'd

2:02:58 ↗ be cut off if we have additional comments later, should we also make comments now,

2:03:03 ↗ Mayor, or should we wait? Yeah, I think it's okay if it's a quick comment,

2:03:08 ↗ although I do see that at least one council member has another question. So I

2:03:12 ↗ think what I prefer to do is go to council member Hall for his question.

2:03:17 ↗ And then if there are no more questions, I know that I have you and

2:03:21 ↗ council member Hall and council member Martz lined up for comments. So council member Hall

2:03:25 ↗ question. Thank you, council member Goodman. Thank you. And I have, oh, this is Zach

2:03:30 ↗ Hall. Thank you, Mayor Pauly. And I have, one question and two comments, so feel

2:03:34 ↗ free to tell me to save my comments for later, and I'm happy to do

2:03:37 ↗ that. I was interested in, so we compared ourselves to the 8

2:03:43 ↗ Can't Wait campaign, and I think that's very helpful. But I would be interested too

2:03:49 ↗ if staff or Chief Garibald, if you've looked into any other campaigns that are out

2:03:53 ↗ there, I've seen kind of a lot floating in our emails and social media. We

2:03:57 ↗ heard about the grassroots law project during the comment

2:04:03 ↗ tonight. I know I just saw another one, the use of forest

2:04:08 ↗ project.org. I was just curious if we had looked into any other campaigns to kind

2:04:14 ↗ of compare ourselves in different ways because some of them have different metrics that they're

2:04:18 ↗ looking at, different policies that they're looking at. Chief Beerbunk?

2:04:25 ↗ We've been keeping an eye on a lot of the different initiatives that have been

2:04:29 ↗ coming forward and comparing our policies to. At the time of production of this

2:04:35 ↗ presentation, it can't wait was kind of one of the ones that was getting more

2:04:38 ↗ of our attention from some of our citizen comments. And so we focused on that

2:04:42 ↗ one in tonight's presentation. But yes, the grassroots law project, I exchanged emails with

2:04:48 ↗ one of our citizen commenters earlier. about two weeks ago about some of these

2:04:54 ↗ issues and a request to pledge to that as well. So

2:05:00 ↗ yes, we've been comparing our policies and procedures to those other initiatives and we do

2:05:06 ↗ believe that our policy menu does align to a lot of those. A lot of

2:05:10 ↗ these initiatives do align with the PERF

2:05:17 ↗ principles for use of force. That's part of the reason why I wanted to point

2:05:21 ↗ those out earlier is we've been discussing these across the nation as addressing

2:05:27 ↗ these and ways to reduce potential excessive use of force or improper use of

2:05:33 ↗ force. So yes, we've been monitoring those as well and we can come back with

2:05:36 ↗ a little bit more information. Thank you. Council Member Hall, I'm going to ask you

2:05:41 ↗ to hold on to your comments just because Council Member Martz has been so patient.

2:05:46 ↗ Looks like there are no more questions. I'm going to start on comments with Councilmember

2:05:51 ↗ Marz. Thank you, Madam Mayor. This is Councilmember Marz. So

2:05:57 ↗ I have always said that public safety is the cornerstone of

2:06:04 ↗ our community. And I've been proud of the IPD in things like, of course,

2:06:10 ↗ the active shooter incident that we had a few years ago. But it's become abundantly

2:06:16 ↗ clear that even in our community, people don't view themselves

2:06:21 ↗ as particularly safe. And particularly people of color have

2:06:28 ↗ very understandably used the tragic death in Minneapolis to

2:06:34 ↗ highlight why they don't feel safe and why they feel we need to do something.

2:06:39 ↗ And I have a little bit of a unique perspective because I've gotten to spend

2:06:44 ↗ time in Senegal, where it's a very safe place. I've walked around late at

2:06:50 ↗ night in the dark in cities and felt very, very safe going back from restaurants.

2:06:55 ↗ And even though there's a huge wealth disparity between Americans and Senegalese,

2:07:01 ↗ some of it is that there's not as many drugs. Some of it is that

2:07:05 ↗ there's not the economic inequity. But I think most of all, people view police differently.

2:07:10 ↗ There isn't... inherent antagonism. There is an inherent defensiveness in encounters.

2:07:16 ↗ And I think a lot of that comes from the fact that African police officers

2:07:20 ↗ look a lot like my African friend. And you could, somebody take the uniform off,

2:07:25 ↗ you can't tell the difference. And it just, it leads to a different situation. And

2:07:30 ↗ so, you know, what can we do to reinvent public safety so that

2:07:36 ↗ everyone in our community feels like public safety makes them safe?

2:07:42 ↗ I think we need to think about doing concrete actions immediately, as soon as possible.

2:07:47 ↗ And then I think we need to think about medium term and I think we

2:07:50 ↗ need to think about long term. So in the near term, I think we should

2:07:54 ↗ look at something like 8 Can't Wait and find out what it would take to

2:07:58 ↗ fully implement it as a starting point, as a difference between saying that

2:08:04 ↗ these issues matter to us and then actually moving the needle. In the medium term,

2:08:09 ↗ several council members, including Council Member Walsh, started off talking about HR policies,

2:08:15 ↗ hiring, discipline, and firing. I think that while, of course,

2:08:21 ↗ people are innocent until proven guilty, I think we've all seen, for as long as

2:08:26 ↗ I've been alive, situations where police officers in other communities did things

2:08:32 ↗ that looked by any reasonable standard wrong. And whatever the policies were, they walked away.

2:08:38 ↗ So I'd like to see in the medium term what we can do to make

2:08:41 ↗ clear rules. And rule breakers shouldn't be cops. If they know the rules and they

2:08:47 ↗ break the rules, they shouldn't be police officers. And we should put policies in

2:08:53 ↗ place that allow for a clear vetting of things that have happened. And then if

2:08:59 ↗ somebody's determined that they shouldn't be a police officer, then we should move them along

2:09:04 ↗ to a different career. Long-term, I think we have an opportunity to reinvent public

2:09:09 ↗ safety. The comment about police officers shouldn't be social workers and social workers shouldn't be

2:09:15 ↗ police officers is great. Situations like school engagements and

2:09:20 ↗ nonviolent infractions. I'm interested on this sort of long-term

2:09:26 ↗ track. I'm interested in seeing what we can do that maintains or improves public safety.

2:09:33 ↗ that reinvents how we deliver public safety as a community. I know that

2:09:39 ↗ the leaders, yourself and City Administrator Bobkowitz and

2:09:46 ↗ Chief Bierbaum are all committed to the same goals of making our community more

2:09:51 ↗ safe, and I believe we'll lead a thorough and comprehensive conversation

2:09:57 ↗ about how we can do this in a way that everybody feels more safe. and

2:10:02 ↗ moves us further into the 21st century. So those are the three tracks. Short term,

2:10:07 ↗ let's see about getting It Can't Wait fully implemented. Medium term, what can we do

2:10:12 ↗ with our HR policies. Long term, as a city reinventing public safety. And I'll just

2:10:18 ↗ mention one last thing. I'm extremely proud that our city led the way on both,

2:10:23 ↗ and it's gonna seem like a weird segue, both recreational marijuana and sorry, medical marijuana

2:10:28 ↗ and recreational marijuana. And we did so because we addressed public safety concerns. There were

2:10:34 ↗ people in the community that said we were horrible for not allowing marijuana. And there

2:10:38 ↗ were people in the community who said we were horrible for considering allowing marijuana. But

2:10:42 ↗ by focusing on what policies actually affected public safety, what moved the needle on public

2:10:48 ↗ safety, in the end, we implemented policies that weren't really very controversial and that everybody

2:10:54 ↗ was okay with. And so I think we can do the same thing with fundamental

2:10:58 ↗ public safety. We led the way in the state on both medical and recreational

2:11:04 ↗ marijuana. We can leave the state on public safety. Thank you very much. Thank you,

2:11:09 ↗ Council Member Martz. I'm gonna go to Council Member Goodman for comment. Thank you,

2:11:15 ↗ Madam Mayor. Council Member Goodman here. Just a couple of things. I

2:11:20 ↗ agree with the comments about looking to not defund,

2:11:26 ↗ but reform police department in delivering services, including

2:11:34 ↗ maybe the social workers, mental health workers, however we want to term it. I don't

2:11:40 ↗ think we have any idea what that looks like yet, but certainly want to make

2:11:44 ↗ sure that it makes sense and is consistent with

2:11:50 ↗ what our community needs and what our community values are. I think one of the

2:11:55 ↗ comments that I heard tonight from our public comments time was somebody who said

2:12:01 ↗ our budget reflects our community values. I have heard in the

2:12:07 ↗ news media that the call for, there was the call to defund the Seattle Police

2:12:13 ↗ Department by 50%, and I thought I heard that the public safety budget in the

2:12:17 ↗ Seattle Police Department was 50% of the general fund. So when I calculate,

2:12:25 ↗ what our entire public safety budget is

2:12:31 ↗ compared to our general fund, which it includes the jail and it includes all the

2:12:35 ↗ services that are provided under the topic of the police department. It's 23% of our

2:12:40 ↗ budget. So, $11 million is only part of that story. And then, of course, we

2:12:45 ↗ have to break it down even further. But at most importance, determine what makes the

2:12:51 ↗ most sense and is consistent with what our community needs are.

2:12:58 ↗ The police chief mentioned Sue Rohr early on in his comments, and I was glad

2:13:03 ↗ that he did. She, of course, is former King County Sheriff from many years ago.

2:13:09 ↗ She currently is the executive director of the Washington Criminal Justice Training Commission. And she's

2:13:14 ↗ been in the news lately. She's been interviewed by some of the radio stations, and

2:13:20 ↗ I've heard some of those interviews. And I've been struck by her comments and her

2:13:25 ↗ personal revelations during those interviews. I want to read just one

2:13:31 ↗ passage, and these are her words from her

2:13:37 ↗ perspective looking back at decades of when she was an officer on the street.

2:13:43 ↗ So I quote from her. She said, so what I, Sue Rohr, learned through experience

2:13:48 ↗ is when I see a car that looks like it's pretty old and beat up

2:13:52 ↗ and it's driven by a bunch of young men who look like they might be

2:13:54 ↗ criminals. If I pull that car over, there's a pretty good chance one of them

2:13:58 ↗ is going to have a warrant. If I pull that car over and arrest that

2:14:02 ↗ person for a warrant, I'm rewarded for making that arrest. never thought about

2:14:09 ↗ was the reason that that person has a warrant fair and equitable. And she continues

2:14:14 ↗ to say, the research on this topic is very, very clear. People who are black

2:14:19 ↗ and white tend to abuse drugs at the same rate, but the people who have

2:14:23 ↗ darker skin are arrested at a higher level because my generation of law enforcement,

2:14:29 ↗ that's who we paid attention to. That fed the system and reinforced the biased thinking

2:14:34 ↗ that we have about who commits more crimes and who doesn't. Sue Rohr said

2:14:40 ↗ that she's embarrassed. These are all her words. She's embarrassed to admit that it took

2:14:44 ↗ her decades to see that simply pulling someone over can destroy the rest of their

2:14:49 ↗ life. I was horrified at my lack of knowledge about what really happened in this

2:14:53 ↗ country historically. It completely changed my perspective on things. And then I started looking at

2:14:59 ↗ what happened in prosecution. And so she doesn't, she says

2:15:05 ↗ more, and I have several articles that were written based on her interviews. And Chief

2:15:10 ↗ Beerbom talked about the 2015 police initiative that she worked on.

2:15:16 ↗ Locally, she, before COVID, she had ready to roll, already roll

2:15:22 ↗ out at the state level, at the commission, an anti-bias policy. And what will be,

2:15:32 ↗ required is what will be

2:15:37 ↗ required of Washington police recruits will be training on black history, civil

2:15:43 ↗ rights, and to prevent bias. So that's just one thing that she's working on. So

2:15:47 ↗ I hope we can work very closely with that commission. And I'm not suggesting we

2:15:52 ↗ do, that we don't already, Chief Beerbohm. I'm just hoping that we do, because it

2:15:55 ↗ sounds like this is really something that she feels very passionately about. And I have

2:16:00 ↗ been by everything that I have heard her say.

2:16:06 ↗ The other thing that I wanted to mention that I found even more striking and

2:16:12 ↗ I found it shocking actually is that on the Criminal Justice Training Commission's website

2:16:18 ↗ there is a statement and I'm going to read part of it. For the past

2:16:21 ↗ four years, leaders of the Criminal Justice Training Commission have worked closely with community stakeholders

2:16:27 ↗ to reduce the use of deadly force in this state and to continue to build

2:16:31 ↗ public trust and the video images of the death of Mr. George Floyd are devastating

2:16:36 ↗ in many ways. We want the people we serve to know that we do not

2:16:41 ↗ train officers to place their knee on a person's neck either in the process of

2:16:45 ↗ gaining control or while they are being restrained awaiting transport.

2:16:51 ↗ This is the more significant portion that I want people to hear. But in discussions

2:16:56 ↗ with our lead trainers for control and defensive tactics, after watching the video from Minneapolis,

2:17:02 ↗ we asked, quote, do we explicitly tell our student not to place their knee on

2:17:08 ↗ the back of the subject's neck? The incredulous response from our trainers was, no,

2:17:14 ↗ because it's obviously inappropriate and dangerous. So effective immediately, our trainers will

2:17:20 ↗ explicitly state in training that placing the knee on a subject's neck and applying pressure

2:17:23 ↗ is deadly. should never be done unless the situation clearly warrants the use

2:17:29 ↗ of deadly force. And I guess the reason

2:17:35 ↗ I find that so shocking is because I just assumed that either it was taught

2:17:41 ↗ or it was not taught. And what this sort of taught me is that

2:17:48 ↗ I guess we shouldn't be making any assumptions as we go these exercises. It's more

2:17:54 ↗ important than ever to listen, to investigate where we want to be,

2:18:00 ↗ what do we want to look like, and then dig into the details and find

2:18:04 ↗ out just exactly what we are teaching, just exactly what people are learning,

2:18:10 ↗ and how that is transforming who we are as people, who we are as government,

2:18:15 ↗ who we are as police departments. But Anyway, those are the things

2:18:21 ↗ that have struck me the past week or so. And Chief Birbama, I thank you

2:18:26 ↗ for the presentation tonight and all of the materials. I appreciate all the transparency

2:18:32 ↗ and I appreciate your interest, passion, and willingness to help us move to a

2:18:38 ↗ place that has our community completely comfortable and I believe that we will get there.

2:18:43 ↗ Thank you. Thank you, Council Member Goodman. Council Member Hall.

2:18:51 ↗ Thanks, Mayor Pauli. This is Zach Hall. Councilmember Goodman, that was very well said. Thank

2:18:57 ↗ you very much. And I also want to say, Councilmember Marz, I agreed with

2:19:02 ↗ everything you said, too. So I've been crossing off all of my comments. I have

2:19:07 ↗ very few left to give. The first ask that I would

2:19:12 ↗ make is just, you know, we've been talking a lot about some of this relates

2:19:16 ↗ to state work that's going on. So just to make an ask to make sure

2:19:21 ↗ we're connecting with our legislative delegation in Olympia as they're talking about the use of

2:19:26 ↗ force, arbitration reform, which came up and training frequencies and all that.

2:19:34 ↗ Secondly, I really liked what I really, really like some of these community comments,

2:19:40 ↗ re-imagining the police department,

2:19:46 ↗ an organization's budget reflects their values. The only time better than today to take action

2:19:52 ↗ was yesterday. Redistribute

2:19:58 ↗ some of the police budget into community services. I

2:20:04 ↗ just think that community really came out today and gave us a

2:20:10 ↗ lot of good stuff to think about. So in honoring that, I want to make

2:20:15 ↗ sure we're also talking about, you know, the roles and responsibilities

2:20:21 ↗ and funding within the police department and everything that they're being asked to do,

2:20:27 ↗ making sure when we are having that conversation about what some of us are interested

2:20:31 ↗ in having, which is, you know, social services and crisis intervention and substance abuse counselors.

2:20:36 ↗ people experienced in that training having that conversation outside

2:20:43 ↗ and having it exist outside the police department i think that's important that we honor

2:20:49 ↗ what our community is saying about that um but still have it remain an emergency

2:20:54 ↗ service response and um one of the reasons why i think that conversation

2:21:00 ↗ is so worth having is um whether or not we have the best

2:21:06 ↗ officers in the world you know some situations when people call 9-1-1

2:21:12 ↗ having a law enforcement officer there is just simply going to escalate the situation thinking

2:21:17 ↗ of people with suicidal ideations maybe that's not the right person to be responding to

2:21:22 ↗ that situation so um anyways just to offer a little bit of feedback there um

2:21:28 ↗ ditto again what councilmember goodman and mark said thank you Thank you, Councilmember Hall.

2:21:34 ↗ Next up is Deputy Council President Wray followed by Councilmember G. Michelle. Hi, this is

2:21:39 ↗ Chris Wray. Thank you, Mayor Pawley. I'm struck when you call 911, we get a

2:21:45 ↗ choice of a police car, an ambulance, or a fire truck, and people in crisis

2:21:51 ↗ need help, and sometimes those are not the helps that they need. What we need

2:21:55 ↗ is a new way to view responses to people in need. And I think that's

2:22:01 ↗ what we heard a lot from the public today is sometimes you need a police

2:22:05 ↗ car, sometimes you need an ambulance, sometimes you need a fire truck, and sometimes you

2:22:08 ↗ need a mental health counselor, and sometimes you need other services. And so it's how

2:22:13 ↗ do we start to look at and reimagine policing? How do we reimagine

2:22:20 ↗ crisis response for the people who live in the city so that we better align

2:22:24 ↗ our response to their needs That was my first kind of comment. My second one

2:22:29 ↗ is, if anybody in the city is afraid, then we have work to do.

2:22:35 ↗ And the response to being afraid is often, well, we'll give you more security

2:22:41 ↗ by giving you additional law enforcement. But when people are afraid of law enforcement, then

2:22:47 ↗ we've got a really difficult situation that we're trying to work through. It's

2:22:53 ↗ concerning when people view the police as somebody to fear, not someone to help them

2:22:57 ↗ overcome their fear. Because I believe everyone should live in a society where they are

2:23:03 ↗ feeling safe and comfortable and can thrive.

2:23:09 ↗ Moving forward, I agree completely with Council Member Marks. We have much work to do.

2:23:14 ↗ We can do today. Some that's going to take a little longer and some that's

2:23:16 ↗ going to be on a long-term track. As we put this together, we've got a

2:23:20 ↗ balancing act about how do we create an environment where everybody feels safe and secure.

2:23:25 ↗ So I'm gonna steal a little bit from Council Member Hall, but we are really

2:23:29 ↗ at an inflection point right now and we heard that from the community and we

2:23:33 ↗ need to take advantage of this. And it's an opportunity to reimagine police, it's

2:23:39 ↗ an opportunity to reimagine policing. And I guess most importantly, it's time to us to

2:23:44 ↗ take a step back and reimagine how do we help people who are at a

2:23:50 ↗ crisis in their life, regardless of what the nature of that crisis is. So it's,

2:23:55 ↗ police is a big part, but it's way bigger than just policing. Thank

2:24:01 ↗ you, Deputy Council President. Council Member

2:24:03 ↗ DeMichelle. Thank you, Mayor Pauly.

2:24:10 ↗ I too appreciate all of the comments that we received tonight, and so many of

2:24:15 ↗ them have given us so much to think about. I did just want to

2:24:21 ↗ talk about some of the community members talked about the greater picture,

2:24:27 ↗ where we are in terms of our neighboring communities and King County.

2:24:33 ↗ Generally, people feel or think or sense that Issaquah

2:24:39 ↗ is generally a safe place. But we live in a

2:24:45 ↗ situation here where In King County, about half the people who are in jail, and

2:24:50 ↗ I know we're gonna hear from Judge Stewart next, but half the people who are

2:24:56 ↗ in jail have been identified as having mental health problems. In my campaign

2:25:02 ↗ for city council, I talked to representatives from EFR and the police who said that

2:25:07 ↗ about 30% of the time that they spent is with people who are experiencing homelessness,

2:25:13 ↗ people experiencing mental illness, with substance abuse disorders,

2:25:19 ↗ people having what I call crimes of poverty, such as evictions.

2:25:26 ↗ And so it is time, and this has been building for decades,

2:25:32 ↗ where we have to address a very broken healthcare system, a very broken mental healthcare

2:25:38 ↗ system, where the problems of those systems have been dumped on our

2:25:44 ↗ police and into our jails. And it's well past time for us to

2:25:50 ↗ reimagine what we can do. I'm going to go back to what I said earlier.

2:25:57 ↗ We have a relatively safe community. And that, I think, gives us opportunities

2:26:03 ↗ to try, to experiment, to envision what a

2:26:09 ↗ better way of going about things could be. I really wanted to especially thank Rachel

2:26:14 ↗ Benick and Dr. Brackell for their visions of alternative

2:26:20 ↗ forms of community safety and safety programs. So

2:26:26 ↗ I'm gonna take those visions with me into the future. I do feel like there's

2:26:31 ↗ an urgency here. This has been building the racism, the racism,

2:26:39 ↗ and policing, the mental health issues have been building for decades. And so

2:26:47 ↗ it is time for us to really think about how can we take action now

2:26:52 ↗ and in the future and do that thoughtfully, but make sure that it is a

2:26:58 ↗ forward motion that our community can see. Thank you.

2:27:05 ↗ Thank you, Councilmember D. Michelle. Next, we have Councilmember Walsh who has a question and

2:27:09 ↗ a comment. Councilmember Walsh Thank you. This is Councilmember Walsh. I really

2:27:15 ↗ appreciate our Council and our community in the conversations that we are willing to have

2:27:20 ↗ and all of the great questions and comments and suggestions that

2:27:26 ↗ have come up from this. love the idea of

2:27:31 ↗ reimagining and coming up with a plan for how

2:27:38 ↗ public safety can be handled in our community toward that idea

2:27:45 ↗ chief one of the questions I have when I'm trying to think and maybe I'll

2:27:50 ↗ use councilmember Martz's idea of short mid and long term time frame this is

2:27:56 ↗ more on the mid to long term but the idea of potentially right sizing a

2:28:02 ↗ police department and understanding what percentage of

2:28:09 ↗ our response calls are required for kind of a public

2:28:15 ↗ safety and protect portion, but also understanding that many in the

2:28:20 ↗ community probably don't know how many officers we have on hand at any one time.

2:28:26 ↗ And So what I would like to understand

2:28:33 ↗ at a future point is kind of the budget we have now, how many

2:28:39 ↗ officers it provides for both at a given time and overall. And then also kind

2:28:44 ↗ of if we're looking at this idea, if we had

2:28:50 ↗ a situation where maybe we were saying we need other types of

2:28:56 ↗ professionals involved what would be the budget requirement for a minimal staff?

2:29:02 ↗ Because I know it's not nothing. And I know it's, so I guess I just

2:29:07 ↗ want to be realistic when we come to this so that we aren't

2:29:14 ↗ imagining that there is a huge pot of money out there and that so many

2:29:19 ↗ things can be solved with this. So I guess I want to be respectful to

2:29:25 ↗ that idea and hope that you can come with that I don't think that's an

2:29:29 ↗ answer for tonight but I'm just bringing it up thank you thank you for that

2:29:35 ↗ councilmember Walsh I think that is what we were hoping to get tonight is to

2:29:38 ↗ understand the kind of information you would need as a baseline in order to change

2:29:43 ↗ and move forward and so that's a very great question that's a really good question

2:29:48 ↗ I am seeing that councilmember Hall has a comment Thank you, Mayor

2:29:54 ↗ Pauly. This is Zach Hall. It's actually kind of churned into a question in my

2:29:58 ↗ head, so it might be both. But I guess for the actually, OK, it is

2:30:03 ↗ it's a question and then a comment. So the first part is a question for

2:30:08 ↗ Chief Beerbohm. Can you explain to me how S.R. how school resource officers is

2:30:14 ↗ that funded by the school district? Is that through the city, through our police department?

2:30:18 ↗ How does that work? actually a

2:30:24 ↗ agreement with the school district and they pay a certain percentage of the officer's salary

2:30:30 ↗ to perform policing in the schools during the school year.

2:30:37 ↗ Do you know approximately what that percentage is chief? Is it half or? It's approximately

2:30:43 ↗ 60 percent. They pay 60 percent. Okay thank you. Okay good to know. Comments Councilmember

2:30:49 ↗ Hall? Thank you, Mayor Paula. Yeah, Zach Hall again. A couple times during audience comment

2:30:54 ↗ tonight, people brought up either SROs or ongoing work within the school district. So I

2:30:58 ↗ thought it might be prudent for us to reach out to the school district and

2:31:02 ↗ try to get a comment to inform our discussion about SROs and

2:31:08 ↗ all that moving forward. Thank you. Thank you for that. I'm not seeing anything

2:31:14 ↗ else in the chat box, so it looks like it might be time to move

2:31:18 ↗ to the next presenter, and I believe the next one up is Judge Stewart.

2:31:32 ↗ Judge Stewart Sorry about that. I had to turn down my volume to avoid feedback.

2:31:38 ↗ Welcome, Judge Stewart. We have some new council members that have yet to meet you,

2:31:42 ↗ and we have not had an annual presentation this year, but here you are tonight.

2:31:48 ↗ So you have a couple of folks on the council who have not gotten to

2:31:52 ↗ hear the good work that you're doing over there. Well, it's nice to meet you.

2:31:56 ↗ I would love to have you come by the court. I know Mayor Pauly has.

2:31:59 ↗ It's kind of hard to come by the court now, but we are in virtual

2:32:04 ↗ court just about every day. You can log in and watch us in action. Mayor

2:32:10 ↗ Pawley, City Council members, thank you for inviting me to speak on the issue of

2:32:16 ↗ bias in the courts. Essentially what I'm going to do today is spend a couple

2:32:20 ↗ of minutes talking about my obligations as a judge when it comes to issues of

2:32:24 ↗ racial bias and prejudice, and then talk about some of the things that the court's

2:32:27 ↗ doing, which is kind of interesting because it's going to address some of the

2:32:33 ↗ issues that a number of the community members spoke about that they'd like to see

2:32:36 ↗ being done and I think we're moving in that direction. 11 days ago, a unanimous

2:32:41 ↗ Washington State Supreme Court signed an open letter to the legal community where they noted

2:32:45 ↗ that as judges we have an obligation to acknowledge the role that the judicial branch

2:32:50 ↗ has played in devaluing black lives. That we cannot undo this wrong, but that we

2:32:55 ↗ can recognize our ability to do better in the future. And next slide. And actually

2:32:59 ↗ skip ahead two because I forgot to say it. One more. As a judge, I'm

2:33:05 ↗ charged by the code of judicial conduct with performing my duties without either bias or

2:33:09 ↗ prejudice. I also have an obligation to ensure that my staff and others subject to

2:33:13 ↗ my direction, including every attorney who appears in my courtroom, do not by their words

2:33:18 ↗ or conduct manifest any bias or prejudice. But more than that, I have an obligation

2:33:24 ↗ to avoid any conduct that might be, despite my best intentions, in any way perceived

2:33:28 ↗ as being biased or prejudiced. this procedural fairness, and it requires that I recognize that

2:33:34 ↗ everyone bring a different life experience into the courtroom. This is especially true for our

2:33:38 ↗ marginalized communities. The percentage of the people who appear as defendants in this municipal court

2:33:45 ↗ who are African American is small, we actually ran the numbers over the last four

2:33:49 ↗ years, and it's .053 percent. But still, it's important that I, as a judge, recognize

2:33:55 ↗ that many, if not all of them, have different experiences expectations and concerns with regard

2:34:00 ↗ to the judicial branch and what might be possessed by their white neighbors. The same

2:34:05 ↗ is true for our larger populations of color, Hispanic clients, Native American clients, and numerous

2:34:11 ↗ other individuals from the many different cultures and backgrounds served by the court, as well

2:34:15 ↗ as the homeless, LGBTQ community, people with mental illness, and different levels of addiction.

2:34:23 ↗ Because of these different levels of expectations and concerns for justice to occur, it's important

2:34:27 ↗ to ensure that everyone appearing in the court walk out of the courtroom with the

2:34:30 ↗ sense that each individual participant has been treated fairly, with respect and empathy, and

2:34:36 ↗ that they have been heard. Treating people fairly and without bias achieves a second important

2:34:42 ↗ goal. A number of years ago, the City of Issaquah, in conjunction with the Washington

2:34:46 ↗ Administrative Office of the Courts, was kind enough to send me to a national training

2:34:49 ↗ out of state addressing procedural fairness as it relates to bias and

2:34:54 ↗ prejudice. I've actually become the speaker at the Washington State Bar Association's training

2:35:00 ↗ for pro tem judges on the issues of procedural bias and prejudice. What

2:35:06 ↗ I learned at that training and from numerous studies is that when people who appear

2:35:11 ↗ in court feel that they have been treated fairly and without bias, they're more likely

2:35:16 ↗ to comply with what it is the court and society expects of them. more likely

2:35:21 ↗ to maintain law-abiding behavior. They're more likely to abstain from alcohol and illegal drugs if

2:35:27 ↗ that's what's causing their problems and to follow through with treatment programs. Next

2:35:32 ↗ slide. In addition to recognizing the importance of

2:35:38 ↗ addressing issues and bias and prejudice and procedural fairness, our court also recognizes that it's

2:35:43 ↗ often our marginalized communities who lack the resources necessary to comply with court requirements, things

2:35:49 ↗ like treatment, basic things like driver's license. A driver's license is huge for

2:35:55 ↗ a poor member of the community. You need it to get a job, obviously you

2:35:58 ↗ need to get it to drive. Many of them lack ID. Also, housing.

2:36:05 ↗ And the inability to have these things can sometimes result in severe consequences. Incarceration, for

2:36:10 ↗ instance. As a municipal court, one of our primary goals is rehabilitation, helping people help

2:36:16 ↗ themselves. To that end, in the Issaquah Municipal Court, Some offenders, including many whose legal

2:36:22 ↗ issues grow out of substance abuse or mental health issues, our prosecutors and defense attorneys

2:36:27 ↗ work on diversion programs that allow defendants to ultimately earn a dismissal of their charges

2:36:31 ↗ in exchange for compliance with court requirements, often including treatment and restitution. This keeps our

2:36:37 ↗ citizens out of jail. Our court's probation officer works to allow probationers to remain in

2:36:42 ↗ the community and obtain treatment services and other resources with a goal of rehabilitation and

2:36:47 ↗ a reduction of recidivism. also provides information on resources for supervised defendants,

2:36:53 ↗ court monitor defendants, attorneys in the community, and other members of the community. These include

2:36:59 ↗ but are not limited to alcohol drug treatment, resources, sober support resources, mental health resources,

2:37:05 ↗ community service options, referral for domestic violence treatment both for perpetrators and victims, food resources,

2:37:11 ↗ clothing resources, and housing resources. Most recently, and this is real exciting for the court

2:37:16 ↗ because it leads to our next stage, began training with the Department of Social and

2:37:20 ↗ Health Services to become an assisting agent community partner. And this will allow the court

2:37:26 ↗ through our probation to use the Washington Connection database to assist members of the court

2:37:30 ↗ community in obtaining DSHS services, something that our poor clientele desperately need.

2:37:36 ↗ Once it seems safe to do so, she'll begin hosting open office hours to all

2:37:40 ↗ court clients, not just those who are on probation, to assist in providing resources and

2:37:44 ↗ setting them up with DSHS services. Court's also part of a group of courts who

2:37:49 ↗ participate in the UP program, which allows people whose license has been suspended as a

2:37:54 ↗ result of tickets out of multiple jurisdictions to consolidate all their tickets to a home

2:37:58 ↗ court, begin making payments, and then have their license reinstated as soon as payment is

2:38:02 ↗ made as compared to wait until all the tickets are paid off. We get licensed

2:38:07 ↗ and insured drivers on the road rather than unlicensed. Folks, it also helps us get

2:38:10 ↗ a job. also been allowing people to request a hearing to readdress older fines, especially

2:38:16 ↗ on moving violations in another attempt to get them licensed and insured. If you look

2:38:20 ↗ at the slide that's on the board, on the bottom screen you see me in

2:38:24 ↗ the middle, and to the left is Whitney Gardner.

2:38:30 ↗ Whitney Gardner is a long-term resident of Esquire. She's also our primary

2:38:36 ↗ public defender. Now our court, because of Christy Shorn who's on the line, is on

2:38:41 ↗ the forefront in Washington courts right now with regard to running virtual courtrooms.

2:38:47 ↗ If you've been paying any attention to what happens with the courts is while if

2:38:51 ↗ you shut down a park, people don't go to the park, when we shut down

2:38:54 ↗ our courts as a result of the COVID-19, cases kept piling up. The King County

2:38:59 ↗ District Court isn't open yet and there are thousands of cases behind. And we recognize

2:39:03 ↗ the difficulties associated with that. So we met with our public defenders and we met

2:39:07 ↗ with our prosecutors. decided that we were going to start running a virtual courtroom Whitney

2:39:12 ↗ had similar concerns to mine and that's had to do with our poor population but

2:39:17 ↗ Whitney was concerned about is that our clients being poor would not be able to

2:39:22 ↗ access the virtual courtroom they wouldn't be able to call in they wouldn't be able

2:39:26 ↗ to sign in and it didn't up with warrants or or the like we agreed

2:39:31 ↗ we wouldn't be issuing warrants then we started the process and what we found was

2:39:35 ↗ that The poor clientele, the poor population

2:39:41 ↗ that relied upon the public defender services found it easier to access the virtual courtroom

2:39:45 ↗ than to actually come to court. People that are at the very, very poor end,

2:39:51 ↗ the homeless population, might have to walk to court. We have people that walk miles

2:39:56 ↗ to get to court or take two or three buses to get to court and

2:39:58 ↗ then two or three buses home, but they could always find a phone. Somebody had

2:40:01 ↗ an iPhone they could use to call into the court and make it without giving

2:40:05 ↗ up their entire day just to get there for what might be a five-minute court

2:40:08 ↗ appearance. And probably even more significant than that, the working poor, the folks that are

2:40:13 ↗ making $12, $15 an hour, maybe working part or full-time, were having to take half

2:40:18 ↗ days or full days off of work in order to come to court. And what

2:40:23 ↗ we've been able to see is literally they call in from their work, they stay

2:40:27 ↗ on hold until their case gets called, they take their 15-minute break, they step off

2:40:30 ↗ the line, handle their court and they go right back to work. So what Ms.

2:40:36 ↗ Gardner pointed out to me is rather than people losing their job, rather than losing

2:40:39 ↗ a significant amount of their income, they're able to make their court appearance and keep

2:40:43 ↗ their job. We actually had a young man about two weeks ago online, and we

2:40:48 ↗ have a similar screen to what you have and we have them all spread out,

2:40:50 ↗ and we could see him throughout our entire court hearing as he was taping walls.

2:40:55 ↗ We called his case, he stopped taping, he turned, presented what we call a review

2:40:59 ↗ hearing. We finished his review hearing. We thanked him for his appearance in our virtual

2:41:02 ↗ court and he immediately went back to taping. Whitney and I have both decided, as

2:41:07 ↗ is the prosecutor, that it's an effective use of the justice system and we will

2:41:13 ↗ be continuing virtual courts, at least as an option, even after the pandemic has been

2:41:18 ↗ beaten. Next slide, please. And the one other thing that

2:41:24 ↗ I think the community may be excited about Back in 2018, my court

2:41:30 ↗ administrator, Lynn Campo, and I decided that 2019 would be the year that we started

2:41:36 ↗ in Nissaquamie Municipal Court Community Court. That got put on hold with Lynn's untimely death

2:41:41 ↗ in January 2019. When we hired Kristi Shorn as our new court administrator, she and

2:41:47 ↗ I decided to make Community Court our project for 2020. That got delayed by COVID-19.

2:41:53 ↗ Having a probation officer trained by DSHS is the first step in the process of

2:41:58 ↗ creating a community court. We anticipate having it up and running by the end of

2:42:02 ↗ the year. A community court will allow us to take the needs of the community,

2:42:07 ↗ and we're going to look to the community, we're going to look to the council,

2:42:09 ↗ we're going to look to the other departments and say, what do you see as

2:42:11 ↗ the needs, and address them in a court environment. We literally have the most needy

2:42:15 ↗ members of our community coming to court, and we will address that right at court.

2:42:20 ↗ We anticipate having mental health experts that will come into court, substance abuse experts, experts

2:42:25 ↗ on housing, experts on relicensing. All the recognized needs would meet if they're on a

2:42:30 ↗ court date. The community would come in that needed those needs. They'd meet with those

2:42:34 ↗ individuals right there at court. They would sign up for their driver's license. They would

2:42:39 ↗ sign up for Apple Healthcare. They would sign up for housing programs. They would then

2:42:44 ↗ come in front of the judge for their review hearing, and rather than me send

2:42:46 ↗ them out there for a month hoping this stuff could be accomplished, be accomplished even

2:42:51 ↗ before they were able to see me.

2:42:56 ↗ Many and not many, almost all of these folks are from marginalized communities. Many of

2:43:01 ↗ them are foreign speaking, people that have more difficulty working the system on their own,

2:43:06 ↗ and it will be tremendously helpful to those marginalized communities. So anyway, that's our plan.

2:43:11 ↗ We're hoping to start a community court for the end of the year. We may

2:43:13 ↗ have part of it virtually. That will be an easy and inexpensive way to get

2:43:17 ↗ some of these experts to appear in our courtroom. I hope that other departments in

2:43:21 ↗ the community are willing to work with us. And that's the end of my presentation.

2:43:25 ↗ If anyone has any questions. Judge Stewart, thank you so much. I am not seeing

2:43:30 ↗ any questions that up. Here we go. A question from Council Member Walsh followed by

2:43:36 ↗ Council President Hunt. Council Member Walsh. Fantastic. And once again, I have a list of

2:43:42 ↗ questions. But My questions for

2:43:47 ↗ the court really involve around kind of two things, which is we've

2:43:53 ↗ seen many times that people end up in jail

2:43:59 ↗ because they've got... got fees that are unpaid

2:44:05 ↗ or because they can't make it to a hearing, like you said, because they had

2:44:10 ↗ to be at work and so they have a warrant out for them. I'm wondering

2:44:13 ↗ how we approach those situations. You've talked about doing

2:44:19 ↗ video court, which I think is a fantastic to

2:44:26 ↗ address one part of that, but I'm wondering if there are other ways that we've

2:44:30 ↗ thought of, particularly around the cost portion of

2:44:36 ↗ that. Well, I can tell you that our Supreme Court has made it, declared it

2:44:42 ↗ unethical to jail anyone for not paying a fee. We have cost

2:44:47 ↗ fees, assessments, fines. We have all kinds of different things that a court imposes. The

2:44:52 ↗ only time you will see any court at least ethically incarcerate someone for not

2:44:58 ↗ paying a financial obligation is if the court deems it a willful

2:45:04 ↗ failure to pay restitution. So not a court fine or a fee, but where they

2:45:09 ↗ owe another member of the community restitution and you find that they have the money

2:45:14 ↗ and are just refusing to pay it, there's cases of decisions that say a court

2:45:18 ↗ can incarcerate somebody for that, but you have to find it to be a willful

2:45:23 ↗ violation. As an attorney, I've been in circumstances where judges have told the defendant,

2:45:29 ↗ I'm going to close your case out with 90 days. If after you serve 10

2:45:33 ↗ days, you pay the $200 restitution you owe to this person for breaking their window,

2:45:39 ↗ I'll let you out after 10 days. And the $200 always gets paid, even though

2:45:42 ↗ it hasn't been paid for 18 months. If they don't pay it, and they're two

2:45:46 ↗ or three days into that jail sentence, I think the judge has an obligation to

2:45:48 ↗ let them out, because then that's evidence that it's not a willful failure to pay.

2:45:53 ↗ But we've never locked anybody up for not paying a fine. We have a relatively

2:45:58 ↗ liberal…the problem is we have a…we exist under court rules, and one of the court

2:46:04 ↗ rules that we exist under is…requires us to try a case within a

2:46:10 ↗ certain timeframe. So, if somebody fails to appear, we have to issue an FTA, and

2:46:14 ↗ then the warrant issues to try to get them back. We have very liberal policy

2:46:18 ↗ that allows anyone…it's Some courts charge a fee to get on a warrant calendar. They

2:46:22 ↗ get a warrant walking calendar there every once in the afternoon. They can come in

2:46:24 ↗ and ask that their warrant be quashed, and the warrant is quashed. In the COVID

2:46:29 ↗ era, where we're at now, obviously, we quash every warrant by phone. I shouldn't say

2:46:35 ↗ that out loud, but we have a policy that says anyone that calls in and

2:46:39 ↗ asks to quash a warrant can quash the warrant, largely out of a recognition that

2:46:44 ↗ Right now, nobody's being booked into most any jail in the state because the jail

2:46:48 ↗ is trying to keep the population down to the truly scary individuals, and we'd rather

2:46:52 ↗ get the case moving along. So if they call in, we quash their warrant. In

2:46:55 ↗ the non-COVID era, we have a policy that, and there's an agreement between

2:47:02 ↗ all of the courts in King County that if anybody appears in my court that

2:47:07 ↗ has a warrant out of Kent, for instance, as long as the warrant's less than

2:47:10 ↗ $5,000, can quash that. We have an agreement. I can quash their warrant in Issaquah.

2:47:16 ↗ We contact Kent. We say we have Tom here. Tom failed to appear. You got

2:47:20 ↗ a $2,000 warrant. They'll quash the warrant. We literally hand them their court date for

2:47:23 ↗ Kent. Kent does the same for us. If it's over $5,000, the agreement is that

2:47:28 ↗ we don't do that, that we take them in custody. That's because the judge in

2:47:31 ↗ the other jurisdictions made a determination that that person poses a community threat.

2:47:37 ↗ Multiple offender DWIs, someone that has an assault IV DV that's picked up two new

2:47:43 ↗ violations of the no contact order, which involve violence. Any time you get them in

2:47:47 ↗ front of you, you need to get them in front of the judge, it's addressing

2:47:49 ↗ the underlying charge. But for nonviolent offenses or non DUIs, warrants are

2:47:55 ↗ set very low and they're quashed if you request them. The problem is we have

2:48:00 ↗ to FTA and warrant in order to preserve the jurisdiction of the court. Otherwise, the

2:48:03 ↗ jurisdiction runs and the case gets dismissed. So I don't think The folks that you

2:48:09 ↗ see booked in Issaquah on warrants are going to be obviously we're dealing with misdemeanors,

2:48:14 ↗ but they're going to be domestic violence charges and multiple offender DUIs. Does that answer

2:48:20 ↗ your question? Yes, very well. The only

2:48:25 ↗ other area I had a real question about was our use of cash bail and

2:48:31 ↗ whether or not we provide any flexibility in that area or how you

2:48:36 ↗ basically approach that as an idea? My interpretation of case authority is that cash bail

2:48:41 ↗ is not legal pretrial. So it's cash or bond.

2:48:47 ↗ And that it is legal

2:48:53 ↗ post-conviction where you've got somebody that is being monitored for either law-abiding behavior or

2:49:00 ↗ alcohol drug issues or things like that. Cash, the purpose of bail

2:49:06 ↗ is to obtain appearance in court. So bail has to be set in an amount

2:49:12 ↗ that is enough to get their appearance, right? The, so bail is never

2:49:18 ↗ set pretrial. The higher bails are set for folks, you know, I think the worst

2:49:23 ↗ I've seen is a seventh offense DWI, seventh offense DWI where we get evidence that

2:49:28 ↗ they up a new DWI out of a jurisdiction. I'm not going to name jurisdictions,

2:49:33 ↗ but there's a couple of jurisdictions. In Issaquah, for instance, if one of our officers

2:49:38 ↗ arrested somebody in a seventh offense DWI, they're holding that person in jail. I'm faxed

2:49:43 ↗ a PC statement. I review the PC statement, and I'm holding that person until I

2:49:46 ↗ can see them face to face. There are other jurisdictions that release them, and sometimes

2:49:51 ↗ it's six to eight months before their case gets filed. Under those circumstances, if I

2:49:55 ↗ find out about one of those people and I will set a review hearing if

2:49:58 ↗ they fail to appear, very high bail is going to get set because I think

2:50:01 ↗ they pose a danger to the community. But that's the type of case where you

2:50:04 ↗ get extremely high bail. I mean, the other ones,

2:50:12 ↗ last week we probably had four or five failures to appear in driving with license

2:50:15 ↗ suspended. My court is now open, although 99 percent of the people are appearing virtually.

2:50:22 ↗ If someone fails to appear on a drive-in license suspended, they'll set at $100 cash

2:50:26 ↗ or bond. And they're gonna post the cash, but they can also call in and

2:50:32 ↗ quash it just by making the request. So this is the short

2:50:37 ↗ answer is cash or bond. If it's pretrial, you can go cash, but still generally

2:50:41 ↗ cash or bond if it's post-conviction, depending on how dangerous they are. Thank you. Thank

2:50:47 ↗ you very much. Council Member Walsh, did you have any additional questions? like you're done.

2:50:53 ↗ I'm good. Thank you. I'm going to go to Council President Hunt followed by Council

2:50:58 ↗ Member Hall. Thank you. This is Council President Hunt. Thank you for the presentation. I

2:51:03 ↗ thought it was particularly interesting about the accessibility that's available using the virtual

2:51:09 ↗ court format. That was good to know. I received a question.

2:51:15 ↗ We received a question from a community member about the possibility of community service

2:51:22 ↗ in lieu of paying a fine for a traffic citation or a parking violation. And

2:51:27 ↗ I wondered if there is anything like that and if there could be an option

2:51:32 ↗ for something like that. It was proposed as a way to overcome some of the

2:51:37 ↗ financial inequity. Sure.

2:51:41 ↗ And Mayor Pauly forwarded that email on to me. I'm coming up with an answer

2:51:47 ↗ because I obviously I don't draft law, but I have policies within my court. So

2:51:52 ↗ if someone appears, we have two ways that traffic infractions are handled by the court.

2:51:57 ↗ I mean, some people just pay them, but people that request a hearing from the

2:52:00 ↗ court can do it in writing so that they don't have to take time off

2:52:02 ↗ work or they can show up at court and they can show up either of

2:52:05 ↗ them, either mitigation where they ask to reduce the fine or they can challenge it,

2:52:09 ↗ which is a contested hearing. Under either circumstance, they can ask for community service and

2:52:14 ↗ we offer community service higher than the statute, our public defender made an argument, as

2:52:19 ↗ most public defenders have, that it should be at $15 an hour, and that's essentially

2:52:23 ↗ what it's at. So a traffic ticket, let's say that's a $90 traffic ticket, it's

2:52:28 ↗ $90 or six hours of community service within a certain timeframe. They're told it has

2:52:33 ↗ to be a nonprofit, it doesn't have to be in the city of Issaquah. They

2:52:36 ↗ have 60 days to either pay the ticket or do the community service, or 90

2:52:40 ↗ days or whatever amount's appropriate, but every single ticket that requests it But as

2:52:46 ↗ long as the request is made, I can't, I don't see the tickets that are

2:52:50 ↗ just paid. I mean, I know they come to the court. I only see the

2:52:52 ↗ ones where hearings are made and requests, but that's an option that they have. Thank

2:52:56 ↗ you, Judge Stewart. Council President. I think I'm going to tell her that in a

2:52:59 ↗ letter. I'm going to write her back. I teach at Issaquah High School on what

2:53:02 ↗ I did until the COVID. And so I know a lot of the students that

2:53:05 ↗ are there, but I'm going to write her back and I'll probably run it by

2:53:09 ↗ Mayor Pollard first to make sure I don't over speak my authority. Thank you. Council

2:53:14 ↗ President Hunt, did you have additional questions? No, thank you. Thank you very much. I

2:53:19 ↗ believe we're going to Council Member Hall.

2:53:26 ↗ Thank you, Mayor Pauly. This is Zach Hall. Just really quick clarifying

2:53:32 ↗ question. When I saw the slide on community court, I had no idea what was

2:53:37 ↗ going on. Just to clarify, Community court, it's simply an opportunity for folks

2:53:45 ↗ to have access to a lot of different kinds of services on their court date,

2:53:49 ↗ maybe even before their own court appearance. In a perfect environment, the two lead

2:53:55 ↗ courts in the state on community court are Olympia and Spokane. In a perfect environment,

2:54:02 ↗ Olympia holds their community, I mean, excuse me, Spokane holds their community court at the

2:54:06 ↗ local library to try to get it out of the courtroom setting. judge doesn't wear

2:54:09 ↗ a robe, the judge comes down, sits at a table, the folks are on the

2:54:13 ↗ other side of the judge. They found a couple of things. They found that if

2:54:17 ↗ judges spend three to five minutes talking to a defendant, someone with a substance abuse

2:54:21 ↗ problem, someone with a mental health issue, and it literally is three to five minutes,

2:54:24 ↗ anything over five is considered too much, but literally staring them in the face and

2:54:28 ↗ talking about their issue, they're more inclined to comply. The way that community court works

2:54:33 ↗ is it can happen in the courtroom. We've looked at other residential

2:54:39 ↗ city resources, but you, a significant percentage of our population, and I think

2:54:45 ↗ this was mentioned by Councilmember DeMichelle, have mental health issues. A significant percentage of

2:54:51 ↗ our population have, and by our population I mean my population across the courtroom, a

2:54:57 ↗ significant percentage of have heroin issues, alcohol is a big problem, and

2:55:03 ↗ obviously people can drink, They can break up until the point that they break the

2:55:07 ↗ law, and then we address it. And also a significant percentage of all those people

2:55:13 ↗ have a lack of resources. And the community court concept was caught up because what

2:55:17 ↗ happened in a traditional setting is a defendant appears in front of me. He or

2:55:22 ↗ she is sentenced on assault domestic violence to an alcohol drug evaluation and follow-up

2:55:28 ↗ because they were under the influence and domestic violence and moral recognition therapy. And then

2:55:33 ↗ we're told to come back in 60 days with proof of their treatment. What a

2:55:37 ↗ community court would do, and a bad example because community court would not typically be

2:55:41 ↗ used for domestic violence, so let's make it someone accused of theft with an alcohol

2:55:45 ↗ treatment. Rather than sending that person that may be homeless or any number of other

2:55:50 ↗ issues going on in their life out to find an alcohol drug evaluation, community court

2:55:54 ↗ would move them into the community court. Typically it involves a diversion. They're continued to

2:55:59 ↗ a Thursday court date. They show up at 8 o'clock in the morning. They show

2:56:03 ↗ up at eight o'clock in the morning, the judge isn't on the bench yet, but

2:56:06 ↗ sitting around the room, we're alcohol, drug treatment, housing treatment, and all these folks, and

2:56:10 ↗ they go to all the things that the judge expects of them. They meet with

2:56:13 ↗ those folks, they sign up for the programs, and then when they come back in

2:56:17 ↗ front of the judge, they've got a plan. They've already signed up. They've started getting

2:56:21 ↗ their license. They've found potential housing. And the idea is to bring these professionals in

2:56:25 ↗ from the community and meet with them before they come to court. And then it's

2:56:30 ↗ a less formal court environment. And there's graduations and there's hugs and there's all that

2:56:34 ↗ kind of thing. Because the idea is we started out about four years ago as

2:56:39 ↗ a court. We recognized that we had a significant number of young people with heroin

2:56:42 ↗ issues. They were continually being arrested for, and it was the same four or five

2:56:46 ↗ people. And they were continually being arrested in the city of Issaquah for criminal trespass.

2:56:51 ↗ They were always on heroin. And we had the same four or five people over

2:56:55 ↗ and over again. And rather than doing the traditional model where we, um,

2:57:01 ↗ with them, told them to come back in a month for treatment. We literally brought

2:57:04 ↗ them back every single week until they were in treatment. The idea was that

2:57:10 ↗ they got more face time and eventually those four or five people moved on. One

2:57:14 ↗ of the folks still comes by the court. He's a car salesman, made over 100

2:57:18 ↗ grand this year. The idea is you just change things up

2:57:24 ↗ as you need to. Some people need more time with the court. Somebody needs the

2:57:28 ↗ services handed to them. That's what a community court does. Frankly, we'd be coming to

2:57:32 ↗ you and asking what are other issues you see in the community. Thank you, Judge

2:57:38 ↗ Scott. Does that answer your question, Councilmember Hall? Yeah, that's fascinating. I would love to

2:57:41 ↗ learn more as it develops into the future. Well, if you went to Isquah High

2:57:46 ↗ School, if you had taken Mr. Richards' class, I think I was even teaching that.

2:57:52 ↗ Thank you, Judge. I think the program you're describing and the direction you want to

2:57:56 ↗ head really marries up well with a lot of what we're hearing tonight from our

2:57:59 ↗ community. It was kind of fun to hear the community members talking about it. It

2:58:02 ↗ was. We've been talking about it for a couple of years. That's really, really good.

2:58:06 ↗ Okay, I'll hang out if anybody decides to have questions. We have another one. Council

2:58:10 ↗ Member DeMichelle. Oh, hi, and thank you for the presentation, Judge Stewart.

2:58:16 ↗ And I actually did get a chance to meet you about six years ago. You

2:58:19 ↗ came to our... Influence of Choice Community Conversations on... I remember

2:58:25 ↗ it. Yes, and you provided us with very good insights. My question has to

2:58:31 ↗ do with the access to treatment once a person is

2:58:37 ↗ incarcerated or put in the jail. I attended a seminar about

2:58:43 ↗ six months ago. A young man with schizophrenia, he had been threatening people. He

2:58:51 ↗ up in jail. That turned out to be a nine-month incarceration without...

2:58:58 ↗ He said that he was not able to access drugs or counseling during that

2:59:04 ↗ nine months. And so I'm wondering if that was an individual situation or do

2:59:09 ↗ people, once they're incarcerated, if they've got mental health or substance abuse disorders, do they

2:59:15 ↗ get treatment? What kind of services are available to people? Well, it's a multi...

2:59:21 ↗ I'll tell you that, and you said it earlier, I mean, the jails are the

2:59:25 ↗ number one provider of mental health services in the United States. We deal with two

2:59:32 ↗ mental health issues in our court system. We deal with

2:59:37 ↗ competency and then we deal with mental health. Competency is a concept that the city

2:59:42 ↗ can't, through your prosecutor's office, cannot prosecute someone who is not competent. which means they

2:59:48 ↗ either don't understand the nature of the proceedings against them or they're unable to help

2:59:52 ↗ assist in their defense. And so if we get someone with a mental health issue

2:59:58 ↗ who is not competent or who the public

3:00:03 ↗ defender or their attorney thinks is not competent, then we have to schedule an evaluation

3:00:09 ↗ with Western State for competence. We can't do anything in this case so far because

3:00:13 ↗ we're not allowed to touch a case if they're not competent until competency is determined.

3:00:18 ↗ There's a True Blood decision, which is a federal decision that sued the state of

3:00:22 ↗ Washington, and we're still not caught up with True Blood. True Blood set forth years

3:00:27 ↗ ago, two or three years ago, a number of guidelines that the state had to

3:00:30 ↗ meet in order to provide competency restoration in a relatively

3:00:36 ↗ speedy manner. We're a municipal court, which means we're dealing with misdemeanors and gross misdemeanors.

3:00:41 ↗ Our clients are not priorities. I mean, when they're dealing with competency restoration, they're worried

3:00:45 ↗ about rapists and murderers. And so, a lot of our folks, what ends up happening

3:00:51 ↗ is they can't get competency addressed within the timeline prescribed by

3:00:57 ↗ law. So, from a criminal defense attorney perspective, the good news is the case goes

3:01:02 ↗ away. It gets dismissed. We can't address them because it's incompetent. For a community perspective,

3:01:07 ↗ their mental health issue is not addressed. We have them meet with the county mental

3:01:12 ↗ health professionals. to determine whether or not they pose an immediate threat to themselves or

3:01:17 ↗ others, but if they don't, they're just released. With regard to folks that are in

3:01:21 ↗ custody in either a substance abuse, they're competent, so we can address the case, but

3:01:25 ↗ there's either substance abuse or a mental health issue. My public defender, your public

3:01:30 ↗ defender, you are very fortunate to have one of the hardest working, most empathetic public

3:01:36 ↗ defenders in the state. And she is, anybody that she identifies with that, that's

3:01:42 ↗ in custody for some reason, she immediately files a motion to be interviewed by

3:01:48 ↗ folks with the state that provide services through Apple Healthcare and the like. They come

3:01:53 ↗ into the jail and they interview them for services. If they're eligible for services, she

3:01:58 ↗ files a motion to release and we release them to treatment. Does that answer your

3:02:04 ↗ question? Yes, thank you. It's a rehabilitative court and the jail just for a purpose.

3:02:10 ↗ There are people even at a misdemeanor and gross misdemeanor level the community wants in

3:02:14 ↗ jail. You know, a fourth offense DWI within the last three years, I

3:02:20 ↗ think the community wants to know that person's in jail, unless we can get some

3:02:25 ↗ assurances that they're not drinking and driving. But for most of the folks providing

3:02:31 ↗ appropriate treatment so they can become happy, productive members of the community makes more sense.

3:02:37 ↗ Thank you, Judge Stewart. I am not seeing any additional questions, but I did have

3:02:41 ↗ a request for Christy. I'm not sure if Christy is- Are you going to make

3:02:47 ↗ her talk? I was going to make her turn her video on because I wanted

3:02:50 ↗ to introduce her to the council so that when they see her, they would know

3:02:53 ↗ her. Christy, are you comfortable with that? Yeah. Say hi. Okay, there you go. Hi.

3:02:58 ↗ Good to see everyone. You've been with our city for a year now? Yep, just

3:03:03 ↗ over a year. A lot of stuff has happened in the court in that time.

3:03:07 ↗ And I thank you very much. And thank both you and Judge Stewart for coming

3:03:11 ↗ tonight and talking about what you're doing, but also being able to hear from our

3:03:15 ↗ community about where our community wants to go and where our council wants to go.

3:03:19 ↗ So thank you very much, Christy. Thank you. We're very excited to move forward with

3:03:23 ↗ the community court. The council should know we are very lucky to have Christy. She,

3:03:28 ↗ especially with all the technology that's taken over right now, she's the rock star for

3:03:31 ↗ the state. Christy's the one that goes into every other court. teaches them how to

3:03:35 ↗ use all of the technology, teaches me how to use the technology. And we've got

3:03:40 ↗ her here in Issaquah and that's pretty cool. So it's a great reputation. Especially with

3:03:44 ↗ the COVID thing, she's become a hero throughout the area. So yeah. Thank you very

3:03:50 ↗ much, Christy. Thank you. I'm going to move us to the next presentation, which is

3:03:54 ↗ going to be from our human resources group and Lauren Knox is up next. Good

3:04:00 ↗ evening City Council members and members of the community. My name

3:04:06 ↗ is Lauren Knox. I'm a senior human resources analyst with the city and also a

3:04:11 ↗ member of the city's equity team. So I'm here to talk a little bit about

3:04:16 ↗ our organizational equity initiatives and some next steps as well.

3:04:22 ↗ So next slide please. Okay, so first I wanted to talk about some

3:04:29 ↗ past training that we engaged in. We hired a facilitator in 2018 to do

3:04:35 ↗ a citywide equity training. And there were some successes in that training, but

3:04:41 ↗ there were also some significant lessons learned as well. And you'll see a couple of

3:04:46 ↗ those just on the slide. You know, one of the things I think we realized

3:04:50 ↗ through that process is the importance of shared language and concepts in this work. if

3:04:55 ↗ we're going to talk about racism in a meaningful way, we need to all be

3:04:59 ↗ talking about the same thing and start from a good foundation. Next

3:05:05 ↗ slide, please. I mainly mentioned that past

3:05:11 ↗ training because those lessons learned have really informed some of the steps that we've taken

3:05:16 ↗ forward since then. One of the things that we engaged in 2019 is

3:05:22 ↗ cultural conversations. So we invited some members of the community and members of some

3:05:28 ↗ community organizations to come speak with city staff and invited our city staff, of course,

3:05:33 ↗ to speak with those members of the community as well. We had one panel that

3:05:38 ↗ was focused on, it was a diverse group of our community members, focused around

3:05:44 ↗ cultural perceptions of government and how those differ across different cultures.

3:05:50 ↗ The next panel was with a group of community-based organizations and centered

3:05:56 ↗ around providing services to a diverse resident population. And you know, what

3:06:02 ↗ kinds of lessons can we learn from our partner organizations and how can we partner

3:06:06 ↗ better with them as well? A next step that we took,

3:06:12 ↗ the city engaged with the Governing Alliance on Race and Equity.

3:06:19 ↗ to send a staff cohort to some training. And I'll say as well that we

3:06:24 ↗ actually organized a city, we as a city proactively sought

3:06:30 ↗ out a group of partner organizations, other cities to be able to participate in this

3:06:35 ↗ training because it was important to us. So the Governing Alliance on Race and

3:06:41 ↗ Equity, they do a nine month training on advancing racial equity.

3:06:47 ↗ We reached out to our organization for interest in that training and compiled a team

3:06:52 ↗ of six staff members across five different departments to complete that nine month training.

3:07:00 ↗ A lot of that work is just centered around building staff capacity around racial equity

3:07:05 ↗ and having good robust conversations around those topics. A lot of it

3:07:11 ↗ was also building our networks. It was a great, as somebody who participated in the

3:07:16 ↗ training, it was a great opportunity to talk to a lot of neighboring jurisdictions. Linwood,

3:07:22 ↗ Tacoma, Bellevue, Port of Seattle, and some jurisdictions in Oregon as well,

3:07:29 ↗ were all involved in sharing a lot about equity work that they had done in

3:07:33 ↗ their organizations and successes, challenges, all great

3:07:39 ↗ stuff for us to take back to Issaquah. Part of the GARE

3:07:44 ↗ training really, you know, there's homework and there's a lot of work that's done throughout

3:07:49 ↗ the process and it centers around creating racial equity action plans. So actually being able

3:07:54 ↗ to come back to your organization with some ideas and next steps and things that

3:07:59 ↗ you might move forward on. That, you know, It's naturally evolved into this

3:08:04 ↗ the next item that you'll see, which is our equity team. The cohort of staff

3:08:09 ↗ who went through the GARE training together sort of naturally became a part of that

3:08:14 ↗ equity team, but it's also engaged with a larger cross section of our organization as

3:08:19 ↗ well. You know, we've had police chief Scott Baerbaum participating on our leadership equity team.

3:08:27 ↗ The city administrator, of course, provides us some guidance, but you know other staff members

3:08:32 ↗ as well. Next slide

3:08:35 ↗ please. So next steps

3:08:42 ↗ I would be remiss if I did not mention that equity is embedded in our

3:08:45 ↗ strategic plan in our city leadership and services goal. We have an objective that

3:08:51 ↗ states the city is actively sustaining and equitable and welcoming city government.

3:08:56 ↗ diversity and fostering meaningful, inclusive and varied civic engagement. A piece of

3:09:02 ↗ that, a potential action item there, is to create an equity and cultural competency initiative

3:09:07 ↗ for city staff. I will be the first to say that we are at the

3:09:11 ↗ beginning of what that looks like. You know, we're really beginning this work in a

3:09:15 ↗ meaningful way. And a couple of the next steps that we'd like to engage in

3:09:22 ↗ and really just a platform, first and foremost to call out to the organization

3:09:28 ↗ for additional volunteers for the equity team. I have heard a lot of interest in

3:09:32 ↗ the organization recently in participating in that and I'm very excited

3:09:38 ↗ about you know being able to engage across our departments on that issue and certainly

3:09:44 ↗ engage our staff of color as well in those conversations to the extent that they'd

3:09:48 ↗ like to be a part of it. The equity team, you know,

3:09:54 ↗ once we've kind of reconvened and created our wider group, which I expect will

3:10:00 ↗ involve quite a few staff members is committed to develop to developing some

3:10:06 ↗ action plans around certain items. You know, we had started that work at the beginning

3:10:10 ↗ of this year and had some suggested topics. And then, you know, pandemic happened and

3:10:17 ↗ a lot of these community conversations have started happening as well. And we've needed to

3:10:21 ↗ sort of rethink, are we still aligned with what we're hearing from the community through

3:10:26 ↗ our city council members and the mayor? And, you know, I would expect

3:10:32 ↗ that staff training will certainly be a part of one of our action plans. I

3:10:37 ↗ would expect that recruiting will be a focus as well. there are other certainly a

3:10:41 ↗ lot of other areas in the city and just depending on you know ideas from

3:10:45 ↗ our staff and from the community I hope that we'll be able to you know

3:10:50 ↗ use that team in a robust way in creating some change in the city

3:10:56 ↗ the last thing that I'd like to say is just you know we

3:11:02 ↗ recognize that part of being a good community partner on racial equity issues

3:11:08 ↗ is owning our organizational culture and making steps towards, you know, having

3:11:14 ↗ city staff who are well educated on these issues and engaged in this work. So,

3:11:21 ↗ you know, certainly we recognize the importance and I'm very excited by the amount of

3:11:26 ↗ engagement that we've seen in staff recently. And I'm hoping that that provides a lot

3:11:31 ↗ of good momentum going forward. Thank you very much for that presentation. We

3:11:37 ↗ do have a couple of questions lined up. I also appreciate that we have a

3:11:41 ↗ lot of staff here tonight that was also able to listen live to the community

3:11:44 ↗ comments. So thank you all for staying. We will start with Council Member Hall, followed

3:11:50 ↗ by Council Member Walsh. Council Member Hall. Thanks, Mayor Pauli. This is Zach Hall. Yes,

3:11:56 ↗ did note of that. Thanks for staying late. Really appreciate it. I have a couple

3:12:00 ↗ of questions. first is about this oh the

3:12:06 ↗ views changed um the first is about this gear um you said it's

3:12:11 ↗ really mostly about helping develop action plans and next steps and one of those was

3:12:17 ↗ the creation of this equity team um and you had a and you kind of

3:12:22 ↗ laid out nicely what the next step are for that equity team but i was

3:12:25 ↗ wondering if anything else came out of that training or was was it mostly focused

3:12:30 ↗ on okay let's equity team and then come up with our own action plan that

3:12:34 ↗ fits the city? There's a lot. I mean, I probably undersold them a

3:12:40 ↗ little bit to be honest, but yeah, you know, down to things like

3:12:47 ↗ the idea, you know, Gara is very big on the idea that, you know, we

3:12:51 ↗ don't see what we don't measure. And so, you know, we don't always know what

3:12:55 ↗ impact we're having on communities of color if we don't start measuring certain data and

3:13:00 ↗ disaggregating it by race. So, you know, I think there's a lot

3:13:06 ↗ there and there's a lot that we could measure and we'll have to kind of

3:13:10 ↗ see where our action plans take us to some extent. But, you know, being

3:13:16 ↗ aware that, you know, we have a... performance measurement piece of this.

3:13:23 ↗ GARE also, you know, does. They focus as well,

3:13:29 ↗ you know, in addition to action plans on the idea of a racial equity toolkit

3:13:34 ↗ and we've talked about that as an equity team. I don't know that that's maybe

3:13:38 ↗ the first item that we'd want to turn our attention to, but the idea of

3:13:42 ↗ it is that you have Something that you can give to city staff that kind

3:13:47 ↗ of explains how to embed equity in different sorts of work in different ways. So,

3:13:52 ↗ you know, we're honestly brainstorming and just trying to come up with some

3:13:58 ↗ good ideas to make meaningful change in the short term, but also, you know, in

3:14:02 ↗ the long term as well. Member hall, did you have another question? I did. Thank

3:14:08 ↗ you. find it yes

3:14:15 ↗ I was wondering if you could speak a little bit more to how we promote

3:14:21 ↗ diversity within hiring practices within the city but also within our Commission boards and

3:14:27 ↗ commissions not that we're hiring right now but just

3:14:33 ↗ curious kind of how that plays out Yeah, and again, sort of

3:14:39 ↗ owning where we are as an organization, I think that's an area where we have

3:14:42 ↗ a lot of work that we can do. And I think we do

3:14:48 ↗ a lot of work around having fair hiring processes and around

3:14:55 ↗ trying to do what we can to make sure that we're screening resumes in a

3:15:00 ↗ way that's not gonna be tainted by implicit bias, that kind of thing. But do

3:15:06 ↗ we have a formalized kind of recruiting objectives or anything like that? We don't really.

3:15:12 ↗ And I think we have heard from our organization and I think now

3:15:19 ↗ tonight we're hearing from the community as well that that's something that we should focus

3:15:23 ↗ on. So I expect that that's something we'll put a little bit more

3:15:29 ↗ concerted attention to. Lauren.

3:15:35 ↗ Just for some clarification, Councilmember Hall, the recruitment for boards and commissions is done

3:15:41 ↗ through the clerk's department, and the interviews for those are done with the staff

3:15:47 ↗ that works in that subject area. So, it feels a little bit different.

3:15:53 ↗ Maybe what we can do is come back at a future session and talk about

3:15:58 ↗ that, give some more information on that process, which is different than our internal hiring

3:16:02 ↗ process. I have a question from Councilmember Walsh,

3:16:07 ↗ followed by—actually, if it's okay, I'd like to get Stephanie Johnson, our

3:16:13 ↗ Human Resources Director, a chance to make a comment, and then we'll go to Councilmember

3:16:17 ↗ Walsh. Stephanie? Hi, good evening, Council. I just wanted to add to the comment of

3:16:22 ↗ diversity in our recruitment, and I know it became a topic of discussion earlier tonight.

3:16:28 ↗ Certainly around police recruitment and efforts that we're doing there. I think, as Lauren

3:16:34 ↗ said, and I'll just double down on, I think there's areas for improvement that we

3:16:38 ↗ have there. One thing I do want to bring to the attention of the council

3:16:44 ↗ and the public is our civil service commission. We have a three-member commission

3:16:51 ↗ in the city. And one of the charters of that said commission is fairness in

3:16:56 ↗ hiring. And so certainly the work that we do at the Civil Service Commission level

3:17:02 ↗ for police recruitment, there's a lot of conversations amongst public safety testing who we

3:17:08 ↗ use for entry level testing processes and police work. They do a lot

3:17:14 ↗ around diversity, equity and inclusion and advertising and reaching networks

3:17:20 ↗ of diverse populations. And so, you know, that is one area that we contract with

3:17:26 ↗ public safety testing for our entry level officers and invite that diversity into those

3:17:31 ↗ processes. But certainly, as Lauren stated, and I definitely support and agree with,

3:17:38 ↗ I think we can do a better job, you know, all throughout any positions that

3:17:43 ↗ we're recruiting for. But I just wanted to bring to council's attention that we do

3:17:47 ↗ have a board and commission around civil service and equity in police hiring.

3:17:54 ↗ Stephanie, it looks like you have a power outage at your house because you are

3:17:59 ↗ all black on our screen. But let's see, I have another question now from

3:18:05 ↗ Councilmember Walsh. Thank you. This is Councilmember Walsh. There

3:18:10 ↗ we go. I'm going to echo Councilmember Hull's

3:18:17 ↗ questions about hiring for diversity and particularly around making sure that

3:18:23 ↗ we're recruiting in areas where we might see a more diverse population

3:18:29 ↗ and being intentional about that. I think I'm very interested in that. I very much

3:18:35 ↗ appreciate you talking about the community engagement around cultural

3:18:41 ↗ diversity and our approach to that. The other question I would have is, are we

3:18:48 ↗ do we have a requirement of staff to do unconscious bias training, particularly the

3:18:54 ↗ staff that has community interaction? Yeah, we do not currently

3:19:00 ↗ have any sort of requirement around implicit bias training besides

3:19:06 ↗ what Police Chief Barabalm already mentioned about the police department. So that's

3:19:12 ↗ certainly, as we've started to have conversations about training,

3:19:18 ↗ We've thought about what an equity curriculum might look like, you know, and maybe a

3:19:23 ↗ piece of that is implicit bias training. Totally brainstorming and it's

3:19:29 ↗ not something that we have like a finished product yet to show counsel, but I

3:19:36 ↗ absolutely take that comment and that's something we'll bring back to the equity team and

3:19:40 ↗ talk about further, I think. Thank you, Lauren. I am not

3:19:46 ↗ Oh, sorry. Council President Hunt has a question. Thank you, Mr. Council President Hunt.

3:19:52 ↗ On the Civil Service Commission, my understanding is it's a three-person commission,

3:19:58 ↗ volunteer commission, like our other commissions. But unlike our other commissions, there are certain requirements

3:20:03 ↗ that are set by the state. So the requirements for the time having lived in

3:20:08 ↗ the city, for example, is different for that commission than for our other commissions. And

3:20:11 ↗ I guess my question is, we look at that

3:20:17 ↗ commission, the work that they do, get a better understanding of the work that they

3:20:22 ↗ do currently in the scope, and then for a future meeting, and then also

3:20:29 ↗ review what task forces or commissions, volunteer commissions, community

3:20:35 ↗ commissions, other cities or other entities have that overlook similar or adjacent topics.

3:20:45 ↗ We can prepare something for a future meeting. Okay, thank

3:20:51 ↗ you.

3:21:00 ↗ Okay, I was on mute. Thank you, Council President Hunt. We have a question from

3:21:05 ↗ Council Member Hall. Mayor Pauli yeah sorry for another question I was

3:21:11 ↗ trying to find the answer myself but I'm having trouble so I'm hoping City Administrator

3:21:15 ↗ Bob quotes remembers when we were going through underspend

3:21:21 ↗ feel like there was a training a citywide training that we that was on the

3:21:27 ↗ woods in the budget that we had to cut does that ring a bell at

3:21:31 ↗ something to do with equity maybe or maybe there's something else it was council member

3:21:35 ↗ all members of the council it was citywide within our human resources budget. Stephanie's still

3:21:41 ↗ on the line. I'll ask her to perhaps elaborate. So

3:21:47 ↗ one of the budget reductions that we proposed in HR is cutting some citywide training,

3:21:52 ↗ but it wasn't specific to anything around diversity, equity, inclusion. We still have a portion

3:21:57 ↗ of our citywide training budget that lives in the HR department. And one of the

3:22:03 ↗ things, you know, as the equity team met earlier this last week was those dollars

3:22:08 ↗ that we do have in the 2020 budget, purposing those to some diversity,

3:22:14 ↗ equity, inclusion training, possibly in in the 2020 calendar year. So it was a cut

3:22:19 ↗ of some dollars, but not specific to this topic and something we certainly still have

3:22:25 ↗ some funding to try to achieve some level of training in 2020.

3:22:32 ↗ Thank you, Council Member Hall. I'm not seeing any additional questions right now. So we'll

3:22:36 ↗ move to our next presenter, Monica Nagurla, and

3:22:42 ↗ she's getting her PowerPoint up. Monica. Hello, good evening,

3:22:48 ↗ Mayor Pauly and council members. So tonight I am

3:22:54 ↗ here to talk about a few community equity initiatives and we can move

3:23:00 ↗ to the next slide. So for the community facing initiatives,

3:23:06 ↗ the city promotes sponsors and participates in community efforts that focus on

3:23:12 ↗ advancing racial equity cultural diversity, both locally and regionally.

3:23:19 ↗ I humbly recognize that these initiatives that we promote, sponsor or participate in,

3:23:26 ↗ that they represent only the beginning of the work we must engage in, just like

3:23:30 ↗ Lauren said earlier, and by all means, they are not intended to be viewed as

3:23:35 ↗ comprehensive end results. So for example, locally we support cultural diversity and

3:23:41 ↗ inclusion events. Noting a couple of examples, the city in collaboration with the

3:23:47 ↗ Issaquah Library and the Issaquah Schools Foundation organizes and co-sponsors the

3:23:52 ↗ Welcoming Week, which is an annual event to help build unity between immigrants,

3:23:58 ↗ refugees and long-term residents. Similarly, the city also helps promote and

3:24:04 ↗ co-sponsors, for example, with the Latino club, the Day of the Dead, which is an

3:24:09 ↗ annual family-friendly event celebrating Mexican traditions that focus on remembering family

3:24:15 ↗ members who died. Other cultural or ethnic-specific events are promoted or

3:24:21 ↗ co-sponsored throughout the year. So in addition to

3:24:27 ↗ promoting or sponsoring events, we also participate in the Greater Isoqua

3:24:33 ↗ Equity and Inclusion Community Forum, which is a grassroots effort on

3:24:38 ↗ activating community members into advancing equity, diversity and belonging.

3:24:45 ↗ It includes Isoqua parents, nonprofit partners, city staff and

3:24:51 ↗ school district representatives. This group actually is organizing currently a

3:24:57 ↗ virtual listening session for this Friday for the community and an invitation

3:25:03 ↗ will be forthcoming in the next day. Another

3:25:08 ↗ initiative, the Human Services Commission, recognizing disparities in our communities created a

3:25:14 ↗ separate grant and granting process this year culture-based and community-based organizations that are

3:25:20 ↗ underrepresented in our community. We can move to the next slide. Thank you.

3:25:27 ↗ And on this next slide, I can note a couple of initiatives that are happening

3:25:32 ↗ regionally and we are part of. For example, in our collaboration

3:25:38 ↗ with the Issaquah School District, we participate in the school district's equity and advisory committee.

3:25:45 ↗ This is a school districts led initiative that gives us city staff the opportunity to

3:25:51 ↗ learn about equity related initiatives planned by the district. And we also have an opportunity

3:25:57 ↗ to engage in conversations with school district parents and diversity inclusion staff.

3:26:03 ↗ Regionally on the East Side, we are also part of a working group that includes

3:26:08 ↗ the East Side school districts and also East Side cities that focuses mainly on sharing

3:26:14 ↗ resources and updates on equity related programs and initiatives.

3:26:20 ↗ And finally, governing for regional equity and inclusion. This is a

3:26:26 ↗ countywide initiative that includes local city and county government jurisdictions,

3:26:32 ↗ including the Port of Seattle and the King County Library System, and works on

3:26:38 ↗ advancing racial equity and social justice within governments through its training and advocacy.

3:26:45 ↗ And also for this group, a virtual training and listening session that is

3:26:51 ↗ focused on elected officials and city leadership scheduled for July 17th and

3:26:57 ↗ invitations will be forthcoming in the next few days. So that being

3:27:03 ↗ said, as next steps, I believe that we must continue our work internally

3:27:09 ↗ and in the community so we can be effective as a community. I also believe

3:27:14 ↗ that the next steps in our community equity initiatives should be defined by further

3:27:20 ↗ community conversations and listening sessions. That concludes my

3:27:26 ↗ presentation and I'm open for questions or otherwise I can

3:27:32 ↗ hand it back to perhaps City Administrator Bob Kowitz for next steps for coming back

3:27:38 ↗ to Council. Thank you so much. Monica, thank you for that. I'm not seeing any

3:27:43 ↗ questions right now, but there may be some at the end for you. I also

3:27:47 ↗ wanted to thank you for making sure that you're doing invitations to Council.

3:27:53 ↗ that they can also participate in these events that are going on. So thank you

3:27:56 ↗ very much for doing that. We will go to City Administrator Bobkowitz for our last

3:28:01 ↗ presentation. City Administrator. Yes, thank you, Madam Mayor. Thank you, Mayor and Council,

3:28:08 ↗ for the time that you've taken this evening to hear and listen from the city

3:28:13 ↗ staff and the work that we've been doing. The last slide is the City Council's

3:28:18 ↗ role. What role you would like to take as a body as we move forward

3:28:24 ↗ and certainly providing additional direction. They're taking lots of notes this evening and our

3:28:30 ↗ plan would be to come back soon and talk more about that. But would also

3:28:35 ↗ ask the council what role you would like to play as body. I've put three

3:28:40 ↗ particular items here on the screen. First is training. Many governing bodies of cities

3:28:46 ↗ do racial equity training, implicit bias training together as a group.

3:28:52 ↗ and there are trainers that work with bodies of elected officials. So I would encourage

3:28:57 ↗ the city council to consider an opportunity to do training as a group. The next

3:29:03 ↗ is connections with the police department. I've spent a little time over the last few

3:29:08 ↗ days talking with our police officers, letting them know about the presentation this evening. And

3:29:14 ↗ some of the feedback I got is their desire for members of the council spend

3:29:20 ↗ more time understanding some of the specific roles that the police department plays. In my

3:29:24 ↗ discussions with the officers talking about what opportunities there may be going

3:29:30 ↗ forward as far as social services, as far as case management, things like that, there's

3:29:36 ↗ a lot of interest on the council. There's a lot of interest among the council

3:29:40 ↗ to share, on the police department, to share those interests directly to the city council.

3:29:45 ↗ So I would hope that the council would think about that. The third is community

3:29:50 ↗ outreach. I think certainly a component of all the work that we'll be doing moving

3:29:55 ↗ forward will have a community outreach component. You may choose as individuals to want to

3:30:00 ↗ do community outreach. Obviously, face-to-face is difficult at this point, but as we look at

3:30:06 ↗ using video technology, I would want to get your feedback with that. So, next

3:30:12 ↗ slide, please. So, next steps.

3:30:18 ↗ a lot this evening. I'd like to maybe go through the slide, Madam Mayor, and

3:30:23 ↗ then get any final comments from the council and then perhaps review one last time,

3:30:29 ↗ at least generally speaking, what we've heard for things to come back. The first two

3:30:35 ↗ items that the administration would like to propose is to come back to the council

3:30:39 ↗ and with a review of the Obama task force on 21st century policing, which you've

3:30:44 ↗ heard a little bit about this evening, see if there are any other issues or

3:30:48 ↗ initiatives in that report that might be useful for Issaquah. The United States Conference of

3:30:53 ↗ Mayors has a report on strengthening police community relations. We'd like to review that report

3:30:59 ↗ and bring back any pertinent initiatives or approaches that might be appropriate in Issaquah.

3:31:05 ↗ Lots has been discussed about the police department's budget and how do we reallocate

3:31:10 ↗ portions of that budget to other community serving initiatives. So we would like to

3:31:16 ↗ move forward with that, again, come back to the council in the short term with

3:31:21 ↗ probably a broader outline of what that approach would be in a timeframe before addressing

3:31:27 ↗ that. You've heard from our staff this evening about the work that we're doing with

3:31:33 ↗ the community organizations and internally we'd like to hold ourselves accountable to a work plan

3:31:38 ↗ moving forward. We'd like to bring that back to you. Additional forms for public input,

3:31:43 ↗ as Mayor Polly said at the beginning of her presentation, she's looking at the Obama

3:31:47 ↗ Foundation Mayor's Pledge as a good outline for some of these next steps, and that

3:31:54 ↗ involves heavy involvement with the public to make sure that we've heard everything we

3:32:00 ↗ need to hear from the outset, then to come back to the public again with

3:32:05 ↗ our thoughts and approaches before actually beginning the implement. getting feedback from the council

3:32:12 ↗ on what you see is with all that said the

3:32:17 ↗ administration agrees we need to come back soon we're proposing that the City Council needed

3:32:22 ↗ special meeting on Monday June 29th that'd be two weeks from tonight to give an

3:32:28 ↗ update on all the works provide some questions answers to questions that have been raised

3:32:34 ↗ this evening so mayor Pauli members the council we're recommending that we come back on

3:32:41 ↗ to continue this discussion. So Mayor and members of the council, again, thank you for

3:32:47 ↗ the time that you've devoted to this. Thank you for letting the staff kind of

3:32:51 ↗ present a baseline to the work that we've been doing. Certainly the listening

3:32:57 ↗ piece is a critical element of this and that does not end tonight. We wanna

3:33:01 ↗ continue to listen to the community and members of the council as we move forward.

3:33:06 ↗ But we wanted to put some framework to go forward recommend again that we come

3:33:12 ↗ back with a special media. We're all still here available to answer questions.

3:33:19 ↗ Thank you very much, City Administrator Bobco. It looks like we have a question from

3:33:22 ↗ Council Member Walsh. Okay, Council Member Walsh here.

3:33:28 ↗ On the previous slide, you talked about engagement with the police,

3:33:34 ↗ and I have to say I'm totally open to that idea. I'm just not sure

3:33:40 ↗ quite how to approach that or how to handle that in the time of COVID

3:33:45 ↗ and social distancing. So are there any suggestions there? Any

3:33:52 ↗ ways that we can go about doing that? Because certainly that is

3:33:58 ↗ getting that perspective and that understanding helps us do our job better.

3:34:07 ↗ Commissioner Bob Karev, we

3:34:12 ↗ cannot hear you. We'd be happy, I'd be happy to work with Chief Irvine, with

3:34:17 ↗ each member of the council to identify ways for you to chat with

3:34:23 ↗ staff. I did a 7 a.m. meeting in a parking lot last week

3:34:29 ↗ with folks still wearing masks, but still at social distance. I did a 930 meeting

3:34:35 ↗ indoors, but people with masks and social distance. So there are ways to do this.

3:34:41 ↗ Again, I think we just need to talk individually with members of the council to

3:34:47 ↗ see what your particular interests are, and we can arrange that.

3:34:50 ↗ Council member Walsh, you also had some comments, potentially.

3:34:58 ↗ Yeah, on the larger kind of closing comments idea on this, I am absolutely interested

3:35:04 ↗ in training for us as a council. I think that is a fantastic idea. Much

3:35:09 ↗ like I said, I'm interested in it for the staff. And

3:35:16 ↗ as far as our approach to this idea, I love that we are

3:35:21 ↗ listening and trying to get a sense of what our community thinks. I've

3:35:28 ↗ concerns with the idea of you know that first step of that last slide

3:35:35 ↗ sorry it's 10 p.m. need to think and speak at the same time

3:35:41 ↗ being the 21st century policing as a model I haven't looked into

3:35:47 ↗ that at all and so it seems a little bit early for me to provide

3:35:53 ↗ feedback to say yes you should research that or you shouldn't. I just I don't

3:35:58 ↗ know enough there. So that's the only area that I see of our approach that

3:36:04 ↗ I'm uncertain about. Otherwise I think kudos that we are approaching this

3:36:10 ↗ listening and coming back to this. I would also like to

3:36:16 ↗ say I very much appreciate and sign on to the idea of a short, mid

3:36:21 ↗ and long term approach to all of these ideas. And I would like to see

3:36:26 ↗ that in our next set of response on June 29th is kind of how we're

3:36:31 ↗ thinking in that short, mid and long term scope. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member

3:36:37 ↗ Walsh. Next up is Council Member Hall. Thanks,

3:36:43 ↗ Mayor Pauly. This is Zach Hall. Just some closing comments. ditto i

3:36:49 ↗ think the training idea is a great idea you know we all have our own

3:36:51 ↗ privilege sitting up here on council so i think that's always great um i wanted

3:36:57 ↗ to in particular touch on community outreach it's the outreach part that's that i'm

3:37:03 ↗ interested in seems like right now um you know we're listening we're saying we're listening

3:37:08 ↗ it's the people emailing in and and people calling us but um

3:37:14 ↗ you know everyone has their own lived experience that paint their experience of life.

3:37:20 ↗ So we wanna make sure we are actively listening to people with different lived experiences

3:37:26 ↗ as well to ensure that when we're creating policy here in Issaquah that it's

3:37:32 ↗ benefiting everyone in the community and not just some parts of people in community. So

3:37:37 ↗ I would look for ideas. I mean, COVID-19 obviously makes that difficult.

3:37:46 ↗ what I'd normally do is just go knock on some doors, especially because I just

3:37:50 ↗ moved to the Highlands from South Coke. So I'm eager to meet my neighbors, but

3:37:56 ↗ that's not possible. So maybe it might be possible to set up some kind of,

3:38:04 ↗ I was going to say coffee with a council member. That's not going to work

3:38:06 ↗ either. So anyways, maybe we can have offline conversations about, hey, how can we be

3:38:12 ↗ actively engaged in the outreach part of community outreach? Just a suggestion.

3:38:18 ↗ Thanks. Thank you, Councilmember Hall. Councilmember DeMichelle.

3:38:24 ↗ Thank you, Mayor Pauli. It is late, so I'm going to kind of toggle back

3:38:28 ↗ and forth here between some comments I had that really didn't fit into anywhere in

3:38:33 ↗ the discussion, but I thought were important to bring forward. The first one is I

3:38:39 ↗ do agree that I would love to participate in training for the council.

3:38:46 ↗ I think that we have to acknowledge that we are all white people sitting at

3:38:50 ↗ the council table and that we need to learn and hear from people of color

3:38:56 ↗ what their experiences are and face if we have implicit biases, faces and

3:39:04 ↗ learn and go forward. So I would love to participate in the training. The second

3:39:09 ↗ comment I had was I listened to

3:39:15 ↗ Congresswoman Schreier make a presentation and her statement on

3:39:21 ↗ George Floyd's death. And she talked about a through line

3:39:27 ↗ of equity and So

3:39:33 ↗ communities have to really look at the big picture. And so thinking about that, and

3:39:38 ↗ also hearing the comments tonight and emails that we've received, there's a lot of

3:39:44 ↗ concern about how the schools are doing, how does that fit in with what we're

3:39:49 ↗ doing? And so I would really urge us as a council and as a city

3:39:55 ↗ to reach out to the school district and the school board members. that before COVID

3:40:00 ↗ arrived, we were thinking about things that we could do in that regard. And then

3:40:04 ↗ of course, both of our worlds just got blown apart. So,

3:40:10 ↗ but I'm just thinking, how can we be sure that our policies are aligned with

3:40:14 ↗ the school district, that we are talking the same language, that we're looking at people

3:40:19 ↗ in our community from the time they're born, as they go through school, as they

3:40:24 ↗ become adults, as they become senior citizens, does equity play out across that whole

3:40:30 ↗ range? And I think that would be a really productive conversation for us to have

3:40:35 ↗ with the school district. Similarly,

3:40:41 ↗ I know that we have people in our community who are very concerned about the

3:40:44 ↗ preschool to what's called the preschool to prison pipeline. And that group,

3:40:50 ↗ and I've had those discussions with a group that really isn't in our city, but

3:40:55 ↗ I think that We should adopt them sort of, and that's the people at Passage

3:41:00 ↗ Point. They have lived experience that we really need to listen to.

3:41:06 ↗ Their children are in our district schools. And I think

3:41:12 ↗ that it would be, again, a productive conversation to try and bring them into

3:41:18 ↗ the outreach that we do and make sure that they're involved with us because If

3:41:23 ↗ people aren't familiar with Passage Point, of course, it is a transitional housing residence

3:41:29 ↗ where previously incarcerated individuals are reunited with their children and

3:41:37 ↗ reintegrated into the community. And it's been a very successful program.

3:41:43 ↗ But I think that that would be a productive conversation to get started as well.

3:41:48 ↗ So those are some thoughts that I had overall. where we could go in terms

3:41:53 ↗ of community outreach and how we also make this community conversation

3:41:59 ↗ really meaningful in terms of, again, I'll say it again, sorry, but breaking down those

3:42:05 ↗ silos, making sure that we're all talking to each other and on the same page

3:42:10 ↗ and that the conversation we're having, we're all using the same language and understanding

3:42:16 ↗ each other completely. are my overall comments. Thank you. And thank you, Mayor Pauly,

3:42:22 ↗ for getting this going. Thank you, Council Member DeMichelle. Comments. I

3:42:28 ↗ think Council Member, Deputy Council President Wray has had his question answered.

3:42:34 ↗ I'm going to move to Council Member Goodman for a comment.

3:42:41 ↗ Thank you, Council Member Goodman here. Yes to training. Absolutely.

3:42:47 ↗ I don't know why we would include ourselves and

3:42:53 ↗ for some very reason that Councilmember DeMichelle said in addition to the fact that we

3:42:59 ↗ are part of the city and I think we should obligate ourselves to

3:43:04 ↗ what we are seemingly interested in having everybody else participate in just by virtue of,

3:43:10 ↗ I mean, look at us, just by virtue of what we all look like. We

3:43:13 ↗ need all the help we can get, not only with training, but in understanding and

3:43:17 ↗ engaging with the community, especially having people of color help

3:43:23 ↗ us understand what we can do

3:43:30 ↗ to help with issues of racism. So, I'm hoping that the community helps us help

3:43:34 ↗ them. And for

3:43:40 ↗ the police department and the interest in engaging with the council, absolutely interested in engaging

3:43:46 ↗ with the police department. I would ask, however, that

3:43:54 ↗ the police department at least try to

3:44:00 ↗ figure out what they want us to know, because I would be a little challenged

3:44:04 ↗ going into that conversation with merely asking questions. So if they're

3:44:10 ↗ interested, then they've got to be interested in sending messages to us. And I

3:44:15 ↗ would like to know what that would be. I just don't want to go off

3:44:18 ↗ on a seven o'clock meeting in the parking lot. Hi, how are you? I want

3:44:22 ↗ it to be meaningful and I don't know specifically what to ask. So

3:44:29 ↗ I thought this was a really fantastic meeting and I am really

3:44:35 ↗ anxious for our next meeting. because I think there are just so many things that

3:44:40 ↗ we can do. Anyway, thank you. It's late. I'm trailing off.

3:44:47 ↗ Thank you, Council Member Goodman. Council President Hunt followed by Council Member Mars.

3:44:57 ↗ Thank you. This is Council President Hunt. We have had a number of

3:45:03 ↗ residents call in, and I think they gave very insightful and thoughtful comments this evening

3:45:08 ↗ and a lot for us to continue thinking on and um i also think that

3:45:12 ↗ that's the start of a conversation and we'll continue to have that kind of conversation

3:45:16 ↗ um and i think we're all committed to continuing listening um i did want to

3:45:22 ↗ very briefly summarize the other emails that we received that weren't touched on during

3:45:28 ↗ the um weren't touched on directly during public comment and again thank you to the

3:45:35 ↗ members who wrote in and provided their thoughts there are many personal stories and many

3:45:40 ↗ personal experiences and those are very valuable for us council members to um to

3:45:45 ↗ understand the experiences of our residents and to better serve our residents so to summarize

3:45:51 ↗ some of the other things that we heard from community members this week in email

3:45:56 ↗ other than what was summarized directly by those residents in public comments we

3:46:03 ↗ had questions posed to to Issaquah about, has Issaquah found laws and policies that

3:46:08 ↗ contribute to structural racism and what do we as a city plan to do about

3:46:12 ↗ that if we have? And what do we plan to do about generally ending social

3:46:18 ↗ inequity? We also heard from residents about

3:46:24 ↗ simplifying the mission of police and funding more social programs, less policing in schools, which

3:46:30 ↗ also came up during public comment. And from one resident, we heard about

3:46:36 ↗ being not supportive of public sector employee unions, supportive of more community

3:46:42 ↗ policing and advocating for housing policy to support diversity.

3:46:48 ↗ We also heard from residents about advocating for police reform and

3:46:54 ↗ more relationship building, including more discussions between police officers, more conversations between police and

3:47:00 ↗ youth in the community. the need for workshops and

3:47:06 ↗ concern about homeless people being profiled by police regardless of

3:47:12 ↗ race or nationality. And then we also heard a call to listen,

3:47:18 ↗ engage more with the community. And we did also receive correspondence in support of the

3:47:24 ↗ police and in support of the importance of the police role as well. So many

3:47:30 ↗ diverse, many that came in and I wanted to take a moment to

3:47:35 ↗ summarize those. And again, to say thank you to all the community members who wrote

3:47:39 ↗ to us because we have received a lot of engagement on that topic. That brings

3:47:45 ↗ me to my next point, which is now my comments. I

3:47:51 ↗ think that the amount of community engagement on our budget in particular is

3:47:58 ↗ quite astonishing and I very much very much I'm interested to hear

3:48:04 ↗ from community members their input on budget priorities because I think that as we work

3:48:09 ↗ on our budget, having that kind of direct feedback will be very valuable.

3:48:15 ↗ And we will be going through a difficult budget this year because of the financial

3:48:20 ↗ impacts of COVID-19. And I think that makes it very important that our budget does

3:48:24 ↗ reflect the priorities of the community and we will be working with less resources because

3:48:30 ↗ of those financial impacts. as we go through that budgeting process

3:48:36 ↗ it is a long process there are many there will be many discussions and i

3:48:39 ↗ hope that community members know that their input on those topics is valuable and will

3:48:44 ↗ continue to be valuable as we go through that long process of developing a budget

3:48:51 ↗ i i really like the framing that councilmember march put forward of as we go

3:48:56 ↗ forward looking at near term midterm and long term steps that we can take as

3:49:00 ↗ a city my estimation, some of the near-term things that we can do to

3:49:05 ↗ demonstrate that we are taking action and taking meaningful steps is

3:49:11 ↗ the training, council training. I agree with everything that's been said on that point. Also,

3:49:18 ↗ I think we should consider what our commissions currently do for equity and if we

3:49:23 ↗ could expand or have a task force a more formal way

3:49:29 ↗ for community members to be engaged with the city. We have seen this interest and

3:49:33 ↗ I think a more formal connection would be potentially valuable if there's interest from the

3:49:38 ↗ community in doing something like that. Then also looking at the eight can't wait policies

3:49:44 ↗ and implementing those fully, those would all be near term and also working with the

3:49:50 ↗ school district too, because the school district is a separate entity from the city, we

3:49:56 ↗ need to align with them on the issue of policing in schools. And so I

3:50:02 ↗ think those could all be our near-term items. And then in the medium to

3:50:08 ↗ long-term budget, and then also looking at our social services and

3:50:13 ↗ how we address the needs of community members overall. We have had studies done that

3:50:19 ↗ I think we should revisit in terms of our community needs our budget lines with

3:50:24 ↗ those needs so that can be a medium to starting soon but continuing

3:50:30 ↗ into the future and medium long term so I think we have a lot of

3:50:36 ↗ work to do but again I really appreciate the conversation and appreciate that this is

3:50:41 ↗ our starting point Thank You Council President Hunt Councilmember Marks with a comment followed by

3:50:47 ↗ Councilmember Hall Thank you, Madam Mayor. This is Council Member Martz. The hour is late

3:50:52 ↗ and I'm not feeling particularly clever. So I'll just say I want to thank you,

3:50:59 ↗ so many folks in the community that shared such deeply personal feelings about this issue

3:51:04 ↗ and experiences on this issue. There will be more of this, I hope. You know,

3:51:09 ↗ talking to some of the folks that were protesting out front of City Hall, I

3:51:13 ↗ said, you know, hold us accountable. on this. Don't let this

3:51:21 ↗ die down as the initial passion, as people get over the initial passion. Follow through

3:51:27 ↗ on this. And I'm sure we will, but I will want to keep hearing from

3:51:32 ↗ the community. I want to thank you and the administration. I know that I think

3:51:36 ↗ tonight was originally planned to talk about COVID-19 related responses, and we moved it out

3:51:41 ↗ of the way so that we could about this tonight, which was great.

3:51:47 ↗ Everybody's talked about near, mid, and long term. I'm confident the administration will listen. I

3:51:53 ↗ think the council, as is often the case, is pretty close on what we think

3:51:58 ↗ is important on these time horizons. And so I think the administration will be able

3:52:02 ↗ to craft a good response to what they've heard tonight from us and from the

3:52:07 ↗ community. I'm all for the implicit bias training.

3:52:14 ↗ It is a tough pill to swallow sometimes because I went into

3:52:21 ↗ politics and leadership partially over human rights issues. And

3:52:27 ↗ it's fueled me since being in high school. But that just means that

3:52:34 ↗ a little bit more humility on these issues are even more important. And so

3:52:40 ↗ we all can benefit and support. So I'm all for it.

3:52:46 ↗ And then finally, one thing about IPD, you know, it's hard because, you know,

3:52:52 ↗ you don't want to just hear the best of things. But I will say that

3:52:57 ↗ I don't know when and how one does this during the COVID era, but doing

3:53:02 ↗ a ride along, it's been 10 or 11 years for me, but it was really

3:53:06 ↗ eye-opening. I mean, most of us only have interactions with police officers in, you know,

3:53:11 ↗ slightly stressful situations. I've heard of people who get speeding tickets, you know, as an

3:53:15 ↗ example. But to be inside the cruiser, looking out as the officer

3:53:21 ↗ is having a conversation with somebody allows you to see a very different set of

3:53:25 ↗ eyes. And this is not to trivialize things, but to at least a little

3:53:32 ↗ bit of an understanding of what that interaction looks like when it goes well. Because

3:53:36 ↗ we see, of course, we see people on their finance behavior because we've got a

3:53:40 ↗ city council member sitting in the car with them. But to the extent that if

3:53:43 ↗ you have not, to my fellow council members, if you have not been able to

3:53:47 ↗ experience something like that, if you can arrange for something like that, again, I don't

3:53:52 ↗ see it as propaganda, but at least understanding how that interaction looks from the other

3:53:56 ↗ side of the notepad or whatever, electronic when they use nowadays. So I rambled a

3:54:02 ↗ bit, but those are my thoughts. Thank you so much. And thank you again for

3:54:05 ↗ putting this session together. Thank you, Council Member Martz. The administration is very grateful for

3:54:10 ↗ the nimbleness of council as well. Most folks don't know our meetings are planned months

3:54:15 ↗ out ahead of time. COVID has kind of shook that up. And now again, we

3:54:20 ↗ were able to pivot. So it's due to everybody's flexibility. And I appreciate that. So

3:54:25 ↗ I thank you for your comments about ride along with the police. Eastside Fire and

3:54:28 ↗ Rescue also provides a program. And I think whenever you can get out there with

3:54:32 ↗ the crew and see what's going on, it's just super insightful and helpful. So it's

3:54:38 ↗ very possible for us to set that up. We'll work around the COVID thing and

3:54:42 ↗ figure out how to do that. I have a few more people that would like

3:54:45 ↗ to make comments. Council Member Hall followed by Council Member Goodman. Mayor Pauli,

3:54:51 ↗ this is Zach Hall. Sorry to double dip. I just had another thought. And Councilmember

3:54:56 ↗ or Council President Hunt just brought this up and I think actually I think I

3:55:02 ↗ might be stealing Councilmember DeMichelle's idea. So kudos to you, Barb. But I think it

3:55:08 ↗ would also be a really good idea to to what the Human Services Commission

3:55:14 ↗ and also the Youth Advisory Board have to say about these issues. In particular, I

3:55:18 ↗ would like to hear from our communities of youth here in Issaquah and perhaps

3:55:25 ↗ they could meet amongst themselves to consider expanding what their scope is, whether or not

3:55:30 ↗ studying the intersection of equity and the policies that we're considering would fit within their

3:55:36 ↗ current scope or similar to what we did with River doing with River and Streams

3:55:41 ↗ board and having a kind of come up from them, or perhaps this needs to

3:55:45 ↗ be an aspect of all boards and commissions and not just one. Just a thought.

3:55:51 ↗ You're right. It is late. Thank you, Council Member Hall. I think it's clear. We

3:55:56 ↗ get what you're saying. Council Member Goodman, you are the last one signed up for

3:56:00 ↗ comment today. Thank you. Council Member Goodman here. You'll recall at our last meeting when

3:56:05 ↗ we the latest proclamation and I

3:56:11 ↗ suggested requested that we get a web page that that is one place where we

3:56:17 ↗ house all of our proclamations that we've done over the last 20 years and related

3:56:20 ↗ information and voila we have one it is called inclusive issaquah

3:56:26 ↗ and Audemona hand put that together and she was nice enough to

3:56:32 ↗ seek some input from me this is not for me but I

3:56:38 ↗ We talked briefly. Anyway, it is under the Human Services

3:56:44 ↗ tab and it's called Inclusive Issaquah and it contains the proclamations and it has a

3:56:50 ↗ little bit of a history there about those proclamations and what we have done in

3:56:54 ↗ terms of, we heard some about it tonight, the welcoming week and cultural bridges and

3:56:58 ↗ things like that. And one thing that is on this page that is interesting is

3:57:05 ↗ Human Services Sorry, volunteer opportunities. Issaquah needs you to represent our

3:57:11 ↗ inclusive community. If you're looking for a fun and interesting way to make a difference,

3:57:14 ↗ we encourage you to apply to serve on a city board or commission. So for

3:57:20 ↗ my final comment, if we're looking at near-term things that we can do to make

3:57:26 ↗ a difference or try to...

3:57:32 ↗ that we can do than the near term like right now when i was at

3:57:35 ↗ on city hall steps talking to um some of the folks um uh

3:57:41 ↗ respectfully carrying signs and protesting um one of the um one gentleman

3:57:47 ↗ um black member of our community the question i asked him we were talking about

3:57:52 ↗ diversity and that we don't have a lot of it on our volunteer boards and

3:57:55 ↗ commissions and i said well how what do we do to get people of color

3:58:01 ↗ to be better represented on our boards and commissions. And he said, well, you have

3:58:06 ↗ to tell the community you're looking for that. And I thought, well, wow, that's really

3:58:12 ↗ simple. We just usually send out a call for volunteers, please apply. But I thought

3:58:18 ↗ about it more and I thought, well, that's just kind of an aha moment because

3:58:23 ↗ if somebody, someone out there was looking for somebody who was four foot 11

3:58:29 ↗ with short brown hair who's 60 years old, how would I know

3:58:35 ↗ that they are looking for somebody like me unless they say, I am looking for

3:58:39 ↗ somebody like you? I don't think we've ever done that before. I don't think we've

3:58:43 ↗ ever put out a call for people, diverse

3:58:49 ↗ people that doesn't necessarily have to be people of color. So I think that's something

3:58:53 ↗ that we could do immediately, that when we have a call for volunteers, we specifically

3:58:56 ↗ say, what we're looking for.

3:59:01 ↗ Anyway, that's it. Thank you. That is a fabulous suggestion and I think we took

3:59:07 ↗ a baby step last year by putting in the first ever

3:59:13 ↗ term limits, which is not necessarily popular, but term limits on our commissioners so that

3:59:18 ↗ we can begin to diversify the voices that we're hearing. and

3:59:24 ↗ someone gets a seat on a board or commission, like myself, they like to stay

3:59:28 ↗ for 20 years and our community looks very different now than it did 20 years

3:59:32 ↗ ago. So I love that suggestion. Thank you very much, Council Member Goodman. I am

3:59:37 ↗ not seeing any additional comments. So I will just remind everyone that there was no

3:59:43 ↗ formal action required, just feedback this evening. And we will be returning for a special

3:59:48 ↗ city council meeting June 29th which is an additional council meeting so thank you very

3:59:54 ↗ much for adding that into the calendar the next item I'm not sure I'm going

3:59:58 ↗ to get very much because I'm seeing a lot of tired faces but good of

4:00:02 ↗ the order if anybody would like to stay in the chat if we have anything

4:00:06 ↗ for good of the order not seeing much so I will start to announce some

4:00:12 ↗ of our upcoming council meetings we're having a special city council meeting on Monday June

4:00:15 ↗ 22nd I've 30 p.m. executive session and a 7 p.m.

4:00:21 ↗ COVID-19 recovery and coronavirus aid relief and economic security act funding.

4:00:27 ↗ Yes, we are still dealing with COVID and we have a lot more work to

4:00:31 ↗ do this year on that. So that's going to be a really interesting meeting. There

4:00:36 ↗ is a city council study session on Tuesday, June 23rd and a city council special

4:00:42 ↗ meeting now on the 29th of June, followed by a Council regular meeting on Monday,

4:00:48 ↗ July 6th. We are really getting back into the meeting mode, quite obviously. There is

4:00:54 ↗ no executive session this evening, so there being no further business, we are adjourned at

4:00:59 ↗ 11.01, and thank you for all your great work tonight. Have a great night.

Approved minutes

Extracted from the next meeting's packet, where this meeting's minutes were approved as a consent-calendar attachment.

Open PDF

Attendance

Council / Members (7)

Barbara de Michele

Stacy Goodman

Zach Hall

Victoria Hunt

Tola Marts

Chris Reh

Lindsey Walsh

Motions and votes (1)

APPROVE THE CONSENT AGENDA AS PRESENTED. a) ID 0545 - Accounts: Payables and Payroll of Jun. 15, 2020, $ 6,225,755.04; Approved. b) Minutes: City Council Regular Meeting, June 1, 2020; Approved. c) AB 7868 - Confluence Park Turf & Irrigation Project; Accepted the completion of the Confluence Park Tu…

Moved by HUNT · seconded by REH

Carried 7-0

In favor: Barbara de Michele, Stacy Goodman, Zach Hall, Victoria Hunt, Tola Marts, Chris Reh, Lindsey Walsh