Council Connection » Next Week in the Budget // Public Safety & Human Services Committee Work // Welcome Back to Seattle Public Libraries // Eviction Moratorium Extension // PayUp Update // Pre-Filing Diversion Racial Equity Toolkit Report for Adults 25 Years Old and Older

Household next week

Next week, the city council will start the 2022 budget process. The council process will begin after the mayoress tabled her 2022 budget on Monday 27 SeptemberNS.

As of September 29th, the council will meet as a special budget committee to hear presentations by the city budget office and some departments. This stage of the budget process allows council members and the public to hear from the departments a description of the notable changes proposed in the mayor’s proposed budget for that particular department.

All council members are members of the budget committee. The daily session begins at 9:30 a.m. and meets again at 2:00 p.m. after a break. All sessions are broadcast live on the Seattle Channel.

Here is the schedule of the meeting:

Wednesday September 29thNS:

• Morning: overview of the City Budget Office
• Afternoon: Office for Economic Development, Office for Sustainability & Environment and Department for Education and Early Learning

Thursday September 30th

• Morning: Housing Office, Human Resources, Homeless Service
• Afternoon: Community Safety & Community Led Investments, Seattle Police Department

Friday October 1st

• Morning: Department of Transportation, Department of Parks and Recreation
• Afternoon: COVID response and recovery

The schedule for the budget meeting can be found in the Go to the Budget Committee’s website. You can Download the budget calendar here.

Have the meetings of the Budget Committee public like 30 minutes at the start of the morning session.

Work of the Public Security and Human Services Committee

I held a special meeting of the Public Security and Human Services Committee today, my last committee meeting before the start of budget season and the suspension of committee work.

To take detour to scale before arrest: Seattle City Council passed RES 31916 in November 2019 in which we Recognized the city’s responsibility to reduce unnecessary interference with the judicial system and stated our obligation to ensure that law enforcement distraction programs such as LEAD, receive public funding sufficient to accept all priority transfers across the city by 2023.

Today, representatives from LEAD and Human Services presented the number of expected transfers and the financial resources that would be required to extend the pre-arrest diversion to accept these transfers. The analysis was requested by a Declaration of legislative intent which I sponsored and was unanimously adopted by the Council last autumn. You can the Presentation here.

LEAD provides community-based care for people who violate the law related to behavioral health problems or extreme poverty as an alternative to criminal action. Ensuring that LEAD has sufficient resources to expand its critical work will be a budget priority for me.

Recommendations of the Task Force on the Realignment of the Criminal Justice System (CLS): Over the past year, individuals affected by the criminal justice system met on a task force convened by the Seattle Office of Civil Rights to develop recommendations for policy changes to the criminal justice system that would 1) reduce as much damage as possible; and 2) prevent people from ending up in the system in the first place. They made their recommendations this morning; you can watch the presentation, and read the full report, “Center affected voices.“Here are their main recommendations:

In July, my committee heard a presentation on the realignment of the criminal justice system that emerged from the 2019 budget, when the Council funded a temporary position in the Legislative Department to develop a strategic plan and a position in the Citizens’ Rights Office to show the commitment of the Coordinate stakeholders to reorganize the criminal justice system. This strategic plan, Reorienting Seattle’s criminal justice system through a Public Health Approach: The Interface between Community Knowledge and Evidence-Based Practices, drew on previous rounds of stakeholder engagement to identify Community Guiding Principles that served as the basis for research into theories of the causes of crime, as well as best practice and expert advice on creating effective alternatives to the traditional criminal justice system. You can watch this July Presentation here.

Welcome back to the Seattle Public Libraries

The Seattle Public Library has reopened all District 1 libraries and expanded their hours. If you missed your local library during the pandemic, now is the time for a personal visit! Find Library opening times and locations.

Extension of the eviction moratorium

Mayor Durkan on Tuesday announced an extension of the Eviction moratorium for residential and commercial properties and other COVID-19 related protective measures. The extension runs until January 15, 2022.

While Seattle has a high vaccination rate, the city and county are in the process of providing tens of millions in rental subsidies – and how reported According to the Seattle Times, there are approximately 60,000 renters in the Seattle area who are behind on rent.

Renters who receive notice of eviction during the moratorium should contact the Seattle Rentals Hotline at 206‐684‐5700 or go online at make a complaint.

PayUp update

You may remember my blog To update in July that we held stakeholder meetings to discuss Working Washington’s proposal for PayUp policy (which you can read more about) here). This proposal for a directive affects workers in the gig economy who have on-demand or pre-planned jobs placed by a network company (e.g. our stakeholder meetings lasted until mid-August and we listened during my committee meeting on September 14th Another update from the Central Staff of the Council.

the presentation von Central Staff goes into the first, as yet unpublished bill and describes the political decisions we have made to date. The draft covers the first three policy areas: minimum remuneration, transparency and flexibility. I encourage you to take a look at the previously linked presentation from the headquarters staff, which provides details on salary structure, transparency and flexibility.

We continued the stakeholder process for this not-yet-presented bill with two additional meetings in September to collect additional feedback. During the budget from September 27th we will pause the review of this legislation but will work with stakeholders and the Labor Standards Office to ensure that policy decisions can be made under the budget.

Other cities are also working on similar labor standards for gig workers. Yesterday, New York City passed a law requiring the Office of Labor Standards to study and implement rules that set minimum wage standards, including transparency in the calculation of trips. Additionally, they have passed laws making toilet access mandatory and allowing gig workers to limit the distance they want to travel as an independent contractor. Bill Sponsor Councilor Carlina Rivera is quoted in this article: This set of bills is historic … We hope other cities will take inspiration from us. “Alex Clardy of my office who oversaw this policy development was also quoted as saying,” There has been a slow federal response to how technological Change is working, “said Clardy, adding that local governments” need to lead the way “.

Pre-Filing Diversion Racial Equity Toolkit Report for Adults 25+

At the Public Security and Human Services Committee, we heard a briefing from the prosecutor last week regarding the Pre-Filing Diversion Racial Equity Toolkit Report for Adults 25+.

Since 2017, the public prosecutor’s office has been running a diversion program for adults between the ages of 18 and 24. The Council has requested a declaration of intent (sponsored by Council President Gonzalez) adopted with the 2020 budget. Like many things in the city, this has taken extra time due to the effects of the COVID pandemic.

Work on these issues stems from the establishment of a prison re-entry and community prison working group in 2015, which published its final report in October 2018.

The RET report notes that the pre-trail detour is some type of order offered by the prosecutor. If the person is doing community service and there are no new criminal offenses, the proceedings will be discontinued after a certain period of time. For 2019, 73% of the cases for the existing program were rejected by closure; 15% were still open and 11% were convicted after failing to complete the program. The completion rates for the program in 2017 were 84%, with 9% convicted.

From 2016 to 2020, 41% of the defendants aged 25 or older are in the 25 to 34 age group, while the age group 55 and over makes up 13%.

The report finds significant differences among the defendants:

When comparing the census data with the data collected by the Seattle Municipal Court with those identified as black, they represented 7.3% of the population, but made up 25% of the defendants and 30% of the cases filed. In addition, according to the latest census, American Indians and Native Americans make up 0.5% of the population but 2% of the defendants.

One of the recommendations of the report involves better data collection to include identification of Latinx individuals:

Mechanisms for collecting racial and demographic data must include identification of Latinx and Hispanic Americans. This information is currently not requested. We have no data on the impact of the Seattle criminal justice system on the Latinx population.

The recommendations of the participants include the collection of data in the implementation of the program; Piloting can be effective; Adequate funding from the start is important; public awareness of the benefits and community information about the program.

We will find out on Monday what is included in the Mayor’s proposed 2022 budget related to this program.