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(BRIAN CALLANAN) Hello.
I'm your host, Brian Callanan.
I'm with council members Lisa Herbold and Andrew Lewis,
the two co-sponsors of a new city ordinance
dealing with drug possession and public drug use.
I'm getting your questions answered, including
how will officers decide
whether to make an arrest or refer someone to services?
Also, what sort of treatment services are available
and how will the city pay for them?
Plus, we're covering a response to gun violence,
new life for the Cinerama,
and more of your questions, too.
(LISA HERBOLD) When we have so much gun
violence in our community, it's hard to measure
all of the incidences of gun violence.
It didn't happen because of these investments.
(ANDREW LEWIS) The reason it's taken a little longer is
we haven't enforced anything like this in ten years.
(BRIAN CALLANAN) It's all next on Council Edition.
♪♪
(BRIAN CALLANAN) And here we are with Councilmember
Lisa Herbold from District 1.
Councilmember Herbold, good to see you.
(LISA HERBOLD) Good to be back.
(BRIAN CALLANAN) Also with me is Councilmember
Andrew Lewis from District 7.
Great to be with you as well.
(ANDREW LEWIS) Thanks for having me.
(BRIAN CALLANAN) And here we go.
I'm glad that both of you are here
because I wanted to talk about this issue.
You're the co-sponsors of an ordinance
just about everybody in Seattle is talking about. A law
that would allow the city attorney to prosecute
illicit drug possession and some public drug use.
So quick background on this, folks.
The council did not pass a version
of this ordinance back in June
amid concerns that there were not enough
diversion measures in the bill to deal with drug addiction --
a central part of the drug crisis here.
Meanwhile, the state's new law making drug possession
and public drug use a gross misdemeanor,
with an emphasis on treatment,
went into effect on August 15th.
Now, some media outlets have said we're
now in sort of a legal limbo waiting for the city's
law to be passed
in September at the earliest, as the council goes
into recess here at the end of August.
Councilmember
Alex Pedersen brought up this concern
at a recent public Safety Committee meeting.
(ALEX PEDERSEN) It seems Seattle is missing a mid-August deadline
for the state legislation.
And because nearly all city
legislation has a 30 day implementation delay,
we're now more than a month behind the rest of the state.
(BRIAN CALLANAN) Before we get into the new ordinance
you're proposing, I just want to make sure
I let people
know where we are right now
and help out viewers who might be confused by all this.
Without a city law on the books,
is the public use of controlled substances,
like fentanyl, now somehow legal in Seattle?
(LISA HERBOLD) Thanks for asking the question that way.
It is not legal,
and I think your setup was really helpful in explaining
what it means that the city law has not been enacted yet.
It means that although public use
and knowing possession is illegal,
that we don't have the mechanism
for the city attorney to prosecute those cases.
So the police department can arrest,
the King County
prosecutor has the authority to prosecute.
She has let us know that she does not intend to do so.
-Okay.
-But until the city puts the law on the books,
the city attorney, our city attorney,
our city prosecutor cannot prosecute the cases
that the department might consider arresting.
(BRIAN CALLANAN) Got it.
So what
what happens to those people in between now
and what I'm guessing is mid-October,
if we go through this usual 30-day
delay that happens with implementation,
and the council looking at this in September.
Councilmember Lewis?
(ANDREW LEWIS) I think it's important to note
that laws are worth completely nothing without enforcement.
When we were considering this in June, mayor's
office was officially neutral on the legislation.
Police chief was officially neutral on the legislation.
We did not have a enforcement plan in place
from the police department and the mayor.
What is in front of us now is more than a statute.
What's in front of us is a plan.
The mayor has promulgated his intention on how he plans
to enforce this.
The police chief has endorsed this measure,
the Seattle
Police Officers Guild union has endorsed this measure,
as has the Public Defender Association,
which runs the L.E.A.D. program.
So what you're seeing in front of us
now is a framework for a real plan
that is going to add
enforcement commitments and enforcement protocols
to the new law.
I would point out
we just went through
two years never adopting the interim misdemeanor
that the legislature created
that made simple possession a simple misdemeanor... -In 2021.
-So, you know, in essence, what's really important to see
a difference on our streets
and to see one that is comprehensive,
public safety and public health informed,
is going to depend on the enforcement measures
we put in place, which is in this plan.
Those will be in place in the early fall
and we'll be able to move forward
and people will see a difference on the streets.
(BRIAN CALLANAN) Can you help me, though,
what does happen in this interim period?
I keep hearing legal limbo, etc..
Let's say that an officer makes an arrest on the street.
What happens to that person?
(ANDREW LEWIS) Right, so what could happen, Brian,
I say this as a former prosecutor,
so I'm intimately familiar with the process.
If probable cause establish
an officer wants to arrest a person
under the state or C.W., they can refer that report
to the King County prosecuting attorney.
They can then decide if they want to pursue charges or not.
I'm just going to say this as a former prosecutor,
it takes weeks to review a potential case.
Sometimes it can take months.
You know, there's a very high decline rate
of cases, both of the city attorney's office
and the King County prosecuting attorney's office.
So, candidly,
you know, I mean, a difference of 30-day implementation
in terms of the referral
schedule is not going to make a significant difference.
But I will just say one last thing...Under that
R.C.W.,
if we have commitments from the executive to
to increase enforcement,
we can start doing these warm hand-offs
to law enforcement assisted diversion.
We can use this enforcement mechanism under the R.C.W.
while we wait for the
S.M.C. to be passed. Again, I expect an early September
we are going to take action
on Councilmember Herbold on my bill.
So I don't think we'll have to wait too long.
(BRIAN CALLANAN) Okay, fair enough. You wanted to say...
(LISA HERBOLD) Just to add, uhm,
Councilmember Lewis mentioned the
police chief and the mayor were both
neutral on the earlier version of the ordinance
and to the point of the police chief's position,
we were informed
in the council central staff, accompanying the legislation
that failed
that the reason that they were neutral
is because
these types of arrests are very low priorities.
So you ask what what is happening now?
Well, these are already low priority arrests.
So I don't think the extra couple of months
that we're taking to come up with an approach
enforcement approach that actually makes
this bill a much better bill for the City of Seattle.
The impact that we're seeing is minimal, if any at all.
(BRIAN CALLANAN) Thank you.
And I want to move on to what this bill is about here.
So the mayor convened a 24 member
Fentanyl Systems workgroup in June
to get input on the best way to deal
with the opioid crisis
on our streets,
and that helped produce
the ordinance you're working on now.
The bill covers three main areas:
making state law a part of the city code,
so that public consumption
of illegal drugs
is a gross misdemeanor
that the city attorney can prosecute.
It also designates diversion and treatment
as the preferred approach in these cases
and puts $27 million towards that effort.
It also defines a defines a new threat of harm standard.
So differentiating between drug use
that threatens others versus the individual alone.
And I know
it's a lot to break down here,
but I want to start with this idea
of diversion and treatment.
I got an email that came in from Shaun, one of our viewers
who wanted to ask you this,
Councilmember Lewis.
Can you explain more how the diversion program
tied to the new drug possession law would work?
(ANDREW LEWIS) Yes. So a lot of it
is some existing frameworks that we have in place
that we are going to reconcile with this new framework
of law.
So Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion Program
is probably our marquee example.
Wraparound case services, warm handoffs from first responders
in the field, to longterm case management,
really making sure
that people are being met where they are,
that these services are delivered
and a harm
reduction, public health, best practices informed way
and that there's gateways to treatment.
One of the best examples of how we've really tried
to do a model like this in recent history
was the incredibly successful JustCare
initiative downtown during COVID, where we got
hundreds of people off the street.
The outcomes were uniformly very positive
for programs of this nature,
with lots of people getting long term housing.
Overwhelming majority of people
getting signed up for health insurance
who didn't have it before.
These are the kind... and a lot of people
not returning to the streets and not re-offending.
So these are the kinds of outcomes
we want to lean into
and really have a public health informed approach,
but reserve that authority
and that power for our officers
to seek accountability in cases
where people are not seeking help or assistance
and we need to have some kind of different intervention.
(BRIAN CALLANAN) Thank you.
And I want to follow up on treatment with you,
if I could, and what these services can do.
We actually heard from the public safety
in the Public Safety Committee meeting,
the case management supervisor of co-lead,
a diversion program
which supports people without housing who end up
cycling in and out of our justice system,
Johnny noted that six years ago
he was homeless, stealing things from Target
to support his drug habit.
-But because somebody gave me a shot
instead of trying to send me to jail
over and over again, which did not work for the 30
plus years that I was in and out of jail,
I'm here today and I'm able to help out
other people in in turn help myself in...
that's making the community better.
So other people need that shot.
-Councilmember Herbold,
I thought this was a very powerful message,
but it was also part of a presentation
talking about the gaps in our city's
system of services for people who use fentanyl.
Talk about those gaps, if you could.
And then maybe if you could work in this $27 million
that the mayor is talking about, is that can help
fill some of these gaps or what do we have here?
(LISA HERBOLD) That's the
intent of the conversation coupled with the conversation
around the new public use and possession drug law.
So we have this enforcement approach that is inherent
in the law that depends on both pre-file diversion
and treatment services. But
our providers out there
who are doing this work are telling us,
even if this works perfectly as as it's being designed,
as the architecture of the of the enforcement plan intends,
there are still big gaps in being
and making it possible for these these warm handoffs
that Councilmember Lewis talks about.
And those gaps are in in housing,
most acutely in housing, the gaps are in employment
services, in and treatment services.
We heard from Health One, the police,
the fire department's
own own program, going out to serve people in crisis,
talking about how difficult it is
when they are going out and providing a service.
The mayor recently created a special Health
One unit just for overdose response,
in when they're doing an overdose response
of somebody who is living unsheltered,
they saved their lives and then they leave.
The person still on the street.
And so one of the elements of
the funding package that the mayor's proposing
is this post overdose recovery facility where somebody can
the fire department
can can take the individual whose life they've just saved.
That person
can have a few hours to recover
and then talk to somebody about next steps.
And when somebody has that conversation
at that particular time, they're more open to having
a productive outcome around what next steps are.
So that's that's one of the one of the programs
that the mayor's proposing.
(BRIAN CALLANAN) I know there's a lot going
on here when it comes to funding.
Can we briefly talk about
some of the work that went on during
the supplemental budget process recently?
I know you were working on
adding some dollars for pre filing diversion.
You were talking about these mobile units
that were going out to help. Can we do the 30-second version,
if you could, Councilmember Lewis, on that?
(ANDREW LEWIS) Right.
So for folks who who do get arrested and referred
for potential prosecution,
one of the diversion measures we have
on the continuum of diversions is pre file diversion.
What that means is a prosecutor,
a prosecutor in this case does a warm handoff
to a service provider
in lieu of charging the person with a crime.
If they complete that referral,
then they decline the the case.
They won't pursue it.
Incredibly effective program.
Twice as many people who go through
pre-file diversion do not re-offend
as people who go to jail. Very important statistic.
And we increased it in the supplemental budget by 34%,
as far as the city attorney's offices,
pre-file diversion capability.
That's going to be a big part
of our focus on how we continue to make reform
in our criminal legal system, get people
into services, reduce recidivism on the street.
(BRIAN CALLANAN) Thank you.
And this is working in tandem with what the mayor's
talking about in the dollars put in there, too.
Can you talk about these mobile units that you're
you were trying to work that you ended up working through
with the supplemental budget as well?
(LISA HERBOLD) Again, just looking ahead at the elements that the mayor
has identified as priorities to fill these gaps,
another another priority in addition to the post overdose
facility, is this this notion of having a mobile treatment
vans through Evergreen Treatment Services, and
they work both to deliver
traditional health
care services to folks in need,
but they also work to provide
medically assisted treatment for folks who have substance
use disorder.
And so it's an expansion of an existing program,
and it's really going to, I think, make
a real difference in people's lives.
And also the way we experience our streetscape as people
going through our daily walks of life
to and from work and home. (BRIAN CALLANAN) Fair enough.
I wanted to dive into one last part
here with the drug bill that you're working on
this point that has drawn a lot of attention.
The idea that police officers
established a threat of harm
from someone using drugs in public.
So this empowers officers to make the call on
this is drug use
that is threatening to other people versus
this is a threat just to the individual.
Councilmember Lewis, if I could start with you,
it sounds like a bit of a gray area to me.
Can you explain what
this whole threat of harm concept is about
and how it would work in practice?
(ANDREW LEWIS) Right, so the first thing
I want to say
is our police officers receive
a considerable amount of training.
They develop a significant amount of experience
when they're out on the street
interacting with these cases every day.
This ordinance is very careful to call out reliance
on that training and experience
in establishing if there's a threat of harm.
Our officers are professionals.
They can be trained to the standard.
This is a standard that's very important
to the mayor's office to establish.
If you think about situations that we as a general public
are concerned about and the reason
we are talking rightly about public drug use as being
not only a public health crisis,
which it is, but also a public order crisis,
if you're a small business owner downtown
and in front of your business every day, there's
a significant amount of people who are smoking fentanyl.
People are not patronizing your business.
People don't feel safe in your neighborhood.
People don't want to,
you know, go outside and activate the neighborhood.
It poses
challenges to public order in addition to public health.
That's the standard that the mayor is trying to get at
is make sure that we can have a city
that a city that works for everybody,
that is a city
that makes
sure that their standards and rules
about what can and can't happen in public,
but that that's done
from a public health perspective
and that that is differentiated
from situations where it is purely a public health situation.
Where we wouldn't want to have any kind
of criminal legal system involvement
because it's purely about that person's
public health, which would only be a medical response.
So that is the standard that the mayor wants to create.
Obviously, I mean, look, nothing's ever
going to be perfect in the law,
but I totally understand what the mayor is going towards.
I think it's a good balance.
A lot of work went into putting this in place,
and I support the mayor's decision.
(BRIAN CALLANAN) I could picture what you're saying when it comes
to blocking off a business and how that could be
a threat of harm potentially to the neighborhood, etc..
Can you give me that example where it is
a threat to the individual only?
What does that look like?
(ANDREW LEWIS) Right.
Look, if there is a situation where a person is struggling
with addiction, but they're not in
a broader
public point of view, they're in a position
where maybe they're not in as activated a space.
Maybe they are in their own residence.
Yeah, right.
I mean, I mean, in that case,
it wouldn't be necessarily completely public. -Okay.
-But I think that you can see
these situations where it really just
goes into the triage of
what do we get up with every day right now and think,
you know, our recovery
is being held back a certain public areas, parks,
areas in front of businesses, The general use of the public
is being inhibited because areas are becoming
predominantly used for the consumption
and use of drugs in public.
And at a certain point,
that has a corrosive effect on the ability for us to
I mean, to have a functioning city.
(BRIAN CALLANAN) Right.
Some thoughts on this whole threat of harm,
standard police.
(LISA HERBOLD) I think one of the reasons why
it's a
little bit difficult to conceptualize is
the ordinance itself is sort of a broad
paint brush strokes of what is intended.
We are going to have more sort of nitty
gritty direction in the police
department policies that will be developed
as part of this ordinance.
This ordinance contemplates that there will be policies
consistent with the ordinance that will be promulgated,
and we expect to have them as well
by the end of by the end of September.
So it'll go a little bit more into sort of
some of the objective,
objective facts that officers will be asked
to measure in determining this threat of harm standard.
(BRIAN CALLANAN) And threat of harm,
this is something that
officers engage with today, and I don't think there's
anything necessarily new about it...
but applying it in this way feels like
it's going to be new training around this for officers,
or how is that going to work?
(LISA HERBOLD) I think we are anticipating that there will be training
associated with the policies. You are right.
Officers use their discretion every day, many, many times
each day in making determinations
of how to address
activities that may not be legal.
There are often choices that are made to
to not arrest or not not ticket.
And so this is going to be very much in line
with that discretion making
approach that officers always use.
But I think the sort of
there will be some more meat on the bones of the policy
that officers will need to be trained on.
(BRIAN CALLANAN) Thank you.
Maybe I could just wrap up by asking
what impact
do you think
this new ordinance, when it is passed in September,
as we anticipate here,
what impact is it going to have in the city
a few months from now, next year, etc.?
Some thoughts on that and then I'll go to you,
Councilmember Lewis.
(ANDREW LEWIS) I think it's going to provide
clarity to a ten-year struggle
that we've had as a local government
community on exactly how we deal with the situation.
We had to call the question on it
the previous discussion that we were having around
this policy area
didn't have any commitment on what we were going to do
to actually give life and enforcement
to the provisions within the statute.
We have tons of examples of passing a statute,
putting it up on the shelf,
and no one ever does anything with it.
By bringing this measure that Mayor Harrell
has promulgated to us;
we, like I said earlier, have a plan, not a statute.
Statutes (are) part of a comprehensive plan.
This is what we really need to do.
It's something that's been missing
in our local government for ten years.
It's public health informed,
and it's something that I think
is going to make a visible impact.
That is my hope
and that is what the people of the city expect.
These tough questions come down to us.
You know, the state can set big policy,
but it's local government where it has to be enforced.
And that is why, candidly, I'll just say to the public,
the reason it's taken
a little longer is we haven't enforced
anything like this in ten years.
And it's easy for the state to promulgate a mandate,
but it comes to us to realize how do we organize
our limited resources to make
the biggest possible impact on implementing their intent.
And that, unfortunately, takes a little bit of time.
(BRIAN CALLANAN) Thanks.
(LISA HERBOLD) Wrap up this thought, please.
State went to special session
to do their version of the ordinance.
Now we needed some extra time to figure out how to
locally enforce the ordinance and frankly,
how to ensure that fewer cases are going to be prosecuted.
We really want to make sure that we are adhering
to the state guidance that emphasizes
diversion and treatment before prosecution.
(BRIAN CALLANAN) Thank you.
I'm going to move on here, if I could,
and pick up the pace slightly with you
Councilmember Herbold.
Changing gears, the issue of gun violence.
Seattle's had an uptick in gun violence
this summer,
as we all know, including some deadly incidents
in District 1, which you represent.
We got a message about this issue from one of our viewers.
Bill asked this.
“I'd like to know how we in Seattle can ever expect
to successfully combat gun violence
given the free flow of guns everywhere in the U.S.”
This is such a difficult question,
I know for all lawmakers.
But how do you respond to that?
(LISA HERBOLD) I'm appreciative that the person contacting
you really focused on the fact that it's the access to guns
and the huge number of guns that Americans have
that are really at the forefront of the reason
for why we see all this gun violence during COVID
and after COVID,
we've seen exponential increase in gun ownership.
I'm grateful that our state legislature has taken
really important strides in sensible gun ownership,
responsibility laws, but we have to do more.
There's so much more to do, and I'm really proud of
a lot of the community based organizations
that are doing
gun violence interruption work in our communities.
They are actually going out to scenes of violence.
They are working with victims and family members
to make sure that the repetitive cycle of
violence that is often in retribution
for prior acts of violence are are are ended.
And a lot of our investments in programs
like our hospital-based violence intervention program
are really making a difference. It’s hard to measure
when we have so much gun violence in our community.
It's hard to measure all of the incidences of gun
violence that didn't happen because of these investments.
But these are folks who are out there every day
on the streets putting themselves in harm's way.
We saw what happened on Rainier Valley a couple weeks ago.
That was at a
violence prevention... -Safe Passage.
-Yes, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Thank you for that.
I wanted to make sure I moved on
to Councilmember Lewis with another important issue.
You were recently named
to a subcommittee that's focusing on
how to make the king County Regional Homelessness
Authority more accountable, more effective.
KCRHA has been under a lot of scrutiny, as we know.
CEO Marc Dones stepped down a few months ago.
The agency has had some challenges
paying its contractors, among other issues.
What are your concerns about where the KCRHA is right now?
What do you expect out of the authority
heading into the future?
(ANDREW LEWIS) Well, I certainly have a lot of
very strong personal opinions having served
on the inaugural governing board
and also being in the unique position of someone who
unfortunately was not in
office to have any say over
the original interlocal agreement.
So I'm sort of in this position
of having served in a dysfunctional system
that I had no hand in, in being able to create.
So I definitely have some feedback on this process.
-Yeah. -You know,
there needs to be streamlined accountability.
We have a weird, bifurcated board system.
There's a governing board, an implementation board.
I don't think that's good for accountability.
It makes it...it creates double the work, two boards
creates double the work, in my opinion.
-Yeah.
-I think that there should be some streamlining
consolidation of that oversight.
We need to be very clear
with what we expect
from the next CEO in terms of what their job is,
what their responsibilities are.
Obviously, first and foremost has to be
the predictability, reliability
of getting contracts out on time,
making sure that the people who are doing this
work can get paid and can meet
payroll is essential to making progress
on homelessness in this county.
We have to get it right.
We need a regional solution to this.
We can't continue to do this
as 39 separate jurisdictions in King County.
That's the number of cities in King County.
-That's right.
We need to come together and do it jointly
as a King County regional government
and as these 39 partner cities.
We can do that work. We can get it done.
I'm looking forward to working on
this task force to harmonize the way
we can do this efficiently, effectively,
and deliver for the people of this county.
(BRIAN CALLANAN) Thank you very much for that.
Councilmember Herbold,
I want to talk about the recent work
that you spearheaded to pass
a new set of protections for app-based workers,
so protecting delivery drivers, etc.,
from getting deactivated off the app.
Seattle's the first city in the country
to pass legislation like this.
What does this mean for workers
and for people who use these delivery services?
(LISA HERBOLD) Well, hopefully it means a little
bit of transparency in their
security for their income earning.
These are not considered employees
in this in this country under our employment laws.
So a lot of the things that we take
for granted as employees are not the kinds
of protections that they get as app-based workers.
This bill follows on another bill
that Councilmember Lewis and I worked on
that guarantees a minimum payment
standard for these workers, because, again,
we have a great
minimum wage here in Seattle, in Washington state.
These workers aren't entitled to that minimum
wage protection.
So we have a separate standard for app-based workers.
And similarly, the legislation that was just passed
provides, again,
the it doesn't eliminate the ability
of a platform to deactivate somebody,
but it requires that platform to notify the person
of the reason and give them an opportunity to appeal.
A lot of these decisions are made by algorithms
and not even made by real people.
And people will open up their their phone
getting ready to work
and they can't access
the platform and they have no idea why.
And there's nobody to talk to.
And hopefully this’ll address that. -In seventh grade math,
I always thought algorithm was a good thing,
but I am learning differently.
Councilmember Lewis, we need to wrap up,
I can take about a minute here.
I want to bring the curtain up
on what's going on at the Cinerama.
You've recently visited with Tom Mara, executive
director of SIFF, the Seattle International Film Festival,
which has recently announced
it will buy and operate this iconic theater.
It's been closed down since 2020.
Set to open later on this year.
What does this mean for the city of Seattle?
Well, thanks for asking, Brian,
because I'm really, really proud of this work.
This is a year and a half in the making.
My office
working with Seattle International Film Festival
and other partners to find a viable strategy
to get this into nonprofit ownership,
as you know, used to be owned by the late Paul Allen.
His estate did not have any immediate plans
for a successor entity.
Really glad
we were able to close a deal with Seattle
International Film Festival to take this over,
put it in nonprofit ownership for the first time.
This can really be a hub where our marquee theater
in the Pacific Northwest -- marquee movie going experience
now is going to be a big source
of public benefit to the broader community.
Things like you know, local film
festivals, highlighting local artists;
you know, the educational and workforce
development components
that can come with developing our local film economy.
This is all possible given this new
ownership arrangement, given that this is now
going to be SIFF operated.
And in the supplemental budget,
worked with SIFF to get $1-million of support
to support some of these initiatives
around workforce development, public benefit
and really looking forward to how that becomes a big part
of our downtown community going into the future.
(BRIAN CALLANAN) And any truth to the rumor, the first film to be shown
there will be Seattle City Council,
the 70 millimeter experience.
(ANDREW LEWIS) Yeah, I can't confirm or deny.
(BRIAN CALLANAN) Oh, I like it.
Okay. We'll see what happens when the curtain goes up.
Thank you both for joining me.
And thanks, everybody, for watching Council Edition.
We'll see you next time.
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