Dear Neighbors,

First of all, thank you so much to those of you who participated in the survey from our last email. The results were instrumental to informing the subjects of our first budget town hall, and we will continue to reach out throughout the budget process for feedback. The results of the survey are indicated below.

In addition to the survey results I am happy to report on some interesting new public safety strategies as well as share a video of my townhall, which was an introduction to the budget process.

Survey Results

First, it is important to note that this is not a scientific survey. It reflects the opinions of people on my email list and should not be construed to broadly reflect public opinion in District 7 or the City at large. With those caveats aside, it is good to receive feedback from a civically engaged list of folks from all ends of the political spectrum.

As can be seen, the top three reported issues are public safety, shelter options for homeless neighbors and support for small businesses. This largely tracks with the volume of constituent calls and emails my office has received. As we go through the budget process we will be sure to keep people informed on developments regarding these issues and more.

Expanding the Role of Parking Enforcement Officers

During the summer budget deliberations Councilmembers Herbold, Juarez, and I passed a resolution to start the process of developing a civilian "Department of Public Safety" to take on a variety of duties currently done exclusively by armed police. Among other recommendations, the resolution called for putting Parking Enforcement Officers (PEOs) into this new department. In her budget, Mayor Durkan has proposed removing PEOs to the Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT), but there may be an opening for these public servants to fill an even greater role in a Department of Public Safety.

First, a little background. PEOs are a uniformed, but unarmed, unit with the authority to issue citations for parking infractions. Currently, 60% of POEs are people of color and half are women, making them one of the most diverse units in Seattle government. Moreover, many POEs fluently speak second or third languages, including Amharic, Tigrigna, Soninke, Swahili, Luganda, Cantonese, Spanish, French, Malay, and even Bulgarian and Swedish. Without a doubt, they are representatives of a new generation of leaders in Seattle ready to fundamentally change our system of public safety.

The Council recently received a letter from Nanette Toyoshima, the head of the Parking Enforcement Officers' Guild, laying out a variety of different roles PEOs could fill. These include citation-level traffic enforcement, reports and investigations for car prowls, traffic direction at major events, non-injury collisions, and minor thefts. This may seem like a small list, but as much as 20% of current SPD calls fall within these categories. This mirrors a similar effort in Philadelphia, where city voters recently approved a charter amendment to create a new class of Public Safety Officers to provide similar services.   

It is great to have a diverse workforce representative of the community ready to take on a greater role. Let me ask you this, when was the last time someone responded to take a report in-person when your car was prowled? Why should an armed and sworn officer be the only person who can direct traffic at a Seahawks game? Of course, all of these service expansions are subject to bargaining with the Seattle Police Officers Guild, who currently have a contractual monopoly on all of this work. A stipulation readily acknowledged by the separate POE union. But still, fighting for POEs to take on this work as the nucleus of a new Department of Public Safety is something warranting discussion during the budget cycle. 

You can read more about this in a recent article in Publicola by Paul Kiefer. 

Townhall on Budget Process

Thank you to everyone who joined me last Friday for a townhall providing an overview of the budget process. There will be opportunities for additional townhalls as the process goes on. For those of you who missed it, you can check it out here.