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In recent months, I’ve shared my vision and plan to transform policing and invest in public safety alternatives. As part of the 2021 budget, I proposed a 12 percent reduction to the Seattle Police Department budget that includes cuts and transferring positions to civilian departments. As part of this plan, I outlined a timeline and process to continue that progress and identify further SPD functions that could be transitioned to a civilian or community-based public safety alternative. As this work continues, my priorities remain clear: Preserve swift 911 emergency response and investigations capacity, meet our obligations under the Consent Decree, and invest immediately in upstream solutions and alternatives.
As City Council considers changes to the Seattle Police Department, the City Budget Office and SPD updated the Council and the public on new data regarding the number of officers who have left the department in 2020, and specifically in recent weeks. The SPD is experiencing record-breaking levels of attrition this year, with 110 officers leaving the force through the end of September. In September alone, 39 officers left the force; that’s double the next-highest month on record.
 Most concerning to me is the fact that some of our youngest officers – those who joined the department knowing it was under a federal Consent Decree – are leaving at an extremely high rate. These are the exact officers we want to keep as we transform the department. They’re the ones who entered the department with an emphasis on de-escalation training and community-based, constitutional policing.
If Council doesn’t acknowledge these realities and act quickly towards a strategic plan, we’ll soon see undeniable impacts to 911 response times and investigative services. It could also impact the department’s ability to sustain the gains and meet the requirements of the federal Consent Decree. And if staffing cuts to the Seattle Police Department continue on top of these record attrition numbers and proposed layoffs by City Council, by 2022 we’ll likely have a police force smaller than what we employed in the 1990, despite the fact that our population has grown 44 percent since then.
 We can and must get community safety right in Seattle. But I continue to believe that it cannot be based of arbitrary cuts or percentages. It is a false choice between defunding by 50 percent and investing in community-based public safety alternatives. It is a false choice between hiring young, diverse officers committed to community policing and training or not hiring at all. The City must be prepared to answer the 800,000 911 calls we receive each year while simultaneously investing in upstream solutions to address the underlying causes of crime and violence. We cannot expect community-based public safety alternatives to be fully developed or scaled, operational, and able to mitigate for the officer shortage we are now facing.
In recent years, the Seattle Police Department – in partnership with myself and the City Council – successfully worked to increase hiring of young, BIPOC officers committed to reform and community policing. We’ve also laid the groundwork to expand civilian, community-based public safety alternatives, including our Heath One program and unarmed, civilian Community Service Officers. Even amidst these uncertain times, many of these officers remain, and many more are ready to join the department. As we continue to transition functions out of the department, we can ensure young, diverse officers continue to join the department. This is crucial both to preserve emergency response and investigative services and to ensure the department reflects the communities it serves.
As City Council considers more changes to SPD’s budget, you have the opportunity to contact them and share your perspective at [email protected].
As always, please continue to write me at [email protected], reach out via Twitter and Facebook, and stay up-to-date on the work we’re doing for the people of Seattle on my blog.
Stay Safe and Healthy,
 
Last Thursday, Washington State Supreme Court found voter Initiative 976 (I-976) unconstitutional. The City of Seattle joined King County, Garfield County Transportation Authority, and a coalition of people, organizations and governments to challenge the legality of the proposal. Seventy-six percent of Seattle voters rejected I-976 when it appeared on ballots in November 2019.
Mayor Durkan said, “Justice for Seattle voters prevailed…The court upheld Seattle voters commitment to better and more equitable transportation systems. Even before the pandemic and economic crisis, Mr. Eyman's illegal and misleading initiative decimated Seattle’s transportation budget and required cuts that hurt our residents and businesses. To make it through the COVID-19 pandemic, and to build back stronger and more equitable, we need a transportation system that serves all of our residents. This is why we’ve focused on using all the tools at our disposal to expand transit opportunities, especially for our low income residents and communities of color. Vehicle license fees are a key tool that funds transit and key safety and maintenance projects including our pothole budget. With the Seattle Department of Transportation facing significant budget challenges in the current economic landscape, this decision will help our City with needed resources to keep our residents and workers moving as we recover from the pandemic.”
Upon establishing the Seattle Transportation Benefit District, a $20 annual vehicle license fee was implemented and enacted in May 2011 to fund transportation improvements for Seattle residents. Seattle voters approved a measure in the November 2014 election to expand Metro transit service in the city to be financed by a $60 vehicle license fee and 0.1% increase in sales tax. The measure expires in December 2020.
Mayor Durkan recently announced the initial membership of the Equitable Communities Initiative Task Force, which will spearhead a community-led process to develop recommendations for a historic $100 million new investment in Black, Indigenous, and People of Color communities to address the deep disparities caused by systemic racism and institutionalized oppression.
“Seattle is taking a significant step to recognize and address the generational impacts of systemic racism in our country and city and to build a more just and equitable city for the generations to come. History has placed us in a time of a worsening pandemic, an economic crisis, and a racial reckoning. Still, these unprecedented challenges also impose a moral obligation to act now to create healthy, just, and resilient communities for our Black and Indigenous neighbors and all communities of color,” said Mayor Durkan. “Lasting change must originate from and be sustained by the community. I am grateful to the community leaders serving on this task force, who collectively have hundreds of years of experience working in, and making systemic change in our community. I am hopeful they can help unite and lead our city in charting the path for deep, sustained, and life-changing investments in our Black, Indigenous, and People of Color communities.”
The Task Force includes a group of BIPOC community leaders with deep connections and representing a cross-section of industries including economic development, labor, food justice, education, health care, homelessness, and climate justice. The Task Force will determine the scope of their work and lead all community engagement. The list of leaders will likely expand as members have indicated they intend to discuss including more youth and other community leaders. The Task Force is also hoping to interface with and utilize any research done under the City Council’s proposed grants for community-based research.
You can find a full list of the members here.
The Mayor will appear on the Age Friendly Seattle Civic Coffee Hour this Friday, October 23, starting at 9:30 a.m. The online coffee hour is one of two virtual event series hosted by Age Friendly Seattle. The other is Close to Home: Stories of Health, Tech & Resilience. You can watch past programs on YouTube.
 To make it easy for everyone to participate in real time, Age Friendly Seattle uses the same link (bit.ly/AgeFriendlyLive). Closed captioning is available in English and multiple other languages. Join us next Friday—and bring your questions!
The City of Seattle’s Office of Immigrant and Refugee Affairs (OIRA) launched the $9 million Seattle COVID-19 Disaster Relief Fund for Immigrants, its newest program to help vulnerable residents who have been both financially impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic and purposely neglected by the federal government.
“The Trump administration has continually failed workers and families across the U.S.,” said Mayor Durkan. “This President did nothing as the pandemic swept across the nation killing thousands. And then he egregiously shut out taxpaying immigrants and their families from financial aid. No matter your immigration status, hard-working American families who pay taxes deserve access to financial assistance so they can continue to meet their basic needs during this ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. These folks are our friends, our neighbors, and our frontline workers. That’s why I am proud to have joined with the Council to develop a cooperative solution to address the urgent needs of our immigrant families.”
 The relief fund is open to Seattle area immigrants who meet income eligibility requirements and were ineligible for federal CARES Act Economic Impact Payments (also known as a “coronavirus stimulus check”). The review process is not first-come, first-served. To support those with the most need, the program is prioritizing applicants based on a set of vulnerability criteria. Each eligible adult applicant filing for themselves is able to receive a one-time payment of $1,000. Couples, parents, or caregivers with children are eligible to receive a one-time payment of up to $3,000. The online application has been translated into seven languages and is accessible here: seattlecovidfund.com.
Click here for more information.
November 3 is only two weeks away. And we all need to make our plans to vote and vote early in this election!
Washington State has successfully and safely voted-by-mail for over a decade. King County Elections started mailing out ballots last week on Wednesday, Oct. 14, and individuals should have received your ballot by Monday, Oct. 19 at the latest. If you did not receive you ballot, call 206-296-VOTE (8683) or print your ballot online: http://kingcounty.gov/elections/obmp. Return your ballot: no stamp needed if you drop it in the mail but you can also find a ballot box near you.
If you are not registered to vote, there is still time! You can register online through October 26 or visit a King County Elections vote center.
You can find more information:
 For this week’s Daily Read, we encourage you to check out this PubliCola article on the Seattle Police Department’s new officer attrition numbers and what they could mean for the department’s compliance with the Consent Decree.
On Friday morning, Mayor Jenny Durkan’s office released a new report from the city’s Budget Office and the Seattle Police Department showing a record-breaking number of attritions from SPD in September. In that month alone, 39 officers and officers in training left the department — double the number of officers leaving in the next-highest month on record. Without an end to the ongoing hiring freeze (a part of the city’s COVID-related austerity), SPD and the Budget Office project the department to continue hemorrhaging sworn staff well into 2021, potentially exceeding the staffing cuts proposed by the City Council during the summer.
The pending staff shortage places the department at risk of falling further out of compliance with the conditions of the Federal consent decree, increasing the likelihood that SPD will remain under the supervision of the Department of Justice for years to come. (Federal District Court Judge James Robart, responsible for overseeing Seattle’s consent decree for the Department of Justice, already ruled the city partially out of compliance in 2019).
Dr. Antonio Oftelie, the new court-appointed monitor for the consent decree, told PubliCola that the consent decree required SPD to scale up its staffing to improve specialized investigation units, departmental audits, and use of force reviews. “The specialty units that are required by the consent decree will likely be the first to feel the effects of budget cuts and the loss of offices,” he said. “SPD’s ability to audit itself, its ability to develop policy, its force investigation team and training units are also required by the consent decree and are also put at risk if the department has a massive staffing shortage.”
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