Seattle City Council District No. 5

I believe public safety is a state of community that starts with individuals' basic needs being met, how that manifests can look like...

● Citizens that feel free to explore their city

● Citizens that feel empowered to call the city for aid, confident that help will show up in a timely and respectful manner

● Opportunities for education and financial security

Ways that we tangibly measure that we are moving towards these goals...

● Number of calls to the city successfully resolved by response services

● Successfully transitioning unsheltered neighbors to available housing

● Significant reduction in police use-of-force complaints

● Increased use of our public transit

● Reduction in drug related deaths

● Reduction of vehicle-related accidents (Vision Zero)

Our current social support systems have been stressed to their breaking point. We have developed great programs, like LEAD, which help defer people from incarceration. However, we fail to provide services that keep people from ending up in the same cycles of distress, homelessness, and criminalized poverty once they have started on a path to recovery.

By creating and fully funding a civil response taskforce of trained professionals, we can fill this service gap with the wrap around services we are missing. These services will empower people to break the cycle of homelessness and poverty.

This is a direct example of how Seattle’s current contract with SPOG is failing our residents. I believe that increasing the number of civilian vs sworn OPA investigators would give the OPA more traction in holding employees of SPD accountable. I would work with other members in the council to fully stand up services outside of the SPD to provide health services separate from the police. In addition, I firmly hold the opinion that the city council must demand a larger say in the terms of future union contracts.

My vision for a civic response department would include mental health response services provided by trained professionals. I would like to use this branch of services to include professional pathways for those currently in school, which fosters a culture of engaged civil service. This department would also act as civilian liaisons, providing informed responses in regards to the non- violent calls received by the city. They will assist with issues by providing options for resolution and further resources.

We must reorient revenue for the city of Seattle around progressive methods. By focusing on additional options like a pay ratio surtax and vacancy taxes, we can generate significant revenue for the city, while also addressing some of the aggressive factors which are driving our inequality.

Our budget must stop relying on revenue which burdens our poorest residents. This means ensuring corporations in our city pay their fair share. We cannot keep asking the most marginalized of our constituents to carry the heaviest weight.

I also want to see our budget prioritize incentivizing developing for responsible density around our transit hubs. Density is good fiscal policy as it creates revenue for the city and reduces the individual burden of those that own property.

My idea of public safety is when we all feel safe - regardless of our identity, where we live, and how we move around the city. We need to recognize that we do not always need a gun and badge to respond to an emergency, and in fact, many times we don’t and it sometimes can make a situation worse. We need to build complete streets, so that pedestrians, bikers, and rollers are safe on our roads. We need to build climate resilience hubs to provide safety on 110 degree days or wildfire smoke days. We should all be able to feel equally safe regardless of who we are.

We can measure progress toward public safety goals when we see people being moved off the streets and into shelters or homes and receiving the treatment that they deserve. We can see progress when we invest in traffic safety on Aurora, the highest pedestrian fatality point in Seattle, to make it a people-oriented place and not treat it like a pass-through community. We can see progress when we actually move toward our climate emission reduction goals rather than only having achieved 1%. We must invest in childcare, worker’s protections, and making our city an enjoyable place to live where people can feel safe and stable in their living circumstances.

The biggest gaps I see are in providing shelters and homes for people. I will work for more transition housing with wraparound services, and I would like to see a system where we know how many beds are actually available in Seattle. The narrative that there are a lot of empty shelter beds is contributing to harm.

We need to fund our alternative response models and have behavioral response teams that are not through the police. I would like to expand on the Fire Department’s Health One response team. I also think we really need an overdose clinic and sobering center.

We need greater accountability measures that include transparent investigations into complaints, as well as having an independent civilian oversight board that can review complaints and provide recommendations for police reform. We need to fund alternative response models and also reallocate funds, so that a police presence is only used where necessary. For example, we do not need a police officer to manage traffic around stadiums, etc.

I would like to see a behavioral response team that can respond to appropriate 911 calls. I would like to expand on the Fire Department’s Mobile Integrated Health Program. I would love to see more Community Police officers like Detective Cookie who are there to be a part of their community and take care of it. I would also like to see a sobering center and overdose clinic where people can be taken in a moment of great need to both be taken care of and to have treatment options shared with them.

For prevention, we need to address our high cost of living, our housing crisis, address our drug use epidemic, and build community partnerships to help identify and meet people’s needs.

Our housing crisis is one of my top concerns. We need more housing and shelter, as well as providing support to keep people in their homes with direct assistance for utility or car repair bills. It’s far better to help people stay in their homes.

I want to improve our public transportation system, so people can get around our community more easily. Along with this, we need to move toward building complete streets to make getting around safer and accessible for all of us.

We absolutely need more climate resilience built into our city, as we will be having ever more hot days and wildfire smoke. It’s our most vulnerable who are at great risk with nowhere to go to protect them.

Finally, we must fund the alternative response teams our city demanded, as well as behavioral health support. We must also address our substance abuse problem and face it like the public health crisis that it is.

Public safety should be all-encompassing. It can include emergencies that might require the police but often public safety has to do with making sure there are complete sidewalks in our communities, people have access to secure housing, buildings are made to be climate-resilient, and families aren’t worried about random acts of gun violence destroying their lives. As an abolitionist, I believe we should be focusing on ways to make people healthy and whole, like creating non- police alternatives to mental health crises and addiction, investing in climate resiliency hubs, and pedestrianizing deadly arterials like Aurora Ave.

The people currently responding to the majority of 911 calls are not equipped to deal with the level of need they’re encountering. Overdose and erratic behavior calls are often met with impatience and disdain from firefighters, cops, and medics who are tasked with confronting decades of policy failures with no training or real resources like housing or treatment. Rather than waste time, resources, and the empathy of frontline workers, we need teams of nurses, community members, and deescalation experts dispatched across the city with the funds to provide needed resources.

Policing is a racist institution and fundamentally cannot be reformed. As a council member, I will push for a SPOG contract that removes responsibility and funding from the police but I cannot support investments in training or technologies that could be better spent on things that prevent crime.

Sweeps make everyone unsafe and they must end. Not only are they inhumane and illegal, they disrupt and displace vulnerable people causing tensions to mount and violence to break out. As mentioned before, we need several teams of well-paid city employees trained in deescalation, community care, and mental health to replace a majority of non-emergency 911 calls. I will fund addiction treatment at the city level and set up safe consumption sites.

I will be focused on preventing austerity cuts and finding progressive revenue to expand and add services. The Social Housing Developer will need an annual commitment from the City, our transit system needs funding to return to pre-pandemic levels of ridership, and funding must be removed from departments that carry out sweeps.