Notes from Shoreline Council meeting September 20, 2021

Shoreline City Council Meeting

September 20, 2021

Notes by Pam Cross

NOTE: Due to technical problems, I was unable to attend most of this meeting live. Thankfully, all council meetings are recorded and available to everyone on the City’s website shorelinewa.gov

Mayor Hall called the remote meeting to order at 7:00pm.

All Councilmembers were present.

Proclamation

I, Will Hall, Mayor of the City of Shoreline, on behalf of the Shoreline City Council, do hereby proclaim September 20, 2021 as the MAYOR’S DAY OF CONCERN FOR THE HUNGRY in the City of Shoreline and urge all citizens to generously support local food banks.

Approval of the Agenda
Agenda adopted by unanimous consent.

Report of the City Manager, Debbie Tarry

COVID-19 UPDATE

WELCOMING WEEK

Two new events AND Vote for the logo

SOAK IT UP REBATE PROGRAM

RESCHEDULED DUE TO INCLEMENT WEATHER

ART COTTAGE RESIDENCY PERFORMANCES
HUMILITY: DRIFT

New dates are Sept 24 and Oct 9.

PUBLIC REMINDERS

The Shoreline Landmarks Commission will hold a public hearing on Thursday, Sept 23 at 4:30pm to consider a request to reconsider the Naval Hospital chapel landmark designation boundary.

The PRCS/Tree Board will hold a remote meeting on Thursday Sept 23 at 7:00pm.

For details of both events: shorelinewa.gov/calendar

Council Reports

Deputy Mayor Scully attended a meeting of the WRIA 8 Salmon Recovery Council.

We had a report on some research they’ve done on interactions between coho salmon and a particular chemical from car tires in stormwater runoff. It is highly toxic only to coho. But letting the stormwater sit for a short amount of time allows the chemical to degrade. Although this is still preliminary, we need to consider how we treat stormwater. Right now we have some pipes that flow directly to the Sound. This will have to be a long-term project over the following decades.

Councilmember Chang
I attended a Joint meeting of the Regional Transit Committee and the Mobility and Environment Committee. We are currently updating three plans: metro strategic plan, metro service guidelines and metro long term plan (Metro Connects). 

Service guidelines are particularly important for Shoreline because these guidelines determine how bus routes are added, subtracted and restructured as light rail continues to develop. The concern that I have right now is that since the documents are all focused on leading with equity (something we support) and some of our areas do not have priority populations according the mobility framework, we could potentially be losing out. 

This is in spite of the work we have done to make the light rail stations accessible by transit and rezoned for density housing. These documents will be adopted by the end of the week.

Public Comment

Jackie Kurle, Shoreline
I continue to encourage oversight and transparency regarding the operations of the Enhanced Shelter.

Approval of the Consent Calendar
Consent Calendar approved unanimously

8(a) Discussion of Ordinance No. 938 - Authorizing a One-Year Extension to the Right-of-Way Franchise with Frontier Communications Northwest (dba Ziply Fiber) Originally Granted to Verizon Northwest Inc. (Ordinance No. 522) to Construct, Maintain, Operate, Replace, and Repair a Cable System Over, Along, Under, and Through Designated Public Rights-of-way in the City of Shoreline

Christina Arcidy, Management Analyst, made the brief presentation.

This proposed Ordinance No. 938 would provide a second one-year extension to the existing franchise agreement and would terminate November 4, 2022, or upon the effective date of a new franchise, whichever occurs first.

Council is familiar with this because on August 16 Council adopted Ordinance No. 939 - Authorizing a Non-Exclusive Franchise to Zayo Group, LLC for the same cable system.

DISCUSSION
None
This Ordinance will return on the consent calendar.

8(b) Discussing 2021-2023 City Council Goal 5, Action Step 5 Regarding RADAR, (Response Awareness, De-escalation and Referral) Alternatives to Police Services, and Other Possible Criminal Justice Reforms

Presented by Christina Arcidy, Management Analyst
With Brook Buettner, RADAR Navigator Program Manager, and Shawn Ledford, Shoreline Police Chief

Council discussed police services at their 2021 Strategic Planning Workshop in March and adopted a goal to direct work related to public safety reforms. They directed staff to maximize use of the North Sound RADAR program, explore alternative responder models, and address the inequitable treatment of low-income defendants throughout other criminal justice reforms.

RADAR Background and Program Update
Presented by Brook Buettner, RADAR Navigator Program Manager

The North Sound RADAR Navigator is a cooperative of five cities: Bothell, Kenmore, Kirkland, Lake Forest Park and Shoreline. It started in Shoreline and with the addition of other cities allowed the police departments to share a professional navigator staff as well as to share information about people who tend to cross city borders. There are two primary components to the plan:

1. Response plans. This is a way for deputies and officers to share information about folks that may have behavioral health issues or a developmental disability that may put them at an increased risk for an incident that may lead to use of force. This is used sparingly but provides the officer with prior knowledge of the person’s behavior so it is not seen as threatening. It is especially useful when shared across neighboring cities.

2. Mental health professional navigators who go out to in-progress calls and also follow up with that the person to assure that the person is in touch with community systems of care. They also ensure that other RADAR cities are working together on the same plan for this individual. Currently we have funding for 4-6 part-time contracted Navigators. We are about to recruit for three new full-time positions that will be through the City of Bothell.

Program Goals

1. Develop and share individualized de-escalation strategies to reduce police use-of-force incidents during encounters with people with behavioral health and/or developmental disabilities.
2. Collaborate with a mental health professional (RADAR Navigator) to connect individuals with behavioral health and/or developmental disabilities to ongoing services and treatment.
3. Reduce repeat encounters with first responders and increase the effectiveness of police response.
4. Create cost effective community-policing strategies and promote increased collaboration between deputies, persons with behavioral health and/or developmental disabilities, caregivers, and families.
5. Our ultimate goal is direct dispatch, either through the 911 system or 988 dispatch center triage.

Additionally we need a Crisis Triage Facility in our community to provide immediate stabilization and linkage to services. Because there are only 17 crisis beds in all of King County, right now the two options are jail or the hospital.

DISCUSSION

Do we have a list of deputies who want to be in this program?

• Reply: There is some training to bring out a co-responding social worker. It tends to be deputies who are interested in working with behavioral health who are asking to do this. Early on there was some reluctance because the program was too new but now it is seen as a badge of honor to work with the RADAR program.

I learned a lot about the RADAR program that I had not previously known. I didn’t know it was not a crew response program - I thought it was. I learned that our response follows afterwards. The report also made clear why it was difficult finding Navigators - working as a contractor and some of the other conditions. What education is required?

• Reply: Yes, we currently use contractors who have to carry their own liability insurance and purchase their own business license. We are moving towards hiring Navigators and I am thankful to the City of Bothell for taking that on. The educational requirement is state licensed MHP (Mental Health Professional) which requires a masters degree in social work or a related masters degree, plus a couple of years of experience because we are doing mostly high level deescalation. As the program goes forward we may add another type of Navigator, perhaps one with lived experience. Our biggest need is for more full time employees and the funding to support them.

Several years ago I was a paramedic and when responding to a behavioral call, police and fire looked at each other - who’s going to deal with this person? They often looked to the medically trained paramedics. So I think the RADAR program is amazing. It is fairly closely tied with the police and you absolutely need the police there. I’m concerned that Navigators respond in a police car wearing a black jacket with MHP on it. Maybe we need a third service or to move this in with the Fire Department instead of police.

• Reply: We partner closely with the Mental Integrated Health Unit in Shoreline. Navigators do wear civilian clothes. When we expand, they can respond independently in separate cars. But if operating outside of law enforcement, they can’t share with law enforcement.

If the problem is information sharing, we can fix that.

• Reply: Each model has its benefits and drawbacks. Making a living wage with good benefits is critical to attract and retain employees.

Christina Arcidy
Alternative Responder Models
Crisis vs Non-Crisis

This is such a new field, there’s no best practice policy nationally providing us with a model to replicate. We recommend continuing with the evolution of RADAR as it intends to become a program where their Navigators are able to respond to people in crisis without a police presence, when it is safe to do so. We also recommend that at a future Council meeting, Council hear from the King County Mobile Integrated Health Program that is operated by Shoreline Fire.

Who calls 911? Non-crisis calls

We have identified about 25 different types of calls for service can be responded to by other than the police. We have taken a very preliminary look at alternative responses for the top 5, but there are many issues to consider.

Other Criminal Justice Reforms

Right now, because of COVID, the courts are facing huge backlog of cases so instead of working with the courts right now, we are looking at some other issues. We are looking at jail alternatives such as work release and at-home detention as well as improving communication with defendants about when they do and do not have to appear for court. This confusion causes people to lose work days when they don’t have to, or not appear when they should.

DISCUSSION

Regardless of what’s happening, it appears that RADAR is moving towards a hybrid model.

• Reply: Yes, that’s the idea.

The thing I like about the hybrid model of response is that I think it can be hard to determine when a call coming into a cal center is a “safe call.”

To get fully there, you need the full time staff as well as vehicles and other types of necessary equipment, right?

• Reply: Yes vehicles are the primary equipment need because RADAR is an outreach based program. A Crisis Triage Facility is a licensed behavioral health facility managed by a behavioral health partner and not by RADAR. It’s a resource that we need in our community and the lack of it hampers our ability to do good work with folks.

What would an ideal team look like for the 5 cities?

• Reply: That would ideally be 7 to 8 full time employees plus a program manager plus vehicles.

I agree that the Navigators have to be professionals who are paid in line with their education and training.

Where are we with funding from where we are now to your ideal?

• Reply: We need about double the funding just to get us to the full-time employees. Purchase and maintenance of vehicles is secondary to getting the qualified people we need.

Do all cities contribute roughly equally?

• Reply: I’m really glad you asked this question. None of the cities is currently contributing other than in-kind officer and deputy time. That is the only contribution, including from Shoreline. All of the direct funding is from King County Department of Human Services and the City of Bothell is about to kick in some levy money. The cities are going to have to start supporting this financially as well.

I agree and this is one of our Council goals. We should be moving forward with this in either this year or next year’s cycle.

You mentioned at one point high volume hours, and that there is currently one person a couple of hours per day, almost everyday. Do we have data supporting high priority hours, and are those the hours currently covered?

• Reply: Due to current staffing, we take Navigators whenever they are available. Almost all of them have regular jobs. So we are not addressing high volume hours (when the majority of 911 calls come in regarding behavioral health or when they can move people into care which is normal business hours). The data is available for when we have additional staff.

The information on who calls 911 for non-crisis calls is exactly what I’ve been looking for. I see that over 1/3 of all calls fall into non-crisis categories.

I’m concerned about the possible “no response” to items in the non-crisis table. There are a number of things in here that really contribute to quality of life and that we see posted on social media. These things may not be crisis events, but they are really aggravating. When you don’t go after these problematic issues, it becomes something that you accept in your community and I hate to think that mail theft, for example, is something that we are just going to accept. A locking mailbox is not enough to prevent mail theft. I think we need to be cautious about things that affect quality of life and what is acceptable behavior in Shoreline.

• Reply: I want to emphasize that this is a very preliminary look at non-crisis response. We also want the community to have positive engagements with the police regarding things like mail theft or noise complaints. The perception of police in very important and the police want that type of engagement as well. So we realize this needs more analysis.

I agree that we don’t want to just stop responding. We want to maintain the same level of service, regardless of who ultimately responds. I don’t think our goal is to free up police time to do other things, but to find a different way to approach problems that are maybe not best handled by a police officer. Things like mail theft, vehicle prowls, illegal parking and other things that don’t get an in-person response because the police have learned there’s not much point to it - that is still so frustrating. I want to have a police officer respond, even if they say they cannot get fingerprints but I’ll take a report. Being there in person says I care.

Ultimately I would like RADAR to be able to respond to more types of calls besides the immediate emergent mental health crisis. I’m talking about other things that are best handled by a mental health professional, such has neighbor disputes, camping in a park, barking dogs and other calls that ask “how do we deal with this problem”. Nobody is getting written a citation or going to jail but the problem needs to be addressed.

Does Chief Ledford have any comments on what’s been discussed?

• Reply by Chief Ledford: At first the deputies were not interested in this program. They didn’t want to be "social workers" and they aren't mental health professionals. But over the years they have come to depend on the program. It isn’t unusual to hear “this individual needs RADAR referral.” We respond to all calls for service. For example, today there was an intoxicated individual at one of the big box stores that was passed out, and later an intoxicated person in a wheelchair tipped over on Aurora. Police responded to both calls. We recognize that not everyone wants to respond without law enforcement. We don’t need to be the one in front, but we do need to be there to support them. The more information we have going into a scene, the less likely we are to use force. I’m in support of working together.

When we first started with RADAR, wasn’t the base plan directed at homes who had people with behavioral issues so that they could be registered with the police department so if police were called to the house, they would have prior knowledge of the behavioral health?

• Reply Chief Ledford: Part of that was from our lack of follow up after resolving only the crisis by getting the individual immediate care. We recognized that we needed to get these people more help by meeting with their Circle of Support (family and caregivers) to get an idea of what we can do to prevent escalating the situation and reducing multiple calls for the same person. We have about 25 such individuals in Shoreline.

8(c) Discussion of Resolution No. 483 - Requiring Mandatory COVID-19 Vaccinations as a Qualification of Employment or Public Service with the City of Shoreline, as a Qualification for Providing Contracted Services at City Facilities, Authorizing the City Manager to Develop Additional Rules and Parameters for Implementing this Requirement, and Establishing a Deadline of Full Vaccination by December 1, 2021

Presentation by John Norris, Assistant City Manager

When the decision was made to revisit the vaccination mandate, the information was shared with staff as well as union representatives. 78% of current city employees are fully vaccinated. But given the current trends shown in the above slide, we recognize that 78% is not enough. That is why we are here tonight.

Since we first discussed this, there have been a lot of other decisions made by the State, the County, locally, federally around mandatory vaccinations.

Administrative rules also require proof of vaccination by the same deadline of December 1, 2021. This applies to current and future staff, contractors and volunteers as long as this resolution is in effect.

The results of non-compliance are clearly stated.

This is the first time the City has proposed such a mandate but due to the ongoing public health emergency created by the pandemic, staff believes it is a necessary step at this time. Staff recommends approval of this resolution.

The City Manager and I do not take lightly at all the impact of a mandate such as this on individual rights and freedoms or the potential loss of employees.

No decision is required tonight. This for discussion only with a potential action scheduled for October 4.

DISCUSSION

For me it comes down to the fact that being around an unvaccinated person increases the likelihood of other people catching COVID. There are breakthrough infections. I am grateful that my employer (City of Seattle) mandates the vaccination. That means that when I go back to the office I won’t have to worry as much about the people around me. This is also our contribution to the public health by doing what we can to stop the spread.

I have changed my mind and support this resolution. I wish we didn’t have to issue a mandate, but with the misinformation out there and the state of our world and lack of action by so many individuals, I think is important for the public good. We are not forcing people to get vaccinated - it is a personal decision. I don’t want exceptions to be handed out frivolously, but I wonder how much work the exceptions will be.

I too have changed my mind as numbers keep going up. I recently spent 3 days with family members. Two could not attend because they caught COVID. The rest were unvaccinated which made it a very uncomfortable three days for me. Their reasons were personal - not religious or medical. I was so happy to get away from there. But I still worry about them. And I worried about my personal exposure being there. People should not have to have this worry in their workplace. It’s time for everybody to step up and take responsibility so we can get beyond this.

I agree. Things have changed since June. And the federal government has mandated vaccinations with testing requirements for employers with more than 100 people. I think the City should be consistent with that. I have a question about the volunteers’ piece. It includes any city volunteer working on a City sponsored project. And there’s no exemption for volunteers. Correct?

• Reply: Yes. This would be volunteers working at any City facility, or a volunteer working at any City sponsored event or activity or program that may not be in a City facility.

The exemptions are only those required by law, correct?

• Reply: That’s correct.

But we have a problem with the definition of volunteer. I am a local soccer coach, I am working in a city facility (the parks are considered a city facility in this resolution) but there are volunteer coaches who live in Seattle. How would it apply to them? Or a volunteer at a neighborhood work party in a park, or at a booth when we get back to neighborhood events. How do we plan ahead and track proof of their vaccinations? How would we implement this? The same thing can apply to companies the city contracts with. We may not know exactly who the contractor will send out to do the actual work.

• Reply Debbie Tarry: The procedure for the administrative staff gives the ability to deal with some of these issues. One other criteria that we had discussed for volunteers, it would be volunteers that we actually report hours for Labor and Industry purposes. This would help us to narrow it down to something we can manage.

I don’t see this as much different from going to a bar and having to show ID and proof of immunization. I don’t think that I should be any more at risk going to a going to a park work party. I don’t think we need to micro-manage this resolution. I think staff has done a good job. We have the right not to get vaccinated, but not the right to expose others.

I’m glad we’re here now. The delta variant is here, and possibly more lethal mutations are coming. Being cautious at first was a good step. But with the increase in deaths we need to remember that this is a global pandemic health crisis. We have to act as a global community. We are beyond individual rights when you are infecting others. I have changed from not supporting this to being clearly, clearly sure that I want to protect our staff, volunteers, councilmembers and commission members.

We are already behind the federal, state and county government. I wish we would have had this in place by October 18 because, as we all know, the “chain is only as strong as its weakest link.” We have already let three months go by. I would like to get this in place. With the authority for the City Manager to do administrative rules that also gives the flexibility to quickly respond. Whereas if we put this in a resolution and, if we try to put every single detail in there and we don’t get it right, then we have to go back to our legislative process to correct it. And leave the definitional details to staff. I don’t want to delay any further.

I still think we need to be more precise in our definitions if we are having two different sets of criteria. Also, we can push up the date from December 1st. We could choose November 1. I would support that.

The only problem is the time you need to wait for the second shot. Six weeks or so is the minimum. We need to give people the necessary time to think about it as well.

This will come back on as an action item rather than consent so we have the opportunity to do any necessary refinements.

COUNCIL RECESSES TO AN EXECUTIVE SESSION

No action is expected.

Following the executive session the meeting was adjourned.