♪♪
-Hello, I'm your host Bryan Callahan.
How will a new State law affect
Seattle's efforts to criminalize public drug use?
What's the latest on a plan to improve public safety
and revitalize Downtown?
And what's next for the newly-established Seattle
Film Commission?
I'm talking to Seattle Councilmember
Sara Nelson and a special guest to answer these questions
and the ones you're sending in too.
Next on Council Edition.
-This is a crisis and the community,
the City I think, needs a means of intervention.
-We have to have both a law enforcement
and a Social Services response.
They are always combined.
-All that and more coming up
next on City Inside Out Council Edition.
♪♪
-And here we are with Councilmember Sara Nelson
and a special guest, Jon Scholes,
the CEO and President of the Downtown Seattle Association,
to help add some perspective.
Jon, thank you very much for being here.
-My pleasure. -And, Councilmember Nelson,
always good to see you.
Let me start with you if I could.
Help us get a broad picture of what the City is working
on right now in Downtown with the Activation Plan
that the mayor launched last month.
The idea was to crack down on drug-dealing crimes,
launch an expansion of Seattle Fire's Health
One unit with a focus on overdose response,
and connecting with people who have substance use orders
through what's called "contingency management,"
providing incentives like gift cards
if they're able to complete some of the drug treatment services.
Give us an update on how this is going so far.
-Those were all components of the Executive Order.
And I stood on the stage next to Mayor Harrell,
and I endorsed that
because we have got to focus on substance use disorder
and expand the treatment and services that are available.
And I spoke specifically
about the Contingency Management Pilot Project because it's new.
Now, I know that there's some talk about,
oh, you're just going to give gift cards to people.
-Yeah, people have said you're bribing people
or something along those lines. What do you say to that?
-Let me tell you why this is new and important.
It's because it rewards sobriety.
So let's talk about how it's going to be implemented.
Clinic Housing is a partner,
so those are people that will be enrolled in this program.
It's not just going up the street
and handing out gift cards first of all.
And second of all, this is a new approach.
Contingency management is considered
one of the most effective interventions
when it comes to addiction,
especially when paired with counseling
and maybe following inpatient or intensive outpatient services.
By rewarding sobriety, which is proved through a urine test,
it provides a space for people to make a different decision
about potentially going into treatment.
And that is new.
That is a new approach,
and that is why I think it's important that we try it
and that we prove that it can succeed.
-Okay, got it. Anything so far?
I know we're just maybe a month in.
Any results that you can tell us about, or are we still waiting?
-I believe that it is still in the planning phase.
-The process -- okay, fair enough.
Jon, I wanted to make sure I talked about
what the DSA is doing here,
the Downtown Seattle Association.
You have your Downtown ambassadors,
very hands-on in this situation,
administering naloxone drug overdose treatment
to 81 people since January.
And that's just the start.
I want to talk more about the DSA's role
when it comes to drug activity Downtown
and also your assessment of the City's efforts to revitalize
Downtown from that public safety perspective to start, please.
-Yeah, the crisis around drugs,
the crisis around fentanyl that's facing our city today
I think is the most significant crisis in front of us.
We've lost more people to drug deaths
since March of 2020 than we have to COVID.
The increase from '21 to '22 was over 70%
when it comes to overdose deaths within the city of Seattle.
So this is a significant public health safety/moral emergency
that we need to take on with new strategies and new approaches.
Like Councilmember Nelson noted, there's not one answer.
There's not a city around the country that's got the answer.
So we've got to try some new things,
and we need to move with urgency.
Our ambassador team, which is about 100-plus individuals
working full-time in the Downtown,
began carrying Narcan in June of last year on a voluntary basis.
If they wanted to do it,
we would train them and equip them.
Most of our folks are carrying it today.
Since the beginning of this year,
they've administered it over 80 times.
Our contract at private unarmed security also carries it,
so they've been administering it as well on top of the
80 incidents in administration that I noted earlier.
So we're using it far more often than we'd like.
The good news is we're saving lives.
But the bad news is there's lots of people still out
using dangerous drugs,
and we've got to take that head-on.
-Thank you very much for that.
Councilmember Nelson, the City has had an emphasis patrol
of Seattle police officers
around Third Avenue for more than a year now,
which is really a center point in terms of this drug activity.
And we got this e-mail about the situation from Brit,
one of our viewers, who writes this.
"What happens after emphasis patrols are done in the are
and crime moves back?
How do we make sure that we're not just moving people
that are committing the crimes
from neighborhood to neighborhood?"
This is a criticism I know you've heard before.
Can you talk about that in terms of what's happening Downtown
and what you're trying to do there?
-Well, it's not just one action first of all.
So we have got to address drug use
from a number of different perspectives.
We already spoke about
the Contingency Management intervention.
-Right. -But we have also
just dropped legislation
to prohibit the public use of drugs.
-Right. -And that is important
because that is what's causing the negative impacts
that people are writing to me to complain about.
And we've got employers that are saying that their workers
don't want to return to the office
because they don't want to get on the bus.
I mean, King County Metro installed filters on buses
to study the circulation of fentanyl smoking within to see
whether or not it's having a bad impact on the drivers.
So this is an emergency.
So there is a law enforcement component,
and that is hopefully going to be stronger incentive
to get people into treatment.
-Okay. -So that is just one thing.
We've also got to incentivize
more businesses to come Downtown.
-Yeah, mm-hm. -And that is something
that the DSA has weighed in on and I think rightly.
We have to do everything
we possibly can to bring more business down there.
That will add life to the street,
and it will also generate more General Fund revenue
so that we can continue on these programs you've mentioned.
-Can you hold on that economic piece for just a second?
Because I wanted to go back to that idea
of the public use of drugs.
And you worked on this--
or you have been working on this with Councilmember Pedersen.
You had a press conference with City Attorney Ann Davison
not too long ago about this.
And I wanted to put it in perspective
because very recently, before we recorded this show,
the State of Washington placed this Blake bill
Fix as it was called in a special session there.
So this made drug possession in our state a gross misdemeanor.
It also criminalized drug use
and added $44 million in drug treatment statewide.
And I was looking at this because you recently made
this announcement that I think you want
to keep pursuing this public drug use bill.
And I'm trying to figure out, okay, if the State passed a law,
why does Seattle need its own law?
-Because we're talking about misdemeanor offenses,
which means that the City Prosecutor files the charges.
So therefore, there needs to be a law
within the SMC giving here that authority.
-Seattle Municipal Code, keep going.
-Exactly, and so things don't just
automatically get integrated into our Municipal Code
if it's our City officials that are going to be regulating it.
So that is why Council has to act and create a law
to give her the authority to work on these things.
And it's not necessarily a decision to keep people in jail.
It's a decision to divert them to treatment
or other diversion programs so that they can get help.
-Okay, thank you.
This is a very important distinction here
because I get so many different comments about this.
And I know you have heard these too, Jon.
I want to bring you in here too
because there's always some disagreement
about the use of law enforcement in these situations.
I had one social media commentor write this
when I posted about this.
"After five decades of the war on drugs and the deaths
at King County Jail, do you consider prosecution
the right tool to address substance abuse?
I know the DSA was supportive of this City law on public drug use
before the State acted.
A lot of other business groups around the city
said that as well.
Do you still support this idea of a City law
on public drug use?"
-Yeah, I think the community, the City,
needs a means of intervention to intervene in people
that are significantly harming themselves
using public areas to do so.
This is a deadly poison.
We're seeing more and more people die
every year from fentanyl.
The new versions of fentanyl tranq
that are coming into our community are even more deadly.
People are losing their limbs, having significant wounds.
So this is a crisis.
And the community, the City,
I think needs a means of intervention.
This is poison being peddled, possessed,
and used in public areas.
And we regulate lots of behavior of what you can
and can't do in public areas --
on sidewalks, near schools, near bus stops.
And I think the use of fentanyl
should be one of those that we regulate.
Our ambassadors that do carry Narcan have been exposed
to second-hand fentanyl smoke over the last several weeks.
We've had three individuals exposed.
They have to then have Narcan administered to themselves.
One of them spent the night in Harbor View.
So there are real impacts to the general public from the public
use of some of these very deadly and dangerous drugs.
-Got it. Councilmember --
-I want to add to that.
-Yeah, please, yeah. -We do have laws on the books
that prohibit the consumption of alcohol and cannabis in public.
But there has never been a law in Seattle
to prohibit the use of other drugs that are illegal.
And our silence on this issue is raising alarm
from my constituents who want to know,
"What are we doing about this?"
-Can you help me out with that balance though
between the tool of law enforcement
and the tool of treatment?
I don't want to say versus each other
because I think they can work together.
But I think there has to be a balance there.
That's what I've heard from a lot of people too.
-Absolutely. -And I think you would agree.
-Can you tell me how you balance that?
Because I don't think the idea is to try
and get as many people in jail as possible.
-No, it is not.
We know that jail is a harmful environment for many reasons.
We also know that it is the entry point into treatment
for many people.
And we know that an interaction with an officer on the street
can lead to a prefiling diversion.
And we're spending millions of dollars
on our law enforcement diversion programs.
So we do have some of the infrastructure -- the tools,
the programs -- in place, and this is another avenue
to get people into the treatment that they need.
-Okay. -And I will say that for those
that say, "Well, jail's not the answer."
We have to have both a law enforcement
and a Social Services response.
They are always combined.
I can tell you having been in inpatient treatment,
a lot of those people got there from a court order,
from jail, from another different program
but because there was a legal intervention.
-Got it. -And I think they have
to acknowledge too just how deadly these drugs are.
I mean, that is a difference from where we were
in the 1980s in this country.
-Yeah. -And if we had people climbing
to the top of the Space Needle today,
sitting on the edge, and then jumping off,
we would intervene as a community.
And that is in effect what we have
when we have so many people using fentanyl
and even more dangerous versions on our streets.
And their chances of death are high.
If you've overdosed once,
your chances of dying are even higher.
So this is a serious public health emergency.
It's costing lives. It's costing a lot of money.
-Thank you for that.
I want to switch gears if I can a little bit,
Councilmember Nelson, and talk about what's happening
on the business activation side of things.
You touched on this earlier.
Because I know the City is working hard to fill up
vacant office spaces Downtown.
City Hall Park is set to reopen in June,
other initiatives there as well.
And I wonder if you could keep this question in mind --
we received this via e-mail --
when it comes to revitalizing Downtown.
Jimmy wrote this.
"What success metrics do you think are important
for the City to strive for?
How do we measure those?"
I want to try to talk about this --
the overall plan for business revitalization
and how will you say, "This is a success"?
You can measure this as a success this summer
and going forward.
-Well, I think a success would be the number of people
that are circulating Downtown.
And the Seattle Times ran an article last week,
I believe, talking about -- I think it was at about 40%.
Jon would know this better.
-Yeah, mm-hm.
-That is lower than most cities across the country.
-Right, talking about offices and people returning
to work compared to pre-pandemic.
-It's tracking cellphone data. -Right.
-So it's workers and visitors
and people going to school, et cetera.
So that would be a metric.
I want to see that number go up.
I want to see office vacancy rates go down.
Right now, it's 22%.
That is -- that's bad, and it's up 4% from a year ago
when it was 18%.
So that is another metric.
Return to work...employers
can tell you how many people are coming back to work.
-Right. -And so all of these
are statistics that we can track.
But I also think it's a feel.
-Yeah. -I think it's a feel
that you get from Downtown.
And there are -- Downtown is a vibrant place right now,
thanks largely to the work of the ambassadors in DSA,
what they're doing to activate public spaces.
And we've got the All Star Games coming up in about 50 days.-
Yeah. -So it's up to us policymakers
to create the conditions for people to want to come Downtown.
So it's the Downtown Activation Plan
and some of the items in there, and more will be unveiled
in the next couple months according to Mayor Harrell.
-Yeah.
-But it's also public safety first and foremost.
People have to feel safe Downtown.
-Yeah, thank you for tying those together.
Jon, let's try to dive into some of these numbers
because I know you were glued to the screen every day
when we talk about the Downtown Recovery Dashboard
that DSA has available right now,
especially that returning to the office piece.
The May figures, as I've seen them,
show that we're just above that 40% office occupancy level
compared to pre-pandemic times.
This does not show, however, the impact of Amazon returning
a lot of workers to job on May 1st in South Lake Union.
What are the numbers telling you?
-The first week of May when Amazon returned,
we had more people working Downtown relative
to the same period in 2019
than we've had since the start of the pandemic.
So we're headed in the right direction.
It's been a slow and steady return to office.
And we know that more employers
are sort of following Amazon's lead
and bringing workers back into the office
at a similar rate of three or more days a week.
Redfin made an announcement, DocuSign,
other Downtown employers.
So I think the pendulum has really shifted away
from majority remote work,
which is where we've been in here in Seattle
over the last three years or so.
And employers and employees, I think,
are seeing again the benefits of being together in person --
maybe not five days a week but a majority of the week.
And we think when we get back to a majority of people
back in their offices the majority of the week --
we think that's good for Downtown,
but it can also be good for workers,
good for culture, good for organizations and companies.
We've done a lot to create a lot better environment
Downtown for workers to return.
The first three months of this year,
violent crime is down 28%
compared to the first three months of last year.
A year-and-a-half ago, we had 150 tents
around the sidewalks in public areas
Downtown -- today, maybe 10 or so.
So the streets are more welcoming,
healthy, safer, cleaner for everybody.
-Got it.
And I want to make sure I touched on a headline
that might have passed under the radar for a lot of folks,
and that's the Metropolitan Improvement District.
The Council worked on reapproving this,
and I think this is kind of
one of those stories behind the story here.
Can you talk about who sponsored this?
This is a big part of making sure
there are ambassadors and other activities Downtown,
Can you talk about that piece, please?
-Yeah, Downtown wouldn't be what it is,
what we know it to be right now, without the MID.
-Mm-hm. -And I think that we all owe
a debt of gratitude to the ambassadors
and also to the rate payers, the property owners,
who have agreed.
They asked to charge themselves money to clean our streets,
remove graffiti, give tourists directions,
staff the summer parks concert series, et cetera.
-Yeah. -And so there's so much
that the MID does for Downtown.
I can't imagine Downtown without it.
And so, yes, that was an easy sell (laughing)
to renew it because every 10 years it is up for renewal.
-Right, got it.
Jon, some thoughts about the MID?
I think it's one of those, again, stories behind the story
that not a lot of people know about.
But this was a big deal that a lot of those property owners
said even in the dire straits that some of them
are in with the amount of dollars
they've lost over the last several years,
they're saying, "Yes, we want this."
Talk to us about the MID and what it means.
-Yeah, I think it shows the optimism
that property owners have in Downtown's future,
that our best days are really ahead.
Yeah, we've been through a tough couple of years.
But there's a lot of bullishness about what's to come.
And we're grateful for the support
of Councilmember Nelson, Lewis, and Mayor Harrell,
to make sure this got authorized.
About 1,250 property owners said, "Yeah, keep charging us.
And more so, we'd actually like to contribute more
for cleaning, safety, security, concerts,
events, activation, beautification in our Downtown.
So we'll go from collecting and spending about
$15-and-a-half million this year to about $18.5 next year.
That's going to mean more cleaning,
more feet on the street, more events,
more parks and public spaces that are activated.
And getting those basics right has always been important
in creating a safe and healthy city,
a place where people want to go spend time.
So it's great for visitors, workers, and residents.
And we're going to see more of it starting in July.
-And I have something to add there.
-Please.
-Because these are actual jobs with benefits,
with I believe starting salaries $20 or something like that.
-Yeah. -And you should have seen
the energy -- the positive energy in Chambers
when this was discussed in my committee.
You can check it out on the award-winning Seattle Channel.
-You better believe it, yeah.
-But my point is that small businesses,
MID Ambassadors, business/building owners,
residents, they all came forward and said,
"This is absolutely important.
We appreciate this work. Please pack this."
-Okay, I need to start wrapping up with the both of you.
Maybe, Councilmember Nelson, you can give us a view of
where are we going to be on this revitalizing
Downtown discussion.
Take me a year from now.
Do you have some thoughts about that?
There's a lot of plans in place right now.
How is this going to --
what's this going to look like a year from now?
- It's going to look even better.
Look, we are planning now for the All Star Games.
That's in 50 days. -Mm-hm.
-Next year, we'll be planning for the World Cup, all right?
We've got a brand-new Convention Center,
and so there is a lot
that's positive that's happening right now.
We have got to implement the programs on the books
and at the same time make sure that we're delivering
the basic service of public safety.
-Okay, thank you. Jon, some final thoughts
about where we might be in terms of Downtown safety,
in terms of Downtown business next year?
-Yeah, I'm encouraged.
Clearly, we have a lot of work left to do.
And clearly, we're still in a fragile spot --
but really encouraged with the progress.
Just this month, we had about a dozen announcements
of new businesses, reopened businesses,
or businesses that will soon open --
restaurant, retail, bars, cafes.
So we're seeing a lot more activity
at the ground level of Downtown,
the things that people want to go do for fun
that are important to drawing people back.
And then we've got some of these big milestones
that Councilmember Nelson mentioned,
and those are going to be terrific.
Our summer is going to be gangbusters
with a record cruise season.
Conventions are back --
big concerts, big sporting events, of course
All Star Week.
And we're going to be much closer to opening things
like the Waterfront Park, which is going to be-
-A gamechanger, I think.
If you haven't been Downtown in a few years
and you still haven't been Downtown,
this is going to be the reason you kind of reintroduce yourself
to Downtown -- open in 2025.
So we're cutting the ribbon on a bunch of major moves
and major projects that have been in place for,
in some cases, two decades that other cities would just die for.
And we've got a collection of them here to open, to celebrate.
And I think they're going to help fuel our recovery.
-All right, well, we'll see what happens over
the next few months and next year as well.
Jon, thank you very much,
I really appreciate you being here.
-My pleasure. -And I'm going to ask
more questions of Councilmember Nelson
one-on-one here, so you stay right there.
We will be right back.
♪♪
This summer, the city of Seattle wants to fill up
20 vacant storefronts in Downtown
and throughout the city with pop-up shops,
events, and art installations.
Want to learn more?
Check out SeattleRestored.org.
And we are back with Councilmember Sara Nelson
here on Council Edition.
Thanks for sticking around here.
I wanted to talk about trees with you.
I know this has been a very contentious issue
for the Council.
Here in May, you're going to be passing a set of new regulations
intended to protect trees
and also preserve housing development.
I think you bring a different perspective to this
because this is something the Council
has been talking about a long time,
maybe back even when you were a legislative assistant
under Richard Conlin many years ago.
But you are one of the newer Councilmembers here
taking a look at this maybe with some fresh eyes here.
What are you seeing here?
Where have you tried to guide this conversation?
-Well, it's funny you mentioned Richard Conlin
because, yes, I was a staffer.
He was actually the Councilmember that formed
the Urban Forestry Commission.
-Right. -Right, and so I
was working for him from 2002 to 2013
with a couple years' break in there.
-Yeah. -And back then it was --
I hate to make myself sound like the old person
who walked 10 miles through the snow.
-Sure, sure, sure.
-But basically, it was almost inconceivable
that we could regulate trees on private property.
And so look how far we've come.
-Mm-hm.
-That's a part of the perspective
that I bring that this is --
when you look at the conversation back then,
this is new. -Yeah.
-And I have to say though that this has been
an active conversation for the years before I got here.
So I had a lot of bringing myself up-to-speed.
And it was really a difficult process
because there were about -- I don't know --
40 or 50 amendments that we had to digest at the last minute.
-Oh, yeah.
-So I went in knowing that trees are beloved.
And people are very emotional about trees, as am I.
-Mm-hm.
-And so we're never going to be able to preserve enough.
According to the people that know these things,
this will result in the protection I think of
about 57,000-58,000 more trees than had we done it otherwise.
-Okay. -At the same time,
we've got a housing affordability crisis, right?
-Right, yeah, so tell me about that balance.
That's the toughest part. -I know, it's difficult.
People like to say it's not trees or housing, it's both.
And I believe that.
However, the devil is in the details.
-Yeah. -And I think that what
the builders of housing wanted --
and these aren't big developers.
These are the people that build the homes that people live in,
single-family homes, et cetera.
-Yeah. -What they needed
was some certainty
about how they could build on a parcel of land.
-Yeah. -And up to this point,
if there was a tree there, they had to figure out
how they could get the FAR
in that limited space, et cetera.
And that was taking time.
-The floor area ratio, thank you, keep going.
-And that was slowing down the production
of much-needed housing. -Yeah, right.
-And so that was the tension
that we went into this legislation with.
And as Councilmember Strauss said in the very beginning,
pretty much everybody has a complaint about this.
And so therefore, maybe we're doing the right thing.
What I said after that marathon day of amendments --
I actually said that I felt really ambivalent,
and I still do precisely because of the difficulty of talking
about our living plants that beautify our city,
that cool our climate, and anyway that are rare.
However, they do grow back or they can be replanted.
-Sure. -We have to take the long term.
So I guess what I'm just saying
is that I understand the concerns on both sides.
And I think that we came out with a piece of legislation
that did its best to answer those concerns.
-Thank you for that.
I wanted to move on to something else,
the Seattle Film Commission.
You and I talked about this last year on Council Edition.
-Right. -It seems like just yesterday.
You brought this up again maybe back then.
But now we have this 13-member Board finally been set,
starting to meet.
And the back story, folks, there's some State money,
new state money out there that lets
Seattle offer some tax incentives
to entice film crews to come here
so we don't have the last of a set-in-Seattle/shot-in
Vancouver ever again.
Tell us what it's going to do, its priorities moving forward.
-Right, well, I love working on something
that is noncontroversial, let me just say.
-Sure.
-Because this was a priority coming into office
because I learned how important the film industry
was to jobs, economic growth, and to advancing equity
as well as forming a pipeline for young people
who want to work in the industry.
And we're losing those people to Portland
and to Vancouver to the north.
-Yeah, cost of living is a big part of it.
-Right, and it's also because
there's more opportunity in those cities.
-Right, okay, yeah. -And it's also because
they have invested in their film industry
by having things like a Film Commission.
-Yeah. -What does that do?
Why is it just not another commission?
It's because it shows that local government has skin in the game.
And we are trying to make it easier to make film here --
not just for outside production
but for our already-existing people in the industry
and the talent that lives right here.
-Yeah. -So this will be
an 11-member Commission,
and they represent every single segment of the film industry
from onscreen talent
to postproduction editing, everything in between.
We've got labor, education,
and of course we've got a representative from SIFF.
-Right. -So we need industry experts
to tell City policymakers what we need to do
to make it easier to make film here
so that we can reclaim our natural position
as the best film-making city in the nation.
-And you've brought up SIFF there,
the Seattle International Film Festival,
which is going on right now all around Seattle here in May.
It just seems like an exciting time to be connected to SIFF
and to see this industry start to grow.
Because not only are we talking about the festival,
but SIFF purchasing the Cinerama Theater.
It seems like a very interesting time
to get involved in this industry.
What's your insight there?
-I can only explain the energy
in the room when that was announced.
I was there on opening night.
And when Tom Mara, the new director,
unveiled this news, the excitement was palpable.
People got on their feet.
There was a roar of applause.
So that just shows you how meaningful it was
to reopen this iconic theater
and also to have it in the hands of the venerable SIFF.
-Yeah. -And so that is the last star
in the alignment of many stars
to advance our mission of boosting film here.
You mentioned the incentives.
-Right. -Those $15 million --
that was $13 million new dollars to incentivize film production.
That's not quite Atlanta or Vancouver, but it's more.
And that's at the State level.
And I thank Washington Film Works.
Then we've got Harbor Island Studios.
-Right. -The County's investment
in a sound studio, state-of-the-art sound studio,
which we have not had since 1996.
Now we have a Film Commission that puts Seattle on the map
and shows people that we care.
And now we have this venerable,
iconic theater that's going to reopen.
-Yeah, it's massive news.
And I guess I'll wrap up with one quick question here for you.
So if a filmmaker had to make the movie,
What Councilmember Nelson is Doing This Summer,
what would that look like?
Is it just one shot of you watching
the Seattle Channel, or what?
[Laughter]
-Gosh, it's me going to a lot of meetings, frankly.
-Okay. -So that is --
I'm going to have to roll that through my mind.
-Please, I know.
-But I did sit in a move
to watch the showing of Year of the Fox.
-Oh, wow, okay. -I went to that.
And that was fun because the director
and the cast members and production crew
got up there on stage, answered questions.
And that was fun for me.
-Okay. -And so if you were to just ask
what is the movie of Sara Nelson
in the next couple weeks, it's more of that.
-Just watching more movies, right.
-Yeah. -Councilmember Nelson,
thank you very much for being here.
And we'll see you next time on Council Edition.
♪♪