The Committee of the Whole for Public Safety and Human Services met on Tuesday, October 21, 2025, at 4:32 PM to discuss and approve several consent agenda items and receive informational updates on the city's Thrive homeless outreach and public safety technology programs, including automatic license plate readers. The meeting was presided over by Councilmember Osman Salahuddin. Councilmembers Kritzer, Forsythe, Nuevacamina, Stuart, and Anderson were in attendance; Councilmember Fields was absent.
The committee received an update on the city's homeless outreach, mobile integrated health (MIH), and mental health professional (MHP) programs. Key points:
The committee discussed two technologies: Drone as First Responder (DFR) and Flock ALPR cameras.
No public testimony was heard.
I am calling this meeting to order. This is the public safety and human services committee held on Tuesday, October 21st, commencing at 4:32 p.m. Council members in attendance are Council President Kritzer, Council Vice President Forsyth, Councilmember Noiva Kamina, Councilmember Stewart, and myself, Councilmember Slodina as the presiding officer. I'll share anyone else who joins, and I believe Councilmember Fields will not be able to attend today. One is a read-only at the end. We have three action items and two informational items. And I've been asked if we can swap the order of the two informational items, and I saw no issue with that, just uh so that we can um get the right people in front of us when they arrive. So we'll go ahead and start with the action items. The first item on the agenda is a King County cost reimbursement agreement for monitoring and verifying registered sex offenders. We have Deputy Police Chief Brian Coates and Chief Lowe online. Uh good evening, Council. This is uh Chief Darrell O. Uh, so what you have there for approval is the uh standard uh reimbursement for uh from King County for monitoring of registered uh sex offenders uh within the uh city of Redmond. Uh this is a uh annual contract that uh comes before you, and what it does is allows us to seek uh cost reimbursement, i.e., overtime costs uh for uh address verification uh for registered sex offenders. Great, thank you. Any questions from council. Perfect. Seeing none, uh looks like this is for the 11-3 business meeting. Uh and if we have no objections, we will see it on the consent agenda there. Perfect. Uh next item is the 2026 rate amendment to the interlocal agreement um between the city of Redmond and the South Correctional Entity Score. Uh we have our police team here again. Uh Chief Chief Lowe. Yes. Uh so this again is the uh annual uh cost update uh from score for the uh jail bids uh that we have um uh each year or each year since the uh pandemic, that number has uh fluctuated based upon uh the uh number of individuals that uh actually are housed uh at the jails. Uh we believe that we have uh currently identified the uh correct number of uh guaranteed bids. Uh or we'll remind the council that uh if we do not guarantee the bids, the uh cost for non-guaranteed bids is uh very substantial. Uh and as I said, I believe we've now uh identified the appropriate uh number of beds to mitigate our costs and ensure that we have uh you know beds for those individuals uh that remain housed. Thank you. Questions from council? Council Vice President Forsyth. Thank you. And thanks for the memo. I feel like the outcomes uh response was written particularly for me since this has been a question that I've shared had often, and I see everyone laughing, so yes. Um what I appreciate the the detail and the depth of going into pandemic and we reduced the number and then we we've increased it. I see that you're saying thinking that 22 is the right bed count for 2026, but I don't know what the aggregate number was across 2025. Um do you have that data? Can you elaborate a little bit more on that? Um I do not. I just know that uh from our look looking back at previous years, we I think the lowest that we had uh was 10. Uh we believe that 22 guaranteed, and I think the um the key thing to point out is that the guaranteed number of bids ultimately uh save us money uh because if those bids are not guaranteed, then we pay a you know uh a much more substantial cost uh than we would by guaranteeing you know by guaranteeing the bids at 22. Yeah. And that is an increase of 20 from 2025. So we increased it by two to find that sweet spot. So to follow up on that, um the average number of nights used was let's say 18, and we're thinking that we need that cushion of four. Like I'm gonna I guess I'm looking for that average number, which is how we we reduced the beds in the past. Right. So if if if if 18 is the number, but if we are at 20 or 22, those four bids are gonna come at a substantially higher cost. The the potential of us not necessarily needing those four bids. Um, I I don't think tip the needle far enough to make that guaranteed number, you know, 18.