The Redmond City Council held a special meeting on Monday, November 3, 2025, commencing at 7:00 PM. The meeting included a proclamation for Native American History Month, a presentation on the King County Crisis Care Levy, a significant public comment period addressing surveillance technology and federal immigration enforcement, and a Council recommendation to temporarily disable the city's Flock automated license plate readers pending further review. The Council also approved the consent agenda and heard committee reports, including a farewell from Councilmember Osman Salahuddin, who is resigning to join the state legislature.
I'm calling this meeting to order. This is a special meeting of the Redmond City Council held on Monday, November 3rd, 2025, commencing at 7 p.m. I am presiding over this meeting as Mayor Pro Tem. I'll start roll call with Council Vice President Forsyth. Here. Councilmember Fields. Councilmember Salahuden. Councilmember Stewart. Here. Councilmember Nueva Comina. Here. Councilmember Anderson. Here. The first item on the agenda is a proclamation for Native American History Month. And I will read the proclamation. Whereas National Native American Heritage Month is observed across the United States each November to recognize the rich histories, vibrant cultures, and enduring contributions of the many tribal nations and indigenous peoples who are the original inhabitants of this land and whose descendants continue to shape and strengthen our communities and nations. And whereas the movement to formally recognize Native American Heritage began over a century ago with the first state sanctioned American Indian Day declared on May 6th, 1916 in New York. National awareness grew in 1976 when President Gerald Ford proclaimed the first Native American Awareness Week. In 1990, President H.W. Bush signed a joint resolution into law establishing November as National Native American Heritage Month, ensuring this essential recognition would become part of our national fabric. And whereas Native Americans have demonstrated extraordinary service, sacrifice, and strength throughout our history, including 44,000 Native men and women who served during World War II, among them Navajo, Cherokee, Comanche, Choctaw Code talkers who use their indigenous languages to transmit unbreakable battlefield communications, contributions that were instrumental to allied victory that remain a symbol of resilience and patriotism. And whereas Native communities continue to thrive, innovate, and lead in fields such as environmental stewardship, public policy, science, the arts, education, and more. Indigenous knowledge systems have long promoted sustainability, community wellness, and a deep respect for the natural world. Native peoples remain steadfast in their efforts to protect their sovereignty, preserve their cultures, and advocate for justice and equity. And whereas the City of Redmond honors the enduring relationship between tribal nations and this land and recognizes that understanding and acknowledging the past and present injustices is essential to building a future rooted in mutual respect, shared prosperity, and true partnership. Now, therefore, I, uh Vanessa Kritzer, on behalf of Angela Burney, Mayor of the City of Redmond, do proclaim November 2025 as Native American Heritage Month. The next item on the agenda was scheduled to be a presentation on Cascadia's State of the College, but this item is being moved to an upcoming meeting. The next item on the agenda is a presentation of on the crisis care levy provided by representatives from King County's Department of Community and Human Services. So we'll invite up Susan McLaughlin, the director of King County Behavioral Health Recovery Division, and Jennifer Winslow, Crisis Care Center Strategic Planning Manager. Welcome. And uh hopefully we've got your presentation up. Go ahead. Is this on? Yes, oh. Good evening. Thank you so much for the record. My name's Susan McLaughlin. I'm the director of the Behavioral Health and Recovery Division at King County. We're so excited and grateful to be here tonight to give you an update on King County's Crisis Care Center levy. Just as a reminder, this was a voter-approved levy. It was approved back in April of 2023. It's a 1.2 billion dollar levy for the next nine years to transform our crisis system. See if I can figure out. So this is our vision of a crisis continuum for here in County. It includes someone to call or contact, and that's our 988 crisis response line, someone to respond, and we have expanded our mobile crisis response teams, which I'll talk about in a minute. A safe place for people to go when they're experiencing a mental health or substance use disorder crisis, and that is the paramount purpose of the levy, which we'll talk about in a minute, and then someone to follow up after a crisis because we know that a crisis is a point in time, but what happens after is really important to engage individuals in treatment and get them the ongoing care that they need. So the crisis care levy itself has a paramount purpose, which is to build a network of five crisis care centers throughout distributed geographically across King County. One of those crisis care centers will be dedicated specifically to youth under the age of 18. And Jennifer is gonna talk a lot more about our crisis care centers in a minute. But there are two supporting purposes to the levy as well that we are making investments in.