Critics say little of substance has changed in the legislation and no new spending will be part of the plan but the Seattle City Council appears ready to approve a revised bill opening the way for a Seattle Police crackdown on public drug use on Seattle streets while doing more to “emphasize diversion and health programs.”

Tuesday afternoon, the full council is prepared to vote on the bill after a roster of amendments were made last week as the legislation from Mayor Bruce Harrell’s office passed out of the council’s public safety committee. More amendments could further alter the bill in Tuesday’s vote.

Some opposition remains but it is not clear if citywide representative Teresa Mosqueda, District 2 representative Tammy Morales, and District 3 leader Kshama Sawant will be joined in expected votes against the bill.

“If today’s bill were to pass, it would embolden the reactionary Seattle Police Department to arrest and harass working people, especially people of color, on suspicion of public drug use,” Sawant said Tuesday morning in an email to supporters.

Opponents Tuesday will be armed with a report (PDF) from the Seattle Office for Civil Rights prepared at the request of Mosqueda. The SOCR briefing recommends against the bill, calling for the city fo focus on “housing first models,” and to “develop processes and policies to ensure people are not cycling through the criminal legal system and are provided with adequate treatment and care.”

“Drug prohibition has resulted in significant racial disparities both historically and currently, nationally and locally,” the memo reads. “It is likely this ordinance will continue that pattern.”

The briefing also says the proposed legislation will “will inevitably target people who are unhoused or unstably housed.”

The Public Safety and Human Services Committee approved the latest version of the legislation sponsored by councilmembers Lisa Herbold (West Seattle) and Andrew Lewis (downtown) last week after the Seattle City Council did not support an earlier proposal that members said lacked adequate plans and resources to provide support for treating addiction and providing options beyond incarceration.

The new Harrell administration-led proposal would shuffle $27 million in budgeted spending toward enhanced treatment facilities, new addiction services, and improved overdose response for first responders including $7 million this year in capital investments in facilities to provide services such as post-overdose care, opioid medication delivery, health hub services, long-term care management, and drop-in support.

The administration says it will use funding from opioid lawsuit settlements “resulting from the City’s efforts to hold large pharmaceutical companies accountable” to dedicate $20 million toward “a long-term multi-year strategy and plan to increase treatment and overdose response services” and “access to mobile opioid medication delivery, and harm reduction services.”

The funding would also boost the Seattle Fire Department’s new “post overdose response team.”

Groups like the Downtown Seattle Association and the Seattle Police Officers Guild union strongly criticized officials for being slow to respond to new state law making low level drug crimes in Washington a gross misdemeanor and giving the state a harder stance on drug law penalties.

Changes introduced in amendments last week include elements of tone including additional language emphasizing that city’s “support for diverting individuals away from the criminal legal system.”

Another amendment directs the Office of the Inspector General to work with SPD and other departments “to collect data and share data with the Council to help it evaluate how the policy guidance regarding diversion is impacting an officer’s ability to do their job and provide recommendations.”

Other approved changes include revisions to attempt to shape finer points of how some elements would be executed including a clause “to ask SPD to try and use officers with 40 or more hours of crisis intervention team training to respond to public use or knowing possession crimes, where operationally possible.”

Another change would specify that an officer “may not arrest when a person is only a harm to themselves without additional articulable facts and circumstances” and clarifies that “SPD policies and training will identify what additional articulable facts and circumstances would warrant arrest.”

A set of significant amendments also throws into question how SPD officers will handle the options around arrest or diversion. The approved amendments from citywide representative Sara Nelson changed key phrases in the legislation, substituting the word “may” for “will,” putting a major decision point in the process in the hands of the responding officer:

It’s not clear how the department would respond to the tactical requirements and suggestions.

Prior to Tuesday’s vote, Nelson and others are expected to be busy with a slate of additional proposed amendments including one proposal from the citywide rep eliminating a requirement for the city to establish a behavioral health advisory committee as part of the bill. It would also remove “the request for data showing the demographics and other information recommended by the state’s substance abuse and recovery services plan” part of amendment changes made last week. Another Nelson proposal would remove language in the bill directing SPD to prioritize the use of officers with 40 or more hours of crisis intervention team training when responding to drug use calls.

Meanwhile, Mosqueda, Nelson’s citywide counterpart and current candidate for the King County Council, has lined up an amendment seeking to reverse Nelson’s approved “will” to “may” changes when it comes to SPD decisions weighing arrest vs. diversion. “This amendment would change the reference from ‘may’ to ‘will’ in subsections 3.28.141.G and H when directing an officer to assess whether an individual poses a threat of harm to others and make an attempt to divert for individuals who only pose a threat of harm to themselves,” a council summary of Mosqueda’s proposed restoration reads. “This change would require an officer to both make an assessment of threat of harm to others and make an attempt to divert when an individual only poses a threat of harm to themselves.”

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