speech on public safety in the core purpose of that speech was to remind people that public safety is more than just about police reform it is about police reform but it's also about dealing with issues of homelessness it's about building trust in the community between the police and the community it is about making sure that we have the appropriate social services in place making sure that our parks and recreation centers can offer programs particularly for youth it's also about the youth employment programs that the city runs that this summer we will have increasing number of available jobs by fifty percent  that public safety is also about the challenges we face when people are poor when people are struggling economically you know it's often said that if you're poor you're most likely to commit a crime but if you're poor you are more likely to actually be a victim of a crime and some of the issues that we face from public safety directly impact communities of color minority communities there are tensions  city at times between the police department in communities that we need to work on there are issues related to economic stress in many of our minority communities and unless we deal with these issues all of these issues and have a basically a holistic approach to what public safety is we won't be able to improve the situation in seattle we suggested a number of plans that we are going to develop by neighborhood to develop neighborhood public safety plans for each neighborhood chief o'toole our new chief of police for seattle will be leading that effort so those are just a few of the things that i  in today's speech to the council into the city so i'm i'm happy to hear questions or comments are several things that we want to do first of all our community centers the hours that they've been open have been drastically cut it's one of the reasons that we put the put the parks district funding plan on the ballot in august to be able to open those community centers expand those hours is important during the summer we're going to use some some we're going to re re prioritize some of the existing city revenue and expand ours in our community centers expand after school hours in our libraries for social engagements for teens as well as expand the teen youth program so short term we're going to do some of these things with long term we have to grow all of them right so we all we always want to respect people's religious beliefs and realize that we can't change people's religious beliefs but i think that the best way that we can influence change is when it is people within that community who are having conversations within their community and one of the sad things about the two young men who were shot is a somalian young man was working on a church i v aids issues in the somalian community those are the sorts of folks that we need because it's one thing for you know people from the outside of their community to tell community what to do that probably doesn't work very well so it's how we identify folks within the community and offer them the support they need i also want to say something though again i don't believe it is our role to change people's religious beliefs i am a practicing roman catholic my church does not look kindly on the fact that i am a gay man i'm not interested in changing my church i am interested in making a safe places for people to be themselves into grow i'm very good question  well you're very right and and one of the things i mean obviously one of the best ways to educate a police force is to have people from those cultures other the next thing we'll so we're doing it we're beginning with east african community is hiring layers on still those communities from those communities so that police officers and the police department actually have people in the force working for them who understand those cultures  third we need those officers in those communities learning first hand what those cultures are about because it will help them be better police officers it will help them fight crime and it's been a challenge i think particularly with only one east african police officer those are the things that we've got to do and we're just at the beginning in many many i really think that that's a good question and i think it's really a question for me the east african community is one of the is may now be the largest immigrant i believe it is now the largest immigrant population in the city of seattle  this these new folks who many for east africans have not new they've been here for over a generation this community and the city are not well connected with each other we just hired our first east african police officer we should have more than one we can do better than that we in almost every city department don't have enough folks who work with us who understand the reality of the east african community you know when i went to the funeral home not once but twice during the week of that too small and young men were shot i saw some real problems and how the city in this county is treating east africans first of all to be able to respond to islamic religious law they were having difficulty getting the body from the county examiner on time then i was told that the burials happen in snohomish county which also makes it hard to do the burials on time we should work with the county to make sure that the deceased are brought to the appropriate place in a timely manner and we should work with the east african community particularly islamic community to be sure that people have options affordable options to parry to bury their loved ones in this county not in the next county those are just some of the areas that we need to work as a city there's issues in education there's issues around juvenile juveniles getting involved in criminal activity we have huge a huge problem on our hands that we as a city are not addressing and i'm committed to putting not just the police department but every single department in the city involved in how we are going to address the needs of the  well i have a long history with this i think it was in ninety one ninety nine maybe it was a one or zero two i passed one of the first anti bullying laws in the nation for the state of washington and it covered everybody children of color children or schools who are differently abled have different beliefs race ethnic sexual orientation so washington was a pioneer in this but we haven't solved the problem  and i don't control the school district as you know but we're going to engage the school district in conversations about the issue of bullying because it's a fair it's a problem i've worked on for years it remains a serious problem  can't tell the school district what to do but we sure can work with them in developing the appropriate programs that end bullying it's a huge problem and soap with kids not getting the education they need sometimes it ends up with kids committing suicide it's a huge problem so we'll work with the school district collaboratively on this and again it's an issue that i i've been working on for crush almost two decades ago so thanks for your question appreciate it well there are a couple things that we are going to enter into franchise agreements around cable and we will discuss the issue around access to information from the ethnic media as part of that in addition t city has a seattle channel and i believe that we can utilize that channel to a greater extent than we do right now to give ethnic media have a chance to have access for programming's on those channels so we're in the beginning of working on those things we're going to work as well on the expansion of broadband throughout the city which will have an effect on the ability of folks to have access to that to these programs in this information so we're in the in the in the process of both with the franchise and with seattle channel looking at how we expand those opportunities you make it part of the program you make him develop the programs you require that they do it and reach out to folks  to actually have a chance to put that information on the air and to share that information we can do that we can't do it to the press you know to channel four or five or six or seven but we can do to the seattle channel because we actually own that and you helped educate me on that issue during during the campaign and i have forgotten it so we're we're not done having these conversations so we're very interested to we're explore this more i just hired a new director for the department of information technology and that individual has been one of the assignments i've given him is to start to look into this issue about access for ethnic media so will what will want to continue this conversation well i think it's important to remember that compared to most large cities seattle doesn't have the worst crime statistics in the nation and nor are we seeing the number of shootings in the city that we've seen in other years but there are neighborhoods in the city that actually are seeing increased crime in their neighborhoods and communities in the city that are experiencing more than their fair share why should anyone has a fair share of shootings but more and more shootings are occurring and murders from guns are happening but the core of police reform remains what the federal court mandated that our police are trained in the appropriate use of force that we develop a true community policing plan that means that we have officers out of the cars and on foot getting to know people in the neighborhoods that they patrol that we use technology to understand patterns of crime and the reporting of crime as a federal court has pointed out the federal monitor has pointed out we are twenty years behind in our police department in the use of technology so all of those things remain core elements of police reform  that the court has mandated in that we must feel we are so the current program last year employed about four hundred fifty young people and we've increased that to by fifty percent to one thousand but even that in my opinion is enough and i have asked a group of business leaders to work with us so the next summer we can double that at least double that to two thousand if not more jobs for youth and other companies in the city so that next year we can have we've doubled the numbers but i don't think the numbers are good enough there's a lot more young people out there who need jobs and that's why we're working with those very companies to grow this program well we've hired there's there's numerous african americans in the mayor's office in key positions particularly as you know we've started a new policy in innovation office within the mare's office and two of our two of our leading people are african american we're  appointing african americans to positions throughout the city as department heads as well as on commissions and boards should we do more absolutely but in six months we have changed the diversity of the mayor's office from one that was mostly male and mostly white to a very diverse staff so but can we do better absolutely and with that  again we will continue to do this on a regular basis thank you for coming back and again when we have regular press conferences which generally happen on wednesday i think the next one will be next wednesday i encourage the ethnic media to be part of those press conferences just don't leave those to the traditional t v stations and newspapers so thanks very much and i have to attend the university of washington i'm part of college access now and you die making connection they help me with my college essays and help me get through high school and the hour work with be used voice and use force in verse t media production has been an amazing experience for me because i and i'm enjoying filming and editing and it was really interesting and a member of him r t i which is located on the need third and jackson we get to do a lot of fun activities and interview people and learn something new my fairest segment was the we dance programming and it's the program that allows you to capture cultural dance movement and it converted to a programming and make it into a game so others can play or we continue to do more fun activities like and in the future we're hoping to do captured it up and festival everybody is welcome and join us for more fun during the summer and contact mr sawyer if you're interested so you can get a chance to get our paid internship over the summer and hurry up the deadlines oh what i did was write the test when i recently graduated with a b a in journalism from seattle university i have recently had the privilege and honor to watch firsthand the work of m m r t i and if you use media throughout the community these programs are giving kids the opportunity to find their voices and use them to benefit the community and we would 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