Seattle City Councilmember Bruce Harrell

Media Advisory issued May 3, 2011

Technology partnerships key focus for low-income students

SEATTLE — On Wednesday, May 4, Councilmember Bruce Harrell will introduce legislation launching the Great Student Initiative, a City of Seattle effort to establish partnerships with technology companies and financial institutions to provide Internet access to the most vulnerable students in the Seattle Public Schools. This unprecedented program will provide high-speed Internet service for $9.95 a month, 75 percent reduction from the average cost, to students in the Seattle Public School District who are eligible for the free lunch program. Seattle will be one of the first cities in the United States to address the technology inequity for young students through public/private partnerships.

WHO:
Seattle City Councilmember Bruce Harrell and Energy, Technology and Civil Rights Committee Members
Dan MacFetridge, Microsoft
Kathy Putt, Comcast
Cobi Jackson, One Economy
Pegi McEvoy, Seattle Public Schools
Holly Ferguson, Seattle Public Schools
Steve Sundquist, Seattle School Board
Roni Ayalla, Citizens’ Telecommunications and Technology Advisory Board
David Keyes, Department of Information Technology, City of Seattle
Sid Sidorowicz, Office for Education
Julie Nelson, Seattle Office for Civil Rights

WHEN: Wednesday, May 4, 2011, 2 p.m.

WHERE: Seattle City Hall, 600 Fourth Avenue, Council Chambers, Second Floor

I am pleased to introduce the Great Student Initiative, a new partnership program with information, communication and technology companies, and financial institutions to provide low-cost, high-speed Internet access, hardware and software for low-income students in the Seattle Public Schools, and creating a steering committee to advance the goals of the initiative. In the last 18 months, I have worked closely with Comcast and Microsoft’s Shape the Future Education program to build this public/private partnership to deliver technology access to our students. Now that the Families and Education Levy is moving forward, this technology initiative ties beautifully into our strategy of uplifting our children and eliminating the digital divide. In short, this initiative will allow the students in Seattle Public Schools who are eligible for the free lunch program according to federal standards (approximately 14,000 of 46,000), to obtain high-speed internet access at less than $10.00 per month and be furnished with a computer that allows them connectivity. This will be furnished at no or minimal cost to the city of Seattle.

Based on the City of Seattle Information Technology Residential Survey from 2009, 84% of households with incomes above $50,000 receive high-speed Internet, but only 46% of households with incomes under $30,000 receive high-speed Internet. Additionally, only 41% of respondents with no high school degree had high-speed Internet compared to 93% for respondents with a college degree. When correlating the relationship between technology access and race/ethnicity, 80% of Caucasians had high-speed Internet, 73% for Asian Pacific Islanders, 59% for African Americans, and 38% for Hispanic/Latinos. Furthermore, English speaking households had a high-speed Internet adoption rate of 77% compared to 19% for Spanish speaking households.

Seattle is ranked as the third most wired American city in terms of broadband adoption, high-speed Internet access options, and wireless Internet hot spots. Nationally ranked as the city with the eighth highest number of technology jobs, and backyard institutions like Microsoft, Amazon, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and the University of Washington, we have a strategic advantage to compete to be the number one city in America that prepares its students for the new global economy.

According to the Washington State Employment Security Department, King County is projected to employ over 100,000 workers in computer and mathematical jobs by 2017, with an average annual growth rate of 2.7% between now and 2017. The United States Department of Labor projects more than 1,600,000 new IT jobs will be created in the United States by the year 2014. Eight of the nine fastest growing occupations by the year 2014 will be in the area of Information Technology. A Washington State Employment Security Department study confirms the 27% growth rate for our state as well, with some computer jobs posting growth rates of 6 % per year and higher. Between now and 2018, information technology jobs are projected to grow by 22 percent and account for 60 percent of the job growth, the fastest of all professional occupations. In King County, there are 233,000 technology jobs. On average, information technology jobs have a job multiplier of five to one.

It is imperative to equip all Seattle Public School students across all socioeconomic backgrounds with high-speed Internet, a quality computer, and software at home to compete and be successful in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. Bottom line: equipping our students with these technology tools will allow them to successfully compete for jobs. The future is a global economy driven by technology and information technology plays a vital role in driving the economy of our city, county, state and nation.

News Release issued Monday, March 21, 2011

Seattle – The Seattle City Council today unanimously approved Bill Schrier as Chief Technology Officer and Director of the Department of Information Technology (DoIT). Schrier has served as director since 2003, and has been with the City since 1992.

“Bill brings a depth of institutional knowledge and a sharp ability to get things done on time and on budget,” said Councilmember Bruce Harrell, Chair of the Energy, Technology and Civil Rights Committee. “I look forward to continue working with Bill to address technology issues in order to improve our service and engagement with the public, creating opportunities for economic development by enhancing the environment to build more fiber, and exploring new hardware and software to make government more efficient.”

DoIT provides technology leadership for the city of Seattle, including technology governance, information technology (IT) policies, and IT security. DoIT prepares and develops common standards, architectures, and business solutions, and manages the city’s technology infrastructure. Schrier is committed to the mission of the department to “make technology work for the City,” with a high level of reliability. Schrier and his staff kept the public safety voice radio network operating 99.999% of the time, and the City’s core e-mail system, telephone networks, and data communications network online with almost no downtime.

Additionally, under his tenure, the Seattle Channel was named “Top Municipal Television Station of the Year” in 2007, 2008 and 2010. In the last decade, the City’s website (Seattle.Gov) was twice recognized #1 Best of the Web. The Department of Information Technology has a staff of 195 employees and a $49 million operating budget.

Schrier earned a degree in physics and mathematics from Loras College in Dubuque, Iowa, and holds a Masters in Public Administration from the University of Washington. Schrier served more than twenty years in the United States Army and Army Reserve. His community and national involvement includes membership on the Catholic Archdiocesan School Board where he served as president, the Washington City-County Management Association, President of the Metropolitan Information Exchange, and an appointment to the Federal Communications Commission Public Safety Advisory Committee to build a nationwide public safety wireless broadband network.

Media Advisory issued 3/01/11:

SEATTLE – The Energy, Technology and Civil Rights Committee, chaired by Councilmember Bruce Harrell, will host a discussion of City Light’s continued roll out of LED streetlights and where they will be installed next. The discussion will include an analysis of cost and energy savings and emerging technologies such as adaptive lighting controls which enables the brightness of streetlights to be remotely adjusted based on activity in an area.

WHEN: Wednesday, March 2, 2011, 2:00 p.m.

WHERE: Seattle City Hall
600 Fourth Avenue
Council Chambers, Second Floor

WHO: Seattle City Councilmember Bruce Harrell
Seattle City Council President Richard Conlin
Seattle City Councilmember Nick Licata
Edward Smalley, Seattle City Light Engineering Manager
Phil West, Seattle City Light Energy Delivery Officer
Tuan Tran, Seattle City Light Energy Delivery Engineering Director
Ahmed Darrat, Seattle Department of Transportation, Transportation Engineer

Councilmember Statement issued: 2/16/2011

SEATTLE – “I am very disappointed in the King County Prosecutor’s decision not to file criminal charges regarding the death of Mr. John T. Williams. This matter demonstrates that changes to state law regarding the Public Inquest proceedings should be made. The public must have a restored confidence that the inquest process is fair, impartial and thorough. This result erodes public confidence in that process.

“Officer Birk should be disciplined to the fullest extent provided under the internal process used by the City of Seattle. Our recruitment and training of police officers must prevent this type of tragedy from occurring again. We must adopt a zero tolerance culture relative to the unlawful use of force.

“My proposal that officers be required to wear body-mounted cameras when they are dispatched to potentially violent situations, as opposed to relying on their stationary dashboard cameras to provide evidence, remains a feasible solution to restore public confidence in any process that examines police accountability and possible misconduct.”

By Bruce Harrell and Peter Steinbrueck
Special to The Times

The dramatic video of Seattle Police Officer Ian Birk approaching John T. Williams shows Williams walking across the street directly in front of Birk’s car. The video, captured by equipment known as digital in-car video, also shows the officer leaving the car and commanding Williams to drop a knife.

But then, you only hear the chilling sounds of four bullets fired from Birk’s gun. The video range was too limited.

The city will now spend hundreds of thousands of dollars, if not millions, trying to determine and address what actually occurred outside the range of the video. As Councilmember Bruce Harrell proposed in September, Seattle could avoid similar situations by equipping police officers with small body-mounted cameras that weigh about the same as a cellphone — something Oakland, San Jose and Cincinnati and other cities have done.

In 2009, video from a body camera exonerated a Fort Smith, Ark., police officer who used lethal force after ordering a man to drop a gun nine times. In Cincinnati, a body camera showed an officer telling a suspect repeatedly to put his hands behind his back. The suspect refused and said, “Tase me then.” The officer did.

Today, most cellphones have video-camera capability. Seattle has been tarnished by police events being video-recorded by citizens and put on the Internet for national dissemination. These devices could also capture when the officer’s conduct is professional, appropriate and procedurally correct.

We just witnessed weeks of proceedings of a public grand-jury inquest that reviewed the Williams shooting. All eight jurors concluded that they still did not know whether Williams tried to put the knife down after the officer’s order; four believed the knife blade was open and four did not know; and four believed Williams did not pose an imminent threat of serious harm to Birk, yet three did not know. Clearly, had the officer recorded the incident with a body-worn video camera, the jury may have been better able to ascertain facts.

The city of Seattle’s 250 patrol cars are already equipped with in-car video equipment. The obvious limitation is that the camera is stationary. The current equipment is nearing its end and will soon be replaced — at a cost of as much as $5,000 per unit. However, the small body-mounted cameras cost only about $900 — or a fifth of what the in-car equipment costs — and can also be placed on the officer’s dashboard and serve the same function.

Recently, the Oakland City Council passed a resolution authorizing the purchase of 350 body-mounted cameras from a Seattle-based company that manufactures small, body-mounted cameras for police work.

Our public demands better officer training in the use of de-escalation tactics and nonlethal force. The police seek better public understanding of the difficult, split-second decisions officers must make in dangerous, life-threatening situations. With the use of body cameras, the circumstances of what happens on the streets can be better understood and improve the work of policing.

As San Jose’s police Chief Rob Davis stated, body cameras provide invaluable evidence and save the internal affairs department the time and cost of pursuing complaints hinged on one person’s word against another’s.

Describing body cameras are the “wave of the future,”Cincinnati’s Police Chief Tom Streicher stated: “What better way of evaluating that officer’s conduct by taking a look at what that officer is seeing?”

Like a growing number of law-enforcement agencies across the country, the Seattle Police Department can demonstrate to the public it embraces accountability and professionalism through the deployment of this technology.

Healthy and sustainable communities work in close partnership with those in uniform whose sworn duty it is to protect them.

Bruce A. Harrell is a member of the Seattle City Council and chair of the Energy, Technology and Civil Rights Committee. Peter Steinbrueck is a former Seattle City Council member and principal of Steinbrueck Urban Strategies.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/opinion/2014199894_guest14harrell.html