Public safety and community policing discussion at Thursday’s BDC meeting

The next virtual Ballard District Council meeting will focus on public safety, with guests from the Seattle Police Community Service Officer Program and City Councilmember Dan Strauss.

The meeting will be on Thursday, Nov. 12, streaming live on YouTube starting at 7pm. Here’s the agenda, from the Ballard District Council:

• Seattle Police Community Service Officer (CSO) program — Sgt. Kevin Nelson and civilian CSO staff members will provide an update on the CSO program and answer some community questions. After several years of city planning and budgeting, the CSO program re-launched in early 2020. The nascent team visited BDC last December (2019). We are pleased to host them almost one year later to learn how the program has been operating and how it will be evolving in 2021.
• LEAD (Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion) — The LEAD program has been active in Ballard since summer 2018 and last presented to Ballard District Council in September of that year. Tracy Gillespie, Operations Director, will join us to provide an update on their accomplishments to date, how they’ve adapted during the Covid crisis, and how the scope of their work (and name of their program) is evolving.
• Authorized Encampment Security Recap — Ballard District Council Board Member Jody Grage, speaking on behalf of the Ballard Community Taskforce on Homelessness & Hunger, will provide a brief update on how several local authorized encampments manage their security programs.
• Seattle District 6 Councilmember Dan Strauss will join us to answer questions related to Public Safety topics at City Hall, as the year’s budget season reaches a finale in late November. (Good updates are available at the SCC Insight blog.)

If you have questions for any of the speakers, you can submit them to info@ballarddistrict.org (prior to the meeting if possible).