City Council Special Meeting 11/21/2025

We're live Hello everybody

TGIF.

Good evening.

Good late afternoon, everyone.

The November 21st, 2025 special meeting of the Seattle City Council will come to order.

It is 104. I'm Sarah Nelson, council president.

Will the clerk please call the roll?

Council member Hollingsworth.

Here.

Councilmember Juarez.

Here.

Councilmember Kettle.

Councilmember Rink.

Present.

Thank you.

Councilmember Rivera.

Present.

Councilmember Saka.

Here.

Councilmember Salomon.

Here.

Councilmember Strauss.

Here.

Council President Nelson.

Present.

Eight present.

All right, there are no presentations today.

And if there is no objection, the council rules will be suspended to allow public comment today.

For the public, we normally do not have public comment on at special city council meetings.

All right, seeing no objection.

So at this time we will open, hearing no objection, the rules are suspended.

At this time we'll open the hybrid public comment period.

Public comment is limited to items on today's agenda.

the introduction and referral calendar and the council work program.

How many people are signed up today, please?

We have one remote and three in person.

All right, we'll start with the three public commenters who are in person and everyone gets two minutes.

The public comment will be moderated in the following way.

The public comment period is up to 20 minutes.

Speakers will be called in order in which they registered.

Speakers will alternate.

We'll start with the in-person speakers first.

Please begin by speaking by stating your name and the item that you're addressing.

Speakers will hear a chime when 10 seconds are left of their time.

Speakers' mics will be muted if they do not end their comments within the allotted time to allow us to call on the next speaker.

The first speaker is Pastor Steve Jerby, if I'm mistaken, and then following Pastor Steve will be Tara Miller and then Bennett Houston.

Just a second.

Good afternoon.

Thanks.

I'm Steve Jerby, pastor from University Congregational UCC, and I also live in the U District.

My congregation and my neighborhood is confronted daily with the challenges of our city, homelessness, food insecurity, unaffordable housing, drug addiction, and threats to immigrant rights.

We know what makes our community safe and thriving.

Designating my neighborhood in the SOTA legislation makes it harder for folks to get services, not easier.

Increasing surveillance doesn't prevent crime, but it does create paths for over-policing of black and brown residents and makes our immigrant neighbors less safe.

Councilmembers Rivera and Nelson, you talk about data-driven decisions.

We have the data.

The police do not make us safer.

We keep us safe.

and yet time and time again, through budget decisions and through policies, the council rejects the data and the voices of the people, calling for more surveillance, SPOG's MOU, funding sweeps, and increasing police funding while crime rates in our city are dropping.

It's like the story from the Wisdom of Solomon, recorded in 1 Kings.

Two women are claiming to be the parent of an infant, And so the King says, cut the baby in half.

That's what this budget does.

It funds important progressive items, but it fails to preserve our city by addressing systemic issues with data-driven evidence about what keeps us safe.

I applaud the progressive investments, things that support our community so that we can thrive.

but I look forward to a 2026 agenda to see policies that strengthen those values rather than cutting the baby in half.

Good afternoon, Council.

My name is Tara Miller.

I live in District 5, and I am one of the executive directors of the Church Council of Greater Seattle, using my colleague Joey and Montrese and our budget roundtable team, All Budget Cycle.

As someone who has absorbed the reflections from my colleagues throughout this budget process this fall, I come to you as a mirror, a witness, a ghost of Christmas yet to come.

In Dickens' tale this ghost comes at the final hour.

It doesn't speak much, but it points to the future that might be.

I have heard this season that some of our words, budgets are a moral document that speak to the values of our city through public investment.

Some of our words have been heeded.

Some care to our community has been included in the budget.

And I bring warning that this is not enough.

If we as a city cannot center the most impacted members of our community and prioritize their liberation, in which we too may be liberated, then I foresee a future where the city of Seattle is not strong enough to withstand the forces of fascism that are knocking on our doors from the federal government.

The future this ghost brings is not set in stone.

It can be changed.

The image is flickering.

the Church Council of Greater Seattle is committed to being part of the process that shifts this potential future.

We look forward to continuing to work with city council, the mayor, and the thousands of voices who have gone unheard in these chambers to make it so.

Good afternoon, counsel.

So with the news that Dion Foster will be replacing Sarah Nelson on the council, some of you are probably thinking about your re-election chances a year from now.

So I want to revisit some of the things that I've said at public comment in the past.

These were not the times that I was part of a large group that was protesting something that we knew you were all going to do anyway.

These were times where I was here as something that I half expected that at least some of you would probably do.

And I was kind of surprised that nobody did.

These were all things that could have shown coming together for a bipartisan purpose and I don't think possibly could have hurt your image and probably would have helped it.

So remember when UW alum Eichner Ege was killed by Israel while protesting in the West Bank?

Many local politicians signed on to a resolution calling for an independent US-led investigation into her death.

And I came here and said, why don't you all add your signatures to it too?

So council members Morales and council members Rick signed it.

Kathy Moore signed it too.

So I was just like, what would be the big deal?

I mean, there's no downside to this.

And of course, you all remember when Ann Davison put out a press release attacking a sitting judge without naming the cases.

been over this a million times.

The judge went on TV and she said, we can have this discussion.

Can you tell me the cases that you're referring to?

And I came here and said, why doesn't the council put out a statement calling on the city attorney to clarify what cases she was referring to?

You shouldn't be attacking a judge on the basis of how she handled cases if there's any confusion about what cases you're talking about.

I think it would have been a perfectly appropriate use of the city council's voice to call attention to that.

or there was a time that Andrea Suarez ran an ad that appeared to darken her opponent Sharon Scott's face.

And then the media asked her about it, and she gave this extremely cringe answer which says, if his skin was darker in one video versus another, which IMO, even more beautiful, Sudanians, Ethiopians as example, blah, blah, and that is racist.

I mean, you can look up the whole thing.

It's insane.

I said, for those of you who endorsed her, maybe put out a statement so she could reconsider this.

I think the one time you all listened to me as I brought brought my laptop with the pictures of hot rats.

Some are being painted over and said, well, stop painting over this.

And you're like, OK.

About a week after that, I'm sure there are people saying, see, Joy, this is why we don't encourage him.

And now moving to remote speakers.

We have one remote speaker.

And as a reminder to our remote speaker to please press star six after you have heard the message that you have been unmuted.

Our remote speaker is Karina Patel.

Go ahead, Karina.

and Karina, you may need to, there you go.

Hello Chair Nelson and members of Council.

I'm Karina Patel calling in from the Tubman Center for Health and Freedom.

Thank you for including Tubman Health in your budget.

We want to express our deep appreciation for your investment in a project that is already changing lives and advancing health justice in our city and beyond.

The new Tubman Health Center will expand care from 500 to 12,000 patients, providing more than just health services, It is public infrastructure, economic development, community safety and connection, and trusted preventative care led by Black and Indigenous leaders who know our communities best.

We look forward to continuing to be a strong and reliable partner to the City of Seattle now and in the years to come.

Thank you.

Thank you, Karina.

That's our last remote speaker.

Alright, we have reached the end of our list of people that have signed up to speak, so public comment is now closed.

Alright, if there's no objection, the introduction and referral calendar will be adopted.

Hearing no objection, the introduction and referral calendar is adopted.

Moving on to the agenda, just a note on the agenda for our viewing public.

Today we will be voting on the 2026 Budget and Capital Improvement Plan and 28 pieces of budget-related legislation.

And of the latter group, a handful, when we were voting this out of our last Select Budget Committee, a handful were pulled out for individual discussion and votes and we'll be voting on them individually today as well to maintain that same format.

So that's just explains why why there are certain budget related things that are not in the consent calendar.

And then finally, the item five on our on our agenda is The budget.

I'm assuming that is the budget.

That's the item, the budget item that people might want to speak to individually.

So if you're following along in the public, a note for comments on the budget when that item comes up.

All right.

If there is no objection, the agenda will be adopted.

Hearing no objection, the agenda is adopted.

will now consider the proposed consent calendar.

And the items on the consent calendar are the minutes of November 12th, 2025, council bills 121, 127, and 128, payment of bills, and 25 pieces of legislation from the Select Budget Committee.

Are there any items that council members would like to remove from today's consent calendar?

All right, hearing none, I move to adopt the consent calendar.

Is there a second?

Second.

It's been moved and seconded to adopt the consent calendar.

Will the clerk please call the roll on the adoption of the consent calendar?

Council member Hollingsworth?

Yes, yes, yes.

Council member Juarez?

Yes.

Council member Rink?

Yes.

Councilmember Rivera.

Aye.

Councilmember Sacca.

Aye.

Councilmember Salomon.

Aye.

Councilmember Strauss.

Aye.

Council President Nelson.

Aye.

Eight in favor, none opposed.

Thank you very much.

Will the clerk please affix my signature to the minutes and legislation on the consent calendar on my behalf.

All right, moving on to item one.

Will the clerk please read item one into the record.

The report of the Select Budget Committee, agenda item one, Council Bill 121092 relating to administration of major institutions and school programs, transferring administration of major institutions and school programs from the Department of Neighborhoods to the Office of Planning and Community Development.

The committee recommends the bill passed with Councilmember Strauss, Hollingsworth, Juarez, Nelson, Rink, Saka and Solomon in favor and Councilmember Rivera opposed.

Thank you.

Councilmember Strauss is chair of the committee.

You are recognized by the committee report.

Thank you, Council President.

Colleagues, you'll hear the same refrain from me a couple times today.

This is simply enabling legislation that provides us the ability to do what we accomplished during our budget.

That was the time for decisions and discussion about a different way of doing business.

This is simply enabling legislation to enact what we accomplished during the budget session.

I urge a yes vote.

Thank you.

Are there any comments?

Comments?

Sorry, Chair.

This is a major institutions, correct?

Yes.

Would you like to comment?

Sure, I can comment.

Okay, Councilmember Rivera.

Thank you, Council President.

Colleagues, as you may remember, I voted no on this piece of legislation because I firmly believe that the Department of Neighborhoods is in a better position to do the outreach to community as these major institutions and schools program is being deliberated.

The Office of Planning and Community Development during the comprehensive plan process did not show and they themselves admitted that they have people doing planning that were doing outreach because they didn't have the outreach personnel to do the work.

So I think this should remain at the Department of Neighborhoods who's actually doing the outreach currently around the major institutions work.

So for that reason, I voted to keep Don as the outreach body because the Department of Neighborhoods is really the department at the city who does the majority of the outreach work for the city.

So I will vote yet again for no because I wanna keep this outreach body work at the Department of Neighborhoods rather than transferring it to OPCD who is not the department at the city who's doing the majority of outreach and it is Don who's been doing the outreach specific to the major institutions work.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Is there anybody else that would like to comment?

Well, I'll go ahead and comment then.

Going into that vote, I did support this piece of legislation in the Budget Committee and I did so because votes on major institutions, concerns land use and I felt that it was a land use-y bill primarily and that is why I went ahead and supported it.

But I do understand the opposing argument.

The Department of Neighborhoods is the outreach department and they are the ones that are set up to do the outreach and they know the community simply by simply because they outreach to the community neighborhoods for lots of different things, including this particular policy matter.

And so I started to feel that perhaps I had made the, not necessarily the wrong decision, but the other decision could also hold equal sway.

And I am deciding to change my vote now because Over the course of my outreach to communities, neighborhoods, et cetera, during the comprehensive plan, one thing that I heard over and over again was that people wish that there were still the community councils and the district councils.

They miss that formalized channel of communication between the neighborhoods and city staff.

and that change happened during the Murray administration.

And I have to say that, and so if we, I've decided that if we take away the outreach that sometimes comes up, not very often when it regards a MUP or major institutions plan, that diminishes the interface between the city and the community even more.

And so, although it does, it will not clearly make a difference in, in the, uh, the passage of this bill, I do want to register that I am, um, I am changing my vote because I do want to, uh, signal the importance of, uh, what the Department of Neighborhood does.

All right.

If there are no more comments, will the clerk please call the roll?

Council Member Hollingsworth.

Aye.

Council Member Juarez.

Aye.

Council Member Rink.

Yes.

Council Member Rivera.

No.

Council Member Saka.

Aye.

Council Member Solomon.

Aye.

Council Member Strauss.

Aye.

Council President Nelson.

Nay.

Six in favor, two opposed.

Okay, the bill passes and the chair will sign it.

Will the clerk please affix my signature to the legislation on my behalf?

And will the clerk please read item two into the agenda, into the record.

Agenda item two, Council Bill 121-110 relating to short-term rental tax revenue amending Ordinance 125-872 to specify use of revenue proceeds.

The committee recommends the bill pass.

Thank you very much.

Council Member Strauss as chair of the committee are recognized to provide the committee report.

Thank you, Council President.

This is simply enabling legislation and acting the decisions we made during the budget process.

The time for the input on this was during the budget process, not here as we're passing the enacting legislation.

I urge a yes vote.

Okay.

Any comments?

All right.

Seeing none, will the clerk please call the roll on the passage of the bill?

Councilmember Hollingsworth.

Yes.

Councilmember Juarez.

Aye.

Councilmember Rink.

Yes.

Councilmember Rivera.

No.

Councilmember Saka.

Aye.

Councilmember Solomon.

Aye.

Councilmember Strauss.

Aye.

Council President Nelson.

Aye.

Seven in favour one opposed.

Excuse me, eight in favor, one opposed?

No, seven in favor, one opposed.

I'm getting confused.

Oh, I'm sorry, I have the wrong one.

Council member, you can change your vote right now if you wanted to before the chair announces the vote.

Would you like to change your vote?

Apologies, Council President.

I had it entered into my notebook incorrectly.

Can you please, can we, can you, which, which?

We're at item two, Council Bill 121-110.

This is on short-term rental tax investments.

Which one?

Sorry, I had the wrong thing in my binder.

I had the permitting one.

Apologies, colleagues.

Would you like me to recall the vote?

No.

No, Jody.

Just a second.

We just need the council member to confirm if her vote is a no or if she'd like to change it at this point.

Thank you.

Yeah, this is, I'm confused.

No, that's not right.

Yeah, it's this one.

It's this one, but you have it different there.

It appears different, but it's just printed different.

Yes, I want to change it.

So what do I need to do?

Sorry, Amelia.

Just say, I would like to change my vote from a no to a yes on Council Bill 12110. 1110. Thank you.

Sorry, colleagues.

Understood.

Okay, so the vote was 8-0, if I am not mistaken, and the bill passes and the chair will sign it.

Will the clerk please affix my signature to the legislation on my behalf?

Point of information.

Council President, when you are reading Council President and to the clerk, because there are so many items that were on the agenda that have been put into the consent agenda and we did not receive a summary from you, I'm requesting that you announce the bill you are calling the vote on by number as you're calling the vote so that we can all orient to where we are on your agenda.

Thank you.

What summary are you referring to?

Can you please my request today at this time is for you to announce the bill that you are calling the vote on so that we can make sure that we are on the same place on the agenda as you are.

Okay.

Yes, I will.

And now I will ask the clerk to read the item number and also the the bill number.

That's Normally we don't do a summary.

Anyway, the summary is the agenda, I think is what you're referring to.

But anyway, will the clerk please read item three into the record, which is Council Bill 121105.

Chenda item three, Council Bill 121-105 relating to fees and charges for permits and activities of the Seattle Department of Constructions and Inspection related fees by other departments.

The committee recommends a bill passed.

The Council Member Strauss, Hollingsworth, Juarez, Rink and Saka in favor.

Council Member Rivera, Nelson and Solomon opposed.

Okay, this is the bill about the fees and charges for permits.

Okay, Councilmember Strauss, as chair of the committee, you're welcome to provide the committee report.

Thank you, Council President.

This is simply enabling legislation enacting the decisions that we made during the budget process.

The time for input on this was during the budget process.

On this item specifically, it was September 30th, 2025, not at the 11th hour.

I urge an aye vote.

Thank you.

and in favor of the vote in the committee was five in favor, Strauss, Hollingsworth, Juarez, Rink and Saka, opposed Rivera, Nelson and Solomon.

Are there any comments on this bill?

Yes, Council Member Rivera.

And I don't know if, Council Member Solomon, did you have your hand up first?

Council Member Rivera had her hand up first.

Okay.

Thank you, Council President.

And apologies for that last vote.

I was trying to track the number on the agenda.

All right, related to Council Bill 121105, increasing the SDCI permitting fees by 18%.

I want to reiterate what I said at the Budget Committee, which is I will be again voting no on this particular amendment.

I'm concerned that we're transferring the bulk of the costs of permitting fees to the projects that are being constructed now, which just happens to be those smaller projects.

18% is a lot, particularly in the context of these are the smaller projects like a townhouse or even a remodel of a home, a Dadu for instance.

And I feel this is quite a large fee given that at the moment there aren't large construction projects happening, which just means these smaller projects are observing the costs.

And at a time when, you know, it may lead to folks not doing housing projects, even of a townhouse, because of the costs involved.

And so for those reasons, I'll be voting no again today to this bill.

Thank you, Council President.

Thank you.

Councilmember Salomon.

Thank you very much, Council President.

Much like Councilmember Rivera has expressed, my concern is the overall cost of building in the city and how difficult we make it to build something in the city.

And one of the things that makes it difficult is permitting.

Well, just the permitting process.

And on top of that, we're increasing the fees to do permits.

I think I've been consistent maintaining that if we want folks to build in Seattle, we need to make it easier for them to do so.

And putting an 18% increase on the fees for that seems to make it harder.

And I'm concerned about our ability to build in Seattle.

I'm concerned about developers or individual homeowners to be able to build in Seattle.

I think we can find a different way to do it rather than putting an increase of fees on, you know, on small guys who want to just build a dadu.

So thank you very much.

Okay, I'm not seeing any other hands.

I'll say it again.

This unnecessarily increases the cost of housing.

It transfers a cost that is a city cost onto people that are really, really currently struggling with the cost of housing right now.

I don't see this as a strictly budget, just sort of needed to implement the budget because there are other ways to have balanced the budget.

and still paid for these costs instead of just transferring the cost to builders and eventually homeowners and renters.

So I will say again that we learned at the table when the people from SDCI came to the table, that was unexpected, but it was helpful because we learned that in fact this was needed to fill an $8 million budget gap.

and that is a small price in the overall cost of, I think it was almost a $1.8 billion, I could be wrong, general fund operating budget.

But the point is that it also sends a very wrong signal that compounds our already bad reputation for being a city where it's very difficult to build anything because of our permitting problems.

And this has been a priority of mine to fix.

We've started down that road and there's a lot more improvement to be made before we, I think really have shown our work and can then justifiably ask for an increase or builders to pay an increase in the fees so that I will be voting no again today.

I will note after even reading more about the issue after that vote, it really is not only is it, I think, an unwarranted fee increase, it's also a regressive fee increase because the percentage change of the fee is greater the smaller the project, as was mentioned by other people.

But I do want to sort of distill that thinking into words today.

So I'll be voting no.

Councilmember Strauss.

Thank you, Council President.

Just looking for the last word.

Is this the last word?

Let me see.

And if not, I'll wait until having the last word as this was an item that came from the committee in which I chair.

I'm waiting for people to get coordinated.

I don't want to jump.

Okay, checking again if there are any other comments.

And if something comes up to you later, you're welcome to raise your hand.

Go ahead, Council Member Strauss.

Thank you, Council President, with the last word on this bill.

Recognizing everyone's good intentions, and I agree with the sentiment in which you have regarding permit fees, I just raised for you the fact that we had an hour-long discussion on November 30th in which we understood that there were three choices before us.

we could continue to drain the core staffing reserve, which will extinguish very quickly.

We could lay people off, we could add general fund, or we could increase permit fees.

Those were the choices before us on September 30th.

Here on November 21st, this is simply enacting, this is enabling legislation enacting the choices that we made along the budget.

Had I known that these were priorities of colleagues, I would have we all we would have included this in the budget since they were not identified as priorities during issue ID.

We continued moving this bill forward as discussed.

If this bill does fail, it puts the budget out of balance and we will need to come back to work next week.

I urge a yes vote.

Thank you.

I would like to put it on the record that I do not remember that as having been a robust discussion.

We can remember that discussion in different ways.

I think that with the focus on permitting that if it had been laid out so with the nuance that we then received when we were discussing this piece of legislation, perhaps somebody would have surfaced an amendment.

However, this particular bill itself with the schedule of fee increases and with the boilerplate to cover the cost of doing business in the comments section, when it became clear to me that I didn't understand the rationale for and the actual cost of the permits per project size, that information was not before us during that conversation.

And so that is why this is, I believe that is why this discussion has been prolonged now.

Councilmember Rivera.

Yes, Council President.

I just want to put it on the record that as we're having all of these discussions, there should always be opportunity for Councilmembers to have an opportunity to talk about something.

These were proffered last week as part of a consent package and it got removed.

for individual vote and that's okay.

And so today we can vote again.

Folks can vote whichever way they choose.

That is okay.

I never want to squelch further conversation on anything because these are important topics.

This is really important work.

and we should always have the opportunity to continue to discuss up to the point where we vote something out.

So I really feel that very strongly because as council members we are elected to do our due diligence and also sometimes that means that at this stage we might still be discussing something and I think that's more than appropriate.

And it's not an issue, I don't believe.

We'll just vote on it again and folks can vote how they voted last time or if they wanna change their vote, they can do so again.

I don't see that as an issue.

Thank you.

Council Member Kettle.

Thank you, Council President.

I was not here last week during this time period, so I just wanted to speak on this.

I will be voting aye on this, but I do recognize the points being made both by our budget chair, Strauss, so thank you for that, and the points that you and the council president are making and council member Rivera.

are making on this, and for me, as I look at this and I think about this, this is, you know, kind of goes to the idea of, and it's something moving forward, and I do this in public safety, is to work through the issues during the course of the year to kind of press on those pieces, whatever they may be, to set ourselves up for budget.

And I think, you know, this is a very important topic.

The price impacts are important and the changing dynamics of what we're doing in development is important.

And I, you know, my recommendation is in the course of 26 that this comes back up, that we can have a robust, you know, committee discussion about it to then inform the Budget Committee as we get to this point next year.

So I recognize the challenge and I recognize the points being made, but moving forward for you, Council President, and also for Budget Chair Strauss, I will be voting aye on this one for those reasons.

Okay.

Anybody else?

Alright well thank you for very much for stating the value of robust oversight Councilmember Rivera because it really is and for also standing up for the not necessarily the right I would actually say the responsibility of all of us to speak our minds on these important matters no matter what and so if we have and if we want to to put something on the record, now is the time to do so.

And we don't squelch those kinds of statements.

Yes, what were you motioning me at?

Just a case in point, our colleague, Council Member Kettle was not here when we discussed it.

So being able to discuss it today gives him an opportunity to also discuss it at a time when he didn't.

So that's just a prime example of why.

that we should make sure that we are having conversation and it's okay.

People can still vote how they vote.

Right.

Thank you.

Yeah.

And also Council Member Kettle, you did signal that it might be something good to work on in 2026. So hopefully that is the case.

Okay.

Will the clerk please call the...

Excuse me.

I had my hand.

Oh, I looked at...

Go ahead, Council Member Strauss.

Thank you, Council President.

Just looking for the last word on legislation stemming from the committee in which I chair.

Yeah, and that is fine.

That is a courtesy that is provided.

It's not necessarily a council rule, but I'm happy to give you the last word.

Wonderful.

Thank you.

Just stating again that this is simply enabling legislation enacting the decisions we made during the budget process and I urge an aye vote.

Thank you.

Will the clerk please call the roll?

I mean, please call the vote on the passage of the bill.

Please pause, Jody.

No.

Okay, Jody, we can hear you now.

Thank you.

If you can please call the roll on agenda item three, council vote 121105.

Council member Hollingsworth.

Yes.

Council member Juarez.

Council member Juarez.

Aye.

Council member Kettle.

Aye.

Council Member Rink.

Yes.

Council Member Rivera.

No.

Council Member Saka.

Aye.

Council Member Solomon.

No.

Council Member Strauss.

Aye.

Council President Nelson.

Aye.

Seven in favor, two opposed.

I'm sorry.

Please change my vote to no.

Six in favor, three opposed.

All right.

The bill passes and the chair will sign it.

Will the clerk please affix my signature to the legislation on my behalf?

And will the clerk please read item four into the record?

Council Bill 121-124.

Agenda item four, Council Bill 121-124 relating to the Seattle Transportation Benefit District, authorizing material scope changes of City of Seattle, Proposition 1 to expand uses of revenues for transit security.

The committee recommends it will pass with Council Member Strauss, Rivera, Hollingsworth, Juarez, Nelson, Sacca, and Salomon in favor, with Council Member Rink opposed.

Councilmember Strauss is chair of the committee are recognized to provide the committee report.

Thank you.

This is simply enabling legislation enacting the decisions we made during the budget process.

The time for input on this was during the budget process, not at the 11th hour.

I urge an aye vote.

Thank you.

Are there any comments?

Councilmember Rink.

Thank you, Chair.

Colleagues, I pulled this from the consent package when we took this up in committee so I could cast a no vote on this matter.

As I reflected in committee, the Seattle transit measure is used to fund transit service, transportation access programs that support affordable and equitable transit access, such as the ORCA lift program, as well as transit capital projects.

This was a voter-approved measure.

The 2020 Seattle Transit measure was approved by 80.32% of voters.

I do not believe we should change course on something that voters approved, and therefore I do not support changing the intention of what these dollars are for and risk lowering, even by a smaller amount, the investments in those areas I outlined.

We have 9 million in the transportation levy.

There's 29 million in the King County Metro budget and 19 million from sound transit that all go towards safety investments on transit.

So from a policy perspective, if we're to expand investments in this area, it would be my preference that we should be looking to those fund sources first and have a comprehensive approach in partnering with other transit agencies.

So I respectfully disagree with this as a policy approach but want to voice my deep support for working on transit safety with you all and continuing the work with our union representing transit workers, ATU 587. And for these reasons I will be voting no today.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council President.

I just wanted to note, and I appreciate the points made by Council Member Rink, and I understand them, but this is like an example I was just speaking to.

Transportation Chair Saka and I have been working, transit security, transit safety, very hard over the two years, and we're looking to continue to do that work, which includes, by the way, coordinating and working with our King County counterparts, and to ensure that we do have that safe environment for our transit system, because at the end of the day, our constituents and all those that wish to use it don't because of their fear of public safety, then we're in a bigger challenge.

And so for that reason, I'd like to thank Council Member Saka for his work on this area and then also working as we are through budget committee and getting to this point too.

So thank you.

You can probably guess where I'm gonna vote.

Okay.

and I'm not seeing any other comments.

I do want to note for the record that this that that Councilmember Rink's vote in the Select Budget Committee was not an 11th hour vote.

It was the first time that this bill was before us, Chair Strauss, when the when those votes were taken and it was removed from the consent package and voted on individually.

And that was not the 11th hour.

That was the perfect time to get to it.

All right.

Do I have a last word?

Yes, you do.

Thank you, Council President.

And I appreciate that feedback, just stating that these policy discussions occurred during the council member proposals, the chair's balancing package and revised package.

And that is when the policy discussion occurred.

This is simply enabling legislation, enacting the decisions we made during the budget process.

And yes, this is the last hour, the 11th hour of the day.

I urge an aye vote.

Thank you.

Will the clerk please call the roll on the passage of the bill?

Councilmember Hollingsworth?

Yes.

Councilmember Juarez?

Aye.

Councilmember Kettle?

Aye.

Councilmember Rink?

No.

Councilmember Rivera?

Aye.

Councilmember Saka?

Aye.

Councilmember Salomon?

Aye.

Councilmember Strauss?

Aye.

Council President Nelson?

Aye.

8 in favor, 1 opposed.

The bill passes and the chair will sign it.

Will the clerk please affix my signature to the legislation on my behalf?

All right, will the clerk please read item 5 into the record, Council Bill 121116.

Agenda item five, council bill 121.116, adopting a budget, including capital improvement program and position modifications for the city of Seattle for 2026 and creating positions exempt from civil service.

The committee recommends a bill passes amended.

All by a two thirds vote.

Okay.

Council member, Council member Strauss as chair of the committee, you're recognized to provide the committee report.

Thank you colleagues.

Just to orient us to where we are in the agenda today, this is the proposed budget.

The next vote we'll take is enacting the changes that we as council members made to this budget.

And so on both of these, I urge a yes vote.

I will take a moment and thank you colleagues for doing your long speeches yesterday.

To pass this budget took a effort of many city employees.

I thanked many people yesterday.

I want to add to that list today.

Brad, Sue, Dianelli in our communications department, Ian's son, Eric, and Micah in our IT.

Literally, these computers don't run without you.

Everyone at the Seattle Channel downstairs keeping the cameras running and people able to view our work in a transparent fashion so they don't have to be downtown.

and finally colleagues, with the rush and break around Thanksgiving, I'm not sure I'll be able to bring a proclamation, but we've got a gentleman who works here at City Hall that's worked here for about 25 years.

I believe his name is Albert Ward.

He's retiring in the first week of December.

He's cared for our building, our City Hall.

for two and a half decades.

And I just wanted to take this moment to honor him, thank him for his work, his service to our city, because we couldn't do work in this building if it wasn't a comfortable place, like if it wasn't taken care of.

So I just want to thank everyone for their work on this budget and everyone who made this possible and to the city employees that get work done on behalf of Seattleites every day.

Thank you.

Are there any further comments on the passage of the bill?

This is the budget bill and I did note that you would be welcome to speechify today if you wanted to.

Councilmember Juarez.

I'm sorry I'm a point of order I was been bugging the budget chair as he's been sitting here so I didn't speak yesterday but I wanted to be very brief I didn't know if you wanted us to have brief comments on item number five ending in 116 or item number six ending in numbers 546 so what would you have me do?

So I was wondering that myself yesterday because I was looking at that budget item and there was no document associated with it and it didn't and it was a clerk file basically saying what changes we had made but then I couldn't find that.

I think that this is the budget bill.

Right.

That's what I was thinking, because it was the bill, not the file.

Okay.

Can I be very brief, Madam Chair?

You can take as long as you would like.

Oh, don't say that.

I get the elder syndrome once I get the microphone.

Thank you so much.

I didn't speak yesterday, I was forming my thoughts, but I will be very brief, I promise.

First of all, from me, I want to thank all my colleagues for inviting me back and being so warm and welcoming, asking me to serve again.

through the budget, through the comp plan.

I look forward to working with you all in 2026. I have some brief words very quickly and I would love to say more, but I know we're short on time.

I want to thank Council Member Solomon for representing the mighty D2.

It has been an honor to serve with you, sir.

I knew you before you were on Seattle City Council and I know we're going to see more of you working on land use, having you handle the housing committee as the vice chair stepped up as the chair.

And as you said, I described myself as your plucky sidekick and it was an honor to do that with you.

And more importantly, our partnership on the Tubman Health Center.

Thank you so much.

I really enjoyed working with you on that matter.

Councilmember Saka your passion brings smiles to me sometimes and I know we've had good offline conversations But your commitment not only to the city, but to your district your hard work Certainly in your passion certainly should be admired and I want to thank you for that.

This job is not easy Councilmember Hollingsworth.

It has been a joy pardon the pun.

It has been a joy to watch you work for your personal and professional efforts to black excellence and black brilliance.

I don't think I've ever seen a council member with your voice, your leadership, your presence, and it is powerful and it is much needed.

Thank you.

Council member Rink, it's been very impressive to get to know you, refreshing as a young leader.

I look forward to working with you, and as we say in Indian country, I look forward to watching you stepping back to light this world on fire.

Well done.

and again, our leadership for our great city and our community.

I hope a lot of young folks are watching to see to step up and to do this hard work.

So thank you.

Councilman Rivera, my D4 sister, thank you so much for your honesty, kindness, generosity.

I've enjoyed your sense of humor and of course my temper and your temper.

It's been good for both of us.

I've enjoyed our conversations and also just watching you So, talk about the needs of our city and our community and what you saw in the budget and what you thought we believed we needed in our conversations.

And the fact that you do is just walk into my office and we talk really meant a lot to me.

Councilmember Nelson, as president, your commitment to addiction, recovery and wellness will always be an inspiration to me and to Indian Country and to so many people and lives that you have saved.

Your humanity to those struggling with addiction and its devastating consequences to their spirit, their body, their mind, their families, and our community will benefit many years to come.

And again, I want to apologize to you for some folks that showed up here that personally attacked you.

And it was hard for me to sit here and watch.

I know we've had our moments together.

We've had fellowship together.

We've prayed together.

And again, your leadership meant a lot to me and so does our friendship.

and then of course Council Member Kettle.

Council Member Kettle, working with you on public safety.

I've learned so much besides all the military stuff.

Thank you.

Your dad jokes, great discussions, great debates.

I'm just watching you work and your commitment to the budget, to humanity, to a system, to governance, and of course our discussions about the Seattle storm.

I look forward to 2026. You are quite a leader, and I think the fact that you served our country really means a lot to me.

It means a lot to my family and many veterans watching, so thank you.

And last but not least, I want to thank the chair, Councilmember Strauss.

Councilmember Strauss, I knew you when you were a legislative aide.

I've watched your leadership, I've watched you grow.

You being budget chair with your transparency, your kindness, your thoughtfulness, really meant a lot to me and the D5 staff.

And your staff had been amazing in keeping us informed.

And again, as you and I talked about, you don't always get what you want in a budget.

but you made sure and you tried to make sure that we got what we needed.

I think that's a song, I'm sure, somewhere, right?

Okay.

But being a budget chair is difficult and I don't think a lot of people understand that role about being a budget chair is so difficult and it begins so early with discussions and meetings and building coalitions and stakeholders and I appreciate the folks here who come out every time to tell us and remind us that budgets are a moral document but what I always add is it is a moral document but it's still a budget and there's still only X amount of money and we really do the best we can committed to those principles that people live a humane life with housing and food and medical and protection and for that, thank you so much to seeing you all sitting out there.

We do see you and thank you.

and I just want to end on thanking central staff because they're amazing.

I've been watching them for almost nine years now and they do all the hard work.

And of course our wonderful clerks, Jody and Amelia and Shireen, which we could not do this job without them.

A huge shout out to our legal counsel, Lauren Henry, who continually, even though I've been a lawyer for almost 40 years, still answers my dumb questions.

Thank you, Lauren Henry.

And with that, I want to thank this whole body here.

And I know sometimes people like to, you know, they're not always kind, but there are so many good people in this city.

And when we get those emails and those letters and we go into community and people shake our hands and say, maybe you didn't do what I asked this time, but you were good to me.

You heard me.

And I tell them, we still got another budget cycle.

So let's keep going.

Thank you.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Madam President.

Thank you for those comments.

We do have an item called other business and I will be making remarks regarding Council Member Solomon at that point.

So there are opportunities to recognize him.

Council Member Kettle.

Thank you, Council President, colleagues, and everyone here and across the city.

Today we are in a political environment where we need to show that West Coast blue cities can be run well, that we can fulfill our charter responsibilities, and all the while adhering to our Seattle values to include being a welcoming city that is diverse, equitable, inclusive, and accessible.

Even to the point today where as Councilmember Juarez noted that one-third, currently today, one-third of our Councilmembers are veterans.

Another example of that.

Central to this effort and a reflection of this effort is our budget.

Today, Council is adopting a balanced budget.

It is prudent in that it set up reserves of $10 million, over $10 million that have been set aside to be in a position to respond to federal uncertainty.

And thank you for everyone for that, to include Council Member Rink for her leadership on this.

And there's other measures.

I had one.

I know others had measures to give us flexibility to address federal uncertainty.

And we also took steps to address our food crisis, specifically SNAP, with what's happened with the federal government and the passing of the four companion bills to the CR.

My hope is that there will be no additional challenges with SNAP.

While balanced, the budget is still, as stated by central staff, very rightly, inherently unsustainable.

This means hard decisions lie ahead.

I will admit that I lament that we did not have a Seattle spending stabilization work group and companion with our revenue work group.

I say this because, and I do believe in progressive revenue, but at the same time, layering progressive tax on progressive tax, and again and again, is also inherently unsustainable.

And that's gonna be the challenges.

And I highlight this because we do not live on an island.

We basically live on a peninsula, not an island.

And for every action, there is a reaction.

And we see this in tax policy as well.

On District 7, I know a constituent, a friend, who works for Amazon.

She wants to work in Seattle, but she has to work in Bellevue.

Last week I was at the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle event in Bellevue.

As I turned up Bellevue way, the line of cars coming from Bellevue back to Seattle was incredible.

And I've heard people talk about ST2, sound transit, the bridge, they're doing work on it now.

The intent when that was planned was for people to come from Bellevue and from the east side to come to Seattle to work, to be in our city, to spend, to create that revenue.

but now people are talking that it's gonna be the other way, that people will go that direction to work and then instead they'll just come here for the Seahawks, the Mariners, the Storm, go Storm, now the Torrent, go Torrent and the rain and of course FIFA World Cup.

and that should be a concern because we have to be careful that we don't turn Seattle into a bedroom community.

So bottom line, we have to continue to support the full set of services in order to support the full set of services and programs the city now provides.

We have to look at the reserves that we now rely on, the revenues that we now rely on.

And we also must remember and so I note that, so while balanced today, our financial house is not in order.

And we must remember that our revenues are dependent on the health of our economy.

We must look to set up the city for success, for economic success.

And I, I have fears that we may not be doing so moving forward.

And this is important given the headwinds we face.

For example, our maritime economy, which is nearly a third of our revenue, faces severe headwinds because of the Trump administration's disastrous tariff policies.

And further, headwinds exist in real estate and retail and tech and so on.

So these are the challenges that we face.

Colleagues, my approach to the budget has been basically driven by my three strategic priorities of public safety, our port, industrial maritime economy, and of course our constituent needs, parks, transportation, and so on through my district, but also throughout the city.

all underlined by the principle of good governance.

And so thank you, colleagues, and especially Budget Chair Strauss and all your staff, too, for your collaboration, this budget process.

And as noted before as well, to central staff, they're so key, and for the city clerk staff as well.

Thank you also for those that come to public comment, whether here in chamber, and I recognize many of you, from here or down with John getting a coffee.

I really appreciate you coming out, but also from the meetings, the calls, the emails, the chance encounters on the street, trust me, all of us have so many different ways that we receive public comment.

I do want to do a special thank you, though, to my team, Chief of Staff Steve Smith, Policy Director Brent Lowe, District Director Rebecca Duran, and Special Policy Advisor Sarah Hanneman.

Really, you know, as we all know, we require and we need that support that we get from our staff.

So to close, while I celebrate today, and I look forward with concern about our challenges tomorrow.

I do pledge, however, to work together with our Mayor-Elec Wilson and her team, our new colleagues coming onto Council, and of course, our constituents as we take on the challenge of structural budget reform and building a truly sustainable long-term budget.

So thank you, everyone, and thank you, Council President.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you for those comments.

Are there any others?

I'm not seeing any other comments and I will give you the last word, Chair Strauss.

I would like to, so yesterday I played bad cop in a way and I did voice my concern about sustainability and I do appreciate your comments, Council Member Strauss, about the very thin needle we're threading between really wanting to do everything we possibly can to preserve and strengthen our safety net and also recognizing the consequences of of some of our decisions and possibly the movement of business over to the east side are losing those jobs fundamentally for me, that's what the issue is.

So anyway, we talked about that yesterday and today a little bit, but I want to really sincerely Oh, Councilmember Kettle, I'm sorry.

Councilmember Kettle, the threading of the needle conversation that was just right before, seconds before I began speaking.

Anyway, I do want to thank my colleagues for your support of my amendments.

I put forward 16 amendments, I believe if that's the correct count.

The majority of them were provisos, basically, and preserving funding that is already in the budget for the budget priorities that have been expressed by other council members and myself in the past.

And I thank the chair for putting many of those in the chair's package and in the consent package.

So thank you very much for your support of those.

And fundamentally, I wanted to call out a couple of them.

Your support of my amendments that sought to preserve technical support for black and brown business owners was really gratifying to me.

The support of the provisoing the money that exists already in the Liberty Project that is a partnership, but kind of led by Tabor 100 really means a lot to me, but more fundamentally to the small businesses that will continue to receive that support.

And then also this was funding.

There was really important funding to provide for technical support so that small businesses can modify or so that they can adapt to changing federal policies around contracting for public projects.

That's gonna be really important going forward because that's the bread and butter of a lot of our small businesses and especially in the neighborhoods that are undergoing pretty rapid gentrification as well.

So thank you very much for those.

And again, as always, thank you so much for working with me over the past two years not just during this budget period, but to in a very big way, center investments in treatment and recovery that I have really appreciate that and appreciated that.

And thank you, Council Member Juarez for highlighting that.

It does save lives and really does highlight a pressing need in our city.

In the chairs or in the consent package was the budget action HSD 060A1.

And I just want to highlight what you all helped me do or what you all did.

This particular budget item specifies how $2.85 million in new public safety tax revenue for treatment and recovery services will be appropriated.

So they are listed here at $250,000 or more for sober housing stipends.

$500,000 or more to non-profits that provide both housing and comprehensive addiction treatment services and other behavioral health supports.

And that is basically, so you get both, you get housing and treatment services in the same place or with the same organization.

And then finally 500,000 or more to maintain and expand my treatment pilot program that enables case managers to refer people who want to take the step toward recovery directly into a treatment facility.

And that has been, as I've said before, that has really made a difference in people's lives.

And this will continue thanks to you.

I do want to note, to our outreach workers, our care team members, our first responders, and other contracted cities, social service providers, that when you encounter people that want to take advantage of this resource, please use it.

It is there for you.

$500,000 is there for when you encounter someone, and they're in Little Saigon right now.

I was down there the other day talking to people.

When you encounter people, Please remember this resource and use it if you can.

It's not for everybody, but however, keep it in mind as you're out and about.

And then finally, the rest of that CBA identifies that the remaining funds will be distributed for enhancement of access to recovery-based services within permanent supportive housing, like contingency management, medication for opioid use disorder, et cetera.

and it will also, it's intended to perhaps one day supplement city funds to King County for designated crisis responders to help people get into who are in danger of hurting themselves or others.

And then finally supporting programs to expand the provision of long lasting buprenorphine injections, otherwise known as sublocate.

So when I took office, the city didn't even fund rehab and so we've come a long way and I just wanted to thank you.

That's it.

And when I opened up by saying, yeah, you know, stating, you know, sustainability issues, I do want to say that it's a lot easier to say than do, that we have to look at our programs and eliminate those that aren't working and reinvest those dollars someplace else to balance our budget every year.

Indeed, that is the ideal.

However, it is very difficult because we all come with with our priorities.

And so I just want to, um, recognize and, and, you know, offer some grace to, uh, to everybody that it is very difficult to, to do that.

And when presented with additional funding sources of two new taxes that were, um, that were sent down by, um, by the mayor and also with the help of council member, we put it to work for our priorities.

Anyway, I heard, I read something just speaking to the new incoming administration, also recognizing good faith on her part.

Council, I mean, Mayor-elect Katie Wilson said in one interview, I believe something about the recognition that we do have to be careful with public resources and that she will undergo an exercise of looking at whether or not our investments are producing the results that we want.

And so I applaud that intention and I wish the new administration well.

And I'll save my thank yous until the last item.

That's all I've got to say.

Anybody else before Chair Strauss?

Go ahead, please.

Thank you, Council President.

Urging an aye vote on this.

We'll come to the clerk file.

which puts into the record all of the changes that we have made during this budget process.

I wanna make sure that we didn't, and it's hard to tell who has been thanked over the last two days.

A wise person once told me it's not appropriate to share thanks for people simply doing what their job is.

The reason that I'm giving thanks to everyone is because everyone went above and beyond this year, and we had a very smooth process, and it was because we came together in a collaborative manner.

And so again, just want to highlight City Clerk Shireen Dedman, Philip Wood Smith, and of course Marissa and Chris, who open and close this room every single day.

Thank you to you all for making this a successful process.

Thank you for those comments and will the clerk please call the roll on the passage of the bill.

Councilmember Hollingsworth.

Yes.

Councilmember Juarez.

Aye.

Councilmember Kettle.

Aye.

Councilmember Rink.

Yes.

Councilmember Rivera.

Aye.

Councilmember Saka.

Aye.

Councilmember Salomon.

Aye.

Councilmember Strauss.

Aye.

Council President Nelson.

Aye.

Nine in favor, none opposed.

The bill passes and the chair will sign it.

Will the clerk please fix my signature to the legislation on my behalf?

I will note, if I am not mistaken, that was the first.

Next vote.

I would, don't jinx it.

It's the next vote.

I'll just finish my, the spirit is here.

That was the first that I remember of a, of a unanimous vote on the budget, and I just wanted to congratulate you.

Thank you.

I believe it's the next vote, but yes.

No, she meant on the 9-0 vote.

The proposed budget is different than the clerk filed.

Please read the next item into the record.

Agenda item six, clerk file 314-546, City Council changes to the 2026 proposed budget and the 2026 through 2030 proposed capital improvement program.

The committee recommends the file be approved.

Councilmember Strauss is chair of the committee.

You're recognized to provide the committee report.

Nothing further to state at this point.

Thank you.

Okay, are there any further comments?

Well, continuing on, I do thank Chair Strauss, and I wanted to also extend my appreciation to Brad, Sue, and...

I'm going to mess up the name.

Dianelli.

Dianelli.

Okay, I'm sorry there, but our comms shop is going to be really busy today.

They've been pretty busy this week and they're going to be busy on Monday.

And so they're the ones that are responsible for putting out our takes on the budget to our constituents.

So thank you very much.

I appreciate that.

It's a lot of work.

I also want to thank, of course, central staff, I can't name everybody by name but it was a grind and you pulled through with grace.

Here I am looking at an empty table and I hope that you have a great week coming up.

and then Emilia, you really, you're a star.

You kept us on track.

Thank you very much.

And then finally, just one last thing.

I do wanna thank my staff.

I was quite busy during part of this budget process and they really held down the fort there in the office and work with central staff and kept me on track when the really important votes came down.

And so thank you, Jeremy Moen, Taman Um, whom I miss and Eric Nielsen.

So with that, if there are no further comments, will the clerk please call the roll on the passage of the clerk file?

Council member Hollingsworth?

Yes.

Council member Juarez?

Aye.

Council member Kettle?

Aye.

Council member Rink?

Yes.

Council member Rivera?

Aye.

Council member Saka?

Aye.

Council member Solomon?

Aye.

Councilmember Strauss.

Aye.

Council President Nelson.

Aye.

Nine in favor, none opposed.

The clerk file is approved and will be filed.

All right, people.

Congratulations.

Okay.

There were no items removed from the consent calendar.

There's not a resolution for introduction and adoption today.

Is there any further business to come before the council?

besides our last goodbye to Councilmember Salomon, whose last City Council meeting is today.

Go ahead, Councilmember Kettle.

Thank you, Council President.

And before speaking to Councilmember Salomon, and particularly because we have the signs saying budgets are a moral document, pastors here, colleagues, I just wanted to apologize for being late.

I was at a funeral mass for John Comerford, and who died on Monday, the day after his birthday, and at the age of 77. He was very active in political and civic life, to include in Boston with the Carter administration, and here in Seattle and Washington State where he saw elected office.

And I was joined at the service by Gail Tarleton, Sarah Renewald, and others.

And for John, it was all about service.

And I met John while serving on the board of the World Affairs Council, a nonprofit that he was, serving on, but also he founded the Queen Anne Food Bank at Sacred Heart Catholic Church.

He also provided financial mentoring to veterans at JBLM and around the country and even in England as they sought the transition from military service to civilian life.

And so with that, with that idea of service, which we all have to in our lives here on City Council and all the other things that we do.

And I believe my Air Force brothers will also understand that we have the watch.

And we'll continue that idea of service that John exemplified so well moving forward.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Councilmember Strauss.

Thank you, Council President.

I'm just going to take a minute of silence for John, if that's all right with the body.

Thank you.

It's always important to recognize life time here is short on this ball of dirt rolling through the solar system.

It feels like a long time often, but a wise person once reminded me that life is short and our impact can be great or little.

I'll just take a moment to highlight that over the last decade, City Hall has had a fair amount of division and tension in a negative way at times.

We've seen that through the budget votes over the last decade.

As that final vote that we just took on the clerk file denoting our council actions, that's the first time in a decade that we've had a unanimous vote out of this body.

It's healing that has occurred between the seventh and the second floor over the last four years.

It has been healing within this body over the course of this year.

It doesn't take time to heal wounds, it takes actions to heal wounds.

And through our collaboration through the One Seattle Spirit over these last eight weeks, nine weeks, we've really been able, and I appreciate colleagues, all of your work with me.

I have just been the steward of the work that you have put forward and I just want to say thank you.

I want to say thank you for walking this path with me.

Thank you for engaging in healing actions.

We have much more work to do and I just wanted to take that moment to recognize the moment in which we just passed into a brighter future.

Thank you.

Amen.

Thank you.

All right.

Well, I would like to say in thank you very much, Council Member Solomon for being, being a, you know, to my right, but the right flank of wisdom down there.

When you raise your hand, when I see it raised, I think that there's something good that's gonna come along.

Oh, and Council Member Rink, did you want to, did you have other business?

No, I wanted to get in line to congratulate and thank Council Member Solomon for his service, so happy to go after you.

Yeah, and I'm simply saying that I sure will miss your, I gushed, I sang your praises the other day, so I'm not going to repeat myself, but for members of the public out there, this body is losing a champion for all of Seattle and also District 2. This guy really had your back, I have to say, and you've been a pleasure to work with and I will certainly miss you.

I know that and I look forward to getting to know Councilmember-Elect Eddie Lynn, but I just have to say that I have such a soft spot for you and I have learned so much from you over the course of the years.

I have a favorite t-shirt that nobody really here has ever seen, but I will never not think of you when I wear it.

Okay, I'll show it.

Okay, it says, employee of the month, I make it so, and it's Riker there, you know, because he always says, you know, make it so, etc.

Anyway, kind of an inside generational joke though, but your office was always such a pleasure to walk into, just gave a little bit of levity whenever I walked in when I really needed it, so thank you.

Councilmember Rink.

Thank you, council president.

And I wanted to take a moment to get in line to publicly thank council member Solomon for his service to this body and to the people of district two.

I have been so thankful and grateful for the ways that we have been able to partner this year.

I know we kicked off your appointment term by holding a town hall together in district two.

and also partnering then with a number of community-based organizations to pull together a round table in the CID providing full language access in Mandarin, Cantonese and Japanese to engage our community on the comprehensive plan.

As Land Use Chair, you guided us through major pieces of legislation and I'm thinking about our actions to streamline permitting, paving the way for timely delivery for Sound Transit III and I wanna thank you for your partnership on the Roots to Roots legislation.

And I know I look forward to the day where we can walk down the street and say, that's a Roots to Roots project.

That project, that family housing, that housing and that building exists because we put forward legislation that helped that project pencil.

And so I want to thank you for your partnership.

It has been a pleasure working with you, and I'm excited to see what you do next.

And I know we'll see you here in City Hall.

Thank you.

Councilmember Rivera.

Thank you, Council President.

Councilmember Salomon, I said some words the other day and so I'll just reiterate, first of all, how grateful I am that you, your willingness to serve, these are really hard jobs, we all know, and it is an overwhelming responsibility to represent so many constituents in your district and all our districts.

And so I so appreciate your willingness to step up and hold the seat until folks, you know, elected.

Now entering Councilmember Eddie Lynn, whom I look forward to working with, and I just, your kindness, generosity of spirit and your just, your friendliness and just, you are such an amazing human.

You care about people.

Your caring about people is the thing that I so appreciate about you the most.

and so you really took great stewardship of the seat and I really thank you for doing that.

And so I actually also knew you before you sat on the council a little bit and I look forward to continuing to work with you in future capacity, especially as it relates to SEPTED.

and just enjoy your time post council, but I know we'll see you around these parts ongoing because that is your commitment and dedication.

It didn't start here and it doesn't end here.

So thank you, my friend.

Council member Saka.

Thank you, Madam Council President.

And I too want to take a moment to thank our esteemed colleague, Council Member Solomon, for your selfless service, enduring commitment to our city.

It has been an absolute pleasure to be able to serve alongside you on this body.

I mentioned a few days ago that You and I had the pleasure of serving together in the United States Air Force and Air Force Reserves 15, 20 years ago, and I learned so much from you over the years, and including now through our shared service together in this body.

You've distinguished yourself in so many ways for the better.

You've served your constituents in District 2 with distinction, pride, and commitment to making that district better and the broader city of Seattle better as well.

Rogue is your call sign.

I mentioned mine earlier.

We'll just leave it there.

But, Rogue, you've...

I'm gonna miss a lot about you.

You've been friends for 25 years now and will continue to be so going forward.

I know exactly where you live, but I am really gonna miss your, among other things, your camaraderie and your collegiality and your collaborative spirit.

This work is tough work.

And some people, most people only see kind of what goes on right here at the dais.

But that is really only a fractional sliver of the work every last one of us does in our respective offices for our constituents and for our city.

So many individual one-on-one meetings and conversations but one thing I always appreciate about Council Member Solomon is he's always willing to come into my office, allow me to come in his office, just informally, not to talk about some specific policy idea or proposal, but just informally to check in, see how I'm doing, how my family's doing, see what we got going on.

commiserate a little bit.

That level of camaraderie and collegiality and collaboration, these informal check-ins, non-transactional, you're not seeking anything from me, nor vice versa.

It unlocks so much in terms of building constructive relationships that actually help this body get work done out here publicly.

And so for that, I couldn't be more grateful, and you've inspired me to be more, you know, check in more with our colleagues here as well, and I'll continue to carry that forward.

I always appreciate your guidance and mentorship, again.

You've talked some sense into me a number of times, as you have over the decades, frankly, which I really appreciate, and I...

I hope that I was able to impart some nuggets of wisdom on your end as well.

But I do appreciate your guidance and mentorship.

I wanna thank your wife, Suzanne, because...

and I forgot to do this the other day ago when she was in the room, but check the tape, Suzanne.

But...

This work is hard.

And it's not just the council member out here serving.

It's not just the council member and their staff out here serving.

It's not just the council member and their staff sacrificing.

It's a sacrifice born by the entire family.

in your case, to Suzanne.

So I really appreciate her service and sacrifice to your district and our city.

Finally, just on a playful side, why not?

Why not?

Rogue, why not?

Among other things about you, I'm gonna miss your shoes!

I'm gonna miss your shoes!

My goodness.

I love those orthopedics, orthotics, Nike ear unks.

I'm gonna miss those.

They look great.

I'm also gonna miss your fun mannerisms and silly quirks.

We all have them.

For you, I'm gonna miss your grunts.

Who's gonna want you?

City parks, except it.

I'm gonna miss your grunts.

That in particular.

But I know how to get ahold of you.

I know where you live.

We'll be around and look forward to staying in close touch, my friend.

But thank you so much for your service, commitment, mentorship, friendship, all of the above, and so much more.

Thank you.

Cheetos, speaking of snacks, I could put a plug in there.

Councilmember Hollingsworth had her hand up next.

Thank you Council President and I'll be brief and this is definitely from Councilmember Kettle this is going to be a puppet episode for sure the jokes and all that which is great which I love so I I just want to number one you have the best snacks so thank you Councilmember Solomon and I said this yesterday you also your your kindness and your smile was huge.

And I think we can all attest to that, how important that is just to be nice and have just the ability to lead with grace as you did every single day.

And there will never be another CPTED expert like you were and to remind us how important that is when we are incorporating different elements into any of our committees how important that is and and I've heard Councilmember Kettle talk about it a lot the Sep 10 environment and public safety or whether it's parks and arts libraries and education any type of those things transportation you have talked about it so I just want to thank you and obviously your family and your wife for their sacrifice because as we know colleagues it is not just up So just want to thank your family as well.

Council member Solomon and for all your hard, your hard work.

You made district two better.

And I know that council member elect Lynn will continue to build off your successes that you have delivered for the district.

So thank you.

Council member Kettle.

Thank you, Council President.

Council Member Salomon, thank you for your service across all the areas that you have served over the decades.

Thank you.

And I just simply want to say fair winds and following seas.

Best wishes to you and whatever next chapters to you and your family.

And I just wanted to close with a very important quote from Yoda.

Do or do not.

There is no try.

May the force be with you.

All right.

Appreciate you.

Okay, if there is no further business, I, uh, this, we will...

Oh, looks like someone else put their hand.

You want to maintain the last word?

I didn't get an opportunity to thank Council Member Solomon on the record.

It's been an honor and pleasure to serve with you, sir.

Thank you for sharing your time with us.

I've learned quite a bit.

And as I said many, many, many, many, many, many months ago, you're the smartest person in the room and you don't need to be, which makes you even better.

And two minutes isn't enough.

And I'm glad to have 10 months with you, my friend.

Thank you, Mr. Solomon.

Okay, we've reached the end of today's agenda.

The next...

Oh, go ahead.

If I might, you know, address the Council, Madam President.

I wanted to thank you all for your words.

Thank you all who were able to come to the event the other day.

In other words, and so...

You all know that I was in the Air Force and I was trained as a briefer.

Key word there being brief.

Take notes, Ace.

And I know, Mick Jagger, right?

So I do want to keep this brief, but I do want to say a few words about each and every one of you.

And I want to do start with Councilmember Saka because we have known each other for so long.

We did serve in the Air Force Reserve together.

I remember when you came in as a green kid, real rough around the edges, and I saw you progress.

I saw you advance.

By the way, you'll know that he held, I think still holds the record for the most push-ups and consecutive push-ups done at the 446 air left wing, 235 at one setting.

Before kids.

You also may not know that he was at the Boston Marathon when the bombing happened.

He was running the marathon.

but I've seen you grow.

I've seen you grow as an analyst.

I've seen you grow as a professional from being at Perkins, being at Microsoft, being on the charter commission for King County, and now being the mayor of West Seattle.

I'm gonna say it right now, okay?

That's a moniker I'm putting on you, the mayor of West Seattle.

Thank you, my brother.

and I'm going to start with you.

Thank you for serving alongside with me.

Councilmember Rivera, you know, early on, I started thinking of you as, my nickname for you was The Closer.

because you had some legislation you wanted to get done, you were gonna make sure it got done.

You had the arguments, you were gonna make the arguments, you're closer.

I also refer to you as five feet of fury, but that's a whole other thing.

Your passion, your tenacity, tell me I'm wrong.

That is, that is.

You did something last week that also was very touching.

You sent out a Veterans Day message, and you acknowledged me, Councilmember Salkin, Councilmember Kettle, and thanked us for our service.

So thank you.

Thank you for that.

Got mad respect for you.

And I know that we're going to be doing some work safety, quality of life issues.

Yeah, we're gonna continue working together.

Commander Kettle.

You know, you got this Air Force, Navy thing happening.

Got mad respect for the Navy, okay?

You know, at least you're not Army, so...

And you and I have both walked similar paths.

We both, you know, were O5s in the military.

We've both been in the intelligence business.

We've both been analysts.

We've both seen things and done things that a lot of folks can't even imagine, right?

And I think about what you've done with public safety.

35 public safety bills?

34, soon 35. In just, what?

Less than two years.

That's amazing.

Absolutely amazing.

And I'm glad that I've been able to be there along the way with some of that.

Given my background, of course, public safety is my jam.

And I wanted to be on the Public Safety Committee, but I couldn't think of a better person to actually chair the committee than you, because you got stuff done.

Council Member Strauss, I have learned a lot from you, man.

Just the, you know, the conversations by the flagpole, you know, the informal conversations about here's how you navigate this stuff.

You know, even that conversation about how to chair a committee and how to have a plan A, B, C, and D when things go south, right?

The way you handle this whole budget process, the amount of hours you put in, the amount of hours your staff put in, and how you handle public comment and the whole bit.

Dude, masterful, absolutely masterful.

And the fact that, you know, when we are anticipating having hours and hours and hours of commentary or debate and we didn't, I think is also a testament to your leadership on that.

So thank you very much.

Yeah, I refer to you as the Mayor of Ballard and you cited off a whole bunch of other neighborhoods that you're a mayor of.

You only get Ballard, I'm sorry.

Councilmember Hollingsworth, there is a saying that we have in our office, WWJD.

What would Joy do?

and if there was ever a question about, okay, what position would I take or how am I gonna vote?

Or they just said, do what Joy does.

It's like, okay, that's good.

I'm good with that.

And I think about how you navigated the whole comp plan thing, how you made sure that everybody got hurt, regardless of how long it took.

And while we've seen some real shenanigans in this chamber, there were no shenanigans when you were taking care of your business, when you were handling that process.

People respected the jazz hands, the snaps.

People respected letting other people talk.

I look forward to one day referring to you as Mayor Hollingsworth.

So I'm putting that on right now.

Don't, oh, okay, yeah.

Council Member Juarez, my plucky sidekick, I love working with you.

I love the fact that you are no nonsense.

You don't suffer fools easily.

You're very willing to tell people about themselves.

You're down to business, you're down to earth, and you're not playing games.

You may have a great sense of humor, you may have a great demeanor, you may drop the F-bomb every now and then, but you're about getting stuff done as well, right?

Again, tell me if I'm lying, right?

And the things that we've been able to do in just a short amount of time, like with Thunderbird, like with Lake City, I know that we're going to have a relationship going forward, and the fact that your spouse and my spouse are both artists.

We can let them go out in the art shed and play and then we can go, you know, we can watch a storm game.

All right, sounds good.

Councilman Barink, I, okay, you, when I think about the next generation of leaders, I'm thinking about you.

and I think about Councilmember Hollingsworth, Councilmember Saka, you are that next generation.

Our incoming administration, our incoming mayor, Katie Wilson, she is that next generation of leaders.

And one thing that I have put out there a long time ago is us old folk need to make way for the next generation of leaders, and you're it.

I have never seen anyone more prepared, more studied, You don't speak off the cuff.

You planned out.

Your stuff is planned out.

Well researched.

It was a pleasure working with you on I think at one point it seemed like it was going to be the Solomon Ricks show because we kept showing up at the same places over and over again, whether it's that town hall we did at the church at Blay Memorial or the town hall we did at the Ethiopian Community Center.

You know, getting roofs to roofs done when it was an idea that it'll never happen.

Why bring this back?

And then We got a unanimous vote out of our colleagues.

That says something.

That's something that while we may be on different ends of the spectrum politically, we can still work together.

And it's been an absolute joy working with you.

It's been so much fun.

I think I've worked more closely with you and my staff's worked more closely with your staff than I have with anybody else on the floor.

It's been cool.

I also have to acknowledge our former colleague, Kathy Moore, who I was on the Housing and Human Services Committee with.

And there are some issues in housing that got really contentious with a lot of different stakeholders, and we were able to work through them.

I regret I didn't get a chance to work with her more on those issues and have her as a part of this body but as I said before she left the body I got mad respect for her and I still do so definitely want to acknowledge her and acknowledge the work that we did and I can't let, you know, this time pass without saying something about our central staff.

Love you guys.

I had a chance to work with Ketel and Lish, you know, Ketel Freeman and Lish Whitson.

A lot of times I just combine them and call them quiche.

Because, you know, they were the land use people that I was working most closely with.

But all the central staff has been fantastic.

Clerks, Amelia, best clerk in the world.

I'm going to say it again.

And, you know, I'm thinking about the department heads that I've had a chance to work with, you know, Don Liddell, Duane Chappelle, Rico Quiridongo, Dr. Kim, Jennifer Chow, all of them have just been wonderful, wonderful partners.

I know that we're going to partner and continue to work together.

And one person I want to definitely make sure I thank is Council President Nelson.

Because, you know, we connected before you got into this body, we stayed connected while you were on this body, and then we connected even more while I served with you on this body.

And definitely, it's been an honor, it's been a pleasure.

I've seen your, again, tenacity, your Cut through the BS, cut through the red tape.

Let's just get it done.

We need permanent reform.

Let's do it.

We need to have accountability.

Let's do it.

We have money we haven't spent.

Let's spend it.

Having that sense of accountability, that sense of people say it can't be done, get the hell out of my way while I do it.

And that's the way you've approached things is let's just get it done.

Let's not suffer from the tyranny of middle management.

Let's get it done.

and I so appreciate that about you.

I so appreciate the leadership that you've shown in this body and on this council.

And when I was telling my friend over here, when he was talking about making public comment, I said, don't be mean, right?

You have had to weather some of the nastiest comments that I've ever heard and I can't think of any reason why someone would say the stuff that they did to you other than just being mean, right?

And, you know, folks come here to give public comments so that they can have their voices heard.

But when you're taking your public comment time to demean someone or question somebody's motives, including ours, right?

to shout down other voices, that's not serving you well.

So if you wanna use your public comment time to demean somebody else, stay the hell home.

If you wanna advance what you're really feeling and where you want the city to go, great, we wanna hear you.

But one of the things I said is that I can't hear you when you're yelling at me.

If you want to have a conversation with me, great.

But don't yell at me.

Don't tell me to go kill myself.

Don't tell me to shut up.

Don't question my integrity.

And you've had to endure that.

And it ain't right.

None of us, none of the people on this body deserve that kind of treatment.

So I just ask you, as members of the public, anybody looking now, We want your comments.

But don't be mean.

It doesn't serve you well.

And if someone says something you don't agree with, you don't have to shout them out or shout them down or shut them down.

We have differences of opinion.

That's what makes us us.

So lead with respect.

One final shout out, our security folks.

I mean, y'all are here all the time.

No one ever gives you any props.

I want to give you props.

Thank you for being here.

Thank you for being in chambers.

Thank you for trying to control the chaos.

Yeah, and thank you for the opportunity to serve you for these last 10 months.

It truly has been an honor.

Thank you for placing your trust in me to fill this position.

Council member-elect Lynn and I have met already.

We've met with our staff.

We've done transition.

there will be some continuity.

And one of the reasons there's going to be continuity is because while I want to acknowledge my staff, Sarah Mays, my chief of staff, my policy director, Chris Hendrickson, my director of communications and outreach, and Murphy Bush, my director of external affairs.

We couldn't have gotten this stuff done without them.

I have a hell of a staff and I'm going to miss that staff.

Fortunately, Thaddeus and Christine will be sticking around to help Eddie.

Thaddeus is going to stay on as his policy director.

Chris will be here temporarily doing communication and outreach.

So, Senator Murphy, there you go.

They need some place to land and I'm hoping to find some place for the land.

They need some place to land, Seattle Channel.

But again, I can't thank them enough because we wouldn't have been able to get done what we were able to get done without them.

So again, thank you for this honor.

Thank you for this opportunity.

Thank you for placing your trust in me.

And as I closed out my last newsletter, may the force be with you.

Ah, thank you.

All right.

We have now reached the end of today's agenda and the next city council meeting.

Thank you for those words.

Very heartfelt and wise.

The next city council meeting will be on November 25th has been canceled and the city council meeting, the city council will meet again on December 2nd at 2 PM.

All right.

Hearing no further business.

We are adjourned.

It is 2 50. Thank you everybody.