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Good afternoon.

Today is February 23rd, 2026. Council briefing will come to order.

The time is 2.02 PM.

Will the clerk please call the roll?

Councilmember Strauss?

Here.

Councilmember Foster?

Here.

Councilmember Juarez?

Here.

Councilmember Kettle?

Here.

Councilmember Lynn?

Councilmember Rink?

Present.

Councilmember Rivera?

Councilmember Saka?

Council President Hollingsworth?

Here.

Sixth present.

for the record council member Lynn council member Rivera and council member Saka are excused for the day if there is no objection the minutes of February 9th 2026 will be adopted looking left and right why look right and left first but right and left there is no objection so the minutes are adopt adopted adopted, I apologize.

I was gonna say abducted, but they're adopted.

Onto the president's report.

We have OIR presentation and sound transit presentation today.

We also have one executive session scheduled after this meeting.

And on tomorrow's city council meeting agenda, we have eight items on the introduction and referral calendar.

We have...

a bill for the bills, a bill for the bills.

We also have an ordinance related to Seattle City Light.

Out of that committee, we also have a reappointment of four committee members to the Joint Apprenticeship Training Committee.

We also have a petition for vacation of an alley block off of of Denny's waterfront, addition to the city of Seattle.

And on tomorrow's city council agenda, we have two items on the consent calendar.

We have bills and meeting minutes for 2-17.

And we also have one item up for a vote, and that is appointment of CBO director Ali Panucci.

Council members, are there any questions regarding the president's report?

Awesome, seeing none.

Next, we'll just jump right into it.

We're gonna have our state legislative session for 2026. And I believe, oh, you're here in person.

Great.

I was looking on the screen and then you just came from around the corner, Director.

I appreciate you.

Always, always appreciate to see you, Director Hashimi.

I know that you all are always back and forth in Olympia, but it's good to see you in person today.

So thank you.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, Council President Hollingsworth and Council members.

I'm Mina Hashemi, Director of the Office of Intergovernmental Relations, and I'm joined by my colleagues, Anna Johnson and Samir Jenejo, who you'll hear from momentarily.

Thank you for having us.

Just 17 days remain of the legislative session.

Last week, the legislature wrapped up House of Origin for action, sending a wave of bills to the opposite chambers' policy committees.

Among many reasons why a bill might not make it out of its House of Origin on time is the anticipated level of controversy and the amount of debate time it will require.

During the early days of floor action, leadership in both chambers typically prioritize measures that are broadly supported or more straightforward, allowing them to move efficiently through the process.

More contentious or complex bills, particularly those expected to generate lengthy debate or many amendments, are often held until later in the floor calendar, frequently surfacing during extended evening sessions as deadlines draw near.

Lawmakers now face a fast-moving timeline with a deadline of February 25th to review, debate, and advance policies from the opposite chamber.

Also this week, operating budgets are expected to be released and heard, with the transportation and capital budgets typically following shortly thereafter.

Before I turn it over to my colleagues, I will set up our slide deck.

We have listed legislation corresponding to the city's official legislative agenda and its status in the first few slides.

And for the sake of time, our presentation will cover updates from weeks five and six to these priorities and other important legislation that the city is tracking.

And with that, I will turn it over to my colleagues to get into the details.

Thank you, council members.

I'll start us off giving you a few updates of some of the Seattle priorities that we saw action on in the last couple of weeks.

So as you can see on this slide is the full list of our Seattle priorities that we have been tracking.

I will highlight House Bill 2199. This bill is from Representative Richards and is helping improve the processes to address derelict vessels.

And this bill had a hearing in the Senate last week and is scheduled for executive session this afternoon.

I'll also highlight House Bill 2238 from Rep. Reeves.

This bill creates a statewide food security coordination.

This bill also had a hearing last week.

It's scheduled for exec this afternoon.

This bill is important to Seattle because it helps strengthen alignment between state food access programs and Seattle's programs.

It helps improve supply chain visibility during emergencies and also creates clear pathways to support Washington farmers to sell into urban markets for our schools, food banks, and community programs.

Also, Senate Bill 5880 from Senator Wagner deals with accredited toxicology lab testing.

This bill passed the Senate unanimously, had a hearing last week and is scheduled for executive session tomorrow.

A few other bills as well on this list, 2105 related to immigrant worker protections is an attorney general request bill moved out of the Senate Labor and Commerce Committee last week.

And two housing bills on this list, House Bill 1687 related to social housing and then 2304 which is our condo liability law reforms.

Both of those bills passed out of the Senate Housing Committees last week.

Also flagged a transportation bill, House Bill 2495, which would allow the city to remove vehicle obstructions from the streetcar tracks.

That bill has a hearing today in Senate Transportation.

And then Senate Bill 6148, which would modify terms for the sound transits bonds, had a hearing last week in House Transportation.

And then lastly, Senate Bill 6346, which is the tax on millionaires.

It has a hearing later this week in the House.

It passed out of the Senate last week, now moves to the House Finance Committee.

I'll flag a couple of changes that were made.

So public defense funding went from 5% of the revenues to 7% of the revenues, and now 10% of of that would go to cities, the rest to counties.

And then lastly, it also repeals many of the sales tax changes that were made last session in Senate Bill 5814, which added sales tax to a variety of new services like digital services, temporary staffing.

And so it repeals many of those except for advertising services starting in 2030, which is when the revenue from the income tax would also be in effect.

I'll move on to a recap of some other bills that we've tracked.

And so moving first to budget and revenue bills, I'll flag Senate Bill 6347, which repeals many of the changes to estate tax that the legislature made last session, which increased the top marginal estate tax rate in the state and it repeals that back to what was in place this past year.

and House Bill 1408 creates a dedicated funding source for community preservation and development authorities by diverting sales tax paid at the two stadiums.

For some climate and environment bills, I wanted to share House Bill 1903. This bill establishes a statewide low-income energy assistance program.

The city signed in pro in the hearing in the Senate side on this bill.

And then House Bill 2515, which is addressing emerging large energy use facilities or otherwise known as data centers, the city was able to move from a monitor position to pro position when this bill had a hearing in the opposite chamber.

Both of these bills are scheduled for executive session this week.

like a general government bill here, Senate Bill 6239, which establishes a process for administrative adjudication for tort claims that are made against the state of Washington and political subdivisions like the city.

healthcare bill as well as Senate Bill 5981, which protects patient access to discounted medications through Washington's healthcare safety net by preventing manufacturer limitations on the 340B drug pricing program, which is a federal drug pricing program that helps healthcare organizations that serve low-income and uninsured patients, and the city signed in pro.

Housing and Homelessness, House Bill 1974 would allow PDAs, Housing Authorities, other non-profits to establish land making authorities and Senate Bill 6200 which prohibits landlords from restricting a tenant from installing portable cooling devices in the city signed in Pro.

A few labor and commerce bills, starting with Senate Bill 5061, which requires certain wages and public works contracts to be at least the prevailing wage in effect when the work is performed, as opposed to when the contract is awarded.

And House Bill 2355 establishes labor protections for domestic workers, the city signed in pro.

And House Bill 1833, which creates an artificial intelligence grant program in the Department of Commerce for essentially services that would be a benefit to the state.

Next, I want to highlight this new section added to our briefing this week around bills that relate to Native communities and tribal governments.

So starting with Senate Bill 5374, this bill is a carryover from last session, which is meant to include tribal representation in certain transportation activities.

Senate Bill 5838 adds a tribal member to the board of the State Department of Natural Resources.

And then Senate Bill 6034 is moving the Governor's Office of Indian Affairs into a statutory establishment.

All three of these bills are set to have hearings and executive session this week.

And then for public safety and criminal justice, Senate Bill 5067 is concerning impaired driving and lowering the BAC limit to 0.05.

Senate Bill 5925 concerns the general powers and duties of the Attorney General's office.

Specifically, as this bill relates to public safety, it expands the Attorney General's authority to enforce City and County Jails Act, as well as enforcing the laws that address law enforcement agencies' restrictions related to federal immigration enforcement through issuing civil investigative demands.

Both these bills are scheduled for EXEC this week as well.

In terms of social programs and education, I wanted to highlight House Bill 2219. This is a kind of a good government's government efficiency bill relating to the operational efficiency of childcare providers.

And then also Senate Bill 5993 deals with interest charges for new and unpaid medical debt.

This bill relates to many folks' attention on affordability this year.

And transportation bills, House Bill 2095, which establishes a presumption of negligence for tort claims from a vehicle collision that causes injury or death to a vulnerable user of a public way or a pedestrian.

And Senate Bill 6311, which provides for continuous safe and accessible pedestrian passage during construction projects, much of this bill modeled on city policy.

And as mentioned earlier, later this week, you'll see hearings on the House and Senate budgets, operating capital and transportation budgets are going to be having hearings and will be voted out of the committees this week and next week.

And then two days from now is the Office of the Chamber Policy Committee cutoff and then the fiscal cutoff on March 2nd.

And with that, we'll be happy to take any questions.

Awesome.

Thank you, Ana and Samir, for that presentation.

Colleagues, I'll pause here to see if anyone has any questions.

Council Member Kettle.

Thank you, Council President and Director Hishimi for being here along with Mr. Ginejo and Ms. Johnson, so thank you very much for your update.

I just wanted to talk to two items, of course, public safety related.

First, just had a meeting with our city attorney, City Attorney Evans, and I just wanted to reiterate how important the toxicology bill is.

We really need to work this bill.

Is there anything specific related to it?

I believe everything is moving positively.

Did I read that right?

Did I hear that right?

Yes, that's correct.

The bill is set to be voted out of the Opposite Chambers Policy Committee tomorrow, so it's on a good path as of today.

Thank you, and colleagues, this bill will be important, assuming everything continues as it is, it'll be important over the course of this year to work with the executive, with the mayor, along with the city attorney in terms of putting in place the ability to use the toxicology lab, because it's really important, and there will be a cost to it.

I think it's manageable in respect to the broader public safety budget, but I think it's really important to press forward, and what is really a main focus for our city attorney, but it's also very important in terms of what we're looking to do from the legislator branch as well.

So thank you for that update.

Separately, I know it's not on our briefing, but I did want to mention Senate Bill 6002. This related to automatic license plate readers.

I just wanted to say, and practically because this has come up in many different ways recently in many different venues, whether it's the radio or podcasts or TV and the like, and it was in the Seattle Times today.

I just wanted to say this bill is very important, the automatic license plate reader bill, Senate Bill 6002, which is now over in the House, and I support it.

and I support it because a lot of the jurisdictions in the region weren't basically doing their job with respect to this very important program.

And because of that, I do believe the state needed to come in and basically, you know, regulate the ALPR, the Automatic License Plate Readers, because we were so all over the place with it.

And this is primarily, by the way, related to issues with flock safety.

practically all the reports that I've seen related to the negative aspects that have come out that are related to FLOC.

And I just wanted to say right here that we do not use FLOC in the City of Seattle.

We have a very separate system and it came out very differently.

We do not have fixed post systems.

These FLOC systems are basically fixed post systems.

We do not have that.

Ours are, as noted in the Seattle Times article today, are on our squad cars, our police vehicles in, you know, within SPD.

I just want to make a note, too.

Our ALPRs work within our system with our real-time crime center, and along with CCTV, we have built in a lot of protections, a lot of rules regarding who can access, how they can access, and who it can be released to.

And by the way, we are not connected to the Washington State Department of Licensing.

There's so much misinformation out there related to ALPR.

It's really inhibited our ability to really speak to the subject.

And I just wanted to note that because it's really important that this bill is here, Senate Bill 6002. And I'm good with the 21-day feature of the Senate bill.

I am good with the PDR element, the restriction on PDRs.

That really addresses the Skagit County judgment that came out last year.

And in fact, if you put those two pieces together, combine them with what all of the elements that we have with ALPR, CCTV, and our Real-Time Crime Center, it addresses the issues that people have.

and it's really important for everyone to walk through the various elements, the various perspectives, the various, you know, pieces of what we have, combine it with what's in this bill with respect to, for example, the PDR piece, restriction on the ability to do a PDR on this data, and you'll find that we have a very good system that's really helping us and really helping us create a safe base in our city.

And so I ask for everyone to look at these pieces.

I ask for the state legislature, you know, to come to Seattle to ask about our system.

I'm more than happy to connect.

Anybody who wants to see the real-time crime center from Seattle delegation or anybody else, Senator Trudeau or anybody, I'm more than happy to do that, to help coordinate that and walk through these pieces because this is important.

when our ALPR system came up on board, missing persons, those amber alerts, those silver alerts, many that have come to the aid of that.

Suicide contact reports, very important.

And then you add to the things like stolen vehicles, that is so important as well, particularly because stolen vehicles are used in crimes.

A car is stolen and then used in a crime.

and that happens so much.

And so I just wanted to note that this bill I believe is very important.

We need this bill in Washington State.

Now it's the details and it's about bringing our program and everything that we've done with what's happening in Olympia right now.

And I would argue some adjustments accounting for the Seattle system.

That combination would be great for Seattle and this bill overall would be great for the State of Washington and to include our region here in Puget Sound.

With that.

Thank you, Council President.

Thank you, Council Member Kettle.

And if you want to hear more, public safety meetings tomorrow at 9.30.

That was the plug, the buildup for public safety tomorrow.

Council Member Foster followed by Council Member Juarez.

Thank you so much, Council President.

Thank you so much, Director.

I always appreciate getting an update from OIR and to Ana and the folks who are calling in down from Olympia.

And actually, I have a couple of questions on different bills, but I'll pick up where Councilman Burkettle led off on 6002. You know, my office has heard from some folks who are concerned around safety and protections for vulnerable populations and vulnerable communities when it comes to this data.

Can you just start off with talking about what protections are in this bill?

Certainly.

I'll share that this bill includes a lowering of the retention period or setting a statewide standard for retention period for ALPR data that is lower than current city practice to 21 days as Councilmember Kettle mentioned.

It provides strict authorizing purposes for ALPR.

There's specific defined circumstances in which agencies are allowed to use ALPR.

It prohibits the use of ALPR systems for immigration investigations or enforcement.

It prohibits the use related to protective healthcare services.

It prohibits the use for tracking and monitoring of activity protected under a state or federal constitution.

And it requires specific reporting, auditing, model policy requirements through the Attorney General's office, and also creates clear requirements for accountability and standards for the ALPR vendors and also creates a statewide floor for these protections that local governments or agencies can go above and beyond as well.

Got it.

Thank you for that.

I appreciate that.

And I know one of the concerns in particular that I've heard is around folks who may be seeking different types of care in Washington State and care that might be outlawed in other regions and a concern that information may go to other actors, not just the federal government, but outside of Washington.

Can you speak to those specific protections between jurisdictions?

Yeah, there's specific authorizations, like I mentioned, that agencies are allowed to use ALPR for, and those are really limited to criminal investigations as well as parking enforcement.

And then there's strict standards and protocols in which agencies are allowed to quarry or use or share data to other entities.

that creates a lot of safeguards and parameters around making sure that we're insulating our use of ALPR to the prohibited purposes within the bill and not risking the data to get shared for other nefarious purposes that are not allowed, as well as creating the PRA exemption that Councilmember Kettle mentioned is if the data is being held for that 21-day period, folks cannot request that data, that personally identifiable data through a public records request.

There is protections by which that we can ensure that data does not get into the hands of somebody who's trying to, you know, use it for harmful purposes.

And then I understand, and I think this is my final question on this one, maybe we'll see.

I understand there's also some conversation regarding potentially sensitive locations and populations that may be more vulnerable to others.

Can you just give us an update on that?

Yeah, definitely.

So the bill also has a section that prohibits the collection of ALPR data in an enumerated number of sensitive locations.

This section is something that has drawn kind of our red flags in Seattle in terms of how we are going to be able to implement that with our mobile ALPR.

Since our vehicles have ALPR and we are passing by some of these locations and collecting photos of license plates of cars that are maybe out front of those facilities or passing by on the road in front of those locations, we have requested a targeted change to that section, but that section also would apply to those fixed kind of poll-based ALPR that Councilmember mentioned earlier as well.

so it wouldn't be having the ability to collect data 24-7 at those restricted locations.

Okay, got it.

Thank you, Ana.

I'm gonna do a hard pivot into millionaire's tax now.

I heard some questions or I heard an update earlier regarding the percentages for cities.

I wanted to make sure that I got that correct.

Can we turn to that?

Is it five or 10% that I heard Samir say?

Yeah, so 7% of the revenue will go to public defense generally, and 10% of that 7% will go to cities.

Okay, and that's up from a previous 5%, is that correct?

Samir, did you hear me?

Oh, no.

I have lost.

Samir, can you hear us?

Okay, there we go.

Did you hear my question, Samir?

It went from five to 7%, that's correct.

Okay, thank you.

That's it, thank you.

Awesome, thank you, Council Member Foster.

Council Member Juarez, followed by Council Member Rink.

Thank you, Council President.

First of all, Director Hashimi, thank you for the great PowerPoint, 16 pages, put the sale of priorities in front, love the cheat sheet on page three, so we can just track it really fast.

I have a quick question then I just to follow up on a couple bills that we've been tracking on page 11 the tribal issues with Senator Kaufman my understanding is that so it House of Origin on the Senate side on February 12th to cut the you said the statutory establishment are codifying the Governor's Office of Indian Affairs so the House of Origin was there so now it's sitting on the House side and you you wrote that there's going to be a executive session tomorrow

Yes, and it's in the House Committee and scheduled to be exact out tomorrow.

Is that correct, Ana?

Yep, that's correct.

Great.

Governor's Office of Indian Affairs has been around since the 70s, so for them to actually finally move forward and codify, and I was in D.C.

when I was getting texts from people saying, oh my God, it finally happened.

The Senate finally is going to codify a Governor's Office of Indian Affairs.

You know Marty.

Yeah, that's who was texting me.

I probably just put him on blast.

Anyway, let me go back to the other questions that we talked about last time you were here.

So we have been tracking most specifically House Bill 2515 regarding the large energy use facilities, basically data setters.

So I'm going to ask that you follow up with me on that one.

There's also, there's a bunch of AI ones that we tracked too that were on the, that passed.

on the House side, HB 1170 passed on the House side, and HB 2515, which is the one I'm really focused in on, data centers passed on the House side.

And then I know on the Senate side, you had, there's like three or four of them that passed, but they merely were going to AI forged digital likeness, AI discipline, chatbots, all that stuff.

So I'm gonna ask that, if you can help me keep an eye on Senate Bill 5886, Senate Bill 5956, Senate Bill 5984, which has a companion bill in the House, which is House Bill 2225, which I understand the Senate and the House bill were both requested by the governor.

So getting back to my question then is, is there anything more you can share with us, even though I know it passed the House, on the large energy use facilities for the data centers?

Because our concern is going to be the impacts to all of our ratepayers, Seattle City Light, the rates going up possibly now that we've moved from fossil fuel to electricity and we're having some changes over in South City Light and possibly some new leadership and so I'll be chairing that so I'm going to ask you if there's anything today that you can share with me or also maybe you know we can do it offline as well that you keep us up to date on House Bill 2515. Thank you.

Thank you Madam Chair.

Absolutely, thank you.

We have noted those bills and we will follow up with you and make sure that we keep you updated.

Ana, do you have anything that you want to share about that particular legislation?

Yeah, yeah.

2515, it's in a strong position as it's considered in the Senate.

It allows Seattle City Light to have a specific policy or tariff as it relates to the loads and rates of data centers.

And so it still gives the utility a lot of autonomy and flexibility as well as tools to help manage the load.

that might come from possible data centers added to our service territory, as well as existing data centers above 20 megawatts, as well as creates reporting and clean energy requirements for the data centers so that they still are falling in line with our state and city's clean energy goals.

May I ask a follow-up, Madam Chair?

Absolutely.

Just a quick follow-up.

We've been trying to think about the actual footprint where they're going to start putting data centers.

Is there anything, and I may have missed it because I haven't looked at the whole bill, quite frankly, about where they're going to do locating of data centers, whether it's in eastern Washington or on this side of the mountains.

Has there been discussions about the actual location of more data centers and the strain that it would put on?

on the grid and which will affect our rate payers.

I do believe that that was the discussion of a group that, I don't want to misspeak, but the Governor Ferguson did do an executive order last year around data centers, and I do believe that this was part of their work.

So I will follow up with you offline to make sure that I get you accurate information.

But this definitely has been a topic of conversation.

So you can give me the executive order?

Yes.

Thank you.

I appreciate that.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Awesome, thank you, Council Member Juarez.

Council Member Rink.

Thank you, Council President, and thank you, OIR team, as always, for the work that you do and for being before us today to present and share on that work.

I wanted to follow up on this discussion related to Senate Bill 6002 on ALPR.

Ana, you mentioned that you are requesting a targeted change to a section related to sensitive locations.

Can you expand exactly what that targeted change is?

Yeah, we see that specific section as very difficult to implement given the current situation of Seattle's ALPR technology on the vehicles and how there is a passive nature to the collection of data as you pass by these sensitive locations and not an ability to restrict the ALPR based on where you are in the city.

And so we're requesting a very targeted change to apply that section to fixed ALPR systems, like FLOC or cameras that have been positioned specifically within local jurisdictions so that those cameras that are on all the time cannot be placed at those sensitive locations, but then still allows Seattle's mobile ALPR on vehicles to continue operating as they are now.

And then this is also, you know, accompanied by the maintenance and continued establishment of other protections in the bill as well as in city ordinance.

Understood.

So just so I'm clear, do we understand at this time like how many other jurisdictions also have mobile ALPR as opposed to fixed ALPR?

I don't have the exact number off the top of my head, but there are other local governments that use similar vendors to Seattle that also have ALPR on vehicles.

I think Mercer Island, Renton, Kent are a few that come to my mind that have been engaged in the legislative conversation, but I don't think that's an exhaustive list as well.

But I don't have a firm number of how many cities.

We could gather that information if it'd be helpful.

Certainly, what I'm trying to understand at this time, understanding that it sounds like, and again, I'd like to see the language related to this targeted change that OIR is lobbying for at this time.

And I'm hearing the points that you are making that there's elements within our own municipal policy on the ALPR program.

And it sounds like, again, I'll do a deeper dive on the bill to understand some of the protections for sensitive locations, I'm just clear-eyed on how do we protect sensitive locations as much as possible.

And hearing, I'm thinking about jurisdictions that may also have mobile ALPRs that perhaps have not built into their own respective city systems protections for sensitive locations and whether or not pursuing this change in state law creates some real gaps and vulnerabilities for folks seeking services outside of city of Seattle.

So I don't know how we may be engaging with some of those other jurisdictions or if we understand at this time, perhaps those cities that you named, Anna, if they have similar kinds of protections built into their respective ALPR programs.

I can't speak for the other jurisdictions, but as I mentioned, within this bill there are a number of protections, restrictions, and guardrails on the technology that all cities and implementing agencies would have to follow.

So it does set kind of a statewide floor, if you will, for everybody.

Thank you for that, Ana.

And my final question just here is I'm wondering about engagement with school districts or even understanding that schools are considered another sensitive location in my understanding.

Has Seattle Public Schools or superintendent or other educational institutions taken a position on this?

I know I've had conversations about this bill with reproductive health care rights groups and immigrant rights groups, but have you, has OIR heard about any position from our school districts?

To my knowledge, Seattle Public Schools has not taken a position on this bill, at least publicly or to my awareness.

We've also met with the proponents of the bill, which include immigrant rights groups, reproductive care groups, and ACLU to really talk through where our shared goals are in this bill and the protections that we all support and need at the state level, as well as some of the kind of educational or contrasting points that we might have with the proponents and how it relates to Seattle's ALPR as of today.

Thank you for that, Ana.

And if I may, I'm going to pivot to a different topic now.

I just wanted to dive into the estate tax rollback a little bit, just understanding impact.

Can you break down quickly again, where were we?

What action was taken in the Senate?

Do we understand the fiscal impact of that?

and just as a refresher, was the estate tax designated for a specific kind of spend or for an area or are we gonna see the impacts of that loss in revenue, potential loss in revenue reflected in one particular area?

So the estate tax revenue, which I don't have the number in front of me, but it was somewhere around the $400 to $500 million range, was dedicated for general fund, so not for a specific program or service.

And there's a range of rates going up.

It went up to 35 percent with a top rate, and so this bill would essentially repeal all of those.

The rate increases, so the 35% top rate would reduce back down to 20%, I believe, for estates with a value of more than $3 million.

And so, In terms of impacts, you know, I think it would be a general fund impact and then certainly as they kind of come up with new revenue sources like the income tax, which would help backfill that.

And I can get you the kind of the exact rates that are changing because there's a few of them that are being rolled back.

That would be great, Mayor.

Certainly we'll follow up and colleagues, I'll just close on this point to say I'm deeply concerned about the state budget and rollbacks of this kind.

Ultimately our residents depend on so many services and I don't think they care necessarily if it's funded by the state or funded by the county or funded by the city, but they'll know if it's gone.

And so I'll be curious to see.

I know budgets are just coming out.

I'm really and I'm curious to see how those really shape up.

I know it'll take some time to digest everything that's in there, but I remain very concerned about cuts happening slated for this year.

Council President, that concludes my questions.

Thank you.

Awesome.

Thank you, Council Member Rink.

And just a quick, budgets, they just came out last night, Sunday.

No, they had not.

Did they come out today?

They're coming out this week.

This week, okay.

I thought something was dropped yesterday.

Okay, never mind.

Okay, thank you.

So we'll see them soon.

Thank you for that.

And that's the operating budgets, and transportation and capital budgets should follow later this week.

Absolutely.

Thank you for that, Director Hashimi.

I believe that's an old hand by you, Councilmember Juarez.

That's an old hand, sorry.

Okay, you're not old, but that's an old hand.

And Councilmember Kettle.

Thank you, Council President.

Just to reiterate, we do have a great program that is built in all these different pieces related to the concerns people have with automatic license readers.

And the key thing here is to show support for Senate Bill 6002 that has very important pieces to it to include the 21-day point mentioned, but also the PDR.

I mean, people have to understand that and pulling away that ability to do PDR that data is key.

And it really addresses all the issues in combination for those in general, but also for those selected groups as mentioned, as I've mentioned before.

I think we've done the right thing, and I think it's a great combination, and I just think it's important to state that.

So thank you, Council President.

Awesome, thank you, Council Member Kettle.

I don't see any more questions, so thank you.

I'll look left, right, awesome.

Okay, Director Hishimi, thank you always for your attention to detail and information.

Thank you, Ana, thank you, Samir, all your hard work.

We know that this session was jam-packed and there's a lot going on, so we look forward to hearing where some of the bills end up, where the budget is, all the good things and how they're gonna impact Seattle, so thank you.

Awesome.

Did the PowerPoint have numbers on them?

Yes, they did.

Hey, you got cool points from Council Member Juarez.

Okay, next we are...

sound transit update.

And I know Council Member Strauss went to the restroom, but I do want to take this time to acknowledge and I'll do it when he comes back, his diligent and his work on the committee.

And I know that he represents district six, but he represents citywide on this board and he has done a phenomenal job and we're just so grateful for his insight.

And we're looking forward to the sound transit expansion program update.

As always, we want light rail and we want it now.

All right?

I'm just fine.

We actually do.

So tomorrow would be great if it's just boom.

Okay.

I'll start us off.

Thank you so much for having us in front of the committee today.

I'm Sarah Maxana.

I'm the Sound Transit Program Director and I'll hand things down for introductions.

How do I turn this on?

Is this on?

Oh.

Good afternoon, Council.

My name is Brad Owen, Executive Director for Sound Transit in the Capital Delivery Department.

Good afternoon.

My name is Alex Krieg.

I lead Enterprise Planning at Sound Transit.

Good afternoon.

I'm Cody Ryder, Government and Community Relations Director for the Central Corridor.

Okay, and I'm gonna start us off with a couple of remarks.

Thank you so much, Council President Hollingsworth, for having us here today.

I am not joined by Director Angela Brady today, who's unfortunately out sick, but as our City of Seattle ST3 designated representative would have liked to have been here.

I'll be representing our ST3 city team in her stead.

And I just want to note that our ST3 city team at the City of Seattle is an interdepartmental effort to support the planning and permitting and delivery of sound transit projects.

We have a lot of different roles that we play, including supporting our sound transit board members with staffing resources.

in their governing capacities.

We serve regulatory roles through project review and permitting.

We have partnering roles defined by our partnering agreement with Sound Transit.

At times we have funding roles where the City of Seattle might choose to fund elements of the projects themselves.

We will have delivery roles to support station area planning and access planning that the City of Seattle will deliver on.

and in many cases we have advocacy roles where we are advocating for city policy, for city interests in the sound transit space.

But one key role that we don't have is the biggest role of all and that's actually delivering the ST3 projects.

And so very happy to be joined today by sound transit staff to speak to the status of those projects in the city of Seattle.

This presentation was born out of interest from the council last year when we were in front of City Council on a Budget Amendment in September.

There was interest in having Sound Transit at the table to speak directly to the status of their capital program and the emerging issues that are coming out of the Enterprise Initiative.

So very happy to be joined by them today.

And with that, I'm going to hand things off to, I think, Cody to walk through the presentation.

Thank you, Sarah.

Thank you, Council President Hollingsworth and members of the City Council for the opportunity to present to you today.

We are grateful for the opportunity to share an update on Sound Transit's System Expansion Program and the Enterprise Initiative.

The focus of our presentation today is the Enterprise Initiative, which is our agency-wide effort to achieve an affordable system plan.

We will also share updates on the status of major capital projects within the City of Seattle.

I want to start by noting major link openings this year.

On March 28th, we will open the Cross Lake Connection.

This opening will include the addition of two new stations, Mercer Island and Judkins Park, and add link service between Seattle and the east side across the I-90 floating bridge.

Two line trains have already begun serving riders between Linwood and International District Chinatown Station.

And on March 28th, that service will extend from Linwood all the way to downtown Redmond.

In addition, construction is progressing at Pinehurst Station in District 5. The project schedule is trending towards a Q3-2026 opening, and we'll share more updates as they are available.

Zooming out and looking ahead to future system expansion projects, here is a map of our future system as approved by voters with the Sound Transit 3 ballot measure.

As you can see, it includes a number of new high-capacity transit projects across multiple modes, including link light rail, Sounder Commuter Rail and Stride Bus Rapid Transit.

I'm going to turn it over now to Alex Krieg to present on the Enterprise Initiative.

Thank you, Cody.

Good afternoon, again, council members.

Thank you for having us today.

My name is Alex Krieg.

I lead Enterprise Planning at Sound Transit, providing an overview of the Enterprise Initiative.

The Enterprise Initiative is Sound Transit's effort to maximize the delivery of ST3 mobility benefits within available financial capacity in recognition of the fact that we are facing a misalignment between projected revenues and projected expenditures over the life of the plan.

This is not the first time the agency has faced affordability challenges, which we've always overcome, but we do need to approach it differently than we have in the past, more comprehensively, more transparently, and at an enterprise scale, given the size of the ST3 program and our rapidly expanding operational footprint.

The consequence of not acting will be an unaffordable finance plan and ST3 program.

Fortunately, the agency and the board have various tools and resources to respond to our current challenges, and I'll describe these momentarily.

We were beginning to see early warning signs related to program affordability in late 2024 and into 2025, and I'll briefly describe those now.

This included updated cost data for the West Seattle project from late 2024, which the board responded to by directing staff to develop a cost savings work plan that was expanded across all projects in planning.

Another leading indicator related to system resiliency and some of the challenges the agency is facing following rapid system expansion to deliver safe, reliable service.

We had also seen a couple of rounds of lower sales tax and revenue projections, which partially reflected general economic uncertainty, but also included post-COVID factors that are also important considerations for all transit agencies as we adapt to change mobility patterns and preferences in the aftermath of the pandemic.

Such that these indicators speak to the range of factors contributing to our overall cost pressures, they also greatly informed our need to take an agency-wide approach.

By August of last year, we were able to initially quantify the scale of our affordability challenges, which were subsequently refined in our fall update of the Long Range Financial Plan.

In short, the agency must identify $34.5 billion in cost savings and or new funding to deliver the full ST3 program.

This figure represents cost growth in the capital program and specifically the incorporation of updated cost data on eight projects in the ST3 program, as well as cost risk for transit operations related to potential new investments to improve system resiliency and increasing costs for new light rail vehicles.

Fortunately, between the August board meeting and the fall update of our long-range financial plan, we saw an improved revenue forecast, largely driven by state legislation expanding goods and services subject to the sales tax.

And we also incorporated minor changes to financial planning assumptions that together improved agency financial capacity by $4 billion.

Finally, it's important to emphasize that the agency's long-range financial plan projects almost $150 billion in financial capacity with more than $50 billion of that toward ST3 projects that are not yet baselined.

Also in August, the board adopted motion M2025-36, which established principles to guide the work of the enterprise initiative, including that it should build on ST3 performance characteristics, as well as demonstrate how it supports advancing regional connectivity, supporting future growth, prioritizing the passenger experience, and protecting public investments with fiscal integrity.

The motion the board adopted also defined key process elements to guide our work and include engaging communities through inclusive collaboration, building trust through transparent governance, and driving decisions with data and insight.

Finally, the motion identified the key deliverables associated with the enterprise initiative, including an updated ST3 system plan, a new regional transit long range plan, and an updated long range financial plan, as well as timelines to complete each.

The motion also directed staff to develop a comprehensive framework and work plan for the Enterprise Initiative, which we reviewed with the board at their most recent retreat in mid-November.

So this slide is organized by the major work streams that make up the Enterprise Initiative along the top.

Along the side, there are two questions about what the work stream entails and the tools and levers in each that the board has available.

So for policy and planning, we'll be looking at our existing policies, planning assumptions, and how conditions have changed.

The tools that the board has includes whether these assumptions need to be modified or if we need to update existing or create new policies to guide plan implementation.

For capital delivery, this work builds from the cost savings opportunities.

Project teams have been identifying per board direction provided in late 2024. The tools that the board has in this workstream include finding project-specific and program-wide efficiencies and exploring more cost-impactful changes like scope modifications, phasing projects, and even reconsidering some projects.

For service delivery, which we also refer to as transit operations, we'll be looking to identify potential savings by better understanding our cost needs to operate our growing system and to maintain our assets in a state of good repair.

The tools that the board has includes modifying service levels across modes, revisiting staffing and resource levels, and clarifying asset management needs.

Finally, for finance, the principal task will be to assess overall financial capacity, to deliver plan investments, and then to maximize that capacity.

The tools that the board has include changing financial planning assumptions and considering potential revenue enhancements that are within existing board authority.

And while these are presented as discrete work streams, there are critical interdependencies between them, and the enterprise initiative will ultimately be an act of synthesis to bring these work streams together.

And so I mentioned that we presented a comprehensive work plan for delivering the Enterprise Initiative at a board director's retreat in mid-November.

The key direction coming from the board retreat was for staff to develop plausible, affordable scenarios for an updated ST3 system plan for board consideration.

We're doing so by building off elements within each of those work streams I just reviewed.

Finally, while we are being wide-ranging in our approach to identify opportunities that save costs, save time, or expand financial capacity, we anticipate that some of these opportunities will require additional time to analyze and consider and or may require engagement with or action by others to fully realize.

So I want to briefly describe the general rules that we are seeking to follow as we develop scenarios and which are listed here.

As a starting point, the purpose of this exercise is not to say here are three or four or five options, choose one, but instead to identify real trade-offs and policy choices for the board.

We will focus on components that have a meaningful impact on easing our affordability challenges while emphasizing simplicity and service to highlighting those policy trade-offs.

Finally, we will leverage the work that teams across the agency have been doing and ultimately expect a hybrid that combines elements from different scenarios.

And then this slide is just a simple process graphic for how we plan to get from the last board retreat to their next retreat scheduled for March 18th and to bring back plausible, affordable scenarios for an updated ST3 system plan.

We defined an approach for scenario development at the end of 2025. In January, we focused on developing different scenario building blocks, which will enable us to begin developing initial scenarios that will be informed by the board engagement we have conducted over the month of February, and then finally having scenarios in place in March for the next board retreat.

So that is a high-level overview of the Enterprise Initiative.

Now I'll turn this over to Brad Owen to provide an update on ST3 projects in the City of Seattle.

All right.

Thank you, Alex.

So before I provide a brief update on the projects, I want to crosswalk how work being performed within capital delivery aligns with and supports the Enterprise Initiative work that Alex just spoke to.

So first, our work within capital delivery responds directly to board motions 2024. and 2025-36, which was referenced earlier.

Those motions directed staff to develop a structured capital savings cost work plan to improve the agency's financial position.

So to achieve this, we've organized opportunities into two categories.

Programmatic opportunities are portfolio-wide improvements, and project-specific opportunities are targeted adjustments to individual projects.

As you can see in the list on the right, we're developing cost-saving opportunities across virtually every project in active development.

But importantly, these are not reductions that sacrifice the rider experience.

Many of the opportunities improve passenger flow, reduce long-term O&M costs, and simplify operations all while lowering capital costs across the projects.

It's also important to note that projects that are advanced further into design provide greater opportunity.

As we conclude planning and move into engineering, clarity increases and so does our ability to bank meaningful savings.

So now we'll dive into the, start with the West Seattle project.

As a reminder, West Seattle Link Extension adds approximately four miles of light rail service with up to four new stations.

And when the SD3 program is built out, this project will reduce travel times from Alaska Junction to West Lake Station by 50%.

We received the federal record of decision in April of last year and we're currently in the design phase where we're identifying opportunities to reduce community impacts while achieving those cost savings that we mentioned across the entire alignment.

Moving to the next slide, we show the Ballard Link Extension project, which adds more than seven and a half miles of light rail with up to nine new stations.

Importantly, the Ballard project constructs the new light rail only tunnel that improves connectivity and resiliency through downtown Seattle.

We anticipate the publication of the Ballard DEIS this spring, and we're planning extensive community engagement and public outreach associated with that publication, and that will be followed by a sound transit board action to confirm or modify the preferred alternative.

And just like West Seattle, we're identifying opportunities to reduce community impacts while achieving cost savings across this entire alignment.

And now moving to the Graham and Infill Station project, we're making good progress on this project.

In January of this year, the Sound Transit Board approved action to authorize preliminary engineering and move this project into the preliminary engineering phase.

This project, it's important to note on this project, the class of environmental action is a documented categorical exclusion, and you can see the targeted forecast service date of 2031 for this project.

That concludes our presentation to the committee.

We are happy to take any questions, or the Council, happy to take any questions.

Thank you.

Stepping in for Council President, just facilitating while she will be right back.

I want to thank you all for the presentation.

Colleagues, this is a presentation, an amalgamation of which I have seen, lived, and breathed maybe more than any of us would like.

But it is really good work that Sound Transit is doing.

There's a lot more work to be done and I'd like to open it up now for other questions since I get so much of Sound Transit's time.

I'll also say that if there are questions that are not appropriate for staff to answer, I'm also happy to add some context to it.

And you can ask me any question, anytime, anywhere, and I will give you the latest on Sound Transit.

There are hard decisions coming forward.

There has been a lot of really good work make the financial policies better, potentially getting allowances from the state to change how we do our bonding.

There's also efficiencies.

You might see that the original sound transit stations were built to a gold standard.

the stations that were just unveiled in federal way are not necessarily the same level of station that we will get here in Seattle because we have to go through cost efficiency exercises.

But with that, I see we've got Council Member Kettle and Council Member Foster.

Over to you, Council Member Kettle.

Thank you, council member Strauss.

Thank you so much for the update.

I appreciate it.

And it's always good to get baselined.

It tracks with what we've seen before.

I just wanted to make one point because there is different talk out there and then ask a question related to some emails I've been receiving recently.

As you can imagine, we receive a lot of correspondence in various ways.

The first one is now a former member of the PSRC Executive Board and Transportation Policy Board.

I was kicked off starting this new term at the Council from that due to committee changes and so forth.

I will say I do miss it.

I bring it up because I do miss being on the PSRC, an excellent organization, very professional.

I do still plan on going to their annual meeting, though.

And that is the idea, particularly combined with the comprehensive plan, that the land use and transportation pieces need to be in sync.

And we press forward with our comprehensive plan.

We have a regional center going in Ballard.

The Ballard Link Extension needs to be there, and I know there's been different conversations, I'm just stating this, for the basic reason that if we're building, on one hand, if a government is saying that we have to have the Ballard Regional Council, which we need, we also need to have the Ballard Link Extension as well.

Those two have to go together.

I'm, again, saying this only because there's different people talking because of the costs and so forth, that we have to have the, you know, the Ballard Link Extension.

So that's pretty much a statement.

The question comes to, and I've been getting a lot of emails recently, it's related to, in the text you say Chinatown International District, which is what it is, but it's been noticed, highlighted to us, and this may be just not for very good reason, that Sound Transit calls it the International District slash Chinatown, which is what shows up on the map, on the chart.

it is Chinatown International District, so I don't know why on the graphic it says International District slash Chinatown, it needs to be the other way around, and I'm saying this partly because it is what it is, too, I'm getting inundated with emails and other comments about this, so this is an easy fix for sound transit, Chinatown International District.

I think we're happy to take that feedback to our agency leadership and be able to speak in the future about process for station changes and what that would look like.

Yeah, well, the leadership knows already, so I think the executive can do it pretty quickly like that.

Thank you, Councilmember Kettle.

Councilmember Foster.

Hard to follow a snap.

Thank you so much, Council President.

Thank you so much, Sound Transit team.

Usually I don't make statements, but I will make one today, which is just around how important the Graham Street Station infill project is.

And I know that I'm not telling you all anything when I say that this project has been delayed in the past.

and in the interim period, as you know, the city has made investments in planning and investing in new housing, including affordable housing around the area and affordable housing, I believe in some cases that is designed for elders and seniors.

And it's really important to make sure that we have that infill station as a critical point of transportation access for the communities that live there.

I was over at the summer, I was at a great Graham Street visioning party, I suppose, and there was just incredible turnout and incredible community support.

I just wanna take this opportunity to express how important I believe that station is for South Seattle communities who are really looking to benefit from the investments from Sound Transit in terms of accessibility.

Okay, there's my statement.

The question that I'd like to ask is just, you know, as you're talking about queuing up options for the board for Sound Transit, you know, how, and Council Member Kettle spoke to this already, how you're thinking about the comprehensive plan and the areas where we know we're going to have really exciting growth in the area to make sure that our investments in our transportation system continue to align with the growth that's expected.

Thank you for that question.

I think what I would say is to refer back to the principles that the board established are pretty, you know, higher level but do include supporting regional connectivity and future growth.

We are thinking about how we translate those principles into criteria that we can use to demonstrate the relative performance of these different scenarios and understand in just the application of those, which are those projects that increase access.

We're looking at sort of projected, to go back to Council Member Kettle's point about PSRC, data from the Puget Sound Regional Council, whether it is projected population or employment growth or the centers established through the Puget Sound Regional Council to help give a sense of how many are reached, what does that mean for population within different station areas and so on and so forth.

Thank you, and then I'll close with one more statement.

Colleagues, I'm statement heavy today, which is just around Chinatown International District and ensuring that we get it right in terms of whichever option Sound Transit chooses, as what I've heard consistently from community members is a desire to make sure that the community reaps direct benefit from Sound Transit, whether that's in accessibility to the station or whether that's in making sure that those small businesses are supported and taken care of over the long haul to ensure that the community there maintains their identity as we continue to invest in our transportation system.

So I just want to elevate that as something that I know that we all care about and I know that you all are paying attention to in the process.

Awesome.

Thank you, Councilmember Foster, Councilmember Strauss.

And I do want to take this time because you had stepped out, but thanking you for serving on the Sound Transit Board and you are constantly keeping us updated, us as council members and making sure that we are abreast of all the information.

So very grateful for your service and you are up, my friend.

Thank you.

Thank you, council president, colleagues.

They haven't just put me on the board, but they've also put me on the system expansion committee and the finance committee.

So I get three meetings for the price of one.

With that, I just, I only raised my hand.

Council member Foster, I love working with you.

You've teed me up to ask the same question that you just asked, but a little bit more pointed.

We are going through our comp plan.

we are changing our neighborhood centers, we are changing our urban centers, and we are changing our zoning.

How is Sound Transit adding these changes to your analysis of our ridership and of our growth and how that connects with the projections that you are presenting us for the difficult decisions that we're making.

I ask you this in such a pointed fashion because I've asked it previously, not received as much information as I was hoping for, and this is going on at the exact same time as you're doing the Enterprise Initiative.

How are you incorporating the real-time changes we are making to land use into your analysis?

And it is okay to say get back to me because I did not prep you for this, but I have not received a satisfactory answer to date and it was just asked by my colleague who was being a little nicer.

So I guess I'll try to answer this in two parts, one of which is the we'll get back to you.

The second part I would say is I would go back again to the reference to the Puget Sound Regional Council.

They're a big data source for our ridership projection model, particularly the land use projections that they incorporate from all jurisdictions of course they can't do that until comprehensive plans are actually updated and then incorporated into their land use and transportation models themselves.

So I think the best we can do certainly is try to have our finger on the pulse of what is being proposed.

Certainly want to leverage our board members who know what that is and then reflect it the best way that we can.

Thank you.

I might, I see Sarah going for her microphone.

I would say leaning on Sarah because by the time that you pull, by the time you have to provide analysis to board members that information will not have made it to PSRC, right?

And so that will not have made it to you.

And so I am here on behalf of my colleagues asking for us to have a little bit different process to intake this information.

Sarah, over to you.

Yeah, I just wanted to add, it's a great question, and I think it really does call out one of the roles that the city team has in this process.

So when we get the draft EIS for Ballard Link Extension, for example, later this year, it's going to have some data likely that is a little bit stale, because as you noted, this is happening in real time.

And so one of the jobs that the city has as a in our partnering agreement is to look at that environmental review and to assess the adequacy of the analysis.

And that's one place in the land use section that we'll be able to look at the recent changes we've put in place and call out in our comments if we think there's any additional data that needs to be considered.

Very well, thank you.

Statement for my colleagues here that I might make so that you might ask Sound Transit some more questions on this should you desire.

I want to talk about the downtown tunnel.

And so there's a really awkward situation going on, which is that North King County sub area is a sound transit definition for the city of Seattle.

So I'm gonna, for the purposes of today, I'm gonna say Seattle and for sound transit friends, that means North King sub area.

So in the Seattle area, we are on the hook for paying for 51% of the second downtown tunnel.

This is after King County taxpayers paid for the first downtown tunnel.

it was given to Sound Transit for a single dollar with a fair amount of deferred maintenance, so Sound Transit, but then again North King County paid for, again Seattle paid for the maintenance and the upgrades to the first downtown tunnel.

So, so far King County built the first one, Seattle refurbished it, and now Seattle is being asked to pay for 51% of a second tunnel.

there was an exercise conducted stating, do we need the second tunnel or not?

What it amounted to was two stub ends.

West Seattle is a stub and Ballard is a stub.

But we could accomplish the goal of getting to West Seattle and to Ballard on time without the second downtown tunnel.

This demonstrates for me that the second downtown tunnel is a regional asset, not a city of Seattle asset.

When I came down here for the Seahawks game, I nearly had to, I traveled to Shoreline to be able to get a seat on Sound Transit.

So I had to travel out of our sub area to be able to use light rail.

The second downtown tunnel is essential for Tacoma and for Everett to not have a single long line.

So, without a second tunnel, you run one single line from Tacoma to Everett and back.

That's not good, it's not ideal, and it demonstrates the need that the second downtown tunnel is a regional asset, not a local asset, and yet, Seattle is being asked to foot the bill for 51%, which is what puts us out of, when you look at the different sub areas, we are way out of line at a budget.

We are way out of being in line with our budget as compared to the other sub areas, because for the third time, we are paying for a downtown tunnel.

This is not directed at staff.

Don't worry team.

I'm sharing this with you all because it is really awkward.

I don't want to stub in from Ballard to Seattle Center but at this point I can't pay for, we can't pay for 51% of the third time we're paying for the tunnel.

and so I just, I raise this with you colleagues because it's a bit awkward and it's, I believe, a relic of the past.

Yeah, I just wanted to bring that up with all of you.

Did I, I guess the question is Sound Transit, did I get anything factually inaccurate?

The only clarification I would offer is the North King sub area does include the city of Shoreline, the city of Lake Forest Park, and some bits of unincorporated King County until the Tukwila and Renton boundaries, but that's it.

So I stayed within my sub area to catch my train just by the skin of my teeth.

Thank you, Councilmember Strauss.

I don't know if there was any follow-up or comment, but from Sound Transit, I'm seeing no.

Okay, awesome.

Okay, understood.

Councilmember Foster, is that a new hand?

It is.

Okay, awesome.

Councilmember Foster.

I just have never been one to pass up an alley-oop.

So I'm going to follow up on Councilmember Strauss's question or statement with a follow-up question.

And one that I think I get to ask as a new member, I can beg a little bit of ignorance here, which is what opportunities.

So Councilmember Strauss laid out this current agreement that has our sub area paying 51%.

Are there other opportunities that Sound Transit is looking at to explore different kinds of cost sharing?

The short answer is yes.

The longer answer is, and to quote our CEO, Dow Constantine, this process really is about everything is on the table.

We have, of course, many more pieces of content for how the work is being performed, all of the different things we're looking at.

In addition to cost savings, it is also about how are costs shared?

What was the basis for that at the time ST3 was adopted by the voters in 2016?

And what do we need now?

How much more do we know about what is required to operate the system?

having lived 10 years and expanded the system greatly in that period.

So again, short answer is yes.

That will be part of our process in developing scenarios.

And I would say that the topic that board member and Councilmember Strauss flagged will be, I think, a object of a lot of discussion among the Sound Transit Board.

Thank you.

Looking forward to it.

Thank you, Council President.

That was a great alley-oop and that was a great windmill dunk.

Okay, and then here's back to the alley-oop.

Councilmember Strauss.

Sorry, I forgot taking it one step further, which is that the sound transit policies have divided the downtown tunnel into from Chinatown International District to Denny Way.

they have understood within their policies that from Denny Way to the tunnel portal on Elliott serving the Seattle Center as not being a regional asset.

I have made the statements time and time again that you can't split the Tacoma and Everett lines without that section.

So it doesn't make good sense to me to divide the tunnel in that way.

And then a second point being that the statement that from Denny to Seattle Center is not a regional asset then says to me, so if you're coming from Tacoma, you're never going to the Space Needle?

if you're coming from Everett, you're never going to the theater or the armory, you're never going to a cracking game, you're never going to the opera, the ballet, you're never going to Dick's walk-in restaurant, the only walk-in there is.

I say this in a joking manner, but I'm dead serious, that the policies need to be updated because The regional connectivity and the regional asset absolutely extends to the Seattle Center and back to the bad scenario planning that gets us to West Seattle and Ballard on time.

We can still do those two spur routes without the second downtown tunnel and the region can connect us to Seattle Center via the monorail.

if that's again, I'm not looking at staff for answers right now, but I'm just for colleagues.

I wanted to bring you up to speed with where we've been at with, with where we have been at with sound transit regarding the second downtown tunnel and the fact that the Seattle center is absolutely a regional asset.

Thank you, council president.

Did I get anything wrong sound transit?

Nope.

All right.

Thank you.

All right, awesome.

Thank you, Council Member Strauss.

Is there any comments following up about how important the Seattle Center is to sound transit?

Come on.

I'm throwing you the easiest alley-oop in the world.

Okay.

Thank you.

So we heard from Council Members, we heard about how important it is for the CID, also for that to be named, cost sharing from Council Member Strauss and Council Member Foster, regional connectivity, and then how important the Seattle Center is. and understanding that piece.

We heard it from everyone.

Thank you all.

And thank you, Sound Transit.

We look forward to you all coming back and updating us some more.

But until then, we have Council Member Strauss who has been keeping us abreast of everything.

So thank you.

Or Board Member Strauss, your board, our Council Member.

Thank you.

Next we have the signing of proclamations and we actually have none.

So there are no letters today for proclamation.

Now we're gonna be in our next discussion of the preview of city council actions and council and regional committees.

This is gonna go in the order of discussion with members sitting on my left.

So I am gonna start with, I know we usually do roll call, but we're just gonna make it easy.

So we'll go council member Strauss followed by council member Juarez and then council member Foster, council member Rink, council member Kettle.

Awesome.

Council Member Strauss, you are recognized.

Thank you, Council President.

The Finance Native Communities and Tribal Governments Committee has, sorry, that's the title.

Our committee will meet on Tuesday, March 3rd at 9.30 a.m.

Colleagues, you may have heard that Sound Transit has stolen yet another one of our amazing employees from the Seattle City Council.

Megan Bartol will be graduating to Sound Transit and the third will be her last day.

Nice work, Sound Transit.

in the Finance Native Communities and Tribal Governments Committee on March 3rd, we will have a briefing on levy capacity.

You may have, back to Seattle Center, you may have heard we are near the levy capacity, the legally allowed levy capacity.

So we're gonna have CBO, we're going to have Office of City Finance and Seattle City Council Central staff presenting.

We may also have a presentation on the six year look back budget document that central staff has already completed for us.

Thank you all for having that completed so quickly.

For full council, the Finance Native Communities and Tribal Governments Committee has one appointment coming to full council for final vote tomorrow.

That is the appointment of Ali Panucci as Director of the City Budget Office for a term to December 31st, 2029. I also wanna thank Council President Emeritus Juarez for inviting me to the Congress.

of the National Congress of American Indians.

It was an amazing opportunity to get to learn from so many and meet so many people.

I was then also able to meet with the elected leadership of the Upper Skagit, Swinomish, and Sauk-Sweattle tribes later that week and then visit with the Sauk-Sweattle tribe at their reservation on that Friday.

So we've had a lot of time in the Native communities.

Moving on to Sound Transit, the board of directors will meet this Thursday.

We are purchasing a few pieces of property for the West Seattle project.

Colleagues, I wanna update you that I don't find Sound Transit's policies regarding properties that they own to be sufficient.

In the past, they would purchase properties and almost immediately go into construction.

We are now at a place where we are purchasing properties.

There's a time that lapses and then we go into construction.

They are updating these policies but I just note for you we have a house that Sound Transit owns in West Seattle that is currently boarded up and if Council Member Sacco was here, I would say, I want to know if that house is becoming a problem because the last thing Sound Transit should be doing is owning properties that then do not increase the vibrancy of the neighborhood.

And we have a lot of people who are experiencing homelessness and people need homes.

With that, we will also be passing a motion directing the chief executive officer to identify investments in the ST3 plan, including much of what you just saw, as well as the sustainability plan.

And I believe that we've also got a motion regarding access buses in South King County.

Back to District 6, I'll be hosting district office hours at my district office in Ballard, I believe this Wednesday.

I hold office hours almost every week, one-on-one with folks.

I had office hours last week, as well as I had office hours this last Sunday.

It was a great way to spend my Sunday.

In fact, I kid you not because it's an amazing, this is where I get a whole lot of my ideas of what we should be doing in my district, in our district, in our city because people from the district come directly to me.

Colleagues, that's my report.

Seeing no questions, I'm going to pass it over to the Council President Emeritus Juarez.

I like that title, thank you.

May I go, Madam President?

Absolutely.

Thank you.

Before I launch into the five or six pages of what I have to tell you what I did last week and this week and what I'll do next week, let me just start with this.

Sorry about this, Councilmember Strauss.

On Wednesday, we will be welcoming our four gold medalists from the professional women's hockey team at the Space Needle, and we'll be meeting with and seeing, hopefully, Team USA Captain Hilary Knight, who tipped in the tying goal to send the gold medal game to overtime Alternate Captain Alex Carpenter, leading gold scorer and first-time Olympian Hannah Bilka and Kayla Barnes, open scoring the USA's 5-0 semi-final win over Sweden Yes, I need a career in broadcasting.

If somebody would just let me do that, I just, God, I would be so good.

Anyway, and then on March 9th, we're gonna meet with the leadership of the Torrent to learn more about the organization and discuss tribal relations as well as other discussions regarding the same kind of discussions we had with the Kraken.

You know, when you come to here, the NHL, how do you build a base?

How do you get young kids in?

And to the Kraken's credit, they worked with us in Rewa, making sure every Wednesday, four buses from all the pre-K schools in Seattle get to go to the Kraken community iceplex and lace up and learn how to skate.

And that was just so cool, seeing all these kids where English is their second language.

and watching these parents who've never even seen ice, it was just amazing.

And I used to go up there and help lace up boots and then I quit doing it because I was on the ice and I almost hurt a child.

But other than that, if you could ever go there on a Wednesday with our friend Susan Lee at REWA, you should go.

Councilman Morales came one time.

Councilman Ragshaw came one time.

So it's just really cool to see that.

Anyway.

Let me get through here quickly what I'm going to be doing.

So Parks and City Light Committee, our next meeting is scheduled for March 4th.

On the agenda is Seattle City Light 2026 distribution easement and actually two easements, routine legislation.

And then four appointments to the Joint Apprenticeship Training Committee, which is always a big deal for us.

I always like working with these apprenticeship programs.

One time we cited one at North Seattle College and it worked out great with the ironworkers.

Last week we met with Beth Knox, CEO and President of the Seattle Sports Commission.

If you remember, Seattle Sports Commission used to be a part of Visit Seattle and then they broke off in 2020. So we wanted to sit down with Beth and say, okay, not just what we're doing for our city and our youth, but also how are we incorporating Indian country, women, sports, and giving that kind of like, you know, what is the legacy?

Who are you guys doing?

How are you being funded?

How can we work closer with the city of Seattle?

and what we learned is of course, you know, there are 12 member board and their executive board, their advisory board, and they're over 150 commissioners.

And like I said, we talked about women's sports, tribal relations, city funding, support through, and of course, FIFA.

That's like, that's gonna be a big deal.

and of course we're trying to have a signature event for Native American high school or kids for men and women so they can have scouting opportunities in baseball or some sport deemed important because we don't get a lot of that.

We also met with Christian, our good friend Christian, Christian Halliburton, Deputy General Counsel and Senior Director of Government and External Affairs with the Mariners.

And that was a great, I've known Christian from his days at Seattle U. And we discussed again, you know, Indian Country tribal relations, City of Seattle, signature events, working with, we were working with Omari Salisbury at Converge, the HBCU series, the Baseball Beyond Borders, community engagement, which goes beyond just handing out free tickets.

How can you be good civic partners and include our people all the way around?

Then just last week, which is great, because I've been around this block a few times, we met with the Native American Bank, Ed Davis, market president, Craig Little, chief lending officer, Ana Valencia from Tulalip, and Laila Rodriguez, who came from Denver to meet with us.

The Native American Bank was established in 2001 by 20 tribal nations and is a self-sustaining community development financial institution, which basically means they're a CDFI and they can give money to low-income or marginalized communities, small businesses, kind of like WIMBY.

But it's a great opportunity for folks to, if they want to start a business capital, see capital.

The Native American Bank will hopefully be presenting at our committee for about an hour about how their small businesses and how what they're doing can support small businesses in the City of Seattle.

Our office attended our City, Our Safety meeting for North Seattle at the Aloya Heights Community Center with SPD Chief Barnes, City Attorney Evans, North Precinct Captain Davids, and Department of Neighborhoods.

And again, the community of conversation, I know that it's happening across the city.

City leaders are coming to the community to hear directly from community and then reporting back to community in quarter three about how the city has directly addressed, raised these issues.

And as you know, public safety is a big one.

We wanna thank all the people that showed up from D5 and D6 who attended this meeting and their concerns.

And we've already started working on a number of these issues with SPD in the city attorney's office.

and then I want to give a big shout-out about what happened at National Congress of American Indians.

Councilmember Strauss, thank you so much.

You're the very first person since I've been on Council and have been around for nine or ten years that's ever came with me to Washington, D.C.

to meet with well over 500 tribes, lobbyists, lawyers.

It's an amazing event.

And then our own local, Estor del Cerro, Navajo, CEO of the Seattle Indian Health Board was recognized by the National Association of Community Health Centers in D.C.

on February 11th and received the Outstanding Achievement Award.

Now this is a big deal.

This organization has been around since 1979 and a Native American person has never ever won it.

and they are also at our luncheon.

To be recognized, Seattle, Seattle Indian Health Board doing great things beyond just Indian Country and not just taking care of our relatives, but our relatives' brothers, sisters, and friends and family.

And as you know, Seattle Indian Health Board has been around since 1970 it operates three health centers and when I was well the last time I was on council we got our second clinic open at Lake City in the McDermott House with North Helpline and that now with Fred Meyer being gone now having the clinic there and a pharmacy it is I just met with Esther again everyone is now coming to the clinic and using our pharmacy now that you know because when Fred Meyer left they really hurt our community up there Anyway, we will be posting Esther Lucero's speech in our newsletter, and I know that when we met at Board of Health, Council Member, Board Member Foster, and Board Member, why am I looking right, Alexis Mercedes, Rank, I know you're gonna put it in your newsletter too, and I heard the speech, it's pretty powerful, it's very, I don't think people understand what a big award it was.

Anyway, getting back to, going back to National Congress, Councilmember Strauss came, we also met with our lobbyist Leslie Polner, and that was important not only just in the national issues but what we're looking at and how we can get more, be more targeted and what we can do under this administration if we can do anything.

how we can do and meet with certain representatives.

We already had met with Senator Murray and Senator Cantwell again did the keynote at our Honoring Native American Honoring Women's Luncheon which has been going on for 30 years and yours truly has been at 23 of them.

I helped MC that with my sister and friend who is a council member on the Tulalip Tribal Council to Deborah Shelton.

So as I shared, Senator Maria Cantwell was our keynote, as well as Lieutenant Governor Peggy Flanagan, good friend of ours out of Minnesota, and that was wonderful and inspiring to hear her speak about what they're doing in their city to protect their people.

obviously with ICE and everything else that's going on.

And with that, I think we did a couple more honorings and I'm hoping that when I'm gone that Council Member Strauss and some of you others will take up the baton and go to National Congress of American Indians because anyone who's anyone in Indian country Tribal leaders from everywhere are there, and this is the time to sit in and basically hear what's going on.

And again, all of these issues that we deal with, public safety, ICE, housing, addiction, you name it, As you all know, they don't end at any city limit or jurisdiction.

And we get great ideas from Indian Country about what we can use and implant here in the city of Seattle.

But to see the representation from the Pacific Northwest, because for years the Northwest dominated the presidency.

Our friends from Jamestown, McCaw, Laura Elwha, they're all on the executive board.

And so we actually have a wonderful deep bench at National Congress of American Indians.

And so I'm hoping next year I'll see you guys there.

If not, I will be there and I'll get you a t-shirt, I promise.

So thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Juarez.

Council Member Foster.

Thank you so much, Council President.

Oh, there we go.

Okay, I realize we haven't done updates in a while because last Monday was a holiday.

So yeah, it was really wonderful on the Board of Health to get to to hear a little bit from Council Member Juarez and honor Board Member Lucero for the award that she received.

That was really fantastic and an incredible speech.

In that same Board of Health meeting, we also adopted a resolution calling on the Washington State Legislature to fully fund foundational public health services.

It was a really important resolution, and in that same meeting, we heard directly from some community providers about the importance of those public health dollars because they fund data that then goes to their advocacy.

And one of those groups really highlighted how important that was for their work around advocating for changes in state policy regarding black maternal health outcomes.

and so I just really wanted to lift this up as, you know, that funding, when we're in this moment of so many budget cuts here and budget cuts there, it can be really important, it is really important for us to be closely tracking the meaning and the impact of those dollars.

So I wanna just uplift that, colleagues, in terms of our support for that, those resources going to foundational public health.

Next, I want to share some meetings that I've had with some housing providers.

I was this morning at Plymouth.

Last week I was with the Bellwether and just connecting one-on-one with their CEOs.

I know colleagues we've been reading a lot and seeing the impacts in our affordable housing sector across the board.

And so those conversations are ongoing with providers to understand what's happening, not just in their buildings, not just with their relationship with the city, but also their relationship with the federal government.

And beyond that, really, beginning to question our existing infrastructure and how we have set up our funding to our affordable housing providers.

As folks know operational dollars are a rarity in that space and relatively new with the investments, the larger investments the city has been making to stabilizing providers.

So those meetings are ongoing.

Our housing meeting is canceled this week, but I'm continuing to meet with those providers and look forward to ongoing conversations to make sure that they have the support that they need to continue to provide the critical services that we need them to provide.

On an exciting note, I got to tour a space in Pioneer Square that will soon be known as the Nebula Art Space.

It is just really fantastic and such a cool vision that these artists and small business owners have for bringing a creative project into Pioneer Square.

They're working on putting together their financing for it.

but I have to tell you I got to walk around and see all of these hidden rooms and got lost in there a few times and I'm really looking forward to seeing the vision that they are working to bring forward and also frankly the employment opportunities that exist in the arts sector when investments like this come to fruition.

So big shout out to the folks over there who are working on that.

I also walked the Pike Pine, actually I didn't walk, we were going to do a walk in the Pike Pine corridor but it ended up being a meeting with a small business owner to talk about their concerns and then I walked Belltown with some community members as well.

Last Friday I got to meet with the folks over at Rainier Rising which includes a coalition of Southeast Seattle schools, leadership from the University of Washington School of Education, and I just want to lift this up as we go into the season where we will be working on the FEP implementation plan, how important it is that we're having these conversations with our educational advocates and organizers about their needs and the needs of their young people.

They are holding some community listening sessions right now in addition to the work that our own Department of Education and Early Learning is doing and I think that will be an important source of information when it comes to approving that implementation plan.

Lastly, well, two more.

I wanted to say I got a great visit with the Seattle Somali Community Services down in Rainier Beach with the work they are doing to connect seniors and youth with services.

And then just this last weekend, I got to attend a convening of the Washington State Coalition of African Leaders on Saturday.

And not only was I well-fed and got to support on the panel but we got to hear, again, directly from young people about their experiences navigating mental health, navigating education, and I'm really looking forward to bringing what I've heard from those folks into our policy process with FAP implementation.

That's what I got.

Awesome.

Thank you, Councilmember Foster.

You were busy.

We were doing it.

Yeah, right?

You out here, which is great.

We are out here in the community.

Thank you, Councilmember Foster.

Councilmember Rank.

Thank you Council President and thank you committee members for participating in our meeting last week on Friday where we had a series of presentations hearing directly from the Human Services Department.

We also had our colleagues from King County Department of Community and Human Services as well as a panel of human services providers coming to talk about wage equity.

It was a robust discussion, a lot was identified and unearthed and I want to thank committee members for their participation, and we also voted out the Westlake Resolution as well.

So excited that we can make some progress on that.

The next meeting of the Human Services Labor and Economic Development Committee will take place on Friday, March 6th.

And colleagues, I want to remind you all that the first meeting of the Select Committee on Federal Administration and Policy Changes will be on March 5th.

and so we are finalizing that agenda, but certainly what you can expect on that agenda will be discussion on the SLI for the Seattle Police Department that we approved in the budget process.

So really excited to have that open discussion on the SLI response.

and actually in the interest of time today, I'm gonna be holding the rest of my updates and encourage folks to check out our social media and newsletter.

We will be getting a newsletter out this week that will include updates on our work as well as resources.

Thank you, Council President.

Awesome.

Thank you, Council Member Rink.

I believe there's a question.

Council Member Strauss.

Just more of a statement.

Council Member Rink, looking forward to the federal policy committee.

It has been scheduled over my office hours, and so I'm not sure I'll be able to attend.

Just making the note on the record today.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member.

Sorry about that.

Thank you, Council Member Strauss.

Thank you, Council Member Rink.

Council Member Kettle.

Thank you, Council President.

Really quickly to the Councilmember Ring's point about time.

Public Safety Committee, tomorrow morning.

Three items up.

First is our professionalism and standards resolution.

That'll be agenda item number one.

Number two is our staging bill.

These first two relate to federal law enforcement and all the issues related to law enforcement more generally.

and then third is alternative response.

In the past we've had our three chiefs give individual, you know, based on their departments, but this one is a meeting of the three chiefs, but focus on alternative response.

So obviously police, fire, and of course our care department.

This week, meeting with lots of individuals, or different meetings.

Met with City Attorney Evans earlier today.

Important discussion, again, highlighting, as we talked about earlier, the toxicology bill down in Olympia.

That's so important.

Wednesday, meeting with our new Metro Chamber head, Joan McGuinn, formerly serving in Olympia himself.

Also, having a tour with DSC, the Star Center, ORCA, on Thursday.

plus there's the Nisqually earthquake anniversary event here at Bertha Knightlandis on Thursday early evening because we're at the 25th anniversary of the Nisqually earthquake and of course from emergency preparedness very important that we be ready for whatever comes next.

and then on Friday meeting with AGC, but also Amazon on the question of veterans.

You know, Amazon does a lot of work for a lot of different groups to include veterans, so checking in on that.

Next week, I have meeting at the beginning on Monday with Coalition for Rights and Safety and also the Seattle LGBTQ Plus Commission.

That will be on Monday.

I got meetings on 3rd and Pike on Tuesday, Public Safety Walk and Beacon Hill on Friday.

And I just want to note, too, last week had a very good meeting with Community Passageways on last Wednesday, very important, particularly as we face the gun violence that's impacted our schools, and also Seattle Neighborhood Greenways.

A lot's going on related to our pedestrians, our bicyclists, and all of the above.

Lime on Thursday, plus the Seattle Social Housing developer on Friday.

But I want to close on two things.

One is really quick, is yesterday I had the honor of representing the mayor and giving her proclamation on the day of Ukraine solidarity.

I read her proclamation at Seattle Center, and then I gave my remarks where I kind of paralleled what we're seeing today with Ukraine and the Russian Empire with what we had, given this is our 250th, and keeping in the spirit of 1776 and the British Empire.

There are parallels and there's definitely lessons learned and you know one of them is that we have to stand tall and that is for today and the last thing I just wanted to say I've had a somebody join my office since my chief of staff was on parental leave and and this week is her last week, so I just want to say thank you to Sarah Hanneman, who's been providing outstanding support related to policy over the period of time that my chief of staff was out, again as the new dad, and I just want to thank her for all the work that she's done for my office and the district and the City of Seattle.

So thank you, Sarah.

Oh, thank you, Councilor.

Hopefully I haven't embarrassed her.

Thank you, Councilman Burkettle.

Thank you, Sarah.

Sarah's sister is also a great chef.

And when I was doing a food access video, Sarah's sister was the one preparing the food to make me look really good.

So I didn't burn down the kitchen.

So great family.

And just thank you, Sarah, for all your hard work and to your sister, who's a great chef as well.

Colleagues, I have one item that I'm gonna talk about, the governance and utilities meeting.

The next meeting will be 3-12, so that is March the 12th, that is a Thursday.

At 9.30 a.m., we have on the agenda Comcast, the Comcast renewal.

We had our first meeting last, committee meeting.

This is another meeting that we're gonna have.

We have the update about it.

It's really important as we are looking at ways in which we're trying to diversify different type of revenue sources and the Comcast renewal piece is really important.

And we're still adjusting and adding more things to the agenda.

and if you want to see more about what we're doing I am constantly on social media updating people and in my newsletter as well so you can see a video about what is going on and also in my newsletters about what we're doing or if you want to stop me in the grocery store like you regularly do and want to talk to me about your issues I am available at the self-checkout line so thank you.

Other than that, colleagues, I don't have any other further comments.

Are there any other items to come before the council?

The earthquake thing.

Thursday.

The earthquake thing.

Council Member Strauss, I see you grabbing your microphone.

Thank you.

Clarifying.

I think the question is, why are we celebrating?

My answer was because we survived.

That's a great...

Is that what we're doing?

You're two for two today, Council Member Shrouse.

Thank you, and the Nisqually earthquake happened at 1054 a.m.

All the good of the order that I have for you, I suggest we move to executive session before this gets on.

Thank you, Councilmember Strauss.

Okay, so if there's no further business, hearing no further business, we're going to now move to the executive session.

As presiding officer, I am announcing the Seattle City Council will now convene into executive session.

The purpose of the executive session is to discuss pending potential or actual litigation.

The council's executive session is an opportunity for the council to discuss confidential legal matters with our city attorney as authorized by law.

A legal monitor from the city attorney's office is always present to ensure the council reserves questions for the policy for an open session.

I expect the time of the executive session to end today at 5 p.m.

It says 530, but we'll say 5 p.m.

If the executive session is to be extended at that time, I will announce the extension and the expected duration.

At the conclusion of this executive session, this council briefing meeting will automatically adjourn.

The next council briefing will be on March the 2nd, 2026 at 2 PM.

The council is now an executive session.

Thank you.