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www.fema.org

Good afternoon, everyone.

The February 24th, 2026 meeting of the Seattle City Council will come to order.

It is 2 0 1 p.m.

I am Joy Hollingsworth, your council president.

Will the clerk please call the roll?

Councilmember Strauss.

Councilmember Foster.

Councilmember Juarez.

Councilmember Kettle.

Councilmember Lin.

Councilmember Rink.

Present.

Councilmember Rivera.

Present.

Councilmember Sacca.

Here.

Council President Hollingsworth.

Here.

Nine present.

Awesome.

Colleagues, at this time, we're going to open the hybrid public comment period.

Public comment is limited to items on today's agenda or the introduction and referral calendar or the council's work program.

Clerk, how many speakers do we have signed up today?

And you saw how I said that slowly to give you enough time to walk to get the speakers.

via 16 in person and four remote.

Awesome.

So that's 16 plus four.

If my math is correct, that's 20 and that is under 30 speakers.

So we're going to give two minutes per speaker because it's under 30. So two minutes per speaker.

Clerk, will you please read the rules to the public comment period?

Speakers will be called in the order in which they are registered.

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

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

Awesome.

So I'm going to call everyone up by threes and we'll go from there.

So we have Nathan followed by Harsaman, thank you.

You saw me struggling, thank you.

Nathan Harsaman followed by Charlotte, Gabriel and Bennett.

Those are the first five.

I said three, but I'm gonna say five.

Nathan Harsaman, Charlotte, Gabriel and Bennett.

So Nathan Fletcher.

Come on down, welcome.

It's good to see you.

Good afternoon, Council.

I'm Nathan.

I am a member of Local 77. I'm here to talk about Don Lindell's untimely firing.

I just want to bring it back to the forefront of the conversation and reiterate that we're kind of frustrated with the lack of transparency with the whole process.

She was found through a nationwide competitive process.

She did a fantastic job leading the utility.

She had a great strategic plan going forward.

did a lot of good work in creating a new culture after some issues that we've had.

And I just request that you continue to do the work you are and hopefully we can remedy this with at least more transparency, figuring out was the process followed correctly and where we can go from there.

So thank you for your time.

Appreciate it.

Thank you, Nathan.

Next we have Harstamon followed by Charlotte, Gabriel and Bennett.

Welcome.

Good afternoon.

My name is Hirsten Marin Davis.

I am a cable splicer crew chief working for Seattle City Light.

I'm also a Local 77 steward.

I'm here to speak on the same issue that Nathan just spoke on regarding our former CEO, Dawn Lindell.

Speaking to her leadership, we have not seen that kind of leadership at Seattle City Light in a long time, at least not in my tenure here, and from Nathan's words, not from his tenure there either.

looking for more transparency on how that process was accomplished to come to this decision.

Also want to speak to Dawn's credentials, what she brought to the table.

It was thoroughly vetted by your body to hire her in the first place.

There's a reason for that.

In the two years that she spent at Seattle City Light, we moved forward on that strategic plan.

We're able to build that strategic plan and actually have it reflect what your subject matter experts, your employees, are seeing in the field.

It addressed our legacy equipment.

It's great that we want to say that we want to give reliable power to all of our ratepayers.

That has always been our goal, always continues to be our goal.

But it has budgetary restrictions, right?

The stuff's not cheap.

And the plan that she put forward was the first one that seemed sensible to all of us in the field, given the equipment that we are working on, trying to maintain, trying to keep functional.

for all of our residents, for all of our ratepayers.

That goes from substation transformers to below-grade transformers, pull-top transformers, that goes to wire, that goes to cable, that goes to even the equipment we use to do the work, being able to go out into the field and even set up our job sites.

A lot of that stuff's real old, and it makes it really hard for us to keep that power flowing.

And she had a plan for that.

She built that structure to include that.

So I just wanted to speak to her leadership and ask for that more transparency and hopefully we can get her back.

Awesome, thank you so much.

Next we have Charlotte followed by Gabriel and then Bennett.

Welcome Charlotte.

Thank you, Madam President, members of the council.

My name is Charlotte Philippe.

I'm a resident of district three.

I have some updated numbers for you to digest today.

482, 55, 32, 54, 31, 252, 81.41, 62.8, 2897, 2096, 439, 235. 400 days ago today, the President took office.

82 days ago today, the President launched Operation Metro Surge.

55 days ago, Keith Porter was murdered.

48 days ago, Renee Good was murdered.

And 31 days ago, Alex Preddy was murdered.

I am here yet again to urge you to continue to take meaningful action to safeguard our neighbors against the unlawful actions taken by the federal administration.

This includes passage of Council Member Rinks' Council Bill 121-165.

This weekend, AOC endorsed the methods employed by Council Member Rinks' bill as a way to stop ICE's encroachment into our communities by way of local zoning laws.

Last election, council member Rink received 81.41% of the vote and her two campaigns received the top two raw vote totals for a campaign in Seattle history.

Council member Foster, 62.8.

In 2023, council member Saka won by 2,897 votes.

Council President Hollingsworth, 2,096.

Council member Kettle, 439. Council member Rivera, 235. I urge you to get behind the bill by Seattle's most popular council member in history.

It is 252 days until the general election.

And if you don't, we will remember.

Thank you.

Thank you, Charlotte.

Next we have Gabriel Diaz followed by Bennett.

Then we have Ms. Donita followed by Peter Manning and Mike Asai.

Hello, Gabriel.

Welcome.

It's good to see you.

Good to see you as well.

And just as a minor correction, my last name is pronounced Diaz, which is a different song than Diaz.

Yeah, Diaz.

My bad, Diaz.

I got you.

Different culture, I was trying to be careful with that.

But yeah, hey folks, my name is Gabriel Diaz, and I am here to speak today again on the Kyle Anderson protests.

Now, I said as I learned more, I'd come to council and share what I've learned.

So here I am.

I luckily this week found the officer that pushed officers away and jumped off his feet to tackle me and punched me in the head after I'd committed no crime.

This officer, due to his tattoos, was found to be Officer Caleb Howard.

Now, Officer Caleb Howard is, unsurprisingly, on the Brady List.

While I can't speak to why he's on the Brady List, as I don't want to pay the money to buy those documents, if I had to guess, it was because he was charged with assaulting the son of a fellow officer at an off-duty barbecue.

He challenged this officer's son to a jiu-jitsu match, at which he admits he blacked out and ended up pushing this kid's face into the concrete and punching him in the head and strangled him so hard he could not speak or even utter a sound.

Why is this officer on the force?

If he blocks out and assaults people like this, why is he on CRG?

Why is someone who just blocks out and just starts assaulting people on the police force?

Outside of that, we also got to read some of the arrest reports.

And what stuck out to me was that a lot of people were let go.

Why?

Because they had no idea why they were arrested.

The officers were not able to articulate a single reason they were arrested.

So multiple people who showed up that day were then turned away because they had no cause for arrest.

They were just told, ah, well, we don't know why you're arrested.

Have a good day, I guess.

Why does this happen?

Why do we consistently let SPD get away with this stuff?

So once again, I'm going to reiterate the demands that many people who are affected today have made.

We need to fire these officers, including Officer Caleb Howard, Officer Larry Longley, and Officer Matthew Didier, and we need a really serious review of the process, because even the investigative process has run so many issues.

We need some massive changes, and if we want to see more civilians who are able to make it home at night, we need to overhaul SPD.

Thank you.

Thank you, Gabriel.

Next we have Bennett, followed by Ms. Donnie Sinclair, Peter Manning, Mike Asai, Jason, and then Gwendolyn.

Welcome, Bennett.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, counsel.

So you may have heard about the controversy in the news yesterday regarding possible fraud in the pro and con registrations for Senate Bill 6346, the so-called millionaire's tax in Olympia.

and while this is a state Senate bill, it certainly affects the future of Seattle, so I think it's within scope to bring it up here.

As you may know, any member of the public can go to a website and register their name and register pro or con.

On that same webpage, there's a little green button you can actually click to download an Excel file with all of the registrations that people have cast so far, either pro or con.

After yesterday's article came out, I went on the website and did that, and in just a couple minutes you can use some basic Excel functions to sort the responses into pro and con, and then also you can apply a function to count the number of unique names among the names of the people who have registered pro and con.

Just a little work.

The data that I got was on the con side, it was about 110,000 names registered against.

Of those, about 91,000 were unique names, so about 17% duplicates.

On the pro side, about 10,000 people registered pro.

Of those, about 9,000 unique names, so about 10% duplicates.

Why is that important?

Because duplicate names are not in and of themselves evidence of malfeasance.

You could try to submit the form, and then you're not sure if it's submitted and submitted again, and that could be counted twice.

That's not legit, but it's not really intentional cheating.

Or two people could actually have the same name.

But when you have this big of a statistical difference in the number of duplicates in one set versus another for a sample this large, Statistically, the chances of that arising naturally are virtually zero, and it's virtually guaranteed.

That means that one side was committing some sort of malfeasance far disproportionately than the other.

So that's something I found yesterday.

Just wanted to present that.

Thank you.

Awesome.

Thank you, Bennett.

Next, we have Ms. Donita Sinclair, followed by Peter Manning, Micah Sy, Jason, and Gwendolyn.

Welcome, Ms. Donita.

Thank you.

How are you doing?

So my name is Donita Sinclair.

I'm the mother of Horst Lorenzo Anderson.

My son was murdered in CHOP.

I am the founder of We Got Us Moms and the president of Echoes Are Our Children.

So I'm here today to talk about public safety.

I know you guys have seen me before and hopefully what I said resonated and you guys took it back home about public action.

The other day we just seen Excuse me.

Last week, sorry, a couple weeks ago, we seen two children be murdered in Rainier Beach area.

I seen nothing being done.

No action plan, right?

No safety measures.

We seen cameras being exposed but not being used.

We want to know what are you guys going to do to keep our community safe?

We see all this talk and no actions behind it.

I don't know who's over public safety.

I heard it was you, Mr. Robert, but I would like to know when are men you going to have a sit down?

Okay?

Thank you.

Ms. Joy, I want to thank you for everything you're trying to do, but we need all you guys to stand...

Public safety is all of you guys' accountability.

All of us owe each other this for our community to stay safe.

We're tired of being sit-in.

We're invited at meetings with the mayor, looking like we're just a standby.

No, we want actions.

What action?

To me, it don't seem like nobody knows exactly what to do.

when it comes to gun violence and public safety.

We could talk about immigration and LGBTQ, but black people are being left out.

We're actually pretty much on the vanish, vanish Seattle.

That's their new name for us African Americans.

And we're tired of it.

So it's more than just picking up papers, more than just giving out gift cards, it's more than just resources.

What action are we gonna do before we fill these cemeteries up with our children?

I got, I guess, 24 more minutes to say, and I'm sorry to say this like this, but I really, really need a real action plan from you guys.

The last thing, I just seen Seattle Police being, I guess he was detained on Aurora for prostitution.

What reflection?

That's on you guys' hands.

That is a bad reflection of our community.

The police is not supposed to be in no prostitution sting.

So hold these people accountable.

And it's not at the table.

Thank you, Ms. Donita.

Next we have Peter Manning, followed by Mike Asai, Jason, and then Gwendolyn.

Welcome here.

Good afternoon, everybody.

You know, this might go in and out, but hey, this is...

The atmosphere here is really good.

I don't know if it's because of the changing of the city council president.

I'm not sure what the, but the ambience is real good.

I hope the energy continues this way.

I'm up here to speak of public safety.

Of course, we do have other issues about black business owners.

And I think there's a huge disconnect with this new thing, because everybody's kind of clumped into this African-American narrative.

That's why I use descendant of slaves, because there's a big distinction on people of color that have been dealing with white racism since they've been here and since there is an exception in this country.

So there's a difference there.

So I want to keep that out there.

I do want to talk about cameras in the neighborhoods that I live in, which is the south end of Seattle, as well as CDE and certain parts of West Seattle.

I'm most definitely up for cameras.

And the reason why?

Because we don't have enough police presence.

It went from 20-year-old and 30-year-olds killing each other to now I have kids in elementary school packing guns, killing each other.

See, if this was If this situation was taking place in Whiteville, the situation would be dealt with differently.

And I don't know what it's going to take.

Usually when black people tell you that they need something and we have to appeal to white people for it, It takes a long time until we tear up some shit.

We start tearing up.

We start protesting.

Then that's when you want to take accountability.

You want to take notice.

That shit's got to stop, because what we're going to do is you have people like myself and other leaders that are willing to shift that.

And we're tired of talking.

We're just talking about these issues constantly, and nobody's paying attention.

We know how to shift everything, but we're trying to work it out with you.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Manning.

Next, we have Mike Asai, followed by Jason and then Gwendolyn.

Welcome, Mr. Asai.

Thank you, President Hollingsworth.

Councilmembers, my name is Mike Asai with Shaka's Kids.

Ms. Foster, I want to welcome you.

I didn't get a chance to welcome you last time because you weren't here physically, but you're here.

So I want to thank you and welcome you.

I echo everything that Danita said and Peter said.

You know, we need some type of surveillance.

We need some type of protection in our communities.

We don't want to go back to the 90s.

We don't want to go back to the baby blue SPD, if everybody knows what that means, because they were a terror on the black community in the 90s.

I've seen change.

But the defund the police movement was just a wrong movement, because now we don't have any police.

We don't have any protection in our communities.

We need to do something.

And if that is CCTV to follow someone that's committed a crime, then we need something.

We need something.

The City Council, I would recommend, talk with Seattle School District.

We need a police officer back at the school district, someone that is a person of color, whether they're black, Asian, and even preferably someone from the community that's an SPD officer.

But we need something.

The kids are asking for it.

the black community is asking for it.

And so I just want to voice my opinion on that.

I don't want to take too much of your time.

But I will be reaching out to you, Ms. Rink, to talk about other issues.

I want to thank you for your legislation on no more ICE facilities in the city of Seattle.

Kettle, I know you're working hard to get the city downtown.

You know, I have some ideas that I think would be some good ideas to get the city cleaned up.

The first thing was we need tough love and we just need not any more placation.

We got to just do it and get the work done.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Sy.

Next, we have Jason followed by Gwendolyn.

Welcome, Jason.

My name is Jason Thiel.

I'm a member of Labor Militant and an organizer with Movement for Shama and a renter here in Seattle.

ICE has been terrorizing our communities for months.

They've murdered multiple people around the country.

We've seen protests, mass protests.

We've seen hundreds of thousands of people protesting around the country and in Minneapolis.

We've had over a month of public comment on this, and back a year ago when the surveillance camera bill was up, we had public comment on that.

Katie Wilson was here last week.

Publicly, she's gone back on her campaign promise to get rid of the flock surveillance cameras.

She gave a short speech last week at the council meeting of empty platitudes.

She said she would stop the sweeps, but has completely reversed on that position.

The progressive Democrats, I mean, have completely failed working people.

Mamdani endorsed Hakeem Jeffries, endorsed Kathy Hochul.

He's defunding libraries.

He's reappointed a Zionist police chief.

Katie Wilson calls herself a socialist.

Rink has introduced this bill to stop building detention centers here in Seattle, which is needed.

But it doesn't go far enough.

Mamdani and Wilson, they call themselves socialists, but they're no different than Bruce Harrell or Jenny Durkan.

The city council is exactly the same, all Democrats.

The Democratic Party is fundamentally a party of the capitalists.

They could have done any number of things to fight back against ICE in the last two months with over a month of public comments, could have funded municipal IDs for working people, for immigrants to access city services.

This is exactly why we need more than just halting detention center construction.

We need a new party.

We need to elect independent politicians, elect people like Shama Sawant, who is running against a pro-ICE Democrat, Adam Smith.

And we need to take on the Democratic Party.

We need a new party for the working class, and we need to abolish ICE.

Thank you.

Thank you, Jason.

OK, next we have Gwendolyn, followed by Long, and then Aries, and then Em, followed by Howard Gill.

Welcome, Gwendolyn.

My name is Gwendolyn.

I'm a resident in District 3 renter, also with Movement for Shama.

So Katie Wilson issued an executive order requiring SBD to investigate, verify, and document ICE activity and to prohibit ICE from staging operations on city property.

Mike Sloan, the right-wing president of Seattle Police Officers Guild, announced that he would refuse to comply to the executive order, shamefully.

ICE and police both have carried out violence and terror against recompensed people in this city for years and years.

Their purpose is to protect those in power, not serve our communities.

If Wilson's order is serious, and if Seattle's sanctuary city's status is serious, we need a way to enforce it against the police.

We need democratic community control of the police with real accountability.

That was proposed back in 2020. We need a board elected by the people of this city to enforce that.

to the ability to hire fire and subpoena officers who will fire any officer who cooperates with ICE.

The Democratic Party failed to take action on this back in 2020, and along with many other things put forward by the George Floyd movement.

Democrats recently handed SPD $486 million in this year's budget.

That's 80 million higher than it was in 2020. And clearly, based on public comment today, that money hasn't done jack crap to actually help people in the city.

This is money that could have been spent on affordable housing, health care, education, getting people off the streets, community service programs, could have actually tackled poverty and crime at the root.

And instead, Democrats reversed the historic victory of George Floyd movement and Shama Sawant in 2020 to ban the police use of chemical weapons on peaceful activists and protesters.

We need independent working class leaders who want to win any of this stuff.

We need an independent party to fight for these things, because Democrats have proven that they'll just talk and talk when the pressure's on, but as soon as it's off, they go back to handing millions of dollars handed for fists for the interests of the billionaires and their apparatus.

And so that's why you're holding a movement, an action on March 14th at Garfield Community Center.

If you're serious about getting organized to fight back against this stuff, come out and meet us there.

Thank you, Gwendolyn.

Next we have Long, followed by Aries, followed by M, Howard Gill.

I believe this is Rose and then Morgan.

My name is Long.

I'm an activist for Movement for Shama and a member of Labor Militant.

I work here in Seattle as a barista.

There have been demands put forward that the city council must follow.

Remove surveillance cameras, implement municipal IDs, enforce sanctuary city status, fire cops who cooperate with ICE, community control of the police, eviction moratorium, defeat pro-ICE Democrats, elect Shama Sawant to US Congress, and build a Workers' Party.

Now I'll talk about Democrats and Adam Smith.

The tax on immigrants are a bipartisan project.

The Democratic Party spent years paving the way for Trump's deportation machine.

Obama still retains the title deporter in chief for having deported more people than any other president, including Trump.

Biden also escalated deportations, exceeding Trump's record for most people deported in one year.

Why are the Democrats on this council unwilling to stand up to pro-ICE politicians in their own party?

That includes council member Alexis Rink.

Why haven't you endorsed Shama Sawant and her campaign for Congress, which is calling to abolish ICE?

Shama's opponent, Democratic member Adam Smith, voted to create and repeatedly fund ICE.

He is funded by Palantir, which has tens of millions of dollars in contracts with ICE.

Palantir licenses a software to ICE that tracks and surveils immigrants.

Palantir co-founder Alex Karp and Joe Lonsdale have both designated Adam Smith as their political representative, Karp and Lonsdale, have also each donated a million dollars to Trump's PACs.

How can you say that you support immigrants when you won't even stand up against pro-ICE Democrat like Adams?

Thank you, Long.

Next we have Aries.

Aries followed by M, Howard Gill, Rose Morgan.

and then we have Miss Yvette, we have Mr. Zimmerman and Mr. Lucas Keandre.

Welcome.

Wait.

Aries.

Yep.

Got you.

Welcome back.

Good to see you.

Hold on, sorry.

No, you're good.

Take your time.

Let's reset the time and we'll start when you start.

Okay.

I'm glad to see you all here because we definitely have an agenda that we need met and all of you guys need to hear it.

The last couple of weeks we've been coming and we've been stating that we need ICE out of Seattle, that we need surveillance, service, not surveillance, which is just like we need Sorry, oh my God.

We've been standing here every week saying the same demand and you guys are still sitting here and not helping your community.

How many people have to tell you that we all have, there's so many people that are saying the same things, but you're sitting up there and you're not listening to us.

You're not seeing that we're all having the same point of views and like how many more people have to get kidnapped?

How many more people have to die?

As I said, I had the statement last time that we understand that you guys are afraid.

We understand that you don't wanna like ruin your lives and go to jail because of, you're afraid of what can happen.

We're afraid, but the things are actually happening to us and we're still standing up and we're still fighting.

So we're asking you to do the same as every single person that's in this room and that are protesting.

Stand up, do the right thing and help out your community.

That's what you're here for.

It's been a month and a half or a month and this would be a month and one week of us coming every single week saying the same things and still nothing has gotten done.

So I ask to you, what can we, the people do to show you that we're on your team, that you can trust us and we're asking you, please do the right thing.

Get ice out of Seattle, protect the people.

Thank you.

Thank you, Aries.

Next we have M, followed by Howard Gale, Rose, Morgan.

Welcome, M. The Trump administration deported over 600,000 people last year.

The Democrats on this council have taken no real action to address this to actually fight ICE in our city.

and one thing that no Democrat on this council has addressed is the financial ruin that immigrant families face when they are faced with deportation.

Immigrants are forced to skip work, they lose their jobs, their families are split apart.

Multiple studies show that in states with higher immigration enforcement, immigrant families are less able to afford food, less able to pay rent and utilities, less able to afford healthcare, more likely to get evicted and more likely to foreclose on their homes.

Thousands of immigrants have been arrested by ICE in Washington, similar actually to the number that have been arrested in Minnesota and for comparison in Minneapolis, immigrants have lost an estimated $47 million in wages from fear of going to work.

Renter support organizations in Minneapolis have seen an 82% increase in requests for help compared to the same time in 2025, Workers and faith leaders in Minnesota are calling for an eviction moratorium until the state provides relief to immigrant families, and they're calling for a rent strike.

We need the same in Seattle.

We need an eviction moratorium, and that eviction moratorium should be in place not just until immigrant families are provided with resources, but until ICE is shut down, until these deportations stop completely.

The Democrats on this council won't do this, though.

We need to build a movement to pressure them to fight for this, to force their hand.

The Democrats on this council, the Democratic Party as a whole, represents the interests of the corporate landlords.

Council Member Rink, your legislation, frankly, is completely insufficient.

We need stronger action from you.

We need you to introduce legislation for an eviction moratorium, for community control of the police, and we need you to stand up against pro-ice Democrats.

As others have said, there's no excuse for not endorsing Shama Sawant.

for Congress as an independent socialist against someone who literally voted to create ICE.

This council tried to roll back renter's rights a year ago.

We fought back and we won.

We forced them to back off because we packed this hall with hundreds of people over the course of weeks, forcing them to back down.

That's what we need.

Thank you, Em.

Thank you, Em.

Thank you, Em.

Mr. Howard Gill, followed by Rose, followed by Morgan, and then we have Miss Yvette, Mr. Zimmerman, and Mr. Lucas.

Welcome, Howard Gill.

Good afternoon.

Council Member Kettle, I spoke with you six months ago, Council President Hollingsworth, a month ago, about the actions that Seattle can reasonably and legally require our police to do in order to protect Seattleites from federal violence, the killings, the fear, and tearing apart of families we've witnessed in other cities.

These proposed actions became part of the 36th District Democrats' resolution shortly after speaking with you, yet six months after you indicated your support for these actions, you have refused to even propose or publicly discuss these items.

Ignored for six months are these important proposals that SBD officers establish and document making the resulting video public the basis for any detention or arrest.

That SPD officers intervene when proper law enforcement credentials are not provided.

That SPD officers aid private property owners in preventing warrantless access.

That SPD officers prioritize protecting people from Fourth Amendment violations over the protection of property or violently suppressing demonstrations that are in fact trying to protect those constitutional rights.

Other cities have put this in place to some degree.

Boston Mayor Michelle Wu just recently said, quote, calling 911 is an appropriate response to warrantless entry of private homes and businesses and that Boston Police Department shall employ de-escalation tactics in response and that Boston will deny access to city buildings and property for purposes other than intended.

Minneapolis Police Chief Brian Onhara has warned rank and file officers if they witness federal agents use excessive force on civilians and fail to intervene, they could be fired.

So why the failure for six crucial months?

and the question here is what I keep on hearing is that because somehow it's not legal or we have legal advice, we're only doing the things we're legally empowered to do.

That's totally undemocratic.

That has to be a public discussion.

If there's legal advice, then make that public and let's discuss it.

Thank you, Mr. Gill.

Thank you, Mr. Gill.

Next, we have Rose, followed by Morgan, Yvette Dynish, Alex Zimmerman, and Keandre.

Welcome, Rose.

Hello, City Council once again.

I am Rose.

I'm from the 2nd District.

Today, I went and talked to the Mayor Wilson's transition team that I've been meeting with at various levels for about the last months or so, and there were several things that I thought were important that you all should know.

One is that of all the 1,500 people plus that were interviewed, one of the number one concerns that people had was about ICE, was about surveillance.

People are very concerned in our cities and our communities about these cameras that are being placed all over to surveil us.

Whether it's the Amazon Ring ad that has now gotten remarkable backlash, or individuals that are worried about their cameras going up their neighborhoods.

One of the realities is the city of Seattle does not have the social capital with the citizens of Seattle to trust that our data will be used safely, especially when we saw last year, police officers beat, throw down, and for no apparent reason, LGBT protesters.

This has put in a more remarkable amounts of fear and concern about what these cameras are gonna be used for.

The reality is most people thinks that they're just gonna be used to pick occasional people for graffiti and tag people with crimes that are I mean, for let's be real, graffitiing a building is not the biggest concern we have right now.

But if they're being used to target individuals to be able to track people for ICE, whether it be trans people or whether that be undocumented people, it is not worth it.

People do not feel it's worth it.

And as the 17% of queer people that are in the Seattle's population, 17% of them are queer.

It is a large amount of people that do not want what is happening.

And realistically, if these cameras go up, people who have left everything that they've had to come here to Seattle and feel they have nothing to lose, they're probably gonna try and get rid of those cameras.

Do we want broken cameras or do we wanna invest in our communities so we can stop violence where it happens at the source?

Thank you, Rose.

Next we have Morgan, followed by Yvette Dynish, Alex Zimmerman, and Keandre, and then we'll move to our online speakers.

Welcome.

Hi, my name is Morgan.

I'm an organizer with Mantis, the Mutual Aid Network of Trans and Intersex Individuals in Seattle, and I'm a resident of District 3. I want to talk to you today about the the unemployment crisis among trans people.

It's no secret that the city has a problem with homelessness and has ambitions to reduce the rate of homelessness before the World Cup this year.

But simultaneously, there is a refugee crisis in this city.

Trans people are flooding into the city from other parts of the country where their lives have been made impossible by hostile legislation.

A conservative estimate, we expect tens of thousands of new new folks to arrive in the city in the next year.

And those people are going to need housing and they're going to need jobs.

And it's the latter that I would like to talk to you about because we have a real problem with employment discrimination in this city.

The number of trans people in the city is growing very rapidly, and yet the number of trans people who are employed is not.

In fact, anecdotally, it seems to be shrinking rather rapidly.

Trans people are among the first people to be laid off when companies reduce their workforces and are among the last to be hired regardless of qualifications, regardless of references.

Anecdotally, I know many, many people who are very well qualified in their fields, who are unable to find work, have been looking for, in some cases, years.

and if this continues, there is no way that the city will be able to reduce the number of homeless people in this city because without jobs, there will be more homeless trans people on the streets and that's unacceptable.

Thank you, Morgan.

Next we have Miss Yvette followed by Alex Zimmerman and then Keandre.

and then we'll move to our online speakers.

Our online speakers, we have one second, Miss Yvette, I'm sorry.

We have Lady Scribe, followed by Solomon, only one wiser prince, and then David Haynes.

You all are up after the last three in-person speakers.

Good afternoon, council members.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all.

I want to start by saying, Council Member Strauss, thank you for your office contacting me about the matter we discussed and we will have further conversation.

I also wanted to thank these gentlemen who spoke up regarding keeping the cameras in place.

I wholeheartedly agree.

For those who say you were being spied on, there was cameras everywhere already.

Dollar stores, Safeway, buses, trains, we're already being surveilled.

Get over it, it's public.

And I also wanted to note that regarding these gentlemen, It's common that keeps up, are you safe?

And I thank the council for the new community hub.

We're healing together.

It's a collaboration between the Seattle Parks and Rec Department of Education, Early Learning, and the amplifying our collective resources to offer free arts engagement opportunities at community centers for teens, Seattle teens and young adults.

This gives them something to do and keep them out of trouble.

So Bravo for that.

And also, where's my little notes here?

Oh, being the last council meeting of February, Black History Month, I wanted to pay homage to Mrs. Dorothy Hollingsworth, who was a trailblazer and a force to be reckoned with.

When I read her bio online, I was like, dang, what didn't she do?

So joy and honor of your grandmother, these flowers are for you.

And the legacy continues.

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Miss Ivette.

That was very sweet of you.

Absolutely.

Oh, and also one thing about the cameras.

I'm sorry, I think she has 20 more seconds.

We just stopped there.

If we could put back 20 more seconds.

Okay, cool.

Sorry, I cut you off.

My apologies.

Oh, no problem.

And also regarding the cameras, people are concerned about I spying on us, but with the cameras rolling, we can spy on them as well.

Just to let you know.

Thank you very much.

All right.

Awesome.

Thank you, Ms. Yvette.

Next, we have Mr. Zimmerman, followed by Ms. Keiondre.

Sorry, Keiondre.

My bad.

Yeah, yeah.

Nice picture.

My name, Alex Zimmerman.

I once speak about something that is absolutely critical, and I've been talking about this for many years.

From you cost approximately one million dollars, city.

It's money that we spend for each council.

Your salary approximately 150,000 dollars.

Only ten percentage people in city have salary like yours.

So who you represent?

You represent aristocrat.

You represent fat cat.

You represent everybody.

Is this salary, what is big salary?

Change your brain.

You know what it means.

So you want to keep the salary forever.

I understand you.

For example, I can do that for District 41, 2026. When I win this election...

What?

Yeah.

Let's pause time.

Council Member Juarez, you're off mute.

What?

I don't hear you.

Council Member Juarez, you're off mute.

Okay, if we can mute her with the...

Pause one second, Mr. Zimmerman.

Okay, all right.

Okay, go right ahead, Mr. Zimmerman.

Yeah, okay, thank you very much.

Where is my best friend?

She's here?

Yeah, maybe next time she will be here closer to me.

So when I win this election for District 41, for example, you know, candidate, yeah, I will bring everybody to $60,000.

Why?

It's not because state senators have $60,000, because when you take this 10 percentage people in Seattle who make $120,000, $150,000 and up, average income for $60,000.

So who you represent, guy?

It's question very fundamental.

It's not matter your party because you're all identical.

There's no party that represents this 90 percentage people.

So how you don't shame doing this here, you know what it means?

And I never hear from you one talking, yeah, we want to represent 90 times.

90%, so income will be $60,000.

Viva Trump!

Viva New American Revolution!

Stand up, slave, and happy cow.

We need something doing about this.

Thank you, Mr. Zimmerman.

Next we have Keandre.

And then we will switch to online.

Online we have Lady Scribes, Solomon, only one wiser prince, and David Haynes.

and whenever you're ready, we will.

One, two, three, four, five, maybe six.

I count six cameras here in the council chambers.

And while that may make people, some people feel safe, there was a CCTV camera put up right outside of my house, right in Chinatown.

that looks straight into my room.

It's on the same level.

It doesn't just look into my room either, it looks into my roommate's room and the room after that as well.

I am seriously concerned about how these surveillance cameras are being put up and who exactly are they for.

because at least from what I've heard, they haven't done much.

Katie Wilson and the council would rather over-police the Pioneer Square in Chinatown instead of using these monies to go to disenfranchised communities, and especially the black community.

So, I hope this is food for thought.

I don't like being surveilled, but unfortunately I got a camera right outside of my house looking straight at me. whenever I look out the window.

Thanks.

Thank you, Keandre.

Next we have, so we're gonna move to online and we can come back to see if there's speakers, if there's any more in-person speakers, but we have Lady Scribe followed by Solomon Only One Wiser Prince and then David Haynes.

I don't see Lady Scribe present, so we'll go to Solomon One Wiser.

We'll come back to see if Scribe is there.

Solomon, press star six to unmute yourself.

Hello, hello, can you hear me?

Yes, we can hear you.

Blessings, blessings, City Council, and blessings, President Joy Hollingsworth.

It was wonderful to see you this Saturday at the Seattle Sound Music Awards.

I hope you have fun.

My name is Solomon, only one wiser prince.

I quote on Three Kings Dojo Christy Boxing at 951 North, 100th Street, South of Huntington, Aurora.

We train youth ages 5 to 15 as well as adults in the community.

Today, I am here specifically about the kids.

Our goal is straightforward.

Allow youth to train for free without putting the gym at risk of closing.

Operating a gym in Seattle is expensive.

Rent, insurance, utilities, equipment, and coaching stipends real costs.

Right now, access is limited by what parents can afford.

City Partnership will remove that barrier.

Here is what funding accomplishes.

Full scholarship for at-risk youth ages 5 to 15. Trauma-informed coaching and structured mentorship.

Safe after-school programming during peak crime hours.

Operational stability so the gym remains open long term.

This is prevention infrastructure.

We operate directly inside the Aurora Corridor offering structure.

discipline and supervision in an area that faces significant public safety challenges.

We teach self-defense, emotional control, accountability, conditioning, and respect, skills that transfer to school, home, and long-term behavior.

Adults train as well.

When parents and mentors train alongside youth, it creates intergenerational accountability and stability.

Without funding, we face the same economic pressures that have closed many small community gyms across Seattle.

This request is about sustainability and free access for the kids who need structure most.

Investing in Three Kings Dojo is significantly less expensive than intervention after failure.

We are prepared to provide attendance tracking, scholarship reporting, and measurable participations.

Thank you.

Thank you, Solomon.

Next we have Mr. David Haynes.

David Haynes, star six.

We see you, Mr. David Haynes.

There you go.

Hi, thank you, David Haynes.

Some people are worried about surveillance cameras because they themselves might be going out to do something they shouldn't be doing.

And why is City Council President allowing Shama Sawant to send her surrogates here to promote her campaign with the same parasitic, skimming, vicarious living of what's going on in Minnesota, embellishing?

Earlier today at Public Safety, it was obvious that Chief has a scorn-lived experience and he's dumping his trauma, making it safe for black, drug-pushing predators.

And it's obvious the city council leadership has no tension on fighting crime proper.

It's obvious that Bruce Harrell's choice in leadership and budget spending priorities shifted the paradigm away from improving the war on drug pushers by purposely misconstruing that anything crack, meth, or heroin under 3.5 grams will be exempted from jail, with cops purposely not training proper, like pulling their punches on crime-fighting tools, while virtue signaling that the civilian dispatch in response is gonna pretty much do more of the efforts.

Yet nobody is proactive in crime prevention.

It's like, did you hear Amy Barden this morning?

She says that most people who call in to witness on what they see on the 911 call are getting it wrong.

And she's taking a scorn lived experience lens that other people have like demanded that she takes a lot of money for by setting aside crimes against humanity because they're listed low level nonviolent misdemeanor of which Erica Evans, the city attorney's office is dictating to the cops that she's not going to prosecute drug pushers under 3.5 grams because they're considered a poverty crime.

She's trying to change the dynamic like they did five years ago where you're going to put more skin color incarceration rates manipulated based on white people who have more money to pay for their drunkenness.

Thank you, Mr. Haynes.

Lady Scribe, I don't think we see you online.

I just want to confirm with our tech folks that we do not see Lady Scribe online.

I'll pause.

That is correct.

That is correct.

Okay.

Thank you, son.

All right.

And we do not have any more registered speakers in chambers and we have, Ruth, you would like to, yeah, if you sign up, absolutely.

I don't really have anything too much to say today.

I'm tired, bro.

You know what I mean?

Two minutes isn't enough.

Joe, I would just kind of like to talk to you after, because the folks is telling me that you're good people, and I really want to believe that.

Diane Foster, thank you for pressing earlier today.

Alexis Rink, thank you.

I don't want to just come up here and be accusatory and be wrong on my accusations.

People voted for you for a reason, you know what I mean?

if you would be open to having dialogue, like you said, at the rabbit box a couple of weeks ago, I would like to do that.

Yeah.

Absolutely.

You have my commitment.

I urge you.

Thank you.

You talked about Roberta Bird last week, right?

And Roberta Bird was the first black principal at Lincoln High School, first black principal in the city of Seattle.

And my grandmother helped her get that job because she was at the school district.

to help get that.

I'd be over there.

I'd be over there, please.

I told you I'm not from here, but I'm really committed to my people.

Absolutely.

Would love to talk to you about that.

Roberta was a good friend and a very mentor, and I look up to her.

So just wanted you to know that.

We'll have a conversation after.

Thank you, Ruth.

Appreciate you, bro.

Thank you.

So thank you all for public comment.

Really appreciate that and looking forward to talking to whoever after the meeting.

Also want to make sure I also thank the folks that are online as well who have given us their public comment or people that send in emails during and public comment as we are speaking as well.

So thank you all.

So we have reached the end of lists of public registered speakers.

The public comment period is now closed and thank you for your comments today.

We're gonna transition right into our items in the agenda.

If there's no objection, the agenda and referral calendar will be adopted.

Is there any objection?

Hearing no, the agenda.

and introduction referral calendars adopted.

Okay, if there's no objection, the agenda will be adopted.

Hearing none, the agenda is adopted, sorry, adopted, adopted, my bad.

We will now consider the proposed consent calendar.

Items on the consent calendar include the minutes of February 17th, 2026, and council bills 121, 168, payment of the bills.

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

Seeing and hearing none, I move to adopt the consent calendar.

Is there a second?

Second.

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

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

Councilmember Strauss?

Aye.

Councilmember Foster?

Yes.

Councilmember Juarez?

Aye.

Councilmember Kettle?

Aye.

Councilmember Lynn?

Yes.

Council Member Rink?

Yes.

Council Member Rivera?

Aye.

Council Member Saka?

Aye.

Council President Hollingsworth?

Aye.

Nine in favor, none opposed.

The consent calendar are adopted.

Will the clerk please affix my signature to the minutes in legislation on the consent calendar on my behalf?

Okay, colleagues, we're going to jump right into the items on the agenda.

Will the clerk please read item number one into the record?

The report of the Finance Native Communities and Tribal Governments Committee, June 1, Appointment 3442, Appointment of Ali Panucci as Director, City Budget Office for Term 2 December 31st, 2029. The committee recommends that the appointment be confirmed.

Awesome, thank you so much.

Council Member Strauss, as chair of the committee, you are recognized in order to provide the committee report.

Thank you, Council President.

And just before we get into Interim Director Panucci's appointment today and confirmation, I want to thank Ms. Dinesh for your words about Dorothy Hollingsworth and I think that it would be nice to, I know it's awkward to honor your own grandmother, but I think that we've all benefited from her leadership in our city.

And I think it would be appropriate to make a Dorothy Hollingsworth Day at some point.

So just wanted to note that.

I'd also like to thank the last speaker, the last public commenter.

You left public comment in a really nice way.

Thank you.

You demonstrated both letting us have a message.

You left us with a message that was much more kind than what that last message could have been left with, and you demonstrated through example how having a conversation with the council president can go well by coming in a good way.

I won't hold you to always coming that way.

I just want to thank you for today.

With that, how did we get here today?

Two committee meetings, 11 questions, 10 pages of answers, a little bit of stress and a lot of trust.

Hailing from St. Jay and hitting the ground running, I'm honored to present the confirmation for Ali Panucci for the Director of the City Budget Office.

I've known Director Panucci for eight years, three months, and about one week, nobody's counting.

We don't always agree.

I'll get back to that in a little bit, but a couple points here.

I do believe that New Hampshire syrup is superior and that that Ballard FC lost to Vermont Green, that was them falling in the penalty box in the last 30 seconds.

So just for the record, and other points of disagreement.

Back to the work though, Director Panucci has worked in government policy making for nearly two decades.

She came to Seattle in 2013, first working for the Department of Planning community development and then coming to the council as a legislative analyst in 2015. During her near decade working with the council, she passed impactful policies for the city and helped lead the council's annual adoption of the budget.

We've gone through so many different iterations with so many different amalgamations of our council.

You've been able to help us ebb and flow with the changing needs of council based on our makeup.

Nothing is ever static.

We are always in a place of change.

In 2024, I will never forget the day you came into my office and let us know that you were leaving.

I almost fell over.

It was really sad to see you go, but excited for the opportunity you had presented, which was being the deputy executive and director of administrative services for the entire Whatcom County.

These were huge shoes to fill.

You did an amazing job from everything that I've heard.

And I was lucky and glad to welcome you back to the city of Seattle last month as the interim director of the city budget office.

Yours was the first confirmation packet sent down.

Yours was, you are the first confirmation coming across council.

It is only because you are hitting the ground running.

The number of meetings that I've been in with folks in no shade of just learning the job is real and that's okay.

I have not had that experience with you.

It is as if 2024 and the time in between just never existed and we're just right back to it.

and it's also, even from today's meeting, really inspirational to watch how you are already navigating this different role.

As I said before, it was really fun to watch Dan and Ben switch roles and all of that and I'm already seeing I'm already being inspired by the work that you're doing.

Your experience in both the legislative and executive roles are invaluable experience to take on this role which is paramount to the relationship between council and the mayor because this is where the money is.

If folks have not read the answer to question three, which is spreading between pages two and three, Interim Director Panucci gives us a, the question is about the structural budget deficit in 2027 and beyond.

This is a one, two, three, four, four bullets plus two paragraphs explaining the chronology of our budget based upon years.

So first we start with the extended economic growth of post-recession period from 2013 to 2019, moving directly into the pandemic and aftermath 2020 to 2023 and growing community needs from 2020 to 2025, ending with the external uncertainty, which is 2023 to today.

it's as if you wrote a 20 year look back.

Thank you.

I mean, this is really seriously the level of knowledge that is required for us moving forward because at the end of the second paragraph she states, confronting this reality of the structural budget deficit requires putting options on the table that have been previously unpalatable and undertaking a clear eyed multi-year process to resolve the structural deficit by exploring both cost savings and progressive revenue.

This is it.

It's a multi-year strategy.

There's not a single solution.

It is that everything has to be on the table and we're not gonna take every option, but we have to investigate every way that we are doing business so that the revenues that we are taking in match the ongoing costs that we are expending.

Back to working with Ally is amazing because agreement comes not from acquiescence, rather with Ally, agreement comes from what I will call collaborative confrontation.

If I were to list all of the decisions or outcomes that are better today because of Ally's constructive arguing, I don't know, maybe there's a better word than arguing, constructive feedback.

If I was to list all of those things, we would be here all day.

We had an hour of public comment.

I'm sorry, none of them spoke to you, but we would really be here all day because of all of the things over the past 20 years that you've done for our city.

You have been well prepared for the moment before us.

And it is a humble honor to appoint you to this position.

I have a few closing remarks.

Council President, so if I could have last word, but other than that, I'll pass it over to you.

Congratulations, and Director Panucci.

I see that you've got your family here, and Ben, always good to see you.

And to the whole CBO team that is here, thank you for all your work as well.

I know that we can't, she can't look good without you all being very smart, so thank you.

Thank you Chair Strauss, Budget Chair Strauss, thank you Council Member Strauss for that.

We'll let you get the last comments.

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

Council Member Rivera.

Thank you, Chair.

Okay, I gotta, my mic is stuck.

Just really quickly wanted to say I've had the honor and pleasure of working with Ali since I got here in 24 and I just can't say enough amazing things about Ali.

Both she approaches the work with such integrity and knowledge and then she's just been a really great thought partner and Ally's not afraid.

I think we have the East Coast thing where we just say it like it is but always for a good reason and always with a kind heart and I really appreciate all the time that we spent together while you were at Central Staff, going through the various pieces of budget review and potential legislation and talking through the best way to move forward on something.

And I really appreciate all that collaboration.

I think it really serves you well.

It will serve you well as CBO Director.

I'm looking forward to working with you in this new in your new role which you've prepped for leading up to all the things you've done leading up to this current role and I think that's an valuable not everyone who takes on such a role has the background that you have which I think really will like I said serve you well and I think it's beneficial to all of us It's really great to have a friend at CBO.

Yes, we will have a lot of conversations and we won't always agree that's part of the role and that's okay and that's a good part of the role because we all bring a different perspective that's much needed.

It is a balanced approach to get to serve the public in a very fruitful, well-rounded way.

and then to CBO I've worked with many of you and I am so grateful for that all the work that you've done in the past and moving forward I see some new faces so I look forward to working with you at some point Jeanette, you've been at CBO for quite some time now.

We have some more wounds together related to COVID.

So wanted to give you an acknowledgement because you've been here this entire time and really look, I really enjoy working with you as well.

So today is about Allie, but I also wanna extend just gratitude to the CBO team.

And I look forward to Allie, you're already in the role.

So I look forward to working with you and really confirming you today.

So thank you for wanting to do the job.

Thank you Chair.

No worries.

Thank you, Council Member Rivera.

We have Council Member Kettle.

Thank you, Council President and Director Panucci.

Thank you for being here.

I missed the second committee meeting, so I just wanted to say a few things first.

Obviously from that January, first January, 2024 meeting that we had, I knew that we had a strong person on central staff to work budget and other issues too.

And like Council Member Strauss, I was sad when I learned that you were, you know, heading north, but now we're happy that you headed back south and to take this new position on.

And for the public, you know, my faith in Ms. Panucci was oftentimes in committee, not committee meetings, in meetings in my office with my team or maybe the central staff team, depending on the topic, I would say, well, what would Ally Panucci do?

I would ask that question, serious, I would ask that question.

And it was partly to like, hey, what is the tough things that need to be done?

What should we be doing?

And I think that's super important.

And I think it's important because there's narratives out there, particularly in certain conservative leading circles that West Coast blue cities, blue cities overall are incapable of being run well.

And we need to push back on that narrative.

And one way to do it is, how we do our budget and how we work these issues and how we think about spending and the revenue pieces.

And it's hard.

I knew last year that the 26 budget is balanced, but it is a very hard balance.

And as noted by the Director of Central Staff, it's inherently unsustainable, which means this hard job has been pushed over to you.

And I recognize that it's a hard job, and we spoke about that in my office.

and then we have to work these issues and to move forward.

The hard part too is that we don't operate by ourselves.

Olympia is doing its thing on the state level and it has impacts.

I think that we need to have a big picture approach here and I'm concerned because there's this piecemeal layering of different little pieces on top of each other.

We need to step back, do the hard decisions, maybe tackle those hard constitutional questions or law questions that we have at the state level and really work this from the ground up.

And, you know, unfortunately we're in a situation, particularly with what Olympia's doing, that we're kind of back and forth and it's going to be challenging because what this layering is also inherently unsustainable too.

And so we need to be looking at it comprehensively.

Your questions like number 11, you know, at the end of the question and response kind of goes to this.

and it's important because, particularly as a city, we don't live on an island for every action.

There's a reaction and, you know, this applies to tax policy as much as any other policy, any other policy issue that's out there.

And so, bottom line is I think that, you know, we do need to tackle this, kind of like how we need to tackle the public safety challenges.

And so, with the experience that I had working with you on central staff, I know that we're in good hands to do that and to call it straight.

And that's really why I would ask, what would Ali Panucci do or say for that piece?

And that's reason enough, council president, I think to vote in favor of this nomination.

So thank you.

Awesome.

Thank you.

Well said.

Thank you, council member Kettle.

I believe we have council member Juarez next.

Thank you, Council President.

I apologize.

I think my camera went out again, so you probably can't see me, but I am here.

We know you're having anti-problems.

It's okay.

Thank you, Councilmember Barres.

It's broke.

It's not a Boomer issue.

And first of it, I would not say what would Allie Panucci do because I know her too well, so I'm not going to lay that one on her.

I looked at her 10-page document about why her appointment questions and I think the thing that I liked the best was the last sentence and I'm just going to read that and I'm done.

It says, I see my role as helping to provide good information to decision makers and the public about implications and trade-offs and that the reasoning behind recommendations is clear and that we're honest with the public about what budget constraints mean for delivery of services.

The process itself, even when outcomes are difficult, can either build or erode public trust and I hope that I can be part of building that trust.

And with that, I've known Allie now for, I don't know, five years, six years.

And with that, I think that says a lot about Allie and building public trust.

And congratulations, Allie, and I'm glad you're back, like me.

Thank you, Council President.

Thank you, Council Member Ruarez.

Colleagues, are there any more comments at all?

I had said all my comments in our committee, because I sit on the committee with our Chair Strauss, and so I really appreciate, I'm very happy to vote for this today.

and support your nomination as our CBO.

I think you're gonna do a phenomenal job.

You've already been in this role.

We know you, the experience that you bring is unmatched.

And I know that I just doubled down on everything that my colleagues say.

So super happy to be supporting this recommendation, appointment confirmation.

Sorry, I gotta get the right words.

Council Member Strauss, last words, my friend.

Thank you, Council President.

It's simply just such a humble honor to confirm appointment 3442, the appointment of Allison Mary Panucci as the Budget Director of the City of Seattle.

She is experienced, qualified, thoughtful, and kind, possessing the skills that are required, qualifications, and possessing the skills that cannot be taught or learned.

Congratulations on being the first director to be confirmed within this new administration.

Awesome.

Thank you, Councilmember Strauss.

Will the clerk please call the roll on the confirmation of the appointment?

Councilmember Strauss?

Aye.

Councilmember Foster?

Councilmember Juarez?

Aye.

Councilmember Kettle?

Aye.

Councilmember Lin?

Yes.

Council Member Rink.

Yes.

Council Member Rivera.

Aye.

Council Member Saka.

Aye.

Council Member Foster.

Yes.

Thank you.

Council President Hollingsworth.

Yes.

Nine in favor, none opposed.

Awesome.

The motion carries and the appointment is confirmed.

Congratulations, Director Panucci.

You are recognized to provide some brief remarks to the council and we can clap as well.

I think it's welcome.

Thank you.

Last time I was standing here was as I was walking out the door for Ali Panucci Day.

So thank you.

I'm thrilled to be back.

I'm not going to say a lot.

I'll be much more comfortable sitting over there talking to you about budget.

In the future, I just wanted to say a few thank yous.

I want to say thank you to Mayor Wilson for putting her trust in me and nominating me for this position.

I want to say thank you to all of you for trusting me in this role.

and for spending time with me over the last several weeks.

I've met with each of you one-on-one, and I see so much of alignment and shared values in working towards a budget that really delivers on the promise of government improving the lives of everyone in our city.

So I'm so thrilled to be here.

I want to thank the incredible team who really makes me shine and couldn't do this work without it.

I want to give a shout out to Council Central staff who taught me so much and Tom Mikesell in particular who helped me years ago get to that answer that you read today, Council Member Strauss.

and I want to thank all of my colleagues in the mayor's office who already are such a great team of brilliant people and all the people working for the city of Seattle.

And then just a moment of personal privilege.

I want to thank my family who's here, my sisters, Annie and Merrick.

and my husband, Ben, who like, I literally couldn't do this work without him.

He challenges me every day to continue to provide good work and service to the community and pushes me to push for bigger change.

So thank you.

It's quite a personal privilege.

Can we all take a photograph with Director Panucci?

Absolutely.

Do we have to suspend the rules?

No?

Okay, great.

Yeah, thank you.

Awesome.

I think that's a great idea.

Shall we right now?

Let's take a photo.

Come on up.

Come on, everyone.

This is not just...

Here, I'll move the chair.

Yeah, thank you.

Congratulations!

Right here.

Okay, colleagues.

Thank you for that suggestion, Councilmember Strauss.

That was good.

So there were no items removed from the consent calendar and there is no resolution for introduction or adoption today.

Colleagues, is there any more for their business to come before the council?

Well, this is the last day of our council meeting for Black History Month.

I know I'm very sad, but guess what?

Every Tuesday's gonna be black history.

So we're gonna, even though the month is ending, we're just grateful for all of the celebrations that we have.

And I know that we have a celebration on Thursday in the Bertha 9th Landis Room with Department of Neighborhoods, our annual one, and looking forward to that.

So we have reached the end of today's agenda.

The next city council meeting will be March 3rd at 2 p.m.

Hearing no further business, this meeting is adjourned.

Thank you.

Thank you, chair.

I mean, council.

Thank you, chair.