Council Briefing 7/28/25

Good afternoon, everyone.

Today is the July 28, 2025 Council Briefing Meeting.

We will come to order.

The time is 2.03 p.m.

Will the clerk please call the roll?

Council member Rivera?

Present.

Council member Saka?

Here.

Council member Solomon?

Here.

Council member Strauss?

Present.

Council member Hollingsworth?

Here.

Council member Juarez?

Here.

Council member Kettle?

Here.

Council Member Rink.

Present.

And Council President Ellison.

Present.

Nine present.

Thank you very much.

If there's no objection, the minutes of July 21st, 2025 will be adopted.

Hearing no objection, the minutes are adopted.

On to tomorrow's council meeting agenda.

There are 26 items on the introduction and referral calendar.

Before talking about tomorrow's consent calendar and the committee reports, I want to once again acknowledge the frustration that my excused absence contributed to the lack of quorum Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And although those votes didn't happen, the committee meeting convened as a community meeting and all the appointees were recognized and one piece of legislation was discussed.

To maintain the schedule for final counsel action that would have occurred had committee votes been taken, the appointments are included for final Final consideration on tomorrow's City Council meeting agenda, and the same is true for the piece of legislation regarding federal grant funds for housing and community development programs to meet the federal deadline of August 16th.

All boards and commission appointments, including the renters commission, will be voted on tomorrow's agenda, so I'm just redoubling that point.

All right, so with that said, the consent calendar includes the weekly bill payment ordinance, those 17 appointments which did not receive a vote in last week's meeting, and 11 appointments which did receive a vote in last week's libraries, education, and neighborhoods committee.

And there are four pieces of legislation from committees.

Resolution 32174, resolution setting out public safety related funding priorities.

Resolution 32173, a resolution adopting general rules and procedures of the Seattle City Council, superseding resolution 32096. Council Bill 121038, an ordinance relating to the Seattle Parks and Recreation, authorizing the Superintendent of Parks and Recreation to enter into a five-year agreement with Let's see, with Lost Evenings to operate and provide management of the Green Lake Pitch and Putt at Green Lake Park.

And then finally, the one that was up for discussion and possible vote last Wednesday, Council Bill 121034, an ordinance relating to funding for housing and community development programs.

All right, so that's tomorrow's meeting.

We don't have any proclamations for signature today, and so we'll just go right into the review of Council actions that you all took this past week and looking forward to this week and what's going to happen in your committees.

So this week's roll call begins with Councilmember Rivera.

Thank you, Council President.

All right, colleagues, last week I visited the Hilltop Children's Center on Queen Anne.

I've been doing rotations around the childcare and preschool centers around the city, and I had the pleasure of being at Hilltop.

They provide great childcare and preschool to our kids.

in Seattle, and we're so happy to have them on Queen Anne.

I also met with Captain Davison from the North Precinct for our regular check-in.

We talked about Magnuson Park.

There was a brush fire there that fire responded to and was able to And then also at Magnuson Park, we'd had challenges with Not closing of the gates.

Those have been able to be closed as part of the summer activation plan.

But cars had been driving through the fields to get back to the boat launch area where activity has been occurring.

And so parks worked together very quickly with SPD and boulders were placed in strategic areas to prevent cars from being able to drive on the lawn to get to the boat launch.

And that has, knock on wood, proved successful so far.

So really appreciate the Seattle Parks and Rec as well as SPD for just their quick turnaround and responding to the public safety issues at the park.

And then a new gate is being installed at Gasworks Park that is being installed now also to manage for Partying that has created disturbances at the park.

So that is happening as we speak.

This week, welcome to council member Juarez for joining us.

I'm so happy that you're here and that D5 has a representative again.

Again, I want to acknowledge our colleague, former council member Moore for all her amazing work representing the D5.

And now, Welcome to join us as a D5 representative, Councilmember Juarez.

Okay, and then this week also I'm meeting with the Seattle Colleges tomorrow.

I'll be joining the celebration for the All-American City Award that has been given to our Department of Neighborhoods.

That's a really prestigious award and we are so pleased for all the work that they do across the city and the neighborhoods and for me in particular in D4.

So I wanna shout out to the employees at the Department of Neighborhoods for all their hard work.

I will also this week be walking with the residents through the Wedgwood proposed Neighborhood Center as part of the comp plan work.

And then this week toward the latter part of the week, I'll be attending the Mayor Seafair reception, as I'm sure many of you are as well, and then the Seafair gala.

I will also next week be participating in National Night Out on August 5th.

I'll be visiting a block party in Wallingford, and my team will be in other areas of the district, including Magnuson Park.

And then lastly, I want to say that I will not be able to join a council meeting tomorrow, so I will need to be excused, council president.

Sorry about that.

Cannot be helped for tomorrow.

Thank you.

Thank you.

If anyone has any questions, please feel free to ask, or if not, I'll pass it to my colleague, Councilmember Saka.

All right.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Well, I guess first and foremost, are there any questions on Councilmember Rivera's piece?

I'm assuming there is no objection to Councilmember Rivera's absence from tomorrow's council meeting.

Hearing none, you are officially excused.

Thank you, colleagues.

Sorry about that.

All right, colleagues.

Hello.

Good afternoon.

On the Transportation Committee front, excited to share that our next Transportation Committee meeting will be next Tuesday, August 5th at 9.30 a.m.

We're still finalizing the agenda right now.

We do hope that it will be at least in part more regionally focused and invite some regional partners there.

Stay tuned.

And there's a lot of advanced planning going on right now in the Transportation Committee to ensure our items of business move forward.

Mindful, of course, of the upcoming budget process, which will impact our ability to hold regular Transportation Committee meetings.

On the regional committee front, excited to share that in the Puget Sound Regional Council Committee last week, last Thursday, I was honored to attend that meeting in person.

It was a great substantive conversation.

Among other things, we had a very insightful briefing from the State Chair, Senate Chair of the Transportation Committee, Senator Marco Elias.

where he gave a very informative update and outlook ahead on the state of transportation situation in Washington State.

And so I want to thank Senator Elias for sharing his insights with colleagues at the local level.

Very, very helpful.

In the community, the waterfront opening happened last Friday, and I saw a few of the smiling faces here at the table there.

So shout out to Councilmember Hollingsworth.

Nelson as well, council president was there.

Great, great, great event.

Honored to be able to join and participate in that personally, and so appreciate the leadership and advocacy of the mayor and helping to bring that to life.

So many mayors, including Mayor Nichols, as was called out during that During the mayor's comments, had a role in that at some point.

So in addition to current leaders like Seattle Center Director Marshall Foster, Waterfront Director Angela Brady, and so, so many played a role in bringing that to life once and for all, and was honored to be there.

My kids were especially excited to be there.

Three young kids, colleagues, I'll say that they really relished their time playing on the Jellyfish water slide and found some new innovative ways to quickly climb up that thing so they can quickly come down as quickly as possible.

So really, really fun.

And Council President, I'm told, actually took a tour down that big slide before all the kids.

But all the kids that were there, including my own, had a blast.

And that is all I would like to share on the committee and in the community front for now.

I will also take this moment to address my absence last week at the HHS committee meeting.

Colleagues, so first off, I want to apologize to the members of the public.

Especially the proposed nominees for the various committees that were before that took the time out of their busy days to show up.

And there was a number of important things on the agenda that day, including those vacancy and appointments, some other substantive grant-accepting items, and I want to apologize for My unexcused absence and the impact that that had on people, I will share that I then and remain going through some very significant personal and family challenges.

That impacted my ability there in the moment to join that meeting personally.

And it wasn't some grand conspiracy or cabal to frustrate any policy objectives or goals that I'm prepared to support.

And thank you, Council President, for putting those on the agenda for tomorrow.

I pride myself on my work and work ethic and ability to be resilient.

It was just right before that meeting on the bus to City Hall, I got some uncomfortable calls and that really impacted my ability to show up in a public meeting of that, of any public meeting.

And so in any event, I make no apologies for the decision.

I appreciate the privacy and understanding and patience and grace, but I am mindful of the impact that they had on people.

But I appreciate, again, patience and grace and colleagues especially that didn't jump to any rash conclusions and didn't assume bad intent automatically about a decision that I unfortunately needed to make in the moment for me and my family situation.

So in any event, that is all.

I welcome any comments, questions from you all, colleagues.

If not, pass the baton to whoever's next on the list.

That would be Councilmember Salmon.

Thank you very much, Madam President.

And thank you, Councilmember Salmon.

You know, we had a chance to talk.

I understand things happen.

And while the meeting that happened last week, you know, Council President Nelson had been excused.

We were aware of that.

In knowing, you know, what I know, as I said, things come up, things happen.

It wasn't intentional.

And the fact that we are still able to move forward with the appointments to or the nominations for all the various commissions that were before us last week, very appreciative of that.

So thank you very much, Council President.

And with that, Let's talk about what happened last week, or what we have coming up.

So we have a special meeting on the Land Use Committee this Wednesday at 2 p.m.

There will be a public hearing on simplifying the subdivision process, as well as a public hearing on the routes to roofs legislation.

There are no votes expected this coming Wednesday.

The next meeting of the Land Use Committee will be on Wednesday the 6th, and we expect a lot of activity at that meeting, including permit reform legislation, design review legislation, throw in a little bit of SEPTED, and we have a few other things that we're going to throw in there as well.

With regard to upcoming Housing and Human Services Committee, I look forward to working...

Oh, by the way, I forgot to say welcome back.

Thank you.

Good to have you back.

I'm looking forward to working with you.

On housing and human services and other things.

So I know- Co-chairs.

Co-chairs.

Okay.

So we do have MFTE things that are coming up that are time critical.

So we'll be moving together to get those advanced to make sure that there is no lapse in that program.

Because as I talked to developers, they're letting me know how critical that is to actually bring units online.

A great incentive for them and want to make sure we still have that tool that we can utilize.

So that's it on the committee fronts.

Don't have anything to add from external committees at this time.

Some of the interactions I had last week, I met with a group called Somali Bantu Rising, who are really trying to be community-centered for their specific community of Somali people to promote literacy, education, entrepreneurship, and violence reduction.

So it was good to meet with those young men to see how we can support them.

Also, I had a meeting with a development organization called Urban Black.

They're actually a black-owned, woman-owned development organization in Seattle.

Are you familiar with Urban Black?

Katisha?

Yeah, yeah.

How did I not know about you?

Tell me about you.

How can we promote you and the things that you're doing?

Also, Wednesday night, we hosted a safe and stable rental housing working group, which actually brought together renters, small landlords, permanent housing providers, Queer Power Alliance, King County Homelessness Coalition, Housing Justice Project.

Just brought folks together to talk about what is the state of rental housing In Seattle, what are the pain points?

What are the problem statements?

And getting together to talk about solutions.

What are the solutions?

Because each one of those organizations has a different problem statement.

Each one of them has probably a different solution.

So the thought was get them in the same room at the same time and talking to each other to work together to develop those solutions, you know, develop that partnership, develop that dialogue.

It actually went very well, and they're looking forward to doing further collaborations, further meetings like that.

So that's something I hope to facilitate while I'm still in this role and perhaps, you know, feel safe, you know, tee it up for whoever comes behind me to continue those conversations.

Also, Thursday night, I had the opportunity to make some welcome remarks at the Organization of Chinese Americans National Convention at their reception at the Chungwa Benevolent Association.

I want to thank former Councilmember Wu for inviting me to be able to speak to that group.

It was a great honor.

Also, on Friday, Staff had a chance to go to Woodland Park Zoo.

Excuse me.

They met Dave the giraffe, I believe it was.

Dave, yeah.

And not only met Dave, but were able to feed Dave the giraffe.

And we did office hours at Jefferson Community Center on Friday evening.

Again, getting feedback from folks in the community, whether it's about Rainier Avenue traffic safety, Safety on Lake Washington Boulevard.

Safety at Jose Rizal Park.

You know, the issue's in Little Saigon.

So there'll be some follow-up meetings I'll be having this week to try to follow up on those issues.

In terms of what we have coming up this week, I'll be meeting with the Executive Director of the Breakfast Group tomorrow morning to discuss the youth mentoring, education, and employment readiness programs they have going on.

I will be also joining in the Department of Neighborhoods celebration of their All-American City Award.

I'll be meeting with Dr. Lee Hunt of SPD to discuss the safe growth program that they're looking to implement, as well as having a meeting with SPD Chief of Staff Alex Ricketts to go over some public safety concerns in D2.

And I do ask for an excusal on Monday, August 4th, because I will be in CAMAS.

I've been asked to be in CAMAS to be at the Clark County School Safety Summit to discuss crime prevention through environmental design assessments of schools.

So that is all I have at this point.

If there are no questions, I will turn it over to Councilmember Strauss.

Seeing no questions, I'll take it away.

Thank you, Councilmember Salomon.

And just as a reminder from last week, I've requested to be excused from your land use meeting this Wednesday, as I will be attending an Association of Washington Cities meeting as part of their board of directors.

For Select Budget Committee this week, folks, it's going to be a bit of a marathon.

So as a reminder, just on B&O, The Seattle Shield initiative, we had it briefed in committee as one meeting.

We then had a discussion that went about, you know, the whole committee went about three and a half hours.

And so this upcoming meeting is just going to be votes.

So if you've got questions, happy to take them.

If there's a little bit of back and forth, happy to take them.

But we've got a very packed agenda, and so I will be asking us to keep moving along.

So if you do have statements you like to make, Get ready, try to keep them short, direct, and focused would be my request because we have the Seattle Shield initiative, we have the carry forward legislation, we have the mid-year supplemental budget package, which includes the grant acceptance and appropriation as well as the actual mid-year supplemental budget.

We then have World Cup appropriations and then the HCMS loan.

I think for those last two, it's going to be pretty straightforward.

I have not done an amendment check on the number of amendments for the supplemental, but I know on the Seattle Shield initiative, folks, we have 17 amendments.

So I'm giving you this pre-briefing to say, if you've got things that you want to say, like, I agree with this amendment or I disagree with this amendment, Happy to take that.

But if we get into a seven minutes, which is technically allowed under our council rules, if we get into a seven minute explanation about why you don't like an amendment, I'm just going to ask you to vote no.

Just because 17 is a long time in addition to public comment.

If a consent agenda for agreed upon, and I haven't seen all of these amendments because confidentiality wasn't released, so it's actually been a little difficult for me to be your chair in setting up a way to go through all of these rather quickly.

After council briefing, go meet with the staff.

The agenda is posted, but the amendments have not been posted at this time.

They will, by close of business is my understanding, working out some final details.

So another request is, it's always okay to release confidentiality to the chair.

I'm just here to steward us through this.

If you need extra information and briefings on the five topics, technically six bills, please reach out to Central Staff ASAP.

During this week's meeting, it's our intention to getting just to the voting on amendments and the underlying legislation as quickly as possible so that we can get through the agenda.

And again, the agenda will be updated with amendments shortly.

Any questions on Select Budget Committee this week?

Because I'm going to move on to the next sections.

At full council tomorrow, I will be bringing in an amendment to the council rules.

I know that it was in your Governance Committee last week, which is at the same time as Sound Transit, which is why I was not able to attend.

want to bring this amendment forward, which would help create clearer, more consistent rules around public comment in two ways.

First, the current version of council rules says that public comment shall not exceed 20 minutes unless extended by the chair.

And this, colleagues, I think we all acknowledge that 20 minutes is rarely held to, and so my amendment would extend that from up to 20 minutes to up to one hour.

This will help balance the need for us to conduct council business with our duty to listen to the public.

Secondly, it would standardize the amount of time each member of the public is given to speak.

I took these standardizations from the work that we did in budget committee last year, where we put these pieces of information out early.

Councilmember Hollingsworth has adopted some of this during the comp plan public hearings, and it's gone really well.

And I think standardizing it for the public would be helpful.

The amount of time for each speaker is set at the discretion of the chair.

It is up to two minutes, but routinely gets shrunken down to one minute or less without clear policy about when or why that happens.

Because of this, members of the public, many of whom take time off work to come give public comment, don't know how much time they'll be able to speak for.

I think we've all seen somebody get to counsel For the first time, pretty nervous, have set up a two-minute speech, and then we shorten public comment right there on the spot.

And they have to try to adjust on the fly, and it comes out a little clunky.

This amendment would give the public a standardized algorithm, if you will, of how much time they would get.

If there are fewer than 30 people, everyone would get two minutes.

If there are 30 to 60 people, everyone would get one minute.

And then if there are more than 60 people, there's flexibility for the presiding officer to make even more adjustments.

Select Budget Committee last year, not during the public hearings, but during the meetings, is if there were more than 60 people, everyone would get dropped, I think, to 30 seconds.

But I think that that's a little too prescriptive to put in our council rules.

There's also understanding that this is the intent.

We tried to look at a couple different ways of if there are 29 people signed up when public comment starts and then 30 more people come in, There's not a way to put that in the rules, but it is up to the discretion of the chair.

And in my case, if more people came in, I would say, clearly, there are more than 30 people here.

We're going to drop down to a minute.

Ultimately, I think it's our duty to hear from our constituents.

And public comment is one of our most popular and important ways to do that.

If we had unlimited time in our lives and in our days, I'd say we should hear from everyone as long as possible.

And I don't think that that's realistic for the amount of work that we have.

So that being said, we do have important time-sensitive work to do in these meetings after public comment.

I believe these changes will give the public more time and more predictability around how they can provide public comment while balancing our needs to get the city's business done.

The lack of predictability and of time length sometimes creates tension.

I've seen it create tension in the past, and that tension is often boiled over And to either protest or anger, which has delayed the work of the council, this change aims to address that issue so that we can provide predictability for everyone walking into that shared experience, which is public comment.

Any questions on that one?

Otherwise, I'll tick into the other lines of work.

Yes?

I welcome this amendment.

I had proposed an amendment to our rules that what I as president have experienced is that the responsibility of making a decision about extending public comment a certain amount of time because our rules again say shall not exceed and we often go over 20 minutes and nothing is said and then you know when there are a whole bunch of people So, the amendment that I put forward says that if it does exceed 20 minutes, there shall be a vote to extend.

And that was an effort to take it away from just the decision of one person.

and have the whole body weigh in, which I think is more fair.

I will consider whether or not your amendment can take the place of this.

Also, the benefit of yours is that it does provide for predictability.

Which is really important, because if anybody here has tried to cut down a two-minute speech to one minute, it's not easy, you know, and doing it on the fly is really hard.

So I appreciate that.

Earlier today, I reached out to Toby Nixon, who's the former president of the Washington Coalition of Open Government, to find out what are the, if that organization, who's kind of the OPMA watchdogs, if they have any Best practices for dealing with when public comment exceeds what is already prescribed.

So believe me, this has been on my mind and I welcome direction and other ideas because clearly we do have a responsibility to live by the OPMA and also get the Council's business done.

So thank you very much.

Thank you.

External committees from Sound Transit will be appointing Deborah Juarez as a Sound Transit.

I'm joking.

I'm joking.

I was just looking for that reaction.

I know.

In the work of Sound Transit, this last week, the board passed a motion to begin updating rules on pets because Sound Transit does not allow pets on board.

We'll be working to update that policy, especially as the 40-acre dog park at Marymoor is accessible by light rail.

We did have a tragedy this morning at the Northgate light rail station with a shooting that occurred.

It is still under investigation.

My understanding is that there's not a threat to the general public, and as we have more information, we'll provide it.

As well as I met with Sound Transit this morning to talk about purchased properties that are within the City of Seattle.

Sound Transit is starting to purchase properties for West Seattle and Ballard Link Extensions.

And so there are currently three pieces of property that have been purchased in the last few months.

And I'm working with them to have a more robust policy about how they're going to manage those properties.

So there's a key bank across the street from Dick's in Uptown, Lower Queen Inn.

There's the Delridge properties, and now there's Avalon properties as well.

So working to make sure that they remain vibrant parcels within our community so that they do not become attractants for negative behavior.

In District 6, I had office hours last week.

Thank you, Council Member Juarez, for inspiring me to do office hours.

And I have them again this week.

I will also be hosting a town hall on Thursday, August 7th at the Green Lake Community Center from 530 to 730. We'll be sharing out more details later this week.

And colleagues, I have been losing my voice a lot these last few months.

Today is no different because Ballard FC has gone on to the national championship I was saying earlier that we are going to the national championship, and I was kindly reminded that I don't play for them.

I got kicked off of my soccer team in ninth grade for not being good enough, but I show up on the field with my voice.

So I'm very excited for the team to go to the national championship.

Colleagues, if there is a positive outcome, I will have a proclamation that is written in very short order because it would need to be presented next week, but I'm not going to touch it until we win, if we are lucky enough and deserving enough.

And as well, I will also be attending the National Night Out activities next week.

That's my report today.

Councilmember Solomon is as well.

With that, if there are no questions, I'll pass it over to Councilmember Hollingsworth.

Any questions for Councilmember Strauss?

Seeing none, thank you, Councilmember Strauss.

Parks Utilities Technology Meeting will be Wednesday, August the 13th at 2 p.m.

Colleagues, it is our last meeting before recess, and so the agenda is very packed.

So we'll be moving along with a lot of information.

I know there's some amendments coming to some legislation, so really appreciate your work on that.

So thank you.

Next.

Oh, and the agenda is currently being formed right now.

Next piece, the Select Committee on the Comprehensive Plan.

Thank you all for your engagement.

August 4th at 9.30 a.m.

is when we'll have our meeting.

That meeting is also packed because there are a ton of amendments to our plan, and I just want everyone to understand this is only the first phase.

This is going to be a working document.

This is going to be a working process.

This is the 30,000-foot view of the design of our city, so there's going to be a ton of work to continue, but we're going to go over And I will talk to every office how we're going to run that meeting just so we can stay on track because if everyone addressed every single, if we allocated a minute to every single amendment, we would be here for a long time.

I can't do the time, but we'll be here for a long time.

Also noted, thank you, Councilmember Strauss, for talking about the amendments for the confidentiality regarding the Wednesday's meeting.

I didn't realize that mine were confidential to the chair.

I apologize.

I'll make sure that you know what my amendments are.

I do have three amendments for that meeting for the Shield law, and I will, yeah.

I will work on that communication with the sponsor of the bill and also the chair.

Thank you.

And then everyone else, because you all have to vote on those, so thank you.

I can't give special privileges.

I gotta give them to everybody.

Also, that's it for my regional update for committee meetings.

A couple things in district, first of all.

Welcome, Council Member Juarez.

Welcome.

Here we are telling you welcome, but you've already been here, but welcome.

Looking forward to working with you and for the constituents and the neighborhoods of District 5 and D3 and 5 make the number 35. Maybe that's lucky number.

I don't know.

53, reverse it.

So anyways, looking forward to working with you.

I also want to say I had the wonderful opportunity of going to the waterfront.

And I know oftentimes we get a lot of emails about what's wrong with Seattle, how we can fix it, how we can get better.

But I'm going to tell you this.

I rode my bike from my house to the waterfront for Pier 58. The vibes, the energy this past weekend were phenomenal.

There were so many people out.

There was so much activity.

The weather was beautiful.

The pier was popping, right?

It had a lot.

I do want to offer to the waterfront to name the jellyfish Little Wobble.

I think that would be a great...

No?

Okay.

Okay, never mind.

Dave, okay.

There's never like a Jamal or a Dante, you know?

But I think little wobble would be perfect, so I'm gonna offer that.

And then the Torchlight Parade, I know it was, I believe this was the first year it was moved onto the waterfront this year.

And again, the vibes and the energy were great.

There were a lot of tourists there who might not have made their way up to 4th, but who were on the waterfront.

It was beautiful.

There was a lot of people out.

There were a lot of community folks, and it was great to see the float.

And again, I rode there by bike, and that is literally the best way to get around Seattle when there's a lot of traffic.

And you can get an electric bike, so you can throttle the whole time.

The other thing I wanted to just mention for whoever's watching the...

Seattle channel at 2 p.m.

on Monday is that we do hear concerns in our district obviously about the cleanliness on Capitol Hill and that is constantly so I just wanted to elevate that and I will be addressing a lot of that because we do have to get better at just the cleanliness on Capitol Hill and then obviously the QFC North on Broadway.

And the activity that is happening, Tashkent, the library, Capitol Hill Library, and the QFC.

And I'm going to continue to raise that constantly because those are the main massive concerns that I hear from constituents and neighbors regarding some of the issues that are going on in the district.

And so that is on my radar.

We're working on it.

And I really appreciate people's patience and time and energy to that as well.

So we will be addressing that as well.

And I'm not gonna kick it to Kettle because you're not next.

It is Council Member Juarez in the alphabet.

So sorry I get to lose you, my friend.

Council Member Juarez, you're J, right?

After H, is that correct?

Yep, correct.

I'm still stuck on Dave the giraffe.

Well, I don't have a lot to share except to say thank you.

It's good to see you here.

After 2020, we never got to sit at the table again.

So this is really, really nice to be able to sit here again around the table and just talk about what we're doing.

And thank you all for your support and also the folks that also the other five individuals that I got to know really well that were applicants for this position.

But I also really, really want to thank and I hope she's watching as Council Member Moore, who's also a dear friend of mine.

And I just cannot thank her enough for her support, but also her ability to step up and run for office.

And I just want her to know that I think of her often and just happy to be here.

Thank you.

Council Member Kettle.

Good afternoon.

Thank you.

I just wanted to start off with an idea.

JJ, Jellyfish Joy.

Just throwing that out there as a possibility.

Nothing, nothing.

Okay, well, in that case, I will shift to a warm welcome to Councilmember Juarez.

And then to my report, tomorrow we're having basically a special meeting, a HALAC meeting of the Public Safety Committee, where we'll look at the Real-Time Crime Center and CCTV.

This is building on the work that we've already done on this area, but moving forward in some important areas.

So I invite people to join us on Thursday for that meeting.

For next week, quickly jump into next week, Tuesday's Night Out.

I recommend for all those to participate, and actually for those that don't participate to do so.

It basically comes out of the SPD's crime prevention efforts, but Night Out's really important.

And it's a great way for everyone to get to know their neighbors.

And I'm going to start in Soto and then make my way through Belltown back to Queen Anne.

And I look forward to seeing everyone as part of that.

Separately, in terms of, you know, outside, the South Lake Union Community Council is also meeting on that day.

Wednesday of next week, Friends of Queen Anne for a walkabout in Queen Anne related to the comprehensive plan.

Really important work that we're doing on the comprehensive plan.

And then Thursday, Inspire Washington celebration event.

And then Friday, the Domestic Violence Prevention Council.

And just wanted to close by a couple things from last week.

We had a great meeting in community related to creating a safer Seattle community forum.

Last week we were at D7, was the latest of that.

which had representatives, you know, including Chief Barnes, Chief Scoggins, Chief Barden, and a whole host of others that participated in that.

And I want to thank everyone who did so and thank, importantly, the constituents that came out to participate.

It's really important.

Councilmember Saka gave a complete look at our PSRC, the Puget Sound Regional Council Executive Board meeting, won't add anything there.

And I just wanted to do a quick thank you, too, for the report from Councilmember Rivera on meeting with the North Precinct, Captain Davidson.

I had the opportunity the week before to go there, too.

The captain was on leave that week, so I met with lieutenants, the acting captain, and others.

Parallels to that meeting, too, and it's important to press forward on these pieces.

From my colleagues, it's really important, but it's also good to follow up on the actions that we take.

We passed a number of bills, and these bills are starting to have an impact.

And that's the word I got from the North Precinct.

And I think it's incumbent on us to kind of complete that circle back, that feedback loop.

And so Thursday's meeting is actually going to be a good opportunity to do that.

And so with that, I am finished pending any questions or comments.

Thank you.

All right, I'm not seeing any.

I will begin by saying welcome back.

Oh, I'm sorry.

I'm sorry.

How did that happen?

Oops.

I do this all the time, so just get used to it.

No problem.

Thank you.

Well, I want to kick off my remarks first by extending a welcome and congratulations to our returning colleague, Councilmember Juarez, and really looking forward to our work together and also celebrating you shortly at a welcoming reception.

Thank you.

And with that, just starting off with committee business for the Sustainability City Light and Arts and Culture Committee, we will have a briefing discussion and possible vote on an ordinance relating to the Harbor Island Superfund site, as well as a briefing discussion and possible vote on a resolution relating to City Light's 2026 and 2027 energy targets.

And following that, a briefing and discussion related to Baker Tilly Audit.

I will note that the August 8th City Light Committee is now canceled, so we can all get a little bit of time back.

We're moving the items that we're going to be in that committee meeting into our meeting this Friday.

So congratulations on your time back, committee members.

Nothing to report on regional committees today.

And just acknowledging the three pieces of legislation I have in various committees this week between the Seattle Shield Initiative, Roots to Roofs, and the subdivision bill.

So thank you, Chair Solomon and Chair Strauss, for your flexibility in working with my team to see these pieces of legislation through.

Noting that particularly with the land use bills, roots to roofs and subdivision, after hearing from central staff, they'll be briefing the existing amendments.

We will also hear from a small group of stakeholders who were kind enough to come volunteer to testify on the bill at the table.

So flagging that for land use committee members.

And in the spirit of a true council briefing, I will just be brief and kind of end there and note to any of the listening public, we will be getting out one of our newsletters this week that'll include some community highlights about our working community.

And as always, encourage folks to follow on social media to stay more apprised about where we're showing up across the city.

And with that, I will conclude my remarks there.

Thank you, Council President.

Okay.

Doing a survey here.

All right.

Thank you, and as I was saying, welcome back.

It's great to have you back, and I look forward to continuing to learn from you and look forward to your representation of District 5, so thank you.

Happy Oromo Week, everybody.

The Oromo are a people inhabiting primarily Ethiopia and northern Kenya, And there are about 15,000, I believe, people from the Aroma region living in Seattle right now.

Aroma Week began, I believe, on Saturday the 26th and lasts through this week, I think, until the 3rd.

Sunday, this coming Sunday.

But it is marked by a major soccer festival that draws teams.

There are 32 teams from around the world, including Australia, Europe, and different states across the country.

And it's not just a sports competition.

It's also a chance for people to come together and celebrate shared heritage and make connections.

So, there you have it.

Okay.

Anyway, at tomorrow's City Council meeting, there are two pieces of legislation from the Governance Accountability and Economic Development Committee.

Those are resolutions 32173 and 74. And the next Governance Accountability and City and Economic Development meeting will be on Thursday, August 14th.

And we're still finalizing the agenda, and we'll get back to you on that.

And then finally, yes, Councilmember Saka, I attended the Waterfront opening in celebration.

That was really fun.

I got there right on time before there was a lot of people, and so I just saw that slide and I went right for it, I have to admit.

And it's really fast.

It really shoots you out the bottom there.

I'm sure somebody has a video of me just kind of going very neatly head over heels.

In any case, super fun.

And I have to say that there was a lot of honoring of former Mayor Nichols, and I think that is completely well-placed.

And I also just want to give a shout-out to my old boss, Councilmember Richard Conlon, who was Transportation Chair During this whole time and I remember when the first idea was a cut and cover and then it was a deep bore and in the middle of all of that there was the issue about whether or not we should Tear down the viaduct or not, or just leave it like it is, et cetera.

So it's great to see it all coming to fruition.

And then, let's see, that was in the past, and this week I'll be attending the Boeing Seafarer Air Show reception on Thursday evening with the Blue Angel pilots and other members of our services to, you know, to mark their presence in Seattle and their artistry.

And on Friday evening, I'll also be attending the Seafair Charitable Foundation Annual Gala.

And with that, that's all I've got.

Questions, comments?

Yes, Councilmember Saab.

Thank you, Madam Council President.

And I, too, just wanted to take a quick moment of personal privilege to personally welcome, especially since I'm sitting right next to you, Councilmember Juarez, to this body, to this chamber.

Welcome again.

I am honored to be able to work alongside you.

I've known you for a few years, including, you know, we worked on some things on the civic engagement front together.

I had the pleasure of learning from you, working with you on some of those things.

Here we are together.

Just can't say again how excited I am, honored I am to have you.

I think how honored, excited, and lucky we are as a body to have you here.

And I unfortunately had to take this morning's meeting where we made those selections remotely.

But you'll attest, my very first stop once I arrived at City Hall today was to your office.

But anyway, just welcome again.

Excited to have you.

Thank you.

Councilmember Rivera.

And I just wanted to take the opportunity to also give a shout out to former Mayor Charlie Royer, who also was a big advocate for the waterfront.

And until the end, he was advocating and working actively on the waterfront project as well.

So both former Mayor Greg Nichols and former Mayor Charlie Royer, shout out.

Excellent.

Thank you for that too.

All right, I'm not seeing anybody else hands raised, so if there isn't any further business before we adjourn, it is 2.53, and hearing no further business, we are adjourned.

Thank you, everyone.