Select Budget Committee Public Hearing Session II 11/14/25

Good afternoon.

The November 14th Select Budget Committee meeting will come back to order.

It is 1.30 p.m.

Will the clerk please call the roll?

Those not present are excused until they arrive.

Council Member Hollingsworth.

Council Member Juarez.

Here.

Council Member Kettle.

Here.

Council President Nelson.

Council Member Rink.

Present.

Council Member Rivera.

Council Member Saka.

Council Member Solomon.

Here.

And Chair Strauss.

Present.

Five present.

Thank you.

We have 15 amendments remaining.

We will be here as late as 6.30.

If we get to that late hour, then we will not, if we get past 4 p.m., we're not going to take the briefing on the legislation that we will be voting on on Monday, and you can refer to the PowerPoint and ask central staff questions at your leisure.

With that, we left off just having voted on FG 101B, and so we will move on to HSD 82. And so at this time, Council Member Rink as sponsor of the amendment, you are recognized to move your amendment.

Thank you, Chair.

I move to amend Council Bill 121116 as presented on HSD082A1.

Thank you, and before we have central staff brief this item, Council Member Kettle, I understand you have a substitute.

Would you like to move your substitute?

Yes.

Thank you, Chair.

I would like to move.

amendment HSD A2B1.

Second.

Thank you.

So we now have the substitute to Council Member Rink's amendment and we have Jennifer Labreck of Council Central Staff here to provide us a brief presentation in addition to Director Noble regarding this item because it is Everything is changing by the hour.

We saw even just last night the ground shift regarding this topic, and so colleagues, I believe it is prudent for us to bring a presentation here.

We now have everyone other than Councilmember Rivera, and just a reminder that we will be here until 6.30 if we do not move quickly.

With that, over to you, Director Noble, Jennifer Labreck.

I'm just going to turn it over to Jen to give you an update, both to speak to the amendments but also give you a contextual update around federal funding decisions that are becoming more apparent and clear.

Thank you.

And Councilmember Rivera is present.

I am here today just to talk for a few minutes about the 2025 Continuum of Care Notice of Funding Opportunity, which was just published last night.

So I will say this is a fluid situation.

I think both myself, but also obviously many other partners are digging into that NOFA and understanding what it means, but it already, you can tell that it does have some significant implications for projects in the city of Seattle.

So I wanted to review what we know so far, understanding that things are definitely fluid and subject to change as our understanding evolves.

So again, we've all been anticipating that the Department of Housing and Urban Development would be releasing what we call the Continue of Care, COC, NOFO.

They did that last night, soon after the federal government reopened.

Overall, the funding amount, and this is, we call it the 2025 NOFA, but it is essentially to provide funding for projects in 2026. So this is really a relevant issue to the 2026 budget.

Overall, the amount in the 2025 COC NOFA is about $3.9 billion, which I understand is just a slight increase from last year's amount.

So there really isn't a decrease in the overall appropriations.

but what we are seeing are some of the changes that were expected.

The big one is that historically, HUD has encouraged and prioritized use of COC funding for permanent supportive housing projects.

So that is where many of the COC funds in King County go.

Overall, King County receives about $67 million in continuum of care funding and just doing some quick math, about $60 million of that goes towards permanent housing projects, the vast majority of that being permanent supportive housing projects.

HUD is now saying that no more than 30% of any continuum of care award can be spent on permanent housing, any type of permanent housing, PSH, rapid rehousing, even some kind of projects that are joint transitional and permanent housing.

That is a profound shift in policy that will have big impacts for both King County and the city of Seattle.

Again, because this region has chosen to invest about $60 million of its COC funding into permanent housing.

I'm also hearing some other things which I'm just trying to get a handle on now.

For example, really in the past, if a project has gotten COC funding, it can count on getting COC funding the next year.

It has been a stable and predictable source of operating funding for projects.

That does not sound like it is the case anymore.

HUD is saying that, I think I'm gonna put this correctly, you know, maybe about 30% of the funding can sort of, you can count on it, but the rest of it is up in the air.

So I think we can expect to see that projects that have been getting this funding for a number of years may no longer see it.

So, you know, the city, the King County region is gonna go through the process of submitting an application to HUD.

Of course, they're gonna ask for the same amount of funding they've gotten in the past.

They're gonna try to stay as competitive as possible.

but there is a distinct possibility that under some of these new criteria that King County will not be funded at the same level as it has been previously.

So I will stop there for any questions.

I will just say, I think the biggest risk in terms of what I'm hearing is to permit supportive housing projects, which count on COC dollars as one of their main sources of operating maintenance and services funding.

And in Seattle, Let's see, I took these notes this morning.

Let's see if we have them.

We do have, I wanna say we have 17 PSH projects in the city of Seattle that are receiving continuum of care dollars for operating maintenance and services contracts for a total value of about $17 million.

So again, those are the examples of types of projects that could be at risk here.

And I'll stop.

Thank you.

and now that we have all council members present, I'll just reorient as to where we are.

We will be here until 6.30 p.m.

unless we move quickly.

So colleagues, I am gonna request that everyone speaks only once to one item unless there is a question that will change the way you are going to vote on an item.

So everyone will have one opportunity to speak to each item unless there are clarifying questions that will change how you vote.

I also wanna just speak to the process that we are here and then I will turn it over to Council Member Rink and then Council Member Kettle and then to the body.

Right now we have a substitute from Councilmember Kettle to Councilmember Rink's amendment.

We will vote on Councilmember Kettle's amendment.

If it passes, we will then vote on Councilmember Rink's amendment as amended.

If Councilmember Kettle's amendment fails, we will vote on Councilmember Rink's amendment as presented.

So that's the process that we are in right now.

You can vote yes for both Council Member Kettle and Council Member Rink's amendments.

With that, I will pass it over to Council Member Rink, Council Member Kettle, and then open it up for general discussion.

Thank you, Chair Strauss.

Colleagues, this CBA would proviso $11.8 million in HSD for the purposes of increasing our Federal Emergency Reserve to mitigate federal funding impacts to our shelter and housing system.

I want to state at the top of this that the actions of this federal regime have jeopardized so many bodies of work at the city and our country and have introduced a lot of uncertainty to our community.

Back in April at the Select Committee on Federal Administration and Policy Changes, that was when we first learned from KCRHA directly about the potential of this funding to be stripped from our region with nearly 4,500 households who will have their housing and services threatened.

Just a few weeks ago, Puget Sound Regional Council became involved and started organizing a letter to advocate to our congressional delegation on this, and I'm thankful to Councilmembers Rivera and Juarez for bringing that letter to this body to allow for the majority of members to sign on, really an affirmation of the importance of this particular topic.

and after months of delay, the NOFO has finally been released late last night after hours, and under the sweeping changes, it is estimated that 170,000 people across the United States could fall into, or in many cases, back into homelessness.

To be clear, this is directly out of the 2025, Project 2025 playbook.

The federal COC program plays a major role in housing people who may not otherwise be able to house themselves, including families, veterans, people with disabilities, youth and older adults.

And right now, Seattle and King County receive approximately $65 million to contract with organizations that house and provide a variety of supportive services for nearly 4,500 households.

who were or are currently experiencing homelessness.

The programmatic and contracting changes announced yesterday include that 30% limit on use of funds to permanent housing, as Jen explained.

Without local and state government intervention, our region's network of housing is gravely at risk.

This has been acknowledged by 42 Senate Democrats, including Senator Patty Murray, via a letter sent to HUD Secretary Scott Turner, noting that this action all puts HUD on a path which, quote, risks causing a dangerous spike in street homelessness and creating chaos in urban, suburban, and rural communities alike by forcing nearly 200,000 chronically homeless Americans with disabilities and families back onto the streets.

So again, we've been first made aware of this possibility back in spring when KCRHA presented and I remember the feeling of dread that I felt that day and members on this day expressing the same and I feel that same sense of dread again today because this time it's no longer speculative.

In preparation of this potential outcome, my office has been working with elected and government officials in city of Seattle, state government, and King County to contingency plan.

Last week, I convened a special meeting with Deputy Mayor Washington that included governmental and community partners, including King County and members of the state legislature.

who are having similar conversations on our strategy for applying for this NOFO and developing a contingency plan because we are in this together as a region.

So the budget action before you is to have us pause on expansions for the next couple of months until we resolve and understand the outcome of this COC.

The intent is for council to reevaluate the need for the proviso after the COC notice of funding opportunity results are released by HUD in 2026. If the executive determines that some or all of the additional reserve will not be needed and could instead be directed by new programs, this body can act to lift that proviso.

and all uplift on the county side, Councilmember Mosqueda and Budget Chair Dombowski and Interim County Executive Braddock have similarly been doing their work to set up their portion of a contingency fund.

So I want to emphasize my appreciation to the county for working together with us and how they're having similar discussions on their side on how they can make a contingency reserve possible and want to emphasize that we are trying to do planning work together to resolve this.

And moving forward in an ideal world, we are looking at other areas of our budget and perhaps deprioritizing other bodies of work in order to address this very urgent challenge.

We need more investment in emergency housing to immediately get more of our neighbors off the streets into housing.

and today's proposed budget action is not perfect, but our circumstances are far from perfect in this moment.

But I believe that this gives us options.

I believe this is responsible stewardship of the funding that we have right now, and I'm thankful to have this support on this approach from partners at the state, county leaders, service providers, and the Seattle King County Coalition on Homelessness.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Council Member Rink.

Council Member Kettle.

Thank you, Chair Strauss, and I also wanted to, well, first let me thank Director Noble, Mr. Chao, and Ms. LeBrec, particularly for your update.

Thank you so much for that.

Also, thank you, Councilmember Rank, for highlighting all the challenges that we're facing, which are real, and again, as I mentioned earlier, these challenges that we see, all of us, on a regular basis as we're out and about.

I mentioned earlier about being at Mary's Place.

at the new location on 3rd Avenue.

Not long ago, it was at Plymouth Housing, the Kristen Benson Place on Mercer, and just this week, the opening of the Stevens Place, the DESC facility in Inner Bay.

and understanding what these pieces are doing, but also understanding what is happening on our streets and how we need to face these challenges.

And that's why we have what we have in terms of the initiative, the pilot, that I'm looking to colleagues to pull out from this because it goes to the same pieces that Councilmember Rink is talking about.

It goes to helping those individuals in Pioneer Square that are facing the challenges of homelessness.

The pilot is for homelessness and public space initiative in Pioneer Square, and it provides $4 million support this effort.

And this is a partnership between the Downtown Seattle Association, Purpose, Dignity, and Action, otherwise known as PDA, Evergreen Treatment Services, REACH, and Community Solutions.

All these entities have been working these issues and gaining the lessons learned.

So I know the term is pilot, but in a sense that's a misnomer because they're building on the work that they've done before over the years and moving forward.

And this is really important.

And it builds on the right-of-way encampment resolution program, the ERP, and before that, Just Care.

So again, this is not new in a broader sense.

The project with Community Solutions and DSA have incorporated in planning, expertise in local service providers, three months of planning to inform the original appropriation.

This is already in the mayor's budget.

This has already gone through the checks that the executive does in terms of bringing this program forward, this pilot forward.

It's about dedicated outreach, development of a by-name list, which we know is so important, dedicated 24-hour high support shelter.

Again, going to point what we're gonna need to do.

And we know that we're gonna need to do this over the course of the first quarter.

And we know that we need to do this in the sense of what we see in Pioneer Square, but also in other parts of our city.

and it includes flexible funds to ensure each person has a workable pathway.

This is, you know, key about understanding what is happening and it's an integrated approach.

And ultimately, this is about taking in the lessons learned that we've been seeing.

You know, this is about, you know, the need for housing but also services.

We really need to have both.

And this is what I saw this past week at Stevens Place, the DESC facility in Inner Bay.

This is what I saw at Kristen Benson Place on Mercer, the Plymouth Housing location.

And the same with Mary's Place.

This is about bringing these pieces together, and this is what this pilot does.

But on top of that, it also spoke to, as I mentioned in the beginning, a public space initiative.

As I have said many times, I said this in a press conference recently upstairs on the seventh floor, it's about our neighbors, but also our neighborhoods.

And we have to look out for both, because they're both suffering at different times.

And this is the main driver here.

Again, looking out for our neighbors in need, but also our neighborhoods.

But I should add too, this is Pioneer Square.

We're only six months away from FIFA World Cup.

We need to be ready for that massive endeavor that we're about to undertake.

and this is an element to do this in terms of the public space initiative.

This is about taking care of the neighborhood of Pioneer Square that's just to our south and southwest.

And colleagues, I ask for your support for this carve-out to ensure that this moves forward, to ensure that we are doing the work that's needed now and it's gonna be continued to need in this location through the course of the first quarter of 2026. So I ask for your support.

Thank you very much, Chair.

Thank you, Council Member Kettle.

Colleagues, now is the time to, I'd say, address both because then we'll go through the voting sequence.

And so if you have questions, comments, concerns, and if somebody's got some towels, please.

Any questions, comments, discussion on the, Council President Nelson.

I support this budget action because I do support the pilot project that was addressed by Councilmember Kettle.

I've always said that if what we're doing is not really working, we have to try different things and the pilot that's been going on for several months now is a model that I support and I want to see it continue.

I would prefer that it received the original amount of funding in the mayor's proposed budget, but I do appreciate that this budget action will preserve a quarter of the funding.

Thank you, Council President.

Colleagues, further discussion?

Councilman Rivera.

Thank you, Chair.

I'm just wondering, Jen or Councilmember Kettle, can you tell me, so it's a quarter of the funding for a quarter of the year for this program, so what does that cover?

Thank you.

And I'll just take one step back and say to you, so the $4 million that was added in the 2026 proposed budget for community solutions was a one-time ad.

So it was not ongoing.

It was one time.

And then the 700,000, the only detail that I have is that it would support the first quarter of operations costs.

I do know that this pilot involved master leasing units in an apartment building for shelter, and then short-term rental subsidies for some folks to help them move on to permanent housing, and then services.

So I would have to assume that some combination of those things for quarter one.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Nothing more?

Thank you.

Colleagues, further discussion?

Director Noble.

In further response, and just for the clarification, the implication, again, this is a proviso.

Provisos can be lifted by council action.

To me, the clear implication is that if it's funded for the first quarter, that someone will return to ask the proviso to be lifted to continue funding, unless somehow the program fails in the first quarter.

And similarly, just to emphasize a point that Jen made, this is in the mayor's budget for $4 million, but specifically marked as a one-time item.

So to the extent that the intent is to fund it in 2027 and beyond, that will increase the deficit projection from the last time reported 140 to literally 144, because this is a $4 million ongoing item.

That's not to speak for or against, but just to be clear about what's going on here, if you will.

Thank you.

Councilmember Rivera, further questions?

Please, Chair.

Thank you, Ben.

I assume that, so with the 700, they'll do some work.

We can review what got done, how it worked, and then there may be a follow-up ask, but by then we should have some information on what the 700 operating supported and what kinds of things are needed for an area of the city and I believe the mayor put this in the budget because this is an area of the city and I don't want to speak for your district, Councilmember Saka, but I do, I'm down there frequently and there's great need in that neighborhood with unhoused folks needing services.

So I assume that's why this was directed in this fashion.

I would let Councilmember Kettle speak maybe more to the intent.

I would say I don't think we're going to have a lot of outcomes data after one quarter.

I think there will be some some things underway as they're standing it up, but it is just one quarter for what is essentially, although not new activities, I mean activities the city has done is sort of a new program.

So I don't know how much information will be available after the first quarter.

Thank you.

Councilman Rivera, further questions, discussion?

Thank you, Chair.

Just to say that it is something they've already been doing.

So we should have some kind of information about at least what services it's gone to support.

The way that this was described to me in the 2026 proposed budget in my Q&A and conversations with the exec is that this is a new pilot program.

I'm not to say that the PDA has not been engaged in similar types of activities before, for example, with the encampment resolution or with co-lead, I wanna be clear about that, but this is a new program with a specific focus on Pioneer Square and it's sort of model of moving people first to shelter and then to housing.

Council Member Rivera, you still have the floor.

Thank you, Chair.

I'll just look to Council Member Kettle to fill in some pieces.

I think there's some information he may have as well.

Wonderful, and I'll be calling on Council Member Kettle and Rink at the end to have closeout comments.

Council President, I see a hand again.

I'm asking that we only speak once per session.

Is this a new comment question?

people to information that was sent to council yesterday at 3.43 from Emily Baylor if people want more information.

Thank you.

Colleagues, further discussion?

I will make my remarks and then we're gonna go into closing remarks and then we're gonna go through voting.

I'll bring up the voting procedure again in just a minute.

Just to say that this continuum of care funding, the city should have no business in filling this hole when the state and the federal government should be doing their job.

That said, we have to be prepared for whatever may come our way.

The money that has been put aside is not enough.

We need to be able to have a grounded understanding of the environment before us, before we start spending money.

And to Council Member Kettle's point, we have to continue doing the work that is currently occurring and not just stop midstream.

so I find that both Council Member Kettles and Council Member Rinks amendments are positive in my perspective and I will be voting in favor of both of them with the understanding and just for clarity here, we will have to come back next year to decide how we spend this money, whether it's the continuum of care, whether it's a new federal crisis that they've created, whether it is opening new shelter, or whether it is the community solutions.

Right now, what I see from my colleagues, and I deeply appreciate both of you for bringing this issue forward to say, we need to pause.

Here are some things that we shouldn't pause at this very second, but we need to pause before we make further large decisions.

So thank you both.

for your fiscal responsibility and for also caring about the people who are struggling the most on our streets.

With that, Council Member Kettle, I'm gonna call on you and then Council Member Rink, I'm gonna give you last word after we take the vote on Council Member Kettle, if that's all right, unless you've got something right now.

I'm gonna call on Council Member Rink and then Council Member Kettle and then we'll move back to Council Member Rink's amendment.

Thank you, Chair.

Colleagues, I in the middle of this meeting just got some additional news as we've been talking about the NOFO situation is evolving and HUD held a NOFO seminar today around noon with providers where it was revealed that the maximum that our community will be able to receive under this NOFO is 19 million.

19 million total for our region.

That is compared to, again, historically we've received $65 million.

This is in addition to the 30% cap that they're placing on permanent housing.

So I wanted to provide that update and speak with all of this in mind that just taking into account my own experience working in homelessness response, I feel very strongly that we must protect housing and shelter for those that we have under our care before we try to expand, especially in the circumstances that we're in right now.

I've been a strong supporter of approaches like the State Right of Way Initiative.

I've gone to bat for it at Olympia and I believe funding for a program such as that should be ongoing and I have some concerns about standing up a program for one quarter and the people that are brought inside for under that and a scenario where they're having to exit those folks immediately if the pilot does not continue.

Generally speaking, it is my policy perspective and approach that we run fair, competitive application processes.

This is why council sends money to departments to allocate out via an RFP process, which requires vetting of projects, programs, and reporting the success of those outcomes.

From my perspective, that is good governance.

And so I want to close by thanking Councilmember Strauss and Solomon for signing onto as initial co-sponsors of my amendment, and I ask the rest of the council for their support in not reducing the dollar amount associated with this proviso as we best figure out how we address this loss in COC funding.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Rink.

Councilmember Kettle.

Thank you, Chair.

How to best figure out, that's what this pilot does.

I came to this, as you know, everything from public safety.

And as I mentioned earlier, digging into the challenges that we face, understanding that in order to have success, to succeed in public safety, it's not just public health, but it's also to succeed in those programs and housing and human services.

And working these pieces, delving into it, understanding that we have to have this comprehensive approach is what brought me to this project and to understand that it is needed because it incorporates those lessons learned.

It talks about the dedicated outreach, the development of a by-name list.

Very key, very important.

Dedicated 24-hour support shelter with the appropriate staff and the de-escalation teams.

This pilot, again, is a bit of a misnomer because it's building the lessons learned that we have been building over the years.

I see it.

I saw it in those three examples I gave earlier regarding Mary's Place and Kristen Benson Place and Steven's Place, you know, from those locations and what they're doing.

They're incorporating.

It's the additional pieces.

It's the by name.

It's about getting that accountability and understanding so then we can work for it.

Which, by the way, would you help us?

Because this data set, as I've talked separately, it's a bit of a new point, but the reason I want to highlight why these things are so important is because at the end of the day, if we want to ensure that we have Medicaid coverage for these situations, we have to understand this is where the case management piece comes in.

and this is the work that they've done.

And so we're looking to build on these things and it has a ripple effect, not just here, but in other areas.

And colleagues, again, and this is important too, we have to look out for our neighbors in need, but we also have to look out for our neighborhoods.

And I think this pilot, again, a bit of a no-somer because it is building on those lessons learned, will do this.

And this will be the model moving forward across the city.

And I think this will benefit all districts in our entire city moving forward.

Again, by bringing these pieces together, being smart about it, and make us better in terms of how we're addressing these challenges in the face of these drastic and incredibly terrible cuts that we're seeing at the federal level.

So with that said, colleagues, I ask for your support for this piece and then for the overall and the budget amendment as well.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Council Member Kettle.

So we are now, we have HSD 82B in front of us now.

This is Council Member Kettles with the underlying rink amendment minus $700,000.

are supportive of that reduction to provide money directly out, you will vote yes.

If you want to keep Council Member Rink's initial amendment, you will vote no.

I do see a hand from Council Member Hollingsworth who has been very generous with her time to us today because you've kept us on time.

So I'm gonna recognize you since this is a little out of order.

Thank you, Chair Strauss.

I'll be quick.

Can you repeat the last thing that you just said so I know the voting piece?

Thank you.

Yes, so we're about to take two votes.

The first vote we will take is on Council Member Kettle's amendment that reduces Council Member Rink's amendment by $700,000.

If you vote yes, Council Member Rink's amendment will be amended to reduce it by $700,000.

If you vote no and Council Member Kettle's amendment fails, we will have Council Member Rink's amendment as proposed before us.

And so vote yes to reduce, vote no to retain.

Understood.

Any other procedural questions?

This is the most complex procedure we will take today.

Remaining today.

With that, will the clerk please call the roll on HSD 82B.

Council Member Hollingsworth.

Yes.

Council Member Juarez.

No.

Council Member Kettle.

Aye.

Council Member, excuse me, Council President Nelson.

Aye.

Council Member Rink.

No.

Council Member DiBetta.

Aye.

Council Member Sanka.

Aye.

Council Member Solomon.

Aye.

Chair Strauss.

Aye.

Seven in favor, two opposed.

Thank you.

HSD 82B passes and amends HSD 82A, which is now before us.

Council Member Rink has sponsored the amendment.

I'm going to give you last word since we've already had discussion on both.

I think I've covered a lot of my remarks, colleagues.

Again, I want to emphasize the importance of us stepping up to try and address this challenge and by having additional funding as a part of this contingency fund, one, we are demonstrating that we're good partners as King County is taking up a similar process and this provides us the opportunity to be flexible as we continue to learn what is going on with the COC dollars.

Again, as we found out even in the past 10 minutes, this is a very much evolving crisis.

And so I ask for your support on this underlying amendment.

Thank you.

Colleagues, we are going to go back to one speaking opportunity per item, but since this is a little confusing, I'm going to provide grace, Councilmember Rivera, and then we must move on.

Appreciate that, Chair.

I just really want to say as we're talking about this continuum of care piece and we're all working together to figure out the best move forward especially with what is happening at the federal level.

I do wanna say that permanent supportive housing, low income housing and sheltering including emergency sheltering are all important responses as we're trying to take care of our unhoused neighbors.

So I believe very strongly we need to do all of it and so I want to just state that for the record we will at a later point address this proviso once we have more information but did not want it to let it be unsaid that all of these strategies including the emergency sheltering is important because we know we don't have enough housing units at the permanent supportive housing or low-income level to be able to address all the housing need that we have, thereby making emergency sheltering also an important piece to this larger puzzle, which I appreciate Jen Labreck, our central staffer, who's taking the look at the entire piece of housing and sheltering.

So thank you, Jen, for that.

And like I said, colleagues just wanted to note the importance as well as emergency sheltering especially is even if we can backfill for all the money we're gonna lose at the federal level, we're not gonna be able to fill all of it, which means there might be, we might be seeing more unhoused neighbors and we will have to respond to that with emergency sheltering.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you.

We have no further comments.

And so Council Member Rink's amendment has been amended.

and we will now vote on Council Member Rink's HSD 82A as amended.

So if you would like this included in the budget, you vote yes.

If you do not, you vote no.

With that, will the clerk please call the roll on HSD 82A as amended.

Council Member Hollingsworth.

Yes.

Council Member Juarez.

Yes.

Council Member Kettle.

Aye.

Council President Nelson.

Abstain.

Council Member Rink.

Yes.

Council Member DeBetta.

Aye.

Council Member Saka.

Aye.

Council Member Salomon.

Aye.

And Chair Strauss.

Aye.

Eight in favor, none opposed, one abstention.

Thank you.

HSD 82A as amended passes and is attached to Council Bill 121116. Colleagues, as time check, we have completed five amendments and have 13 to go.

It is 2.06 PM and looks like we'll be here for a while.

With that, we will now move on to SDCI 6A, Council Member Rink, a sponsor of the amendment, you are recognized.

To move the amendment, and then Council Central Staff will take it up.

Thank you, Chair.

I move to amend Council Bill 12111, six as presented on SDCI 6A1.

Second.

Okay, Central Staff.

Well, Director Noble, you're recognized to present this for us.

Thank you, Vice Chair Rivera.

So this item, again, I described briefly when we went through the balancing package, we'd provide an additional $400,000.

Again, this is from resources that have been freed up from cuts and fund balance that we otherwise discovered.

So it's $400,000 for general fund to SDCI for tenant assistance programs in combination with another amendment that would provide a total of $900,000.

As described here, that would be a partial restoration of funding that had been provided in previous years.

Thank you, Director Noble.

Councilmember Rank, as primary sponsor, you're recognized to address your amendment.

Thank you, Vice Chair Rivera.

Colleagues, I think we know well now that Seattle is one of the most expensive places to live in the country and will remain a majority renter city for the foreseeable future.

And renters deserve protections and support to stay healthy and housed.

And during the 2025 city budget cycle, tenant services were cut by around 40% or $1 million.

This amendment would restore that funding level back up to $900,000.

Tenant services are different from rental assistance.

Rental assistance solely helps renters make those cash payments.

Tenant services is a broader category that includes a right to legal counsel during eviction proceedings, legal clinics for individualized support to prevent evictions from happening in the first place, as well as guidance and counseling on how to deal with common issues facing renters, including conflict mediation, payment debt negotiation, and debt defense.

To hire a private attorney for these types of purposes, it can cost hundreds to thousands of dollars.

This is burdensome and in most cases impossible to both low and middle income Seattle renters who are paying an average of $1,900 to $2,100 per month in rent.

We need to use all the tools we have to prevent residents from becoming unhoused, and removing this funding will very likely increase evictions, which will lead to increased homelessness and displacement.

And I want to thank Councilmembers Juarez and Salomon for your original co-sponsorship on this amendment, and thank you Chair Strauss for including this in the original chair's package.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Juarez.

I see you are recognized.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

First of all, thank you, Council Member Rink, for including me in this.

I think this is really important and the work that we did together with our offices as well with Council Member Solomon.

I wanted to add a little context here.

Council Member Rink, we did get copies of the tenant contracts and had a chance to look at the MOAs and what those mean, but before I get to those three, I just want to briefly add that we do have, and Council Member Rink or whomever, please correct me if I'm wrong, for the increased funding needed for tenant services.

We have the support of ten organizations, the Housing Justice Project at the King County Bar, the Tenant Law Center, Catholic Community Services, Tenant Unions of Washington State, Solid Ground, B. Seattle, Interim Community Development Association, the Somalia Community Services of Seattle, United Indians of All Tribes, and Queer Power Alliance, I believe there are a few others but let me just add this we had a chance to go ahead and look at some of the memorandums of agreement and these are the agreements that were put together with SDCI and those were with the first one we looked at was the one with SDCI and United Indians of All Tribes the MOA with SDCI and the King County Bar Association the Housing Justice Project and the memorandum of agreement of B-Seattle and I'm just proud to say that these are strong memorandums of agreement that support this important budget request of why we're pushing this and I hope that we have your support on this important piece, this important amendment.

So thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Juarez.

Council President Nelson.

So just to orient the public if they're following this conversation, the mayor's budget proposed $1.6 million for tenant services and then SDCI 1B adds $500,000 so that brings it up to $2.1 and this would then bring the total up to I think $2.5 or something like that so there is already a a council budget action that does increase what was in the mayor's proposed budget.

I was made fun of by the stranger, I don't know, in one of my first years during the budget, because I was advocating for more direct rental assistance, giving renters the money so they can stay in their place and less in tenant services because I thought that would be the best way to keep people in their homes.

And I still do feel that we need to prioritize the resources that we have and I would much rather see this 400,000 go directly to keeping people housed instead of to a bunch of lawyers.

Our housing providers tell us that they never want to utilize eviction but sometimes entire floors in their buildings are empty.

We've heard Sharon Lee talk about this and others in the public record because of a tenant who has made it impossible for other people to live there.

I am not advocating for decreasing the amount of money that helps people who are really, really, really struggling with their ability to pay rent.

But I am also recognizing that in some cases, the change in housing situation is just necessary.

And I'm not advocating against the $5,000 increase in tenant services or any of the $1.6 million already included in the mayor's budget, but to allocate another $400,000, bring the city's total to $2.5 million instead of any of that going directly to renters, It just doesn't feel right to me.

So I would happily support an additional budget action to move some of this money to direct tenant assistance, but I can't support an additional $400,000 for this.

Thank you.

Any questions?

Colleagues, any further discussion?

Further questions, comments?

I will turn it back to the sponsor after I make my remark, which is that this is important funding for important programs that when people call our offices who need help, these are the places that we direct them to because the city of Seattle does not do this work.

It's not appropriate for us to do this work and we need somebody to call when folks are calling us and this is what that funding funds.

With that, I urge a yes vote on this amendment and Council Member Rank, I'll give you last word.

Thank you, Chair.

Colleagues, I ask for your support on this important amendment.

Again, what we're doing here is simply trying to restore original levels of funding that we've had in previous years.

And it's important to uplift that we are seeing record levels of eviction filings happening right now.

And I know when we've been working directly with some of the organizations doing the work day in and day out, it is critical.

And they've really emphasized how important this funding is in order to be able to meet the needs.

So I ask for your support.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Rank.

Will the clerk, so again, if you believe that the city should increase this funding by $400,000, which is still less than what was proposed last year, you will vote yes.

If you do not, then you will vote no.

Will the clerk please call the roll on SDCI 6A1?

Council Member Hollingsworth.

Yes.

Council Member Juarez.

Aye.

Council Member Kittle.

Aye.

President Nelson.

Abstain.

Council Member Rink.

Yes.

Council Member Rivera.

I'm gonna recuse myself, so abstain.

Thank you.

Council Member Sanka.

Aye.

Council Member Sullivan.

Aye.

And Chair Strauss.

Aye.

Seven in favor, two abstentions.

Thank you, the motion passes.

Council Bill 121116 has been amended as reflected in SDCI 6A1.

Colleagues, we have now finished the consent package.

at 2.16 p.m.

We have completed five direct amendments.

We have 13 remaining.

I'd like to confirm with the clerk that at this time we are not taking up section B because the funding source was retained in the balancing package.

I'm seeing yeses.

So we are now moving on to group C.

Council Member Saka, we will be calling on you quite a bit here with seven of the nine, plus then we have three walk-ons from Council President Nelson.

And so I'm gonna...

I have Law 2A, SDOT 51A.

You're correct.

I'm sorry.

The one that was distributed after 5 p.m.

Thank you.

Yep.

So we have...

I'm just gonna read these out so that we have...

Actually, I'm not going to do central staff's job.

Y'all do your job for a good reason.

Over to you, central staff.

Sorry, I was preparing.

So you want to read in the walk-on?

I was just going to orient.

So the chart that you just had.

Yes.

do this and then I'll add the walk-ons at the end.

Thank you.

So then again, these are nine standalone items, standalone in the sense that they are either provisos that don't affect balancing or they are financially contained.

So they include their proposed funding source within the CBA itself.

The first one is a proviso and I'm going to This is the chart for them.

I'm going to click through so you can see the details of each one of these.

Director Noble, I'm going to just do quick orientation.

Quick orientation.

Everything and then we'll go one by one.

Cool.

Yeah, so these nine items, do you want me to read through them to preview them or?

Sorry.

Yeah, I would just do...

Let me do my job and then I'll pass it over to you to do the deep dive.

I'm staying at a high level.

So we have HSD 57 regarding the distribution of...

supplies to deal with drug addiction.

We have MO5 provisoing nearly $30 million for the unified care team.

We have OED14 provisoing $200,000 for Georgetown.

We have OH2, $6 million for rental assistance.

SDOT2 provides $4.3 million for pothole repair.

SDOT3, $250,000 for design of Roxbury Street improvements.

SDOT17 provides $1 million for SDOT and Admiral Way improvements.

SDOT31 increasing micro-mobility corrals by using crosswalk money, SPR 17 increasing, SPR for restroom maintenance in District 1. We have law 2A, SDOT 51A, OED 19. So that's the realm that we're in.

If Director Noble, we can go through these one by one now, and then we will take votes on these individually one by one and we, yes, so back over to you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

So first of these items is HSD 57A1, and as described here, this is a proviso designed to preclude any city support for the purchase or distribution of supplies for the consumption of illegal drugs with the exception of needles.

Thank you.

Council President Nelson has sponsored the amendment.

You are recognized.

Thank you very much.

So first let me say that I 100% support needle exchange programs because they reduce the harm of transmitting disease like HIV and hepatitis C.

But I fail to see, however, the harm that's being reduced by distributing supplies such as pipes and foil, that are used to consume deadly drugs like meth and fentanyl.

There were 570 overdose deaths in Seattle last year and 1,047 in King County overdose deaths.

And for perspective, a total of 153 people died on our roads in the county in 2024. So it's absolutely shocking to me that And I think it would probably be shocking to our constituents if they knew that we are using public resources to help people get high by distributing pipes, foil, with instructions on how to make it round and kind of make it a pipe.

To me, it feels like it's giving a loaded gun to somebody who's suicidal.

And it sends, I think, a confusing signal to our constituents because we are also spending a lot of money on overdose prevention.

and substance use disorder treatment, which I fully support, of course, and I think that I've led on, but just distributing these supplies runs counter to those efforts and is also, I think, cruel in and of itself.

It is argued, I will say, that the professionals argue that distributing these kinds of so-called safe supplies, anyway, won't comment, is a strategy to forge a sense of rapport with people and then maybe get them into treatment or something like that.

That is always said, but the times that I have asked our public health colleagues, how many people, do you have any data on how many people have actually gotten into treatment that you've been interacting with or who come and access these supplies?

There's never an answer to that.

And so this is a policy choice that I am asking your support for because in 2024, in the budget deliberations of 2023, I objected to 236,000 being used ongoing.

That was part of our opioid settlement dollars.

And so we're not talking about a lot of money.

I'm just saying that I believe that we should be focused 100% on helping people deal with their substance use disorder or go into recovery if that's where they're at instead of making it easier to consume these drugs because It's dangerous, it's actually dangerous, and I don't think that we should be complicit in that.

Thanks.

Thank you, Council President.

Colleagues, questions, discussion, and Council President will have last word.

I will also, Council President, I forgot to move this, so if you'd like to move this item, this is an example that we do not need to move an item to discuss it.

With that, Council President, would you like to move your item?

Yes, I move, let's see, where is my number?

I moved HSD 57A1.

It has been moved and seconded.

Further discussion, Council Member Juarez, I see a hand.

Is that from the last round?

That's from the last round.

I see Council Member Hollingsworth, you are recognized.

Thank you Council President and thank you for bringing the bag for us to all see.

I'll be honest, I know that this has been a concern of a lot of folks and I don't really don't, I'm not an expert matter or have the, the knowledge to weigh in on this.

If you brought an amendment, though, I'll tell you this.

If you brought an amendment to take Martin Luther King's face off that bag that we're handing out, you know, paraphernalian, I would totally vote for it because that is the most Seattle thing I could possibly think of when I saw that.

Just because of, you know, these are real serious issues.

It's very performative to put his face on and then hand out this stuff as well.

So I'll tell you this.

I don't really know too much about this.

I am going to abstain from it, but I do know that we do need to strengthen the relationship and conversation with King County across the street regarding the health crisis that's on our street and better outcomes and making sure that we're getting people inside, safe, and also that they're getting the rapid response of treatment, mobile treatment, not where we give people a referral and then we think that they can jump on a bus or get to a place to get their medicine for treatment.

Well, we're gonna have to go out to people and really do a different approach to what we're seeing on our streets.

So I really appreciate you bringing this amendment.

I'm gonna have to abstain, but I would support taking a different approach in the branding of the bag.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Hollingsworth.

Well said.

I will say this though, at least it is Martin Luther King's face, unlike our seal, which is not Chief Seattle's face.

Just saying.

But maybe both need to be looked at a little bit more deeply.

Colleagues, further discussion, Council President, you'll have last word, so I'm gonna call on you last.

Further discussion, questions?

going once, going twice.

I will not be supporting this amendment today and with that, Council President, you have last word and then we are going to call a vote.

Thank you for the last word.

I must say that I will be leaving Council but I appreciate the support so far since I've been in office in increasing access to to treatment, substance use disorder treatment, and I hope that that continues.

And I have to say that any kind of...

SAMHSA defines recovery extremely broadly and basically it means getting your life back together.

It doesn't require abstinence.

I want to mostly mention that.

I sit on the Board of Health for two years now and I have to say that you would think given the number of deaths and although our deaths are coming down from overdose nowadays, you would think that overdose prevention and basically the opioid crisis would be priority number one.

But each year that I've been on the board, I had to amend the work plan to include items to just discuss, just briefings on the opioid use crisis.

So I do want to communicate to public health that there's much more work to be done and and I just urge people to continue to keep focusing on this because even though people aren't necessarily dying from overdose, because we have rightly distributed Narcan very widely, that is still brain damage because people, you know, depriving your brains from oxygen with overdoses.

And so I just want to say that this is still an extremely important public health issue.

And thank you for your continued attention.

Thank you.

So if you want this reduction in abilities of what the money can be spent on, you vote yes.

If you want to leave the budget item as presented in the chair's package and the mayor's budget, you vote no.

So with that, will the clerk please call HSD 57A1.

Council Member Hollingsworth.

Abstain.

Council Member Juarez.

No.

Council Member Kettle.

Aye.

Council President Nelson.

Aye.

Council Member Rink.

No.

Council Member Rivera.

Aye.

Council Member Sanka.

Aye.

Council Member Solomon.

Aye.

And Chair Strauss.

No.

Five in favor, three in favor, one abstention.

The amendment passes.

Council Bill 121-116 is amended as presented in HSD 57A1.

Moving on to the next item, MO5A1, Council Member Saka as sponsor of the amendment, you are recognized.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I move to amend Council Bill 121116 as presented on MO-005-A-1.

Second.

It's been moved and seconded.

Central staff, if you'd like to address the item, then Council Member Sacco, you'll have first and last word.

Thank you, Chair.

This amendment is designed essentially to maintain the status quo in terms of the amount of funding that is directed to unified care team activities.

So currently the city spends almost $30 million in the proposed budget.

for 2026, the city would spend almost $30 million for unified care team activities.

Those activities are funded across a total of seven different departments.

I think the largest dollar amount being in Seattle Parks and Recreation.

If you read on this, you can see it's at almost 11.5 million, SDOT at 6.7.

So the proviso dollar amounts are the amounts in each of these departments that are projected for 2026 to be dedicated to unified care team activities.

Again, the goal is essentially to sustain the existing level of effort in this space.

Just to say this applies to these provisos, it applies to any proviso, that proviso can't force the renowned new mayor to spend this money.

It does mean that if the money is not spent, it can't be used for other activities.

The only other thing I would note here is that unified care team activities is the subject of the proviso.

That's not a precisely defined concept, so there might be some flexibility in what the executive could do, but again, the council's intent I think here is very clear, and it is to, again, sustain the level of effort by the unified care team across these seven departments.

Thank you, Director Noble.

Council Member Saka has sponsored the amendment.

You are recognized.

Thank you, Mr. Chair and colleagues.

This is a proviso related to the unified care team.

And I wanna take this moment to thank every member of the unified care team, dozens of employees across multiple departments, coordinating complex, very difficult outreach work with our unhoused neighbors and ultimately connecting them with opportunities for shelter and services.

Very, very tough job done.

with the Unified Care team.

And they do great work.

It's hard work.

It's difficult work.

The essence of their work involves outreach.

The essence of their work involves connecting people with services and treatment.

The essence of their work involves connecting and getting people off the streets and indoors.

It's work that happens over multiple weeks, usually sometimes months, going into encampments, understanding where people are at, trying to meet their needs, assess their needs, to various service providers, interdepartmental teams, and trying to get a better handle of what's available in terms of housing, supportive services.

And then they come back to the encampment site, speaking with people and share the options that we're able to come up with.

and ideally, we would have 100% acceptance rate of those vital treatment services and housing.

Unfortunately, we don't today.

That's why there's an unrelated slide calling on additional reporting that was included in the revised package calls on more data and more reporting, including to better get a sense of the scope of the acceptance rates of this vital housing and services.

So this is mission-critical work of outreach, caring for our unhoused neighbors in a safe, humane way that recognizes the basic human dignity and compassion that we all have.

So, again, this unified care team functions are spread across multiple departments, totaling 29 million.

It would, as Director Noble noted a moment ago, that this funding be spent solely for these functions as they're performed today.

And best practices in this vital work are obviously going to evolve over time.

And I think Council Chair Strauss in an unrelated conversation about that implicated UTT a while back.

I remember him sharing the chronology and the evolution of the unified care team and how we as a city built upon it and improved upon it over time and over years to get to where it is today.

And they use a very database approach today, a methodical database approach today under the score sheet and use objective evaluation criteria about which are the appropriate places to select and when in terms of their access and proximity to parks and schools and so many other things.

And so this work is gonna continue to evolve.

I don't care what we call it as a city.

That matters less, but the underlying work of connecting with people in need, with shelter, and treatment is work that will need to continue to perform.

And what we're talking about here is, just for crystal clarity, what we're talking about here is an emergency response to homelessness.

Yes, we need to build more housing, and we will.

Yes, we need to go upstream to address poverty, to prevent people from experiencing homelessness in the first place.

And yes, we will.

Yes, we need a better plan for tomorrow, focus on prevention.

Yes, we will.

And once the problem is already here today, This crisis is already here today.

We also need to respond compassionately and appropriately, and I think that's exactly what this allows us to do.

And it's a good governance feature, and I ask for your support.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Socket.

Colleagues, further discussion?

Council Member Solomon and Rivera.

Again, a reminder, everyone's gonna have one opportunity to speak.

I'm gonna do the math in just a minute so that we have an understanding of how much time we have remaining in the day.

Council Member Solomon and then Rivera.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Noble, if you could scroll down, I want to see of the seven different departments that are listed, where's the outreach component?

Specifically, I'm talking about REACH.

My guess is that would be in the Human Services Department component.

Okay.

I'm gonna interject and ask Jennifer Labreck to respond to this because I believe that they're city employees and not a contract but over to you

Let me take a moment.

So outreach is actually now conducted both by city staff and also by contracted providers.

But HSD, the city staff who conduct UCT outreach do live in the Human Services Department or in the Human Services Department, as is the funding that is contracted with providers to do the outreach.

Thank you very much.

And Mr. Chair, I apologize.

I addressed them as opposed to you.

And the reason I bring this up is because probably of anyone on the panel here, I've probably worked more closely with UCT than anyone else.

And I know some of the challenges that are being faced by our outreach workers who are trying to connect with their clients.

that when UCT does their work, their clients are moved, and now they're having a hard time relocating them.

A potential fix for this would be better coordination between the folks who are doing outreach and the folks who are actually doing the cleans so that there's a better sense of if I'm moving Joey from this particular location, that the person who's working with Joey has a better sense of where Joey's going to wind up so they don't have to start from scratch looking for Joey.

So again, I know the work they do.

I know those individuals personally.

They're doing great work across departments.

The one area where I could see some improvement is in that coordination with our folks who are doing that outreach so that as someone is and relocating, their caseworker has a better sense of where they're going.

And I think that's an easy fix that could be done with the MOU between HSD and Evergreen Treatment Services REACH program.

So thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Council Member Salomon.

Council Member Rivera.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you Councilmember Saka for bringing this.

I really just want to take the opportunity to shout out the UCT team and thank them for all their hard work.

What they do is not easy.

It's really hard work to work with our unhoused population and they do so with care and dignity, they go multiple times, as you said, Council Member Saka, and they offer services, and the goal is to try to get folks indoors, because if that were my parent, my child, sister, my brother, aunt, uncle, I would not want them to be sleeping on the street or even in a tent in the outdoors in this weather.

So that is what they do.

I have to say I want to shout out Deputy Mayor Tiffany Washington who oversees this team.

As you all know, Deputy Mayor Washington has been at the city for some time, first at HSD and then in the mayor's office, but always overseeing the UCT and the city's housing work out of the mayor's office and both the last two administrations.

And so I really want to give her a shout out because I know how much she puts into this work.

and how much she does to work with the UCT team so that we can get really great service and, more importantly, outcomes for the folks that are unhoused.

And so the care that the team does, and I've been out there with them.

I'm sure you've all done ride-alongs.

I have, too.

and the constant point of communication between my office and constituents and UCT is really important.

And UCT does so, like I said, with such care and such compassion and grace.

And that is not to be taken lightly.

so I really support this budget action and I really support the work of the UCT team.

So again, thank you and I'll be supporting this.

Thank you, Councilmember Kettle.

Thank you, Chair Strauss.

I simply just want to say to the Unified Care team, particularly the D7 team, thank you for your service.

They do great work, they do hard work and I just wanted to say thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Councilmember Kettle.

Colleagues, other further discussion?

Further discussion?

I'll make my last remarks and then I'll pass it to council member Saka.

Just to say, I'm gonna be abstaining from this vote today.

I don't want to color the waters between us and the next administration out of the gate right now.

I absolutely retain and rely, I rely on the unified care team in so many ways.

I have watched them in district six be able, there was one encampment that had been under the train bridge since before I was elected.

And I know that because I lived right by that train bridge for a number of years.

And no one could get them inside until our current social worker that is part of the unified care team, that city worker that is that social worker, she got that whole encampment inside.

There's another gentleman that rides his bike around the neighborhood and plays the piccolo.

He is, I have seen him homeless in the neighborhood since 2003. And he was in his 50s back then.

He's now I'm assuming in his 70s.

He would be dying on the street right now.

And we'd tried many different ways to get him inside and it wasn't until the current caseworker on the unified care team, she was able to get through to him.

and so that's the importance of this work.

So I look forward to working with the next administration to continue and improve the unified care team and how it operates because there are some process improvements.

Like anything we do in life, there's always opportunity to improve and there's some good ways that we can.

So I'm gonna abstain from this because I don't wanna muddy those waters without starting into the conversation with the next administration.

and I expect them to continue this work of keeping our public places clear and free of people having to live and we need to get people inside.

That's just bottom line.

So with that, Council Member Sacco, last word and then we'll take a vote.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Colleagues ask for your support on this.

I think, and I appreciate the great comments made so far.

I, too, want to, I mean, I started off thanking the Unified Care team, but I, too, want to shout out Deputy Mayor Washington for her partnership, collaboration, and leadership on all things kind of human services, but, you know, in particular in this context, what's before us in this work, I appreciate comments from our colleague, Councilmember Solomon, and would agree and fully concede he has the most direct relevant experience on the ground, including with this vital work.

And that's why his viewpoint and perspective is invaluable.

And in particular about the potential improvements that need to be had and additional enhancements that could be had to make this whole vital work even better in terms of improving coordination and the outreach, ensuring tighter alignment and handoffs.

That's why the good news is this proposal would allow for that flexibility.

And appreciate the comments from the chair.

I share that goal as well.

And I also think this leaves room for our new mayor to implement as they see fit as well.

And while we have appropriate and necessary dialogue.

So in parallel.

So for those reasons, ask for your support colleagues.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Will the clerk please call the roll on MO581.

Council Member Hollingsworth.

I abstain.

Council Member Juarez.

Yes.

Council Member Kettle.

Aye.

Council President Nelson.

Aye.

Council Member Rink.

No.

Council Member Rivera.

Aye.

Council Member Sacca?

Aye.

Council Member Salomon?

Aye.

Chair Strauss?

Abstain.

Six in favor, one opposed, two abstentions.

Motion carries.

Council Bill 121116 is amended as presented in M05A1.

Moving on to the next item, Council Member Sacca, you are recognized to move the next item.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I move to amend Council Bill 121116 as presented on OED-014-A-1.

Second.

It has been moved and seconded.

At this time, I'll call on central staff.

We are averaging over about over 10 minutes.

We're averaging 15 plus minutes on each item.

And so we are right now looking at the earliest 4.30, but more likely 5 or 5.30.

I know I'm talking too much.

I'll be quiet.

With that, so just mindful colleagues, we are in control of our own destiny.

The more we talk, the longer we're here.

Director Noble, here we are.

Thank you.

This item is a proviso for $200,000 on OED's budget to provide support for business districts that are unlikely to form BIA's business improvement areas soon, including specifically Georgetown, but not limited to Georgetown.

Just want to be very clear about that.

But that's what the item does.

Thank you.

Councilmember Saka has sponsored the amendment.

You are recognized.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

And first I want to thank my co-sponsors of the original amendment.

Councilmembers Juarez and Salomon for your co-sponsorship of this amendment.

And this is, most of my items are some flavor of a revival of an earlier amendment with a few exceptions like the one right before this.

But, so this is essentially a revival of an earlier proposal.

as chair noted earlier today in an earlier discussion of group A items, he was able to give me, give district one $250,000 as part of this revised chair package, $250,000 to meet the specific needs of the North Del Ridge business community that are being displaced.

That was not in addition, however, for clarity, that was because in the original chairs package, there was funding, there was exactly $250,000 for two disparate, separate, unrelated community needs, both coincidentally happened to involve small business support, both coincidentally happened to involve principally OED.

And one important need, which is this right now, was $200,000 for small business support in areas that currently don't have BIAs including Georgetown.

By the way, it calls out historically, and I think you could look to that as a guide.

Most recently, in other areas that do not currently have benefit, or BIAs that could benefit under this proposal, Beacon Business Alliance area, Rainier Avenue Business Coalition, Mount Baker, Hub Alliance, First Hill, Improvement Association, North Seattle.

This is a citywide opportunity of and potential here.

And I'm grateful for that we were able to meet the needs of one small business community, in this case North Delridge in the revised share package for the $250,000 amount that was originally broken up between intended to address two disparate needs, and I'm grateful for that, that we at least got that done.

I ask for your support to help get this done as well with this identified funding sources that many areas and neighborhoods across the city could benefit from these additional small business supports.

So for those reasons, I ask for your support.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Colleagues, discussion?

I see Councilmember Juarez.

I have a question, thank you, Chair, to Mr. Noble and team.

So I'm a little bit confused.

So I was looking back through my notes under OED007.

Did you clarify that, Councilor Murasaka or team, that in the consent package, there was already 250,000 towards this already?

So again, I didn't catch all of what was said.

So is this an additional 200,000 or is there already 250 in there?

Let me, I'll explain the chair's package and then central staff can do the details, which is colleagues, as we created the chair's package, it was important for me that there were investments that each of you requested for your districts or for citywide.

Provisos are an important tool that help direct the departments to make sure that those investments are made in specific places.

The concern for me becomes when we begin to over-proviso departments, then it is impacting city-wide programming or allowing that department to spread their programming around the city, which is why in my perspective, Council Member Sokka brought two very similar proviso requests in the Council Member proposal section.

I merged those, even though they could be used for very different cases.

It's just to say, OED, here's $250,000 that Council Member Sokka can work with you to deploy in either Georgetown or North Delridge or however.

From there, we included that $250,000 in the chair's package.

Through these last moments, I thought I had retained that, but instead we gave $250,000 to North Delridge.

And so this would be an additional $200,000 for Georgetown.

Did I get that right, central staff?

Yeah, mine modification, Georgetown and other potential neighborhoods.

Okay.

Council Member Juarez, you still have the floor.

I guess my, I'm sorry, I apologize for being a bit obtuse, because I know I was an original sponsor for the chair's package, and then when I'm looking at my notes, and now a sponsor for Councilmember Saka's additional or the proviso for 200, which is in addition to the 250.

All right, Jasmin.

Jasmin Moroja, central staff.

So what Councilmember Saka had originally submitted for consideration in the chair's balancing package were two separate CBAs.

One was for business districts, including but not limited, Georgetown, and one was for North Delridge.

And so you may have sponsored, during that stage, you may have sponsored one or both of those.

and then the chair in the balancing package combined them into one proviso.

So now what is happening is there are two separate that is going back to two separate CBAs.

Does that help?

Mm-hmm.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Council Member Rivera.

Thank you, Chair.

So just to clarify the point, this is not, it's Georgetown and other neighborhoods that do not have BIAs.

So I just wanna say that BIAs are really important I'm lucky I have one in the district that we've talked about in the U district, the UDP.

They provide a great benefit to the businesses there and to the neighborhood in general, not just the businesses, even though they are supposed to be helping businesses, they go way beyond that.

And so shout out to UDP and all the work that they do in the area.

There are other areas in the district that I represent that I'm lucky to represent in Wedgwood we have businesses on 35th that are struggling on 50th we have businesses that are struggling as well as Sandpoint Way and we don't have BIAs nor are there any contemplated in those areas but these businesses are in need of great help particularly post pandemic and so I support this investment because it can go to citywide including the areas I just mentioned in my district and so for those reasons I will be supporting this where businesses are in great need, small businesses, let me just, small businesses are in great need right now.

And so making sure that we have an ability to help those businesses where there isn't a BIA is really critical.

So thank you.

Thank you.

Colleagues, further discussion?

Further comments?

I'll just say that I tried to meet Council Member Saka's needs.

Clearly they were not, it didn't work.

So here we have this.

I'm not gonna be supporting this amendment today because I'm worried about the citywide implications.

With that, Council Member Saka, you have last word.

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you Jasmine and Director Noble for so eloquently clarifying the procedural history and process of this and the evolution of this one under such a short timing.

Did it way better than I attempted and clearly failed to do right before that, so thank you.

This is about supporting our small businesses across our city colleagues.

Georgetown is explicitly called out as one of many potential neighborhoods that could benefit from this citywide.

I also called out some neighborhoods that could benefit as well.

Beacon Hill, Rainier, along Rainier, Mount Baker, First Hill, North Seattle.

As Jasmine noted, it's including but not limited to.

More specifically, the words on the text of the proposed budget amendment say, to support Georgetown neighborhoods, business district, comma, but may also include others.

And then there's the roadmap of what's been done historically.

So I do think it has citywide import and potential.

And for those reasons, I ask for your support.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Will the clerk please call the roll on OED 14A1?

Council Member Hollingsworth?

Yes.

Council Member Juarez?

Council Member Juarez?

No.

Thank you.

Council Member Kettle?

Aye.

Council President Nelson?

Aye.

Council Member Rink?

No.

Council Member Rivera?

Aye.

Council Member Saka?

Aye.

Council member Solomon?

Aye.

Chair Strauss?

No.

Six in favor, three opposed.

The motion passes.

OED 14A1 is added to council bill 121116. Will the clerk or council member Nelson, you are recognized to read your amendment in.

I move Council Budget Action OH02B.

Second.

It's been moved and seconded.

Central staff, would you like to brief the bill?

So this item is again a proviso.

It's a proviso on Office of Housing on $6 million of the funding to Office of Housing to be held to be used for rental assistance to tenants in, again, an OH-funded nonprofit affordable housing.

As described here in the Central Staff Summary, this $6 million would be in addition to $28 million for this purpose that was just recently posted in an RFP.

I can't speak to overall need, but I want you to know that it is additive to that recent move from the Office of Housing.

This would, shifting the $6 million to rental assistance means that there would be less money for OH capital projects of one form or another.

Thank you.

Council President Nelson in response to the amendment, you are recognized.

So this is the second try amendment to the CBA that I put forward earlier that did not get into the chair's package.

That was $10 million that was unanimously supported by everyone on council.

And so this is $6 million for the same purpose, which is rental assistance.

We know from not just anecdotal information, but there have been a lot of reports, there have been a lot of public testimony that our affordable housing providers are in a really bad spot because they cannot cover their expenses or the arrears of their tenants and so this is to provide immediate one-time support.

Now let me just go through the math a little bit here.

As of June 20th, 2025, the Office of Housing had $233 million of payroll expense tax that was allocated in 2025 or prior years, but not yet expended, okay?

So hold that in your mind, $233 million.

Of that, $91 million was awarded to projects and under contract and 52 million was awarded to projects but not yet under contract.

I did the math on my phone, that leaves 90 million in PET monies that is not already awarded or spoken for.

And I'm focusing on the PET source because there are restrictions on the use of housing levy and MHA funds.

My point is simply that this is a short-term, this is one-time help for our providers that might or might not result in a reduction of new housing units being built in the coming year because, as I said, there's already a lot of money that is not being used right now.

We heard from public comment earlier that this funding would help approximately 3,000 renters.

and I can just say that I believe that there's so much more to do for us to do to help our housing providers but when we're talking about I'm kind of a fix-it-first person we have a responsibility for taking care of our own infrastructure city property infrastructure roads bridges etc and I believe that it is the preference of housing providers indeed we received a letter earlier with many many many signatures for the 10 million dollar ask we have got to make sure that they can take care of their existing renters and their existing units.

And so that is the rationale behind this funding request.

Thank you.

Colleagues, questions, comments, discussion?

Councilmember Rivera, is that an old hand?

Old hand.

Oh, no problem.

302 on November 14th.

Any other comments, discussion, question?

I would say that I support this concept.

I support this idea.

Much like all of these proposals in Group C, I would support them if we had the free and able funding to do so.

I do not support the funding source.

I do not support taking rental assistance, taking capital construction money for affordable housing to pay for rental assistance.

I do support funding rental assistance.

Director Noble, can you remind me how much money the base package had for rental assistance for this purpose?

And you've got phone a friend on their way.

Yeah, I think I'm going to go with the phone a friend answer.

I can't quote this very item that's on the screen that OH just released an RFP for $28 million for this purpose, but I will defer to my esteemed and knowledgeable colleague.

I feel like phone a friend is a step behind, sorry.

Okay.

So the 2026 proposed budget did provide $11.4 million for rental assistance.

And that not specifically targeted to OH buildings, just general rental assistance.

And then as Ben just referenced, in addition to that, OH is releasing a $28 million request for proposals for what they're calling operating stabilization funding for OH funded affordable housing buildings.

That operating stabilization money can be used for a number of different things, but one of the eligible uses is rent arrears or rental assistance.

Thank you, Jennifer.

So as I did the back of the envelope math, the base budget has $39 million allocated for these purposes.

Is that correct?

I don't think that's quite correct.

I would say that there is definitely 11.4 million allocated for rental assistance.

That $28 million in operating stabilization, the RFP that's going out in November, that can be used for a variety of things.

It could be rent arrears, but it could also be paying for increased insurance costs for affordable housing providers or to help them pay for rehabbing units that have been left in bad shape by prior tenants.

So I don't think we can say all of that is for rental assistance.

And Jennifer, I'll just ask the question to you and then Council President can respond in her closing remarks.

It was my understanding that this additional $6 million and the $10 million that was requested previously, which I support, we just don't have the excess funding for at this time, is intended to buoy the rental, the affordable housing providers because they are having issues across the board with their funding that is based on tenants not necessarily paying their rent.

Yeah, the six million would be targeted as would have been the 10 million that was part of the original proposal, the original amendment would have been targeted specifically to tenants who are behind on their rent in OH funded buildings.

Thank you, and that is similar to the 28 million?

Yes, although the uses for the 28 million are broader.

So like rent arrears is one potential use, but it could be broader than that too.

Okay, so we have anywhere from 28 to 39 million generally for this general bucket of programming.

Yeah.

Yeah, broadly speaking.

And this would be an additional six on top of that 39. Just...

Any other comments, questions?

Otherwise, Council Member Rivera, is that new hand?

Yep.

New hand and then any other comments and then I'll pass it back to Council President.

Thank you, Chair, and thank you, Jen, for running us through the current investments.

The 11 is for rental assistance, but the stabilization funds, the 28, can be for a variety of things, including public safety, because we know that they're the non-for-profit providers are experiencing public safety as well.

And then in terms of the units and fixing of units, I know units are really expensive to fix.

I've heard upwards of $100,000 per unit.

So that $20 million quickly dwindles if there are multiple units that need to be fixed, which I believe I have heard from our housing providers.

is the case, in addition to some of the other things that they need, more case managers and rental emissary and security staffing and things of that nature, which I think we all support for our non-for-profit housing buildings.

And so this idea of the rental assistance is really important, particularly in light of the conversation that we've had today and making sure that tenants are not out on the street because we want folks to stay housed.

So until we can figure out how to, we are in the process of figuring out how to best support the non-for-profit housing providers.

And I know there's a lot of conversation we need to have about how best to do that.

While we do that, there is a need for rental assistance.

I don't think anyone can deny that.

So given that that's the case, I'm going to support this ad today.

because I do think that the 11 plus the 6 is a more robust investment in rental assistance and I think it is needed unless I hear otherwise from you saying there's no need for it, we're all good.

The housing providers have expressed that there is a need.

So unless you're telling me otherwise, which I would welcome, I will support this ad in this particular budget.

But knowing that we need to continue to have this conversation about how to best support the existing units as we're trying to create more units.

Jennifer?

I would say we have anecdotal evidence that there is need for the additional six million really coming from providers.

I don't have any hard data at this point to back that up either way.

and I have heard from residents themselves about the costs, at least in the buildings that are in the district that I represent.

So the anecdotal as well, but I don't have reason to believe it's untrue.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Further comments, questions?

Council President, last word.

I'm not calling on anyone else after you, Council President, and then we're gonna vote.

So the mayor's proposed budget includes a historic $350 million for affordable housing, 137 of that from PET, and even though many buildings right now that were built by our affordable housing providers are are half empty or in bad shape, in need of repair.

And I would say that I believe that the $11 million that was mentioned by Jen does not go to our affordable housing providers, renters in private housing.

And so I'm talking about protecting our investment going forward.

And the only reason that I can think of why one might not want to is because that might take money away from capital building in the future.

However, again, it doesn't make any sense to keep building buildings.

If our housing providers are having a really hard time maintaining their existing buildings, that's what the 28 million is for.

It's not just rental assistance, it's also refurbishing in some cases refinancing because they're having a hard time affording their repairs, et cetera, and because also the market has changed.

The issue right now is that we got to help out our affordable housing providers because for some reason or another, the tenants are having a hard time paying for their rent and this would provide for that need so that existing funds could be used for other needs in their broad array of capital needs and also the needs of tenants right now for some help.

And again, this is an example of my always, my wanting to fall on the side of direct assistance either to the renters themselves or through our housing providers.

Thanks, that's about it.

Thank you, Council President.

Will the clerk please call the roll on OH2B1?

Council Member Hollingsworth?

No.

Council Member Juarez?

Yes.

Council Member Kettle?

Aye.

Council President Nelson?

Aye.

Council Member Rink?

Yes.

Council Member Rivera?

Aye.

Council Member Saka?

Aye.

Council Member Solomon?

Aye.

Chair Strauss?

No.

Seven in favor, two opposed.

The motion passes.

OH2B1 is added to Council Bill 121116. Moving on to SDOT 2B1.

Council Member Saka, you are recognized to move the amendment.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I move to amend Council Bill 121116 as presented on SDOT-002-B-1.

Second.

Thank you.

It's been moved and seconded.

Council Central Staff, you are recognized.

And then we'll move to Council Member Sacco.

Thank you, Council Members.

This item would impose a proviso on the 4.3 million that was included in the proposed budget for the Pothole Repair Program and restrict that spending for the intended purpose.

Thank you.

Council Member Sacco, you are recognized.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Colleagues, this is a very simple, clean, budget neutral proviso that ensures SDOT delivers on the infrastructure basics for our city.

As noted, it would proviso $4.3 million in SDOT for specifically for pothole repair program implementations.

It's a basic governance feature by provisoing and ensuring the allocated funding for pothole repair is only spent for that purpose.

We signal that ensuring that fixing our roads and keeping those who use them safe is a priority for this council.

It's keeping people safe is our charter responsibility.

And then that next sort of rung up is that most people expect us to wisely invest their tax dollar in is maintaining our roads and bridges.

And this is, again, a good governance feature that allows us to do exactly that.

This proposed CBA also expressly supports FIFA World Cup preparedness and readiness and want to thank my colleagues, Councilmembers Kettle and Salomon, fellow governance champions, for your co-sponsorship of this and I ask for your support.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Colleagues, discussion?

Questions?

I'll ask my question, which is I believe that this is proviso-ing the funding that is currently allocated in the pothole budget summary level.

Is that correct?

It's not in the budget summary level, but as a budget program, a specific line item within the budget on the accounting side.

And so this is proviso-ing the money that is already set aside for potholes.

That's correct.

Okay.

I don't know.

I still have questions, so I'm gonna abstain on this amendment, colleagues.

But other questions, comments, discussion?

Seeing no further discussion, I'm gonna call on Council Member Saka for last word.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Again, I think this one is fairly straightforward and simple.

making sure, calling out World Cup preparedness and ensuring we're well positioned to continue to deliver on the everyday basics of local government.

I ask for your support.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Will the clerk please call the roll on SDOT 2B1?

Yeah, sitting here, sitting here.

Council Member Hollingsworth?

Abstain.

Council Member Juarez?

No.

Council Member Kettle?

Aye.

Council President Nelson?

Aye.

Councilmember Rink?

No.

Councilmember Rivera?

Aye.

Councilmember Saka?

Aye.

Councilmember Solomon?

Aye.

Chair Strauss?

Abstain.

Five in favor.

Yes five in favor two opposed two abstentions.

Thank you, the motion carries.

SDOT 2B1 is added to Council Bill 121116. Moving on, Council Member Saka, you are recognized again.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I move to amend Council Bill 121116 as presented on SDOT-003-B-1.

Second.

Has been moved and seconded.

Council Central Staff, you are recognized.

This item would proviso $250,000 in SDOT to move a project design forward towards 30% for Roxbury Street paving between 16th Avenue and Olsen Place Southwest.

Thank you.

Councilmember Sokka, sponsor the amendment.

You are recognized.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to thank the original sponsors of this.

This is a revival of an earlier proposal.

Chair Strauss and Council Member Rink to pave Roxbury or design $250,000 in proviso to design a repayment of Roxbury.

This project, if you've ever driven on Roxbury, you'll know that this is on the cut line, the boundary between the city of Seattle to the north and unincorporated King County or White Center to the south.

And you'll also know basically the area, it's an area of equity.

need and so the road is in dire conditions, let's just say that, and community has long called upon us, governments, applicable governments to make changes.

This doesn't get us there, but it does provide some design money to put us in a better position to help get us there over time.

Because it is on the boundary line of unincorporated King County will require some coordination with our partners and colleagues at the King County government.

And I've already had multiple productive conversations with my legislative counterpart in the King County Council, King County Councilmember Theresa Musqueda.

In any event, so this would provide some design money to help us better explore how to get this done.

Thank you.

I ask for your support.

Thank you.

Colleagues, discussion?

Questions?

Comments?

I'll just say that we considered this as well as the admiral Admiralty area funding.

It was something that I shared with Council Member Sokka ahead of the balancing package that we would not be adding general fund to SDOT's budget seeing as they have such a large levy.

Council Member Sokka had many SDOT requests and so we provided general fund for Admiralty but did not fund this one.

I am going to just note that I'm beginning to be concerned with the amount of money that we are provisoing.

So I will be voting no, but that's about it.

here to support all this work.

Council Member Rank.

Thank you, Chair.

Colleagues, I understand I was a co-sponsor on the original amendment, but I will not be supporting this today.

As a citywide representative here on this body at large, I am keeping an eye to balance.

Balance in investments and programs across the city.

and I understand we're all here to advocate for our constituents and our residents and with respect to district specific council members I understand the approach here and the sentiments here and the passion but I grow concerned when we have so many provisos that land in one district and that in effect moving things to the top of SDOT's to-do list and my concerns with the inequities that that might perpetuate.

And so this is nothing against this particular project but rather more of our holistic approach and hoping that we can take this up next year in discussion about how we approach and talk to departments about work that's happening in each of our districts and as it relates to SDOT in particular how the role of the district fund also comes into effect here as well.

Thank you chair.

Thank you, Council Member Rink.

Colleagues, further discussion?

Comments?

Questions?

Council Member Saka, last word, and then we'll go to a vote.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I think this one is pretty straightforward.

I ask for your support.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Will the clerk please call the roll on S.3B1?

Council Member Hollingsworth?

No.

Council Member Juarez?

No.

Council Member Kettle?

No.

Council President Nelson?

Aye.

Council member Rink?

No.

Council member Rivera?

No.

Council member Saka?

Aye.

Council member Solomon?

Aye.

Chair Strauss?

No.

Three in favor, six opposed.

The motion does not pass and we will move on to the next item.

Council member Saka, you are recognized to move your next item.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I move to amend Council Bill 121116 as presented on SDOT-017-A-1.

Second.

It has been moved in second.

Council Central Staff, you are recognized.

Council Members, this item would provide $1 million in SDOT for traffic calming improvements and safety improvements on Admiral Way near the, excuse me, the Admiral Viewpoint and Belvedere Viewpoint Park.

Thank you.

Councilmember Saka, you are recognized as sponsor of the amendment.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

First and foremost, I want to thank my co-sponsors of this proposed investment, Council President Nelson and Councilmember Solomon as well.

When we had separate one-on-one conversations about this, this particular stretch of Southwest Admiral Way and the sort of blind curve that this swath of geographic territory of this particular corridor would cover and help improve and make safe.

They were like, yes, I know exactly what that area and couldn't agree more.

And so, This allows us, this is a proviso of existing funds, $1 million in existing funds for Southwest Admiral Way safety improvements.

This is one of the main routes or gateways into West Seattle, getting off the West Seattle Bridge, taking the Admiral Way exit, go up that hill and it's like shortly before it starts to curve left.

There's a blind curve and it's very, very dangerous, very dangerous.

People live, residents live on either side of Admiral Way, one of the busiest corridors in the city, certainly in District 1. And there's obviously a lot of cross pollination between the two, people going to and fro on one side of Admiral Way and the other.

Community has long demanded that we as a city make appropriate safeguards and improvements to improve this particular, it's about the stretch of road of Admiral that this covers is about three quarters of a mile.

Community has long demanded that we better address safety and address the blind turn, cars careening down super fast and in fact there is a change.org petition with just from a small subset of neighbors in the Admiral District neighborhood in a couple of square blocks, 330 plus signatories calling on the city to make this particular area safe.

There was a temporary crosswalk that was implemented last year or might've been taken away earlier this year in any event.

but that was, the department only had that, that was intended to be temporary only and it was in connection with some bridge maintenance and repair work that was going on further up Admiral.

And so this would address road safety.

I wanna thank the chair for putting in, because it's actually a buts, it's directly adjacent to an Admiral walkability, Admiral Junction walkability investment.

that was included in the chairs package for $150,000 proviso to improve Admiral walkability that was specifically modeled after, inspired after community.

So that's separate.

This stretch of Admiral abuts it and is nearby, but I wanna carefully distinguish between the two, because they're not the same.

They're distinctly different, in fact.

and so this would grab $1 million proviso to make this area safe.

It will allow us as a city to be more responsive to communities who've long been calling for this since being in office.

For almost two years now, this is one of the top road safety queries and concerns that we get, my office receives from constituents in District 1. And every time we follow up with our partners at SDOT, and asked them to look into exploring what additional changes can be made.

And unfortunately in two years now, to the extent there's been any changes or improvements on this road, it's been very incremental at best or non-existent.

And I think we as a city need to do better to make these necessary and appropriate changes and repairs.

I thought of exploring a potential council district fund for this.

But I think the intent of that program is for kind of non arterial streets, neighborhood level, stop signs and crosswalks and things like that.

The underlying issues in this dangerous three quarters of a mile stretch of Southwest Admiral Way are sort of beyond the scope of what's possible and what's intended with that other fund.

And so I also recognize colleagues that they're, as chair of our city's transportation committee, even putting this forward was not made lightly.

I recognize the impacts and potential impacts on our ability as a city to deliver on other projects citywide and upgrade citywide.

I don't, it is my view that this would not materially impact our ability as a city.

And I want you all to understand colleagues, I would not intentionally, especially my district colleagues, I would not intentionally, I would not propose this if I knew there was gonna be some sort of impact, major impact on any particular project or opportunity in your own district.

and I also know colleagues that there is approximately, I didn't do the math and I'm not good at numbers to be honest and I became a lawyer on the implicit promise that you didn't have to be good at numbers.

But ballpark, there's roughly eight to $10 million in the revised shares package for proviso of existing funds, specifically from SDOT.

all across the city, and I'm grateful.

I got $150,000 of that eight to $10 million for the separate, unrelated, admiral walkability project in my district.

And as chair of our city's transportation committee, I strongly support all of the, every last one of those projects in other council districts.

Deserve to be in there.

They're addressing, in some cases, they're addressing underlying similar underlying concerns in terms of safety, pointing, for example, to some of the ones for Council Member Solomon and along Rainier as an example.

But I strongly support all those provisos of existing SDOT funds, almost eight to 10 million.

And I'm also grateful for my $150,000 for animal walkability nearby.

But I also ask for your support for this vital, vital, road safety investment in a very dangerous stretch of road.

It's dangerous for residents.

It's dangerous for visitors.

Again, it's gateway.

It's one of the key gateways to West Seattle.

I ask for your support.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Saka.

I'll just say I support everything that you just said in making this a safer roadway, clarifying that the 150 for Admiralty was general fund.

That was new money.

And I made that decision in the chair's package because I was becoming concerned with how much money we were provisoing in the departments as you just described.

So with that, I will be voting no on this just simply because of those citywide priorities.

I'm becoming very nervous and I support everything that you are advocating for.

Again, if we had a magic wand and another $6 billion, we would say yes to it all.

Council President Nelson.

So I just want to respond to, I understand the concern about all these provisos because what money does that leave for other things.

I think that's where that concern is coming from.

But I have been supporting these provisos because this is the second year of a biennial budget.

and in theory it should not change.

And so what we are doing with these provisos is ensuring that the projects that were identified prior to this year for the two-year budget go on, continue, get actually built or finished.

So although these numbers might seem big, we're talking about the capital budget here.

And so therefore, that puts things in perspective.

And this particular project is, I believe, a Vision Zero project.

I think it's in, I don't know, I can't remember what section it was in, I was looking it up.

but the total transportation CIP budget is $345.2 million and so when we're talking about can we please make sure that this one little project actually gets done, I don't think that's much to ask and so I will be supporting this project.

Thank you.

Further discussion?

Council Member Waters.

Thank you.

I want to thank Council Member Saka for bringing this forward.

And I had a chance to look at this and had our staff pull up the Vision Zero Action Plan to look at the streets that have the high injury network score.

And unfortunately Rainier Avenue has the highest, which, you know, we also see that on Aurora and Lake City Way as well.

I do appreciate what Council Member Saka is doing for admirable way.

However, I will not be supporting this.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Juarez.

Colleagues, further discussion?

Further discussion, questions?

Council Member Sacco, last word.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Colleagues, again, I ask for your support.

I think it leaves sufficient flexibility for us to address some of these citywide concerns.

And I, as chair of our transportation committee, wanna reaffirm my commitment, all those things, all those investments, eight to $10 million of provisos that we already voted on and approved earlier today to address road safety projects and concerns in other districts, including those on the high injury network and those that aren't, I strongly support those.

And so I'm saying yes and, We need to be responsive here too.

And I don't think this materially impacts our ability as a city to deliver upon our commitments from a citywide perspective.

And for those reasons, colleagues, I humbly ask for your support.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Will the clerk please call the roll on SDOT 17A1?

Council member Hollingsworth?

No.

Council member Juarez?

No.

Council member Kettle?

No.

Council President Nelson.

Aye.

Councilmember Rink.

No.

Councilmember Rivera.

No.

Councilmember Sacca.

Aye.

Councilmember Solomon.

Aye.

Chair Strauss.

No.

Two in favor, excuse me, three in favor, six opposed.

Thank you.

The motion does not pass and we will move on to the next item.

Council Member Saka, you're recognized again.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I see the light at the end of the tunnel and I appreciate you colleagues for bearing with me.

All right, I move to amend Council Bill 121116 as presented on SDOT-017-A-1.

Second.

It has been moved and seconded to recommended to take up SDOT 3181. Central staff.

This item would direct $200,000 from the crossing improvements project in SDOT CIP to fund additional micromobility corrals.

Thank you.

Council member Saka, you are recognized.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to appreciate, I want to extend my appreciation to members of the community, advocacy organizations who have supported this, who in my office either worked on directly to craft this or after the fact have come out in support of this.

There is common sense, well there's consensus rather across views, across the spectrum that we need more scooter corrals.

It's one of many tools we can employ to help keep people safe, to keep our streets and rights of ways clean, clear, safe, organized, address some of the associated unintended consequences of a lot of scooters clustered up in specific locations.

It's not the end-all, be-all, of course.

And part of the stakeholder we worked on or directly with were some of the scooter providers, the vendors, Lime, directly, for example, who were asking for this.

But again, it spans, check the inboxes, it's clear, it spans across views, and I think this is a common sense thing we need.

This is another sort of revival, if you will, of something I proposed earlier as a means to encourage SDOT to build these out, build more of these out.

It is Council's specific wish and intent and goal that we try to deploy 600, that we make a stretch effort to deploy 600 of these before World Cup.

And I think recently the department said they're able to only deploy around 200 plus or so, which I think is a great first start.

and so I want them and I understand there's many citywide needs and priorities and this is one of many complex work streams that they're undertaking next year and going forward and they're approaching things from a citywide view and so am I here, there's a citywide view here, we would all benefit from that perspective and they may choose, like capacity constraints, I understand that again, multiple, they're managing multiple things.

But I wanna make sure, to the extent that we're unable to meet, council's express wish and intent as expressed in our slide that was adopted on the similar subject, a topic that was adopted in the revised chairs package, stating our goal for 600. To the extent the department is not able to, I will, it is my goal to do with my power to make sure that They can choose not to do so for any number of valid reasons.

That's understandable.

But resourcing limitations or lack thereof shall not be one of them.

And that's exactly what this does.

$200,000 from crossings and marked walks budget.

on top of the money, there's no clearly identified single source of fund they used to do this work today.

But here's an extra $200,000 to prioritize this work.

Again, supported by advocates and transportation.

I think this is a common sense thing.

Helps, there's a strong World Cup nexus we all benefit from.

Ask for your support.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Socket.

Colleagues, discussion?

We've got a number of questions.

Council Member Solomon.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

The one question I had was, I believe there was a proposal from Lime to actually build out the corrals themselves as opposed to SDOT doing it.

Could our central staff speak to that?

Central staff?

Council Member, I'm not aware of a Lime proposal at this time.

There may be conversations going on, but I'm not aware of them.

Okay, right.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Council Member Kettle.

Thank you Chair Strauss and thank you Councilmember Saka for bringing this amendment forward.

I recognize the points like for the previous votes that we had taken but with e-mobility with scooters this is a rapidly changing environment that we're seeing and it's interesting because we're having an ever-increasing range of stakeholders that recognize the changing dynamics and that the fact that action needs to be taken and corrals is just one piece.

There will be others.

But with FIFA coming up and other big events, too, because this has shown up, it's been a challenge for the stadium district.

We're T-Mobile and Lumen Field.

Yes, T-Mobile and Lumen.

And it's a challenge not just for FIFA World Cup.

And so I believe that we do need to take the work and to kind of have a press on this, but then also in committee work the various challenges and opportunities that exist with this and really engage because like I said, there is an ever increasing range of stakeholders that recognize the changing dynamics of what we're seeing on the street with the scooters and the other types.

and the impacts that they have.

It's unintended consequences, if you will, but this is an opportunity to take a first step.

So thank you, Council Member Saka and Chair Strauss.

Thank you.

Colleagues, further discussion?

I will ask central staff if you can brief us on the statement of legislative intent that we have included from Council Member Saka in the Chair's package.

We breezed past it in Group A, but it's a companion to this.

Yes, it's a slide that asks for a comprehensive plan for how the department would implement more corrals.

Thank you.

And then I believe that that's an important question to ask because as I've asked the questions about micro mobility corrals, the question of crew delivered time, the amount of time that the SDOT crews have to deliver them has been challenged.

I see Eric with additional information on this.

Just gonna stitch in a little bit more to what Cal said.

Yeah, the slight calls for a study on this, sort of a report out, and then a plan based on the findings of that report that have the kind of components that you're talking about.

Yeah.

Thank you.

and I will say I am completely in support of additional micro mobility corrals in our city.

I think that these are important.

I am concerned right now of the funding source.

Can I recall and then I'm going to ask what is the funding source of this amendment and then how much money was included in the base budget for micro mobility corrals?

I can say in the question and answer response from SDOT, they did provide an assessment of the amount for corrals.

They identified $675,000 to deliver 200 marked crosswalks by June 2026, as well as another 37 corrals through the Vision Zero program.

So they're using a couple of different programs to deliver that.

And if you give me a moment, I can find the amount of money that's in the crossing program.

Sorry, the amount of money that was set aside for corrals and then the funding sources, the crosswalk money, is that correct?

That's correct.

So 675 is the amount for corrals and I will find the number for what is in for crosswalks currently.

Don't worry.

So we have $600,000 that is in the base budget for corrals already, is that correct?

675,000.

675,000.

This amendment is looking to increase it by another 200,000.

Is that correct?

That's correct.

And the funding source from this is the crosswalk funds?

That's correct.

Okay.

So again, Councilmember Saka, totally supportive of more micromobility corrals.

I'm not supportive of the funding source.

I'm going to make a bad joke.

Everyone on my team is like holding their breath right now.

But how did the sidewalk cross the road with the crosswalk?

and so that's part of why I do not want to support the funding source.

But again, I included your statement of legislative intent in the chair's package because you're asking the absolute correct questions and I want to help you move this work forward.

Colleagues, further questions I see Councilmember Rank.

Thank you, Chair.

I wanted to hone in for a second just on the, again, source of funding and this capital improvement project, crossing improvement.

Has this specific project been identified and where is it located?

It's a program in the CIP that does crossing improvements across the city.

So there may be a program level of projects that's identified, but you will not find that level of detail in the CIP.

It's a large programmatic spending.

If you need to know that number, I can find it for you.

No need, Calvin, thank you.

But I just wanted to get that on the record to understand what exactly the kind of project we're talking about here.

And I think I'll say holistically, I'm a supporter of micromobility and understanding that I know that there's support for finding spaces to safely stow away and corral, scooters in particular, so we can get them off the sidewalk.

Philosophically, I'm struggling with, again, why the city is paying to help support a private for-profit company in trying to do this work and would like to say I think we should have a conversation with the companies about their role in also supporting management of our right-of-way.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Ring.

Further discussion?

Further discussion, further comments.

Councilmember Saka, you are recognized.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Colleagues, you all, I appreciate all the comments so far.

You all raised great comments and sort of self-reflections.

And I think the answer, I think your question, Councilmember Brink, was intended to be a rhetorical one, maybe food for thought.

I don't want to sort of get in your head or infer intent, but- Yeah.

I think the answer, the practical answer to that is because I've been in rooms and conversations and meetings separately with Lime and then SDOT and I know they're working closely together and have had many productive conversations and that's the best way to do all this as opposed to, you know, legislation or budget investment.

So their conversations will continue but and along a similar vein to Councilmember Solomon's earlier query, they actually, I think my understanding is that they, the provider did actually, the vendor did actually offer to do this work themselves.

And my understanding is that there's some real legal operational challenges associated with that, potentially some labor ones.

And so, but they've indicated a willingness to do that if the city can do it.

And my understanding is that it can't.

So I'm only here to make sure we as a city are able to, our best position to do this vital work, especially ahead of World Cup.

And again, the goal with this proposed investment is our city can choose not to ultimately build these out and deploy them.

as many as we want, 600 by World Cup, for any number of valid reasons, but lack of funding shall not be one of them.

Thank you, I ask for your support.

Thank you, Council Member Sacco.

Will the clerk please call the roll on SDOT 31A1?

Council Member Hollingsworth?

Abstain.

Council Member Juarez?

No.

Council Member Kettle?

Aye.

Council President Nelson?

Aye.

Councilmember Rink.

No.

Councilmember Rivera.

No.

Councilmember Sacca.

Aye.

Councilmember Salomon.

Same.

Chair Strauss.

No.

Three in favor, four opposed, two abstentions.

Thank you, the motion does not pass.

Council Member Saka, you are recognized for the next amendment.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Let's see, let me get to my notes, okay.

I move to amend Council Bill 121116 as presented on SPR-017-A-1.

Second.

It's been moved and seconded, Central Staff.

Thank you, Chair.

The title of this amendment is perhaps a little bit misleading in that the goal here is to provide a total of $1.1 million for freestanding prefabricated restrooms and a study of those for District 1. The funding here is that we identified some unused fund balance, $500,000 of parks levy funded.

We discovered that after the original balancing package.

Well, actually, we were aware of it before.

It had limited uses, and it hadn't really applied to other council ads.

But council member Saka is proposing its use, along with the proviso for $600,000.

So it's that $500,000 and the proviso on $600,000 that gets you to the total $1.1 million.

and the goal again is to provide funding for installation of freestanding prefabricated restrooms at the Portland Lou is an example in one or more locations in District 1. Just in the context of the conversation you've been having about provisos overall, the potential opportunity cost here is that the proviso and this funding are things that could be used for maintenance, major maintenance and asset management elsewhere in the city, and we've attached to this proposal, and I know that I can pull it up, a list of the projects that are otherwise funded from the, oh here we go, thank you, I'm glad we have this.

So these are the kinds of things that are funded from that, in that major maintenance, category, that project, that would be subject to the proviso.

Just an example of the kinds of things that that money gets used for.

So that's what this does.

It adds $500,000 of new money and then imposes a proviso on 1.1, so provisoing the new money and also provising $600,000 of existing funding for major maintenance and the like in the Parks Department.

Thank you.

Council Member Sacco, you're recognized.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

First off, I want to thank my co-sponsors of this proposal, Councilmember Solomon and Councilmembers Hollingworth.

More specifically, Parks Committee Chair Hollingsworth, Putt Committee Chair Hollingsworth, pardon me.

And I think that's important.

It's important because we're closely with the chair to develop this package, this proposal.

And it does have some potential citywide impacts, although I think we structured it in such a manner that those would be very minimal.

Intentionally, so $1.1 million is a grand total for this.

as the budget title alludes to, $500,000 of that would be pulled from the King County Parks Levy Fund, leaving the remaining balance of $600,000, which would come from parks, 27 plus million dollar parks major maintenance bucket.

And as we learned, at least two of these graffiti, tamper-resistant Portland loo type, as one example, will be placed at at least one specific location within District 1. And $100,000, this one's complex, but it's actually remarkably straightforward at the same time.

And then $100,000 of that $1.1 million would go towards a study to figure out how we as a city can better make appropriate upgrades, potentially along a similar vein or not, but more appropriate upgrades from a citywide perspective.

And so, and I failed to kind of acknowledge the history here that no doubt everyone is aware of on this dais, but just for members of the public tracking along, earlier this year, we learned about a scathing audit that related to the overall state of our parks restrooms.

And I think the department concurred with most of the findings, certainly didn't dispute them.

And I think there's a shared collective acknowledgement that we need to do better with respect to the cleanliness and maintenance of our parks' restrooms.

And as part of that conversation, parks revealed a top 20 list, probably a bottom 20 list is more appropriate, of parks that impose the greatest that are the worst off in terms of the number of personnel hours to address the problem graffiti, problem vandalism that frequently occurs.

And despite only constituting 1 7th of the city's population in District 1, we were overly represented on that worst list.

40% of the city's parks in the worst state the restrooms in the city's parks in the worst state were in district one.

And those included three parks that I called out here as a potential for some of these Portland Lou type upgrades to harden the parks, restrooms, to make them more tamper resistant, to make them more vandalism resistant, to make them more graffiti resistant like the Portland Lou.

And these include Elkai, Don Armini and Lincoln Park.

Everyone understands the treasure of parks that each of these three locations represents in the city of Seattle, but those locations were chosen not only because they were on that bottom 20 list, but also because they have a high number of visitors from outside of the city of Seattle who come and they're tourists and they visit these parks.

And when they see these, horrible restrooms in a poor state of condition.

That's the first impression of the city of Seattle that they have.

And so this is really just a reflection in response to a scathing audit.

And I appreciate Chair Hollingsworth on this in particular because we had some tough conversations.

You saw a moment ago, colleagues, She took up some principal positions on, and I don't wanna speak for her, but she took some principal positions against other proviso proposals that I had for my district.

But I think this is different because the gravity and the severity of the underlying problem at issue and the opportunity we have as a city to do better, and plus the study that would find a path to invest in other similar upgrades across the city, recognizing that District 1 right now is most in need as it relates to addressing this audit.

Anyways, for those reasons, colleagues, I ask for your support.

Thank you, Councilmember Saka.

Colleagues, any questions?

Councilmember Juarez.

Thank you, and I'm going to direct this to the table, but I'm guessing customer Osaka will answer some of this in his closing statement.

So I'm just a little bit confused about if we're, there was an audit done, and I know that you said that the audit, that 40% of, because of high usage parks, the three parks in West Seattle.

So what were we saying, what were we talking about, another, the 100,000 for a study, if we've done an audit?

I want to just get some clarification there.

Director Noble.

I believe the study is about the specific proposed technology, if you will, the Portland loo as the solution as opposed to other kinds of public restrooms.

What I know about this is the city has at times I once wrote a budget amendment to add a Portland Blue, and I once wrote a budget amendment to remove a Portland Blue.

The amazing Tracy Ratzliff at the committee table.

Welcome, Tracy.

It is 3.55 on November 14th.

I think the intent of the study is both to look at the potential models that could be deployed at these three parks, but also to look at other vandalism-resistant efforts to try to improve not only the bathrooms in his district, but citywide.

Thank you.

So then it's fair to say it isn't, I just don't want to, you know, pile on a customer's hook.

It isn't just for D1.

It's just like we have, I mean, yes, we have these three parks that he has highlighted, but the $100,000 for a study is not, because they're high usage parks.

So I understand that.

So I'm guessing what you're saying is the 100,000 or the study city, other areas would be studied

I think the $100,000 for the study would in fact be something that could be applicable citywide, but the bulk of the money is targeted toward D1 restrooms, to be really clear.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you.

Colleagues, further questions?

Councilmember Hollingsworth, Rivera, and then I've got a couple.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I appreciate you calling on me.

I did raise my hand.

I didn't realize I had raised my hand.

I apologize.

But I do want to say this.

I do support, and I went back and forth with Councilmember Saka on this for long periods of times, and I've stand principled with some of the way I've been voting in terms of the proviso, but I initially came to yes on this and supporting and I will be voting yes on this.

We did have an audit done and we dedicate a whole committee to the restrooms and it was very apparent that in District 1 was disproportionately impacted by not having enough access to restrooms.

When we were looking at, when we were looking at parks to turf in the city.

We settled on Lower Woodland because there were multiple teams that used that field throughout the city.

And so just looking through at an equity lens, I was walking myself through all the yeses and nos and supports that I had through Parks Department and how to make it better.

And I settled on yes on this just because it was substantially you could see the disproportionate impacts in District 1 with the amount of restrooms that they did not have access to.

Parks had put a proposal through participatory budget that was gonna set up new restrooms, but we saw with the audit that we could not continue to take care of the ones that we had in the city and keep it safe and clean and the amount of vandalism that has been happening in different restrooms.

So I just wanted to say that for the record and just give colleagues some background, but I will be supporting this amendment.

Thank you.

and thank you Council Member Rivera.

Thank you Chair and thank you Council Member Saka for highlighting this important issue and the audit and I seem to recall and Tracy I don't know if you're gonna remember off the top of your head but I seem to recall the audit showed various neighborhoods and I feel like even in the D4 it showed some issues with the restrooms but I can't remember off the top of my head and I'm not gonna hold you to remember.

but I will say that my constituents in the U District, particularly on University Avenue, have been asking for a bathroom for a very, very, very, very long time.

and not in a subtle way.

And I have not been able to find funding to help them with a bathroom there because of the ongoing costs.

So that has been very challenging.

We've also had issues with restrooms in the parks like Dahl Field, who a lot of kids use because it's a a baseball field and that there was arson at that park so for two years there has been no restroom use there and again the constituents in that neighborhood have been very vocal and have been asking for help and I just have not been able to identify funding to be able to do these things and I know council, I mean Parks Chair Hollingsworth and I have had conversations about all the things, fields, park bathrooms, et cetera.

So it is something that the city is grappling with in various parts of the city.

And I'll also say that in terms of the Portland Lou, and Tracy, you're going to remember, and Director Noble, We've all been here long enough to remember the bathrooms in Pioneer Square and I think we had three million dollar bathrooms that we had to shut down because there were various issues, not the least of which was drug use.

and other activity in those bathrooms.

So this has really been a challenging issue.

Because of this, I cannot support this particular ad for just one district.

You know, it would be a disrespect to my constituents who are also desperate.

to have a restroom there.

And I'll say in the U District in particular because there are a lot of folks riding the light rail up to the U District station We've got a lot of unhoused neighbors up there and there's nowhere for them to use a restroom.

And so the businesses have had to absorb a lot of that, which is why we're hearing a lot from the businesses.

So if you're hearing businesses, I'm here, I'm listening, I support, we need to figure out a way to manage this.

And I am hoping that perhaps with the future parks levy I don't know that could be an opportunity for which I know we have coming up an opportunity to at least fix some of the ones that are in the parks etc.

I don't know but that is my hope that we're able to have that conversation as part of that.

Anyway, so all that to say, Council Member Saka, thank you.

I hear you.

I feel your pain and I won't be able to support your particular ad but I want to partner with you to figure out how we can take care of the situation across the city on behalf of our constituents that so desperately need this.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Rivera.

Colleagues, additional questions, comments?

I'm just going to ask my clarifying questions.

This funding, aside from the study, would build a Portland Lou, is that correct?

There is no guarantee.

Just for your information, our experience with the Portland Lues, Council Member, you would remember this because one was in Ballard, the Ballard Commons.

That one cost over a million bucks.

That's right.

It really depends on the location, how close it is to the sewer and septic lines, to electricity.

So it can be that much or it can be less.

I think we did one in Rainier Beach that may have been about $500,000, but I think that was located close to electrical sewer and so forth.

but the costs vary widely depending on the location.

So that's what I can tell you about Portland News.

Amen.

And only because you brought it up, I'm going to give the deep history on Ballard Commons Park, which is that there was a restroom proposed initially.

Neighbors got mad because they thought people would use it that they didn't want in the neighborhood.

So they didn't put the restroom in there, only to be found out by the Department of Health that if you have a water feature, you have to have a restroom.

And so we had to come back and put that restroom in.

And so it's always better to put a restroom in at the outset of a park than to come back and do it later.

And I'll just say that that's why I have the concern of, are we using maintenance money to fund new capital projects that will need maintenance?

Because I can tell you that the Portland Lou at the Ballard Commons Park, even though it is as described here, graffiti and vandalism resistant, resistant is not proof.

and so we already need more additional funding there to deal with this.

So I'm very concerned with the funding source again and understanding that we need to make good on that restroom audit.

Our parks restrooms are in bad condition.

The ones that are failing that are in place to be replaced by the Metropolitan Parks District need to be replaced so that we can free up that maintenance money for other places.

Tracy?

I do need to just to get on the record that part of the issue with the maintenance of our bathrooms happened during a time when there was a hiring freeze and parks couldn't actually hire people that were supposed to be out doing maintenance and repairs.

And so they were a bit hamstrung in that one year that the auditor looked at, understood, from being able to do the kind of maintenance that they anticipated that we actually provided resources in the MPD to do.

So just to be really clear about that.

Fantastic.

Colleagues, other questions, comments, discussion?

Council Member Sokka, last word, and then we've got three more amendments.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to thank again Parks Committee Chair Hollingsworth for your leadership on this and your really just your patience and grace with me.

I know you're navigating all the complex constituent issues in your district, working on budget investments that can help from a citywide perspective and also your district.

And I also know you care deeply about us as a city remediating some of these troubling findings from the audit.

but I do appreciate your partnership in crafting this.

I think it is a proposal that addresses the acute need in District 1 and that happens sometimes, colleagues.

Sometimes District 1 needs resources in one particular problem area a little more than others, relative to others.

And another issue, another district in that and that's why our district system and our citywide system is great.

And I would strongly support potentially sacrificing if needed upgrades to address some really, really problematic findings in your district, especially if we're talking about an area that is the window pane to the city of Seattle for many.

Because again, these three locations in Elkine and Don Armini and Lincoln Park District colleagues, your constituents go there too.

But importantly, a lot of people from outside of the city of Seattle visit these areas, a lot of eyeballs on them.

So it helps us address some critical need, helps us be responsive in part among other solutions that we're implementing.

And I wanna thank Chair, Parks Committee Chair Hollingsworth again for our leadership because this is one of many potential things.

And again, there's a strong citywide angle with the additional upgrades calling out, I think the technical term we landed on with with this language is the installation of, quote unquote, freestanding, prefabricated restroom models.

And then it uses some examples in parentheticals of Portland Lou and Throne.

Those are some examples of the vendors recognizing, of course, each one of those, or both, or all, are imperfect of themselves.

But the goal, they are, certainly more resistant, and I think the goal is to reduce, get down some of that staff time needed to constantly maintain, constantly upgrade, constantly clean, and this is part of a broader solution.

So for those reasons, colleagues, I ask for your support.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Will the clerk please call the roll on SPR 17A1?

Council Member Hollingsworth?

Yes.

Council Member Juarez?

Yes.

Councilmember Kettle.

Aye.

Council President Nelson.

Aye.

Councilmember Rink.

No.

Councilmember Rivera.

No.

Councilmember Saka.

Aye.

Councilmember Solomon.

Aye.

Chair Strauss.

No.

Six in favor, three opposed.

Thank you.

The motion passes and SPR 17A1 will be included with Council Bill 121116. We're moving on to the last three items.

We're at 4.08 p.m.

I'm gonna ask us to move quickly since these are all walk-on amendments at this time.

We have Law 2A, S.51, and OED19.

Councilmember Nelson, Council President Nelson, you're recognized to move your amendment.

Thank you very much.

I move S.051A.

Second.

I'm sorry, Council President, I believe we are on Law 2A.

Is that correct?

That's correct.

We are on Law 2A.

Council President, please try again.

Okay.

Just a moment, please.

You don't have to walk on.

I move Council Bill Law 2A.

Is there a second?

Second.

It's been moved and seconded.

Council Central Staff, you were recognized to address CBA Law 2A.

Thank you, Chair.

Tommaso Johnson, Council Central Staff.

Law 2A is a proviso.

It would impose a proviso on $289,000 in general fund for the city attorney's office for drug diversion work.

This is, in a sense, analogous to the earlier proviso that you heard around the unified care team.

The intent here is to preserve funding via proviso for some of the work that's being done now in the city attorney's office in collaboration with the municipal court, known as a drug diversion work, known as a drug prosecution alternative.

So this proviso would account for $289,000 of funds, which currently supports one assistant city prosecutor and a legal assistant in the city attorney's office.

Funds for this purpose were appropriated during this year's mid-year supplemental via general fund revenue in the jail services fund that was originally intended for the SCORE jail contract, but was not used for that purpose.

So this proviso would appropriate that amount of dollars for drug diversion.

program activities and no other purpose.

The council intent signaled with this proviso is that the drug diversion program is intended to involve several components, including referral of program participants to the Seattle Municipal Court Resource Center to complete a drug test and referral to services where applicable, acceptance of a stay out of drug area order.

and participants' agreement not to violate criminal law for a 60-day period.

These elements, these descriptive elements, are drawn from the current drug prosecution alternative, which, as I said earlier, is an agreement between the city attorney's office and the municipal court that was established earlier this year.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Council President, you're recognized to speak to your amendment.

Thank you very much.

This is a fairly new project that has, but the need was identified a couple of years ago in June of 2023, I believe.

And it's really clear that the Drug court at the county level does work.

It does provide an alternative to incarceration if people seek treatment.

And that is extremely expensive.

And so that is why we do not have a municipal drug court.

But this is a project that is designed to provide the following, that defendants arrested for drug use and possession to connect with services via a warm handoff from the city attorney's office to Seattle Municipal Court Resource Center.

and commit no new law violations to have their drug cases dismissed.

So again, this acts like the county drug court but it is a smaller scale and this would preserve the funding for the personnel that are currently working in drug court.

And so again, this is an alternative to incarceration and it gets at one of our most intractable problems right now in the City of Seattle, which is dealing with our fentanyl crisis and some of the public disorder that is associated with drug use and addiction.

And so that is why I, although it is a new project and a new effort, It is something that the city has for a couple of years recognized as very much needed to address not just the opioid crisis, drug crisis in general, but to help people avoid jail and get better.

That's it.

Thank you, Council President.

Again, colleagues, we're gonna have one comment period per person and then Council President at the end.

Other colleagues, comments, questions, discussion.

Colleagues, comments, questions, discussion.

I will just say I will be abstaining from this amendment similar to the reasons why I abstained on the unified care team amendment.

Further discussion?

Council President, last word.

simply that without this small piece of the puzzle that the pathway to recovery that I believe that we all share is a common good that we want to encourage our constituents to enter upon and also the oft-stated goal of keeping people out of jail.

This is a very important piece of that puzzle.

So thank you very much for considering it.

Thank you, will the clerk please call the roll on law 2A.

Council Member Hollingsworth?

Yes.

Council Member Juarez?

Yes.

Council Member Kettle?

Aye.

Council President Nelson?

Aye.

Council Member Rink?

Abstain.

Council Member Rivera?

Aye.

Council Member Saka?

Aye.

Council Member Solomon?

Aye.

Chair Strauss?

Abstain.

Seven in favor, two abstentions.

Thank you.

The motion passes and Law 2A will be attached to Council Bill 121116. Moving on to S.51.

Council President, you're recognized and moved your amendment.

I move OED 19A1.

Do I have the right one?

Unfortunately, no.

I move S.

I'm sorry, Mike.

I move S.

51A.

Is there a second?

Second.

It has been moved and seconded.

Council Central Staff, you're recognized to address the bill.

Council members, this item would provide a $4.1 million in SDOT for public safety support, graffiti abatement and cleaning services.

This is the $4.1 million that was included in the mayor's proposed budget for the downtown activation team.

Thank you.

Council President, you're recognized to address your amendment.

Thank you very much.

Again, I am seeking to maintain programs that seem to be working.

The Downtown Activation Team is the interdepartmental group that does this work.

And the biggest piece that DAT does is the street cleaning that's associated with some of our major corridors downtown.

And we want to keep our downtown clean and welcoming for both visitors and locals alike, and this would preserve one aspect of DAT.

I did have a piece of legislation that would have also paid It would have been a $6 million proviso that preserves the funding that comes from SPU and also parks and SPD that make this program so successful.

But I have heard from both downtown businesses and residents of the Downtown Community Council that it has been a tremendous benefit to downtown over the past year or so, year and a half or so.

And so this is simply to maintain the SDOT portion of that work.

Thank you, colleagues.

Discussion?

Questions?

Comments?

I'm going to abstain for the same reason as I abstained on the last one in the Unified Care Team.

Any other questions, comments, discussion?

Will the clerk please call the roll on SDOT 51?

Council Member Hollingsworth?

Yes.

Council Member Juarez?

Yes.

Council Member Kettle?

Aye.

Council President Nelson?

Aye.

Council Member Rink?

No.

Councilmember Rivera.

Aye.

Councilmember Sacca.

Aye.

Councilmember Salomon.

Aye.

Chair Strauss.

Abstain.

Seven in favor, one opposed, one abstention.

Thank you.

The motion passes and S.51A is attached to Council Bill 121116. Council President, I'm just gonna help you out here.

And for the viewing public, we are in the walk-on amendment section, which is why these are not on the agenda.

But I will move OED19.

Is there a second?

Second.

It has been moved and second.

And Council Central staff, would you like to brief the amendment, please?

OED 19A is a council budget action that would impose a proviso on $500,000 in the Office of Economic Development to ensure continuation of the Liberty Project.

The Liberty Project is a partnership with the University of Washington, Seattle University, and Tabor 100 to support small businesses, primarily black-owned businesses, with consulting and strategy services, finance and accounting, marketing services, and other help.

The project is currently funded at $500,000 ongoing in the 2026 proposed budget.

I think that's it.

Thank you.

Council President, you're recognized to address your amendment.

Thank you very much.

The Liberty Project is named after Liberty Bank, but that is, as mentioned, it is a partnership.

Some of you might have been to the Gala, Tabor 100's Gala, and heard the testimonial from the small businesses that have been helped by this project.

Again, this is a partnership that provides direct services to small businesses, primarily black small businesses, to access capital, to make improvements in their management capacity, and also to to position themselves for obtaining contracts with the city and other jurisdictions.

And so I am usually, this would provide $500,000 next year, but in previous years it had that, It was supposed to be 250, but then I will let central staff explain.

Jasmine, you can explain the difference.

But the point is that, again, our small businesses have been through a lot coming out of the pandemic and seeking to survive.

And this is a project that brings a lot of experts together to provide for free services.

And so I am just asking that we maintain its funding.

Thank you.

It's so late in the day, I forgot to recognize Jasmine Marwaha of Council Central Staff to brief the item.

Or did you?

I did brief the item, but if I may, I can respond.

I can elaborate on what Council President Nelson was discussing around the 250 versus 500. So there's a bit of confusion because in 2025, this year, the amount was reduced by $250,000 because there was $250,000 from 2024 to make it $500,000 for 2025. But this is an ongoing expenditure at $500,000 currently.

So the proviso is, I believe the intention is for the proviso to retain and ensure that the ongoing spending is spent in 2026. So because of that, the proviso is set at $500,000.

Thank you.

Council President, anything further?

Or you've got last word, so I'm gonna come back to you.

Other colleagues, questions, comments, discussion?

Question that I have for you, Jasmine, is this work is described in this way in a budget in OED currently.

Is that correct?

That is correct.

And so this proviso is simply to ensure that it keeps going after January 1st.

I believe that is the sponsor's intention.

Okay.

I will just say, colleagues, we didn't receive this walk-on amendment until this morning.

All other walk-on amendments were provided before 5 p.m.

yesterday.

I am going to either abstain or vote no simply because I have more questions.

It's not...

I only feel comfortable doing that hearing Jasmine's statement that these are already intended funding projects of this budget.

Council Member Juarez I see you have a hand.