City Council Special Meeting Public Hearing 8/4/2025

Good afternoon, everyone.

The August 4th, 2025 special meeting at the Seattle City Council will come to order.

It is 2 0 1. I'm Sarah Nelson, president of the council.

Will the clerk please call the roll?

Council member Rivera.

Council member Saka.

Here.

Council member Solomon.

Here.

Council member Strauss.

Present.

Here.

Council member Hollingsworth.

Here.

Council member Juarez.

Present.

Council member Kettle.

Council member Rink.

Present.

Council President Nelson.

Present.

Seven present.

All right.

Thank you very much.

If there's no objection, the council rules will be suspended to allow public comment to today's special city council meeting.

There are now eight present because council member Kettle has joined us and I am not hearing any objection.

So the council rules are suspended and we will proceed with the hybrid public comment period.

How many people are signed up today?

We have three in person and one remote.

How many in person?

Three.

Okay.

We will start with their three in person and then go to the remote.

And everybody will get two minutes.

Yeah.

The public comment period will be moderated in the following manner.

The public comment period is up to 20 minutes.

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

We will begin with the speakers signed up in person, then calling speakers signed up remotely.

Please begin by stating your name and the item that you are addressing.

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

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

The public comment period is now open and we'll begin with the first speaker on the list.

The first person is Alex Zerman.

Who else would it be?

Yeah, I'm ready.

My name is Alex Zimmerman.

I want to speak about agenda number two.

You know what it means about taxes.

I try to understand why you always take money from people.

Madam Chair, I'd like to make a point of order.

Yes, please.

Go ahead.

We have this same issue where Mr. Zimmerman calls out me on my race as bandita, so I want the record to reflect that he's done it again, so now he's on notice again, that we do not attack the ethnicity, race, or any hate or vileness.

This is the people's house, so I would ask a point of order that if Mr. Zimmerman continues, that he speak to the matter on the agenda and not specifically call out anyone on their race or ethnicity at this time, and that he would be looking at a suspension.

Thank you very much, Councilmember Juarez.

In fact, this does constitute abusive language, which is disruptive behavior against which we have rules.

I don't understand.

I need Russian translator.

Ma'am, I don't understand why she talked to me.

I need Russian translator.

Please, bring Russian translator.

Please keep the time going.

Yeah, we're talking about emigranti emigrant.

Bring Russian translator.

Why are you staying here?

Please proceed with your public comment on a matter on the agenda or within the work program.

Exactly.

I can't speak about number two.

You don't give me a chance.

No problemo.

Can I speak?

Thank you very much.

So in number two, you're talking about taxes.

It makes me sick because I don't understand.

Why are you all the time talking taxes, taxes, taxes?

Why are you all the time talking taxes and conditions go worse, worse, and worse?

Why?

Because your taxes go in personal information for personal need.

This exactly.

Don't surprise me.

Except people who pure fascists.

We have this right now, Consul Varys, what has come like a pure fascist.

For four years, four years, she never show people faces when they speak.

I never see like this before in my life.

Why is she doing this?

Personal attacks are also not allowed against council members.

So how you can have a council who have something what is never probably fascist, Nazi Gestapo don't do it?

This is a violation of our council rules.

This is abusive behavior.

This is your first official warning.

And if you continue with this, please.

And I want Russian translator next time when she speak.

That's it?

I can go?

That was your first warning, official warning.

Viva Trump, viva new American Revolution.

Yes, I will repeat this again.

I've been doing this for 30 years.

Say it.

Massive David.

Next we have Jordan Crowley.

Is that Ms. Deegan?

Good afternoon, council.

My name is Jordan Crowley, chair of the 34th District Democrats and a proud small business advocate.

Please pause and put the time back.

Council member, I mean, not council member, Mr. Zimmerman, please be seated and you've had your chance to speak.

Don't interrupt other people.

Go ahead, please.

Good afternoon, Council.

My name is Jordan Crowley, Chair of the 34th District Democrats and a proud small business advocate from District 1. I'm standing today in support of the proposed changes to the B&O tax, and I'm excited that the bill has gotten to this point, primarily because it is not a tax to spend, but a tax to do.

To do for our communities what the federal government will not.

Speaking before King County Council in January, I said, knowing what awaited us after Inauguration Day, that our region needed to prepare to go it alone.

Leaders like Councilmember Rink recognized the same thing.

I'm here to ask that each of you support the bill as proudly as the coalition standing behind it.

Let's sustain funding for critical programs and do something for our city.

Thank you.

Next we have Luzmila Fries.

Yeah, you can adjust it.

Hi.

Good afternoon, Chair and members of the Council.

Thank you so much for the opportunity to speak before you today.

My name is Luzmila Fries, and I am the Director of Economic Development at the Latino Community Fund, and I'm here to share our strong support for the Seattle Shield proposal.

Small businesses, particularly immigrant-owned businesses, generate over $2.3 billion in annual revenue and create thousands of jobs across Washington state.

They're also the economic backbone of our beloved city.

In Seattle, their impact goes beyond economics.

These businesses contribute to the rich cultural and social fabric that makes our city unique.

They create jobs, provide essential services, and foster the sense of community that defines our neighborhoods.

Let us not forget that many of today's corporate giants, like Amazon and Starbucks, began as small local ventures right here in Seattle.

When we invest in small businesses today, particularly those from underserved communities, we are not just supporting their economic survival.

We are nurturing the next generation of economic drivers for our city.

However, many small businesses are currently struggling to survive.

They're facing a perfect storm.

Inflation, rising operating costs, labor shortages, declining food traffic, and most significantly, serious safety concerns.

These challenges are not theoretical.

They are threatening livelihoods.

This is why we firmly support the Seattle Shield Initiative.

It acknowledges and addresses these realities directly.

It provides meaningful tax relief for small and micro businesses, which helps them weather economic uncertainty.

It also protects critical investments in affordable housing and public safety, both of which are essential to rebuilding resilient neighborhoods.

In short, this initiative is practical, targeted, and timely response to the challenges facing our small business community.

I urge you to support it.

Thank you for your time and leadership.

Thank you.

That's the end of our in-person registered speakers.

Thank you very much.

And our first remote speaker is Hallie Willis.

Please press star six when you hear the prompt that you have been unmuted.

Hallie Willis, Good afternoon, Councilmembers.

My name is Hallie Willis, and I'm the Policy Manager for the Seattle King County Coalition on Homelessness and a member of the Seattle Human Services Coalition.

I'm glad to support the Progressive Shield Seattle proposal from Councilmember Rankin and Mayor Harrell, and I urge the Council to adjust the rates to get back the $10 million we lost in committee And send it to the voters.

This tax is a necessary step towards a structural solution for our structural budget deficit.

But last week's amendments weakened the bill and dramatically expanded its purpose.

We urge you to get that $10 million back by adjusting rates paid by the biggest businesses in our community.

We're simply not in a position to turn down new revenue.

Lastly, I want to urge caution against spreading these and other revenues too thinly across too many causes.

We urge you to focus your budget this fall on meeting people's basic needs, food, shelter, and health, especially now that we are in an era of profound and targeted attacks on low-income people.

I want to thank Councilmember Rankin and Mayor Harrell for proposing this revenue package, and I urge all of you to review the recommendations of the Revenue Stabilization Workgroup and put forward additional revenue proposals to meet people's needs.

Thank you.

Thank you.

There are no additional remote speakers registered.

All right.

We have reached the end of our public comment list, and the public comment period is now closed.

Let's see.

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

Hearing no objection, the agenda is adopted.

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

They apply the City Council Chendentum 1, Council Bill 121013 relating to flood plains, ninth extension of interim regulations established by Ordinance 126113 as amended by Ordinance 126536 for an additional six months to allow individuals to rely on updated national flood insurance rate maps to plain flood insurance through the Federal Emergency Management Agency's flood insurance program.

All right.

I move to pass Council Bill 121013. Is there a second?

Second.

It is moved and seconded to pass the bill.

Councilmember Strauss, on behalf of Councilmember Salomon, you're recognized to address this item.

Thank you, Council President.

We are here again.

I am flooded with emotion.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency has, I guess colleagues, how much of this background do you want?

How much do you remember already?

Council Member Juarez has seen this a number of times.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency produced updated maps.

And ensures the National Flood Insurance Program in communities, including the city, adopt code that meets the minimum required standards for these regulations as established by Congress.

I see folks from SDCI in the audience.

I say all of this only because we've had it with us so many times.

I am happy to move it forward again today, though.

Floodplain regulations contain development standards that make homes, businesses, and people safer from flooding.

And applied permit applications for development or construction.

Within these mapped floodplain areas.

If we do not extend this bill today, property owners in the floodplains will not be able to purchase new flood insurance policies, renew existing policies, or obtain federally backed loans.

I'm not going to go through the long history of this.

All is to say that SDCI has spent a fair amount of time resolving concerns raised by the port.

And with the central waterfront peer and business owner groups.

With the agreement reached, SDCI needs this final extension to publish a SEPA addendum and consider any public comment on it before transmitting the permanent legislation to allow council consideration.

Now approving this last extension of the interim legislation will allow the department time to ensure the permanent legislation has appropriate time in the public and for counsel review and feedback.

So colleagues, I will be urging an aye vote today.

And then as it was published on the agenda, again, no fault of anyone's, there was an issue with the attachment.

And so, excuse me, an issue with one of the dates that was sent in there, not the attachment.

So I will be moving, I will need to suspend the rules and move Amendment A as distributed to correct that date.

Again, not ascribing this to anyone for fault, but you all know how much I hate walk-on amendments, and I really attempted to not bring this.

But it's necessary.

Indeed.

So this has been moved and seconded, and now there's an amendment to the bill that was distributed, as just noted, after 12 noon today.

So the rules will need to be suspended in order to consider it.

And so I don't see any objection.

The rules are suspended in order to consider this amendment.

Thank you.

I move to amend Council Bill 121013 as presented on the recently distributed Amendment A. Second.

We will have, so Council Member Kettle has noted that he has not seen it, so we are, if anybody else needs to see it.

Council President May I?

One moment, please.

Just to describe the amendment.

Yeah, I just wanted to make sure that people had it in their hands before you started.

Go ahead now, please.

Thank you.

The executive inadvertently included a standard effectiveness clause in the bill.

So standard, it was a typical effectiveness clause, but a 30-day effectiveness provision will not work in this case because it would allow the current interim regulations to lapse.

This amendment is attached that is within this walk-on would allow for the bill to be immediately effective.

This is the same effectiveness language that has been used in the last eight extensions.

So deviating from that would actually be a deviation rather than, so using the standard effectiveness clause would be the deviation.

Thank you.

Thank you for those comments.

And in fact, the reason why we are hearing it today in a meeting that was primarily called to throw something onto the ballot is precisely so that we could avoid a gap.

So are there any comments on Amendment A?

All right.

Seeing none, will the clerk please call the roll on the adoption of Amendment A. Council Member Rivera?

Aye.

Council Member Sacco?

Aye.

Councilmember Solomon.

Aye.

Councilmember Strauss.

Aye.

Councilmember Hollingsworth.

Yes.

Councilmember Juarez.

Aye.

Councilmember Kettle.

Aye.

Councilmember Rink.

Yes.

Council President Nelson.

Aye.

Nine in favor, none opposed.

The motion carries and Amendment A is adopted.

And so now we will move on to the public hearing.

As presiding officer, I'm now opening the public hearing on Council Bill 121013. Clerk, how many people are signed up for public comment today?

We have one in-person speaker.

All right, let's call on that person.

And they can have obviously two minutes.

Yeah, I'm ready.

You are now in violation of our rules against abusive behavior, which is disruptive behavior, and so I will ask that you please be seated and discontinue your comments.

No problem.

Thank you, Council President.

Yeah, I will speak about what is your proposition.

So I cannot speak.

You were given a warning prior to this.

Abusive language in violation of our rules.

And we have been extremely lenient up to this point.

Please, you're wasting our time now.

You're disrupting our proceedings.

So please take a seat.

Are there any further comments?

That was the only registered speaker.

All right.

Well, we reached the end of our public speakers present to speak at this public hearing.

So the public hearing on Council Bill 121013 is now closed.

And are there any comments on the amended bill before we vote?

All right.

I am seeing no comments.

Will the clerk please call the roll on the passage of the bill as amended.

Councilmember Rivera.

Council Member Saka.

Aye.

Council Member Salomon.

Aye.

Council Member Strauss.

Aye.

Council Member Hollingsworth.

Aye.

Council Member Juarez.

Aye.

Council Member Kettle.

Aye.

Council Member Rink.

Yes.

Council President Nelson.

Aye.

Aye.

Nine in favor, none opposed.

Okay, thank you very much.

The bill passes as amended and the chair will sign it.

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

All right.

Item two.

Will the clerk please read item two into the record?

The report of the Select Budget Committee.

Judd item two, Council Bill 121028 relating to the business and occupation tax requesting that a special election be held concurrent with the November 4th, 2025 general election.

The committee recommends that the bill passes amended.

All right.

So, um, Council Member Strauss is chair of the committee.

You're recognized to provide the committee report.

Thank you, colleagues.

I remember, I believe we were all together just a few days ago regarding this B&O tax proposal.

I'll let the sponsor of the initiative speak to it, seeing as we're all in committee with me and all of us together last week.

That said, I do have, as I stated in that committee, a walk-on amendment today regarding the stevedoring tax credit, as I discussed, that needed a little bit more time between our committee and today.

Thank you.

All right.

Thank you very much for those comments.

Council member Rienk, sponsor of the bill you're recognized in order to address it.

Thank you, Council President.

Colleagues, today is a big day.

When the Trump administration took office and kicked off a flurry of executive orders throwing federal money, our federal workforce, and our civil rights into jeopardy, this body responded by standing up our select committee on federal administration and policy changes to understand what these impacts mean for our city.

And month after month, we've learned in committee about what's happening with things like housing construction, concerns about Medicaid reimbursement, the state of gender-based violence services, immigration and legal defense, labor protections, changes in SNAP and the increasing need that we're seeing at food banks and meal programs.

The Trump administration's actions since taking office this year have eliminated any sense of stability or predictability for our businesses and have eliminated or attempted to eliminate whole categories of support for cities like Seattle.

Those economic uncertainties and those real and expected federal funding cuts paired with the existing structural challenges have made planning our city's budget harder than usual.

We've built the Seattle Shield Initiative as a well-researched, thoroughly stakeholders and strongly vetted response to this constellation of challenges.

Today, we will vote on whether to send this more progressive rebalancing of our BNO tax to the voters.

Once the voters provide us with this tool, we can ensure that critical city services are maintained despite the challenges our budget or the Trump administration present.

We will also be giving Seattle voters a choice on shielding our small businesses, the heartbeat of our neighborhoods, from economic uncertainty.

These are the coffee shops where they get your own milk latte just right, the family restaurants that know you want three stars on your pad thai, the bookstore that has staff recommendations on what you should read next.

And I want to thank Mayor Harrell and the team at the Mayor's Office, the City Budget Office, Central Staff, and the Office of Economic and Revenue Forecast for their partnership in developing this legislation, and to thank each of you for your thoughtful partnership as this bill made its way through the Finance and Budget Committee.

The bill before us today represents the work of all of us.

We advanced it unanimously out of committee last week, and passing it unanimously today would send a strong message to the people we serve.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

So moving on, we have now had the committee report presented and comments from the sponsor.

And now we begin discussion of the proposed amendments.

Council member Rivera, you're recognized in order to move amendment A.

Thank you, council president.

I move to amend council bill 121028 as presented on amendment A.

Second.

It's been moved and seconded to amend the bill as presented on Amendment A, Version 3, I believe, correct?

Yes.

All right.

Central staff, please.

No, we're not going.

They are not.

This is the line that is obsolete because this is a full council meeting.

Council member Rivera, you are recognized in order to present the amendment.

Thank you, council president.

Amendment A would add immigrant and refugee affairs as an eligible use in the general fund backfill portion of the use of funds.

We added several things at the Select Budget Committee, and so this is adding the ability to use general fund backfill fund of the B&O tax for immigrant and refugee affairs, such as, for instance, the Legal Defense Fund.

I don't have any other comments, but if you have questions, I'm happy to answer them.

Okay, I'm looking to see if anyone has any questions.

Council Member Kettle.

Thank you, Council President.

Today, in speaking to the two amendments, I also wanted to speak to my amendments and general approach to this bill.

In my mind, this is a budget bill and should not be, in my opinion, conflated with the federal administration as the Seattle Shield bill.

I'd ask, does the bill address emergency preparedness given the actions taken and to be taken against FEMA?

And noting how important FEMA is in our earlier agenda item, Council Bill 121013. Does the bill shield healthcare providers across our city, especially on First Hill, to include those central to reproductive healthcare?

And, you know, I know, too, reproductive health care is women's health care, and women's health care is health care.

And health care, contrary to trends across the city, across the country, should be based on science.

But back to this bill, I'd argue our focus should be centered on our fiscal challenges and creating a long-term strategic way ahead with respect to the budget.

Good governance means that this business and occupation, B&O bill, should not be looked at in isolation or solely near term.

Thank you, colleagues, for passing an amendment on the findings of the forecasts and the need to account for the payroll expense tax for a comprehensive approach.

Thank you for passing the amendment on the critical need to have a Seattle Housing Investment Plan that shows the various funding sources and a strategy that looks at across permanent supportive housing, affordable housing, social housing, market housing, and makes clear the trade-offs that need to be made in order to create a plan to include Should we build new or should we fix, maintain current inventory?

To which I've seen on my walks about, oftentimes is in dire straits or in major need of work.

Bottom line is we need to be clear of our understanding of where housing is with respect to our budget.

And basically, the Office of Housing should present the way SDOT, the Department of Transportation, does with the Seattle Transportation Plan.

In doing so, that would help us Do budget more properly and would be in keeping with good governance.

Good governance in the B&O also requires the fiscal transparency program for both B&O and the PET as we have in the amendment in 27 and in future years with zero or positive fund balance.

The projections are key and thank you for your support of the amendment on this.

And creating a structured budget reform strategy needs focus, and removing the sunset and potential extension provisions with a revenue-neutral structure is important to kind of focus the decision-makers, to include us, on having a true budget strategy that works in the long term.

And so I thank you for your support.

I will admit, I believe the amendment that was submitted with a five-year timeline may have been better than a seven-year timeline upon reflection.

Categories.

Colleagues, I am generally opposed to the use of categories or buckets, as some may say.

I believe they were a mistake in the payroll expense tax since, over the years, conditions change, but the legislation remains the same, basically locks in those categories.

And that's a problem, you know, and this was a problem until last year when we, with our legislation, that we made these adjustments to the PET, the payroll expense tax.

You know, the mayor has his responsibility.

The executive has its responsibilities with respect to the budget, as do we.

So these categories of buckets, I would argue, kind of take away from that responsibility.

And I also believe that categories or buckets in this BNO legislation was a mistake in a sense that buckets begets buckets.

So we went from a short list to a long list, to a long list that doesn't account for emergency preparedness, doesn't account for different pieces to include on today's amendment list, and for both backfill and tax credits.

You know, our focus should be on the deficit.

That should be our focus, and I think our focus should be for a clean bill to ensure that we are fiscally responsible, that meets the needs of our city, working in collaboration and sometimes in opposition, if needed, to the executive to get us to where we needed to be.

Colleagues, I just wanted to make these points because I, granted, I missed the last meeting I was traveling during the course of that meeting, but I think it's important for us to have that kind of approach to the budget, to force that discipline into the budgetary process, to get the executive to do these pieces that are necessary in terms of the outlook over the years, to have a true understanding of what's happening with housing and its impacts on our budget.

I support social housing.

I support affordable housing.

But what I don't support is kind of this vagueness that surrounds this topic.

And I think having OH go through what SDOT does with respect to the sale of transportation plan would allow them to show in the public, this is what we're doing, and this is the reason why we made these decisions.

You know, we can't spend the entire transportation levy on bridges.

We can't spend the whole thing on sidewalks.

We can't spend it on roads.

We have to have tradeoffs.

And the Seattle Transportation Plan and the levy that paired with that really does that.

And I think by doing that with housing, that would be so crucial in terms of really getting long-term understanding and a way ahead with respect to our budget challenges, because we don't have a choice.

We can't run deficits.

So this is, to close, the reason why, at the end of the day, I believe this to be a budget bill, and we should be focused on that way, because I think And I understand the points made, but I think we get off track from what our job is here because we do this on a regular basis in terms of understanding the needs of our city as we work through supplementals and all the above.

And with that, Council President and the amendment sponsor and my colleagues overall, thank you very much.

Okay.

Council Member Rivera, would you like to respond to those comments?

They were broad comments, but I believe it wasn't specifically necessarily to this amendment, but more to all the amendments.

I will say Councilmember Kettle, I agree with you that, and I said this during one of our council briefings in chambers, it made more sense to me that we consider this funding in light of the entire budget process and rather than single out items That this money should have just gone to the general fund.

And then when the mayor was putting together the budget that he sends us, he could have then considered this funding along with all the other funding.

That would have been the good governance way to do this.

That is not how this moved forward.

And as such, I added a couple things into the list of items as a signaling that these are priorities for us as he is working on the budget that he will send to us in short order next month.

So I appreciate your comments.

I don't disagree.

And this is where things landed, and I wanted to make sure that some of our priority items that many of us have talked about in the last year made their way into this list.

So thank you for those comments.

Council Member Rink.

Thank you, Council President.

I wanted to thank Councilmember Rivera for bringing this amendment forward.

I think this amendment is certainly in alignment with the intentions of this legislation and I'll be voting in support.

Thank you.

Are there additional comments?

Councilmember Saka.

Thank you, Council President.

And I, too, wanted to just thank Councilmember Rivera for bringing this amendment forward and allows us to follow through with our commitment to better support our immigrant and refugee communities in Ohio more broadly.

So thank you for bringing this forward.

Thank you.

Okay, I'll just note my thinking on this, which is that we have in the Select Committee on Federal Policies and chaired by Council Member Rink, we have mentioned over and over and over again our concern about the impacts on our Immigrant and other vulnerable communities by the Trump administration's either sort of retaliatory moves against the fact that we are a welcoming city or through cuts, federal cuts to programs that directly help these communities.

So I will be supporting this because this is an area of focus that we have been demonstrating since, I can't remember when, but perhaps February or so.

And so it is a priority for this counselor has stated as such.

At the same time, I totally hear Council Member Kettle's Concerns because we are adding concerns about buckets.

And in fact, whenever we put buckets into legislation, especially without talking to the majority of council members about that, then the majority of council members could very well want to add their own buckets.

And so this is sort of the bucket spread or sweep that we're seeing right now.

But I do believe that this is a valid Addition to the stated priorities for what this potential revenue would be covering.

I also added an item to a bucket, but that was a bucket with under the, in the category of the potential up to $30 million for cuts from the federal government.

Regardless, we are stating our priorities in the use of these potential revenues.

Should the voters pass it?

And so that is the conversation at hand.

And so we just need to vote on this amendment.

But I do have one final other question.

Council member Rankin, if it's my understanding, how does this impact the potential change to the supplemental bill that you are interested in?

On a change of, I think it was a change of the use of funds for one thing to something very closely related to this.

Yeah, certainly.

I believe if I'm tracking correctly, you're asking a question about the amendment I brought forward last week related to the supplemental budget.

Yes.

Yes, so I had brought forward an amendment and I intend to bring it forward tomorrow as well related to the supplemental budget and underspend from the SCORE jail contract.

From some of the information that has been provided to us from OIRA, they've been tracking that we have about 3.7 million dollars that has been lost in federal funding across many of our immigrant and refugee partner organizations.

That's a stark number.

And I think we, given what we are also continuing to see on our streets with this mass deportation agenda, I think we should be all hands on deck.

Supplemental budget action offers an opportunity to take more immediate action.

This bill would not start collecting until Early next year and so I am separately bringing forward that amendment to increase funding for legal defense within OIRA so we can be more immediately responsive.

Okay, thank you for that clarification and there will be opportunity for conversation about that tomorrow.

Okay, so I'm not, would you like to have any closing comments before I call for a vote?

Sure.

Thank you, Council Member or Council President Nelson.

I will say that, yes, I think This particular piece of legislation was challenging for many reasons.

One is it came very late, and it needs to be passed by today in order to put it on the ballot for November.

And I wish that we would have been, well, many of us, I'll say I was not consulted when the list of uses came to pass, and so it made it really difficult when that happens, and we're all working to try To make sure that we're getting a priority that we're hearing from community into this legislation.

So it would have been more advantageous had we been consulted on the front end.

Maybe we wouldn't have had as many amendments trying to add things as many of us did up here.

And so that's where we got to today with this particular ad that You know, may have been included earlier, probably would have, because I would have proffered it then instead of now.

So that's just a lesson to us all.

The more we communicate ahead of time with each other, I think the better outcomes we always have with these things.

But nevertheless, it's here before you today.

I hope I have your support.

And certainly as the mayor, and I see The budget director in the audience as you all, Director Eder and the mayor are looking at the budget for the fall.

It gives a guide on things that you know that we care about.

And you know, there'll be hard choices to be made, but these are things that we are looking to prioritize as you're making those hard choices and that then will come to us.

So thank you, council president.

All right.

Seeing no further comments, will the clerk please call the roll on the passage of Amendment B?

A. Councilmember Rivera?

Aye.

Councilmember Saka?

Aye.

Councilmember Solomon?

Aye.

Councilmember Strauss?

Aye.

Councilmember Hollingsworth?

Yes.

Councilmember Juarez?

Aye.

Councilmember Kettle?

No.

Councilmember Rink?

Yes.

Council President Nelson.

Aye.

That's eight in favor, one opposed.

All right.

The motion carries and Amendment B is adopted.

I'm sorry.

I don't know why I keep getting my head.

I'm a little bit eager to be over here.

All right.

The motion carries and Amendment A is adopted.

Moving on, will the clerk please call the roll on, no, please.

Yeah, go ahead and move the next one.

Council President, thank you.

I move to amend Council Bill 121028 with Amendment B as presented in the Amendment B draft.

It's been moved and seconded to amend the bill as presented on Amendment B. And Councilmember Rivera, you're welcome to address the Amendment B. Thank you, Council President.

This is just a correction, a technical correction.

Colleagues, since we added the tax credits, the language needs to be updated to reflect that action.

So it's really just a technical correction.

All right.

Are there any comments on the amendment?

I'm looking at the other screen.

Okay, I am not seeing any comments.

Going once, going twice.

All right, will the clerk please call the roll on the adoption of Amendment B?

Council Member Rivera?

Aye.

Council Member Salka?

Aye.

Council Member Solomon?

Aye.

Council Member Strauss?

Aye.

Council Member Hollingsworth?

Aye.

Council Member Juarez?

Aye.

Council Member Kettle?

Aye.

Council Member Rink?

Yes.

Council President Nelson?

Aye.

Nine in favor, none opposed.

The motion carries and Amendment B is adopted.

And now we're on to Amendment C. Council Member Strauss, go ahead.

Thank you, Council President.

I move to amend Council Bill 121028 as presented on the recently distributed Amendment C. Second.

It's been moved and seconded to amend the bill as presented on Amendment C. And Council Member Strauss, you're recognized in order to address it.

Thank you.

And colleagues, thank you for giving me the opportunity to hold my amendment last week and bring it back this week and exploring the need to offset the B&O rate changes.

Decided to bring the same amendment that I brought to committee last week.

And so this amendment does three things.

And before I get into what the three things are, understanding where this is coming from.

Our tariffs are impacting port and maritime sectors.

The port and the maritime sectors are the line of business here within the city of Seattle that knows no borders.

And what I mean by that is that there is not one governing agency that governs our oceans.

The oceans are boundaries that are international in nature and the work that occurs both for the ships that come into our shipyards, for the vessels carrying what is technically freight but is fish coming into our ports.

These types of businesses are foundational to the city of Seattle and our budgeting practices here, as well as for a shipping A cargo ship coming through the Strait of Juan de Fuca, they still have the choice to turn north or south when they get to Victoria.

For a company doing ship repair, they have the opportunity when coming back from Alaska to stop anywhere in Canada, which is closer to their fishing grounds.

But here in the city of Seattle, we have the closest freshwater port to the Gulf of Alaska and the Bering Sea.

And we have one of the closest ports to the international community for cargo.

And so this is why I am bringing forward this amendment that does three things.

I had explored a desire to assist the shipbuilding community in a larger fashion.

However, with the definitions in state law and city law, Even though all of the work that's done at a shipyard is shipbuilding, that work is completed by boilermakers, by electricians, by carpenters, by fabricators, by welders, by glazers.

I am going to be in a lot of trouble when I get home for forgetting someone.

I mean, there's everything from extremely high-end electronics to refrigeration, not just for the food that the people eat on board, but for keeping their freight that is fish cold.

There's so much work that goes on in our shipyards, but when you look at the definitions that are established here in city and state code, they break them down into their individual industries.

And so it is difficult to place them all together.

And so now what does this amendment do?

It does three things.

It creates the whereas clause stating our intent to monitor BNO taxes impact on our maritime community for the reasons as that I just described.

Second, it creates a stevedoring tax credit aimed at helping to stabilize commerce coming in and out of our port as they deal with the continued uncertainty from the federal tariff policy.

And the third thing it does is it creates a sunset for that tax credit after four years when, by golly, I think we're all holding hands to see calmer seas on the other side of that horizon.

And if not, then we'll have the ability to come back and have this discussion again.

I don't take this tax credit lightly.

I have worked to limit the impact on revenue.

And at the end of the day, I do think that it is an important measured approach to help protect our maritime sector, which affects our entire supply chain here.

Whether it's the fish that you eat, if anyone gets a fish witch at Wendy's, comes through our city.

If you're taking a ferry boat, It comes through the shipyards here in our city.

If you're basically doing anything on the water, you're being touched by our maritime industry.

And so with that, you know, the state does have wide-ranging limits on our ability to exempt other sectors including retail businesses like grocery stores as well for that same reason that I just described, just trying to describe the shipyard.

And this tax credit mirrors a similar credit at the Washington, at the state level, at Washington State already, which is in place and is one of those limited options that we have.

If not for that line at the state level, we would not have an option here.

So, colleagues, I urge an aye vote and I would appreciate your support.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Are there any comments on the amendment?

Councilmember Rink.

Thank you, Council President, and thank you for bringing this forward, Councilmember Strauss.

Colleagues, as I stated in our Select Budget Committee meeting last week, I do not support adding any credits or exemptions to this tax in this bill.

We can explore any and all stakeholder requests for credits or exemptions via separate legislation at any time.

And for that reason, I will be voting no on this amendment.

Thank you.

All right.

Councilmember Kettle.

Thank you, Council President.

Obviously, I just gave my remarks, which was quite clear in terms of my approach to this B&O tax and the issues, the good and the bad, is from my perspective on this and my point about categories, buckets, whether backfill or tax credits.

So, despite my strong support of the maritime community, This is a principle, and this goes to good governance and the budget overall, and that will be driving my vote.

Thank you, Council President.

All right.

Council Member Saka.

Thank you, council president.

Just want to thank council member Strauss for bringing this forward.

And this definitely benefits the maritime economy, which we all benefit from all of our respective council districts, but as a district representative for district one, With a fair amount of the underlying operations in the port and the maritime industry that would benefit from such an amendment.

I am proud to support this.

I also think that it is sufficiently narrow and tailored enough, carved out enough to make sense for this case.

So proud to be able to support it.

Thank you, Councilmember Strauss for bringing it forward.

Okay.

I will simply note that I completely appreciate this amendment.

Steve Doering is a cornerstone of Seattle's industrial landscape, and I support our efforts to recognize the impact this tax could have on many high gross revenue but low margin businesses, but that's beside the point right here.

It also comes in the face of many other businesses which Certainly we don't have an exemption for reaching out to us and asking for Um, for carve outs because of the same concerns.

And I recognize that this is that stevedoring businesses are, um, a defined category that reduces the risk.

Should we provide, um, exemptions for some of the, uh, or tax credits for some of these businesses.

So I just have to say that I, I really appreciate the spirit of this amendment and because I think that there are a lot of Liza Rankin.

Tanya Woo.

Liza Rankin.

Tanya Woo.

All right.

I'm not seeing any other.

Would you go ahead.

Thank you, Council President.

I too appreciate your Councilmember Strauss' zealous advocacy on behalf of the maritime industry.

And I know that we are all supportive and everyone's being impacted by the federal government in very terrible ways.

So I understand the wanting to provide support And this is a for-profit category as there are many for-profit categories who are also gonna be impacted.

And we've all heard from many businesses that are gonna be impacted who were asking for relief as well.

Excuse, bless you.

And I know that I brought the two We have tax credits for Fred Hutch and Seattle Children's is very specific nonprofit.

We're trying to support cancer patients and children.

And at the same time, I understand that all of our businesses are suffering the impacts of the tariffs, etc.

And so while we would want to provide We just can't provide relief to everybody.

So for those reasons, I'm not going to support this amendment, though I very much appreciate the spirit of why it was brought, and I too would love to find ways to support our maritime industry in Seattle.

All our businesses that we really like, the food, the folks that provide food, for instance, because everyone's getting, like I said, impacted in this very negative ways that then gets passed on to our residents.

So anyway, all that said, thank you.

You bring up one final thought.

I think that what you're getting at and what I want to focus or just point out is that there are some very, you know, what's more essential than others is, you know, we can go on and on about but I do have to say that I did struggle with whether or not I should put forward an amendment that would exempt wholesale food distribution.

Because there is some question about whether or not wholesale food is exempting those would be a violation of the uniformity clause that is prohibited in the model tax B&O code.

And so I just didn't have time to track down which lawyer was right.

And so basically decided to drop that.

But again, that's an issue that has to do with our limited time going forward.

Okay.

Now, would you like to finish your comments or have the closing word?

Thank you.

Last comments.

Is that what we're on right now?

I don't see anybody else's hands raised.

Yes.

Wonderful.

Last word is colleagues.

I urge an aye vote to protect our port and our maritime sectors.

Thank you.

Okay.

So with that, seeing no more comments with the clerk, please call the roll on the adoption of amendment C.

Councilmember Rivera?

No.

Councilmember Saka?

Aye.

Council member Solomon?

Aye.

Council member Strauss?

Yes, aye.

Council member Hollingsworth?

No.

Council member Juarez?

No.

Council member Kettle?

No.

Council member Rank?

No.

Council President Nelson?

No.

That is three in favor, six opposed.

Okay, the motion fails and The, you know, so the motion fails, but we still have two other amendments.

And so, um, are there, uh, we, pardon me?

No more amendments.

Right.

And we, but we have other amendments that did amend our legislation.

So now we have the base legislation before us.

Yes.

Okay.

With that, um, let's continue the, um, the, this is, would now be a chance for people to talk about their Um, uh, provide comments before the vote to send this to the ballot.

And so I, I would open the door to the sponsor again to, um, to address this, or we can address other people can talk about the base legislation as amended.

Council member Juarez.

Thank you.

I was going to defer to the sponsor, Councilmember Rink, and I think I had some good conversations offline, and I'm very, very happy to support this and what she's done and her out of the gate, and I think it's incredibly impressive.

So let me just say this, and I started to say this last week, and I'll just be very short, I promise.

So this policy, I believe, reflects our collective humanity.

Making sure, when I read the original intent, that people have food, that people have housing, that they have the basics to live.

And we are in this situation because of this administration, which started in 2016 and is now back with a vengeance.

And I shared this before, and I want to share it again for the record, that this goes back to, believe it or not, Maslow's original hierarchy of needs, which was based upon my tribe, the Blackfeet Nation.

They talked about those needs, those five basic needs.

The physiological needs of survival, food, water, shelter, and sleep.

The safety needs, the love and belonging needs, the esteem needs, and the self-actualization.

And those are important, and it's really hard from a legislator perspective to try to condense that into ink on paper to be a policy, to be legislation, to make it a law.

But I think that with the leadership of the mayor, Mayor Harrell, and the leadership of Councilmember Rink, and every one of the people here up on this dais, because I just got here, it's been a real honor to watch you go through the amendments, talk about the policy, talk about the four corners of the legislation and why it's important.

And so with that, I'm happy to support full-heartedly this legislation.

And I believe it's the Seattle Shield, right?

That's what we're calling it, the Seattle Shield.

All right.

Thank you.

All right.

Council member.

Well, first of all, I'm assuming that you would like, you can have the first and last word.

So go ahead with your first words.

Go ahead.

I'll just save them for final remarks.

I'm happy to let others go first.

Thank you.

Council member Kettle.

Thank you, Council President.

As I said earlier, I think it's important to note that our deficits predate the Trump administration.

This singleton kind of approach, like with the payroll expense tax and some other pieces by our Council predates the Trump administration.

I believe that should be the focus regarding what we're doing here.

I think that we should be creating a process by ourselves but also in partnership with the executive where we do have all the information needed to be smart in terms of the decisions that we make on the budget, hence the need for the Seattle Housing Investment Plan.

I believe that we should be Simplified to the best ability.

The categories, the buckets, I believe are respect to this bill and then generally.

Advisory is one thing, but, you know, how these often get made is a mistake.

I believe that their inclusion in this bill kind of takes us off the path of what the focus is, which is the major deficit that we're facing as a city.

And I just wanted to stay that in terms of reiterating what I had said before, but at the end of the day, Again, I view this as the B&O tax.

To me, this is not the Shield tax, Seattle Shield.

I appreciate the points made, and we should definitely be working to counter the Trump administration, which we're doing in so many ways, to include public safety, as I've been speaking to at committee.

But we should be focused on the deficit.

And at the bottom line here is that we have a major deficit, and we need to address this deficit.

And this bill, this B&O change, is a short-term, And as I said, upon reflection, I wish my amendment was now five years instead of seven, but it addresses the budgetary challenges that we had.

And I'd like to think it will help push us to doing comprehensive budget reform in terms of how we do business as a city.

So with my, those points made, I will be, Guided by those in terms of my, my vote for this bill.

The bottom line being the deficit that we're facing.

So thank you.

Thank you.

Uh, council member Hollingsworth.

Thank you, council president.

Thank you.

Uh, council member rank for your leadership on this.

I echo what council member Wars, um, says as well, uh, to the mayor and also to mayor Harrell for This legislation, I think this gives us much needed relief, especially for our small businesses that are struggling right now, and I recognize that.

I also recognize that there's also a difference between high revenue and net income, and that there are high revenue businesses with super small margins, razor thin, like grocery stores and restaurants, that we had recognized that we've heard from Particular about B&O taxes and so forth, and also our hospitals as well.

In my district, we have Virginia Mason, Kaiser, two Swedish hospitals, medical centers that alone will pay more with these taxes.

But I want to acknowledge that I will be working closely throughout this process Through my tenure to make sure that those grocery stores are protected at the state level to make sure that they have a special classification as essential because as we see now more of food accessibility and I am very glad That all the council members love food and they see how important food access is.

I've heard it from all y'all and y'all know what that means.

So just really recognize that.

But that we recognize that we're moving in a time where our grocery stores are essential food access points and they need to be considered essential and treated very differently than they have been in the past and not just identified as particularly just revenue, or excuse me, of retail.

Back and forth that they are a food access point.

And so that's really, really important.

My vote today is in support of this.

I also, and for us to plug in our budget hole, but I also wanna be clear that with progressive revenue, I also expect progressive outcomes in our city and progressive outcomes for our programs that these will go to and to make sure that we are having the outcomes that Seattle has, deserves.

This will now be handed to the voters in November and I'm very happy of that.

So thank you, Council Member Rink and Mayor Harrell for this legislation.

Thank you.

All right.

Any other comments?

Yes, go ahead, Council Member Rivera.

Thank you, Council President.

You know, I agree that we had a budget deficit before this current administration unleashed its attacks on our residents, which have impacted our immigrants and refugees, health care, reproductive care, and everything in between, food access and everything in between.

I will say that with our budget deficit, like I said, it got compounded by this current administration's unleashed terror.

And as everyone knows, early on this year, I talked about Seattle being a sanctuary city and really responding to our residents.

So in that regard, I will be supporting this proposal because I want to make sure that we have the funding available to protect our much needed services from our own deficit and from the further compounding of negative impacts brought about by the federal government.

And I will say that I will continue to push for budget reform at the city so we are not in this constant state of deficit.

It is really unacceptable and it is bad governance for us to be in a constant deficit because we don't want to take a hard look at our budget and our programs and really do that work that it takes to figure out whether these programs are actually doing what they're intending to do.

And so we really need to do that work.

This does not take the place of that work.

It is not okay to constantly bring about more, you know, more Liza Rankin.

Tanya Woo.

Liza Rankin.

Tanya Woo.

And not have the knee jerk reaction of every time that we are in this deficit situation.

Instead of looking at the programs, we automatically go to how can we backfill in a different way.

And I also am mindful about the lack of transparency sometimes that we have as we're taking these votes.

And as new information comes in that shows that the situation is not as bad as it is, we all got today our revenue forecast that the forecast is actually better than we had anticipated by $90 million.

90 million dollars, which is actually coincidentally the very 90 million that is in this B&O proposal.

So we need to make sure that we are doing our due diligence when we are budgeting and Council Member Kettle, I'm in agreement with you on that.

As we are putting these proposals forward, we do have funding sources from many different Areas and we really need to figure out how we can as a city do better on behalf of our residents on our budgeting side and that's You know, that includes the executive and this legislative body, everyone working together to figure out how we best can do this because right now we are not doing it well.

Having a $200 million deficit is not okay.

And then when something happens, like this federal administration, we don't have anywhere to pull from.

And that's not okay.

So I'm gonna challenge all of us to work together to figure out a better way of doing this, working with the executive, that we can preserve the services, the much needed services, and not constantly be in this state of deficit.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Did you have...

I was going to chime in.

Yes, Mr. President.

My Zoom is not working, so I was just physically raising my hand.

Oh, sure.

Sure.

Go ahead.

Sorry.

Thanks.

Go ahead.

Is this a good time or before final comments?

I had comments, too, but you're welcome to go ahead.

Thank you.

I'll just give comments on the general bill.

I didn't want to be the first to speak on it since everyone was here.

for the committee report from last week, which is that I do believe that this is an innovative approach to protect the social services as Council Member Juarez spoke.

I won't use Maslow's hierarchy of needs since they should be the Blackfeet hierarchy of needs.

But specifically, it is those things that allow, you know, it can't create self-actualization.

It can't create community.

But if you're hungry, if you are unclothed, if you are unsheltered, you cannot find your way in this to a better life.

There they are.

Love and belonging.

All of the esteem needs here.

And really, the things that support these types of programs are in line to have their third cut.

In this one year and that's from the federal government, it's from the state government and they're on the chopping block for us here in the city this year because while we have a higher projected revenue today than we did last Friday, it still leaves a hundred and that was part of the conversation at the revenue forecast meeting this morning that The now $140 million hole that needs to be addressed this year is what is burning a hole in my retina.

And so this, you know, and I get there, I was going to say this later in my talking points, but let's just get there right now.

Last year we closed a $250 million hole.

Through efficiencies, through some restructuring, through some reductions, through laying people off at the City of Seattle for the first time since 2008. These were not small choices.

These were large decisions to be made.

And as soon as we finished that exercise, we were hit again with worse news in April.

Today, we did receive better news, but we're not out of the woods yet.

We don't have more efficiencies and more programs to reduce without making that direct impact on our smallest businesses, on the people who need our help to remain in position without losing ground in our society.

And so, yes, this would raise about $80 million now.

For things like food banks, labor protections, gender-based violence prevention, those same types of services that are under attack from the federal government, and at the same time, it would reduce or eliminate the B&O tax from 90% of businesses in Seattle.

Those are the small and medium-sized businesses.

Ultimately, we're not here voting on whether or not to enact this plan.

Council is deciding whether or not to give voters the chance to decide what they think in November, and I do believe that we owe them that choice.

Without this plan or others, and actually, and I see that Director Eder has now left, but it really is this plus the other smart budgeting practices that have been in works for months and that are still in work today, We're still looking at a very difficult budget season coming up.

$150 million worth of cuts or reductions amounts to people's lives.

The state legislature, so I guess, again, how do we find ourselves here?

We found ourselves here last year after a decade of high growth and low inflation.

We are able to have property tax plus construction, so anything that's in construction we're able to receive.

Our property tax is capped at 1%.

The state legislature and the governor were unwilling to give us any flexibility with that, as well as the state government cut funding to programs like our encampment right-of-way program that's been extremely effective at getting people off the streets and into stable housing.

So when we're capped at 1% per year plus construction, and then we see 6% to 7% inflation like we have in recent years, On top of growth slowing after we were the fastest growing city in the nation for too many years in some accounts, we find ourselves in this unsustainable budget situation, which we took great action.

Colleagues, I do think that we should all not pat ourselves on the back, but be proud of the work that we did last year.

Things could have been worse.

We did a very good job of saving money, creating efficiencies where we could, and then we were faced with what we have this year.

And ultimately, we need progressive taxation reform at the state level.

And while we continue to advocate for that, what we're saying here today is that Seattle can't wait to stop investing in services that make our city safer and more affordable for working families, especially when the state and federal government are already cutting the funding for those programs that Seattleites rely on.

So I wanna thank Council Member Alexis Mercedes Rink and Mayor Harrell for your leadership on this legislation and giving voters the chance to weigh in, as well as a special thank you to Tom Mikesell, Ben Noble, Jennifer Labreck and all of central staff as the budget chair, I have been intimately aware of how much effort you've been putting into this.

Thank you, Council President.

All right, so I'll provide some comments and then pass it on to the sponsor.

So I just want to note that I voted for this last, in case you've forgotten, because a lot has happened.

I voted for this bill last week because of the very immediate benefits to small businesses of raising the B&O tax threshold from 100,000 to 2 million.

And also providing a deduction.

On the former, there have been arguments for a long time, including from OED and even I explored this a long time ago.

And I very much want, this should have happened a long time ago because $100,000 threshold of gross receipts is very, very low.

And so we have to do more to help our small businesses.

So full applause for that.

And I am going to vote, of course, today to send this to the ballot.

So I just want to register some concerns that I have.

And the first is about timing.

I have three concerns.

The first is about timing, and I mentioned this last week.

This was a rush process.

We're talking about completely restructuring the way we charge B&O taxes, which makes up about a third of our general fund revenue and could have pretty profound impacts on our economy and most importantly, jobs.

That's what I'm always thinking about is jobs.

And this has limited the, and this is all going on right when we are trying to figure, you know, deliberate on the comp plan.

We're in the middle of that.

And we had a council vacancy and everything else moving through the budget, the select budget committee, in addition to all of the legislation that we're trying to wrap up in our individual Committees before recess and budget.

So this is very unfortunate because it has impacted or minimized the amount of time that we can do outreach to the people that will be impacted, the nonprofits and businesses of all sizes that will be impacted by some of these changes in positive and potentially negative ways.

And that's just, I feel irresponsible because we do have to do this work.

So, I will just, I tried to do as much outreach as I could.

I did reference some of the positions of small business associations, but for something that's critical, we really do want to make sure we get it right and minimize the unintended consequences.

So the second point I have, or the second concern, has to do precisely with potential unintended consequences.

Because, as I've said, while 90% of small businesses will pay no or reduced B&O taxes, they are part of a larger ecosystem.

And I've said before, they're not so short-sighted as to think about only the hundreds or a couple thousand dollars that they will be saving And they are also thinking about, well, what will happen to the broader economic ecosystem of which they are a part?

And this was echoed today, actually, in comments in the forecast meeting by the Office of Economic and Revenue Forecast Director John Duras, who said that a lot of the impacts on small businesses of this B&O The rate increase will depend on the behavior of large businesses in response to the rate increases.

He said that a couple different times and he gave many examples.

So, for example, the businesses that could lose clients because the large, the small businesses that could lose clients because the larger businesses decide to sort of tighten their belts in response to the increase that they'll pay in B&O.

The impacts to the service economy Businesses, restaurants, bars, barber shops that could lose customers if those businesses move out of town or just, you know, Stop operations altogether.

And these are the sorts of things that small businesses think about all the time.

They don't just think about their own pocketbook.

So we have to really do consider this.

We received an email last week that had the results of a survey of small businesses.

And in the survey, 60% of the 70 responses reported revenue below 2.5 million or 2 million of gross revenue.

And of these, You can look at this up in your email.

Only 31% support the change in the rates.

24% above 2.5 gross revenue say it will help, and 59% said it will hurt.

And so, it just goes on to say that businesses don't want to trade off slightly lower fees for dramatically less business.

And the city's business and tax base is, you know, they fear the tax base shrinking.

And new businesses filing in Seattle fell from about 13,300 per year between 2012 and 2019. To just 7,700 in the following years.

And that is a 42% drop.

So we do have to take that seriously.

We don't have a lot of information about why those business licenses weren't renewed.

But we, of course, don't want to lose our small businesses and medium-sized businesses in town.

Anyway, so that's the second point I wanted to bring up.

And then the third concern is the impact to our overall economy, which is very closely related.

And in a June 26 memo from Director Duras on the risks of the B&O tax restructure on Seattle's economic outlook, he said, this would be another business tax increase in a short amount of time, including the payroll expense tax imposed in 2021, the payroll expense tax rates increased in 2024, The new social housing tax starting in 2025. Tax increase in 2025 due to Senate Bill 5814, which he mentioned a couple of times this morning.

And finally, this proposed change in the business and occupation tax in 2026. And so he's looking at the aggregate The impact of these many taxes on the sort of economic outlook and how Seattle is perceived by businesses that might be thinking about moving here.

And like Councilmember Strauss, I fully believe that we do need to Liza Rankin.

Tanya Woo.

Liza Rankin.

Tanya Woo.

Anyway, he did note that the B&O tax rates in Seattle are already much higher than in the surrounding cities, and he kept referring to this chart, which has been in our central draft chart memo, and in the memo this morning of the economic forecast, and it really does, this is the line of, the top red line is, R be a no tax rate, and then the lighter line following that would be the tax rate if we, you know, when hopefully the voters approve this.

And so we do have to keep in mind, again, it's about our competitiveness.

He concludes, it's difficult to predict how large businesses will react to the cumulative impact of all these increases in tax burden, but several large employers have recently moved thousands of jobs out of Seattle to some of the surrounding cities.

I believe what comes to mind is the quiet quitting of Amazon, moving over 10,000 workers across to Bellevue.

That's about jobs.

That's about our jobs, our workers, and also about our tax base.

And a large B&O tax increase could potentially further exacerbate this problem, which would then lead to negative downstream effects, lower job and economic growth.

In the local economy, as well as lower B&O tax, payroll, expense tax, and sales tax revenue in the coming years because what happens to these larger businesses could then impact our tax base.

So this is all a way of saying that everything is connected in our economy, obviously.

And so we do have to think about all of these impacts of making this change, especially without perhaps having time for us as individuals to ask really, What do people think about there besides the fact, to small businesses, besides the fact that it is great that they will have probably a tax, a B&O tax exemption or a reduction, which is again, why I am supporting this legislation and why I will vote to send this to the voters.

Those are my comments.

Council President, raising my hand.

You're welcome.

Go ahead.

Thank you.

I just noticed there was a note that this process was rushed.

We had this in committee three times.

I attempted to schedule another committee meeting on Friday, July 25th, and council members let me know that they were not available.

We also tried for Wednesday, July 23rd, and quorum was not reached in another committee.

And so I just want to put on the record that while I can't control the introduction of this, we had more committee meetings than many other highly controversial bills that have come before us recently.

Thank you.

Thank you for that.

And I do have to respond.

First of all, this was dropped in our laps while we're trying to do these other very important things, but we are faced with a deadline of tomorrow to send this to the county.

And while you say that we've had several meetings, the first was we had a discussion in your committee in, I think it was your finance committee before I had even referred legislation because we had not received the legislation.

So When we talk about that first discussion counting as reality, I would say we were talking about a concept and I always want to see the devil in the details.

And then of course we had a second committee meeting, which was last week.

I can't remember.

It was a couple of weeks ago, but then we were also talking about a lot of this is quite dense and there were other things on the agenda.

So we weren't able to spend a heck of a lot of time in Uh, getting into the nitty gritty.

And then again, I would say our central staff is really busy doing a lot on comp plan and we all have things that we're wrapping up in committee.

So I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree that this was rushed.

I personally don't feel that I was, that I could do my due diligence or what I would like to have done when, um, you know, when exploring a major restructuring of a tax that provides 30% of our revenue.

Are there any other comments?

I would like to then provide closing comments to Council Member Rink.

Thank you, Council President and colleagues.

I've already thanked you, our colleagues in the mayor's office, CBO, OERF.

And I will thank you all again for your words and for your efforts on this legislation, because together we've gotten this legislation to a great place.

And what's put together will now bring in an anticipated $80 million for critical services.

And I want to use this time to give special thanks to Council Central staff, especially Tom Mikesell, Jen Labreck, and Director Ben Noble, for the countless hours they've put in to support all of us in crafting and fine-tuning this bill.

Your dedication to this work is inspirational, and I am beyond grateful for your very big brains and hearts.

We truly could not do this work without you.

And I want to thank the many human services providers, union partners, small business leaders who spent time with my office to workshop this proposal and champion it.

And I want to thank my team that works in the office of Position 8 for their work in hosting roundtables with providers, doing workshopping, refining in response to feedback.

The hours spent canvassing commercial districts, going door to door to businesses, went into Bringing us to this moment today.

So Tim, Kenny, Rachel, thank you for your hard work and I hope Seattle thanks you too.

Collectively, with a vote for this, we'll have shown that local government can step up when federal leadership steps back.

This is our opportunity to show that Seattle remains a city that chooses collaboration over division, that invests in each other, and that builds a future we all deserve.

And I believe that when we give Seattle voters the choice they deserve, they will choose to shield our city and protect what matters most.

Thank you.

I'm looking to see if there are other comments.

Okay.

Nope.

With that, seeing no other comments, will the clerk please call the roll on the amended legislation.

Council Member Rivera.

Aye.

Council Member Sokka.

Aye.

Council Member Solomon.

Aye.

Council Member Strauss.

Aye.

Council Member Hollingsworth.

Yes.

Council Member Juarez.

Aye.

Council Member Kettle.

Aye.

Council Member Rink.

Yes.

Council President Nelson.

Aye.

Nine in favor, none opposed.

The bill passes as amended, and the chair will sign it.

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

And please, I just want to note that it seems like, hmm, this sounds like what we do with all legislation.

In fact, this is a ballot measure, but I do want to remind folks that the ballot title is in the legislation.

It's in Section 7, yes?

And the work will now be done to Go ahead and make everything ship shape so that it can be sent to the county in time.

Okay.

In case you were wondering.

All right.

With that, is there any further business to come before the council?

I'm not seeing any hands.

Okay.

There's no further business to come before the council.

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

It is 3.28.

So in the next city council meeting, we'll meet again tomorrow, August 5th at 2 p.m.

Hearing no further business, we are adjourned.