Seattle City Council Finance & Housing Committee 91423

Well, good morning, everybody.

Thank you so much for joining the Finance and Housing Committee meeting.

Today is Thursday, September 14th, 2023. I'm Teresa Mosqueda, Chair of the Finance and Housing Committee.

Madam Clerk, will you please call the roll?

Council Member Herbold.

Here.

Council Member Peterson.

Here.

Council Member Nelson.

Present.

Council Member Lewis.

Present.

Madam Chair Mosqueda?

Present.

Madam Chair, that is five present.

Excellent.

Thank you very much colleagues.

I know many of you had other commitments today.

This is a special meeting that we reconvened because I had the opportunity to join the local progress board last Wednesday, so I wasn't able to host our committee meeting.

Very excited to be here with you today.

We do have a packed agenda.

I want to thank you all for continuing to participate in this hybrid meeting.

We have all of our presenters on the screen, and we do take virtual public comment as well as in-person public comment.

We're continuing to monitor COVID cases and flu rates in our region.

Get your flu vaccine and get your COVID vaccine.

We will continue to monitor that.

Currently, the King County statistics I looked at yesterday were still in the low category in terms of concerns, but COVID transmission rates are tracking up, so we will continue to monitor that and try our best to encourage social distancing and best public health practices.

Today, we have a full agenda that includes a briefing and discussion and possible vote on the Yesler Terrace process legislation, thanks to our friends at Seattle Housing Authority for being here with us today and putting together this legislation for our consideration.

That is the only item that we have for a vote today.

All the other items are listed as briefing and discussion.

This includes three items for the TNC for hire legislation, three pieces of legislation that update and modernize the city of Seattle's regulation for for hire transportation services.

I see some stakeholders in the audience and online who've been participating in the stakeholder process over a long period of time.

So I want to thank the mayor's office for being the lead on that legislation and working so diligently with stakeholders and for you all being here today.

Again, those three pieces of legislation will be briefed today and then we'll have the final consideration for those next week on September 20th.

Lastly, we have a briefing and discussion on a staggered elections bill.

This is actually a resolution that would be a vote for members of the public for next November 2024 to consider staggering our seats on the city council to ensure that about half of the seats were up at one time and half were up at another time to try to create greater stability and less turnover on council seats and to ensure that we had longer institutional memory and opportunity for stability for our city.

Again, briefing and discussion on that with the hopes for a follow-up discussion next Wednesday, September 20th.

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

Hearing no objection, today's agenda is adopted.

We do have a number of people signed up for public comment.

We will conduct public comment in the following way.

Everyone will have two minutes to provide public comment today.

You'll hear a chime when you have 10 seconds to wrap up your public comment.

We encourage you to send in your written comments if you are reading from something, that way we get a chance to read it all in detail.

And make sure to wrap up your comments as you hear that 10 second chime because your microphone will be muted, whether you're in person or you are online.

I will ensure that everybody gets the chance to speak today.

Thanks again for dialing in or coming to present.

And we have two microphones in person so you don't have to stand behind each other given the ongoing public health crisis.

With that, we're going to move into public comment.

The first person that is listed for online public comment is Yolanda Sidney-Sindy, excuse me, Yolanda Sindy, here to speak for public comment.

I see you listed as not present, so we will come back to you as soon as we see you pop in.

Excuse me, I just want to double check with the clerks.

Is Yolanda present?

Yes.

I see a phone.

Yolanda, hello.

I see you online.

We will go ahead and give you the full two minutes.

And if you can hit star six to unmute your line, you will be our first public speaker.

Yolanda, and we are teeing up the two-minute timer for you here.

Welcome.

Good morning.

Yolanda, you got to hit star six to unmute.

I still see your line is muted.

Okay, great.

Let's test your microphone, Yolanda.

I see you.

Great.

Thank you.

Excellent.

Please go ahead.

Yes.

Thank you.

First of all, thank you for the opportunity to speak.

My name is Yolanda Sinday, and I work for Africatown International as the finance operations and development director.

And I'm really addressing the council, particularly those members that also sit on King County Regional Homeless Authority boards.

One of the concerns we have is that the City of Seattle made a commitment to us a year ago for three years of support to help us combat homelessness by providing flexible funds for folks that are trying to get out of their car into permanent housing, fleeing domestic violence, or trying to avoid homelessness by paying that path to rent.

One of the problems that we've had is that commitment has not been honored, and each year, We've had to struggle to fight for that funding that was transferred from the city of Seattle to King County Regional Homeless Authority.

Our organization since 2018 has administered the centralized diversion fund.

I don't know if members have heard of it, but we're a critical partner in the fight against homelessness.

Over 75%, close to 80% of the people asking us for help each and every day.

Right now we have a waiting list of over 400 people because we've run out of funding and cannot meet the need for rental assistance right now, have come to us for assistance.

And right now, the funding is in jeopardy.

For whatever reason, we're not sure because we have successfully administered the fund for all of these years.

We thought because there was a three-year commitment the City of Seattle made, that that commitment would be honored by the King County Regional Homeless Authority.

but right now they have told us that they may not be, they will not be funding us for another year, for the last year of that three-year commitment.

And so the reason I'm addressing you all today is that, for one, because African-Americans, is my time up?

You have 10 seconds, please continue.

Hello?

Yep, please go ahead.

I'm asking particular Council Member Herbold, in particular for her support, and would like to follow up to brief her on exactly what's going on.

Thank you.

Okay.

Thank you so much.

And if you'd like to send that information to all council members, I think we'd be very interested as well.

Okay.

That was our last person for online public comment.

We're going to go to the folks in the room.

First up is Chris Van Dyke, followed by Hebil Jamak.

Good morning, Chris.

Good morning, my name is Chris, and I have been involved with taxi for hire management regulation in this region since 2007. I think that's 17 years.

This ordinance is written for an industry that existed prior to 2014. After the unregulated unleashing of Uber and Lyft, into the regional taxi marketplace in years 2012 to 2014, this industry has survived on contract business, Hopelink, School District, Port of Seattle, Airport, for example, until the pandemic.

For a few of us, post-pandemic, some of that business remains, but this ordinance will be, it's my considered opinion, but it will be the last nail needed before the city, the county, and the port bury our coffin altogether.

For example, with the disparity in licensing requirements between taxi or hire, as anticipated in the ordinance, and Uber Lyft drivers, we will not be able to get new drivers.

They will go to Uber.

As a matter of fact, most of them go there now.

With the specter of enforcement of these regulations, detail, almost petty regulation, our current owner operators will continue doing what they do now.

They will leave us for Uber and Lyft.

We cannot get drivers.

Taxi for hire licensees that remain will do so service the airport only.

Many will be active only for a few months during the year, only as they are now to service the airport at cruise ship terminal time.

Wrapping up, you ask dispatch associations to be the bad guys and enforce all these petty rules.

You have no means for us to enforce drivers Actually paying us.

We don't want the association requirement if that's what's involved Thank you, I've represented any number of Thank you, sir Thank You Chris

Mr. Van Dyke, I just want to ask if you could send us this information because the whole council would love to hear what you have to say.

Okay.

Thank you.

Please send us the examples.

Okay, thank you so much.

Please send us your comments in writing, and we will look at those examples that you started to mention.

Next up is Hebel Jamak, followed by Will Pitts.

Good morning, Hebel.

Hold on one second, mister.

I can't quite hear you.

If you don't mind going to the other microphone.

I'll go to that one.

It's okay, sure, yeah.

All right, we will wait to start your time.

Let's try the microphone one more time to make sure it's on.

Okay, please go ahead.

Okay, my name is Haive Jamal and my colleagues call me Jamal.

I have been driving a taxi for a very long time.

I'm the guy who serves the public day in and day out.

I don't want a dispatch company or a dispatch company to tell us what to do or set up a regulation for us.

The city, if they need to talk to people, they talk to the union and the drivers.

We are the ones who drive the car.

We are the ones who pay for insurance.

And these guys, they just want to make money from us, which it will be like pickpocketing legally because they have regulation being supported by the city.

So we would like to have a cap on the excessive fees, like the square.

Already some company, we do our own square.

Some companies already what they're doing, they're forcing drivers to have to use their own squares.

It's kind of, right now it's unknown how much the percentage is, but after we do this, the city, the regulation is passed, they can do whatever they want.

So we want to, everything we do, we need to have a copy.

If I take a call, I don't want to be paid $20, a $50 trip because I have to work for a dispatch company or an organization or a smartphone, the way the regulation is going.

We need to go back to the table and have a conversation with the city.

And also, we don't want our cars to be double-played, to be taking away one car that you can have two cars.

I don't need two cars.

I only need one.

The insurance paying for the expense of that car is too expensive.

Thank you very much.

Thank you very much.

The next person is Will Pitts, followed by Sam Soa.

Good morning, Will.

Good morning.

Thank you members of the committee.

My name is Will Pitts.

I'm with Teamsters 117. And Teamsters Local 117 has been fighting with taxi drivers for fairness in this industry for much more than a decade.

And as City Council and the county pursue this overhaul of taxi regulations, you can expect to hear a lot of different opinions from drivers.

But one thing drivers are united around, as you heard from the previous speaker, and as you see on the signs, is the need to cap excessive fees.

And we are able to support this set of ordinance because of the Councilman Mosqueda and this committee's willingness to address that core issue.

Exploitation happens in this industry when dispatch companies are given free reign to squeeze as much money out of passengers as they can while paying drivers as little as they can.

And elsewhere in the four higher transportation sector, this type of exploitation has been enabled by new technology and dynamic pricing, leading to widespread consumer complaints and worker unrest.

But this ordinance requires the Taxi Institute to adopt similar new technologies and dynamic pricing, but it also places critical guardrails on dispatch company fees.

So we support this ordinance because of those guardrails, which will protect drivers' current and future ability to earn the money that they deserve.

Thank you.

Excellent.

Thank you very much, Will.

Welcome Samsor, followed by Elias.

Say the alias, right?

My name is Elias.

I've been in the taxi industry for about six years now.

In my opinion, as a driver or an owner of a taxi, I do not have a voice.

You sign a paper.

Once you sign a paper, the dispatch company can tell you whatever they want.

I read, you know, the regulations, the association, what a tax association is supposed to do.

But as owners, we need to have a voice on the table when they negotiate the deals with the school district, when they negotiate the deals with Salt Plain, with all those things.

And they need to disclose those deals so we know what it takes, you know, how much they're getting paid, how much we're getting paid.

The other thing is we also use Square, which is one of the largest companies that process credit cards, and they try to monitor every single thing.

Every one of us, every owner, is regulated by the city.

The taxi is inspected.

Everything we do is regulated.

If we are regulated by the city, we don't need to be regulated again by the taxi company, let alone threatened.

If we can sign the dotted line order, if we don't follow that, you have to leave the company.

When you support the family and that's the only thing you have, that's hard to do.

And the insurance for taxi coverage, there's two companies.

I don't know why there's only two companies that provide commercial insurance for hire.

The fees they charge is excessive.

If the city can look, if there's another provider that is allowed to the state to provide those things, currently there's two companies.

They're asking for a lot of money.

And we are paying those.

I mean, we have to be insured, of course, to have the customer safe.

Those things if they can be looked at Also, if we get the information wherever is passed in the city The city have the information of every driver if we get those information directly, that'd be a good thing for us.

So we Thank you, thank you so much and I'm gonna go back to some saw some saw followed by Alas our

Thank you very much.

Can you speak closer to the mic?

OK.

My name is Samson.

I drive for taxi for 18 years.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak in front of the city council and my fellow drivers.

Nineteen percent of individual driver voices are not included in this legislation agenda.

We are a taxi industry.

We are on-demand service, end, up or dispatch service.

We lost With the competitor, the dispatch service through the app-based competitor.

And we are also under attack, the remaining demand service.

We always worried that we are going to lose through the regulations.

We are going to lose through regulation.

We like to preserve and protect our demand service with your law.

If we lost the demand service, does the industry end up?

And the second point I want to address is, we are disadvantaged with the competitor because of the insurance policy.

We demand similar auto policy model with our competitors, with a company like Uber.

Unless that is not fixed, we have not have equal playing field to competitors.

The regulator make us disadvantaged, not to compete with the competitor.

The state regulator in Olympia give that opportunity for the Uber and Lyft, but we didn't earn that.

We demand that from this legislation.

Thank you.

I would appreciate it.

Thank you so much, Samson.

Al-Azhar, followed by Chief Farao.

Good morning.

Good morning.

My name is Al-Azhar.

The reason I'm here, because of our business models, it's not good for workers.

Because of regulation, we're not involved in regulation, so the driver association is supposed to regulate us as workers.

We are the one working, so we have to fare.

The fare we have to price up or down.

We are the one supposed to Put our effort on that and the next thing is It's about the dispatch company they they add on square The different amount what we have it on the Personnel they they do on yellow cabs, especially they change the price to different amount on the percentage and The other thing is With the COVID we were struggling to work as a taxi and we're back to After that, we're not support anything from the city So that's I want to raise that too.

Thank you.

Thank you so much And we have three more people in person to sign up.

I do want to note that there's one more person online who's listed as not present.

So Malaki Kane, if you are listening, please do dial in and we will make sure to come back to you.

And if the clerks could look for one more phone number dialing, then that would be great.

The last three speakers will be Shi Faroo.

The next person is Abdi Rahman.

And the last person is Joseph.

Good morning.

Good morning.

My name is Shifar Almakonnen.

I have been driving taxi since 2010. The issue I have was how drivers don't have any seat on the decision table when it comes to our companies making these contract deals with Hope Link, Access, Seattle School District, or anything like that.

Every fees, we've been told, hey, we're going to charge this.

You make this money with that.

But they never ask us to be on that seat to make that decision.

They make the decision for us, and we take that.

With all the penalties that comes after that, if you don't do this, you got to penalize this, you have to pay this.

How come we do all the work, we pay for the car insurance, we do everything, but how come we don't have a seat on the table when these decisions are made?

We do 80% of this thing is completed by the drivers.

And the dispatch companies have different rules when it comes to our company.

You have airport taxis pay different fee and regular city cab company taxis.

Because we all take dispatch from the same company, There's certain taxi cabs, they pay different fees.

We don't know that.

This is how much they pay, but they sit at the hotel like us, they take dispatch.

Where does this price difference come from?

The companies make decision, they don't tell us, hey, you take this.

And with all penalties, it's just, OK, these penalties are made.

We need to know.

I'm the one who's going to pay that penalty.

And I shouldn't be forced to sign papers.

If you don't sign this, you can't work with us.

It's just not fair.

We have to be on the seat and discussing all this decision being made for us.

We have to have a representation on the table.

Thank you.

Excellent.

Thank you.

Abdi Rahman.

Good morning.

Either one.

Before I start, is the whole council members listening at the online?

They are online as well.

Oh, you can't see them there, but they are on the screen as well.

Good.

So I'll start.

So my name is Abdul Rahman Elmi.

I have been driving taxi for a very long time.

So sorry, I was just going to say to our clerk, could you shrink the screen so that more of the faces of our council members...

Can you stop my time?

Yeah, we'll restart it.

Okay.

Okay, great.

We can see more council members now.

Let's start your time again.

Okay, go ahead.

Yeah, my name is Abdurahman Elmi.

I have been driving taxi for a very long time.

And currently, I am operating a dual licensed taxi.

And this proposal is proposing to make a city-only taxi to King County and Seattle, and a county-only will operate city and county.

And four hired cars will be converted into a duly licensed taxi medallion.

So everybody will be a medallion.

So for us, as currently duly licensed taxis whom we are infested, a lot of money to become a do it, to follow the rules.

So we would not gain anything from here, we will lose.

We told that to the city and the county when they were doing the outreach, we blindly told them we will not gain anything, we will lose.

They told us we will think about it.

Now their proposal, they saying, we give you another medallion, which has no value.

They agree, we agree.

We lose, they know.

We ask them, future economic loss and the past investment loss, we need reimbursement.

But unfortunately, they did not do it because this business owned by minority and immigrant.

If this business were owned by otherwise, Some other people, they will definitely have said, these people, they lost their future, they're not gaining anything.

They would have proposed something to reimburse, but it's not.

And we really disagree what they proposed.

We again ask, instead of a fake license medallion, we need an actual reimbursement.

They know what we lost.

Thank you very much.

Thank you very much.

And our last speaker present, in case anybody else wants to sign up in the room, is going to be Joseph Blondo.

And if you are listening online, Malikai Cain, you are still listed as not present, but we're happy to come back to you.

Good morning, Joseph.

Hello.

Good morning.

My name is Joseph Blondo.

I was once the chairman of the King County Tax, King County, Seattle King County Tax Advisory Commission.

I was also was, at one point, the president of the Alliance of Taxi Associations.

So, and I started driving in 1987 guys, so I've been, I know this business.

I'm here because I'm concerned about the provisions about training.

You need to have training not only for, if you're going to have training, not only for the cab drivers, but for Uber and Lyft drivers.

That's essential.

And also, in speaking of the economic, this is when the gentleman was just talking about the issues around dual license cabs.

Well, there's a lot of things about the economics.

I'll tell you this, for a cab driver, When you start off in a given year, you have to make approximately $18,000 before you've earned a penny as a cab driver.

Uber and Lyft, you have insurance about $1,300.

That's it.

Nothing.

So there's real disparities.

And also, people were talking about having a seat at the table.

I tell you, if I had been writing this provisions, these provisions, this ordinance, it would be different.

The reason it would be different because I'm a cab driver.

I am somebody who knows this business and I suggest to the City Council and also the King County Council that you have people like me consulting and talking to you so you really understand This business is all about I know about it all too well.

And that's all I have to say.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

I'm going to go back to Molly guy.

Kane.

Is there anybody who is trying to dial into our public comment virtually clerks and it.

Okay.

All right.

Malika, if you could send in your public comment, that'd be great.

Thank you all for your presentation today.

Just double checking, is there anybody who wanted to offer public testimony that didn't get the chance to?

Okay, thank you so much.

Going once, twice.

Is that a yes?

Okay.

Please go ahead, sir, and we'll get your name after this.

Exactly.

Don't be shy.

It's okay.

I know it's just us.

Welcome.

Yeah.

Good morning.

My name is...

One second.

Sorry.

Let's just start his time real quick.

All right.

Okay, sir.

Please go ahead, and thanks for stating your name.

Yes, good morning.

My name is Dawit Tesfaye, and I drove a taxi.

I still am driving taxi for a long time.

And in this taxi industry, since I am here for the last 20-plus years, we have a big problem on insurance.

We have, I don't know, discrimination also on commercial, especially I'm a Watt driver, wheelchair-accessible taxi.

And they don't give us full coverage.

If we buy a car right now, if I want to buy a new car, it costs about $85,000 plus.

And I don't get from this insurance company full coverage.

And if I get an accident, what's going to happen?

Bankrupt or what?

And I want to ask City Council, please, We have problem on insurance.

Without insurance, we cannot drive.

And that's one thing.

And the other thing.

about self-employed and independent contractor and all that, we all taxi drivers are independent.

But some dispatch companies, they treat us as employee or so.

And we want city council to consider this and act properly.

I have to control my income, you know, if there is a customer want to tip me or something, you know, that is my problem, not dispatch company problem.

And make sure, you know, like as an independent contractor, please tell the dispatch companies not to, you know, process the credit card or something like that.

That's it.

Okay, we're glad we got your name.

If you could write your name on the sign-in sheet there, sir.

Just make sure that we get your name recorded for the record.

That'd be great.

And thank you all for your presentations here today.

That will conclude public comment.

Thanks for the robust discussion that we've had so far today.

Let's go ahead and move on into agenda item number one.

Madam Clerk, could you please read into the record item number one?

Agenda item number one, resolution 32109, a resolution approving the Seattle Housing Authority's use of certain excess revenues from the sale, lease, or other disposition of property in the Yesler Terrace redevelopment.

For briefing, discussion, and possible vote.

Excuse me, sorry about that.

Excellent.

Thank you very much, Madam Clerk.

And I want to welcome to the virtual table here, Executive Director from the Seattle Housing Authority, Rod Brandon and Fisk Ziniga.

You can correct me.

And Rachel Stewart from the Seattle Housing Authority, as well as Tracy Ratzliff.

Ratzliff from the Council Central staff, who is our lead on all things housing.

Welcome, everyone, and please let us know if you are ready to get kicked off.

We are very excited to have you here today.

Friends from the Seattle Housing Authority, Have been working diligently to bring some legislation to us for consideration I want to thank you for your partnership on this legislation and also for the legislation That you helped craft for the housing levy The housing levy was done in partnership with SHA who offered a handful or not a handful a significant amount more housing vouchers to make sure more folks could stay stably housed and get stably housed and and the council considered that legislation in June.

So thank you for that partnership as well.

We have been able to increase the number of housing, excuse me, of levy funded projects from 300 to 400 with the SHA vouchers that they offered.

And that additional contribution of vouchers is going to bolster what we are gonna be able to deliver through the Seattle Housing Levy and greatly appreciate your support and partnership.

Glad to have you here today for the presentation on the legislation to authorize this piece of property at Yesler Terrace for future use.

So thanks for working closely with our office, including Aaron House, our chief of staff and lead on all things housing and land, and the office of housing along with central staff.

We've heard about increasing service needs within our buildings throughout the affordable housing community.

We've heard that the buildings look the same on the outside, but the needs on the inside have changed dramatically, especially given the compounding crises of the pandemic, and appreciate that you have been working to not only house folks, but also serve people inside the buildings and assist with those increased needs over the last few years.

I think this legislation will help us enable the use of existing revenue for higher than anticipated needs given the higher than anticipated, excuse me, given that there is existing revenue that is higher than anticipated from the sale or release of property in Yesler Terrace Redevelopment Area.

this funding can go to assist with much needed supportive services within those buildings for the residents.

So thank you again for being here with us today.

Tracy Ratcliffe from Central Staff, did you have anything you'd like to share before we hand it over to the Seattle Housing Authority?

I don't, so other than just to remind council members, some who have been with us and as long as they have, like Council Member Herbold, that SHA is returning to us because of a provision that was included in the cooperative agreement that was entered into between the city and SHA.

via Ordinance 123-961, way back in 2000-something or other, that required them to come back to us should they have excess proceeds from the sales of property at Yeser, which nobody knew at the time whether there would be or not, but having them then come back to give council approval to how they might use those excess proceeds.

So they are back here today in response to that provision of that original cooperative agreement.

Excellent.

Well, thank you and welcome to the SHA team.

I'll turn it over to Director Brandon for some opening comments.

Great.

Good morning.

Thank you, Tracy, for that background and context for that.

And thank you, Madam Chair, for inviting us to come and speak to you on these two important issues.

So we want to take some time to share with you Um, just the importance of the services to continue it.

Yes.

So this resolution will allow us to continue those much needed services for all ages folks that yesterday and we also just want to give you a quick update and briefing on the development and the people side of yesterday.

So we're gonna try to squeeze both those in today.

And we really, really appreciate you squeeze us in on the agenda.

We know you're packed this time of year.

So we'll just dive right in.

I'm 1st, starting off with the deputy of the Seattle house in theory, followed by Rachel Stewart, who is deputy of the housing operations division.

And thank you, I'm having some trouble advancing the slides.

So I think I'm going to go out and come back in and see if it works when I do that.

Let's see.

If it's not working on your end, we could try to do it on our end as well.

We might need to do that.

I tested it earlier with your folks when I got on, but.

You want to go ahead and just try to reset it in?

I did go out and come back in.

I'm having the same experience with it not advancing.

Let's see I'm looking for anybody from I.T.

to also help us.

And while we're waiting just also council members just want to thank you for our partnership on the Seattle Housing Levy.

So we're we're just glad to be a partner with you on that.

Glad that we can figure out ways to serve more individuals and we continue to serve from the previous levy.

So looking forward to that long long partnership with the City of Seattle.

There we go.

Should I go back?

We can go to that goals for today slide is just fine.

OK, well, I will be the facilitator here at the slides.

Thank you, Councilmember.

OK.

You just tell me when to advance.

OK, so thanks again.

We wanted to come back, and as Tracy said, for some of you, Yesler, you've been around for a lot of the evolution of Yesler.

And we wanted to come back and talk to you about services and the opportunity we have, but also to check in and let you know what we've accomplished with Yesler.

And a lot of those goals were laid out in the cooperative agreement that Tracy referenced.

And so we want to talk about goals set and met.

and then talk about services.

So next slide.

So SHA applied to HUD for something called a Choice Neighborhoods Grant.

That was back in the early 2010s.

And that was the first time HUD had created this program that encouraged kind of a more holistic approach to redeveloping communities.

We were successful in receiving $30 million from HUD to jumpstart the redevelopment.

And a unique piece about Choice Neighborhoods was that it allowed recipients to use 15% of the grant proceeds for services, which was unique.

The prior HOPE VI program that we developed New Holly and High Point and Rainier Vista under did not include that provision.

So we've maximized that opportunity and took 15%, which is 4.5 million, and spent that over the seven years on services to benefit residents while they went through redevelopment at the community.

Another piece in the cooperative agreement was we should maintain resident engagement throughout.

And so we formed a citizen review committee that included residents and also representatives from the surrounding community.

Those meetings were interpreted.

The same interpreters were with us for years, and so they came to learn a lot actually about the redevelopment process as they interpreted for our residents at those meetings.

We're compelled to deliver by HUD and committed to do so one-for-one replacement housing, so that's part of what Yesler is delivering.

And then a piece of the grant agreement with HUD was that we were encouraged to figure out a way to continue services into the future once the grant was over.

And so that's part of why we're here with you today.

Next slide.

So how are we doing?

So we have met our one-for-one replacement units, replacement on site.

We will exceed the 60 percent area median income units by 100. We will meet the 80 percent area median income unit targets.

We provided the residents with a guaranteed right to return, robust relocation services, and other relocation commitments we had such as paying for them moving away, and paying for their move back to Yesler if they choose to move back.

And ongoing, as I mentioned, resident interaction during the process with the CRC that then evolved into us meeting regularly still with the existing Yesler Community Council.

Next slide.

So this is a summary, same information about the housing piece.

So I guess the main takeaway is that we started at Yesler with 561 units.

And when all is said and done, we will have tripled the number of income restricted units at Yesler.

And all of the most deeply affordable units will be complete by the summer of 2025. And all the dollars necessary to deliver these are either spent or have already been allocated and projects We've closed on projects, so those dollars are committed towards that construction.

Next slide.

I wanted to touch briefly before I turn it over to my colleague, Rachel, on relocation, because there was a strong council focus on how we were going to work with the residents all through redevelopment and make sure that their experience was as good as it could be recognizing that change is very difficult and uprooting is very difficult.

So the relocation effort was very robust.

We have now, of the original 493 households, and the difference between 493 and 561, which is our one-for-one replacement, is that we had that Delta number of units released to the Y WCA for transitional housing programs.

They weren't in operation at the time when redevelopment started.

So the original 493 households, 264 of them are now back at Yesler in new buildings.

We have 109 of those households living offsite in other Yesler housing.

We have 87 of them living offsite in non-SHA housing.

At the very beginning of development, we did have some tenant-based vouchers that we were able to, that HUD gave us that we were able to award to about 50 families.

So about 50 of those are used tenant-based vouchers somewhere in the city.

And last but not least, 33 for attrition.

So that's the kind of big picture of relocation.

And to this day, as a new building opens, we go back to people who are living offsite just to double check whether they wanna come back to Yesler.

So let me transition this to my colleague, Rachel Stewart.

She's the Deputy Director of the Housing Operations Department and formerly Community Services Administrator for SHA.

Rachel.

Thank you and good morning, everyone.

I'm excited to share with you a bit about the resident services and programming that we have been providing at the Yesler campus for a number of years, but with the additional investments as described by Rod and Ann previously over the last 10 years or so.

If we can go to the next slide.

Oh, this slide or next slide?

There we go.

Thank you.

Thank you.

So, one of the issues that the Choice Neighborhood Grant tackled that had not been approached by other funding opportunities from HUD was to ensure that services were available throughout and following redevelopment at Yesler.

And that is perfect and on target for the city of Seattle as we really do also believe that services are central to equitable community development.

And what should that look like and how is it that we can go about delivering it?

Seattle Housing Authority does stand out amongst other housing authorities in being able to operate in a bit of flexibility and provide services and supports to our residents in a number of different ways.

And we have a couple of those examples listed here, and I'll spend a little time going through a bit more depth on certain ones of these as we advance.

So we'll talk about education and youth development, recognizing that there's a significant number of households at Yesler that have children of every single age, as well as elders and working age adults.

Some families are in our housing for a period of time such that it benefits them and us in the larger community to ensure that they have numerous different ways that they're being supported in their development, both academically, but also within their own leadership and self-actualization.

Community building is another element of our work that has continued to support the Yesler community by finding ways to essentially really highlight the self-determination that our residents have, such that they are able to live into their leadership and create community cohesion in the way that best represents who they are and who they aspire to be.

We also have been able to create investments within economic opportunity.

so that residents have the opportunity to adjust and adapt to our changing and ever-evolving economic and job market.

This includes getting skills support as well as systems navigation.

Health and wellness is key.

And of course, with Yesler being right next to so many of our medical centers, it seems like residents should have some of the best health ever and be able to tap into health services But we know that life isn't just that simple.

And so we wanted to make sure that there were additional navigation supports that met the needs and interests of our residents who are there.

And we offered community health workers to help bridge that gap, which was actually some of the first community health workers in our area.

And they were quite successful.

And we did that work in partnership with NeighborCare Health.

We have also pushed forward on creative placemaking.

And if you visit Yesler, you'll see there's quite a bit of public art that's there.

And that public art was not just brought about by someone with a creative eye or an architect, but rather through deep engagement with residents, not only within Yesler proper, but also in the broader and surrounding communities that are adjacent to Yesler.

So very excited to share more about this with you.

We are also very much indebted to the numerous partners that have helped us to be able to deliver these services.

In fact, without our partners, these things are not possible at the scale that is required to be sustainable and effective and responsive to the interests and needs of our residents.

I'll go ahead and go to the next slide.

Education and youth development is one of the service areas that people think of so often.

And our efforts there have allowed us to be able to provide a support for young people from pre-K all the way through post-secondary.

That work has happened with partners such as Seattle University, Seattle Public Schools including Bailey Gatzer Elementary School, Washington Middle School, Garfield High School, College Success Foundation, YMCA, Bureau of Fearless Ideas, Catholic Community Services Youth Tutoring Program, and on and on.

And through those partnerships, we've been able to support children in preparing for kindergarten, working alongside and walking alongside their parents to ensure that they are ready for kindergarten and know how to get through elementary school with a joyous interest in continuing to learn.

We've been able to bring fulfillment and usefulness to their out-of-school time through tutoring programs, but also through youth development that encourages their leadership as well as their creativity.

Internships and mentorship is available there at Yesler, pulling in many of the adults that are in the community, both near and far to tap in.

Even in the midst of the pandemic, we found ways to do this work in a virtual setting.

Our institutional partnership with Seattle Public Schools was catalyzed by this work here with Choice Neighborhood, and it has had impacts on both of our institutions.

Next slide.

As I mentioned, community building is a unique element of the work that we do at Seattle Housing Authority.

You can't see all of the text that's on that diagram, but It's there just to make clear that it is intentional.

Our community building is intentional in that diagram.

It's a bit of the landscape that we have put together with resident leadership and partners that surround the Yesler campus.

Resident leadership is at the very top for us.

The Yesler Community Council has been a historic and contemporary leader not only for the elders and the adults at Yesler, but also for the young people.

Individuals who are in the Yesler Community Council are supported by our community building staff who provide them with whatever access to space and resources that they need to be able to make real the interest that they have.

A Youth Advisory Council has been established to be able to activate the interests of young people in a more formalized fashion.

So often in our schools, young people don't have a chance to participate in student government and other activities because they might just be one in a large number of children in a building.

But at home, maybe you can give a try.

And so this is an opportunity for that to happen.

Yes, there's a very diverse community and being able to preserve the The assets and the strengths of the diversity that people are bringing to the campus and to our city at large is also a key element of being able to do community building that leads to cohesion.

And so we are able to support Vietnamese tea time, Eritrean and Ethiopian coffee hours, as well as Oromo language preservation class, just as a few examples.

Those events, as well as those programs, are initiated by residents and are supported by partners as well as SHA staff.

And again, there's a number of different partnerships that we have listed there for your reference.

Next slide, please.

Economic opportunity is provided through a program that's branded within Seattle Housing Authority as JobLink.

JobLink offers person-centered support to residents who are interested in advancing their education and or their careers.

That looks like many different things and again is responsive to the interests and needs of the individual.

They are paired with a career coach who has also been partnered with another staff member who's an employee employer broker.

And he begins and she begins to do outreach to different employers throughout the city of Seattle to make sure that we are learning more and more about what we need in the job market.

so that SHA residents who are applying are competitive.

And part of what that means for us is ensuring that we are working with our closest partners so that residents are able to also be giving into the organizations that some of their families have also been benefiting from.

That way you have providers that are reflective of your community.

We also are always very pleased to be able to have employment opportunities for residents within our own housing authority departments.

Many of them are shaping the way that our organization shows up each and every day in such a positive way.

And then finally college enrollment and persistent support is also offered through the Job Link program.

And we have folks who actually are on the campuses of the Seattle Colleges system who are supporting our students as they progress through.

Next slide.

So why would we want it to end?

Our services at Yesler have been very well received and they are needed.

Over the years that I've been working at Yesler, which has been since 2010, there's never been a time that someone said, nope, we don't need that anymore.

Please go ahead and take that away, Rachel.

So we want to make sure that we not only are following what residents are saying, but are keeping our funders happy and our choice neighborhood grant did encourage us to continue our services beyond redevelopment, and so we aspire to do so.

And you also notice that, as mentioned by staff member Tracy Ratzleff, that there is a cooperative agreement that requires us to come back here to you all and talk about any of the additional revenues that are available post-redevelopment to be able to do something different with them.

And our interest is to reinvest them at Yesler, to meet the needs of residents and sustaining these services.

In our conversations with staff from the Office of Housing, they have indicated that they are supportive of this proposal to be able to continue services to fund to residents at Yesler.

It looks about, right now, $600,000 a year to be able to keep these services going.

And that's just right now.

We know that These things are always growing in cost.

Everything's growing in cost.

In fact, my coffee is too.

So we are happy to share this information with you and answer questions that you might have so that we can continue to build and support a strong and one Seattle.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

We will.

Do you have any additional comments, folks from SHA?

No.

Okay.

Well, excellent.

Thank you for the comprehensive presentation here.

Colleagues, again in front of us is the legislation to consider the Yesler-Terrace process legislation, resolution 32109. To move into further conversation, I'd like to get the legislation in front of us.

Oops, I better stop sharing my screen.

Okay, we got through those technical issues, great.

I move the committee recommends passage of Resolution 32109. Is there a second?

Second.

Thank you very much.

It's been moved and seconded.

Are there any additional comments on this legislation?

I do see one hand online, Council Member Herbold.

Please go ahead, Vice Chair.

Thank you.

Just want to first say how amazing.

The work SHA has done on Yesler, Harris, specifically the right of return of the original households displaced by the redevelopment, more than half are back at Yesler.

And the number we saw was 76% opted to return some form of SHA housing, Yesler or elsewhere.

This is just, you know, considering how mobile low-income households can be, especially after displacement.

This is a really extraordinary achievement.

And I have I have this, you guys may have, this is directed to our friends from SFA.

You may have seen a couple weeks ago an editorial in the Seattle Times, and I have, the person who wrote the editorial happens to be somebody who writes the council a bit, so I happen to have the person's email address, and I was thinking about writing to him to, dispute some of his concerns around Yesler Terrace.

And it just makes me wonder how much you're getting the word out.

This person writes that the majority of the homes are market rate with the remainder producing some rent.

How is the public to know whether or not the project is maximizing affordable housing?

You know, there's lots of good information available on your website about how many units are being, you know, not just the right to return, but how many total affordable units are now available at Yesler Terrace.

And perhaps this is the success of the program, is that people don't think of Yesler Terrace as a location for low-income housing.

But you have actually drastically and very helpfully increased the total number of affordable housing units above and beyond what was there before the redevelopment.

you both, Rod and Nan, both know my skepticism on a lot of the redevelopment of the SHA garden projects.

And so this is just such an amazing thing to celebrate.

And I just would really be interested to know what you're doing to counter this unfortunate narrative that the Yeser Terrace redevelopment is somehow a windfall for market rate.

Developers.

Yeah, well, thank you.

Council member Herbert for for those words and recognition.

You're right.

We just don't do enough of continue to share all the success stories and the process and the status of what's happening.

Yes, sir.

We feel we're doing that we are getting so much national attention and local attention here throughout the state of Washington on that whole redevelopment.

We need to do a better job and just do more and continue that story and that narrative.

I appreciate you sharing that information back to that individual and we'll continue to do that.

We'll continue to do the same.

So we'll, we'll step up our effort in that space.

We sometimes think people are just getting tired of hearing about yesterday as they continue to see it, as they continue to see the community continue to come together.

But you're absolutely right.

We need to do a better job and we'll do that.

And then just a follow up question on the maybe not follow up question, a question on the legislation itself.

I'm just wondering, could you speak to how you are how you are Dealing with the fact that the legislation gives you a lot of flexibility for determining what the continuation of services to residents should be.

And understand that this is over a 15 year period and.

we can't determine today what services will be most needed in the future.

But I'm wondering, given that the legislation inherently creates some flexibility to do so, how will you ensure that the voices and desires of residents are considered in determining how to spend service dollars each year?

Good question.

I'll let Rachel go into more detail, but I can just tell you that residents will be the center of our of our desire to bring those services to them.

So they know better than we know, but we'll continue to be resident-centric.

But Rachel, why don't you add more?

Sure, I'm happy to.

So some of the building blocks that are necessary to carry this forward were a part of what we are doing and have been doing and are just mentioned there on that community building slide.

But the Yesler Community Council and the Youth Advisory Council will be central to finding exactly the processes that residents will be able to believe in and participate in regularly to monitor and determine the services and the focus for those service dollars.

It is imperative for us to recall, as my colleague JC says all the time, people vote with their feet.

And so when our residents are showing up We know that we have responded in a way that is important and necessary for them.

And they will also contact us.

Our residents are not quiet.

They do let us know what it is that they like and what they don't like.

And that can also be after they believe that a service provider is just right.

And then it turns out they weren't quite doing exactly what they were expecting or looking for.

We make adjustments.

And so they will continue to be in the center.

I don't think we have a choice.

Thank you.

Councilmember Herbold.

The choice neighborhood grant and the structure was approved.

Uh, there were approvals needed by the city government and, um, there was controversy at the time about the introduction of the market rate units into what is normally housing for extremely low income individuals a 100%.

But, um, so thank you for asking those questions customer herbal about residents returning because I know when we.

Enable the demolition of existing housing.

That is a major concern.

Where are those people going to go?

Are they going to be able to find housing temporarily?

Are they going to be able to return to the permanent housing being built?

Is the, are the affordability levels there to enable that?

Um, and so I understand that the Seattle housing authority is is 1 of the 5% of housing authority of the 3000 housing authorities across the country that has.

a waiver from the U.S.

Department of Housing and Urban Development to what's called a move to work framework, which enables you additional flexibility, enables you to try to transition people from public housing to other types of housing.

This is controversial, but it's a long-term pilot program.

I think it goes until 2028. Your designation as a move to work exemption from regular public housing, which would require all the units to be for extremely low income.

And then, of course, the choice neighborhoods grant also enabled the mixing of income.

So.

It's a future discussion, as we approach 2028, whether Seattle Housing Authority would want to retain that designation or go back to serving 100% extremely low income residents.

Regarding this resolution, I had asked a couple of questions, but you had already answered.

Thank you to central staff as well for helping just for public I'd ask, due to our declared homelessness emergency, why not use the additional net sale proceeds for vouchers for people experiencing homelessness who may be housing ready?

And I understand you are providing all these services already to existing residents, and you're trying to extend that for several more years.

So there is that justification there.

Also, I asked, would there be a request for proposals done?

And as I understand it, you're continuing the services that are already in place rather than doing a request for new services where there'd be a competition to provide the best possible services.

programs, you already have those in place and you're extending those.

So just wanted to put on the record the questions that I had asked, the concerns I had, but I'll be supporting the resolution today.

Thank you.

Excellent.

Thank you for that background.

Any additional comments from SHA?

Okay.

No, just.

Oh, please go ahead, Director.

No, just thank you for your thoughtful questions and your thoughtful responses and engagement on this important issue.

And Council Member Herbold, Thank you for your steady involvement and throughout the entire process.

So you did hold our feet to the fire and we believe we delivered on that in all counts.

So thank you.

Great, thank you.

Okay, colleagues, I don't see any additional hands and the resolution is in front of us.

If there's no further comments.

All right, let's go ahead.

Madam Clerk, will you please call the roll on the passage of Resolution 32109?

Council Member Herbold?

Yes.

Council Member Peterson?

Yes.

Council Member Nelson.

Aye.

Council Member Lewis.

Yes.

Madam Chair Mosqueda.

Aye.

Madam Chair, that is a five in favor, none opposed.

All right.

Thank you very much.

Congratulations to our friends at the Seattle Housing Authority.

The motion carries and the committee recommendation that the resolution pass will be sent to the September 19th City Council meeting for a final vote.

I had to look at the clock to make sure we could still get it in next week, but we can because it is before noon on Thursday.

So thank you so much for your presentation here today.

All the work that you've done and I echo all of the appreciation for the work you've done on the Yesler Terrace, especially with community preference and affirmative marketing to yield the success rates that you've had.

All right, let's continue.

And colleagues, I want to thank you again for your extended time today.

We did put an extended hold on your calendars, so I'm hoping that we can get through the next four pieces of legislation, which are coupled into two items.

Madam Clerk, let's go ahead and read items two, three, and four into the record.

Agenda item number two, Council Bill 120652. Agenda item number three, Council Bill 12065, I'm sorry, 652 and 653. And agenda item number four, Council Bill 120656. These are the Department of Finance and Administration Services for briefing and discussion.

Great, thank you.

We do have this for briefing and discussion.

There will not be a vote today.

This is our opportunity to go through the policy and hear more of the details, and we will consider the legislation next week on Wednesday.

I want to thank the team from Finance Administrative Services.

People are probably wondering why is this bill in our committee here.

It's because we in Finance Committee have purview over FAS and this is a piece of legislation that the Finance and Administrative Services Department worked heavily on with the mayor's office and stakeholders So thank you so much.

We have with us Beth Gappert and Matthew Ng from Finance and Administrative Services along with Karina Bull, our central staff, who has been working very hard on this legislation, the suite of legislation in front of us.

So, thank you all for being here with us today.

Before we get into my comments, I just want to double check that the screen is working.

I am not the best screen sharer.

So, if whoever is going to be sharing their screen, if we could just double check that that's working while I make some comments, that would be fantastic, whoever that is.

Please go ahead and give it a shot while I make some comments.

Again, as we're doing that, I want to thank the Mayor's Office.

I noted in my opening comments that the Finance and Administrative Services Office has been working closely with the Mayor's Office and has been engaged in conversation with members of the community over the last, I think, few years, so you can correct me on that time frame.

But it's been a long time in the making, the legislation in front of us.

Thanks to central staff, especially Karina Bull and the law department who have been working with us and community partners on developing some enhancements to the legislation as we introduced it.

These three bills modernize and update the city's policies related to for hire and taxicab industry.

It allows for drivers to more successfully compete and increase their earnings.

I'm going to reiterate that the King County Council and the City of Seattle are consecutively going to be passing legislation related to these regulations, so there is harmony.

And our hope is that this legislation accomplishes that goal.

Before I move on, I just remembered there is one additional person who wanted to provide public comment, and I'm going to accommodate for that.

We're going to go ahead and open up public comment again just to make sure that we get a chance to hear from everyone.

There was some confusion over the agenda time to sign in.

I know that we had a number of items on our agenda, so we're going to accommodate additional public comment now.

And welcome up Mr. Schieffel.

to the podium, and we will make sure to get all your information.

Again, if there's anybody else who wants to provide public comment, we, of course, welcome that as well.

You'll have two minutes to provide public comment, and I appreciate you coming.

No problem on the time.

I'm kind of surprised we have the taxi agenda today.

This is, yeah, times have changed, I guess.

My name is Amin Shifau.

I am the general manager of Beechertown Dispatch, also known as Seattle Yellow Cab.

And I do appreciate you guys giving me the time.

You know, the industry has survived the biggest disruption from the TNC, losing a market share of more than 70%.

And we all know that we've survived the pandemic for the last few years.

However, the one point that I want to address is really, it looks like this legislation may actually do something that either the disruption from the TNC or the pandemic couldn't do to our industry as dispatch companies.

which is finally putting us out of business.

I don't see the point of cabbing a dispatch when whoever is pushing that item on that agenda is really not understanding how our business operates.

We do not charge per trip.

the competition, TNC is not being capped at 10%.

I just don't see why.

So we want to make sure that our objection to this item is noted.

You know, we do appreciate the rest of the legislation trying to address all the issues are overdue.

And we have been waiting for years and years We do appreciate that, but we just want to make sure that our objection be noted.

And on the capping, whether it's a misunderstanding or whether it's something else, I don't understand.

Thank you very much.

Thank you so much.

And let's make sure to get your contact information for the record as well.

Is there anybody else?

Going once, twice.

Please go ahead.

Oh, did you already speak?

Did you already speak earlier?

Probably I can't do you again.

I'm sorry though.

Thank you for your enthusiasm We will go ahead and close out public comment, okay?

I'm going to come back to my script here and turn it over to finance and administrative services here I just wanted to note that the intent of the legislation in front of us is that we are trying to be forward-thinking it anticipates the impacts of technology on taxi dispatch services and It is attempting to provide guardrails to protect consumers and drivers through those transitions in technology, and it helps to include that we are looking at regulation and excessive fees.

I want to highlight a piece of the legislation that is small but significant for the workers.

The legislation aligns around vehicle age limits for age 15. And it extends the amount of time that drivers can operate their otherwise safe vehicles, which may still pass annual inspections.

This is a positive and practical update that will benefit drivers, as many of these vehicles that are past age 15 are still operable and safe.

Really appreciate the conversations that we've had with the mayor's office and the finance administrative services over the past few months To fine-tune some of the pre-introduction changes on this legislation, especially over the past few weeks Those conversations have been ongoing and that is why there's additional requests for you to consider the legislation that is added to the agenda for your consideration today a Supplemental version of the bill is included on the agenda that's been revised and central staff will speak to that as well Many of the requests in the additional In the additional edits that were made came from conversations Even as late as the last few weeks with the mayor's office and finance and administrative services these came through after we introduced the legislation and we're very happy that there's been a Coming together on the language that they've suggested along with additional legislation or language to show that the legislative excuse me along with language to so Oh, to show how we can continue to support the economic livelihood and stability for drivers.

This is some late breaking changes and thank you again to FAS and the mayor's office, central staff for working with us on including those so that they can be included in the legislation in front of us today.

Well, we were not able to have a meeting yesterday.

My hope is that folks get the chance to look through this legislation.

If you do have any, excuse me, we weren't able to have this legislation on the agenda last week.

My hope is that you will still look through the legislation here today.

If you do have any edits and suggested amendments, I believe that deadline for considering those is the end of this week with central staff and encourage you to get a chance to listen to the presentation and then we will go into some questions.

Corinna Bull, I'm going to turn it over to you.

Or would you like to go to FAS first?

It's totally up to you all.

Thank you.

I advise starting with FAS because they have a very detailed, informative presentation.

Let's do this.

OK, excellent.

And welcome again to Matthew Ng and Beth Gappard from Finance Administrative Services.

Thanks very much.

So, yes, I'm here in the room is my division director from super protection.

I'll be doing the majority of this speaking to give you an overview of the suite of bills that we have transmitted to the council.

So we'll talk a little bit about background.

I think it's important to familiarize or at least re familiarize ourselves with what the, is involved with the for higher transportation industry.

We'll have summaries of each of the three bills, spend a little time with budget considerations, and then talk about the work that we have been doing with King County.

So in terms of background, the city partners through an interlocal agreement with King County to regulate for higher transportation.

And that consists of three major vehicle types, taxi cabs, which operate on metered rates for higher vehicles, which operate on flat rates.

and then vehicles affiliated with transportation network companies, which is the term we use to describe entities like Uber and Lyft.

And so the work that the city and the county do together involves licensing vehicles and drivers and companies each year.

And then we do code enforcement work through inspections, audits and related activities.

Some of the industry changes.

So the big, Last action, regulatory action involving for hire transportation was done in 2014. And that's when the city began regulating transportation network companies.

A lot has changed since then.

And I just wanted to highlight a few things here.

TNCs remain convenient and popular options for people needing for hire transportation.

Taxi cabs and for hire vehicles are affordable.

And as was pointed out in some of the comments, uh, from those testifying today, um, serve niche, uh, customer basis.

Uh, the state actually took some action in 2022 by adopting a series of, uh, TNC laws, uh, and those included, uh, minimum compensation standard, uh, for drivers and the availability of, uh, various, uh, benefits, uh, to those drivers.

Uh, we acknowledge, uh, I, I would safely say both the city and the county that taxicabs and for hire vehicles, face outmoded regulations, and that is one of the reasons why we are moving forward with this legislation, at least in proposing it.

I could go on about the various purposes of this legislation, but I wanted to highlight just a few key points here.

One is we are coordinating with King County.

We recognize that there are differences in the county and city codes with regards to regulation.

And that can frustrate drivers and those involved with the industry.

And so this, this effort is to try to align the codes.

There will still be some differences.

It's passed us as proposed, but really we want to make sure that those working in the industry are facing a common set of regulations.

We also want to promote regulatory flexibility for taxi and for hire medallion owners and drivers.

We want to align with the recently adopted state law concerning TNC so that there are no gaps between the state law and then what we have on the books here in Seattle.

I also want to point out, too, and I know this effort has taken many years to materialize, but a lot of the ideas that are reflected here include input from the industry and are really designed to modernize and streamline regulation and help look towards the future, a future that we think can be successful for the industry.

We also have equity concerns to address here.

We appreciate the demographics of those working in the industry.

We acknowledge the loss of medallion values, but we believe that there are some changes that can be made and those are included in these bills to help the industry succeed.

I wanted to take a little bit of time just to highlight our race and social justice analysis and implications.

We recognize that most medallion owners and drivers are immigrants and are refugees, speaking English as another language, and are persons of color.

We also recognize that medallion owners and drivers face extensive regulation.

And we, as I have hinted at earlier, we are proposing these changes to create equitable opportunities within the industry and to position taxis and for hire vehicles to successfully compete.

Regarding the outreach and engagement around this work, so we partnered with the city's Department of Neighborhoods and its community liaison program to engage Taxi and for hire vehicle owners and drivers over multiple occasions, primarily starting in 2021. This included a survey, multiple focus groups, project updates, visits to locations frequently visited by taxi and for hire vehicle owners and drivers.

Uh, we've spoken with representatives from taxi associations and for hire vehicle companies.

We've met with organized labor.

Uh, we've met with, uh, organization, uh, organizations interested in advancing, um.

Driver concerns.

And a lot of this work has occurred recently as we had a more developed legislative proposal to share.

And we've also spoken with representatives from TNCs this year to let them know our plans for this proposal.

Okay, so in terms of the bills, and there are three of them, I'm going to start with Council Bill 120652. This is a revision to an existing municipal code chapter 6, 3, 10. And this work has been prompted by the TNC laws that were passed in 2022 by the state.

And the idea is that the city would make chapter 6, 3, 10, the TNC chapter.

And so we would do that by removing language, specifically addressing taxi cabs and for hire vehicles.

And then the language that remains, we align with state law and that includes.

Making it consistent with state law, the maximum model age for a vehicle, which would be 15 years, a change from the current 10 years.

We would set the minimum age for a driver and vehicle endorsement holder, a TNC driver and a TNC vehicle endorsement holder, to 20 years.

We would be adjusting the maximum number of driving hours in a 24-hour period from 12 to 14 hours.

We would also update language around the state code citation for insurance requirements and the language that's now in this new TNC chapter in state code regarding the non-discrimination policy in terms of providing service to passengers.

So this is the first of the three bills is addressing an existing chapter.

This 2nd bill, 1, 2, 0, 6, 5, 3 is really the centerpiece of the legislative package and it includes creating a new.

Municipal chapter, which we are calling 6, 3, 11 to regulate taxis and for higher vehicles.

Now, it does a lot of work, but I wanted to highlight some of its key features.

One, it creates operating reciprocity for medallion owners.

And let me explain that.

So if I'm an owner of a medallion that can only work in the City of Seattle, I will now have the opportunity to obtain what we're calling a reciprocity endorsement and be able to work in King County as well.

This is not creating new medallions, but this is creating opportunity and flexibility for drivers to serve the region.

which in the past has caused problems like deadheading, dropping off in one location and not being able to legally pick up a passenger in that location and drive back to wherever it is that a driver needs to go.

And so we're removing this barrier and this would make taxi cabs and four hire vehicles on par with what TNC affiliated vehicles enjoy now.

And that is the ability to serve the region.

We are also, Transitioning the for hire vehicles.

These are the vehicles that operate on flat rates to taxicabs that occurs over a period of a few years.

But again, this is a division that in the past has kind of cost fractures within the industry.

And so we are proposing to transition all of those flat rate.

Or higher vehicles to taxicabs.

We're also creating a temporary deactivation process for medallions.

This is a process that would be initiated by a medallion owner who wanted to step away from the business for a period of time, and we're allowing up to 12 months to do that, to do whatever.

If it's travel, if it's I'm pursuing something else, they have that ability to do that and not face potential enforcement action because their medallion vehicle is not in service.

One of the big requirements that we are proposing is the adoption of new technology, and that comes in the form of smart taxi meters.

Smart taxi meters is the newest generation of taxi meters.

It gives taxicabs the ability to still meter trips, but to dynamically price those trips.

to set flat rates for certain point-to-point trips, to price trips around special events where demand might be higher.

They may be able to price those trips higher.

And so this adoption of new technology, we believe, is needed to help the industry succeed and do well into the future.

And then that goes into this next bullet here around the dynamic pricing of trips.

We, we know about things like Uber or Lyft surge pricing.

This can be similar, but this is really at the discretion of the dispatch agencies, the taxi associations and and.

And their consultation with drivers and owners on how to help.

what should inform the pricing of trips, special events, time of day, demand, other characteristics.

And then finally, we are attempting to simplify our enforcement process, including the penalties that could be imposed on drivers and companies and other licensees.

One of the big wins, we believe, in the appeals process is the appeals process, Right now, if a driver has an enforcement action taken against him, and he wants to appeal it, he needs to go through both a city appeals process and a county appeals process.

We are attempting to merge the appeals process into one unified process.

And so we believe that that will be a reduced burden if someone is facing an enforcement action and wants to appeal that action.

And then finally Council Bill 120656 is. would be accepting an updated version of the interlocal agreement that the city and the county maintain.

This is long overdue.

The interlocal agreement that we operate with right now is from 1995. And so a lot has changed, of course, since then.

And we are looking to make sure that that agreement reflects the current state of our work and better reflects the changes that have Emerged or occurred over the last few years.

I will point out to that the, this new interlocal agreement does not impose new costs on the city and it's administering this regulatory program.

A few budget considerations important to know that there are some anticipated costs for modifying the technology system that uses.

for higher regulation.

That's called a CELA.

And our estimate is about $600,000 to accommodate the changes needed in proposed, or proposed in Council Bill 120653. That's the one creating the new chapter for taxi cabs and for higher vehicles.

That request will come in our 2024 proposed budget.

I'll also point out too that FAS has sufficient staffing to undertake the work associated with implementing these ordinances.

And so we are not seeking new funds for that part of implementation.

And then finally, here on this last slide, it's really important to know that the city and the county are undertaking this work jointly.

and that the county council is considering a substantially similar legislation on what we hope to be a fairly synchronized timeline.

And really, you know, for this to work well, the city and the county need to be aligned both in this legislative phase as well as the implementation phase.

And it is our hope at both the city and the county that all of the bills are passed by December of this year and that we're ready to coordinate implementation starting next year.

So that concludes what I have prepared.

I don't know if we're going to take questions, Karina, or if you're going to provide any additional information.

Maybe not.

I am happy to turn it over to Karina, and maybe we can walk through some of the additional content from central staff and then take questions all together with FAS and central staff, if that works for the team at FAS.

OK, great.

Let's go ahead and do that.

Thank you, Matthew.

And we will turn it over to Karina.

And Matthew, remind me as we're transitioning, how many years have you been working on this?

Has it been years?

It has been years.

It started before the pandemic.

And I will admit that the pandemic caused a delay, as did the state TNC legislation in 2022 causing a delay.

But we're sticking with it.

For hire issues are always controversial, I mean, regardless of the era.

And so, I appreciated hearing the public testimony today and you know, we realized that anytime we wade into these waters, they might get a little choppy.

Yeah.

Thank you.

And thanks for all that work.

All right.

Let's change the pin on the screen and we will send it over to central staff.

Thank you so much.

And that question about timeframe wasn't to call out the length of time, but just to say how much work you all have been doing on this.

So thank you for that.

All right.

Turning it over to Karina now.

Thank you, committee members.

I have a present.

Oh, now my forward's not working.

Oh, here we go.

Okay.

So I have a presentation this morning that reviews the pre-introduction changes to one of these three bills, as Matt called it, the centerpiece of the legislative package.

It's the legislation that would establish TAXI in four higher vehicle regulations and a new chapter of the municipal code 6.311, that is council bill 120653. And the presentation in the interest of time will lightly go over the pre-introduction changes that are reflected in the introduced version and identify one issue for the committee members consideration on that timing piece of voting on the legislation and consideration of the county also having their Substantially similar legislative package.

So there are about 8 pre introduction changes reflected in the legislation and most of them relate to further supporting the economic livelihood of drivers.

And the 1st, 1 is requiring the director to consider the impact of adding new medallions, which would be done by rule on a driver's ability to earn a living wage.

This would be a required factor for consideration.

The director would need to go ahead and.

Develop a criteria and framework for determining what living wage is and how that would be measured.

but that is something that would need to be considered by the director.

This next one is just a technical amendment to clarify that dispatch agencies must remit the full fare paid by the passenger.

It's language that is used in this next pre-introduction change around capping the fees that dispatch agencies can charge to drivers for dispatch services.

The actual language in the legislation is would restrict the dispatch agencies from deducting more than 10% from fares for trips that are dispatched to drivers.

The next piece is about written policies that the dispatch agencies are required to develop.

These are internal policies that would affect owners and drivers.

This change would add two new subject matters for the policies, which would be the driver's ability to work on any contract on any contracted account and to clarify the affiliation with the dispatch agency and not mentioned on the slide, but mentioned in detail on a chart that accompanies the central staff memo are some new topics for the existing requirement to develop a deactivations policy as well.

The transmitted legislation requires the companies to develop a deactivation policy for drivers and then the pre-introduction change adds some more components to it.

A discretionary factor for the director to consider would be the impact of adjusting taxi meter rates on a driver's ability to earn a living wage.

Again, living wage would need to be a criteria Framework developed by the director in this instance, it would be a discretionary factor to consider when adjusting those taxi meter rates.

This next pre introduction change is related to the director's ability to.

Issue rules that would allow emerging.

For higher transportation models, and an example of that could be.

For higher transportation model that doesn't use an app to connect.

drivers and the taxi cab operator.

I think a lot of this is TBD and examples don't readily come to mind because who knows what the future will bring.

But what this legislation does is allow the director to issue rules to allow these new types of industries to operate.

And the director can also attach new conditions for licensing these new types of transportation models in consideration of risk to public health and safety and welfare.

This pre-introduction change would add consideration of risks to labor harmony by permitting these new types of transportation models.

And it would allow the director to consider new conditions for operating in consideration of labor harmony risk.

The next couple of changes are about the dates that are in the legislation.

This legislation was transmitted in the summer.

Right now, it's being considered by city council right now.

package is still awaiting sponsorship, so it could be a while before both jurisdictions have finally approved the legislative package.

So there are some pushing out extensions of dates to address this.

This first set of changes would change the effective dates for certain milestone requirements a full year from the end of March in 2025 to the end of March in 2026. This would allow more time for company and drivers to change their systems And procedures in the memo, there's a full list of what these exact dates are example.

It's the date for transitioning to taxi cab.

Drivers that for higher vehicle drivers, transitioning to taxi cab drivers, the dates that there would be single medallions, the dates that there would be a transition to regional dispatch agency.

And the last pre-introduction change is extending by about nine months some of the provisions to reflect the time that the city needs to develop the software Estella that Matt mentioned earlier to make sure that is up and running by the time certain requirements go into place.

That's all for the pre-introduction changes.

Now for a brief mention of an issue regarding coordination with the County Council's process.

Um, as mentioned before, the city and the county have developed substantially similar packages for updating these for higher transportation regulations.

Both jurisdictions must have regulations that are nearly identical on point, because both jurisdictions plan to continue jointly administering these regulations.

So, if 1 jurisdiction amends the proposed regulations, the other should consider approving the same or similar amendments.

The county's package is awaiting sponsorship.

The review timeline at the county is still to be determined.

It could be October and November.

So with this in mind, the city council has a couple of options.

If the city approves a legislative package before the county council, then the city council would need to introduce new legislation to incorporate or to consider any of those county amendments.

And so it would need to go through introduction of referral, All of that, so that would extend the timeline for a substantially similar package.

The city council could wait until after the county council's deliberations to vote on the package, allowing time to consider any necessary amendments before a final vote, whether that would be at full council or if necessary at a committee meeting.

If it is extended until after county council's deliberations, That could happen as early as December 5, there would need to be time between the budget and the next full council meeting or then whatever other council meeting it would be for central staff to develop any necessary or.

Considered amendments, so for next steps, if there are there is any interest in amendments, please contact me by noon tomorrow.

We're in a tight timeline because the next committee meeting is next week.

And then next week on the 20th, the committee will continue discussion and consider any amendments.

So that is it for this part of my presentation.

Okay, great.

Well, thank you all.

Thanks to FAS and to central staff for that presentation.

I just want to flag my interest in a timeline that aligns with the following.

A briefing and discussion today, briefing discussion and possible vote next Wednesday, and then with the ability to potentially hold a vote until we see the full King County package pass to ensure alignment, that way we don't have to go through the process again.

And we know that there's a lot of synergy already, but that will allow for us to be teed up and ready for final passage when the county passes as well.

So that's the tentative timeline right now, and appreciate having those detailed discussions prior to budget.

I am going to open it up for questions if there's any questions from my colleagues about the proposal in front of us.

And again, one more thanks to FAS and the mayor's office.

Brianna Thomas just popped her head in here earlier.

And I want to thank the mayor's office for their deliberative work with our office over the last few weeks on the amendments.

I want to thank central staff for flagging the timeline concerns.

that FAS had about implementation to make sure that there was significant room for implementation of the policy.

So we all feel really comfortable with giving the department the time for rule development and implementation.

With that, I will turn it over to Council Member Peterson.

Please go ahead.

Thank you, Chair Mosqueda, and thanks for central staff for your analysis.

And of course, FAS for your hard work on this legislation.

As Transportation Chair, I wanted to provide input on something that's not at the forefront of the legislation, but regarding Council Bill 120653, it's the reference to autonomous vehicles or future autonomous vehicles.

And so of that, from that Council Bill 120653, there's a section 6.311.470, subsection C, and that addresses future rulemaking for the executive to work out some details after a law passes, and it states, unless granted such authority by the director by rule, an autonomous vehicle providing for higher transportation services is prohibited from autonomous operation.

So this provision to prohibit autonomous operation until there is explicit prior approval is a good start, and I'd like to explore making it a little bit stronger for protecting safety, and it's also a labor issue as well.

The autonomous vehicle technology being developed by various corporations, experimenting and testing it at various levels on public streets in different cities, is not ready to deploy autonomous vehicles safely at scale, especially here in Seattle.

There have been numerous instances around the country where autonomous vehicles stall in the middle of the street or collide with pedestrians or emergency vehicles.

So, in addition to these safety concerns, having government proactively allow autonomous taxis and for our vehicles would.

Take away the jobs and livelihoods of the people currently operating those vehicles.

Now, in the case of the legislation before us today, the term director is referring to the director of the city's financial administrative services department.

And to address the safety concerns, I'll just want to signal, like, to explore an amendment to make sure there's specific coordination and alignment with.

Seattle Department of transportation as well as emergency responders, which has made safety a priority throughout its department.

It's done a lot of thoughtful work on.

Certifications liability, insurance, indemnification, advanced notice to city departments, outreach to impacted residents and businesses and post collision reporting and transparency for emerging technology like this.

So just wanted to signal and I'll work with central staff on that.

Thank you.

Sure.

Thank you.

Thanks for raising that concern and I look forward to working with you on that as well.

I just want to turn over to FAS to see if you have any additional conversation to add to this about why autonomous vehicles are part of this legislation.

And I know part of the framework for the suite of legislation in front of us was trying to prepare for changes in technology in the future.

Obviously, this is one of them.

So I'll look forward to turning it over to you and hear more about what your thoughts are on this concept.

Thank you, Councilmember Mosqueda, and thank you, Councilmember Peterson, for raising this issue and flagging this.

We just want to be very clear that from FAS's perspective, we are not in any way leading the autonomous vehicle conversation in the City of Seattle, that that is definitely outside the scope of what we do.

This particular section of the code is anticipating if autonomous vehicles are allowed to operate on the City of Seattle streets, And if they are allowed to be a for hire industry, a for hire transportation company, like taxis and Uber and Lyft, that we have the ability to regulate them in parity with those other industries.

So that was our thought and anticipation on this is that there are a lot of hoops to jump through outside of FAS before they're allowed to operate.

But once they are allowed to operate, if they are allowed to operate, that they are regulated just like we do with taxis and the TNCs.

So thank you.

Great, thanks.

And I see Council Member Nelson's hand.

Please go ahead.

Thank you very much.

So back in the dark ages, I remember when this was a very hugely, it was like this and off-leash dog areas was one of the things that took up a lot of council time.

So I am just now getting my mind around this particular topic.

And so I apologize for some of my questions about timing and some of the intricacies about the two jurisdictions that have to sort of be in alignment.

First question is, the central staff memo includes an attachment A which identifies a host of pre-introduction changes that have been made to the legislation that the mayor's office sent down.

Who in the executive branch have you spoken with about these changes with and what did they have to say?

So I guess what I'm, so we heard, you know, FAS make comment today, so I'm assuming that, and you just referenced Brianna, but because these are pre-introductory changes, I just want to know how much coordination went on with the executive on these.

Sure.

Thanks.

I can comment on that and then maybe see if central staff has any additional comments in addition to FAS.

As you see on the agenda, there was one version of a pre-introduction piece of legislation and then there was a second one added.

So on the second one that was added, those are reflective of changes that we have been in conversation with the mayor's office and FAS on to try to incorporate additional feedback from them.

Again, appreciate the mayor's office, Brianna Thomas from the mayor's office, but also FAS directly for their participation in finding that sweet spot with central staff and community stakeholders as well.

So is there anybody who would like to comment on any feedback that they provided on the second iteration of amendments that were made to the legislation that I added to the agenda yesterday to reflect some of the changes that we have been in discussion about over the last week?

I see 2 people off mute.

Yeah, I can feel the space.

I mean, I feel like this is a question that's maybe directed to first being on the executive side.

Well, sure.

So, so we have been obviously an extensive conversations with the mayor's office with with other.

Uh, entities with King County with central staff with council member staff directly.

in terms of these amendments and these have been vetted and worked out amongst a variety of groups.

So does that answer your question?

And I just got a message from the mayor's office as well.

Brianne Thomas noting their role as well in kind of continuing to review things.

So, you know, again, I think this is a sweet spot on the amendments and the concepts and really appreciate the feedback from it.

Well, it does.

Can I?

Do you have more questions?

She asked, I think, does that answer my question?

And kind of no, that pause between Karina and you talking made me wonder whether or not, I just want to know if there's complete agreement.

I don't want to have to parse out to sort of read between the lines.

So we don't have to discuss this here, but I am just confused.

I want to make sure that council and FAS and we're all, there's one position here.

Yes, I will take that.

The legislation that was introduced yesterday afternoon is in alignment between FAS and City Council.

Okay.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And thanks for asking for clarification.

And again, thanks to FAS for all of the hard work and Karina for shepherding the various ideas and helping to craft some final language here for us.

Council Member Herbold, please go ahead.

Thank you so much.

I just want to say that hearing some public comment and then going over some of the changes that this bill creates, I just feel like there's a real disconnect.

We heard a lot of people talking about concern about over-regulating or complex regulations.

And it seems to me that the legislation removes bureaucracy so that people don't have to deal with both the city and the county for every medallion to deal with any penalty, the licensing, all of that.

It seems like combining that.

significantly reduces regulation.

We're also streamlined appeals processes for enforcement so that a driver can more easily complete their hearing process and return to work.

The pre-introductory changes as well.

But again, since we're hearing the narrative from some drivers that there's a concern about we're overregulating.

I'm wondering, is there, and the material, there's like 100 pages worth of material, so I apologize for not getting through them.

But is there like somewhere where we identify like a one pager, all of the regulatory processes that this bill would simplify, just like in one place?

We'd have to create something, but that's doable.

And I think, too, this is one of the city's most complex regulatory programs.

And I will point out, too, at least as I was hearing the comments from those providing public testimony, the relationship between a dispatch agency and a driver is one that the city has traditionally not inserted itself And so I think when folks talk about new policies or fees that a dispatch agency, a taxi association, or a 400 vehicle company may impose on the group of drivers that are affiliated with them, that is a different question and maybe not one that we are going to address in our business regulations at the city.

But I will also say, council member, that part of your process with this is if this legislation is enacted, we have all the intent of going out and talking with the dispatch organizations, the drivers, the operators, owners, just to help familiarize them with the changes that we are making so that they understand what it is, how this does impact them.

I'm just suggesting it'd be good to do it on the front end as part of our process so that we can kind of bring down the temperature a little bit.

That would be really helpful.

Thanks.

Great, thank you.

Love one-pagers, so thank you for considering that and your work.

If possible, to have that before next Wednesday, that'd be fantastic.

Another hand?

Yes, Council Member Nelson.

About timing, it seems like if we're adding a new section to regulate a new area of regulation, this is brand new?

Anyway, that's not what I was going to ask about.

It's more about timing and what the county is doing.

And I'm just gonna read from the central staff memo because you stated a preference and I wanna make sure I understand that your preference is what I think it is.

It says that the county's legislative package is awaiting sponsorship and may not be reviewed until October, November.

To synchronize the legislative packages, it's likely that council will need to consider amendments to the city's proposed legislative package.

I guess what we're talking about right here.

after the county has adopted, the county council has adopted its review this fall.

And if the council approves the city's legislative package before the county completes their deliberation, the council would need to introduce new legislation to incorporate any county amendments rather than amending the current package.

On page 10 of the slide presentation, option two, I believe was, Was that your preference, Chair Muscata, that we act later rather than sooner?

Thank you for the clarification.

Yes.

So the process that I'm outlining here that I'd love to stick with is the briefing today, briefing consideration and possible vote out of committee next week.

That's our last time to vote before we get into budget.

And then we hold the bill.

until after budget.

That gives us until, as Council Central staff noted, December 5th as the earliest date that we would consider the legislation in full council.

That gives the sort of blueprint to the county of what the city is also thinking.

They have the same legislation in front of them.

If there's any changes that the county then makes before December 5th, it still gives us the chance to harmonize any changes at the council before we do a final vote in full council and then thus relieves us of having to introduce legislation to amend legislation that we just passed.

So the goal is just to get it out of committee and then we're ready for a final passage in December.

And so are we, okay, so there would be one council meeting, a full council meeting to make any changes to what we pass at a committee.

And so are we kind of sure that they're basically in line so they won't be super different?

I think the term that the central staff and FAS has used is substantially similar because there's different regulations currently at the county and the city.

So we're trying to harmonize those and end up with the same outcome.

And so I would turn it over to FAS or central staff to comment on that.

But that is the plan is to have Substantially similar legislation passed through both chambers of government so that we can have the same outcome across the county and the city.

Anything to add to that, Matthew?

Right, so the county and city bills are not carbon copies of one another.

There will be jurisdiction kind of specific language.

The key is having, you know, the substance around the regulatory language the same so that we can as efficiently as possible administer this regulatory program.

And then Council Member Nelson, I'll remain flexible as well.

If we are hearing any additional feedback between now and when the full council passes, I keep looking at past you at the county chambers there.

So if our county colleagues make any substantial changes in their deliberations, we will still have the flexibility to act before final passage.

That's my intended timeline.

And one of the commenters said something about deadheading to the airport.

So that made me think of the port.

They don't they're not involved at all are they.

I mean does.

I'm looking to our team here.

Any comments about port regulations.

We have involved port staff in our our discussions.

The Port of Seattle relies on the regulatory work that the city and the county do for its contracts with owner operators, and so they'll continue to do that in a separate process, but we are happy to support their work to provide taxi and four-hire vehicle options at SeaTac.

There is, I will point out, in the county ordinance, because the port is within the county's jurisdiction for this area, a minimum rate for short trips that originate at And that has been an issue that has been high on a lot of folks list to tackle for a long time.

But that is a feature of the county's ordinance.

Okay, well, we will stay in touch with folks who are continuing to work with the county partners.

And again, if you do have any suggested language, again, Council Member Peterson, happy to work with you on the suggested questions and comments around autonomous vehicles.

If you have any ideas, please do share those with central staff.

Friday at noon, is that what we said, Karina?

Yeah, Friday at noon.

All right.

And with that, again, thank you to the various stakeholders who've been part of this process over the last few years, finance and administrative services for your leadership on this, and the mayor's office and central staff for your continued participation in helping to finalize the language here.

And thanks to Aaron House for helping to track this as we get this over the finish line.

All right.

Thank you, everybody.

We're going to go ahead and see you at next week's meeting if we have any additional comments.

And we will take this up on September 20th.

Let's move on to the last item on our agenda for briefing and discussion.

Madam Clerk, could you please read item number five into the record?

Agenda item number five, staggered elections for briefing and discussion.

Excellent, and thank you for that.

We welcome to the table here with us Lish Whitson from central staff.

Colleagues, this is just a briefing today.

There is no official legislation that's been introduced to the introduction and referral calendar.

We are still awaiting the final transfer of that.

We did, as I noted on Monday's council briefing, have the chance to work with law and all of the team from central staff in drafting the legislation throughout the summer, late spring and received initial feedback from law in early August that went back to law.

They wanted to take one more look at the legislation and then it was transmitted back to the city chambers on September 5th.

So that is why we are awaiting the final transmission to our committee so that we can officially hear it in the committee.

Until then, we have a briefing on the legislation and look forward to having that for a full discussion and participation in our upcoming council meeting next week.

We've been working on this legislation, as I noted, with members of the community, including folks who were the original authors of Honest Elections Initiative.

In 2015, you might remember that that legislation passed, and I want to thank members of the coalition for engaging with us.

As we looked at ways to continue to accomplish what the voters' intent was, which is to create opportunity for greater representation across the city, and as we look to any piece of public policy, there's always an opportunity for us to think about how we would enhance or tweak or modify the legislation to ensure greater effectiveness.

For me, one of the things that came up at the beginning of this year was the opportunity to create greater stability and reduce large turnover on council by trying to stagger elections in a more even way between the seats that the council represents and ensure that we did have greater institutional knowledge that potentially could carry over throughout the council as we look to serve the residents of the city.

This resolution would place a measure in front of the city voters to vote on for next November and change the council seats to ensure that there's staggered elections, authorize the city to consider the ability for us to have Seats 2, 4, 6, 8 in one year and seats 1, 3, 5, 7, and 9 in another year.

I've mentioned to members of the press at the beginning of the year that I think that this would be a really positive way for us to ensure greater stability and continuity as we look to serve members of the community and help reduce large numbers of seats turning over all at once.

This legislation has had extensive review by law and I want to thank again Liz Schwitzen for whom has been involved in this conversation over the last two quarters at least as we've been working on trying to craft this.

I've also mentioned this legislation to many of our committee members.

This is a resolution that would authorize a vote for the electorate next November 2024. Again, no immediate changes.

Recognizing that there are seven council seats up for election right now.

I also want to state for the record as well that I am not wedded to the transition period for certain seats, especially for seat number nine.

Look forward to working with our colleagues to see if there's any amendments to this legislation as we look to create a blueprint or a timeframe that allows for the staggered elections to be fully in effect.

I want to make sure that we're getting those interim terms correct as well.

That works for all council members.

Thanks to the stakeholders that have been part of this process and reviewing various iterations of the legislation.

I especially want to thank the coalition who was the impetus to the Honest Elections Initiative in 2025. Esteban Munoz Howard, as a member of that coalition, wrote the following for the committee's consideration.

I encourage the city of Seattle to allow voters to choose whether to stagger districted city council elections in accordance with the legislation introduced by Councilmember Mosqueda.

Such reform would benefit the residents of Seattle in a variety of ways.

City council terms would be more consistent, and workflow would be less impacted by the possibility of dramatic turnover in leadership.

Currently, council terms create the potential that certain elections would result in seven of nine council members cycling out at the same time.

such a scenario could make it difficult to maintain any sort of consistency in the trajectory of our city.

Multi-year projects would be more likely to stall midway through implementation.

Critical programs would be more likely to go unfunded and council leadership would be more susceptible to short-term waves and public reactions to stories in the press.

What we need is a city council that is stable, forward-thinking, and proactive.

This dynamic is far easier to maintain in an environment in which we can prevent the possibility of losing the large majority of our council every four years.

In addition to staggering the terms, this would help increase voter attention and investments in every cycle.

Each municipal election would include at least one citywide race, bringing greater attention to the issues overall.

Staggering our district council races is a good thing for our democracy, and I hope you will consider this legislation for your constituents to allow the people to decide.

I will send that letter from Esteban Munoz Howard around to our colleagues as well.

Again, he was one of the core authors and contributors to the Honest Elections Initiative that passed with the vote of the people in 2015. And if my team is listening, feel free to send that letter around to colleagues as we head into the discussion of this legislation.

Apologies, I didn't get a chance to send that around earlier.

Okay I'm going to turn it on over to central staff to walk us through the presentation here today.

Thank you Lish for being here.

Thank you.

Thank you.

This will be very short.

It's a short resolution and I think you've covered most of the items but just to pull up the last attachment to my memo.

Here, can you see that?

So the.

Resolution would place items on the.

Ballot for in November 2024 for the members of the public to decide whether or not to amend the city charter.

In order to change how council terms are elected.

As you are all aware, council members have 4 year terms.

The 7 district council members are all elected in the same year.

We're currently in the middle of the 2023 election.

For those 7 term 7 positions, and then the 2 citywide council seats are elected 2 years later.

If the charter amendment were to be approved, there would be an interim condition where four of those council seats would have two year terms, which would allow for a shift to have all odd year seats up for election in one year.

And I'll even your seats up for election 2 years later.

That would.

Be in effect by 2029. By the election in 2029, the.

Resolution also includes a provision that would allow a future council to shift.

These terms.

to allow for even-year elections if the state changes state law to allow cities to have even-year elections.

And as Councilmember Mosqueda mentioned, it would go on the ballot if approved by the Council in November of 2024. I'm happy to answer any questions.

Excellent.

Councilmember Peterson, you're first up in the queue.

Please go ahead.

Thank you, chairman, just digesting this.

Proposed resolution, and I just want to.

Double check on in terms of the stakeholdering that was done.

I know that.

The folks who put together the districts.

Going from citywide to the district positions.

That was not Honest Elections.

I think Honest Elections was the democracy vouchers and other lobbying prohibitions post-employment.

So have the people who did the district elections, have they been, has there been time yet to ask them why it was set up the original way?

What was it?

Charter Amendment 19, I think.

That would be important for me to hear why, because I thought there was a reason why they had.

Both city wide positions happening at the same time.

The mayor was running, um, there was a desire to sort of.

emphasize districts and district representation, and then for people who wanted to go citywide, just having them make that choice.

Are they gonna stick with the city council or are they gonna go for the mayor's position?

I think what I'm concerned about is this would then set up conflicts between the citywide positions.

So somebody who might be a citywide council member having to then Um, I leave office for to run for mayor or something.

I just seems I know there are reasons for it.

So that would be good to know.

Also, I didn't know if there was a reason to pick the sort of odd versus even.

Numbered seats, why not just do the 2468 instead of the 1, 3. 579 so, um.

Yeah, I guess that's the question, is have the district elections founder, authors, have they been consulted?

Honest Elections was Democracy Vouchers, and then why not, you know, is there flexibility in sort of switching it?

Does it matter which handful were to switch to a different year?

Those are my initial thoughts reading the reso, thank you.

Well, let me try to address one of the questions that you asked.

In terms of why 2468, it just seemed like it would be easy for voters to remember this is the year that even seats are up, this is the year that odd seats are up, and to align the even numbers with the mayor's office made it so that there is an even number of seats up at the same time, at least within City Hall.

I admit that the folks who are still part of the Honest Elections Coalition are still active.

The name of the coalition is People Powered Elections Washington, and they're actively working on various democratic reform to increase civic participation and engagement opportunities.

So it's the coalition that I know is still active out there and reached out to them.

early on this, and I'm not sure if the other coalition is still active, but happy to continue to engage with them again.

This is an opportunity for us to try to align the goal of having more continuity on council.

So whether you did, you know, the first four seats and then the other five seats doesn't really, I don't really have a preference on that.

It's just to really try to divide the number of seats relatively evenly.

Liz, it looked like you might have had a comment related to one of those questions as well, so I'll turn it over to you.

Yeah.

Council Member Peterson, I think, captured the intent for the current system fairly well in terms of what was argued in 2013 by districts now when they were proposing the charter amendment that set up our current system.

The idea was that the 7 district seats, because they are.

Serve each individual races would occur at 1 time.

Each serve district would be focused on their local district race and then.

The 2 city wide seats, which.

Would have city wide would have had a.

Show of city wide support would need to sort of step down if they wanted to run against the mayor or run for the mayoral seat.

doesn't make a ton of sense to me.

I don't see a huge difference in how we're each serving, whether it's citywide or district, and whether someone's interested in potentially running for mayor.

That sort of logic doesn't really carry forward to, I think, how the district and citywide seats have played out.

Again, if you are looking at the chart that Lish provided as an addendum here, and, you know, I say this to my district friends and citywide friends, you could easily move those lines.

You could have position eight be four years, then two years, then four years, and you could shift all the lines up and change the order in which each of those seats were experiencing the interim shorter year term.

There is also the possibility that one could combine those two columns and get us to the same timeframe in 2030, after 2031. But I will note that King County, for example, just changed the terms of their service due to the fact that they're moving to even-year elections.

Instead of creating a five-year term, for example, they went to three years, and then they're going to go back to their four-year terms again.

So we went with the shorter time frame for the transition, but one could combine those two.

those two categories and have a longer term, for example, if that if the goal is greater stability, I'd be open to that conversation as well.

I'm going to go to Council Member Herbold.

I think that might be an old hand.

Okay, Council Member Herbold, please go ahead.

Thanks.

Just a question.

Is there a way to structure this so that the two at-large council members continue to run the same year as the mayor?

Can we still accomplish the goal of the chair while maintaining positions eight and nine, having their elections the same year as the mayor's?

Yeah, you could, for example, There are lots of ways to do that, but 1 way would be to pick 2 of the district seats to run in the same year.

That the city wide positions are being elected that would have 4 council members up for election 1 year and 5 the other.

Thanks.

I'd be interested in exploring that.

That sounds great too.

I think we went with the easy bifurcation of even-odd, but it does seem like I've gotten a few questions about those two citywide seats today.

And I know there was another question earlier as we transmitted the legislation.

So happy, happy to consider that as a possible amendment as well.

Additional hand?

Yeah.

Please go ahead.

So you're calling for a ballot measure for a charter amendment that would change the structure of district elections, which was a citizens initiative in 2013. I just want to be clear on that, because we've mentioned district elections and honest elections.

And just for the public, those were two separate campaigns.

And in briefings on Monday, you indicated that the switch to district-wide elections was related to the Honest Elections Group in 2015, but that's not correct.

Honest Elections pushed to implement democracy vouchers.

So I'm gathering that maybe you have not spoken with anybody from the Seattle districts now, which put the district elections before us.

Correct me if I'm wrong.

But we have received an email from Eugene Wasserman who wanted me to read it into the record.

He says, I'm writing to you as the former chair of the Seattle Districts Now campaign, the people who wrote the charter amendment you seek to change.

We wrote the charter amendment and ran the campaign which passed with 66% of the vote.

The current system of the Seattle City Council members has been very successful.

A diverse group of city council members was elected.

The current system has been controversy free.

When the redistricting committee held public meetings, there was no call to change when the council members were to be elected.

I do not remember you raising this as an issue when it would have been more appropriate." And then he says something about, you know, to do this without a public hearing is not correct, and then the last sentence is, I would ask that you remove your charter amendment from consideration. So that's somebody who put the Citizens Initiative on the ballot in 2013. That's what he has to say. For my part, I have a couple of different concerns. And the first one is, I don't think that we should be messing with our election system, especially not one set up by Citizens Initiative, without a really good reason for doing so. And I'm not seeing evidence of a problem that this is trying to fix. I haven't received any emails about this, for example. And if we're worried about the disruption of having seven seats up at once, And the turnover that might cause, why would we deliberately set things up so that eight seats are on the ballot in 2027 because it would be all seven district elections and one citywide, which is right now position nine. So and this will also be piling on to the changes that will, I believe, be implemented in 2027 when we implement ranked choice voting. And so that will be a big change and potentially confusing to voters as well. And also we had democracy vouchers. So we're making a lot of changes to our election system. I'm not weighing in on the pros or cons of any of them, but this would be another big change. And to the point that Councilmember Peterson was bringing up, I have this to say. Seattle districts now had a very well-researched reason for keeping all citywide races, mayor, city attorney, and the two at-large city councilmember seats. on a separate ballot and all together. And one of these was to force a choice upon at-large council members who may want to run for mayor. And I know this because I ended up having a conversation with Eugene. Basically, he said that they can run for mayor or they can run for re-election. But if they mount a failed campaign for mayor, it's not a good idea to have them remain on council because that could potentially contribute to a toxic relationship with the executive branch. And everybody knows that that's dysfunctional and that's something that I think that Mayor Harrell is really trying to address with One Seattle. And so that's a main reason why they wanted to have the city-wides and the district seats separate. that in addition to the fact that citywide candidates are dealing with issues that affect the whole city. And so those issues that come up during the candidate forums, et cetera, can be really fleshed out at that level. I see the logic of staggering the seven district races because back in the day when every council member was elected citywide, they were split up every other off year with five up one year and then four the next. But to do this in one meeting as we're discussing it now and then potentially voting it out next time without conferring with the Seattle districts now folks and doing extensive extensive public Outreach and solicitation of their opinions of what the problems are right now I think is doing a disservice to the intent of that citizens initiative. And then finally, this is a trigger law allowing council to change elections to even years and it won't happen unless the state legislature approves that someday. And we all know that trigger laws can in generally be problematic and so that is something that I want to put on the table, but specifically to allowing local government races to move to even years, I have really strong opinions about this. Because it's really true that although local government is perhaps not, it's not that sexy, it's the decisions that are made by local government elected officials that really impact people's lives every single day, public safety to potholes and everything else. And moving those races to even years when they are competing on the ballot and for public attention and media airwaves when they're competing against races for state and federal positions would really drown out those really important policy positions, especially in presidential election years. So I think that that's a conversation that needs to be, that cannot proceed sort of cavalierly with just included in a ballot measure is this resolution, a ballot title that this resolution includes. I have great concerns about this resolution and I will be looking forward to hearing more input from stakeholders and from my colleagues perhaps in the weeks to come.

Okay, I guess we will continue the conversation next Wednesday.

I would point to a number of articles throughout the spring and early part of the year.

The headlines, including from the Seattle Times, Seattle City Council turnover raises troubling questions from February.

a number of other articles that note the high turnover rates and the implications for public policy.

I would note that Mr. Wasserman's email starts with, I am writing as a citizen, not representing anyone.

If the coalition is still in existence, I'm happy to continue the discussion with a broad set of stakeholders about the opportunities for enhancing the legislation.

Again, the coalition that I went to for feedback is the one that's continuing to operate and has additional ongoing meetings, talking about civic engagement, preparing for upcoming strategies to continue to drive towards greater civic engagement.

If there is additional feedback that folks would like to offer, I would say, pre the September 20th meeting, please do get those suggested amendments to Council Central staff and LISH.

I'll use the same deadline as Karina had, by noon on Friday, if that works.

I'm happy to continue to have the conversation about ways to stabilize the council.

It is not like when public policy passes, you never go back and update it.

That is the point of public policy, implementation, analysis, review, and enhancements.

That is what public policymaking is, and initiatives are no different.

There has been ample time for us to see the benefits of having districts.

I agree with the comments that there has been a large amount of people who have been able to participate in our democracy, both as serving as council members and the voting public, knowing who their district council member is.

Absolutely a benefit.

And having greater stability and less turnover is a good thing for democracy.

What the council decides to do in terms of when this gets in front of voters for possible consideration.

Again, it would be next November 2024. And this was the earliest possible time that we could get it even on our agenda.

And it's still being reviewed by the council president.

So there is additional time for feedback and ideas on how to enhance this, but there's nothing nefarious about trying to create greater stability for our local democracies.

There's nothing undermining about trying to ensure that the people who are serving our city have the ability to have continuity and institutional memory.

If anything, it allows for the temperature to be taken down on how local elections impact decision making and public policy.

And my hope is that this initiates a conversation that will potentially continue on council and allow for greater stability.

It is not impugning the original authors of the 2013 initiative.

Thank you for the clarification on that.

It is, in fact, trying to enhance and further the goals of creating greater representation.

So, with that being the underlying point of this legislation to allow for voters to decide if they want to divide up the council district seats, I am very excited that we initiated this conversation today.

Let my colleagues know I'm supportive of allowing for the two at-large seats to continue to maintain on the same cycle.

It sounds like there's general interest in that and I'll look forward, Lish, to working with you on a potential amendment to accomplish that.

It sounds like it's relatively easy to draft up.

And again, this would be the beginning of a conversation that folks would be able to have with voters throughout the course of next year prior to the election for people's consideration.

I want to thank the coalition who provided feedback on the various iterations of the drafts and that we have been working on with law and I want to thank you for the conversation today because hopefully it will initiate a conversation that will continue about how we create greater stability and opportunity for us to have a strong focus on delivering public policies that are not interrupted by turnover in our local government seats.

With that, all right, our next meeting is going to be on September 20th at 930 in the morning.

We will have public comment that starts the initial discussion and we look forward to coming back and having a vote on the three pieces of legislation related to the transportation network companies.

If you have amendments, please let central staff know.

by Friday of this week at noon.

If you have additional thoughts about the legislation that we just described, which would be a resolution to voters of Seattle regarding staggered elections, please also let them know.

I want to clarify as well, this is not a trigger law.

It does not immediately default to even your elections.

It simply says that if the state legislature were to allow that, it allows for the council to consider whether or not they want to do that.

That is not a trigger.

It gives them authority to consider whether or not they want to do that.

And on next week's agenda, we will also have the ability to consider legislation from the Office of Housing.

I believe there's two pieces of legislation up for that discussion.

Thank you very much, colleagues.

We will see you at 930 next Wednesday.

Have a good rest of your afternoon.

Bye bye.

Thank you.