Seattle City Council 382022

Thank you, son.

Good afternoon, everybody.

Today is Tuesday, March 8th.

Welcome to Seattle City Council and our council meeting.

The time is 2.01 and I'm Deborah Juarez.

Will the clerk please call the roll.

Here.

Mosqueda.

Mosqueda.

Nelson.

Present.

Peterson.

Present.

Sawant.

Strauss.

Present.

Herbold.

Here.

Lewis.

Present.

Mosqueda.

Present.

And Council President Juarez.

Here.

Eight present.

Thank you, Madam Clerk.

Moving on to presentations.

Today, we have a proclamation.

We discussed some of it yesterday morning, and this will be offered by Council Member Morales to do the honoring and recognizing Ms. Phyllis Little M. Penmay-Nandez.

I think I said that correctly.

Council Member Morales, will you please walk us through this proclamation before I suspend the rules?

Do you want me to just move it?

Sure.

You don't have to.

You can just speak to the proclamation and then I will set the rules to allow her to speak.

Okay.

Well, thank you very much.

Colleagues, we did talk about this a little bit yesterday.

I just want to say that I'm really honored to be bringing this proclamation on behalf of the neighbors and their families who really benefited from the health care services that Phyllis demanded, particularly for Latino, Black, and Indigenous neighbors who were trying to cope with HIV and AIDS.

The People of Color Against AIDS Network, which is now called POCAN, is based right on Rainier Avenue South in District 2. And thanks to Phyllis, it expanded over time to serve communities from Bremerton to Spokane.

She really advocated in particular for the trans community, hiring a trans woman, Mrs. Vanessa Granberry, and helping form Tea Time, which is a black trans program that distributed one of the first newsletters focused on the black trans community in the country.

So I'm really pleased that we're able to offer this today, particularly on International Women's Day.

And I do want to thank Ms. Ashford, who's here today, express my condolences to you and your family for the loss of such a huge leader in our community and your family member.

And I want to thank you for allowing us to celebrate the life of your grandmother today.

Thank you, Council Member Morales.

Are there any other comments or Questions or anything anyone would like to raise before I move to suspend the rules?

Okay, not seeing none.

If there's no objection, the council rules will be suspended to allow our guest, Ms. Naomi Ashford, to accept the proclamation that Council Member Morales has brought.

And Ms. Ashford, please.

Yes, thank you.

Hello, everyone.

My name is Naomi.

I am one of Phyllis's granddaughters, and I will be reading the resolution today on behalf of the family.

Okay, so good afternoon, Seattle City Council and friends and family of Phyllis Marie Littles.

Phyllis was born July 6, 1950 in Chickasha, Oklahoma.

She came from a very humble beginnings, but later grew into a very ambitious young lady.

Our family is African American members of the Chicktaw Nation Indian Territory, which later Phyllis relocated to Washington with her mother and siblings around 1967. Years to come, Phyllis naturally became famous with Seattle Central District community by applying herself with jobs that combated with social justice awareness.

She later went on to become a great leader by being a pillar in her community and being highly involved in city and state-based programs.

She oversaw many successful programs in her career.

My grandmother was and still is a principal in lieu of today, March 8th being International Women's Day.

Phyllis had righteous and strong indignation to not hold back on what was right for the people.

She was sympathetic to individuals' conditions within healthcare and was the average patient advocate, typically wearing many different hats under her leadership.

Essentially, her name was echoed throughout the community she sought after.

In doing God's work, I can say with confidence that our family is deeply saddened and affected by the loss of beloved Phyllis.

She was well known in the Seattle community and highly praised for her tremendous amount of work and compassion she had for it.

Awarding her legacy and memorization, a street will be named after Phyllis in the near future.

Our family is honored to witness the new continuum of her legacy, which is well deserved.

I want to give everyone a special thank you for all the prayers and positive energy being sent to us.

It's greatly appreciated.

And I would like to open up this space for any family that has any comments and remembrance of Phyllis.

And if not, I would like to return it back to the council.

You're good at this, Naomi.

You have an old hand at this.

Well, I would like to just, before we close out, I'm going to allow Council Member Morales to say anything before I have some final words.

Council Member Morales?

I just want to thank Naomi again for being here and wish you and your family well.

Thank you.

I just saw Council Member Herbal's hand go up.

Council Member Herbal?

Thank you so much, and I'm sorry I can't be on camera right now.

I just want to reference some addition to comments that Council President Juarez made yesterday about the leadership shown as it relates to responding to the AIDS crisis.

In listening to Madam President's reflections about being sort of an old-timer and remembering some of those old efforts, I also remembered Not quite so far back, but still pretty far back.

In 2007, the council funded a program called Clean Dreams.

And Clean Dreams became sort of the precursor program to the internationally recognized LEAD program.

And POCAN was an earlier, an early fiscal sponsor for the Clean Dreams program, working for safer communities in a way that recognized the great needs of folks who might be engaged in activities that have impacts to neighborhoods, but that have unmet needs by by our institutions and really helped trailblaze.

And that was really due to the leadership of Pocan and Phyllis.

So just wanted to highlight that as well.

Really important work for our city and for other jurisdictions as well.

Thank you, Council Member Herboldt.

Ms. Ashford, what Council Member Herboldt was referring to is yesterday morning, I don't know if you were watching, But some of us that were around our adults in 1990, 1991, remember your grandmother because of the HIV AIDS and what was happening nationally and certainly regionally.

And your grandmother, in honor of her day that Council Member Morales brought this forward, was really at the vanguard for the BIPOC community.

No one else was doing this.

And so you probably weren't born then.

So those of us remember your mom, it took me a minute and I was looking at your grandmother's name.

And I went, oh, yeah, I remember Phyllis now.

I was at Evergreen Legal Services.

I remember she wanted me to be on the board.

And I think I was on the board for a couple of months, but that's another story what happened.

Well, I had a kid, but that's another story.

But my point is I would hope that we would have more honorings like this because there are so many unsung heroes like your grandmother in the city that have done great things that we don't always get to hear a lot of.

So I want to thank you and your family.

Thank Council Member Morales for bringing this forward.

And I should say some of the efforts from your grandmother, we out of our office on March 15th, we'll be doing our HIV AIDS Native American awareness.

Day as well, which has now become a national event in Indian country.

And again, you know, somebody had to start that fire across this country to recognize that people of color and those communities were suffering from this deadly disease as well.

So thank you so much.

So thank you for being here and our opportunity to honor your grandmother, Phyllis Little.

Thank you.

It's been a pleasure.

Great.

Thank you.

So if you want to If you want to stay and share the meeting, you're more than welcome.

Thank you.

All right.

Let's move on on our calendar, folks.

Let's move on to approval of the consent calendar.

So are there any items council members would like to remove from today's consent calendar before I move forward?

Hearing none, I move to adopt the consent calendar.

Is there a second?

Second.

Thank you, Council Member Mosqueda.

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

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

Council Member Morales?

Yes.

Council Member Mosqueda?

Aye.

Council Member Nelson?

Aye.

Council Member Peterson?

Aye.

Council Member Sawant?

Yes.

Council Member Strauss?

Yes.

Council Member Herbold?

Yes.

Council Member Lewis?

Yes.

And Council President Juarez?

Aye.

Nine in favor, none opposed.

Thank you.

The consent calendar is adopted.

Will the clerk please affix my signature to the consent calendar.

Moving on in the agenda to approval of the agenda.

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

Not seeing or hearing any objection, the agenda is indeed adopted.

Let's move on to public comments.

And this time I'll read my standard direction and then I'll hand it over to Madam Clerk.

Colleagues, at this time we will open the remote public comment period for items on the city council agenda, introduction or referral calendar, and the council's work program.

It remains the strong intent of the city council to have remote public comment regularly included on meeting agendas.

However, as a reminder, the city council reserves the right to end or eliminate these public comment periods at any point if we deem that the system is being abused or is no longer suitable for allowing our meetings to be conducted efficiently and effectively.

Madam Clerk, how many people do we have signed up?

We have eight signed up, Council President.

Great.

So let's, I'll hand it over to you, Madam Clerk, and you can read the directions and then we'll go and we'll allow these eight individuals to provide public comment.

Madam Clerk.

Thank you.

The public comment for this period is up to 20 minutes and each speaker will be given two minutes to speak.

Speakers are called upon in the order in which they registered to provide public comment on the council's website.

Each speaker must call in from the phone number provided when registered and use the ID and passcode that was emailed upon confirmation.

Please note this is different from the general meeting listen line ID listed on the agenda.

If you did not receive an email confirmation please check your spam or junk mail folders.

Once a speaker's name is called, staff will unmute the appropriate microphone and an automatic prompt of you have been unmuted will be the speaker's cue that it is their turn to speak.

And then the speaker must press star six to begin speaking.

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

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

Once you hear the chime we ask that you begin to wrap up your public comment.

If speakers do not end their comment at the end of the allotted time provided the speaker's microphone will be muted to allow us to call on the next speaker.

Once you have completed your public comment we ask that you please disconnect from the line and if you plan to continue following this meeting please do so via Seattle Channel or the listening options listed on the agenda.

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

Please remember to press star-6 after you hear the prompt that you have been unmuted.

And our first speaker is Howard Gail followed by Kimberly Wolfe.

Good afternoon.

Howard Gail with Seattlestop.org commenting on our failed police accountability system.

This morning Carolyn Dick at the South Seattle Emerald published her 21st article over the last 14 months investigating the failures, malfeasance, and corruption in our police accountability system.

Today's article reveals shocking mismanagement and misdeeds that require the city to seek investigations by entities outside of the city.

Yesterday at council briefing, council member Sarah Nelson stated that she was, quote, sorry, ashamed, and feels deep, deep responsibility, unquote, for the recent gun killings in Seattle.

Councilmember Nelson, if your sorrow, shame, and responsibility are so great when you are not responsible for paying the salary of the shooter, paying for the shooter's gun, and paying for the shooter's bullets, how much greater should it be when you are responsible for paying for these things?

Councilmember Nelson and all councilmembers, where was your sorrow, shame, and deep, deep responsibility when the SPD killed a person in behavioral crisis on January 5th?

A person considered so insignificant by our police accountability system that over two months later, we still do not know his name.

That was the 19th person, the 19th person, suffering a mental health crisis and murdered by the SPD since the SPD murdered John T. Williams.

Our police accountability system has deemed all of these killings, when investigated, to be, quote, lawful and proper, unquote.

We should have empathy and take responsibility for all victims of gun violence.

A council member needs to focus on the killings they directly pay for and enable.

We need to build, through a city initiative, an accountability system that provides full civilian community control over police policy, police misconduct investigations, and police discipline.

Go to seattlestop.org to find out how.

That's seattlestop.org.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Kimberly Wolf followed by Carmen Figueroa.

Hi, I'm Kimberly, and I wholeheartedly support the payout policy.

About 40,000 workers left the city.

Since then, the numbers of gig workers are getting bigger and bigger, and it is getting smaller and smaller.

You need to support this legislation that in turn supports tens of thousands of workers.

In past meetings, we've gone over how this policy created by gig workers benefit gig workers.

However I'd like to mention other reasons besides giving an effective class of workers a fair shake why you might support it.

I've been a gig worker for about 10 years.

The gig company's race to the bottom pushed me over the edge into homelessness.

If any of you are serious about the homeless problem in this city you should want to support legislation that slows the numbers of new people falling into homelessness.

Another huge reason is the positive impact it will have on small businesses and the economic health of this city.

There are many restaurants in Seattle that rely quite a bit on the gig economy.

It's important that the gig sector is strong and healthy.

Tens of thousands of gig workers with enough money to pay their business expenses, personal bills, and still have some money in their pockets will be spending a huge amount of money right here in our city at many, many small businesses, something they're not able to do now because of the sub-minimum pay they receive for their work.

The companies are going to start and tell you that we're at 170 percent of minimum wage.

Do not be bamboozled.

The pay up policy simply takes into account actual mileage and expenses that we pay out and gives us at least minimum wage or minimum after expenses are paid and have been accounted for.

Just like any other business whose net profit is income minus expenses we too are small businesses.

Don't forget that.

Any small business is going to.

is going to ask for a certain amount that's going to cover their expenses plus a healthy profit.

And we're asking.

Our next speaker is Carmen Figueroa followed by Well Lin.

And Carmen you want to press star 6 to be unmuted.

Maybe we can just come back to Carmen.

Thank you.

The next speaker we have up is Well Lin, and we'll come back to Carmen.

OK, well, let's come back to Well Lin.

The next speaker is James Thomas.

Good afternoon.

Good afternoon.

My name is Thomas.

I'm speaking on behalf of the gig workers here in Seattle and the Pay Up campaign because I care.

Since I made tips as a child, hustling grocery stores for customers at local New York City supermarkets because they only had two hands or they purchased enough items that required six to get their groceries home.

Then and now, only my mother owns any dibs on my tips.

Thornash treated grown adults as if they were subordinate children when they took millions of tip dollars 100% designated for said drivers.

Thornash was allowed to admit guilt of this deceitful act of theft.

However, they got a settled agreement that allowed them not to repay one nickel in retribution to the victims.

Even though it would have been very easy to give the funds back to the deserving drivers and their families with the platform's algorithm, today's drivers will still like their money back with interest.

Don't you see all the homelessness in this great city?

It only shows the lack of compassion the politicians have for those who live on the streets for years in this great country.

Employed or not, there are a lot of good workers who live in their cars or tents.

I steadfastly challenge the council members of the City Seattle Council to show otherwise and regrain the great notoriety of what a beautiful city Seattle once was and shall once again become.

when you decide not to allow hard-working individuals to continue to be designated as bottom feeders on the ladder of prosperity and success for themselves and their families.

As the present moment proves, gas prices increase twice daily at some stations.

It only shows why these important lifestyle change implementations should have been enacted two years ago.

has to pay our policy.

Stop being deceived by those who wear the mask that allows for human deprivation to continue in Seattle.

Also remember that the same victims shall be voting in the current and future elections.

Thank you for having me.

Our next speaker is David Haynes followed by Cynthia Spies.

Thank you, David Haynes, District 7. Regarding the surveillance technology ordinance, Council seeks to seek delay for a year.

You know, that starts to prove that the previous and the present City Council is purposely delaying cops accessing better crime-fighting tools to help the Seattle Police Department improve their focus on the evil in the streets that are conducting an uncivil war with small dollar amounts.

It's as if We're waiting for the protesters to give the Democratic Party approval to approve these types of surveillance equipment, which we know they never will.

I think it's obvious the city council, the mayor, the prosecutor's office, and the racist human services department lens of requirement is endangering and discriminating against innocent, law-abiding, white homeless citizens who are healthy by using most money from the homeless crisis to treasonously focus on LEAD, an ACLU George Soros funded and financed idea of running interference for all these evil customs violating, repeat offending criminals.

And I hate to say it, but you know, some of them are BIPOC criminal drug pushers committing crimes against humanity, listed nonviolent misdemeanor, escalating violence, where evil adults who were allowed to stay out of jail, are misguiding youth, and having them do their bidding, and outsmarting a police chief who's only done eight years of crime fighting out of his 25 years of trying to do business relation outreach.

Do you know that he only focused on the crime hotspots that the media was reporting on?

And then specifically only clearing that area to the point where you couldn't be a bus rider without being harassed by the cops telling you you can't be between pie and the pipe.

But everywhere around there, including the depots of evil drug pushing operations in Belltown, Pioneer Square, and Westlake at nighttime, has been reclaimed by all the evil criminals that you all have exempted from.

Our next speaker is Cynthia Spies, followed by Bill Fulton, who is showing is not present.

Cynthia?

Hi I'm Cynthia Spees an independent security researcher and District 6 resident.

My comments are regarding the surveillance ordinance.

The Seattle IT's extension request letter states that SDOT's Acipica will be getting removed from the master list because it is quote no longer in use unquote.

That does not mean that the sensors have been removed nor that they are no longer sending MAC addresses of everyone's cell phone location data to Acipica.

As a quick reminder, a Cyclocut is the technology that collects MAC addresses of Wi-Fi or Bluetooth-enabled devices that come within range.

The MAC address is the physical network address of your phone or tablet, car, or other device.

The sensors collect your MAC address, timestamp, and GPS location of the sensor to send to the cloud so as to calculate travel times along roadway segments.

This means that Cyclocut is able to perform geolocation tracking.

Even if you have GPS disabled on your phone, and even if you are not currently connected to a Wi-Fi network, If you have Wi-Fi or Bluetooth turned on, then your MAC address will be picked up as soon as you come within range of the sensors.

This technology is a covert, non-consensual invasion of people's privacy.

If a cyclical is removed from the master list, then this would create a dangerous situation of a surveillance technology deployed throughout the city without any public oversight or control.

Moreover, if it was removed from the master list, then it also wouldn't be in scope for the city auditor's annual surveillance usage review.

Please do not remove a cyclical from the master list until all the sensors have been removed.

Thank you.

Can we circle back to Carmen Figueroa and Welwyn?

Yeah, I'm sorry.

Yeah, Madam Clerk, I was assuming that you do that.

I apologize.

Thank you.

Go ahead.

Carmen, you're up.

And there we go.

You want to press star six.

You were unmuted for a second.

Can you hear me?

Yes.

Can you hear me now?

Yep, we can hear you.

Okay, thank you.

I would just like to thank you for the opportunity to briefly explain why gig workers need lawmakers to raise pay standards for the gig industry by passing the pay up policy this year.

I am now partially disabled due to a back injury.

The gig industry is the only industry that allows me the flexibility to set my own hours while working at a pace and intensity that I'm physically comfortable with.

There are thousands of gig workers with hidden disabilities that depend on gig work.

Often, gig work is our only source of income.

The apps are actively lobbying for the ability to force workers to work more with less pay and implementing ways to undermine the flexibility that I depend on.

They are financially benefiting from my labor, keeping more and more profits for themselves.

Without legislation demanding absentee bills, they will never invest in their workers.

Passing the pay-up campaign pay standard policy this year will allow me to earn a wage in which I can thrive and flourish in society and not simply survive to work one more day.

We are trusting lawmakers to pass the pay-up policy for us because we are not disposable and we should not be exploited.

I thank you for your support.

And our next speaker is Wei Lin.

Hi, can you guys hear me?

Yes.

OK.

Sorry, I missed the first one.

That's OK.

OK.

Hi, my name is Wei Lin, and I'm a GeekWalk driver partner with a platform called GoPub.

I'm currently also a member of PayUp Companion.

I'm here because I'm a supporter of PayUp Companion, and I want to see the action happen as soon as possible in this year.

I also want to tell the public what happened to the Debit Platform market in this time of the period, and see the change in the negativity impact to us.

So I started doing the gig work in February 2020, because I had just moved to Seattle by accident, and I still needed time to figure out what should I do at the moment.

So when I started doing the part-time job as driver partner, I started to grow great experience with the flexible work time, reasonable pay, and how much harder you can put in the work and how much you can earn.

No contact with the customer most of the time, which is good for current pandemic situation.

And every day I would have to go to the warehouse for specific locations and collect individual account with my turn to grab bags and, you know, finish the job.

And they treat us like employee most of the time, even though we are independent contractor and they pay, they pay a guarantee for hours was, was only $16.75.

That was already below Seattle minimum wage.

And once you factor all the miles we put in, all the cars, tax we had to pay, all the blow tie we have to catch on in a year, it goes to like $6, $7 for an hour.

And now the things are getting even worse because GoPapa are cutting a ton of schedule hours and encouraging everyone just to work on demand, which means they don't need to pay out any subsidy if you make it less than minimum pay.

And that happens most of the time of the day.

and other drivers will have to decide to try to work in rush hours, not making enough money as used to be, and the platforms can cut weekly rewards down, too, costing the driver 66% less on each week.

So I was here to want that to be changed as a payout companion policy, and I want to help other gig drivers who currently struggle, too.

Thank you.

Thank you.

That's the end of the list, Council President.

Thank you, Madam Clerk.

So we went through our eight, was it eight public comment?

People that signed up for public comment, eight?

Correct, eight and one was not present.

Thank you.

I should add that in the future, we are working on changing some of the direction and what some of the rules are when people call into public comment, that what will be accepted and what will not be accepted.

And I will be working with the clerks and my colleagues, but I will be making that decision to mute people when I find a language to be offensive, rude, racist, sexist, misogynistic, or any of the above.

I think we're all kind of tired of that now.

And if you cannot call in and just state what your concerns are, as it is public comment, we're all here listening.

We want to hear what your concerns are.

But when we hear hate speech over and over, that doesn't help the message that if you're trying to get one to us.

So in the future, soon, we will be exercising that right, my will, as a point of order.

So when people call into public comment, that we actually have public comment.

All right.

So now that we're done with public comment, let's move on to our calendar.

We are on our agenda.

We're at committee reports.

And item one, I believe, is Council Member Nelson's item.

But clerk, will you please read it into the record before we hand it over to Council Member Nelson?

Agenda item one, clerk file 314490, Seattle Information and Technology Department request for a six-month extension for the filing of the group four surveillance impact report due on March 1, 2022.

Thank you, Madam Clerk.

I move to approve clerk file 314490. Is there a second?

Second.

Thank you.

It's been moved and seconded to approve the clerk file.

Council Member Nelson, the floor is yours.

Thank you very much.

So this clerk file is a response to the executive request for council approval of an additional six months extension to the previous deadline for a set of surveillance impacts reports.

And that previous deadline was March 1st.

These are a last set of reports on what's called retroactive surveillance technologies or technologies already in use by the city when the surveillance ordinance was passed.

The delay was due to a combination of events including prioritization of COVID related efforts, additional public comment requested by the community surveillance working group and staffing changes.

And the new deadline would be September 1st, 2022 and I request support for approving this clerk file.

And I want to note that this clerk file makes no change to the master list of surveillance technologies.

Any changes to that list will be made by a separate clerk file, and our central staff is checking on the timing of that.

And with that, I can answer any questions.

I have a question.

So Council Member Nelson, I just want to state for the record, so the viewing public knows, we all did receive a memo that I think you also forwarded to, from you actually, regarding this, the purpose of the extension and the summary about why you were moving to extend the six months.

I believe this memo is dated February 22nd.

Actually, I'm sorry, it was to you, and the whole committee, your committee, and I'm the vice chair on your committee.

And it was from Jim Lauder, the interim chief technology officer, and Brian Maxey, chief operating officer at SPD.

And so I had an opportunity to look at that memo.

And I also want to thank and let the public know that we also did receive correspondence and some information from Jennifer Lee, the technology and liberty manager at the ACLU.

So I want to thank those folks that sent us the additional information.

I forgot who you were working with at Central Staff.

This is Lisa.

Yeah.

Who?

At Central Staff?

Lisa Kay.

Lisa Kay.

That's right.

Lisa Kay.

Sorry about that.

So we had an opportunity to discuss with Lisa Kay and Central Staff.

We've got the information from the ACLU, and then, of course, we got a memo from the folks, from Jim, from IT, telling us what you're moving here today, because I wasn't really clear on the clerk file, so thank you.

I believe Council Member Herboldt has something for you.

I just want to circle back on what information you just provided, Council Member Nelson, and I have received similar information from Lisa Kay and from my staff in my office, Clarity.

and we've confirmed that Acela will stay on the list.

Can you, do you, I don't want to ask you to speculate, but if you know, I would be interested to understand why so many members of the public that have contacted us believe it's coming off the list.

No, I do not know that.

Okay.

All right.

Well, we'll have to follow up early, but I'm glad that we've all confirmed that it will be staying on.

Yes.

Okay.

Not seeing any more hands up.

Any more comments for Council Member Nelson?

Will the clerk please call the roll on the approval of the clerk file?

Council Member Morales?

Yes.

Council Member Mosqueda?

Aye.

Council Member Nelson?

Aye.

Council Member Peterson?

Aye.

Council Member Sawant?

Yes.

Council Member Strauss?

Yes.

Council Member Herbold?

Yes.

Council Member Lewis?

Yes.

And Council President Juarez?

Aye.

Nine in favor, none opposed.

Thank you.

The motion carries and the clerk file is approved.

Moving on to other business.

Is there any other business before council today?

Not seeing any hands up, not seeing anyone asking to be excused.

Before we adjourn, let's see.

Colleagues, this concludes our item of today's business.

Our next meeting is on March 15th at two o'clock.

Have a wonderful afternoon.

We are adjourned.