Seattle City Council 7202020

Here.

Council Member Strauss.

Present.

Council Member Herbold.

Here.

Council Member Juarez.

Here.

Council President Gonzalez.

Clerk, can you please call the roll for Council Member Morales one last time?

Council Member Morales.

Here.

Thank you, Council President.

Council President Gonzalez.

Here.

Nine present.

Thank you, Madam Clerk.

Welcome everybody to the full City Council meeting for July 20th, 2020. We're going to go ahead and dig into items on our agenda.

First up is presentations.

I'm not aware of any presentations, so we'll move on to approval of the minutes.

The minutes of the City Council meeting of July 13th, 2020 have been reviewed.

If there is no objection, the minutes will be signed.

Hearing no objection, the minutes are being signed, and I'd ask that the clerk please affix my signature to those minutes.

Adoption of the referral calendar.

If there is no objection, the proposed introduction and referral calendar will be adopted.

Hearing no objection, the introduction and referral calendar is now adopted.

Moving on to approval of the agenda.

If there is no objection, the agenda will be adopted.

Hearing no objection, the agenda is adopted.

colleagues, we are now going to begin the first of two public comment periods for items on the introduction referral calendar and the council's 2020 work program.

This added option is a new approach to public comment to allow additional opportunities for members of the public to participate and share their comments with the council.

I spoke about these at council briefing in the morning.

This is the first time we are dividing the remote public comment period at these meetings.

The thought behind the two public comment options is to help carve out the space for conversations about legislation and policies that are or may be introduced to the council and items that are on our day's agenda for final consideration and action by the full city council.

At this time, we are welcoming comments on items on the agenda's introduction referral calendar and the council's 2020 work program.

So in other words, items that are not on today's agenda for final action by the council.

So I'm going to open up that first comment period on the general public comment.

I would ask that everyone please be patient as we continue to I hope we can learn how to operate this system in real time.

My hope is that this bifurcation of public comment will streamline things and allow us to better manage the remote public comment period.

It does, of course, remain the strong intent of the City Council to continue to have remote public comment regularly included on our meeting agendas.

However, the City Council does continue to reserve the right to end or eliminate or modify 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 in a manner in which we are able to conduct our necessary business.

I will moderate both public comment periods in the following manner.

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

I'll call on each speaker by name and in the order in which they pre-registered on the council's website.

If you have not yet registered to speak but would like to, you can sign up before the end of public comment by going to the council's website at seattle.gov forward slash council.

That's c-o-u-n-c-i-l.

The public comment link is also listed on today's published agenda.

Once I call a speaker's name, 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.

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

As a reminder, public comment for this first session should relate to an item on the introduction and referral calendar or the City Council's 2020 Broad Work Program.

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

Once you hear the chime we would ask that you begin to wrap up your public comment and if speakers do not end their comments 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've completed your public comment we ask that you please disconnect from the line and if you plan to continue following this meeting we'd ask that you do so via Seattle Channel or any one of the listening options listed on the agenda.

So the public comment period is now going to be opened for matters related to the Introduction Referral Calendar and or the Council's 2020 Work Program.

First up is S.

Charoshila followed by Peter Shalito.

Hello, my name is S.

Charusheela.

I am a voter.

I'm a homeowner in District 5. I'm a member of District 5 for Racial and Social Justice, and a member of the Northeast Seattle East African Social Justice Council.

I speak, therefore, to Council Member Deborah Juarez, who represents me, and to Council Member Pedersen, who represents the Northeast along with Deborah Juarez.

I would like to urge them and the city council to unanimously commit to funding the resources we need for alternate to policing and follow the lead of our black community members in prioritizing alternate to militarized policing in responding to the needs of our community.

We need short and long-term money for COVID relief and to address structural issues such as homelessness, gentrification, and overall needs of our community.

One way ahead is to cut the SPD budget by 50% and eliminate the funds for the new youth jail and reallocate those funds to alternate programs such as LEAD or modeled on the Portland program.

This will ensure that we can meet our budgetary obligations inside the current revenue parameters and yet meet the needs of our community.

We need our council members to understand that it is not only South Seattle or people south of the Ship Canal who care about this.

Those of us who live in the north and northeast feel the same.

Thank you.

Thank you for calling in today.

Next up is Peter followed by Cody Scott.

Hi, my name is Peter Shelato and I live in Wallingford.

As is evidenced by the eight plus years of failure to make improvements under the consent decree and recent failures during protests, Seattle's police department is not capable of meaningful reform and must be dismantled.

I'm calling on all council members and especially my district four representative, Alex Peterson, to support defunding the police department by at least 50% as outlined by decriminalized Seattle and King County Equity Now's four point plan presented at the Select Budget Committee meeting on July 8th.

This would replace current 9-1-1 operations with a civilian-controlled system, scale up community-led solutions, fund a community-created roadmap to life without policing, and invest in housing for all.

Thank you.

Thank you for calling in.

Next up is Cody Scott, followed by Ambra Tzing.

Hello.

Cody?

My name is Cody Scott.

From May until now, I've been housed at Tent City 3, from my understanding.

Tax money has gone to certain organizations excessively where shelters costs are.

What we are asking for is a little bit of that excessive ABUs toward our encampments that can be done with Council Bill 119812 in Section 4 subsections A, B, and C.

I'm a taxpayer too, but no city taxes have ever helped Tent City 3. It's hot up at St. Mark's.

Cathedral, and if we had more support, we could do something about surviving the heat.

Thank you for your recognition and support of Sherwood and 1023.

Thank you for calling in today.

Our next speaker is Ambra followed by Elizabeth Harris.

I'm Ambra Teason, and I live in District 5, and I'm a member of District 5 for Racial and Social Justice.

I call Deborah Juarez to follow up on her previous statement on Twitter, and I call Alex Peterson to act in accordance with his constituents and vote with the other seven members of the council to defund SPD by 50%.

I also urge the city council to unanimously commit to reallocating resources from policing to alternative programs in education, social services, and housing that actually serve the needs of black and brown communities in Seattle.

I also ask that you work with local black-led organizations like the Everyday March to put together these plans and make sure they address the needs of our black and brown communities.

I further ask that you commit to redirect funding from the youth jail and repurpose the youth jail building in a way that doesn't add support to a school-to-prison pipeline.

I yield my time.

Thank you for calling in.

Our next speaker is Elizabeth Harris, followed by Micah Flack.

Hi, my name is Elizabeth Harris.

I'm a homeowner who lives in Seattle District 4. We must acknowledge that efforts to reform the Seattle Police Department have failed.

I believe defending black lives in Seattle means defunding SPD and reinvesting in community.

To stop police violence, SPD must be reduced in size, in budget, and in scope.

As you rebalance the budget, I urge my council member, Alex Peterson, and the whole of the Seattle City Council to defund the Seattle Police Department by at least 50% and reallocate those funds to community-led health and safety systems.

Additionally, release peaceful protesters arrested during recent uprisings without charges.

I call on Alex Peterson and Deborah Juarez to join your colleagues in publicly supporting these demands and on all council members to show immediate meaningful progress towards meeting them.

Thank you.

I yield the remainder of my time.

Thank you for calling in today.

Our next speaker is Micah Flack followed by Joan Ballesteros.

Hi there.

My name is Micah Flack, District 3, Occupy Duwamish Land.

Thank you for your time today.

I'm here to publicly support the defunding of SPD by 50%.

It's evident that our current police system was originally established to protect the privileges and property of white people, and that is unacceptable both then and now.

In order to prevent further unnecessary deaths at the hands of police, we need to go to the root of the problem and abolish the current police system.

One life lost at the hands of those whose purpose is to protect us is one life too many.

The system needs to be reimagined in a way that values lives over property.

Many of you have pledged your support for defunding, so please follow through.

And furthermore, look into what total abolishment and what that can look like.

We need community-based systems that are suited towards crime prevention, not an outdated, corrupt, racist police system.

Thank you.

I yield my time.

Thank you for calling in today.

Next up is Joan followed by Tom Fiala.

Good afternoon, city council members.

My name is Joanne Ballesteros.

I live at Sherrill 10CD3, almost two years.

It is a safe place, decent place to live.

I am speaking today about your work plan for 2020. Please find some place in your work plan to make sure my home, 10CD3, gets support to the city budget.

Every year, city council spend money on homeless service and shelter that is not good.

Good as 10CD2 is pay for shelter where people get the coronavirus.

None of us has gotten the coronavirus at 10CD2.

It pays for shelter where people in power It pays for shelter where people don't have privacy, like I do with my tent.

The quality of the shelter is what should be important, but it's not what's important to human service department.

The human department give money to large corporations that don't subject data of that is not true.

Your work plan needs to help the way to stop your good idea for being a rubber stamp for poor decisions made by human services leaders.

Thank you.

Thank you for calling in today.

Next up is Tom Fiala followed by Alice Lockhart.

Hi, I'm Tom Piala calling in from Queen Anne.

I'm sure you're tired of these, I am too, but we still aren't doing enough.

We need a 9-9-9-0 vote.

Mayor Durkin and Chief Best claims that defunding the police is reckless or absurd.

They don't have any evidence to back it up.

Appropriating those funds to social and community programs that would send trained professionals instead of someone with a gun and barely a weekend class would benefit the city as a whole.

We desperately need a more educated police force.

Globally, there's a very strong correlation between police violence and education level.

We should take heed.

In addition, Colorado is leading the way in dealing with qualified immunity.

We need to follow in their footsteps.

Please don't stop pushing.

What we have seen here in Portland and across the country is absolutely terrifying, and you are our defense.

Let's continue to lead this country as we have been.

Thank you for your time.

Have a nice day.

Thank you for calling in today.

Next up is Alice Lockhart.

Hi.

Hi, I'm Alice Lockhart with 350 Seattle to speak about budget rebalancing and specifically to ask council members to read the email we sent you last Thursday.

Late last Wednesday afternoon, we learned about Friday's deadline for amendment ideas and scrambled to send an email Thursday.

morning to all councilmembers and staff members who work on transportation.

We did that because the mayor's budget rebalancing package is climate unfriendly to say the least.

The same week the council supported clean energy by funding home energy retrofits in jumpstart, the mayor took it away by defunding municipal building energy efficiency, and the mayor's cuts to Seattle's Department of Transportation were disproportionately large compared to other departments, with the vast majority of these coming from multimodal transportation.

In the last few months, our skies have been less polluted, our climate pollution has decreased, and our streets have been less crowded, but unless council acts When Seattle goes back to work, SDOT isn't going to have the money it needs to help people get back to work without getting into their cars.

A smart plan for temporary bike lines could fix this if the council fixes the rebalancing package.

Please look in your email for those ideas.

Thank you so much.

Thank you for calling in, Alice.

Okay, folks, that is the last person that I have on my preregistered list for the public comment sign-up period.

So we're gonna go ahead and close out the public comment period on items on the introduction, referral, and calendar, and on the council's 2020 work program.

The council will now move on to hearing comments relating to items on today's agenda.

The second public comment period is dedicated to items on today's agenda that are listed for final consideration, which are shown under the committee reports and adoption of other resolutions sections on the published agenda.

We will be accepting comments for up to 20 minutes and each speaker will be given two minutes to speak.

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

As a reminder, public comment should relate to an item on today's agenda for final consideration.

I will now open up the public comment period, and we will go until 2.38 p.m.

The first speaker signed up is Megan Murphy, followed by Hattie Rhodes.

Hi.

I'm calling to please fund Black Lives Matter, fully fund the $18 million a year, commitment to fund affordable housing in the Central District, As demanded by our movement, please no watering down of the Budget Committee vote from last Wednesday.

And please fully fund the overall affordable housing commitment of at least $133 million a year and fully fund the $20 million a year commitment to the Green New Deal.

I yield my time.

Thank you for calling in.

Next up is Hattie Rhodes followed by Lisa Sanders.

Hello my name is Hattie Rose.

I used to live at the Georgetown Tiny House Village before recently becoming housed.

I'm speaking today to thank you for your continued support of tiny house villages since they are such a safe and dignified option for those experiencing homelessness.

I know the need is great for more of these villages.

Every day people in desperate situations are called the village and inquire how to get in.

And I wish we could say come.

We've become a part of our community, but the openings in the villages are filled immediately.

Please vote in favor of Amendment 2 to fund more tiny house villages so that others may have the same opportunity to rebuild their lives that I was given.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I yield the rest of my time.

Thank you for calling in today.

The next speaker on my list is Lisa Sanders followed by Lacey.

I'm sorry, I have just been told that I accidentally skipped a few, but we're gonna hear from Lisa Sanders and then I'm gonna go back up to the top of the list.

That's my mistake.

Lisa Sanders, please.

Hi, Lisa Sanders, District 1. I hope everyone can hear me.

I've got my earbud in.

I'm calling to ask the council members to vote for affordable central district homes for the black community.

Funding must be set aside each year to build affordable housing.

You are also your brother's keeper.

Mercer Island is five minutes away from Seattle.

The city council, police, city attorney, and prosecutor are suppressing hate crimes.

You cannot ignore these acts.

Excuse me, Lisa.

Can you please stop the timer?

Please stop the timer.

Okay, Lisa, we are only taking comment on items related to the City Council's agenda, so I need you to direct your comments to items on the agenda and not to issues related to Mercer Island.

Please.

So let me, can I respond to that or you just only want me to speak on the agenda items?

This is public comment related to Seattle City Council business that is currently listed on the agenda for final action.

So this is council bills.

And if you don't speak to those items, I'm going to have to end your presentation, unfortunately.

Go ahead.

Well, I already know that.

Well, I already hope that you guys are going to do what is right for Seattle City Council.

So I'm going to just leave it at my comment there.

But I do hope that you guys will help people outside of Seattle because there are people being suppressed that live outside of Seattle who are black and need that support.

Thank you, Ms. Sanders.

Okay, next up, and I apologize to the folks that I accidentally skipped over.

That was an error of my cursor.

So I apologize to those folks that I accidentally skipped over.

We're going to go back to the top of the list.

And the first speaker will be Rebecca Finkes, followed by Josh Castle.

Hello, I am Rebecca Finkes.

I work for Lehigh with the Tiny House Program and live in District 2. Thank you.

Thank you council members Morales, Lewis, Juarez, Herbold and Sawant for voting yes to allocate funding for four to five new villages this year and bringing this amendment to full council.

Council members Strauss, Gonzalez, Mesquita and Peterson please prove your commitment to represent the needs of all Seattle residents and vote yes for more tiny houses today.

With your support we can ensure shelter stability and community for hundreds of unhoused neighbors within months.

We are prepared and thrilled to have the opportunity to carry out such valuable work alongside our partners.

There are even families spending their time in quarantine building their tiny houses and driveways.

Thank you for your leadership and time.

Okay, thank you for calling in.

Next up is Josh Castle followed by Julia Pesciuto.

Hi I'm Josh Castle with Lehigh.

I'm a lifelong resident of Seattle.

I grew up in District 4 in Ravenna where my parents and other family live and I'm a proud resident of District 5 in Greenwood.

I want to thank you all for your unanimous vote last week for 18 million per year for affordable homes in the central area.

This will help repair some of the injustices of decades of racist gentrification and displacement of Black people and families from the central area.

I also want to thank the Councilmembers who voted for Amendment 2 and Tiny House Villages last week, with a special thank you to my own Councilmember Deborah Reyes and Councilmembers Morales, Lewis, Herbold, and Sawant.

Thank you for sponsoring as well, Councilmembers Morales and Lewis, and to Councilmember Sawant for your leadership on this.

I would urge Councilmembers Strauss, Mosqueda, Gonzalez, and Peterson, who represents my family in District 4, to please vote yes on Amendment 2. There are many community and faith partners in Seattle who wish to partner and set up and operate villages and many potential sites identified in order to do so.

Recently in response to the COVID emergency our staff built and opened three sites in four weeks creating 95 new shelter beds for people experiencing homelessness which were the only new beds created in Seattle this year.

We have the ability to set these up quickly and cost effectively and in a fraction of the cost of hotels.

The villages can be a key part of the solution when transitioning people out of hotels and congregate spaces, can be set up quickly and cost-effectively, and help ensure that nobody ever has to return to unsafe congregate shelter.

Villages and tiny houses are particularly effective in keeping people protected from COVID.

Each tiny house is a separate four-walled space, allowing residents to have their own privacy and not share physical space or air with others.

Services and meals are provided on-site, allowing residents to stay in place and not have to leave.

This year, we were also able to transition 52% of residents who exited into long-term housing, which have been more effective than ever.

Josh, thank you for calling in.

Next up is Julia, followed by Jessica Scalzo.

Good afternoon, city council members.

My name is Julia Pasciuto.

I work with Puget Sound SAGE.

We strongly support Resolution 31957, the Jumpstart Progressive Spending Revenue Spending Plan as amended last Wednesday.

You have responded to this unique and unprecedented political moment.

In the near term investments from Jumpstart will meet the immediate needs of residents facing the triple impacts of the global pandemic structural racism and economic downturn.

At the same time in the long term we're building towards community self-determination and land and housing through the significant investments in the equitable development initiative and also through the Office of Housing as well as advancing an equitable climate future by building on existing efforts for a Seattle Green New Deal.

This spending plan will help move our city towards our goal of keeping communities rooted in place against threats of displacement and climate change.

You should be proud of this work.

We certainly are and want you to know that we'll be here to support this visionary work come to fruition.

Thank you for calling in today.

Next up is Jessica followed by Charles Hall.

Hi, my name is Jessica Scalzo.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak.

I live in district three and I am calling to encourage the city council to make good on the votes that came out of the budget committee last Wednesday.

fund affordable housing to the highest degree, specifically commit to the 18 million that you voted on to fully fund affordable housing in the central district first and foremost, and make sure that we are fighting back against racist gentrification.

And I think that 18 million is not enough.

It definitely needs to be higher.

But please make sure that we are not going any lower than $18 million.

And that's all I want to say.

Thank you for the time.

Thank you for calling in today.

Next up is Charles Paul, followed by Hassan Khan.

Hello.

I'm Charles Paul, a D.C.

resident and 36th Legislative District PCO.

I'm here today to talk about the Jump Start Planning Plan.

First of all, I'd like to thank the council for passing Jump Start and committing to defund the SPD by at least 50%.

Using this money towards affordable housing and extending the eviction moratorium are two key steps to prevent our housing and homeless crisis from getting worse.

I am concerned that Mayor Durkan will undermine this bill as she is currently undermining the proposed spending plan, as mentioned earlier, and the tear gas ban in court.

As the 36th Legislative District recently verted, the mayor needs to be impeached and removed for the good of the city.

Thank you very much.

Have a good day.

Thank you for calling in today.

Next up is Hassan Khan, followed by Sujatha Ramani.

Good afternoon.

My name is Khan Hassan, and I'm a supporter of the Coalition of Seattle Indian Americans.

Our group follows the leadership of King County Equity Now and Decriminalize Seattle.

My ask to the council today is to defund the Seattle Police Department by at least 50 percent.

Reallocate those funds to community led health and safety systems.

Ensure the release of protesters arrested during the uprising without any charges.

And finally, no more SPD training in Israel.

Thank you.

Have a nice day.

Thank you for calling in today.

Next up is Sujatha, followed by Lacey Scott.

Good afternoon.

My name is Sujatha Ramani.

I am a supporter and volunteer with the Coalition of Seattle Indian-Americans.

Our group follows the leadership of King County Equity Now and Decriminalize Seattle.

In addition to defunding SPD by at least 50 percent I ask that the council accept existing proposals from Black-led community-based organizations to maximize underutilized public land.

Halt all predatory development in the central area and other historic areas of color.

Establish a $1 billion anti-gentrification land acquisition fund to help the black community acquire property in the central area and support black economic development.

Redistribute $118 million from the Seattle Police Department budget and invest at least $50 million from the SPD budget directly into the black community.

Thank you.

Thank you for calling in.

Next up is Lacey Scott, followed by Jeanette Kousey.

Good afternoon, members of City Council.

My name is Lacey Scott.

I live at Sherwell's, Tent City 3. Less than two weeks ago, our camp moved to St. Mark's Cathedral on Capitol Hill.

Our address is 1245 Tenth Avenue East, and you are welcome to visit.

We support Councilperson Morrell's proposal amendment to Council Bill 1199812 to make sure that at least 3.6 million goes to tiny house villages at Tent City 3. The health department says that my home is the best kind of place for homeless people to live during the coronavirus pandemic.

No one here has tested positive for the coronavirus.

Hundreds have been found positive in other programs and shelters.

This city of Seattle has never supported us.

We are here and we are we need your support.

Thank you for calling NEC.

Thank you for calling in.

Next up is Jeanette.

Hi my name is Jeanette Causey and I am the site manager of Whittier Heights Tiny House Village in Ballard.

Thank you councilmember Strauss for being a supporter of the tiny housing village program.

I urge you to vote yes on amendment two to support four to five more villages.

I just wanted to share two brief examples of why these tiny house villages are so important to our community.

I just finished doing an intake with a villager who cried when she saw her tiny house.

She was so grateful and said that now she has a home she can finally feel safe again and can start working on getting the help she so desperately needs.

Another example is a villager who would argue loudly with someone we could not even see and who has been in our tiny house village program for approximately eight months and just moved into permanent supporting housing and loves her new apartment.

Whittier Heights safely shelters women coming out of DV situations who need a safe place to start rebuilding their lives again.

Since January 1st of 2020, of our 15 villagers, seven have moved into permanent housing.

Since its inception, Lehigh's tiny house village program has transitioned over 800 to permanent housing.

I urge you to please vote yes on amendment two to continue supporting the development of more villages who provide shelter for so many individuals who need that place they can call home when they feel hopeless and do not have a safe haven where they can feel protected and receive the assistance and the services they so desperately need.

Thank you again Councilman Strauss for your time and your continued support of the tiny housing village program.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

Next up is Teresa Hellman followed by Tyler Merrill.

Hi, my name is Teresa Homan, and I, like Jeanette, am so proud to work for Lehigh.

I once managed Whittier Heights Tiny House Village in Ballard before Jeanette took over, and I loved it.

When I was there, a villager wrote a poem that included this line.

With the threat of rape on the flap of my tent, there was no sleep.

I will never forget that line.

Sorry.

She was commenting on what it meant to her to now have a locking door.

Today, I'm program manager of the villages and supervise the site managers.

Please know I bring integrity and my whole self to this position.

Since taking this job in January, I've been meeting with the villagers and with the managers regularly.

In the past two months, I've met with 15 villagers to hear their thoughts on how we do things.

I love that Lehigh takes safety so seriously and has a zero tolerance for racism.

I say to my managers a lot I want the villagers to feel as relaxed when they come through their door as I do when I step through my own at the end of the day.

Today I live part time in Seattle but I've lived here a long time many years.

I urge you to fund more tiny house villages so that people can continue to shelter safely while waiting for housing.

I thank you for your ongoing support.

Thank you for calling in today.

Next up is Tyler Merrill followed by Eric David.

Hi council members.

My name is Tyler Merrill and I'm a resident of Queen Anne.

I'm calling today to ask that you fully fund the 18 million dollar per year plan to build affordable housing in the central district.

I'm sure that you're all aware of the racist redlining policies that provided white families in my grandparents generation.

They're in their 80s now.

access to home loans while denying families of color at the same time.

These policies were obviously wrong and reparations should be made.

The $18 million a year investment in Central District affordable housing is a start but it really should be much greater in order to meet the real and immediate need.

I would also like to encourage the council to fully fund the overall affordable housing commitment of at least $133 million a year and the $20 million annual commitment to the Green New Deal.

Thank you.

I yield my time.

Thank you for calling in today.

Next up is Eric Davis, followed by David Crum.

Hi, City Council.

My name is Eric Davis.

I'm a resident of Seattle at the Camp Second Chance, also a founder and site special projects manager for Lehigh.

I really wanted to thank Lisa Herbold for all of the support she's given us, and that vote last week on yes for more tiny houses.

It's very important, as you've heard many members say along the way here, that safety, there's no price you can put on it.

None at all.

It really, really, really stressed this importance to have that safety and ability to lock your door at night.

But more importantly, piece of humanity that we all need to have right at this time.

And the dignity is not something I can just take for granted either.

But as I see us moving forward, I know you guys can see all the tents popping up on the highway.

But what you don't see is the cries at night and the tears of people walking up and down the street.

Anyway, when we build tiny house villages, if you were to walk through them and see the joy and see the change and the turnaround, You know that these people are our brothers and our sisters.

So please, I strongly urge you, don't ever stop building tiny house villages.

You need them more than often.

You need them every night.

And I say that with peace in my mind and peace with you.

Thank you.

I yield the rest of my time.

Thank you for calling.

Next up is David Crum, followed by Kathleen Myers.

Hi, I'm a resident of Camp Second Chance, and Eric Davis was my director.

He's the one who invited me here when I became homeless and I needed heart surgery.

And I can't help but reiterate everything he said.

I'm safe, I'm protected, and I'm not the only one.

There have been dozens of people who were in similar situations to mine that needed every bit of help that this camp and the social services of the city could offer them.

Folks like Lisa Herbold and Councilmember Sawant have had their toes on the line the whole time I've lived here, doing everything they could to support and help the people who find themselves unfortunate enough not to have a roof over their head and a door they can lock and a place to take a shower and get something to eat.

And I can't say thank you to the system enough because I'm 69, I'm low income, I have multiple overlapping comorbidities, and I honestly needed the help when I came here.

With that, I'll say thanks Lisa Herbold, and I will yield the rest of my time.

Thank you so much for calling in.

Colleagues, we've actually are now at 20 minutes of the allotted public comment period.

We only have about 10 minutes worth of public comment.

I'd like to go ahead and if there is no objection, extend the second public comment period by 10 minutes, taking us to about 2.49.

Is there any objection to that?

Hearing no objection, we'll go ahead and extend the public comment period by 10 minutes and proceed with public comment.

We'll hear next from Kathleen Myers followed by Maureen Brink Lund.

You are unmuted.

My name's Kathleen Myers and I live in District 2 and have for 30 years in North Beacon Hill.

Please include the, and I'm addressing the designated fund for central area housing.

Please include the full 18 million dollars a year allocated on Wednesday to central area modest housing.

A welcome and needed down payment on the restoration of housing for the Black community in the district associated with that deserving community for so long.

Publicly controlled and permanently affordable.

It's a model we can look to on a much much larger scale in the future.

Thank you.

Thank you for calling in.

Next up is Maureen Brinklund, followed by Elisa Tanna.

Hello, my name is Maureen Brinklund, and I'm calling in to comment on Amendment 2 regarding funding for the Tiny House Villages.

I'm a homeowner and a small business owner living in Ballard.

Dan Strauss is my council member.

Hello, Dan.

I serve on the Community Advocacy Committee for Whittier Heights Tiny House Villages for Women.

in Whittier Heights, and as well on the Ballard Community Task Force on Homelessness and Hunger.

I want to thank all the community, the council members, for their support of tiny house villages, as we saw in your votes earlier.

And I want to urge council members Strauss, my very own, and Gonzales, Peterson, and Mosqueda to please support Amendment 2 to fund the construction of these tiny house villages.

In my experience from getting to know the residents, staff, and neighbors and sponsors at Whittier Heights Village, I'm so impressed and moved by what a difference this place has made in so many lives.

Top of that list is how the village provides a safe environment for women to be able to be safe, housed, and have access to case managers so they can get through all the paperwork needed to complete applications for permanent housing.

One of the residents I've met several times lived in her car for 10 years before coming to the village.

The staff at the village, including Teresa who spoke earlier, are amazing, dedicated workers.

With their efforts, the village has had great success in moving women from the village to appropriate housing.

The tiny house village creates benefits to the larger community as well.

Whittier Heights is constructed entirely by women in the trades.

They're very proud of that.

The esprit de corps during construction was amazing.

The bank next door is involved in the village from the start.

A neighborhood church is the sponsor and hosts meetings of the CAC.

community members involved.

We volunteer, raise money, obtain household goods for their next homes, decorate for the holidays, have hosted sewing and baking events.

Lehigh right now has more than half a dozen parcels of land complete with community sponsors and support from the churches ready and willing, eager in fact, to create more safe homes for people currently living on the street.

Thank you for calling in.

Next up is Elisa followed by Jacqueline Helfgott.

Hi, my name is Alisa Tanna, and I am a resident and camp leadership of Camp Second Chance.

And I would like to thank Lisa Herbold and the others who have voted for Amendment 2 and urge the other council members to do the same today.

Camp Second Chance has been a phenomenal place for me to feel safe, me and my partner, who is trans and have trouble with traditional shelters.

I'd also like to say that Camp Second Chance is an excellent place.

We have been able to practice social distancing, and good personal hygiene and have not had a single member of the camp test positive for coronavirus.

So it is a safe and healthy place for us to be.

Thank you.

Next up is Jacqueline followed by Joseph Gellings.

So I was going to make comment.

This is Jackie Halka.

I was going to make comment on defending the police.

Are you still accepting comments on that topic?

That was limited to the first session, but go ahead, Jackie, and make your comments here.

We're testing out this new system, so I understand there's confusion.

Let's restart our time, please.

There we go.

OK.

Hello, my name is Jackie Halka.

I live in District 4. I'm a criminal justice professor at Seattle University.

I serve on the Seattle Police Crisis Intervention Committee.

and I'm responsible for conducting the annual Seattle Public Safety Survey.

I support much of what the defending proponents are calling for.

However I do not support defending SPD by 50 percent.

I'm concerned that defending SPD without recognition of evidence-based reforms put in place under the consent decree will have disastrous consequences that will set Seattle back in ways that no one on any side of the issues will want to see.

I have two concerns.

The first one is that Seattle Public Safety Survey findings show that lack of police capacity which means delayed response to 9-1-1 inadequate police staffing lack of police follow-up to few police in neighborhoods has been one of the top two community concerns for the past five years.

Seattle residents want more not fewer police.

Defunding SPD will result in increased fear of crime and reduced quality of life across Seattle.

Second SPD has a crisis intervention program that's a model for the nation with demonstrated reduction in use of force including officer mental health crisis response teams in place since 2010. I'm concerned that the funding will disrupt these sorts of evidence-based data-driven reforms leaving us at ground zero wiping out years of work.

I ask that the Seattle City Council recognize data-driven evidence-based reforms Implemented in the Seattle Police Department under the consent decree and before and take into account the disruption that defunding will have on these reforms.

Crime and crisis will not end if we defund the police.

Crisis calls need police and mental health professionals who work together not separately.

And this has been done for many years through STD crisis intervention.

I have serious concerns about what will happen to public safety in Seattle if the Seattle police is defunded.

Thank you.

Next up is Joseph Gellings.

Hello, my name is Joseph Gellings.

I'm a senior planner with the Port of Seattle.

Thank you for the opportunity to comment on Council Bill 119832. This ordinance adopts interim floodplain regulations while final regulations are developed and formally supersedes the National Flood Insurance rate maps originally developed in 1995. The Port of Seattle appreciates the Seattle Department of Construction Inspections maintaining compliance with the National Flood Insurance Program and for clarifying the use of more recent national flood insurance rate maps during development review.

The Port of Seattle supports adoption of the interim regulations but remains concerned about the application of revised floodplain policies and development standards on existing structures throughout Seattle's waterfront.

The interim regulations apply floodplain development standards to more properties than before.

The Port of Seattle manages many of these properties and does not oppose floodplain development standards.

However the port does intend to clarify the application of these standards in order to continue providing waterfront infrastructure.

The Port of Seattle looks forward to working with the Seattle Department of Construction and Inspections as final regulations are developed and we thank you again for the opportunity to comment on this bill.

Thank you so much.

That is the last speaker.

I have signed up for the second public comment session that appears to be present.

So we're going to go ahead and close out the period of public comment and move into items of business on our agenda.

I want to thank everybody for their patience as we I did a little test run there on how that would work.

And let's go ahead and dig into payment of the bills.

Will the clerk please read the title?

Council Bill 119834, appropriating money to pay for our claim for the week of July 6, 2020 through July 10, 2020, and ordering payment thereof.

I move to pass Council Bill 119834. Is there a second?

Second.

It's been moved and seconded.

The bill passed.

Are there any comments?

Hearing none, will the clerk please call the roll on the passage of the bill?

Lewis?

Aye.

Morales?

Aye.

Mosqueda?

Aye.

Peterson?

Aye.

Sawant?

Aye.

Strauss?

Aye.

Herbold?

Aye.

Juarez.

Aye.

President Gonzalez.

Aye.

Nine in favor.

None opposed.

Thank you, Madam Clerk.

The bill passes and the chair will sign it.

I'd ask that the clerk please affix my signature to the legislation on my behalf.

Okay, we're going to move into committee reports.

First up is the report for the Select Budget Committee.

Would the clerk please read the short title of Agenda Item 1 into the record?

I report to the Select Budget Committee Agenda 1, Council Bill 119812, amending Ordinance 26000, which adopts the 2020 budget, making appropriations for an emergency fund for public assistance during the COVID-19 civil emergency.

The committee recommends that the bill pass as amended with the council.

Yeah, I recommend the bill pass as amended.

Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Clerk.

Okay, so let's go ahead and dig into this particular item.

Let's see, Council Member Esqueda, as Chair of the Committee, you are recognized in order to address this item.

Thank you, Madam President.

And just to be clear, did you want items one and two together, or item one as a stand alone?

Thank you for the reminder.

Madam Clerk, can you please also read We will take votes separately on both issues, but just to allow for discussion of both, I would appreciate if you could also read in agenda item 2.

for the spending plan adopted by the ordinance introduced as Council Bill 119811 that established the authorized use of the proceeds generated from the payroll expense tax authorized by the ordinance introduced as Council Bill 119810. The committee recommends that the resolution be adopted as amended with Council Members Mosqueda, Herbold, Gonzalez, Juarez, Lewis, Morales, DeWant, and Strauss in favor with an abstention from Council Member Peterson.

Thank you, Madam Clerk, and thank you, Council Member Mosqueda, for the reminder to read both into the record.

I appreciate that.

I will go ahead and hand it over to you, Council Member Mosqueda, as chair of the committee, so that you can address both items.

There are a couple of amendments for, some amendments for consideration, and we'll go ahead and take those up after you do a general introduction of both the council bill and the resolution.

The floor is yours.

Thank you, Madam President.

I want to thank my council colleagues for your tremendous work on Items 1, Council Bill 119812, and Item 2, Resolution 31957. Together, these make up the Jumpstart Revenue Spend Plan, both for immediate COVID relief and ongoing support for small businesses, working families, seniors, our most vulnerable, and our business community as we create a more resilient economy as we recover from COVID.

I'll speak to both items real quickly in order to tee up our future conversations for both the bills and the amendments.

Just by, again, reiterating my tremendous appreciation for all of you, your offices, our central staff, the community at large, and my office.

My office spent hundreds of hours on the phone with community partners working through the details of the Jump Start Spend Plan and the previous proposal to raise revenue.

This was built off of tremendous advocacy and organizing efforts in community and among organizations who are calling for a more progressive proposal to be in front of us to pass progressive revenue so that we could address the immediate crisis that is presenting itself because of COVID and the ongoing need for us to invest in housing and support services to create a more equitable economy.

I'm really proud of the work that we have put together here as a council.

As a full council, we have come together and we provided feedback to each other and incorporated information that came directly from communities, including from organizations who are led by communities of color, including from feedback from large and small businesses, including feedback from labor unions and immigrant right organizations, housing advocates and homeless advocates, transportation and environmental justice advocates.

As you look at this final proposal in front of us with the detailed spend plan and emergency COVID relief, it has the input from a tremendous amount of individuals and organizations who we deliberately worked with to create this spend plan and the COVID relief.

It invests in promoting health, in creating jobs, in reigniting our economy in a more equitable way.

It includes small businesses and immigrant rights advocates and environmental justice.

Those are folks who get credits.

We want to make sure that the folks who have put pressure on from the outside, tax, Amazon organizers and activists, individuals and community who for years have been calling for progressive freedom, you all get credit.

And council colleagues, you get credit.

We got this over the line.

We've worked tremendously hard and in a collaborative way to make history.

We're pushing forward.

A tremendous amount of support for our most vulnerable communities and reinvesting in our local economy because that is what the data says to do.

An all cuts budget or austerity approaches in the time of a recession only prolong pain for both local economies and our most vulnerable residents.

So the detailed spend package, the proposal in front of you for immediate COVID relief will help support families, small businesses, and our most vulnerable because you all came together and we pushed this proposal forward with tremendous feedback and input.

I actually think that having conversations with folks via Zoom and calling in options created more opportunity for community partners to provide public testimony, people who were able to call in between shifts, People who are home taking care of loved ones were able to engage in this public policy process, in addition to our traditional avenues that we've offered when we are meeting in non-COVID times.

The public input on this has been tremendous, and we want to thank all of you for your input to the COVID relief proposal, to the long-term spending proposal, and to the Jumpstart Tax Package.

This is what happens.

This is what it looks like to lift up the voices of those shut out by establishment politics of the past, who listen to what community needs, who find ways to get to yes.

This is what happens when we have folks in office who don't accept the way things have always been, who aren't going to just give lip service void of action, who are smart, collaborative, progressive, and frankly, this council, we're tired as well.

We are tired of being in a declared state of emergency for housing and homelessness for year after year and not seeing more money go into housing.

In fact, this was the third year in a row where the mayor's proposed budget reduced the city's input on housing.

We're tired of being in a state of emergency for homelessness and seeing the number of homeless folks grow year after year without a safe place, especially in a COVID setting, to be in non-congregate shelters like the CDC demands.

We are tired of being in one of the most prosperous cities in the nation and lauded for our progressive values while one in four children go without the needed food that they need because of food insecurity.

And we're tired of the same old rhetoric about the need for austerity and the need for cuts being drummed up on the cusp of a depression when we know that cuts only prolong recessions and the past cuts that we have seen imposed in our state and in our region in the past time of a recession only hurt families and businesses.

We need alternatives.

And this progressive revenue proposal and the spend plan and COVID relief offers that creative solution.

We're tired on behalf of our constituents, and that's why we're acting.

Those constituents are tired of doing everything right, but not being able to get ahead, not being able to keep a roof over their head or put food on the table.

Because they realize, and they've been calling on us to have action for so many years, because in doing everything right, they still see an economy that prioritizes the few while leaving the many behind.

So this is our way to push back.

This is our push back against status quo politics in the middle of a deadly global pandemic with the highest rates of unemployment and business closures ever.

We are doing something that has been proven to invest in our most vulnerable, to spur local economic activity and create a more resilient and equitable economy.

By passing JumpStart revenue plan and the detailed spend plan today, we are offering relief.

Relief to families that they will be able to pay rent.

Relief to individuals that they will be able to put food on the table.

Relief to small businesses that they will have flexible dollars they've been asking for to pay for what they need to open businesses again and put people back to work.

By passing JumpStart, we have identified the resources needed to provide COVID relief in this year to make sure that people's urgent needs are met due to COVID.

Next year, we're investing in core government services to keep parks open, to keep libraries open, to make sure childcares can function, to make sure that the basic services that we rely on every day don't have a cliff.

And in the out years, we're investing in building housing, housing those who are homeless and investing in small business supports.

I want to make sure that folks know we have done this in a thoughtful, in a creative and a deliberative manner.

We have not spent down the entirety of the emergency funds to clarify any misperceptions that are being put out there.

We are offering relief assistance, security and stability.

So again, thank you for doing all that you've done to make sure in 2020 we have emergent needs met, in 2021 We maintain essential government services like parks and safe streets and libraries.

And in 2022, that we invest deeply in supporting a diverse business and local economy and housing those who need support now.

I really appreciate all that you've done.

We have put forward a smart proposal.

We have used the very few tools that we have in our toolbox in a legally sound way.

We are rebuilding our economy in the out years, and we're investing in those who need the support right now.

I really appreciate all that you've done, and I'll have some more closing comments in a bit, but just so incredibly proud to work with all of you and to work with the entire community organizations and individuals who've helped make Jump Start and this spend plan and relief package a reality today.

Well said, Council Member Mosqueda.

It makes me all excited about calling this to a vote soon.

Okay, folks, we do want to hear comments from folks about the bill and the resolution.

We do have a couple of amendments that we've got to work through.

I will take those separately.

Before we open it up as we traditionally and typically do to hear comments about the bill, I'm going to go ahead and ask Councilmember Strauss to address Amendment 1 as published on the agenda.

So I'm going to hand it over to Councilmember Strauss to walk us through his I believe two amendments, and then we will consider that amendment and call the bill to a, excuse me, and then we will consider amendment to the resolution, and then we will have two amended versions of legislation before us and open it up for general comment.

So Council Member Strauss, you are up first.

I'm gonna go ahead and hand it over to you to address, to move your amendment one and to open up debate for that.

Thank you, Council President.

And just double checking to hear what I thought I heard, you would like me to move the amendment, is that correct?

Yes, if you, I don't.

Thank you.

You're not required to, but it is your opportunity to move your amendment, so if you wish.

Wonderful, thank you so much.

I move to amend Council Bill 119812 as presented on Amendment 1 on this agenda.

Is there a second?

Second.

Okay, it's been moved and seconded to adopt Amendment 1. Council Member Strauss, you are recognized in order to address the substance of the amendment.

Thank you, Council President.

Amendment 1 would increase the Small Business Stabilization Fund grant funds eligibility to 25 FTEs.

Last week, I spoke to you as my colleagues and the public about the need to change the requirements from fixed employees to FTEs, full-time equivalents, to allow for part-time worker to also have consideration for part-time workers.

What I have heard in the interim is that the need to increase that threshold to 25 is there and is in our city.

So this amendment increases eligibility for the small business stabilization grants funded by the bill to include nonprofits and businesses with up to 25 FTEs as an increase from 10. I have heard a lot of concern about the impacts of COVID on restaurants specifically and the anticipated wave of potential closures that could be coming soon.

Restaurant tours from District 6 and across the city have told me that 10 FTEs is not high enough for them to capture many of the restaurants in need of our support.

While restaurants are a labor-intensive industry, it often exceeds 10 FTEs, and restaurants also oftentimes survive on the narrowest of margins.

So in addition to raising the cap on FTEs, this amendment would also add language ensuring that businesses that have already received a grant through prior funding are not eligible for a second grant and adding a geographic equity as a consideration in the distribution of of the grants.

The reason that the coming around for the second grant is being put in in this amendment is because we do not have enough money in our funds to even serve all of the small businesses that have applied, so we want to make sure that everyone has an opportunity to receive funds before people come for a second dip.

So those are my comments, Council President, and I appreciate the consideration.

Thank you, Councilmember Strauss for that description of Amendment 1. I'm going to go ahead and open it up for debate.

I've already received one message, and that is from Councilmember Juarez, who would like to make comment.

Colleagues, if anyone else would like to make a comment, please signal by raising your hand or sending me a message in the chat box.

Okay, go ahead.

I see you, Councilmember Morales.

First up, Councilmember Juarez.

Thank you.

I will be supporting this amendment.

As with Councilmember Strauss, I have been hearing a lot from small businesses citywide, not just District 5. In particular, also from the GSBA, from the queer community on Capitol Hill and their small businesses, that it simply would not work and essentially wipe many of them out if we did not do an increase from 10 FTE to 25. And I think I don't need to go into all the detail about where we're at with this recession and small businesses and COVID.

But my point is, in order to at least to some degree keep some of these businesses open who are barely hanging on, I will be supporting this amendment.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Council Member Morales.

Thank you, Council President.

I will say that I am struggling with this amendment.

I know that we have, you know, we just included language in our Green New Deal and our equitable development language in the earlier part of the progressive revenue package.

that really highlights the greater disparities that we have in some neighborhoods.

You know, we funded EDI because of the history of redlining that has left greater disparities among south end neighborhoods.

So, you know, I'm struggling a little bit because I completely understand the need to support small businesses across the city.

And I know we want to make sure that every neighborhood that the businesses in every neighborhood commercial district get access to technical assistance and to operational support that can help them.

So I also understand that as a former restaurant worker myself, that many businesses have lots of part-time employees.

So I understand increasing to 25 FTEs.

I guess what I would say is if we want to, adjust the criteria so that more businesses are eligible, that's one conversation.

But we know that businesses who received funding already in the first round were predominantly people of color.

And from my perspective, this amendment would eliminate the opportunity for future funding for small businesses owned by immigrants and people of color and just sort of perpetuating the generational wealth gap.

So I am not going to support this amendment.

And I will say that I fully support Amendment 2 being offered by Council Member Strauss, but I can't support Amendment 1.

Thank you so much, Council Member Morales.

Council Member Herbold.

I'm off mute.

Great.

So I have a question.

You know, I heard loud and clear from OED when they started this small business stabilization fund that their narrowing of the eligibility to five employees was their best way of ensuring that eligibility was narrowly focused on to make decisions using an equity lens, narrowly focused on low and moderate income business owners in communities of color.

And that in increasing the number of employees for businesses, it makes it a little bit more difficult for OED to make decisions with that kind of equity lens.

And we've already agreed to increase the eligibility to 10 employees for eligibility.

And so I just want to see if the sponsor, Councilmember Strauss, has any information related to specifically the number of eligible businesses with this increase to to 25. My understanding is that OED received 5,500 eligible applications for the first round of funding, which was only available at that point to businesses with five or fewer employees.

and even though 5,500 eligible applications were received, they were only able to make 250 grants.

So I'm just wondering, do we have, again, estimates of the number of businesses that would be eligible and then the number of grants that would be possible to make with these new funds if we increase the eligibility to 25?

Council Member Strauss.

Thank you, Councilmember Herbold.

I do have that information.

I don't have it at the tip of my fingertips, so let me see if I can't find it and just send you an email right now.

I know that you are correct that this would enlarge the pool of eligible businesses to a great degree, which is also why I brought the other two elements to this amendment about not being funded a second time and distribution across the city.

I will just raise that there's even with that distribution across the city, there is still going to be a focus on equity versus just spreading peanut butter across across a number of different businesses.

So let me try and find that email about the level of number of businesses that would be able to receive this funding.

Colleagues, any other questions or comments on amendment one?

Okay, I'm not seeing any.

Colleagues, I, like Councilmember Morales, am also struggling with this amendment.

I did oppose it in a version of it in committee last week.

My position has not changed.

I think that the points or the questions by Councilmember Herbold are, you know, my primary concern about I think it is important for us to work with the council on increasing the amount.

You know sort of where we're setting the line for the size of a small business.

I thought five was probably too small ten Seemed a little bit more appropriate to really target in on those mom-and-pop Main Street shops that we really are hoping to be able to provide assistance to my concern with opening it up to 25 FTS is I It seems to me to be a pretty aggressive pendulum swing in the opposite direction.

And 25 FTEs could be up to 50 employees or maybe even more.

And I worry that when we start getting into that number, that volume of employees that we're no longer talking about a small business in the way that we intend.

So for that reason, I'm gonna continue to oppose this particular amendment.

certainly appreciate the spirit and the intent with which it was brought forward, but those issues have unfortunately not been resolved for me from my perspective and from the feedback that I've heard from some small business owners, particularly those small businesses who are owned by folks of color and or immigrants and refugees.

That being said, it sounds like we are ready to take a vote here.

So I am going to ask the, oh, I'm sorry, Council Member Strauss, please.

Just wanted to highlight, thank you, Council President, just wanted to highlight that we did work in partnership to make the initial change and I appreciated being able to work with you on that.

Just saying thanks.

Thank you, Council Member Strauss.

I always appreciate working with you as well.

Okay, so with that being said, let's go ahead and have the clerk recall the role on the passage of Amendment 1. Lewis?

Aye.

Morales?

Aye.

Mosqueda?

Aye.

Peterson.

Aye.

Sawant.

Nay.

Excuse me.

I'm sorry.

Sawant.

No.

Thank you.

Strauss.

Aye.

Herbold.

Nay.

Juarez.

Aye.

President Gonzalez.

No.

Five in favor, four opposed.

The motion carries and amendment one is adopted.

Are there any, I'm sorry, before I open it up for general debate, I understand there is a second amendment also brought forward by Councilmember Strauss.

So I'm going to recognize you Councilmember Strauss in order for you to move amendment

Thank you, Council President.

Sorry, I'm just having some technical difficulties with these screens.

Thank you for your time and thank you for the consideration, colleagues, on my amendments.

I move to amend Council Bill 119812 as presented on Amendment 2 on the agenda.

Is there a second?

It's been moved and seconded to adopt Amendment 2. Council Member Strauss, I'm going to hand it back over to you and recognize you in order to address Amendment 2.

Council Member Gonzales, if you don't mind.

There is a recently distributed version two of amendment two that I just want to make sure was before the City Council before Council Member Strauss addressed amendment number two.

You're saying that I need to suspend the rules?

It's only a correction.

It does not change the effects of the amendment.

It just corrects some technical numbers in the amendment, so it's all aligned.

And Council Member Strauss, if he wouldn't mind addressing what those changes are as well, too.

Okay, so we don't, Madam Clerk, just so I'm clear on the procedure here, we don't need to amend the motion language that was just made by Council Member Strauss.

You just need him to, for the record, address what the changes are to the most recently distributed version of Amendment 2. Correct.

Okay.

So the bill has been, excuse me, the amendment has been moved and seconded.

And so Council Member Strauss, again, I'm going to ask you to address Amendment 2 as it was recently circulated.

So in doing so, if you could explain for the record what the difference is between the published version of Amendment 2 and the recently circulated version.

amendment to that would be required per our city clerk.

Thank you Council President.

This the changes between what was just attached to the agenda and what was distributed is a simply let's see the updated amendment and the is simply an omission to OED's funding increase in section four as reflected in the table and corrects the table line number to the column to reflect the added OED funding increase.

Thank you so much.

Council Member Strauss, would you like to make any other remarks or comments about amendment two?

Yes, thank you, Council President.

This amendment would add $4.7 million to the funding for small businesses support.

I came to this number because it would bring the total funding for small businesses support to 25% of the 2020 Jumpstart expenditures, a request that I've heard from small businesses.

And despite what some have said today, this does not run down our rainy day or emergency funds to complete.

$4.7 million means about 450 more small businesses in our communities will receive grants that may be the difference between weathering this pandemic or closing down for good.

I recognize that there is a concern with spending additional dollars out of the revenue stabilization fund, which is why this amendment is about half the size of the previous amendment that I brought last week.

As with the other 2020 expenditures, if this amendment passes, I will be bringing an amendment to Resolution 31957 to replenish the Revenue Stabilization Fund in 2021. We know that when small businesses stay open and keep employees, more people are able to spend money in our economy.

This is exactly how, and the importance of the middle class, when the middle class has the dollars to spend in the economy, it keeps activity moving.

As well, more taxes are collected as these businesses stay open.

I urge my colleagues to consider the crisis that small businesses are facing right now and allow us to scale our response to the stimulus package.

Thank you, Council President.

Thank you, Council Member Strauss.

Are there any comments or questions?

Council Member Lewis.

Thank you, Madam President.

And, you know, I want to thank Councilmember Strauss for bringing this forward as I did last week.

I think that it is important that we talk about what we can do for the small businesses that are struggling throughout this crisis and trying to really make ends meet under really unique and extreme pressures.

I just think that given the amount of that we are doing from our emergency reserves, I am not in a position where I am going to vote to dig even deeper into the remaining amount of slack that we have kept into these reserve funds, just given all of the other spending that we are committing to, and knowing that next year we are going to have to rely on these reserves for a potential additional round of balancing and that preserving what slack we do currently have in here is something that I want to make sure that we maintain a commitment to and not dig.

we are going to get another round of community development block grant money in the near term, or at least the executive seems to be optimistic that we are going to get another round of community development block grant money.

Those funds have formed the core of our direct relief to small businesses.

We have that potentially to look forward to, to come into the space.

You know, I do think that part of our fall project in looking at the 2021 budget should include some discussion around some kind of B&O tax relief for small businesses as well.

And I know Council Member Strauss has been a leader on that.

I think that those are the things that I would prefer to focus on rather than continuing to draw down from our reserve funds.

So I'm going to respectfully vote against this.

It is hard to vote against it.

I think it is important for us to make sure that we are not overspending.

I do think that just based on how much we are currently spending, borrowing to be more accurate from our reserve funds, maintaining the small amount of slack that we do have is an important priority.

For that reason, I will be voting no.

Thank you, Councilmember Strauss for advancing this.

I was happy to support the previous amendment.

I do have some concerns with this one.

We did receive a correspondence from Deputy Mayor Mike Fong noting the executive's concern with spending more of the I do support the bill as a whole and intend to vote for the bill as a whole, but to do more at this time, I have concerns.

I just wanted to explain that.

Thank you.

I am not going to be supporting this one.

I want to push back on the false narrative out there that somehow we are I think we are intentionally leaving a reasonable amount of funding in the emergency funds for the next year if needed.

I will not be supporting this.

the emergency reserves.

I'll say more about this later, but I think this whole conversation really underscores the importance of us having these rainy day funds and emergency reserves.

If ever there was a time to use them, it is now.

So I think we have done that in a responsible way with the underlying bill.

I appreciate where you come from.

Sadly, I'll be a no on this today, but really appreciate your work on this and look forward to working with you to support small businesses as we move forward with implementation and getting these dollars out the door.

Thank you, Council Member Mosqueda for those comments.

As usual, the sponsor of the amendment will have the last word.

Are there any other council members who have any comments or questions on amendment two?

Oh, Council Member Peterson.

I just wanted to clarify my earlier comments.

So there are the two funds, emergency fund and revenue stabilization fund, and I guess there is money left over from the combined funds.

I acknowledge that.

I just technically I think we're we have a lot of money left over.

I just wanted to clarify, I wasn't trying to, I wanted to clarify that I was just specifically talking about the one fund, but there is the other fund that will still have money left over whether we pass the amendment or not.

Thank you for letting me clarify that.

Oh, I'm sort of scanning.

Looks like no other council members have a comment here.

So, Council Member Strauss, do you have the final word?

Thank you, Council President and colleagues for your consideration.

Just again, restating that to combat the false narrative that is out there, even with or without this amendment, we would not have been spending all of the rainy day funds as has been described by some at the city government over the last couple hours.

So with or without this amendment, their city council is not fully utilizing all of our capacity to fight a pandemic and a number of in an economic recession with dollars that have been saved over past years to fight such recessions and unforeseen emergencies.

Thank you, Council President.

Thank you, Council Member Strauss.

Appreciate that.

Okay, colleagues, I'm going to go ahead and close out debate on Amendment 2, and I'd ask that the clerk please call the roll on the adoption of Amendment 2 as recently circulated.

Lewis?

No.

Morales?

Aye.

Mosqueda?

No.

Peterson?

No.

Sawant?

No.

Strauss?

Aye.

Herbold?

Nay.

Juarez?

Yes.

May I get Morales' vote?

Morales?

Aye.

Thank you.

President Gonzalez?

No.

Three in favor.

Three in favor, six opposed.

Okay, thank you so much.

The motion fails and Amendment 2 is not adopted.

Are there any other further comments on the bill as amended?

I think that is a good point.

Thank you.

Councilmember Mosqueda, did you want to have the final word or do you want to speak now?

I was going to offer some clarification on a potential amendment I was thinking about and not going to walk on related to tiny house villages.

Now is a good time to clarify that, Madam President.

Let me go ahead and recognize you in order to address what could have been an amendment but isn't an amendment, and then we'll take comments on the bill as a whole as amended from other colleagues.

Council Member Mosqueda.

Wonderful.

There was some conversation last Wednesday about the amendment related to tiny house villages and non-congregate settings.

and while I voted last week to retain the flexibility that I thought was needed to include COVID relief spending with regards to non-congregate spending so that it could be used for tiny house villages and things like hotels and motels, I was thinking about offering some clarifying language because we know how important it is for all non-congregate settings to have the support that they need for addressing the current COVID crisis like addressing the ongoing shared bathrooms and shared food areas or eating spaces.

And I am really conscious though of the fact that tiny house villages along with hotels and motels are a much better alternative to existing congregate settings.

We were thinking about bringing forward an amendment to clarify some of those pieces.

Just for the viewing audience and for folks who did testify today, the amendment that folks were referring to was adopted last Wednesday.

And so the 3.6 million is specifically allocated for tiny house villages.

I think to the degree that we can get those villages stood up in quick time and that offers relief to folks who are currently in congregate settings or outside in the elements to have a room, a roof and a secure place to live.

Obviously, that's a much better location.

We really want the mayor, the executive team to spend those dollars.

And to the degree that there's any hangups or concerns, I'm sure we'll be following up with all of the advocates from the housing and homelessness advocates to make sure the money gets out the door.

But just to offer that clarification, I'm not gonna be bringing forward a clarifying amendment today, and the amendment stays within the bill.

Thank you, Council Member Mosqueda.

Are there any comments on the bill as amended?

Councilmember Herbold.

And then Councilmember Solano.

and to ensure that Seattle residents, small business owners, and nonprofits have the support they need to survive right now.

We've learned in the past that engaging in austerity budgeting and slashing programs only leads to a prolonged struggle to recover, both for individual businesses and individual households, and for our economy as a whole.

This, for me, is the lesson of the Great Recession.

The legislation takes to heart and makes targeted investments where they can do the most good, focusing on small business owners that make our city a special place to live and are operating under significant uncertainty in providing jobs to people in our community.

In nonprofits that are working tirelessly to care for the people most impacted by COVID and also providing essential jobs.

In immigrant and refugee communities who are shut out by other forms of relief.

And for people who are struggling to pay the rent and those who are attempting to survive unsheltered.

as well as for small landlords who also rely on rent to pay their bills.

And then finally, as it relates to very, very critical food relief, this bill puts a premium on helping households who are struggling.

to put enough food on the table and whose meal programs have been otherwise shut down.

Again, I really appreciate that this has been so targeted for our investments throughout the end of 2020 and appreciate the opportunity and the privilege to work with councilmembers as well as the broader community who has weighed in on this, not just the taxing legislation, but also the spending plan.

So thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Herbold for those remarks.

We're going to hear now from Councilmember Sawant and then Councilmember Lewis.

Thank you.

Today's vote by the Seattle City Council along with the historic Amazon tax victory earlier this month represents the culmination of three years of determined grassroots rank-and-file organizing.

Our movement has forced the city establishment to dedicate at least $18 million per year from the Amazon tax revenues for publicly owned permanently affordable housing for black working class and poor families in the central district and has dedicated funds for the Green New Deal and tiny house villages.

Our movement has won because we overcame the opposition of big business and the political establishment who have fought us every step of the way.

Make no mistake about it.

The Amazon tax and today's fund for black community housing in the central district are not the result of political quote-unquote collaboration with big business.

but rather a product of a working class movement led by socialists, by workers, by unions, and by BLM activists.

Activists because of whom we won the first of its kind ban on the use and purchase of chemical weapons by the police.

And we now see Mayor Durkan attempting to undermine that legislation and also doubling down on her loyal representation of big business interest by refusing to sign the Amazon tax that has been approved by the majority of the council.

Hundreds of volunteers have joined this truly grassroots movement.

We held four action conferences.

We organized protests.

We organized a car caravan with social distancing during the pandemic.

We marched in Olympia when they attempted to pass legislation banning our city from taxing big business.

We organized in the grassroots of the labor movement and progressive organizations.

And most importantly, We launched a tax Amazon ballot initiative to represent a concrete and material threat to big business, which was operating in the back rooms to undermine the Amazon tax legislation in the city council.

And in fact, on the streets as part of the Justice for George Floyd movement, we gathered 30,000 ballot initiative signatures, the first 20,000 in just the first 20 days of the protests.

Big businesses themselves have admitted that they were forced to concede to the tax Amazon and the Black Lives Matter movement.

As Steve Hooper of Eaton's Tower Restaurants, a company that viciously opposed the Amazon tax and the $15 minimum wage, said, quote, our industry would have been disproportionately hammered by the Sawant Morales proposal.

I was trying to protect our industry for sure from the competing proposal that I thought was incredibly harmful, unquote.

These quotes and the quote by former mayor, Ed Murray, in which he admitted that it was the 15 Now ballot initiative, and he said, I believe that 15 Now had the potential of passing, and that would have been incredibly detrimental to our restaurants and small businesses, unquote.

These are quotes from big business representatives, and they are They remind us that the interests of the super wealthy and of working people and the poor are diametrically opposed to each other.

And what is considered extremely progressive for ordinary people in the majority, the big business and wealthy interests consider it harmful to them, even though they have massive cash reserves and the overwhelming wealth of our society, even though it's the majority that goes to work and creates that wealth.

And that's why it requires a political struggle to win victories for the majority.

The political establishment, corporate media, and others are fighting to make people believe that the progressive changes like Amazon tax come from sitting down at a table behind a third door with someone like Steve Hooper to come to a happy compromise.

But in real life, the compromises we see are a reflection of the balance of power in society.

So if working people understand that this is about power, then we can win greater gains in the future because we will focus the strategy of our movements on building worker power and empower the marginalized and the oppressed, not to mention the renters who are now going to be facing a tsunami of evictions as soon as the moratoriums are lifted.

If, on the other hand, the establishment succeeds in convincing people to put their faith in collaboration with big business, then it will end up building the political power of big business even further and will make future victories for working people and people of color far less likely.

I'm thrilled to be able to vote yesterday on the ordinance and the resolution in order to make available tens of millions to fund emergency COVID relief for our communities and the potential to build affordable housing for black and brown communities in the central district and other parts of the city and funding the Green New Deal and immediately establishing five new tiny house villages.

All of this has been hard fought and hard won.

We will need similarly emboldened movements to win games in the next three weeks in the summer budget vote of the Seattle City Council, which will be on the budget for the remainder of 2020. For those who may have participated with the People's Budget Campaign every year in the last years, we will be voting on the fall budget in the fall of 2020 for the budget of next year.

So let's make sure we immediately gear up for winning the victories we want to win in the people's budget summer 2020 campaign.

We're demanding the police department be defunded by at least 50%, which means defunding them by at least $85 million for the rest of this year and demanding that those funds be transferred into socially constructive causes in the black and brown community.

And to make sure that the city stops the inhumane and ineffective sweeps of homeless neighbors and to fund renter organizing and eviction defense.

So I invite everybody who's watching this to the People's Budget Summer 2020 rally in March on Tuesday, July 28th at 6 p.m.

at Seattle Central College.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Sawant.

We will now hear from Council Member Lewis.

Thank you, Madam President.

I'll be brief so we can get to the final question here on voting on this today.

But I did just want to briefly say that I'm really excited that we're taking this big move as a council to really make I think we have made strong, noticeable, and meaningful progress on what was our original state of emergency this year, the massive crisis of so many of our neighbors living on the streets in a state of sleeping in vehicles, sleeping in tents, and making sure that we as a city are acting with the sense of urgency that that demands, and making sure that there is meaningful progress that all of us in Seattle want to see, regardless of our position.

We all have that same interest, which is to get folks who are living unsheltered inside where they can live with dignity and where they can have the support that they need.

I'm really proud to have worked with the sponsors and with other I think it is important to make sure that we are doing the right thing.

Among other investments that we have made and your leadership in making sure that this was at the forefront of your mind in drafting this relief to really respond to the massive amount of I'm glad that we can finally go back to our constituents and say that we are taking action urgently to have movement on this in 2020. And hopefully the beginning of even more to come throughout the rest of the spend plan.

So thank you so much.

Thank you, Councilmember Lewis.

Are there any additional comments on the bill as amended?

It looks like there are no additional comments from other colleagues.

I also want to say thanks to Councilmember Mosqueda and her staff for all of the work that you all have done to I think it's important to get us to this point.

Obviously, last week was a momentous occasion or a couple weeks ago was a momentous occasion because we actually voted on the substantive bill.

This is another opportunity for us to, again, prioritize those areas of funding that we think are critical in the city's effort to recover from the economic crisis caused by this pandemic and appreciate the taking local action where we have not seen action from our state legislature or from our region in terms of addressing the regressive nature of our tax system.

And so I do appreciate your ongoing effort to all together to make sure that we have an opportunity to ask the wealthiest corporations to pay their fair share and to give the council an opportunity to clearly articulate where it is we want to see prioritization of expenditures.

It is my hope that the executive will actually spend these dollars.

We can only appropriate dollars.

We cannot force the executive, the mayor to actually spend any dollars at all.

But it is my hope that we'll choose to spend the dollars as opposed to we are not going to allow folks to not reap the benefits of the appropriation choices that the city council is about to make today by passage of both this council bill and the upcoming resolution.

I know there is much more to come through our ongoing budget deliberations.

And with that, I'm going to hand it over to you to close out debate on this council bill and the resolution so that we can take a final vote and consider the last pieces of the resolution.

Thank you, Council President, and thanks also for your stewardship as we helped put together the timeline and the framework to get this bill over this finish line.

Council colleagues, it's been through hundreds of conversations with businesses, immigrant rights groups, environmental and housing groups, with labor and businesses that Jumpstart came together, and everyone said these two things.

Residents in Seattle want solutions and they want leadership.

Jumpstart Seattle offers solutions and the leadership needed to provide immediate COVID relief and support in the out years to weather this crisis.

This proposal that is in front of us, both the revenue that we passed two weeks ago and the detailed spend plan and COVID assistance here was thoughtful, inclusive, strategic, smart, and carefully crafted.

We welcomed anyone to the table who wanted to advance progressive revenue in Seattle.

As the prime sponsor of JumpStart, you can accuse me of a lot of things, but everyone knows I'm inclusive, deliberative, and data-driven, and you don't have to take it from me.

We pulled together economic experts from around the country, economists who said the same thing from Economic Policy Institute, from the University of Massachusetts, from in the public interest, from front and center, from budget and policy center, Together, they said that past recessions have proven that when governments invest in small business, housing assistance, food assistance, and support for small businesses, instead of cuts on austerity, local economies can weather crises in a more equitable way, and local economies rebound faster.

There is a proven return on investment in the strategies that we're advancing today.

We have shown that when we invest in our community and our most vulnerable, there is a multiplier effect and we all benefit.

We have very few tools in our tool belt.

In the state of Washington, we have chosen in the city of Seattle to use one of the tools that is a progressive tool to raise revenue in this vital time.

And the proposal in front of us is on solid legal ground.

The same attorneys that the mayor relies upon for her legal advice help advise us on crafting this policy.

And it is a known fact that payroll taxes are a commonly used tool, one that's a progressive tool that cities can rely on to raise revenue.

We intentionally built off of the legally sound strategy that business and labor and community groups were negotiating in Olympia.

And I want to thank Representative Macri for her leadership in Olympia and for her ongoing input on the Jump Start proposal.

When the bill stalled in Olympia, we immediately reengaged.

with some of the same folks who were engaging in Olympia to assess how we can move forward in Seattle to act as a good partner with our state and our regional efforts.

To not just say we're going to wait for the next year, but to truly engage and step in when the state and the region was not able to advance so that we could provide immediate COVID relief and out-year support.

So yes, of course, there's other progressive tools that I have been an advocate for for over a decade.

And that includes income tax.

That includes capital gains.

Thank you, Council Member Lewis, for advancing those conversations.

That includes corporate income tax.

But until we have some of those tools that we can advance, we need to provide relief.

We are going to do so in a responsible way here with the payroll tax that's in front of us.

And of course I would support an income tax as we know the mayor wants that and so many others.

We've talked about an income tax but we cannot in a responsible way implement a flat rate income tax without a rebate.

In the conversations that I've had with the mayor, I have been very clear.

It would be irresponsible for us to impose a flat rate income tax without a rebate for our lowest wage workers.

And no, they can't afford 500 or $600 back to the city in a time when they can't afford to pay rent or put food on the table.

These jumpstart progressive payroll tax bill is the most responsible and most progressive tax proposal we could put in front of us to act in good faith with state and county actors as we advance other progressive strategies.

I will remain committed to working on progressive revenue, just as I have over the last decade.

We will continue to fight for more relief for our lowest-wage workers, for small businesses, to right-side up our upside-down tax code Absolutely, that will continue to happen.

And in fact, we're so committed to it, we wrote a predictability clause into the legislation so that if action were to happen at the state or local level, we would also accommodate that in our statute.

But we have to be realistic.

That support is not coming in the immediate future.

And Jumpstart proposal offers that relief that we need for communities, for small businesses, and for our most vulnerable right now.

I want to echo the council president's comments.

And while the bill itself was not vetoed, the mayor has not committed to getting the funding for COVID relief out the door, which is critical.

The critical effort for us all is to make sure that the mayor allocates the COVID relief dollars as specified in this law after today's vote, because any delay would mean the consequences for our city's health and recovery would be dire.

It would be a dereliction of duties not to get this out.

And by definition, dereliction of duties means a shameful failure to fulfill one's obligation.

It is our obligation to provide immediate relief right now to those who are facing COVID crisis.

It is our obligation to make sure that immigrants and refugees who've been left out of federal assistance get the support they need.

It is our obligation to help small businesses open up so that they can hire more people when they're given the green light under COVID.

And it is our obligation to make sure more people can keep a roof over their head and put food on the table so that they can be healthy, sustained themselves and their family, and weather this crisis that is COVID.

So this is not a theoretical exercise in crafting progressive policy.

We are doing this in the midst of a public health crisis, a pandemic where housing and food insecurity is not just a moral crisis, it is a public health crisis.

We're in the midst of a civil rights uprising where black and brown folks are getting hit with higher rates of COVID-19, higher rates of hospitalizations and higher death rates.

And coronavirus is leading to more black and brown communities getting laid off being on unemployment or without the necessary supports that they need from state and federal governments.

Where nine in 10 Black-owned businesses who applied for federal support through PPP didn't get it because of the long history of racist lending practices.

So we are doing this again as a good partner, stepping up and offering progressive revenue, stepping in where the federal government has not been able to and where the state government has not been able to convene yet.

We are doing this to make sure that we've done it in a smart way to offer relief and make sure that these dollars get out immediately.

So we look forward to working with you, to working with the mayor's office and our entire community to make sure folks can realize the assistance that has been offered in the COVID relief bill and in the out years in the jumpstart spending plan that is now detailed.

In housing, we've continued to hear that there is greater need for individuals to have access to affordable home ownership opportunities.

And this and rental assistance and the proposal in front of us deliberately focuses on undoing historic injustices.

and building resilience and prosperity for Black, Indigenous, and people of color residents.

We're really excited about a few elements in this proposal that I want to highlight.

I'm really excited about how this will invest in the work of creative justice in Africatown, and it also focuses on really great programs like the ones that Councilmember Warris lifted up today from community passageways for efforts like the Youth Achievement Center that will be able to provide multi-purpose buildings for wraparound services.

This is exactly what Jumpstart envisions when it thinks about coupling housing and social services and community assets together, especially in neighborhoods that have been hardest hit by redlining.

For the immigrant and refugee population, we know that there's thousands of undocumented families in Seattle who were laid off and intentionally excluded from the CARES Act at the federal level.

So we've included $18 million in direct cash assistance to small business support and for assistance for immigrants and refugees.

Throughout Seattle we've heard from small businesses that they just need flexible dollars.

Give them the flexibility to hire people back to change the structure of their business to create more protection for their employees and their patrons.

And we've offered flexible dollars in response to what those small businesses have said that they needed to the tune of 18 million dollars.

and that includes child care support because many small businesses told us they can't open up without additional child support for their kiddos or for their employees.

They need child care assistance.

And we've planned for the future.

In the spend plan proposal that is in front of us in just a minute, we've worked with business and labor and community activists and environmental justice folks.

In fact, Katie Garrow from the Martin Luther King County Labor Council and Alec from 350 Seattle convened a group of 33 leaders, plus them two, and representing labor, climate, environmental justice, affordable housing groups, and they put together the proposal that we saw in the amended version, which focuses on Green New Deal.

Matt Rimley said, this resolution simultaneously addresses climate crisis by seeking the reduction in Seattle's greenhouse gas emissions, the lack of affordable housing, job training opportunities in the green economy, and addresses the health disparities in Seattle's neighborhoods disproportionately impacted by pollution.

This is precisely what the goals of the Green New Deal are.

He says he's honored to have worked alongside our office and members of labor, housing, climate, environmental justice communities with the final amended version in front of us.

You know, the mayor had a quote in the mayor's launch on green and just COVID-19 recovery plan, saying that COVID had laid bare the same inequities that are exacerbated by climate change, which disproportionately impact communities of color, and that we need to address these by addressing long-term wealth creation that has advanced the health and wellbeing of black and brown indigenous communities, and not just focus on excluding those folks after the fact, but must pursue solutions.

that address short-term impacts and long-term impacts.

We agree, and this proposal does just that.

It invests in making sure that we are acting on great new deal issues, making sure that we're investing in communities hardest hit in both frontline and fenceline communities, that we've invested in creating affordable housing because we know that as more people get pushed out of the city, the biggest contributor to greenhouse gas emissions is car pollution, and allowing us to make sure that there's more affordable housing in the city that people live and want to work and stay makes us on the path towards a greener economy.

These are the issues we're addressing when we came together and put together the jumpstart proposal in front of us.

This is the moment that we're responding to the city's call for leadership and action.

Together, we have come up with the solution.

I want to thank again the community, all of my council colleagues, all the activists and all the organizations that have involved with both pushing for more and coming together with creating these solutions in front of us.

We have the blueprint to create a more resilient economy, house more of our community members, feed those who are dealing with food insecurity, and make sure that our small businesses have the resiliency that they need.

Finally, I just want to thank my office, Sejal Kareef, Aaron House, Farideh Cuevas, and Aretha Basu.

in addition to all of the folks on central staff and the communication staff who have been working with us to get the information out to community and to incorporate all of your amendments and the final proposal in front of us.

We could not do this work without you and the community at large.

So thank you very much.

Again, colleagues, making history, but we got to get these dollars out the door.

That'll come next.

Thank you, Councilmember Mosqueda for those final remarks.

We're going to go ahead and close out debate on this council bill.

I'm going to ask the clerk to call the roll on the passage of the bill as amended.

Colleagues, In order to make it easier for our city clerk's office to count your votes in the proper column, there is a request that you vote either aye for yes or no for no, because a and nay sound very, very similar.

So if you intend to vote no, make sure it's a no as opposed to nay.

And that's something that I'll make sure to occasionally remind us about in order to make sure that we have a clear record for the clerks.

So that being said, I'd ask that the clerk please call the roll on the passage of the bill as amended.

Lewis?

Yes.

Morales?

Yes.

Mosqueda?

Yes.

Peterson?

Yes.

Sawant?

Yes.

Strauss.

Yes.

Herbold.

Yes.

Juarez.

Yes.

President Gonzalez.

Yes.

Nine in favor, none opposed.

Thank you so much, Madam Clerk.

I hope that helped.

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

And as the clerk, please affix my signature to the legislation on my behalf.

Okay, folks, we're gonna go ahead and move to agenda item two.

It's already been read into the record and it has been debated in terms of the substance of the resolution.

So I'm gonna go ahead and move us into discussion of amendment one.

Council Member Strauss, I'm gonna recognize you in order to move your amendment to resolution 31957. Thank you, Council President.

As the amendment that is connected to this in the last bill was not passed.

I will be withdrawing this amendment Thank you so much for creating that record colleagues amendment one is Withdrawn so we will not have any additional amendments to consider to the resolution Are there any other comments on the resolution before we call it to a vote?

Councilmember Morales

Thank you.

I apologize, Council President, for sending you a frantic text.

I did want a chance to comment before we take the final vote.

I do want to start by thanking you, Council Member Mosqueda, for all of the work that you and your office have done here.

In 2017, I was part of the Trump Proof Seattle campaign.

I'm sure many of you remember that.

It helped pass the citywide income tax.

I organized the D2 town hall where we got our then city council representative, Bruce Harrell, to commit to supporting the plan, and I was very excited when it passed.

As we know, that is, as it was passed, is not an option for us right now.

In 2018, the employee hours tax passed and then was repealed.

And this year, we've heard the hand wringing from many of our state legislators and other elected officials about why we shouldn't wait for the state or the county to pass progressive revenue.

I will say that many of these same electeds have been in office for 5, 10, 20 years and have not taken action themselves on passing progressive revenue for the citizens of Washington.

So here we are in 2020, finally passing a citywide progressive revenue spending plan, knowing that we have already passed the jumpstart tax.

And thanks to our veto proof majority, that that is about to become law.

Today is so important for the people of Seattle, because today we're letting them know that we will shift the burden of paying for services from those who are the poorest in our city to those who are the most privileged.

from individual households to the largest corporations in the city.

And we do that so that we fund more affordable housing, more permanent supportive housing to address our homelessness crisis, the COVID relief we just passed, and through the Equitable Development Initiative and Green New Deal allocations, we commit to investing in communities of color to reverse the pattern of displacement and gentrification that we've seen in this city for generations.

I want to thank my staff, especially Lakeisha Farmer, who's been leading this work in our office.

I want to thank the people of District 2 who contacted my office over the last several months, and also to thank the advocates who organized to let this council know that not only that progressive revenue is a priority for equitable financing of public services, and for critical anti-displacement work, but also for community self-determination.

Puget Sound SAGE and SouthCore have been especially important and will continue to be my touchstone as we think about how to pass legislation that is equitable for communities of color.

And finally, I want to thank my colleagues for supporting a plan that will benefit Seattleites in the near term through an economic recovery, which we hope will begin very soon.

and into the future.

Thank you for being bold and for doing what's right for our city.

Thank you, Ms. Morales, and my apologies for not seeing your message.

Thank you for speaking up.

I really appreciate that.

Colleagues, any other comments about either the council bill or the resolution that we're going to take action on?

Okay, well, let's go ahead and have the clerk call the roll on the adoption of the resolution.

Lewis?

Yes.

Morales?

Yes.

Mosqueda?

Yes.

Peterson?

Yes.

Sawant?

Yes.

Strauss?

Yes.

Herbold?

Yes.

Juarez?

Yes.

President Gonzalez?

Yes.

Nine in favor, none opposed.

Thank you so much, Madam Clerk.

The resolution is unanimously adopted and the chair will sign it.

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

Congratulations, colleagues, but most importantly, congratulations to the people of the city of Seattle who have been fighting this good fight for many, many years.

Thank you, colleagues, for your ongoing work.

in collaboration to get this across the finish line.

This is representative democracy right here and really excited that we are choosing to take bold action as opposed to kicking the can down the road in the hypothetical hopes that some other elected body will show up to rescue us.

I don't believe that that is likely to occur, and the urgency of now demands that we take action now as opposed to waiting another cycle to see if someone else comes to our rescue.

So thank you everyone for your hard work, for your engagement, and for your steadfast representation of the people that we are called upon to dutifully represent.

Thank you so much everyone.

All right.

Absolutely.

Okay, folks.

Moving on to agenda item 3, I ask the clerk please read the short title of item 3 into the record.

I report of the City Council agenda item 3. I will move to pass council bill 119828.

the bill has been moved and seconded.

I am going to hand it over to Councilmember Peterson, a sponsor of the bill.

You are recognized to address this item.

Thank you.

This is certainly less exciting than what we were just talking about, but necessary business nonetheless.

I'm going to read the same remarks I read from council briefing just for the benefit of the viewing public today.

So if my colleagues sort of tune out a little bit, I won't be offended.

So as we know, our city's fortunate to own and operate its own utility enterprises with Seattle City Light delivering electricity to everyone and with our Seattle Public Utilities, not only handling trash, recycling, yard waste, and sewage, but also protecting and delivering clean water.

So when you turn on the lights, Seattle City Light, when you turn on the tap, that's Seattle Public Utilities.

So most cities do not own their own utilities, and this ownership comes with additional responsibilities and legislation, like the legislation before us now.

This is Council Bill 119828. It would authorize our Seattle Public Utilities General Manager, Mami Hara, to purchase four industrial parcels consolidated to create a single important hub for water infrastructure maintenance materials.

SPU calls it the South Spoils Yard.

Spoils are the dirt and debris after completing a vital utility repair installation work.

The parcels are in an industrial area near Airport Way South and South Spokane Street, just southeast of I-5 Spokane Street interchange.

The spoils yard would provide a place for SPU crews to store equipment and material needed to install and maintain and repair water infrastructure in Seattle.

in south Seattle.

Pipeline ruptures and other emergencies are disruptive and potentially damaging to public street right-of-way and sidewalks.

Backfill materials to restore the street openings must be available to crews at all hours.

This property acquisition would replace a yard at South Meade Street and First Avenue South, which SPU has been leasing for over 14 years.

There's also a similar hub in north Seattle, as noted in the central staff memo.

The utility has spent a good part of that time looking for suitable property to buy that is industrial zone and close to SPU's operation control center in Soto.

The location of the parcels to be acquired minimizes operational impacts to the public like dust, noise, odor, and large vehicle movements.

The South Spoils Yard project is in SPU's 2016 to 2021 strategic business plan, and funding for this acquisition is already in the adopted budget.

There's some urgency to secure approval of this legislation because we have a purchase and sale agreement or purchase sale agreements for the properties that expire at the end of this month.

The purchases are from willing sellers.

So thank you for moving and it's been seconded.

I'm happy to answer any questions.

Colleagues, any questions or comments on the bill?

Council Member Herbold, you're recognized.

Thank you.

I note that the fiscal note references the fact that the provision related to condemnation has been included in the bill at the request of the sellers for tax purposes, but yet we have a purchase and sale agreement for the properties.

I'm curious, under what circumstances would the sellers use the conditions of condemnation for tax purposes if there's not going to be a condemnation?

This legislation from Seattle Public Utilities had that provision in there.

Brian Goodnight from central staff was available today to answer questions.

I'm sorry that that was not answered earlier for you.

My apologies.

It's just, I think it was put in as additional flexibility, person sale agreements moving at the same time the legislation's moving.

So it's really there just for that additional flexibility.

Thank you, Council Member Peterson and Council Member Herbold.

Are there any other questions or comments about the bill?

Okay, hearing none, I'd ask that the clerk please call the roll on the passage of the bill.

Lewis?

Aye, I mean, yes.

Morales?

Yes.

Mosqueda?

Yes.

Peterson?

Yes.

DeWant?

Yes.

Strauss?

Yes.

Herbold?

Yes.

Juarez?

Yes.

President Gonzalez?

Yes.

Nine in favor, none opposed.

Thank you, Madam Clerk.

The bill passes and the chair will sign it.

I'd ask that the clerk please affix my signature to the legislation.

Moving along to agenda item four, I'd ask that the clerk please read item four into the record.

Agenda item four, Council Bill 119829 relating to commercial tenancies, temporarily prohibiting the enforcement of personal liability provisions in commercial leases or other rental agreements, declaring an emergency, and establishing an immediate effective date, all by three-fourths vote of the City Council.

Thank you, Madam Clerk.

I will move to pass Council Bill 119829. Is there a second?

Second.

It's been moved and seconded to pass the bill.

Council Member Lewis, you are the prime sponsor of this bill, so you are recognized in order to address this item.

Well, we have a couple of amendments here as well, Council President.

So I believe the first one is mine.

So I would move that we consider amendment one to the previously stated council bill before us for discussion.

OK.

Is there a second?

Second.

It's been moved and seconded to adopt Amendment 1. Council Member Lewis, please feel free to address Amendment 1.

Thank you, Madam President.

This amendment just closes a potential oversight in the initial drafting of this where some of our small business owners and leaseholders who unfortunately have the decision to close up and then potentially walk away from a lease might have not been covered.

And so this amendment helps to make sure they are covered.

So if your business did go out of business during COVID, you could still benefit from the relief that this kind of regulatory change could invite.

Whereas without this amendment, that wouldn't be possible.

And that's a big priority for a lot of small business owners who have unfortunately just been completely slammed by the COVID recession and not been able to, you know, through cobbling together a package of relief get through to the other side.

But I want to make sure that they still are able to benefit to not suffer even further loss by potentially losing their home, potentially losing their life savings.

So this amendment would extend the coverage to help them as well.

Thank you, Council Member Lewis.

Are there any questions or comments on Amendment 1?

It looks like there are no additional comments on Amendment 1. So I would ask that the clerk please call the roll on the adoption of Amendment 1.

Lewis.

Yes.

Morales.

Yes.

Mosqueda.

Yes.

Peterson.

Yes.

Sawant.

Yes.

Strauss.

Yes.

Herbold.

Yes.

Juarez.

No.

President Gonzales?

Yes.

Nine in favor, none opposed.

Thank you.

The motion carries and Amendment 1 is adopted.

I believe there is another amendment.

This one is sponsored by Councilmember Herbold.

So I will recognize Councilmember Herbold in order to make the motion to present Amendment 2.

Thank you.

I move to amend Council Bill 119829 as presented on Amendment 2 on the agenda.

Is there a second?

Second.

It's been moved and seconded to adopt Amendment 2. Council Member Herbold, I'm going to hand it back over to you to address the amendment.

Thank you so much.

As I mentioned this morning in council briefings meeting, I believe that small businesses and nonprofits will need a period of time after the state of emergency is lifted in order to regain their financial footing.

This amendment gives them a modest grace period to do that, and I believe it is considered a friendly amendment by the sponsor of the legislation.

The timeline of this amendment is very similar to the approach we took with legislation that the council passed earlier this year that requires landlords of commercial tenants to negotiate a reasonable payment plan for rent owing during the state of emergency, and allowing that obligation to negotiate a reasonable payment plan to extend the state of emergency.

So with this proposed extension, these bills should work together to give landlords and tenants time to negotiate the payment plan and build trust, hopefully leading fewer landlords to ever pursue personal liability provisions.

This amendment was circulated by central staff yesterday, and I want to give a shout out to I would like to thank my staff person for suggesting this really I think strong alignment with the previous legislation regarding payment plans.

Thank you.

Seeing and hearing none, I'd ask that the clerk please call the roll on the adoption of amendment two.

Lewis?

Yes.

Morales?

Yes.

Mosqueda?

Yes.

Peterson?

Yes.

Sawant?

Yes.

Strauss?

Yes.

Herbold?

Yes.

Juarez?

Yes.

President Gonzalez?

Yes.

Nine in favor, none opposed.

Thank you so much.

The motion carries and amendment two is adopted.

I will now go ahead and open it up for general comments on the bill as amended.

Are there any additional comments on the bill?

Okay, I don't see anybody raising their hand.

Council Member Lewis, do you have any closing remarks before we call this to a vote?

I would just say, you know, since we still have a few agenda items and I've talked about this at length before, I just would obviously, you know, urge everyone present to vote to adopt this.

I think it is an important emergency, a piece of legislation.

I would remind everyone that that does mean, it's been a while since we've had one of these, but that it requires seven votes and a sent from the mayor and really hope to be able to I would add as well, I know that there's some folks watching that have been opining about the possible legality of the ordinance.

I would just direct any colleagues who have a question about that to the great memo that was circulated by the city attorney's office to address those concerns which was circulated late last week.

and which makes me confident in voting for this ordinance, but just wanted to address that briefly and know that I did distribute their assessment and analysis of the strong merits of the ordinance.

Otherwise, I don't have anything else to add from my comments at briefing this morning and would just urge folks vote yes.

Thank you, Council Member Lewis.

Any other questions or comments?

Hearing and seeing none, I'd ask that the clerk please call the roll on the passage of the bill as amended.

Lewis?

Yes.

Morales?

Yes.

Mosqueda?

Yes.

Peterson?

Yes.

DeWant?

Yes.

Strauss?

Yes.

Herbold?

Yes.

Juarez?

Yes.

President Gonzalez?

Yes.

Nine in favor, nine opposed.

Thank you.

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

I'd ask the clerk please affix my signature to the legislation on my behalf.

Okay, we're getting close to the finish line.

Agenda item five.

I'd ask that the clerk please read agenda item five into the record.

Agenda N5, Council Bill 119832, relating to floodplains adopting interim regulations consistent with the Federal Emergency Management Agency regulations adopting updating, excuse me, adopting updated National Flood Insurance Rate Map to allow individuals to continue to obtain flood insurance through FEMA's Flood Insurance Program and amending Chapter 25.06, Section 25.09.030 of the Settlement for Code.

Thank you, Madam Clerk.

I will move to pass Council Bill 119832. Is there a second?

Second.

It's been moved and seconded to pass the bill.

Council Member Strauss, you are the prime sponsor of this bill and there are no amendments, so you are recognized in order to address this item.

Thank you, Council President.

This legislation is federally required by FEMA in order for the city to continue participating in the National Flood Insurance Program.

In February, FEMA published updated flood insurance rate maps and new flood insurance study for King County.

This requires all King County jurisdictions to update their floodplain regulations to comply with the National Flood Insurance Program.

This legislation would adopt the FEMA recommended changes on an interim basis in order to meet the federal deadline of August 19th while SDCI prepares the permanent regulations.

Recommendations on permanent regulations are expected within the next six months as this is an interim measure that is federally required to keep us in compliance with federal regulations.

Thank you, Council President.

Thank you, Councilmember stress for those remarks.

Are there any additional comments on the bill?

Councilmember Herbold.

Thank you.

So I just want to say a few comments because of the 185 properties that are being added with this update, 131 of those properties are in District 1. 44 of them are single-family properties, 8 are low-rise, 1 and 2, and the rest are commercial or industrial.

Although this legislation does make it possible for people to apply for national flood insurance under the national flood insurance rates and that those the the Insurance varies from property to property.

The average in Washington is about $700 a year.

And without being on the flood map, you can't take advantage of getting flood insurance.

This legislation also requires properties to get flood insurance.

We've contacted SDCI to find out whether or not there is flood insurance for low-income individuals whose property is now deemed to be in the flood zone.

I just want to flag for the interest of transparency, the fact that there are a lot of impacts to property owners in District 1. And although there is a benefit from this legislation in that property owners in the flood zone on the map can apply for flood insurance, whereas you can't if you're not on the map.

The downside is it requires you to apply for flood insurance.

So I understand that that's a difficult position for some folks.

And I'm interested in continuing to find out more about whether or not there are options for low-income individuals who are responsible for this increased insurance.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Herbold.

Are there any other comments or questions on the bill?

Seen and hearing none, I would ask that the clerk please call the roll on the passage of the bill.

Lewis?

Yes.

Morales?

Yes.

Yes.

Peterson.

Yes.

Sawant.

Yes.

Strauss.

Yes.

Herbold.

Yes.

Juarez.

Yeah I guess.

President Gonzales.

I think I guess counts as a yes, Madam Clerk.

All right, that's better, thank you.

You get two binary options, yes or no.

Mine is yes.

I'm fluid.

All right, thank you, Madam Clerk.

The bill passes and the chair will sign it.

I'd ask that the clerk please fix my signature to the legislation on my behalf.

Okay, colleagues, we have reached the part of our agenda for other business.

Is there any other further business to come before the council?

Hearing no.

Okay, Council Member Lewis.

Sorry, Madam President, I did just want to publicly recognize and thank Catherine Sims on my staff for all the work on that commercial lease legislation.

I forgot in my closing remarks to say that, but I do think it is important to recognize the staff members on the second floor who are so critical to the legislative process and Asha from central staff for her work as well.

So thank you for indulging that.

Thank you for taking a moment to acknowledge staff, always an important thing to do if we want to see things continue to get done.

So, appreciate that.

Council Member Mosqueda, please.

Thank you, Council President.

I think you've done a really good job of this.

In convening weekly and having these conversations remotely, we know that it's hard out there with so much stress happening with both COVID-related health concerns, economic concerns, and increasing demands for calls for us to respond to civil rights demands upon our entire nation.

And I just want to say how much I appreciate everybody in these stressful times.

We've seen a lot of reports about how important it is to take care of yourself, be kind, be respectful, and continue to push for change.

I know it's been a long time coming, but to take care of each other and to take care of one another, we don't, I think, hear that enough.

So thank you for all of the messages that you've sent about supporting one another and being kind and respectful in this time when we are in very stressful conditions.

And I know that the council is trying to respond to many of the pressing issues here, but just want to say how much I appreciate all of you and to our community at large.

to be kind and nice.

Thank you, Council Member Mosqueda for those remarks.

Any other business to come before the council?

I want to echo those sentiments.

Last week, I sent out a couple of messages to our legislative department.

One was to remind folks to engage in self-care.

This is stressful work that we are engaging in.

I appreciate all of you.

And we may have policy disagreements, but at the end of the day, I deeply and profoundly respect each one of you as my colleagues and as residents of the city of Seattle, and just really appreciate the opportunity continue to work with all of you on some of the toughest issues facing our constituents.

So remember to also engage in self-care and to remind your staff to engage in self-care as well.

And looking forward to continuing to work with all of you on the issues that are going to be barreling our way over the next few weeks.

So with that being said, colleagues, this does conclude the items of business on today's agenda.

Our next city council meeting is scheduled for Monday, July 27th, 2020 at 2 p.m.

I hope that you all have a wonderful afternoon and a good rest of your week with friends, family, and staff.

We are adjourned.

Thank you, everybody.